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Lakshmi Narang, the last head of Gryffindor House, climbed the stairs slowly. She'd woken up with a congested nose and hadn't managed much of an appetite, to the nervous glances of her colleagues. Assuring them she was ready for the task at hand, she had still delegated her first and second-period Herbology classes to a short, bespectacled substitute witch from the Ministry. The substitute's curious glances made Lakshmi fear that she knew a bit too much about the Heads' latest research, but the others assured her she was just being nervous.
“We could postpone,” suggested William Abbott, the final head of Slytherin.
They could, Lakshmi admitted. There had been nothing particularly auspicious about the time or date. High noon felt as fitting a moment as any, though the sun was invisible behind the clouds on the enchanted ceiling. She turned back to the Great Hall, fixing in her memory the image of the children gazing upward; from their orderly tables, past the banners above, to the glassy sky. How many generations of students had seen just that same view, she wondered, and how few would again?
“Are you sure you're all right?” William asked again.
“Just a little dizzy.”
“You climb up to a tower every day,” pointed out Jade Adkins, who'd done the same for Ravenclaw.
“I'm ready,” Lakshmi repeated, which was not exactly a lie. She'd heard worse half-truths before, if more cleverly stated than her own assurances.
They made a strange group, clustered together at Headmaster Galbraith's door—Lakshmi, William, and Jade were joined by Keith Stormont, of Hufflepuff. Then there was Biknug, a frequent substitute in the Arithmancy department, as well as the Custodian of Weapons, a position that had been retitled within the last century. Despite multiple invitations from an increasingly irritated Galbraith, their History of Magic professor had not joined them.
“We're not, you know,” said William.
“What's this?” Keith asked.
“Not ready,” William repeated, “to do this. Any of us.”
“Excuse me?” Lakshmi blurted. “I'm as committed as anyone. If you have a problem with me, say it to my face, but I'm up for—”
“No more ready,” William amended, “than the Founders were millennia ago. They had no idea what they were getting themselves, getting the world, into. They had a plan, but since when have plans been carried out? It'll be the same for us. There will be complications, things we can't plan for. But we have to go through with it, anyway.”
“What they built endured,” said Keith. “And had benefits they couldn't have predicted, either.”
Jade nodded. “Are we only here to destroy?”
The name of Gryffindor the Bold had long since given way to Gryffindor the Bald. It was always a bit of a gamble whether or not the venerable teacher would make his way to dinner in a poorly-enchanted toupee or forego the venture entirely, since he'd given up on wizard hats. When Muiredach attempted to point out that the students would surely notice this slight inconsistency and make fun of him, Godric merely pointed out that at his age he couldn't hear them anyway.
“You're not that old,” Muiredach pointed out, before saving his breath for the more important arguments. Like the fact that students might be better served by having him bring a wand to class than his Muggle sword, magnificent though it was.
“I'm old enough,” Godric declared.
Though he had no wife nor children, he had loved Muiredach like a son from the time he had arrived at school, his own father dead and his mother wanting nothing to do with the “magic” the teachers had told him about. In recent years, Muiredach had found himself taking time away from breeding Crups, and returning to Hogwarts more and more often, checking in on his mentor who—despite his protestations—still appeared fit and hale.
“Now, after I've passed on, you'll make sure I'm—”
“Don't you have classes to teach?” Muiredach sighed.
“Oh. Yes, those.” Godric climbed onto the bottom step of a staircase, which slowly rotated upwards.
Rolling his eyes, Muiredach took rough aim at where he thought the professors' dormitories were, casting a summoning charm. Moments later, Godric's wand floated into view, and Muiredach snagged it out of the air. Taking a parallel staircase, two at a time, he tossed it down. Just as he did, though, Godric's staircase rotated out of the way, and it fell down to another flight.
“Aren't you going to get that?” Muiredach demanded.
Godric yawned. “It's just a lecture, no practicals.”
“Professor, it's your wand.”
“I thought you said I needed to be on time.”
“If you're going to be obtuse about it.” Muiredach began descending the stairs in a huff, picking his way among a cluster of rushing senior students and rushing past nervous first-years who fled the path of the stranger in their midst. Finally, he accosted a girl who had picked it up and was spinning it experimentally.
