FIC: Hogwarts: All Sales Final - 31/34
Start of the story, including summary, full ratings, warnings, pairings etc. Here
Disclaimer: I own nothing that you recognise. J K Rowling retains all copyright.
Chapter 31
Rowena woke the next morning and stretched lazily. “It’s nearly dawn,” she said as she looked out the window.
“I should have left a while ago,” Salazar replied from where he sat beside her. “I didn’t want to wake you, and I didn’t want to leave without saying goodbye.”
“Can you try to visit again?” Rowena asked even though she knew what the answer was going to be.
“It’s too risky,” Salazar replied with a shake of his head. “I shouldn’t even have stayed as long as I have.”
“And you’re sure this plan will work?” she questioned.
“If we want a life together without fear of what the Disdels and the remaining Slytherins will do…”
“I know,” Rowena said sadly. “We don’t want them hounding us for the rest of our lives.”
“If you change your mind at any time just let Nicholas know once he returns for the new term.”
“Won’t that get you both into trouble?” Rowena asked.
“No, we have it all figured out. We’ve decided that if you want to call things off then he’ll end his letters with a postscript about his horse. Nothing unusual about that and his mother won’t suspect anything if she happens to see the letter.”
“Sneaky,” Rowena grinned.
“It’s one of my greatest talents,” Salazar said with a grin of his own. “Now I really have to leave. Just one last thing before I go. Try to practice looking less dreamy before you see anyone today.”
“What?” Rowena asked with a puzzled frown.
“Rowena, how many times have I told you? Every thought you have is shown on your face. If you go and greet Helga looking like you do now, she’ll know immediately what sort of a night you’ve had.”
Rowena flushed and Salazar laughed. “You haven’t changed a bit,” he said before kissing her quickly. “Now I really have to leave.”
Rowena nodded sadly and a moment later Salazar was gone. She stood at the window and watched him hurrying across the grounds and through the gates. He turned on the path and looked back towards her window. She smiled as she felt his mind brush against hers briefly before he disappeared from sight.
-o-xXx-o-
“I need you to try to find Helena,” Rowena said quietly to Edward after she’d finally tracked him down.
“But I’ve no idea where she is,” he pointed out. “I wish I did.”
“She must have talked about somewhere she’d like to visit,” Rowena suggested.
“Where didn’t she talk about wanting to visit?” Edward replied with a frustrated sigh. “I’d have taken her anywhere she wanted to go if she’d just asked.”
“I know you would. But was there anywhere in particular she spoke of?”
“Not really,” Edward replied.
“Are you sure?” Rowena asked desperately. “There’s nowhere at all she spoke of more often than anywhere else, or that she spoke of most recently before she left?”
Edward frowned. “Maybe…”
“Please try to find her,” Rowena asked again. “Bring her home, please.”
“You said she’d return in her own time,” Edward pointed out. “Why not just wait for her here?”
“I need her to come home now,” Rowena whispered. “I can’t leave myself, the new term starts next week.”
“What makes you think she’d come back with me?” Edward asked bitterly. “She barely acknowledged me when she was here.”
“I know she was a little stubborn and blind at times…”
“A little stubborn?” Edward repeated. “She…she….” He faltered as words failed him and he swore.
Rowena smiled slightly before she schooled her face into a more sympathetic expression. The pampered yet sweet young boy who’d arrived at Hogwarts had become a fine young man and she couldn’t understand why her daughter had persistently failed to see it.
“Can you try to find her?” Rowena asked. “For me?”
Edward sighed as he looked across at her and nodded. “I still don’t think she’ll listen to me…she never did.”
“Well tell her I’m ill or something,” Rowena suggested. “Tell her I’m dying if you have to.”
“You don’t think she might notice when she returns to find that you’re not on your deathbed?” Edward asked with a trace of a smile.
“Well make something else up then?” Rowena said with a roll of her eyes. “You were in Slytherin house, the house where all the resourceful children are placed, surely you can think of something to convince her to come back here?”
“I suppose I could always kidnap her,” Edward suggested and Rowena laughed in response.
“I would rather hope it doesn’t come to that,” she said. “Just try to get her to come home and quickly.”
“That’s if I can find her at all,” Edward pointed out. “You know how hard it is to find someone if they don’t want to be found.”
“Helena is wilful and stubborn, but she also likes attention,” Rowena said quietly. “She won’t have hidden herself too carefully; she’ll want someone to find her.”
Edward nodded and returned her smile. “I won’t return without her,” he said.
