Interview with the Slytherin Childe
Part II: The Private Interview
X-X-X-X-X-X-X-X-X-X
Rita found herself stunned, bound, and floating through the air. She was only conscious of her location – a dark room, probably within the castle – after someone woke and freed her.
A voice, young sounding, came from the shadows of the room.
"Do you have the ability to think anything through, Rita Skeeter? Or do you always swoop in without regard to the rules?" The voice chuckled lightly. "I guess we'll find out starting tomorrow. You'll have important work to do, Rita."
The voice became increasingly distant. Finally, a door opened and a sliver of light flashed across the floor.
"One warning, this one you should follow. There are powerful wards preventing self-transfiguration. I wouldn't try assuming your animagus form as long as you're within the wards here. We wouldn't want you ripping yourself to pieces accidentally, now would we?"
The voice went silent and the door seemed to close again.
But it was a very long time before Rita Skeeter managed to fall asleep in what she assumed was a prison cell of some sort.
X-X-X-X-X-X-X-X-X-X
Rita woke early the next morning as the insistent sunlight seemed to be aimed at her head. She groaned and sat up. She saw she was still in her clothes and was tucked into an obviously transfigured bed. What surprised her was that she was in what she remembered was the potions classroom at Hogwarts.
Was it now a prison cell?
She stood up and began searching for her shoes and her wand. The shoes she found. But not the wand. It wasn't terribly surprising. But Rita was more than a little angry at herself for getting caught for the first time ever.
The door to the classroom opened and a house elf walked inside bearing a breakfast tray. The little thing bobbed and weaved so much it should have thrown half the tray's contents to the stone floor. But nothing was amiss when she finally grasped it and thanked the elf.
She ate quickly, not at all sure if or when she'd be able to eat again. She finished everything on the tray and felt more than a little full.
As she moved to set the tray on the floor, Albus Dumbledore walked into the room. "Ms. Skeeter, please come with me. You're wanted, it seems."
She stood up silently, leaving the tray on the floor, and walked behind Dumbledore as the pair swept back up through the dungeons. She could almost remember what it was like to be a student again, as Dumbledore had taught her transfiguration, of which she was a rather indifferent student.
After five minutes of silent travel, Dumbledore stopped before an innocuous door. He turned to face the reporter. "He'll be waiting inside for you. Keep your tongue in your head. Do not anger him. I fear you wouldn't enjoy the consequences."
Rita stood unmoving for nearly a minute, trying to calm and center herself. Then she reached out and grasped the door handle. She quietly unlatched it and tried to walk inside without making a sound. She wanted to see what she was walking into before she was seen.
But a small messy haired boy was smiling at her as she walked inside. He pointed wordlessly at a chair. Rita was unnerved. This child was the same one she swore she'd seen the prior day – riding on the back of a massive serpent.
After Rita sat down, the child opened his robes. He seemed to have a dozen or so odd pieces of wood arranged in a harness on his chest. He plucked one up, pointed it near to Rita, and hissed.
A massive wooden table appeared. It was conjuration unlike she'd ever seen. It wasn't Latin he'd used. It was hissing!
He pushed the odd stick – could she call the broken looking thing a wand? – back into his under-robe harness. Then he drug a chair over to the table he'd created.
"Good morning…"
That voice. It was the same as the terrifying child's voice she'd heard the night before.
"…I hope you slept well, Ms. Skeeter."
"Best night of sleep I've ever had inside a prison before."
The mirthless child smirked at her.
"Well, starting today I doubt you'll have much time for sleeping. I have a task for you. You may choose to accept or decline, of course. But, if you decline, I'm afraid you will not be leaving the castle…"
"You're a child, what could you do to me?"
"Madam, I am the Slytherin Childe. I am young and inexperienced now, just turned eleven, to be honest, but I have seen depredations that would make you ill; I have lived through strife and abuse no one should ever have to. I am battle hardened, more than a bit cruel, and I wield an army the likes of which no one has ever commanded before. It is immortal and unquestioning and completely brutal, should I wish it. Hope you never have to witness my fighters at work."
Rita had to hold her tongue. This boy looked rather like a human-colored house elf. He was dressed in rags, more or less, and kept strange bits of wood clinging to his body. Plus he had a sack that he kept near to him. She could see the hilt of a sword poking out of it. He looked like someone who'd been living rough and had just managed to take over a castle.
But she'd been warned about him. She'd hold her acid tongue – and her judgment – for a bit longer.
"So… I did not have you killed outright for violating the warning because I have a use for you, Ms. Skeeter…"
She shivered a bit before inquiring. "What 'use'?"
"You will be writing my official history. It will be a private volume, a single copy only. It will be part of what I leave behind, you understand…"
"I'm to be your biographer?"
The child inclined his head for a moment. "If you prefer that term, then yes."
What eleven year old needs a biographer? And why her? Why now? She wanted to close her eyes and wake up from whatever alcohol-induced nightmare she was suffering.
She closed her eyes for a moment to consider her 'options.' There was only the one option as far as she could see: acquiescence.
