Sleeping Dragons - Part 1: Lencten

by Evelyn Brightpaw

989 AD. War and invasion have made orphans of children across Britain, including many with magical abilities and no one left to teach them. A Norse witch named Helga recruits three other talented magic users to join her in creating a school to ensure the survival of magical learning in England. A historically accurate telling of the story of the founders of Hogwarts. Please review!

10. The Perversus

AN: I said I was going to try to write faster this past year. You can see how well that went. ( * whispers * ) Adulthood is a trap.

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Chapter 10: The Perversus

The first weeks of the holy month flew by in a whirl of lessons, excitement, and unfamiliarity. It took a few repetitions before all of the children began to learn their schedule of lessons by heart, and there were several mornings that found Bihotza shepherding stray students into the correct room or leading a confused Silvanus, who couldn't hear his parchment's directions because the other children were too loud. The adults, too, had to grow accustomed to the new routines; on more than one morning, Salazar showed up to breakfast wrapped in his blanket and refusing to make conversation, and by the final lesson of the afternoon, Goderic could sometimes be found staring out the window along with his students, eager for the final lesson bell and the freedom to go out into the courtyard. Wintermilk the groundskeeper often found it necessary to stand sentry at the gate during the afternoon free time to prevent some of the more adventurous children from slipping out into the forest to explore, and after one incident of a cloak being set on fire, Hankertonne had to make a rule forbidding students using their wands between lessons. Adding to this happy chaos was Alfgeat the ghost, who had a tendency to appear without warning in unexpected places. At first he mostly followed little Mildryth to wherever her lessons happened to be; but once it became clear that the girl was feeling more secure and less in need of his reassuring presence, he took to roaming the school and the grounds, wafting through walls and into classrooms at will until one afternoon, when he interrupted one of Salazar's lessons and got a hex cast at him for his troubles. Salazar spent his next several evenings developing a ghost-repelling charm for the walls of his classroom and his bedchamber, with Alfgeat hovering behind him helpfully offering suggestions.

Helga found her Latin lessons far more confusing than she'd imagined – the letters were fine and generally made sense, but how many words did one language need for fall? – and she was glad that the children in Rhonwen's morning reading class were taking to it a great deal faster than she was. They had learned all their letters and could write their names within the first week, and Silvanus was able to say the words yes, no, hello, goodbye, bread, drink, wand, and spell in Saxon after only a few days of lessons. (He had also learned to say bollocks by the end of the first week, and Rhonwen was hot on the trail of whichever student had taught him that.) Rhonwen had a list of words she wanted them all to be able to read by the end of holy month, and hoped that Silvanus could dispense with using the speaking parchment by All Hallows Day. Helga thought that not only was that reasonable, but that the students might surprise her and be further along than she expected. Children, she had always found, had a remarkable capacity to learn and adapt. It was the busiest time Helga had ever known, and she found that both she and her students were learning and adapting to a wealth of things quite apart from their lessons. On the third day after the students had arrived, Helga went for a walk with Hnossa outside the school walls before the evening meal, and they met Hoshea and Ya'el standing at the banks of the loch. The pair were speaking, or perhaps praying, Helga thought, in their native language; and both appeared to be shaking the edges of their robes out over the water. She and Hnossa waited respectfully until they had finished, and then she approached them with a quizzical look.

"It is the top of the year," Ya'el told her, smiling. "Time to shake away old things and begin anew."

"HaShem casts away all of our sins into the depths," Hoshea nodded. "So we go to the water, we throw away what we have done wrong, and we resolve to make a clean start."

"And tonight," Ya'el added, "we eat new fruits, because we are beginning new things." Helga beamed at them both as they joined her and Hnossa for the walk back up to the school.

"That sounds lovely!" Helga grinned. "I suppose this is a month of holy days for everyone. Can we all join in? We're all starting something new, you know. This school, everyone learning new languages and making new friends, all of it."

"Of course," Hoshea smiled; and that night at dinner, Helga saw that a bowl of early pomegranates from Vasconia had been placed at the center of each table. Salazar showed her how to crack hers open, and she savored the sharp, sweet juice as she reflected on how lovely it was to be at the beginning of something.

---

At the end of the first week, when Goderic was satisfied that all of his students could knock a wand out of someone's hand, he began teaching them to create invisible shields. This proved more difficult than he had anticipated, and more than half the month had passed before even his most skilled students were able to manage more than a weak shield, easily broken by the simplest jinxes. Seeing them beginning to look discouraged, Goderic changed tactics. When the oldest group of students walked into his classroom the next day after their midday meal, they found it empty save for Goderic himself and a small wooden chest on the floor at his feet. The chest was secured with a lock, which seemed like the right thing to do considering the way it rattled and bounced against the stone floor as though something inside it wanted to be let out. Goderic ushered the six students in and waved for them to gather some distance away from the box.

"No shield charms today, brother?" Eaderic queried, a little disappointed; he had been one of the few students who had managed one the day before, and was ready to show off again. Goderic gave him a knowing smirk.

"No, I thought we could all use a change of pace. We'll get our blood up today, have a little excitement, and try shields again later this week. Now." Goderic stepped closer to the box and put one heavy boot on top of it, reducing its movements to an occasional wiggle. "Who'd like to guess what's in the box?"

"An pucadh," came the soft voice of Silvanus, who was staring at the chest warily. He wasn't speaking into his parchment, but thankfully Goderic didn't need that word translated. He nodded appreciatively.

"Aye, well done, Silvanus. Perhaps you've seen one before. Your pucadh is also called a pucel, a pwca, or a bwgan; andin this class, we will call it… a boggart." There was a sharp hiss of breath from Aluric at the word, Myrddin took a step backward, and Eduardus looked decidedly pale. The wandmaker's daughter Vendicina, however, was eyeing the box like it was a challenging puzzle. Goderic chuckled at them gently. "I see most of you have at least heard of a boggart, enough to get nervous. For any who might be unsure – the simplest description is that it's a spirit that likes to frighten people, in whatever way it senses will give you the greatest jolt. A boggart changes shape, depending on whatever your greatest fear is. They can't hurt you, unless of course they frighten you while you're up a tree and cause you to fall, or something like that. Now, do any of you know where you might be likely to encounter a boggart?"

"They like the dark," answered Vendicina promptly. "And the small. Any place that is dim and full of close spaces. Beneath furniture. In the gaps in masonry. Boxes that are seldom opened. My father has had to throw out a few wand boxes because they've gotten boggarts in them sitting at the bottom of the cart."

"Aye, very good," Goderic nodded. "Now, I've borrowed this one from our own Master Slidrian, who up until recently was using it to guard his property here – so it's very nearly a tame boggart. At least, it knows what box it lives in, so be reassured that we can get it back into its chest at the end of the lesson."

"It doesn't sound very tame," Myrddin said doubtfully, watching the box trying to shake off Goderic's foot. Goderic chuckled.

"It will still try to give you a fright. But you have the advantage of facing it as a group – so only one of you will be terribly frightened at a time. And being in a group makes you better able to defend against it, because the key to banishing a boggart is being able to laugh at it. Using an incantation, you will force the spirit into a shape that amuses you. Of course, that is often difficult in the face of something that frightens you, and you may manage only a wry smile – but your friends can laugh with you, and it's the laughter that the boggart runs away from."

"Can it kill the boggart?" Eduardus asked, and Goderic shook his head.

"No, they're not properly alive, so they can't die. But this spell – and your amusement – will send the boggart away, usually back into its hiding place, but you can make it leave the building if your attack is strong enough. Now. Wands out, everyone, and we'll practice the incantation and the movement."

Goderic ran the students through their paces, repeating the riddikulus charm until everyone (including Silvanus) could pronounce it correctly, and practicing the scoop-and-jab motion of the wands until all six of them could do it identically like marching soldiers. Watching them do it one more time, Goderic nodded approvingly. "Excellent. Now, the real question; has any of you ever faced a boggart before?" Only Vendicina raised her hand.

"In my father's shop," she added, and Goderic gave her a deferential little bow.

"Well, then I'm sure you won't mind letting the others have a go first. Now, boys, do I have a volunteer?" Nobody moved for a very long moment, until Eaderic and Eduardus began quietly elbowing each other and trying to shove each other forward. Eaderic was the stronger of the two, and he shoved just hard enough to make Eduardus lose his footing and tumble forward a step.