“Thank you.”
Edward nodded and gave her a formal bow before he left the room to gather his things for the journey.
-o-xXx-o-
Rowena wondered what it was that had woken her in the early hours of the morning on the first night of the new term. Her room was in complete darkness and she looked about to see if her cat was the culprit. The animal was nowhere in sight though and she turned over to go back to sleep. The sound of a quiet knock at the door had her jumping from her bed a moment later as she pulled on her dressing gown and rushed to see what the emergency was.
“Professor Ravenclaw?” a small voice whispered. “Can I come in?”
“Nicholas?” Rowena asked sleepily as she struggled to see who it was in the darkness. “What are you doing wandering around the school at this hour?”
“Can I come in?” he asked again.
“Of course,” Rowena said as she pulled the door wider to let the nervous boy inside.
She closed the door and lit the candles in the room, directing Nicholas to one of the seats.
“What’s the problem?” she asked anxiously. “Is it your father? Has something happened to him?”
“No, he’s fine,” Nicholas assured her before continuing in a voice that was more of a mumble than anything else. “He sends his love.”
Rowena smiled at both Salazar’s message and the boy’s embarrassment at having to deliver it.
“It’s just I need your help with something,” Nicholas continued on hurriedly.
“What is it?” Rowena asked. “I’ll help if I can.”
“Well father said that there was a room that turned into whatever you wanted it to and he told me where it was but…I’ve been searching for hours and I can’t find it. He said you knew where it was.”
“The Come and Go room,” Rowena confirmed with a nod. “It’s up on the seventh floor.”
“I’ve been wandering around the floor for hours and I just can’t find it.” Nicholas sounded tearful as he looked across at her. “I wouldn’t bother you, but I really need to find the room.”
“It’s all right,” Rowena said as she patted him on the arm. “Come along and I’ll show you where it is.”
A few minutes later Rowena stood in the seventh floor corridor with Nicholas beside her.
“The room appears here,” she whispered quietly, hoping no one else was wandering this particular area of the school tonight. She was grateful that most students confined their midnight wanderings to the routes that took them from their dormitories to the kitchens and that the corridor they were now standing in was on none of those routes.
“But how does it appear?” Nicholas asked.
“Just pace back and forth around here and it’ll appear,” Rowena replied with a shrug. “I’ve never been sure exactly how it works, it just does. You need to make sure that you’re concentrating hard on what you want it to be as well. It doesn’t always work like you want it to though.”
“What do you mean?” Nicholas asked.
“Well, it can’t materialise food or anything like that and sometimes it doesn’t give you what you want it to. I tried using the room to find your father and just kept getting a room with dozens and dozens of maps of the world in it. You won’t know how it will work for you until you try it.”
Nicholas nodded and began his pacing. A moment or two later a door materialised in the stone wall and he gasped in awe.
“Well, aren’t you going to take a look inside?”
Nicholas moved cautiously towards the door and opened it.
“Is it what you were expecting?” Rowena asked curiously.
“It’s perfect,” Nicholas said with a smile as he stepped into the room. Rowena followed behind him and looked around.
“Why not just use one of the classrooms downstairs?” she asked curiously as she saw what the Come and Go room had become for Nicholas.
“Because it’s going to take a while and we don’t want anyone else to know what I’m doing,” Nicholas replied as though the answer was rather obvious. Rowena smiled at his words and tone that were so reminiscent of his father.
Nicholas moved to the nearest desk and pulled various assorted items from the pockets of his robes. Rowena could see that he had every intention of starting work right then and shook her head at the thought.
“I’m sure that it can wait until tomorrow,” she said after he’d finished emptying his pockets. “You’re going to get little enough sleep as it is tonight.”
“Father said to start right away,” Nicholas said.
“Well, your father isn’t here right now, and as your teacher I’m telling you to get back to bed.”
“Father said you wouldn’t mind my working at night,” Nicholas argued. “He said you’d understand and want me to start work right away too.”
“Not if it means you being up all night,” Rowena replied. “Now get back to bed before I give you a detention.”
“You wouldn’t,” Nicholas said, though he didn’t sound very sure of his conviction.
“If your father has told you anything about me at all, I’m sure he’ll have mentioned how stubborn I am,” Rowena pointed out. She wasn’t surprised to see Nicholas nod.
“Bed!” she repeated as she pointed towards the door.
Nicholas turned away from the desk reluctantly, but finally moved towards the door.
