(no subject)
Title: Between Here and Now and Forever, Chapter 2
Fandom: Harry Potter
Characters: The Founders, various OCs
Rating: PG
Summary: Having shanghaied Godric into joining them, our intrepid heroes make the acquaintance of Lord Salazar Slytherin and his enthusiastic son Jasper. 3376 words.
Author's Note: thinkatory is my beta. Still. All Deathly Hallows spoiler warnings still apply.
Chapter 1
Master Founders post
Rowena turned around and looked down the busy cobbled street, sighing. "GODRIC, COME ON!" she shouted, and rolled her eyes as he trudged sheepishly over. "You'd think you'd never been to London before," she said, shaking her head.
"Well, I haven't," he said, staring around. "There are an awful lot of people..."
"What, this? This is nothing," said Rowena, snorting. "It's too early for most people who don't absolutely have to be here."
"Why?" Godric blinked.
"Well, most people have to fly in, you know," she said. "Or walk, even." She shuddered. Rowena liked flying, and so she usually volunteered to fly ahead and summon the Transport Key, but to have to walk everywhere must be awful. It had been bad enough traipsing through the forest and going in circles for hours. The problem, she thought, was that maps made far more sense from above than they did from the ground. Well, minus the sea serpents drawn in the corners, she supposed, but Rowena'd never been on a boat.
"Walking's not bad," said Godric, still gawking and not really looking where he was going. It was all right -- he was big enough that everybody automatically avoided him. She supposed he was used to it by now.
"Well, I don't like it," said Rowena. "It's slow, and muddy, and -- Godric, don't wander off, otherwise we'll never find you again," she said, although this was perhaps not exactly true. "Come on, you need a wand," she said, "it's just in here." She watched as he grimaced at the prospect of fitting himself through the tiny door of the shop, and, ignoring his plight, pushed it open. "Ollivander!" she shouted, and immediately regretted it -- the heavy silence put her in mind of a library, and not just any dismal ten-book monastery library, but some great and important ancient library with marble columns all down the front and thick walls to keep the temperature constant. "...Master Ollivander?" she asked, in a somewhat more respectful tone of voice.
There was an imposing silence.
"Excuse me? Hello?" She felt like a four-year-old sneaking around in her mum's room. "Godric, come on!" she hissed, feeling that if she did end up getting caught, she'd rather get caught along with a twelve-foot-plus acquaintance.
"Mistress Aeaeae?" The white-haired man with those odd silver eyes came out from behind a shelf, startling Rowena rather a lot. "Or is it Lady Ravenclaw now? Ten and a quarter inches, rather inflexible, manticore claw, I believe."
"Yes, it is," said Rowena, trying to look confident and unspooked, and clutching her wand a bit protectively.
"I heard about your husband's untimely demise," he said. The look of his eyes made her shiver a bit, and she recalled tales of grey-eyed Athena. Athena was her favorite of the gods, but hardly ever kind.
"Yes, well. Muggles never live long," she said.
"And who is your gentleman friend?" Ollivander asked, looking significantly at a spot several yards above her head.
"Oh, this is Godric. Godric, this is Master Ollivander the wandmaker. Best fine wands in London. Godric's a Transfigurator," babbled Rowena. "I'm buying him a wand, so don't worry about the price."
"Hullo," said Godric cautiously.
"A Transfigurator, you say," said Ollivander, looking him up and down. It was not even a rhetorical question. "Something powerful, I suppose."
Godric looked a bit dismayed, for some reason. "Oh, I don't know about --"
"I do," said Ollivander. "I'll see what might work. Something you won't lose or break."
Rowena couldn't help but snort at that, as she knew Godric's memory and luck had always been particularly poor. Godric's expression of dismay had only deepened.
And the wiry old man walked back into the depths of his shop.
"Is he always like that?" Godric whispered.
"Like what?"
"...terrifying?"
"I suspect so," she said. "Actually, I haven't seen him since Mum took me for a wand when I was four... you know, he should probably be dead by now. Perhaps it was his father."
They both shut up, however, as Ollivander glided into the room bearing several large and ornately-decorated boxes. "One of these may work," said Ollivander, carefully setting them on the counter. "Wave it in the air," he said. Godric looked rather doubtful, and poked the air with one of the wands rather gingerly, as though he was afraid he might break something.
"Oh, for gods' sakes, just wave it, you're not going to break anything beyond repair," Rowena finally snapped, getting annoyed.
"Your Transfiguration professor is a bit of an odd choice, don't you think?" Ollivander said quietly, as Godric tried the wands.
