Schism

~~~

Far above Godric and Salazar's game, Helga slept, and dreamt of walking in the snow near her childhood home, wearing the fur-lined blue cloak her grandmother had made for her. She had stood beside the loom and watched while Granny wove a warming spell into the warp and weft of the cloth, but the spell must have failed, because she was freezing. Her feet were so cold they burned, and she could no longer feel the light wind against her face.

On and on she walked, snow crunching under her shoes, breath puffing out visibly in the frigid air. Should she not be home by now? There was the slope, looking flatter than normal under its white blanket, and there the oak trees - but the small group of buildings was gone. She was stranded, with no shelter in sight.

A flash of something dark moved at the roots of the nearest oak, and no sooner had she glanced in that direction than she was somehow standing there, looking down at a tunnel in the frozen earth. The thing at the tunnel's entrance moved again, scrabbling and chittering, then poked out a black-and-white snout.

No, stay inside, out of danger, Helga tried to say. The badger came a little farther into the open. Its small eyes, accustomed to moonlight, blinked at the pale-grey sky. Thinking she could frighten it back into its den, she began to stamp her foot, only to realize that she was as paralyzed as she was mute, helpless to do anything about the threat she sensed lurking nearby.

A low hissing sound began behind her, soft and insidious as a whisper, and she struggled in vain to turn round. It could not be a snake; a snake would be sleeping now, curled up in some hole to await the warmer spring days. A snake could not bear this cold.

The hissing grew louder, invading her ears, rasping at her brain, until all thought and reason were gone. At her feet, the badger let out a hiss of its own and showed its small, sharp teeth. And all at once Helga found that she could move, after all, in the slow, swimming way of some dreams, and she ran up the slope without looking back, floundering through the snow, climbing higher and higher. She was nearly at the top -- almost there --

-- and she was awake, squinting through sleep-swollen eyelids at a carved bedpost and a swag of heavy blue curtain. She was not in her own bed, but Rowena's room was familiar enough that she had no trouble remembering where she was instead. After such an unsettling dream, she was grateful to be here, with a companion, rather than alone.

Turning over, she discovered that Rowena had managed to wrap every last inch of the bedcovers around her small frame during the night, leaving Helga exposed and shivering. Well, that explained the snow in her dream. She briefly considered unwinding the covers and laying those hands on Rowena's warm body in revenge, but settled for slipping Rowena's wand out of its hiding place and using it to build the fire to a roaring blaze. It was stiffer and balkier than her own wand, but it worked well enough for a simple spell.

From the pale light at the window, she thought the sun must hardly have risen yet. Still, it was not too soon to get about her business for the day. The children of her House who were here would need help finding their way to the Great Hall -- Godric, Salazar and Rowena all left their new students to navigate the passageways on their own, but she liked to give hers a bit of guidance until they were used to the shifting architecture. After that, there would be plenty of work to do in the garden and orchard. If it was this cold so early in the autumn, the first frost could not be far away, and the trees and beds must be ready before it came.

Helga slipped out of the bed and walked around to survey the bit of Rowena's face that showed beneath the blankets. It looked pale and pinched, and she decided to let Rowena sleep. Only overgrown layabouts like Godric needed to be awakened by force. Anyway, if Rowena meant to undertake the walk to Hogsmeade, she would do better with a good rest first. Treading softly, so as not to waken her, Helga collected the empty cup she had brought the previous night and slipped out of the room.

The upper part of the castle was deserted at this time of day, though people were no doubt awake and working in the kitchens below. Helga went back through the dark, silent corridors to her own chamber, where she spent a few minutes straightening out her mussed hair and crumpled robes. With all that lay ahead this morning, she would have no time to take advantage of the baths. They had been her own contribution to Hogwarts' design: her second husband had come from a land where everyone bathed at a rate that most Englishmen regarded as mad and dangerous, and she had acquired the habit from him. Rowena had shaken her head in combined amusement and dismay when Helga suggested adding an entire room just for bathing, but she had patiently worked out the spells to draw and heat the water, and Helga had been well pleased with the result. Perhaps later she would find a spare hour for a visit.

Once she had herself in some semblance of order, she collected her wand and went to the far wall, where a small sliding panel concealed the staircase to her children's section of the castle. There were four of them here at the moment, and she fully expected to find them all still asleep. Instead, she opened the lower door on a scene of chaos.

"Stop it - I can't hear myself think!"

"Leave her be, she's frightened -"

"You're going to wake Lady Helga -"

"I am already awake," said Helga behind them, and the three older children jumped aside with guilty expressions, revealing the youngest girl, little Gytha, who was sitting on a bench and crying.

"She was having bad dreams, my lady," said the other girl, Edith. "Screaming fit to raise the roof. It woke us all up."

"I see," said Helga. She picked up the trailing hem of her robes and went to sit beside Gytha. Still sobbing, Gytha flung skinny arms round her neck and buried a hot, damp face against her shoulder. Helga tried to detach her - she could barely breathe for the panicky strength of the embrace - but finding it impossible, lifted the girl onto her lap instead. Not for the first time, she thought that Gytha was really too young to be at Hogwarts. They had been right to take her from her parents, she knew, but keeping her here was not the answer either.

"Don't cry anymore, little one," she said to the top of Gytha's dirty-blonde head. "You are awake now. What was the dream?"

"There was a s-snake -" Gytha began, and then shrieked in earnest. "Ouch - you're pinching me!"

Helga hurriedly relaxed her grip on the girl. Her own nightmare had been fading into a vague, uncomfortable memory, but now it came back to her in all its horror: the cold, the wind, the sensation of being lost, and the hiss of the unseen serpent.

"Ah, a snake," she said, making her voice as calm as possible to avoid upsetting Gytha further. "No wonder you were frightened. Do you ... do you remember anything more? Was the snake doing anything in particular?"

"I don't think so," said Gytha with a sniffle. "I never saw it. I only heard it." She looked up at Helga. "It wasn't real, was it, my lady?"

"No, of course not," said Helga. "There are no snakes here. We leave them to my lord Slytherin and his pupils, do we not, Edith?"

"Yes," said Edith, pulling a face. "Slimy, nasty things for slimy, nasty people!" The two boys - Edith's brother Edgar and their friend Alfred - snickered and nudged each other. Helga opened her mouth to reprimand them for rudeness, but the remark had made Gytha laugh through the remains of the tears, and she decided to let it pass.

"And now," she said, urging Gytha to her feet and standing up, "it is time for breakfast. Everyone who wants to eat should go and dress." She watched them hurry off toward their respective chambers with a fond smile. They might not be perfect, but they were good children; with a bit of guidance, they would grow up to be fine witches and wizards. Even Gytha would do well in time.

Remembering Gytha's dream, Helga shivered. Snakes and Slytherin - they went together, that much was certain. She was no Seer, but she believed firmly in the significance and importance of dreams, and it seemed too coincidental that she and Gytha should both dream of snakes so soon after her strange observation about Salazar. Yes, the dreams must mean something. And when she thought about what that might be, only one word came to her.

Danger.

