"It wasn't me. It was Nagini!" Barnum blurted out before he could stop himself, his face twisting with pain and panic. "When Skender found her, she was already a complete wild beast. He thought he could tame her with a whip, but Nagini attacked him from behind."
"And after that, you simply kept her?" Alexander shook his head, disgust written plainly across his face. "What a greedy pack of fools."
He looked down at the bound serpent, then back at Barnum. His voice turned colder, carrying the warning weight of a Ministry official whether the title was entirely accurate or not. "Is Mr. Barnum certain he can handle such a dangerous magical creature?"
Roger quietly loosened the binding spell. Nagini immediately began thrashing, her scales scraping against the stage as she twisted with fierce strength. Her body bowed against the green restraints, and for one terrifying second, it looked as though she might actually break free.
"No more! I don't want her anymore!" Barnum cried, staring at the enormous snake head so close to him. Terror completely shattered his performance-ready composure, and a dark stain spread across his trousers. "Take her away! Damn Maledictus! I should have killed her years ago!"
"We'll handle her properly," Roger said.
He struck Nagini hard on the head with another spell. The serpent glared at him with chilling resentment as she collapsed, her cold eyes holding his until unconsciousness finally dragged them shut.
"Roger, this is dangerous," Alexander warned, looking at Nagini as she floated beside the boy under a Levitation Charm. His expression was serious, and all the circus excitement from earlier had vanished.
"I know," Roger said with a nod.
He could not tell Alexander that Nagini would one day become one of Voldemort's Horcruxes. Now that he had interfered and intercepted her before that future could unfold, he was very curious about what Voldemort would do next. After all, in the entire wizarding world, snake-type Maledictus victims like Nagini were almost impossibly rare.
"All right," Alexander said when he saw Roger had already made up his mind. "Then keep a close watch on her and stay alert at all times. If necessary, kill her immediately."
"I understand," Roger replied.
Alexander did not try to persuade him further. Instead, he looked back toward the stage with confusion in his eyes. "Strange. How did they find Nagini in the Scottish Highlands?"
Their Christmas trip to Moscow was short but extremely fruitful. Roger and Bubble returned to the British wizarding world with a vast number of books, several dangerous magical texts, and one unconscious Maledictus serpent. Unfortunately, the return also caused considerable trouble for their home in London.
The Moscow Ministry of Magic's library was manageable enough, but the real problem was the more than thirty million Muggle books Roger had "liberated." There was simply not enough space in the house to store them properly, and even magic could not make the mess look reasonable.
Books were piled everywhere. They filled the living room, climbed the stairs, reached the attic, occupied the bathroom, squeezed into the kitchen, and even invaded the garage. Tall stacks rose against the walls like unstable towers, leaving barely enough room for one person to walk through sideways.
"Roger, what exactly are you going to do with all these Muggle books?" Jessica stood with her hands on her hips, looking genuinely angry with her son for once. She glanced upward and saw even more books stacked nearly to the ceiling. "Our house is not Ollivanders Wand Shop."
Then her gaze shifted to Nagini's cage. The black serpent had raised herself upright inside it and was spitting venom at the bars, while Yumi and Diana had already fled upstairs in terror. Jessica's expression sharpened even further.
"And now there's a snake?"
"Mum, calm down. Please calm down," Roger said cautiously. "I can use the Undetectable Extension Charm to expand the study, and Nagini can be placed into an expanded case for now."
"Fine." Jessica crossed her arms and glared at him. "If this is not sorted out before school starts, I am burning every single one of these Muggle books."
Faced with an angry Jessica, Roger did not dare argue. He especially did not dare tell her that this was only one-tenth of the total.
"Bubble, can we use Travis Manor?" Roger asked, rubbing his temples.
School would begin again in three days, and there was no way he could prepare enough space with the Undetectable Extension Charm in time. He needed an old family property, preferably one large enough to swallow several libraries without forcing his mother to step over books in the hallway.
"Young master, the manor has been abandoned for many years," Bubble said carefully. "It will require a large sum of Galleons before it can be used."
"Never mind that. Take me there first," Roger said.
He grabbed Bubble's hand, and with the house-elf's magic, they vanished from London and appeared at Travis Manor.
In January, a cold, damp sea breeze swept across Ireland. A deserted cobblestone avenue wound into the distance, bordered by ancient trees stripped bare by winter. Their black branches reached toward the grey sky like ghostly claws.
A thin layer of snow covered the grass on both sides of the road. Here and there, a few lifeless blades poked through, brittle and colourless beneath the frost. At the end of the driveway stood an old manor, its walls tightly strangled by vines and neglect.
The patterns on the iron gate were badly rusted, and the door knocker hung loose and half-missing. Roger gave the gate a gentle push. The entire thing crashed to the ground with a heavy clang, sending a damp, rotten smell spilling out from the grounds beyond.