“Is this yours?” she asked.
“Yes,” Muiredach lied, snatching it from her and turning back.
Despite his panting, he caught up with Godric before they had made it to the classroom, albeit mainly because the professor was content to step from staircase to staircase and ride out whatever was drifting in the correct direction, rather than climb anywhere. “If you insist,” said Godric, taking the wand and tucking it deep into his robes.
“Whose idea was this mess, anyway?”
“My wand? It was crafted by—”
“These absurd stairs.”
“Oh. Those were Rowena's,” Godric smiled softly, “another puzzle to test the worthy, no doubt.”
“And I suppose her spirit haunts them and always turns them in whichever direction you're not going, is that it?”
“Don't be ridiculous,” Godric snapped, and for a moment Muiredach could hear the echoes of the imposing man who'd loomed over him in disappointment after he'd failed to transfigure a pig into a blanket for the seventh time. “They're stairs.”
Muiredach shrugged. “She always liked a challenge.”
“She was brilliant, our Rowena, but she was wise, too,” said Godric, finally moving his legs enough to leave the staircase and turn towards the next corridor. “I hope I can see her, after.”
“Professor—”
“Ah, look at the time.” Godric gestured towards a wall that had not held a water clock for many years. “Classes to teach, children to inspire!”
With a sigh, Muiredach headed for the library, pausing on his way to inquire with the Healer, who informed him that while Gryffindor had certainly been sounding fatalistic, that was a natural side effect of the second-years' essay writing and he seemed otherwise healthy. There was little to browse in the way of light reading, and Muiredach vaguely wondered how he'd once managed to remove some of those books from the top shelves before he'd perfected his summoning skills.
He had learned from experience that eating at the head table with the teachers would get him questioned by students afraid of why he was there, so instead he took dinner in the kitchens, avoiding the glances of children in the hallways. They clustered by their houses as they filed in. A group of Hufflepuff students worriedly discussed their latest test results, some Slytherins were discussing plans for their holiday break, and a few Gryffindors, looking small but as excited as Muiredach once had, were making sure one of their friends remembered the password.
Only after dinner was he able to continue talking to Godric, who had managed to hold onto his wand throughout the lectures. “How are you?” he asked.
“Tired,” said Godric.
Muiredach nodded. “The students seem happy. Well, busy. But they're learning a lot.”
“That is the goal, yes.”
“Is there anything I can do?”
Godric paused, stared off into the distance, fidgeted as if he was one of the first-years having to decipher a particularly abstruse Potions recipe, then finally blinked and turned back to Muiredach. “I don't know.”
“That's all right. I'll come by in a few weeks, maybe.”
“That I doubt.”
“Are you into foretellings, now?”
“No,” said Godric. “Only...more and more I find myself thinking of old friendships, memories now, and wondering what power they might still hold. A fool's errand, perhaps. Helga has always said there are forces beyond our understanding, things we cannot tamper with but yet we change all the time, even as they change us.
“She speaks well.”
“We were all so different. We had to be, to build a school like ours, something that could make a place for everyone, no matter what.”
“You've succeeded, Godric, look around you! You've laid tremendous foundations here—all of you.”
“We were younger, then. They had families of their own, but even they knew that wasn't enough to carry forward what we'd begun, for the next generation. Helena...” He broke off, shivering.
Muiredach moved to start a fire in the fireplace, a crude structure protected by many enchantments. “Even she remained here, in her fashion.”
It was an attempt at levity, but it backfired on the professor, who clenched his fists as if too exhausted to reach for the sword. “Do not jest about such matters! Hers is a fate to be lamented!”
Stepping back from the fire, Muiredach nodded. “Professor, are you afraid of coming back as a ghost?”
“Anyone should dread that.”
“It's all right! You taught us yourself, remember? No one comes back as a ghost against their will, you can choose...”
“Of course, but I've still lived a full life bound by fear. Even now, I cannot be sure I've done enough for the future—”
“I won't be having any more of that,” Muiredach said, trying to muster his most professorial voice as the fire crackled to life. “You've done spectacularly, collectively and individually.”
“But at what cost?”
