Not long after the visit to Avery manor, the day was warm and sunny, but no light streamed inside of a cool, dark room in Prince Manor. The room had been specifically prepared for Rowan and Severus to conduct experiments, whether it be alchemy or potions wise. More than a few ingredients would be damaged or could be destroyed by a single ray of sunlight, and more importantly to preserve the other ingredients that were at present being stored therein.
During the summer, Rowan and Severus had received their regular homework along with an assignment from their Apprenticeship Master, Dumbledore. They were to work on completing the Nicolas Flamel formula's that they had been instructed to work on. Normally, it would not have been any trouble at all if it were not for just one thing.
As if in reply, Rowan's hand accidentally bumps into one of the vials spilling the contents into the cauldron. Cursing, she vanishes the spill away as she does her best to salvage her present project. And to be honest, the alchemy formula did not look very good at this point. It looked rather murky to be honest.
"Did your clumsy-itus strike again, Rowan?" Severus teased his twin sister with a wicked gleam. He proudly finished stirring his alchemy potion that looked exactly as it should.
Glaring up at Severus, Rowan growls, "At least, I'm not grounded all summer long at Prince Manor. And besides, I already finished the rest of my summer homework, can you say the same, Sev?"
Severus glares back and before the two of them start throwing things at each other, Dawn conveniently pops in. "Dinnertime, young master and mistress! Master says, to leave the projects alone with a stasis spell and come right up."
"Tell him, we are coming," Rowans said as she put her murky looking potion under a stasis spell.
"Dawn will tell the master," Dawns happily squeaked, before popping away.
Rowan almost bumped into the door with her shoulder again, but at least time she didn't ram her shoulder into the doorway. Sighing to herself, she hears Severus's loudly snicker from behind her. Paying no mind to her annoying younger twin brother she walks forward in a firm line until she reached her destination.
Thankfully, her hard work paid off as she was able to take a seat without bumping into her chair. Seated, Rowan nods to her grandfather and Aunt Georgine. Severus sits down next to her with a wide evil grin on his face, which she most pointedly ignores.
Dawn enters the dinner table with an array of dishes that follow her off of the food cart. She skillfully places the dishes before them without so much as a single drop being spilled. Toddling behind his mother is Laldey, who valiantly hovers crisp, white, neatly folded linen napkins over to the four of them.
Dawn beams with absolute motherly pride as Laldey squeaks, "Dina iz sirved."
House elf children were taught early on to serve. It was something mother house elves took great pride in. Most households did not force anything beyond light labor, but there were always terrible households that did. Though slowly that had begun to change as the purebloods now wanted "proper educated house elves."
"Thank you, Laldey," the four of them mutter as Laldey lets out a high-pitched squeal.
Taking her son by the hand, Dawn says, "Please call upon Dawn if anything else is needed." Dawn bows, before leaving with her cart and Laldey holding onto the back of her apron strings.
The four of them dig into the Beef Bolognese. Ever since Dawn had heard that she and the House Elves of Hogwarts were the standard for all wizarding households, Dawn had upped her game so to speak. They had been having a new dish every day since their return as Dawn was trying out their recipes on them. They were all so delicious that Rowan was starting to think she might have to exercise over the summer. Her trousers had been getting a bit tight as of late.
While reaching for a roll, Rowan accidentally reaches a bit too far and caused her glass of water to spill. Georgine arches her eyebrow as this was the second time today it had occurred never mind all the clumsy accident as of late. Might they need to take her niece to the healers? But then again, they were quack's the whole lot of them.
Reginald is no less concerned as he feared it was a stray curse that might have hit his granddaughter. But Rowan said it was not and he couldn't force her to say otherwise. But if this continued, he would force to go to St. Mungo's even if he had to take her kicking and screaming slung over his shoulder like a sack of potatoes.
Clearing the dampness way with her wand, Rowan says, "Might I be excused?"
"You may," Reginald said as he wiped the edge of his mouth clean.
Rowan nods and does not reach for her customary roll as usual. With her present clumsiness she would probably cause her dinner plate to fall to the ground. It was better not to risk another embarrassing scene. And she still had snacks to munch on in her bedroom.
