Chapter Two
The Room
The next morning, Harry joined Hermione and Ron, ambling down to breakfast. The school had one grace day in between arrival and the start of classes, so there was no real rush.
"What are your plans for the day?" Hermione asked Harry and Ron, sliding in front of the table.
Ron shrugged. "Dunno." Harry and Ron took seats across from her, and Harry slid over a plate of bacon.
"I was going to head to the library, actually." She planned to use at least some of the day for Cecilia - catching her up, so to speak, on current events. Her friend had admitted that time spent in a diary was often not particularly fulfilling, so she didn't want to isolate her too much.
Ron and Hermione both looked at her as if she were insane.
Feeling defensive, Harry busied herself with the finishing touches on her bacon sandwich. "I just wanted to look some stuff up. You know, about the wizarding world. I realized from seeing your family just how much stuff I missed out on, I guess." It might be more accurate to admit that Cecilia had pointed out how little she knew, because there were so many questions the diary asked her that she couldn't properly answer.
"That's very responsible of you, Harry," Hermione said.
Harry blushed, furiously. Ron sniggered, and rolled his eyes. "Now there's two of them," he muttered.
"Very funny," Hermione said. "I think it's wise of her to admit her ignorance."
"I want no part of this," Ron protested. "Maybe I'll go see what Fred and George are up to."
"I'll go with you, Harry." Hermione looked far too eager at this. Harry was less enthusiastic about this, mostly because Hermione would want to know every little thing she was up to, but Harry didn't really have a good way to dissuade her. She could pretty easily disguise the diary as a notebook, anyway.
She popped the last bit of sandwich in her mouth. Hermione wasn't done yet, so she picked at some eggs.
Fifteen minutes later, they were settling down to the table. Harry decided to start easy, with Rise and Fall of the Dark Arts, Cecilia's diary spread out next to it.
Hi, she wrote. I'm in the library, looking up some of the stuff you asked about.
Hello, Harriet. That's very kind of you. Are you at Hogwarts, then?
Yes. It's great to be back. Hogwarts always feels like home.
It was for me, too.
Harry couldn't help the smile that tugged her lips, at that admission. I don't blame you, she wrote. The orphanage sounds horrible. But enough about that. I was going to tell you more about the war, with Voldemort. Hagrid told me that everyone was scared of her, but Rise and Fall of the Dark Arts doesn't have any numbers.
That doesn't surprise me very much, Cecilia said. I'm not entirely sure witches and wizards know what statistics are.
What are statistics? Harry asked.
They're a muggle invention. For example, let's say that a wizard wants to study and try and prove that muggleborns are inferior, and worse at magic. How would they go about trying to do that?
I dunno. My friend Hermione is muggleborn, and she's the top student in the class.
Well, one single example isn't enough. A good way to try and prove something, would be to make a record of a bunch of different classes of Hogwarts, over a bunch of years, and compare the average scores of muggleborns, vs the average scores of purebloods. If they found, for example, that purebloods' scores are higher, they might be able to use that to say that purebloods are better at magic.
But purebloods aren't better at magic, Harry protested. Malfoy thinks that, but he's just a bigot.
I'm not saying that's true, that was just an example. But, because no one's done a study like that - at least as far as I am aware - we can't say for certain either way. One study might not even mean we could definitively say so either way. Proving it - or at least as far as muggle science can prove things - would mean that a bunch of people would do a bunch of studies, in different parts of the world, or at different times, with as many participants as possible, and if all the studies said something similar, we could say that's true.
That sounds very confusing, Harry admitted. But I think I get what you mean. Using numbers to back up the things you say.
Yes. Statistics is very complicated - a good study in muggle terms might account for people like your friend Hermione, or they might use something other than average scores - I believe that while muggleborns might struggle initially, they are likely to be on the same level as purebloods by fifth year, when students at Hogwarts take the O.W.L.s.
So, at first, they might be behind, but they'll catch up. That makes sense to me.
It might, but I don't know this - I don't have a study to back this up. It might be something I'd set out to prove, however.
Harry frowned. Thanks for explaining, but what does that have to do with the books about the war?
