[A/N: Chapter 11 is also very long (~15k words) and is therefore presented in two parts.]
Chapter 11: Lunacy and Madness
[In which Tom cuts his lies close to the truth, and we see things from a different perspective.]
Wednesday, 13 January – Thursday, 11 February 1993
["A rose by any other name would still be Tom." In which Diary!Tom and Luna have a chat.]
Today was a most unusual day. It started off quite normally enough, of course, as most days tend to do, but then around lunch-time I noticed that my Transfiguration notes have gone wandering again, and the Wrackspurts are particularly active and it's not even the new moon. Then right before dinner, I was visiting Myrtle and found this book… She was most upset, of course, she always is, but today moreso than usual. She said someone tried to flush it down her toilet, which was obviously a silly thing to do – there was no way it ever would have fit. But anyway, she washed it out, and flooded the loo, and when I arrived, it was the only dry thing to be seen. It seemed terribly odd. It appears to be nothing more than an old journal, empty, never used. I am always sad for things that are meant to be used and aren't. Perhaps that is why it is so very odd – like a ghost, it has unfinished business to attend. Except instead of haunting, it refuses to die until it is properly used. I have decided to help it fulfil its purpose, and so that is why I am writing here now. That and Professor McGonagall insists that I need to practice my penmanship. I don't know why she's complaining. None of the other professors do, and she can clearly read what I write. There is nothing else 'plimpie' could possibly be… I believe she secretly hates me due to a falling-out with my father over the Rotfang Conspiracy. He says she's not one of them, but I have my doubts. Ta for now, journal. The dinner-bells call.
Hello? Hello? My name is Tom. Who are you?
Oh, hello, Tom. That is a very difficult question, isn't it? I imagine most people spend all their lives deciding who they are. Perhaps I'll know when I'm older. Who are you?
You are very odd. What do they call you?
Yes, and you are quite rude. Luna.
My apologies, Luna. I did not intend to offend you.
Oh, you didn't. I thought we were just stating the obvious, and I don't know much about you, so my options were limited. Perhaps what and not who?
Pardon?
Perhaps I ought to have asked what, and not who you are, for it is clear you are a book, but I have never had or heard of a book that writes back to you. If you are a person, the first question stands, if not, strike and revise: What?
I am a memory. The young man the diary used to belong to was living in London in 1943. Do you know what was happening then?
Rains of fire from the sky, a plague upon the people of Egypt
Or London, as it were.
…Quite.
They called it the Blitz, the muggles. The boy who used this diary was afraid he would die, so he made me when he was sixteen, as an impression of his memories, so that some part of him would be sure to survive.
Like a ghost?
No.
Like a portrait?
No.
Like a horcrux?
What? Why would you say that?
Daddy says that one mustn't trust a thing if one can't see where it keeps its brain. It might be a horcrux, lying in wait to eat your soul.
No. Not a horcrux.
So you know what a horcrux is, then? I've never seen one. I think it might be like the snorkacks. Daddy says they're real, but one must always question everything, and we haven't caught one yet.
One must always question everything… are you a Ravenclaw, Luna?
I am, and you must be a Slytherin, trying to hide from my questions. What's a horcrux?
Dark magic, and not for little girls.
Then how am I to know you're not one?
Even if I was, I wouldn't tell you, so how would you know if I was?
Good question! I suppose I'd have to wait and see if you tried to eat my soul. Or perhaps it's like the riddle with two guards and a liar…
I'm not a riddle, either.
No, you're a liar.
No, I'm not.
Yes, you are, it's here, on the cover. TM Riddle. What is the 'M' for?
Tom?
It was a joke.
Am I not being spoken to by a journal? How odd, and yet how entirely normal. One wouldn't generally expect to be spoken to by a journal, after all.
La, I suppose if you are going to pretend to be a normal book, I suppose I ought to pretend this is a normal journal entry. Let's see… Before you so rudely erased it, don't think I didn't notice that, I did, I just didn't mind because it wasn't anything of importance, I was thinking about the purpose of objects and whether they are sad not to be used, because I am always sad for them, and it would be a terrible waste of feelings if they didn't appreciate my empathizing with them.
You empathize with objects for their satisfaction?
Of course, why else?
I… don't know. What is the point of it if you don't know if they "appreciate" it or not?
