Live When There Is Time

Once again a walk through the winding corridors, a hand on Slytherin's arm. The surreality of it would probably never cease to astound her, mused Maia as she was firmly led to a less populated area of the castle. In her own time she had never roamed this part of the school. She couldn't really remember its existence in the future. Still it was vaguely familiar. Mainly because she was fairly sure it was where "her room" and Slytherin's study were located.

She couldn't think of the chamber where she had slept the previous night and the night before as her own. Why should she? A couple of night's sleep didn't make a room yours. Nothing in this time was hers. Not even herself, she had started to suspect.

It was astounding, what kind of defences a mind could come up with, if cornered. As annoying as it was to herself, the fact that she couldn't concentrate also protected her. The situation, its graveness and even danger, were kept at a distance. Thinking of dresses and bed-chambers made the bigger picture fade away at the background.

For example, not thinking of her escort, his state of mind and the immediate future was most likely to be advantageous for her peace of mind. She was glad of being rescued from the clutches of curious and cunning Founders. She was less glad that the rescuer had been someone ultimately more cunning and not so good-tempered as to be merely curious. Frankly, she had no idea what his motives truly were. It was frightening. Talk about Scylla and Charybdis.

A new dress would be nice...

Her mental escape was interrupted by Slytherin, who had reached his destination. After a few unlocked wards she was lead to a... sitting room? If she had dared to act vindictively, she would have enquired after the torture-chamber. Well, that would have been thinking like a Muggle. No matter how pleasant the surroundings, each wizard carried an instant torture-chamber in his wand.

The room was decorated rather nicely, actually. A large window in a thick wall gave a view of the Hogwarts grounds in their bare winter glory. The window in the room she had slept in had been so thick and bubbly that she had been unable to actually see out. All the more greater shock it was now, she had left her Hogwarts in late Spring, everything had been shyly green and fragrant of new life. Was there any joy in this time? Why it all just had to be so dreary?

The floor was covered with a thick, brown rug. There was a fire in one of the ubiquitous fireplaces. On the window-bench were blue cushions, which just seemed to wait a Pre-Raphaelite maiden to sew on them. By one wall was a wooden table with four chairs. On another wall was a mosaic portraying a group of soldiers on horseback. Each had a sword in one hand, a wand in another. The background was lush greenery and distant mountains. Some of the threes were obviously olives.

Next to the table was a bookcase, which covered the rest of the wall. Full of scrolls along with bound books...

"Bibe!"

All too familiar potion bottle was thrust under her nose. A sip later she was subjected to a piece of Slytherin's mind.

"Explain yourself."

Blasted. A nod wouldn't probably do anymore. This was the moment she had more or less unconsciously dreaded thus far. She would have to address Slytherin. Speaking to him, acknowledging him would make him real, would make it all real. A dream would irrevocably come true, a nightmare.

Suddenly Maia felt as if she was suffocating. Everything was somehow fuzzy and she fought for breath.

And she fell like a dead body falls...

"--how much more of my time are you going to waste, you foolish young woman?"

Slowly Maia regained consciousness. The first she noticed was that her bodice had been loosened. More correctly, sliced open in the front. Her breast was rising and falling sweetly free, cumbered only by the light linen of the under-dress. She sighed luxuriously and opened her eyes.

To see Slytherin crouched next to her, a dagger in his left hand and a tired expression on his face.

"To be feared is right and proper, yes, but considering the kind manner in which I have treated you, I think your fright is a bit excessive. Do me the favour of calming down."

She took a few deep breaths and scrambled to a sitting position, looking the older wizard in the face. Might as well take the bull by the horn.

Slytherin's was not a kind face. Maia had no idea, how old he was, but his face wasn't young. A high furrowed brow shadowed a pair of deep-set eyes, grey as she remembered from earlier. Also the corners of his eyes and mouth were slightly wrinkled, set in lines portraying characteristics she really knew nothing about.

All she truly knew was what she had read in books. How much could she trust in history written in hindsight? The bit about the basilisk seemed likely, though.