You don't have to thank me, Harry. It's what I'm here for. I've noticed a trend in witches and wizards. They seem to use lots of anecdotes instead of facts, which can make it hard to pin down exact numbers on stuff like this. I wanted to get a sense for how many followers this Voldemort had - how many people supported her? How many people opposed her? How many people were indifferent? Stuff like that.
Why does that help? Harry asked.
Well, if most people think Voldemort was right, then I'd imagine there might be a lot of people willing to support her if she ever regains a body. If the opposite is true, then she will be less of a threat. In the wizarding world, people like Voldemort or Dumbledore are going to be a very big difference by themselves, but the number of supporters they can gather around them is, arguably, more important.
So, if it was just Voldemort, she'd be less of a threat?
Yes.
I don't know if I'm going to be able to find a book that says how many people supported Voldemort, Harry wrote.
Unfortunate, Cecilia agreed. What about important battles? Or other dates?
It says that the Death Eaters attacked a lot of muggle areas - towns or villages, or such. They also attacked people in their homes - lots of times, they used something called a Dark Mark. I guess it's a sign? Lots of wizard people's houses would be attacked, and they'd find the Dark Mark. Looks like they never attacked Hogwarts, but they attacked Diagon Alley a few times.
None of that is very helpful. Sorry. I know that's not on you, but I guess we won't find much information this way. Cecilia's writing was a bit cramped, there, as if she was rushing to reassure Harry.
Harry appreciated the gesture. I'll go look for some different books, then. Give me a minute.
She stood up, and collected Rise and Fall of the Dark Arts, returning back to that section. There really weren't a ton of books about recent history. She returned a few minutes later with A Modern Wizarding War: 1975-1981.
Paging through it, it had a few more details. I found a different book, she wrote. This has some more details. Not a lot, though. Some stuff about trials.
That's very helpful, Cecilia wrote. How many?
A bunch. There are a lot of people who got sent to a place called Azkaban. And some people claimed that they were under something called the Imperius Curse.
Azkaban is a prison. The Imperius Curse is a spell that allows one person to control another. Those people who claimed that they were controlled - were their trials before or after Voldemort was vanquished by you?
They were after. Why?
The Imperius Curse is not very easy to maintain for an extended period of time. It would make sense for Voldemort to Imperius some people, particularly people in positions of power, but doing it on too many people at once is bound to go wrong. It's possible to break the spell, and that could go very wrong for Voldemort. If she was using it on a lot of people, it is far more likely to that at least one person would have broken out during the war.
But if she died, then wouldn't the spell break anyway?
Yes. That's a good point. Harry's cheeks burned with pleasure. But it's also very possible that those people were just using it as an excuse not to go to jail. Given the numbers of people involved, it's unlikely that they're telling the truth.
Oh. That's what Mr. Weasley said about Mr. Malfoy.
Malfoy? I knew a Malfoy, in school. He was a ponce.
Harry giggled. Hermione looked up at her.
"What are you giggling about?" she asked.
Harry shrugged. She wasn't sure how to explain the joke in a way that didn't reveal her talking diary. Hermione glared at her, eyes narrowed, for a while, before she returned her eyes to her book. It was a thick book on potions ingredients. To Harry, it looked very boring.
Okay, she wrote. It looks like there are a bunch of Death Eaters that got out of jail. No names, though.
Does it say how many people were accused?
No. It just mentions the imperius, but not everyone got off with that - some people named names, and others had people vouch for them? That doesn't really seem like it should be enough, honestly.
I agree. Does it say who did the vouching?
Uh, Dumbledore.
Typical. Dumbledore is a famous and powerful wizard, so his word is believed. I wonder if there was any evidence, or just Dumbledore's testimony.
Why is that a bad thing? Harry felt sort of silly, asking so many questions, but Cecilia was always willing to explain, and she never made Harry feel stupid for asking.
Well, Dumbledore would probably be the first person to admit he's not infallible. But the problem with a system of knowledge that's based on authority is that there is no fact-checking. I don't mean to pick on Dumbledore, but who knows what his reasoning for wanting these people free. Maybe he's been hoodwinked, or he's under the Imperius Curse. There's lots of ways to spell someone to make them do what you want. A love potion, even - those are legal, after all.
So, you'd do something like the statistics thing instead?
Yes. More concrete evidence, at least. Something physical, that another person would be able to verify. Does it say what they were accused of?