~~~

Helga went down to the Great Hall intending to get Rowena alone and explain about the nightmares she and Gytha had suffered, but Rowena was not there. She had already set off for her errand in Hogsmeade -- an errand which, as the morning wore on, appeared to have developed into an all-day affair. When she finally turned up that evening at supper, she looked weary, but enormously pleased with herself, which made Helga even more keen to talk to her.

Directly after the meal, she set out to do just that, but was waylaid by Godric, who swept her off into a private chamber to discuss the possibility of getting those servant-creatures she had seen at the fair. There was no end to Godric's curiosity: he wanted to know exactly what the asking price was, and how much work each one could do, and had the wizard mentioned what they ate?

"Table scraps," said Helga, looking longingly at the door, which she could scarcely see behind Godric's tall form. "He said they cost almost nothing to keep. My lord, I am sorry, but I really must be going now." And with that, she escaped before Godric could ask another question.

She headed off toward Rowena's room as quickly as possible, but before she got halfway there, Alfred came running up, wild-eyed with excitement, to report that Edgar had set their bed curtains on fire while practicing a new spell. By the time she had put out the flames, tended to Edgar's burnt hands, stopped Gytha from crying again and packed them all off to bed, it was very late, and she decided she would have to wait to have that talk with Rowena.

Tomorrow, she promised herself as she undressed. There will be plenty of time then.

But there wasn't. The following morning, the threatened frost arrived with a vengeance, and Helga was too busy dealing with the extra work it created to think about much else. While she gathered the last of the fruit and sealed it in enchanted barrels to prevent spoiling, she set the students, old and new, to mulching the herbs and flowerbeds and giving the trees a final, deep drink of water before the ground froze completely. Luckily, most of them had grown up around fields and gardens and needed little direction from her. Even Edgar and Edith, who had lived within the city walls at Exeter and never touched a spade until they came to Hogwarts, had learnt enough the previous year to be very helpful.

