Author's Note: The Emperor's no good, very bad day continues. Only briefly though, until someone far more responsible puts his foot down. (this was all supposed to be part of the previous chapter, but it was just waaaaaay too long lmao)
Beta read by Circade, who told me that I have a problem with rewriting things over and over and over and over. He's right.
Anyway, sorry to say that I'll have to move my schedule again, and I'll only be updating every four weeks. I desperately want to finish drafting chapter 28, it's been sitting around for months, and I have a couple of extra scenes that I've also been ignoring. And my year is just shaping up to be incredibly busy, in contrast to the last one where I was able to dedicate most of my time not spent working to writing. I miss it already.
It is wild tho that I've written close to 200k words in about a year. That's like, a whole book. Shame I can never allow my family to read this, no matter how often they ask about what I've been up to.
Psionic strain, unfortunately, did not abate after a night of rest.
It might've, were the Emperor not prone to working late and rising earlier, using Kronnis' post-dusk and pre-dawn alertness to excuse his own ceaseless plotting, but asking him to change his ways would be like asking a dryad to leave its forest. The pursuit of ambition was simply too deeply ingrained.
Kronnis often pointed out the differences between their bodies. That a drow's trance couldn't be compared to the sleep other races needed, but why in the world would the Emperor listen to the opinions of someone who wasn't illithid? He knew his physiology best, after all; an endless fountain of facts, eager to describe the humidity levels best suited to amphibious skin, the oils his nails required to keep from flaking, and what mind flayers could and couldn't eat.
Bacon, apparently, was incredibly unhealthy, and he nagged each time an extra slice was added to Kronnis' plate. A chunk of muscle and fat that colonies would normally discard to feed their thralls, when harvesting organs more suitable to what passed for an illithid palate. As though Kronnis needed to worry about absorbing hormones and enzymes from the meat he ate.
"Point out something better," he'd once replied after running short on patience, gesturing at a table laden with grains, dairy, and vegetables, his point conceded after a short period of contemplative silence. Hogwarts didn't serve raw offal at its meals, nor did Kronnis think he would've risked inflating rumors to eat it.
No such argument had taken place today, however. And while the Emperor didn't even need to be here, at a breakfast that he couldn't partake in, Umbridge hadn't made yesterday's assumption without reason – the familiar comfort of another's mind was felt best with a physical closeness.
He'd risen from bed, looking comically hungover, and attached himself to Kronnis' side like a loyal dog, journeying to the staff table as though his mind wasn't still recovering from yesterday's pains. His misery was hidden by veils of darkly-shimmering fabric and ink-stained paper, and a frantic anxiety had begun to nibble at his mind. A burning need for control, threatening rationality and fearing imagined deadlines. He'd fallen too far behind on their paperwork, and every second not spent working was a second wasted.
Kronnis' help was mandatory. He had his own documents to appraise, absently read between bites of jam-topped toast and the bacon his partner loved to bicker over. Sums were added, expenses subtracted, and he determined the Chromatic Scale's monthly sales to have fallen exactly in the middle of their usual range, a rock of stalwart stability in a sea of ever-changing investments. As he picked up a new ledger to sift through, his report of good news was soon followed by an echoing spark of triumph and a flourish of the Emperor's hand, barely caught in his peripheral vision.
It seemed his partner had finally made progress on… Ah, the Dragon's Drought Discrepancy, as Kronnis liked to call that little problem. Tough bit of work, it was. An income that had suddenly plummeted, interest that supposedly couldn't be paid, and calculations that made no sense whatsoever. Demands had been issued for their past year of revenue records, collected by Wyll and left with their usual pile of documents. Further analysis now showed that some new hire had negligently miscarried a zero.
Their position would soon need to be filled anew, Kronnis predicted. Making a mistake with the Emperor's finances had dangerous repercussions. His fingers carefully prodded the dull rage seeping from the mind next to his. "You need to watch your blood pressure."
"Irrelevant. Illithids do not suffer from hypertension or its associated risks," the Emperor dismissed, his eyes the bloodshot silver of someone who hadn't gotten enough sleep. He'd already exchanged his folder with the next one atop their pile. "This fool almost ruined us."
That was a bit dramatic. It would've only taken them a year to regain lost capital, had they mistakenly shut the distillery down to prevent a further hemorrhaging of funds. "It's a shame you can't simply eat them."
"Their head would likely be filled with cotton. An unsuitable meal."
Hmm. Said the man with a diet consisting solely of the city's scum, Kronnis thought. When his stomach suddenly reminded him of his own needs, he decided it best to finish his plate before resuming work. Someone around here had to take care of themselves.
The rest of the Hogwarts was slow to file in, a lazy start to a sleepy weekend. Slytherins sat as silent as the grave, sullenly clacking silverware against a variety of dishware. Gone were the shining badges that had declared Ron their king, and a keening moan occasionally turned heads as Draco leveraged his bruises for sympathy.
In contrast, the Gryffindor table was a hub of activity. Its students recounted yesterday's match in exaggerated fashion, leaving out all the parts that hadn't favored their team and congratulating Harry whenever they passed his seat. The boy himself didn't look to be in a particularly celebratory mood, however. And while the Emperor's mental soreness had freed him from the responsibility of checking in with their charge, Kronnis wasn't particularly eager to do it himself. Harry's glares made it rather obvious what he thought about yesterday's intrusion of his privacy.
