Greatest of the Hogwarts Four

Chapter 4: The Shortest Quest In History

***

A high, piercing wail shattered the midnight quiet and roused the matron of the dormitories from her sleep. She stumbled out into the corridor, stupid from sleep and still in her flower-sprigged night gown and white nightcap. One of the girls rushed toward her, giggling furiously. The matron grabbed the girl by the arm with one ham-like hand and pulled her towards her.

"A man? Here? Did you see him?" She glanced back at her room. Her wand lay in a locked drawer in her desk. As the senior headwomen of the castle, she alone was permitted among the girls to have a wand, but only for extreme circumstances.

The girl giggled again. "Oh, I hope it's Master Slytherin, he always comes to visit Mistress Ravenclaw..."

"And I suppose you flashed your garters at him every chance you got!" She twisted the silly girl's arm and she gave a small shriek. "And Slytherin's dead, you air-headed ninny! Go ahead and run to look, but if you get raped, it's your own fault. Go back to your room!" Her beady eyes burned, and the girl cowered, then sniffled, and ran in the opposite direction with muffled sobs.

After retrieving her wand, the matron crept stealthily along the hallway. She knew the standard procedure: Full Body-Bind on the intruder, send a fire-message to the night watchman up at the castle proper, and he'd come down to retrieve the man.

As she moved closer to the source of the alarm, the matron realized where it was coming from: Ravenclaw's chambers. 'Good God,' the woman thought with righteous outrage, 'Slytherin barely cold in the ground, and she's got another gentleman caller? Fickle little popinjay, always too big for her corsets.'

However, when she opened the door to Rowena's room, she was surprised to see the last man she expected.

The Patriarch of the Council was standing in the middle of Rowena's room, staring pensively at the ceiling. The girl's room was in disarray; drawers turned open, bed covers unturned, scattered objects and clothing everywhere. There were also recent burns and scorches on the walls, as well as wood chips scattering the floor. It was evident that several doors had been blasted open, as well as most of the furniture.

"Your Holiness!" the matron said in a respectful, yet highly agitated tone of voice. "I recognize your privilege as head of the Council, and the importance of Mistress Ravenclaw, but to come here in the middle of the night..." Her voice was rising to a hysterical pitch.

"Where is she?" Moselle said, his face blank. The wand in his hand, which was sparking almost angrily, did not in any way soothe the headwoman's state of mind.

"Ravenclaw? She should be here, that's where she should be! I did a bed-check not more than an hour ago!" Now she was really beginning to become hysterical.

"Oh my...oh my. Rowena, you slippery little vixen..." Almanzoor Moselle's face began to turn into a mask of fury. Suddenly, he whirled around. "I need to speak to Rowena's handmaiden! Immediately!"

As if Summoned, a pearly-white figure entered through the closed door. Amelie regarded the destroyed room with infinite calm written across her features. The matron, whose red, stringy hair was now falling out of her nightcap, was shrieking nonsensical things at the ghost. Amelie, however, stared directly at the Patriarch with her wide brown eyes.

"Your Holiness," she said in her soft, heavily accented voice.

Moselle seemed to pounce on her verbally. "Where is Rowena?"

The girl stared at him blankly.

"Ou est Rowena?" he repeated, even more insistently. "I know you understand me."

Still, she said nothing.

"Listen, girl, you know what I have of yours. I could crush in a heartbeat, and you'd be worse than dead." He hissed this last part.

Amelie maintained a steady, unblinking gaze, and remained silent.

"Your Holiness!" The matron was on the verge of collapse. "You can't...you can't have her soul! That's illegal! It's forbidden under pain of death! You couldn't! You wouldn't!" The beady eyes were filling with tears.

"Amelie, you think you can avoid revealing her whereabouts by remaining silent?" The Patriarch said, ignoring the screaming woman behind him. "I don't have to destroy that little bottle to wrench it out of you...there are ways...there are ways..." The old man was breathing heavily, his face flushed with rage. His hands were shaking violently. "I have your descendants' whereabouts! I could...I could..." He seemed wild with anger. The yew wand shook violently, and shot a jet of red light spontaneously at the ghost.

Amelie did not twitch as the spell passed through her. Then she turned and went out the door.

The headwitch was a shaking little bundle of nightgown and red hair streaming from her nightcap, staring up at the Patriarch. He frowned, and she quavered.

"Of course, Madam Longfellow, you'll have to forget about this. Rowena Ravenclaw was captured by Gallian spies and is being held for ransom. Everything else was a lie."

He whispered the spell, and she forgot.

***

"I don't think anyone could ever get tired of sailing," Gabriel said, misty-eyed as he leaned on the starboard railing of the Basilisk. "The tender embrace of the sea air drawing one into its soft folds, the gentle ups and downs, ups and downs, ups and downs..." he continued in this vein for some time until the green-faced wizard at his left finally retched over the side. "Better out then in, Lord Croom," he said cheerfully.

"Gabriel! Stop being an ass and take over from me! It's your shift!" Thror's bellow sounded all the way from the bow. "And Michael, would it be too much trouble for you to grace us with your presence? I do not like the look of those clouds to the east!" Their brother, Michael, was the weather-wizard on deck. He emerged, blinking sleepily in the morning air and shivering in his nightshirt, from the portside cabin.

Still yawning, Michael took a tiny, intricate silver spyglass from a chain on his neck and peered to the east in it. He began to whisper very quickly underneath his breath, causing the instrument to hum, but only for a few moments, after which Michael seemed to be assured of the weather conditions. He collapsed the small telescope until it was the size of a thimble, and dropped it underneath its shirt. Yawning again, he called lazily to his brothers. "Keep your skirts on. Just some high-hanging fog. It's moving northward anyways."

"Where in the name of all the hounds of Hell is Nathaniel?" bellowed Thror. Gabriel stuck a finger in his ear and wiggled it impishly. "Can't hear you, dear brother, I've gone momentarily deaf. Why are you shouting around so much? Shouldn't you be heading back to your bunk?"