He wanted to say it had been enough, no matter what they'd done, but the urgency of Godric's gaze struck him, and he hesitated. Perhaps he did not know, had never known. And if he hadn't, Godric could not have been seeking an answer from anyone left to hear.
“Forgive me,” he gasped. “Salazar—Sobeya—”
He shuddered, and lay still.
“Professor Dippet will be in shortly,” they'd told him, but of course there was no reason he should not enter the headmaster's office immediately. Head Boy, Medalist for Magical Merit, Specially Awarded for Services to the School, and perhaps soon-to-be Professor Tom Riddle could take his seat where he wanted.
Dippet's desk was tidy, though the rest of the office was filled with bric-a-brac. A pile of magical maps littered the floor, while a cuckoo clock hung on a far wall. The bookcase, too, was brimming with all sorts of books. Riddle made his way to the bottom shelf and helped himself to a large tome--the familiar binding of Hogwarts: A History.
He flipped through idly, for once not reading the long paragraphs about the ancient castle, but just glancing at pictures. Oh, the Great Hall looked much the same, if with fresher banners above the dignified house tables, but the ornamentation of the office he found himself in changed with every occupant. Some headmasters preferred walls of bookshelves, others needed lots of cages for their menagerie of familiars, yet others decorated the room with flowerpots. Everything changed, and in time, even Dippet and his cuckoo clock would be gone.
And yet...
Riddle paced to the door again, opening and closing it. Still utter silence. There were no students passing by, most of the staff had gone home from the summer, Dippet was running late...well, even were he to be intruded on, he could handle a memory charm or two.
He'd come so far, made so many agonizing preparations, that he couldn't turn back. Grasping his wand, he took aim at a pile of fabric in a corner, and spoke the ancient words.
Nothing happened.
After checking the door again, Riddle repeated the incantation, that time at point-blank range, and still to no effect. He did not bother to look for Dippet a third time, but rather, strode into the corner and jammed the Sorting Hat on his head.
Hey, was that you? the hat demanded. Stop that! It tickles.
Tickles? Riddle started incredulously, but then paused. What are you?
Oh, I'm weathered and I'm tattered
But I look good for my age
I'll tell you where you're suited
With wisdom of a sage...
Enough with the ditties!
I say, you're not a first year, are you? Tom Riddle...
Voldemort.
So you have a monopoly on wordplay, is that it?
I want to know why my spell failed.
I think you know why.
Perhaps. But do you know who I am?
A child who likes to play with his letters.
Come off it.
At my age, I can hardly help it!
I am the Heir of Slytherin! A Parseltongue by birth, and a deserving member of his house...
I remember. I put you there.
Twisting the Gaunt ring around his finger, Riddle remembered too.
Well, hello! the hat announced. Tom gave a start, but no one was reacting; the voice was speaking inside his mind alone. Who is this?
I'm Tom, he said. Tom Riddle.
Oh? You ring a bell.
Did—did my father come here? Did he wear you, too?
I don't believe so. The years blur together, you know.
Oh. Well. Tell me where I should go, then.
Perhaps...I see plenty of cunning in you, Tom, impressive ambition too. You may well be a Slytherin. Very curious...
Curious how?
Don't rush me. You value loyalty, I believe...and you would deal fairly to those loyal to you. Perhaps the makings of a Hufflepuff.
Really? Do you think?
But you also have great potential to succeed within these walls, to appreciate the gift of magic and seek to probe its most arcane secrets. Ravenclaw would be proud to welcome you.
If you say so.
And yet...you wish to be known by your deeds, I suspect, and are determined to achieve them. Maybe...a Gryffindor?
Something flickering above Tom caught his eye, and he beheld the banners in the air. I can talk to snakes, you know.
Snakes?
Like those. Slytherin? I want to be there.
Do you, now? Yes...I think so. “SLYTHERIN!”
Godric had become a skillful duellist by knowing when to divide his attention—one spell cast to injure an opponent's leg, then another to block their magical attacks. Likewise when he duelled Muggles; defend the space in front of him, behind, then attack from above. Even if it would be unfair to see what was behind him, he could still control a fight from all directions.