Perhaps proximity to this little monster would give her leverage; perhaps it would make escaping a possibility. She nodded.
"One more warning, Ms. Skeeter. Anyone trying to leave the wards without permission is sent to a special holding cell. It's a rather unpleasant place, you see, as it's forty feet underneath the lake out front. And open to the elements. I'll only have it checked for occupants once a week or so. So, you'd best watch yourself and keep your scheming to a minimum."
The boy – this self-proclaimed Slytherin Childe – led her from the room. He apparently planned on a tour of the castle. A very odd tour.
X-X-X-X-X-X-X-X-X-X
"Here is our first stop. Incidentally, much of what we see in here will form the basis for the early portions of the book you will be writing…"
The door was completely unremarkable, but still Rita was scared to pass inside.
The Slytherin Childe opened the door before Rita could move away. What she saw inside – the tableau present there – confused her and then terrified her.
There were three grayish statues resting on crude tables. And there was something long…slithering…a massive snake! There was a massive snake moving around slowly on the floor.
"What the hell is that?"
"Seruda, one of my basilisks…"
"BASILISKS!"
"Calm yourself, you're with me. Seruda will not attack you – unless you deserve it, of course. Magical snakes have highly refined moral ethics. Kill for food; kill anyone who would kill you; petrify for pleasure. My own sense just happened to have evolved from theirs…and I am a bit more cruel."
"More cruel than a basilisk?"
The Slytherin Childe just smirked.
"These figures on the tables are…or, rather, were my last remaining blood relatives. Vernon, Petunia, and Dudley Dursley…"
"They've been petrified; why would you do that to your own family?"
"If you'd listen, I'll be glad to explain… I was two weeks away from my sixth birthday when Vernon there suddenly shoved me into the back of his Volvo. He drove for hours, then suddenly stopped near a small forest. I now know we were close to the Scottish border. He flung me out and drove off. He expected me, at not even six years of age, to fend for myself…"
Rita was shocked at that kind of craven behavior. What would drive a man to do such a thing? Abandon a child…
But what child would be living with aunts and uncles instead of parents… An orphan. An obviously magical orphan living with Muggles. A powerful orphan. Aged eleven or so. Just the age of one Harry Potter…
She opened her mouth to exclaim, but his withering stare shut Rita up. "Took you long enough, I'd say. I expected you to be a bit swifter than that, actually."
Rita just nodded, dumbly.
"They moved from their home in Surrey expecting to have seen the last of me. None of their neighbors knew anything about me, so they didn't get into any kind of trouble for abandoning me. So, I went for them. It did take me three-plus years, but I caught up with them and had some friends of mine fetch them back. As repayment, you know, for all their years of kindness towards me."
The boy looked positively feral in that moment.
"Anyway, I was abandoned near a forest. I walked inside and sat down. And I thought it was both cruel and a wonderful gift. As much as the Dursleys had hated me, I hated them. So, I was free to start over. Assuming I could manage to survive. And that's when my first friend came upon me – actually she threatened to bite me…"
"What kind of friend would bite?"
"A magical smooth snake…"
"More snakes!"
"Of course, I'm a Parselmouth. I talk to snakes. They were my first friends, my first teachers, my first guardians. They introduced me to magic; they explained that magic-speakers like myself needed magic sticks. They helped me select a slender oak branch and aided while I pushed two fangs from a dead ashwinder into the wood. I still use my first wand; powerful for elemental magic, especially fire, and also for anything wild, violent, and unpredictable. The smooth snakes cared for me until I met with an abandoned runespoor in the Forbidden Forest. He was the one who brought me into Hogwarts itself, into the Chamber of Secrets long hidden away, and introduced me to Serah the Ancient, my first true instructor in magic… The oldest basilisk currently living."
"You learned magic…from a basilisk?" Rita was torn between running and writing every detail down in her notebook. This was all fantastically rich. Her curiosity was overriding her fear for the time being.
"I learned human magic from a basilisk and I learned parsel magic, too. The snake magics are vastly different, though, meant for stealth, mind magics, and healing. The language is so old, a million years or more closer to when the magics of the world were former than Latin is, that even a boy of six can use the parselmagics, even when wizard magic remains out of reach. Snakes do not have offensive magics, save for the basilisk's killing gaze; that's why they generally crush and use venoms. I learned invisibility, runic ward construction, how to possess or hypnotize another, and the curing of poisons and healing of wounds before I was seven…"
Rita was trying to write everything down as quickly as she could. "Snakes can become invisible and create wards? I thought those were reserved to humans only…"
"Humans learned those tricks at the knees of snakes, Ms. Skeeter. And, those skills made it possible for the snakes to keep the Chamber of Secrets hidden from the outside world for a thousand years. Did you think a dead wizard's protections would keep such a thing hidden that long? No. No magic is permanent unless it is renewed from time to time. Wards weaken; enchantments fail. Magic will atrophy unless someone pays it due attention."
Skeeter is still writing when the Slytherin Childe drags her from the room.
"We have time enough only for an introduction today. I will leave you dozens of pensieve memories to review and incorporate in your writing."