Shooting daggers with his glare, Thror muttered under his breath, "We've got a stowaway in the hold." He tapped his foot on the deck impatiently. "It's blatantly obvious. There's extra grub missing from down below, and it's too much for rats. I'm going to gut the dirty ruffian, then fill his insides with molten lead," Thror growled ominously.

"Oh, let's. It'll be like a fraternal bonding experience. Hey, we should have invited the whole family." Gabriel rolled his eyes. Then he ducked a swing from Thror's heavy fist. "Hey! Hey!" he protested. "Not while I'm at the helm!"

"At the helm...good God, I hope and pray that you'll never sail this boat on your own," Thror groused moodily. "I'd just as much leave the ship to the steering of the Four Winds as have you manning it. At least I've got Michael to keep an eye on you. Mother would scream me into oblivion if I let anything happen to her precious baby."

"Are you going to continue taking your bad mood out on me, or are you going to go pour boiling oil down the stowaway's throat, or whatever you said you were going to do?"

"Molten lead," Thror said patiently. "You cut their stomach open, and pour molten lead in. That way they sink when you throw them overboard, alive. If it was oil, they'd float. It's a scientifical fact."

"A gentleman and a scholar," Gabriel said with no trace of sarcasm, which of course meant he was being sarcastic. He was about to roll his eyes when he caught his older brother's look, and began busying himself at the wheel again and hurriedly changed the subject. "Nathaniel was mooning around in the crow's nest, last time I checked. Go, maim, cut open stomachs. Anything to cheer you up."

Thror stomped off, paying no attention to his brother's insolent remarks. Gabriel moodily steered the ship on its southward course.

***

"Just need to get a few tubs of biscuit from the hold," Thror said loudly enough for the whole ship to hear.

"As always, subtle as a charging bull, dear brother," Nathaniel muttered. "I'll forever admire your cunning."

"You've been hanging around Gabriel too much," the elder brother retorted. "You're picking up his mouthy impudence. This is a highly secretive operation! Utmost security expected! Council business! And I'm not about to let any grimy peasant who can climb into a fish barrel lark about on my ship as if it was a ferry!"

"You've been hanging around Michael too much," Nathaniel replied coolly. "You're developing a trace of his long-windedness."

They descended the steps into the hold. It was only half-full, the voyage being only across the Channel and therefore not requiring much in the way of supplies. A few crates of dragon-hide were clustered in one corner, next to a box containing what the passenger who brought it aboard claimed was china, but due to the chirping coming from the inside was clearly a contraband shipment of Augerey eggs.

Without so much as glancing at anything else in the hold, Thror strode to the large haystack in the center. It was leftover from their recent military campaign; now, the stalls onboard were empty of the chargers and destriers that had occupied them beforehand. The Basilisk still stank of horses in the midday sun, however.

Plunging one thick arm into the hay, Thror rooted around for a few seconds and dragged someone out by the hood of its cloak. The figure was slightly lumpy and deformed in appearance, seeming to have a few more limbs than was normal. Thror bad-temperedly threw the cloaked figure to the floor of the hold and tore off the garment. For a few moments there was only the creak and groan of the waves against the wooden hull. The two figures lay on the deck, one of them regarding the sailors with haughty impudence in her eyes.

Nathaniel regarded the stowaways with interest. "Looks like you won't be filling their stomachs with lead after all, dear brother," he said slowly.

Thror glared at his brother, feeling cheated.

***

"Pick it up and try again."

Helga grasped the long, whippy stick in her fingers. The Dragon-God, or Lord Grindelwald (as he had instructed her to address him while he was in this mortal form), had gifted her with a small spar of wood to replace the sword she had lost to the Muggle king. But this stick, Grindelwald had promised, would prove far more useful than any conventional weapon.

She raised her arm again, but hesitated as she looked at the mangy dog tied to the post. "Why do I have to do this?" Instantly, she bit her tongue in self-admonishment. Question a god! Had she learned nothing?

"Your weakness inhibits your power, Helga. Compassion, altruism, righteousness; they are only fetters from which you must break free. Do you want to kill this Muggle king, this Charlemagne, who scattered your people and massacred your family?"

Her eyes burned with rage. "Not only him, but all of his armies!"

The wizard knelt down so that he was level with Helga's face. His yellow eyes held her face suspended in them, a curved image on glass. The pupils were very black, and Grindelwald smiled, cat-like, showing pointed canines.

"I can help you orchestrate this, Helga...the Dragon-God helps those who serve him. Why stop with merely killing this bloodthirsty warlord? A quick execution is much too good for him. Just think of him, lying at your feet, screaming and pleading for mercy, every nerve afire with pain...a long, torturous death. But before you kill him, you could make him watch as you burn his children alive, strangle his friends, and spit his wife on an iron stake. To do these things, to accomplish this beautiful revenge, you will need magic. And that is why I am here."

Helga was almost dizzy with bloodlust. She could taste metal on her tongue, and remembered fresh the feeling of wanting to smash and bite; to hear the crunch of bone and the sweet, sickening sound of a man impaled on a swordblade. Her eyes half-lidded, and the last of her hesitation ebbed away.

"Crucio," she whispered, and the dog began to jerk and howl. Grindlewald inclined his head away from her so she could not see him smile.

****

The pages shied away from Godric Gryffindor as he bad-temperedly shucked on his armor and mounted his horse. The horse, a huge stallion of Belgian descent, snorted, sharing his masters' ill mood. Yeuric looked on passively. Godric always left dark-favored if he had to leave his lands. The Seer supposed that it was his reluctance to leave the people he felt such a deep-seated responsibility for. And he would be sure to be reminded by the crowd gathered at the foot of the castle to see him off. It seemed that an occasion like the Lord of the castle going on a quest for an indeterminable amount of time was enough to merit a holiday.

"Now, Yeuric, send me an owl as soon as you locate the Magus, wherever he is. I'll try to be back as soon as possible. And Edward," he said, this last instruction directed at his chamberlain, "make sure that all the sheep are sheared before the week is out. Wash them before you cut. I don't want another fiasco like last year."

