"ɴᴏ ɢᴏᴏᴅ ᴅᴇᴇᴅ ɢᴏᴇꜱ ᴜɴᴘᴜɴɪꜱʜᴇᴅ." — 14ᴛʜ ᴄᴇɴᴛᴜʀʏ ᴏʀ ᴇᴀʀʟɪᴇʀ, ᴏʀɪɢɪɴ ᴜɴᴋɴᴏᴡɴ.
Chapter Five: There Will Be Blood
It was nearly curfew; Professor Sinistra had set yet another of her famous group projects, but star charts and moon phases were already long forgotten in the quiet of the library in favour of more tantalising topics.
"So Draco Malfoy's not coming back from Durmstrang?" said Anthony, for probably the hundredth time that month. "What a relief."
Ron snorted. "No, he's probably having the time of his life over there. All that Dark magic—"
Anthony rolled his eyes.
"—and no Muggle-borns."
"No Muggle-borns?" Hermione repeated. "You can't be serious? So don't they go to school in Norway?"
"Yes and no," said Anthony. "One, it's not only Norwegians who attend Durmstrang, they have this really cool spell that translates — oh sorry, I mean, two, there are lesser schools. The main ones in Europe are Hogwarts, Beauxbatons, and Durmstrang, obviously."
"So — so they just expect Muggle-borns to get a worse education — but that's wrong!" said Hermione, her voice wavering. "That can't be!"
"Yeah, well, it's not like wizarding schools are the most inclusive places," Anthony pointed out. "Here, it's bad enough, but... let's just say that you don't want to be anything other than pureblood in Northern Europe."
"That's where He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named probably comes from," said Ron. He shrugged. "No one knows for certain; he probably went to Hogwarts under a fake name. A lot of pureblood families tried to claim him as theirs during the war, but it all turned out to be lies in the end."
"But most wizards and witches are half-blood," said Hermione.
"Only in Britain," said Ron. "They hardly ever marry out in places like Russia. They're afraid they'll end up with a mostly half-blood population, like us."
"They who?" asked Harry, though he thought he could already guess. Malfoy, Nott, Parkinson. Their type.
"The Sacred Twenty-Eight, or their equivalent," Ron answered. "All the families who were pureblood in Wizarding Britain by the 1930s, which is when half-bloods and Muggle-borns started to outnumber them. We, the Weasleys, I mean, are in it, and obviously Malfoy and Nott and that lot, too. But all the blood status stuff's a load of rubbish if you ask me, I mean, look at Hermione, they haven't invented a spell she can't do—"
Hermione beamed.
"—or a dusty book she's not willing to stick her nose in. Even Dumbledore himself is half-blood, and he's the only one You-Know-Who was ever scared of."
"Are you in it?" Harry asked Anthony, thinking of Draco Malfoy's words on the train at the beginning of first year.
The Goldsteins are a good family, Pansy. That is, they were, before they started breeding with Muggles.
"No," said Anthony with a small smile. "Goldsteins have been wizards and witches for a long time, but most of us were in America in the thirties, and we have a lot of Muggles and Muggle-borns in our family, too. The Potters would have been in it, but they wanted to help Muggles during both the world wars and wanted to end discrimination based on blood purity, so they were out."
Still strange to hear people discuss 'the Potters,' Harry thought. As if there were more of them than him and Ruby.
He knew there had been; Fleamont, Euphemia, Henry, Iolanthe... but Harry couldn't imagine them as anything more than people in a history book.
"So wizards and witches were involved in World War I and World War II?" asked Hermione.
"No," said Ron, at the same time Anthony said, "Sort of."
"Well, which is it?"
Ron glanced at Anthony, and the latter spoke. "Grindelwald — he predicted World War II; the Muggle world was tearing itself apart, and he saw it as an opportunity to join in on the carnage. So he went around killing Muggles, all the purebloods obviously supported him and went around killing Muggle-borns too, especially the places where—" His voice cracked and trembled "—where the Nazis took over. The Muggles were in so much chaos," he said, voice cracking again, "that they wouldn't notice, wouldn't notice a few more deaths. So where they went, Grindelwald followed. And that's why a lot of Europe is so blood purist; they remember a time when purebloods reigned supreme."
Harry thought for a second that Anthony's eyes were sparkling with tears, but he ducked his head before Harry could get a closer look.
"So Britain was never invaded by Grindelwald," said Hermione. "That's why it's ... sort of better here?"
