"If dreams are like movies, then memories are films about ghosts." -the Counting Crows

Films About Ghosts

Chapter 12: Rita Skeeter's Scoop

"What did you do?" Daphne cried, staring at Ariane's near scalping with round eyes. "It's so short on top!"

"It would look perfectly normal if you were to take up residence in the trailer parks of America," Tuyet suggested, not looking up from her Charms homework. "It's got that sort of random, uneducated quality to it."

As Ariane had never heard of America nor of trailer parks, she wasn't at all offended, though Daphne was. "That's horrible of you to say!" she said at top volume, petting Ariane's head as though it were a beloved pet that had taken sick.

Tuyet didn't seem perturbed. This was one of her favorite hobbies: when she was irritated about something, she would irritate other people until she felt better. "I aim to disappoint."

Daphne made a face and then turned back to Ariane. "We have to fix it," she announced dramatically. "There's no way you can go to class tomorrow with your hair like that."

The silver-haired girl bent and stared into the mirror at the short section at the top of her head, which was sticking up as though it were proud of itself. "How do you fix it? Can't we magic it back?" Daphne shook her head gravely. "Why not?"

"Any charm that has to do with hair is risky business," she said, her springy curls trembling as she shook her head. "There was a girl in Gryffindor last year who misfired a Hair-Thickening Charm at herself and made her eyebrows grow like mad."

"She didn't do it to herself," Tuyet interrupted, still not looking away from her Charms work. "I saw one of the older boys last year hit her with it while she was in the library."

"Why would someone want another person's eyebrows—" Ariane began to ask, but Daphne pushed her down onto a trunk and went off into the bathroom. Ariane could hear her classmate clattering around inside and it made her very nervous. "Tuyet?" she asked hopefully.

"I'm not going to save you," said Tuyet flatly, glancing up for a moment through her blonde fringe. "You didn't head her off before she got going."

"That's not my fault!" Ariane began, but she didn't have time for anything else because Daphne came bounding out of the bathroom with scissors in hand. Her blue-grey eyes were sparkling with excitement at this new beauty challenge. To be fair, it was a rare event that allowed Daphne to practice any sort of beauty ritual on her year mates—Tuyet was usually unwilling; Pansy off doing prefect duties, and Millicent was just never around. Ariane had let Daphne file her nails and paint them every shade of pink known to wizard kind, but she had never let her touch her hair.

Now was a different story. Ariane squeezed her eyes shut for a moment, trying to rid herself of the creeping fear that her silver curls would end up as short as a boy's. "What're you going to do?" she asked apprehensively.

"I was thinking longer in front..." Daphne gushed for a good five minutes about all her plans for saving Ariane's hair, but the victim in question didn't absorb most of it.

Ariane took a deep breath and blew it out, making her fringe fan up in the front. "You know what, Daphne? Just do whatever you want with it."

Tuyet looked up from her Charms, mouth slightly open in shock. "Are you mad?" she asked.

"It doesn't matter," Ariane said flatly, closing her eyes tight. "Cut away."

Late that night, after everyone else had gone to sleep and Millicent's snores filled the room, Ariane sat on her bed with the curtains drawn around her, fingering her short hair and wondering if she had done the right thing by telling Harry the truth.

I couldn't have lied, she thought, twisting a curl around her finger until her tender scalp protested. Not to him. What if he saw that I was lying?

Why did I even go to the clock in the first place? she asked herself.

Because I needed to know that I wasn't going mad.

Well, that's settled. I'm not mad. But why couldn't I have found validation someplace where I couldn't have been overheard?

And, said a part of her that was growing used to the prejudice between the Houses, why did it have to be a Gryffindor?

Ariane snorted aloud at her own stupidity. There's nothing wrong with Gryffindors, she reminded herself. After all, Godric did me a favor once even though I'd given him nothing but the cold shoulder for years. There's something to be said for that kindness.

That brought her back the memory and Salazar's anger. It made her shiver even if it hadn't been directed right at her—though it was intended for Laramy, which was hardly any better. "Why did he hate him so?" she mused silently. Ariane pulled her short hair again in frustration at her own stupidity. Godric had as much as told her: "If you think that she'll stop loving you after you get married, you're wrong. You'll just have to get used to sharing her love with Laramy."

And Salazar had replied, ""I'd prefer to find a cold place in hell first. With luck, I won't have to take the trouble."

Dumbledore had said that the arrow had missed its real target. Had Laramy been the real target?

