A Forbidden Birthright

Chapter Seventeen

Hermione lay awake that night, both because she was avoiding the memories dressed as nightmares, and because sleep had seemingly fled from her. Merlin lay next to her, curled into an invisible ball of blackness, and she stroked his soft fur, thoughts jumbled like all the yarn sweaters he had tangled. They turned to the grimoire, analyzing what Nikolai had copied and plastered to her wall. The crow rune. The triple goddess. The Morrigan.

It was driving her mad.

She flung the covers off, unable to take it anymore. Merlin let out a disapproving yowl at being disturbed. Nikolai was picking up the grimoire in the morning and then taking it to his old professor. She had managed to convince him to leave it with her just a few more days, but that time would be up in the morning. And no matter how many hours she had spent pouring over the pages, coating her hands in a spell that would protect potential side affects from touching the book, she still hadn't found what she was looking for.

Padding on bare feet to the living room, she took up a seat on the floor, crisscrossing her legs. It was almost three in the morning, and the fire had been reduced to gray ash, a handful of embers clinging to life. They offered no light, so she pulled out her wand and cast a ball of light from its tip at the wall.
Lumos.
The floorboards of her house creaked and the night winds were battering against her windows. If she was easily scared, each sound would have made her jump. It was unsettling her, however, as she sat with the book between her legs and studied the collage Nikolai had pieced together.

She wasn't particularly sure why she felt like this book had the answers she'd been looking for, but something about it had drawn her in. But now, it seemed as though it was offering more questions she had never asked and answers she couldn't decipher. Summoning all her books on the Sayer line, she spread them around her and had them all simultaneously flip through their pages for key phrases.

One book finally stilled and she floated it over to her lap, settling its spine into the crease of the open grimoire. She looked down, scanning for where the book had stopped, and began to read aloud, murmuring quietly to herself.

"The Morrigan, an unpredictable being of war, a dark goddess of death as she liked to portray herself, often took the form of a crow, her black feathers so rich in their shade, it is said they swallowed any shafts of light unlucky enough to fall upon them. Even Death himself was jealous of the way she consumed what he sought after, and came to consider her his rival. She was no longer announcing his arrival on the battlefields, but she was presenting herself as his equal, if not the very same as Death himself.

In a rage, Death sought after his brother and told him of the blasphemy The Morrigan was committing. His brother asked why he did not just take her, end her life and be done with her, but Death refused, offering no explanation as to why. Instead, he struck a deal with his brother, saying that he would not come for one witch or wizard of his choosing if he agreed to keep the Morrigan alive as well, but to never be able to shift out of her crow form."

Hermione flipped the page to keep reading but found it blank.

"Revelio," she whispered, but the page remained empty.

She sat back, trying to process everything she had just read. She had never read Death being personified outside of the book Dumbledore had given her, let alone him having a brother. She folded down the corner of the page and then closed it, looking at the title scrawled on the from cover.

Folktales, Folklore, Fables and Legends recorded by Rooney Salt.

Rooney Salt.

With one more glance at the dimly lit collage on the wall, she apparated to the Hogwarts Library, and shined the light from her wand on the titles as she strode down row after row of the hundreds throughout. Her bare feet were silent as she walked softly across the floorboards, dipping down one isle only to turn right and make her way down another. The whole room was like one big maze of bound paper and ink.