"Malfoy's type wishes he had," Ron snarled. "His grandfather was supposed to be one of Grindelwald's biggest supporters. Dad said he's itching for an excuse to raid Malfoy Manor and prove it. I hope they end up like the Gaunts."
"They won't end up like the Gaunts," said Anthony. "They have kids with half-bloods, as long as they're at least two generations removed from Muggle-borns."
"The Gaunts?" asked Harry.
"You don't want to know," said Ron. He sighed. "Fine. They were this really horrible family, all of them nutty and evil and obsessed with Dark magic and each one that came along more violent and unhinged than the next claimed that they were descended from every powerful witch or wizard under the sun, from the Morrigan and the Peverells, who weren't even real, to Salazar Slytherin himself. They could—" Ron looked a bit green "—speak to snakes."
"They could speak Parseltongue?" Harry repeated. Like me?
Of course, Ruby had already mentioned the House of Gaunt. But Harry didn't think that Ron would really take Parseltongue to be a mark of a Dark wizard.
"How do you know the proper name for it, Harry?" asked Hermione, her eyes narrowing in suspicion.
"You're not the only one who reads books, you know," he joked, but his heart wasn't in it. "So where are the Gaunts, now? Is there one at Hogwarts with us?"
Maybe there's another Parselmouth I could talk to.
Ron made a face. "No, they all died out decades ago."
"Too much inbreeding," said Anthony quietly. "They had a tendency of marrying their cousins." He pulled a face. "And their siblings, sometimes."
"Does anyone else speak Parseltongue?" asked Harry.
"Looks like Hermione's finally getting to you," Ron teased. "The Selwyns, probably? They're supposed to be Slytherin's descendants as well. But there aren't any in Hogwarts right now, either. Which is good; Parselmouths are bad news."
Harry asked, "Does everyone think they're bad news?" before he could stop himself.
"Yeah, except the Slytherins, probably."
Harry felt silent for the rest of the conversation.
Not Slytherin, eh?
He felt mocked.
Maybe I should have listened to the Sorting Hat; after all, he thought morosely. Harry laughed to himself, thinking how absorbed he'd been with not getting involved with the Dark Arts that killed his parents. It wasn't like his Obscurus gave him a choice; like it or not, he was a monster.
Are you sure? You could be great, you know, it's all here in your head, and Slytherin will help you on the way to greatness, no doubt about that.
Harry, for the first time, allowed the words that he'd been so afraid of to stir the dregs of the ambition he feared (it could make you like him), like a weed that was viciously clipped each time its green head poked through the soil. For the first time, he wondered if he really would have done well in Slytherin. Been as great as the Sorting Hat promised.
If he'd passed up his chance to become strong enough to stop Voldemort.
Maybe, if I was in Slytherin, he wouldn't have escaped.
And then, of course, there was the question he desperately wanted to ask but couldn't.
Do the Gaunts have anything to do with the Potters? Parseltongue is usually inherited, and no one's told me that my mum or dad could speak to snakes, and it's not exactly something you forget, is it?
Might he come from this weird, evil family?
Quietly, Harry got up and drifted over to the absolutely-no-noise area of the library, which was empty since no one was studying for exams yet. What surprised him was that a familiar, raggedy wizard's hat was upon one of the study tables.
As if he had been told to do it, Harry walked towards it, put the hat on his head, and sat down, enveloped in darkness.
"Looking for me?" asked the Sorting Hat, in its usual, smarmy voice.
"But how are you here?"
"Help at Hogwarts will always be given to those who ask," said the Hat tersely. "You are here for a reason, Mr. Potter? Reassurance, perhaps? I must admit, advice is more difficult to provide than ancient swords."
Harry did not answer.
"I can only tell you the same thing I did a year ago; Slytherin would have made you great, no doubt about it." The hat paused. "You did what you thought was the honourable thing to do at the time, and I respected your decision. Mind, your sister asked for Gryffindor, too."
"She did?"
She's never told me that!
"Flighty little thing," said the Hat. "I refused her request, of course. But, I do love sorting twins..."
"But was it the right decision?"
"I know not right or wrong. Only what is, and what is not."
"You're infuriating."
The Hat sounded as if it were smirking. "And you have Salazar's gift, Mr. Potter."
"I don't want it, can't I take it back?" pleaded Harry.
"Tsk, tsk, Harry Potter, haven't you learned your lesson? Be careful what you wish for."
"But I—"
"Yes... you were particularly difficult to place. But I stand by what I said before — you would have done well in Slytherin." The Hat laughed.