A round chin and weathered cheeks had been meticulously shaved. Or did men use spells? Maia had no idea, she had never really observed the morning toilette of Matt and Father. The eye-brows were dark, a line in between forming a permanent frown. This close, she could even see some grey hairs in them, the same shade as his temples. The boyish curls of the hair contradicted with the entirety oddly.

"I'm beginning to wonder whether you are retarded. Are you quite finished yet? May I remind you that a noblewoman never stares at a man. It must be very different in the future, and probably not all that better."

Maia collected herself and decided to blurt out as much as possible before she succumbed to mindless terror again.

"I wanted to see you. You are the only one I have in this time. This is not cunning or sly in the least, I know. I just have run out of mechanisms to survive. Everything is as good as foreign to me and I miss Mother and Father and Matt and

Decima and School and..."

"Do stop blathering. You are an example of unsuitably talkative woman. I don't care who you miss and who you don't. I don't really care how you feel. The only thing I care about is that you can function properly, playing your part to the perfection. And today was far from perfection. I forbid you of talking to anyone but senior Slytherins. You somehow get acquainted with Aethelred Gryffindor and manage to find your way in to the company of my nosy colleagues without my supervision. Exactly how did this happen?"

"I... I was walking around the castle. That's what I used to do in.. Anyway, I traced my last steps in.. you know... and ended up in front of the class room.. and I didn't know the time and suddenly they were there and I didn't understand them and they just.. whisked me away. I really hadn't a chance against all those boys and it... just happened."

"My, my, that was almost coherent. There is no reason in asking why you were wandering around in the first place, what's done is done. Now, however, I have to find a way out of this. You of course don't know that Gryffindor has for years wanted to unite our two families. That you happen to be only a year younger than his son is a convenient coincidence. I have my reasons for not supporting this kind of alliance."

A pawn in medieval power games. It just kept getting better and better. As she overcame one culture shock, another one was thrown in her path. And she would have to climb over that one. And then the next one and the next one. Beside the horridness of it there was something almost calming in the complete lack of choice of it all. Basically she only had to go with the flow.

But the horridness somehow overrode it all.

"Before you start weeping, know that there is absolutely no time for that. Control yourself, woman. I have here some potion of my own invention. It will put you in hypnotic state, so you will not have to consider anything you say. I am not in the mood to tolerate girlish ethical dilemmas. This is not Veritaserum, for you will not know what I have asked and what you have answered. This should prevent complete insanity, as you seem a bit unstable at the moment. I don't want to have invested in you for nothing. Take a seat over there, it should be more comfortable than the floor."

Maia tried to get on her feet, stepped on the hem of her dress and toppled over. Was there no end to her humiliations? With as much dignity as she could muster she rigidly marched to the seat Slytherin had indicated and drank the potion on the little table next to it defiantly. The last thing she remembered was Slytherin's condescending smirk as the wizard stood a few feet away, with crossed arms and straight back.

~*~

Maia dreamt that she was getting married. The bridegroom was Adrian Pucey, her long time unrequited infatuation. They stood in front of the magistrate who was wedding them She in silver and he in green. Father was so proud and she happy, both of their ambitions had been fulfilled. A marriage with a son of an influential Slytherin family.

And now she was Mrs Pucey, led laughing to the bedroom. And she laughed and laughed and laughed and then...

And then she woke up, the embrace of her loving husband had transformed to sheets and the only warmth around was from her own body. This time she knew instantly where she was. In her bedroom of two nights. Maybe three now, she had no idea of the time of the day. No sweet, momentary delusions of being back at home.

Maia crept off the bed, still wearing the torn dress and feeling disgustingly dirty. Her hair was greasy and she could have sworn she smelled a bit.. She had probably been just dumped there, after Slytherin had milked her of facts about future. She felt like a cow. Unappreciated, utilized mindless animal. No one ever asked a cow where it wanted to graze.

This cow desperately needed to get fresh air.

Stalking through the corridors was not difficult after she had found her way to the main part of the castle. It took her under half an hour. The lack of Peeves made the journey considerably easier. Apparently it was night time, for the hallways were empty and even the tapestries snoozed peacefully. Soon she was at one of the many side-entrances and stole out.