Better safe than sorry. It wouldn't do to unintentionally offend my desk, for instance. It might invite sonderpips to live in its drawers, and then I would forever be losing my quills.
What are these things you mention, sonderpips and nargles and wrackspurts?
Creatures of a sort, I expect. Sometimes it is nearly as difficult to answer 'what' as 'who'.
Would you tell me about yourself, since you did not answer 'who'?
I suppose I could, if you do the same.
Agreed.
Oh, alright, then. I must say, I was expecting a bit more dancing than that. They call me Luna, though that doesn't mean much, since they call me Loony more often than that. I am eleven, and a Ravenclaw, and the Hat called me an odd duck. My father owns a magazine. Several, actually, but he only prints one. Sometimes I help him write articles for it. I think most people don't believe as much as they could, and they could also stand to be less unkind. Possibilities are more important than what is known, and it is the saddest thing to kill a might-have-been. So all life's a tragedy, with just one golden strand of happenstance running through it. My mother is dead – an experiment gone wrong. The only good thing about her death is now I can see thestrals, and they're beautiful. I think they're as pretty as unicorns, in their own way. They're related to dragons, you know, and pegasi and seraphim. You can tell because they all have four legs and wings. My body is short and thin and blonde, apparently human, though I'm holding out for part-Veela. We'll see in a few years, I suppose. Anyway, looks can be deceiving, and I'm not sure that it counts as me.
Why wouldn't it?
Are you your pages?
No, I told you, I'm a memory.
A memory of whom?
A sixteen year old boy, a wizard, Tom, and Riddle, as you said. He was a fifth-year Slytherin prefect, once upon a time. He hated his name. It was his father's, and he left. His mother was a witch. She died, too, in childbirth. He grew up in an orphanage, and could see thestrals too. He liked them because most people couldn't, and it made him special to see them. He was tall, with dark hair and blue eyes, and human as far as I know, though one must consider that magic makes us better than merely human. After all, muggles are human, too.
Do you not like muggles, Tom?
No.
Why not?
I lived through the Blitz, remember?
Yes, but lots of people live through wars, and they don't dislike everyone for fighting. They follow the truce and go on with their lives.
Truce?
Daddy says it would be a very small and lonely world if those who took sides never, ever left them when the war was done. I couldn't dislike all the dark if I tried – they had their reasons to do as they did. Your muggles, too. Fear, mostly, and love of power. Anger and believing that they deserved more than they had. Magic doesn't make people less human, except maybe the Blacks, but daddy says they're "special cases" and all mad anyway, so it balances out.
The Hat was right about you. Are you sure you're eleven?
No, but then, what is certainty but a delusion of grandeur and an illusion of fate? She likes to make us think we're bound to her, you know, but nothing's written before it happens, except in the stars. Even the Symphony has its jazz sequences. By the by, Saturn is growing bright this year.
What does that mean?
Maybe everything, maybe nothing. Time will tell. It's terrible at keeping secrets. What did the Hat tell you about yourself?
That I would be happier in Hufflepuff.
So why did you go to Slytherin?
Because I belonged there.
You sound like Mary Elizabeth. Do you know her?
No. The only other person I know right now is Ginny Weasley.
Why did she try to flush your book down Myrtle's toilet?
I really couldn't say. I thought we were getting on well. Perhaps someone else took it from her.
I suppose it's possible, though I have to say, I've never seen her as the sort to have a problem with wandering things. Perhaps you are an exception.
Oh, I am exceptional. One might go so far as to say unique.
Of course you are, but then, so are we all, and in as such, similar. I find it comforting, don't you?
No. I find most people to be insufferably dull, and would rather not be similar to them at all. You, quite frankly, are a breath of fresh air.
Flattery will get you everywhere and nowhere.
Tell me about your friends. Who is Mary Elizabeth?
Not tonight. It's late. Perhaps tomorrow.
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Hello, Tom.
Luna? What happened? It's been ages, and you promised me 'tomorrow'.
Of course I didn't, tricksy fey boy. Promises are like certainties – knots in the thread, and I do so hate uneven thread. But I would have written, anyway. Your book went wandering. It's only just come back to me. How disappointing, that you didn't meet anyone interesting on your adventure.
What do you mean, my book went wandering?