Yeuric shook his head. It never ceased to astonish him that a great and powerful warrior like Godric Gryffindor would give so much thought to the processing of wool. "Strange times," he muttered to himself. He had donned a dark purple travelling cloak, lined with silver embroidery, which he thought made him look mysterious and magical.

"Safe journey, m'Lord!" called Edward.

"Likewise," said Yeuric irritably. "Go on already! You've wasted half the day!"

Godric hefted his broadsword scabbard onto his back, took up the mighty weapon, and sheathed it. He always did this last, Yeuric reflected. He did have some taste for theatrics. Gryffindor wore a fluttering red cape that contrasted marvelously with his white horse.

"I shall return!" Godric roared to the peasants gathered at the foot of the castle. The common opinion was that they would not see their kind benefactor for at least ten years, if at all. Epic quests usually ended badly. The people retired to their farms sentimentally eulogizing him to each other, and reflecting on Good Old Godric. It would be quite surprising to all when he returned the next day, looking hardly battle-scarred and in a worse mood than ever.

***

"I'm amazed, Young Master Slytherin. Performing magic without a wand is a feat few wizards have achieved."

Lord Malfoy had clung to him like an especially persistent leech during the brief tour of the castle. Flanking him were Artemis and Rosalind. Rosalind was directing the tour, pointing out various points of interest and describing the architecture.

"If you'll direct your attention to the fluted columns on your right, you will notice that they are of an especially rare quality of marble, mined from the caves of the Caliphate Empire five hundred years ago. The grayish veining is the result of magnesium deposits in the mines. And the staircase we are about to ascend was crafted by three hundred goblin craftsmen over a period of sixty-seven years. The gold inlays on the posts of the handrail depict the various Roman gods and goddesses in full regalia."

"Your taste in architecture has a perceptible shift toward the Classical, Lord Malfoy," Slytherin said. For some reason, his own voice sounded oddly cool and formal to him. He was being unnaturally polite to this man. A fact that Slytherin could only chalk up to the instantaneous feeling of wariness around Lord Malfoy. A portion of his brain seemed to automatically direct his actions to make all appearances smooth. This included holding his tongue when discussing the decoration of the castle. Salazar hated this modern obsession with Roman themes. The past was the past.

"Yes, well, certainly my great-great-great-great-great grandfather did, anyway," the lord said, shrugging. He, on the other hand, had masked his initial distrust of Slytherin with a deceptive nonchalance. Rosalind, used to incredible tensions in her own family, instinctively picked up on the aura of barely-concealed dislike. Artemis, however, would have missed the tension if it had slapped him in the face and then french-kissed his wife.

He was meandering along, quite bored with the tour of the family castle, when he tripped over a bump in the carpet and crashed into a spindly table supporting the bust of Julius Malfoy (born 350 B.C.), which in turn crashed to the floor, promptly cracking into about three hundred separate pieces. The statue's lips, which were about four feet from the rest of the head, began swearing at Artemis.

"Stupid clumsy cretin! You shame the name of Malfoy! If you were my son, I would have fed you to the Giant Man-Eating Horklump at birth, or at the very least thrown you into the woods to be raised by a tribe of gnomes! I doubt you're even a Malfoy yourself- what with that beak of a nose...your mother's probably been dallying with the gardeners and too ashamed to tell you the truth!"

"Artemis!" Lord Malfoy snapped irritably. "How many times, Artemis? Watch where you are going! This bust has stood in our family for eight-hundred years..." The bust of Julius Malfoy kept shouting all the time.

"Treason! Murder! Blasphemy! I weep to see my descendants living under my family name, forsaking the path of pride and dignity my ancestors set down! I demand-"

Artemis's father, meanwhile, was talking earnestly to a small, goblin-like creature that had appeared out of nowhere. Artemis himself was lurking behind his father, looking shamed and trying not to be noticed.

"What is that?" Salazar asked curiously, pointing at the short creature.

"A house-elf," Rosalind said quietly. "Ten years ago, a family of elves sought shelter at this castle during a flood...it was the highest ground in the area. They offered Lord Malfoy gold, but he demanded something else- their eternal servitude."

"Charming man, your father-in-law. Ranks right up there with Satan." Salazar ground his teeth together.

"The elves accepted; their children's lives were in danger. So they work here, cooks, butlers, maids, all in one. They believe that once they die, their children will be...set free..." She covered her face with one hand.

Slytherin pulled her down the hallway while Lord Malfoy was talking to the house-elf, turned a corner, and shoved her roughly against the wall. Rosalind still covered her face with her hand, and was making small pained noises, as if she had a headache. He gripped her wrist tightly and pressed his face in close.

"But I bet they won't, will they? Malfoy's got them tied to a blood oath. He's got some sort of Dark Magic bond on them. I've heard of this practice before," Slytherin said cruelly. "Their descendants will forever be bound in service to this god-forsaken family. You picked a real pleasant bunch to marry into, Rosalind. Your sister would be so pleased." His voice was strained with incredible hatred.

Rosalind looked desperately up at him, lowering her hand from her face. "You don't understand," she pleaded with him. "My marriage was arranged-- my family thought, with my influence, Artemis would, you know, remember the Ravenclaws when he became Lord of the castle..."

Pushing aside his momentary repugnance at the greed of the Ravenclaw family, Salazar frowned and asked: "Wait- Artemis is the sole heir? Doesn't Lord Malfoy have any other sons?"

Abruptly, Rowena's sister laughed, and Slytherin thought he detected a hint of mocking in her voice. "Do you remember the day you first came to our castle?" she said unexpectedly. "How perfectly frightened you were...by all these strange goings-on around you? Father always said he was amazed you didn't go mad. Then again, you had Rowena to help you get through it all." Again that bitter mocking tone. Something was quite wrong.

"You've changed the subject. Why the hell would Lord Malfoy send his only heir to pick me up in the middle of the Forbidden Forest?"

A brief look of pain flashed over Rosalind's face, but then her eyes half-lidded until she looked asleep. "No one leaves unless Lord Malfoy lets them." When she spoke, it was as if the voice was coming up from the bottom of a well.

