Good Riddance

Polishing and cleaning everything down in the cellar didn't take half as long as Rowan had previously thought. In the end, it only took the entire month of June and part of July. Sitting at her red oak study in her free time, Rowan stares out through the window at the green lawns below.

Severus is outside chasing Fidel with a huge net attempting to grab one of his long, gorgeous, tail feathers. It was like something out of a cartoon really. And as would luck have it, he was failing rather miserably as Fidel kept escaping. Quickly Fidel darts around the corner of the manor disappearing with Severus rapidly in tow.

With a sigh, Rowan returns to stare at the volume before her. It certainly looked old, but no older than some of the volumes in grandfather's study. The dark leather cover did not suggest anything was amiss until the tome was opened. What lay inside was not English or any other known written language, but rather the written version of parseltongue. This was surprising to her as she didn't think there was a written form, but trust Salazar to know it.

Either way, it did not pose a problem to Rowan as in her eyes she simply just knew how to read it. It was like reading English except that was not the case. And she was fairly certain that if she tried her hand at writing in parseltongue that the same thing would occur.

The volume she was at present reading wasn't very interesting, but still, it was a thousand-year-old book. One simply didn't read such a book of historical value because one didn't like it. Rowan knew very well that though tiresome there may be things written down that had been lost to the annals of time itself. But thus far, there wasn't much to make a note of.

Closing the volume shut, she rose to her feet and walked over to her trunk. Carefully unlocking her trunk, Rowan placed the book in her trunk next to the two mufflers and other volumes. Pausing to glance at the mufflers, she frowns once more pondering the original question on her mind. What to do with the basilisk and its old skin?

No matter, how much she wanted to trust her grandparents, this wasn't something she could simply laugh off with a sheepish grin on her face. Nor how did a thirteen-year-old convince them to allow her to keep one of the Basilisk's venom sacs? It simply wasn't done no matter how mature her grandparents thought she was.

Neither did confessing how she killed the basilisk remotely appeal to her. But she couldn't very well leave the Basilisk idling about. However, neither could she currently dissect it and harvest potentially useful ingredients.

Rubbing the bridge of her nose, Rowan sighs as she rises off her knees and locks the trunk at the side of her room. No, she knew exactly what the correct answer was. She would need to return to the Chamber of Secrets and use the hidden laboratory as a dissecting area and storage facility. Her stomach cringed at the idea of returning, but there was no other place that would be safe enough for her to do so.

Sitting back down at her desk, Rowan glances at the discarded letters on her desk. She really needed to reply back, but she didn't have much to say other than that it had been a terribly slow summer. Putting off writing the letter in the meanwhile, she decides to head downstairs for a bit of fresh air.

On her way downstairs, Rowan pauses on the staircase to gape a bit at her Aunt Georgine. Georgine was wearing a roaring twenties short dress to her knees and a trailing light linen cardigan sweater that fluttered behind her. Wearing sheer thin nylons and flat-like shoes of the era with matching makeup, Georgine was quite the looker. Rowan could see how Georgine might have been popular in her younger years.

Glancing up at Rowan, Georgine arches her brow. "What?" Georgine snapped at her niece's gawking.

Rowan quickly clamped her mouth, before carefully saying, "Er, you look very nice, Aunt Georgine. Are you going on a date?'

"As if," Georgine snorted rather indignantly at the mere thought. "No, I'm off to see a dear old friend, Dorea Potter."

Rowan's eyes instantly widen as she almost breathlessly says, "The mother of Charlus Potter Jr."

"Why, yes," Georgine said with a bit of surprise considering that Charlus died ten years ago when Rowan would have only been a mere toddler of three years old.

"May I come?" Rowan instantly begged as she made her eyes wide full of pleading.

"Stop that!" Georgine said with a mix of irritation and laughter. "If I take you with me, will you cease that disgusting groveling look? It does not match you at all."

"Yes!" Rowan instantly perked up and desisted.

Glancing about, Georgine sniffs and says, "Fine you may come, but I expect you to behave yourself, is that understood?"

"Yes, Aunt Georgine," Rowan obediently said as she followed her aunt to the fireplace.

"Dawn?" Georgine called out as the glowing house elf appeared with a tiny bright-eyed baby house elf on her back.

"Yes, Miss Georgine?" Dawn happily squeaked as the baby smiled a toothy grin that lacked any teeth to show off except for pink gums.

"I shall summon Tadbey to apparate us back," Georgine sniffed. "Make sure to inform him of that, I'd rather he not be so surprised as last time. And please inform my brother and sister-in-law that I've taken my niece to accompany me to visit Dorea Potter."

"Yes, Dawn will let hubby and the masters know!" Dawn sincerely said, before leaving with a pop.

"What happened last time?" Rowan curiously asked.

"A matter that is best forgotten about," Georgine darkly said as she took a pinch of floo dust. "You do know how to use it, no?"

"Yes, we flew to-," Rowan paused. "-When we went with grandfather." Georgine doesn't ask, what Rowan was about to say as she perfectly knew what her niece was talking about.

"You know, they had a child in June," Rowan softly remarked before falling silent. She didn't have anyone to talk to about the subject. She couldn't bear to tell Severus nor see her grandparent's bitter expressions. At least her aunt would listen if not make snide comments afterward.

Rolling her eyes, Georgine says, "Don't get all sentimental on me, child. It does not become you."

"And as for your mother, that wretched girl was always selfish, to begin with, and did whatever she wanted. First, she ran off with that unattractive muggle man." Georgine visibly shuddered as she recalled the muggle's stark visage.

"And then she lacked the audacity to leave the useless drunken wretch. Not until eleven years later did, she finally gain that foolish courage that allowed her to run off in the first place," Georgine pointed out.

"To only return to abandon her two offspring on us." Georgine let out an angry huff as she tried to cheer Rowan up in her own fashion. "Last, but not least she remarried without the presence of her family! Your grandfather finally disowned her after her utter lack of regard for her children. Good riddance, I say. He should have done that ages ago!"

Rowan lets out a chuckle at Georgine's last sentence. "Aunt Georgine, I don't think you liked mo-," she paused as if uncertain to call her mother. "-Eileen very much."

"Nosey, sullen girl, who thought she was the main protagonist out of some gothic, romance Victorian era novel. Having melancholia is no excuse for her abominable behavior," Georgine huffed.

"Why the sheer number of times I found trashy books in her bedroom that even I wouldn't dare touch was just unimaginable. I shudder to imagine her as a boy," Georgine made a gagging-like sound. "I'm sure if she'd been a man, she'd have covered her entire room with naked muggle posters and pumped the entire day away."

Rowan loudly choked at the image as Georgine pats her hair with her free hand. "Anyway, child, make sure to say, Dorea Potter's home."

Not waiting for a response, Georgine throws the sparkly dust into the flames as the flames turn green. "Dorea Potter's home!" Georgine coolly said, before elegantly steeping through and disappearing into the flames.