Just that. It left my room and made its way down to the Common Room. The other girls swore they knew nothing about it, so it must have grown feet and walked off.
…
How long have your roommates been taking your things?
Oh, never – they're not kept, only moved. And it's twillks, you know, that make them run off.
What's a twillk? Another 'creature'?
Yes, like Eros' bugs, but not for love – for freedom and adventure.
…
How long has my diary been 'wandering'?
Nearly two weeks. Today is Imbolc. Tell me true, Tommy, dear, have you come back to celebrate with me?
I hardly could have done, as I didn't know the date.
Whyever should that matter?
…
I don't think it matters. I can't celebrate a ritual. I'm a memory, if you recall?
A tricky proposition, indeed. Do you perhaps recall ever having done it before?
No. I never celebrated it.
Why not?
I was raised by muggles, remember? I did not learn of Imbolc until after I was already a man.
Oh, poor you. I imagine that must be very disappointing. It is a lovely ritual, after all.
I suppose I will just have to take your word for it.
Alas.
I must away. Youth and folly hie and the Hour draws near.
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Hello, Tom.
Hello, Luna.
It occurred to me today that I have been remiss in my duties as the caretaker of your journal. You say you were made that a part of the boy you once were lives on, but trapped in your pages is not much life.
I admit the plan was not well-conceived. The boy was young and foolish, and never knew what life would be left to us when only I remained.
What happened to him, the boy who used to be you?
He wrote to me for years, after he made me, but then one day he disappeared. The next time someone wrote to me, it was forty years later. They said he was dead. They didn't say how.
Were you very lonely in the meanwhile?
No. Memories can't get lonely.
And in any case, I never had many friends to miss.
Did you never want them? I always did. It is not quite how I imagined it, but still nice.
Tell me about your friends.
Well, the first thing one ought to know about friends is there's no rhyme or reason behind them. They freely offer companionship, wanting nothing in return but the joy of your company.
Not friends in general, Luna. Your friends in particular.
Oh – but I find it's important to start from the basics, don't you?
Just because I never had friends doesn't mean I don't know what they are. You may safely assume I am familiar with the basic concept. I simply never appreciated companionship when I was surrounded by the tedious crush of humanity day in and day out.
No need to get snippy, Tom.
Ne'er t'was meant an insult to be/ but simple truth 'twixt I and thee.
What's that from?
The Tale of Parallax and Quincey. It's a comedy with a tragic ending. You wouldn't have heard of it, I expect. It was after your time and before Ginevra Phyllis'.
I… see.
Anyway, I was saying… Friends are strange, and my friends doubly so, for they have chosen to be friends with myself, and though the teachers say I am lacking in focus, head in the clouds, I see clearer myself and the world around me than ever they've suspected. The hat was, as I think you said, right about me. And so it stands to reason that anyone who offers companionship in exchange for strange company is a bit odd themselves.
Reason of a sort. Perhaps they consider you entertaining.
I hope so. I consider them entertaining. There would hardly be any point if I didn't.
True enough.
So, Aerin Mae is a friend, and Lilian Grace, her sister, too, though not so good a friend as Aerin Mae. Hermione Jean is a friend, but only now and again – I think she finds it difficult to understand me, and therefore does not want to spend much time with me. She does not like not understanding. Mary Elizabeth is Hermione Jean and Lilian Grace's friend first, and everyone else's second. Well, not everyone. But all the people she counts as friends come after Hermione Jean and Lilian Grace. Ginevra Phyllis, your Ginny Weasley, and I were friends of a sort, by default, I suppose, before school. I do not know if we still are.
How can you not know if you are friends with someone?
Well, we grew up together, companions of one another for lack of anyone else. But I don't think that she would choose to spend time with me had she an alternative. I am better than no one, I think, in her mind, but I don't think she likes me. I have not seen her much at all since we started school. Only in classes, and there she is with the other Gryffindor girls.
Does that bother you?
No. Should it?
I don't know. Perhaps you never thought of her as a friend, either, then.
Why do you say that?
Is not jealousy of one's friends' attentions something that is inherent in the idea of belonging to one another?
No, silly boy. You're thinking of love. And I suppose it's true, some people are the sort to love their friends, or some of their friends. But mine and Ginevra Phyllis' was a friendship of convenience, or perhaps an arranged friendship – not a love-match.
