"ᴛᴏ ʟɪᴠᴇ ɪꜱ ᴛᴏ ꜱᴜꜰꜰᴇʀ, ᴛᴏ ꜱᴜʀᴠɪᴠᴇ ɪꜱ ᴛᴏ ꜰɪɴᴅ ꜱᴏᴍᴇ ᴍᴇᴀɴɪɴɢ ɪɴ ᴛʜᴇ ꜱᴜꜰꜰᴇʀɪɴɢ." — ꜰʀɪᴇᴅʀɪᴄʜ ɴɪᴇᴛᴢꜱᴄʜᴇ
Chapter Twenty-One: The Winter of Our Discontent
It was the holidays already, and he was no closer to either figuring out where the Chamber of Secrets was or how to get rid of the Boggart on his own.
Not that either of them was particularly important to anything but his own ego. Maybe he thought it could make the queasy, uncomfortable feeling that seemed to be resting right below his ribs go away.
Even with his Parseltongue, the unexplainable magical abilities that a Mudblood shouldn't have (at least according to Abraxas and Yaxley), and the existence of Marvolo Gaunt, Tom remained somewhat unsure if he really was the Heir of Slytherin.
And if he was, where would he even go from there? No one would believe him; he was the Mudblood of Slytherin House, anyway.
Right now, all that was separating himself from being a complete nobody was what felt like smoke and mirrors. Nothing tangible. Nothing he could hold onto.
At least it's the holidays.
No classes, no homework. Neither of which Tom would have minded that much; in fact, the long stretches of time with nothing to do but think were starting to drive him crazy.
No, what he really enjoyed about the holidays was that the school was nearly empty. And no House dormitory was emptier than the Slytherin Dungeon.
As in, he was quite literally the only person who hadn't gone home for the holidays.
No Abraxas, no Lestrange, no Mulciber, and speaking of Mulciber, he had the entirety of his tutoring earnings stashed in a hidden spot under his bed.
He wasn't sure what he would even spend it on. Maybe it would be nice to have a uniform that fit; if he saved all year, he should have enough.
No, that was a waste. He got his Hogwarts money, stingy as it was, and he had to be pragmatic. He probably wouldn't get a job right after Hogwarts (no, definitely not with his background). Maybe the money could help tide him over, pay his board for a while.
"Hope," he said to the empty dormitory, focusing on the h. "Hat. House. Helmet."
Forget it.
You can try to sound like them all you like, but you'll never be like them. Not as long as you've got that filthy, filthy blood.
Tom cupped his hand to his mouth, but it didn't shut up the voice in his head.
Abraxas was going to leave in June, and he was going to remain the laughingstock of Slytherin House.
This utter pointlessness. What was this?
Oh. Stagnation. That was it. He was stuck in a rut, and never mind trying to get out, Tom wasn't sure which way was up in the first place.
He reached under his bed to retrieve the wireless — well, it wasn't a proper wireless, and it wasn't technically his (but people shouldn't leave things out if they didn't want other people to take them, really. Finders keepers.) — and started fiddling with the knobs. Of course, the wizarding world did its best to remain blissfully unaware of the war right on its doorstep, but if you really, desperately wanted to, you could find the right frequency even on radios that ran on magic instead of electricity; he'd done it many times before.
And unlike the others, Tom didn't have the luxury of ignoring the war. If not for the newspaper clippings and whispers that the few Muggle-born students that returned home over the Christmas and Easter holidays brought back with them, he would have gone back into the Blitz completely unprepared.
He couldn't afford to rely on other people.
At least today, he didn't have to stick the radio under the covers and turn the volume almost all the way down. The dormitory was empty.
"... The HMS Audacity, an escort carrier captured from the Germans in March of last year, has been sunk..."
The radio fizzled out into noise, the knob spinning like a compass needle gone haywire. Tom swore under his breath, but he wasn't sure how to fix it.
The noise cleared, and he sat up.
"Germany calling, Germany calling, Germany calling... Here are the Reichssender Hamburg, station Bremen and station DXB on the forty-one-metre band."
"Not you," muttered Tom, putting his head back down and reaching to turn off the wireless.
No, I'll leave it. I'm bored as it is. Might as well entertain myself with Lord Haw-Haw.
"... You are about to hear our news in English... To say the British Empire is in danger today... will be a very feeble understatement... never before has it been in such a perilous position..."
