Author's note:
Hello gorgeous Muggles,
Here comes a new chapter! I hope you'll enjoy it!
I promise I'll stop bothering you with quotes from totally fictitious books and invented newspapers' articles soon. Even though I'm guilty to admit it truly satisfies the Ravenclaw inside me...
Thank you so so much for reading/favouring/following this story, it warms my soul!
With love,
Qlarisse
Ps: Once again I apologise for any typos and mistakes. It seems like no matter how thoroughly I re-read every chapter, I always end up finding some errors later.
November 1942 - The Heir
The smell of freshly cut grass filled the air as it began to pour. The girl looked up, making a face, and quickly put on the hood of her blue woollen cape. She fastened the leather harness on the garment's collar, to prevent the wind to rush into her clothes. Around her, no one seemed to care, neither of the torrential rain that now lashed over the stands, nor of the howling wind. The game riveted the crowd.
In a whoosh, an imbroglio of colours materialised before her eyes and the two seekers brushed past the Ravenclaws' terraces in a remarkable speed. She watched them rush toward the middle of the pit before both dashed towards the ground, taking a ninety degrees' angle. She feared they would crash into the lawn, mainly for her friend Alastair who had recently been assigned the seeker's position for the green and silvers.
She did feel morally obligated to root for the Gryffindors though, due to her recent friendship with the team's Captain. Yet, she found herself clench her fist as Rosier overtook the red and golden seeker, only to let out a disappointed cry when both separated, a few feet above the grass.
Annabel pondered at the use of the word 'friendship' to describe her association with the boy. It was quite ironic, that she qualified it in such a way despite the kiss he had given her right before the game. She curled her lip when she recalled how he had jogged all the way towards her before he had joined the pitch, his broom in hand. He had kissed her without further ceremony, in front of the entire school. It was not the first boy she frenched, but it was the first time she did so unwillingly.
In her mouth, she felt her tongue get numb, and she cursed at herself for not having had the courage to push him away.
A hooray jolted her out of her thoughts.
Alastair was flying upwards, his fist raised in a victorious gesture.
The commentator screamed:
"Slytherin wins!"
—
The Great Hall was all frenzied when the two teams arrived. The Slytherins stood up together in an ecstatic movement, rushing to hug the players. Alastair was pulled by so many hands that gripped at his limbs and clothes that he seemed to struggle not to fall. On the other side of the room, the atmosphere was grim and despite the few applause, the lack of fervour at the red and golden table betrayed the house's disappointment.
"Aren't you going to comfort him?" Annabel heard Violet ask with a genuine voice. She looked up and glanced over the heads of the Ravenclaws that sat before her. She saw the Quidditch Captain talk to a few fellow students, glancing intermittently at the door as if he dreamed of nothing else but leave. He seemed disheartened, and it saddened her, but she did not wish to give him any false hope. She knew that sooner or later, she would break his heart.
"I think he needs to be alone" she tried to persuade herself out loud, finally bringing to her mouth the bite of roast she had pricked with her fork and which was getting cold. Her eyes followed the boy who left the Great Hall in the company of a few members of the Quidditch team, and she let out a small sigh.
The girls finished their dinner quickly, for the room's acoustic was not appropriate to a horde of overexcited Slytherins, and screaming to cover the elated sounds of the students behind them became irksome. Soon enough, the six girls made their way to the Ravenclaw tower, chatting about the game and the exams to come. Annabel was dawdling behind the group, next to Elena who put her arm through hers, slowing them both down all the more as she asked with a grin:
"Are you still coming tonight?"
Annabel had promised she would join the after-game party. She used to apprehend such social events, for her mind struggled to keep everyone's feelings at bay, but she was in desperate need for entertainment. Ever since the school year started, her friends were swamped in their many elective courses, which she had refused to sign for, and despite the OWLs mock exams right around the corner, Anna felt hopelessly bored. Elena and Margaret had stated they would go, because parties at the Slytherins' had the reputation to be terrific, and the two girls had thus began to stock up on booze, so much so that they could have sustained an entire assembly of drunkards for over a month.
Once they reached their dorm, the two girls swopped their uniform for a fancy outfit.
"Anna, darling, you're not going there like this" chastised Elena as she looked at the girl who stood in the middle of the room, still dressed in her school uniform. The blond Ravenclaw ransacked her own wardrobe until she pulled out a burgundy crepe piece that she handed the girl. It was a fine dress, probably far too pricey for risking having it stained with Butterbeer.
"Put it on" issued Elena nonetheless, all the while skilfully moving a liner's brush over her half-closed eyelids.
Anna clumsily slipped on the dress and looked at herself in the mirror, trying to ignore the condemning looks Sophia was darting her.
"Are you seriously going to the party of the team that defeated your boyfriend?" she finally asked, after long minutes of silence that Annabel imagined torturous for the girl.
"He's not my boyfriend. And I'm going for Alastair" she responded flatly as she moved in front of the mirror and pulled up the top of the dress which revealed too much cleavage.
"And even if he was her boyfriend, it doesn't mean that she owes him anything" added Margaret who rolled her eyes comically.
