Disclaimer: Anything that rings a bell is JK Rowling's

Chapter 67: A tale of two rivers

Harry's POV

I watched as she scratched furiously at the parchment in front of her, her brown eyes whizzing left and right so quickly it was dizzying to follow. Ron's soft snores filled the Library as I ran my fingers over the invisibility cloak in my lap. I tried doing my essay whilst Hermione worked but I was just too curious and excited at what she found out that might help Ky.

Suddenly the scratching that pecked at the room for the last two hours stopped. Hermione lifted her head slowly, entranced by the parchment in front of her.

"It's done."

"And?" I sat up in my chair.

"I…I don't know what it means." Her voice was a tearful croak of disappointment, "It has nothing about magic on here. At all."

I tried to hide my disappointment; I was really hoping that this would work. Ky looked happy and back to normal, but I could tell that she was just pretending for our sakes. The fact that she was doing that meant that she was done being angry…she was slowly giving up.

"I managed to translate it into English." Hermione's lower lip quivered as she stared at the piece of parchment, her disappointment seemed to run even deeper than my own. "When Ky said that she shortened words for her own convenience, it made me think back to this parchment. Nott, Snake he may be, I cannot fault his observation skills. He described the parchment the runes were written on in addition to copying the runes itself. He wrote a note at the bottom stating: In comparison to the previous notes, the penmanship was less meticulous, the parchment itself had jagged outlines as if hastily torn out and the reverse of the parchment seemed to be a page of some potions textbook."

"I don't understand how that is either here nor there, or how it's relevant to what Ky had said." I honestly just wanted to know if this was the cure we've been searching for.

"This means that Slytherin didn't want anyone else to see this parchment just yet. The rest of his work is neat and orderly, we can presume that this is a first draft, something that still needed work. Which brings us to what Ky said, if you were Salazar Slytherin and you had to write something that was for your eyes only, what language would you use?"

I sighed in annoyance; we should have thought of this immediately! "Parseltongue!"

She nodded her head, a strong frown on her face, "That was my thought initially, but I quickly dismissed it. Nott understood that parchment, he managed to transcribe the runes for me, and if it was some written derivation of Parseltongue he would never have understood it. I started with the most basic Runic language, Elder Furtakh but the runes didn't match. I then thought about the other parchments Nott had read from, they were all written in Latin. Slytherin had a penchant for the old languages. The parent language of Elder Furtakh is the Phoenician Alphabet but frustratingly enough that didn't work either. When Ky made that statement earlier it reminded me that if Slytherin was writing this down for his own personal use, and he didn't use Parseltongue, what else could he have used? Because he is such a notable parselmouth we forget that his mother tongue isn't that. He actually was of Basque heritage, his father arrived in England from the French Basque country in particular. He used a runic derivation of his father's home country."

I barely understood a word Hermione said, just happy she had found out the runic language, not really caring how that came about. I stared at the translation. I understood what Hermione meant about it not making sense. It was a spattering of numbers and alphabets, the only words that made an appearance was 'litrons' and 'bridge', the latter appearing only once with a question mark.

PBs

AHM JAM = AAM (1) 69 litrons (7) 345 litrons

MMS VAS = RMS (1) 62 litrons (7) 300 litrons

MMS VAS = AMS (1) 67 litrons (7) 250 litrons

MMS VAS = AXS (1) 68 litrons (7) 253 litrons

MMS VAS = ATS (1) 51 litrons (7) 487 litrons

PV CV = BV (1) 68 litrons, 45 litrons (7) 190 litrons, 278 litrons

PV CV = UV (1) 68 litrons (7) 322 litrons

HBs

AHM MP = PP (1) 64 litrons (7) 223 litrons

*MMS EF = AF (1) 65 litrons, 65 litrons (7) 20 litrons, 637 litrons* bridge?

MMS GE = DE (1) 69 litrons (7) 435 litrons

MBs

PT GT = LT (1)? (7) ?

HG OG = JG (1)? (7) ?

"It's just a jumble of numbers and letters?"