"Alright," Eduardus hissed at him, and Goderic eyed his sibling.

"I saw that, and you've bought yourself the next turn, Brother, so don't get comfortable." Eaderic rolled his eyes at this, but Goderic was already positioning Eduardus in front of the quivering chest. "Now, don't worry. You know the incantation, you know what to do with your wand. What you have to remember," he said, squeezing the boy's shoulder, "is that the real power of the spell is your willpower, in looking at the thing that frightens you and taking away its ability to do so. How you do that is up to you, but you have to picture it clearly in your mind. Ready?"

"Not particularly," Eduardus murmured, but he locked his eyes on the chest and lifted his wand. Goderic slapped him on the back and bent to unlock the chest.

The lid flew back as soon as the latch came free, and there was a clattering and a rush of air as the boggart whipped itself up and out of the box, taking shape even before its paws had come to rest on the floor. It was a massive grey wolf, and its severe golden eyes were fixed directly on the neck of the boy standing in front of it. Everyone in the room took an instinctive step back, even Goderic, as the wolf's lips curled up in an aggressive growl. Eduardus gulped; the wolf stood as tall as Goderic's sword, and its paws looked about the size of human hands. As it took a tentative step toward the children, snarling and dripping saliva, the room began to fill with the scent of carrion. Goderic gestured for Eduardus to stay put, because the boy looked like he might just drop his wand and run.

"You know the spell, Eduardus," he encouraged. "Do exactly what we practiced, and make the wolf amusing."

"Amusing… of course…," Eduardus muttered in a way that would have been deprecatory if his voice hadn't been shaking. He licked his lips nervously, and the wolf kept advancing inch by inch, taking its time since its prey didn't seem to be terribly mobile. He left it so long that Goderic feared he might have to intervene; then without warning, Eduardus jabbed his wand at the wolf-boggart and shouted the spell.

"Riddikulus!"

For a moment, it didn't seem that the spell had worked. The wolf was still a wolf, and it was still snarling at Eduardus hungrily. It lifted its paw to take another step closer – and then it stopped, looking down at its paws with an odd huffing whine. Goderic saw that a piece of parchment appeared to be stuck to the wolf's front right paw, as though the page were coated with something sticky like resin. The wolf tried to take an awkward step, lifting and lowering its paw over and over, nudging the parchment with its muzzle to dislodge it and failing. It tried to step backward – and found that another piece of parchment was stuck to one of its back paws as well. Whining, the wolf began to shake its paws, alternating between front and back, but the pages were truly stuck, and the wolf was forced into a strange sort of high-stepping walk, moving in circles and shaking its body ineffectually in an attempt to rid itself of the parchment. The movement was so bizarre and silly that Goderic found himself snorting with derision, and all of the watching students began to laugh as well. Even Eduardus managed a grin as he looked at Goderic for approval.

"I saw Abbot Theobald's cat get a string stuck to its paw once," he explained. "We chased it for half an hour trying to help it get loose, and the silly thing was so distressed, it tried to walk on two legs for a moment. It seemed appropriate."

"Well done!" Goderic laughed, giving Eduardus another slap on the back. "That's how you do it, everyone. Now if we left it long enough, the boggart would slink back into its box, but we're not letting it get away with just one defeat today. Brother? You're next."

"If I must," Eaderic sighed deeply, and then approached the wobbling wolf, trying to look bored instead of worried.

---

It was an excellent day of lessons, with a great range of boggart shapes being dispatched – a swarm of tiny spiders turned into clouds of dandelion seed, a Norse raider stripped of his weapons and made to wear a too-short dress, even a bad-tempered cow whose lowing brought Salazar out of his neighboring classroom to see what on earth was happening. Morgen stabbed at it with her wand and the cow developed a human head, which shouted moo! in a very human voice and drew laughs from the whole room. Salazar took his boggart back from Goderic huffily after the last class and expressed his hope that there would be no more boggart lessons for a long while – his boggart was traumatized, he said, and he wanted to keep it at least half-tamed so it could guard the school grounds. Goderic privately thought Salazar himself was traumatized by the boggart turning into an angry cow, but he kept these thoughts to himself.

The holy month lived up to its name; as the ides came and went, a bevy of holy days and ceremonies were celebrated amongst the inhabitants of Hogwarts, often to the great amusement or confusion of those watching rituals they themselves did not observe. The day after Goderic's boggart lessons, Helga watched with great interest as Ya'el and Hoshea constructed a little hut in the school courtyard, stretching tapestries around three sides of a wooden frame and laying pine branches from the forest over the top.

"You ought to have another layer of those, or it'll leak," Goderic mused, coming outside to watch with her. Hoshea laughed.

"This is how it must be, Moreh Goderic. We must be able to see the sky through them."

"Is it a shrine?" Helga asked, and Ya'el smiled at her as she hung a string of fruits from the wooden frame.

"It is a memory. Our ancestors journeyed forty years in the wilderness before they came to the land HaShem prepared for them. They were ever on the move, because they did not belong in the wilderness – their homes were temporary things. We build the sukkah to tell the story, and to remind ourselves that our present troubles are also temporary."

"And the fruit is for God's bountiful harvest?" Goderic surmised, and Hoshea nodded.

"You must eat with us in the sukkah tomorrow, because what HaShem provides, we must share." Helga clapped her hands a little in anticipation.

"Oh, that'll be perfect!" she grinned. "Haust blót begins tomorrow, and then I'll be celebrating the harvest too. We can have our own little dinner together – and can there be some special dishes for the children to eat as well?"

"We do no work on the first days of sukkot," Ya'el explained, "but we have already left preparations and instructions for Bihotza. She will be sure there are harvest foods for the children to enjoy."

"Haust blót?" Goderic asked Helga as they made their way back into the school. "You mean that thing where you spray blood all over the place and dance naked around a bonfire?"

"You're exaggerating," Helga scoffed at him. "You have to kill an animal to eat it, which usually involves blood, and nobody is naked. Unless they want to be. But it's quite cold here at night, and I wouldn't recommend it. It's a harvest festival, Goderic, not a massacre."

"But you're not going to be sacrificing animals out in the courtyard, are you?"

"Spoken as though your own ancestors weren't doing it a few hundred years ago?" Helga smirked. "No, Goderic, of course not. Rhonwen wouldn't allow it, and anyway, I think enough people are offering the gods enough blood without me having to add to it. I'll just be pouring out libations."

Goderic stopped in the dining hall doorway, processing what she had said, and then he called after her. "You're going to be pouring libations? As in, wasting good mead by tipping it onto the ground? Merlin's beard, that's almost worse!" Helga didn't respond to this, but she laughed over her shoulder at the offense in his voice.

Ya'el and Hoshea ate meals in their little hut for a week, joined at various times by one student or another who was curious about their ritual; Helga herself ate several suppers with them, learning the Hebrew names of the things they were eating and even dragging Salazar along for one dinner. He complained miserably the whole time about sitting on the ground, but Helga thought this was just pretense. He seemed more relaxed in the company of his old family friends, even cracking a smile at some of their jokes. Helga caught herself watching his lips on a few of these occasions and dug her fingernails into her palms to stop herself. She couldn't be looking at him like that if he was going to keep using those lips to make fun of her name – and he made sure to do that every chance he got. It seemed to her that eventually, he would run out of different incorrect names to call her, and that he'd either have to start reusing them or give it up; but as he'd been at it for months now with no signs of stopping, she supposed she might as well just get used to it. There were, of course, limits to her patience; and when he called her Helga Haustblotter that night on their way out of the hut to light her bonfire, Helga responded by confiscating the jug of good cider he'd been drinking and pouring it out as a libation offering. The horrified look on his face was priceless, and he called her no incorrect names – or anything else – for the next three days.

On the afternoon before the final day of Helga's haust blót celebrations, Tancred approached her and asked whether they might do something special for the Christian feast of Michael's-mass like they had done for the other holidays. Helga was happy to oblige him, but had to ask him what the holiday was for – she had a vague understanding of the feasts for Christ being born and dying, but everything in between was a little muddy.

"It's a harvest festival too, I suppose, when you come right down to it," Tancred said in his quiet, unassuming way. "About being thankful for what God has provided for our table. But it's also when the angel Michael cast the Devil out of heaven, so we celebrate all the angels and how God sends them to defend us."

"Is there a ceremony you'd like to do?" Helga asked him, and the boy shrugged.

