Fraser "Razor" Macmillan, Mongrel In Chief (razorfraser) wrote in neeps, @ 2018-01-08 21:21:00 |
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Entry tags: | ! log, ainsley galbraith, fraser macmillan, melchior yaxley |
WHO: Fraser Macmillan, Ainsley Galbraith, Melchior Yaxley, and Elves
WHAT: Repairing the Priory couldn't possibly be a metaphor for Fraser's family life...
WHEN: Sunday, 7 January 2000
WHERE: Macmillan Priory, Macmillan Park, East Lothian, Scotland
WARNINGS: Minor injury and a smidge of potentially dark magic
"Carefully, Slowly lads…" Somehow the elves from Macmillan Park and Yaxley Manor had multiplied, and Ualraig would only say "they came to help". They were going to replace the main lateral roof-beam, which would've required significantly more effort using only muggle means, and probably if it were just wizards. The team of house elves was just pushing it into place, and Fraser wasn't even sure where the old beam was going. Or where they'd come up with a treated beam of the right size. But they were right in replacing this first. The rest of the roof depended on it. He stood by ready to help keep the wood together if things started to fail, but he suspected that the elves just asked him to do this so that he could feel like he'd done part of the work.
Mel was sure that there were stable elves from the Manor that he hadn't really known about or considered somewhere in the group that was manoeuvring the beam into place. Some of the work was being done with magic, more subtle and careful than what the wizards were using; that had to be how the precariously-balanced beam was staying in place, just as things never seemed to fall off trays in Lufu's presence. Still, he was ready to catch the beam with his wand if something went wrong, or get Ainsley and Fraser out of the way.
Ainsley hardly dared to breathe as the house elves- she was aware of them, but had never really seen or interacted with one herself- maneuvered and placed the aforementioned beam. If she hadn't been so fascinated by the process, she might have banished herself to the kitchen or the library reconstruction projects. Since she'd arrived, she had held back a little, watching the two men work together alongside the elves; she'd done some research on restorative and repairing spells, but didn't want to bombard them with questions right from the word Go. Maybe once the roof's beam had been secured, she could try a couple of things on the windows to test her theories. The part of her that loathed tension wanted desperately to say something, but she didn't dare.
The elves slid the beam along, taking out the damaged beam before them. Or something. Were they actually moving the old log out? Fraser couldn't tell, and the elves, somehow, couldn't explain. "We're replacing it," Ualraig had said. "Helpers have done this lots. It won't explode." Fraser didn't share that with the others, since it wouldn't. He watched it slide into place over his head, and wasn't sure how wizards ever had gotten along without house-elves.
Once the beam was in, Fraser began to relax. He hadn't realized how tense he was. "They're amazing," he said to Ainsley. "Couldn't run a manor like this without them."
Ualraig popped between Fraser and Mel. "Tha sinn deiseil, Maighstearan."
"Beurla nuair a tha companaidh againn, Ual," Fraser reminded the house elf. The little creature with the large ears nodded.
"Ualraig, I should introduce you to my friend Miss Ainsley Galbraith. Ainsley, this is Ualraig, who works for Macmillan Park." Ualraig bowed towards her.
"Miss Ainsley, Ualraig is pleasured to make your acquaintance," replied the house elf.
The million or so questions that had been rattling around her head stuttered to a stop as her brain had to take a moment to translate what had been said. She noted the formality of the bow, wondering it was rote or situational, but decided to err on the side of whatever and dropped a tiny curtsey to the house elf in reply. "The pleasure is mine, Ualraig. And, please, don't feel like you have to stick to English on my account. I don't speak Gaelic very well myself, but I understand enough to get by. It really is fine."
Ainsley looked around the Priory, and then back at Ualraig. This being her first real encounter with one of its kind, she wasn't entirely sure about how to proceed. "Fraser's been telling me about the work you've done around here. It's really impressive. Do you think you could suggest the best place I can start helping? I wouldn't mind taking a crack at the kitchen or the library, if you'll direct me?"
Ualraig almost bounced with glee. "Yes, yes. You go help in Library. We cannot fix books." His plastic face quickly took on a sad demeanor, but only momentarily. "But beam is up, Masters and Mistress cannot help us with roof. Elves now roof, now we paint." He nodded politely to Mel. "Lufu paints, because she is guest-friend. And knows how to paint."