"What are you laughing at?" snapped Harry, annoyed.
"Nothing, nothing, simply a bit of dark humour. I am really too old for this. But you are so very similar. The minute we met, I knew where he would go, but I couldn't help but have a closer look. It is a terrible shame things turned out the way that they did."
"What things? Who are you talking about?"
"Someone great but terrible, but never you mind, child. Go away, now. I need my rest."
Harry lifted the Sorting Hat off his head and set it down on the table; he was trembling.
Someone great but terrible.
Great but terrible. You are so very similar.
"It is very curious indeed that you should be destined for this wand when its brother — why, its brother gave you that scar.""
"You sold Lord Voldemort his wand?"
"Long ago, when he went by a different name. I sold it to him when he was the same age as you both, more than fifty years ago. He did great things with that wand; terrible, yes, but great."
Out loud, Harry said, to reassure himself, "I'm not like Voldemort. I'm nothing like him."
But he was a Slytherin (nearly), a Parselmouth, was in possession of dark powers, had killed someone, and shared a wand core with the Dark Lord.
It didn't take much thinking to realise that the evidence was beginning to stack up against him.
By October, thoughts of Polyjuice Potion and T. M. Riddle were soon enough forgotten. Gilderoy Lockhart, however, was not. After the failure of his so-called 'hands-on' approach with Cornish Pixies and Obscurials, he had taken to reading passages out of his books in his 'lectures' and setting poems as 'homework.'
"Isn't he wonderful?" asked Hermione as they filed out of the classroom, laden with instructions on how to write a sonnet on Lockhart's defeat of the Wagga Wagga Werewolf.
Ron snorted. "He's not wonderful, he's—"
"Rip... kill... blood..."
"Be quiet for a minute!" said Harry. "Sorry, I heard something... it's like it's in the walls."
"You can't hear it?" he asked, as Ron and Hermione looked at him, confused.
Harry frowned. "It's sort of whispering... saying stuff about ripping and... killing?"
"Hearing voices that no one else can hear is never a good sign, Harry," said Ron in an uncharacteristically serious voice. "Not even in the wizarding world."
"What now, am I possessed?"
"No, maybe not," said Ron. "Dunno."
He glanced at the wall as if expecting something to jump out at them.
"Maybe it's just your imagination," Hermione offered.
"Yeah," Harry said half-heartedly. "Maybe."
He, unlike Ron, didn't think that a monster was going to jump out at them. Maybe the voice was in his head.
Plip. It was raining outside. Fat, loud raindrops. Plip plip plip.
Was this what going mad felt like?
Plip plip.
Rip, kill, blood.
"Hungry..."
Was it speaking to him?
Harry placed his palms against the wall and whispered: "Who are you?"
"Harry? Harry, are you alright?"
He turned; Ron and Hermione were both giving him strange looks.
"I'm fine," he said, shaking his head as if to clear his thoughts. The voice did not answer him.
There had been something distinctly hissy and self-satisfied about the voice, Harry thought. And those attributes were familiar.
"But I need to speak to someone," said Harry.
"It can wait until lunch," said Hermione huffily. "You'll be late for Charms."
The thing is, I'm not quite sure if I care about being late for Charms.
But go to Charms, he did, sprinting out of the classroom as soon as the bell rang with a half-thought-out excuse to Ron and Hermione before he raced up with stairs to test his conviction.
Harry went out into the courtyard, feeling very stupid, and called, "Hello?"
"Come out." He tried to add please, but it felt uncomfortable and twisted his tongue.
Was he saying it correctly?
"Hi."
He whipped around, expecting to see a snake behind him, only to come face to face with Ginny Weasley, her red hair covering most of her face.
"Er, hi," said Harry. "Are you lost?"
"No. I'm not." She did not look him in the eye, which was fine with him. But she did not leave either. Did she want to talk to him? Had she heard the strange voice, too?
That seemed far-fetched.
He only wanted her to go so that he could find a snake... did snakes mind the rain? Or should he look somewhere less filled with puddles?
"I'll take you to find Ron," he offered. "Or Percy. They're probably in the Great Hall."
Just as he turned to leave, Ginny shrieked; a large black snake was moving towards them, its powerful, sinuous body flowing across the stones like a tidal wave rather than flesh and bone. The snake's head rose as it stopped just in front of Ginny, regarding her cruelly, its black tongue flickering like an insect sting.
"You called?" This snake had a deep voice that seemed to drag against his eardrums like grit.