Unsure as to whether he would simply double back to the Come and Go room as soon as she left him, Rowena decided to escort Nicholas right back to the Hufflepuff common room.
“Oh and Nicholas,” she called quietly after him as he made his way towards the staircase leading to the boys’ dormitories. He turned around at her voice and looked questioningly at her. “Try not to destroy too many of our cauldrons in your lessons this year. We’ve had to double our Potions budget since you came here already.”
“I didn’t mean to,” Nicholas replied. “I was just experimenting.”
“So I figured out after your father told me what you were capable of,” Rowena replied with a grin. “Just try to limit the destruction.”
Nicholas nodded and disappeared up the stairs with a final grin.
Rowena stepped back into the corridor and ducked into the kitchen for a snack before returning to her own rooms.
-o-xXx-o-
Every day Rowena expected one or another of the teachers to mention that they’d caught Nicholas during his night time wanderings around the school. Thankfully for him, Nicholas was far more careful about his nocturnal activities than the rest of the students and as the weeks passed without his being apprehended Rowena began to relax.
“You’re looking a little pale,” Helga commented over breakfast one morning as she looked at Rowena with worry.
“I’ve just been cooped up indoors too much the last few weeks,” she replied, brushing away her friend’s concerns with a bright smile.
“Are you sure?” Helga asked. “Maybe you should ask Iris to look you over?”
“There’s no need to bother her,” Rowena assured her. “Not with the present batch of first years giving her so much work to do.”
“They do seem to be the most accident prone year yet,” Helga agreed, even as one of the said students tripped over something on his way to the Ravenclaw table.
Rowena giggled slightly as the student picked himself up from the floor and took his seat with a grin of self-mockery as his friends laughed.
“I can’t believe Godric wants to add muggle duelling to the school curriculum,” Helga muttered.
“They’ll be losing limbs and eyes within days if he does,” Rowena replied. “Looks like someone wants to see you,” she added as a sixth year Hufflepuff student who had entered the Great Hall a few moments before approached the staff bench.
“Professor Hufflepuff, there’s someone in the Entrance Hall asking for you,” the student said. “One of the parents.”
“I’ll be right there,” Helga said as she quickly finished her juice and crammed a roll of bread into her pocket for later.
-o-xXx-o-
“You!” Helga exclaimed, her wand in her hand before she knew even realised she’d pulled it from her robes.
In all the years that her sons had been attending Hogwarts Cordelia herself had never set foot inside the school. The boys had always been delivered to the gates with another relative and she had never attended any of the parents’ evenings or school functions that welcomed the parents of the students.
“I’ve come to take Nicholas home,” Cordelia said coldly. “He has a funeral to attend.”
Helga didn’t lower her wand. “How dare you show your face here?” she spat. “Where’s Salazar?”
“Are you going to hold my son hostage until I produce him for you?” Cordelia asked with a spiteful smile.
“If necessary,” Helga replied.
“Then you’re in for a long wait,” Cordelia replied. “It’s his father’s funeral that I’m fetching him home for.”
Belatedly Helga noticed that Cordelia was dressed head to toe in black with a thick veil on her hat that was momentarily pinned back.
“Salazar’s funeral?” Helga asked, unsure whether to believe what she was hearing. “He can’t be dead, he just can’t.”
“You haven’t seen him for some years and his health has been deteriorating for some time now,” Cordelia replied. “Not that it’s any of your concern. Now fetch Nicholas so I can take him home with me. I’ll see he’s returned once the funeral is over and done with.”
Helga didn’t know whether to believe her or not. Cordelia had been a talented liar during her time at the school. Neither she nor Godric had known her for what she was. Only Rowena and Salazar had not been taken in by her act and they were the ones who had suffered the most for it.
“Well are you going to fetch him?” Cordelia snapped impatiently.
“What’s going on here?” Rowena asked as she came through the door of the Great Hall herself.
Helga watched as Rowena paled even more at the sight of Cordelia standing in the Entrance Hall.
“Rowena, go and fetch Nicholas from the Great Hall,” Helga asked. “He was eating breakfast in there a few minutes ago.”
Rowena ignored her and immediately pulled out her own wand and advanced on Cordelia.
“Rowena, please just get Nicholas,” Helga repeated.
“No!” Rowena replied. “I’ve waited too long for this moment and if she thinks she’s walking out of her alive then she’s sadly mistaken.”
“Take your best shot,” Cordelia said coldly. “If you’d like Nicholas to be burying both his parents.”