It didn't say. Being a Death Eater? It says that it was hard to prove who did what, unless they were caught in the act, because they all wore masks.
That's a problem, too. This Voldemort made some wise moves. I think I'm getting a good picture, now.
Harry frowned. If I'm being too forward, let me know, but I wanted to ask you something.
Yes, Harriet?
I was just wondering - you seem to have something against Dumbledore.
You are as astute as ever, Harriet. Cecilia had a teacher who singled her out and disliked her, when she was in school.
What did she do about them? Harry deliberated, and then decided to go for it. You can't mean Dumbledore?
Yes, it was Dumbledore. Back then, he taught Transfiguration. She did nothing - she attempted to be the best student she could in his class, but he never stopped suspecting her of nefarious deeds.
What? Why?
I'm afraid she made a poor impression on him, when he visited her to tell her she was a witch. At the orphanage, the children were cruel, and she often retaliated with accidental magic, until she learned to harness the accidents. Then, she sometimes would use her magic to deter them from doing it again.
Harry bit her lip. That didn't sound so bad.
Cecilia continued, I do not wish to whitewash her actions. By the time she was eleven, no one was willing to cross her. She used magic to make them stop, and Professor Dumbledore saw that, when he visited her. He has distrusted her ever since.
But she was a kid, Harry said. I think if I could control my magic, I might have used it on the Dursleys.
I think she might have gone too far. It is often people who are abused, who become the abusers themselves. At eleven, she just wanted to be left alone, and she was perfectly willing to hurt people to make sure she was. I'm not proud of it - Dumbledore was not entirely wrong, to single her out.
Well, there's a teacher here that hates me because of my father. For better or worse, she didn't really blame Cecilia. Harry felt like she couldn't say that she would have done much different, in the same shoes. But I guess that makes sense. I still think he should have forgiven you, especially if you were only defending yourself.
I cannot, in good conscience, say that she was solely defending herself. She wanted them to fear her. Privately, Harry felt like the Dursleys could use a little more fear of her.
Still, she wrote. Did you want to know anything else about the Death Eaters?
Do you have a list of how many Death Eaters are in Azkaban?
No, not really. It mentions a couple of them. The Lestranges, Crouch, and someone named Sirius Black.
There was a pause, at that. Why are those people mentioned, when others aren't?
Harry read further. Oh. It says that Rodolphus Lestrange, Rabastan Lestrange, Bellatrix Lestrange, and Bartemius Crouch, Jr. tortured Frank and Alice Longbottom to insanity. I know a Longbottom. His name is Neville - he's in my year in Gryffindor. Hands shaking, she asked, Are those his parents?
It is certainly a possibility. I'm sorry, Harry. That sounds very tragic.
I had no idea. I mean, everyone laughs at him for being clumsy and forgetful.
I think, Cecilia wrote, her letters carefully formed. That it might be best to let him speak about this on his own. Don't say anything.
I won't. Harry promised. Black killed someone named Pettigrew, I guess.
Oh?
That's the only thing listed. It's a bit weird, that he's right up there with the others.
Maybe there's more to it. I think, Harry, it might be best if you learn to defend yourself sooner, rather than later.
She wasn't wrong. It was a little bit daunting, learning about all those people.
Cecilia was writing again. Still, that doesn't sound like Voldemort had an overwhelming amount of support. In fact, almost all the names you mention are pureblood families. You mentioned before that Voldemort hates muggles, so it seems like her support base was almost purely from old wizarding families. That's a good thing, I think.
How so?
Well, most witches and wizards aren't from old wizarding families. There are muggleborns, of course, but most of the old families are dying out. I think, by now, most people are the type that wouldn't really support blood purity, simply because most people aren't pure by their standards. From what you've told me about your fellow students, it seems like there are comparatively few children of Death Eaters, compared to children of non-Death Eaters.
Harry frowned, again. There aren't that many, no. No one named Black, or Crouch, or Lestrange.
That's good. That means, unless she starts winning, not many new people will join her. And given that many of her supporters are in jail, she will need to build up a support base. We have time, before she actively starts hunting you.
Harry managed a weak smile. I suppose you want to get started, then?
Yes. I think it might be best to teach you spells, first. There are a couple ways of doing that, but the easiest way would be to show you.
