My Pen-Pal Voldemort
Glossary 1*4
While I waited for the blazing inferno that currently surrounded Tom to die down, I passed the time by turning off the alarm on the smoke detector. I breathed a sigh of relief when the loud bleeping noise finally ceased. Then, I coughed from the mouthful of fumes I'd inhaled.
In hindsight, I probably should have thought of switching the alarm off sooner - preferably at some point before I tossed a lit match in a plugged-up kitchen sink filled with rubbing alcohol and lighter fluid, not to mention the really exciting ingredients - but hindsight could go around bragging about being 20/20 all it liked. Some of us wore glasses, and were proud of it.
(Technically, glasses plus safety goggles, at the moment. That was just common sense, when you were immolating unexpected visitors in the name of science.)
Soon, the flames guttered out, having exhausted their supply of available fuel. I opened the faucet, and then opened a window. While the smoke slowly wafted out of the kitchen - the raging bonfire hadn't produced much, since the majority of the fuel mixture had been specifically selected for being A) unlikely to produce smoke or make a mess, and B) readily available in the house on short notice - the sink filled with water. Once there was a couple of inches worth of water covering the bottom of the sink, I unplugged the drain and let the flow of water sluice out the mess that my experiment had made. Turning off the tap, I picked up the thoroughly-extinguished notebook in one rubber-gloved hand, and examined it closely.
I used another piece of paper to jot down my observations. These notes were on loose-leaf paper. I'd edit and encode them later, before transcribing them into a different, wholly mundane and non-sentient notebook. Then, I'd destroy the unencrypted loose-leaf notes.
Based on my interactions with him so far, chances were that I'd probably feel the urge to set Tom on fire again, at some point, so I might as well save time and burn the extraneous notes, while I was at it.
On reflection, all this rigmarole might seem a little paranoid, but good information security was probably a useful habit to develop, when people started popping into your bedroom in the middle of the night to dump crazy, snarky notebooks on your floor.
I opened the notebook, studied the contents, and then added a few more observations to my temporary loose-leaf logbook:
CREMATION EXPERIMENT #3
Prior to incineration, multiple pages were subjected to: Being crumpled up, folded, having corners dog-eared. None of these treatments appear to hinder recovery.
Notebook was completely engulfed in flame for 58 seconds, measured by the clock on the kitchen wall. After the flames were extinguished, the notebook appears unburned, although it has retained a slight smell of the propellants used.
Notebook is also wet from having been doused with tap water to eliminate risk of setting house on fire. Pages do not appear stained or water-logged.
When the experimenter turned her back on the notebook to write down her preliminary observations, notebook recovered fully while it was not being watched. Notebook now appears completely dry. Odor has faded to the point of being undetectable by smell.
Matches stuck between pages of notebook, prior to immolation, have been burned in a seemingly normal fashion, and were neither protected from the flames by the notebook, nor consumed or absorbed by the notebook. Burnt matches appear blackened, but dry. Notebook unaffected by the addition of matches.
Definite Brute power. Will need to consult PHO and/or PRT website to work out estimate of rating.
Putting down the sheet of paper, I opened the notebook again. Since I didn't have any weapons I could load or prepare, I settled for clicking my ballpoint pen a couple of times. The sound wasn't as reassuring as the ka-chack of an action movie protagonist readying their shotgun, but it would have to do.
Bracing myself, I wrote in the notebook:
How do you feel, Tom?
A few seconds later, my handwritten message was slurped into the page, and a reply bubbled up to the surface of the paper from its milky-white depths. (I kept my notes free from gothic poetry and lyrical excesses, but I couldn't resist the urge to squee and babble in the privacy of my own mind, whenever I saw real live Parahuman powers at work, right here in my hands! ...Okay so it was a shitty power, but a power nonetheless. Tom called it "magic", and Arthur C. Clarke might have agreed with him - this magic was, indeed, indistinguishable from some of the advanced technology in the world, since his enchanted notebook was performing many of the same tricks that a computer or a cell phone might do... A sturdy brick phone, at least, that wasn't fazed by minor obstacles like incineration.)
Shaking my head to clear it of my musings, I focused on Tom's reply:
Oh, I'm just dandy, no thanks to you.
What do you have planned for your next little "experiment", if I may be so bold as to ask? Will you, perchance, douse me in petrol and then set me on fire?
You're in the U.S. of A., Tom. It's pronounced "gasoline".
...I'll take that as a: 'No, not until we get a fresh delivery of the stuff on Monday', then.