"How does she know what to paint, Ual?," Fraser asked. Ualraig hadn't been the nursery elf, but he'd been around as long as Fraser had been in Macmillan Park.
"We painted it before, Master."
"When did you do that, Ual?"
"Nineteen and twenty, Master. And eighteen and ninety and two, eighteen and ninety, but the color was wrong, eighteen and sixty and five, eighteen and thirty and three, and eighteen and twenty. All the times." He smiled. Fraser didn't want to go into institutional memory versus the lifespan of house elves, so he didn't ask if Ual had supervised them all. It would be more disturbing to know than to speculate.
Mel shrugged. He could believe it. House elf lifespan wasn't his specialty either; he just knew it was longer than his. "Come on, Ainsley; we can go work on the remnants of the library. See if any of the shelves can be salvaged at all." Mel wasn't hopeful about that, but he was willing to be proved wrong.
He took the lead, since he knew where he was going, and let Ainsley follow and Fraser take up the rear, since he might need to say something more to the squad of house-elves.
Ainsley walked behind Mel, staring at- without really seeing- his back. She was thinking about some of the modified Mending charms she'd been reading about recently, and wondered which, if any, might help in this case. The damage was nearly 60 years old; it was entirely possible that there was a statute of limitations on even the strongest of repairing spells.
"Did you grow up with them too? House elves?" It was one of the many questions that had come back to her once she'd gotten past her initial whatever-that-had been. This one had just managed to slip past the dam.
"Oh yeah, Lufu, the house elf from my dad's--my--house, is here helping today." Mel gestured back in the direction they'd come from. "She took care of us all from the time we were wee. People talk about advantages that families like mine have, and a lot of it's true. But I think they miss what an advantage it is when you don't have to pay a lot of attention to taking care of yourself. Your food, your clothes, your house," that last added as they ducked around a loose bit of wall panelling that had burnt partially away. "All the work you'd have to do about them just happens, and the time you'd spend on that work, you have for other pursuits."
"Mel and his sister Lex and Jupiter and I sort of ran as a pack," Fraser added. "We could Floo to each others' house and our Mothers knew the house elves there would see that we didn't get into any harm, so he's the closest thing I've got to a brother."
Fraser opened the door to the library and looked in. "Brace yourselves. It's not in good shape. The bookshelves were heavy built-ins, designed to allow books to be double-stacked and yet still have all the titles readable. Not that any of the ones in sight looked readable. Some were at least still square, and maybe something could be done for them. It was a smaller library than the one at Macmillan Park, but it had taken a lot of damage. The windows, nearly floor-to-ceiling gothic arches, were partially boarded over where the glass was missing, and the only way to tell where the furniture had been was that there were various small piles of higher debris.
As far as commonality of existence was concerned, Ainsley was beginning to think that it began and ended with with their shared magical heritage. It wasn't that she had grown up lacking anything much in the way of comfort, but there was something in Mel's phrasing that left her feeling a little cold. In a way, she could understand what he was getting at, but a part of her wondered- maybe a little unkindly- if the wizard thought he was better than others, just because of the circumstances of his birth. The thought lingered, threatening to sour her opinion of him, but she pushed it aside. There was a better than good chance that she was being unfair. They'd shared exactly two formal dances and a hangover breakfast; this was, perhaps, not the best way to measure someone's character.
This was all mused in thoughtful silence as Fraser went on, speaking about their familial childhood connections, and she was just about to comment on how nice it must have been to have all those ready-at-hand friends to play with, when she saw the state of the library. She stopped short, something like a wave of déjà vu hitting her. It was the kitchen all over again. A tiny whimper left her, completely unbidden, along with the small, almost moaning utterance of: "Oh, books, no."
Mel was also making a face at the destruction, though his thoughts were less about the loss and more about how much effort it was going to take to salvage the room and its contents. "This looks awful, Fraser." Parchments were meant to last forever, but these were printed books and there were limits to how much they could stand. Most of these had suffered from decades of exposure to the elements. Probably the ones that could be retrieved easily had gone years ago. Which suggested that most of these were rubbish, and possibly, depending on how the spells of preservation had been worked into the wood, the shelves as well. "Where do we start?"
