Chapter 233 - Unveiling hands!

{15th July 1991} 

{Rigel's POV}

I let the shock settle into a hard, cold knot and forced myself to breathe evenly. Panic never solved a puzzle, information did. The candle above guttered just enough to throw a wavering crescent of light across Mrs. Patil's cheekbone, making her look carved rather than born. She was a beautiful woman in her own right, but my mind was focused on something else. Past the wall that had gone transparent and then stone again, my mana sense still felt the familiar signatures of Sirius, Harry, Ron, and the twins—tight with worry, yes, but not broken. Ginny's pulse of mana, quick as a sparrow's wing, stayed close to theirs. No pain, no curse-residue. For now.

"I didn't know I was descended from the Gaunt line," I said at last, keeping my voice dull, unthreatening. Let her talk, I need more information. "So Parseltongue is inherited—passed down from Slytherin's line?"

A small spike of frustration flared in her mana before she smoothed it away. "Yes," she said, and the word landed like a gavel. "When my ancestors first reached the locus—the site of the legacy—the first trial that measured knowledge of the soul. We were stuck at it for years, studying and researching to pass the trial, yet one day it was cleared. By the time we learned about it, there was nothing left. The space yielded nothing that could be carried. Only a proof." She tapped the chair arm with a lacquered nail. "We concluded the 'treasure' was never material. A potion or Ritual—something that allowed Slytherin to acquire Parseltongue in the first place. After that, heredity carried it forward. He did not find the tongue in his cradle; he took it from the world and stitched it into his line."

"Stitched to the soul," I murmured. "And your family passed the first gate but couldn't find anything. What about the second trial?"

Her lips thinned, but she continued. "The second 'trial' is no trial at all—only a sanctum. A repository of his notes—the healing you've already scented in Dhanvantari's pages and the spatial work the West still treats as temperamental myth. It is open to the rightful tongue." She inclined her head. "To you."

I nodded, as if the picture were clean and not the palimpsest of a dozen conflicting stories. "Even if that's true, only someone with inherited Parseltongue could command the sanctum, yes? If that tongue is the key, how do you expect anyone else to cross that threshold with me?"

'Or will they threaten me with Sirius and the others?'

Her answer did not come quickly. Silence unspooled like wire between us. The candle's flame leaned, recovered. Somewhere in the building, a pipe knocked. She finally said, "Because the tongue rides the soul. Bind souls for a time, and the key passes with the link." Her words were slightly cryptic, as if reciting something that has been passed down.

A ritual, then. My stomach clenched. Soul works with a borrowed key. If intent warped even a simple charm, a sloppy design around a soul-link could tear holes where there should only have been seams. Leverage bloomed in my chest like a match-flare. I let a hint of it touch my face.

Her eyes caught it at once. "No need to feel smug, Mr. Gaunt," Mrs. Patil—Nalini, a name finally fitting itself to her—said, voice cooled to slate. "There are other ways to ensure cooperation."

I held her gaze. "You've taken my magic and my movement. You haven't taken my choices. If you try to force a soul-bond around a reluctant will, you risk backlash—psychic burn, identity bleed, parasitic resonance. You know this."

"Do not lecture me on rituals devised in my grandmother's house," she said, and for the first time, the hardness was not entirely a mask. "This path was paid for in blood and years. Your friends remain alive because I am not a fool, we have a way, a much simpler ritual than that would do the trick, one that you have done countless times before."

'The core expansion ritual, that makes sense...' I thought.

"Alive isn't the same as safe," I replied, countering to keep the argument going.

"True." She folded her hands in her lap. "So let's trade safety for speed. You give me access. I put you all back on the same mountain road you came from. You continue your pilgrimage. We go our way."

"After you strip a sanctum that he left behind of any knowledge," I said lightly. "What would Dhanvantari think of that?"

"You mistake me for a vandal," Nalini said. "I would curate whatever he left behind. Catalogue. Learn. Share—selectively, responsibly. India has forgotten more magic than Britain teaches. I will not apologize for reclaiming it."

"And the bloodline lock?" I pressed. "You said brute force can't bypass it. Even if the core expansion ritual does lock souls together for a while, it's a very light infiltration. Not enough to bypass a lock with full guarantee."

Her eyes sharpened, pleased despite herself that I had asked the right question. "True. What's different now is the timing. The vault has opened twice in recorded history—once at Dhanvantari's death and once when Slytherin took his tongue. The locus itself breathes. Every few centuries, it thins, and the world makes a bridge. We stand on such a thinning. We will not miss this one."

I let the quiet stretch and then said, "You could have asked."

"We did," she replied. "We asked fate. Fate gave us you."

Heat crept up my neck; I banked it behind Occlumency and changed tack. "You said 'we.' Your husband, your house—how many do you represent? A family? A consortium? Ministry?"

She smiled without warmth. "Enough to bring you here, bind you without bruises, and keep your celebrated godfather quiet. Enough that the Old Guardians will not interfere unless we trespass where even they will not go. That should answer your question."

"Parvati?" I risked.

Nalini's mana fluttered—remorse, quickly clamped. "She didn't know," she said. "For now. She wouldn't have done it otherwise. The girl is rebellious."

I swallowed. Was that relief I felt? "I understand why you're desperate," I said. "But if you try to cram a soul-link over a resisting mind, the collapse will cost you your chance and possibly my life. If I'm your key, killing the key is a poor strategy."

"We agree," she said. "Which is why you will not resist."

I tilted my head. "That wasn't an agreement. That was a prophecy."

The faintest twitch at the corner of her mouth. "Semantics," she said, and stood. Her wand slid into her hand with a silvery whisper; the candlelight played along its length. "You have a gift, Rigel. You have also been…trained. Occlumency sits on you like a winter cloak. Your eyes move before your answers do." She drew closer, close enough that I could smell the sharp citrus of her perfume. "You are not the first stubborn scion I have shepherded toward duty."

"Duty to whom?" I asked softly. "To dead men? To your house? Or to magic itself?"

"To power," she said, and there was no pretense in it. "Because power in the hands of the moral is the only bulwark against power in the hands of the monstrous."

"Then we agree again," I said. "Which means you don't need this," and I nodded at her wand.

She considered me for two heartbeats. "I need efficiency," she said, almost kindly. "You are bright. You are dangerous. Your sentiment will get people killed faster than my methods will."

"Or it will keep them alive when yours would burn them to ash."

"Enough." The word fell like a stone. "We leave at dawn. I would prefer you rest."

"You'll get more out of me if I trust you," I said. "Prove my friends are untouched, let them go, and I'll stay."

She let out a slow breath, the steel returning to her posture. "Let me remove the last impediment to understanding." Her wand rose, the gesture a small, elegant arc—no flourish, no drama. A professional's economy.

"I care about the results, we can't fail this time," she said, and the wand tip aligned between my eyes.

"Imperio."

---

AN- Well, the schedule has been a bit fucked, honestly, and it will remain a bit fucked till the 8th next month. I have a deadline that I have to meet. That would be the last of the project, and I'm going to take a break from the job after that.