It was a welcome distraction when Andromeda sat beside him. The greeting they exchanged as she filled her own plate with fruits and scrambled eggs was then interrupted by an altercation at the other end of the Great Hall.
"Is it always this bad whenever there's a Quidditch game?" Kronnis asked, perfectly happy to let a member of Hogwarts' staff deal with today's inter-house fight – something about how Gryffindor had supposedly cheated their way to victory.
Andromeda barely spared the spectacle a glance. "Only when Slytherin and Gryffindor are playing," she said, to his great relief. "They've been at each other's throats for as long as anyone can remember, though Quidditch always seems to make it worse. Some of the hotheads think the competition gives them an excuse to be particularly vile."
"I'd noticed," Kronnis commented with a chuckle. "You'd think that sort of behavior would be discouraged."
"It is. But the professors have their own biases. They were once students, too," she pointed out.
That made an awful lot of sense, actually. It was no wonder the two houses hated each other, surrounded by adults who played favorites. "Does that include you as well?"
Andromeda laughed. "I try to be impartial as a professor, but I know that simply being in Slytherin nets you enemies. I certainly had my fair share of quarrels."
"Oh?" Kronnis turned his full attention on her. "Do tell."
"Well, there was this one girl. Barbara Conebush." The name was said with decades of contempt. "We were in the same year. She was always showing everyone up in transfiguration, tossing her hair and bragging how she was better than us slimy snakes. The professors loved her, of course – Conebush was smart enough to never start a fight where they could see. And she always had her friends backing her up, someone who'd lie and say that she was playing gobstones with them in the common room, or helping them with an essay." A clang rang out as Andromeda's knife cut through a thick slice of pineapple with one hard push. "Never mind that she used to steal other people's work to copy and submit as her own."
Kronnis almost regretted asking. This was a childhood grudge with roots as deep as the Great Everwood's trees.
"She went as far as cursing me once," Andromeda continued, the memory bringing a vicious smile to her face. "Tried to impress a boy she liked by transfiguring my fingernails into gnarled claws. I could've been mistaken for one of Knockturn Alley's hags, if she'd added a cloak."
"And she got into trouble for that?" he guessed.
"No. He hexed her back before taking me to the hospital wing, and then we told the matron that I'd miscast a spell. If it came down to 'he said she said', I didn't want him to get dragged into it."
"Sounds like you showed more maturity than any other student I've seen around here." Kronnis prodded a particularly crispy piece of bacon. "There must be more to the story, though."
"Oh, there is. Four years later I was married to that boy," she said, smirking when he burst into laughter. "Conebush had a fit when we started seeing each other, back when we were still in Hogwarts. Tried to curse me again in the middle of the Great Hall. That's when she got into trouble. A month's worth of detention, if I remember right."
A whole month? Filch was right; nowadays, Hogwarts just didn't punish students like it used to. "And how's your husband now?"
"He's doing well – works in the Ministry's Muggle Liaison Office. I think he's a bit restless with Tonks out of the house, though, and-" Turning away from her plate to look at him, Andromeda paused, her gaze sliding past his face. "Is- is he alright?"
Suddenly cognizant of how empty his head was, Kronnis hastily swiveled around.
Beside him, barely cushioned by arms that still clutched copies of newly-proposed legislation, the Emperor was slumped over the table, his face pressed to the wood. Investigation showed that the briefest stirrings of dreams were beginning to emerge from an endless sea of subconscious thought. The position looked a horribly uncomfortable one to sleep in.
Eying the papers drooping from slack fingers, Kronnis couldn't blame him. Zoning laws, an ordinance restricting the use of lawn decorations, and a new waste management act? Who'd thought that up?
"He's fine." Probably. Though the more Kronnis had to reassure people of this the more he was starting to grow concerned that they'd perhaps bitten off a bit more than they could chew, balancing the responsibilities of two planes. "He just has a tendency to overwork himself."
He almost considered letting the Emperor sleep, but unsupervised tentacles had a mind of their own, and the last thing they needed was for one to slip free. He also would've had to listen to complaints about the resulting back pain for weeks. Dipping a mental hand into his partner's mind, a gentle swirl to disrupt burgeoning images of a small seaside village was enough to elicit both wakefulness and a groan that he hoped wasn't as loud as it felt in his head.
"Hey, you can't fall asleep in the middle of the Great Hall," he gently cautioned, "Or I'll have to drag you back to our rooms and chain you to the bed. And not in a fun way."
When the Emperor raised his head, it was to glare at him. He then realized that his documents had drifted into a platter of scrambled eggs, and quickly snatched them out of its greasy residue. "This is more important than sleep."
Kronnis raised an eyebrow. "Yes, clearly. If I see you nodding off again…" He let the threat hang in their minds, turning back around to face Andromeda.
"So, your husband," he said, ignoring the way her lips pinched as though holding back laughter. "Empty nest syndrome?"
"I suppose that's a good description. Last year he took up knitting," she said with a fond smile. "Don't tell Tonks, but the scarf he's been working on for months is going to be her Christmas present. He's trying to add as many colors as he can before then."