Fraser took out his wand, looking grim. " I was going to say 'it's like something out of the war,' but it is something out of the war. Alright, here's our plan. First, triage. Two piles. One here in the middle for anything we think might be salvageable. This wasn't anyone's main library, so the books here were probably spares or even placed here for decorative purposes. The other pile is for things we can't do anything about. Furniture we let the House Elves decide about. If there are books that are in good shape, they're in the cabinets or drawers, because those would've survived the fire the best. Everybody take a wall, and once we send the debris out the window to the future garden, we can think about the windows." He moved to the far wall, using his wand to push a burned out globe of the world towards the center of the room, where it fell to even smaller pieces.
For just a moment, Ainsley simply stared at the room, still slightly aghast, but she really had been listening to Fraser through that haze of shock. It just took her a second or two to finally find the impetus to move. Once she had, however, she picked her way carefully through the ruined detritus of a room that had been exposed to the elements for far too long. She sent a few of the larger pieces of wrecked furniture out of her way and through the window with a couple of deft wand movements, and then surveyed her chosen wall. "I can't tell you how much this breaks my heart. I think I'm in actual physical pain." Ainsley banished most of the worst of the caked in soot on her chosen wall and surrounding cabinets with a broad stroke of her wand. "Come on, library, show me you have something that can be saved. We're going to fix you up right nicely, we are."
She was cooing at the library. It wasn't one of her finer moments.
Something glinted in one of the cabinets, catching her attention. She had to do a bit of complicated spell work to get it open without breaking it entirely, but she was rewarded when it opened to reveal several gorgeously bound books. She gazed at them reverently, letting out a relieved sigh. Ask the library gods, and they would provide! Just when she had reached in to carefully pull one free, she knew it had been the wrong thing to do. As soon as she touched the gilded spine, the entire cabinet's contents turned to ash with a small 'whoosh' of sound. Ainsley snatched her hand back with a small noise of surprise. "So, the cabinets may have been spelled with a preservative or some kind of protection charm." Her surprise had swiftly become annoyance. "Breeching it evidently causes this."
Fraser looked at her in her distress and with her hand covered with ashes and did his best, as any good boyfriend would, not to laugh. He put his hand on her back and tried to soothe her. "It's OK, we'll leave any more like that for last, after we've consulted with some book experts. We can talk to the Urquharts, they probably know things about books that we don't."
"They may have protective spells on some of the furniture that you have to properly deactivate to remove the books. But that'd be more likely inside the house, not in the Priory, I'd think," Mel hastened to add. He might not be the boyfriend but he realised that wouldn't go down well either. "Could have happened to anyone trying to get the books out, Ainsley, don't think about it overmuch. Anything we get out of here is more than we expect."
It occurred to Mel that some of them might be bloodline protections but he didn't want to get into that with Ainsley present. He'd talk about that with Fraser later.
"Mel makes a good point. We should probably check for residual magic spells. And we can talk to Ualraig about protective spells. If he remembers when they painted the roof beams, he should know about those, even if house elves just bypass 'em." Fraser cast Revelio Encantem at his bookcase, checking it for anything that might still be lingering.
Now that the embarrassment had set in, Ainsley could only smile briefly at the two men before turning back around to her section of wall and repeating Fraser's spell. The other cabinet along her wall lit up like faerie lights, along with a row of drawers set above the baseboards. "Not touching those, then," she muttered, and then started sending the pulpy, blackened mess in the shelves out into the garden. There was too much of it to try a banishing spell anyway. Long years of nature's fickle attention had rendered this part of the room virtually unsalvageable anyway. "Best to just clear all of this out, I'm afraid. Any better luck, either of you?"
Mel had let the other two pick their spots and, observing the spells revealed with the other two, went to check a different section of the wall. Nothing glowed when he tried to reveal enchantments, so he followed Ainsley's lead. "Nothing here," he answered. "I think even the bookworms have moved to better hunting grounds."
Fraser moved to another section of the bookcase. There had been a sitting area here, in the back corner. Fraser swept a chair and table away towards the debris pile near the window. He cast the spell again, looking for anything that might be charmed to protect books. He was surprised by the results. The rather unassuming shelf in front of him was completely surrounded by a spell of some kind. "I don't know," he said back to Ainsley. "Can you two come see what I'm looking at?"
"Sure." Mel turned back round to see what he was supposed to be looking at and scowled, as much as he ever did, in confusion. "No idea what that's supposed to be."
