There was a bit of a lapse of silence until Rowan pulls her mind back on track and asks, "I know that it is late, Aunt Georgine, but I have one more question. Would it be possible for there to be a curse at Hogwarts?"
"Impossible," Georgine flatly stated. "The Founders forged Hogwarts and bound her by the four elements and ancient magic of old. And even after all this time, the wards will not allow for such a foul thing to occur."
"Then how did you almost cause the wards of Hogwarts to fall?" Rowan pointedly countered. "It may certainly be impossible for any other witch and wizard to do so, but what if said individual was not only powerful but also a descendant of one of the founders. Would not Hogwarts in part accept the curse due to the bloodline of a said individual?"
Georgine opens her mouth to argue, before closing her mouth thoughtfully. The conjecture was not without merit and she herself was proof of that when she almost brought the Hogwarts wards down during her time as a student. Ordinarily, even with all her talent, it should have been nigh impossible to do so, but Hogwarts to a degree had accepted her manipulations and allowed her to do so. And by Merlin's name, why not? Naturally, the caster must possess the blood of one of the founders, but such a feat would certainly be possible.
And whether she or her brother admitted it out loud or not, the Dark Lord was a parselmouth; and possibly was even a descendant of Salazar Slytherin via the legitimate male or daughter lines that had long ago been forgotten. But the mere acknowledgment of such an idea made her, and her brother grind their teeth together in disgust, but the truth at times cannot be most unbearably awful to swallow.
Finally breaking the silence, Georgine raises her gaze to her great-niece and says, "Be as that may-be, I have not sensed a curse in place anywhere present at Hogwarts."
"I know, it is merely an interesting hypothesis," Rowan somewhat truthfully said as even she had not found the exact location of the curse.
Georgine slowly nods her head at the response, before glancing up at the time and saying, "Now off you go, you have patrol duties tonight and mustn't be late."
Rowan grimaces and rises to her feet, when she hears Georgine slowly say, "But if that were indeed the case, such a curse would not be easily broken if at all. The very wards that make Hogwarts would not allow the curse to break in its entirety until said descendant/caster truly perished. However, if that is not an option, there was always a third alternative through rare and just as dangerous in its manner."
"Which is?" Rowan carefully inquired.
Georgine flashes a cool smile, before answering, "That is to bind the curse, and it must be done under the light of Hunter's moon on the third night of the three Harvest moons. If successful, the curse will certainly weaken, but if not, the curse will gain an even stronger force."
"How unfortunate," Rowan remarked under her breath, before nodding at her aunt in thanks and departing from her office. Her lips are pressed into a thin line as she strolls through the halls of Hogwarts pausing abruptly, she removes her pocket watch to check the time. Snapping her pocket watch shut, she puts it away, before leaning against the cold stone walls under the light of the flickering torches.
Rowan narrows her eyes in thought as she ponders over what her aunt had explained. There was a remote possibility of breaking such a curse and that was a fact. She understood her power and capabilities than anyone else. And she also understood that the version of Riddle that Potter had faced in the future was the weakened wraith version. But the Riddle in the present though somewhat already mad was truly dangerous and a vile foe. Thus far she had been lucky, but her luck had finally run out, and soon Riddle would begin to move.
Biting her lip unconsciously, Rowan chews her lip in solemn thought. What if she had been simply looking in all the wrong places, and yet the answer as always was staring right before her eyes. It was a place that was never the same twice unless one knew of it, the Room of Requirements.
Of course! Rowan thought as her eyes widened at the idea. Riddle knew of the location and had made use of it before to hide Rowena Ravenclaw's Diadem. Why could such a location not hide another secret as the chamber was never the same unless asked?
Without any further thought, Rowan closes her eyes and pulls up her mindscape to ensure that the seventh floor is empty of any wandering occupants and that of Professor Vector in her classroom. Finding the seventh-floor empty of any occupants, she teleports away, before opening her eyes in the left corridor that held the tapestry of Barnabas the Barmy attempting to teach trolls ballet.
Very specifically, Rowan begins to think of what she needs or wants to see before most firmly holding onto that thought in her mind and walking up and down the full length of the corridor thrice. Much like the other times before, the tapestry gently moves as if by a hidden breeze causing her to knowingly glance directly in the opposite direction at the gleaming oak door that appeared directly across from the tapestry. With one final glance over her shoulder and around her, she pulls the door handle and enters the room, firmly shutting the door behind her.
Unlike the countless times before that Rowan had used the Room of Requirements to exercise, the chamber holds a bitter chill and awful creeping darkness. The room is almost completely dark except for three barely lit candles that flicker ominously as the darkness of the chamber threatens to swallow them whole. It is impossible to guess the size of the chamber, but the darkness causes the chamber to feel impossibly vast.
Rowan is completely and utterly still as she waits for her eyes to adjust to the darkness and dim light. Still, an uncomfortable shiver runs down the full length of her spine as the hairs on the back of her neck begin to slowly prick up. Some ancient human instinct screamed at her to run and hide as there was a monster hiding in the shadows. However, her logic dictated that there was neither scent nor movement in the shadows.
But a shiver of unease creeps that much more slowly down Rowan's back as even her faint breathing sounded impossibly loud in her ears. Trying to breathe as inaudible as possible, and slowly as she can, she clenches her grip on her wand. And even worse is the impossible urge within her that screams at her to cast Lumos and shed light upon the terrible darkness. Yet another instinct warns her that such an action would be her folly.
Shoving her feelings of unease aside, Rowan eyes that had adjusted to the dim lighting narrow in unease at spotting something stirring in the shadows above her. Slowly tilting her head back, she sees squirming black strings of darkness move and sways like serpents in a giant vile spiderweb above her to form the writhing spell matrix. Resisting the urge to scream or run at the petrifying scene, she stands very still and does not breathe lest she attracts the squirming tendril's attention.
The twisting vines of darkness move high above Rowan without a care nor having taken notice of the ant before them. She slowly takes a step backward one at a time until her back hits the door. Without removing her gaze from the wriggling vines of darkness, she opens the door, before slipping out and slamming the door shut behind her in immense relief.
Rowan lets out a loud pant as she dries the cold sweat off her forehead with her trembling sleeve. Leaning against the wall, she gasps loudly as though she had just finished running a mile. Whatever that thing was that was no simple curse or mere spell matrix, it was something else. It was alive. And which she would have sworn was an impossibility before but not anymore. It would seem that she had been the naïve one all along.
Feeling her body calming down, Rowan moves away from the seventh corridor and heads down the winding staircase. With care, she descends as she thinks to that which she had just seen. It was a fact, there was no way on Earth that she could destroy that thing, nor much less break the curse. She would only end up dying and that was a fact.
It was no lie as Rowan recalled the event in her second year with Professor Adric. At that time, she had felt she had no choice, but she had, had a choice. And yet, she had felt herself compelled to act and she had.
It was not as though the curse had taken over her mind, no, but rather it had clouded her emotions. It was though as a voice had been speaking to her in the back of her mind all along like the Devil's whisper. And like the Devil, the whisper only nudged and tripped until one fell into Hell all on their own.
But not all was lost, Aunt Georgine had said there was one last option a physical vessel forged to contain a curse. However, what kind of vessel would be strong enough to accept such a vile thing?!
With that final thought in mind, Rowan descended into the dungeons. And despite her recent revelation, she did not have time to digest the new information acquired. She had snakeling's to wrangle into bed or else she would find them sneaking all over the place!