I'm in a bit of a perilous position, myself.
"... Until Roosevelt and Churchill so needlessly provoked Japan into taking up arms...In November alone, the German forces sank the following British naval units: one aircraft carrier, one cruiser, three destroyers and a number of smaller vessels. They damaged two battleships including the Prince of Wales, the Repulse and the seaplane carrier Unicorn, of 14,500 tons. That's only a part of the price paid for the attempt to wage naval warfare on the Churchillian scale. ... What Roosevelt may lose in the Pacific is small in comparison with what Britain stands to lose. ... Although in the East, the prestige of Britain has been declining for many years..."
He was going to turn it off. Tom didn't need to hear yet more about powerlessness.
"Even India is threatened. Canada is practically an American dominion, ruled by Roosevelt. The fate of Australia and New Zealand hangs in the balance... The Royal Air Force is too weak. The Royal Navy is too weak. And as yet, the common sense of the British people is too weak to perceive the catastrophic nature of the plight into which they have allowed Churchill to lead them."
"...And this talk by Haw-Haw will be repeated at 10:45 P.M., Eastern Summer Time, tonight."
And just like that, the radio fizzled out into its usual buzz.
What was the catastrophic nature of his plight, anyway? He tried to pick apart the cause.
Abraxas.
Yes. Abraxas had started it all in the hallway when he'd declared Tom a 'little Mudblood.'
But surely, even if Abraxas hadn't noticed, someone would. He'd learned quite quickly that there was a very short list of acceptable names (in Slytherin House especially), and even if he claimed to be Marvolo Gaunt's grandson, on account of their shared name and his Parseltongue, no one would believe him.
He didn't have a token. Other children at the orphanage had toys or locks of hair or halves of broken lockets or even engraved music boxes that played out tinkling tunes; some were even old enough to remember their parents.
He'd even watched some young mothers tearfully leave their children in the unloving arms of Mrs. Cole, with empty promises of returning when they had gained fame and fortune.
But at least an empty promise was something to hang onto.
Tom didn't have anything to show that he had been claimed as someone's child, and even though he was told that his father was named Tom Riddle, too, and he was legitimate... if his betraying witch mother left him, with Muggles no less, wouldn't she lie, too? If anyone had started this, she had.
Tom Riddle might as well not exist. He might as well not exist.
Maybe there would be a sign in the Chamber of Secrets.
Well, of course, there was the monster... but there had to be something else waiting for him in there.
There had to be.
Maybe a ring. He'd seen Abraxas flaunting the Malfoy ring since the beginning of the year when he'd been made Head Boy and his (apparently ailing) father, Claudius, decided it was time to pass it down to him.
It was older than any of the other signet rings Tom had seen; made clumsily out of Byzantine gold (you could see the marks of the tools used to carve it), the oval bezel engraved with misshapen Greek letters, and the sides decorated with black swirls. As Abraxas told anyone who would listen, it was given to his ancestor, Armand Malfoy, by William the Conqueror himself, in exchange for certain services.
Fortunately for Abraxas, none of the purebloods (including Abraxas) seemed to know who William the Conqueror was, because, in the same breath, he'd call Tom a 'filthy Mudblood,' and he had to bite his tongue to stop himself from reminding Abraxas that William the Conqueror was a Muggle.
His parents were a problem he could not solve right now. But he would not be powerless.
Abraxas was. He looked invulnerable enough... but Tom knew that without your credibility, in this world, you were nothing.
Yes, Tom wasn't ready in first year. But now, he was. It was now or never, after all.
He would do it step by step. That was the only way he ever managed to get anything worthwhile done.
Nothing would go wrong.
On a scale of one to ten, Tom Marvolo Riddle would describe himself as 'bloody annoyed.'
Four days of brooding later, he hadn't made much headway.
After all, how do you bring down someone so utterly untouchable?
And on top of it all, there was Santa Claus is Coming to Town. In fact, he could attribute ninety per cent of his baseline annoyance, now that Abraxas and his lot had pissed off home for the holidays, to that infernal record.
Some of the Muggle-borns in Ravenclaw had a record player, and of the ten or so records they had between them, Santa Claus is Coming to Town was vastly the most popular.
Most disconcertingly, he had been brushing his teeth earlier in the morning and humming — in a moment of cold shock, Tom took the toothbrush out of his mouth and realised that he was humming Santa Claus is Coming to Town.