Closing the door to her bedroom behind her, Rowan walks over to the mirror and wordless mutters the spell that would rid her of the illusion over her right eye. Where her right eye once had been midnight black indigo instead now the iris had completely transmuted into a light clear silvery gray color. And with the abrupt iris color change to her left eye, she faintly resembled Grindelwald which greatly worried her.
To be frank, Rowan was certain that this was side effect from the last death surge as she was still even now in the process of devouring the chaotic energy and was certain that it was not a latent hereditary trait finally revealing itself. In the youth filled memories of Albus Dumbledore with Grindelwald, Gilbert Grindelwald did not possess such eyes. But as a man, Gellert certainly had.
Having been preoccupied with other thoughts, (mainly concerning her left eye), Rowan had the uneasy feeling that it was becoming too dangerous to keep absorbing the death surge magic. Frowning, she touches her finger just under her left silvery gray eye.
Riddle's eyes turned crimson after creating horcruxes via death. And her own for absorbing death, then just what did Grindelwald do to receive his silver-gray eye? Perhaps, she truly did not want to learn the answer to that question. The answer to that question only pointed at murder including herself.
There is always a price for power in the end, for there must be balance to all things. Riddle steadily lost all physical traces of his humanity, while Grindelwald seemed to become more lost in his visions of the future. Did the end justify the means? Or would the taint of death destroy everything that is hoped for?
However, an even more pressing concern to Rowan was her uncharacteristic actions that took place at Avery Hall. Such rashness was not normally in her nature, and though she could argue youth, and simply hormones, there had been an almost blinding compulsion to her actions.
Rowan had reviewed her actions of that evening again and again, before coming to only one solemn conclusion that the death surge had not only begun to negatively affect her body, but to a certain degree her very soul. And that same proof was found in the very actions of Tom Marvolo Riddle and Gellert Grindelwald. Death taints everything including the very soul.
Riddle was completely mad by the end of everything as his actions only grew wilder and more irrational with each passing day. And neither was Grindelwald the exception as with the passing of time, more and more blood was spilled to the ground all in the name of the greater good. In the end, nothing was left of both wizards, but death in their wake.
Rather Rowan's growing concern was just how much would her decisions and very personality warp under the present effects of the death surge. Now, they were still controllable, but what about in the future? Would the day come when she too would become unrecognizable even to herself?
Still, there had to be another way, but Rowan greatly feared there was no other way. Pausing mid-thought, she glances thoughtfully at her school trunk at the foot of her bed. A wise man once said, "If you are not cheating, you are not trying enough." And since she only had two pathways, then she would find the means to break down the wall and make a third path instead. Yes, she would do exactly that.
Leaving the topic for the time being, Rowan turns away from the somber topic, but rather to the more urgent topic at hand, her left eye. Transfiguration was not a permanent solution as she could not very well keep up the constant transformation 24/7. An illusion, however, was another matter entirely, Rowan certainly could keep that up in the meanwhile. However, she only had until the end of summer to find a more permanent solution. Dumbledore would certainly ask some very pointed questions upon her return at Hogwarts as illusions would not fool him whatsoever.
In the meanwhile, using said illusion over her right eye threw Rowan's entire sense of perception off, and was the main reason why she was so clumsy as of late. It was not a curse like her grandfather suspected. Rather it was just that she had a hard time getting used to the change in her depth perception.
That and in the back of her mind the death of Wilkes kept haunting her late at night. Just what was that wisp of darkness that emerged out from him towards the end? It matched nothing that she had ever read. The Hydra like rune symbol did not resemble an Obscurial nor a Horcrux, but the wisp of darkness did indeed resemble both. If she did not know any better, she would have said it was a type of demonic possession except it wasn't.
With a sigh, Rowan flopped onto her bed and starred up at the starry ceiling. She was going to have to research the topic and postpone her own again. Just why was her life so tediously complicated at times? But then again, she was a Slytherin. It was the Gryffindors, who had all the confounded luck.