"No," she muttered. "That's utterly ridiculous. It was probably one of Salazar's enemies, trying to hurt him." But, Ariane recalled uncomfortably, she had told Dumbledore that Salazar had no dire enemies. It had been the truth. There was no one who wanted to kill Salazar or herself.

That she knew of.

Ariane flopped down onto her bed and stared at the canopy, her brain ticking like the clock. If Salazar had had an enemy, he would have discussed it with her—unless he was trying to protect her by keeping her oblivious to any problems. That wouldn't be too out of character for Salazar, to want to protect Ariane from harm. After all, he had tried to resurrect her—not tried, succeeded—and he had been so horribly upset when she'd been shot.

She'd check those old French records in the morning. They might say whether or not Salazar had a deadly enemy.

Ariane flipped over, feeling much too awake to sleep, and reached for the copy of Hogwarts, a History that she'd checked out of the library. Though it was no help at all when it came to her past, it was very informative when she was trying to find out what had happened between her death and waking up in the tomb. There were some questions that she couldn't ask anyone without getting weird looks, because those things were things that everyone was expected to know now.

Like Voldemort. Who was this person, besides the Dark Lord? Why on earth was he called the Dark Lord? Was he the Lord of Darkness? Where was Darkness? Or did they mean that he was Satan? "If he's descended from Salazar, he can't be Satan," Ariane murmured to herself, smiling a bit at the ridiculousness of it all. She reach over to her night table again and replaced Hogwarts, a History, instead taking The Rise and Fall of the Dark Arts from her table and propping it open on her knees.

On page two hundred twenty-seven, her question was answered. "Lord Voldemort is a direct ancestor of Salazar Slytherin," she read, then caught herself. "Ancestor?" Yes, that was what it said. The editor of this book must not have been terribly literate if they confused opposites like 'ancestor' and 'descendant'. What morons. She flipped to the front of the book but couldn't find the name of the editor anywhere.

The book, apart from that error, was quite informative. It told her a few things she didn't know (or couldn't remember) about Salazar, including that he had dabbled in the Dark side of magic far more than just raising his little sister from the dead. After her death he had done all sorts of horrible things, including hiding a basilisk in a secret chamber under the school. Even before she'd been shot Salazar had been doing deals with demons and had even Petrified a small village girl, according to the author.

It was the morning after the Midsummer feast and festival, and Ariane was still dressed in her blue holiday clothes; crushed flowers in her hair where she hadn't bothered to remove them the night before. Salazar had actually let her go to the party in the village that year instead of keeping her inside with him (Salazar hated parties and feasts of all kinds), and Ariane meant to thank him.

She knocked on his workroom door and then poked her head inside. "Salazar?" she called. The underground room was quite dark and quite empty except for a single guttering candle on his desk that illuminated several pages of Salazar's cramped, precise handwriting. Ariane went into the room to blow out the candle, thinking that Salazar had gone to bed late again and forgotten to put out all his lights. After considering the tiny flame, she picked it up by the holder so that when she blew wax wouldn't spatter on Salazar's notes, then turned away from the desk. She had lifted it to her face and pursed her lips to put out the light when something caught her eye directly opposite her.

A face, a human face, white as marble, blank eyes wide and glassy, lips parted as if in shock. It looked dead.

Ariane shrieked and dropped the candle. The face was hidden in darkness now, but Ariane still stared at where it had been, unable to move, her whole body shaking with fright and adrenaline. There was a thump from above—someone in Slytherin House had heard her fright—and then Salazar burst through the door with one of Rowena's glass lamps in his hand, his face drawn with fear.

"Ariane!" he exclaimed. "What's wrong?"

The glass lamp (a ball of glass in which a strange, otherworldly light was imprisoned) was much brighter than the candle, and it threw the corpse into high relief. Ariane pointed at it, her hand trembling, unable to make a sound. Salazar swore and threw a blanket over it, then turned back to her and grabbed her hands appealingly. "Little sister—" he began, bending down so that he could look into her eyes.

"What was it?" she asked hollowly, still staring at the now-hidden corpse. "Who was it?"

"Who is it," Salazar corrected. "Ariane, she's not dead." His black hair hid one of his eyes from her. "It was an accident," he began, but Ariane interrupted him.

"Who is she, Salazar?"

Salazar blinked and then looked back at the unmoving girl. "I don't know. I was researching Petrification and doing some tests on rats, and she wandered in during one of my tests. I think she's someone from the village."

"She's Petrified." Her voice sounded very hollow and distant.

"Yes."

"Not dead?"

"No, she's still alive."

Ariane looked over his shoulder at the small, blanket-covered form. "How do you get someone un-Petrified?" she asked.

