Two Knut Tour
"That…” Dumbledore says, staring hard at the painting currently locked in a clear, magical glass box that only Snape can open, “was meant to be nothing more than a myth.” His eyes tick over to me, a shade harder than they’d been when I’d called for him and Moody to join us down here, but considering that it's my private apartments that have been broken into, it's not me that's earned that hard look.
“If you’re looking for someone to blame, there’s a painting in your office you need to put a locking truth-telling spell on, then have a serious, down to earth chat with,” I grind out and Dumbledore's face tightens enough to seriously make me wonder what the hell those four have been filling his head with. “Especially since the chamber, in part, was meant to—“ my words lock down and I growl my frustration, fists bunching at my sides. This fucking secret-keeping spell will cost lives. “Among other things, a bit like Azkaban,” I offer after a few seconds of thought.
“Azkaban?” Moody huffs nervously, his crazy eye still swiveling around crazily, presumably because he can’t see through the walls down here and can’t not look despite it.
“A prison,” Dumbledore clarifies and I nod my agreement. He nods back, eyes alighting with understanding.
Snape’s still pacing the foyer with nerves, though it’s the only nerves he’s showing. He can’t seem to stop staring at the not-painting for any longer than Moody can, though I’ve made the highly unwise portal entry motion black-out to everyone but me because I'm likely the only one who's immune to a basilisk's petrifying gaze.
“And you know what was kept there?” Dumbledore asks.
Well, yes, obviously, but the words won’t spill free yet, so I hold up a finger while I work around them. “Several things, but in reference to our recent serpent issues? …Fun fact? There’s only seven chromosomes difference between a basic dragon and a basic basilisk.”
“Basilisk,” Moody growls, both eyes rolling as he stomp-paces the full length of the foyer and back. “Figures. I’m gettin’ too old for this job,” he mutters, pulling his flask loose and taking a healthy swig.
“A basilisk?!” Snape demands hoarsely.
“You know who’s chamber that is,” I offer, cringing with a micro-shrug. “Given the givens… why not? I’m amazingly immune to it and others would be too.” Because Sal was a fucking idiot for someone so smart. He'd been experimenting with snakes before my death; I know he'd found basilisk eggs, but this? Raise a basilisk for a pet? Sure. Teach it to become human? Absolutely.
I blink at that sudden thought, then frown. Teach it? Or design it?
“Oh hell,” I mutter, slumping against the wall. “Snake woman.” It's no wonder she seemed familiar. She looks like Salazar. "The not-healer, Liska Madu?"
Everyone freezes and stares at me, but it’s Moody I look back at now.
“Did she arrive with you that day? Or was she already here?”
“She was waiting,” Snape answers, “just inside the school gate. Moody arrived a half minute later.”
Moody grunts his agreement, then frowns. “A basilisk is a snake, though. Snakes can’t be human,” he argues, staring at me but sending his crazy eye zipping to both Dumbledore and Snape like he’s waiting for their agreement.
“Neither can dragons,” I point out. “Until, by some fated confluence of events, they can.” Or some engineered clusterfuck of events, but I can't quite force the words out.
“But still witch enough to be an animagus,” Snape continues, now looking like he’d rather be any place but here dealing with any problem but this one.
"Apparently," I agree.
“Definitely too old,” Moody grumbles, then takes another sip from his flask. It took a while for my nose to sniff out the truth, but I'm now sure Moody's flask is full of something closer to sarsaparilla than moonshine. (Some over-tired, over-stressed, childlike, impish portion of my brain wonders how much he’d offer me to keep that information to myself.)
“A basilisk, who’s also a witch, who’s also an animagus,” Dumbledore surmises, suddenly looking tired.
“Who apparently has no issues with cursing or killing,” I add glumly, because there’s no point in ignoring any tiny point of the bad when the bad is suddenly, blatantly, obviously as bad as it is now. "She's basically a darker, conscienceless, wingless version of me. Minus the overflowing power, hopefully."
“You think there's more who've been cursed?" Dumbledore asks.
“Depending on what her actual goal is, it'd make sense. Chaos all around is a great distraction. Her wand is the best way to find out, if you kept it. It's easy enough to check it's recent history.”
