Night came quickly.
Dusk in Godric's Hollow spilled down from the hillside, dyeing the stone cottage windows a warm orange. Then the orange turned deep violet, the violet turned blue-grey, and the blue-grey turned black. At last, the stars lit up one by one beyond the glass.
As if someone in the heavens were flicking a row of invisible switches.
After a full day of wrestling with stubborn white magic, Iain washed up and lay down on the bed, pulling the blanket to his chest, eyes wide open as he stared at the ceiling. The little skeleton stood beside the bed, its two dark eye sockets fixed on him, jaw opening slightly as if waiting for him to say something.
"To be fair, you've been so good to me, and yet I sleep on the bed while you sleep on the floor. That makes me feel pretty guilty."
Iain looked at the little skeleton and spoke with sincere remorse.
The little skeleton tilted its head slightly. Then it bent one bony leg toward the edge of the bed.
Very clearly, it was trying to climb up.
But Iain reached out and pressed down on its shoulder blade.
"No, you've got the wrong idea."
He hurried to explain. "What I mean is, you could sleep under the bed. If I can't see you, I'll feel a lot better."
His tone was completely earnest.
"Clack-clack-clack???"
The little skeleton froze beside the bed. Its jaw opened a little, closed, opened again, closed again. Whatever it was trying to say, it was probably not polite.
In the end, though, it accepted the arrangement. It bent down and crawled under the bed.
Thunk.
When it lay down, the back of its skull bumped the beam under the bedframe with a dull knock. It adjusted its position, folded both arms across its chest, and hooked its finger bones over its collarbone, lying there with perfect posture like a museum specimen that had been carefully arranged.
"Here. Don't crack the back of your head sleeping like that."
Iain leaned over the side of the bed, glanced down at it, then took a pillow from beside his own and stuffed it underneath.
The little skeleton accepted it and tucked it beneath its skull, giving a very soft clack, the sound somehow lower than usual.
Almost like a sigh.
Or like someone saying, Fine, then.
"I really am a thoughtful little gentleman."
Iain lay back down, pulled the blanket up, and closed his eyes. Today was another turn in the seven-day cycle.
He knew it.
As sleep overtook him, his consciousness slipped away like water draining through fingers. Not all at once, but slowly, evenly, like grains of sand falling one by one through an hourglass.
His breathing deepened, his heartbeat slowed, and the weight of his body seemed to disappear into the mattress.
He felt himself sinking.
Like a leaf that had floated too long on the surface of the water, finally soaked through and descending, little by little, into the depths.
When Iain opened his eyes again, the world had changed.
He had once more fallen into what he believed to be his subconscious realm, lying inside the stone coffin, the underground chamber ceiling above him, the same runes carved into the rough stone that he had seen so many times before in dreams. Their pale glow flickered in the dark, brightening and dimming like a school of luminous jellyfish breathing at the bottom of the sea.
"The world of my consciousness once again welcomes its rightful master."
Iain sat up, climbed out of the stone coffin, and stepped barefoot onto the cold stone floor.
He looked around. At first he was only searching for the Succubus Lady, but the moment his eyes fell on the wall, he froze in startled confusion.
There was now a door in the chamber wall.
A door that absolutely should not have existed.
He had entered this place many times before, and there had never been a door there.
"As my magical journey progresses and my super-brain continues evolving, my subconscious world must be expanding too."
That, apparently, was the most reasonable explanation he could find.
"In that case, let's see whether there's even more bloodline inheritance hidden behind this door."
Iain placed a hand on the stone door and pushed.
Crack.
The door moved.
It was not nearly as heavy as he had expected. It was more like a well-oiled door whose hinges had long been waiting, patient and silent, for someone at last to push it open.
The door almost slid backward on its own, revealing a pitch-black space beyond.
"I swear, if there are thousands of succubi hidden in there, what exactly am I, young and defenseless as I am, supposed to do?"
Iain hesitated at the threshold for a moment.
"Retreat strategically?"
In the end, he stepped inside.
His bare feet struck the stone with a cold echo. The sound bounced through the darkness and carried off into the distance like a pebble skipping across black water.
Then, with each step he took, lights began to ignite along the walls.
"So it's voice-activated."
What lit up were torches, each one burning with a blue flame like a gas burner. It was a blue that looked borrowed from some creature in the deepest sea.
"Fiendfyre!"
Iain blinked.
The flames bloomed from iron sconces mounted on the wall, one after another, like a row of dominoes falling into light, illuminating a corridor.
The corridor was narrow, just wide enough for two or three people abreast. The walls on both sides were covered in murals, not the runes he had seen before in the burial chamber.
These were more like a painted narrative scroll laid along the stone.
"A historical record?"
Iain slowed his pace and began walking while studying them.
In the first mural, a wizard in robes stood atop a mountain, both hands raised, lightning striking down from the sky into his palms.
At his feet, a crowd of indistinct figures knelt in worship.
In the second, the same wizard rode a winged beast. The creature opened its jaws and spewed fire, burning down a distant city.
One mural followed another, as though recording the origin of wizardkind itself.
"So my bloodline carries inherited family memories too..."
Since Iain remained wholly convinced that this was his own mindscape, all his reasoning continued to work from that premise.
Which, admittedly, was a testament to how competent the doctor Dumbledore had found for him truly was.
The young wizard's steps grew slower and slower.
He saw the figure of that wizard.
He saw the way that wizard stood high above all others, surveying the world.
He saw that wizard stretching out a hand while all things submitted before him.
"Isn't that my current body shape... some kind of symbolic projection?"
Iain looked down at himself, then back to the mural.
Just as he was wondering whether this overwhelming ambition represented some inner demon of his own, a cry suddenly rang out from deeper within the corridor.
"Ahhh...!"
It was a cry of alarm.
Shaking.
Like the sound someone made when they were so frightened they had forgotten all dignity.
"Succubus Lady!"
Iain's legs moved faster than his brain. He ran, his footsteps exploding through the corridor, mixing with the echo of that cry and turning into a harsh, frantic noise. As he passed, the blue flames flared a little brighter.
As though they were lighting the road ahead for him.
The corridor bent at the end. As soon as he rounded the corner, Iain saw the Succubus Lady sitting on the floor, scrambling backward in panic on hands and feet.
Three giant stone statues loomed over her, great swords raised high.
As if preparing to cut her down.
"Stop!"
Iain instinctively threw out a hand, intending to cast with his fingers.
But at the sound of his voice, the statues, which had already begun swinging their massive blades, abruptly froze.
All three swords stopped mere inches from the Succubus Lady's body.
Boom! Boom! Boom!
The statues took several steps back.
Then they knelt before Iain.