"Well, he's a -- who said he was a professor?" Rowena demanded.
"Well, I had simply assumed. Associating oneself with a Transfigurator and covering various large expenses of his when one is running around the British Isles looking for a conveniently university-sized castle... or is he a student?"
"He probably ought to be," Rowena muttered, watching Godric try another wand rather cautiously. "Does everybody really know about the school?"
Ollivander nodded.
"Oh well," said Rowena, shrugging. "More of the right sort of students that way. ...right?"
Ollivander shrugged. "My trade is wandmaking, milady. Nothing more."
"Of course, more students," said Rowena quickly. "It was a rhetorical question." She felt stupid.
"I see." The old man looked amused, but it was rather hard to tell. Rowena felt rather like smacking him.
"Um. What am I looking for exactly?" Godric asked worriedly.
"Just keep trying them," said Ollivander calmly. "It's not your choice to make. Hmm." He studied Godric for a moment. "Try the holly and giant bone -- no, the box on the left. Your other left, yes, that one. Which reminds me... Mistress Aeaeae, I was never quite satisfied with the wand your mother gave you."
"What? It's Lady Ravenclaw," snapped Rowena, who usually preferred people not to use her title, "and I happen to like it." She clung to her wand.
"Oh, it's a fine wand, of course," said Ollivander. "I made it, after all. It just isn't quite a match."
She frowned. "You said it chose me when I got it. You said it was a perfect match."
He dismissed her concerns with a wave of his hand. "And it hasn't been misbehaving, has it?"
"No. No, of course not. Why would it be?"
"I confess that I myself am not entirely certain what is wrong with it, if anything. Have you lost any significant duels lately? ...may I look at it?"
"No, of course not, and you're looking at it right now," Rowena said, glaring.
And without another question, Ollivander simply grabbed Rowena's wand from her.
"You can't do that!" she sputtered as he ran his hands over the grain of the wand's wood, frowning in concentration and, of course, not heeding her at all.
"Hm. Yes, it seems to be in good working order... if you ever have any problems with it, of course, bring it here." He looked a bit unsettled as he handed her wand back, and Rowena took this to mean he'd been wrong. When other people were wrong, it usually meant that she was right, and that plus the safe return of her wand made her feel much better.
Godric was also looking unsettled, she saw, when she turned to see how he was progressing. "This one shot sparks, sir. Is it supposed to do that? I didn't break anything, did I?"
"Here, let me see that one... ah, dragon heartstring and oak. Quite powerful, yes. I ought to have known."
"Oh. All right," said Godric, looking very lost. While Ollivander had his back turned putting the wand back in its box, Godric shot her a mystified look. Rowena shrugged, and mouthed I think he's mad. At this he nodded wholeheartedly.
"Well, there you go," said Ollivander, handing the box to Godric. "That will be all?"
"Yes," said Rowena. "Come on, Godric." Clutching the box as though it was going to fly out of his hands at any moment, Godric ducked out of the shop.
"Shouldn't we, you know, pay for it?" he asked once they were out.
"Oh, no, every cutpurse in the city's after us anyway, didn't you notice?" she asked. "I'll send an owl with the money. Better a beak and a good pair of talons between my gold and thieves than a bit of cloth and leather."
"I don't think most people would try to take my money," he said doubtfully. "I don't think most people could reach it. If I had any."
"Good," said Rowena, "I can send you down here to buy things." At this, he looked absolutely terrified, and she smirked.
* * *
Rowena liked flying, because it gave her time alone to think, but she was quite glad when she finally saw Lord Slytherin's castle in the distance. She'd been surprised when she'd received the owl from Slytherin's son, as her mother and Lord Slytherin had some sort of long-standing political disagreement. She'd hesitated in taking them up on the offer, until she realized how very angry it would make her mum. Besides, what other large castle came with a Potions professor and an Arithmancer?
She'd been having second thoughts, though, so she was reassured when the castle came into view. It was bright and solid and modern-looking, she thought, and the surrounding forest and lake would probably keep the number of unwanted visitors to a minimum. Not to mention the guardian trees Helga had made. From this distance, Rowena thought they looked like weeping willows, but she'd seen them up close, and she knew what they did. Avoiding the willows, and guiding her broom down gently -- she much preferred dropping straight down and then stopping the broom at the last possible moment, but that would have been undignified -- Rowena squinted and managed to pick out a blob that was a shade darker than the grass of the lawn. Landing, she wandered up to it.
