Chapter 1
As Rowan always made sure to explain, there are three things one must know about Nyta Syn:
She values honesty above anything else.
She loves her hair and is proud of taking care of it.
She has a brother.
Nyta Syn had entered Hogwarts following in her brother's steps. They were the firsts Syn to attend the magic school in many generations and they would be the last ones for many generations to come.
The Syn siblings took the surname from their mother, a proud witch that came from a long line of rich purebloods that had lived in Puddlemere for years. Their father, a son of muggleborns who had agreed to marry into her family and take her surname, was a man of few words, which everyone loved to comment was what made their marriage so perfect, as his wife loved the sound of her own voice. He had attended Hogwarts, as had his muggleborn parents before him, and so, his children did too, something he never expected he would come to regret so much.
Jacob had been expelled from Hogwarts during his seventh year, after gaining an unfortunate reputation that lead everyone to believe that he was responsible for Duncan Ashe's death and involved in many a nasty incident that The Daily Prophet made sure to remind everyone of the summer of 1984, after his disappearance had been made known to the public.
That year, Jacob Syn had been in every mouth of the British Wizarding Community. It was the story everyone loved to comment on, the boy everyone had opinions about, the situation everyone speculated on. But nobody knew Jacob Syn's whereabouts. Or nobody wanted to admit they did.
Despite the deep hole that was Jacob's absence in Nyta's life, her brother turned out to cast a long shadow that she could feel in the suspicious looks and malicious comments sent in her direction and that she could not escape. Her visit to Ollivanders, which she had been particularly excited about, had been darkened by questions about her feelings about Jacob's disappearance. Her professors had been openly wary of her brother's influence in her and the students loudly wondered whether she was crazy and questioned her brother actions. ''Tell me, Nyta Syn, was your brother a Death Eater?'', had accused Merula Snyde during breakfast at the Great Hall, apparently blind to the irony.
Despite what people may say, Nyta did not enter Hogwarts in search of the vaults or her brother. She had not thought about the possibility of finding clues in the school he had been expelled from. Yet, during her first year, the Vault of Ice seemed to be actively insistent on being found again.
It had started, Rowan liked to lay into Felix, in the Artefact Room.
As a Slytherin prefect, Felix Rosier took his responsibilities very seriously. So well he did, in fact, that nobody ever remembered who the other prefect in his year was (it was, in fact, Gretchen Llewellyn, whose greatest input as a prefect was the sentence ''Go to bed early, attend all your classes, make Slytherin proud and, no matter what happens, do not bother me. Good bye!'', which she always repeated when approached, before leaving the poor unsuspecting student unlistened and unattended). Felix had an incredible ability to make everyone do what he wanted: from stopping an annoying conversation with a sigh to making sure that nobody broke his rules, Felix ruled the Slytherin alumnae with a pointedly disappointed attitude.
''I'm sure I told you not to break your neck,'' he said, after he had heard about Merula casting the knockback jinx on Nyta. His sharp cheekbones delineated straight lines on the Slytherin's Common Room wall and his deep voice was carefully controlled so only Nyta could hear him. He was telling the truth, he had. After Merula and some fourth year guys had ensnared her and Rowan with Devil's Snare. ''And you are not going to lose any points with this,'' he continued confidently, ''because no one is going to see you.''
Felix told Nyta that the Slytherin House hid a dueling book in the Artefact Room and highly recommended taking a look. Nyta took Felix's words to heart and, that same weekend, she took Rowan to look for the dueling book.
Rowan was willing to admit that, with the lure of knowledge, they had been easy to convince. The Artefact Room, named so because of the many gadgets that could be found inside, went unnoticed by most of the large student body despite its location being so close to the Entrance Hall, which was always crowded. Rowan posed that it was precisely because nobody expected the Entrance Hall to hold any secrets. The door was hidden in an unassuming nook, behind an Ignatia Wildsmith statue and the room was dark and full of shadows. Half a wall was covered by a big wooden cabinet, there was an old chalkboard filled with calculations, and shelves, boxes and barrels filled with all kinds of abandoned objects.
Felix had told them it was behind a barrel full of soup and Nyta was looking inside one, which had some kind of powdered Dragon Horn she recognized from the Potions Classroom, when she heard a voice she would always recognize call her. She turned back, almost expecting to suddenly find her brother in that poor-lit room.
''The ice is here. The vault will open.''
But instead of the Artefact Room, Nyta's vision exploded with the image of a suit of armor. White and alive, it moved towards her, a sword firmly placed in its gloved hands; she could almost hear it, cracking with every step. Then, at its feet, a staircase began to stretch out, long and dirty. Without Nyta's input, her mind followed the stairs as they began to freeze. She saw ice, spreading faster and faster, corridors and classes turning blue until all of Hogwarts was encased in ice, gleaming in blinding snowflakes.
''Found it!'' Exclaimed Rowan, as Nyta fell to her knees. ''Nyta?''
Nyta needed to blink, bringing her hands to her face, trying to drive the white away from her eyes.
''I heard him! I heard my brother!''
''I didn't hear anything.''
Nyta moved her head, almost frantically. ''I heard him! I know what I heard.'' Rowan looked around the room, to its dark shadows and tall walls, and tried to hear something more than Nyta's breathing, but everything was the same as it had been when they had entered. They looked at Nyta, still on the floor, and put their hand on her arm, startled to find her so cold under her sleeves.
Nyta tried to explain what she had heard and seen and Rowan touched her cheek with the back of their fingers, worried about their friend unusual temperature. Nyta was cold, as if she had been standing in ice as in her vision, but they had been young and did not understand the way the world works, so Rowan dragged Nyta to their room to put her under her blankets, and tried to distract them with the new acquired book.
In their diary, that night, Rowan noted about Nyta's vision and wondered about any seers in the Syn family, which Nyta had denied. Unable to find an explanation, Nyta and Rowan promptly forgot to talk about it, until incidental accidents and unexpected circumstances made sure to bring it to their memory.