“It’s broken,” he reminds me, like he thinks I forgot, but there’s a spark of something there in his eye and I’ve got the sudden inkling…
“And it can be fixed,” I counter, seeing that spark in his eye shine a little brighter.
“Ha,” Moody grunts, pacing again. “Dunno when ya last held a wand, Miss, but there’s few that can be repaired well enough to be useful. Unless that’s changed since you were here last?”
I raise my eyebrows fractionally at Dumbledore, who’s staring just as keenly back, by now. He gives me a microscopic nod and I finally blink, eyes going back to the painting. Snape’s watching us both with a frown but thankfully doesn't ask since I’m leaving what I know of Dumbledore’s wand in my own past, for now. It’s not mine anymore, anyway, so it's secrets aren't mine to share.
“Nothing’s truly impossible, Mr. Moody,” I sigh out, because it’s just a depressing fact. “Just extraordinarily improbable... unless you're at Hogwarts."
“Well, that’s depressing,” Moody grunts and it makes me smile a little and nod. Wyn would’ve loved Moody.
“You said there’s other entrances to the chamber, Miss Devons?” Dumbledore finally asks.
“Where Myrtle died,” I agree with a nod. “And… there are places Merfolk likely wouldn’t want to go,” I finish after a few seconds thought.
“The castle’s plumbing spills off into the lake… which explains where your almost unseen third person vanished off to,” Snape surmises.
“Yup. The one thing that reeeeally doesn’t make much sense, though,” I point out, then literally point to the painting, “is that. Leaving it out like this?”
“It’s sloppy,” Moody agrees, nodding and scowling at it. “And she’s not been sloppy yet.”
"Could she be trying to lure you there?" Snape suggests, scowling even more when I nod-shrug a 'maybe'.
“And no one else has access down here?” Dumbledore asks, like he’s sure of the answer.
“Not that I," I stress the word, "have given access to,” I agree, head shaking. “But I haven’t considered it before because who else could?” This time, when I set my eyes on Dumbledore, he goes still. “But I don’t know for certain,” I add. “Beyond those I’ve given access to, it’s still set for family only.”
That pauses and turns both Moody and Snape back my way so now all three of them are staring at me.
Lovely. This isn’t uncomfortable at all.
I just raise my eyebrows at them all, but add the (hopefully) obvious: "Think what you will, but I," I stress the word again, "am not the reason she exists. Though I will admit to being impressed that she somehow still does."
Finally, Dumbledore sighs and gives me a shrewd, sorrowful, almost sympathetic sort of look. “When we find her… are you going to be able to let her leave? For the safety of the students and staff?”
That... is an excellent question and I take a long, slow breath before answering. “I don’t know,” I admit softly. “But… if I knew— actually knew… and saw that she was locked down in an impenetrable time tamper spell for the next thousand years? I could live with that… so long as she’s not actively suffering.”
Now Dumbledore nods with what could be relief and it’s too blunt and honest-feeling for me not to believe it’s something he'll consider and I can breathe a little easier.
“Well!” Moody huffs, "if there’s any chance she’s down here, we’d best have a look around, eh?”
I roll my head to the side to give him the drollest look I can manage. “You just want the five cent tour,” I accuse. He gives me a huff in response, crazy eye rolling.
“Americans,” he mutters. “The two knut tour,” he corrects. “And no, I just hate not seeing through these walls,” he gripes.
I take a bracing breath, conjure two fire fluffs and toss them through the two darkened doorways to get a head start on lighting and dusting, then head-nod to my own hallway. “We’ll start here, then,” I sigh.
***
Moody, amazingly, doesn’t seem to care much about my magical bedroom ceiling but exclaims near paranoia-induced joy when he sees Sal’s mirrored security system and spends the next ten minutes of poking around muttering to himself about how he might set that up in his own home. Dumbledore loves my ceiling (because nearly everyone does) and asks if he might see it again in the daytime when none of us are actively under attack and I nod graciously.