It was much the same, he thought, in the battle for Hogwarts' future. In the long run, he had to ensure the children who arrived there had a place to thrive. But while there would surely be other teachers who could handle lessons, other house-elves who could prepare food, even the same old poltergeist to cause trouble, none of them would be able to know the houses like they had. Perhaps, Helga pointed out, that would be for the best—if the staff got along better than they did—but even then they would fight over promising talent. Something had to be done, something fair.
But even that would only be an issue if every magical child had an opportunity to arrive at Hogwarts in the first place, and with the Slytherin rhetoric still going full-force, Godric couldn't be sure that would happen. More and more he found himself distracted in his lectures, going on a digression about how Muggles had nearly bested him in a swordfight, or identified some medicinal properties of common herbs. He lost track of time, having to dismiss class and send them to dinner having only covered half of the material planned, and took bitter comfort in the fact that Salazar was not running long. Rather, he planned his lectures, and all their snide ridicule. Surely, the Slytherin students could not be making as much progress in their understanding of true magic?
They couldn’t be. He saw them struggle to catch up, with downcast eyes and harried expressions, cursing in both the magical and mundane senses. Sometimes jeering duels between classmates as their friends looked on, sometimes hexing toads on the edge of the forest, and then, one day—little Muiredach, the Muggle-born first-year lying in half-awake grogginess while a pair of senior students fled into the distance.
Godric stopped them in their tracks from behind, not releasing them until he'd caught up to them and was staring them down. “For shame! Have you learned nothing here?”
“We've learned plenty,” the shorter of the two grinned, “not perfect, but it gets the job done.”
“Detention for the both of you. You'll be cleaning the candle stands in the Great Hall tonight—the Muggle way, I may add.”
“What's the point?” the other one muttered. “They'll get dirtied up soon enough anyway.”
“That is enough!” Godric announced. “Be grateful you have the opportunity to do something of use. Perhaps this will be more instructive than whatever nonsense you are learning in your classes.”
By the time he turned back, one of Helga's army of house-elves was already fussing over Muiredach and shooing off interference.
That night the candles were lowered and stayed in place under a spell from Godric—the irony of which did not escape the students. They sent dust and invectives flying in every direction, at times looking like they were about to chuck a few at each other or anyone who passed by. But the other students kept to their own rooms, leaving the corridors vacant. Godric sat in darkness, at times squinting and giving up on reading scrolls. Of course, it hadn't been safe to leave the candles operational.
Only when they were nearly finished did Godric whirl in place, hearing footsteps outside the Great Hall. There was Salazar, peering in coolly. “Ah,” he said, “I was beginning to wonder what was preventing my students from observing curfew.”
“You were notified immediately.”
“By one of your silent memos, yes. How inefficient.”
Godric glanced back. The sullen pair had moved onto a stand near the door, reaching past the table where Helga sometimes brought her favorites dessert. “They'll be done soon.”
“If there was any wrongdoing, discipline would be the provision of the students' heads of houses.”
“It won't be forever.”
Salazar stepped into the hall, approaching quietly. “Are you threatening me, Godric?”
“I'm asking you, yet again, to stop letting people off with slaps on the wrist—”
“Corporal punishment has its place, to be sure—”
“—and for once think about this school we've built together and its future, for every student!”
“I have done so! What you call 'students' I call 'interlopers'.”
“That is enough!”
“Ooh,” said one of the students, “is it?”
“I'll be happy to take over supervision,” Salazar replied.
Godric turned back to the students. “You might as well leave. There are some things we shouldn't fight about in front of you.”
“So you do want to fight me?”
“You sound as if you're afraid to face me.”
“Not all of us can be brawny duellists, rushing into battle at the drop of that ridiculous hat of yours. I do have a future to plan for.”
“If you want to continue defending this bigotry, teaching your students to attack others for reasons that ought to be meaningless, shutting the walls of the school to deserving magicians, then choose any second who'll stand up for your jests.”
Salazar ignored him, staring at the two students. “Out.”
Wordlessly, they shuffled for the door, beginning to speedwalk as soon as they'd crossed the threshold and could head for the dungeons. Godric, in turn, at once undid his charm, allowing the candles to rise up to their normal heights, the few untouched ones rising along with their fresh counterparts.