"Not with no church up here, and no priests. But my mother said we should always eat blackberries on Michael's-mass because he threw the Devil into a blackberry patch."

"I think we can manage some blackberries," Helga grinned. True to her word, she went and spoke to Bihotza, and that night every table held an assortment of blackberry cakes, drinks, and preserves. As an added surprise for Tancred, she had also spoken to Rhonwen just before dinner about decorations, and the students ate their dinner that night under a ceiling that glittered with little shimmering parchment angels that flew of their own accord. Tancred's face lit up as he entered the dining hall, and Helga was so enamored of the charm that she had Rhonwen write it down for her to learn during her next Latin lessons.

---

Holy month gave way to winter-month, and as the chaos of learning new routines and celebrating new holidays died down, the four teachers got down to the business of serious instruction. Having gotten their students acquainted with the tools of each of their magical disciplines, they could now begin showing them more complex and interesting types of magic. Salazar had spent the first month ensuring that his students could use cauldrons and flame spells proficiently, that they knew all of the proper potion terminology, and that they could readily identify, measure, and prepare common potion ingredients. Now, as their second month of school began, he decided to treat them to a demonstration.

"Potions can be powerful," he told the six students in his first group after midday, "some more than others, and they should be respected, never handled lightly. I'll be showing you such a potion today – but you will not learn to make this potion until you are older, because it can be quite dangerous if used improperly. Do you understand?" The six children – Linnræd, Cunomorinus, the Weslege siblings, and the Caccepol siblings – all nodded, although Eadgyth tilted her head quizzically.

"Then why show it to us now, Master Slidrian?"

"Because I want you to be able to identify it by sight and by smell," Salazar said grimly, "in case anyone ever tries to use it on you. And because I want you to understand why you should treat potions with such care." With that, he stepped away from the small table he had been blocking with his body, revealing a diminutive copper cauldron, highly polished and lightly steaming. Salazar had draped the classroom window so that only one narrow beam of sunlight was allowed into the room; this fell directly onto the cauldron, making the dust motes glitter as they spiraled upward, mingling with the steam. "Step forward to look, but not close enough to breathe it in," Salazar said quietly, walking around behind the table to let the students approach. All six of them came forward to get a better look.

"That looks like the inside of a shell," Linnræd observed, watching swirls of iridescence on the shimmering surface of the liquid. Salazar nodded, giving the boy a hint of a smile.

"Indeed. Sharp eyes, well done. Crushed pearls are one of the ingredients – I will not tell you the others, so don't ask. The pearls are responsible for that sheen you see on the surface. Let that be your warning. If you are ever offered a drink and you see that pearl-like shimmer in the cup – refuse. Pour it out."

"What is it?" asked Cunomorinus, and Salazar crossed his arms.

"Amortentia."

"A love potion?" Morgen grinned, her eyebrows lifting. Salazar nodded.

"I see you've read about it, very good. Yes, it is the most powerful love potion yet developed – and the most dangerous. Don't let descriptions fool you: a potion cannot create love. But if you drank this, you would become hopelessly and dangerously obsessed with the person who made it, even to your own detriment. People have died under the influence of amortentia, or lost their whole future to a false desire. And if someone is feeding you this to gain your affection, then no good can come of their intentions."

"That's wicked and dishonest," Arthur frowned, and Salazar stifled a smirk.

"Very," he agreed. "But the world is full of wicked and dishonest people, so you'd best be prepared. Now. One at a time, you will each come to the cauldron and inhale this steam, and tell us what you smell. Ælfwine, you first."

Ælfwine regarded his teacher skeptically for a moment, then reluctantly approached the cauldron. He plunged his head into the spiral of steam and the little sparkles danced about his head and made his dark ginger hair seem brighter. When he pulled back, there was an odd look on his face – soft, almost wistful.

"Well?" prodded Salazar. "What do you smell?"

"Rosewater," Ælfwine said, suddenly fighting back tears.

"And?"

"And…," Ælfwine paused, sniffing the air again quizzically. "And… beeswax."

"And what else?" Salazar prompted, and the boy smelled the potion again, taking a moment this time to identify the scent.

"Honeysuckle," Ælfwine said finally, "wet after a rainstorm." Salazar gave him a rare smile.

"Very good. You can step back." When the boy had retreated, looking surprised and a little haunted, Salazar addressed all six of them and held up three fingers. "Amortentia will have three odors for most people – sometimes one after the other, and sometimes mingling. The first odor will always be the same for you throughout your life; it is the smell of home, family, childhood, and comfort. Of the person from whom you first learned what love was."

"Mother always smelled of rosewater," Eadgyth said quietly, giving her brother's hand a squeeze. Salazar nodded at this.

"It is usually something like that. The second scent," he went on, "represents a different love – self-love. It will be a scent reminiscent of something that brings you great joy and fulfilment, a sense of pride or achievement not dependent upon another person. Therefore it often remains consistent, but it may change – if you undergo a significant change in your Self. Ælfwine, do you know why you smelled beeswax?"

"My bow string," Ælfwine said after some contemplation. "I'm a good shot. I feel strong when I shoot. Capable."

"And you coat your bow string with beeswax, of course," Salazar surmised. "Very good. Now, the third scent. This one will change, probably many times over the years, unless you are lucky (or unlucky) enough to have only one great love in your life. The third scent is the scent of romantic love, and it will be a scent associated with whoever you fancy at the moment. When you are old enough to really fall in love, that scent will overwhelm the others; but right now you are all thankfully still children, and we can feel decently safe." He lifted an eyebrow at Ælfwine then, and smirked. "Honeysuckle in the rain?"

Ælfwine stared at his shoes, so Eadgyth answered for him. "There was a honeysuckle hedge between our land and the next farm," she giggled, elbowing her brother. "The farm where that girl Ælfeva lived."

"I see," Salazar said seriously, but his eyes were glittery with amusement. "Well, then, Eadgyth, since we've tortured your brother enough, come and see what you can smell."

Eadgyth kept her head in the steam longer than her brother had, waiting until she had identified all three odors before straightening up and turning back to her teacher. "Blackberries, linen drying in the sun, and fennel seed bread," she said, a little puzzled. This gave Salazar another point to expound upon.

"Notice, everyone, that although Ælfwine and Eadgyth have had the same upbringing, as siblings, their first scent differs. Eadgyth?"

"Mother often took me with her blackberry picking," she explained, and Salazar nodded.

"So you both smell scents of your mother – but in a way that is unique to you. That is the nature of memory. Now—"

"Master Slidrian?" Eadgyth asked, stopping him before he moved on. "I don't know why I smelled fennel seed bread. I can't think who that might represent."

"Can you not?" Salazar grinned, shrugging. "Well, sometimes that third scent surprises us, and smells of someone we don't even know we fancy yet, someone we've only just met or haven't realized our feelings for. And in rare cases, sometimes it can be prophetic. If you're one of those people with only one great love that I mentioned, you might possibly smell that person years before you ever meet them. But whatever the dangers of amortentia, I suppose we can say that it is good for one thing; sometimes the scent of it helps us discover things about ourselves."

"What do you smell, Master Slidrian?" Linnræd grinned cheekily. Salazar regarded him silently, cat-like behind his black curls, and for a moment the students thought he might not answer. Then he shrugged softly.

"Orange rind, heated copper, and oxlip blossoms."

"Copper because of your cauldrons?" Morgen surmised. "Because you're good at potions and proud of yourself?" Salazar inclined his head toward her subtly.

"I suppose so," he said, hiding a grin behind mock humility. Cunomorinus raised his hand slowly.

"Master Slidrian, what's an orange?" Some of the other students grinned at this, but it was obvious that they knew no more than he. Salazar stifled a laugh.

"It's a fruit from where I was born, in Vasconia," he explained, grinning himself now. "My mother would peel them and feed them to me while she told me stories."

"And who smells of oxlip blossoms, Master Slidrian?" Eadgyth prodded smartly, and behind her, Linnræd snorted a laugh into his hand.

"Might be the same person who always wears a cloak the color of oxlips," he whispered – but he stopped abruptly when Salazar pointed a wand directly between his eyes.

"Alright, Cheeky, you're next," he glowered, and directed Linnræd up to the table with a twitch of the wand. The boy obliged, but he went with a mischievous glint in his eyes.