"Christmas? Isn't that the holiday that's coming up? The one where students go home for two weeks?"
Andromeda's eyes glanced at those closest to them. "Christmas break, yeah. I suppose it wouldn't have been quite so popular back when you settled the Underdark," she offered with a knowing smile. "It's mostly a muggle thing, anyway. Wizarding communities – especially purebloods – usually observe Yule."
Kronnis was then subjected to the confusing and intertwined history of these these two holidays, his head swimming with the various changes each had gone through, the religions schisms involved, and their significance around the world.
"Can't say I've heard much about that one either," he replied once Andromeda had finished explaining how a Yule log differed from a Christmas tree. "A millennia of isolation changes more than faces, it seems."
She was gracious enough to refrain from requesting an exchange of knowledge, sparing him the need to fabricate an appropriate set of Baldurian festivities. "You don't even need a millennium to change tradition," she said instead, a hint of rebellion in her words. "A single generation is enough. Right now, my mother is probably rolling in her grave, watching me celebrate mundane holidays with a muggleborn husband. The last thing she ever said to me was that I was spitting in the faces of all the Blacks before me."
A Black? What were the odds. Kronnis lowered his voice. "Related to Sirius, by any chance?"
"Cousins, actually. He's just about the only relative that I'm still on speaking terms with, though it's been difficult to catch up."
"I can imagine. And marrying a muggleborn?" he commented, his smile curling to express his amusement. "That must've been a scandal."
"Oh, it was. I was burned off the family tapestry," Andromeda replied. She tried to play it off, but resentment had replaced her rebellious spirit. "I'm still technically a Black, my sisters just refuse to associate with me because I'm a blood traitor."
This was a story that struck a chord in Kronnis' heart. Even more hushed than before, covert whispering conveyed his response, an offering of personal circumstance similar enough to connect over. "I was never fond of my family's traditions either, and they probably disowned me after I left Menzoberranzan. That, or they think someone killed me. Maybe even a jealous sibling looking to advance their station."
Andromeda looked perturbed. "Is that common?"
She might as well have been asking if water was wet. "Only power and respect matter to drow," he explained. "Best to cull weakness before it brings shame to the family. If I couldn't adequately defend myself, then I would've deserved what I got. It's as simple as that."
"And I thought my sister was bad," she muttered. "At least Bellatrix never tried to kill me – only muggles and muggleborns."
Kronnis raised an eyebrow. "Was she a Death Eater?"
"She was. One of those who never claimed to have been under the Imperius."
A fanatic, then. From what Kronnis could tell, that particular excuse had been extremely popular, even amongst Voldemort's most devoted. "I take it she's in Azkaban?" he asked, waiting for her to nod before continuing. "Shame."
"Azkaban is a horrible place, but she truly does deserve it," Andromeda replied, mistaking his comment for sympathy. "Tortured poor Frank and Alice Longbottom to insanity, and murdered god knows how many people during the war. I shudder, thinking of what she was capable of."
This Bellatrix sounded like she would've fit right in with Orin and her ilk. "Well, so long as she's not an animagus, she'll probably be in there for a long time yet." The rest of her miserable life, most likely. Locked away and out of reach.
"Kronnis."
On one hand, that was one less Death Eater to worry about. On the other, that was one less Death Eater he could sentence to a grisly end, bested in an exciting duel to the death. He was owed that much, wasn't he? After all the busy work he'd done in this damned castle, attending classes that droned more than they taught, and feigning to be someone he wasn't?
His fantasies were forcefully dissipated into a bloody mist as a distant voice called his name again, rudely insistent in its demand for attention. "Kronnis, we have a problem."
He and Andromeda both turned to face the Emperor, who stared directly at papers presumably containing terrible news. "What?"
"They are cleaning the sewers."
"…Huh?"
"The sewers!" A weary face met his own, but the Emperor's voice, raised and lacking its usual preciseness, betrayed his alarm. "Look." He pushed a bundle of legislation over the tabletop, repeating himself again. "They are cleaning out the sewers."
"Well, I guess they could use a good cleaning," Kronnis replied, faking a laugh under the eyes of nearby students, their heads turned to investigate the source of aggravated remarks.
This was, however, the wrong tone to use. Eyes blazing, the Emperor twisted his entire body. One hand clutched the armrest of his chair and the other slammed against the table, both surfaces used as props to propel his body until mere inches from Kronnis' face. When he hissed his next words, he sounded deranged. "In case you have forgotten, I wrote a bill giving kobolds full authority over the sewer's sanitation services."
Right. That had been because kobolds could be bribed and trusted to keep their muzzles shut about a hidden trapdoor that led straight to a certain secret basement, should they ever do their jobs properly enough to find it. Kronnis snatched the papers and read as fast as possible.
The first paragraph was a preface. The second extraneous, and the rest was filled with enough blustering language to muddy an ocean. But beneath all that was a proposal, requesting the dukes' permission to form a public service that would clean and maintain the sewers, exploring unmapped regions to purge the city of shadowy murder cults and monsters alike.
