Summary: Sixteen year old Elaine Stayhark is a tad bit strange. She knows almost nothing about her Pureblooded Ravenclaw family, particularly her shady Grandmother. She was sorted into Slytherin before she even lifted the hat, but the house's defining ambition has yet to make its appearance. And she has a peculiar interest in the less…illuminated…side of magic.
But is she truly bad? She doesn't fear the darkness, but neither does she worship the light. And she definitely doesn't worship Ash Taylor, Gryffindor golden boy with a not-so-golden interest in dark magic.
But slowly the chips start to fall into place. History buried under almost sixty years of secrecy, fear, and violence is unearthing, and Elaine finds herself standing closest to the grave…
Will history repeat itself?
Disclaimer: I don't own Harry Potter.
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He Wasn't the Last
by cara eats books
Chapter One
"RAVENCLAW!"
Polite cheering. The student - a small girl with short black hair - lifted the hat off her head and scurried to her table, smiling.
Elaine Stayhark watched her future housemate take a seat between the two Ravenclaw prefects as she moved forward in line. Two more kids and she would be beside her.
"Runvuld, Samuel!" barked the sharp looking woman that had identified herself as Professor McGonagall. Head of Gryffindor. That severe line of a mouth turned up slightly as Samuel Runvuld joined her house.
"Slate, Alec," happily became a Slytherin. The applause was half-hearted.
And finally, "Stayhark, Elaine!"
The calmed down as much as could be expected. There were only five more first-years before the food was due, after all.
Elaine approached the hat and stool only a little nervously. She already knew what it would say. Her entire family had been Ravenclaws, and the legacy went back to the creation of Hogwarts.
Her heart beat wildly in her little body with the feel of so many eyes on her, however disinterested they may be. She reached out a trembling hand to the clutch the point of the hat. It was muttering, and she supposed that that was normal. Elaine thought she heard something like "…thought he was the last…" She made to lift it off the stool -
"SLYTHERIN!"
Elaine blinked.
There were several heartbeats of complete, suffocating silence. And then whispering. The sound numbed Elaine's mind and body, and she stood there frozen, letting the words wash over her.
"It didn't even come off the stool…"
"…bad, that one…"
"…never happened before…"
She was gazing wide-eyed at her pale hand, still clutching the hat ,when she realized someone was trying to get her attention.
"Miss Stayhark," said Professor McGonagall quietly. "Please find your seat."
Elaine looked up at the woman's stern face, her black eyes wide. There was little sympathy in the witch's expression; the Gryffindor-Slytherin prejudice ran deep.
Elaine let go of the hat mechanically. She couldn't help glancing up at the infamous Albus Dumbledore as she went to sit. His eyes were sharp and curious, and she could feel the weight of his gaze as she strode stiffly towards the Slytherin table. Elaine hoped she was going in the right direction; she'd only had eyes for the Ravenclaws.
I'm not in Ravenclaw, she thought.
"Taylor, Ash!"
"GRYFFINDOR!"
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"Everybody out!" barked Madame Pince. "The library is now closed!"
The woman's shrill cry was pleasantly muffled by endless rows of bloated bookshelves, as looming and dark and full of seductive mystery as the great gray shadows of the Forbidden Forest, and Elaine chose to pretend she couldn't hear. She went back to her book.
"That means you as well, Miss Stayhark."
Dammit. Elaine had forgotten how quickly and silently the hawkish Witch could move in her home turf.
"Yes, Madame Pince," she said softly as she shut the great tome. A cloud of blue-lit dust swirled from the brittle pages at the impact. "Nox."
Elaine's wand-light went out, leaving her to adjust to the gentler glow of the librarian's lantern. She stood and slung her bag over her shoulder before slipping the loose ends of her green and black scarf behind her. The book went against her side with some difficulty; its spine was longer than her forearm and the thing weighed as much as her cauldron.
"Are you checking that out?" demanded Madame Pince as she herded Elaine toward the exit of the restricted section. She was eying the copy of A History of Forbidden Curses and Their Significant Uses dubiously.
"If check-out is still open," Elaine said tonelessly.
Madame Pince scowled. "I suppose I could do one more."
The stooped woman slid behind the counter muttered a quick spell to extinguish the desk's candles. Elaine noted with detached distaste that some of the wax had gotten on Madame Pince's robes, and the librarian hadn't bothered to remove it. "May I ask why you are interested in such a book?" she said as a quill scrawled Elaine's name on an empty line in the log book.
Elaine smiled sweetly, displaying emotion for the first time that evening. She looked innocently beautiful. "Personal interest."
And at those disturbing words, her expression shifted. It was visible only in the minute narrowing of the girl's ebon eyes, and though still lovely, her smile surged with something predatory and more than a little unsettling.
A thought - a distant memory - tugged at the back of Madame Pince's mind. She knew that smile. For a moment she gazed at the slight girl with a sharp spark of recognition in her eyes.