"It's not about owing something, it's about having some decency"
"You're making this personal Sophia. Annabel is only going to congratulate her friend. There is no wrong in that" added the blond girl who opened her mouth ever so slightly in a concentrating frown as she applied some thick layers of mascara to her lashes.
"You should join, Sophia. It'll be grand"
"The two of you are hopeless anyway, but I expected better of you" the girl replied as she turned towards Annabel, obviously determined not to let this one pass. "Are you aware of what it makes you look like?" she asked, staring at her chestnut haired friend up and down.
"No? Tell me Sophia, what does it make me look like?" retorted Annabel who's patience was running thin. She turned around and glared, a tube of lipstick in hand.
"Come on girls, don't fight" pleaded Eudora who lifted her head off of the magazine she was reading.
Margaret shot herself one last glance in the silver-framed mirror she was holding before she stood up. She added with a shrug: "They're not engaged Sophia. Until this afternoon we did not even know they were in a relationship"
"Well, I did no know we were in a relationship either" sighed Annabel, accepting the mix of gin and tonic Elena had concealed in a bottle of McSpratt and was now handing her.
"Fine. But don't come at me in tears if you get caught inside the school's corridors past the curfew" pouted Sophia as she crossed her arms in front of her chest. The sulk that showed on her face conciliated Annabel who walked towards her friend and kissed the crown of her head.
"Don't worry, we won't get caught" she promised with a wink before she grasped her clutch and velvet cape and disappeared behind the door, following the two girls close.
—
They reached the marble staircase in the main entrance and took the door on the right, which opened on a steep stone staircase. After what seemed like long minutes, they reached the lower storeys of the castle where the faraway sound of a booming music was muffled through the thick damp walls. Anna sniffed the musty air of the dungeons and looked at her blond friend, who guided them assuredly through the maze of corridors, her hair moving elegantly with each steps.
"You know the location of the Slytherin's common room" she suddenly realised, stunned, and Elena darted her a mischievous look.
They took a turn, and found Leonus Nott patiently waiting in front of a bare wall.
"Good evening ladies" he grinned and Annabel, dumbfounded, watched Elena give the boy a knowing smile. The Slytherin promptly whispered the common room's password and the wall behind him disappeared, revealing a crammed room, filled with dancing - and staggering - students.
Nott guided them through the crowd, all the way to a sitting corner with two dark chesterfields and several chairs around a marble coffee table. The surface was covered with a filled ashtray and half-emptied glasses, suggesting the party had been going for a while. Annabel spotted her friend Alastair, whose back was turned to her but whom she recognised from his very blond hair, that now verged on the green from the verdant neon light that spread within the common room. He was sitting in the company of his usual clique, to the exception of Tom Riddle, which strangely both comforted and disappointed her.
She jogged towards the couch while her friends entrusted Nott with the drinks they had brought and she wrapped her arms around Alastair's shoulders despite the glances a few Slytherins shot her.
"Congratulations" she shouted and kissed the freshly shaven skin of his cheek.
"Anna!" he exclaimed as he turned his head, noticing her. He wrapped his own arms around hers, therewith strengthening her embrace. "Come sit next to me" he issued, patting a spot on the couch and she skirted the furnitures to let herself fall on the soft leather.
"I did not know you would come"
"Of course. Did you truly believe I would not be here to celebrate the man of the hour?!" she grinned and she ruffled his hair boyishly.
Nott came back with some drinks and Annabel accepted a glass, taking a sip of the strongly dosed out Moscow Mule the boy served them. The alcohol lifted her mood instantly and she took off her cape, making herself comfortable next to her friend who passed an arm around her shoulders like a brother would have done. They chatted about the game, the relief Alastair felt now that they had won, for he was insecure about being the new seeker, as he had initially applied for a chaser's position. Absentmindedly, Annabel was watching the people come and go around their table, and she nodded to Elena who stood up and disappeared inside the crowd, pretexting she was going to the loo.
—
The hubbub of conversations was audible from his dorm, signs of life erupting from the common room. A young man with jet black hair glanced at his watch, trying to gauge how much time he had left before he would be expected to join the festivities. He had skipped dinner, to use the extra time for his personal research, but he had met a few First Years along the way that had pestered him with endless questions and curbed his neatly organised schedule. He shut the door tight behind him and sat on his bed, solemnly weighting the object that was lying on his bedside table. He had received it that very morning, ordered in London and delivered by one of the castle's owls.
Tom usually approached reading with a certain religiousness, as if all books were scriptures. It obeyed a ritual: first, he needed find a location propitious to such activity, a quiet place that allowed him to better immerse himself within the work. Then, he would turn the first page, his hand caressing the left side, applying pressure to mark the fold, but just enough for the spine to bend with ease. He would then proceed to read the author's name, the title, the foreword. He was a fast reader, but he enjoyed lingering, taking his time, particularly when he engaged with a new author. He would take breaks, lift his head, narrow his eyes. He reflected on the choice of this or that word, how some sentences could have been phrased differently, or not, and how this would have altered the very meaning of the text. Ideally, Tom would be sitting near a window, so he could let his gaze wander on the landscapes before him. When he would be done, he would place between the pages one of the bookmarks he stole from the library. Never on earth would he dog ear a page, or annotate it, an irritating habit some people possessed, which he thought made them unworthy of the precious gift literature was, until he remembered that Annabel Selwyn belonged to that group of readers.