Kronnis suspected that this was a scam, preying on the public's fears of another Bhaalist resurgence. If you squinted, it sounded an awful lot like someone wanted to land themselves a cushy job adventuring through the Undercity and looting its treasure. "It'll be several months before this makes it through parliament. They'd have to get enough votes to approve a budget of… twelve thousand gold pieces per year?" That was absurd. "The dukes would never allow this," he declared, relieved.
"The budget is a red herring," the Emperor immediately argued, his mind burning with insult – not directed at Kronnis, but at the idea that someone would dare undermine his work. "Legislation never makes it through debates without changes. Twelve thousand gold will be argued down to an acceptable amount, and then parliament will pat themselves on the back, thinking they have fixed all the proposal's glaring issues. The person who wrote this knew what they were doing."
"Well, all the papers you've got here are a mess." Kronnis held up the cleanest sheaf remaining, its corner sporting a trio of discolored splotches. "How about we head back up to our rooms and you can write parliament a petition to remind them of the Sewer Stewardship Statute?" he suggested aloud, hoping privately that the Emperor would just rant himself into a desperately-needed nap. Truthfully, there were a thousand solutions that were quicker, easier, and more fun.
Telekinesis gathered the remaining documents, and Kronnis offered Andromeda an apology for the abrupt end to their conversation. Seconds later, they were making their way through the thin gap between House tables.
"It was sponsored by Lord Charlys, in partnership with someone named Aradin Beno," the Emperor said, reading the legislation's fine print for further details. The name sparked recognition in Kronnis' mind; half-remembered images of a human with curly hair and a fiery temper. "Do you know who that is?"
"I've met him before, when I was, ah, touring the lands around Baldur's Gate," he replied with a frown, wishing that his partner would focus on something more important, like discretion.
The true meaning of his purposely vague phrasing was immediately picked up and carelessly projected at a frequency that anyone close enough could overhear. "Some money-grubbing adventurer, then, fabricating pretense to plunder imagined treasure."
Kronnis hummed noncommittally, grabbed his partner's wrist, and increased their pace, managing to clear the Great Hall's doors before any more ears could be subjected to an illithid's affronted grumbling. It wasn't too much further to their rooms, and once inside, the Emperor didn't even bother dressing down into something more casual. The desk was set upon, and clean pages were attacked with a freshly-bleeding quill.
One rough outline later, Kronnis' hands reached over to pry it from clawed fingers. "That's enough of that, I think."
A baleful gaze turned on him. "I have not finished."
"You can get back to it later. We have more than a week before we return to Baldur's Gate, anyway." Kronnis tactfully did not mention that he thought his partner too addled to be trusted with important tasks. It was a miracle that he'd even been able to track down the brewery's calculation error.
"We mustn't lose focus," the Emperor scolded, standing and summoning their schedule with a gesture. His nail then traced the days of the week, running down Friday's list of classes. "Why would we not simply write it now? Umbridge's lesson starts in an hour, and… and then…" he trailed off, reaching a block in the afternoon that had been crossed out, the word 'Quidditch' written underneath.
Kronnis carefully pulled the schedule away. "It's Saturday," he said softly. "Umbridge's class was yesterday, though I really can't fault you for forgetting that dull textbook she has us read."
The Emperor didn't speak for some moments, annoyance and embarrassment slowly blooming in his mind. "This damnable week of theirs. Seven is the most ridiculous number to map a calendar to."
"Maybe so, but the people here have come up with some fantastic ideas. Weekends are simply genius." The schedule was discarded. Kronnis' hands reached up to unclasp the veil from his partner's face, threading fingers between curling tentacles and leading their owner to the edge of the bed. "A break. A day or two off. I know this is a new concept for you, but I really think you should try it. Before you work yourself to death," he added, letting concern press against his partner's residual aches.
Purple eyes flitted through their room, even as the Emperor melted into his touch. Together, they sat on a neatly-made comforter. "The reports... Our research…"
"What about me?" Kronnis asked. "When was the last time we spent a day together? Or," he continued, tightening his grip, "are you just keeping me around as an… assistant?"
The word lingered, its implication clear. There was silence, and Kronnis immediately felt guilty for letting his frustrations seep into the conversation. Between them, a yawning gulf briefly crumbled into existence, before his partner's response snapped their minds into a close proximity.
"You said once that you would gladly follow me to the ends of the world," the Emperor whispered, a breeze crackling with emotion. "That you would give yourself to me, body and soul. I would never… I would never have made that decision for you. You of all people should know that."
"I know," he quickly replied, fighting a lump in his throat. "I'm sorry, that's not what I meant. Sometimes… I just think you need a reminder that you're not a thrall. Illithids might not get days off in a colony, but we're our own people, not slaves to our work."
The Emperor recoiled as though struck, his tentacles sliding through Kronnis' fingers. "I am not a slave to my work."
"Then act like it," Kronnis insisted. "Rest your head awhile, and if you feel better, we can renegotiate. I'll even do some research in the meantime," he offered, a compromise calculated to help settle his partner's worries.
Several seconds of stiff eye contact later, an illithid mind settled, the surface of churning waves calming to hide the currents underneath. The Emperor stripped shirt and shoe, slid his long body under the sheets, and rolled over to face the wall.