"No Harry, that's just it, not numbers. Measurements. The word litron appears next to every number. Litre is a linguistic derivative of litron.

I looked harder at the parchment, "So what is this? Is it code?" If it was, I couldn't crack it.

"Well, if it is, I don't know how to break it! It doesn't follow any of the sequences I'm aware of." She leaned forward, looking at the parchment now in front of me. "Well, there are patterns. I mean it looks like an equation but not one I'm familiar with. Hmmm…what can we take away from it. None of the letters grouped together exceed a length of three. Though there are no single letters. Wait…could these be initials. "

She looked down at the parchment with a wrinkled nose for about a minute more and then sunk back into her chair, covering her face with her hands. She must have been tired; she was at these translations nonstop since she got the parchment.

I looked down at the piece of parchment, "So what… is this his class register or something."

She pulled her hands away from her eyes slowly; she snatched the parchment up, "That's it…that's why the third section has no measurements."

"What?"

"You're right, it is a class register! If you were Salazar Slytherin, and you had to separate a class into three groups…how would you separate them?"

That was easy, "Pureblood, half blood and muggle born…PB, HB and MB!"

"The third column…MB…muggle born; it's empty of measurements because none of his students would be muggle born! He could easily know the names of the muggle borns, but Nott had said something about Gryffindor not letting him near them. This must be why! Gryffindor must have found out he was investigating magical ability in students somehow? Slytherin was of the belief that muggleborns stole magic – so naturally Gryffindor kept them away from him, hence, no readings for muggleborns."

"Well technically none of his students would be half-blood either, he only wanted purebloods."

"Yes Harry, but what do we know about Slytherins, half of them claim to be purebloods when really they're half-bloods. But there's no way to prove that they are purebloods or half-bloods without having some form of family history…"

She grumbled in frustration; we were going nowhere slowly. I looked down at the parchment, trying to see a pattern, we relied on this parchment having the answer for too long for it to just be some class register. "Hermione, this is weird. In the pureblood section, there are two names that show up like four times, MMS and VAS. And another two that show up twice, PV and CV. And in the half-blood section, that same name that showed up four times in the first section, MMS, shows up twice. I mean, it is weird right." I guess I was clutching at straws; she took the parchment and looked down. She looked back at the original parchment.

"Shit."

"Hermione?"

"I made a mistake. That wasn't a rune. It wasn't supposed to be translated; it isn't an equals to sign." She grabbed the parchment and started writing furiously. I looked down at what she amended. She had changed the equals to sign so that instead of the lines running parallel to each other, they came together in what resembled a long 'V'.

"The tops of the 'V' start at a name, the first two names on each line, and the point where the lines meet, another name."

"Like a family tree! Like parents and a child!" I looked at the parchment, it wasn't thirty-six names, it was twelve children and their parents' names. That's why each line of names had the same last letter.. they shared the same surname! Well…except for the half-blood section."

"That's why the two names in the first column were repeated four times." Hermione pointed out the VAS's and MMS's.

"Same parents, of four different children. And the other two names that show up twice," I looked at the PV and the CV, "are same parents of two children."

"But look at the half-blood section, AHM and MMS are written twice, but their partners are different, they don't share a surname. This was his proof that the children in the second section were half-blood, most likely the fathers were purebloods and the mothers probably muggles or muggle-borns. Probably products of affairs as they all seem to have taken their mother's surnames."

"But why would he even care about keeping track of all of this. I mean – why would it matter to him that AHM and MMS had affairs."

"He didn't care about the affairs, he only cared about the blood origin of the students. Salazar Slytherin believed purebloods were superior to muggle-borns, it's plausible that he somehow tried to objectively prove it…these measurements…."

"Was he somehow measuring the magic…that the child had? That's impossible right?"

"Well, we don't know, people don't usually measure magic by a numerical figure, but by skill. But if he was measuring this magic quantitatively Harry…look at the numbers next to the names. Try to find a sequence."