They had indoctrinated him. Conditioned him.
This was not on.
If Tom had to hear Santa Claus is Coming to Town one more time, he was going to hex something — anything.
Tom hated Christmas and Christmas songs doubly so. He was sure it had to do with being bundled up in a few scarves along with the other orphans (after an unsatisfying meal that Martha would deign to call 'Christmas dinner') and being shepherded up and down the street to sing carols each and every year.
Mrs. Cole, fortunately, would never have allowed Santa Claus is Coming to Town. In fact, she actively railed against it. It was much too secular.
No, she preferred things like Silent Night and Come All Ye Faithful, and while Tom wasn't exactly the poster child for religious devotion, they were easier to tune out and not as interminably catchy.
Shockingly, Dumbledore was keeping such a low profile that he only made up about five per cent of Tom's irritation. It was so much easier to enjoy himself when the nosy, bleeding-heart Head of Gryffindor House wasn't swanning around the corridors and encouraging him to 'stop being such a loner' and 'open up' and 'make friends.'
Perish the thought.
Just as he had sat down on the far end of the otherwise empty Slytherin table, intending to eat quickly and leave, the noise started up again.
Tom stiffened instantly, looked down at his hands, and tried to think happy thoughts.
Like the appropriate punishment for the idiots who had composed this chirpy American nonsense in the first place (they, like him, should be tortured to the very edge of sanity).
He aggressively chewed a piece of carrot and reached into his pocket.
He was not going to give in to his baser impulses. He was (nearly) fifteen, and he could think for himself, and he didn't need a smoke.
But one more little jaunty piano-and-violin ditty, and he was going to blow his brains out.
The back of his neck had gone up in hives, and that only served to add to the maelstrom of frustration.
Slughorn was bobbing his head along to Winter Wonderland, and so was Dippet.
Dumbledore was staring into space, as seemed to be new his habit these past few months, but looked no more troubled than usual. If anything, he was smiling slightly.
They couldn't possibly be enjoying this?
He absolutely could not take it a single moment longer. They were playing Santa Claus is Coming to Town again.
Tom needed a smoke.
None of the professors was paying much attention; so he slipped out of the Great Hall, went left as if he were going towards Dumbledore's office, and instead up the stairs towards the third floor, checking that no one followed him, and slipped out the door next to the Charms classroom and into the Clock Tower Courtyard.
Not very many people knew about the courtyard, and it was often a nice, quiet place to get away from either Abraxas or Dumbledore. Prefects didn't patrol here. He doubted even nosy Minerva knew about it.
It was more of a cloister, really, but it must have been one of the older parts of the castle because the ceiling and the stone walls were slowly crumbling and overrun with tangled climbing ivy, and the spaces between the flagstones were filled with grass, moss, weeds, and bits of drab little flowers.
In the centre of the courtyard was a fountain decorated with stone cherubs that had seen better days and a tree. But Tom wasn't interested in either of those.
No, instead, he found himself watching, as if his hands weren't his own, the tip of the cigarette flare orange, filling the air with the heavy, cloying scents of dried flowers, tar, and smoke.
There was some inherently calming about the routine.
The first breath tasted as awful as it had in the Underground, but Tom barely noticed the taste anymore. Mostly just the heady, euphoric rush; it made him feel dizzy enough to reach out along the wall of the courtyard to steady himself. And then came the aftermath of actually feeling normal for a few minutes. Warm and comfortable and sleepy.
No, not quite sleepy. Awake. But sort of contented. As if all cluttered, troublesome aspects of life had been momentarily vanquished. His mind drifting on the breeze. The winter cold was cutting, but it did not bother him.
Just as he began to attempt to sift through his thoughts, a familiar voice came from the other end of the courtyard.
"Getting some air, Tom?"
He scrambled to put the cigarette out, wiped the ashes off of his fingers, and hoped desperately that he didn't reek of smoke.
"Uh, yes, Professor," he said. The cigarette was still dangling between his fingers.
Dumbledore was staring at him amusedly.
"Ten points from Slytherin," he said. "I thought you would know better, Tom, but it is always the quiet ones, isn't it?"
He nearly died on the spot of mortification.
"Sorry, sir," he said. "It won't happen again."
Dumbledore merely chuckled. "Certainly. I see you have not gotten into the holiday spirit this year."
This year?
