The Journey From Oidhche Shamhna

Disclaimer: Not mine.

The Journey From Oidhche Shamhna

Chapter 33

The Sorting Hat

Salazar and Alya cleaned the boy twice before finding him clothing and letting him dress. They then took him to the dining hall and set him at a table, ordering the elves to bring him foods not too rich to the stomach and without fatty meats. They allowed him broths, soft eggs and mashed and unsalted vegetables until he was able to eat without his stomach clenching in spasms.

Laulen watched Salazar carefully. He was not like the two that had come to his island and fought to end Mave. Salazar's skin was sallower and dark circles appeared under his eyes. He nervously paced and kept glancing back at the boy as he hissed and muttered under his breath. Laulen felt uncomfortable and wanted to be away from him.

Laulen felt a coldness radiate from the wizard and a battle going on inside him. He frowned and closed his eyes, trying to find the words of the battle, but heard too many voices to hear any one clearly. The witch called Alya would talk to Salazar, and stroke his arm and smile kindly. He knew the witch tried to reach him, but Laulen could not find even her voice inside the wizard. Opening his eyes, he saw them watching him, and quickly lowered his eyes to the table.

"What is it, boy?" Salazar sneered at him.

"Salazar!" Alya chided him. "He is just a boy in a strange place."

"There is something about him I do not like."

"I am sorry, sir." Laulen looked up from the table. "I meant no disrespect."

"You go and take care of the lessons. Check on the others. I will sit with him," Alya said softly.

"Fine. Sit in here with the ..."

"Stop." Alya put her hands flat on the table and glowered at him. "What is getting into you? It is only a boy."

Salazar turned and walked out, slamming the door and hurrying to the Chamber below the bath. He did not intend to take care of an urchin who even now turned his Alya against him.

"He is ill." Laulen looked at the closed door. "I can feel it."

"You can feel sickness?"

"No, or yes. I can feel when something is wrong." He looked up at her innocently. "It is the illness that makes him angry. You should not blame him."

"Blame him? Merlin, child, he is a good man. I would have nothing to blame him for."

"Does he cough? At night?"

Alya frowned and looked at the boy then to the door. She had heard him cough before he rose from the bed, and now wondered if it was the cough that made him wake and not the dreams as he had said. She turned back and looked at the boy sitting at the table drinking his third bowl of broth.

"Can you identify the illness?"

He shook his head and kept eating. "It is not that kind. The kind you catch from someone else I mean, or the kind from the bad night air that seeps close to the ground."

He continued to drink his broth, and then set his bowl down and looked at Alya. "When I eat the berries by the river, the red ones, on the bushes with thorns, I itch and my skin turns red if I even touch them. It is like that with him. Something is getting inside him and making him angry and red on the inside."

Alya looked at him oddly. Empaths were not common in the Slytherin clans. In her clan, an empath was a seer of the present, not the future, and the clan had regulated their magic to games and not taken them seriously. They kept to themselves and did not mingle, saying the emotions of others could sicken them and make them weak. In a tribe such as Slytherin, the boy would be an outcast as he was a useless commodity, good only in the amusement of others.

Now, Alya looked at him and wondered if she should take his concerns to heart and seek Salazar. She thought perhaps she would pay attention to what he consumed and check their chambers for something that may make him ill. She was sure the boy could not know what he said to be true.

"Laulen, what of the old man? The man that showed the witch the way." She spoke softly, afraid the boy would stop talking if he became scared.

"I know little of him. The one with the name I took, Brant he said it was, he told me of one that got away. He wanted him found and given to Mave."

Alya watched him as he picked up his bowl and drank more broth before putting it down and pushing it away.

"I think I have had enough." He grinned up at her. "Mum would be angry that I took so much. She would say not to take more than I can pay for."

"You are welcome to as much as you want." She reached over and patted his hand. "The man, Laulen, tell me of the man."

"He was dying. When the sun came he would die and he knew it." He shook his head. "He did not ask to be hidden, he asked only for vengeance. He asked only that the one that brought the witch be found and given over."

Alya watched him as he tried to form the words, not interrupting him. He chewed his lip and wiped at his eyes.

"He lay dying and wanted more dead." He looked up at her. "Is the whole world like this now? Mum says she thinks our world is gone. Is it?"

"No, it has changed. However, this school will guarantee it will never be gone."

He nodded at her. "He started back on foot. The old man did. He will have to walk to the sea and then find passage. They broke his wand."

"Now," Alya stood, "we will find where you belong. You start lessons at once."

