Soul Cursed
It's the last Friday before winter break that brings me all new worries as the castle gives me my usual morning news, plus an added report that Professor Penumbra is now in the hospital wing, which is why Moody is hobbling up the main path to the castle with Snape on one side and someone new on the other— a tall, almost handsome woman in grey robes with a medical kit at her side emblazoned with a St. Mungo’s hospital crest. I’m not surprised to be waylaid by Professor Sprout the second I’m out of the Hufflepuff common room.
“Something’s happened,” she says quietly, and promptly herds me up to the hospital wing. I can hear him screaming halfway up the staircase and with students popping out of the woodwork, curious or concerned, I set a mild notice-me-not blurring charm on myself and hope it staves off any new rumors that I’m somehow the reason that Penumbra’s ailing.
Dumbledore either doesn’t notice or doesn’t care about my blurring charm (I'm not surprised these charms don't work on school staff when there's a crisis in progress), ushering me inside the hospital wing and directly into Pomfrey’s office.
“You mentioned potential brain damage,” Dumbledore says without pause, almost accusatory with that now too-familiar discordant energy almost sparking off of him and I stiffen, affronted. (In my back brain, I hear Wyn's wryly toned voice reminding me to think before I barbecue.)
“Yes, I did, for a second attempt, which there hasn’t been,” I counter. “And which you assured me couldn’t happen regardless, because the Ministry handicapped his ability.”
I’m not trying to sound (too) accusatory myself, but whatever’s happening to Penumbra— it’s not on me; not this time. I would know if it were but there’s seriously no good way to explain, let alone prove how I know that, one way or the other. Dumbledore seems largely unmoved.
“And yet," he finally responds calmly, "this has been growing worse since—“
“Since he returned from the Ministry where he’d had his ability ‘capped,” I cut in sharply and Dumbledore deflates a little, his aura smoothing and calming in the face of logic and relevant or not, his mood swings are giving me mental whiplash. “But I agree you're likely right on the timing,” I continue, calmer and simply rational, “but if you’re looking for suspects for exposure, you’ve also got an entire building’s worth of people wherever the Ministry even is these days, plus anyone he spoke with on his way there and back.”
“You think the Ministry is behind this?" He asks, frowning, and I shrug. "And what reason would the Ministry, or anyone in it, have for laying blame your way?” He asks, also reasonably.
“I don’t know,” I sigh, hands raising and dropping. “But creating chaos is a great way to distract the masses from spotting a more obvious issue. I don’t know much of anything about the Ministry or who runs it. I knew about the Department of Mysteries only because they sent an official who seemed to need some convincing about my presence and my intentions. Beyond that—“
I don’t have much more to add, but I’m interrupted by the new arrivals anyhow, the St. Mungo’s healer immediately pulled into a whispered conference with Pomfrey while Snape and Moody join us in the small office.
“I thought the point was to keep your head down,” Moody gripes at me, but looks far more resigned than accusing, his crazy eye spinning around and back, likely checking on Penumbra.
“No one ever asks my opinion on how these situations happen,” I gripe right back, but I’m glad to see him, really, because maybe he actually can help the ailing man. “If they had, he’d be safely set in a different profession entirely, and not driving himself up the wall with leftover spite and paranoia.”
Moody just grunts at that, lips pursed. “Severus says you’ve not scanned him full over?”
And there's the judgement and accusation I’ve been missing. “It’s the type of invasive I’m not comfortable with, so no. Unless I suspect— highly suspect,” I correct myself, “that it’s something actively killing him—“
“Aye, and it could be,” Moody huffs, lips twisting. “And you’d feel it if—“
“Yes,” I sigh explosively, cutting him off. I'm beginning to feel like a skipping record. “I would, even if he were only on the periphery—“
“As opposed to being on the periphery of your fate-intended task?” Snape cuts in, though softly, and— huh?
"Huh?" I repeat out loud, baffled.
“Professor Penumbra is somehow connected to your task?” Dumbledore demands, eyes going icy and his aura whips back to suspicious. (Seriously. Whiplash.)
“No, not—“ I start, then hold up a hand before anyone adds to the confusion. “He’s not directly involved, no. Or, he’s not meant to be, because I would’ve known that from the start. He’d be on my mental chessboard, somewhere, even if I couldn’t tell what position, and he’s not. It feels more like he’s connected to someone or something who should be on the board, and isn’t. Or, isn’t there yet,” I explain again and yes, I know how thin that explanation is, but what else can I say?
