Chapter 158. Rowena Ravenclaw. Part 5. The Artefact.

Chapter 158. Rowena Ravenclaw. Part 5. The Artifact.

On his way back to the dungeons, Severus turned the information over in his mind, his frown deepening with every step. The fact that someone had taken such a keen interest in the runes and scripts of his world, an interest so strong that they killed at least two capable Magisters to keep them hidden, spoke volumes. It indicated not only how important the matter was, but also the strength of whatever organization stood behind it.

Nine hundred years had passed, of course. The organization might have dissolved or been destroyed by now, but he doubted it. The Black Star was roughly three hundred years old and Hogwarts was nearly a thousand, and in the world he had come from there were organizations many hundreds of times older than either. He would not be surprised in the slightest if this one still existed, perhaps under a different name.

He did have a guess as to who might know something about it, but he was in no rush to pursue that lead. There were more pressing matters at hand. If he happened to cross paths with them, he would make certain not to let them go until he had every answer he needed.

His reason for showing Rowena the watch and the sword, and for telling her about Tom, was simple: trust. He doubted the diadem and the earring—which could help a person absorb knowledge more quickly and thoroughly—were her only artifacts. He could have tried to create something similar himself, but that particular branch of the craft was not his forte. Given the right materials, he could produce offensive and defensive artifacts without difficulty. Those that acted on the mind were an entirely different matter. The bracelet he had made for Bella had taken an enormous amount of time. It had demanded careful selection of runes and enchantments, alongside extensive study of Rowena’s own work on the diadem and similar objects.

He had no doubt there was more tucked away in her stores. All he had to do was earn her trust. Legilimency was always an option, of course, but it simply did not work on living portraits. He had chosen the longer road, and even if she figured out what he was after, she would have nothing to complain about.

He was also not finished searching Hogwarts. One place still required a visit: the office, or perhaps a private room, where Godric Gryffindor had done his work. That somewhere might hold clues about the people who had hunted the founders. Every student assumed that office was the present Headmaster’s, but Severus doubted it. Too obvious. Gryffindor’s founder was not as sharp as Rowena, but he was far from dull. Beyond his fighting ability, very few people knew he had also been a master of Transfiguration, runology, and artifact-crafting.

Given such depth of knowledge, crafting domains like those of Rowena, Helga, and Salazar would have been well within his capabilities. Indeed, Gryffindor had cast most of the enchantments that maintained the castle. Even in the world Severus hailed from, Gryffindor would have achieved great feats and stood equal to most masters of the craft. However, the absolute pinnacle of mastery would have eluded him, just as it remained beyond Severus.

With this in mind, the moment they returned to the room, Severus issued new orders to the house-elves to expand their search throughout the entire castle. He also assigned Lucky to work alongside them, after promising him six meals a day, naturally.

He then turned his attention to studying everything he had extracted from the book found on the wooden altar. It was the magical history of the world that captivated him most, not the Muggle side documented all the way back to the planet’s formation. The tome contained wizarding records dating back to two thousand years before the common era, dry though they were.

The following day, once classes were over and the evening had worn on, Severus instructed Tom to strip away all the filler from the text. He wanted only the bare facts, with the various conjectures and opinions of historians removed.

Even so, the answers to his questions remained elusive. The questions themselves were straightforward enough. Where had magic originated? Who had been the first witch or wizard? How powerful had the people living thousands of years ago actually been? He was also seeking information on artifacts from his own world. He found a handful of references, but their current locations remained unknown. The most striking detail was that every recorded owner of those artifacts had been killed, and the objects vanished entirely shortly after.

Others might not have paid this much attention. Murder for a wand or a magical object was nothing unusual. But to Severus it looked deeply suspicious, and it made him want to meet the leader of the Black Star even more urgently. The man was apparently still alive, which raised plenty of questions on its own. The people behind these killings might well be dead by now, but it was equally possible that the organizations were cooperating, or that one answered to the other.

The more he thought about it, the worse his head began to ache. He was creating his own problems by digging into things that any sensible person who wanted a quiet life would leave alone. And he would not be digging at all if this were not connected to his own world and to the possibility of locating the Architect’s core, through which he had a real chance of pushing his own core to the rank of Grand Archimagus.