---

Salazar had assumed his lessons to be decently safe, owing to the relative youth of those being asked to smell the potion. What he hadn't bargained for, of course, was the bramble patch of adolescent emotions the lesson would inadvertently unleash. The trouble began within the first hour of instruction, when it came about that Morgen smelled olive oil at the end of her amortentia fragrance – the same olive oil that Cunomorinus had smelled when remembering his childhood in the wandmaking workshop. There was some good-natured ribbing as she walked back to her place in line, which Salazar attempted to smother with a pointedly-raised eyebrow; but while Linnræd and Eadgyth both swallowed back their jokes, looks continued to be exchanged and giggles continued to be stifled until Cunomorinus retreated behind his curtain of hair and stared at his shoes. Morgen spent the rest of the lesson with her cloak pulled up around her face, leaving only her eyes visible. This should have been the end of it, at least in Salazar's opinion; but when Arthur's first fragrance turned out to be fennel, and Eadgyth blushed until her freckles disappeared, Salazar realized that he might have made a slight misjudgment.

The next lesson he taught that day went no better than the first.

By the end of that day's round of amortentia demonstrations, a spiderweb of previously unknown adolescent feelings had been revealed, and Salazar was sorry that he'd made any of them smell the potion at all. Eadgyth and Arthur seemed relatively content to look occasionally at each other across a classroom and blush, but Ælfwine apparently had other ideas about what sorts of looks should be directed at his sister. On more than one occasion he was caught menacing Arthur with his wand from behind a door, or trying to catch the hem of his cloak on fire if he and Eadgyth sat too close. Cunomorinus and Morgen both seemed incapable of looking at each other at all. Linnræd, having been outed by the potion as having an interest in Arddun, had decided to lean into it and brought her flowers from the courtyard during their free time after lessons; Arddun simply pretended he didn't exist and took her broom up for a ride to get away from him. Hnossa found herself at the receiving end of attention from both the silent Starculf and the ebullient Særic, neither of whom had any luck at all in prying her away from her own attachment to Aluric. And Tancred, unable to identify his third scent at all, could be seen all the rest of that week going from place to place in the school, sniffing things and trying to find a smell that matched. The only people who seemed to benefit from the amortentia's revelations were Ysolt and Myrddin, who had taken to sitting together in the courtyard after lessons poring over a book borrowed from Rhonwen and looking silently content.

"No more love potions, Salazar," Rhonwen muttered down the teachers' table at dinner as the week came to an end, watching Bihotza clean up the third spilled drink of the evening, dropped by a student who was too distracted by someone else to watch what they were doing. Salazar waved his goblet at her dismissively.

"Well, how was I to know you could get this kind of chaos out of a potion demonstration?" He gave her a peevish glance before turning back to the room full of students, trying to figure out which one of them was making the cup-on-table knocking sound that had been slowly driving him mad all evening. Rhonwen frowned at him.

"You mean, how were you to know they had feelings?"

"They're not even adults yet, how many feelings can they possibly have?"

Across the room, a small cake landed square in Linnræd's face, and Arddun was looking the other direction as though she didn't even know he was in the room. Helga and Rhonwen both glared at Salazar, and he rolled his eyes.

"Fine. No more love potions."

As if to punctuate the decision, an apple came flying from one of the student tables, putting out the candle closest to Salazar's plate and splattering on the wall behind them. Bihotza vanished the bits and gave Salazar a withering stare.

---

Helga had rather hoped that conditions would settle down over the next few days, but she found instead that they were trending in the opposite direction. The initial outbursts prompted by the amortentia's revelations had turned into a general sense of wild energy that permeated the whole school, and pranks were becoming the natural order of business – a pie smuggled from dinner placed on the floor beside someone's bed where shoes should have been, items going missing only to be found in a teacher's seat, and more than once Cadwgan had to be placated after being convinced the school was under attack. It was chaotic enough that after two weeks of it, all four teachers gathered in Salazar's former kitchen with only one item on the agenda – decide how to put a stop to it.

"We could give them all a sleeping potion in their milk tonight," Salazar grumbled, pushing the edges of Helga's parchment away from his goblet. "Maybe a little something to help them forget, while we're at it." Helga swatted at his hand and kept copying the Latin text she was practicing.

"A stupor is not the answer to everything, Salazar," she muttered, working very hard to get one of the curving letters right.

"Why don't we have a sporting day?" Goderic offered, closing the door of a tall cabinet that had fallen open. "You know, like they do in Normandy and Saxony? A good bit of sporting always helps me get rid of unwanted feelings."

"I don't think we should be letting twelve-year-olds ride about the courtyard with pointed sticks, Goderic," Rhonwen said distractedly, brushing at the drop of water that had fallen on her sleeve from somewhere in the ceiling. Goderic shrugged.

"Well, it doesn't have to be exactly like in Normandy," he conceded. "It's not as though we're training them for battle. But some good, healthy games... you know, get all of that extra energy out of them."

"That's not a bad idea, Goderic," Helga brightened, "although we'll have to make them leave their wands indoors so they don't accidentally kill each other."

"Unless we let them shoot at targets with their wands?" Goderic countered hopefully, and Helga gave him a look that said we shall see about that.

"I assume these games will be played in teams?" Salazar asked, eyeing Goderic but speaking to Helga.

"You mean, each of our four groups of students competing against each other?" Helga replied. "But then we can't make judgements or keep score, because we'll be biased."

"Bihotza can be the final authority," Rhonwen suggested. "She won't favor any one team."

"And when exactly are we doing all of this?" Salazar inquired, summoning the wine jug to the table for a refill. As if in answer, the sound of something crashing came from the direction of the entrance hall, and Goderic grimaced.

"The sooner the better," he muttered, closing the loose cabinet door again. "Tomorrow, even."

"Oh, not tomorrow," Rhonwen shook her head. "We need at least a little time to plan. We need to decide on games and rules, and how to schedule it all, and we'll need to give Ya'el and Hoshea and Bihotza some time to plan mealtimes around it all. Actually, we should probably have a big meal that night, like a celebratory supper. That'll distract them even further." Salazar took a deep drink and sighed at this.

"Sounds terribly chaotic and expensive, but I suppose there's no other solution."

"Wait!" Helga said excitedly, putting down her quill. "What about Vetrnætr?" Salazar snorted into his cup.

"Honestly," he smirked, "if you really want me to stop calling you names, you're going to have to stop giving me so much good material to work with." Helga jabbed at his hand with her quill before clarifying.

"Vetrnætr," she repeated. "The Winter Nights. That's coming up in a few days, and it would be nice to have a feast to go along with the Álfablót."

"But what about Hallowtide?" Goderic frowned. "That's a week later, and we can't have two feasts one right after the other. It's a little too much to ask of the kitchens, don't you think?"

"What's Hallowtide?" asked Helga, and Goderic shut the cabinet door again before coming to the table.

"Days of prayer to remember the dead, especially the martyrs."

"Álfablót is for remembering the ancestors, too!" Helga grinned. "Why don't we do them both at the same time? We could have one big feast and do all of our praying and offerings together!"

"Excuse me," Salazar interjected, "but am I allowed to have any holy days of my own, or will this be taken over in the same manner as my house?"

"Of course, you can, Salazar!" Helga beamed. "What do they celebrate in Vasconia?"

"Well, as it happens," Salazar explained, "we all seem to be thinking about dead people at approximately the same time of year. It's time to light the argizaiolak. I have candle boards for my mother and father that will want lighting."

"I thought you didn't believe in such things, Salazar," Rhonwen said quizzically. Salazar shrugged.

"I don't. But traditions are comforting, especially when you've turned my house into a den of chaos, and candles do make things very atmospheric."

"Well, that settles it, then!" Goderic exclaimed, thumping his fist on the table. "We'll do them all at once – on the eve before Hallowmas. That's at the end of yours, and at the beginning of mine, and Salazar's goes along with them both. A day of games, and then a feast in the evening. Perfect! Rhonwen?"

Rhonwen was ahead of Goderic, and she had already taken out parchment and begun to write down lists in preparation. Out in the entrance hall there was another resounding crash that jostled the cabinet door open again, followed by the sound of Hankertonne muttering to himself as he went to tackle yet another mess. Rhonwen frowned as she wrote. "Perfect, yes. Providing we can survive until we get it all arranged."

A fat drop of water fell from the ceiling then and landed right in the middle of the word she was writing, as if it wanted to help prove her point.