The floor had been cleared enough that Ainsley didn't have to take quite as much care in crossing the room as she had when they'd first come in. She came up behind the two wizards and surveyed the shelf in question. The results of the revealing spell still skittered over its surface. She narrowed her eyes at it; the effect looked oddly familiar. More than that, tendrils of it seemed to be weaving toward Mel and Fraser, tiny filaments that appeared to be drawn to them. Coming closer to it, she leaned in examine the edges and sides, until finally noticing an odd little eddy over one particularly unremarkable whorl in the lacquered pattern of the wood.
"Could one of you put your wand just here?" she said over her shoulder, and then moved to one side, finger still pointing to the spot. "An unlocking spell could possibly do the trick."
Mel looked at Fraser, because it was his house. Fraser nodded. He put his wand where Ainsley directed it and cast the so-called "Thief's Friend" charm. "Alohomora!". He was surprised when the bookcase slid backwards, but he probably shouldn't have been. "Well, that's a piece of the priory that we won't need to repair. Did you know there was a secret door, Mel?"
"No," Mel shook his head. "But this place burned down when Mum was little. She might not have known about it."
While she had managed to keep from doing a wee triumphant jig on the spot, Ainsley wasn't as successful from masking her glee at the discovery of what was evidently a secret room. She lit her wand, and then put it out toward the open space, revealing a set of stone stairs leading down. "What say we go down and see what's there? I can't be the only one excited about this. Who knows what dark secrets might be revealed."
"Whatever's down there hasn't seen the light of day in 50 years. Lumos!. Let's go enlighten it. We can do boring stuff like ask Ualraig what's down here later…" Fraser reached out and put his hand on the railing, pushing down and seeing if the steps or the rail were up to them walking down. "Seems safe, but watch your step." He brightened his wand tip and headed down, making sure each step was secure before taking it.
Mel was about to say something to them about telling someone where they were going, but clearly he was going to be left behind in the dust if he tried. Instead, he called back toward the door, "Lufu, we're going into the secret passage behind the bookcase, and if we're not back in an hour, get help."
He let Ainsley take the middle position and followed behind, hoping the door didn't close after him.
Keeping Fraser in her line of sight and watching his careful descent, she directed her next comments to Mel. "Good call, letting someone know where we were going. Could you imagine if we'd gone missing? I can just see the Daily Prophet now- 'Two prominent wizards have been missing for a fortnight, last seen accompanied by Portree's reserve Keeper- she of middling talent- on the Macmillan estate. The DMLE is asking anyone with any information to come forward as soon as possible. Could some dastardly crime have befallen the trio? Or has Miss Galbraith spirited two of Scotland's most eligible bachelor wizards away to form her own harem?'"
"If by The Daily Prophet, you mean my cousin Peggy, it would be more like 'Portree Suffers Additional Setback as Reserve Keeper Goes Missing.' Two minor quidditch officials also missing. Portree, which is having an amazing season despite many injuries, is now looking for a backup keeper to pace Meaghan McCormack, daughter of famous Pride of Portree chaser Catriona McCormack.' and so on for a few pages. We'd be on page 37. Still, it would be good news for Ernie and Micah." Fraser got to the bottom of the stair and let out a low whistle. He slid aside to let Ainsley and Mel join him. "Didn't expect this."
There was a low whistle from Mel. "Has anyone been down here since the forties?" The place was thick with dust, but it was untouched by the fire. It appeared to be some sort of hidey-hole. "Has anyone been down here since the eighteen-forties?" He moved over to a small painting on the wall and read the inscription underneath it. "James the seventh? Looks like he's meant to be king of something. Must be Muggle." It wasn't dismissive, more curious and tentative.
Fraser stepped into the room, not touching anything, but letting the light touch walls and furnishings that might not have been seen in living memory. For a hiding place, the room was remarkably well-set up. There was a sitting area, some shelves, and a door at the back. That might lead to sleeping chambers. A two-room priest-hole seemed extravagant, but it was clearly a thing someone had made.
"This may be even older than that, Mel. Even with the fire, the workmanship looks different. I wonder what the Priory was built on top of. Clearly they knew and somebody came down here at some point, but it's a hiding place. If it pre-dates the statute, it was to hide wizards from angry muggles and if it doesn't, well, I've never heard of King James the Seventh, so I think you're right about him being Muggle. We'll have to research him. He looks Kingly enough. Long face, though. I know we were supposed to have hid Macmillan cousins on the estate in the 1700s. I wonder if this is where that happened."
