A/N: SVENGALI IS BACK! Dun dun dun. Thanks for the amazing reviews! EIGHT-HUNDRED. Woo. I'm trying to update this faithfully every day but I'm not making any promises. Should be fun fun fun from here on, but there'll be some fluff. And some angst. And some funny stuff. And some SQUEEING! Hehehe. Anywhooo. Enjoy this chapter. And REVIEW! (At the end, of course.)
Disclaimer: Get the idea into your head. I don't own it. Now move on.
The Letter P
Chapter Fifty-Five: P is for Parseltongue
She was being offered the opportunity to date Lord Voldemort. Looking up into his dark eyes, which were trained nervously on her face, she said softly, "Yes." And didn't regret it at all.
At this, Ginny merely smiled, held his hand tighter, and laid her cheek against the top of his arm; truly the happiest that she'd been in a long time.
xxx
Hurried whispers.
Wide-eyed stares.
Rumour-spawned giggles.
Even the odd jealous glare.
All were directed at Miss Ginevra Peregrine, and all bounced off her as though she was sealed in a bubble, and no insults nor degrading comments could penetrate its walls. A week had passed, and still the redhead radiated happiness like a nuclear bomb radiates poisonous fumes. Grace summed up the entire attitude for everyone by complaining, "Oh, crap, she's happy again."
Today, the new Charms teacher that was to replace Professor Vander was turning up, and, as they had Charms first period after breakfast, Alden, Grace and Ginny were feeling rather pleased with themselves.
"I wonder if it'll be a man or a woman," Alden said thoughtfully.
"I hope it's not a woman," said Ginny firmly. "Charms is to most people considered a soft option, and I don't like how all of the subjects that people think are useless are taught by women." She began to count off her fingers. "Herbology – Professor Ornella. Divination – Professor Selene. Muggle Studies – Professor Gladwyn."
"Preferably a big, macho man!" Grace joked.
However, the quip died down when they lined up for class, for at the door was probably the most massive, muscular, and evil-looking man that they'd ever seen. His hair was thick, straight, and dark brown, though it was so streaked with gray that it looked more like the coat of a tortoiseshell cat, and his face was etched with lines that gave him a severe look of absolute awareness and control. What the Slytherin trio found amusing was the sheer musculature bulging from underneath close-fitting Professors' robes.
"Whoa," Ginny whispered. "Someone likes bench-presses."
Grace gave her a weird look.
"Never mind."
"Alright, you lot – shut up," the man snapped. "My name is ProfessorAlcippe, and you will address me as either sir or Your Majesty." He smirked. "Take your pick." He stared around at them with beady grey eyes like a tempestuous storm. "Any questions?"
Ginny put up her hand, ignoring the confused looks that her friends were giving her.
"Yes, shortie at the back," Alcippe said.
Putting on her most charming smile despite the insult carelessly thrown at her by a teacher, Ginny enquired, "Your Majesty, will we have assigned seats?"
Flutter eyelashes. Blink carefully. Pretty smile.
Alcippegrunted. "I haven't decided. And by the way. Calling me Your Majesty was a joke," he pointed out, raising one hugely bushy eyebrow.
"But what if I happen to like calling you Your Majesty?" Ginny sassed back, before sweeping into an elegant curtsy, at which people in the queue giggled.
Eyes narrowing, Alcippe told her, "That'll be two points from-" (he glanced at the colours of her robes) "-Slytherin, for cheek. And five points back because I like your spunk."
Ginny beamed, and as soon as his back was turned, hissed gleefully to Grace and Alden, "Piece of cake."
Her companions grinned back at her.
Interested to see what'd he'd done to the classroom to make it his own, Ginny headed through the door after the students in front of her, and peered curiously around.
The walls were lined, surprisingly, with books. Professor Alcippe, apparently, for all of his gruffness and macho-ness, was a great reader. Most were books on extreme levels of Charms, Ginny found, scanning the spines on a few select volumes that her gaze landed upon, but then her hazel eyes found a title she had not expected:
Svengali.
Ginny looked over in shock at Alcippe. He seemed oblivious to the class, as he was waving his wand over the board and creating the words: Sixth-Years – Knowledge Test.
Deciding in an instant that she was going to steal it, she sat as far from it as possible. She wouldn't be suspected if she was on the other side of the room. Grace and Alden moved into seats nearby.
"Now," Alcippe boomed out. "I have been given a syllabus of what you've already done and what I am to teach you, but I'm going to set a test of your skill and genuine knowledge. One by one, you will accompany me into the ante-chamber and demonstrate the spells that you know in a series of challenging situations."
He flipped open a list. "First… Harry Aldridge."
The bright, cheery Hufflepuff that had chided Grace last lesson for attempting to destroy her desk in the duration of Conjuring matches, stepped up to the front gleefully. He returned shortly, looking worried.
"Next… Claude Felina Bastet."
Claude got to her feet and model-walked forwards. She turned to Ginny briefly, and gave her a narrow-eyed stare, which the second girl understood perfectly: there's going to be a threat for the student who wraps him around their finger.
Ginny sent a look back: do I give a flying (censored)?
With a haughty sniff, Claude disappeared through the doors.
