No, I don't like Sues. How could you tell? Was it the horrific murders or the overblown descriptions of shimmering eyes and flowing hair?
Chapter Eight: Finding Slytherin
Filch was not pleased. Normally Huff le Puff would have been more respectful, but with a hundred Mary Sues gnawing away at Canon she'd lost whatever tenuous hold on sanity she'd had to begin with. It felt like she had a head full of ants making a nest in her brain.
"I told you not to attack the students, le Puff," Filch said, folding his arms.
Le Puff whirled around, staggering slightly. Filch's words boomed and echoed in her head.
"Didn't," she protested. "Attacked a Sue."
"Use proper grammar, le Puff. You're just making it worse for yourself when you don't. And while Miss Rivers might be an ill-mannered know-it-all who tracks mud on my clean floors regularly, she's a student, not a Sue."
"Doesn't matter," she slur-snarled.
"Yes it does. If you can't tell the difference between the legitimates and the fakes, I'm going to have to take you off active duty until you've regained some common sense."
Le Puff lunged at Filch, growling. Filch didn't bother to move, as her attack sent her several feet to the left of him. She lurched to her feet and stumbled towards him. The scratches at her throat had begun to ooze blood again. Sighing and shaking his head, Filch concentrated and clapped his hands together at chest height.
Huff le Puff reeled back, shrieking, her hands raised as if to shield her eyes from some intensely bright light. She tripped over one of the footstools in Filch's rooms and fell to the floor, where she cowered.
After a while, she lifted her head, blinking cautiously.
"Don't ever do that again without warning me," she said.
Filch shook his head silently, too winded to reply. He tottered over to the footstool le Puff had fallen over and sat down. His skin had gone a nasty grey, and large pouches had puffed up under his eyes.
"I don't think you'll have to worry about that in the near future," he managed, still gasping slightly. "Channeling like that isn't something one can do anytime one likes."
Le Puff relaxed on the floor, more curious than concerned with Filch's weakness. She worried a hole in the threadbare carpet with her fingers while she waited for him to recover.
"Where're Riddle and 'Claw?" Filch asked after he'd gotten his breath back.
Huff le
Puff cocked her head to the side and considered for a moment.
"Riddle's… here," she said, as
the Dark Lord-to-be walked through the door, wiping his hands off on a bit of
cloth.
"Slytherin dorms are clear," he said, with a smile that rivaled le Puff's in its sadism.
Le Puff scowled at him, distracted from her growing gap in the carpet. "It's no fair that he gets to work the Slytherins. Hufflepuff never gets any Sues," she complained.
"Don't whine, le Puff," Filch sighed. "You should feel lucky that Hufflepuff is less infested, otherwise you might have ended up like Gryffindor and Slytherin."
"However they've ended up," le Puff said, but she stopped sulking.
"Where's your little friend?" Riddle asked, settling down in the sturdiest of the chairs. "Do I dare hope that she's run into more trouble in the Ravenclaw dorms than she can handle?"
Huff le Puff bared her teeth at him before letting her eyes unfocus and listening in that way she had. The way that wasn't with her ears at all, but actually came from the remnants of Canon inside her. This mortal body couldn't hold much of Canon, not nearly so much as when she'd been free, but it was good for this much at least. The sounds of the room faded, and instead faint voices and impressions filled her mind from every corner of the castle, and beyond that Hogsmeade, and the entire wizarding world. Most of them she ignored, sifting through them for the bright blue presence of Rave'n'claw.
She couldn't find her.
There was nothing wrong with her otherears, she knew that. She could hear and feel everything else she wanted, from Potter getting harangued in Potions to Dumbledore eating lemon drops and contemplating the clockwork badger on his desk. Rave'n'claw just wasn't there.
Her body, the hateful fleshy thing, pulled her back before she could search further. She looked up, trying not to panic.
"I can't find Rave," she said, catching Filch's eyes. They didn't speak to each other, but their looks were quite eloquent enough.
This is just like the other time, she's gone and now I'm all alone, trapped in a body with no way out.
Don't be ridiculous, you're mistaken, she must be there, there aren't enough Sues to affect her that way, not in Ravenclaw.