---

Preparations for the sporting and feasting were kept secret from the children until the morning of Hallow's Eve, which dawned cold and amber above the mist-blanketed loch and hillsides. Out the windows of the dining hall, Helga could see the water of the loch in little patches where the fog was thin, flat calm and dark as pewter at first and then warming to copper and gold as it caught the sun; and beyond that, a mad tracery of spiderwebs draped across the heather on the banks, dewy and glittering as though the whole hillside had been sown with fairy eggs. They had gone out to make most of the preparations while the children had been getting washed and dressed, and walking in the courtyard had been like walking in a bowl of milk, utterly silent and white and smelling of cold, wet earth, of mushrooms and deep leaves and the pines of the forest beyond the walls. Rhonwen said softly that it was like walking with Uthyr and Menw under their cloak of invisibility, and when Helga gave her a quizzical look, Rhonwen obliged her by telling part of the story of the Three Enchantments while they worked to set up the games. Her voice was rhythmic and sonorous in the crisp, glowing air, and it almost made Helga feel hypnotized – right up until Salazar crept up behind her in the mist and stuck his wand handle into her ribs. She screamed, and Salazar fell back onto the wet grass laughing, the sounds of his merriment blending with the echoes of her shriek.

At the end of the morning meal, instead of signaling Bihotza to ring the bell for first lessons, Helga stood up and made the announcement that there would be no lessons that day – a statement which was met first by some half-awake murmuring, and then by general celebration. When she continued with the announcement that they would instead be having a day of outdoor games, followed by a Winternights and Hallowmas feast, the mild excitement erupted into cheers and clapping, and Helga was pleased to see that even Morgen and Cunomorinus managed to look at each other long enough to grin. Each teacher then left the high table and led their own group of students out into the courtyard, where the morning sun was now beginning to burn off the mist, revealing a bright, clear eggshell blue sky. Bihotza was declared Mistress of Games, and installed herself on a chair whose legs had been magically lengthened to elevate her above the school lawns so she could get a clear view of everything. Once she was in place, at a nod from Helga, the elf snapped her fingers to produce a sound like a small trumpet, and the games began.

The simplest sports were played first, and the children began with a race down the length of the courtyard. Each group of students first held a lesser race amongst themselves to determine each teacher's fastest runner; and then the four victors – Eadgyth, Linnræd, Silvanus, and Aluric – faced each other for two lengths of the courtyard. It was a close finish, and only Bihotza in her high chair was able to tell that Eadgyth crossed the cord on the grass just a moment before Silvanus. Goderic marked a tally under his name on the banner where they were keeping score, grinning proudly in Helga's direction, and while she was shrugging and telling him it was well-won, she saw Salazar over his shoulder, prodding the banner with his wand and changing the capital G in Goderic's name into a picture of a gnome making a rude face. Helga scolded him; but she did have to admit, it was a funny picture.

After the foot races came the broom course, to be flown around a series of pennants hung from various points on the school building and walls. Arddun, Brictric, Ælfwine, and Helena were chosen as the best flyers on their teams, and while they each flew admirably, Arddun rode loops and circles around the others and still came out faster, scoring for Helga's team. Brictric was none too happy about losing and had to be given a stern lecture from his sister on sporting conduct; he spent the rest of the day glaring at Arddun from across the courtyard.

The broom race was followed by rounds of questions on magical theory and history, first in teams and then a final round pitting a champion from each team against each other in a trial of both knowledge and speed. Rhonwen's team held the firm lead throughout, and Morgen in particular gave a stellar performance as her team's champion, leading them to a solid victory. There was a surprising upset, however, when Eduardus and Vendicina went on to win a decisive victory for Salazar's team at a tæfl game. After this Goderic came out of the school with four wooden practice swords, and each team was asked to choose a champion to compete in a mock battle. Walrand, Myrddin, and Eaderic were quickly chosen for their own teams because of their upbringing and experience in the noble arts; but it became apparent after a very little discussion that none of Helga's six students had any idea what they were doing with a sword. Only Særic had ever even held one, and he had only ever been able to spar a little with Aluric in the few months they had known each other. Helga worried that any of her students would be seriously injured by an opponent who had been brought up using a sword, even if it was a wooden one, and was about to protest the event all together, when Arthur stepped forward from amongst Goderic's other students and offered to serve as a champion in their stead. If he won, he proposed, his victory would be counted for Helga's team. Helga ruffled his ginger hair and gave him a kiss on the forehead, Goderic slapped him on the back and told him he had the makings of a king's húscarl, and Cadwgan was so enraptured by the heroism and nobility of the boy's sacrifice that he had to be removed from the yard in the middle of reciting an epic poem. The boys took it in turns against each other then, with Myrddin fighting gracefully but not nearly as sturdily as Arthur, and with Walrand taking Eaderic's feet out from under him in a move that shocked absolutely nobody except Eaderic himself, who had assumed he would win simply because he was older and taller. Arthur then faced Walrand for the final battle, and it was well fought and evenly matched right up until the end when Walrand's extra experience paid off and he was able to knock the sword from Arthur's hands. Arthur accepted the defeat genially, and they joined the other students who had already begun to eat their midday meal as Goderic excitedly put a second tally on his part of the banner.

After everyone had eaten, the students competed in a game of shooting at targets with wands, which came down to a very close shootout between Aluric and Ysolt, both of whom were quite precise. Bihotza was hard pressed to tell whose wand blast was closer to center, and in the end, it was decided that the score should be settled instead by Aluric and Ysolt's teachers, with the point going to the better shot between the two. Helga and Salazar both gamely stepped up before the targets, although Helga pointed out meekly that offensive spells had never been her strong suit, nor had aim, and she thought she'd better apologize to her team in advance. Salazar called her another name before grinning and blasting a hole dead center in his target. Helga tried to follow suit; but just as she fired her shot, Cadwgan rode his pony at top speed through the courtyard after some imagined enemy, nearly knocking Bihotza off her tall chair, and the distraction caused Helga's hex to hit the target at a glancing angle. The jet of turquoise light ricocheted off the wooden target board and shot straight at Salazar, who had to throw himself to the grass in a hurry to avoid losing all of his hair. Helga threw her hand over her mouth and began to babble an apology, running over to help him up; she was met with his outstretched wand instead of his hand, however, and he had cast a mild stunning charm at her even before he'd made it back to his feet. The charm knocked Helga sideways more from surprise than from its effect; nevertheless, there was a moment of tense silence in the courtyard as Helga glared at Salazar with her mouth hanging open in offended shock. None of the children moved or spoke – nobody had expected the game to culminate in teachers shooting at each other. Salazar stopped too, one knee still on the ground, the color draining from his face as he realized exactly who he'd just taken a shot at. Timidly, he put his empty hand up in a gesture of placation.

"Helg—"

"SNÚ!" Helga shouted, and a bolt of bright orange light punched out of her wand and slammed into Salazar's shoulder. Before he could finish standing up, Salazar began to spin on the spot, his knee digging a little crater into the mossy turf. He let out an anguished yelp, which then turned into an oscillating warble as the spinning picked up speed, stopping only when he overbalanced and toppled over onto the grass. The silence in the courtyard had begun to bubble into little pockets of whispers and giggles, finally breaking into full laughter as Walrand lost the battle with his mouth and guffawed aloud. Salazar picked himself shakily off the ground, inspecting the muddy smudge on the knee of his breeches and breathing deeply as if fighting back nausea. He regarded Helga darkly for a moment.

Then he grinned.

"Alright, then. Have it your way. Rictusempra!"

The blast of silver light caught Helga full in the face, and she hit the turf squarely on her backside, laughing so hard she could barely breathe. Her feet kicked at the grass as she rolled over onto her side, hiccupping and gasping for air in between bouts of uncontrollable laughter. Salazar watched this stoically for a few moments, finally tucking his hair behind his ears and strolling over to stand directly above her. Helga rolled over onto his boots, her fists clenched at her stomach, powerless to stop the laughter. Salazar grinned down at her cheekily.

"Alright, Helga Cackle-snigger, if you've had enough, just ask me nicely and I'll take the charm off you."

Helga could barely stop laughing long enough to take in a deep breath, let alone get through a sentence, but she gasped and tried to force out a word. "S… S…."

"Yes?" Salazar smirked.