He whistled the first few bars of Santa Claus is Coming to Town. Tom was on the verge of a mental breakdown. If Dumbledore ever wanted a career as a Dark Lord, the sheer sadism was not lacking.
"Charming tune, isn't it?"
Tom could think of more appropriate adjectives. Deplorable. Horrid. Vomit-inducing.
"Yes, sir," said Tom, lying through his teeth.
"I take it Slytherin House is rather empty over the holidays?"
What is he getting at?
"Yes, that's right, Professor."
Dumbledore gave him a piercing look. But he seemed unusually on edge. It looked like he hadn't slept much recently, actually.
"Are you at all lonely, Tom? All the other boys in your year have gone home... it must be terribly quiet."
In my House, actually. He was, in true Dumbledore fashion, making a gross understatement.
Dumbledore had clearly not grown up in a building full of thirty other children. Tom adored terrible quietness. Nothing brought him greater peace than walking down to the dormitories and having an entire silent common room and dormitory to himself. He wanted it to last as long as possible.
"I like it quiet, sir," he said.
"I have noticed that you have been spending a good deal of time with Mr. Mulciber," said Dumbledore, watching him carefully.
"Yes, sir. I'm tutoring him for Potions."
"Hmm," said Dumbledore. "I see."
"Sir?" asked Tom. "You look… distracted. Are you thinking… about Grindelwald? How they all expect you to fight him?"
"In some capacity," said Dumbledore, shaking his head as if to get rid of a stray thought. "Though not the one you might expect."
"You're waiting for him to strike first," said Tom, thinking about the war. "Aren't you, sir?"
Dumbledore smiled even more mechanically than usual; he did not seem to want to elaborate.
"What if you have to kill him, sir?" asked Tom, not sure what spurred him on to ask. "You used to know him, didn't you?"
For an instant, Dumbledore's usual façade melted away, and he looked pained.
Old, Tom realised. He had never thought that Dumbledore looked old before; he had no idea how old Dumbledore was. He wasn't like the other professors; Tom felt that Dumbledore had always been around, somehow, and he couldn't imagine Hogwarts without him.
"Well," said Dumbledore, his voice measured and the crow's feet around his eyes more prominent than ever. Tom had never noticed that Dumbledore had so many worry lines etched onto his forehead. "I should hope it will not come to that, Tom."
Was Grindelwald the one that broke your nose? he wanted to ask. But that was really pushing it.
"But what if it does? That's why you don't want to face him, isn't it?" Tom knew he was crossing some kind of line at this point. "The others think you're afraid of him, but you're not, are you, Professor Dumbledore? You're afraid of..." He trailed off.
"Myself? Yes. How very astute of you, Tom," said Dumbledore, his tone more clipped and brutal than Tom had ever heard it. "Whoever fights monsters should see to it that in the process he does not become a monster. And if you gaze long enough into an abyss, the abyss will gaze back into you."
At Tom's questioning glance, he clarified: "Friedrich Nietzsche. One of your Muggle philosophers. Though I suppose given your current predicament with Germany, his thinking might not be particularly popular as of late. Though I hear he is quickly becoming a favourite amongst politicians. All oppressive regimes require some lofty sense of intellectualism, noble goals and good morals, after all."
He paused, and Tom hoped that the conversation was over. But Dumbledore was Dumbledore, so of course, he continued.
"Do you believe in destiny, Tom?"
"I don't like the idea of fate, sir."
"Ah," said Dumbledore. "But do you believe in it? Or do you think our future remains at least somewhat up to us? Fate and destiny are not the same thing, you know. Fate, I believe, is an immovable force that requires the stars to align just so. Destiny is more forgiving. It can be persuaded."
"I don't know, sir," said Tom, not quite sure why Dumbledore wanted to have this kind of pointless discussion. "I've never thought about it; I supposed things just... happened."
"I myself am not sure," said Dumbledore. "Things have a way of working out in the end, don't they? But I sincerely hope it is the latter."
"Well, I'm not sure if things do work out, Professor. You don't really think we can change the world?"
Dumbledore smiled. "It may be an overly optimistic outlook, yes. But the alternative is to do nothing."
"Some people just get lucky."
"And you feel that you have been deeply wronged by fate, of no fault of your own? That you are exempt from all responsibility? That life is patently unfair?"
"Of course it is!"
Tom bit his tongue to muffle the rest of his outrage.