I'm going to die, we're all going to die.
Filch stood up, calling softly to Mrs. Norris.
"Then we'll have to find her," he said.
Le Puff laughed self-pityingly.
"No point," she said, almost savoring the words.
"Could someone please tell me just what is going on here?" Riddle asked. He was far too dignified to sound plaintive, but there was a certain amount of well-bred disgust in his voice.
"No," le Puff said. "There's absolutely no point." But she stood up anyway and walked out the door, followed by Filch. She'd only gotten a few steps when Riddle came out after them. At her questioning glance, he smirked.
"I'm hardly going to let you go gallivanting around the school alone. Merlin knows what trouble you'll stir up, and I've always wanted an excuse to test out a few of my less… socially acceptable curses," he said.
Huff le Puff bit her lips to keep their corners from twitching upwards. She reassured herself with the knowledge that since 'Claw was dead (or worse), she'd soon follow.
Filch crouched down on the flagstones to get to Mrs. Norris' level. Neither cat nor human made a sound, but le Puff knew that they were talking. Or maybe talking was the wrong word. She'd always suspected it was rather like the way she and the badger communicated. It wasn't telepathy, of course; telepathy wasn't possible here, unless you counted Occlumency and Legilimency, both of which were unreliable as far as communication was concerned. Perhaps it would be most accurate to say that they reached an understanding of essences, and that this understanding allowed them to exchange certain perceptions and ideas. Like the need to find a certain wayward guardian of Canon.
However Filch did it, it didn't take long. He stood back up, grimacing and holding his back, and Mrs. Norris took a quick sniff around and strolled off down a hallway confidently, as if to say that she would have gone that way without having been asked. The humans (or whatever it was that le Puff had become) trailed after her hopefully. Unlike a dog, Mrs. Norris didn't track with her nose to the ground. She sauntered along, ignoring the people behind her, pausing occasionally to sniff at the air and rub her head against a suit of armor or a statue.
It didn't take le Puff long to grow impatient with following the cat. She started muttering threats after they'd passed the statue of Knorbert the Knuckleheaded for the third time.
"You're cat's leading us a merry chase, Filch," she growled. "I think she's lost. And I'm going to die." She added that last in hopefully, then slouched a bit more in disappointment when Filch didn't look suitably concerned and she didn't keel over.
"She'll get there in her own time, le Puff," Filch said patiently. "You can't coerce cats, they're their own law."
"Which is why I've always hated cats," Riddle said. "You can't command them to do anything they don't want to do. Dogs are so much more obedient. You can order them to go and bite an armed wizard and they'll wag their stupid little tails and do it.
"Besides," he said to le Puff once it became obvious that Filch was ignoring him, "knowing the way your friend moves, she probably did pass through this hallway several times. She's not the most… stable of people."
"Are you saying that Rave's crazy?" le Puff growled.
"Yes," Riddle replied without hesitation. He laughed outright at the murderous expression on Huff le Puff's face. "I think I could get used to being a 'Canon' character," he said to Filch.
"Shh! We're entering the library," was Filch's reply.
Evil Dark-Lord-in-waiting he might be, but even Tom Riddle respected a librarian's wrath. The small posse was silent as they entered the library.
If Irma Pince thought it odd to see their little group tiptoeing in; Filch, a coldly handsome Slytherin student, and the shaggy-haired, dirty woman in tattered robes all following the cat, she didn't say anything of it. They were quiet, they weren't attacking anyone, and that was all she cared for. She went right on sorting books as they crept in and crept out again a few minutes later. The only person she mentioned it to later was Pomona Sprout after a few glasses of sherry at the Three Broomsticks.
"She got to the Ravenclaw dorms and out again, at least," Filch offered once out of the library.
Huff le Puff kicked at a corner, missed, and folded her arms sulkily.
"So? Maybe she missed one and it followed her out and killed her in some diabolic and gory way."
"You mean like you do to those Sue-creatures?" Riddle asked.
Le Puff glared. Riddle smiled back, making sure nevertheless that his wand was within easy reach.
Filch rolled his eyes, then stopped in his tracks.
"Do you hear that?" he asked.