"S… sk… skjálfdu!" Helga spat, and one of the fists clenched at her side managed to shove her wand toward Salazar's legs. Salazar had just enough time to register the shock on his face before his legs began to shake and wiggle as if made of fairy butter. He tried to take a step back and both of his feet went out from under him, landing him in a heap beside the still-laughing Helga as a chorus of cheers and giggles went up from the surrounding students. In the end, Rhonwen had to come and take the charms off both of them, and Helga conceded that Salazar had won the target shooting contest, at least – although the consensus among the students was that if there had been a separate event for duel they had just witnessed, they would have been hard pressed not to give Helga the victory.

The last game of the afternoon was to be a massive team affair participated in by all – both Goderic and Salazar's teams had scored in two events, and the winner of this final game would take the day's crown. Rhonwen and her students had agreed to join Goderic's team, and after some persuasion, Helga and her students joined with Salazar. The game had been suggested by Silvanus, who had written down all of the instructions for them on a piece of Aneirin's singing parchment with as many words as he had yet learned to write, along with some pictures. It was a game he had seen played often as a child in the far northern islands, something called crécht-cenn in his native language. The game called for the teachers to bewitch a great number of small objects – they had decided upon berries after a quick word with Hoshea and Ya'el – to make them float a long way up in the air. At the start of the game, the berries would be bewitched to fall at random intervals as though it were raining berries; the students below would each have a basket strapped to their heads, and would have to run about the courtyard trying to catch berries in their basket. Whichever team managed to catch the most berries would be the winner. As the berries were being carted out into the courtyard from the kitchens, Rhonwen asked Silvanus in his own language how such a silly children's game had gotten a name that meant "wounded head." Silvanus had answered her with a grin and then waited for his parchment to translate for everyone else – in his home back in the islands, the parchment said for him, they hadn't used berries. They had used rocks.

In the end, the rain of berries was a rousing success – although Eaderic refused to participate because he said it was too silly, and Vendicina nearly had to be removed from the game because she kept shoving people out of her way, everyone else spent a happy hour running about like mad and making themselves dizzy tilting their heads this way and that. Helga and Goderic strapped baskets to their own heads and joined in with the children, while Rhonwen and Salazar remained as non-combatants – someone had to keep their eyes forward often enough to stop children running into each other, and to bewitch the berries that had landed in the grass back up into the air so they wouldn't be stepped on and wasted. Silvanus did well, as had been expected – but the real stars of the game turned out to be Lugotrix (who seemed to have a knack for being in all the right places when large clumps of berries fell together) and Hnossa (who ensured her basket was full by sneaking about behind very tall people and waiting for them to tilt their heads the wrong way and spill). Helga knew she had spilled quite a few herself on the several instances she'd had to twist and bend her neck, which was beginning to stiffen up and hurt after being held in the same position for too long. On more than one of these occasions, turning her head this way and that, Helga had caught sight of Salazar on his side of the courtyard, throwing his head back and catching berries in his mouth. She was still cross with him for hexing her, but – she sighed – it was difficult to be terribly cross with him when he was being so adorably foolish. About the third or fourth time Helga glanced at him, he noticed her looking, and from then on, his efforts to catch the berries became more and more pronounced – right up until he missed and got hit in the eye. Looking sheepish, Salazar gave her a wry grin and caught one in his hand, tossing it gently in her direction. Helga managed to catch it with her teeth, and just as she looked up to grin at him, she was pelted with five more that he had thrown directly at her forehead.

Bihotza chose that moment to un-magic the remaining berries and call an end to the game, which was all that came between Helga, Salazar, and a fully-fledged berry war.

---

The air in the dining hall that night was so thick with energy that Helga thought she could have stirred it with a spoon and been able to see it swirl in front of her. The berries had been tallied and the final score had gone to Hnossa, and thus Salazar, whose students were now celebrating the day's victory by shooting little puffs of smoke and sparks into the air above their table. Out on the loch, the sunset had turned the water into a shifting pattern of orange and black ripples, occasionally catching the sparkle from the candles that peeked through the hall's windows. Helga looked up and caught her breath for the third time since they'd come inside for supper. When Salazar had said he would light candles for his mother and father, this wasn't at all what she'd had in mind.

Floating above the heads of the students and teachers, hovering just a few feet below the ceiling beams, were at least three score slender, twisting candles, each affixed to its own little wooden board. Some floated just a bit higher or lower than others, and they all bobbed softly as though they were drifting on calm water. Each student had been given their candles as they had come inside from the games and had been invited into teachers' room to light them at the hearth – that had been very important, Salazar had insisted, that they be lit from the hearth and not by magic – and each candle had been lit in the name of a family member who had died. Helga herself had lit one candle for her mother, and one for her baby brother. Rhonwen had lit seven little candles with a stony face, floating them in front of her with her wand because she couldn't carry them all, and nobody had been brave enough to ask her how many of them had lived long enough to have names. Goderic and Tancred had then worked together to say a Christian prayer for the beginning of Hallowmas, Helga had said one in Norse to mark the Álfablót, and then they had all carried their candles into the hall. It had been Goderic's idea to make them float up to the ceiling, and now, standing in the hall surrounded by torchlight and wand sparks and shouting children and the wavering, watery candlelight from above, Helga thought the effect was something she would never forget.

"Truce?"

Jumping at the intrusion on her thoughts, Helga turned to see Salazar coming up the teachers' platform toward her with a cup of cider in each hand. He held one out to her, and she gave him a wry smile before accepting.

"I suppose so, as long as you behave yourself for the rest of the evening."

"Nearly impossible, but I'll see how long I can manage," he said softly, taking a sip from his own cup and looking at her over the rim. Goderic and Rhonwen were making their way across the room to join them at the high table so the feast could begin, and in his chair in the corner, Aneirin began to play the lyre gently; it was a drippy, autumnal sort of tune that Helga instinctively recognized as Cymraeg and not Saxon. It was otherworldly, somehow, in a way that Saxon music never was, and felt quite appropriate for the atmosphere. On the wall above his head, Helga saw that Salazar had hung up the banner where they had marked their scores, and she sighed.

"Is that necessary, Salazar?" she asked. When he feigned ignorance of what she meant, she pointed at it with her cup. Salazar chuckled.

"Absolutely necessary," he said into his cider. "Actually, I wanted to make a big green tapestry to hang over the high table with a giant S rune on it that I could bewitch to wiggle like a serpent, but I didn't have the time."

"Oh, so you could lord your victory over us?" Helga prodded, and Salazar shook his head innocently.

"Not lord it, just… celebrate the children's achievement, of course."

"Ah, of course," Helga mocked, but she gave him a grudging smile. "Why green?"

"One, because it is my family's traditional color," Salazar replied, "and two… because it matches my eyes." He turned the eyes in question on Helga as he said it, and she took a longer drink of her cider than she really wanted to avoid staring into them. That was the last thing she needed. The candlelight, the cider, and Aneirin's music were creating such an atmosphere that if she wasn't careful, she'd be likely to forget what a wretch Salazar had been for most of the day.

Aneirin kept playing as they called the feast to order, switching to a more lively song as the food was summoned to the tables and the children began to eat. Salazar was remarkably true to his promise and was almost solicitous, refilling Helga's cups or her and cutting her helpings of the massive roast pig Goderic had brought from his estate for the feast. Helga noticed that Ya'el and Hoshea passed over the roast pig and stuck to the peafowl, and after a cautious question or two, she found herself knee-deep in an esoteric conversation about the dietary customs of their religion. They had just made it around to explaining to her why Goderic's Christian prayers seemed to end with the same word as their Hebrew ones when Rhonwen gave a little yelp and stood up sharply from the table.

"What is it?" Helga gasped, ready to push away from the table herself. Rhonwen was standing with her hand pressed against her heart like she'd had a fright.

"Something hit my face," she said, looking warily around as she lowered herself back into her seat. "Something small – almost like an insect, but it's nearly winter and I wouldn't think… I don't know…." She trailed off, still looking around for a culprit.

"Maybe it—pphhtthh!" Goderic stopped in mid-thought, sputtering as something came whizzing at him and nearly landed in his mouth. He fished the offending object out of his lap and held it up. "Raspberry?" he said, confused. "It's a raspberry. Someone's throwing berries."

