aching all over, his arm burning as if it had been held in a fire. He turned it palm up, knowing already what he would see, burned black and raw into the skin of his forearm. The skull with its grinning jaws, the snake, the same empty eye sockets mocking him now as they had mocked him from their place on his fathers arm. Signo serpens.
The Dark Mark.
The inside of the blue tent, like the inside of many wizarding tents, was completely unlike the exterior. Hermione and Ginny found themselves in a beautifully appointed bedchamber with walls of stone. A fireplace, sunk into the north wall and surrounded by much carved stone, smoked and spat with red-gold fire. Tapestries and metal-bound chests all about caught the firelight and flared and faded in harmony. At the end of the room was a heavy-looking bed, curtains drawn back, and on the bed a woman lying amid the pillows. She was only a darkly outlined shadow as Hermione turned her face away from the fire, although she seemed to be moving, and sitting up. She spoke, then, out of the shadows.
'Come closer,' she said.
Hermione took Ginnys hand and together they went towards the bed. As they approached, the shadows melted into clarity and Hermione was able to see the woman in the bed more clearly. She sat up against stacked pillows, wrapped in robes that somehow, rather wildly, reminded Hermione of the color she had chosen for her own set of dress robes: pale, periwinkle blue. She had the tumbled brown hair and peach-pale skin of her tapestried self back at Slytherins castle, only without the ink stains on her cheek. She looked deathly tired as she leaned forward and reached out her hands towards the girls. 'So there is another of me in the world now,' she said, gently, and lightly touched the edge of Hermiones hair. Her eyes darkened with sadness as they moved to Ginny. 'And another of Helga. Just as pretty as she was.'
Hermione and Ginny were both speechless. Rowena seemed to understand this. 'Please sit down,' she said, and gestured them towards a low bench at the side of the bed, stacked with the same soft-looking pillows.
They sat. Hermione had been afraid, when Benjamin had said that Rowena was dying, that they would be ushered in to see a woman who was terribly wounded, or delirious, but Rowena only seemed very, very tired, her skin so pale Hermione thought she could see through it to the blood beneath.
'You look cold,' said Rowena, glancing from Ginny to Hermione.
Hermione nodded. 'It was summer where we where. When we were,' she corrected herself.
Rowena smiled tiredly at her, reached out, and touched the Lycanthe on its chain around Hermiones throat. 'I had been terrified this was destroyed,' she said. 'When Salazar went, he was holding it in his hand. It vanished along with him. I?m glad it found its way to you. Can I use it for a moment?'
'Of course. Its yours,' said Hermione, and drew the chain over her head, handing to the older woman without the usual pang that accompanied giving it up even for a moment.
Holding it lightly in her left hand, Rowena extended her other hand towards the girls. 'Pectogarmentius!' she said.
A slight tingling sensation ran over Hermione, followed by a feeling of surprising warmth. Glancing down, she saw that her light jeans and jumper had metamorphosed into long robes of soft, dark blue wool over a wool dress. She glanced over at a surprised Ginny, who was now wearing similar clothes of dark green. Hermione was impressed. She had thought about using a warmth spell on their clothes earlier, but changing the substance and appearance of things at the same time was advanced Transfiguration and she wasn?t sure she could have managed that.
'Thank you,' said Rowena, as if Hermione had been the one to do her a favor, and handed back the Lycanthe.
Hermione looked from the silver Lycanthe to the older witch.
'You?re a Magid,' she said. 'You don?t need this.'
'But I?m dying,' said Rowena, softly. 'I expect Benjamin told you. I haven?t got much strength left. No — its all right. I wanted to do a little magic. I?ve missed it these past few days. And don?t worry.
The centaurs have made me a potion that will keep me alive as long as necessary to talk to you.'
Hermione cleared her throat, but her voice still came out squeaky.
'Benjamin,' she said. 'Hes the first Heir of Gryffindor?'
Rowena nodded. 'I can see by your expression that you recognized him. Is he as like to the Heir in your own time as he is to his father?'
Hermione nodded slowly. 'Hes very like Harry.'
Rowena blinked. 'Henry? Like the King?'
Hermione shook her head. 'Not short for anything. Just Harry. He looks a bit like Godric. But hes a Magid. Like you.'
'I would have thought he would have come with you,' said Rowena.
'If you are here, that must mean Salazar has risen again. Where is Harry?'
Isn?t that just what I wish I knew, Hermione thought miserably. Her throat seemed to have closed up. Ginny reached over and squeezed her hand.
'Slytherin took him,' she said finally. 'We don?t know where…'
'He took him? Took Godrics Heir?' Rowena had paled even further, if that was possible. 'Taken him where? And how?'
Hermione related very quickly the story of her own experience being kidnapped by Slytherin, and then their encounter with him at the Burrow. When she was done, Rowena exhaled softly.
'He must have found a Source,' she said, turning to Hermione.
'When you first met him, he was weak. He had only just risen. He had no source of power. He must have found a Magid willing to be a Source for him.'
'So hes strong again?' asked Ginny.