Ginny waited patiently until her own turn, because after that… the book would be hers. Growing anticipation mounted inside of her as Professor Alcippe called the names, and she spared a glance at the bookcases.
Then, finally: "Ginevra Peregrine."
She stood and crossed the room nonchalantly to the ante-chamber. "Hello, Your Majesty," she said conversationally, drawing her wand.
There she was tested – the more basic spells, such as lumos and wingardium leviosa, followed by such higher-level spells as Summoning and Banishing, and then coming up to the spells they had recently covered.
"Try some Conjuring," said Alcippe glancing up at her.
Come on. You can do this.
If she could successfully Conjure something fabulous, she'd be the teacher's pet, and safely out of suspecting-range after she'd stolen the book.
She stared firmly at the tip of her wand. Then she pictured an image in her head, building up a fantastic level of detail; screwed up her nose in concentration, her tongue slightly poking out as she focused one-hundred-percent on the air at the end of her wand… "Orior ortus!" Shimmering faintly, there appeared on the floor where her wand was pointing, a cup of coffee, complete with whipped cream.
Inwardly screaming with glee at how well this was working, Ginny Levitated the mug over to the Professor, just to show off. "Coffee, Your Majesty?" she asked innocently.
Alcippe laughed. "I like you, kid. Okay, next – bring in Alden Philips," he told her.
"Alden," Ginny called as she came out, and then-
The redhead gave a yelp as she fell over the Professor's chair, staggered a few feet, and snatched furiously at the bookcase to stop herself from falling on her face, swung towards it, and, panting wearily, pushed herself off it. "Oops," she giggled, and returned to her seat.
And, once seated, Ginny took the book from underneath her robes and slipped it into her schoolbag.
Grace gasped. "You stole a book," she hissed.
"Relax…" Ginny told her gently. "I'll bring it back. Anyway, I need it."
The brunette looked sceptical and uncertain, but she agreed to keep quiet, and even offered that if she needed help smuggling it out, she could take it and slip away (at this Ginny's heart swelled with affection for Grace, who was one of her three closest friends in the fifties').
"Okay, then," thundered Alcippe after he had sent back the last student, Thomas Yates. "You've all done well, and will be getting your results shortly. Now – get out of my sight."
Not waiting for any other notice, the students scrambled away, but Ginny stayed behind. "Your Majesty, could I possibly have my results now?" she enquired sweetly, knowing that when he discovered the loss of his book (if he did), he would guess that his suspect had fled the scene immediately. And therefore, Ginny, who had hung around afterwards to get her marks, would be eliminated from the guilt-list.
"No, you can't," grunted Alcippe. "But you did well. And that's all I'll say."
Ginny pouted. "Fine." Then she skipped from class, unable to contain the wicked smirk that twisted her lips.
xxx
Saturday morning sun pulled itself into the air, and a drowsy Ginny rolled out of bed. Rubbing her eyes, she yawned, and then blinked around at the rest of her dormitory. They were all sleeping – she had long since stopped screaming in her sleep, and hadn't had any seizures for Merlin knows how many months. Grace was on her stomach, snoring heavily, and at a glance Flora could be seen, curled up beneath her pink quilt.
Padding to the end of her bed, Ginny retrieved her schoolbag and pulled the dark volume on Svengali out of it. Then she leapt nimbly back onto the messy covers of her bed, snuggled down, and opened the book.
She was faced with a blank page. A frown furrowing her brow, she skipped several pages to see if there was anything written in the book. There were indeed writings on its slightly-yellowed parchment pages… not, however, any of it in English.
What the…?
It wasn't a language that Ginny recognized, and she knew instantly that it wasn't Albanian, as she might have presumed.
"Damn," she hissed quietly. She scanned line after line of intricate, swirling foreign text, but none it was made any clearer to her, nor did she have a burst of inspiration and understanding.
Smashdangnabit.
Then, remembering that Tom studied Ancient Runes and was top of the class, she quickly thought to 'conversationally bring it up', and went about memorising one of the intricate letters.
"Whatcha doing?" mumbled Grace, a few seconds after Ginny vaguely noticed in the back of her mind that the loud, annoying snores had stopped.
"Learning an age-old rune so that I can translate a book on Dark magic," Ginny told her absent-mindedly.
"That's nice," said Grace, and went back to sleep, not having listened to a word of what the Prefect had said.
xxx
"Toooomm…?"
"Yes?"
"What's the significance of the Knell formation when divided by a factor of eighty-two?"
Tom turned around in his chair to look at her. "Are you doing your Arithmancy homework, or am I doing it for you?" he asked bemusedly, arching one eyebrow.
Ginny smiled at him innocently. "Now, Tom, dearest, where would you get an idea like that?" she cooed sweetly. "Now answer the question."
"What would happen, I wonder, if I refused to tell you?" Tom asked, smirking.
A gasp came from the redhead sprawled on her stomach on his once-tidy bed (now screwed up from her wriggling around on it as she tried to evade doing her homework for as long as possible). "Why – I'd fail!" she declared. "You wouldn't let me fail, would you?"