“But it feels like... like someone’s trying to get him on the board, and can’t. And I don’t know who. Or why. What I do know right now? He’s on someone’s board and I’m now mostly worried that it’s as an expendable pawn; I just can’t tell who's board.”
“But ye won’t scan him to find out who that might be?” Moody huffs, both his eyes rolling with exasperation and childishly, I want to kick him in the shins. (Yes, even if one of them is fake.)
“I’m not compromising my most stringent core principles for convenience,” I reiterate, this time in something of a growl, changing my current child-like voice into something a bit darker and more challenging. “There are lines I won’t cross, and no amount of, I'm assuming, well-intended guilting is going to change that. He’s ailing, not dying, and while I hate that someone has somehow done this,” I wave my hand toward the observation window showing the troubling scene of two healers attempting to calm the terrified professor, “to him, even in a possible effort to force my hand into breaking my own rules, I’m allowed to not participate in someone else’s scheming.”
I stand there, all four feet, nine inches of me, proudly meeting everyone’s eyes, unbending. Snape still looks grumpy, but inwardly respectful. Moody is again rolling his eyes at my attitude since it seems to be drawing him, or the Ministry, into the current theatrics, and Dumbledore, while still looking a tad impatient, also looks accepting of my bluntness, which is a nice change from the seemingly endless suspicion.
“Alright, alright,” Moody grumbles, pulling his flask from his cloak to sip as he hobbles for the door. “I’ll go see what’s ailing him, hopefully.”
I nod and sigh, shuffling a little closer to the observation window between office and ward, even if it’s technically none of my business, I am worried that someone’s using another person so carelessly. I can’t help feeling like Penumbra is just another layer of an onion and peeling him back and away will simply expose something more potent; something stronger and more distracting. (Is this meant to be a distraction?)
“You’re truly worried about him?” Dumbledore remarks, stepping beside me to observe as Moody flicks through a series of spells for something that’ll get a reaction, his crazy eye ever watchful.
“Every life is precious,” I repeat, shrugging, because it’s true. “To me, that’s a simple fact. Whether I like someone or not, or whether they like me, or not, doesn’t change that. Not even a little.”
It takes another five minutes to calm Penumbra to the point of genuine rest, then genuine sleep, and that’s when Moody straightens and stiffens with either surprise or alarm and I focus carefully on the energies of the room, watching for some sort of reaction. But, my business or not, I can’t not see Penumbra arching up, eyes wide and bulging, mouth open as if screaming, arms splaying out and fingers curving like talons a split second before he collapses, lifeless in the next second.
“No,” I whisper, sick, but yes— the wavering energy of his soul speed-drifting out and up and away is unmistakable. “No!” I growl, smacking my hand against the window-- jesus. I've never seen a soul look so much like it was glad to go-- to flee as Penumbra's just did, so what the fuck?
Dumbledore’s already in motion when Pomfrey calls for him, her own eyes widening with panic and it’s only seconds until Moody’s spinning me around, already growling.
“Did you see it?!” He demands, panting harshly and behind him, Snape looks unnerved, but ready to peel Moody off of me if need be.
“All I saw was his soul leave,” I rasp, feeling sick and I fall back against the glass of the observation window, a hand gripping my own hair up and out of my way while I keep freaking the hell out. “What did you see?” I demand back.
Moody’s whole face darkens, both eyes sliding past my face and over my shoulder, darkening further as he recalls it. “I saw his eyes. Only for a second, but— they went yellow and thin. Like a snake.”
And that— is baffling, actually. Is it a reference to Slytherin? Snakes are sort of secondary, all in all. How has the magical world lost that knowledge? Times change, yes, but—
“A bit like Vol—“ Moody grunts, radiating anger and annoyance and determination, but fear, too. Honest, actual fear.
“Don’t. Say. That. Name,” Snape snarls out, so soft it’s almost unheard. But now it’s him who looks genuinely ill, his usually quiet, shaded aura now a bit like a shaded, throbbing, festering wound. His face is close to grey and he’s trembling faintly, sweat beading up at his temples also radiating fear just under the anger. “Not here.”
