In memory of my Great Grandmother, Teta Suzette, who always had lights in her eyes.
After a while of silence, Blaise put the book away, shaking his head. He didn't believe me. I tried to think. Batty Betty, my Grandmother. She married my late Grandfather when she was very young, and had my mother very soon after, soon enough, that it is possible my mother was not his. She turned into 'Batty Betty' during the rise of Lord Voldemort, when she began to go off on rants about him. "He's mine!" she would claim in her delirium. It got so bad, they sent her off to St Mungo's, and that's where she resided now.
"St Mungo's!" I exclaimed, excitedly. "She's there right now! We can go during the weekend and visit her! She'll tell us if it was her or not!"
Blaise looked at me solemnly. He still wasn't convinced. But for a second there, I saw a spark in his eyes, the momentary excitement we had felt- both of us- when we found BMB, maybe I could sway that part of him.
"What if?" I asked quietly, trying to break the film that had fallen over his eyes, making him feel distant. I took his hand, drawing him back. He blinked, as if stepping into a bright light.
"What if..." he repeated, hypnotically. I saw cogs begin to turn in his head. The endless possibilities of that question began to unravel themselves. What if the heir of Slytherin returned? What would that bring to the school? Fame? Infamy? What would that mean about me? It would be... a relief. To know that I was a Slytherin in blood and not heart. I began to feel a warm kind of hope steal over me. What if, what if, what if.
Slowly, Blaise nodded. "St Mungo's." was all he said, but it was all I needed. The affirmation.
"This Saturday," I agreed, and the clocks began to chime, slightly muted by the library's silent atmosphere.
I wrote the next day to my grandmother Betty. There was something about her. While I had been told since I was young that she was mad, she never seemed so to me. She was always friendly, but more than that. As if she knew something that I didn't, she always had a secret. It was ignited in her eyes, and as a child she would lean into me, draw me in as if to share it. She was a brilliantly eccentric woman, but no, not mad.
It was only when my fondness for my grandmother became apparent that I was forbidden to see her. My parents used to take me up every three moths or so- blindfolded like some kind of 'adventure', but actually so as not to upset me- and began to worry at the things she would tell me. She would always speak to me of a boy, one like I should hope to find, who was the kindest, gentlest person she had ever loved. When I told my friends, my parents would visibly squirm, but I remained oblivious about whom she was referring. The last time I saw her, she was telling me of the time she snuck into his room, when my mother snatched me away from her, telling her to stop. My memory stops precisely at that moment, it must have been tampered with by a Ministry agent, and I never saw Betty again.
I think I missed her.
No matter, I would soon reunite with Betty, and this time I will listen much more carefully about what she was trying to tell me, the secret that burned in her semi-feverish touch as she would take my hand and hiss at me; "Listen to me child! Love is something well worth finding. Nothing lasts, but you must treasure it for the time that it lives, and never resent it when it perishes."
St Mungo's Hospital for Magical Maladies has a somewhat dull exterior. A condemned building in London called Purge and Dowse Ltd. In order to enter the hospital, one must step through a broken window, but the inside is quite remarkable. It is a large hospital, which houses in it every ill and injured wizard in Britain who needs the attention. In comparison to the muggle population, that wasn't much.
With Blaise behind me, I began to make my way through the endless corridors, I found myself back in my childhood, playing don't step between the lines, a way my parents devised to stop me from looking up and around me. I walked along the familiar path on the tiles of St Mungo's pristine white floor, relearning my way along the slight slants and abnormalities which made my path. On the fourth floor up, I finally- for the first time- looked up. Above me was a sign. SPELL DAMAGE WARD it read.
I began to walk towards the North Wing, knowing instinctively without the floor as my guide that that was my desired direction. Looking around, I couldn't believe what I had been missing. Through slightly-ajar doors, I saw patients with the oddest conditions. A man with a nose that had grown three times its size and taken on an unnatural green colour turned to me as I peeked inside. I turned away immediately, quickening my pace. Past me then walked a man whose very shoes seemed to be biting his toes. Finally, we reached the room I knew to be the one.