The air was crisp, full of the wonderful odour of winter night. She realized she would be very cold soon but at the moment she couldn't care less. Maia almost hoped the coldness would surround her, invade her and make her senses as numb as her mind felt.

The grass crunched under her feet as she slowly strolled forward. The half moon offered plenty of light, after the eyes got used to it. There were probably dark beasts afoot, or merely ordinary ones. Maybe they would try to eat her. She hoped so. It would have been lovely to slay some malevolent creature, to get a revenge.

Maia was startled that she would think that way. She didn't really feel like herself at all. The empty, cold night was much less fearsome than the people inside the castle. The night would be mostly the same in a thousand years. The dirt here was the same she had walked on at home. In a sense, anyway.

The Dark Forest loomed behind the lake. Less tame and bigger this time, more threatening. She took a few deep breaths more and started her journey back. In the morning, she would demand a bath.

So the morning came. Maia had slept well and soundly for the first time during the remaining few hours. One of the dresses she had been measured for had been laid on a chair.

A very wizardly in fashion, this one. Its colour was a faint lilac, with again nasty tight bodice. There were strings on sides for fastening and just under her breasts began the skirt, with slits on both sides. The sleeves were long and trumpet-mouthed. The under-dress was the same linen-white, with a high collar this time. A new addition was a fine linen oblong, which she after an inspection concluded was a wimple. Hopefully so, it would be embarrassing to walk about wearing unknowingly an apron in her head.

It looked nice enough. Too bad she wasn't going to wear the attire before she was given a long, steaming hot bath. With lots of soap. She could have tried to apply some cleaning spells on herself, but it just wasn't the same, not nearly. And probably not safe, either. She unbelievably lousy in charms, had driven old Flitwick to despair.

Maia sat and waited. Sooner or later someone would come. She had all the time in the world and certainly was in no hurry to anywhere. And after an hour the maid appeared once again, with breakfast on a tray. The poor woman almost dropped it, finding the Byzantine quest in such a state. Maia just smiled calmly and uttered the words she had racked her brains for during the last hour.

"Lavare volo."

Alas, the maid spoke no Latin. That she deduced from the look of desperate incomprehension on the woman's face.

So, Maia would have to resort to desperate measures.

"Water. Wasser. Aqua. Nero. L'eau. You idiot. I want a bath." This she accompanied with gestures of washing herself.

Finally the maid understood and scurried off. After only fifteen minutes she returned with a small cup. This she laid on the floor and took out her wand. Swish and flick and the cup was an enormous bathtub. A swish more and it was full of hot water. Reverently the maid handed Maia a bottle full of something white and left for the last time, only to be replaced by a House-Elf. It stammered something, supposedly in the vernacular, and Maia came to the conclusion that it was there to assist her, a helpless noblewoman.

The water was scalding hot and heavenly. Maia felt she could melt in the liquid. Letting her body unwind she sunk under the surface and almost cried of happiness at the familiar underwater cloing-cloing-cloing sound of it.

After running out of breath she surfaced and took the bottle proffered by the House-Elf. It smelled of roses and was most likely soap. It was a miracle her scalp and skin didn't bleed after the vigorous rubbing she subjected herself to, enjoying every scratch.

With the help of the fussing Elf she was dried, clothed and fed. As she met her own eyes in the mirror she didn't know what to think.

The dress was even posher than the previous one and the wimple gave a untouchable air to her. She was cocooned in wool and linen, as if even air wasn't noble enough to touch her. Pity she hadn't access to anti-perspirant potions. The warmth was already getting to her. When was it that the bobotubers introduced to England? She definitely needed a dose of anti-spot potion.

How long had she been questioned? It usually took a week or so for the pimples to appear in lack of treatment.

Well, there was nothing she could do about that. It wasn't as if she could request such things from Salazar Slytherin. He would eventually take notice and do something if it mattered.

What now? The House-Elf had disappeared after finishing her outlook. She could already feel boredom creeping up on her. With a blank mind she twirled in front of the mirror for a while still, lamented the lack of underwear as the feeling of bareness in... places was quite embarrassing. That would definitely present a problem when her period came. Then she went to browse Ars Grammatica.

Next to the book-pile was a letter. On it was Slytherin's seal.