Salazar winced. "That's what I was doing the experiments for. I don't know how."

"What?" Ariane jerked her hands out of his. "You mean that she's just going to be propped against the back wall of your workshop until you figure out how to undo it? Salazar, you can't do that to a girl that doesn't even know what magic is!"

Salazar looked a bit hurt at her tone, but raised his chin in his most stubborn fashion and replied, "Do you know how long I've been working on this? Months and months, Ariane. I will not be forced to abandon this by some Muggle." His tone was absolute, and she wilted before it. All her starch defiance was gone. "Ariane, I would never hurt anyone on purpose—well, only if they were going to hurt you—and even then I would feel horrible about it."

"I know, Salazar," she said quietly. "Sorry." And she crept out guiltily, convinced that she had done him wrong.

Ariane let the book fall open onto her knees as she clapped both her hands over her mouth. She knew better now. I was only nine years old, she reasoned with herself. How could I have known that he'd been fooling around with Dark Magic?

Maybe you should have known when he let you out of his sight for hours at a time. He didn't want you underfoot while he was Petrifying rats.

"Not to mention that the raising of the dead is necromancy of an almost unheard of degree," she murmured. "Should I really hate the thing that brought me back?" Resolutely Ariane closed The Rise and Fall of the Dark Arts and lay down, one hand still winding her curls. She hadn't taken a good look in a mirror yet, but she supposed she looked a bit like a silky-haired goat a month after shearing season. I don't want to think about that either, Ariane decided, and tried to wipe her mind blank.

The girl's glassy eyes seemed to stare at her whenever she closed her eyes. Ariane drifted off to sleep only to jolt awake again, plagued by a vision of the girl. She had been quite young, Ariane decided around four in the morning. Probably no older than eight, with thick gold plaits and wide brown eyes. I don't even know if Salazar got her un-Petrified. I don't even know her name.

Ariane drifted off to sleep again and managed to stay that way for what felt like five minutes, and then awoke soaked in freezing sweat. Her nightmare had expanded to the girl reaching out to clutch at the blue holiday dress she'd been wearing, ripping at it until Ariane couldn't get away from her. Ariane could nearly feel the frozen dead fingers snatching at the crushed flowers in her silver hair. Panting, she got out of bed and poured herself a glass of water. As she downed it, spilling water down the front of her pajamas, she saw the first hint of sunlight hit the surface of the lake outside the window, making the black depths sparkle green and blue on the dormitory floor.

She swore under her breath and climbed back into bed. This was going to be an awful day, she thought as she buried her head underneath a pillow.

If she hadn't been achy-eyed and stumbling from her lack of sleep, Ariane would have immediately noticed the change in conversation when she entered the Great Hall later that morning. As it was, she was pouring heaps of sugar into her coffee before she noticed Daphne staring at her. "What?" she asked grumpily. "Pass the marmalade." Tuyet passed it obligingly, but didn't say anything either. Ariane spread great sticky lumps of marmalade onto her bread and took a bite. Her teeth made ridges in the marmalade.

Daphne chose to start talking while Ariane's jaws were glued together. "I don't suppose you've seen the paper yet today?"

"What paper?" Ariane asked blankly, once she had swallowed. Draco was watching her with keen interest from further down the table. "Any paper in particular?"

"The Daily Prophet," Tuyet said bluntly. "You're in it."

Ariane dropped her bread, which fell marmalade-side down onto the floor. Splut. "What?" she gasped. "Why?" Her insides had gone to ice. That odd insect in the clock—Harry was right—oh god.

Draco unfurled a copy and handed it to her. A shiny print of the Queen of Spades from Madam Pince's cards crowned the seventh page of the paper, above the headline "A Girl That Shouldn't Exist." Beneath the headline was a picture of her sitting cross-legged inside the clock, not quite looking at the viewer, a curl twined around her finger.

Ariane read the headline again, her face brilliant red, and then continued to the rest of the article.

By the time she was done, she would not have been surprised if steam were rising from the top of her head, she was so embarrassed.

Rita had written a lot of things that were untrue and a lot of things that were uncomfortably true, but the most hurtful thing she had written was 'This girl, a bastard child of a summer wanderer, cannot possibly know that her existence is not only impossible, it is also illegal.' Ariane knew that she was a bastard, knew that she would never know who her father really was, but she would have given almost anything to stop Rita Skeeter from writing it in a major publication. The horrible woman didn't stop there, either: 'When the necromancy was used to bring this girl back to life, her real father must have been found—but who it is nobody alive could say, as his real identity was known to nobody, not even the woman he impregnated.'