Snape sticks close to my side as we finally head down the second hall, which I appreciate because it’s been a long while since I've been in here and it's filled with mostly-good memories, and (thankfully) totally lacking family paintings. The door opens straight into a formal sitting room, which is kind of boring until I start opening the hidden little caches Wyn and I had added now and then, some still containing little treasures, one of which looks a bit like a small sliver of two-toned, rich wood flooring that feels too much like ‘mine’ for me not to pocket. The next room down is the more relaxed family room / family library where I pluck out a few puzzle books Wyn and I had once created for each other in our first few years here; I tuck Wyn’s into my pocket too, give the room a quick dragon-vision once over and move on. The last of the rooms is a small but simple kitchen with little left in it but some very, very old tea in a clay pot that Wyn had brought back from a short trip to Beijing.
“Two armchairs by the hearth, two desks in the study, two chairs in the kitchen,” Moody mumbles, side-eyeing me and I shrug.
“Only needed two,” I murmur, then suck in another bracing breath and finally step into the last hall with Snape close on my heels, almost running into me when I have to stop only two steps in, then just close my eyes and breathe.
“What is it?” He asks, just quiet enough for only me to hear.
I swallow hard, then force the words out. “Really, really familiar scent,” I choke out, then force myself forward again. From this end of the hall, it’s Wyn’s bedroom and bath we find first, much like my own, but different too. The ceiling, for one, is currently all flawless, star-lit sky with a whimsically added Aurora borealis on the northern horizon, enchanted the same way he’d enchanted the Great Hall's magical ceiling.
“Oh my,” Dumbledore breathes out from the doorway behind me and I’m all prepared to see him in awe of the ceiling, but it’s the mantle over the fireplace he’s staring at, Moody leaning past his shoulder and staring too. Nearly as one, Snape and I turn and I grin while Snape just looks a little confused.
“Sooooo, Mr. Moody?” I cough out, trying not to laugh. “Remember how I said your genetic magical signature was fascinating? It's also familiar; diluted by several centuries, but very familiar."
“Nooooo,” Moody rasps, nearly shoving Dumbledore in to get past him and hobble up to the painting over Wyn's hearth.
“Alastair— Merlin’s beard, it looks just like you at twenty,” Dumbledore breathes out, slowly approaching.
“He did grow up handsome,” I murmur, still grinning, and the shade, half-hidden behind an easel for a few seconds, leans into full view to flash his dimples, eyes twinkling, and winks at me before he goes back to his paints, shaking his shaggy hair out of his face in a way that makes my chest ache.
“So I’m his descendant?” Moody huffs, surprised eyebrow reaching halfway to his hairline.
“I’m nearly positive, yes,” I huff, turning to look from one to the other and back, finding the little magical and visual details that are nearly too alike and nod again. “It’s just… twenty-nine or so generations removed.”
The shade leans around again, looks Moody up and down and nods. “Could be,” he decides, almost vanishing behind his canvas again before he leans back, eyes Moody curiously and asks, “Do you like sarsaparilla too? It's always been my drink of choice.”
Moody chokes on air for a second with something like surprised shock and I just— laugh. It starts with a burst of sound, then a bubble of snorts and giggles, then I just keep laughing until I’m collapsed on the bed’s edge with my face in my hands and a full minute later, have it mostly down to chortles. Still, my eyes won’t stop watering and it looks like the shade, who’s not even a little bit shade-like, is having the same problem, snickering against the tree he’d been painting under.
Dumbledore and Moody are murmuring with each other in the hallway, but all I feel from them is puzzlement rather than worry. Oddly, Snape is half-leaning into the door jam to the bathroom, watching Wyn with a vaguely sentimental expression I can’t quite parse out the reason behind. Wyn’s not-shade pulls it together at pretty much the same time I do, obviously, grinning at me like pure mischief and fuck but I've missed his face.
“I won't even ask how--" I manage to warble out.
"Likely for the best," Wyn cuts in, eyes ticking past me to the door and hallway beyond and I nod my understanding while he readjusts his easel to keep me and his work in easy view. That conversation is likely best done with less of an audience. (Or less of an audience that will no doubt go tattle to the founders.) "Consider me... radio-free," he adds with another smirk and I grin. Yup, that mad mix of spells woven into the canvas makes it a magical ham radio-- from my subconscious straight to the world.
It's brilliant.
"So, you took up painting,” I point out, pulling my feet up on the bed to wrap my arms around them, then go back to observing. “I hope you’re better now than you used to be,” I tease and he glowers back.
“I got lessons,” he says, eyes rolling. Then adds: “From my grandmother.”