"The hat said I would be with a witch named Helga. It said I was too small to fight and not Slytherin enough nor smart enough for the others." He scowled at her. "I can fight. I practice with my sling."

"The hat?" Alya laughed. "Gryffin is teasing you. He likes to get people to laugh."

"No, on the broom. It was in his pack and when it got cold, I took it on my own head. It told me, I don't think he heard."

Alya sat back down and stared at him. "Exactly what did it say?"

"Just what I told you. Gryffin did not hear, so he may let me fight. If we do not tell him perhaps I will get in his lessons."

"I will talk to Salazar." Alya stood up slowly, not knowing what to make of this.

"Gryffin is with his witch? The one called Bretta?"

"No, lad, he sleeps. He is well and will wake strong."

"He promised Peska, he promised he would go for her." Laulen's eyes began to tear. "She is waiting for him to come."

"He will have strength enough in a week's time."

"No." Laulen stood and stepped back from the table. "He promised two days' time. Two days and she will start to look."

"Child, I am sure a few..."

"No, you have strong brooms, and I know the way. I can get her. I need to go."

Alya ran after him as he fled the room and began to race down the hallway. She hugged him to her and felt as his sobs spilled over.

"Salazar will go. You go back to the kitchen and talk to Helga. I need to find him."

"He will not go. He said he did not want us here."

"Salazar? Oh stars above, boy." She laughed at him. "He will do anything I ask. It is all in making him think it is his idea."

Laulen looked up at her, grinned and looked at her stomach, placing his hand on her gently. "You have a son."

"You can feel him?"

"I know he is there, but... he is ... you do not eat what you should. He weakens you."

"Well, at least he is good for something." Salazar stood glaring at the pair. "Alya, I have told you to talk to the elves. They will prepare what you need."

"Oh, Salazar." She let the boy go to stand on her tiptoes and kiss Salazar's cheek.

"Now what? The only time you greet me like this is when you want something." He looked darkly at the grinning Laulen.

"I have asked you for nothing." She pouted at him. "Have I, Laulen? Have I asked him for one thing?"

Laulen shook his head and watched as she turned back to Salazar but not before he caught her wink. "Hanson says he will return for the witch, the mother of this one. He says it is a short ride and will be easy."

"It is not an easy ride. He must travel over open water with a storm approaching." He frowned at her.

"He should be gone only a few days. I have offered to have Laulen join us in our quarters until he returns." She smiled up at him.

"He does not belong in the dungeons." He glared at the boy. "This mother of yours, I need to see her, to recognize her."

He took his wand and in two strides had it at the boy's forehead, entering his mind soundlessly and quickly. He at once saw the witch as she stooped low, entering a cave. He turned and saw her at work in a brothel as a Muggle lead her upstairs and she looked back tearfully at her son. He saw flames and smoke filling the sky, and a small boy walking down to a pit of death and whispering, "Tell me your name."

He pulled out at the last image of the boy riding on the back of Gryffin's broom. Stepping back, he looked at the boy and nodded.

"Find a room not taken, if that is possible. These towers are becoming more of an inn than a school. Stop that insufferable sniffing if you want to us to treat you as more then a child. She will be home before the moon in full."

"Salazar, you do not have to do this." Alya pouted.

He looked at her and raised his eyebrow. "My dear, it was the greeting that told me I would be doing something against my wishes, not your sweetness."

"It is because you are a good and kind wizard." She looked up through her lashes at him.

"No, I think it is because you are a beautiful and cunning witch."

"Are you well enough, sir?" Laulen frowned at him.

Salazar pushed Alya from him and strode down hallway toward the courtyard, ignoring the boy. He grabbed two brooms and cast shields against Muggle eyes, then mounted one and shrunk the other for his pocket. Pushing off from the courtyard, he quickly disappeared from sight.

"Don't be around when he comes back." Alya smirked.

"He forgot his cloak." Laulen started laughing. "For one that knows the storm is coming he is not prepared for it."

"Run and see Helga like I said."

"I will tell her to get a warming potion ready, he will need it." Laulen kept laughing as he ran toward the kitchen, thinking of Peska and the cold ride Salazar would have.

Alya watched him go and then turned to find Rowena to share what she had heard of the hat. The boy had found the way to sort the children to where they belonged. No longer would they have to fight over lists and clans. No longer would Salazar have an excuse to lose his temper and show how awful he could be. She only hoped that he understood that she did this to stop the fighting and not to go against his wishes.

"Rowena, when you have a moment?" Alya stood in the door of the library, seeing the piles of yet unsorted tomes.

"I may have a moment in five years' time." Rowena looked up at her. "Most of these do not even show titles. It is necessary to look in each one and decide which would be suitable for the children."

