Neville perched on the edge of the chair with the Sword of Gryffindor resting across the tabletop, his fingertips barely brushing the hilt. He looked like he'd rather be anywhere else.
"Do I really have to be here?" he asked for the third time. He felt weird sitting in the Headmaster's room when he wasn't in the room.
Cassian and Bathsheda paced round the table in opposite directions, weaving past Fawkes, who chirped pointedly every time they crossed his perch.
Cassian flicked Neville a bright smile. "Absolutely. The sword likes you. It doesn't like me. If I so much as tap the thing, it gets shy and vanishes. Horrible manners. Fascinating magic, though. Bit judgemental."
Neville blinked. "Judgemental?"
Before Cassian could elaborate, the Sorting Hat stirred on the shelf and said, "That's Godric for you. Held a lifelong grudge against snakes."
Cassian pointed at it. "Lovely. Anything more useful?"
The Hat let out something between a sigh and a harrumph. "I can summon it if someone worthy calls for it. That's the whole arrangement. Though it'll appear on its own if a true Gryffindor needs it."
Cassian gave Neville a look that said, See? You're stuck with us.
Bathsheda stopped beside the sword, hands on the table. "We're not making you do anything dramatic. We just need the sword to stay put long enough to test the runes."
Neville stared between all three of them, then down at the blade as if it might speak up and defend itself. The metal gleamed, almost pleased with its current handler.
"Well," he muttered, "it seems to like me more than it likes Professor Rosier."
Cassian nodded at him. "Yes, tragically. I'm wounded. Truly. But at least we know you won't explode if you pick it up, which puts you ahead of most of us."
Neville swallowed. "Why would anyone explode-"
Fawkes trilled loudly, interrupting him.
Cassian turned to Fawkes. "Hush, you. He won't burst into flames."
Neville swallowed.
Cassian laughed. "We're joking. Mostly. If you do combust, we'll sweep up what's left and tell your gran you died heroically."
Neville didn't look comforted.
Cassian leaned his hip against the table, eyeing the sword. "The sword doesn't measure courage in any neat, quantifiable way. It's not marking you on how many times you've sprinted into danger or how loudly you shout Gryffindor at Quidditch matches."
His brows pulled. "So how does it do that?" he asked.
Neville glanced between Cassian and the blade. "Intent?"
Cassian hummed. "Good guess. Not wrong either. Intent drives half the magic you'll ever use." Cassian leaned in, hands on the table. "Think about it. Why would a lump of goblin-made silver pick you instead of me? I'm charming. Look at me."
Neville gave him a look.
Cassian taught intent as routinely as other professors handed out homework. Intent shapes spellwork, intent steers magic, intent is the reason half the world doesn't collapse under its own wand accidents. If his students left Hogwarts remembering only one thing from his classes, he hoped it was that. Magic cared about what you meant, not what you claimed later.
But the sword... that was different.
If it were only intent, the sword shouldn't have played favourites. Intent didn't care about houses. It didn't sort people into neat little boxes. People did that. Humans loved categories, house colours, teams, counties, bloodlines, all the usual banners they rallied behind when they wanted to feel part of something bigger. It made sense the sword might lean into that. A living relic shaped by centuries of house identity might latch onto whatever flavour of Gryffindor spirit it recognised.
But even that felt too small for the thing lying on the table. The sword had survived founders, wars, collapses. It had tasted basilisk venom and came out shinier for the experience. If it were driven only by loyalty to a house, it would've been a novelty, not an artefact capable of rewriting its own enchantments.
No... there was something older built into its spine. Something closer to a magical instinct. It didn't measure bravery the way people did. It measured whether someone meant what they stood for. Whether their magic knew its own direction. That lined up with Gryffindor's legacy, yes, but it ran deeper than banners and dormitories.
And it explained why the sword stayed stubborn whenever Cassian so much as stepped toward it.
He didn't match the mould it expected. Neville did, without even trying.