Helga sighed and stood up. Using her wand to make her voice heard over the din of feasting children, she called out, "Alright, very funny, everyone. Which of you is throwing raspberries at the teachers' table?" None of the children replied or even moved, except the ones who couldn't be bothered to stop eating, and nobody admitted guilt. In the corner, Aneirin's lyre struck a discordant note as a raspberry hit the strings. Helga's eyes narrowed; she hadn't seen a movement from any of the students to suggest any of them had thrown anything, and even as she scanned the room again, three more berries struck Aneirin in the face, hand, and lyre strings. This time Helga was sure she hadn't seen anyone throw them. Aneirin staggered up off his stool, abandoning the lyre and wiping raspberry juice from his cheek.

The lyre kept playing without him.

Without warning, chaos broke out in the dining hall. Raspberries began flying across the room from all directions at once, even dropping from the ceiling and flying up from the floor. The candles on the teachers' table all blew out at once, even though there wasn't a breath of wind, and the sound they made as they went out was that of someone loudly passing wind. The corner of Salazar's score banner unhooked itself from the wall as the floating candles overhead began rapidly rising and falling as if floating on a stormy ocean. Food began to levitate from platters and splat into students' faces; a few of the bolder ones tried pulling out their wands and deflecting the food, while the rest took cover beneath the tables and benches. Torches went out and then flared back to life again, and at one corner of Salazar's table, a little rain cloud appeared and began raining directly over Eduardus's head. Helga and the other teachers came rushing round the high table, their wands at the ready – but what exactly were they supposed to do? All four of them looked at each other blankly. Bihotza was running up and down the room, snapping her fingers at torches to re-light them and snatching glass drink vessels out of the air before they could be dropped and smashed, and Hoshea and Ya'el were stood in a corner with a shield charm conjured above their heads, trying to avoid bits of pork that were being launched in their direction. Across the room, Aneirin's stool began floating up into the air, and he only just managed to grab his lyre off it before it fell. The stool bobbed merrily along above the heads of the students, momentarily dropping low enough to knock Eaderic hard between the eyes before popping back up and floating away. Eaderic took an angry shot at it with his wand, which clipped it and caused it to spin, but had no other effect. The stool had made it to the center of the room when Rhonwen suddenly grabbed Helga's arm and pointed with her wand.

"Look! On the stool!" They all looked, although for a moment, Helga wasn't sure what she was looking at. The air above the stool seemed hazy, rippling and cloudy like a disturbance in a stream, and then suddenly the haze began to take shape, and then Helga did know what she was looking at, although it seemed impossible.

It was a man.

Bobbing merrily through the air in the dining hall, riding the stool like it was a little boat on a pond, was a tiny little man clad in a tunic, breeches, and cap of wildly contrasting colors, bright red and golden yellow and deep woad blue. He was not a ghost, or at least, Helga had never seen a ghost that looked so solid. But there was something not quite right, not quite human, about his face. There was a wicked sparkle in his black eyes as he mimed rowing a boat, causing the stool to move about even though he held no oar and did nothing obvious to move it, and he was cackling in a way that reminded Helga of the boiling of a cauldron just before it turned traitor on you and began bubbling over.

"A tale I heard, about a bird

That some men call the Partridge;

She stole the best from another's nest

And made them into pottage!"

Apparently greatly amused by his own song, the little man ended his verse with another rude noise and then began speeding around the room in wide, fast circles on his floating stool. When he was directly over Eaderic's head, he vanished, and the stool dropped like a stone. Eaderic managed to throw himself out of the way just in time to avoid a head injury, and the little man reappeared on the other side of the room – sitting on poor little Helena's head and sticking his tongue out in Eaderic's direction. Myrddin attempted to come to her aid, taking a swipe at the little man, but he had vanished again before Myrddin could make contact and had reappeared in midair again, riding a stolen candle-snuffer like a broom. Between screeches and bursts of laugher, he seemed to be trying to sing the popular song "Deor," and was doing it very badly.

"What… in the name of Morrigan… is that?" Salazar muttered darkly, watching the little man whiz around like he was tracking a dangerous wasp.

"It's a perversus, God help us all," Goderic replied, not taking his eyes off it. "I saw one once, when I stopped in Hentone on my way to Wincestre. The churchmen thought they had a devil in the priory, and I didn't disabuse them of the idea, because they were partly right."

"What's a perversus?" Helga asked, eyeing the little floating man warily. Rhonwen sighed.

"It's a devilish little spirit that feeds off people's emotions," she murmured, "and it's not anything like a ghost. At least a ghost used to be a person, and you can reason with them. They can even be good company, like Alfgeat. But not a perversus. A perversus isn't properly alive or dead, can't be reasoned with or gotten rid of, and exists for the sole purpose of creating chaos."

"It's an ondvitleysa," Helga said softly, understanding now. "I'd heard stories, but I'd never seen one. I didn't know they could look like little people." Goderic dodged a flying plate and then made a face.

"An onve-what?"

"Ondvitleysa," Helga repeated. "That's what our people call them. It means breath of madness."

"Appropriate," Goderic muttered, jerking out of the way as the perversus went flying past his head.

"I don't care what it's called, how do we stop it?" Salazar growled. The perversus was now wearing the score banner like a cloak and trying to pour milk on children's heads.

"We?" Rhonwen said irritably. "You made it, Salazar, you stop it."

"I made it?" Salazar snapped. "What do you mean, I made it?"

"They're not even adults yet, Rhonwen, how many feelings could they possibly have?" she quoted at him, one dark eyebrow arched. "Well, now you know."

"Dammit, I said I was sorry about the love potion lesson," Salazar muttered, and Goderic barked out a hoarse laugh.

"And now we're all sorry," he quipped bitterly.

"SORRY, SORRY, SORRY!" the perversus screamed, flying low over the four of them and dumping thistles on their heads. Salazar shook the flowers out of his mop of curls and made as if to leap down the steps, wand out and a dangerous look in his eyes; Helga grabbed the back of his tunic and jerked him back against the table.

"Salazar, no. If you start shooting at it, you'll endanger the children."

"As it happens, I think they're already in danger," he grimaced, watching Hnossa and Aluric dive under a bench to avoid being scalped by the flying spirit and his candle snuffer. The little man was now beginning to fly in a mad spiral around the room, gaining speed with each circuit and screaming a new song at the top of his voice.

"I wear a cloak of silence when I tread upon the ground,

Or when I rest within my nest, or splash around the sound.

Lifted high, I look down on the most exalted men

Carried far by my grand arms and riding lofty winds.

These, my treasures, rush and sing in bright white melody,

When, spirit-guest, I take no rest upon the lake or lea."

He was about to start the song again at the beginning, to the great dismay of everyone in the room, when a voice rang out over the chaos.

"A SWAN."

The Perversus froze in mid-flight and actually reversed his candle snuffer, whirling around to face whoever had dared interrupt his song. Walrand stood up on top of Goderic's table, brushing thistles out of his springy hair and meeting the little spirit-man's gaze boldly.

"Ooo, did somebody say something?" the little man screeched. "Or did the ickle childrens just pass wind through their mouths?" And he treated the room to yet another rude sound. Walrand was unmoved, and he pointed at the Perversus.

"Your riddle, Perversus!" he called. "I answer it, you see? Your riddle is a swan!" The Perversus abandoned the candle snuffer, looking miffed that someone had ruined his riddle with an actual answer; the snuffer dropped over Helga's table and narrowly missed hitting Ysolt and Arddun as it fell clattering to the floor. The Perversus whizzed through the air and halted inches from Walrand's smug face, bobbing up and down like a cork in water.

"You may think you're clever, but defeat me, you'll never!" And having pronounced this, he turned himself upside down and made a rude hand gesture at Walrand from between his ill-proportioned little legs. Instead of backing down, though, Walrand simply crossed his arms and took a solid stance on the table, one foot on each side of a large basket of bread.

"Then tell me my riddle, if you can!" he grinned.

"Curious creatures four I saw, together travelling;

Dark the marks they made, black of tracks.

Swifter than swifts they journeyed forth, and faster in flight,

Swept above into sky, dived down below waves.

And ceaselessly striving, one warrior gained ground,

The golden path presenting them, four as one."

Walrand had a beautifully sonorous voice, and Helga noticed that his Breton accent diminished when reciting poetry; his pronunciation was clear and confident, and he never stumbled over the alliterative lines. The Perversus swam through the air in a little loop and came to rest floating just above Eadgyth's head, his elbow pointing down into her hair as if his whole weight were resting on her and not simply hovering in empty space above her shoulder.