Still, it was an exhausting week, and by the time it was over, she had nearly forgot her worry about Salazar. She had seen him often during the last few hectic days; in the afternoons, when it was warmer, he liked to take his charges out onto the lawn, where they could enjoy the last of the autumn sun while he explained how Stonehenge had been built and why Roman wizards had not been able to prevent the Empire from falling. Helga had been able to hear him quite clearly from her place among the pear trees, questioning each child in turn and correcting their answers. He had seemed so normal, so much himself, that now she didn't know what to think. Rowena distrusted him, but then he and Rowena had never liked each other. Helga had enjoyed a cordial, if rather distant, association with him for the better part of a decade. She was not so sure that she wanted to destroy it over a set of dusty robes and a frightening dream.

While she was still pondering all this, and before she had a chance to talk to Rowena, another score of brand-new students appeared at the castle and had to be parceled out among the various Houses. Helga had already claimed two girls and a boy who had proven to be excellent workers during the frost crisis, so she held back and allowed Godric, Salazar and Rowena to pick over the new arrivals. They managed to sort everything out with a minimum of fuss -- and, as none of the children were Muggle-born, little squabbling between Salazar and Godric -- and at last everyone could settle down to his or her regular business.

For Helga, that meant moving her lessons within doors and beginning to teach the potion-brewing part of her specialty. In addition to growing herbs, she had spent a large part of the summer visiting fairs and haggling over the other bits and pieces that gave a potion its power. She had unicorn horn and beetle eyes, dragon heartstring and phoenix tears, and a large supply of snake venom that Salazar had provided for her. The one thing she needed and had not been able to buy was Kneazle claw. Kneazles were rare: hard to catch and harder still to tame, though they made devoted pets once you had won them over. Helga happened to know, through Rowena, that Hengist of Woodcroft kept two of the creatures to catch rats and sniff out dishonest customers, and she meant to get some claw-clippings from them if she could.

Hengist would probably have allowed her to take what she wanted for nothing, both as a friendly gesture and in gratitude for his reading lessons, but Helga did not think it right to go altogether empty-handed. She had just made a batch of apple wine with the best of the windfalls, but it wasn't ready to drink yet, and Hengist hardly needed any more alcohol around the place. Instead, she decided to take him some of the morning-after remedy she brewed for Godric. Even if Hengist couldn't use it himself, his customers would surely be able to.

With a precious glass bottle of the stuff in her pocket, she left the castle and set off down the path to Hogsmeade, wrapping her cloak as close as possible round her neck to ward off the chill. The sight of the sky, now grey with low-hanging clouds, gave her an uneasy feeling somewhere in the back of her mind, as if she had seen it before and could not quite remember where. It made her walk a little more quickly than usual, at least until she reached the village outskirts and heard the reassuring sounds of children playing. Soon she could see them as well, a ragtag group shouting and laughing as they tried to leap up and catch a leather ball that hovered just beyond their reach. Sidestepping the game neatly, she crossed the open common ground and entered Hengist's tavern.

It was stiflingly warm and very smoky inside, and she had to wait a moment before she could see well enough to spot Hengist at a table against the wall. To her surprise, Rowena was there also, even though this was not one of their lesson days. A wax-covered slate and stylus lay on the table between them, but neither appeared to be paying any attention to it. They were so deep in conversation that they didn't notice Helga at all until she was standing right beside them.

Helga cleared her throat discreetly. Both of them jumped.

"Well met, lady Helga," said Hengist, recovering. "What will you have? There's a new ale today - it has a spicy sort of aftertaste, just the thing for this sort of weather."

"Nothing for me today, thank you," said Helga, smiling. "I am sorry to have interrupted the lesson, but I have a favor to ask."

"We were finished, actually," said Rowena. She rubbed the slate clean hurriedly and turned to Hengist. "Just keep practicing today's words until next time. I've written to a friend to see about getting a book for you - my own books would be too difficult to start with, and I thought you might not want to read what I give to the children."

"Give me whatever you think is best, my lady," said Hengist, "and I'll read it gladly." He stood up, and Helga was impressed to see that he did not try to help Rowena to her feet as well; she knew how Rowena hated that sort of thing, but she had not expected Hengist to.

While Rowena was making her own way out of her seat, Helga explained why she had come and what she needed. The request earned her an uproarious laugh from Hengist.

"You're welcome to whatever you can get, my lady, but getting it will be no easy task. Those beasts have minds of their own, and they're immune to pacifying magic. You can't Stun them, nor cast a sleep spell on them."

"How would you suggest I go about it, then?"

"Ask their leave first," said Hengist, "and make sure you have it before you go on."

"I'll help you," Rowena volunteered. "They know me a bit."

Hengist's good humor faded somewhat at this, and his broad forehead, already creased with time and weather, furrowed deeper in a frown.