Tell me about the others, then. Are they friends of convenience, or "love-matches," as you will?
Hmmm… I think almost all friendships begin as a matter of convenience. It is difficult to love the unknown, for most people. Although for some, the unknown is their first and only love, of course, and reality an unwanted intruder in their fantasies.
So do you hold some affection for these girls, or not? Aerin, Lilian, Hermione, and Mary? You still haven't told me anything about them at all, except their names.
I am fond of Aerin Mae. I would be sad if she suddenly disappeared from my life. It is only appropriate, as I suspect she holds a similar degree of affection for myself. Lilian Grace, Hermione Jean, and Mary Elizabeth are interesting, but Lilian Grace is wary of me, and Hermione Jean does not understand, and Mary Elizabeth's trust is hard-won. They have little affection for me, and so I find I haven't any for them. If they were to vanish, I shouldn't think I would mind, much.
Do you not like them, then?
Oh, no, I enjoy their company. It is interesting to see the world through their eyes. But there is no bond between us to be broken, truly. Even with Aerin Mae, who might one day be a friend of the heart, the bond is young and weak. To lose it would be disappointing, but not a shattering hardship.
I… see. But who are they, as people?
You can't tell, but I'm laughing. Why should you think I can answer that for others, when I can't answer it for myself? Surely I know more about myself than any of them.
Can you tell me about them, then? The way you told me about yourself, and I told you about the boy I used to be?
Of course I can.
Will you?
Most likely.
…
What are you waiting for?
I am trying to decide what to say. I shall return when I've decided.
Just say whatever comes to mind. Perhaps start with the one you know best.
Luna?
Damn it.
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Tom? I'm back.
Oh, good. You left before I could say to just tell me anything that comes to mind. You could start with the friend you know best, and go from there, once you've got started.
Hmmm… Aerin Mae, then. She is a Ravenclaw, though not very like myself, and in third year. She likes magical creatures, and was almost put in Gryffindor for being adventurous. She said the Hat decided on Ravenclaw in the end because she goes on adventures to learn things, not as an end in themselves. She is curious about the world, but doesn't see much past the end of her nose. If you put a mystery in front of her, it will consume her until she has solved it, but she won't seek it out. She likes to learn by doing things, more than by reading. She is very kind, and often helps me track down things when they wander off. She helped me explore the Castle, and Lilian Grace, Mary Elizabeth, and Hermione Jean before me. She is short for her age, but taller than me. Her hair is light brown, and matches her eyes. She has one older brother and one younger sister, both in Slytherin. Her parents don't care very much for their children. From what she has said, it sounds very much like they are consumed by their torvoluds, and so haven't much attention for anyone else. Sean Morris, who is three years her elder, looked after her and Lilian Grace when they were all children, but he has his own life now. She misses him. She reminds me of my mother, a bit. I think they would have liked each other, if they ever could have met.
Lilian Grace is Aerin Mae's sister. They are less than a year apart in age, but Aerin Mae is a year ahead in school, which makes Lilian Grace a second-year. She is a Slytherin, I think because she is very manipulative, much like yourself, and not for any other reason, though she has never said. She could have been a Gryffindor. The twillks like her almost as much as Mary Elizabeth, though she is more for adventure, and Mary Elizabeth for freedom. She is nicer than she likes to pretend. She hides behind sarcasm and snarky comments, but she will help you if she has no reason not to. I think she is afraid that she doesn't belong in Slytherin, because she likes people too much. She is strong and tall for her age, and is a reserve chaser for the Slytherin Quidditch team. Her hair is a pretty reddish gold, and her eyes are hazel. Her parents and brother are the same as Aerin Mae, though from what I can see, Lilian Grace cares less for their lack of affection than Aerin Mae.
Why do you insist on using middle names for everyone?
Because they are every bit as given as the first, and so should be celebrated alike. More practically, they distinguish between people as well as the last, without the muddle of Houses and family and history dragged along. But mostly just out of habit. My mother did, and so I do as well.
Very well. What are your friends' surnames?
Moon. Why do you ask?
Curiosity. Please, continue.