And, what frightened him was that this particular snake seemed ill-intentioned.
"Don't panic," said Harry quietly, unwilling to speak Parseltongue in front of Ginny. "Don't frighten it; move very slowly."
"Fool," hissed the snake, and it continued towards Ginny, who backed into Harry, trembling. The snake cocked its torpedo-shaped head to the side, exposing two dagger-sharp fangs. "Foolish, foolish boy. If you have called me for nothing, I will bite the girl."
Harry opened his mouth to speak and shut it again. Maybe he could just get the snake to go away? He took out his wand, but as he aimed it at the snake, it darted towards Ginny.
"Stop!" shouted Harry, and the snake obeyed, crashing back to the ground as if it had been shot down in mid-air.
I can do that? Not just talk to snakes, but… Did it have to obey me like that? Can I control them, too?
The courtyard echoed with the sibilant, alien sound of Parseltongue, and Ginny looked even more terrified.
"What do you want?"
Harry sighed. Clearly, the snake wasn't offering an apology.
"Find me later, when I'm alone. Try not to be noticed this time."
It seemed to nod, then slunk away into the shadows as quickly as it had come.
"Harry," said Ginny in a small, terror-struck voice, "were you — were you talking to that snake?"
He answered, without thinking about it, "Yes," quite unashamed, and then remembered with a dreadful jolt what Ruby had told him about Parseltongue.
"So you are really a Dark wizard!" said Ginny, backing away from him, her eyes straining out of their sockets.
She sounded more afraid than she had when the snake had nearly bitten her.
"No, I'm not!" snapped Harry. "I didn't even know I could speak it until last month!"
That did not seem to comfort Ginny; she turned tail and raced out of the courtyard without so much as a second glance.
"You're welcome!" Harry bitterly called after her, but she did not respond.
He imagined, given that Voldemort was well on his way to returning very much alive and that everyone knew it, it wasn't a very good look to go around talking to snakes right now.
But still, he'd done a good thing, telling the snake not to bite Ginny... hadn't he?
Unless... what if, in her fear-addled mind, she was convinced that he'd egged it on?
Oh, no.
She would probably tell the most responsible of her available siblings (Percy), and since Percy did not and would not keep secrets, his ability to speak Parseltongue would soon become almost common knowledge.
Why is it always me?
"You didn't tell us you were a Parselmouth," said Ron.
Binns was droning on about boring politics; to their left, both Susan Bones and Justin Finch-Flechley had gone to sleep.
"I only just found out."
"You seemed like you knew what you were doing, from what Ginny told me."
Ron regarded him with... was that suspicion? Harry had never seen the expression on his best friend's face directed towards him before, and it made him feel strangely hopeless.
But why? He hadn't cared that Harry was an Obscurus. Parseltongue couldn't hurt anyone.
"It was an accident, all right?" said Harry, his voice harsh. "I told it to leave her alone."
"Don't talk to me like that!" snapped Ron. "If I set a snake on your sister, I'm sure you would—"
"I didn't set it on her!"
Ron took a shaky breath.
"Look, I want to believe you didn't, and Ginny was confused."
Harry sighed.
"I can't tell you I'm not a Parselmouth. But I stopped the snake from biting her; I promise, Ron."
"Did you now," said his best friend darkly.
Don't push me away, please, Ron. But it felt pathetic to beg out loud.
Hermione, who was sitting all the way at the front of the class, was blissfully unaware of their conversation (for now) and paying rapt attention to Binns.
Harry sighed. This clearly wasn't going to get solved with a group hug and an apology.
"Just don't tell anyone," said Harry. "Please."
Ron said nothing, instead pressing his lips into a thin line, turning towards Binns, and for the first time in History of Magic, diligently taking notes. Harry tried to listen, too, but Binns's voice was as flat and droning as the Dursleys's old vacuum cleaner and many times as soporific. He had paid enough attention at the beginning to glean that the subject was the Medieval Assembly of European Wizards, but it was impossible to eke out a single other idea; everything that entered his brain seemed to simply float out, so he put his head down, closed his eyes, and dozed off for the rest of the class, then left before Ron could say anything more.
He was halfway down the hallway when something made him stop.
"There will be blood," said the snakes, who were waiting for him in an alcove. Piled on top of each other in a slithering mass of scaly skin, beady eyes, and flickering tongues, they looked more like the mythical Hydra than a collection of drab, white-bellied grass snakes.
It wasn't the snakes' fault, he supposed, but Harry couldn't help but feel angry at them (he wouldn't be in this mess otherwise!)