I swivel my eyes between the two, confused. It might be time to brush up on recent history, because no one projects what these two are without a reason, and a damned good one.
***
There’s a board of school governors that are planning an incursion on the castle, as well as a half dozen separate ministry officials to both retrieve Penumbra’s body and to question everyone involved, though I’m sure that’ll be largely me, if the castle’s suspicions are correct.
If anyone asks, I’m excused from classes for the day due to (ha ha) trauma and am now parked in Dumbledore’s office, holding up a bare patch of castle wall, eyes closed while I absorb the castle’s knowledge (thanks again, castle!) gleaned from every paper, magazine and periodical from home and abroad that it’s read in the last hundred years to finally catch up on a widespread overview of headline news. The snake connection, however, makes a lot more sense now.
Voldemort. AKA: Tom Riddle, former student, former villain, presumed (or hoped) dead to most of the magical community. I can’t be the only one who’s far more certain he’s merely in hiding, regaining his strength after a failed attempt at killing a small child by the name of Harry Potter.
Now I can't help but worry that my fate-assigned task has much, much less to do with my personal origins than I originally suspected and for once, I feel completely out of my depths. Nothing fits. There's jumbled and blocky chunks that just... don't fit.
“—vons?”
“—lyn!”
“Jacklyn!” Snape and McGonagall's voices snap out and I jerk my eyes open, startled. I’d gotten a little lost in the mass download of info and now both McGonagall and Snape are peering at me worriedly. McGonagall presses a checkered handkerchief into my hand and motions to my nose. I dab at the small trickle of blood and nod my thanks, then backtrack the blood to a burst vessel I heal with a nudge of magic, then magic my face clean as well as the handkerchief before handing it back, tidy as ever.
“What were you doing?” Snape demands, still eying my nose like it’ll begin leaking again any second.
“Castle reads the papers,” I sigh, rubbing at my slightly aching eyes and temples. “And I read the castle. Just— catching up on the news, more or less.”
“You—“ McGonagall starts, then pauses, sighs explosively and rolls her eyes. “Of course you were.”
I shrug. “Only had a hundred years or so to catch up on,” I add, hand flapping lazily. “Just soaked it up a bit too quick is all.”
Snape frowns, looking newly uncomfortable. “All of it? How much could there be? The Daily Prophet’s only been running thirty years.”
“Well, yeah. And the Cauldron News before that, and The Four Brooms before that... but, the castle’s knowledge connects to other schools the world over and their newspapers—“
“Good grief,” McGonagall huffs, clearly worried. “Fatemaker or not, your body has limits, yes?”
I shrug and maybe cringe-smile, because technically... yes? I just don’t personally know where those limits end. “I’m fine,” I insist. (Which is half true, because I'm not, but I will be.) “But if Penumbra’s death is connected to something to a clue more recent than what I’d expected it to, getting caught up with the times is a necessity. So, I got a headline overview and the rest can wait a bit.”
Now Snape looks even more uncomfortable and while I instinctively know why, there’s little I can do to reassure him that he’s (obviously) a changed man without openly prying into his own life, sans permission. But I had needed to know just where the current politics lay, especially since there’s possible enemies at the Ministry who’d just possibly (accidentally or on purpose) killed a man and might be (possibly) ready to frame me for it. And yet, I can say none of it because there's zero proof of anything except the proven corpse down in the hospital wing.
“So, situation report? What’s happening with the school?" I ask, hoping to steer the conversation back on track. "Despite what anyone thinks, the castle doesn’t actually tell me everything,” I point out.
“The board of school governors are arriving late this afternoon,” Dumbledore states, finally striding in through the door, Moody on his heels and the door swings itself shut behind them while all the shades in their frames sit up attentively, ready to offer advice as needed. From the corner of my eye, I see the four founders in their singular painting over the hearth, all pretending I’m not there while also shooting wary, worried, and overall angry, upset looks my way. “But the Ministry is set to be here in an hour.”
Maybe it’s the castle’s leftover opinion, but ‘Ministry’ still sounds more like a threat than a governing body, which shouldn’t surprise me, but does, a little. Like governments the world over, they’re hardly perfect and loathe to admit making mistakes.
