Chapter 3: The Office and Lab
Standard Disclaimer: No, I don't own anything of the Harry Potter empire. Nope, nada, bugger-all. No money is being made here, damn it. Any resemblance to actual people, living or dead, is extremely unlikely and is unintentional if it does happen. Most of them were idiots anyway.
Timeframe and Backstory: After Hogwarts by some years. This story shares the same AU as my Aftermath stories, where Harry Potter has married Luna Lovegood. Hermione married Justin Finch-Fletchly, is now the Countess of Aberfeldy and largely does without magic. By Right of Conquest, Harry Potter is the Head of multiple formerly Dark families. There are some concepts from some of my other stories as well, such as Hogwarts: A Pre-History.
The story begins about fifteen years after the Battle of Hogwarts.
Warning: Some serious drivel, some minor character bashing.
The group, minus the goblin workmen who were busy carefully taking apart the basilisk carcass, came up to the doorway leading into the office area. Beyond that, there was an elaborate and extensive portions laboratory. The floors of both were covered with torn and shredded parchment, as well as many pieces of glass and some other unidentifiable materials. Half of the potions lab was smashed and books had been torn from the bookshelves, as if someone was desperately looking for something and not finding it.
Minerva McGonagall drew her wand and commanded "Reparo, reparo parcimenti, collatus!" The detritus on the floors swirled into the air and reassembled into the beakers and glassware as well as the torn parchment and papers. After reassembling, the pages resembled a card-shark's slight of hand as they rearranged themselves into two properly collated piles.
Some of the pieces that were not parchment assembled themselves into pictures and documents mounted on the wall of the laboratory. One set of the pieces became a cross with a slanting crossbar below the main cross-beam and a short bar above; this re-mounted itself on the wall above the desk. Two pictures reassembled themselves with highlights of silver and gold and mounted themselves on each side of the cross. There was another larger document, possible parchment or other material written in an odd script, which mounted itself on the wall above the desk.
Bunny Scamander looked at the other two after looking at the large parchment on the wall, and said (in a strong Australian accent) "Bloody hell! This is going to set the hippogriff among the weasels, isn't it?" Astrid looked at the parchment and then the woman and nodded "Damn right, girl!" Luna asked for and got a quick whispered explanation from her friends.
Most of the group looked at the wall decorations with puzzled expressions. Luna's eyes widened as she considered the serious implications of the artifacts. She looked at her friends Astrid and Bunny, and saw that they too were surprised by the potential for serious issues. The three quickly headed to the desk to look at the piles of writings.
Headmistress Stevens turned to Luna and asked, "Can you please explain why you all are shock but excited?"
Luna looked to the three other witches who nodded at her unspoken request for approval, then pulling her wand, cast the spell translating the large parchment. It read
Despite their claims of being Christians, the aristocracy has absolutely no intention of letting the meek inherit the earth
Meanwhile, the new potions mistress, Daphne Greengrass, looked around the lab and asked out loud "Where is Slytherin's recording journal?"
The people in the office and lab looked at the former Slytherin witch with puzzled expressions. One of the group asked "What's a recording journal?"
Daphne smiled as one of her specialty's secrets was revealed. "Every potion master uses a recording journal so that they can proceed with their work without having to stop and take notes while the potions are in a delicate state. Records everything said near them. They then take the journal entries and clean up their notes when writing out the final process and results, not to mentioned of course cleaning up their language when they burn their hands on hot glassware. The first rule of laboratory work is that very hot glass looks exactly the same as cold glass, and every potioneer has burned themselves on hot glass at one time or another. My first few final notes are only half as long as the journal entries once I cleaned up the swearing and screams."
While Daphne had most of the group searching the room for the journal, not having a clue exactly what they were looking for, Luna and her friends were taking a look through the piles of parchment. One pile appeared to be an autobiography that someone was working on, while the other shorter pile was some notes of some kind. Neither pile was in English, either modern nor medieval.
While the younger witches were reading the first few pages of the two piles of parchment, Professors McGonagall and Flitwick looked at a few pages and asked "What language are these written in?" McGonagall turned to the 'girls' and said "They are not in runes, or the Latin alphabets of various kinds, nor Greek nor Arabic. They look a bit like Greek, but also like Arabic which is always in a cursive script." To this, Flitwick added "They are not in Goblinesque either."