"Why? What blood?"
They only laughed, a cruel, alien sound, as if amused by humanity's troubles.
"He is here."
"Who?" Harry demanded.
"..." they said.
"...?" Harry repeated. But he did not understand.
"There will be blood."
"My blood?" he asked, frightened.
The snakes shifted, coiling around each other, then stopped.
"No. Not yours. Not like last time. This time, there will be blood."
And just like that, they left.
"The plants will never grow in this soil," Ruby griped, halfway through Herbology with the Gryffindors. Being a Scottish autumn and all, it wasn't particularly hot outside, but the greenhouse was always hot, humid, and overall muggy. Her uniform shirt was plastered to her skin, and her wet curls to her face. Ruby wished she could take her cloak off, but Hogwarts rules dictated that full uniforms must be worn in class at all times.
The Flutterby seeds that had been buried during the summer were trapped under the ground; that particular patch of Greenhouse Three got too much sun and too little humidity, and now the ground was parched and solid as stone.
Ruby supposed it was her fault for burying them there in the first place.
"It will," said Neville Longbottom encouragingly, up to his elbows in writhing weeds. "You'll see."
It was easy to think that, if you went by all the other classes, Neville was altogether untalented and barely a wizard. But his abilities with plants were unmatched, so if Neville said the plants could grow, he must be right.
Ruby stared at her dry patch of ground and frowned. Aunt Petunia's garden had not been nearly this frustrating, simply mere drudgery of checking the soil's moisture, applying fertilizer liberally to the greediest of the roses, and regular pruning.
"How? When I pour water on it, it just turns to clay on top. The plants must be starved, if not dead and dried-up by now."
"But they're still alive," said Neville. "They're not ordinary plants; they're more like animals."
"They want to live?"
Neville seemed a little confused, but he answered all the same: "It's really hard to explain... it's like, they remember the sun, except they've never seen it. And so a part of them goes on yearning and yearning to see it, no matter what. A little clay won't stop them."
"And if they don't?" It seemed a little too easy.
"Well, sometimes they give up. They think they'll never find the sun or that it doesn't exist, and that makes them hate it. So they burrow away from it instead and become diseased and hollow. The further they burrow, the more they hate the sun, and the sicker they get."
Shame, if only she'd known when tending to Aunt Petunia's tea roses (to show up the Polkisses) had been her and Harry's responsibility.
"So... plants get root rot because they're sad? Not because of bacteria?"
"Bac-terry-what?"
"Never mind," said Ruby, stabbing the ground with her trowel. "So should I dig it up, or not?"
"They just need a little help," said Neville. "Could I borrow the trowel?"
He showed her how to break up the parched ground, moving away the nutrient-poor topsoil to reveal the sweet-smelling, dark earth underneath. Neville scooped up a handful of it to show her; it was damp and full of earthworms, and he assured her that by next week, they'd see little green shoots poking through.
"Gather round, gather round!" called Professor Sprout. It must have been the end of class, Ruby realized. There was no clock in the greenhouses; you could get lost there for hours, unlike in History of Magic, where you watched the time ooze away unbearably slowly until the ticking and Binns' droning voice sent you to sleep, or Potions, where it seemed like you were never going to finish your assignment in time while Snape walked around, making sardonic comments about your work.
Sprout rattled through the assigned material, putting an extra emphasis on a reading on Mandrakes, which she said were going to be the most important plant that they would cover this year (Neville looked particularly ecstatic).
There was Lavender and Parvati; Daphne and Pansy both leaving in their usual pairs.
Ruby hurried after the other girls, suddenly conscious of the weight of the golden hourglass necklace that had been her mother's posthumous Christmas gift last year.
"What now, Potter?" snapped Pansy. "Come for your diary back?"
"Leave her alone, Pansy," said Parvati, who was the tallest, flipping her long plait over her shoulder. The ribbon tying it at the bottom shimmered and snapped in the autumn wind.
Pansy wrinkled her nose. "What were you doing with a fat little crybaby like Neville Longbottom, anyway? Everyone knows he's nearly a Squib. Oh, maybe you've written about him in that ugly Muggle diary of yours."
Ruby had every instinct to set on Pansy and seize her bag; she could imagine the emerald silk butterfly-printed fabric ripping and its contents spilling out onto the floor, and even Pansy's accompanying screeching.
But she hesitated. Pansy was too clever to have brought the diary out with her if she really did want to keep it, and other than the 'allure charm' Theodore had suggested, Ruby didn't know why she would.