"I make no comment," said the seventeen-year-old Heir of Slytherin at his desk, before turning back to his own homework assignment.
"Meh!" Ginny complained, dropping her chin down with resignation. "I hate Arithmancy. And I hate you, too." She dipped her quill in the ink and absent-mindedly began to draw the rune she'd learnt, not lifting her jaw from the bed.
Just as she was boredly colouring in the last bold serif of the rune she was sketching, Tom gave an exhalation – a clink of quill being set back into ink-pot – stretched slightly – he was finished with his homework.
Lucky you, though Ginny sourly.
He turned again in his chair, and looked over at what she was doing. "What are you drawing?"
Time to set the plan into action.
"Just a rune I found," she nonchalantly. "No idea what it means though." She scrutinized it, but then shook her head.
"Give it here," said Tom.
Trying to conceal her glee, Ginny handed over her sheet of unfinished Arithmancy homework. The Head Boy took it and scanned it carefully, his dark eyes flashing over the slightly-yellowed paper like fire.
After a moments pause, he said, seemingly out of the blue, "Wynn."
Ginny raised her eyebrows at him. "Excuse me?"
Tom handed back the paper. "It's a rune called 'wynn', in Base Archaic."
"Oh, cool!" Ginny said. "I understand. No… no, I don't. What?"
"Base Archaic," Tom repeated, very slowly, as though talking to a stupid person. He turned his wooden desk-chair around and sat. "Archaic is the language, that, in theory, was spoken during the time period of none other than Jesus Christ. Then we have Base Archaic. It was too complicated for everyone to learn, so they simplified it into Simple Archaic, which is what dear old Jesus spoke. Base Archaic is the oldest language is the world – very difficult, and very dark. It set the standard for creating every other language globally spoken."
Whoa.
"So what does 'wynn' mean?" Ginny enquired.
Tom gave a non-committal twitch of his head; his way of shrugging. "It's just a letter. It sounds like… well, I'm not going to say it, so you'll just have to take my word for it being a letter. It's basically rather a lot of spitting and hissing." He stood, and crossed to his near-empty bookcase.
"Like Parseltongue?" Ginny abruptly asked, thinking of something.
As if a switch had been flicked, Tom froze, spun to face her, and stared at her with narrowed, wary eyes.
"What?" Ginny rubbed the back of her neck, self-conscious under the sudden change of attitude.
Seeming to be satisfied with something that he'd seen in her facical features, Tom lessened the intensity of his famous microscan gaze. He turned fully towards her. "Base Archaic is the oldest, darkest language known to man," he began smoothly. "Simplified Archaic was – as intended to be noticeable in the name – simpler. However, it was still far too complicated to be retained as a language. It instead became a rare and dark skill."
A shiver ran down Ginny's spine, and, instinctively, she hugged her schoolbag. She was met with the feel of the fat and lumpy Svengali book, and she quickly buckled her bag so that Tom wouldn't see the real place that she'd found the rune.
"What skill?" she ventured curiously.
"Someone who speaks it is these days almost like an endangered species," Tom said, and there was a hint of irony lacing his slightly-accented words. "The speaker goes by many names these days. Disciple of the Dark… Serpentstriker… Archan…" Tom's dark eyes snapped to Ginny's. "…and, most commonly – Parselmouth."
Ginny's eyes widened.
Bloody hell! I speak freakin' ARCHAIC!
That's how he knows the rune! Not because he learnt it in class! But because he speaks it!
Then… why can't I read the Svengali book?
"How different are the Base and Simplified Archaic?" Ginny asked innocently, rolling onto her back and stretching like a cat.
"Fairly dissimilar," Tom replied, returning to his bookcase now that he sensed that the dangerously dark topic was drawing to a close. "And," he added, taking a book from the shelf, "by the way, the significance of the Knell formation when divided by a factor of eighty-two is three-point-eight to the axis of seven."
Ginny squealed. "Thank you!" She scribbled down the answer. "I knew you wouldn't let me fail." Then, seeing her pocket-watch glint from within the fathoms of her schoolbag, told him, "And, I apologize earnestly, but this is where I bid you farewell."
"You said that I talked like an encyclopedia," Tom tutted. Resting his book at its open page, he stood, and albeit awkwardly took Ginny into his arms. There he softly kissed the top of her messy-haired head. "Hopefully, I'll see you tomorrow."
"Mm," Ginny mumbled in agreement, into the front of his school jumper, and then, once released, scurried away down the stairs from the Head Boy's dormitory.
She had a lot to think about.
xxx
A/N: WOW! Haha. Sorry. I had to say it. Yes, we'll be learning a lot more about possession and evilness and svengali. Hold onto your hats! Or whatever that corny saying is. XD
Next Time:
"Madam Crofton?" she enquired, coming up to the stern librarian's desk. "I'm interested in learning a second language in my own free time, but I haven't decided which language I should choose."
"AND YOU'RE TELLING THIS TO ME, BECAUSE…?" said Madam Crofton, who had maintained a burning dislike for Ginny after the 'scary midget lady' comment.
"Well, I was wondering if you could tell me what language translation books are in the library, and I could decide for myself amongst what's available," said Ginny innocently, with a smile.
XXX