"But now," she said, continuing as if she hadn't heard him, "we'll all be together. Happy family. Happy. Happy like before. Do you see?" She dreamily lifted her arms up to him. "And I'll have a baby, too. You'll be Uncle, I'll be Mama, and Artemis will be Papa."

"Rosalind!" Salazar hissed. "I need to talk to Rowena-- it's a matter of life and death!"

Her face changed into the sour-lipped grimace of a pouty four-year-old. "You ALWAYS want to go play with Rowena," she half-yelled. "You ALWAYS leave me alone!"

Salazar was beginning to feel the creeping sensation in his stomach. It was the feeling that he had been backed into a corner. Rosalind was continuing to babble like a little girl.

Reaching into his pocket, Salazar felt for his rosary and instantly saw the heavy shadow over Rosalind: she was layered in spells and incantations. He could tell they were powerful Dark spells, because of the negative halo of black light surrounding her.

"You foolish little girl," he said softly. "You're under the Imperius Curse, not to mention a hundred other things."

A sudden burst of clarity, and Rosalind began to cry. "I'm so sorry...so sorry. You've got to help him, Salazar..."

"Who? Who?" He didn't even notice that he was tightening his grip on her wrist.

"Artemis! Artemis! He doesn't know, he couldn't!" She was gradually becoming hysterical. Rosalind's fear seemed to be overriding the Imperius Curse momentarily, but Salazar could see it fighting in the contortions playing across her body. All at once, she seemed to jerk up of his grip in one last struggle against the curse. Her mouth was open in a silent scream.

"Rosalind..." he said fearfully. Lord Malfoy and a shamed Artemis were coming down the hallway, looking for them. The youngest Ravenclaw now had that dreamy look in her eyes again. "Now, Salazar," she said, admonishing him, "this is no time to stray from the tour! We haven't even seen the libraries yet! And with such a wonderful collection of sixth century mosaics too!"

Stoically setting his face, Salazar strode down the hallway. For one, brief moment it looked as if his luck had changed. But now Rosalind was worse than insane; her mind was so tortured by the spells that had been cast on her that she lived half her life in fantasy, the other half in her childhood. Artemis was a bumbling fool, well-meaning perhaps, but Salazar could tell he would jump if his father asked him to. The whole affair was sinking deeper and deeper into a morass of underhandedness.

No one leaves unless Lord Malfoy lets them.

'Prisoner in a Dark wizard's castle,' Salazar thought furiously. 'What a fool I've become!'

***

Thror glared angrily at the defiant woman sitting chained to the mast. If there was one thing he hated more than stowaways, it was stowaways that somehow were still sucking air after being discovered. But she was a woman, and chivalry's demands should be met by any gentleman, even a sailor.

After being pulled out of the haystack, Rowena had calmly stood up, brushed a few pieces of straw out of her long silver-white hair, and aristocratically demanded to be bunked in the captain's quarters. She also had a very unconscious-looking boy that she was dragging around with her. He had been stowed in one of the barracks. The woman had assured him that with the potions she had administered, he would be solidly knocked out for at least another day.

Gabriel was flabbergasted, even more so than his other brothers, to find the Seer camping illegally in their hold. He was not so thick that he didn't recognize the boy, either. A certain angry light in Rowena's eyes had forestalled him from telling Thror who she was.

"I am the Duchess Anna of Wellsborough," Rowena said, breezily lying through her teeth. "My son is prone to fits of seasickness, so I gave him a potion for the duration of the voyage. Now, if you would kindly remove these restraints and show me to my quarters. I would like tea, with lemon if you have it, and perhaps a few biscuits."

Thror was sputtering, hardly believing what he was hearing. "The...audacity...." he said, not really trying to form a sentence, but speaking as more a verbal outlet for the physical violence he was unable to inflict. Nathaniel watched lazily from the side, the only one besides Gabriel who knew she was lying. She was good, though.

"May I ask, Duchess, why you couldn't secure passage in the more conventional, legal way?" Nathaniel said, giving her a toothy, cat-like smile. Actually, it was more wolf-like to look at.

"I am transporting something of great importance," Rowena-the-Duchess said, making sure to unconsciously shift her knapsack from view. "I had little confidence in your security," she added blandly. Thror resumed sputtering.

"And your...son?"

"The Duke of Wellsborough has unfortunately passed on. We are going to live with relatives in Asturias." Rowena then embarked on a long, complicated tale which involved assassins, a unicorn-smuggling ring, several horse chases, and the lost heir to an Asturian fief.

Nathaniel listened patiently to this discourse for about a quarter of an hour. When she wrapped up her tale with an account of the grisly fates they would all meet at the hands of her Asturian cousin if they so much as harmed a hair of her or her son's head, he bowed politely and showed her to the best room on the ship, which happened to be his. Closing the door behind them, he turned to Rowena, smiled again, and spoke.

"You have a gift for deception, Seer Ravenclaw."

Rowena bit her lip briefly, but tossed her straw-filled hair imperiously over her shoulder and said haughtily, "I have no idea what you mean."

Nathaniel's eyelids fluttered as he spoke in a monotone. This happened whenever he was thinking deeply. "I think you lie like you were born to it. You lie because you have to. To survive. And sometimes it spills over, and you manipulate things without even thinking about it. But you still do it, because you have to control everything. Because you don't trust anyone. And that makes you dangerous to you and your friends."

With that, Nathaniel drew out his wand and flicked it once. A whistling copper tea kettle, silver cup and saucer, sugar bowl, and a plate of vanilla biscuits appeared on the small table, on a charming tray with a lace doily. There was even a small vase with a single long-stemmed violet in it.

"Your tea, madam." With that he got up and left quietly. "Don't worry, I won't tell them. Yet." Rowena fumed as he shut the tiny door. She clenched her little fists in her lap and took a very small bite of biscuit. She did not cry.

***

There was a room of infinite whiteness. Grindelwald looked down and saw a set of footprints on the floor, marked in shimmering red. She had been here, before him. So this was the place of her dreams, the place of refuge. He sucked in his breath, trying to contain his excitement. Another barrier surmounted. Slowly, he was beginning to worm his way into the mind of each Magus. There was the girl, Helga, who was already nearly totally his, the man, Gryffindor, who did not suspect anything, and now the Seer, Ravenclaw.