Yet, as Pansy got distracted by Daphne's gossip about Draco Malfoy and Durmstrang, Ruby snuck a hand into her bag and, triumphant, dragged out the diary, placing it safely at the bottom of her satchel, then attempted to sneak off.
"Where are you going, Ruby?" called Lavender.
Ruby froze and panicked, switching to Aunt-Petunia-at-a-dinner-party-mode.
"To go powder my nose," she said with the utmost dignity, then stalked off vaguely in the direction of the second-floor girls' toilet, locked herself in the furthest stall from the door, and opened the book with shaking hands.
I'm back.
Ruby.
Do you remember me?
Nothing happened.
Maybe she imagined it all, she thought, disappointed.
The book buzzed against her fingertips, and she drew her hand away.
Yes.
Then, unable to deny her curiosity, Ruby reached for the book again, but this time, just let her hand hover above it. It let out a low, frightened whine.
She could feel something. Borgin might have been lying through his false teeth about the diary belonging to Nostradamus, but how could Professor Snape, of all people, think this was just an ordinary book?
If it really was purchased on Vauxhall Road in 1938, who had it belonged to? A Muggle-born student?
Make that a really powerful Muggle-born student. Even Hermione couldn't pull off something like this, whatever it was.
Why was she so sure it belonged to a student, anyway?
That person who had me before...
Pansy?
Yes, perhaps.
Why?
You are real, aren't you?
Yes.
I think I found something in the library records here at Hogwarts.
Were you a Slytherin prefect? And Head Boy?
Tee paused.
My memory comes in bits and pieces.
But it sounds familiar enough... as anything does.
What is real and what isn't can get confusing sometimes.
Is this real? wondered Ruby. This can't be real. People just don't get stuck in diaries every day, and I've read about some disturbing magical accidents in the Daily Prophet this summer.
Suddenly, something occurred to her.
Can you get out?
Yes, I just haven't tried. Being trapped in an abyss is my idea of a holiday.
She could almost hear the sarcasm oozing through the ink.
Maybe she would ask Professor Flitwick if such a thing could be done with charms.
A charmed diary. A cursed, somehow sentient diary.
Hang on a second. I'll be back.
Don't worry about it.
I have a new companion.
It speaks to me sometimes, although it is very demanding.
"I got the diary back," said Ruby, once she entered the common room and was instantly confront by someone utterly unwelcome.
Theodore looked up. "Let's see it, then," he said, holding his hand out expectantly.
"You didn't help me," said Ruby, pocketing the diary, "so you don't need to see it."
A slow, Cheshire Cat smile spread across Theodore's face, the emerald flames casting eerie lights and shadows.
"Didn't I?"
"You put the book in Pansy's bag?" asked Ruby, annoyed, but despite herself, impressed.
"Not in so many words, Potter. You're making it sound boring."
She sighed.
"Fine, but not here."
"The boys' dorms?"
"No, Blaise is too nosy. What about the girls' dorms?"
"Pansy. Let's do the Owlery?"
"The Owlery?" Ruby repeated, aghast. "It'll be freezing."
"But private."
"Maybe later," said Ruby, wanting to keep the secret to herself. "Tomorrow."
And, inexplicably, she dreamt of the dead boy in the puddle from Walpurgis Night all those months ago.
Who are you? she called. But he never answered.
He was dead, after all.
Sound was his first sense; though, at first, it had been blooming, buzzing confusion; a cacophony of chatter that made no sense.
But the ghost of sensation was a foothold, and he grasped onto it, listening always for the transition between the blur of hallucinations and crispness of reality.
There will be blood...
But when?
Who are you? thought Tee, staring into the stark white of the abyss. If he could look up, he would. He longed to have a neck which with to turn his head, but, alas, he did not have a head in the first place... after all, he was little more than dust floating in the absence of the void.
I am hungry.
I am thirsty.
I covet blood.
Then take it!
If the abyss could have trembled, it would.
Said the voice: Your wish is my command.
And then, once more he was alone, unsure if he had once again imagined it all.
Endnotes:
To clarify, 'Tee' is 'T' as in 'T. M. Riddle.' Tom's memory and cognitive function (despite his best efforts and the events of Chapter Three of Pawns, Rooks, and Queens) have vastly detoriated over the past fifty years such that he can recall very little about when he was alive, including his name. As such, he refers to himself by the initial that he has just been reminded of, which I will be writing out phonetically because it looks better typed.