Helga watched speechless as Rowena crumpled to the floor.
Chapter 32
Disclaimer: I own nothing that you recognise. J K Rowling retains all copyright.
Chapter 31
Rowena woke the next morning and stretched lazily. “It’s nearly dawn,” she said as she looked out the window.
“I should have left a while ago,” Salazar replied from where he sat beside her. “I didn’t want to wake you, and I didn’t want to leave without saying goodbye.”
“Can you try to visit again?” Rowena asked even though she knew what the answer was going to be.
“It’s too risky,” Salazar replied with a shake of his head. “I shouldn’t even have stayed as long as I have.”
“And you’re sure this plan will work?” she questioned.
“If we want a life together without fear of what the Disdels and the remaining Slytherins will do…”
“I know,” Rowena said sadly. “We don’t want them hounding us for the rest of our lives.”
“If you change your mind at any time just let Nicholas know once he returns for the new term.”
“Won’t that get you both into trouble?” Rowena asked.
“No, we have it all figured out. We’ve decided that if you want to call things off then he’ll end his letters with a postscript about his horse. Nothing unusual about that and his mother won’t suspect anything if she happens to see the letter.”
“Sneaky,” Rowena grinned.
“It’s one of my greatest talents,” Salazar said with a grin of his own. “Now I really have to leave. Just one last thing before I go. Try to practice looking less dreamy before you see anyone today.”
“What?” Rowena asked with a puzzled frown.
“Rowena, how many times have I told you? Every thought you have is shown on your face. If you go and greet Helga looking like you do now, she’ll know immediately what sort of a night you’ve had.”
Rowena flushed and Salazar laughed. “You haven’t changed a bit,” he said before kissing her quickly. “Now I really have to leave.”
Rowena nodded sadly and a moment later Salazar was gone. She stood at the window and watched him hurrying across the grounds and through the gates. He turned on the path and looked back towards her window. She smiled as she felt his mind brush against hers briefly before he disappeared from sight.
-o-xXx-o-
“I need you to try to find Helena,” Rowena said quietly to Edward after she’d finally tracked him down.
“But I’ve no idea where she is,” he pointed out. “I wish I did.”
“She must have talked about somewhere she’d like to visit,” Rowena suggested.
“Where didn’t she talk about wanting to visit?” Edward replied with a frustrated sigh. “I’d have taken her anywhere she wanted to go if she’d just asked.”
“I know you would. But was there anywhere in particular she spoke of?”
“Not really,” Edward replied.
“Are you sure?” Rowena asked desperately. “There’s nowhere at all she spoke of more often than anywhere else, or that she spoke of most recently before she left?”
Edward frowned. “Maybe…”
“Please try to find her,” Rowena asked again. “Bring her home, please.”
“You said she’d return in her own time,” Edward pointed out. “Why not just wait for her here?”
“I need her to come home now,” Rowena whispered. “I can’t leave myself, the new term starts next week.”
“What makes you think she’d come back with me?” Edward asked bitterly. “She barely acknowledged me when she was here.”
“I know she was a little stubborn and blind at times…”
“A little stubborn?” Edward repeated. “She…she….” He faltered as words failed him and he swore.
Rowena smiled slightly before she schooled her face into a more sympathetic expression. The pampered yet sweet young boy who’d arrived at Hogwarts had become a fine young man and she couldn’t understand why her daughter had persistently failed to see it.
“Can you try to find her?” Rowena asked. “For me?”
Edward sighed as he looked across at her and nodded. “I still don’t think she’ll listen to me…she never did.”
“Well tell her I’m ill or something,” Rowena suggested. “Tell her I’m dying if you have to.”
“You don’t think she might notice when she returns to find that you’re not on your deathbed?” Edward asked with a trace of a smile.
“Well make something else up then?” Rowena said with a roll of her eyes. “You were in Slytherin house, the house where all the resourceful children are placed, surely you can think of something to convince her to come back here?”
“I suppose I could always kidnap her,” Edward suggested and Rowena laughed in response.
“I would rather hope it doesn’t come to that,” she said. “Just try to get her to come home and quickly.”
“That’s if I can find her at all,” Edward pointed out. “You know how hard it is to find someone if they don’t want to be found.”
“Helena is wilful and stubborn, but she also likes attention,” Rowena said quietly. “She won’t have hidden herself too carefully; she’ll want someone to find her.”
Edward nodded and returned her smile. “I won’t return without her,” he said.
“Thank you.”