There were no words for the feelings swirling inside Ariane's head, but Rita had also managed to put some words in the paper that Ariane had never said in her life. Not only that, Rita had implied that Salazar had wanted Ariane to marry him, and she all but stated that they had been incestuous.

"That awful woman," Ariane said, voice thick with emotion. "How could she tell lies about my family like that? How dare she? I never even spoke to her!"

"It's complete rubbish," Tuyet agreed with feeling when Ariane laid down the paper. "How could you be a thousand years old?"

Ariane swallowed hard and tried to blink back the tears of rage and humiliation that were prickling at the corners of her eyes. "I don't know," she said shakily. "How could she write such horrible things? About my father..." The thought of her father sent her over the edge, and dark tears began to spot the gray cloth on her lap. Daphne made a sympathetic noise and patted her shoulder. "And my brother!" Ariane burst out, angrily swiping a tear from her cheek. "How can she suggest that I ever—would even consider—"

"Disgusting lies," Daphne said soothingly, shaking her head.

Tuyet picked up the paper and in a grand gesture lit it afire with her wand. It was a nice thought, but it earned Tuyet two night's detention from Professor McGonagall.

Ariane could barely bring herself to look up at the rest of the school. They must know, otherwise they wouldn't be whispering, whispering about her past, whispering about her parents, whispering about her brother. When she did look up, it was to grab her cup of coffee, stand, and walk out of the room, trying to ignore the voices and the wet traces on her cheeks. By the time she was out of the Great Hall, she was nearly running.

She didn't go to her morning class—she couldn't even remember what it was. Instead she explored the Slytherin Common room, looking for rooms that she remembered but seemed to have vanished. Salazar's old workroom, for one.

It was empty, which gave her time to study the old architecture through the newer plaster and moldings that had been added after her time. It also gave her something to concentrate on besides her embarrassment and her hatred of Rita Skeeter. Ariane wasn't very good at facing those things that loomed ahead, instead she focused on the present and the common room.

After carefully considering all angles of the common room, Ariane went over to the fireplace and knocked on the stone wall to its left. It made a dull noise, not entirely solid but still stone. "They must have bricked up his workshop after he died," she muttered to herself, running a hand over her shorn curls.

"Whose workshop?" someone asked curiously from behind her. Ariane thought that her heart would fail, but instead she whipped around and saw Harry and Ron standing in the middle of the Common Room looking at her.

"What are you doing?" she demanded. "This is the Slytherin common room!"

Ron blinked at her. "Yes, it is," he nodded, with the air of someone talking down to a lesser intelligence.

"How did you get in?" she asked wildly. "Why didn't I see you? How did you find out the password?"

Harry and Ron exchanged glances and grins, but, infuriatingly, both said nothing. Ariane then decided to kill them both and hide the bodies. It was just too much to deal with, having her name in the paper and having no hair and nightmares and two Gryffindors standing in the Slytherin common room looking quite comfortable with their situation. "Tell me," she said, pointing her wand at both of them, "Or I swear I'll hex you both into oblivion."

"Take it easy," Harry told her. "We read the article."

"Funny, so did the whole school!"

"We came to see if you were all right."

"I'm fine." Her tone would have been quite reasonable if it hadn't been so loud. Ron raised his eyebrows skeptically. "I'm fine!" Ariane shouted. Sparks shot out of the end of her wand.

"Blimey, point that thing somewhere else," Ron told her, raising his hands to protect his face.

"What're you looking for?" Harry asked casually. Ariane was about to tell him that it was none of his business at all when she felt something in her head go—odd. It was as though her thoughts were shifting without her permission, and without prompting the memory of Salazar's workroom came into the front of her mind. She shot a sharp look at Harry, who gazed innocently back.

"Stop it," she told him, and then gave a fierce mental shove to reorder her thoughts. Harry winced. "That's rude," she informed him.

"Sorry," he said, looking at least a little ashamed of himself. Ariane supposed that it was some sort of progress.

She hesitated for a moment, then asked, "How did you do that?"

"What're you looking for?"

Ron watched them glare at each other for a minute or so, then got bored. "Harry, this is stupid. If you two are just going to stare, I'm going. I don't fancy being here when the rest of the Slytherins come back." Ariane and Harry glanced at him, then back at each other. "Look, trade answers or something."

Ariane thought that was an excellent idea. She didn't think that the location of Salazar's workshop would be a big secret; the only reason she was hiding it was because Harry wanted to know it. Knowing how he had been reading her thoughts would be a lot more valuable than a dusty old workroom.