If you insist. Hermione Jean is a Ravenclaw and a Granger, second year, and thirteen already as well. If Aerin Mae is curious, Hermione Jean is serious. Her family are muggles, and her approach to magic is … ravenous. She reads all the time, on every subject. I think she doesn't really see people, even when they're standing right in front of her. She thinks all the answers can be found in books, which is why she doesn't understand me, and so doesn't like me much. I think she will grow out of it eventually. Daddy always says that the school sorts too soon, because people change a lot as they grow up. Hermione Jean could have been a Gryffindor, because she always wants to do the right thing, but I think her friends have made her more Slytherin. She thinks the means are always justified, you see, and knowledge is meant to be used. If she were a muggle, I think she would be a mad scientist.
What's a mad scientist?
They ask if a thing can be done and try to do it, and never ask whether it ought to be done. Like the Americans at Miskatonic, but with muggle sciences.
Ah, I do recall an incident with an atom bomb…
What's an atom bomb?
Like a muggle Killing Curse for whole cities. The Americans dropped two of them on Japan a few years after I was made.
Yes, that sounds like mad science. Anyway, Hermione Jean rushes into things. She's probably the smartest girl in Ravenclaw, but that won't help her if she never stops to think. She is about average in height, with light tan skin but very poofy brown hair, like maybe she is part black. I've never asked. Both her parents are dentwists? Muggle tooth healers.
Dentists.
Yes, that.
And the last one? Mary Elizabeth?
Mary Elizabeth is difficult to describe. I know as much as anyone about her, but I do not know her personally as well as I do the others.
You told me the first time we spoke that I reminded you of her.
Yes, well, in some ways you do, and in others, not at all. You are the Slytherin who is clever and pushy, manipulating people to get what he wants. You, or the boy who was you, had ambitions, elsewise I suppose you'd never have thought to make this memory diary. But you don't have friends, and you would give up a chance at happiness in Hufflepuff to go where you think you really belong. Mary Elizabeth… she said something similar, once. That her life would have been easier in Gryffindor, and happier in Hufflepuff, but that she went to Slytherin because she was a Slytherin, and didn't need a talking hat to tell her so.
Slytherin is for the ambitious, and the cunning, and those who would put their own goals first, and do what they must to meet them, yes?
Yes… but… Slytherin is also for survivors. The self-reliant. It wasn't mentioned much outside the House even when I was alive, but ambition and self-reliance come first. Striving for power, selfishness, cunning, manipulation, and ruthlessness serve those two. Striving for excellence and networking follow ambition. Independence follows self-reliance.
…
When I was a student… some Slytherins were sorted because they wanted to be great, or shared several of the lesser values of the house. Few had a specific ambition at the age of eleven. More of us were put in Slytherin because we had learned to fend for ourselves early in life. Even many of the heirs to the Old Families were taught not to rely on anyone from a young age. The fact that they were also raised to be politically minded and reasonably ambitious was secondary.
That explains more than it doesn't. I was going to say that Mary Elizabeth was sorted because what would be a very Hufflepuff goal for anyone else is for her an ambition which will require a certain amount of selfishness and cunning to achieve, but now…
She was, I think, sorted because of her independence and self-reliance, more than her ambition.
What is her ambition? Why is it not Hufflepuff for her?
So far as I can see, she wants to be exceptional… but normal. Not special. And it's not Hufflepuff because Mary Elizabeth is Mary Potter, the Girl Who Lived.
You're friends with Mary Potter? Ginny told me some of her story.
What do you already know?
She was born in 1980, and somehow defeated the Dark Lord Voldemort on All Hallows' Eve, 1981.
She told you his name?
It took a while, but yes, in the end.
I'm surprised she knows it. Most wouldn't. Daddy says they're scared, a left-over habit from the War, when it was Taboo to speak it, but adults don't say it.
I haven't much to fear, anyway, I should think. I'm a book, and your War was after my time, remember. Where was I? A killing curse rebounded from Mary Potter, destroying Lord Voldemort. He may or may not be dead, depending on who you believe. Both of her parents died that night. Her father was Lord Potter and her mother a muggleborn of no account.
A muggleborn, yes, but daddy says she was scary and brilliant in the War. Mummy did the same kind of magic, making new rituals. But mummy worked on healing mostly, and White Arts. Lily Potter, he says, did a bit of everything, and tweaked the Powers' noses, too. He says she was a tragic hero, and if she hadn't died young, she would have lived long enough to see herself become the villain.
