E Pluribus Unum

Chapter 53 – Dangerous Roads

Minuet sat on the wooden stool and slowly stirred the cauldron. She was beginning to really appreciate why Uncle Severus always seemed to retreat here to the laboratory when things were going badly.

The tapestries on the walls with their images of plants and landscapes, the black iron candelabra that sent light spilling across the wooden tables and glittering among the bottles and alembics, the way time seemed to stand still down here, only the soft susurrus of sand through the hourglass, timing the steps of the potion -- it was soothing and relaxing. She chopped and sliced, ground and stirred with a metronome’s precision. She knew that her pieces weren’t as perfectly even as the Potion Master’s and that her brew would not be nearly as potent as something he had made, but it wasn’t important. All that mattered was the task: the concentration she brought to bear on it and the accomplishment of something both difficult and sublime.

It wasn’t until she had bottled the last drop that she realized that her hands were cramped and her back was sore. Time seemed to rush back in on her, washing her with exhaustion. A weary satisfaction in a job well done made her smile despite her stiffness and pain, and the peace that had come from the brewing remained.

She picked up one of the bottles and stared at the dull, murky potion as it swirled inside. It had an oil-slick look to it, black from a distance but filled with rainbows of iridescence upon closer inspection. She compared her potion to the picture in the book with satisfaction. They looked identical.

Only one thing left to try.

She uncapped the bottle and took a sip. It tasted like spoiled lemons and smelled like tar. She kept herself from gagging only through sheer willpower. With gritted teeth she reached out a finger towards a candle. As her finger got closer she could feel the heat only as a faint sensation and emboldened by this she thrust her finger straight into the flame.

No pain. No burning smell.

She smiled. Her potion was a complete success. With a feeling of smugness she closed the ancient book and then carefully stored her potions on the shelves behind her.

Whistling, she headed off to morning classes.

By the end of the day she was feeling far less happy. There had never been a worse time to be a Slytherin, she thought with some irritation. Why couldn’t Voldemort have been a Ravenclaw or a Hufflepuff, she wondered morosely. The sideways looks from the other houses, the thinly veiled insults that she overheard in the hallways, it all combined to make her feel uneasy and unsafe.

“Hello Minuet.” She turned and found the lanky Thomas skipping down the steps behind her.

“Hello Thomas,” she replied with a smile. The teenaged dragon was becoming one of her favorite people these days and not just because they were related. He was always cheerful and even-tempered, if a trifle shy. He was in fact the exact opposite of what she thought a dragon would be.

“You done with classes?” He walked along beside her, all knees and elbows, like a bundle of sticks put together by a first grader to imitate a person. He had a stumbling gait and an unsure look in his eye, but always that sweetness about him that made you understand why his best friend was an angel.

“Yes. You have fun in the library?” They were garnering looks from passersby; the black-haired, dark-eyed Minuet and the blond-haired, blue-eyed Thomas made a startling contrast, she so short and he so tall.

“Yes, I did. Do you remember the conversation we were having yesterday?” Minuet nodded in response. “Well, you said something about a chapel of dragons?.” He peeked at her from under the blond mop of his hair and she grinned and grabbed his hand.

“This way.” She dragged him off to her other favorite place in Hogwarts.


The chapel was empty when they arrived, but that wasn’t unusual; very few people ever seemed to use it. Thomas stepped through the door and his mouth dropped open in wonderment.

The high vaulted ceilings whitewashed in a pale creamy color, the tall arched windows frosted to let in a wintry light and the bleached wood pews were the same as they had been the first time Harry had brought her there. What always fascinated Minuet though were the dragons. They were carved into every surface, their lithe and slender forms entwined as they danced up the pillars and across the backs of the pews. The altar at the front of the tiny chapel was a carving of two dragons entwined to form a base, with a sheet of white marble veined in gray topping it. It was an unchanging oasis in the school, a place untouched by time. In its own way it was as dear to her as Uncle Severus’ lab or the Room of Requirement.