The fourth he had had only brief glimpses of. Nothing extraordinary had manifested in him yet. He had thought the boy was the fourth, but now he was not so sure.

But the Seer was the one that concerned him now. He busied himself in the dreamworld, leaving traces of nightmare so subtle that she would never guess they had been laid there by himself. Accompanied by subtle use of the Imperius Curse, he would be able to manipulate the dream to his own advantage. Grindelwald knew he could never subdue Ravenclaw when she was awake, but all wizards were vulnerable when they were asleep. Even Seers.

An idea occurred to him. He prodded the previous dreams for clues to the last Magus's identity. Grindelwald was certain she would know where the fourth one was.

He was surprised when a sudden, spontaneous explosion of vines and purple flowers erupted around his feet and began to wrap tendrils around him. Struggling out of them, Grindelwald was almost frightened at the strength of their grip. So, she wouldn't let him get close to that one. He felt her prescence, angry and defiant. There was also something painful connected to that fourth one. Ah, yes, lust. That was something Grindelwald could identify with. And unrequited love turned to bitterness. She was a gold mine of buried sins.

He wanted to see her. Clenching his fist on the substance of the floor, he jerked his arm upward. The white floor gave like clay, stretching upward and finally breaking into a clump in his hand. Grindelwald shaped it into a crude figure, then touched it to one of the flowers that had tried to strangle him. A brief spark, and the white clay began to quiver and melt into the shape of a woman.

Grindelwald's nostrils flared. She was pretty, but he had seen prettier. There was something, however, in her spirit that he knew lent to her attractiveness. Grey eyes...he had never seen eyes of that color. They were very unique, like his own yellow ones. And that straight Roman nose, thin, pursed lips, and sharp little chin. In another time, she could have been an empress. But, in her little rathole of a country, she was forced to serve wizards whose powers were far beneath hers in comparison.

He wondered how she stood it. Then again, he could tell from her mind that she was on her way towards him. So she had left the confines of the Council. This pleased him very much. It seemed as if he had finally found an equal. And in her mind, there were traces of the same stubbornness, resourcefulness, and ambition that he harbored. Perhaps they could collaborate. Maybe even something more...lovers, perhaps? He smiled fleetingly at that brief, adolescent notion. It would be satisfying to break her spirit to his will. Sex complicated things too much, but still...

Grindelwald touched her clay cheek and said to the figure, "It's been nice visiting your dreams, Rowena. I look forward to when we meet in person."

He exited the white room and left Rowena with the nightmares he had created.

***

On the Basilisk, Rowena slept in Nathaniel's borrowed bed, and dreamt:

The room of infinite white was flooding. Rowena stepped, and felt her feet in a thin layer of wetness, like a street during a rainstorm. But it was sticky and the smell of salt stung her nostrils. Ocean water, then. The tide was rising. The violets that had burst open were drowned beneath the water. It rushed around her feet, swirling in eddies.

Looking ahead, she could see the source of the water. A series of white marble steps led upwards to an altar, where a twitching body lay, sliced open from neck to navel, from which the endless stream came: a corpse that bled salt water instead of blood. The head, crowned with curly black hair, turned to stare at her accusingly. Salazar's lips opened, spilling out more water, gurgling words in tandem with liquid.

"You..."

Rowena tried to back away, but the current now seemed to reverse, pulling her in. Salazar sat up on the stained altar, still gushing water from the gaping wound. He stretched his arms out in a gesture of helplessness. "See this?" He said, pointing at the horrible gash on his torso. "I cut myself on this."

Slytherin tossed her the sharp edge of something. It was the piece of the Prophecy she had excised from the original. In front of her, the hemorrhaging man began to scream at her.

"Greatest of the Hogwarts four! Greatest of the four Magi! Rowena Ravenclaw, greatest of the Hogwarts four! Hahahahaha!" Salazar screamed. Suddenly, his eyes rolled back in his head and he fell back onto the altar.

She turned to run, but her feet were held fast by vines. The violets had come to life again, but now they were brown and had the appearance of death in their withered leaves. Curling around her legs, more and more snapped up from the ground. An especially thick one began to tighten around Rowena's neck...

***

Rowena woke up holding her own throat with one hand. Sweat was trickling down her cheeks in thin rivulets, blinding her. The air of the closed cabin was stifling hot and stale. She kicked open the door and stumbled out onto the deck.

Nighttime on the sea was mysterious and grand. The waves would rise, mostly huge black shapes but here and there spangled with starlight. Rowena could feel the grain of the wood on her bare feet. Bare feet! Why, she never walked barefoot. Still, there was a certain pleasure in it, she had to admit. She wriggled her toes against the planks, her mind momentarily off of things like being choked to death.

The mast stood starkly out like a lone tree on a rolling plain. Rowena was seized by a wild idea: climb it. She was sure that at the top, that basket-thing (she had never heard the term 'crow's nest' before) would serve as a grand viewpoint to look out on things. When she later considered her rash decision, Rowena would realize her daredevil stunt was an attempt to radically take her mind away from the immense load of guilt that had fallen on her shoulders with the sudden heaviness of a ton of cauldrons.

Not being very experienced in climbing (or any kind of exhausting physical activity), Rowena's progress was slow. But her stubbornness had set in, and she grimly worked her way up the rope ladder hanging from the crow's nest. Finally, she hauled herself over the top and into the nest with a dull thud.

Unfortunately, it was already occupied. Nathaniel was dozing, lying with all his limbs splayed out and gently snoring with his torso propped up. Rowena remembered his impudent words and irrationally wanted to hit him. How rude of him to suggest that! Of course she was a bit...domineering, but a control freak? Manipulative? Dangerous? What an absolute ass! Like he was anything special.

'You've already gotten one person killed-' her conscience began needling in, but she squashed that down, focusing her anger on the man sleeping in front of her. He had probably brought on those nightmares...

Rowena raised her hand to slap him, but dropped it and snorted disgustedly to herself. What was she doing, in the middle of the night, at the top of a mast in a basket-thing, getting ready to hit a man for no reason? Had she lost her mind?