Suspicious, but Kronnis was only too relieved to avoid further argument. His backup plan had consisted of threats to go on strike, should a single toe be dipped out of bed, and his earlier promise to chain the Emperor down had been as hollow as a cavernous sinkhole – the equipment for that didn't come standard with guest rooms.
He tided their reports, stashed a few on his bedside table, and then picked over their stack of borrowed books, searching for something that didn't look too complicated. 'Gruesome Tales of the Dark Arts: Legends and Lore' looked perfect for his purposes, both easily digestible and promising in its potential to contain whispers of long-forgotten magic, so he lugged it back to their bed.
When he climbed in, it was to a spike of irritation and disappointment, splashing through the curated ripples of the Emperor's mind.
Kronnis bit back a smile. Perhaps his partner had thought he'd leave for the library, and had petulantly planned to sneak back to his work once the coast was clear. Just as he'd forgotten what day of the week it was, he'd likely also forgotten that Kronnis had recently divested Madam Pince of all the texts authored by Lester Treadwell, a prolific historian whose works filled an entire shelf.
After settling next to the warm body already occupying their bed and piling the remaining pillows into a backrest more comfortable than any chair in Hogwarts, he opened the book. Its table of contents revealed that each chapter covered a different folktale, the text at large a collection of truths, fabrications, and exaggerated claims. "I could read to you, if you'd like."
The Emperor was silent for a time, but Kronnis' eyes itched as he scanned the stories' titles. "Start with 'The Norwood Witch's Final Gambit'."
Kronnis obliged, flipping to page thirty-three and recounting with unwavering voice the tale of a witch who had imperio'd an entire town to escape being burned at the stake. Next was a fable about a descendent of Salazar Slytherin, who'd bred a basilisk and set it upon his political rival before the whole of the Wizengamot. The Emperor rolled over to comment on that one, claiming its veracity easy enough to ascertain. Such an event would be forever recorded in legal documents.
Apparently too uninspired, the following myth – a no doubt overblown account of how a vampire in some far-off land had impaled his enemies on spikes – then sent his mind adrift, dozing and free of trouble.
The book was closed, but not discarded. Its cover made for a makeshift table, and Kronnis carefully reached over to pluck the financial reports from where he'd left them, disturbing a set of tentacles that took great offense at his brief shift away from their owner. By the time he'd put quill to paper, he was held captive in a grip that he wouldn't be getting out of anytime soon.
The Emperor woke him the next morning, to ask a question that could have waited until the sun was higher in the sky. "What is a Yule Gala?"
Kronnis' response was mumbled into his pillow. "A what?"
"A Yule Gala. Yesterday, I recall you speaking with Andromeda about something similar?"
The Emperor was well aware of what a gala was, Kronnis knew. "We spoke about Yule, yes. Why are you asking?"
In lieu of an answer, something was deposited before his face; paper, by the sound of it. When Kronnis raised his head, he saw that Lucius' eagle owl was perched upon their windowsill. A handful of other correspondence was held in the Emperor's hands, and the reports on his bedside table had mysteriously disappeared, though he had an idea of where they'd ended up. Unfolding the letter his partner had dumped on him revealed an ornately-wrought invitation.
He read it aloud, mumbling. "-hereby formally invited to the eighty-seventh annual Yule Gala… enchanting evening in the company of esteemed guests… held at Malfoy Manor on the twenty-second of December… postscript, portkeys available upon request."
"Yes," the Emperor said, clearly impatient with the amount of time it was taking Kronnis to answer his question. "I have already read it. Your opinion?"
"Well," he started. "A gala is a public event, usually a celebration to mark a special occasion. And Yule," Kronnis specified with a smug smile, ignoring his partner's exasperation, "is the observance of the winter solstice. That's important to purebloods, supposedly."
"An excuse for the upper class to network, then."
"There'll probably be more peacocking, drinking, and drama than networking," Kronnis corrected, having witnessed more than a few drunken scandals in his time. "Exactly the sort of thing you avoided in Baldur's Gate, though I'm not sure you can get out of this one. What sort of ambassadors would we be if we didn't attend-" he looked at the paper again, "-'the most illustrious event of the year'?"
A hand was waved. "I do not avoid them. I am simply not invited, seeing as the citizenry is unaware of my existence."
"Ravengard invited you once, and I keep asking you to be my plus one! It's almost like you don't want to be seen with me in public," he accused, holding back laughter.
The Emperor crossed his arms. "I will not be having this argument again – you are fully cognizant that illusions are not suitable for crowded spaces. And Ravengard's invitation was only a polite fiction. He certainly held no expectations of my attendance, or my willingness to risk my life for an evening of frivolity."
Kronnis forced his lips shut, conceding the point to keep the peace. Continuing to tease his partner might result in a refusal to attend, and this might be the only chance he'd ever have to drag the Emperor to any sort of public event without pretense or paranoia.
…well, without paranoia, at least. Unlike the average Baldurian, wizards and witches didn't seem likely to manifest pitchforks if they caught sight of a stray tentacle, though they might still decide an illithid's true face something too monstrous to associate with.
A sound drew his attention to their desk. Having already made a decision for them, the Emperor was writing a response, his quill scratching elegant lines on a blank piece of parchment. Kronnis sat up. "Now hang on a second, do I not get a say in this?"