"The only thing I can see is the first number has the number one next to it, the second number has the number seven, and the second number is always larger than the first. Except for these two people. BV in purebloods and AF in half-bloods – he did put an asterisk next to AF." I pointed out the names. "They have four numbers next to their names. The first two has a one next to it in brackets; the second two numbers have seven in brackets. Why are one and seven in brackets? One and seven…one and seven," I muttered as I stared at the parchment.

"First year! And seventh year! He measured their magic when they first arrived and again when they left. Look at the numbers with the ones next to it…they're all similar, maybe a difference of five this way or that." I heeded her words and saw that most of the numbers with the one next to it were in the sixties.

"But the second numbers, the seventh year measures, although greater than the first, are all different...300, 345, 250. Some are much higher." I frowned down at the parchment, "These names with the four numbers are unusual. It doesn't have the same pattern as the others. And why did he place an asterisk at just one of their names – AF, and why did he write bridge next to it? Why not both BV and AF? They both have four measurements; doesn't that make them both special. And how can you even measure magic, what did he do?" This is just getting more confusing by the minute, Hermione's face was frozen in contemplation, my babbling not breaking through her fortress of thoughts.

"Litrons…litre. The litre measures substances liquid in nature." She muttered to herself, "But magic isn't a liquid. It's not something that you can pour out and measure. There isn't some physical property within us that we can measure our magic; it's not like the blood that can be measured as it flows…" Her eyes lit up. She turned to me, "Flow! Flow!" She jumped up. Ron growled in his sleep but didn't wake up, "Accio Spellman's Syllabary." The book floated to her, she caught it, stared at the closed book for a moment with saucer sized eyes and then threw it back on the desk, jumping up and down, "This is it, Harry. Oh, Slytherin is a genius! An absolute genius!"

"Hermione?" I didn't understand a word she was saying, her face was pink with excitement, she paced up and down, turning suddenly and grabbing the parchment, "Four quantities…four. Two and two…"

"Hermione?"

She looked up at me, her eyes unfocused; I could tell she wasn't really paying attention to me. Slowly her eyes dimmed, and they focused on me, "Flow Harry. Do you remember the first time you held a wand, the right wand? The wand that chose you. It was like a flow of energy, a zing down your spine. After using magic so often I don't think we really notice the flow, but the first time…the first time you feel it. Slytherin somehow managed to work out a way of measuring that flow of magic within a wizard. The second measurements, the larger ones - those are done in the seventh year. And it makes sense, of course the flow will be greater when you get older and you're more experienced. Now, why would some of the students have two readings at the start – two measurements! One for their magical ability and one for their clairvoyant ability! It must be different flows in your body! I mean, there are tonnes of muggles who claim to be seers but they're not magical - maybe foresight has nothing to do with magical ability, so they would be measured differently – if he was recording magical ability when somebody performed a spell, then he must record clairvoyance when they were experiencing a vision. TWO measurements. But this doesn't make sense… how can – "

"Hermione, please stopping skipping sentences and explain."

"This of course is gross speculation but…I think…maybe…AF and BV are like Ky. They were clairvoyant. One flow measurement I can only presume is for their magic and the other for their psychic ability. Look at BV, low first year measures for both, larger ones in seventh year – that makes sense, with time their magic got stronger, so to did their seer ability. But look at AF – the one Salazar put an asterisk next to, one of the measures in their seventh year is lower than in first year – that makes NO sense. However, look at the other seventh year measure – it's magnitudes higher than the seventh-year measures of the other students. It's in the 600s."

"So, AF was really strong in one measure, and weak in the other? Or…were they really strong in one measure because they were weak in the other – like did these measures have an influence on each other?"

Hermione's eyes narrowed, "When I was researching Vikadel it said that it destroys the ability to make psychic bonds, which is mostly how true seers see. It destroys the conscious in charge of clairvoyance but its usage is so rare, it was only documented twice. In both cases the person lost their ability to have visions, but their magic and health were fine. This means that their clairvoyant flow and the flow of their magic can't be related, they shouldn't influence each other. They are separate entities that grow apart from each other like we see in BV…but think about Ky Harry. Think about all the amazing things she can do, learning three years of syllabus in a matter of weeks, picking up spells on the first go, even her psychic ability….a bridge…a bridge."

