Preventing the Future
Chapter Ten – Poltergeist
Disclaimer: It's called fanfiction for a reason people, I don't own it.
Author's note: I felt really evil for leaving you hanging before so here's the next chapter. Enjoy!
As she walked through the door she felt a rush of wind and the sweep of ward spells go through her. Then, a voice filled the air.
"I see the Heir of Hogwarts has finally come around. Took you long enough." It said, sounding rather annoyed.
Shit.
Hermione tried to reign in her shock, "Um, yeah. That's me."
"What is your name, girl?"
"Hermione Granger, sir?" She really didn't know who the voice belonged to – or used to belong to – but she figured a little politeness never went astray.
"Hmm. I suppose it is. Now let's see, I don't have much time here because this isn't exactly following the laws of magic."
"Really?" Hermione asked before she could stopper her curiosity. "How's that?"
"Well," The voice, which she guessed must be Salazar's, said. "I left a small piece of my consciousness hidden in this room, for when the Heir arrived. I'm kinda not supposed to do that."
"No worries," Hermione said. "I was sent back in time and am now going to purposefully change everything. I think we're even."
"Did you now? That's interesting...maybe I'll stick around a bit." Salazar muttered to himself. Then he clapped his hands in a very uncharacteristically Slytherin manner. "Anyway, down to business, I'm Salazar Slytherin and you're the Heir of Hogwarts. Are you a pureblood?"
Hermione scowled, it was one to rival Snape's future ones. Not only was she talking to a disembodied voice and standing in Slytherin'soffice but she was talking to a bigoted disembodied voice. She was also about to tell said voice that she was as far from pureblood you could get without being a Muggle. This was not going to end well.
"You know," Salazar's voice said. "You may not be able to see me but I can see that beautiful expression on your face. Now please, answer my question before I do something I'm really not supposed to."
As much as Hermione wanted to find out what else the consciousness of a hundreds-year-old dead wizard could do, she figured it was best to just answer his question.
"I'm a Muggleborn."
The voice snorted. "Oh good. You shouldn't be as adverse to helping me; those purebloods can be a bit stuck in their ways. It does make sense too, a Muggleborn as the Heir, it would be hard to find a pureblood with all our traits, especially Helga's; believe it or not, she's really quite picky."
"Lovely." Hermione said. "Of all the dead voices I could have found in this school I had to find the one of a pureblood maniac." Then what the voice had said finally registered. "Wait, what?"
"Yes, you heard me, I have nothing against Muggleborns, especially one who has been deemed the Heir of Hogwarts. I'm a pretty good guy, once you get to know me."
"Seriously? How do you explain the fact that almost every single one of your descendants has been an evil, narcissistic, prejudiced ass hole? I should probably also mention that many of the students in your house can be described in a similar manner."
"Oh, you can blame that on my wife." Slytherin said offhandedly.
This threw Hermione off-guard. "Your wife?"
"Yeah, she was a bit mental, liked to pretend purebloods were better than the rest of humanity. I mean, yeah, maybe they should be schooled separately but that's because they don't know our world and usually hold back the other students. I couldn't stand the woman, she would never shut up."
"Then why did you marry her?"
"Arranged marriage." Slytherin grumbled.
"Okay, that explains the children. But what about the students?"
"Well, they were fine in my day but my first grandson, he took over Slytherin house when I died, well, kinda died, I'm not quite dead yet. But yeah, my grandson, he listened to my wife a bit too much I think. I was always busy with my work, maybe I should have spent more time with my kids." The voice faded away for a second but then it came back full-force. "But oh well, can't change that now. Anyway I guess he gave Slytherin house a bit of a reputation. It really is too bad."
"Fine. Children and students accounted for." All of Hermione's views about Slytherin were being shaken around and part of her wanted to believe him when he said he wasn't as bad as people made him out to be, but the other part was pointing out everything that didn't add up. "But what about that dirty great snake you have down in the basement?"
"Harriet?"
"No, the basilisk. You know, massive body, deadly eyes."
"Yeah, Harriet."
Hermione blinked. "You named a basilisk Harriet?"
"Yes. And before you start accusing me of anything, let me explain." Hermione humphed but let him continue. "Thank you. Now, there are many different places in the castle that we built, some of them are hidden, like my chamber in 'the basement', as you called it. I happen to like snakes but the others weren't too fond of them so I built a place where I could play and work with them without annoying – or scaring in Godric's case – the others."
"Let me guess." Hermione said, momentarily ignoring the fact that she had just learned Gryffindor was afraid of snakes, "One of the snakes you liked 'playing' with is a basilisk?"