… Be that as it may… Mary Potter is a second year, sorted into Slytherin, which was a great upset at the time, because everyone expected her to go into Gryffindor as the Child Champion of the Light. She proved that she belonged in Slytherin by setting a venomous snake on the Heir of Malfoy, who had been bullying her. Since then, most within the school have treated her like any other Slytherin, while most outside the school are unaware of the incident. Ginny only learned of it after one of her housemates irritated the girl so much that she started hissing at him in public.
Yes, that would be Creevey. He kept trying to get photos of her. He nearly made her crash in her Seeker trial, from what I understand, and she was very upset.
So it's true? She's a Parselmouth?
Oh, yes. It's a beautiful language. I've asked her to teach me what she can, but unfortunately I just can't manage some of the scent-based aspects of it, and the trills and chirps are beyond me. But I can say "greetings" and "moon snakeling" with the modifier that refers to oneself, which she says is the closest translation of my name.
…
Ravenclaws.
…
You are certain Lily Potter was a muggleborn? And the girl is definitely Potter's child?
Daddy says so, but I've told you already that certainty is an illusion. She was Lily Evans, before she married.
Hmmm… That does sound like a muggle name…
And Mary Elizabeth looks much more like the Blacks than Lily Evans. I suppose it is possible she was the last Sirius Black's child, but James Potter's mother was a Dorea Black, anyway, so if you're looking for the source of the Parsel-trait, it wouldn't matter much.
Indeed. So Mary Elizabeth Potter is the Heir of Slytherin?
Oh, no, I don't think so. She has alibis for all of the attacks so far.
Attacks? What has that got to do with her being the Heir?
Didn't Ginevra Phyllis tell you anything about what's going on in the school?
No, what's happening?
I can't say now. I have to go! Charms started four minutes ago, and I only just noticed. I'll be back soon.
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Tom?
Hello, Luna.
Hello. Professor Flitwick gave me detention for being late to Charms, so I haven't much time to write. Where were we?
You were going to tell me about some sort of attacks, and what they've got to do with the Heir of Slytherin.
Oh, yes. On Halloween, the caretaker's cat was attacked during the Feast. She was petrified, and left hanging from her tail from a torch bracket, with a painted message:
The Chamber of Secrets has been opened. Enemies of the Heir, beware.
Some people thought it was a joke, at first, but then Creepy Colin Creevey, a muggleborn from Gryffindor, was petrified a week later, and the Gryffindor ghost along with a Hufflepuff muggleborn called Justin Finch-Fletchley were petrified just before Yule. Well, the boy was petrified. The ghost just kind of went all dark grey and smoky and froze. Nothing more has happened since I've been writing to you.
So someone calling himself the Heir of Slytherin is attacking muggleborns, ghosts, and cats, but it's not Mary Potter, even though she does speak Parsel and is probably the Heir, because she has an alibi?
She does for the first two attacks. She found the third one, but Lilian Grace says that serial crimes are almost always the same person, and this would be hard to copy-cat. I think she reads too many muggle novels in the summer.
Fascinating. What else is known about the Chamber?
Well, the Slytherins are saying it was opened fifty years ago, or thereabouts. A girl, Myrtle Phelps, died. Some Slytherin prefect claimed to have caught the monster, then, but obviously he didn't, if it's active again. It would have been about your time, I expect. What do you know of it?
I don't think I ought to say.
Why not?
I wouldn't want you to think poorly of me.
Why would I think poorly of you?
It was around my time, and… well… I was the prefect.
So what happened? And why ought I to think poorly of you?
Well, you see… after that girl died, Phelps, I discovered that another student was keeping an acromantula in the castle. I framed him as the Heir of Slytherin and used his "capture" to expand my influence from Slytherin to the rest of the school. It wasn't him, obviously. Acromantula venom is an acidic paralytic. It may give the appearance of petrification, but only for short periods of time, before the acid starts to dissolve the tissues. The only reason it worked at all was the authorities were desperate for a scapegoat, and since the alternative was closing the school… they chose to remove the acromantula and its keeper, and hoped that the real Heir would take the opportunity to disappear.