She gets a greedy look on her face. "Can I see what happened between you and Voldemort?"
Instead of an angry denial, the small boy offers her a brief nod. "It's already bottled for your viewing. I figured it would be important to this story."
Rita began to wonder how a child like this one knew so much about the world – and about his own legend. He was supposedly raised by snakes and muggles.
"All your questions will be answered, Ms. Skeeter. But in their proper order only."
The Slytherin Childe – no, Harry Potter, Rita corrected herself mentally – pulled her into another room. This one had no basilisk guarding it. But it did seem to have some interesting treasures perched on a shelf.
"My first wizard teacher was an unusual choice." Harry smiled at his little joke which Rita couldn't yet understand. "Let me see if I can explain. Serah the Ancient took me in and I lived inside the Chamber of Secrets with her, along with some of the smooth snakes and runespoor. Salazar Slytherin, the man who made Serah, had also constructed a dwelling down there. And I could see it had had more recent occupants, too. Eventually I learned to read the snake language and began to read from a small shelf of books that had been concealed very well. I discovered what a horcrux was, how to find them, and how to make the creator of a horcrux follow my will. It just so happened that the first time I used the horcrux location spell, I discovered one poorly hidden inside the Chamber of Secrets itself. I picked it up, after studying Salazar's book again, and beat it into submission. And that's how I got my first wizard teacher…"
Harry pointed to a small golden cup. "That was one of Tom Riddle's horcruxes, the one I discovered first. I used it to compel his roaming spirit to come back to me…"
"If a spirit is trapped inside an object like a genie in a lamp, as you say," Rita said, "then how was this Riddle character's floating around?"
"When one dies with a single horcrux in place, the dying portion of one's soul does not perish or get to wander around – no, it joins with its brother fragment inside the horcrux. And there it waits for someone to come along and provide their body for a resuscitation. Or for that person to have a stronger soul and thus control the horcrux itself – to turn that trapped, twisted soul into a servant. But, there is a loophole, as there is in all of magic, if one possesses more than a single horcrux. If one dies with, say, six horcruxes, then that seventh portion of the soul, the darkest, foulest part, is allowed to freely move about. It's tethered too lightly to any one of the six horcruxes so it is not reabsorbed."
The young Harry looked ready to begin explaining more about how this Tom Riddle character became his teacher, when his face froze. His eyes closed and he seemed stuck in concentration for a good long minute.
"The Ministry didn't listen. They're attacking my wards as we speak. It seems they're concentrating on the anti-floo and the …"
And that was all Harry managed to say. A massive explosion from outside the castle threw Harry to the ground. Rita was a split-second behind him. The shelf of horcruxes released all its contents and the cup landed, painfully, on Rita's head. Harry Potter, the Slytherin Childe, was back on his feet just a second later.
"I'll kill them all. They attacked me. Me… Bomb from the north, attackers on the wards in every other direction. It was planned to weaken the wards, to bring them all down. Using potion bombs or muggle weapons. They're all dead after the interrogation is over!"
He closed his eyes again. When he opened them he had a terrifying little smile on his face. Then he reached for the bag he carried with him. His hand went in and pulled out a massive sword. "Albus!"
Instead of a man, a spirit in the form of Albus Dumbledore floats into the room from a direction that meant he was outside when the blast occurred. "I was caught in it. I'm sorry. Mr. Filch and Professor Vector were helping me near the Quidditch pitch…"
"The blast got them, too?"
Albus nodded at Harry. He looked even angrier. Then he stooped down and rifled through his odd bag for a good long while. Within seconds of his starting, odd varieties of spirits began collecting inside the room. These weren't the ghosts Rita had remembered from her days as a student. They were something else – genies freed from their lamps.
"I've lowered the anti-floo ward. Take five of you and one of my basilisks and go to the lowest dungeon. I re-routed all floo arrivals there. Subdue everyone who comes through. No killing yet, not until we have full information." He turns to a vicious looking spirit. "You will go and copy the mind of the Minister of Magic. Duplicate all the paperwork. He has launched a war against me; well, every bureaucracy requires paperwork. Find it. We'll bury him in the truth before we dump his carcass in the earth." He turns to a female spirit, one that doesn't look particularly disturbing. "You will lead a team after the Minister's mind is copied. Let's send him a message. Kill all of his bodyguards and top advisors. Be sure the Minister is watching before you sever their heads from their bodies. Do not fail me, Spica Black."
He turned to point at Rita Skeeter.
"Rita, write a brief statement announcing the attack. Twelve at the gate, twenty-four from the forest, twelve on the lake. All captured. Plus the ones who floo in. Announce the deaths of three from the explosion. I doubt there will be much to return in the way of remains. You have one hour or we will add your name to the list of the victims killed in the blast."
Rita blanched and couldn't think to ask any questions before the young man was nearly at the door.
"I'm going to adjust the wards. It's time to take over the Forest. And I'll be adding the far more lethal wards to the mix. Everyone else, to the perimeter. I want them alive for now. One each to a cell. We'll have an interesting time interrogating them. Go. Now! They wanted a war. Well, they just got one."