How?
When she was a student, Cecilia discovered a room that could be manipulated, to the owner's wishes. I can show you that. When she created this diary, she enchanted a configuration of that room to interact with it. I would be able to take a physical form, to demonstrate magic, or to teach you to duel.
Harry's mouth moved soundlessly. That's very cool. So I'd get to meet you in person?
Yes.
Please. Can we do it now?
Of course.
I want to find a place where I can use the diary.
I want to find a place where I can use the diary.
I want to find a place where I can use the diary.
Harry looked up. In front of her, a tall, ornate wooden door appeared, and she stepped forward, wrenching it open. It felt like there was some magic in the door that let her open it more easily, because it definitely felt like it should have been harder than it was.
She stepped inside. It was a warm, rectangular space, with a bay of balconies on the far wall, sunlight filtering gently into the room, and every other available space on the walls inset with bookcases. Most of the center of the room was inlaid with a shallow dip, pentagonal in shape, set an inch lower than the rest of the floor. Around it, there were hundreds of thin runes, carved into the floor, shimmering gold. On the right, there were a few more bookshelves, but most of the space was dominated by a collection of low-slung couches, looking comfy and squished and red. On the left, there was something like a shooting gallery, with a human-sized dummy and a number of smaller targets.
Harry glanced over these things, obviously impressed. This was a cool room. She skipped over to the right side of the room, over to a wooden pedestal, and placed Cecilia's diary on it, where it glowed gold, once.
A scuff from behind her made her whirl around.
Harry almost didn't believe it, because standing there, was Cecilia. Harry's first thought was tall - Harry was not very tall, but Cecilia positively towered over her. She was pale, with a sharp, pointed face, and very long, thin fingers, and a shock of jet-black hair, like Harry's. But where Harry's was a mess pile of curls and tangles, Cecilia's was long, smooth, and wavy.
Harry found it hard to be jealous, because Cecilia was smiling, a small, satisfied little thing, and her eyes crinkled. Harry, who sometimes smiled when she didn't feel like smiling, recognized it as real. She found herself smiling back.
"Hello, Harriet," Cecilia said, her voice as careful and elegant as the rest of her.
"Hi," Harry squeaked. It was one thing to have a helpful diary of an older girl, and quite another to have the older girl herself, standing in front of her. She glanced over Cecilia again, eyes burning, before she realized something.
She was wearing a Hogwarts uniform, but it must have been an older one - her skirt was much longer, and the robe wrapped around her, like a full-body robe that she sometimes saw more traditional pureblood girls wear. But that wasn't what caught her attention.
"You're a Slytherin," Harry breathed, heart in her throat.
"Of course," Cecilia agreed. "And you are a Gryffindor."
"But-" Harry started. "Everyone I've met before in Slytherin is awful, though."
"I suppose I'll have to break the trend, then."
Harry wasn't sure what to say to that. Malfoy was horrible, but none of the rest really seemed to defy the stereotype. But did this mean that she couldn't trust Cecilia? Cecilia herself seemed… careful? reluctant? She was very conscientious in the way she spoke, patient and willing to back off if Harry wasn't ready for something.
It occurred then, that she was rather trusting of Cecilia - she didn't know for sure, whether she could trust the Diary on its own. The Diary certainly wanted her to, but that was what Cecilia herself had said, wasn't it?
You don't know something for sure, unless you can back it up, with as many corroborating things as possible. So, no, she probably shouldn't trust Cecilia, not when she only had Cecilia's word for it.
She looked at the ground, then back up at Cecilia's face.
"I, er-"
Cecilia was smiling, wider this time, even as she sat on one of the couches. "You've come to that answer, haven't you? I'm a Slytherin, so you can't trust me?"
"No...?" Harry tried to deny, even as she dropped into another.
Her hands spread, gesturing around as she spoke. "It's alright. You've noticed that you can't trust me, because the only evidence you have of my trustworthiness is my own word. You have some evidence that I'm trustworthy, but not enough - we've known each other for only about a week or so, and I could be influencing your mind every time you write to me.
"And since," here, her smile got even wider, a full-blown thing, "you're not stupid, you've taken my advice, and you're not going to trust something when you have no other evidence to back it up."
