Harry and the Pirates

Chapter 34

Spirits and Christmas

by Technomad

Instinctively, Harry reacted with caution. He had no idea who "Tom Riddle" was, or if this entity had any right to that name. He wrote quickly: My name is Dan Radcliffe. I'm a student at Hogwarts.

Quickly the answer came back, after the ink had bled into the page: You are? So am I! I'm in Slytherin. What year is it?

By now, everybody was crowded around, gawking. Dudley looked questioningly at Harry. "Dan Radcliffe? Where the hell did that come from?"

Harry grinned. "I don't know who or what I'm dealing with here, so I went with the most improbable name I could think of." Everybody snickered.

"Tom" replied: It's 1943 here. And I am a witness to terrible things. Things that happened at my school. A monster was roaming the halls.

Hermione took the book from Harry's hands. Quickly, she wrote: My name is Emma Watson, and I'm a student at Hogwarts. If a monster is in the school, we need to know! What happened?

After a few minutes, "Tom" answered. If you would like, I can show you, Emma. You and your friends. Would you like that?

Yes.

Very well…and with that, the group of friends found themselves falling what felt like a very long ways, before finding themselves standing near a gargoyle in a hallway, one they recognized as standing outside the door to Dumbledore's office. Beside them stood a boy with his dark hair in a rather old-fashioned cut. Hermione, Ginny and Luna all looked him over appraisingly.

"Not bad," Ginny muttered, licking her lips unconsciously, "not half-bad, not at all. I do like them dark-haired…" Harry shushed her as the boy spoke a password and the gargoyle swung aside, revealing the familiar spiral staircase.

The dark-haired boy went up the stairs quickly, as Harry and his friends, invisible, followed him. They found themselves in a round room lined with books and portraits of wizards and witches, some asleep, most awake. Behind a big desk, an unfamiliar wizard was looking at the boy, and at them, although he showed no reaction; Harry surmised that he couldn't see them either.

"Professor Dippet?" said the boy. Harry's eyes went wide. So this was Professor Dippet, Dumbledore's predecessor as Headmaster, was it?

They discussed the possibility of "Mr. Riddle," as the Headmaster addressed him, staying on at Hogwarts, but apparently that wasn't on due to a monster infesting the school; there had already been at least one death. Riddle inquired into what would happen if the monster or whoever was responsible for the death was caught, and Dippet expressed great interest. Riddle played it very cagey; Harry noted that he was wearing Slytherin colors as well as a prefect's badge, and nodded to himself. Slytherin prefects had to be excellent at dealing with people. The House always contained several factions, and keeping them balanced called for diplomacy and intelligence.

When he was dismissed, Riddle went down the stairs, and then the scene shifted. They were watching a huge person, who seemed familiar to Harry, chivvying a strange creature along. Harry narrowed his eyes. That thing looked like a huge spider; could that somehow be the cause of the attacks?

Riddle appeared, and there was a fight. The creature escaped in the scuffle, but it was clear by the end of things that the huge person's career at Hogwarts was over. When it stopped, Harry looked at his friends.

"So…Hagrid is the person who set the monster loose?" Harry thought about it for a second, then shook his head. He didn't know the groundskeeper well, but the kind-hearted, gentle giant he knew did not equate to someone who'd turn a murderous creature loose on schoolchildren.

"Not bloody likely!" said Dudley. In Roanapur, they had learned to read people; those who didn't learn that in the pirate port tended to end up dead. Dudley, like Harry, had seen more than enough of Hagrid to not believe for a second that the groundskeeper would ever do anything to endanger people. "At least, not deliberately…"

"That thing we saw…that was an Acromantula, if I'm any judge," mused Hermione. "If there was a fatality here, there should be records. I wonder how I could access those? A coroner's report on the corpse would be interesting reading. If nothing else, we can eliminate Acromantulae as the source of the current problems. Those things leave distinct marks."

"Pity Tom Riddle's long gone," Ginny murmured, half to herself. "I liked the view from behind him as he went up and down those stairs." Ron scowled at his sister.

"I hope that damn Acromantula's gone!" Ron snapped. "Merlin! Why did it have to be spiders? We know Hagrid's got a fetish for 'interestin' creatures,' but why spiders?"

"Rubeus Hagrid is a good person, but doesn't have a lot of common sense." That was Luna. Everybody turned and looked at her. "Maybe he set something loose he couldn't control?"

"And maybe we'd better get this damn diary back to Parkinson before she wakes up and notices it's missing. At least we won't have to explain it being written in!" snapped Harry, giving Ron a glare. The redhead blushed. "What in the world were you thinking, mate?"

"I don't know. It was like a compulsion came over me and I couldn't help myself." Harry raised an eyebrow.

"The more I see of this diary, the more I figure Parkinson's welcome to it. Ginny, here it is…can you do the honours?" Ginny gave Harry a snappy, only slightly satiric salute, took the diary and headed back toward the girls' dormitories.

Hermione turned to leave. "Where are you going, Hermione?" asked Luna.