“I had always thought,” said Salazar, “that coming to blasts was the one line you would not cross with me, no matter what nonsense you espoused for Hogwarts itself. Were you holding back out of respect for our friendship?”
“Hardly. But I had not thought any competent seconds would disgrace themselves with your foolish ideas.”
“You take Sobeya for incompetent at your own peril.”
This, Godric privately conceded, was true. Sobeya Slytherin was a much more practical spellcaster than her bookish husband ever aspired to be, and her defense of “pureblooded” rhetoric was as fervent as his own. While their oldest son seemed more interested in creating multilingual enchantments than carrying down the family obsession, their younger daughters had absorbed every word from both their parents' lectures.
“That's as may be, if she wants to assist you, she's welcome to do so.”
“I think I may say that she'd be happy to duel you on her own.”
“You think you may say? Is this how it works, you find someone who just lets you put words in their mouth?”
“I've met someone whom I trust enough to understand.”
That had been enough, once. When Godric's friends had been as family to him, he had felt sure he could know their hearts—predict what up-and-coming prospects would excite Rowena or what cause would stir Helga's blood. Above all, he had thought he knew what would motivate Salazar, drive him forward to build to greater heights than ever before. He had never lost confidence in himself or his knowledge of his friends. It was only the surety that they would all work together for Hogwarts' common good, that was gone.
“But of course, Salazar went on, “Sobeya appreciates the old proprieties. If she wants to challenge you to a duel, she'll let you know herself.”
Sobeya did, several days later, with an elaborate scroll placed at his seat at breakfast. Godric resisted the urge to open it in front of his students, instead drilling them with review questions while aware of Salazar's gaze boring holes in him from behind.
He would accept, of course, there was no question of it. Things had been coming to a head for years, and it seemed increasingly clear that the fight for Hogwarts' future could not be resolved by the talks they'd cherished for so long. Duels were crude, but even the oldest Slytherin patriarch could attest that they were established methods of regulating justice. The fact that Godric happened to be extremely good at them didn't hurt.
For a normal instance of single combat, perhaps it would have sufficed for Salazar—as official second—to fix the time and place, marking a stretch of ground on the edge of the lake with dragon hide before dawn. But for a duel of that scale, he could not be alone. Rowena and Helga would be in attendance, too. Not to interfere, but to be sure of what had transpired.
“You may choose one of them as second, if you like,” Sobeya offered.
“No, thank you.”
“You will have a second in attendance,” she stated.
“I don't need one.”
“That was not a request. Insult us, if you will, but you will not denigrate the forms.”
“They don't seem to have a shortage of people lining up to defend them.”
“Two days, Godric. Study well,” she said.
True to his word, when dawn broke, Godric did have another wizard by his side. Little Muiredach, shivering in the morning chill, huddled behind him, wholly nonplussed.
“This is a farce,” Salazar demanded. “Send him away, and meet Sobeya when you're ready to take us seriously.”
“I am most serious. Muiredach is a wizard, with as much opportunity as any. He was wronged by your students for no reason other than childish cruelty. He deserves a defender, the same as anyone. As I do not expect to need his assistance, the criterion of combative maturity should not be an issue.”
“It's not without precedent,” Helga volunteered. “There have been mother-daughter pairs at the ages of—”
“That's enough,” said Salazar. “I am willing to proceed.”
“As am I,” Sobeya finally agreed. “No protest.”
“To disarmament?” Rowena asked.
“Indeed,” Godric and Sobeya said in unison.
“Then take your places.”
They did so, dozens of dark windows gazing down at them from the school. Godric half-hoped the students were asleep, but then remembered Muiredach's presence. There was no shame in witnessing justice.
“Bow...”
He did with difficulty, satisfied only in that Sobeya was gritting her teeth with equal disdain from the opposite position.
“And proceed.”
Bolts cast through shadow soared and burnt out. Sobeya's murmured incantations kept Godric off-balance, lurching from one side to another as he lashed out at her. In between hexes, he cast a variant of the same chalk-replenishing spell they used to make their blackboards stay full. That time, it was to keep his grip fresh, no matter what Sobeya did to try and tear his wand from him. He could not yield.