"Oh," Harry said, uncomfortably aware that nothing Cecilia said was wrong.
"It's alright," Cecilia said. "I understand. It's a good thing, actually. It means you're listening. Ironically, it means you trust some of the things I say. Of course, that's a murky road. You don't want to trust everything I say, because even I have warned you against doing so, but if you distrust everything I say, you won't get anywhere either."
There was a long silence, where Cecilia was still smiling.
"I'm sorry," Harry said, feeling unaccountably guilty. She looked down at her feet again.
"Don't be," Cecilia said. "You have no reason to apologize. You're being clever. However, we need to decide how to proceed from here."
Harry nodded.
"The first thing I would suggest would be this: Stop using the Diary altogether. Put it somewhere, in your trunk, and act as if you don't have it at all, for at least as long as you've been using it. And if the way you think about it changes, then you'll know you can't trust me."
"But…" Harry started, but thought better of it.
"No, please, go on."
"But if I can't trust you, and you are trying to manipulate me for some reason, then the safety measures you suggest might not work," Harry said, slowly, deliberately. "Does that make sense? Like, if I really can't trust you, I also can't trust the things you suggest."
"I suppose you can't," Cecilia admitted. "Then, the best thing might be to find a responsible adult. Of course, I don't want you to do that."
"No?" Harry asked. "That, uh, seems like a big red flag."
Cecilia laughed, high and warm and amused. "Of course it does. Allow me to explain myself. The primary reason, of course, is that if you were to bring this to an adult, particularly in Hogwarts, it would inevitably end up in the hands of Albus Dumbledore. I am afraid that any item of Cecilia's that comes before him will not be viewed in an unbiased light.
"The second, and rather more alarming reason is that Cecilia used dark magic to create this diary," Cecilia said, her mouth quirking into something that looked an awful lot like a smirk.
"Uh," she said. "That's another red flag. You're really not helping your case here, you know that?"
"I would argue that it is better for you to know what you are getting into, than not," Cecilia said, crossing her arms. "I am not actually sure that it is still dark magic, at least by the legal definition."
Harry wasn't sure what to say to that, so she kept silent.
"When I was in school, most people still used that definition - it is useful, from a teaching perspective. A school would not want students to use magic that is illegal, after all."
Harry nodded.
"However, another, similar definition is that dark magic is magic that can exclusively be used to cause harm. I think you'll find that this is important, for our discussion. Firstly, the ritual Cecilia used to imbue the Diary with my presence might fall under both definitions of dark magic, but the ritual that your mother used to imbue you with her protection would likely be only dark magic using the first."
Harry frowned. "So, since my mother wanted to protect me, that didn't count?"
Cecilia made a so-so motion with her hand. "Yes, and while the protection harmed Voldemort, it did not do so actively. It reflected her curse. Therefore, it's something that isn't necessarily harmful. If no one had killed Lily Potter, or attacked you, no one would have died."
Harry nodded. "I think I understand that. Why is your ritual harmful, then?"
"The ritual I described is necessarily harmful because it requires a sacrifice - a life, to bind the diary with a fragment of Cecilia's personality," Cecilia admitted.
"You killed someone!?" Harry half-shrieked.
"She killed something." Cecilia said. "It was an animal."
"Oh," Harry said. "Okay."
"You are so easily convinced?"
"Well, yeah," Harry said. "It's hard to describe. I don't really know what to say, I guess. I understand your reasoning, sorta."
"Oh." For the first time, Cecilia looked confused. "So, okay, then. I had a whole explanation on dark magic planned. I was gonna demonstrate different cutting charms and…" she trailed off.
"Well, I guess that's pointless, now."
"Can I see?" Harry asked.
"Uh, sure," Cecilia said, eyes shifting around. "First, well, there's a - the best way I can describe it is a safe word. If I ever do something you don't like in here, it's quite simple. Just say, 'mordant,' and the room will close, and deposit you and the Diary outside of it."
"Alright," Harry agreed, wondering if she'd ever need such a thing.
"Good," Cecilia smiled, and she stood up again. "But, you should probably go to dinner. We've been here for long enough." True enough, when Harry glanced over at the balcony, the light filtering in was stained with the warm gold of late afternoon.
"Oh," she said. "I'll just go, then. But I'll be back."
"I'll be here."