“It’s amazing,” Thomas breathed out.

“Harry and the others went down a Dragon Road under the altar and found the Sleeping King, they told stories to an ancient Fey and did all sorts of neat things,” Minuet murmured enviously. She wished that she could have seen the Fey and the Dragon Road. It must have been wonderful.

“The Elders are difficult to deal with. Even Mother is careful of them and one wouldn’t want to disturb the Sleeper.” Thomas was watching her with knowing eyes and she sighed.

“I still would have liked to see a Dragon Road; after all, it’s my heritage too.” She knew she was sounding somewhat whiney but it always seemed like everyone else got to go on adventures and she only got to be menaced by Death Eaters.

“I forgot for a moment that you’re my – what… grand niece, great-grand niece?” Thomas tried to puzzle out the relationship with a small frown. “Your grandmother was my mother’s eldest grandchild.” He started to count on his fingers and then shrugged. “Either way, it is your heritage as well.” He fell silent and Minuet had a moment of concern. Maybe she should have kept her mouth closed. “It would be rude to open a Road back to the fey, since Professor Leblanc said she sealed it up.” Minuet wondered when that conversation had taken place. “Still, Dragon Roads can go many places.”

Thomas leaned his head back and roared. Minuet almost jumped out of her skin as he did so, the noise shook the room and reverberated off of the ceiling. The altar trembled and then slid aside, revealing a dark hole in the floor. Thomas grinned at her and extended a hand. “Care to go exploring?”

“Don’t mind if I do,” Minuet replied with an answering grin.

Hand in hand, they approached the altar and Minuet leaned forward over the opening. A staircase in white marble stretched away down into the earth and delicate filigree light fixtures illuminated the passage, just as Harry had described. She followed the teenaged dragon down the stairs with a grin of anticipation. Finally, she was going to be able to do something interesting, rather than listening to other people’s adventures.

A grinding sound advertised the altar sliding back into place and Minuet remembered the last time she had gone underground: the Elves and the Goblins and the adventure she had had then, cut short when Professor Leblanc had sent them back out of harm’s way.

“Pensive face you got there, niece.” Thomas broke into her thoughts and she jerked slightly in surprise.

“I was thinking about the Elves,” she admitted to him. “We all went looking for the cause to some earthquakes we’d been having and it turned out to be Goblins. The Queen’s Minstrel and some other Elves came through the gate in the Forest hunting the goblins and we went underground then, too.” She wasn’t sure if that came out sounding as crazy as she thought it did, but Thomas merely nodded, as though Elves and such were quite common where he came from. On the other hand, maybe they were.

“I’ve always liked Elves, though there aren’t many in the Circus. We have some pixies though, and lots of sprites.” She blinked, trying to make sense of Thomas’s words.

“What Circus?” she asked, confused.

“The Circus of Miracles.” Thomas opened his mouth and then closed it again. “It’s hard to explain,” he added. There was something about the way he said that which made her close her mouth on all the questions that had crowded into her brain. “They winter in the town I live in.” Minuet knew that was all she would get on that subject, by the way his jaw clamped shut.

“So where does this road go?” she asked instead and his expression of approval for her restraint was ample reward.

“No idea. A Dragon Road tends to go where it wants to go, which is why most dragons prefer to fly.” There was a mischievous look in his eyes and Minuet knew a challenge when she heard one. She affected a shrug and simply continued forward, feigning nonchalance.

No Slytherin worth her salt would ever admit nervousness.

Still, it was an ancient road with a mind of its own.

Maybe this wasn’t such a good idea.

An hour later Minuet was tiring, but unwilling to look weak in front of Thomas. It wasn’t just that he was a dragon; it was that he was an older boy whom she had wrangled into this trip. It wouldn’t do to complain now.
The road came to an abrupt right-hand turn after they had been going straight for what seemed like miles. They turned and stepped into what could only be a dragon-sized great hall. The two of them stopped in sheer amazement at the size of the place.