I would be upset that you framed an innocent acromantula for the crimes of the Monster of Slytherin, but they are rather dangerous to keep in a school. The attacks stopped then?
Yes. That was right before OWLs, but the school stayed open, and there were no attacks the next year.
Did you ever find out why?
We thought, in Slytherin, that the Heir might have graduated, or else got nervous when they threatened to close the school. That was never the point, after all.
What was?
Well, the story goes that the Monster was left by Slytherin to cleanse the school after he was gone, not to destroy the school entirely.
Yes, there are still people here who think that. But the Slytherins I know say that the Monster was left to protect the school, not to kill muggleborns.
I suppose they are saying that Slytherin was a mudblood himself, and feared that the muggleborns would betray the school to their muggle families?
Something like that. They don't use the m-word. It's not nice, and breaks the Truce. Did your Slytherins fight about it too?
They did. History can be such a divisive topic. There are certain documents in the Slytherin House Library that certainly imply it. But they say nothing about the purpose of the Creature, nor what it is. The Chamber is mentioned as existing, but there's nothing on why it was created or how to access it. There is every possibility that the Monster, or the Heir, interpreted the task of protecting the school to mean removing muggleborns from it, or trying to scare them away.
…
Then again – and this was only ever whispered quietly in the privacy of one's own rooms, at the time – it is possible that the Heir simply considered attacking muggleborns to be politically expedient back then, what with Grindelwald expanding on the continent, and it didn't matter what Slytherin would have wanted. I've no idea what he (or she) might hope to gain now. But it does seem likely that your Heir had help from my Heir in finding the Chamber. None of us knew where it was, and I would imagine most of your Slytherins have no idea either.
An interesting suggestion. Very Slytherin. I will have to suggest it to the others.
Leave my name out of it, if you would.
Why? Do you not want credit where it is due?
No, I just would rather no one ever knew that the boy I used to be framed that other boy as the Heir. It was a rather foolish and short-sighted plan, and for all that it worked, it is embarrassing to me now.
Hmmm… I suppose I could say a flittering told me.
What is a flittering?
You, but I needn't say your name.
... Okay.
A rose by any other name would still be Tom. Ta for now. Detention calls.
}{-}{-}{-}{-}{
Hello, Tom
Hello, Luna. What is the date today? I realized that I never asked you last time we spoke.
Eleventh February. How are you today?
I'm fine. Yourself?
Approximately as content as the average day. Nothing's gone wandering all week, which is nice. Are you sure you're fine? From what I've gathered, that is what one says when one is not fine at all. Daddy was 'fine' for a whole year after Mummy died.
I suppose I'm … worried. About Ginny. I haven't spoken to her since before you found me, and since we were talking about friends, I've begun to suspect I haven't been a very good one to her.
How not?
Well, she confided an awful lot in me. She spent a lot of time writing. I don't think she had many other friends. And… I suppose I feel I ought to have made more of an effort to get back to her.
…
…
Luna?
I just realized how that sounds.
It's not that I haven't enjoyed talking to you immensely, and I understand that you have things to do other than talk to me. It's just that I don't know why or how I was separated from her to begin with, and I don't want her to think I've abandoned her. I should have asked you to return me to her long before now, if only to make sure she's okay.
I understand.
Luna, it's not that I don't want to be friends with you as well, it's just that, well… I feel guilty for not thinking of her a bit more all these weeks I've been with you. Please don't be upset with me.
I'm not upset. I'm preoccupied.
Oh?
…
Talk to me, Luna.
You did have something in mind to say, did you not? Before I mentioned Ginny.
Oh, that.
I told my friends that you thought the "Heir of Slytherin" must have had help finding the entrance to the Chamber, and they've been searching for it since. Mary Elizabeth and Lilian Grace especially have been spending an awful lot of time in the dungeons. Mary Elizabeth thinks they might get lucky and find a passage from the Slytherin dorms, since they go everywhere else. Aerin Mae and Hermione Jean have been looking through genealogies again, trying to figure out who Slytherin's heirs could be. The house proper went extinct sometime in the 1600s, apparently, though there was at least one cadet line until recently. The last "Heir" seems to have been Morfin Gaunt, but he died in Azkaban decades ago, and never went to Hogwarts. None of the Gaunts did, for at least four generations before Morfin.
Fascinating. And there are no other families with a history of the Parsel-trait?
