The Heiress of Slytherin

William Take a Breather

As they passed the table William had been hunched over, Ivy caught a glance at the inscription in gleaming gold of the medal. "Awarded to Isolt Sayre, for.." and that was all she read before she was once again pulled away up the stairs and into a long corridor.

The curiosity Ivy felt for William the Pukwudgie was quickly brushed aside as the odd trio wound their way up several staircases and down long corridors.

Every place they entered held a new fascination for Ivy as they swept by tapestries where creatures dodged and ran amongst woven trees, vases where the bouquets seemed to contain entirely different arrangements from every vantage point, and so much more to captivate the young witch.

At one point she had stilled in front of a mirror, endlessly amused as her father's reflection showed him as a centaur. She turned her eyes to examine herself, to see if she too was reflected back as something else, but to her dismay, she found that she remained exactly as she was.

Giving Ivy a horrid shock, although she was relieved it only appeared as a little startle in the mirror's reflection, William spoke from her side. She turned her eyes in the mirror again to look at him as he spoke and noted that he too had the same curious appearance as ever in the smooth surface.

"Makes people look like creatures. Suppose your fathers a bit like a centaur; that's more complimentary than most of 'em." His dark, glassy eyes stared into her in his intense manner again, their ferocity undiluted in the reflection. "Must know you're already a beast."

Ivy's eyebrows shot to the top of her forehead as the Pukwudgie turned and hobbled off in the direction they had previously been going. Had Melkor Smyth said that to her, her wand would have been out the second he'd said it, but something made her hold her tongue as she jogged a little to catch up with the proceeding duo.

There had been something in Williams's tone, hidden underneath a thick layer of gruffness and a scratchy voice, that made Ivy's heart swell in a similar fashion to her encounters with the Selkie and Centaur colonies at home.

It had been a rough, reluctant sort of appreciation. As though to William, being a "beast" was about the only thing that made you worth any of his time. She lifted her chin a little as she caught up to them, and couldn't help the pride that ran through her veins like a fire. Among creatures, she was as most witches and wizards felt among people: different, but accepted as one of them.

Perhaps it was because centaurs and selkies had been allies to sirens for centuries, but there was a certain gravity to the realisation that William felt this particular sort of respect and acceptance for her. It made the words, "I belong," run about her head in wild circles till she could hardly even acknowledge the decor about her as she fought to keep a maniacal grin off her face.

One thing did not escape her attention, however, and it was almost enough to push the little voice to the back of her head. She had hardly noticed how modern the structure of the building had been; shiny, unmarried wooden structures walls and ceilings, plush carpets that felt as though they had never been stepped on, and smooth marble floors that shone without a scratch.

Then all at once the realisation that she must have been in the newer wings of the school, or at least they had very recently remodelled, sunk in as one door led them to a room that hung heavy with age. The once dark floors had been worn everywhere but at the very edges into a light shade; more birch than mahogany.

The drapes that hung from the sides of the windows were a thick green velvet that frayed and became thin where the cord tied them to the wall. The stone staircase was chipped from use and several birds seemed to have made nests on the windowsills beyond the simple, iron-wrought windowpanes.