Le Puff stopped glaring at Riddle long enough to listen.
"N—" she started to say. Then: "Yes." The faint shrill sound echoed through the hallway again.
"What is that, and should I be worried?" Riddle asked, drawing his wand.
"No," said le Puff, walking forward again. "It's just Rave. And she must be happy about something, to be laughing like that."
"—and so I said to him, 'You want to do what to that eggplant?!'" Rave'n'claw said, then paused a moment and shrieked with laughter again. Riddle winced and put his fingers in his ears. He narrowly avoided skewering himself with the wand he still held, which was quickly shoved into a robe pocket.
Rave'n'claw had shoved herself into a niche in the wall next to a large stone serpent, around which she had flung a companionable arm. It was to the statue she was talking. Huff le Puff stopped in front of the alcove and stared, put her hands on her hips, and stared some more. At last, she threw back her head and laughed delightedly.
"Rave my dear, you've found him. A statue! Who would have thought. Something with even less freedom then we have."
Riddle stared.
"I've never heard you sound so… sane," he managed.
Filch smiled with an almost paternal pride.
Rave'n'claw ignored them both and went on chatting to the snake. Every now and then she stopped talking and nodded.
"That's exactly right," she said happily. "I don't see why gerbils shouldn't— Oh, of course."
"Rave, come on out here and talk to us," Huff le Puff said, still smiling slightly.
Rave'n'claw took no notice.
"Rave, this isn't funny." Her voice grew rougher with annoyance. She concentrated on Rave'n'claw, but no matter how hard she tried to reach out and tweak 'Claw's essence, she couldn't find her. For all that her partner was sitting within full view, she didn't register to le Puff's otherears.
"Oh for Merlin's sake…" If she couldn't talk to Rave'n'claw or access her essence, she would have to get in there and talk to her face to face. She stepped into the alcove, evading Filch's grab for her arm.
There was a faint popping noise, and now le Puff found that she couldn't hear anything other than Rave'n'claw. The constant hum of noise in her mind from the hundreds of Canon characters around her was immediately silenced. As was, she noticed, the stinging that meant the presence of Sues.
The next thing she noticed was that it was very cramped in the niche, with two people and the large statue. She had to wedge herself in between the wall and the sculpture, with the snake pressed uncomfortably against her shoulder.
And she felt almost… it took her a moment to place the feeling, it had been so long since she'd felt it. She felt almost normal. Like she could just rise out of this body and go back to the force she had been when the world was new and not even in its first draft, just a pure idea in a mind on fire with inspiration. She felt like Hufflepuff.
"What—?" she croaked.
Rave'n'claw looked up and smiled.
"If you were a tea cozy, what pattern do you think you'd be?" she asked.
"Lightning. Or maybe badgers. Or badgers getting struck by lightning," Huff answered absently.
Rave'n'claw nodded.
"I think I'd be cherry-flavored," she said.
Hufflepuff stopped and stared.
"You're not sane, are you," she said, disappointed.
Rave'n'claw giggled sadly. "No going back, not for us. Poor Slytherin, he's had no one to talk to for years now. I was just giving him my theories about pizza, and how it's really all a foul plot to brainwash us when you came in."
Huff looked up. "That sounded almost rational, except for the part about the pizza" she said cautiously. "But still crazy."
'Claw shrugged and turned back to Slytherin. She struck up a listening pose.
"He says that in a universe of infinite possibilities, the ones with the cucumbers in them always come out on top," she said, presumably translating for Huff.
Hufflepuff considered this, then ignored it, and went right on ignoring Rave as she started to babble about the possibilities of powering the world on scotch tape and used car parts.
This place is cut off from the world completely, which is why I can't feel anything. She glanced at the entrance to the niche and was unsurprised to find it silvery and opaque. It was impossible to hear or see anything through it, which explained why Rave hadn't responded when called. It's like a miniature universe, and there are no Sues here, so I'm not crazy. Rave's not as crazy, at least. I think. The Sues must have stored Slytherin here because he can't affect or even sense anything in here, and we can't sense him. There's no Canon for him to be a part of.