Nathaniel woke up lazily, opening one eye. He didn't seem surprised to see her. "You had a nightmare," he said, no questioning tone. Just a statement of fact.

"Look..." Rowena began, fully intending to dance around the subject, but decided to get straight to the point. "How is it that you can read me so well? You're not a Seer, yet..."

"I did take Divination lessons from one of the family tutors," he said slyly, "but most of the time I was trying to entice her to read my tea leaves, if you know what I mean." Rowena forbade herself to blush, but stared fixedly at him, waiting for him to answer her.

"All right, so you're not the laughing type. Well, you're right. I'm not a Diviner, nor am I a Seer, or an Oracle. I can't see the future. I can't even pluck thoughts from people's brains. I'm just very...emphatic."

"Emphatic." Rowena said. Into that one word she injected every once of skepticism and sarcasm she possessed.

Nathaniel raised an eyebrow. "So young and so cynical. Yes, emphatic. Didn't Gabriel ever tell you? I can sense people's moods. It's very useful, especially when people are lying. Case in point."

"But Legilimency can do just the same thing..."

"Yes, but no werewolf has the ability to become a Legilimens or an Occlumens. The demon possession leaves the door to the mind wide open. To anything. We are very susceptible to any influencing spell, potion, or creature." He gave her a half-smile. "Perhaps the excuse my brother Gabriel uses for his lustiness. In any case, my...ability is just one of my many talents." He said this last part exaggeratedly, trying to elicit a laugh from her, but she was too distracted to pick up on sarcasm.

"Oh." Rowena said uncomfortably, aware of having committed a social faux pas that he had politely sidestepped. She had almost forgotten about the werewolf factor. Her eyes automatically flashed to the west where the moon was rising, a slim crescent barely visible.

"We changed a few days ago, before we left Sussex. Believe me, if I was possessed right now, you would know it," he said, another half-smile on his face. She tried to return it, weakly.

"Rowena, I'm sorry if I upset you. I realize that it was probably dangerous for you to remain at the castle. The Council has gone mad, and so has the Patriarch. There must be a revolution. It's only a matter of time before we gather our army again..."

"NO!" Rowena half-screamed. "No," she said again, firmly. "You will not raise an army against England. It's sacrilege."

Nathaniel's smile spread to cover his whole face now. "Well, if you forbid us to, then I guess we'll just have to call the whole thing off." Then, more gently, "just wait until we get to Asturias and meet your...cousin. I'm sure Thror will want to speak earnestly with you about our plans. Gabriel as well." Rowena looked very uncertain. "Rowena, you must trust us. In fact, this is the best possible place you could have ended up in. Salazar would have wanted us to take care of you."

He immediately realized that was not the right thing to say. Rowena froze rigid for a second, then sank to her knees and over them, her face touching the floor and her arms wrapped around her chest. Nathaniel felt a great outpouring of sympathy as he caught the edges of what must be an incredible pain of sorrow and guilt. He began to rummage in his pocket for his handkerchief. Finding it, he shifted over next to her and held it out. She remained with her head and chest down on the floor.

The strange thing, though, was that she was not crying. Rowena simply laid there, controlling her breathing very carefully. He wasn't sure whether to back away or pat her on the shoulder.

"I'm sorry." He said, wincing. "I realize you have suffered a great loss..." This was not sounding right at all. He was usually a master at comforting distraught people of both sexes, but right now he sounded like a total idiot. Nathaniel sighed, and tapped her on the back, feeling her muscles tense under his fingertips. "Listen..." he forced her to sit up, and pulled her by the elbows until she was facing him. "Salazar was...he was..."

Nathaniel was very suddenly conscious of their proximity to each other, which was a few inches, tops. His senses, still heightened from the transformation, were noticing the most amazing things. Like how she still smelled like straw from the haypile. The skin at her fingertips and in the spaces between the fingers themselves was very pale, almost translucent. Rowena let her gaze fall demurely.

Not only were his physical senses amplified, but her emotions began to crowd in his mind, his ability to 'read' her mood amplified by their closeness. She was lonely...very lonely, as most ambitious and powerful people are. Perhaps, he ventured to think, she did not even realize how lonely she was. But now that loneliness was coupled with the loss of someone she cared very much about. She might be lonely enough to-

'Do not. She is trouble. Also, it would not be good to take advantage of the bereaved,' Nathaniel said sternly to himself. 'Down, boy!'

Still, he couldn't help but feel sorry for the girl. He admired her, in a way. She was so self-reliant and willful.

Nathaniel, although he didn't know it, was falling dangerously into a sudden infatuation. It would have been better for him to remember his first impression of Rowena- manipulative and cunning, looking out for her own survival. But now he was being charmed by her vulnerability, and she had magically transformed into the distraught maiden in need of comfort. Classic.

Rowena moved so she was no longer facing him, but leaning against the wall of the crow's nest, sitting next to him. "You're not Salazar," she said reflectively.

"No, I'm not." Nathaniel had been wondering how much history was between the two. Apparently, more than Slytherin's chastity was comfortable with.

"That's all right," she said. "I know." And Rowena leaned her head against his shoulder, and pretended not to notice the sudden intake of breath that rippled through his side. 'Empathy, huh?' she thought smugly to herself. 'All men are the same when you get down to it,' Rowena thought to herself. 'Driven by base impulse.'

Although the werewolf boy might actually be falling in love with her. Emphatic or not, Rowena still had Legilimency. 'Sly devil. Giving me his cabin. Then fighting his own urges. I suppose he thinks he's being honorable. That sounds like something Salazar might-' A vision of water, of a corpse, of death. Rowena felt that familiar bottoming-out feeling in her stomach that she now associated with any thought or mention of Slytherin.

Rowena decided instead to focus on the advantages if she harnessed Nathaniel's affection for her own devices. The four brothers had considerable resources, and if she got close to them early on, perhaps she could convince them of how ludicrous it would be to overthrow the Council by force. Of course, this would all be moot if the four brothers left again after they put into the Asturian port tomorrow, which they were likely to do. And she wasn't about to abandon her original plan. The main objective was to get to Gryffindor, whom Rowena was almost entirely sure was a Magus. And Gryffindor was in Asturias.