Astrid Lovegood commented as she continued to read. "They are in Old Slavonic, which was the language around the north part of the Byzantine Empire. It was similar to the Byzantine form of Greek, but these notes are written in cursive rather than capitalized font. From the first pages of what I take to be Slytherin's autobiography, he was born along the north coast of the Black Sea and the foot of the Caucasus Mountains. By the way, the icons on the wall there have their text in the capitalized form.
McGonagall queried "That sounds like a very obscure thing to be fluent in, seeing as you three seem to be reading it with no difficulty."
Astrid smiled. "You have to remember that our specialty area of research is studying yetis and their kin. The Caucasian yetis, or 'low-landers' according to their Himalayan cousins, live at much lower altitudes than their highland relatives, kind of like the sasquatches of North America. They have extensive dealings with the local humans, most are literate and they still use the old Slavonic for recording some of their histories. We have spent a bit of time with them, and picked it up there."
Headmistress Stevens looked over at the group by the table. "What have you found? It sounds like it is something rather important."
Luna Potter looked at the older witch, and said "If these documents are Salazar Slytherin's own notes, and they appear that they are, then everything we have been told about him were lies. Bald-faced lies. We know that Voldemort spent time in this Chamber of Secrets, so we need to verify that the notes are actually Slytherin's and not some fabrication of Voldemort's. If they are authentic, then the other founders of Hogwarts either had a hand in libelling him, or else over time Hogwarts staff have completely misconstrued who he really was and what his actual contributions to the school were. It seems, like so much of what 'everybody knows', what we all have been told has not been really true."
"Minerva, I remember when Hermione asked you about the Chamber of Secrets, and you told us what you understood about it. Yes, there was the basilisk in the chamber, but perhaps the true monster that was in the chamber, the previous time it was opened, was actually Voldemort himself. That was when he put the compulsive charm onto the basilisk and it killed Myrtle."
Looking at the damaged lab and then picking up a small book which had been left as if it had been completely overlooked, Daphne Greengrass looked over at the Hogwarts staff and asked "Does anyone know how Tom Riddle did in Potions? Harry told us all that he had been a student when Horace Slughorn was the potions prof. There might be some teacher's notes or sometime."
Minerva McGonagall was puzzled. "Why would you ask that?"
The young potions mistress replied "From the damage here, and assuming it was Voldemort who did it, it looks like whoever destroyed the lab had no regards for the laboratory equipment or had any idea of the existence of the potion master's recording journal which I am now holding. Riddle, or Voldemort as he became, seems to have had no real interest in the art or practice of Potions. We now know that Severus Snape brewed potions for Voldemort and his Death Eaters. I suspect that was because of one of two options; one, that Voldemort was too busy with other matters, or two, he was crap at potions as well as being extremely vain and didn't want his followers to see him fail at anything. Besides, when I found the recording journal, it was under a very thick layer of dust, and when I picked it up the desk underneath it was dust-free. So, unlike a lot of other areas in the office and lab; it obviously hadn't been moved in a very long time."
Minerva nodded. "Interesting point." Calling for one of the castle's elves, who now could access the Chamber of secrets when the staff were present to serve as anchors for them, she instructed the elf to find Slughorn's confidential notes on one Thomas Riddle.
After a quarter hour or so while the others were examining the documents on the desk, the elf arrived carrying a thick folder.
Minerva looked at the notes and her eyes widened. She then passed the folder to Headmistress Stevens to see. Stevens read a few pages and nodded. "Professor Greengrass, you were correct. Very much so. Professor Slughorn states in his confidential notes that he had raised the option of a career with the Aurors, but Tom's performance was not sufficient to pass their entrance requirements in spite of his excellent work in the DADA classes. He notes that Riddle had shown absolute contempt for the Aurors, who he considered idiots because their job was to keep wizards from fulfilling their true potential and that they put themselves in harm's way trying to stop magical people from rising to their proper place in society by protecting muggles. He also claimed that they were stupid for risking their lives for other people, when they should be seeking more power themselves. He wanted to spend his time 'more productively' by studying the dark Arts, or he at least claimed that this was to find better ways to defend against them."
"Slughorn's notes indicate he brought this matter to the Headmaster, Armando Dippet at the time, but nothing was done about it. However, I also note that Dippet was the one who refused Riddle the post of DADA professor."