And as Elaine Stayhark drifted out of the shadowed library, cradling her disturbing prize, and into the dark corridor beyond, the old woman remembered. She remembered skin just as pale, eyes just as dark, and a smile just as disarming. She remembered the charming words and cold, graceful confidence.
She remembered Tom. Tom Riddle.
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Elaine slipped quickly through the darkened corridors of the castle. There was no moon that night, and she relied on the pale light of the stars and her familiarity with the layout of the hallways to navigate in the direction of the dungeons.
Elaine didn't worry about Filch or Peeves or any wandering Prefects. She was used to sneaking about in the dead of night, and on the rare instance that she did get caught, she had easily talked herself out of trouble.
Elaine was good with words, when she chose to speak. Too good, perhaps. But she didn't often open her mouth, and was therefore ignored by the majority of the staff. Only her exceptional papers and perfect exam scores ever got her any attention.
She had spent her first year at Hogwarts watching, observing the behavior of staff and students alike. She now knew what type of teacher preferred what type of student, and she usually wasn't that type of student. But then, in her third year and just after the battle with Lord Voldemort (she had never been taught to fear his name), a new teacher came to Hogwarts.
Professor Balthazar J. Night was absolutely insane. He taught Advanced Defense Against the Dark Arts, and Elaine was talented enough in that subject to enroll in the class in her fourth year. Professor Night was fond of heated, cut-throat duels, and therefore arranged for the majority of his classes to be made up of Slytherins and Gryffindors. There were one-on-one duels on Wednesdays and chaotic mass duels on Fridays. Mondays, Tuesdays, and Thursdays were spent practicing both defensive and offensive spells (some of which would definitely not be approved by the Ministry) or learning about the work of an Auror, which was, of course, the whole reason most of the students were taking the class. There wasn't much writing or reading required, though Elaine found herself in the library almost every day anyway. Knowing spells other people didn't (because they were probably illegal) tended to give her the upper hand in duels.
Professor Night adored her. She was vigilant both in the classroom and in the heat of battle. She was mentally and physically fast. She was brutal. She pushed offense rather than defense, a tactic that was thought stupid and therefore largely unexpected. And she was good. All Elaine had to do was ask for something related to Defense Against the Dark Arts and he would give it to her.
Which, thought Elaine as she descended a flight of chilly stone steps, was often beneficial. Like tonight. She had wanted to look up several spells and curses that had been a topic of conversation in the common room over the last few weeks, spells she knew could only be found in the Restricted Section. She was almost sure the only thing the speakers knew about the curses were their names, but all the same, their speculated uses were intriguing. The one that supposedly gave the caster the ability to cast multiple curses at the same time particularly interested Elaine, as she thought she might be able to get away with trying it out in the insanity of Friday's mass duel.
It had been an easy thing, getting into the Restricted Section. A well spun lie about fetching a book on basilisks for a Care of Magical Creatures essay got her in immediately. That had, in actuality, been the whole purpose of taking the bloody class; a Slytherin that got on with Hagrid was atypical, and therefore seen in a better light. Six years of monsters, bruises, burns, and frostbite were finally paying off.
Elaine pulled her cloak closer to her body as she descended toward the dungeons. She noted with distaste and for the hundred thousandth time in her life that the lower she went, the smaller the windows got, until they finally disappeared. There was no natural light the Slytherin common room.
Four more flights of stairs and she was there. She stood in front of the wall for a moment, staring at the expanse of blank stone between the two candelabras. It took a while to remember the new password.
"Opener's ghost," she said, wondering over the meaning of the password, and a collection of stones vanished in the shape of a doorway.
Elaine stepped through quickly. She wasn't surprised that the common room was full, despite the fact that it was nearly midnight. Slytherins liked to stay up late. Her passage across the commonroom was practiced and swift, and she wove easily between the gleaming, black leather couches and heavy dark-wood furniture. Expensive oriental carpets and tapestries sparsely covered the stone floors and walls. The emerald candles burned low in their silver settings, emitting a glow that shadowed more than it illuminated.
Seventh-years Evangeline D'Ebon and Alistair Zabini were sitting suspiciously close in a dark corner. Alec Slate's abominably large group dominated the seats around the fire, and the less fortunate were forced to huddle around candles or cast their own heat charms. The commonroom was desperately cold, even in the summer. This time of year was brutal.
Elaine swept up the short flight of stairs that led to the girl's dormitories quickly. The cold of the palace corridors was nothing to this. She could see her breath, and frost slicked the steps with delicate danger.
And she asked herself again why she was a Slytherin.
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Next Chapter: Love Interest(s?) makes a very bold entrance (I think. I might have to save the "very bold" part of it for later, but Love Interest will definitely enter). More about Elaine and her wand, which is one of my favorite details. And trust me, she may have sounded really evil, but she really is only kind of bad. Bad in a good way, good in a bad way. Very scheming…rambling again, that I am.
Thank you for reading. If something is really bothering you about this thing, or if you want to compliment it (yay), you're welcome to. I naturally like to read compliments more than I do criticism, but criticism is more beneficial. I hope you enjoyed it.
- cara