Edward nodded and gave her a formal bow before he left the room to gather his things for the journey.
-o-xXx-o-
Rowena wondered what it was that had woken her in the early hours of the morning on the first night of the new term. Her room was in complete darkness and she looked about to see if her cat was the culprit. The animal was nowhere in sight though and she turned over to go back to sleep. The sound of a quiet knock at the door had her jumping from her bed a moment later as she pulled on her dressing gown and rushed to see what the emergency was.
“Professor Ravenclaw?” a small voice whispered. “Can I come in?”
“Nicholas?” Rowena asked sleepily as she struggled to see who it was in the darkness. “What are you doing wandering around the school at this hour?”
“Can I come in?” he asked again.
“Of course,” Rowena said as she pulled the door wider to let the nervous boy inside.
She closed the door and lit the candles in the room, directing Nicholas to one of the seats.
“What’s the problem?” she asked anxiously. “Is it your father? Has something happened to him?”
“No, he’s fine,” Nicholas assured her before continuing in a voice that was more of a mumble than anything else. “He sends his love.”
Rowena smiled at both Salazar’s message and the boy’s embarrassment at having to deliver it.
“It’s just I need your help with something,” Nicholas continued on hurriedly.
“What is it?” Rowena asked. “I’ll help if I can.”
“Well father said that there was a room that turned into whatever you wanted it to and he told me where it was but…I’ve been searching for hours and I can’t find it. He said you knew where it was.”
“The Come and Go room,” Rowena confirmed with a nod. “It’s up on the seventh floor.”
“I’ve been wandering around the floor for hours and I just can’t find it.” Nicholas sounded tearful as he looked across at her. “I wouldn’t bother you, but I really need to find the room.”
“It’s all right,” Rowena said as she patted him on the arm. “Come along and I’ll show you where it is.”
A few minutes later Rowena stood in the seventh floor corridor with Nicholas beside her.
“The room appears here,” she whispered quietly, hoping no one else was wandering this particular area of the school tonight. She was grateful that most students confined their midnight wanderings to the routes that took them from their dormitories to the kitchens and that the corridor they were now standing in was on none of those routes.
“But how does it appear?” Nicholas asked.
“Just pace back and forth around here and it’ll appear,” Rowena replied with a shrug. “I’ve never been sure exactly how it works, it just does. You need to make sure that you’re concentrating hard on what you want it to be as well. It doesn’t always work like you want it to though.”
“What do you mean?” Nicholas asked.
“Well, it can’t materialise food or anything like that and sometimes it doesn’t give you what you want it to. I tried using the room to find your father and just kept getting a room with dozens and dozens of maps of the world in it. You won’t know how it will work for you until you try it.”
Nicholas nodded and began his pacing. A moment or two later a door materialised in the stone wall and he gasped in awe.
“Well, aren’t you going to take a look inside?”
Nicholas moved cautiously towards the door and opened it.
“Is it what you were expecting?” Rowena asked curiously.
“It’s perfect,” Nicholas said with a smile as he stepped into the room. Rowena followed behind him and looked around.
“Why not just use one of the classrooms downstairs?” she asked curiously as she saw what the Come and Go room had become for Nicholas.
“Because it’s going to take a while and we don’t want anyone else to know what I’m doing,” Nicholas replied as though the answer was rather obvious. Rowena smiled at his words and tone that were so reminiscent of his father.
Nicholas moved to the nearest desk and pulled various assorted items from the pockets of his robes. Rowena could see that he had every intention of starting work right then and shook her head at the thought.
“I’m sure that it can wait until tomorrow,” she said after he’d finished emptying his pockets. “You’re going to get little enough sleep as it is tonight.”
“Father said to start right away,” Nicholas said.
“Well, your father isn’t here right now, and as your teacher I’m telling you to get back to bed.”
“Father said you wouldn’t mind my working at night,” Nicholas argued. “He said you’d understand and want me to start work right away too.”
“Not if it means you being up all night,” Rowena replied. “Now get back to bed before I give you a detention.”
“You wouldn’t,” Nicholas said, though he didn’t sound very sure of his conviction.
“If your father has told you anything about me at all, I’m sure he’ll have mentioned how stubborn I am,” Rowena pointed out. She wasn’t surprised to see Nicholas nod.
“Bed!” she repeated as she pointed towards the door.
Nicholas turned away from the desk reluctantly, but finally moved towards the door.
Unsure as to whether he would simply double back to the Come and Go room as soon as she left him, Rowena decided to escort Nicholas right back to the Hufflepuff common room.