"Lady Rowena?" it said, and resolved itself into a dark-haired man in deep green robes. "I'm Jasper Slytherin," he said warmly. "Pleased to meet you." He took her hand to kiss it.
Rowena shook his hand firmly instead. "As am I," she said, a carefully neutral expression on her face. She'd never actually spoken with a Slytherin, because while she hadn't quite been raised to believe they all had venomous fangs and split tongues, they were still the Evil Enemy of House Aeaeae.
"Er, well... this is the castle," he said, waving vaguely with one hand. This one looked rather lacking in the fang-and-tongue department, and his skin was red and peeling. The last time Rowena'd met an overly-friendly man with bad sunburn, he'd been a vampire, so she supposed the fangs were still a possibility.
"I had realized that, thank you," she replied. "I suppose I ought to Summon my colleagues. Should I do that here?"
"What? Oh, certainly," he said, "I suppose everyone's still using those Transport Keys?"
Rowena looked strangely at him. "Do you know of any other way?"
He nodded eagerly. "It's called Auto-Apportation -- I invented it myself, you see. In Damascus! I just got back."
"I see," said Rowena. She supposed that explained the sunburn. Unless he was a vampire, of course. She didn't encourage him to rant any further, but she knew it was probably inevitable.
"Of course, it still requires having been to the place you're going, and a good deal of magic, but..." She let him blather on. It seemed to involve a good deal of Arithmancy, which Rowena understood well enough, but had never been her favorite subject. While he spoke, Rowena laid out the pentagram with which she would magnify her power in order to Summon the Transport Key. Then she shook out the seeds of Transportwort that Helga'd given her. She wasn't really very good at transfiguring the seeds into Platonic solids, because her dodecahedrons almost always turned out not to be proper dodecahedrons, and for some reason her tetrahedrons liked to be square pyramids instead. Finally she managed a good cube, placed it in the center of the pentagram, and then stood and waited for him to finish babbling before she Banished it back to London and then did the Summoning Charm.
"And of course, if you could skip all the messing about with transfiguration and the seeds and all that, you could just go wherever you liked in the blink of--"
"Do you have proof?" asked Rowena, cutting Jasper off mid-sentence.
"I -- Of course I have a proof!" He seemed insulted, and then, before Rowena's eyes, he popped! out of existence.
"Er... hello?" She wondered what she'd got herself into, but then, he might've just come up with a variation on an Invisibility Incantation.
Pop! "Here it is!" he said from behind her. Rowena turned and saw him carrying a thick scroll. "Haven't got the coordinates exact yet -- that's a bit dangerous, I suppose I might end up in the lake one of these days -- but it works in theory."
"I'm going to Summon them now," said Rowena, "so would you please be quiet?"
"Oh!" he said. "Er, yes, I'll go inside. Yes. Sorry." With another pop! he disappeared.
Rowena took a deep breath and Banished the cube-seed. She gave them a few minutes to surround it and touch it while she concentrated on the charm. All her concentration had to be on this one spell if she wanted Helga, Basil, and Godric to arrive in one piece. Not that she'd mind if Godric got split in two, but then she'd be short of a Transfiguration professor. Actually, now there would probably be enough of him left for at least two decent professors, she decided.
"Accio!" she intoned.
There was a tremendous rush of wind, and suddenly Helga, Basil and Godric were standing there. Helga had fastened herself to Basil's arm, and Godric looked very green, in contrast with his new red cloak.
"Well, come on," she said, "we haven't got all day." Helga and Basil followed, but Godric was looking up at the towers of the castle, wide-eyed. Rowena rolled her eyes and left him outside.
Inside, Rowena found that Jasper was talking animatedly to a man she assumed to be his father. He had a long white beard, a patient expression, and a wrinkled face, but no matter how he tried to seem like a modern-day Merlin, he couldn't hide the fact that he looked rather like a monkey. House Slytherin seemed far less threatening than she had been led to believe.
"Ah, Lady Ravenclaw," said Lord Slytherin, nodding. "And you must be Mistress Hufflepuff," he said, nodding at Helga.
"You've been treating the Willows well?" inquired Helga. "...Rowena, where's Basil?"
"I don't know, he's yours, not mine," said Rowena. If other people were going to lose track of their husbands, it was their business.
"I hate to interrupt, but might the gentleman pounding his fists on the doorway outside be him?" Lord Slytherin asked, motioning behind them.
They turned and saw Basil clawing at empty air. He appeared not to be able to get through the doorway.
"Excuse me," said Helga politely, "but my husband will be an incompetent fool at times. Although usually he manages doorways just fine. What is that? It looks like a ward of some sort..."