That night, though, Tom felt like such reading habits would only hinder his excitement and he decided to exceptionally put aside his usual practices. He rolled up his sleeves, as if he was about to engage in some tedious work, and shredded the craft paper around the book with eagerness. It appeared, thick, its cover dark and ornamented with silver threads.
A Tormented Wizard: Life and Death of Salazar Slytherin
by
Messenio Campbell
He switched the book to his left hand, and flipped the last pages in search of the index. He spotted the letter F, located at the lower end of the right page. Under the word "FAMILY", he found a list of words in lower cases, followed by a page number. His fingers brushed the paper, and after "ancestors" he found the term "children" and as he was about to search inside the book for the designated content, his heart skipped a beat.
Past "consanguinity" and "family line", but before "household", a word stood out against the whiteness of the page.
"Gaunt (house of): 127"
He stopped moving, his neck suddenly stiff. He realised he had stopped breathing, and he quickly inhaled. His hands moved on their own, found the page.
"Ahern Slytherin, Salazar's first and only surviving child after the aforementioned incident, married Ophira Gaunt (herself issued from the Gaunt and the Peverell family) in 1004 AD. The union is alluded to in a letter of admission from the Magical Goldsmith's Guild in which it is stated that Ahern Slytherin was to join the Gaunt's family, therewith becoming a Guild member. It is unclear why Ahern abandoned his father's name upon marriage. The two commonly accepted assumptions are of legal nature. A third one, which is rather mythical, will be mentioned at last. First, the practice of adoption of sons-in-law in case of lack of male offsprings was common practice among guild members in the Middle Ages, in order to secure the business and due to the time's practice of agnatic primogeniture. Thus, it is supposed that Ahern Slytherin was legally adopted by his wife's father. As such, he would have taken the name of Gaunt, which allowed him to claim his wife's inheritance (Puzo 1920: 72). The second possibility of the rejection of the name of Slytherin is simply imbued to the necessity of make one's own for a newcomer the name of the Guild's member that introduced them (ibid). Finally, and I refer to such hypothesis only for the sake of providing an exhaustive explanation of the reasons that might have encouraged Ahern Slytherin at discarding his birth name, for little evidence appear to confirm such claim, Ahern's relationship with his own father seems to have deteriorated after the incident that led to the death of his siblings and cousin. This could have motivated the descendant to take some distance from his own father and renouncing to the patriarch's name over its symbolism (Poderick 1935: 402). The family line of the House of Gaunt is well documented an-"
The music was booming now, resounding against the walls of his dorm, which suggested that the common room was filled with overjoyed - and very likely already drunk - Slytherins. Tom's eyes jumped towards the next page, skipping the entire paragraph about the House of Gaunt until he finally found what he was searching for.
"As for living descendants of Salazar Slytherin himself, the line seem to end after Marvolo Gaunt (1875 - 1928). Even though various elements hint at the continuity of the bloodline until today (the incarceration a few years back of a man named Morfin Gaunt is an invitation to contemporary historians to further investigate the matter), the absence of any official birth certificate or legal documents thwarts any attempt at making conclusions regarding a living heir."
Tom sat there, stunned, trying to make sense of what he had just read.
He re-read the paragraph umpteenth times, to make sure he had not omitted any detail. He lifted his head and stared at the pattern of green and silver of his canopy bed. He repeated out loud what he had just learned, to make sense of it but also to let it sink in.
"Salazar Slytherin had a son, named Ahern, who married a woman called Ophira Gaunt. The man took his wife's name, for whichever purpose, and had children whose last survivor was a man named Marvolo Gaunt"
If what this author asserted was correct, if what his mother had said proved to be true… If Mrs Cole's memory was not failing her, if he was indeed the grandson of Marvolo Gaunt…
Tom closed his eyes as he let himself overcome by the emotion, like a wave would submerge him. He removed his tie and opened the first button of his shirt.
It could only mean one thing…
He was the last one, "the one remaining", he repeated in the silence of the room. He laughed in disbelief, his long fingers running through his dark hair.
A feminine voice broke through the door which brusquely opened. Leonus, accompanied from that blond girl he had started dating a few months ago, that Ravenclaw who shared Annabel's dorm, Elena Green, bursted in his dorm.
"I'm sorry Tom, I ignored you were here" apologised the boy but Tom shook his head with a whimsical smile. He dropped the book on his bed and stood up, his allure conquering. He exited the dorm, swiftly walking down the stairs in a kingly demeanour, ready to enjoy the party ahead, ready to lose himself into the night.
Ready to take his place among his people.
For he was the heir.
And so Tom went, forgetting all about the book still opened on his bed, that could have revealed so many more mysteries, something about a tingle he sometimes felt, about a girl he could not get out of his head.