As I raised my hand to knock, an older woman, a healer paused and looked at me.
"What are you doing?" She asked, not accusingly, but in that half-patronising interest nurses take on. "Ms Bellast doesn't like visitors." She said, frowning down her nose.
"It's fine, I'm her granddaughter," I explained.
The woman looked at me with an extended glance. "Angeline?" She finally asked.
"Yes..." I did not recognise the woman, but she seemed to remember me.
"We haven't seen you for a while Angeline! What are you doing here without your par-" at that point, she evidently spotted the wand that was protruding from my waistband. "Oh, Angeline! You are a witch, I knew it! I am so happy for you!" The unexpected exclamation from the healer drew some attention, and presently another healer, a more portly healer with a nasty expression waddled over.
"Really, Pauline, what is the meaning of this? What is it you want, Dearie?" She spoke with a Yorkshire accent, and said the word 'Dearie' with a kind of impatience.
"Just to see my Grandmother, Betty Bellast." The woman's brow furrowed and she huffed angrily, and Pauline put a hand on her arm.
"Now, now, Mathilde, Betty is a sweet lady,"
"She's a waste of a bed. She's mad, not charmed. There's nothing we can do for her here. I don't care what circumstances she came here under." With that, the woman waddled off, stomping slightly more than her rotunde figure necessarily had to.
"What circumstances?" I asked, puzzled.
"Your Grandmother was brought here, a young girl. She was pregnant with your mother at the time, I suppose your Grandfather was already dead. Your mother practically grew up here until she started going to Hogwarts."
"Brought? Who brought her here?" Pauline just shook her head.
"I never saw him when I took her, he was wearing a cloak that entirely covered him. However, when he passed her to me, I caught a glimpse of his eyes. They were so young, so... scared. 'I've ruined her.' he said to me, and I promised then, I promised I would take care of her. Then he was gone." She shook her head. "No matter, go on in. She should be awake."
Me and Blaise went in, shutting the door behind us. The room was bare. No pictures lined the walls or the table and chair in the corner, no flowers sat in a vase, only a bed and inside it, a frail old woman. She was dying quite possibly, but as I looked at her, her back straightened and something kindled in her eyes once again. No, not dying. Just as I remembered her. Betty.
I ran to her, five years old again, and wrapped my arms around her. She began to giggle hysterically.
"Angie! My Angie!" she kept shouting, "Ok, you're strangling me child, who is this?" she was suddenly distracted by Blaise. He stepped forward.
"Blaise Zabini, Ms Bellast, I'm Angie- Angeline's friend." She turned to me and gave me a look. Is this the one? I shook my head furiously. She chuckled again.
"Why are you here, Angie, your mother would be wild if she found out. I received your owl, I'm, so happy you're finally at Hogwarts."
"Thank you, we were actually here to talk to you about Hogwarts, about your time there. Grandma, tell me about my Grandfather."
She paused, "Your Grandfather was a good man, sweetheart. It was such a shame you never got to meet him. He was a lovely husband to me..."
I shook my head. "No, Grandma. My real Grandfather. You told me about him so many times. I want to hear it again."
She looked at me for a long while, trying to feign confusion. I stared back defiantly until a tear began to roll down her cheek.
"Your Grandfather was a good man, a wonderful, kind, sweet man. And I loved him very much. I know he loved me to. No matter how dark he was, not matter what he did to push me away, he would always pull me back eventually. But no, he was not the man I married. You know what I say. Love is something well worth finding. Nothing lasts, but you must treasure it for the time that it lives, and never resent it when it perishes. Both my loves have perished, but your true Grandfather, he's the one I miss most."
"His name," Blaise finally said. I was almost startled, having forgotten that he was in the room. He was much more stunned then I was to hear about my Grandfather. I had kept the stories in my heart for all this time, but this was the first time he had heard them.
"Tom," she said, lowering her head back into the pillow, her eyes drooping. "My Riddle.