"Oh dear," said Jasper, "it's one of my wards gone wrong again, I suppose. I've got the castle warded heavily against Dark creatures, you see," he explained. "I'm fairly certain I'd got it working again, though..."
Basil, evidently, couldn't hear a thing, nor could they hear what he said. "What's going on?" he mouthed. He then stepped aside, shaking his head, and Godric ducked into the door.
Jasper's jaw dropped. His eyes and mouth were wide open, and Rowena hadn't realized one could go quite so pale with such bad sunburn. He looked a bit like a cooked fish. "Something is wrong with the wards," he muttered.
Godric frowned at Rowena and Helga. "Basil can't get in," he said. "He says there are wards."
"We'd heard," said Helga darkly. "Could you possibly take the wards down, Master Slytherin?" she asked Jasper.
"But..." Jasper looked doubtfully up at Godric, and back at Basil.
"Godric, could you possibly ask him to take the wards down?" Helga asked, nodding at Jasper.
"...um." Godric frowned at Helga. Then he frowned at Jasper. Then he frowned at Helga again. "I can only assume you warned them about my pathological hunger for human flesh," he sighed, rolling his eyes.
"Godric, this is Jasper Slytherin," said Rowena, "the noted Arithmancer, and his father Lord Salazar Slytherin, the noted... er. The. Well, he's on the Council, that's notable. And," she said, now addressing the Slytherins, "this is Godric of Gryffindor, our Transfigurator. He happens to be afraid of blood, dogs, bees, snakes, carnivorous plants, loud noises, heights, rodents, thunderstorms, Tuesdays, vampires, and the number thirteen. Do feel free to mock him about this whenever possible. Am I forgetting anything?"
"I'm not really much for closed-in spaces or low ceilings," said Godric, looking up at the high ceiling as though it might fall in on him. "But other than that, I don't think so. I'm doing better about the rats, but they're still nasty." He shuddered.
"We, er. We didn't know you had a part-giant Transfigurator with you," said Jasper, obviously trying to be polite.
"Part-giant?" Godric looked disgusted.
"Godric is Muggleborn," said Helga pleasantly. "Can we please let Basil in? I'm a bit surprised he hasn't managed to break the wards down by now, frankly."
"Ah. Muggleborn," said Jasper weakly.
"Part-giant? Eugh." He sounded vaguely traumatized.
"Jasper, perhaps you had better take the wards down for Master Hufflepuff?" Lord Slytherin supplied. He had clearly kept all the common sense in the family for himself, Rowena decided.
There was a sudden crash like shattered glass from the doorway, and they turned in time to see Basil fall through, onto the stone floor. He stood and began to dust himself off. "Those were very good wards," he said, "so I hope you paid the wardmaker good silver, but you're going to have to owl him and have him put new ones up that'll let me in."
"...well, I think there's something wrong with the -- what exactly -- how did you break it?" demanded Jasper.
"Well, it had a sort of net thing, so I just moved that aside --"
"Oh, that's the anti-werewolf bit. I thought I'd got that one right."
"You had, in fact," said Basil, sounding a bit tense. "Good thing it wasn't very strong," he added.
Jasper blinked, and started whispering furiously at his father. Among the more distinguishable words were "...permitting a werewolf..." and "...wake up with our throats slit in the night!"
"Is there a problem?" Basil asked, glaring.
"Yes," said Jasper, at the exact same time that Lord Slytherin was smiling and saying "No, not at all."
Jasper looked as though he was about to explode. "But --"
"Jasper, why don't you fix your wards so that they'll let werewolves in?" said Lord Slytherin.
"But --" Now he was just getting whiny.
"Would you like to see the rest of the castle?" he asked them.
"Of course we would!" said Rowena, perhaps a bit too cheerfully.
"Yes, yes, we would," said Helga, nudging Basil, who was still glaring.
"Follow me, then," said Lord Slytherin, walking briskly down the hall.
"Come on, Basil." Helga tried to dragged Basil away.
"Mind you keep a short leash on your mutt," Jasper told her. "I suppose I'll go redo the wards, then," he said lightly. He turned and walked away without another word, leaving Basil grumbling.
"...you know, we should probably follow Lord Slytherin before we lose him, and we get lost in the castle, and have to depend on that Jasper to tell us where everything is," said Godric ramblingly.
"Yes, we should," said Helga. "Basil!" she hissed.
Rowena rolled her eyes at the rest of this and followed Lord Slytherin, whether or not the others were coming. This was going to be a long day, and she already had a headache.