It was built like nothing Minuet had ever seen before and it took her a moment to grasp the reason why. It was built by a flying race for only their use. Balconies lined the walls for the dragons to rest and watch whatever was supposed to happen in the central area. Concave pits lined in furs and silks bracketed the aisles that led from four directions to merge into one large raised dais. Light seemed to fill the place but had no discernable source and everything was sumptuously decorated with dazzling mosaics filled with dragons -- flying, sitting on eggs, breathing fire, weaving tapestries and doing all sorts of other tasks.

“It’s the Hall of Convocation,” Thomas breathed out in awe.

“What’s that?” Minuet asked in an equally hushed voice.

“Back in ancient times, when Dragons were many and intensely fighting the wars against the Dark, before many of them left this world and flew away into the void to search for other places to live, this was the Hall of Convocation. All the great decisions were made here, all the laws were decided upon and judgments were passed. It was the center of Draconic Culture.” Thomas was staring around him hungrily. “Mother has told me stories about this place, but I have never been here before.”

“It must be hard being the child of a person who has seen ages pass,” Minuet murmured thoughtfully, chewing on her lip. “Makes it hard to get away with anything, I bet.” Thomas rolled his eyes and nodded.

“Don’t you try that trick on me, Thomas Harris; I saw through that one before the last ice age,” Thomas mimicked his mother’s voice with hands on hips and Minuet chuckled. “It’s impossible to fool her and I am positive she really does have eyes in the back of her head.” His long-suffering tones made Minuet laugh again and the sound of her voice echoed throughout the Hall, causing a musical thrum to start up as the vibration seemed to set the ancient carved walls to hum.

“This place must have been deafening with thousands of dragons talking and arguing. The way the walls vibrate must have been really hard to hear through,” Minuet observed, but Thomas shook his head.

“That wasn’t the walls,” Thomas croaked. She looked at him in startlement and saw that he was white as a sheet and staring at the dais in alarm. Minuet turned to look where he was looking but could see nothing.

“What was it then?” Minuet asked, urgency in her voice.

“The Ancestors, the Sh’Dai.” Thomas’ voice was so low that Minuet had to strain to hear it.

“Is that bad?”


“Just really weird. I thought they had left with the Diaspora.”

Sound started up like an orchestra tuning its instruments; multiple threads of music being played by thousands of musicians that slowly came together to form a recognizable tune. The music spoke to something inside of Minuet, it spoke in a language she had never known before but that was intimately familiar to her. It was as if the burbling speech of her babyhood had suddenly returned to her and been made comprehensible.

“We are the Sh’Dai, we greet our children’s children with interest.” The great chorus of voices sang to them both.

“We are of World Seekers’ line out of Oroboros,” Thomas sang back to them, his single voice seeming dwarfed by the thunderous sound of the Sh’Dai.

“Ah, you are Sword Maker’s Children.” There was a note of censure in that, and also a feeling of affection. The love and irritation were mixed up together, sounding like a fond parent speaking of a wayward child.

“Yes, Ancestors.”

“Only one of you has weight.” Minuet frowned at that, confused, but Thomas nodded and answered them.

“Minuet is not able to change, but the blood runs in her.” It occurred to Minuet to wonder what Thomas weighed. If he could shift into a huge dragon, where did he keep the extra mass?

“Ah.” It was a sibilant hiss and it made the hair on the back of her neck stand up. “What brings you to this place?”

“The Road brought us here,” Thomas admitted with a thoughtful air. There was a pause, a strange waiting silence and then the voices spoke again.

“The Road has its own reasons and none may know them all.” Minuet blinked in surprise, unsure what the Ancestors were talking about. Didn’t they know why the Dragon Roads ran as they did? “Tell us of the world and the passage of days,” commanded the voices and Thomas settled cross-legged onto the ground and began to speak.