Hmm... Do you intend to start writing 'Incandis' on my poor, much-abused pages, over and over again, until I am verily ablaze with Fiendfyre?
Pfft, nah. You're not gonna trick me into giving myself carpal tunnel syndrome THAT easily.
Wait, hang on.
Would that WORK?! Could I do that voodoo you do, just by writing the "magic incantations"?
No. You could not.
Nevertheless, please try. I'm sure your futile efforts will provide no end of amusement, and we books only have as much fun as is written in us.
Meanie! :-P
...Your punctuation is baffling.
Giggling at Tom's stiff-upper-lippy Briticisms, I took a break from our subtle (and sometimes not-so-subtle) mutual game of attempting to trick the other into divulging more information than they'd intended.
A peek in the sink revealed that it was still a little cluttered from my testing; I made a mental note - and, just to be on the safe side, a literal note at the top of my page of experimental observations - to make sure that I cleaned it up before Dad got home.
I fetched a clean glass and filled it from the faucet, and then retook my seat at the kitchen table. The first mouthful was refreshing. The second lasted longer, as I swirled it around contemplatively in my cheeks before swallowing.
Taking smaller sips of my water, I picked up the pen and resumed the written conversation.
I say, here's a thought, old chap...
You're drinking a sugary carbonated beverage with your pinky finger raised, again, aren't you?
Blushing, I grimaced at the notebook, and promptly wrapped my pinky around the glass. After a second's thought, I put the glass down on the table.
No, of course not. That's ridiculous. Don't be ridiculous.
That wasn't even a lie - tap water wasn't sugary, nor particularly carbonated. Nyeh, so there.
Anyway, don't change the subject.
Sooo... If you're a "wizard", and you went to a special magical school for magically magic witches and wizards...
Hark! Is that a hint of sarcasm and doubt I hear?
...Does that mean you rode to school on enchanted flying broomsticks?
Tom launched into one of his snarky lectures on wizardly boarding schools, and how the "boarding" part tended to cut down on the commute.
Also, magic trains? Really?
He seemed kinda underwhelmed by his fellow spell-slingers' favorite national pastime, "Quidditch", but at least his descriptions of the sport answered my question.
Right. Magic flying broomsticks are definitely a thing.
Heeey, Tom? YOU happen to be an enchanted object, too, right?
I would greatly appreciate it if you did not hurl me out of an upstairs window. Again.
Hey, the first time doesn't count! You forgot to flap your pages like wings, like I told you to!
Obviously, you have to flap before you can fly.
Of course. How silly of me to think otherwise.
Why are you so bothered by the thought of my flying lessons, anyway? Can you feel pain caused by falling damage?
Feeling an eager grin spread on my face, I pulled the loose-leaf paper closer and prepared to add another note. More data for my studies!
No, but it is terribly undignified.
I snorted and shook my head, but jotted down a note, anyway. I set the sheet of paper aside, and returned to my scribbled conversation with Tom.
Just think how cool it would be if you could fly!
People on the street would look up at you as you swoop past, and gasp in awe! Also, they'd make admiring noises, and ask each other:
Is it an origami swan? Is it a paper airplane? No! It's... Super-Book!
Ha! Alas, I'm afraid I don't even have eyeballs at the moment, let alone ones capable of shooting red laser beams.
Tell you what, though; if I ever get the opportunity to gain a new pair of eyes, I'll make sure they're a nice, bright red, just for you.
They'll match my heroic costume, although - fair warning - I draw the line at wearing my pants on the outside of my trousers.
I smiled at Tom's reply, while adding a note to my observations that, while Tom seemed to be wholly unaware of the existence of Parahumans - or, more likely, he was very persistent in feigning ignorance, to keep up his pretense of being a wizardastic magickinator, rather than a cape - he was at least passingly familiar with comic book capes from the early 20th century.
I leaned back in my chair, tapping the end of the ballpoint pen against my pursed lips, as I contemplated the notebook. I wasn't sure why I felt so comfortable chatting with Tom, even though, on a rational level, I trusted him about as far as... Correction, far less than I could throw him.
Heck, even if he hadn't been communicating with me via the medium of an indestructible, pseudo-living notebook, much of his behavior reminded me of Emma. I might not even have picked up on the glossy, sophisticated exterior that Tom hid behind, if I hadn't been forced into a front row seat to Emma's own duplicity. Tom used a different approach than Emma did - where she preferred the "innocent pretty girl" routine, Tom aimed for "suave and debonair scion of the British upper class" - and he was probably even more skilled at it than my former best friend.