Bathsheda made an "Ahh" and walked over to the sword and waved her hand. As she did that, light bled up through the metal, bright enough that Neville let out a startled "ohh" and leaned back from the table. Cassian straightened too, eyes widening.
She stepped closer, gaze locked on the hilt. "There," she said softly. "I knew it."
The shimmer settled into a tight lattice along the grip, hooks and strokes unlike any standard runic work. Cassian bent in beside her.
"That's goblin-script," he said. "But not their usual forging marks."
Neville glanced between them. "Is that bad?"
Bathsheda shook her head. "Not bad. Rare." She traced an inch above the metal, careful not to touch it. "This is a behavioural imprint matrix. Haven't seen one outside wandlore."
Cassian blinked. "Wands."
"Mhm." She tipped her head, following the lines. "Goblins promised to stop using this technique after the wand disputes. You know how touchy the Ministry gets about anything that looks too close to wandlore. But this was forged before that. Whatever they forge adapts to the magic it's exposed to. Learns it. Reflects it. Stores it." Then she tapped the very centre. "And this one... this is a template rune. It sets the baseline the blade grows around."
Cassian whistled under his breath. "So the sword didn't start Gryffindor-ish."
Bathsheda gave a thinking hum. "No. It became Gryffindor-ish later. If Salazar had claimed this blade from the beginning, you'd be holding a sword that wakes up for cunning, ambition, and people who make plans five moves ahead. Not courage." She angled the hilt so they saw the central rune more clearly. "This imprint's saturated with Godric's magical signature. His temperament. His habits. His emotional palette. All the things he repeated often enough that the sword learnt them as its default."
Cassian chuckled. "Brilliant. The sword's got instincts because its first owner couldn't resist running into danger head-first."
Bathsheda smirked but kept her eyes on the script. "It does what wands do... with less subtlety. Wands read intent because of core alignment and caster imprint. This reads alignment based on lived experience. Decades of it. Possibly centuries, depending on how long Godric carted it round." She stepped back so Neville could see. "That's why it likes you. You and Godric are cut from similar cloth, even if you don't think so."
Neville flushed at that, ears going pink. "I'm not-"
"You are," Cassian said simply. "Sword seems to agree with it. And it's very picky."
Neville looked at the blade, free hand clenching under the table.
Bathsheda crouched slightly, following the cycle.
"It's reacting to you now," she said. "It's checking your imprint against its original template. That's how it decides whether to stay or vanish."
Cassian tapped his knuckles lightly against the table. "Explains why it ghosted me. I've never been accused of having Godric's brand of heroics."
Bathsheda gave him a look. "You're not reckless."
"Thank you," Cassian said. "I try very hard."
"I said you're not reckless," she repeated. "Still suicidal at times."
Neville watched the glow with awe. "So every person who's held it... it learns from them?"
"Only if they fit the template," Bathsheda said. "Items with imprint matrices don't rewrite themselves entirely. They reinforce the foundation that's already there. A wand adapts, but it doesn't uproot its core to please someone. The sword won't either."
She tapped one corner of the hilt. "This is the baseline. Courage recognised courage, loyalty recognised loyalty, stubbornness recognised people too thick-headed to drop the blade when running into a troll looked like a good idea. All that stayed."
Neville held the sword a little more carefully, as though the metal had suddenly become a live thing. "So the sword's basically looking for the closest thing to Godric it can find."
Cassian snapped his fingers. "Exactly. A spiritual family resemblance. Lovely. That tracks."
Bathsheda arched a brow. "Which is why it won't sit still for anyone who doesn't match the template. It's not choosing bloodline, house, fame, nothing like that. It's choosing accordance." She stood properly, brushing a bit of dust from her sleeve. "And before either of you imagine the sword being sentimental, it's not. It's practical. It wants a wielder whose magic won't clash with its own."
Cassian tilted his head. "Which makes using it as a container far easier. The rune lattice's stable. And predictable."
Neville perked up. "Predictable's good?"
Cassian grinned. "Predictable's wonderful. Predictable means I'm not going to accidentally fling the thing through a wall."
Neville looked alarmed. "Should I... still be holding it?"