"Fine by me," she said coolly.

"All right. What is it?"

"You go first."

Harry and Ron exchanged looks again, but this time Ariane could read them. Should I tell her? Harry was asking. Ron replied with a 'We shouldn't waste more time here, this was your stupid idea' look.

"Right," Harry said. "All you have to do is sort of relax into a persons thoughts. You just sort of breathe with them and concentrate on what you want to know, and eventually it floats to the top of their minds. It works better if the other person's all worked up about something, though."

Ariane made a mental note to practice this. "I was looking for Salazar's old workroom," she confessed. "Wait—does he—" Well, it was stupid, but she wasn't sure that Ron knew that Rita's article was loosely based in reality.

"Ron knows. And so does Hermione." Before Ariane could get very angry that Harry had told two other people, he said, "I told Hermione because I knew she'd love a challenge, figuring out your past."

"And I'm not going to tell anyone, so will you please point that thing someplace else?" Ron asked, gesturing at her wand, which was still pointed at their faces.

Ariane peered at them. "Where's Hermione?"

"Taking notes in Defense Against the Dark Arts. Look, we skipped Connor's class for this, and she'll get all of us for it later. Can't we just be friendly for a few minutes?"

She made a face and put her wand down. "I'm not sure I like being a challenge."

Harry changed the subject. "So where's the workroom supposed to be?"

Ariane pointed to the left of the fireplace. "This part of the common room actually used to be the kitchen for Slytherin House. Salazar's workroom was to the left of the hearth, down a flight of stairs. It looks like the entrance has been moved, though."

"Or covered up," Harry agreed. "Are you sure this is the right fireplace?"

"Positive. I'd recognize it anywhere." A long pause stretched as they considered the wall to the left of the fireplace.

Ron peered at the blank stone wall. "It looks a bit like the entrance to the Slytherin Common room. Is there a password?" Ariane thought that it was an utterly stupid idea—how many stretches of blank stone wall were there in Hogwarts? Thousands? Should she go to each of them and shout passwords until she was blue in the face? Harry seemed to think it had merit, though.

"Try a password, Ariane," he urged her.

"Like what?" she demanded. "I think we should just try to blast the stones off the doorway." Harry and Ron both gave her incredulous looks. "Oh, fine."

And, much to her irritation, she did as Harry asked. "Salazar Slytherin. Serpent. Draconus." Ariane had gone through everything she could think of that had anything remotely to do with Salazar or Slytherin House and repeated a few of them in Old French and Latin per request. "This is stupid," she told them. "It's probably been bricked up or destroyed."

"Wait. What was that last one?"

"Malefactor. It was what we called Godric's oldest son."

"What's it mean?"

"An evil-doer." Ariane smiled a little wickedly at the consternation on the two Gryffindor's faces. It was easy for her to imagine the Founders as real people who belched and swore and occasionally made awesome things happen, but Harry and Ron probably knew as much about Godric Gryffindor as she knew about America. Godric's eldest son had been foul-mouthed, fatter than anyone she'd ever seen before, and lazy as anything. She remembered Godric's irritation that his lands and titles would be left to such a pig, but luckily for Godric the Malefactor had suffered a stroke when Ariane was fifteen. They had found him in the privies, if her memory was accurate.

"Try saying it in Parseltongue," Harry suggested, breaking through her thoughts.

Ariane tried it without asking how he knew she spoke Parseltongue. It didn't work. "Your guess is as good as mine as to what it could be," she told him. "We've been here nearly an hour. People will be coming back soon. There's no other way out...out of the common room..." she stopped and stared into space, seeing Salazar's young face in her mind. "There will always be another way out for us," she murmured to herself, running a hand over her curls. "It's a total guess, but it could work—he would know that it was only me who would know the password..."

"What?" Ron asked, confused.

"Death forgot me," Ariane hissed in Parseltongue. Harry made a small noise of recognition.

At first, nothing happened. Then, slowly, a section of the ornate mantle sunk backwards and downward, leaving a dark passageway that showed the top of a flight of stairs spiraling down. There was at least four inches of dust on the stairs, making them look dreamlike and powdery. Smiling triumphantly, Ariane looked over her shoulder at Harry and Ron's aghast faces.

"Coming?"

Author's Note: Sorry that this took so long. I wrote half of it, went on vacation for two weeks (couldn't take my laptop, I was crushed), and when I came back and read what I had written--and I hated it. It was horrible. So I rewrote it, and hopefully it's less horrible now. Leave me a review.