None that have been recorded, at least in Europe. I'm wondering exactly how the Monster recognizes an heir of Slytherin. We think it might be a basilisk, by the by. Did I tell you? There aren't many beasts that live so long, after all.
Don't basilisks kill with a glance? And their venom is entirely destructive, not paralyzing.
Only its direct gaze is deadly. Meeting its eyes in a reflection, or through a ghost, who knows? Aerin Mae agrees that it might be only petrifying, like a gorgon.
So you think that perhaps speaking Parsel alone is enough to recognize an Heir? If the Monster is a giant sentient snake?
Possibly. There are families in India that speak it, and it's not entirely impossible to learn, though if you don't have the Parsel-trait, Mary Elizabeth, Aerin Mae and I think you would have to learn human transfiguration to make yourself an Organ of Jacobson and the proper sounding-chambers.
What's that?
The Organ of Jacobson is the scent/tasting organ, and Aerin Mae says real snakes sometimes have different shaped sinuses to make different sounds, like dragons.
Interesting. Dragons don't speak Parsel, though.
Are you sure? The only one Mary Elizabeth has ever tried to speak to was an infant.
Even the youngest hatchlings of sentient serpents speak Parsel, though it sounds like babbling and nonsense. Lizards and dragons and other reptiles don't. Why was your friend trying to speak to a dragon?
To stop it from burning the house down around her ears, of course.
Why… Never mind. I'm not going to ask.
How do you know so much about Parseltongue? I don't think I've ever heard anyone but Mary Elizabeth call it Parsel, you know. Do you speak it? Are you the Heir of Slytherin?
Of course not. There used to be a book in Slytherin's Library on the language. I read it when I was a student. It's a fascinating topic. There's been some debate over whether it's actually a "trait" as such, and not an inherited curse. But if there are speakers in India, perhaps it is a trait after all.
Hmmm… I'll have to tell Mary Elizabeth to look for it. I'm sure she would find it interesting as well.
Is that what you were preoccupied about?
Oh, no. Professor McG and I got into a flaming row over the role of terabees and midichlorians in Un-Transfiguration. She more or less told me that she wouldn't stand for 'any more such nonsense' in her classroom, and I walked out. I'm positive that terabees are the defining factor in maintaining the original sense of thing-ness within an object, even in cross-planar interactions, which allows it to revert to its natural form when the power-instability snaps. Daddy says humans have midichlorians instead of terabees, because we're living. So in order to do an un-transfiguration, you not only have to determine the arithmantic opposite of the transfiguration, you also have to find a way to stimulate the terabees of a thing to find the true form of the original object.
That… makes a surprising degree of sense… You're just about six years ahead of the theory curriculum and using completely different vocabulary.
I'm fairly certain though that your Transfiguration professor was looking for an explanation involving the Basic Wand Movements.
First years aren't expected to know anything about cross-planar interactions, and she almost certainly wouldn't have heard of terabees or midichlorians before. The principles are the same as what I learned, but Dumbledore never talked about them as though they were zoomorphic entites. He called terabees the Object Identity, and it was imbued into every aspect of a thing by the creator of the object (which is why worked objects are harder to transfigure) or by the natural processes of its becoming, for things like rocks. Midichlorians were an aspect of the Life Spark, which infuses every cell of a living creature, connecting them together and defining their being on a fundamental level.
Why couldn't she just say something like that then?! It's so frustrating. At least Professor Flitwick doesn't mind the way I explain theory, even if I can tell he doesn't believe me about wrackspurts or sonderpips existing, or the Nargles stealing my things. McGonagall is my least favorite teacher.
If it's any consolation, I'm sure you're not her favorite student either.
Why would that be a consolation?
I didn't really expect it to be.
So you want to go back to Ginevra Phyllis?
It's not so much that I want to, as much as I think I ought to.
Hmmm… I suppose I ought to let you, then. I'll slip you in with her books in Astronomy tonight, and let her think you made your way back, just like you wandered off in the first place.
Thank you, Luna. And who knows, perhaps I'll wander back into your life someday.
Don't be silly, Tom. Everyone knows books don't actually sprout legs and wander away.
Well, most books.
Everyone could be wrong. But even so, farewell, Luna, until we meet again.
Goodbye, Tom.