"Be very careful, my lady," he said. "I don't wish to see you hurt. Either of you," he added hastily, glancing at Helga.

To help them get started, he fetched a thick slice of meat from the outdoor kitchen and used it to lure the Kneazles out of their hiding place under a bench, where, he said, they liked to lie in wait and pounce on the ankles of unsuspecting patrons. Helga nearly gasped at the sight of them: great tawny, spotted creatures with brush-ended tails, both looking as if they would have been quite at home with the wild cats in the Forbidden Forest. By dropping pieces of meat in a trail, she and Rowena managed to coax them into a quieter corner, where they crouched on their haunches and waited expectantly for the rest of the treat.

"That one is Tiw," said Rowena, pointing to the larger animal on the left, "and the other is Hretha."

"A war god and goddess?"

"It is quite appropriate, once you know them," said Rowena. "Well, we may as well get on with it. You talk."

Helga swept her cloak and skirts underneath her and sat right down in the straw - it was freshly spread; Hengist ran a tidy establishment - to address the Kneazles up close.

"I know how very magical you both are," she began. "And it would be most helpful if I could borrow a bit of your magic to assist with my own. Your claws -"

Tiw hissed and flattened his ears against his huge head, and Hretha let out a warning growl. They clearly understood her, and just as clearly did not care for the idea.

"I would grow them first," Helga said. "I only need a few clippings, that's all. You would never miss what I took."

The Kneazles exchanged a long, significant look with each other, then stretched out their necks and sniffed at Helga as if they were sizing her up. Still sniffing, Tiw came forward and stepped onto her knee to get a better view. Hot breath and a cool, wet nose brushed her cheek, and she struggled to remain perfectly still - who knew what they might do if she flinched? But apparently satisfied by whatever he sensed, Tiw returned to his place on the floor and lifted one front paw, spreading a set of pink, healthy claws that were nearly as long as Helga's smallest finger.

"Very impressive," said Rowena behind her.

Tiw cocked his head. I know it, his expression seemed to say.

"Thank you," Helga told both of them. "Now if you will permit me -" Shaking her wand out of her sleeve, she extended it for Tiw's approval, then touched it lightly to his paw and watched the claws spring out to several times their original length. With a small, sharp knife, she trimmed each one and stowed the excess in the pouch that hung around her waist. As soon as she had finished with the first paw, the Kneazle held up the other for her attention.

"Will that be enough to use in your lessons?" Rowena asked.

"It will do until someone can visit a market town," said Helga, now busy growing and trimming Hretha's claws. "I doubt I'll have to wait long. Godric seems dead set on getting a pair of those new servant-creatures, and that will mean going to Maeldun - the wizard who sold them was heading there for the winter."

"I wish I could go," said Rowena. "Maeldun is a port town, is it not? I have read about the sea, but I have never seen it for myself."

"You haven't missed much," said Helga. "Cold green water as far as you can see, and salt getting into everything, and no end of sickness if you dare go on a boat. Give me the good dry land any day." A final flick of her knife took the last claw, and she dropped both items into the pouch, tightened its strings with a decisive jerk, and stood up. "Thank you again, my beauties. Here you are." Taking the remainder of the meat from Rowena, she laid it down before the Kneazles as if she were making an offering to their namesake god and goddess. They fell upon it immediately, not seeming to notice that the two women were departing.

"I missed you this week," Rowena said as they threaded their way through a sudden press of people who had finished their day's work and come in for refreshment. "Every time I saw you pass by, it looked as if you were in the middle of a crisis."

"I probably was," Helga said. "If I never cast another thawing spell again, it will be too soon. Ouch!" She had collided with a large wizard clutching a drinking horn in each hand.

"Forgive me, my lady -"

"No harm done." She turned to Rowena. "I think we ought to leave before we are trampled, don't you?"

"I cannot go just yet," said Rowena. "I have a thing or two still to do here."

"Of course," said Helga gravely, doing her best not to smile at the thought of what Rowena might still have to do, and with whom.

"I know you are laughing at me," Rowena complained. "I can hear it in your voice."

"I expect a full report later."

"You shall have one," Rowena said. "And I have not forgotten what we discussed before the frost. I have an idea that may interest you."

"Very well," said Helga. By now she had all but decided not to pursue her fleeting suspicion of Salazar any further, but it couldn't hurt to hear Rowena's thoughts on the matter. Leaning over, she kissed Rowena on the cheek and pressed the potion bottle into her hand. "Give this to Hengist with my thanks, and come find me the moment you get back to the castle. I will be in the warming room."

"I will see you there," said Rowena, and forged off through the crowd, scarcely limping at all.

~~~