One hex made her arm swell up and scorch, and another buckled his knees. He retched, and the ground behind her shook. She sent out a Tongue-Tying Curse, and he struggled to come up with a nonverbal spell to shake it off before trying to curse her wand itself until it nearly burned to touch. But with another spell, she'd at least temporarily made it tolerable.
Back and forth they fought, and though Godric thought he was gaining the upper hand, he had no time to dwell on distractions. It had been years since he'd fought an opponent of her caliber, and never for such stakes.
It was only when the sun had begun to rise to the point where he had to squint that he turned away to notice something out of the corner of his eye. Muiredach had held the same rigid pose for some time, and while his arms were at his sides, he was no longer holding his wand.
“What have you done to him?” Godric yelled, rounding on Salazar while continuing to fend off Sobeya's attacks.
“You know perfectly well it's accepted for seconds to spar in parallel, so long as no injurious spells—”
“The child can't move!”
“It wasn't my idea to bring a useless whelp here!”
“Face me like a grown man, I'll fight you both.”
“You'd let us both into the fray?” Salazar asked, as Godric sidestepped yet another would-be disarming spell. “I had known you were foolish, but this is something else entirely.”
Godric instead turned to the witnesses off to the side. “When I loose Muiredach, bring him back to the castle at once. They were right; this is no place for a child.”
It had been Helga whom he was addressing, deep down, assuming she would heed the charge, but it was Rowena who spoke. “If you're willing. I see I'm not needed here anyway.”
“On three,” said Godric. “One, two, three—”
A flurry of spells; one breaking the paralysis on Muiredach, the next blocking Sobeya's incoming fire, another wresting Muiredach's wand from a blinking Salazar. It fell short of the boy, who rushed to grab it and then screamed in protest as Rowena hauled him away. Then Salazar was sending an impediment jinx at Godric, and the battle was on in earnest.
Two against one, Godric split his attention as masterfully as ever. He sent simple revulsion jinxes at Salazar, aiming for a quick disarmament, and more painful hexes at Sobeya, knowing he would need to weaken her considerably before her defenses slipped. When not defending himself from their onslaught, he had no choice but to turn in place, until at last the sun's glare was no longer a concern.
Slowly, Salazar eased up on his tentative spells, and began deferring to Sobeya, taking her advice on when to cast in unison and when to weave back and forth. As Helga silently looked on, Godric repelled them both, but even as he grew faint, Salazar was starting to hit his stride.
He needed to make a show of casting aside Salazar first, Godric decided. It would disrupt their coordinated attacks and prevent the fresh energy from disrupting the duel. Perhaps most importantly, even if by some stroke of luck Sobeya managed to defeat him, he would have sent a message to the person with more influence over the course of the school.
So, bracing himself as Sobeya's barrage continued, he cast with new vigor—runic translations, ancient charms, with sloppiness and recklessness they'd both have marked down their students for. At last, gasping for breath after another hex wracked his lungs, he readied himself to cast a blasting curse and level his might at Salazar.
But before he could do so, he noticed something else: Sobeya, preparing a snake summoning spell.
He knew Salazar's gift, knew that they would force him to parry three ways, and the distraction was too much. He cast the spell then and there; the force overwhelmed the snake burgeoning from the end of her wand, then the wand itself, and finally, Sobeya fell back as the explosion hit.
It was nearly silent except for a distant, faraway buzz, and Godric wondered if behind the walls of the school breakfast was already beginning. Salazar had lowered his wand as if paralyzed himself, and it was Helga who spoke first. “Drop your wands.”
Salazar's hit the ground without a word. Godric's mind screamed in affront, but he found himself relinquishing his and beginning to shiver. Her own wand at the ready, Helga crossed over the dragonhide demarcations and began casting nonverbal charms at Sobeya's unmoving form.
She said something under her breath that Godric, still shaking, could not make out. Then she knelt down and reached for the remnants of Sobeya's wand, which crumbled under her grasp.
“Dead,” she declared, turning to face the men. And in Salazar's scream of anguish Godric thought he could hear the long-forgotten voice of his friend, devoid of any argument or any words at all.
He envied the retching hexes from so recently, for there was nothing left to vomit up, no token of his disgust. He would have to hold himself together, he realized, just a little while longer. Slowly, the glare no longer seeming to hurt him, he made his way back towards the castle.
