The Theory of Magic (Book 1)

30 // Favors & Funny Tattoos

Fi woke with a start from muddled dreams.

"Bloody hell," she muttered, still caught in the net between sleep and awareness, comfortably warm and numb as if adrift in a hot spring. She stared at an unfamiliar ceiling, and as she saw the pale teal light ripple with fingers of yellow ambiance, she wondered if she was dreaming, or if she really was in a hot spring, inches away from drowning. Fi sat up.

She discovered she most definitely was not dreaming nor adrift, as all her stubborn aches returned with her abrupt movements, silver sheets puddling in her lap along with the emerald duvet. The room was relatively small, comprised of black stone walls with a flat ceiling and enough space for a roomy bed, a wardrobe, a desk, a bookcase, and Fi's trunk. She guessed no one had attempted to open the trunk because there wasn't a Stunned body sprawled across the rug.

Squinting, Fi looked about and discovered the source of the light to be a clear sheet of glass set in the wall to her left, stretching from floor to ceiling, about as wide as a stocky wizard. Beyond it lapped the gentle current of the Black Lake, and through the murky waters poured filtered sunlight that played upon the foot of Fi's bed and the wood desk. A school of fish even Fi didn't have the name for zipped by and disappeared into the darker depths.

"Note to self; do not open the window."

Chuckling at her own rather unimaginative joke, Fi swung her legs out of the bed and got to her feet. Her head swam and she paused with a hand on the end of the poster bed, noting she'd been left in her tunic, leggings, and robes, meaning the latter had turned into a wrinkled mess of navy fabric. Fi shrugged out of it and rolled her shoulders, sending a whisper of magic through the soles of her bare feet to detect any wards or alarms she might be triggering.

She found nothing aside from the typical Hogwarts wards—though there were a few she didn't understand, proximity alerts set to go off if someone went somewhere in the castle and a few older wards so wound up in each other it was like trying to untangle a mass of loose yarn. Looking about for her shoes, she found them resting atop her trunk, and Fi tugged the loose things onto her feet, staring at the tapestry of a tree with snakes hanging from the black branches.

Given the decor and the view, Fi knew she had to be in a dungeons, in a bedroom that smelled faintly of disuse, fresh candles set on the nightstand, the wardrobe empty, the small hearth cool. Humming in thought, the hedge witch approached the only door, gave the silver handle a few testing pokes before taking hold of it and stepping out into the corridor.

There was another door across the passage, probably a mirrored chamber or a loo, and as Fi walked, she entered what appeared to be some sort of common room with another corridor on the other side of the room, a portrait hole in the wall between the two hallways. The furniture in the room was dark and decadent, tooled in silver, viscerally reminding Fi of her evening in the Slytherin common room—though this wasn't the same space. A familiar figure sat at one of the couches by the lit hearth, legs crossed, Daily Prophet open between his two hands.

With a sharp gesture, Snape folded down the top of his paper and met Fi's gaze, one brow arched. "Awake, are you?"

"I believe so." Fi glanced about the room, at the posh rugs with silver tassels, the gilded windows viewing the lake, the portrait of a bearded man who stared at Fi with keen, intelligent eyes. "What are you staring at?"

The portrait gave a rueful chuckle.

"That is Salazar Slytherin, Dullahan, the founder of Slytherin House. Do try to show some respect."

"Oh." Fi was torn between offering an apology and sticking out her tongue, so she did neither, stiffening her posture as she passed the portrait and came to stand behind one of the couches. High-backed wingchairs and heavy end tables accompanied the arrangement. "Where am I, exactly?"