Late that night, when he returned to Rowena’s library, he was met by a calm but reflective gaze. She had spent the day working through a great deal. She had managed, in turn, to hate herself; to recognize that she could not have done otherwise given her blind trust and Salazar’s long-ruined reputation, both of which had stopped her from thinking clearly; and finally to forgive, because nothing could be changed now. Both of them bore some fault in this. If Salazar had not acted like a pompous fool and had simply explained himself plainly, she would have paused to think, and Godric and Helga would certainly have listened. But Rowena herself was also to blame for failing to see that she was being manipulated, when everything had been right there on the surface and her mind and feelings had seemed to actively resist the conclusion. Even so, the guilt she carried had not gone anywhere, and perhaps it never would.

"I see you have had time to consider my proposal." Severus gave a faint smile as he walked toward the armchair facing her portrait and sat down.

A few seconds later, Lucky jumped onto the table, eyed Rowena, and then sprawled out in front of Severus. He lowered his hand onto the kitten’s head without a second thought and, sensing no objection, began to stroke him with an air of perfect contentment. Nagini watched with a touch of envy.

"Ahem! Ahem!" Rowena cleared her throat sharply. "I have considered your proposal," she said, looking at them both with evident irritation. Even McGonagall might have envied that severity, but right now there was nothing she could say or do about Severus’s blatant disrespect. She swallowed the urge to tell him exactly what she thought.

"Mrrrr..."

"And what did you decide?" Severus shifted his hands to scratch Lucky’s cheeks and asked with the utmost gravity, making Rowena’s eye twitch.

"I realize you showed me the sword and the watch deliberately." Severus gave a silent nod. "About the diadem: I hold no grudge against you. Even if you had simply destroyed it without a second thought... it brought me too much grief." A shadow of sorrow crossed her face for a moment, but she gathered herself quickly. "I trust Godric as I trust myself. He was the only person I ever deeply respected. He combined wildness with intellect and kindness, which was an extraordinary rarity in those days. But I will tell you something: those watches used to bear the Gryffindor crest. Am I right?"

"Hm? That’s correct..." Severus paused, then nodded, and within seconds he understood what she was getting at. "So the mark was your signal. If the Gryffindor crest remained, the watch had been taken by force. If it showed all four houses, it had been given freely. Is that it?"

"Yes. But that’s not the only reason I’m willing to trust you."

"Now I’m curious. What else did you see?" He smirked and waited.

"Your mind, your abilities, and those eyes... they could not possibly belong to an ordinary young man. The fact that you found your way here at all speaks volumes. Am I wrong?" Rowena smiled faintly, studying his reaction with mild interest. She saw in him two distinct personalities fused into one. She recognized Salazar’s sharp intellect, his cold and measured nature, aristocratic bearing, and love of serpents. She also saw Godric’s warmer gaze, tempered with a trace of detachment. She noted his mastery of runology and artifact-crafting, without which this place could never have been reached, and the physical build to match. She sensed that he would one day surpass both her colleagues. Had she known that he had already done so long ago, she likely would have been stunned into silence.

"I see. So, what is it you wish to ask, and what are you offering in return?"

The nerve of him. He certainly gets that from Salazar. Rowena thought with a weary sigh, then spoke. "My request might seem strange to you. I am surprised to be asking this of someone who hasn’t even finished school..."

"It is nearly eleven at night. Please get to the point. My first class starts at nine."

"Hush! Show at least a little respect to the founder of your school!" Rowena snapped, slipping back into the old habit on reflex. When he remained completely unmoved, she let out a long breath and continued. "I ask you to protect this place, if they ever return to finish what they started."

"Do you think whoever did this is still alive?"

"I do not know, but..."

"Very well. I will do it. But what do I receive in return?"

"Try to behave with at least some degree of seriousness." She noticed something almost childlike in Severus’s expression, an eager and hungry look that brought an unexpected memory to the surface. Godric had worn that exact same look when he asked to borrow her diadem to study its enchantments. He had pestered her about it for nearly a month until she finally gave in.