Godric ate little and slept as much as he could in the days that came; he was not sure who had been pressed into teaching his classes. Soon the pain would be less, the world would be less, he promised himself, and until then it was all right to think of the enchantments he cast as someone else's problem. Everyone was cursed to die, and there would be a time when it would no longer matter...
When he finally doffed his hat for the last time and cast, he felt a sense of peace that had little to do with the state of his soul, and much to do with the relief his students must have felt on a frequent basis. The task was not complete to their best potential, perhaps, but at least it was done, and there was nothing else anyone could do to him.
“You need not take any further measures,” Godric spoke to Rowena and Helga the next time he spoke with them. “The Houses will endure.”
And Salazar, who had been there too, nodded. “I will be departing as soon as possible. I will finish out the year and ensure that worthy teachers are on staff in my stead, but I cannot remain here.”
Godric did not speak. In the years to come there would be stories of a secret room built in haste those final months, of a toad and an egg smuggled deep below the school, of pure blood that would know the way to speak secret words, of venom that could destroy anything, but of this Godric heard nothing, even with no hat to cover his ears.
“No,” said Lakshmi.
“Come again?” Galbraith asked, as his office door shut behind them. “No what?”
“No, we're not—causing destruction for its own sake. Or because we know we're so much better than them that we think whatever we come up with next will be flawless. We just have to go ahead and do it because it's right.”
“Here here,” said Biknug.
“Wands out, everyone,” Jade said. “There could be unexpected defenses.”
“I really think this is overkill,” William sighed, twirling his own wand in his hand. “It's not a—a weapon.”
“There could still be safeguards that none of our spells can detect anymore,” said Keith. “Ancient magic has a power of its own.”
William gave what passed for an encouraging smile. “Nothing to worry about.”
“There's going to be plenty to worry about,” said Lakshmi, “in an hour when we've all gone back downstairs and have lessons to plan and miscreants to tell off and raging textbooks to subdue. To say nothing of the press. None of us would be here if we weren't sure Hogwarts—the school, deep down—will still be here when we've finished.” And after their time, it was the simplest thing to believe the school would carry on. They were not killers and they were not heroes, just passing forward almost all of what they'd inherited, and the new legacies they'd create.
Biknug nodded, passing Gryffindor's sword to her, and Galbraith turned to retrieve the Sorting Hat from his desk.
She braced herself for noise, a scream or a rhyme or something. Around her, the others were grasping their wands, and even Biknug had his supply of keys at the ready. But there was no motion from the hat.
Basilisk venom coursed through goblin-made iron under her touch. She reached out, at first poking the brim almost hesitantly, then in a single lunge slicing through the hat. The centuries-old fabric fell into shreds almost instantly, spilling across Galbraith's cluttered desk, and the metal felt heavy in her hands.
Lakshmi felt exhausted, dimly conscious moments later of Biknug taking the sword back from her unprotesting grip, of William's hand on her shoulder, and then—it could only have been moments later—Keith, glancing up at the portraits of the scandalized headmasters. “I'm going to miss the quatrains.”
“The quatrains,” said William, “objectively speaking, were rubbish.”
“That's a bit harsh.”
“Maybe there was a century when that was relevant, but I really doubt it.”
“We could probably find some more—contemporary poetry, if we need to lighten up the proceedings,” said Jade. “Or music. Dance. Make the fourth-years compose something, they're always bored.”
“Not the fourth-years,” Keith shuddered.
Before the merits of entrusting cultural leadership to a cohort of fourteen-year-olds could be debated any more extensively, Galbraith rose from his seat. “Heads of—senior faculty. Custodian Biknug. Professor Narang. Thank you.”
“Of course,” said Lakshmi. “Thank you.”
History would not remember the food that stemmed her exhaustion, the light of the greenhouse, the intramural Quidditch games she was pressed into refereeing. Perhaps one or two of the committees she wrangled to reformulate the Quidditch schedule, to bequeath the hourglass gemstones, to reorganize the Great Hall tables would be preserved in the library archives. But history would continue, and there would be children yet who had nothing to obstruct their gazes from the enchanted ceiling and the sky beyond.