I've been a very sorry person lately, with all possible interpretations of said phrase.
I'm very sorry to anyone who actually thought that Huff le Puff was a nice, sane person. She's not.
I'm sorry to anyone whose characters resemble those le Puff brutally maims, tortures, and slaughters. Actually, on second thought I'm not sorry about that. Any author who writes such a character should be sorry. Bad author. No biscuit.
I am sincerely sorry about the gap between this update and my last. Life's been rather busy lately.
Concrit. appreciated, as always. Thank you bbhtryoink for pointing out timeline errors.
Chapter Five: Canon
"Please, come in Miss Snape," Dumbledore said, stepping aside so that the petite young woman could walk into his office. Aurora Snape sashayed past him, her crystal blue eyes, inherited from her Malfoy mother, twinkling.
"I'm sure that your father will be in shortly," Dumbledore said, seating himself at his desk.
True to the headmaster's prediction, Snape walked through the door, scowling. When he saw his daughter, his expression underwent a complete transformation. A broad grin spread across his face, and he stepped forward, beaming. Father and daughter embraced.
"I'm so sorry that you couldn't have come sooner," Snape gushed. "It was just too dangerous."
Dumbledore dabbed at his eyes with a corner of his sleeve. Such a reunion was really just too touching. After a minute, he cleared his throat loudly.
"Now we need to Sort you, Miss Snape," he said. "Though I suppose it doesn't matter which house you belong to since you will, of course, have your own set of rooms." He looked a bit puzzled, then shook his head. When he looked up again, there was nothing but glazed good cheer in his eyes.
He handed the Sorting hat, which had been sitting on his desk, to Aurora. With a small moue of distaste for its tattered and dirty interior, she put it on her flawless head. So delicate and small was she that the brim slipped down all the way to her shoulders.
For a moment, all was quiet. Snape and Dumbledore leaned forward expectantly. Then Aurora began to shriek.
Around her neck, the hat constricted, growing relentlessly tighter in spite of her franticly tugging hands. Her screams grew more and more muffled and desperate, until at last they cut off mid-howl. A small trickle of blood oozed down from the hat's brim, vivid against Aurora's pale skin.
In the shadows at the doorway, a pair of yellow eyes sparkled gleefully.
Dumbledore and Snape stared.
As Aurora slumped back, the room gave an infinitesimal jolt before settling into focus. Dumbledore shook his head. Snape rubbed at his eyes fitfully.
"Did you call me for something, headmaster?" he asked.
A soft flump interrupted Dumbledore's answer, as Aurora's body faded into nothing but a foul smelling vapor and the Sorting hat tumbled onto the chair she had been sitting on. He got up and picked up the old hat gently, as one would handle an infant. I wonder what that was doing there? he wondered before turning back to Snape.
"Oh… yes, of course," he said, recovering some of his normal energy. "Do you have everything that you'll need for Professor Lupin's wolfsbane potion?"
Snape's face tightened, he looked almost as if Dumbledore had struck him.
"Of course, headmaster," he said, his tone colorless, his words clipped. "Is that all?"
"Yes, yes," Dumbledore said, settling back behind his desk. "Just… Severus?"
"Yes?" Snape stopped, halfway out the door.
"Try not to be too hard on him, will you?"
Snape's lips tightened into an almost-sneer. He walked out without answering, just missing Huff le Puff as she dashed down the stairs.
"You're late," Argus Filch snapped.
Rave'n'claw giggled apologetically. Huff le Puff just yawned.
"We had to take care of a bit of… business first," she said. She rubbed at her throat fitfully, only stopping when she tore the scabs away completely. The healing scratches itched maddeningly. Pain, to her, was preferable to that awful prickling.
"We have more serious issues on our hands than just a Sue or two," Filch said, collapsing gracelessly into a seat. Rave'n'claw plopped down at his feet, staring adoringly into his grizzled face. Huff le Puff remained standing. She paced the small, dreary room like a caged beast.
"What could be more serious than those creatures?" she spat. "They confined us, they made us mortal! They forced us into bodies!How could you—"
"I think I've found Slytherin and Gryffindor," Filch interrupted.
Huff le Puff shut up, uncharacteristically stunned.
"No," she said. Her voice cracked. "Impossible. They're dead, the lucky bastards."