"To the library. Jane's Creatures of the Magical World should have all the information there is on Acromantulae. It's a lot more in-depth than Fantastic Creatures and Where to Find Them."

"Well, you're our information and knowledge specialist," decided Harry. "Go to it. If you need anything, let one of us know." He had learned from Balalaika, as well as from others in Roanapur, how important it was to let specialists do what they did best. "Come to it, maybe having Luna help out would be useful. She and her father have seen all sorts of weird creatures, and something might strike her that escapes you."

"Luna? But…" Hermione began, before she saw the expression on Dudley's face. "Oh, all right. Come along, Luna. The library awaits!" Luna bounced along beside Hermione, an anticipatory smile on her face. Luna loved the library, and her Housemates sometimes gently teased her about being a spy from Ravenclaw. The teasing never went beyond very gentle, though. Dudley, and by extension Harry, had made it very clear that whoever took the teasing beyond the gentle stage would answer to them. Nobody in Slytherin, even the seventh-years, was too eager to tangle with people who had dealt with trolls as handily, and fatally, as the two boys from Roanapur had done their first year.

Ginny apparently was successful in slipping the diary back; at least they didn't have an outraged Pansy Parkinson on their trail, howling about her diary. Harry wondered what Snape would have done had he found out. He rather imagined that detentions would have been the least of it.

Dudley agreed. "Do you remember last year?" He shuddered. "The critiques! The sarcasm! The satire!" He grinned. "Rather like having to face up to Balalaika and confess that you've screwed her plans up!"

"I think he actually was impressed, he just didn't want to show it," mused Harry. "He did say that he hadn't expected a bunch of first-years to blast right past things intended to slow down or stop a full-grown wizard or witch."

"That's true," Dudley nodded. "But the way he put it! 'We created those barriers to entangle or stop the most cunning, intelligent wizards in the world, Mr. Dursley," he intoned, in an excellent imitation of their House Head's resonant voice. "Pity we didn't think to make them dunderhead-proof!"

From a hidden passage nearby, Snape smiled to himself. His Snakes were truly turning out to be a group of House legends in the making! He had been very impressed with their prowess in their first year, and it had taken all his effort not to break out in a smile as he went over what had happened with them. Still, he had to keep up his façade.

The Dark Lord was out there, and would be coming back. Snape had never in a thousand years expected the Boy-Who-Lived to be Sorted into his house, but since Harry Potter was there, he, Severus Snape, would see to it that he was trained and readied for the inevitable confrontation.

No Slytherin shall fall due to lack of effort on the part of his or her teachers! That had been the secret motto of Slytherin House Heads since the founding of Hogwarts, and he would not shrink from doing what needed doing. Having such wonderful raw material to work with helped a lot, of course.

Mr. Potter and Mr. Dursley were always chattering on about the town they'd been raised in, and Snape was privately fascinated with what they'd said. They spoke of the woman who employed them with a mixture of respect, awe and honest affection that made her sound very like a person he'd like to meet. He wondered if this "Balalaika" person was single, and if so, whether she liked dark-haired wizards.

But they were not the whole story. He had also not expected for a second to get any Weasleys, but now that he had them, he was very happy to have them. He got along with Ron and Ginny much better than with their pestilential twin older brothers. He routinely listened in on dorm-room conversations, at least on the boys' side. He was a stickler for propriety and would only enter the girls' dorms if there was a declared emergency, but there were portraits there that reported to him.

Snape couldn't blame the two youngest Weasleys for wanting to get away from Fred and George, not for one minute he couldn't! He detested both of the twins, and was waiting for the day when one of their pranks went badly wrong enough to force their expulsion from the school. It did not surprise him that their younger siblings were happy to be away from their shenanigans. Snape rather pitied poor McGonagall for having to put up with what he privately called "the two-headed menace" in her House.

And Miss Lovegood was yet another he hadn't expected to get. Her father and mother had been Ravenclaws, and Miss Lovegood seemed to be too dreamy to do anything but go with the flow and end up in her parents' House. That was not necessarily the best place for someone like her; intelligence and great learning did not necessarily equate to kindness, particularly to an odd duck like Miss Lovegood. He had noticed the bond growing between her and Dudley Dursley, and approved completely. So did the other teachers; even the stern Minerva McGonagall had admitted that it was "sweet" the way Dudley always looked out for Luna, and the way that Luna trusted Dudley implicitly.

At this age, there wasn't much to worry about, but if it went on, he would have to take both Mr. Dursley and Miss Lovegood down to Madam Pomfrey to make sure that they were fitted with Contraception Charms. For all her spaciness, Miss Lovegood was one of the finest students in her year, and Snape did not intend to lose her to anything before she swept the NEWTs for his House, proving Slytherin superiority yet again!

Contraception Charms were routinely fitted on all students during their start-of-year appointments with Madame Pomfrey at the beginning of their third years, but there had been cases where it had been done sooner. Young people were full of hormones, and did not think far ahead.