A Forbidden Birthright

Chapter Forty

"A convergence?" Harry's face was taught.

Hermione nodded. "He told me that when I 'missed' him, to come to Mussenden."

"Mussenden? The Mussenden in Ireland?" Ginny interrupted.

"I think so. I feel so foolish for not having thought of it myself. It used to be a library. It makes perfect sense it would be connected to the Morrigan."

Draco raised an eyebrow. "And why is that?"

"I'm assuming that's where her grimoire once was. Isolt lived in Kerry with Morrigan, but I think it's likely she bounced around," Hermione explained. "Aside from that, Caspian didn't mention Kerry, he said Mussenden, which is on the opposite coast of Ireland."

Nikolai shifted in his chair near on the other side of Hermione. She cast a glance at him. "What is it?"

"I didn't say anything."

"You don't have to. What is it?"

"Well, the Mussenden, if I'm remembering correctly, wasn't built until the late seventeen-hundreds. The Morrigan was alive a hundred years prior, more. There would have been nothing there."

"I thought about that, actually," Hermione said. "We've been going through all of this information under the impression that she was dead, but if she's been alive all this time, I think it's fair to assume that years don't matter. She easily could have been around when it was built and used it as a hiding place for the Grimorium Verum. Caspian also said, 'When I want to face my fate.' "

Harry shrugged. "So? What of it? What is that supposed to mean?"

Draco sighed, his eyes sliding to Harry with a deliberate slowness that she knew made Harry's blood boil. If she wasn't so emotionally strained, Hermione would have laughed.

"The Morrigan is associated with fate. Caspian all but said that's where she is."

"Merlin, Hermione, why couldn't you have led with that?" Harry snapped, but stiffened and quieted at a sharp glare from Draco.

Hermione blushed. "I'm sorry, I'm just trying to keep it all straight in my head."

"So what do we do?" Ginny ran her hands together nervously. "Do we alert the Ministry? Do we go there ourselves? And if so, when?" She ran a hand over her face and sank back in her chair. "I am so sick of this shit," she muttered. 'When do we catch a break? When does this end?"

"With Caspian's death," Harry replied evenly.

"And this convergence you spoke of?" Nikolai added. 

Hermione pursed her lips and glanced at Draco. "I believe he intends to perform a ritual using blood magic to give Morrigan her human form back, and he wants me to be that form. Or at least, he believes I already am." She sighed heavily and looked to each of them, hesitating. "I've been giving this some thought for quite a while now, and I know what I'm about to say sounds absolutely mad, but just go with it, alright?" 

Draco's thumb grazed her skin. "Anything you say," he said in a low voice. 

"I've wracked my brain about all the information we have about Death and Life. I've read Rooney's books, her theories, I've gone through the Tale of the Three Brothers a dozen times now." Hermione's eyebrows knit together. "Rooney mentioned that Life and Death are brothers, but I think they are one entity that has been split into two. And that Caspian is going to combine them again, or try to- to kill- Life." 

Silence blanketed the room as they all tried to digest what all she had said. Harry's fingers were rubbing his temples, Ginny blinking one too many times. Nikolai was deep in thought, while Draco's gaze only intensified, his expression stony.