"They're much worse off than you. They can't even move."
She threw her head back and laughed raucously.
Rave'n'claw ignored them both. She was busy petting Mrs. Norris and humming the Ode to Joy to herself.
Filch waited patiently until le Puff's laughter had passed.
"Where are they?" she asked at last.
"That's the problem," Filch admitted. "They're somewhere in the castle, I know that. My sweet has smelled them here." He looked down dotingly on Mrs. Norris, firmly ensconced in 'Claw's lap. "But she can't find exactly where they are. There seems to be some sort of misdirection spell on them. Perhaps the Fidelius charm. I was hoping that you might be able to pinpoint their location."
Le Puff resumed her pacing, hands clasped behind her back.
"We'll find them," she said at length. "Don't you worry about that. We're very good at finding things, aren't we, Rave?"
Rave'n'claw muttered a reply in what sounded suspiciously like ancient Sanscrit.
Before Huff le Puff could take advantage of Filch's confusion to continue her diatribe against Sues, she was thrown backwards by the large amount of air displaced by the person who had suddenly appeared. Her head hit the ground with a thump. The world went gray before her eyes and her stomach tried to force its way out of her throat. Le Puff reached over with a hand that seemed strangely disconnected from her body, grabbed some part of herself and dug her nails in. The pain brought the world back into sharp focus, and she began the laborious process of hoisting her protesting body to its feet.
Across the room, Rave'n'claw staggered upright, her normally vague blue eyes bright and sharp with anger.
"You're… y'not supposed to app'rate or… or… or disapp'rate within… within the Hogwarts grounds," she slurred. She reached for her wand and pointed it at the lone upright figure in the center of the room.
"Who," returned the newcomer, his voice reeking of polite disgust, "are you?"
Huff le Puff let out an almost feline shriek of rage and launched herself at him.
He spun around at the sound, a movement so impossibly quick and graceful that it looked serpentine rather than human. His wand was in his hand and leveled at the leaping le Puff a second later. Huff le Puff suddenly found herself flying across the room in the opposite direction, propelled by the invader's spell. Her head hit the floor again, and she moaned sickly.
"Give me one good reason why I shouldn't kill you both," the boy said, splitting his attention between le Puff and Rave'n'claw.
One of Huff le Puff's eyes shot wide open, the other refused to come above half mast. She attempted to launch herself off of the floor in a single move that would send her foot through the intruder's midriff and her fist through his throat. Her body responded with an immense bolt of pain and a feeble twitch of her left hand. Huff le Puff's mind screamed angrily, her thoughts like yellow and black lightning.
The man's foot descended on her neck, sending fresh shocks in through the scratches there. A hand roughly grabbed her chin and turned it upwards, ignoring her squall of pain and anger. Huff le Puff found herself looking at an arrogant, altogether too handsome face above a Slytherin tie. A wandtip descended until it was just over her left eye, almost blocking her sight of the man.
"I want an explanation. Now," he said, almost pleasantly. "If I don't get one very soon, I'll take out your left eye. If you still won't talk, I'll take the right. If that doesn't get you going, then—"
But he didn't get a chance to say what he was going to do then, because Huff le Puff had grabbed his leg and pulled it towards her, knocking him off balance. He went down with a shout. Huff le Puff felt his wand scrape the bony ridge above her eye before he hit the ground. She grinned savagely, eyes manically wide and bloodshot as she ignored her protesting muscles and forced herself to move. Her foot landed squarely on the man's chest, knocking the breath out of him. He didn't have the chance to regain it; Huff le Puff locked her fingers around his neck and began to squeeze.
"Le Puff! Stop!"
Filch's order barely penetrated her anger, and even then it was something far away and easy to ignore. She throttled the man with great pleasure. He'd hurt her, or at least tried to. How dare he hurt her?
"He's Canon, you fool! Don't you know that he's—oh, screw it."
There was a ringing thud as the base of Filch's mop collided with le Puff's much-abused skull. Huff le Puff didn't know that. She just knew that suddenly the world had gone gray and faint again. Her fingers loosened, and the man shoved her off, coughing and rubbing at his throat in an unconscious imitation of his would-be-killer.
"You're going to suffer for that," he informed a poleaxed Huff le Puff when he'd struggled to his feet.
