Through the Looking Glass
by Father Malvado
I watch, a faceless shadow in the sky, as the students flee below me. Their screams grate on my nerves and I let out a cry of my own. The walls shake as my shriek pierces stone and soul equally, rattling and shaking both. I hate them for their screams. I hate them for their fright of me. I hate them for being alive. I hate them for being human.
I hate them all, impartially. I am beyond the point of emotions. It is said by many, for I hear all, that without human contact, one becomes merely a shell of himself, with no love, hope, joy, hate, lust, or envy. This is not true. When one is isolated from all human contact, he just makes up new companions, and instills them with his own humanity. Thus, he gains contact with beings that are 'humanized.' This is seen as a form of insanity, though it is the only way a man can cope with loneliness.
In fact, the only way one can become truly emotionless is to leave such things as bodies and feelings behind. The children screaming below have vanished into the night, but they will be back, with friends on a dare or with teachers to exercise the demon. They can try and they will fail. I have been here for hundreds of years, and will continue to exist until they pull this building down. Then I will haunt the ruins, for this place is the site of my death.
I am a ghost, you see. I am bodiless and faceless, but I am there. You could say that all of Hogwarts is I. I inhabit the building, and I am the building. The children that wander the halls, that study their homework, that harass each other . . . How scared might they be if they realized that they did all these in me, inside the ghost of the greatest sorcerer since the start of the Age of Reason. For that is who I am you see.
But even this, my title as the most powerful, is fading from me. I can't even remember my name. But I remember who killed me, oh yes, I do. The Gryffindor bastard that backstabbed me. But his name . . . ? What was his name? I cannot remember his name. I cannot remember the name of him who killed me. I can't remember . . . No, but this cannot be. This cannot be! His name, his name, what was his name! What was his fucking NAME! Dammit, dammit, dammit, dammit! WHAT WAS IT! I CAN'T REMEMBER! I CAN'T REMEMBER! Ican'tIcan'tIcan'tIcan'trememberhisfuckin NAME!
Hah . . . It seems I do have emotions, though that is a shadow of what I was capable of when I was alive. Even now, the anger is fading away, pulled into that black hole where it will follow my memories.
And so I will sit in the walls of Hogwarts, that school which I help build and hide from the eyes of normals, and I will dwindle. I will dwindle, losing my memories of when I was a human, my memories of life, my memories of happiness, and my memories of mine enemy. Already, they are slipping away, sliding out of my grasp like so much smoke. Those that are left, I guard with jealous greed, keeping it to my breast like a father holding his child, comforting him as he shows the scared, weeping child that the hound of shadows with flaming eyes is merely a bundle of blankets on a chair. Soon even these that I keep in my heart will vanish, the father with a bloodstained rag clutched to his chest. Only my hate will remain, and then, only when the human ends and the demon begins, will my fury be unleashed on that treacherous house of fools and hypocrites.
I said that I have existed for centuries, and will continue on. But that is a lie, one that I keep with me always, a reminder that I will cease to exist. Because, what is a human, but a personality tied to a body? Soon that personality, what shreds are left, will be sucked into that hole, and all will be left is a power that can shake the world.
These wizards below, but scurrying ants, wasting their lives trying to become great. I see them all. I see the Ravenclaw, running about in search of knowledge, unknowing of the price of that enlightenment and the burden of the wisdom. I see the Hufflepuff, trying to become what they are not, becoming weighted down with the insults of the other houses which they carry with them through the rest of their lives. I see the Slytherin, that house which I founded so long ago, the house that slinks and sneers, the whipping boy of the wizards, the strutting cocks that crow their heritage, the cowards that flee before children. I see also the Gryffindor, the paupers and clowns dressed in the castoffs of the rich, that house hated by all others for their attitude of superiority, those wolves in sheep's clothing, the worms which are the idols and prisoners of all and themselves. The house of my enemy. The house of the fools.
But if Gryffindor (I feel that sometimes I could almost remember who he was) is the house of fools, then Dumbledore, that maggot among worms, that fool who mistakes turning a blind eye for compassion, is the chief fool, that mime who goes through the motions but is seeing the days of his glory in his own head. Dumbledore the most powerful wizard now? How sad. If he is all that powerful, why doesn't he go after that fool Voldemort? Because he can't. He can't even exorcize a few minor, annoying ghosts from the castle.
The other spirits, if you should call them that, learned of my presence not long after they became aware. They asked why I would not join them, why I would not join in their foolery. Why I would not join in their farce. Why I would not pretend I was again living. Little bugs that play the part of the friendly spirits, mental children that act as though their deaths never happened. Insane buffoons that will accept eating shit, when a banquet was promised. They are the heads of each house's table and there they sit, the kings of beggars, the leaders of lepers, the rulers of the unclean.
There goes Peeves, the 'friendly prankster' who hides his hatred of the living by indulging his immature pranks. I feel him moving, gathering ink in those idiotic balloons. I reach out a hand and grab the nape of his neck. He goes shock still, forgotten balloons falling from his limp hands, a whimper escaping his lips. I move my lips to his ear, my breath the foul stench of a tomb, my faintest whisper the crash of a coffin lid on the floor of the bone cathedral. I remind him of his death, telling all the details, relishing the way he trembled in my grasp. I told him of the way his head cracked open spilling sweet blood and brains on the floor, how his intestines burned in the heretic's fire, how his balls popped like those forgotten balloons, how his eyes burst their skin like a sausage, spilling their contents to be devoured by the hungry fire. I savored the sound of his squeals when I let go, the smell of his fear strengthening my memories, my tie to this world.
But then something happened. Something that I never expected. I felt the darkness pulling at me. The strands of writhing shadow ripping the memories from my heart, the cold of death and worse rubbing my mind raw. Then I felt what was doing this. A small bird lighted on my roof. It was a sparrow. It preened itself and then sat back to wait. I was so enraptured by this single bird, that the rest of the darkness did its business with nary a protest from me.
Another sparrow joined the first one, and four more after that. Then ten more, then a hundred more. I looked out over my lawns and saw thousands, no, hundreds of thousands more, all of them looking at the castle, at me, with rapt attention. Then a jolt filled my soul, ripping out all of my memories, but also filling in the gap. The lightening spread across my consciousness, feeling like someone took a razor to me then filled the wounds with salt. And in their wake came the name. The name, the name, the name, the name, the name, the name, the name, the name, the name, the name, the name, I remember, I remember, I remember, I remember, I remember, I remember, I remember the name, I remember the name, I remember the name, I remember the name, I REMEMBER THE NAME, I REMEMBER THE NAME, I REMEMBER THE NAME, I REMEMBER THE NAME, I REMEMBER THE NAME, I REMEMBER HIS NAME AND IT IS GODRIC GRYFFINDOR!
The sparrows all took flight and circled around the castle gathering the spirit of what used to be Salazar Slytherin to a new body. The body that is proper, per a wizard of his stature.
Sparrows are, after all, the harbingers of the risen dead. Salazar Slytherin has been dead a very long time, slain by his treacherous rival, and has a lot of debts to pay off. It was time his was up and about it.