And that is interesting. I sit a little straighter. “And why would she do that?” I ask bluntly, because while Helga was marvelous at it, she just didn’t ever find much time for it in the years I knew her, let alone found time to teach it.
Wyn steps back from his easel, staring at it thoughtfully. “She said,” he starts slowly, “that some things are best remembered by the seeing… and not the telling.”
And that has me sitting straighter still. “That is sometimes the case,” I agree.
He nods, dabs into his pallet, and keeps working, then frowning thoughtfully again and I wait. “And she insisted that some stories need to be known, one way or the other.” Another ten seconds, then he goes on. “And we all know that those who forget history are often doomed to repeat it.” He sends me a knowing look that I send right back. “I’ll have a gallery someday, you know,” he tosses out idly.
“Is that so?” I murmur softly and he nods, still dabbing at the canvas. "And where will this gallery be?"
"Somewhere out of the way, I think; where people can come and go as needed... or as they please," Wyn says thoughtfully, lips pursed as he studies his canvas. "And only found... if you’re smart and patient enough to find it,” he tacks on with a smirk and an eye twinkle.
"Very mysterious," I deadpan and he smirks. "Not going to make it easy, huh?"
He lifts an eyebrow at me. "Anything worth discovering..." he prompts.
"Is worth the time it takes to discover it," I finish, nodding. "I know. And I do enjoy a good challenge,” I murmur, wiping away another tear.
His face grows serious for a second and after a quick glance at both Snape and the door, he sets down his pallet and walks right up to the frame and I’m drawn forward just the same, like magnets realigning and yeah, not a shade. I can't even really focus on all the magics woven into both frame and canvas, but his spirit-- Wyn's actual spirit is echoing back.
“Stop hiding from the others, Syn," he instructs, soft but serious. "Hard memories help us prepare for—“
“Harder days,” I finish, swallowing past the lump in my throat. “I know.”
“Then stop hiding from them,” he says quietly, honey-brown eyes warm and real. “They’ll help you find what you need.”
“Okay,” I breathe out, nearly silent, but can’t not— I press my hand to the painting and he presses his back and it feels as warm and real as his gaze, so real— then backs away, turns and resumes painting.
“You’ve got work to do, Syn,” he murmurs. “And so do I.”
I give the room another once over, then nod once and finally leave this finally-healing wound behind. Snape follows me out, looking lighter than he had before.
***
Snape and I meet back up with Moody and Dumbledore in the foyer, all of us a little more subdued than before the 'tour', but in fair spirits.
“Quite an interesting painting,” Dumbledore offers, and there’s something genuinely warm in his eyes now. “Shall I assume that he is the ‘home’ you spoke of so fondly when we first met?”
I breathe, then nod. “He is-- always.”
“Is?” Dumbledore repeats, a touch of sympathy in his eyes. “Or was?”
To this, I can only smile.
“When the story gets told, whenever that will be, you’ll know I mean it when I say he’s with me every day.” And oh, boy is he. And I couldn’t be more grateful.
Moody grunts, his crazy eye zipping from me to my hallway, then me, then the hall. “So… as a descendent, if I outlive ya—“
Both Dumbledore and Snape make grumbly, almost insulted noises, but I just snort and cut him off.
“I’ll let the castle decide if you inherit anything,” I grin, but add, “and let the sorting hat decide if you’re ready for the secrets of the mirrored security system.”
“The hat?” Moody grunts, looking pained.
“Uh huh,” I nod. “It'll take a peek into your head and see how close you are to being a genuine paranoid hermit.” Moody scowls. “And I’m sure it'll make the best call available.”
“Bah!” Moody grumbles, already glowering, but Dumbledore looks amused and Snape’s smirk seems to be hiding a genuine laugh.
Dumbledore sobers quickly, though, eyes skipping around the empty room.
"You're certain she's not here now?" He finally asks.
"As certain as I can be," I nod, then brace myself and walk to the foyer's left painting, tugging the cover off and know the rest of the apartment's paintings are discarding their own covers. Little Syn, still so small, is glowering at me with her hand over her mouth. Across the chess board on the floor before a hearth where they're endlessly playing, little Wyn's rolling his eyes at me, his hand over his mouth too.
