The Heiress of Slytherin

Fate Really Killed the Vibe

Galatea and Tiamat glanced at each other. They knew what the gates held; the prophecy. Tiamat sighed and turned to Ivy.

"I'm afraid the answer to that question is very complicated my child. But perhaps I should start at the beginning..."

Tiamat rose from the floor and extended a hand to Galatea and Ivy, who took it with one of their own and used their tails to push off of the floor.

The trio left the hall hand-in-hand and turned down a corridor Ivy hadn't been down before. She refrained from asking where they were going; something in the mood had shifted and she felt that the only words that should be spoken were those that were necessary - nothing more, nothing less.

They ventured up one of the spiralled, ramp-like staircases and Ivy smiled to herself. She'd often complained about the moving staircases at Hogwarts, but she'd take those any day over having to walk up this staircase above land. She bit back a laugh as she imagined her friends sliding down as they attempted to scale it.

Soon they were at the next level and they swam down another corridor for a short distance, then stopped at an arched entryway without a door. Swimming through it, Ivy gasped. She had never seen or even imagined what an underwater library would look like, but she knew now that she was in one. It looked oddly similar to a normal library, with books and scrolls lining different shelves and pockets in neat stacks that would make Hermione cry with joy.

She left Galatea and Tiamat's side to swim over to one of the shelves, fascinated by how they had managed to find a way to create these stores of knowledge and stories without having the water destroy them. When she reached them, she opened a volume and looked inside. It was bound by a heavy cover of bronze, as were all the rest of the books. The pages felt like kelp, but they were lighter in colour and firmer. Each one was about the thickness of two sheets of parchment, and the writing on them was strong and confident in a deep black ink. When she inspected the scrolls, they were made of the same material but were held together by solid rings of bronze that slid on and off when the scroll was rolled.

From behind her, she heard Galatea speak. "The process to make each book and scroll is a long, patient one. We do not hurry everything as wizards do, but we take time. Pallas, the sister of the seventh chief of the tribe discovered this method of making books and scrolls. We take kelp and pull them into small pieces, which we soak in salt in a closed container for many months. After this, we form them into sheets and place them upon wood on the shore of the lake to harden and dry in the sun, weighing down the corners of every sheet with stones. The sun and the salt make them a paler colour, and when they are dry we rub the surfaces to smooth them. We then paint every sheet with the residue we collect from the snails that live in the lake and allow them to dry again. We collect the ink from the great squid, which has magical properties that repel water and stains terribly and using stone quills, we write on the sheets of paper by the shore. We allow them to dry one last time then bind them into the casings we have made, or roll them into scrolls."

Ivy listened raptly. It was amazing, and she felt overcome with admiration for the patience and intelligence that went into the process. It displayed such care and reverence for the knowledge that each book and scroll held, that she felt that every page in the library ought to be put on display and honoured. For the millionth time that day, angry amazement flew through her mind as she thought about the way wizard-kind disrespected and belittled any creature unlike themselves.

Tiamat swam over to them as Galatea finished talking, holding several books and scrolls in her hand. Ivy noticed one of the scrolls was fully encased in a bronze tube, which she thought was slightly odd, as none of the other ones were. Odder still was the slightly nervous, sad looks in both Tiamat and Galatea's eyes. Ivy had seen the latter show a range of emotion in their time together, but coming from the previously infallibly strong Chieftess, it was incredibly jarring.