Bottom line: There was something fake about Tom. Fake, and quite possibly rotten.
Maybe I was less inclined to dislike him because he was, for all intents and purposes, a sentient book? I'd always had an easier time dealing with people when they were fictional, rather than flesh and blood.
For all that he claimed to be a sorcerer, I still thought it more likely that Tom was a Case 53. From what I knew about this type of Parahuman, and what little research I'd had time to do into the subject, Case 53s were generally characterized by an inhuman appearance, and memory loss. Perhaps Tom's delusions of wizardliness qualified?
Although, there was a famous hero, Myrddin, who apparently believed himself to be a wizard, too, and I was pretty sure that he wasn't a Case 53. Either way, a sentient notebook certainly counted as "inhuman".
Well, the Case 53 theory wasn't the only possibility; there was also a chance that Tom's book was an odd piece of Tinker-tech, allowing the real "Tom" to communicate with me over long distances. My main reason for discounting this idea as less likely than the Case 53 hypothesis, was the lack of motive. Why would some mysterious Tinker go to all this time and effort - creating a (so far) indestructible notebook and use it to have long conversations with me, answering my questions (well, most of them) and letting me do dangerous tests on their Tinker-notebook? I wasn't anybody special. There was nothing to gain from spying on me, or tricking me into revealing valuable secrets - I didn't have anything worth stealing. Neither did Dad, as far as I knew.
Still, I was being careful about what I shared with Tom. For example, I hadn't told him anything about the tiara, necklace and gold cup.
By this point in my introspection, the ballpoint pen had somehow ended up wedged between my upper lip and my nose, letting me waggle it like a fake mustache. I relaxed my facial muscles, dropping the pen into my hand.
Yo yo, Tom-inator!
You thirsty, dawg?
I cackled out loud when I saw a long, slightly wavy line appear on the page, like a dark slash of ink that slowly vanished again. I'd surmised, based on context, that this was Tom's way of expressing annoyed exasperation; a possibly-involuntary method of sighing that didn't require him to do anything so uncouth as actually writing the word: "Sigh!"
I am, as you may have noticed, a diary. Paper feels neither thirst nor hunger, in the way you think of those urges.
Hmm... Why did I feel a shiver at that comment?
Hence, I assume that what you're really asking, is: 'How would you like to be volunteered for another taste-testing experiment, Tom?'
...Maaaybe?
I already told you: Bleach and drain cleaner are acceptable, but I don't much care for the flavour of your weed killer. That particular plonk is unpleasantly sweet.
Y'know, "flavor" ain't a word that most people would use when describing toxic household chemicals. Odor, maybe, but not flavor.
Also, single-ingredient tipples are SO last half-hour. You know what all the cool notebooks are into, these days?
MIXED.
COCKTAILS.
As I rummaged through the cupboards where Dad kept the cleaning supplies and other nifty bottles and cans, looking for the ones with the most warning labels, I smiled to myself. Tom might turn out to be just as backstabbing as Emma, or possibly even worse... But at least I knew that I could set him on fire, whenever I felt like it, without having to worry about the consequences.
…...
A/N: I heartily recommend other Worm-fic writers that they try their hand at a Potter-verse crossover where Tom's diary has lengthy conversations with someone. Effectively, it's like writing a two-player PHO chapter without the trimmings.
Using "Incandis" as the incantation for Fiendfyre was, AFAIK, introduced in the story Endgame by LeQuin. The author derived the word from Dis (the name of a Roman underworld) and the verb "incant". Thus, Incandis sounds like "incandescent", while it means something like "bring 'em hell".
Replies to reviews and comments:
Calibash: Thanks! (Although, if you use a book as a blanket while you sleep, would that make it "covers"?)
Misplacer: Fifty-seven percent of Voldemort's Horcruxes were made of metal. Sticking one of those in a microwave oven would definitely cause some kind of explosion...
kurotanbo: Agreed! I love the chatterbox version, too.
Lyzafae, Belial666: When you started mentioning Sting, it took a double 'huh?' before realization dawned that you meant the pan-dimensional super-weapon. ("Eh? Hobbit swords? Pop singers? How would you destroy a Horcrux by turning on the radio?")
green: That idea could provide some hilarious scenes:
"Hey, Dad? I've got a new... Pet? Kinda, sorta? In a way? Yeah, let's call him a pet. And, eh... I've been feeding him earthworms and centipedes and slugs, and stuff. But he's starting to look a bit sickly, and so... Huh? No, he's not a bird... Or a hedgehog. Well, he isn't prickly, but he's definitely a prick!