"I do not mean to be harsh, Tom. But we cannot change the past."
"The future is more forgiving?" Tom finished, not bothering to hide the sarcasm.
"I believe you are more of a fatalist than you realise, Tom. It is most unusual; generally, I have noticed that young people believe that they can change the world."
"Change the world?" Tom laughed. "Change what, Professor Dumbledore? I can't change anything. I am who I am; the world is what it is. I have no choice."
Dumbledore looked very solemn. "You have more power than you know, Tom, if you would stop being so stubborn and self-pitying and open your eyes to what is around you."
"Not magic, or at least not in the strict sense," he added in answer to Tom's questioning look but did not elaborate on that point.
Instead, he said: "Here is a paradox of the Ancient Greeks: Imagine you are afflicted by a dangerous illness. If it is fated for you to recover from this illness, then you will recover whether you call a doctor or not. Likewise, if you are fated not to recover, you will not do so whether you call a doctor or not. But either it is fated that you will recover from this illness, or it is fated that you will not recover. Therefore, it is futile to consult a doctor."
"So?" asked Tom. "That doesn't make any difference to me, sir."
Dumbledore raised an eyebrow. "If fate controls all, it does not matter what you do. But, if you stay out here, Tom, for the next month, you will surely either starve or freeze to death. Can one truly say that your actions did not cause your destiny?"
"Maybe it was fate that I did decide to stay out here, sir."
"Perhaps," said Dumbledore. "I see we have come to a disagreement. Although, I think... I would not want to live in your version of the universe, Tom. It seems like a rather hopeless place."
I bet you wouldn't.
He watched Dumbledore turn around and go back inside without another word.
Tom almost didn't notice the adder curled up under the tree. The brown-grey scales blended in with the stones of the courtyard, and he would have ignored it completely had he not caught the flicker of a black tongue and a malicious scarlet eye. Even the dark zig-zag on its back seemed to blend into the shadows.
He should have known better. He shouldn't have gone over to it. He shouldn't have crouched down to be face-to-face with it.
First, the adder's head was gliding up as if to greet him, waving hypnotically.
Then, the head knocked into him with the force of a bullet, and sharp teeth were digging into his hand.
"Let go," hissed Tom, resisting the urge to shake the adder off of his hand. "I am not a meal. And shouldn't you be hibernating?"
"Yes," said the adder, releasing her hold on him, her voice low and dry. "I thought you would be bigger."
Unlike the grass snake, the adder seemed somewhat more amicable, slithering up his arm to rest around his shoulders so that she could hiss into his ear.
"What do you want, hatchling?"
Tom wanted to tell her that he had a name. But Parseltongue was not a language that allowed names without having to use annoyingly unwieldy grammar, and besides, snakes disliked names, nearly as much as they disliked speaking plainly.
"I want to know if the Chamber of Secrets exists." He paused. "And where it is."
"You do not seem concerned about the venom," said the adder. "Why is that, I wonder?"
"I've been bitten before," he said. "But why don't you tell me?"
"Look, it is already healing."
The adder sounded pleased with herself. Tom glanced down and realised that she was right; the skin was quickly sealing together.
"I am hungry," she said indolently, slithering down his arm and gently dropping to the floor. "Bring me a mouse."
"Now?"
"Bring me a mouse," said the adder once more, "and I'll help you. Alive. I like to kill it myself, so I know it is fresh and good."
"Right," said Tom, half to himself, half to the adder.
Dumbledore had plenty of small animals for his Transfiguration lessons.
Now, how would he convince him to part with one?
But then, it was Christmas tomorrow. Dumbledore had to be feeling the slightest bit generous, especially if Tom could figure out how to make it sound like a good deed.
"Another night?" asked Tom. "Same place?"
"We'll see," she said, with a lazy sort of assurance in his predestined failure.
And so, the next phase of his plan was usurped by a scheme to coax a single mouse from Professor Albus Dumbledore, the most brilliant wizard of his generation (and depending on who you asked, ever). It sounded like one of those impossible tasks heroes were pressed into completing in a fairytale.
His first bright idea was to steal it; after all, it wouldn't be his first time stealing (and doing away with) a rodent.
However, Dumbledore was not Billy Stubbs, and Tom had no idea where the mice were even kept.
So, he spent the better part of the night trying to come up with a convincing story.