"No, Mr. Riddle, she won't," Filch said, leaning on his mop.
"Are you going to stop me?" Riddle asked. He sounded genuinely curious, not threatening. Not that the two were terribly different with Tom Riddle.
"No. But without her you're unlikely to get back to your own time."
Riddle looked between Filch and the bundle of dirty rags and matted hair that was Huff le Puff.
"Why should I believe you? How do I know that you three didn't bring me here, where or whenever here is?"
"Ah, now that's a question Huff le Puff would be able to answer better than I," Filch said, pointing at the unconscious le Puff. After a moment of looking embarrassed, he asked "Would you? My magic's a bit… rusty."
Riddle regarded her crumpled form with displeasure. "Must we?" he said. "She's so much more agreeable like this."
"I thought you wanted an explanation," Filch snapped.
"Fine, then. Enervate," Riddle said, pointed his wand at le Puff.
Le Puff growled and threw herself at Riddle. Filch's mop handle rather got in the way of that, and she was sent sprawling across the floor.
"Stop acting like an animal, le Puff," Filch ordered. "We've got company. Canon company, so play nice."
Huff le Puff scrambled to her feet, the heel of one hand pressed against her throbbing head. She looked around her blearily.
"Where's Rave?" she demanded.
"I left your friend, if that's who you're referring to, in that corner," Riddle replied, unperturbed. He gestured to the far corner, where a huddled lump discernable as Rave'n'claw lay. "Mr. Filch says that you have some answers for me."
Huff le Puff shook her head slightly, considering and deciding against attempting to kill him again. She was injured, he wasn't. Besides, he was Canon. Strange how she hadn't noticed at first.
"You're… Riddle, right?" she said, testing out the name. "Going to become a Dark Lord and eventually…" Canon, the same force that had supplied her with Riddle's name, froze her mouth before she could betray anything of his future. That wouldn't do at all.
"How do you know all of this about me?" Riddle asked, his eyes narrowing as he regarded Huff le Puff. "This isn't doing much for my belief in your innocence, Mr. Filch."
Filch dismissed le Puff knowledge with a wave of his hand. "She can't help it any more than the other one can. They were… born with it. It's why they're so useful."
Riddle didn't seem to believe that, and le Puff couldn't blame him. Filch always had been a terrible liar.
"You'd better convince me of that," Riddle said. Huff le Puff bristled angrily. No one talked to Filch like that, not unless they were stupid. Canon characters often were though, or so had been her experience.
"Explain, le Puff," Filch said.
"But it would be so much easier if we just kept him locked in a room somewhere until we'd solved this," she protested.
"Explain, le Puff," Filch reiterated, folding his arms.
Huff le Puff seated herself gingerly in a chair, taking care not to antagonize her body any more than necessary, and began.
"You were brought here by a 'Sue—"
"I beg your pardon?"
"A 'Sue. A Mary Sue." When he continued to look insuperably annoyed and ignorant, she sighed and explained. "Powerful, devious creatures who twist Canon – the natural order of things – to suit their whims. This includes making ugly people attractive, changing people's allegiances, or even yanking people out of their normal timeline, like you." If Riddle noticed how le Puff's voice changed when she recited, letting Canon flow through her and supply her directly with words, he didn't mention it.
Instead he just asked, "And just why would a… 'Sue' want to bring me here?"
"She probably thinks she's in love with you," Huff le Puff said sweetly, using her own voice again. She smirked at Riddle's horror-struck expression. "Don't worry," she reassured him. "We'll… deal with her. We're very good at dealing with Sues, aren't we Rave'n'—oh, right. Never mind. When the Sue who brought you here dies, you should return to your own timeline. Theoretically."
Riddle regarded her skeptically. "Theoretically," he mused, sitting on a chair and resting his hand on a fist. "I'm not sure I like the sound of that."
Huff le Puff shrugged. "That's your problem. My specialty's killing, not reversing damage."
"Your job's to protect Canon, le Puff, not just to kill," Filch reminded her sternly.
"Oh, yes. That too," Huff le Puff agreed hastily.
Riddle watched this exchange with narrowed eyes.
"Well, then," he said at length, crossing his arms. "How exactly do you kill a… 'Sue'?"
Huff le Puff smiled in her lopsided, maniacal way, and explained. After a while, Riddle began to smile too.