Chapter 3
Fandom: Harry Potter
Characters: The Founders, various OCs
Rating: PG
Summary: Having shanghaied Godric into joining them, our intrepid heroes make the acquaintance of Lord Salazar Slytherin and his enthusiastic son Jasper. 3376 words.
Author's Note: thinkatory is my beta. Still. All Deathly Hallows spoiler warnings still apply.
Chapter 1
Master Founders post
Rowena turned around and looked down the busy cobbled street, sighing. "GODRIC, COME ON!" she shouted, and rolled her eyes as he trudged sheepishly over. "You'd think you'd never been to London before," she said, shaking her head.
"Well, I haven't," he said, staring around. "There are an awful lot of people..."
"What, this? This is nothing," said Rowena, snorting. "It's too early for most people who don't absolutely have to be here."
"Why?" Godric blinked.
"Well, most people have to fly in, you know," she said. "Or walk, even." She shuddered. Rowena liked flying, and so she usually volunteered to fly ahead and summon the Transport Key, but to have to walk everywhere must be awful. It had been bad enough traipsing through the forest and going in circles for hours. The problem, she thought, was that maps made far more sense from above than they did from the ground. Well, minus the sea serpents drawn in the corners, she supposed, but Rowena'd never been on a boat.
"Walking's not bad," said Godric, still gawking and not really looking where he was going. It was all right -- he was big enough that everybody automatically avoided him. She supposed he was used to it by now.
"Well, I don't like it," said Rowena. "It's slow, and muddy, and -- Godric, don't wander off, otherwise we'll never find you again," she said, although this was perhaps not exactly true. "Come on, you need a wand," she said, "it's just in here." She watched as he grimaced at the prospect of fitting himself through the tiny door of the shop, and, ignoring his plight, pushed it open. "Ollivander!" she shouted, and immediately regretted it -- the heavy silence put her in mind of a library, and not just any dismal ten-book monastery library, but some great and important ancient library with marble columns all down the front and thick walls to keep the temperature constant. "...Master Ollivander?" she asked, in a somewhat more respectful tone of voice.
There was an imposing silence.
"Excuse me? Hello?" She felt like a four-year-old sneaking around in her mum's room. "Godric, come on!" she hissed, feeling that if she did end up getting caught, she'd rather get caught along with a twelve-foot-plus acquaintance.
"Mistress Aeaeae?" The white-haired man with those odd silver eyes came out from behind a shelf, startling Rowena rather a lot. "Or is it Lady Ravenclaw now? Ten and a quarter inches, rather inflexible, manticore claw, I believe."
"Yes, it is," said Rowena, trying to look confident and unspooked, and clutching her wand a bit protectively.
"I heard about your husband's untimely demise," he said. The look of his eyes made her shiver a bit, and she recalled tales of grey-eyed Athena. Athena was her favorite of the gods, but hardly ever kind.
"Yes, well. Muggles never live long," she said.
"And who is your gentleman friend?" Ollivander asked, looking significantly at a spot several yards above her head.
"Oh, this is Godric. Godric, this is Master Ollivander the wandmaker. Best fine wands in London. Godric's a Transfigurator," babbled Rowena. "I'm buying him a wand, so don't worry about the price."
"Hullo," said Godric cautiously.
"A Transfigurator, you say," said Ollivander, looking him up and down. It was not even a rhetorical question. "Something powerful, I suppose."
Godric looked a bit dismayed, for some reason. "Oh, I don't know about --"
"I do," said Ollivander. "I'll see what might work. Something you won't lose or break."
Rowena couldn't help but snort at that, as she knew Godric's memory and luck had always been particularly poor. Godric's expression of dismay had only deepened.
And the wiry old man walked back into the depths of his shop.
"Is he always like that?" Godric whispered.
"Like what?"
"...terrifying?"
"I suspect so," she said. "Actually, I haven't seen him since Mum took me for a wand when I was four... you know, he should probably be dead by now. Perhaps it was his father."
They both shut up, however, as Ollivander glided into the room bearing several large and ornately-decorated boxes. "One of these may work," said Ollivander, carefully setting them on the counter. "Wave it in the air," he said. Godric looked rather doubtful, and poked the air with one of the wands rather gingerly, as though he was afraid he might break something.
"Oh, for gods' sakes, just wave it, you're not going to break anything beyond repair," Rowena finally snapped, getting annoyed.
"Your Transfiguration professor is a bit of an odd choice, don't you think?" Ollivander said quietly, as Godric tried the wands.