We all take seats and settle as Dumbledore does and I try to let my senses relax, though I feel almost under fire just sitting here, waiting. I really hope Penumbra's paranoia wasn't catching, but now at least some of my worry is due to Dumbledore because that odd, hazy discordance seems both less and more, like an emotional compulsion gone wrong. Hopefully sitting in a room with Moody and I both will ease it a bit.
“And what will we be telling them?” McGonagall asks while Dumbledore studies his fingers.
“The truth as we know it,” he says with a decisive nod that Moody imitates.
It’s McGonagall that shoots me a worried look, but I just shrug back. “More often than not, the truth fixes more than what it breaks. The only thing they can really accuse anyone here of is not figuring out what was happening to him sooner.”
“And even that’s still in the air,” Moody huffs, scowling, his crazy eye currently eying the portrait over the hearth. “Because if that was some kind of possession—“
“Was it, though?” Snape demands, sitting stiffly. “What did the healers see beyond...” his voice trails off and I get it, personally, because it wasn’t ‘a fit’, per say, but definitely something. The term 'death rattle' comes to mind.
“They didn’t see it at all,” Moody admits, grumpy eyebrow lowering in agitation. “Just that final bit when his body locked up.”
“Possession or not, the timing was odd,” I add, crossing my arms and staring at a small spider weaving a web in a near-perfect Star of David design just under the lip of Dumbledore’s desk. “Because he’d just slipped straight into deep sleep— when the mind is all but blind to everything else. The last possessions I’ve seen that weren’t here in this reality, the intruder was most active during dream sleep. Deep sleep leaves the body nearly paralyzed because the mind is so inactive. In a sad and bizarre sort of way, there's no better time to die in your sleep.”
“Aye, that was odd,” Moody concurs, fiddling with his flask, but not drinking, his eye now slowly scanning the room, distracted and uncomfortable.
“Is there any chance, Miss Devons, that there was something else that crept through when you entered this reality?” Dumbledore asks quietly, fingers steepled together and gaze distant, not even looking at me so much as looking inward at himself.
And that’s an unnerving thought, but a good question.
“Not that I recall,” I admit slowly, “but I can retrace the events. See the echo of what happened just before and after it knocked me out?”
“An echo?” Moody asks, perking with interest and I have to wonder how many fewer battle scars he'd have if he knew even half my magical tips and tricks.
“Sure," I offer with a nod. "Ecco eventum memoriae. So long as the focus is on the start of the event, we should be able to follow the subject, or subjects, of the event for a bit afterward. The downside to the spell is it takes a lot of personal magic to fuel it-- there's a limited number of times you can pull them before you magically exhaust yourself. On school grounds, though, the school will help fuel it if it's for a good cause. Fair warning though, it’ll probably be a bit fuzzy now— it’s been nearly four months.”
“Let’s go then, before it fades anymore," Moody grunts, grabbing his walking staff.
And that’s what we do.
***
Dumbledore stays behind to wait for the other Ministry officials while McGonagall goes to redirect Penumbra's students to study hall and then to prepare for her own next class.
Snape, having two blocks of free time, reluctantly joins Moody and I, but is obviously distracted and solemn.
"Well, this isn't good," echo-me chokes out.
"Understatement," I reiterate in a mutter, frowning at how very half-dead I looked then; it's a wonder Pomfrey didn't full body tackle me right back into bed. Still, the scene itself shows the portal sealing itself up, though the thinning point remains, shimmering faintly in the brightness of the day.
Rewatching myself spill out of a portal was weird enough, especially since the echo is amazingly clear even after over three months. Watching myself pass out and reawaken as ‘other’, however, is just creepy.
“Soooo creepy,” I mutter, watching my body lurch upright and snarl in pain with far too many teeth, and not all of them human. At least half are wolf-sharp while my canines extended to dragon-curve points and the demon’s first attempts at speech came out the guttural, coughing screech of a dragon before tempering enough to manage a snarl-hiss of 'pretty, pretty, pretty power’ and 'burns, burns, burns'.
“Damn right it burns,” I gripe, following the other me out of the stone circle. "Shoulda stuck with me, freaky leech. Burning up with me had to be better than getting eaten by your own back home."
“What the blazes are those teeth?” Moody demands, head tilting and both eyes fixated on the echo.