A new thought arrived on the heels of that one. If there's no Canon, then there're no Sues to warp it. So he still must be connected to our Canon some way, if he's trapped as a statue. We could see and hear in from the opposite side, so there's always the possibility that it can get in and we can't get out. This could just be a very clever trap to get all of us out of the way in these little pockets of non-world.
There was only one way to determine that. She looked up and eased her way over to the silvery barrier between them and the normal world, ducking under the snake's—Slytherin's—nose. With only a bit of hesitation, she pushed her hand through the barrier. It resisted initially, stretching under her hand like a stocking, then gave way. She drew it back before Filch or Riddle could have the bright idea of grabbing it.
"Well, there's good news, 'Claw," she said. "It seems that we can get out of here, so the world outside isn't going to end in a flood of astoundingly beautiful freaks."
Rave'n'claw paused in her chatter to Slytherin.
"At least the dust mites will survive," she said solemnly, and went back to her conversation with the statue.
Huff stared, shrugged, and went on thinking. As soon as she went back out there and was subjected to the Sues again she knew she'd go insane, so she might as well make the best of this opportunity. Just being free of Sues doesn't heal us, then. I'm still trapped in this body, as are the others. We're going to have to do something to reverse that.
A new, unpleasant thought popped up. If it's possible to reverse it. For all I know, once you're stuck in mortal form you're stuck for good.
She shook her head, lips twisting into a snarl as the ghost of le Puff reasserted itself.
No. We can fix it. We have to. Things are going crazy enough with us trapped the way we are, what would happen if we were just gone? The thought of a horde of Serenas and Alamantheas, all with flowing locks and jewel-bright eyes marched through her mind and was immediately relegated to a distant corner. She would wake up screaming over that thought, she knew. But what if it's not reversible? We have to at least consider the possibility. Then we… I don't know. We hand the power over to someone else, some other force.
But she didn't want to have to turn outside their own universe; that would be demeaning. She could only imagine what the guardians from other dimensions would think if she had to come begging for help. Besides, they were beset enough on their own. She'd heard that poor Manwë from Middle Earth had barricaded himself in whatever they used for an afterlife over there and refused to come out.
It won't come to passing the guardianship on, she reassured herself. We'll find some way. We just have to work on it. Filch'll channel Canon and we'll know what to do.
She raised her head again. It had been a long time since she'd thought deeply and well, and it felt good. She almost wished that she could find a way of taking this bubble of non-universe with her. The disconnection from Canon was unnerving, but the reliefit provided from the constant derangement of the Sues was worth it. If Rave'n'claw had been in her right mind she could no doubt have designed a way to take the blank space with them.
It only took one look at 'Claw to know that she wasn't in her right mind, though. Hufflepuff looked at her companion and felt her face twisting into something between a grimace and a grin.
"Come on, Rave," she said. "Let's go outside and talk to Filch and that Riddle boy. I'm sure that Slytherin's had enough of your prattle for one day."
Rave'n'claw threw her arms around the statue's neck and clung there weeping.
"You can't ask us to part!" she cried. "Not when we just met!"
"You knew him before, Rave. You've hardly 'just met'." Unswayed, Huff grabbed one of 'Claw's spindly arms and began to walk towards the barrier. She was shorter than Rave'n'claw, but a good bit heavier, and it was no hard task to drag her away. Then again, it wasn't a terribly easy one either.
"Good night," shrieked 'Claw. "Good night. Parting is such sweet sorrow
That I shall say '—"
"Oh, do shut up," Huff said, relinquishing her hold. Rave'n'claw sprang back to the statue as if she were made of elastic, and clung there.
"We can't stay in here," she warned 'Claw, who paid her no mind.
So that was how Filch and Huff le Puff came to carry a statue of a stone snake that was really the guardian of Slytherin down to the basement where Filch made his home. Huff le Puff didn't remember anything that had transpired within the non-world bubble except for in a vague, shimmery way. The only thing clear in her mind was the need to kill the Sues. Kill them all.
And that little Quirke brat.
Shakespear, Romeo and Juliet, 2.2.199-201. Hey, there're so many bad songs and poems being quoted on ff.net I figured I might as well put in something good.