Cassian waved a hand. "You're fine. It likes you. If anyone's in danger, it's me. The last time I tried to move it, it disappeared into the thin air and refused to come out."
Bathsheda glanced at the sword again, expression thoughtful. "This rune at the base... goblins usually carve it into blades they expect to stay in service long-term. It's the same principle as wand loyalty. The sword keeps a record of the kind of magic it wants to follow."
Neville looked up, brow creased. "Is that strange?"
Bathsheda nodded at the hilt. "Very. This was Godric's sword. Goblins don't hand out their imprint matrices. That rune's meant for their own artefacts, not for Magicks." She leaned in again, brushing her fingers above the script. "I've never seen them grant it to an outsider. Not once."
Cassian's frown deepened. Goblins weren't generous. If they gave something, they wanted ten things back. And yet...
"Hold on." He pointed at a small hook-shaped line tucked beneath the lattice. "That stroke. Doesn't that look like one of Rowena's?"
Bathsheda froze.
Slowly, she bent closer.
"Oh," she breathed. "It is. She rewrote it. That's her mark. Runes Rowena made to override goblin-return protocols. She must've carved it in after the sword was forged."
Neville blinked between them. "Return protocols?"
Cassian straightened. "Goblins always build recall into any artefact they consider theirs that drags the item home when the owner dies or someone unworthy touches it." He tipped his head toward the sword. "Rowena blocked that."
Bathsheda nodded. "Cleverly, too. She didn't erase the goblin script. She rewrote the pathways... kept the learning matrix, broke the recall. That way the sword stayed tied to Hogwarts instead of being yanked back to a forge the moment Godric keeled over."
The Sorting Hat perked up on the shelf. "Oh, I remember that now," it said. "Goblins were livid for months. Godric tried explaining, but they only listened when Rowena started reciting contractual law at them."
Cassian snorted. "Of course she did."
Neville looked down at the sword again. "So... goblins meant for it to go back to them?"
Bathsheda nodded. "Not just to return. To return shaped."
Cassian's eyebrows lifted. "They handed Godric a blank-slate weapon and expected him to fill it with Warmage brilliance. Then they'd collect it later, crack it open, and get a century's worth of field research for free. Goblins are warmages by nature. This would be the ultimate treasure for them for generations to come."
The Hat hummed. "Intentional, yes. Well-planned, less so. Godric shaped the sword beautifully, but Rowena refused to hand it back. She said Hogwarts needed stable artefacts, not loaned ones."
Cassian leaned his elbows on the table. "So the goblins' grand plan was to let Godric hammer courage, loyalty and 'charge first, think after' into the sword, then take it home and train their warriors on the imprint of the loudest Gryffindor ever born."
Bathsheda smiled faintly. "It would've worked. Imprint matrices are powerful teachers. Goblins could've used the sword to cultivate courage without needing Gryffindor."
Cassian tapped the table. "Which means this sword isn't just a relic. It's a teaching device. A very old one. It recognises traits because it was designed to learn them. Godric filled it, Rowena boxed it in, and the goblins never got their research toy back."
Neville looked back at the glowing lattice, his fingers light on the hilt. "And it still works after all this time?"
Bathsheda tilted her head. "Of course it does."
She traced the final curve of the overwritten rune. "If the sword were ever sent back to a goblin forge now, it wouldn't survive the transition. Their system would try to reclaim the old pathways. Rowena's overrides would fight back. The blade would tear itself apart."
Cassian's expression shifted as another idea clicked. "Which means she didn't just claim it for Hogwarts. She burned the bridge behind her."
Bathsheda nodded. "Exactly."
Cassian clapped his hands. "Brilliant. We've got a sword forged by goblins, overwritten by a genius, saturated by a madman with a lion complex, and currently imprinting on the calmest Gryffindor in the room. Nothing strange about that at all."
Bathsheda gave the sword a thoughtful look. "It was never meant to be a trophy," she said quietly. "It was meant to be a guide."
Cassian smiled sideways at her. "Then let's put it to work."
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