"Salazar will demand no restrictions set on Slytherin," Alya said. "Rowena, there is a way to stop the yearly fight of student placement."

"What?" Rowena dusted off her hands and walked over to Alya. "Come, let's get out of here and talk. I feel I cannot breathe for the dust."

Alya clapped and six elves scurried to her. She ordered the windows opened and the dust cleaned. She chided them for their fear of the charmed books and made sure they were at work before turning back to Rowena.

"You are much too easy on them. You have to understand that the type of elves you have want hard work. They are not bred to making a single family happy. They are bonded to this place and to build their loyalty you must make them feel their work is needed by the very building itself."

"I know, I just find it hard to order them." She took Alya's arm and pulled her into the hallway. "Now, it is time for rest, only tell me of the sorting."

"Gryffin sleeps in the kitchen and Helga should be there."

"Salazar?"

"He has gone for the witch." She laughed at the look on Rowena's face. "Now come, you knew he would go for her."

"Erwin said he would." She grinned and they walked along the corridor. "I worry for him, Alya. He is different at times. Angry and sullen. He is not the same."

"He has much on his mind. His father is not well and if he dies, Salazar will be the head of Slytherin. He does not want the responsibilities of a clan living in hiding."

"Talk to me of the sorting."

"The hat. The boy said he put on the hat to fend off the cold and the hat told him he would be with Helga. It told him to seek her. Do you not see? The spirits are guiding him."

"Perhaps just him. He does not have a clan to talk for him."

They debated the use of the magically touched hat until they sat around the fire in the kitchen with Gryffin and Helga. Gryffin shook his head at the mention of spirits and held his head in his hands.

"No, I don't think that is how it works. Helga was the one holding the cloak when the magic force first took it. Helga?"

"It was the wisdom of the people, not spirits that came to it. It holds knowledge," Helga mused. "I wonder if it possible to add more?"

Rowena picked up the hat and turned it over and over in her hands. She put it in the middle of the table and passed her wand over it, wrinkling her brow as she studied it.

"It is not dark, nor does it seem as strong as it did," she said.

"As the clan grows apart it will have less to hold," Alya offered. "If it does not hold the history of the clan, perhaps it just will hold its strengths."

"Gryffin, try to speak to it. Perhaps as one of your clan..." Helga started.

"You want me to talk to my hat?" He grinned at her as she blushed. "You do know how foolish this sounds."

"No more foolish than a hat talking," Alya said. "Without a spell it is the hat that must trap the magic and not the wand."

"Fine." Helga snatched the hat up and held in in front of her. "We should take all magical children, and I do not care which ones are in my tower as long as they are not lazy. Just do this so the fighting stops."

Rowena took the hat and frowned at Helga. "It is charmed, Helga. If this works think of how much easier it would be. You should be more specific."

She held the hat in her hands and considered what to say. "I will take those with a love of books and knowledge and those that hold a wonder of the world. I want those that seek adventure found in knowledge and a willingness to share it."

"That is noble, Rowena," Gryffin said as he took the hat. "But give me the fighters. The ones brave enough and unselfish enough to fight for what we need. Give me those that will not throw out the weak and that will defend our way of life. Give me the one that will fight for the individual and not the clan. That is the new way of our world."

Alya looked around the table and took the hat, shoving it in her pocket. "Salazar will have to be tricked into this. He does not believe in an open school for any but the pure of blood."

"Alya, let me be the one to trick him." Gryffin held his hand out for the hat. "You have a lifetime to live with him. Do not put this between you."

Alya slowly took out the hat and handed it to him, turning red as she did. She knew he was correct. If Salazar found her trickery in this, he may cast even her out. She looked around the table at the others as she started to lose her colour.

"He is good, you know he is." Her eyes filled with tears as she looked around. "He does not eat, nor sleep. He walks in the chambers below at all hours. I fear for him. It is as if this place is killing him. He does things, and then forgets he has done them."

Gryffin stood, done with the meeting. "Perhaps he needs to find peace in himself. He is angry over something, he needs to let go whatever it is."

"No Gryffin, you don't understand." Alya looked up at him. "It is more. I would know."

"He has changed, Alya. He has pulled into himself and is becoming cruel."

Alya stood and glared at Gryffin. "He is your friend. You need to help him, not talk badly of him."

Gryffin turned without answering her and left, climbing the steps to the upper dining hall and seeking out Bretta. He squeezed his hand shut and felt the sting of the still fresh cut. He wanted to find her and finish the binding.

He smiled and lengthened his stride until he was running to the tower in search of her.