Hermione muttered, a somewhat mad glint in her eye which I'm sure I held as well, we were close to something…I could feel it.

"Well a bridge is a connection right? Something that connects two things that would naturally not be able to meet? Or interact with each other…" My brows were so furrowed it felt as if they were fused together, "It's also used to cross over water, like a river! I suppose that fits with the flow theory, that magic has some liquid measure." I took a deep breath, trying to sense in my own body whether I could feel a river of magic flowing within me, but it would be as useless as me trying to feel the blood pumping in my arteries…

"Godric, Harry! You're right! You're so right!" Hermione gasped, "A magic river pulsing through us that he somehow managed to measure. But clairvoyance having it's own river. Two separate rivers…that don't interact with each other, because why should they. AF! I think Ky is like AF! If we think of her abilities like two rivers flowing parallel to each other, in the normal case, like BV, they will never meet. But what if Ky…has some sort of 'bridge' within her. A bridge that allows her to borrow power from either river when necessary! It's why her psychic abilities are so dynamic - they have two power sources! So does her magic really! We've always chalked up her knack for magic to being Dumbledore's granddaughter, but she's just got access to both these sources of power within her!"

A spike of anger flickered in my tummy at that, very much like the intent to strike and harm that I felt within me when talking to Dumbledore over Christmas Break. The feeling disappeared as quickly as it came, and I was flooded with a sinking guilt…how could I feel that for Ky? I have never been jealous of Ky's quick uptake on spell casting - if I was being honest…some confusing part of me had always been very…attracted to her when we duelled, and part of it had always been how very competent she was with a wand.

"Harry?" Hermione cut in. Godric - this was not the time to be thinking about this.

"Sorry, I…so…Ky has two sources of power for her magic."

"And her clairvoyance. I think when Slytherin measured AF there was one low reading, and one high. Look how low her seventh year measurement is for her second reading. A mere twenty. I think it's because she has a bridge that allows the power to flow back and forth. At the time, AF must have been doing magic, perhaps, so all her power was in one river, leaving very little in the other. So, before Ky ingested vikadel, the night of the cave in, Liam had disarmed her, she hadn't used magic since the vision she had of the man who led her to the mountains - "

My stomach sank, and I felt sick, "All her magic was in the clairvoyant river…which is what the Vikadel targets…so her magic was destroyed…We just found the proof that Ky has lost her magic…she really lost her magic…"

"No! Not all her magic. Some magic must have remained in its own river. That's how she can still make potions. Think of this 20 litron reading that AF has. Yes, it's small – but it's there! Though, this bridge that allows her two rivers to communicate means that the Vikadel doesn't just affect her clairvoyant river, it's effecting her magic river too."

I looked on horror struck, "And if the Vikadel is going into her magic river…it really is going to destroy all her magic."

"Only if we let it, Harry. Can't you see! We've been doing it all wrong! Ky shouldn't be laying down, trying to deal with the effects of the Vikadel, waiting for some magical cure. If we wait for it to wear off in this 3 months, it would eventually destroy all her magic! But look at this, look at ATS under the pureblood column, she came in with a magical ability as low as 51 and she left with a magical ability almost ten times that amount. Ten times! It doesn't matter how little power Ky has left, she has to work on it, make it stronger, even if it hurts her to do the magic, because if she just waits around…it's gone. And no matter how hard she tries, if her magic goes right down to zero…to nothing…no amount of hard work can increase her magic as nothing times nothing is still nothing…we can't let her reach nothing…we can't."

A/N: I hope this chapter wasn't too confusing. I worked on it loads and hopefully it came across OK. This also explains a lot about Ky's magic, why she is so powerful both magically and even in her psychic ability. If you have any questions don't be afraid to PM me or drop a review, it is a very confusing chapter.

Please review.

Kalina