Draco Dormiens Nunquam Titillandus
a Harry Potter fanfiction, written by Lalardi and Maia. We neither own Harry Potter.
Prologue, by Lalardi
Warm afternoon sunlight streamed into the library, catching dust motes in swirling pillars between the quiet shelves.
It was late in the afternoon, and the grounds, bathed in the last of the October sunshine, were beckoning to the many seventh year students closeted in the library.
The silence was momentarily broken as a crumpled ball of parchment flew across one of the tables and bounced off a burly Gryffindor's head.
"Hey!" Alexander Potter snapped, looking up from the open book he had been staring at for the last quarter of an hour.
"You know, it'd go faster if you actually turned the pages once in a while," said a red haired boy who was sitting across from him.
"Yeah, well this is thick stuff. Whose idea was it to write an entire novel on the mating habits of firecrabs? And I thought they sounded somewhat interesting at first, with a violent name and all," said Alex, turning the book over to read the author's name on the dirty cover.
"Look, it's been so long since anyone was bored enough to open it that the cover's entirely faded," he said, scrutinizing the moldy leather.
The rest of the group laughed, but all quieted when the librarian stalked around the corner.
"Quiet back here! Students besides yourselves are attempting to use this library in peace!" she hissed at them, her wand held threateningly in her outstretched hand.
They quickly bent their heads over their books and waited until she had vanished back around the bookshelf.
"It'd be a great day for Quidditch. Wish we could go out for a while. This homework's making me crazy and we've only been back a couple of weeks. It could get worse," said the red haired boy said, leaning back in his chair to gaze longingly out the window. "Don't you think, Alex? Hey, Alex, what are you –"
"Shh, Victor," said Alex, barely glancing at the other boy.
Victor looked affronted. "What are you gawking at? Or have you suddenly reformed and joined league with the librarian?"
"No, eyeing someone he'd like to know the mating habits of. Your twin sister's a hard girl to catch, Vic," said a girl with short blond hair sitting beside Victor, looking wistfully at Alex, and then at the girl who had just entered the library.
"What?" yelped Victor, nearly upsetting his ink bottle.
"Don't get your wand in a knot, Vic, I was only looking," said Alex, dragging his eyes away from the entrance to the library, and glaring at the blond girl across the table before facing his friend.
"Yeah, well, hope all you want," sniggered Victor.
"Here's your chance, Alex," said the blond girl, hoping to appease Alex, who looked up to find the object of his stare looking back at them all.
She was tall and slender, with red hair that fell nearly to her waist. She was balancing a stack of textbooks, and eying their little group suspiciously, until Victor raised his hand and waved.
"Hey, Vicky!" he called. Alex gave a weak smile, and for a moment Victoria looked like she was going to say something.
"Did I not tell you to be quiet!" the librarian snapped, marching back around the corner.
By the time she had gone, the girl had vanished.
Setting her books on an empty table in the back of the library, Victoria Moon shook her head, thinking of her twin brother and his Gryffindor friends. She'd seen the librarian and was going to warn them, but hadn't been in time. Still, they should have been more careful, she thought, taking a seat and pulling parchment and quill out of her bag.
Really, the mating habits of firecrabs, who came up with that? she thought as she reread her assignment. Oh well, thinking about its stupidity wasn't going to help.
She's only been working for a few minutes when she heard a giggle from close by. Looking up, she saw a short girl that she recognized as a seventh year Hufflepuff, standing at the other end of the bookcase, staring around it at something that was apparently fascinating. Victoria glimpsed the girl's short blond hair as she ducked back to their side of the bookcase for a moment, before peering back around it.
Victoria quietly stood up and made her way around the table, then, curiosity getting the best of her, she peeked around her end of the shelf.
There was a boy on the other side, leaning against the opposite shelf, his eyes roaming a book that Victoria knew was a volume of Hogwarts, A History without even having to see the cover.
Tall, handsome, his dark haired neatly combed, Tom Riddle seemed too enthralled in the book to notice that he was being comically stared at from two ends of a bookshelf.
Victoria quickly withdrew her head and walked down the aisle until she was standing behind the Hufflepuff girl, who didn't notice Victoria until she tapped her on the shoulder and said "Excuse me."
The girl jumped and gasped, spinning around to face Victoria, her startled brown eyes focusing on her accuser. Seeing who it was, her face slowly turned pink, as she said, "Yes?"
Victoria felt a strong urge to roll her eyes, but resisted. "You are?" she asked, keeping her voice low, so as not to alert Riddle, presumably still standing on the other side.
Still flushing, the girl said proudly, "Selena Smith, and I don't believe I know you either."
"Victoria Moon," she said, then continued before Selena Smith could say anything else, "I'm sorry to interrupt, but could you be a little quieter? Some people are trying to study."
"Um, certainly. Sorry I disturbed you." Smith said sullenly. Turning on her heel, she marched away, looking disgruntled.
Victoria returned to her table, and sitting down, resumed her essay, putting both Smith and Riddle out of her mind.
Tom Riddle remained silent all through the two girls' conversation, though he could hear every word. He could tell that Moon was trying to keep the little exchange quiet, but Smith's voice carried like she was speaking to someone on the other side of the library.
The girl didn't have the ability to keep quiet, he thought, annoyed. Her insistent giggling had followed him around many corridors on evenings after dinner and free weekends, and it was all he could do to keep from hexing her, or ordering Mulciber to do it. He knew that the ignorant Mulciber, or Avery, would do it, but Avery could barely produce a posy with his wand, and having him hex someone might not end well.
Tom felt a slight twinge of pleasure hearing Moon rebuke the other girl, after which Smith left, but he didn't dwell on it long.
The book he was reading was indeed, Hogwarts A History, but he wasn't studying. Not for any classes at least.
A few moments after silence had again fallen on the other side of the bookshelf, his eyes strayed across a passage that caught his attention:
The Founders' Book is an artifact mentioned in the writing of Rowena Ravenclaw, but which has never been discovered. Though myth has no doubt distorted its true contents, the book has become something of legend. Through many generations, since the founders of Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry first began teaching magic, the story has been passed that the book is a magical item that contains all of the founders' spells and magical secrets. This is not specifically stated in Ravenclaw's writing, which is where it was first heard of. Ravenclaw says:
"Together, we the founders created a book, a single novel that contains all of our greatest efforts and ideas. Once we had finished however, we were frightened by what others might do with its power, and decided that it would only be safe in the hands of our own heirs. Therefore, we placed it in a secret place, a place where only our heirs should find it, and where only they will be able to get it."
Such a thing must indeed be magical, since many of the most powerful spells we know today came from the founders. Naturally, it was thought that such a thing might reside in the founders' greatest achievement: Hogwarts. The school was searched time after time throughout the years, but no one has ever found any hint of the book's whereabouts. Many historians have concluded that perhaps the thing does not even exist.
However, of the many hundreds of witches and wizards who have passed through Hogwarts, only the founders can be said to have truly known all of its secrets. Somewhere in the castle, there may indeed lie a secret cavern, still hidden, holding a book of magical wonders, and waiting for the four heirs of the founders to claim it.
Tom read the passage several times, his pulse beginning to race. This was exactly the thing that he was looking for. This was a magical item, the only magical item that had ever been made by all four founders, and contained all of their magic. This was the thing that he needed to help him become the most powerful wizard the world had ever known.
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