"Hmph," the spirit scoffed. "Any fool knows that one. It's a pen and three fingers!" And to punctuate his answer, he held up three very particular fingers – one on each of the three arms he now inexplicably had. Rhonwen was glaring daggers at him, and Helga thought she might have to hold her back by her cloak as well; but far from being offended, Walrand began laughing uproariously, as though the spontaneous third arm was the cleverest trick he had ever seen. The other students at his table began to laugh as well, and soon the hilarity had spread through most of the room. Children were beginning to crawl out from under tables now that edible missiles were no longer flying, and Helga watched in astonishment as a circle began to form around Walrand and the Perversus. Buoyed up by the rising tide of laughter, the little spirit man did a series of tumbles in the air and landed on the head of Rodolphus, mimicking Walrand's stance and crossing his own little arms.

"Have you another, Perversus?" Walrand smirked. The little man grinned wickedly.

"More than you've got," he sneered. And before Helga quite knew what was happening, Walrand and the Perversus were engaged in a battle of riddles. The air of chaotic energy began to slowly mellow, and outside the circle of students, Bihotza began surreptitiously creeping about the tables, righting drink vessels and vanishing messes. Helga let out a sigh of relief, and she felt Rhonwen do the same beside her. Salazar, however, was still rolling his wand between tense fingers.

"Well, that's got him distracted," he mumbled, "but now how do we get rid of him?"

"I don't think you do," Goderic grimaced, opting to pour himself another cup of wine. "I think 'currently not destroying everything' is the best status we can hope for, and it looks like Walrand's managed that."

"What, so we're just supposed to… let him live here now?" Salazar frowned. Rhonwen shrugged.

"It's not a matter of letting him. Unless you can come up with a spell that banishes a Perversus – and I've never heard tell of one that works – we're stuck with him."

"An ondvitleysa attaches itself to a place," Helga agreed, giving Salazar a sympathetic pat on the arm. "At least, that's what I've always heard. I suppose if the building were abandoned, he might wander off in search of people to draw energy from; but as long as this place is full of children, he's got a full banquet and I think he'll not be likely to leave."

"Is it too late to change my mind about starting a school, then?" Salazar asked, staring out over the half-wrecked dining hall with blank eyes.

Goderic gave him a stout squeeze of the shoulder as he went back to his seat, chuckling, but none of them actually gave him an answer.

---

The rest of the evening's feast went relatively smoothly, considering the presence of a Perversus in the room. Walrand and the little spirit man had seemed to exhaust each other's supply of riddles, after which the next order of business had been a dancing contest between the Perversus and a few other adventurous students. The Perversus mostly behaved himself. He was raucous and loud and rude, and he did have a rather distressing penchant for appearing suddenly in the middle of people's plates; but he had stopped throwing things, and people were able to finish eating, at any rate. And he only lit a student on fire once.

Helga watched the barely-restrained chaos as she finished her dinner, musing that they might have had to evacuate the whole place if Walrand hadn't had the intuition to distract the spirit with riddles. Indeed, the Perversus seemed to have developed a strange notion of comradeship with the young Breton, and Helga noticed that whenever he began to get too destructive again, a carefully placed comment or challenge from Walrand would manage to bring him back down. What they would do when Walrand finished his education and left the school, she had no idea; but for right now, this was something they could live with.

"I hate being indebted to a child, but if that boy hadn't done something, I think I would have had to run screaming into the night," Salazar said softly, reaching over Helga for the last piece of bread in their basket. Helga nodded.

"Oh, I know. We really should reward him, somehow."

"Give him a ring for his sword hilt, your Majesty?" Salazar smirked, peeling the rind from a piece of cheese with his knife. "Hmph. What would we reward him with? In case you hadn't noticed, Helga Heatherfeather, we aren't exactly sitting on a hoard of gifts here in our little fortress, and I don't think a flagon of my Vasconian cider would appeal to a boy who hasn't even sprouted hair on his face yet." He started to put the cheese on the bread, reconsidered, and then broke both cheese and bread into two smaller pieces. Helga sighed.

"Yes, you're right, I don't know what we'd do for him. But we ought to have a system, you know? A way to reward students when they do something exceptionally well or master a difficult lesson, or amend bad behavior." She turned to find Salazar holding out his hand, offering her half of the bread and cheese he had just broken, and she took it grudgingly.

"And what about me?" he said softly. "Do I get a reward for amending my behavior?"

"I'll let you know as soon as you do it," Helga said coolly, but the corners of her mouth twitched with a repressed grin as she took a bite. Salazar scooted closer to her.

"Oh, come, now. I've been on my best behavior ever since we called truce. I brought you cider, I carved the pig for you, and now I've given you half of the last piece of bread. Consider my sacrifice." He tilted his face up to her in that forlorn-Byzantine-icon expression that had so caught her attention the first night they'd met, and now she couldn't repress the smile any longer.

"I will take your sacrifice under consideration, Master Slidrian, if you promise that more good behavior is forthcoming. And no more dueling. We don't want to set a bad example for the children, and they certainly don't need any adults encouraging them to shoot at each other between lessons."

Salazar's face settled into something resembling seriousness then, and he put down his cup. "I didn't hurt you, did I?" And since he looked like he genuinely cared about the answer, Helga's posture softened and she patted his arm.

"No, you shocked me more than anything. It only barely hit me, and I was stumbling more out of surprise than from the charm."

"It was instinctive," Salazar added, pushing his cup away. "Your shot ricocheted at me, and I went into a defensive stance without even thinking. I suppose…. I suppose I'm easily prompted to violence. In Vasconia, if something unexpected came at you, you had to fire back or find yourself in irons." Helga thought of the way little Hnossa had stiffened in her arms when she'd thought she might be tossed into the river for witchery, and she sighed.

"It's alright, Salazar. Honestly. I think I've been very fortunate that I've not lived in fear for most of my life – like you have. Like many of these children have. You shouldn't have to apologize for something you had to learn to keep yourself alive."

"But I do apologize that it was directed at you," Salazar said quietly. "You are the least threatening person I've ever met, and perhaps one day I'll learn to treat you accordingly." Unexpectedly, he picked Helga's hand up from the table, and she swallowed the gasp that almost slipped out of her mouth.

"Salazar—"

"Truce?" he asked, for the second time that evening. "A real one, this time?"

"On what terms?" Helga managed to say; she wasn't sure if she was more distracted by the candlelight sparkles that encircled the green of his eyes, or by the texture of his skin under her fingers. Salazar leaned in a little closer and whispered.

"I promise to take things you say and do a little more seriously… and you promise to take things I say a little less seriously. Are those terms you can live with, Helga?"

He pulled her hand in closer, where she could feel the warmth of his breath on her knuckles, and she had only just registered that he had called her simply by her given name, without any sort of epithet, when he gently touched her fingers to his lips.

SPLAT.

"GOTCHA GOTCHA GOTCHA! HAHAHAHAAA!"

As Helga recovered from the shock of the warm liquid that had splashed into her face, she looked up to see the Perversus whizzing merrily around above the high table, cheering and congratulating himself. Salazar was still holding her hand close to his lips, but both of their hands and Salazar's whole head were now covered in what looked like a whole churn's worth of warm, fresh curds. Dribbles and rivulets of creamy white ran down through his black curls and over his eyes and mouth, and he sputtered irritably blew out air as he tried to keep it from running into his nose. The empty sack the Perversus had used to make the drop, which looked suspiciously like a stretched animal stomach, lay wet and disgusting in Salazar's lap, and there was a distinct smell of hot milk creeping over the whole high table.

"Helga," Salazar managed to spit, blinking whey out of his eyes, "does that truce we just made extend to my behavior toward irritating abominations of the spirit world?" Helga wiped droplets of whey off her face with her free hand, wrinkling her nose at the warm-milk smell.

"No damaging the building, and no children in the crossfire," she said flatly. Salazar spat away a curd that had dribbled down onto his mouth.

"Agreed."

He let go of her hand and swiped his sleeve across his eyes, and then he launched himself out of his chair with his wand drawn. The Perversus cackled and sped off across the room with Salazar hot on his heels, shouting Vasconian curses and trying to hex the little spirit man out of the air. The chase went on long after the feast had been brought to a close and the children sent to bed, and the moonlit school echoed well into the night with the sounds of ricocheting spells, the crashing of furniture, and peals of wicked, merry laughter.