“Oh and Nicholas,” she called quietly after him as he made his way towards the staircase leading to the boys’ dormitories. He turned around at her voice and looked questioningly at her. “Try not to destroy too many of our cauldrons in your lessons this year. We’ve had to double our Potions budget since you came here already.”
“I didn’t mean to,” Nicholas replied. “I was just experimenting.”
“So I figured out after your father told me what you were capable of,” Rowena replied with a grin. “Just try to limit the destruction.”
Nicholas nodded and disappeared up the stairs with a final grin.
Rowena stepped back into the corridor and ducked into the kitchen for a snack before returning to her own rooms.
-o-xXx-o-
Every day Rowena expected one or another of the teachers to mention that they’d caught Nicholas during his night time wanderings around the school. Thankfully for him, Nicholas was far more careful about his nocturnal activities than the rest of the students and as the weeks passed without his being apprehended Rowena began to relax.
“You’re looking a little pale,” Helga commented over breakfast one morning as she looked at Rowena with worry.
“I’ve just been cooped up indoors too much the last few weeks,” she replied, brushing away her friend’s concerns with a bright smile.
“Are you sure?” Helga asked. “Maybe you should ask Iris to look you over?”
“There’s no need to bother her,” Rowena assured her. “Not with the present batch of first years giving her so much work to do.”
“They do seem to be the most accident prone year yet,” Helga agreed, even as one of the said students tripped over something on his way to the Ravenclaw table.
Rowena giggled slightly as the student picked himself up from the floor and took his seat with a grin of self-mockery as his friends laughed.
“I can’t believe Godric wants to add muggle duelling to the school curriculum,” Helga muttered.
“They’ll be losing limbs and eyes within days if he does,” Rowena replied. “Looks like someone wants to see you,” she added as a sixth year Hufflepuff student who had entered the Great Hall a few moments before approached the staff bench.
“Professor Hufflepuff, there’s someone in the Entrance Hall asking for you,” the student said. “One of the parents.”
“I’ll be right there,” Helga said as she quickly finished her juice and crammed a roll of bread into her pocket for later.
-o-xXx-o-
“You!” Helga exclaimed, her wand in her hand before she knew even realised she’d pulled it from her robes.
In all the years that her sons had been attending Hogwarts Cordelia herself had never set foot inside the school. The boys had always been delivered to the gates with another relative and she had never attended any of the parents’ evenings or school functions that welcomed the parents of the students.
“I’ve come to take Nicholas home,” Cordelia said coldly. “He has a funeral to attend.”
Helga didn’t lower her wand. “How dare you show your face here?” she spat. “Where’s Salazar?”
“Are you going to hold my son hostage until I produce him for you?” Cordelia asked with a spiteful smile.
“If necessary,” Helga replied.
“Then you’re in for a long wait,” Cordelia replied. “It’s his father’s funeral that I’m fetching him home for.”
Belatedly Helga noticed that Cordelia was dressed head to toe in black with a thick veil on her hat that was momentarily pinned back.
“Salazar’s funeral?” Helga asked, unsure whether to believe what she was hearing. “He can’t be dead, he just can’t.”
“You haven’t seen him for some years and his health has been deteriorating for some time now,” Cordelia replied. “Not that it’s any of your concern. Now fetch Nicholas so I can take him home with me. I’ll see he’s returned once the funeral is over and done with.”
Helga didn’t know whether to believe her or not. Cordelia had been a talented liar during her time at the school. Neither she nor Godric had known her for what she was. Only Rowena and Salazar had not been taken in by her act and they were the ones who had suffered the most for it.
“Well are you going to fetch him?” Cordelia snapped impatiently.
“What’s going on here?” Rowena asked as she came through the door of the Great Hall herself.
Helga watched as Rowena paled even more at the sight of Cordelia standing in the Entrance Hall.
“Rowena, go and fetch Nicholas from the Great Hall,” Helga asked. “He was eating breakfast in there a few minutes ago.”
Rowena ignored her and immediately pulled out her own wand and advanced on Cordelia.
“Rowena, please just get Nicholas,” Helga repeated.
“No!” Rowena replied. “I’ve waited too long for this moment and if she thinks she’s walking out of her alive then she’s sadly mistaken.”
“Take your best shot,” Cordelia said coldly. “If you’d like Nicholas to be burying both his parents.”
Helga watched speechless as Rowena crumpled to the floor.
Chapter 32