"That is correct." Slytherin said. "I'm not really sure how you know about the snake because you obviously don't speak Parsletongue – I could teach you by the way – but that's neither here nor there. And anyway, Harriet has a second eyelid she can close which turns off the killer gaze...if she was hurting people it was probably because a powerful Parsletongue related to me was controlling her."
"Oh." Hermione said. "So you're not actually that bad?"
"I thought I just said that, but I'll say it again; no, I am not. In fact, I'm rather perturbed by the fact that my reputation has been so negative all these years."
There was still one more thing that Hermione wondered about. "Hold on, how do you explain why the sorting hat puts the people in Slytherin that all turn out so bad?"
"I don't know, maybe someone messed with it. Or maybe it's just requests people make, you can request a house you know."
"Yeah, I do know. One of my good friends asked not to be placed in your house so he wasn't." Hermione said. "I also got to choose, both times around actually."
"Well, I do have another theory, I mean, I guess I did think that Muggleborns shouldn't be with the other students to start off with so maybe that was a bigger influence than I thought. Anyway, I've had some time to think it all over, sitting in a dungeon for hundreds of years does tend to mellow someone out, gives them time to figure things out, wouldn't you say?"
"I can't actually." Hermione responded, then she backpedaled so as not to sound rude. "I mean, I can't say because I've never been stuck in the dungeons of a castle for that long. The most I've ever done is 42 days. Yes, I counted." Hermione sighed. Why did I tell him that? She asked herself. Now he's going to ask why on earth I would count days in a dungeon. Too late now...
"What do you mean '42 days'? It is rather unusual to count dungeon days. Why exactly were you counting?"
"Would you like the long version or the short version?"
"Hmm. That big a story, eh?" Slytherin sounded thoughtful and drifted off into silence for a moment. "Seeing as I've had absolutely nothing to do and nothing interesting to pay attention to all these years I would prefer the long version."
"Okay, long version it is." Hermione looked around for a chair and found a plush green one with black leather trim and black mahogany accents, it was surprisingly comfortable. "You know," She said. "It is really odd talking to only a voice. Don't you have a painting or something you can talk to me from? I'm beginning to act like the mad woman I am, talking to thin air. Only difference is now I actually have an audience." The sarcasm was clearly evident in her voice.
"You know, I really like you. You make good company." Salazar paused again, "Another question, and believe me, there is a point to it."
"Fire away." Hermione said dryly.
"Right, I have no idea what 'fire away' means but I'm going to assume it's a yes. So, which house are you in?"
Hermione blinked, she had not been expecting that. "Gryffindor." She said.
"Oh dear." Salazar said. "You people are all noble and never break the bloody rules." If he had been embodied he would probably be throwing his arms up in defeat and walking away, but he wasn't so he couldn't. Or maybe he was but Hermione just couldn't see him...
Hermione put her hands on her hips, "That's actually not true, the best troublemakers around have come from Gryffindor house. And if it helps, I've probably broken more school rules than the Marauders and twins combined, not to mention all the laws I like to pretend don't exist." Hermione said. "Also, the hat did say I would fit in all the houses." She could literally feel Slytherin's interest perk up again.
"Interesting, laws as well as rules eh?" He said. "Ah yes, I remember now, you've broken the time travel rules -" Hermione cut him off.
"Those ones I didn't actually break...the universe gave me permission."
"Of course it did." The voice said, dripping with incredulity.
"No really, it did. I could tell you-" It was Salazar's turn to interrupt.
"It doesn't matter. You can tell me later, and that dungeon story can wait too. For now, let's do some rule breaking...lots of rule breaking."
Hermione raised an eyebrow. "Are you, one of the founders, telling me to break the rules?"
"Yes, yes I am." Smugness floated through the room. "Godric would kill me!" Salazar yelled gleefully, which was rather disconcerting. "Fortunately, he did follow the rules, all that stuff about passing on when your time came, so he's not around to say anything about it. And I really, really like breaking rules, never got caught either. This time though, it won't matter.." He followed this with a rather evil-sounding laugh.
Hermione was beginning to think that it might be time to make a hasty retreat when Slytherin said something which threw that idea out the proverbial window.
"You see, there's this potion..."
That was all it took, Hermione was sitting up board-straight in the chair, more excited than she had been in a while; potions were fun, especially ones she hadn't heard about (of which there weren't really very many). "Go on."
"I thought that might cheer you up. Anyway, it's not written down anywhere because it was in my head when I so unfortunately passed from this world, well, almost passed from this world..." Hermione could tell he was trying to sound guilty but he wasn't doing a very good job. "Anyway, I knew it before so I know it now."
"Yes, you kept you lovely knowledge. Good for you. You said something about a potion?"
"Right. What do you know about poltergeists?" Salazar asked.
Hermione's brain went into overdrive and her jaw dropped. Was he going to suggest what she thought he was?