Minuet was bored and restless. Thomas had been talking himself hoarse answering questions and telling history to the Sh’Dai for hours. When Harry had talked of telling stories to the Elf in the tunnels it had sounded romantic, but having to sit through a recitation of familiar history to unseen voices was monotonous.

“This Voldemort, you say he has a large snake with him?” Thomas paused and blinked, thrown off stride by the sudden question.

“Yes, he calls it Nagini.” Thomas looked puzzled by the sudden interest of the Ancestors.

“We know of this one. It is a lesser Wyrm.” There was a cacophony of sound, as the voices seemed to argue with each other for a long moment. Minuet clapped her hands over her ears to protect her hearing as the voices ran up and down the scales, hitting notes no human voice could reach.

“Is there a problem?” Thomas asked loudly, cutting across the argument. The voices fell silent and then spoke in unison again.

“Our kind, the Ancient ones, we agreed not to interfere in the destinies of men. Even the lesser Wyrms agreed to this. For this Nagini to have broken that vow and to have allied herself with a mortal presents us with a … problem.” Minuet shivered at the ominous tone the Sh’Dai used on that last word. Thomas’ awe of them suddenly made sense -- there was a feeling of energy moving across her scalp and she wrapped her arms around herself, suddenly afraid.

“Voldemort has also allied himself with a creature of the Ancient Dark, a demon that calls itself Fenchurch,” Thomas added.

“It was never expected that the Dark would keep their word. That is why your mother and her kin remained behind on this world while the others left. She and all her line were set as guardians.” There was another pause. “However one expects more … honorable behavior from Wyrms.” There was a note of genuine disappointment in the voices and Minuet felt sadness radiating off of them. “The ages pass and all things change.” There was such a mournful quality to that statement that it almost made her want to cry. She could feel the crushing weight of time pressing down on these ancient souls and it was nearly overwhelming.

“Yes, that is so.” Thomas’s voice was filled with hope and his optimism lightened Minuet’s heart.

“You are your mother’s child.” There was warmth and affection there and Minuet found herself smiling at their gentle tone. “It cannot be allowed for this Wyrm to affect the destiny of men.” The Sh’Dai muttered darkly.

“It’s too late, Nagini’s milk kept Voldemort alive when he should have died. He has regained his strength already and the damage is done,” Minuet pointed out with some asperity.

“Then there must be balancing.” The voices murmured. They were sounding softer and more distant now.
\"Children of the Sword Maker, there are many ways to balance justice. It is up to you to decide how this crime must be redressed.” The voices were fading fast, as though whatever strength they had had was being used up fast.

“Us?” squeaked Minuet in alarm.

“We are the swords of justice; we are the keepers of the balance. If we fail, all is lost.” The voices trailed away to nothing and Thomas and Minuet were left standing in this ancient place feeling very young and alone.
“What did they mean by that?” Minuet asked him softly.

“It’s something mother says, that dragons fought for light because the dark was so strong, but that what we really craved was balance and even-handed justice for all.” He frowned and his eyes crinkled in thought.

“I think that the reason Marie Laveau sent me to this battle is Nagini. Somehow she knew that it would take a dragon to balance this wrong.”

“They said ‘children’, not ‘child’ -- that means me too.” Minuet crossed her arms and glared at Thomas. He was frowning and shaking his head in negation but she met his eyes in bold defiance. “I’m not a stupid Gryffindor or anything, Thomas. I won’t go off and do something idiotically heroic. However, I know duty and the Sh’Dai have instructed me in it. I cannot turn my back on this.”

Thomas stared at her for a long time and their wills struggled against each other. Minuet might have been younger than he was, but she was a thousand times more stubborn and in the end, he dropped his eyes and conceded her point.

“Very well, but any attempt at ‘idiotic heroics’ and I will not hesitate to lock you in a dungeon until this is all over.” Thomas was frowning fiercely and Minuet nodded. That was easy to agree with; after all she wasn’t Harry or anything.

She had some common sense.