He crossed the manor square, where a huge fountain sat in the centre. The water had long since dried away, and the statues around the edge were so weathered and broken that their original shapes were almost impossible to recognise. Everything looked abandoned, stripped, and left to rot under the salt wind.
Beyond the fountain, the manor's main building rose behind a set of cracked stone steps. The grey-black outer walls were webbed with fractures, and the broken windows reflected weak sunlight with a dull, lifeless gleam. The front door had been mostly smashed apart, with only one stubborn section still hanging upside down from the frame.
Roger stepped through the creaking doorway, and the magical portraits inside immediately erupted into noise.
"Damn thief!" roared an old wizard with a long beard. "Damn Mundungus, he's come to steal again!"
"Help! Chase this thief away!" shrieked an elderly witch in a silver wig, waving a painted cane as if she could beat him through the frame.
"The Ministry bastards already stole every antique worth taking," shouted a hooded portrait with catlike eyes. "What else is left to steal?"
"Get out!" a gloomy middle-aged wizard snarled, shaking a painted fist. "Have you come to steal these worthless paintings too?"
"Damn Dumbledore," cursed an upside-down portrait from the floor. "I knew you would take revenge on the Travis family sooner or later."
That last sentence caught Roger's attention. He bent down, picked up the fallen portrait, and blew a thick layer of dust from its surface.
"May I ask who you are?" Roger asked politely.
The man in the portrait wore a grey wool coat and a bowler hat. He glared furiously at Roger, looking as if he wanted to leap out of the frame and bite him to death.
"Me?" The man straightened his collar with great dignity. "I am Torquil Travis, former Head of the Department of Magical Law Enforcement at the beginning of this century, the man who sent the dark wizard Gellert Grindelwald to Nurmengard."
Then his expression turned sly. "Boy, do you want to know the secret between Dumbledore and Grindelwald? The secret between the greatest white wizard and the most dangerous dark wizard in the world?"
"Grandfather Torquil, please tell me," Roger said at once.
"Hmph, listen carefully." Torquil lifted his chin and declared loudly, "Dumbledore and Grindelwald were lovers."
Then he suddenly froze. "What did you call me?"
"Torquil, he called you grandfather!" another portrait shouted.
"Hahaha! Where did this little wizard come from? He actually dares pretend to be a Travis."
"I forgot to introduce myself," Roger said.
He smiled and bowed lightly to the magical portraits around the hall. "My name is Roger Travis. My father was Theodore Travis, and my mother is Jessica Travis."
"Impossible!" the old woman in the silver wig snapped. "The last male of the Travis family was Buck, and he was imprisoned in Azkaban."
"Wait, Granny Anne," Torquil said, clearing his throat. "I remember Theodore did have a child, but that child was killed by the Ministry, wasn't he?"
"Grandfather Torquil, I am that child," Roger said.
He raised his hand and showed them the family pinky ring. The magical portraits throughout the hall immediately began muttering among themselves, their anger shifting into disbelief, suspicion, and hesitant excitement.
"I was indeed struck by an Auror's Unforgivable Curse," Roger continued. "But I survived."
"I don't believe it unless your name is on the family tree," Granny Anne shouted. "Go to the fireplace and find the hidden record."
Roger felt a little uneasy, but he followed the portrait's instructions. Behind the fireplace, he found a small book coated in ash and dust. When he opened it, a huge tree of light grew out of the pages, its branches stretching upward while nearly a hundred male portraits hung among the leaves.
According to Travis family tradition, every male child received a plant name in Latin at birth, and that name would be written beneath his portrait. Roger's father, Theodore, had a Latin name meaning oak. Buck, still imprisoned in Azkaban, was aconite. His grandfather Torquil was spruce.
As for Roger himself, his name was lily of the valley.
The Travis family tree looked large and flourishing at first glance, but it was not truly thriving. Most of the names had turned black, signifying the deaths of the corresponding wizards. The darkened branches were so numerous that the tree felt less like a record of lineage and more like a graveyard with leaves.
To the astonishment of the elders in the portraits, only two names on the tree were still lit. One belonged to Buck Travis, and the other belonged to Roger Travis, who stood before them alive and unharmed.
"As expected," Roger said softly.
The family tree recognised blood, not souls. Whatever had happened to him in Azkaban, his body still belonged to the Travis line.
"Convallaria!"
Roger paused and looked around. "Are you calling me?"
"Of course," Torquil said, his fierce expression softening into open affection.
Around him, the attitudes of the portraits changed completely. The same ancestors who had been shouting for him to get out moments ago now looked at him with warmth, pride, and the dizzy relief of people who had thought their family name was nearly dead.
.....
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