The voice seemed to grin. "I can see that you know a bit. Yes, I definitely like you. You are going to help me out a bit."
Hermione frowned, "What do I get out of this? How do I know you're not just going to dump me in the lake to make friends with the squid because of who I am? You may be acting all nice right now but it might just be an act, just an elaborate story."
"I like the suspicion, very Slytherin of you. How about this, I will make you a deal. You do this for me and I will not only spare you from my tricks – which will undoubtedly be not quite as innocuous as some, but I will also tell you all you need to know about this school and more. What do you say?"
"Sounds good to me." Hermione said. Then she remembered something, "Hold on, I thought poltergeists were never human...they're sprites, not dead people like ghosts."
"Well, I found a way around that. And anyway, I'm not going to be a real poltergeist, just something very close, and I'm only going to stick around for a little while. It's not like I want to be a ghost. Those are just boring, they can't do anything!"
Hermione had to stifle a laugh. If someone had told her that she would be listening to the disembodied voice of Salazar Slytherin talk about turning himself into a poltergeist she would have laughed in their face.
"Now, how about we get started?" The voice asked.
Hermione spent the next hour diligently writing down the exact recipe for what Slytherin had dubbed his 'Undead Troublemaker' potion. It was probably one of most peculiar yet complicated potions she had ever seen. All the while she was trying to wrap her head around the fact that the most feared founder was a prankster at heart, or at least he was hundreds of years after his death. The twins and the Marauders would have a fit if they knew.
When Hermione had finished writing down the recipe in one of her many notebooks, she copied it onto the big board in the potions lab area of his study. Then she noticed the time. "Shit!"
"What?" Salazar asked.
"I'm late for dinner." Hermione said as she hurriedly gathered her stuff.
"Ah, food." Salazar said sadly, "I remember when I got to eat food."
Hermione just rolled her eyes as she rushed through the Founders' Door and into the Entrance Hall. She spent the rest of the evening talking with Salazar and gathering all the ingredients for his potion. Then, Salazar told her about a small problem they might encounter; apparently, there was some sort of magical law that says any new poltergeist – usually referring to baby ones – needed to have a sponsor of sorts. It was time to find Peeves.
"Oy! Peeves!" Hermione yelled at the poltergeist who was currently having one hell of a time pulling carpets from under unsuspecting professors. "We need to talk."
Peeves cackled as he flew over. "Oh, lookie here, the timey wimey girl is back. Lets see, what should we do with you? Should we play nice?"
Hermione grinned, she had a unique relationship with Peeves, some days he would pester her just like every other person in the school but other days they would have great chats about his misadventures in the future – she had told him when she came from to get him to shut up one day. "I have a proposition." She said.
"Ooooo! We would love a proposition from Herm Herm! She is interesting...what is it you were thinking? Are you finally going to-" Hermione cut him off.
"No. Nothing like that. I'm going to bring you company."
Peeves almost fell out of the air, if that was possible.
"You see, I have this friend...A nice old friend, who wishes to hang around for a while. But to do so he needs your help."
Peeves was interested, no one had ever approached him with something like this before. It was new. And new was fun! "Okidokie!" He yelled and he did a series of flips and spins in the air which made Hermione a little sick to her stomach.
"So, does that mean you'll help?" She asked hopefully.
"That it does little missy! Where to?
"Just this little place I found..." Hermione said elusively. "But you have to swear that you won't mess it up. I don't know if that's possible because they might have put spells or something on it to protect it from mischief makers such as yourself but still, I'm not taking any chances."
This definitely had Peeves' attention. "They? Who's they? Are they someone I know? What is this place? Why don't I know about it?" He kept rattling off questions as he followed her to the library.
Just before they were going to round the corner Hermione waved a hand around where Peeves' legs would have been. "You need to go invisible now, people will wonder what you are doing in the library if not wreaking havoc."
Peeves gave her a mock salute and promptly vanished from sight, but Hermione could still here the random giggle or taunting comment and the odd book doing things books weren't made to do. Rolling her eyes, walked all the way back towards the restricted section. In the far corner, etched in the stone beneath a portrait of a young student leaning back in a chair reading a book with his feet on the table, was a carving of a mountain of books. Hermione gently placed her hand over the markings and the familiar door appeared in the wall. Apparently it is possible for a poltergeist to fall out of the air because Peeves became visible again and promptly disappeared into the floor with a very undignified squeal.
To give credit where credit where credit it due, it should be mentioned that Peeves took the rest of the Founder's Hall/Door semi-tour quite well; there was no more falling out of the air to be done. Hermione also became the first human in many hundreds of years to know about a particularly useful bit of house elf magic. Matri – the head elf for the Founder's Hall – took one look at Peeves, snapped her fingers and he was frozen in the air.
