Chapter 21
Flitwick was very disappointed to discover that the three fourth years were also sporting gloves and hats at breakfast the next day.
"My office!" he squeaked.
Resignedly they took themselves to the head of Ravenclaw's office.
"Take off the gloves and hats," demanded Flitwick.
Reluctantly they did so.
Their hands were red, and their foreheads bore the word 'thief'.
"I see," said Flitwick. "So, you tripped the protective wards set up by your victim …"
"Sir, nobody has any right to put harmful jinxes like that, taking away someone's character!" whined one of the girls.
"I don't see anyone whose character has been taken away," said Filius. "I see three little thieves, who have been targetting another boy since his first year, and who have finally been caught, literally red handed. I had my suspicions about who was damaging or taking Lovegood's work, which is about as despicable a thing as anyone can do to a scholar, to attack their scholarship! You are despicable! I doubt even Slytherin would be so low as to do that, though I can see it of some of the more bone-headed Gryffindors who place no value in scholarship! I am glad that at last I know who has been involved in the stealing from Mr. Lovegood!"
"I suppose he's run whining about every little joke when we hid stuff, it wasn't stealing," said the girl.
"Miss Crawford, it was stealing! And no, I have heard nothing from Mr. Lovegood at all, who has stoically taken detentions that you should have taken for not handing in his work, because you have …hidden it. Which means, unless you give him a clue as to where it is hidden, you have the intent to permanently deprive, and that is the definition of theft! You were too cowardly to tell him you had taken it and permit him to retrieve it, which might have been some mitigation! Well, as you have not grown out of such wicked and childish tricks by your age, you will not be hiding behind hats and gloves any longer; I will find out how long the marks of warding last and if it is permanent I will endeavour to remove it, in due course. In the meantime, I have here a list of the detentions Mr. Lovegood has served during the past four years as a result of lost or defaced work, and you will be serving those detentions as well. I looked them up when he told me he had warded his work when I congratulated him on the spell which hoisted you, and he told me he had received help from Gryffindor firsties. I can see why you were too ashamed to admit it. And I should think that your evenings will be taken up for the rest of the term and parts of next with the detentions you are due."
"Sir, that's not fair!" the boy said.
"Not fair, Mr. Dagworth? How do you figure that? Was it fair for Mr. Lovegood to serve all those detentions? It was not. He has done punishment for the wrongdoing of others! Others who have sought to ridicule him for some strange reason of their own because they fear his ability to see auras and name them as they are! You are, I'm afraid, nargles, otherwise known as thieving malicious brats!"
"It wasn't only us that did it!" cried Dagworth.
"Then if you would care to tell me who else was a nargle, I shall include them in the punishment," said Flitwick.
"And let us off some?"
"No, Mr. Dagworth that is not part of the bargain. You chose to pick on and bully another member of your house. Therefore you will be undertaking just punishment for that bullying. And anyone else who may have done so will suffer the same consequences! Bullying is an activity for those who have insufficient brainpower to achieve anything meaningful, and you should be careful that I do not insist that you be re-hatted into one of the other houses where witless violence might be more in keeping with the ethos of that house. You are despicable, and if any of you come to my notice ever again you will be expelled. Now you will start tonight with a two hour detention with Professor Slughorn scrubbing cauldrons; I will have your detention schedule drawn up and posted on the common room wall by tomorrow."
Wails of protest were to no avail, and Flitwick dismissed the miscreants and went to talk to those professors who had punished Xenophilus Lovegood over the previous four years.
Perhaps it might teach those three the value of tolerance of those with odd gifts and persuade them that bullying was a really bad idea.
There again, maybe Mrs. Norris would learn to whistle, reflected Flitwick, but one had to try.
OoOoOo
Xenophilus had never been a joiner; largely because his slightly offbeat outlook on the world tended to put people off rather than to encourage them to be friendly towards him. However, he was soon finding that even though the majority of his new friends were firsties, they were well-read and largely intelligent firsties, who asked him sensible questions about his own odd senses.
"The fae use something called 'glamour'," he explained. "They like to appear lordly and imposing to mortals, but as often as not, it's all a lie, and they are dirty and ragged. There is supposed to be an ointment that can be brewed to give mortals true seeing, but I'm not sure how much that is truth and how much is muggle legend. Rather like the tales of Beedle the Bard, some of which might have bases in truth but which have been romanticised over the years. Some people believe firmly in the three deathly hallows, and they might be based on real artefacts."
"Lily and I don't have a clue what you're talking about," said Petunia.
Xenophilus was a good yarn-spinner, and he told the stories.
"Here, wait a minute," said James, "My invisibility cloak is a family heirloom, and hasn't lost any of its abilities since my great grandfather at least wrote about it in his diary. And we're supposed to be descended from the Peverells."
"Isn't that a little far fetched?" asked Lily.
"Dunno, but Phil is right, most of them lose invisibility after fifty years or so," said James. "And if that's real, then the other hallows might be as well."
"Not that the others are half so useful," said Severus. "Who wants to bring back the dead, all uncomfortable and cold! And as for a special wand, well, I don't think it does to rely on a wand, it makes you weak and sloppy. That's why we're practicing to cast wandlessly as well as practising wordlessly. If we can ever do both we'll be more awesome than any elder wand."
"Yeah, spot on," agreed Sirius. "However good your wand is, any spell someone can see and hear coming can be countered."
"Anyway," said Phil, "Whether your cloak is one of the hallows or not, which sounds far fetched, but stranger things can happen, the fae can see through their own glamour, and can choose not to do so. Those of us with fae blood who can see through glamour don't have the choice because we see through it and can't avoid it. And we can also see something of the … the colours of the souls of mortals, and see health and sickness, poison, lying, malice, goodness and … and so on. Sometimes it's a bit scary."