The noise stopped, and purple eyes turned to look at him. "What is there to say? Of course we are going."
"Oh. I just thought you'd ask for my input, maybe."
"I already know your answer," the Emperor dismissed, his hand returning to its task.
Unbelievable. "It's the principle of the matter."
The other hand waved, vaguely gesturing at his head. "Your desires are clear in your mind, and I have never known you to miss a public event."
Torn between affront, affection, and relief, Kronnis decided to let this matter slide. Over their previous round of bickering, he'd realized several things and buried them deep in his subconscious, each more important than this meaningless argument. One was a fact that would leave the Emperor's tentacles twisting with dismay, and the other… Well. Holiday tradition demanded presents, did it not? And Kronnis had come up with the perfect idea.
But the first would need to be addressed soon. When Lucius' owl eventually flew off, letter in claw, Kronnis spoke up. "You know, galas are very fancy events," he started, confident that their confirmation of attendance could not be snatched back or changed.
The Emperor again waved him off, now busy scanning the summary Kronnis had attached to his review of their reports. A gratitude was extended, wordless and unwaveringly genuine. "I know what a gala is," he absently replied.
"Yes, but you don't attend them, which means that you have nothing to wear. And," Kronnis smiled sharply, "illusions won't work, will they?"
His partner's mind stuttered to a halt. A cold dread replaced warmth, and all previous thoughts were abandoned in search of a solution.
Kronnis offered it. "We'll simply have to speak with Figaro when we next return and hope he can fit you in for an appointment."
"We cannot trust-"
"Oh, please. You think Figaro can't keep a secret? He's been working with us for years."
"He has been working with the Hero of Baldur's Gate," the Emperor pointed out. "Not the mind flayer investing in his business."
"And he'll listen to the Hero of Baldur's Gate," Kronnis replied, leaving the bed's comforts to track down a fresh set of clothes. "It's not like I'm going to send you there alone."
The Emperor's tentacles twitched. "You have an awfully high opinion of yourself," he mumbled, an admittance of defeat. His hands then tapped papers on the desk to align them, before storing the stack in a drawer. "Regardless, we seem to have slept Saturday away. I had something in mind for later tonight, but I thought we could spend the today's afternoon practicing levitation?"
Kronnis grinned. "I would love nothing more."
In the seventh-floor corridor, standing in front of a tapestry of dancing trolls and around the corner from the supposedly-inaccurate painting of a two-masted carrack, Kronnis watched his partner pace.
Harry's enchanted galleon indicated that his defense group wouldn't be here to practice until tomorrow. No other children ought to be wandering around this late at night, and Filch had just passed through on his patrol, leaving the area available for a private investigation.
After spending weeks interfering with its discovery, it had become clear that this so-called Room of Requirement granted entry through neither wand nor spell. Students could simply come and go as they pleased, so long as their thoughts were fixated on their desires, and Harry's claim that it could supply one with whatever they might need hinted at an enchantment complex enough to boggle the mind. Reproducing it would be the crown jewel of a wizard's accomplishments, a sophistication that raw sorcerous talent could never bludgeon its way to meet.
Kronnis himself would never achieve anything close to it. His power might eclipse that of most wizards, his Fireballs hot enough to melt bone and his Chain Lightning striking with the force of a dragon, but this did not make up for the lifetime of study that seasoned an Archmage.
Despite all this speculation, however, they only had a sample size of one. Harry had never bothered to use this room for anything other than a place to practice, and until tonight, they'd been too busy to experiment.
Mentally, the Emperor's request was loud, an amalgamation of the desperate pleas, excited whispers, and anxious mutterings they'd overheard from the students using this room. He'd changed the wording, deciding on a request that should've been impossible to anticipate and prepare in any sort of pre-set configuration.
On his third pass of the corridor, the room's vaguely-familiar door materialized. Behind this was an even more familiar setting – the Elfsong basement's private chambers, looking as though they'd been transplanted through space to fit behind a new entry. Kronnis and the Emperor hesitated, exchanged astonished glances, and then walked in.
Cabinets, candles, and a Calimshan carpet. The bookshelves were arranged just as the Emperor preferred them, and along the side of their bar rested Kronnis' collection of adventuring keepsakes: a shell and an incomplete cutlery set nestled between an owlbear feather and a bulging keyring.
"Remarkable," the Emperor muttered, tracing his claws over the marble swirls and wooden whorls that were unique to the walls of their home. A fingerprint of exclusive identity, like the constellations of freckles, creases, and marred skin that ornamented each person.
Walking through exact replicas of their furniture, Kronnis hummed his agreement. He couldn't tell if his mind was tricking him, or if the faint sounds of boots, tankards, and tavern song truly did emanate from the ceiling. His feet drifted towards his favourite chair, and he sat.
Upon curious inspection, he found that it had an old chip on its right leg, damaged when a boot buckle had scraped through the varnish. An armrest's frayed string hinted at years of distracted fiddling, and darkened splotches were evidence of absent manifestations of magic, where errant sparks had fallen to scorch its upholstery. When Kronnis moved his shoe, he saw that the tile underneath was chipped. That hadn't been anyone's fault – they'd only realized its subpar quality after the flooring had been installed.