Showing the same care as the two men, Ainsley came into the room and looked around. "King James the Seventh, also known as King James the Second, ruled from 1685 to 1688, when he was deposed in the Glorious Revolution," she said, rattling it off in an off-handed way. "He was the last Roman Catholic monarch of England, Scotland, and Ireland."
She became aware of what she was saying, and glanced at the two of them with a sheepish smile. "My grandmother has a bit of a thing about British royal history. We used to pour over the family trees and timelines when I was little. I guess some of it kind of stuck." Ainsley looked at the room, trying to imagine what it might have been like in the beginning. "I think you're right, though- or are as likely to be as anything- about it being used to hide people."
Something caught her attention: a table with a kind of recessed shelf set at an angle sat next to a wall, wedged between it and an ancient chair with faded upholstery that was likely gorgeous in the early days of its creation. As Fraser's wand light swept over it, a shadowy shape was thrown into relief. She pointed it out to the other two. "Is that some kind of book?"
Fraser nodded. "There are a few on the shelves as well. Let's check for spells, first. Revelio Encantem!," he cast. There were small items, and a desk drawer that seemed to be magically locked, but not the book. "No magic protecting it, but it's really old… Could be anything."
For just a moment, Ainsley considered using a summoning spell, but then thought better of it. With great care not to touch anything else, she leaned over the chair and eased the book from its hiding place. Neither the spine nor the cover had a title, and she felt a deep stab of disappointment when she carefully opened it and found it blank. She was just about to complain about it when pain suddenly lanced through one of her fingers where it was resting against the edge of one of the pages, eliciting a small, surprised hiss. But this was nothing to the gasp that left her as swirls of ink began to appear, words and pictures filling the book in an instant. She very nearly dropped it.
"Merlin's beard. I think this is a spell book."
Fraser came up behind her and looked over her shoulder, trying not to be distracted by the scent of her hair and the closeness he'd initiated. "That's amazing. They're not in in English. It's like a mix of French, Gàidhlig, and Latin. And with that content hiding spell on it, too. Mel, look at this. Is there anything saying whose spellbook it is?"
Mel didn't need to see Fraser's face to know where his mind was. He coughed, presumably from all the dust in there, but more to remind his cousin that he wasn't alone with Ainsley, and said, "Probably some Macmillan ancestor of ours, but-- Ainsley, what did it do to you? Let me see your hand." He needed to make sure it wasn't bleeding.
It took everything in her power not to lean back against Fraser, mindful as she was of Mel's company even without his polite cough. She started to carefully flip to the front of the book to try to find an inscription when Mel made his demand. "It's fine," she said but still put her hand out to him dutifully. "It's just a papercut."
It wasn't bleeding anymore, but it definitely wasn't a papercut. It looked like something had bored deep into the tip of her index finger. It also had probably hurt when it happened far more than what she'd let on. Ainsley wasn't even paying attention to the injury. She was still fixated on the spellbook. "Here, take it and see if you can find a name. Maybe it just took someone with magical blood to open it?"
Fraser was suddenly more concerned. "Maybe, but blood magic has some bad connotations. And even if it was just a rusty paperclip, tetanus is not a fun thing either." Fraser took the book from her and looked for whatever had pierced her finger.
"I don't like the look of that myself. Let's go up and find Ualraig and see what he knows about this book and this room. If we can't find anything out, I want to get hold of your medic, and possibly take it to Mungo's. It's probably nothing," Mel said, trying to sound reassuring, "but better safe than sorry with this kind of thing. All right?"
"I'm fine," Ainsley said a touch petulantly. "I mean, these weird spidery black veins and sudden irrational urge to kill you both is completely normal, right?"
She held the deadpan expression for a moment, and then shook her head with a wry smile. "All right, all right, I'll defer to the wisdom of my elders. You have to admit, though, it's all very exciting! A secret room with a secret book. Blood magic and a mystery. If the kitchen has a treasure trove of hidden recipes, I have to warn you that I might never leave."
Fraser smiled; that didn't sound like the worst possible outcome to him. "Well then, let's get you checked out so this doesn't turn into some ridiculous fairy tale and you end up sleeping for a hundred years until you're awakened by a kiss from a Macmillan."
Mel couldn't resist the urge to smirk. "That'll be Ernie."