"I imagine it would be," said Narcissa, who had joined them. She was spending more time with Fabian, but tried to meet up with the Marauders when she could. "I bet you're glad you're not a Slytherin, we take lying to an art form."
"But your soul is bright," said Phil. "I would not like it, I think, but Ravenclaws can lie to themselves, and that is worrying."
OoOoOo
"Horace, what do you recall about Tom Riddle?" asked Tiberius Prince, casually.
"Tom Riddle? He was a very talented student. None of us had any idea he was going to turn bad," said Horace.
"I understand he had a good line of charm," said Tiberius.
"You could say that," Horace was unwilling to discuss it.
"Member of the Slug Club, I have no doubt," said Tiberius.
"Well, of course, I always invite the talented to join. I was unconcerned about his birth; I've never been bothered about blood purity."
"No, you have the sense you were born with, Horace," Tiberius smiled. "Candied pineapple? I got a box for us to share, I know you like them too."
"Oh, thank you, Tiberius! I am partial to them."
Tiberius smiled. The draught he had brewed was nothing like so crude as a babbling potion, or even as brute force as veritaserum. It was just a relaxant.
"So, you were going to tell me about the book he was telling you about, with egophonic magic in it?"
"Yes, he told me it was potentially very useful."
"Did he mention the cruentes horae as well?"
"A fanciful name, he anglicised it to 'horcrux'," said Horace. "The 'wounds of the goddesses of the hours at the gates of heaven' seemed a little fanciful. However, I pointed out that it was an unwise step for anyone to take, because it wasn't wounding some airy-fairy bint of a goddess, but wounding one's own soul, and to consider more than one was just horrific."
"More than one? Surely not!"
"I know, the silly boy was talking about six, so one had an arithmantically correct number of pieces of soul." The fat potions professor shuddered, which did ugly things to his waistcoat.
"Well, there were a number of interesting things in that sixteenth century manual by Lucius Apul,"
"Yes, and I wish Tom hadn't found it."
"Indeed. Six horcruces! Do you think he's managed to make that many?"
"Oh, I cannot think so. The ritual is quite complex."
"That's true. How many do you suppose he has?"
"Oh, dear me, I couldn't undertake to say. No more than four. He couldn't have done the preparation at school, and I imagine it must have been taken several years to be ready to make the first. If he did go ahead … Tiberius, I swore to myself I'd never even remember this again!"
"Because he persuaded you to talk about making more than one? I expect the nasty little creep fed you a babbling draught."
Horace stared in horror, pausing before selecting another piece of pineapple.
"Really? Do you think so?" he was aghast.
"He knew how to keep you happy with sweeties," said Tiberius, helping himself to pineapple himself.
"And of course he would not be eating with me … even he was not that bold," said Horace. "Tiberius, I fear you may have the truth; he poisoned me with babbling draught!"
"Most dishonourable of him," said Tiberius, helping himself to the last sweetie in the row of adulterated ones. He had already taken the antidote, and Horace could test the rest to his heart's content and would find them quite unaffected. It was by understanding psychology that Tiberius had induced Horace to eat three of the only four affected sweeties in the box.
OoOoOo
"Horcruces, Albus," said Tiberius.
"Plural of horcrux?" Albus raised an eyebrow. "I only have the vaguest of ideas what that may be."
"A horcrux is a part of the soul, split off in a vile ceremony which includes as its culmination the deliberate murder of another person. The preparation of an object to become a horcrux involves immersing it in a potion comprising, among other things, mandrake and unicorn blood. It is unstable, however, and one cannot prepare several batches to re-use at a later date. Though I do not rule out the preparation of a number of horcrux hosts in a single batch. Have I actually shocked you, Albus?"
"Somewhat. I confess to being taken aback. On what do you base the idea that he might have more than one?"
"Horace. Apparently Riddle spoke to him of the efficacy of multiple horcruces."
"Why has Horace never told me?" the tone was slightly petulant.
"Because, Albus, he is not proud of discussing the matter; and at least I am a fellow Slytherin," said Tiberius. And because devious and manipulative old devil that you are, you could still take lessons from a Slytherin in constructive poisoning, he thought.
OoOoOo
"Albus is of the opinion that when Riddle came to Hogwarts to apply again for the job of DADA teacher last year, he came to steal some significant item to make into a horcrux, but in my opinion he was using the opportunity to hide one, under the eyes of his greatest enemy in the last place he would look," Tiberius told Abraxus Malfoy.
Abraxus nodded.
"Albus does not understand the Slytherin mindset," he said. "It would be a way to cock a snoot at him to do so. I doubt he would choose Albus' own office, joyous irony as it would be, but I would not be surprised to find something hidden in Slytherin House itself."
"And the foul miasmas of such an item might also have an effect on the weak minded and make them prey to his whispers," said Tiberius. "It would tend to explain why Slytherin House has become more contentious than I recall it in my youth."
"Hah! Then you need to discover it and destroy it."
"Yes. And I have studied the ritual by which the damaged soul is ripped from the wizard making the horcrux, in order to embed it into the prepared object, and I believe I can prepare a ritual to remove the fragment from the object into which it it placed. Though it may also destroy that object."
"Well, it isn't exactly something you can try on an odd horcrux you find lying about to test it," Abraxus was ironic.
"No, quite, I have to get it right and hope that it won't alert him."
"I don't envy you."
"No, but our House spawned him, our House needs to deal with him, what comes from Slytherin stays in Slytherin. But I'm not too proud to have help from others."