"This is a prefect reproduction," he declared, just as his partner concluded the same about their library. "Do you think it pieced all this together out of your memories?"
"No other explanation seems likely," the Emperor replied, disturbed by the implications. Having an inanimate object – could a room be called an object? – pry information from your head apparently went against illithid sensibilities.
Kronnis eyed the clone of their bed. "I could go next," he offered, purely out of the goodness of his heart. "Have you ever wanted to try out that throne Gortash set up at Wyrm's Rock?"
The badly-concealed fantasies of his mind were promptly uncovered, scrutinized, and then approved with a much better buried hint of enthusiasm.
Oh, how Kronnis had longed for this day. It would be a pale imitation of true rulership, a mirage of desire, but at least the setting would feel more real than an illusion. In the brief time they had tonight, he'd make the Emperor's ascension to Archduke as pleasurable as possible.
His feet marched him back to the entrance, a number of other scenes flashing before his eyes, each more arousing than the last. The possibilities, the potential. Who needed a sex dungeon when you had access to this room!
A disgruntled revelation interrupted him. "My brains are missing."
Kronnis froze, turned on his heel, and retraced his steps. Back in the privacy of their partitioned bedroom, the Emperor was inspecting a closet, one that would normally contain a collection of jarred brains preserved in cerebrospinal fluid.
Emergency rations, he claimed them to be. In the privacy of his own head, Kronnis referred to them as midnight snacks, and he hadn't yet been corrected.
Indeed, when he craned his neck to peer past his partner's arm, he saw that the jars were empty, filled only with a transparent liquid. This was a strange detail for the room to have missed – from the Emperor's mind, it had managed to pick out the exact pattern of scratches scarring their headboard, and the vaguely-visible wine stain that refused to come out of their carpet. How could it have overlooked his partner's ever-so-important and enticingly-scented stash of brains?
…Oh.
Of course.
To a mind flayer, a brain was more than just… a brain. "Its Gamp's Law," Kronnis said. "Those are food, and food can't be conjured from nothing."
The memory of a recent fourth-year Transfiguration lecture was brought up and reviewed. "Yes. Yes, you must be right." Setting down a jar, the Emperor finally moved to the exit. "This begs further investigation," he declared, dashing all of Kronnis' hopes for the night.
One minute later, back in the seventh-floor corridor, the Emperor was again pacing the length of the wall, conducting their second experiment of the night. This time, he was rather unimaginatively wishing for a room that specifically contained a brain for him to eat. Throwing open newly reformed doors revealed an unsettling sight, and Kronnis was left wondering if something had gotten lost in translation.
The room was not empty, nor did it present exactly what had been asked of it. Instead, a small pile of dusty and desiccated corpses was heaped in its center; furred vermin, feathered beasts of indeterminate origin, and some other strange looking creatures that Kronnis would've had difficulty identifying, even if their bodies hadn't been wrinkled and nibbled. At the bottom, he even spotted the stiffly-held limbs of a house-elf!
After some seconds, the Emperor gingerly swirled his hand, summoning the body of an owl towards them and tilting its head dangerously close to his face.
"I hope you don't plan on eating that," Kronnis said, still bitter about their sudden change of plans.
His jest was ignored. A compression of force cracked the owl's skull, and long nails that were absolutely not going anywhere near Kronnis' body without a good wash poked around in the resulting hole. "There is still some brain matter in here," the Emperor pointed out.
"Oh, lovely." He'd managed to replace their – his – midnight snacks with lint.
Purple eyes crinkled with amusement, the unvoiced thought obviously overheard. "Don't be obtuse. Clearly, the room is unable to provide a brain fresh enough to serve as sustenance," this was punctuated by a wave at the pile of old, rotting bodies, "as such a conjuration goes against the laws of magic. I specifically asked it for food, and I suspect that it substituted the next closest thing."
Kronnis raised his eyebrows. "And because the brain jars weren't important enough to the character of our home, the room just ignored them earlier? Left them empty?"
"Exactly," the Emperor confirmed, discarding the owl with a gesture. "This, however, begs new questions. I imagined the brain of a humanoid when I requested this room, so why are most of these bodies those of animals? And why did it provide us with bodies, rather than a pile of rotting brains, unfit for consumption?"
These questions were rhetorical, as a suspicion had already formed in his mind. One that Kronnis, uninterested in playing games, impatiently sought out. "You think it can't even conjure dead bodies," he summarized. "That it was forced to summon these from somewhere."
The theory made sense. Owls, vermin, and small magical creatures. All of these were common in Hogwarts, and it stood to reason that they occasionally died within the castle grounds. He stepped forward, walking around the pile to get a closer look.
Had the room just sucked every single dead body out of their resting places to deposit at the Emperor's feet? That scenario didn't quite fit, though, as none of these looked like they'd been buried in the ground, and there weren't nearly as many dead rats as one would expect to find in the tiny alcoves of a castle.
Kronnis eyed that house-elf. Half concealed by a snake and a cat, its mummified face was wrenched sharply over its shoulder, and its empty eye sockets stared accusingly. He wouldn't claim himself an expert on their biology, but they were humanoid enough that he felt fairly confident in his guess that its head shouldn't be twisted that far around. The Emperor's victims sometimes suffered a very similar fate, only with the additional subtraction of the top of their skull. Its neck had been snapped.