"Well, he's a -- who said he was a professor?" Rowena demanded.
"Well, I had simply assumed. Associating oneself with a Transfigurator and covering various large expenses of his when one is running around the British Isles looking for a conveniently university-sized castle... or is he a student?"
"He probably ought to be," Rowena muttered, watching Godric try another wand rather cautiously. "Does everybody really know about the school?"
Ollivander nodded.
"Oh well," said Rowena, shrugging. "More of the right sort of students that way. ...right?"
Ollivander shrugged. "My trade is wandmaking, milady. Nothing more."
"Of course, more students," said Rowena quickly. "It was a rhetorical question." She felt stupid.
"I see." The old man looked amused, but it was rather hard to tell. Rowena felt rather like smacking him.
"Um. What am I looking for exactly?" Godric asked worriedly.
"Just keep trying them," said Ollivander calmly. "It's not your choice to make. Hmm." He studied Godric for a moment. "Try the holly and giant bone -- no, the box on the left. Your other left, yes, that one. Which reminds me... Mistress Aeaeae, I was never quite satisfied with the wand your mother gave you."
"What? It's Lady Ravenclaw," snapped Rowena, who usually preferred people not to use her title, "and I happen to like it." She clung to her wand.
"Oh, it's a fine wand, of course," said Ollivander. "I made it, after all. It just isn't quite a match."
She frowned. "You said it chose me when I got it. You said it was a perfect match."
He dismissed her concerns with a wave of his hand. "And it hasn't been misbehaving, has it?"
"No. No, of course not. Why would it be?"
"I confess that I myself am not entirely certain what is wrong with it, if anything. Have you lost any significant duels lately? ...may I look at it?"
"No, of course not, and you're looking at it right now," Rowena said, glaring.
And without another question, Ollivander simply grabbed Rowena's wand from her.
"You can't do that!" she sputtered as he ran his hands over the grain of the wand's wood, frowning in concentration and, of course, not heeding her at all.
"Hm. Yes, it seems to be in good working order... if you ever have any problems with it, of course, bring it here." He looked a bit unsettled as he handed her wand back, and Rowena took this to mean he'd been wrong. When other people were wrong, it usually meant that she was right, and that plus the safe return of her wand made her feel much better.
Godric was also looking unsettled, she saw, when she turned to see how he was progressing. "This one shot sparks, sir. Is it supposed to do that? I didn't break anything, did I?"
"Here, let me see that one... ah, dragon heartstring and oak. Quite powerful, yes. I ought to have known."
"Oh. All right," said Godric, looking very lost. While Ollivander had his back turned putting the wand back in its box, Godric shot her a mystified look. Rowena shrugged, and mouthed I think he's mad. At this he nodded wholeheartedly.
"Well, there you go," said Ollivander, handing the box to Godric. "That will be all?"
"Yes," said Rowena. "Come on, Godric." Clutching the box as though it was going to fly out of his hands at any moment, Godric ducked out of the shop.
"Shouldn't we, you know, pay for it?" he asked once they were out.
"Oh, no, every cutpurse in the city's after us anyway, didn't you notice?" she asked. "I'll send an owl with the money. Better a beak and a good pair of talons between my gold and thieves than a bit of cloth and leather."
"I don't think most people would try to take my money," he said doubtfully. "I don't think most people could reach it. If I had any."
"Good," said Rowena, "I can send you down here to buy things." At this, he looked absolutely terrified, and she smirked.
* * *
Rowena liked flying, because it gave her time alone to think, but she was quite glad when she finally saw Lord Slytherin's castle in the distance. She'd been surprised when she'd received the owl from Slytherin's son, as her mother and Lord Slytherin had some sort of long-standing political disagreement. She'd hesitated in taking them up on the offer, until she realized how very angry it would make her mum. Besides, what other large castle came with a Potions professor and an Arithmancer?
She'd been having second thoughts, though, so she was reassured when the castle came into view. It was bright and solid and modern-looking, she thought, and the surrounding forest and lake would probably keep the number of unwanted visitors to a minimum. Not to mention the guardian trees Helga had made. From this distance, Rowena thought they looked like weeping willows, but she'd seen them up close, and she knew what they did. Avoiding the willows, and guiding her broom down gently -- she much preferred dropping straight down and then stopping the broom at the last possible moment, but that would have been undignified -- Rowena squinted and managed to pick out a blob that was a shade darker than the grass of the lawn. Landing, she wandered up to it.
"Lady Rowena?" it said, and resolved itself into a dark-haired man in deep green robes. "I'm Jasper Slytherin," he said warmly. "Pleased to meet you." He took her hand to kiss it.