"Unmute," I murmur and finally, they turn to me with exasperated expressions, hands dropping from their mouths. "Sorry guys. Creepily calling me to come and play wasn't doing my mental health any good."
"See?!" Little Wyn declares, reaching over the chess board to poke Syn in the arm, who looks immediately contrite.
"Sorry," she murmurs, eyes low, but still meets my eyes long enough to say: "Avoiding us wasn't doing you any good either."
I nod, feeling a bit contrite too, then head nod back to where the portal painting still sits on the floor by the steps.
"Do you know how long that's been down here?" I ask and right away, they both nod.
"We heard her come in after you went to get dinner," little Wyn says.
"And you're sure it was a woman?" I ask, just to be certain.
"I don't think it was the whispering woman," little Syn adds, looking to little Wyn for his opinion, who shakes his head.
"Not her," he huffs, frowning more. "I remember her voice, from a long time ago. She liked to travel through the pipes, whispering to see if anyone could hear her yet. I think someone finally did."
"But a long time ago," Syn adds. "This woman was humming."
And that both makes sense and not, actually, because Helga hummed her way through completing chores and grading papers. And yeah, she could have painted a portal, but--
"I don't think the whispering one can get in here," Wyn offers, biting his lip as he thinks, but Syn is shaking her head, too.
"Not with the No Harm charm still on," she agrees. "And that's been here for a lonnnng time."
I shift my sight, keeping my guests firmly out of view and peer around-- yup. "That's a sneaky, sneaky spell," I breathe out, a bit awed. And it is sneaky. Also huge. "That's too much magic," I murmur, frowning now and both children trade knowing glances.
"It was the same night he died," Wyn explains gently. "He didn't really need the magic anymore."
Oh.
I close my eyes, lock my sight back down, suck in a shaky breath and nod. It's just such a Wyn thing to do. The lovable, loyal, self-sacrificing sap.
"In case someone, somehow, impossibly breaks in, will you all keep watch and have the castle notify me right away if they do? I'd appreciate it," I murmur.
They nod in unison, looking more settled, then drop their attention back to the chess board as I step back, then pause.
"If you two want a real challenge, every seven moves, swap the board around and play the other color," I suggest and their faces lighten with delight and they give me happy nods.
"Synastrethia Slytherin," Moody huffs from just behind me, reading the painting's plaque just below the ornate frame. "And Gawyn Gryffindor."
"Remarkable," Dumbledore adds softly, eyes ticking from me to the painting and back. I shrug awkwardly before I move on to the other foyer painting Snape is currently studying. Little Wyn and I again, sitting near the old stone hearth in the school's library and each surrounded by piles of books that look far too advanced for children their sizes. Syn is speed-reading her way through a tome while Wyn scratches and scribbles his quill over a spread scroll with one hand, the other idly petting the tiny dragon perched comfortably in the toasty fire looking lazy and content.
"You kept a dragon for a pet?" Snape murmurs, side-eye smirking down at me.
I huff a little smile back. "Dragons aren't pets, they're companions," I correct. "Easier to learn the psychology of a thing if you can watch it's evolution from the very start. We learned they're amazingly sweet until they realize they can eat you. After that..."
Snape huffs another smirk, then frowns at the plaque at the bottom, this one including subjects and their ages.
"That can't be right," Snape huffs, now skipping the side eyeing to stare at me questioningly.
I twitch a shrug. "The dragon in the fire is only three days old. Some unique magics can force a quick growth spurt in the younger years. I've seen that be the normal way of it in more than a few realities," I offer.
"They do not look like two years old," he points out.
"If one of them didn't have his hand in the fire, tickling a sleeping dragon, they'd look like normal children all over. Smart children, but still children. Magic rules 101, Professor. Until proven otherwise, everything is possible."
"That thought... is a bit unsettling," Moody grunts from behind me and I turn to nod agreement.
"It can be, yes. Thankfully, most people see the limits of what should be given the ages they live in. Very little is strived for when there's no possible way it can be undone. When, on occasion, they do strive too far..." I smirk. "That's when fatemakers are called in."
Moody grunts a nod while Dumbledore nods behind him, a spark of something like hope now lighting his eyes.
But it's the soft look Snape's hiding under his droll eye roll that has me feeling more hopeful too.