"Harry said that Neville found this room completely by accident. Others might've done the same over the years. What if people used this room to discard bodies? Or lay them to rest," he added, now realizing that the cat had a bow lovingly tied around its neck and a toy of some sort tucked between its tightly curled paws.
The Emperor's eyes gleamed. "What else might be hidden?"
Experimentation was still on the menu, it seemed, even if brains weren't. They left the bodies – Hogwarts' skeleton closet.
Out in the corridor, it was now Kronnis' turn to pace, his head filled with a desire to access everything the inhabitants of Hogwarts had ever hidden away here.
This time, what greeted them on the other side of the door was a room many times the size of the Great Hall, filled with piles of junk and garbage that towered thrice as tall as the Emperor and were stacked so precariously that the collapse of a single one would set off a catastrophic chain reaction.
Kronnis could see statues with cracked and missing limbs, ratty old blankets that he wouldn't touch with a ten-foot pole, and crusty bottles that were caked with dried sludge. There were jewelry cases, dressers both small and large, and pristine-looking trunks of mahogany. In the distance, the shine of other abandoned valuables pulled at his feet like a siren's song, the treasure hoard of every adventurer's wet dream. Who knew what these towers held? What lurked in their hearts, lost centuries ago and waiting to be rediscovered?
Kronnis didn't need a sex dungeon anymore. He could've explored this room for years.
The Emperor muttered a warning, something about how they'd intended to retire to bed in an hour, but it sounded half-hearted. He'd been an adventurer once too, and wasn't immune to the sight.
That was all the excuse Kronnis needed before he dove into the first pile, using a newly-steadied skill in levitation to survey it from top to bottom. From it, he pulled rusty silverware, a broken mirror, and a journal that his fingers eagerly opened, only to toss it aside when the first pages didn't disclose any secrets worth his attention. He darted off to the next one, quickly skipping over its broken chairs to look for artifacts of actual interest.
In the third, he found a collection of stuffed owls that had been posed on a large piece of driftwood. In the fourth, old cauldrons and a set of necklaces that quickly made their way into his pocket under the assumption that everything in this room was real, unlike the conjurations it had manifested to populate its copy of their home. He'd find out for sure when he left, but there was no sense in not grabbing a few things here and there. At worst, they'd simply find their hands empty of an unforeseen bounty.
Propped against mounds of broken furniture were rolled-up carpets and frazzled-looking brooms. A harp twanged when he pulled at its strings, one of them fragile enough to snap under increased tension. Some aged papers revealed themselves to be old illustrations, depicting instructions for a spell that was too faded to read. Dozens of books cycled their way through his hands, dusted off, skimmed, and then stacked amidst pathways to collect later. Kronnis only had so many pockets, after all.
It was inside an unremarkable box that he discovered true treasure. A diadem of silver, with a blue gemstone adorning its front and its frame shaped like the wings of a bird. Even in the room's dim light it glinted like the moon. Kronnis thought its colors a perfect compliment for his skin, and it would certainly draw a compliment from the Emperor if worn. Perhaps he could take a turn pretending to rule Baldur's Gate, should they ever get back to the idea of using this room for other purposes.
In any case, it must be worth several hundred gold pieces. Cursed to put his hands on everything, Kronnis' greedy fingers plucked it from its home. He then threw himself back when physical contact immediately resulted in an assault on his mind, the diadem wailing against his very soul.
He screamed shrilly in turn, his voice echoing across the vast room and followed by the painful thump of his elbows striking hard stone. Down on the floor, fighting back the diadem's intrusive tendrils, Kronnis suddenly understood his partner's earlier issue with this room. It was simply unnatural for an object to display such an affinity for the mental arts.
A much more welcome presence flowed into his mind to help repel the last scraps of evil-tasting magic, and the Emperor appeared next to him as though teleporting. "Another?" he asked incredulously, setting down armfuls of manuscripts and a bottle imprisoning the tiny model of a ship to help Kronnis up. A clawed hand was then raised, the diadem following suit to float in the air.
"Another what?" Kronnis grumbled, preferring it very much if they were to put some distance between themselves and the treacherous thing.
"This diadem holds a piece of the very same soul that Harry and that locket do."
How preposterous. Had Voldemort just scattered himself into the four winds? Phylacteries or not – Hogwarts' library had yet to divulge hints on their origin – it didn't seem like the creator of these objects thought them very important, leaving them lying in dusty cabinets and a gigantic garbage heap. "You're sure?"
The Emperor looked down at him. "You would trust me to recognize a mind, I hope."
"Of course I do. This is just… a statistical improbability."
A hum sounded in his mind, thoughtful and distracted. The Emperor's eyes slid back to the diadem. "I agree."
Kronnis crossed his arms. "You're not taking that to our rooms," he declared, not at all liking the way his partner was now poking away at the mind within.
"This is a piece of a very important puzzle," the Emperor replied. "Leaving it here is out of the question."
He was right, unfortunately. But after it had tried to do… something with his mind, Kronnis could only think of one other place in Hogwarts where he might trust this thing to sit peacefully – next to its safely-kept sibling. "Do you think Dumbledore's still awake? It might be time to have another chat."