Perhaps he could tell him something near to the truth; that he'd adopted a pet snake and needed to feed it? Or that he needed the mouse for some kind of project?
Maybe he could catch one himself, but mice were fast, and...why did everything have to be so complicated?
"Professor," said Tom, after the Christmas feast was over and everyone was leaving the Great Hall, "could I have a mouse?"
He looked amused. Infuriatingly so.
"It's for a class project."
Dumbledore remained unmoved.
"I've been taking care of a snake," he admitted. "It, er, hurt itself, and I—"
"Wonderful, Tom!" said Dumbledore, smiling evenly and in what appeared to be his best, most insincere Slughorn impersonation. "So glad to see that you have finally gotten into the spirit of things. I will see what I can do."
Dumbledore walked off, whistling Santa Claus is Coming to Town in what he must have assumed was a jovial G Major, but to even Tom's relatively tone-deaf ears, was remarkably off-key.
By the morning of his birthday, Tom was sure that Dumbledore had purposefully forgotten all about the mouse and was currently laughing at his misfortune.
However, there was squeaking coming from the foot of his bed. Tom carefully leaned over to see what it was; there was a small wire cage on top of his battered trunk and a brown mouse twitching and squeaking inside, looking around fearfully, sniffing the air, and cleaning its whiskers as if its life depended on it.
It looked up at Tom with its beady black eyes, squeaked in fear, and dashed into the darkest part of the cage.
Attached to the bars of the cage was a little bit of card paper dangling off of some twine. Tom turned it towards him to read the message.
Happy Birthday. Do keep me updated on your scaled friend.
The handwriting and tone were unmistakable; Professor Dumbledore had fulfilled his promise.
Tom had done many things before, but he had never fed a snake.
The adder nudged the mouse so that its stomach was facing up, disconcertingly unhinged her jaw, her scarlet eyes wide, and worked her gaping mouth around the mouse's head until it had stopped moving and the muffled squeaking stopped. Then, she slowly swallowed the mouse whole until even its wriggling tail disappeared. It was strangely hypnotic to watch.
"It was very good," said the adder. "Very good, hatchling. You are a good hunter. Will you not eat?"
"I've already eaten, thanks," said Tom. He was beginning to get annoyed. "You were going to tell me?"
"It slipped my mind."
"The Chamber of Secrets."
"Oh, yes. Many have searched."
"I've been told."
"Do not rush me!" the adder trilled. "Stories cannot be rushed!"
Fine.
He cast a Hot Air Charm and sat down on the floor. If he was going to have to sit here for the entire night, he might as well get comfortable.
"Exist it does," said the adder. "But the unimaginative and disbelieving have allowed it to slip into the whispers of legend."
"And the horror within?"
If a snake could smirk, she would have.
"In the Chamber sleeps the Great One. They sleep until the Chamber is open. They wait, and we remember."
"They? The Great One?" Tom prompted. But the adder was unwilling to clarify.
"Is it true?" he asked instead. "Is the horror within meant to kill Mudbloods?"
"To purge the school!" the adder hissed, rising up like a cobra and waving side to side. "The Chamber is hidden, deep underground."
"Where?"
The adder turned her head, regarding him with a single red eye, glittering like a ruby in the pale wandlight. She opened her mouth wide, exposing her hollow, poison-filled fangs in a horrid grin. "Your blood is right... but are you worthy, hatchling?"
"Not worthy?" snapped Tom, his rage exploding — he barely cared who heard him shouting in Parseltongue at this point. "Do you have the faintest idea what I've been forced to put up with, not bloody least from the House my ancestor founded? How I've had to hold myself back from strangling every one of those snivelling brats in their sleep who've dared to look down at me? Mistreat me? There's not a student in Hogwarts who can match—"
"All very well and good," said the adder lazily, "but can you put your anger to good use? Only then will you be ready to know."
He was about to retort, but the clock above them had struck twelve.
And good riddance, thought Tom, leaning back against the wall. What a shite year.
Maybe 1942 will be better, he thought, extinguishing the wandlight and enveloping himself once more in darkness.
Endnotes:
...and isn't that how we all feel about 2020. I was really lucky to actually find a transcript of a 'Lord Haw-Haw' (real name, William Joyce) broadcast from December 28, 1941 to use as a reference (yay for historical accuracy!). I did try to listen to some of them on Youtube but the audio quality is, well, 1940s.