Rowena shook his hand firmly instead. "As am I," she said, a carefully neutral expression on her face. She'd never actually spoken with a Slytherin, because while she hadn't quite been raised to believe they all had venomous fangs and split tongues, they were still the Evil Enemy of House Aeaeae.
"Er, well... this is the castle," he said, waving vaguely with one hand. This one looked rather lacking in the fang-and-tongue department, and his skin was red and peeling. The last time Rowena'd met an overly-friendly man with bad sunburn, he'd been a vampire, so she supposed the fangs were still a possibility.
"I had realized that, thank you," she replied. "I suppose I ought to Summon my colleagues. Should I do that here?"
"What? Oh, certainly," he said, "I suppose everyone's still using those Transport Keys?"
Rowena looked strangely at him. "Do you know of any other way?"
He nodded eagerly. "It's called Auto-Apportation -- I invented it myself, you see. In Damascus! I just got back."
"I see," said Rowena. She supposed that explained the sunburn. Unless he was a vampire, of course. She didn't encourage him to rant any further, but she knew it was probably inevitable.
"Of course, it still requires having been to the place you're going, and a good deal of magic, but..." She let him blather on. It seemed to involve a good deal of Arithmancy, which Rowena understood well enough, but had never been her favorite subject. While he spoke, Rowena laid out the pentagram with which she would magnify her power in order to Summon the Transport Key. Then she shook out the seeds of Transportwort that Helga'd given her. She wasn't really very good at transfiguring the seeds into Platonic solids, because her dodecahedrons almost always turned out not to be proper dodecahedrons, and for some reason her tetrahedrons liked to be square pyramids instead. Finally she managed a good cube, placed it in the center of the pentagram, and then stood and waited for him to finish babbling before she Banished it back to London and then did the Summoning Charm.
"And of course, if you could skip all the messing about with transfiguration and the seeds and all that, you could just go wherever you liked in the blink of--"
"Do you have proof?" asked Rowena, cutting Jasper off mid-sentence.
"I -- Of course I have a proof!" He seemed insulted, and then, before Rowena's eyes, he popped! out of existence.
"Er... hello?" She wondered what she'd got herself into, but then, he might've just come up with a variation on an Invisibility Incantation.
Pop! "Here it is!" he said from behind her. Rowena turned and saw him carrying a thick scroll. "Haven't got the coordinates exact yet -- that's a bit dangerous, I suppose I might end up in the lake one of these days -- but it works in theory."
"I'm going to Summon them now," said Rowena, "so would you please be quiet?"
"Oh!" he said. "Er, yes, I'll go inside. Yes. Sorry." With another pop! he disappeared.
Rowena took a deep breath and Banished the cube-seed. She gave them a few minutes to surround it and touch it while she concentrated on the charm. All her concentration had to be on this one spell if she wanted Helga, Basil, and Godric to arrive in one piece. Not that she'd mind if Godric got split in two, but then she'd be short of a Transfiguration professor. Actually, now there would probably be enough of him left for at least two decent professors, she decided.
"Accio!" she intoned.
There was a tremendous rush of wind, and suddenly Helga, Basil and Godric were standing there. Helga had fastened herself to Basil's arm, and Godric looked very green, in contrast with his new red cloak.
"Well, come on," she said, "we haven't got all day." Helga and Basil followed, but Godric was looking up at the towers of the castle, wide-eyed. Rowena rolled her eyes and left him outside.
Inside, Rowena found that Jasper was talking animatedly to a man she assumed to be his father. He had a long white beard, a patient expression, and a wrinkled face, but no matter how he tried to seem like a modern-day Merlin, he couldn't hide the fact that he looked rather like a monkey. House Slytherin seemed far less threatening than she had been led to believe.
"Ah, Lady Ravenclaw," said Lord Slytherin, nodding. "And you must be Mistress Hufflepuff," he said, nodding at Helga.
"You've been treating the Willows well?" inquired Helga. "...Rowena, where's Basil?"
"I don't know, he's yours, not mine," said Rowena. If other people were going to lose track of their husbands, it was their business.
"I hate to interrupt, but might the gentleman pounding his fists on the doorway outside be him?" Lord Slytherin asked, motioning behind them.
They turned and saw Basil clawing at empty air. He appeared not to be able to get through the doorway.
"Excuse me," said Helga politely, "but my husband will be an incompetent fool at times. Although usually he manages doorways just fine. What is that? It looks like a ward of some sort..."