Still, this seduction thing might actually work for her this time. Nathaniel didn't have Salazar's restraint. Glancing up at him covertly, Rowena had to admit he was handsome, in his own way. Thror and Michael's hair was brilliant red, while Gabriel's was a striking white, pale like her own hair. Nathaniel, however, had reddish-brown hair that hung straight to the tops of his ears, and seemed to stand up in the front of its own accord. He had a beard coming. The shoulder that her head leaned against was bulkily muscular. It might even be fun, she thought.

Who was Nathaniel? A werewolf who saw the roots of others' emotions, a well-meaning and attractive fool. Exactly to Rowena's taste. Easy prey. She yawned, and deliberately moved away from him to fall asleep. Nathaniel would stay awake for a few more hours to watch her face twist in nightmares.

***

Gabriel, meanwhile, was not pleased at finding out that his hammock was occupied by the newly titled Duchess Rowena's 'son'. This meant that he was sleeping on the floor. With much grumbling and tossing, he finally managed to fall asleep on the hard planks only to be awoken again by a series of anguished wails.

A little disoriented, he stood up, got tangled in his blankets, fell, and stood up again. The boy in his hammock had woken up, and was screaming. Gabriel swore loudly. Rowena had allegedly given the kid enough sleeping potion for the entire journey. Now he remembered the old saying his grandmother had always screeched at him, 'Seers to Divining, apothecaries to potion-making'. Skilled though she may have been at prophesying, Ravenclaw was an amateur at brewing.

Turning his attention to the boy, Gabriel stuck his fingers in his ears and approached the crying wretch. "Kid! KID!" he yelled over the frightened screams. He rummaged in his coat, draped over a chair nearby, found his wand, and performed a light Calming Charm. The screams quieted to sniffles.

Kneeling by the hammock, Gabriel put a hand on the boy's forehead. No fever. Now that he was awake, the boy was looking around the room furtively with dark brown eyes, partially hidden by the overgrowth of tangled straw-blond hair falling in his face. He sniffled again, then was silent. He looked up at Gabriel, looking completely and desperately confused.

"Where am I?" He asked quietly.

Gabriel decided to just be straight with the kid. "You're on the Basilisk. It's a ship," he said, for clarification. "We're en route to Asturias. Rowena's bunked upstairs."

"Who's Rowena?" The child rubbed his temple, trying to get rid of a sudden, pounding headache.

"She's...um, she's..." Gabriel was quite at a loss. "You must have been out for a long time, kid." He wasn't sure how to proceed. "Um...my name's Gabriel. Rowena's the lady who has been taking care of you."

"My mother?" the kid said, unsure of himself. "I don't think so. My mother had black hair...I think. I don't remember...much. I remember...running. And there were these things- monsters, I think. And a man was holding me, shouting at the monsters. Was he my father?"

Gabriel automatically thought 'No,' but for some reason said, "I don't know."

"And then there was a woman with long white hair...is that Rowena? Is she my mother?"

"Kid...what's your name?" Gabriel asked him gently.

"I think you should call me Andrew." Andrew looked up at Gabriel with wide eyes. "I don't know much about what's happened to me. There's not much I can remember."

"What's that?" There was a glimmer of gold on his upper arm, on the skin beneath his sleeve. "Take off your shirt, kid."

Andrew looked at him with suspicion. Exasperatedly, Gabriel said, "You've got something glowing on you, kid. I'm not a pervert or anything."

Hesitating slightly, the young boy slipped the oversized garment off, exposing his pale, thin little chest to the cold night air. Gabriel winced at the ribs poking out of his skin. Bones and rags he must have been when they had found him. At first, he looked normal. Obligingly, Andrew twisted around to show his back. Then Gabriel's jaw dropped.

Across the boy's back, a shimmering golden latticework of lines snaked across his entire torso and over the shoulders, stopping just before the elbow. It was hard to determine exactly what the depiction was, exactly: in parts it seemed to be letters, some kind of ancient runes, though nothing like any runes he had ever seen. And on each shoulderblade, there was an interesting pattern of lines that reminded Gabriel of a picture in an anatomy spellbook. Of course-- it was a diagram of muscle tissue. More specifically, Andrew's muscle tissue.

Andrew shivered spasmodically, and threw his too-large shirt back on, and dove under the blankets of the hammock. "I've always had those," he said. "They won't wash off."

Gabriel had a few tattoos himself- but normal tattoos do not glow golden. There was obviously some sort of spellwork here. Rowena would probably want to know about this. Meanwhile, he needed to sleep.

"Gabriel?" Andrew called as the white-haired man settled to the floor.

"Thank you. You were the wolf, weren't you? That saved me from the monsters."

The hairs on the back of Gabriel's neck prickled in an uncanny fashion. For some reason, he turned on his side and did not say anything.

***

A flock of seagulls sped shoreward before the Basilisk, crying loudly in chorus. Godric hated the bloody birds. He hated the bloody sea. He hated the bloody horse he was riding. He hated everything right now. The few members of the 'questing party' that had been brave enough to risk years of hardship quelled at the thought of those years spent with an ill-tempered Godric Gryffindor.

"Why aren't they getting off the boat yet?" he grumbled. He was not a nautical man in the slightest.

"The officials are still checking the passengers and the hold for contraband," a nervous squire stammered from his left. "Smuggling is a highly profitable enterprise."

One of the customs wizards waved a blue pennant, which meant that all was well and the ship could dock. "Finally," Godric burst out. He dug his heels into the sides of his horse, which snorted, and cantered down to the dock. He sought out the captain, who turned out to be a very large, burly man with violently red hair who looked as if he could match Godric's bad temper in spades. Instantly Gryffindor liked the man.

"How soon can you return to Sussex?" he asked.

Thror looked sideways at the party, which looked grim, and was armed to the teeth. "Any raiding I should know about?"

"No," Godric said. "This is strictly a diplomatic envoy."