A faint nostalgic smile touched her face unbidden. She suppressed it behind the mask of severity that had once terrified every student in the school.

"This artifact shares every property of my diadem, only amplified many times over. It represents the culmination of the last forty years of my life." Rowena spoke with quiet confidence and pride. She watched with satisfaction as Severus stared at the magical object with a ravenous intensity.

His reaction was entirely justified. Even in his original world, objects of this caliber and specific nature numbered fewer than ten thousand, with nearly all of them resting in the possession of a Grand Archimagus. Such scarcity stemmed from the immense difficulty involved in their creation. A single minute error during crafting could drive the wearer to madness, for an unprotected consciousness remained a deeply fragile thing.

Artifacts capable of removing the mind’s natural limits were consequently extraordinarily rare. Beyond the primary benefit of effortlessly absorbing any material within minutes, they also helped manage and suppress emotions. When paired with specific spells, such as those that fed on anger, the artifact could amplify that emotion many times over, transforming a gentle breeze into a raging storm.

Before using such a device, Severus intended to examine every rune and enchantment in detail to ensure it would not leave him a mindless wreck. A weak diadem like the original ranked as a mid-tier Magister artifact. This badge, however, given its compact size, could well reach the upper echelons of the Archimagus rank. While it might not compete with the absolute finest masterpieces of its kind, it would comfortably sit at the lower end of that elite list.

He pinched the badge between his thumb and forefinger. A small wooden box materialized in his other hand, and he placed the artifact inside, already impatient to begin his analysis.

"Very well. I swear to protect this place and allow no one to destroy it." He spoke with complete solemnity, meeting Rowena’s eyes steadily. She offered a small, grateful smile and a nod.

A few minutes later, after bidding farewell to Rowena and promising to visit occasionally, Severus left Rowena’s library and headed back toward the common room. As he neared the staircase, Nagini slipped out from beneath his cloak.

"What happened to Rowena’s daughter?" she asked, puzzled. She recalled the strange reaction that had crossed Rowena’s face at the mention of her.

Helena Ravenclaw once stole her mother’s diadem, hoping to surpass her. Her attempt failed, which was hardly surprising. Rowena had spent over a century studying every scrap of knowledge available to her, whereas Helena gave up after less than two years, too ashamed to return home. Instead, she hid herself away in the forests of Albania.

Desperate to bring her daughter home, Rowena sent a servant to find her. "You remember that ghost with the strange wig and the silver-stained robes? The one they call the Bloody Baron?"

Nagini thought for a moment before nodding. They had encountered him at the Astronomy Tower once while stargazing, and he had been making strange noises.

"That is the one. He found Helena, but she was far too ashamed to face her mother and refused to go. The Baron possessed a violent temper, and in his fury at her refusal, he stabbed her. Realizing the magnitude of his crime, he then took his own life, for he had been deeply in love with Helena."

Nagini’s jaw dropped in genuine shock. The ending was far too abrupt to anticipate.

"Something along those lines. It is also why Rowena was not particularly heartbroken about the destruction of the diadem."

"That’s... unexpected..." Nagini faltered, unable to find the right words. "...and tragic."

"Hard to argue with that. That’s the result of a poor upbringing. But we won’t let that happen, will we?" Severus smirked and winked at her, trying to lift the heaviness that had settled between them. It worked perfectly, though not quite in the way he had intended. She flushed bright red. Rather than answering, she dove back under the cloak and began poking him repeatedly in the ribs.

"All right, all right, I’ll stop..." Severus laughed, and they continued toward the dungeons. He couldn’t wait to get to work.

========================================

------------------------------------------

Chapters on Patreon progress: Currently at;

1. Harry Potter: Satan? Nah, Just My Family Crest = Chapter 278

2.Marvel: Cosmic Forger of Infinity = Chapter 194

3.Harry Potter: Beyond Good and Evil in the Wizarding World = Chapter 279

4.Harry Potter: Reborn as Draco Black = Chapter 121

support me on Patreon for instant access to the 120+ advance Chapters: patreon.com/redofic