"Oh dear," said Jasper, "it's one of my wards gone wrong again, I suppose. I've got the castle warded heavily against Dark creatures, you see," he explained. "I'm fairly certain I'd got it working again, though..."
Basil, evidently, couldn't hear a thing, nor could they hear what he said. "What's going on?" he mouthed. He then stepped aside, shaking his head, and Godric ducked into the door.
Jasper's jaw dropped. His eyes and mouth were wide open, and Rowena hadn't realized one could go quite so pale with such bad sunburn. He looked a bit like a cooked fish. "Something is wrong with the wards," he muttered.
Godric frowned at Rowena and Helga. "Basil can't get in," he said. "He says there are wards."
"We'd heard," said Helga darkly. "Could you possibly take the wards down, Master Slytherin?" she asked Jasper.
"But..." Jasper looked doubtfully up at Godric, and back at Basil.
"Godric, could you possibly ask him to take the wards down?" Helga asked, nodding at Jasper.
"...um." Godric frowned at Helga. Then he frowned at Jasper. Then he frowned at Helga again. "I can only assume you warned them about my pathological hunger for human flesh," he sighed, rolling his eyes.
"Godric, this is Jasper Slytherin," said Rowena, "the noted Arithmancer, and his father Lord Salazar Slytherin, the noted... er. The. Well, he's on the Council, that's notable. And," she said, now addressing the Slytherins, "this is Godric of Gryffindor, our Transfigurator. He happens to be afraid of blood, dogs, bees, snakes, carnivorous plants, loud noises, heights, rodents, thunderstorms, Tuesdays, vampires, and the number thirteen. Do feel free to mock him about this whenever possible. Am I forgetting anything?"
"I'm not really much for closed-in spaces or low ceilings," said Godric, looking up at the high ceiling as though it might fall in on him. "But other than that, I don't think so. I'm doing better about the rats, but they're still nasty." He shuddered.
"We, er. We didn't know you had a part-giant Transfigurator with you," said Jasper, obviously trying to be polite.
"Part-giant?" Godric looked disgusted.
"Godric is Muggleborn," said Helga pleasantly. "Can we please let Basil in? I'm a bit surprised he hasn't managed to break the wards down by now, frankly."
"Ah. Muggleborn," said Jasper weakly.
"Part-giant? Eugh." He sounded vaguely traumatized.
"Jasper, perhaps you had better take the wards down for Master Hufflepuff?" Lord Slytherin supplied. He had clearly kept all the common sense in the family for himself, Rowena decided.
There was a sudden crash like shattered glass from the doorway, and they turned in time to see Basil fall through, onto the stone floor. He stood and began to dust himself off. "Those were very good wards," he said, "so I hope you paid the wardmaker good silver, but you're going to have to owl him and have him put new ones up that'll let me in."
"...well, I think there's something wrong with the -- what exactly -- how did you break it?" demanded Jasper.
"Well, it had a sort of net thing, so I just moved that aside --"
"Oh, that's the anti-werewolf bit. I thought I'd got that one right."
"You had, in fact," said Basil, sounding a bit tense. "Good thing it wasn't very strong," he added.
Jasper blinked, and started whispering furiously at his father. Among the more distinguishable words were "...permitting a werewolf..." and "...wake up with our throats slit in the night!"
"Is there a problem?" Basil asked, glaring.
"Yes," said Jasper, at the exact same time that Lord Slytherin was smiling and saying "No, not at all."
Jasper looked as though he was about to explode. "But --"
"Jasper, why don't you fix your wards so that they'll let werewolves in?" said Lord Slytherin.
"But --" Now he was just getting whiny.
"Would you like to see the rest of the castle?" he asked them.
"Of course we would!" said Rowena, perhaps a bit too cheerfully.
"Yes, yes, we would," said Helga, nudging Basil, who was still glaring.
"Follow me, then," said Lord Slytherin, walking briskly down the hall.
"Come on, Basil." Helga tried to dragged Basil away.
"Mind you keep a short leash on your mutt," Jasper told her. "I suppose I'll go redo the wards, then," he said lightly. He turned and walked away without another word, leaving Basil grumbling.
"...you know, we should probably follow Lord Slytherin before we lose him, and we get lost in the castle, and have to depend on that Jasper to tell us where everything is," said Godric ramblingly.
"Yes, we should," said Helga. "Basil!" she hissed.
Rowena rolled her eyes at the rest of this and followed Lord Slytherin, whether or not the others were coming. This was going to be a long day, and she already had a headache.
Chapter 3