"What is misses doing with the Peeves?" Matri asked.
"Well, I need him to help me with something but because it's best not to leave unsolved mysteries around a poltergeist, I was giving him a very basic tour. Don't worry though, I will convince him not to wreck the place." Hermione said. It was true too, she had lots of things to bribe Peeves with, not the least being the promise of a 'helper'.
"Oh." Matri said, then another elf popped in and they started whispering, then another and another. Pretty soon there were four Founders' Hall elves having a heated discussion. A few seconds later the others popped away and Matri turned to Hermione. "Misses, is you being able to keep secrets?"
Hermione's eyebrows shot up, first an argument then secrets? Apparently there was a lot Hermione didn't know about house elves, not just their work preferences. "Yes, I'm actually quite good at keeping secrets."
"We elves is having a way to be keeping our Hall safe from Peeves." Matri said with a grin.
"Really?" Hermione asked.
"Yes." Matri replied proudly, then she snapped her fingers. Nothing happened.
"Um." Hermione said. "What did you do?"
Matri ignored her. Very odd for an elf, Hermione though. Maybe there's something about being the head elf for the Hall...they seem to be a bit assertive...
Peeves, meanwhile, had been floating around the room inspecting things.
"Peevesie!" Matri called. Peeves shot over to where they were standing and stood at attention.
"What can Peeves do for you lovely ladies?" Peeves asked with a wicked smile.
Matri returned the smile and said, "Go knock over that bookcase." Peeves snapped a salute and raced to the books.
"NO!" Hermione yelled. "You can't destroy the Hall!" But it was too late, Peeves had reached the shelves. However, when he tried to throw the books, nothing happened. He tried three more times before going back to Matri and scowling.
"What did you do?" Peeves demanded.
Matri smiled sweetly. "I is making the Hall safe from Peevesie."
"Wow." Hermione breathed, "That is spectacular. I didn't know that was possible.
Hermione stood over the small silver cauldron checking and double checking each and every step Salazar's ghost-ish thingy's voice had told her; this was an extremely difficult potion but if they managed to pull it off they would be the first to create a poltergeist. Talk about bragging rights!
Peeves floated silently through the wall, he had been extraordinarily quiet these last two days while Hermione was working on the potion, something for which she was extremely grateful. The professors on the other hand, they were terrified; the last time Peeves had been this quiet was when he had systematically drawn a mustache on every single portrait and then convinced them all to sing "I know a song that gets on everybody's nerves" for a week, all the while dousing the suites of armour in Muggle gasoline and setting them on fire all at the same time. Needless to say, the teachers were worried, they could be found hovering in their offices having hushed conversations, trying to figure out what he might be doing. Little did they know that the trouble was just beginning. Soon, they were going to have to deal with two poltergeists, and they would have student support...
Hermione pulled the small cauldron off the flames and let it sit on the bench to cool. Peeves came up right beside it. "Is timey wimey girl finished?"
"Yes, Peeves, I'm finished. Now, please don't call me that, I don't need the entire school knowing when I'm from. Remember, I can hurt you..." It was true, she could. Ron and Harry had found a way freeze Peeves, it came in handy when trying to coerce the troublemaker.
"Okay, here we go." Hermione said as she dumped the contents of the cauldron over a small stone that was set on the bench; apparently that was where Salazar had anchored himself for all these years. There was a huge billow of smoke, a resounding boom, and a high pitched scream before an other worldly voice asked,
"Who claims guardianship over this new spirit?"
"That would be me, oh big voice of voices! Peeves!" Peeves said with glee.
"Do you vow to teach him the ways of the troublemakers?"
"Oh yes, sir!" Peeves snapped off a salute.
"Don't call me sir." The voice said with a huff of annoyance.
"Yes, ma'am!" He said with a giggle.
"Why did I take this job?" The voice asked to no one in particular. "Whatever. Alright, what shall the name of – ah screw it, what do ya wanna be called?" The voice was supposed to be all high and mighty but when you are the controller of poltergeists there really was no point in sticking with the formalities.
"Hellion. I want to be called Hellion." The spirit of Salazar said.
"Okay, hold on. I gotta check if it's taken or not." There was silence and then the voice came back. "Nope, all good. I dub thee, Hellion! Newest of our elite group of mischief makers."
Then, the spirit of Salazar condensed into a more solid form, he looked to be about 18 years old and was wearing an expression that would terrify students and teachers alike.
"There, I'm done." The voice said, "Unless...would you like some first-time advice?"
Hermione groaned as the king/queen thing of the poltergeists held a secret conference with Peeves and Hellion. All she could think was, At least I have immunity!
Author's note: Thank you all so much for your alerts/favourites, they are really nice; but, reviews are nicer!