Hogwarts Legacy: The Price of Power

Thy Kingdom Come 🌶️

With a low sigh, Dracaena got to her feet, refilling her glass and taking to bottle to Sebastian, who had already filled a whole blackboard with notes, most of which seemed to be in gibberish, odd symbols and runes scattered throughout. She raised a brow, noting his still-full glass on the side. She slipped under his arm and cuddled up to him.

"Bassy," she said, and he tilted his head. "I can hardly read any of this. What is it all?"

"Notes," he said, absently. "Everything we've found out about Fotheringham, and this weird magic the Rune book mentioned, which is mostly speculation, if I'm honest."

"But what does it say?" she peered closer. "What language is this?"

"Which bit?" he asked, and she gave him a blank look. A tiny smile touched his lips, and he turned back to the board, tapping a line of symbols.

"This is Aramaic," he said. "It's stupidly old, older than Hogwarts, even, and some ancient texts are written in it. Merlin used it a lot. This," he tapped another sentence. "Is Ancient Greek."

Dracaena stared, open mouthed, her eyes sliding from the blackboards to him. He looked a little pale, but was otherwise bright-eyed.

"Sebastian... how many languages do you know?"

"Um..." he paused, his brows knitting, his lips moving silently as he counted. "Seven."

"Fluently!?"

"Yeah."

She gaped.

"How?!"

He chuckled. "I had to learn Ancient Greek, Phoenician, Aramaic and Cyrillic when I was looking for a cure, most of the really old books were written in those languages. Latin's obvious, most spells are in Latin so it made sense to learn it properly, and my dad's family were all Scottish and spoke Gaelic as much as they did English." He paused a moment. "Hang on, I know eight. Runes counts, right?"

"You know nine," Ominis said, returning from his shower, his hair still damp, wrapped in a thick, emerald dressing gown.

Sebastian blinked. "I do?"

"Yes," Ominis said, picking up his firewhisky. "You're quite fluent in bullshit."

Dracaena snorted, the sound swelling to a full bellied laugh as Sebastian guffawed, Ominis chuckling heartily at his own joke.

"I've been wondering, does Parseltongue have a written form?" she asked, between giggles. Ominis glanced in her direction, an elegant brow rising in a curve.

"Perhaps it will one day, when snakes learn how to hold quills," he said, and they laughed again.

They kept giggling until Sebastian winced, putting a hand to his ribs. Dracaena became serious in an instant.

"What is it?"

"Not sure," he said, his brow furrowing as he peered down at his side. "None of them got me, I'm certain of that. Maybe I pulled something?"

"Maybe," Dracaena pressed her hand to his side as Ominis returned to the sofa. "I'm sure you almost folded yourself in half to miss one of their curses. Maybe it was that."

"Yeah, probably," Sebastian turned back to the blackboards, running a hand over the stubble that was rapidly becoming a short beard. "It's all a bit of a blur, to be honest. Like it didn't really happen." He shivered, and his hand found hers. "Seriously, I'm glad you're okay."

"Come on," she smiled at him. "I mean it, Bassy, we all need to rest."

"But..." he turned back to the blackboards, stumbling a little as she tugged his hand. "I'm not done yet!"