"I admire your politics, then," said an impudent-looking white-haired fellow next to the captain.

"Gabriel, cease your prattling tongue and go find Nathaniel and Michael. Those barrels won't unload themselves, you know!" Turning to Gryffindor, he began to talk business. "We usually spend a day in the port city to restock, but since it's such a short journey, I'm sure it would be no trouble at all to make the home voyage back to England. Provided you can pay the fare. Of course, we'll have to charge extra for the decreased turnaround time, then there's a stabling fee..."

Meanwhile, Gabriel had routed out his brother Michael and booted him down to haul up some bales of dragon skin. Although he complained loudly and often, Michael was nothing close to delicate, as much as he was led to believe by his mother. And he did work as hard as his other brothers when he had to. When he had to.

That just left Nathaniel. Gabriel could not, for the life of him, understand his moony older brother and that damnable crow's nest. Half the time he slept up there, even when he wasn't lending his bunk to stowaway Seers. Just something nutty about that one, Gabriel thought to himself. Probably had to do with his 'gift', as his mother called it. Even though she protected Michael more than the other three, Nathaniel had always been Mother's favorite. Gabriel grinned, thinking how often Mum had screamed at him after being caught with yet another attractive young schoolteacher in the library doing advanced research.

"If only you were more like Nathaniel, Gabriel..."

There he was, climbing down the rope ladder. Gabriel was surprised to see another person climbing out after him. Well. Who was the model son now? Midnight liaisons with....Rowena Ravenclaw?

Gabriel was flabbergasted. He let out a low, sliding whistle from between his teeth. 'Damn,' he thought. 'Points to Nathaniel.'

He greeted them as they both dropped from the last rung. Gabriel was grinning like a madman. Oh, no way he was going to miss an opportunity like this. And once he got his brother alone, it was going to be very sweet indeed.

"Duchess Anna, I hope you had a pleasant evening. It's not often that my brother allows a woman to...ah, climb the mast." He winked in a highly suggestive manner.

The Seer, he had to give her credit, did not flinch. Airily, she waved her hand in a dismissive air. "My bags are still in your brother's quarters." There was no question or order after the statement, just an assumption that he would skip off to fetch her knapsack and a steely glare that suggested painful repercussions should he not.

***

Godric broke away from Thror's price-gouging long enough to stare fixedly at one of the passengers descending the gangway. "Who is that?" he asked.

Thror's face darkened as he saw her. "She claims to be the Duchess of Wellsborough, but for some reason saw fit to spend most of the voyage sleeping in a haystack."

"I know the Duchess of Wellsborough. She has a hump on her back and seven moles on her face."

"Surprise, surprise," Thror said, failing to look surprised. "Although one should give Seer Ravenclaw marks for guts. She ordered us around like pack mules and commandeered the best rooms on the ship. Why.."

Godric had stopped listening after the words Seer Ravenclaw were uttered.

Leaving an indignant Thror in his wake, Godric clumped in his armor and chain mail over to the petite silver-haired woman who stood unflinchingly before him. A small boy clutched at her more out of reflex than affection.

"Are you Moselle's Seer, the Ravenclaw girl?"

"I am Rowena Ravenclaw, and yes, I am gifted with Sight. And I am also beholden to no man, especially His Holiness." She made the words 'His Holiness' sound like an insult. Rowena matched Godric's fiery glare coolly, and she stood with her back as straight as poker. Godric's face was reddening to match his ornate crimson cape.

"I was supposed to rescue you!" he shouted. All of it- the formal goodbyes, the three-month rations- was completely and totally unnecessary. The quest was very much over, and Godric felt rather silly, as it were. And he did not like feeling silly.

"Well, here I am. You rescued me." She spoke, lifting her arms up in a gesture of mock celebration.

He did not like this woman. Godric decided this instantly. Even if she had delivered a Prophecy, he had expected her to be a wispy little girl, locked away in a tower somewhere, who would fall sobbing into his armored breastplate and thanking him profusely as she tenderly dressed his battle wounds, received while dispatching of several dragons in order to reach her. Instead, here was a very un-helpless looking girl, looking at him with every appearance of superiority on her face, mocking him!

"Woman!" he bellowed. "How could you travel alone? It impugns your honor to travel without escort!"

Rowena wrinkled her nose and raised one eyebrow. "Oh, that. Here's my escort," she said lightly, shoving the boy Andrew into view for a moment, then stowing him back behind her. "I guess we'll be leaving then," she said, pushing past Godric towards the questing party, which now looked as if it wasn't going to be doing much questing. "Would you get my bags?" This last one she called over her shoulder.

Gryffindor absolutely would not, and he made this quite clear. "Get those bags!" he bellowed at a cabin boy, finding someone else to direct his ire upon.

The squires and pages who had accompanied Godric to the sea were regarding Rowena with something approaching awe.

Godric mounted up, feeling worse than before.

"So you're Godric Gryffindor?" Not really what I'd expected, was what Rowena really meant. "I suppose you have a Seer in your court. That's how you knew to come fetch me."

"Rescue you," he corrected automatically. "I was supposed to take that boat-"

"Ship."

"Take the boat back to that mucky little country of yours and politely ask the Patriarch of your Council if I could have the pleasure of your company for a few months." Godric spoke the word 'pleasure' as if it was something particularly foul he was being forced to swallow.

"I'm only too happy to grace you with my prescence. Unfortunately, I'm afraid it might be for an extended stay, though. The Patriarch was not pleased that I excised portions of the Prophecy, and I don't think he'll be too happy that I took the rest of the tablet with me, either." She shifted her knapsack, which clunked as if a very large rock was in it. Which there was.

"You're awfully bold for a woman," Godric said, staring down at her from his horse. She was unperturbed.

"Are you going to invite me to your fief, Godric, or am I going to simply stand hear and enjoy your intelligent discourse?"

He knew she was insulting him, but he ignored it. Even if she refused to act like a lady, there was no reason for him to stop acting like a gentleman. He turned her and the boy over to the custody of one of his pages and drove his spurs into the horse's flanks, trying to work out an explanation for when he returned home from the shortest quest in recent history.