I sigh. “I’ve got no idea why everyone thinks Slytherin was part snake. Serpentine dragons were still dragons. They had feet and claws and horns and everything. And wings. There’s never been a natural-born snake with wings. Whoever changed the Slytherin crest was an idiot.”
“Dragon?” Snape repeats a bit numbly, giving me an odd sort of look. “You’re part dragon?”
I roll my eyes and gesture after the echo, but answer as we walk, because it’ll come out eventually. “It's way back in my bloodline somewhere. With teeth and wings and all of it. There's a reason I know my dragon wouldn't fit in Dumbledore's office; not with my wingspan.”
“But— how? That shouldn’t even—“ Snape splutters, eyebrows bunched together like the mental image is just too much to deal with.
I snort lightly and hold up my hand to stay his questions, but pop up a wry eyebrow before I hurry on while we catch up with the echo. “Trying to visualize the logistics of how mages mixed with dragons will probably take your brain to very unhealthy places,” I finally say, trying not to snicker at his choked-off noise behind me when he truly sees my point. “Just, don't think about it; accept it and let it go.” Which is the worst thing to suggest because it's like telling someone to not think of purple elephants; they have to think of it just to know what they're not supposed to be thinking of.
(So I do smirk like a little devil at Moody’s following cackle at whatever disturbed expression Snape’s wearing now.)
The echo takes us up and up toward the courtyard, following the natural line of the path walked by thousands of magical students over time, but it’s not until the courtyard, finally seeing Dumbledore’s shadowy form that my former self found a well of strength to fight my intruder back, to shout a warning at Dumbledore that has him hesitate, but only for a few seconds.
But it’s when the demonic echo dragon-screeches with fanged teeth and a ripple of scales spreading through my hairline that Dumbledore nabs me, ignoring the danger and foolishly gains the trespasser with a bizarre warping of energy while my echo self rolls away to hands and knees groan-muttering ‘shit, shit, shit’.
“Quite a mouth on ye girl,” Moody grumbles, eye swiveling everywhere in the empty courtyard, looking out for anyone spying on the replaying events, hopefully.
“Nah, this is positively respectable," I argue. "When I’m really stressed, I curse like a veteran sailor,” I admit, watching my echo's failed attempts at rising, even as my body regressed slowly back to fully human while Dumbledore, holy hell, fought hard.
At one point, two distinct, warring voices were booming out of his throat, the last demon snarl whipping past now-me and taking out the roof of the covered bridge, stone all but exploding outward while Dumbledore dizzily dropped to his knees with a grunt and then regained his feet, cautiously in control but trembling with the effort.
Then echo-Snape steps from the shadows, hears Dumbledore’s words and, as requested, binds him and sends him to the ground, head smacking against the bench on the way. Snape nods to Dumbledore’s reiteration of not letting ‘it’ escape while echo-me, seeing the possession problem temporarily halted, took that time to pass out again while echo-Snape watched, baffled over the sudden, perplexing end to the unforeseen, bizarre dramatics.
I sigh as the spell finally fades out, but it’s now something we can rule out, at least. “No second possession, then.”
“You sure we’d have seen it?” Moody asks, looking glum that there’s no obvious second possession to hunt down. I feel his pain; a second demon with a trail to follow is far preferable to the obvious unknown we've already got.
“Sure enough to bet the lives of everyone on the grounds now? Yes,” I answer, dead serious.
“But something killed him,” Moody says again.
I nod and turn toward the hospital wing where the body still lay. “So... we'll echo his death,” I suggest, wincing. “And maybe we’ll spot something from Penumbra that we couldn’t before.”
***
This echo spell, powered up and so soon after the event, is almost too real. We don’t converse much this time, mainly because the man’s body is still present, though wrapped tastefully in sheets and set on a different cot by the door and newly surrounded by privacy screens.
But this time, we see what’d begun before any of us had arrived, his lunatic, terrified rantings to Madam Pomfrey (who’s still sniffling in her office over a death on her watch while the other healer went to fetch some tea) and Penumbra's continued insistence that ‘She’ll kill— she’ll kill me. Kill us. She’ll kill all of us.’.
I keep my focus on Penumbra, completely, watching for anything, an odd tick, a misshapen word, an unexplained pain—
It's not new, but he's in obvious pain, clutching his head and -- it’s there, in his mind, his spirit-- Holy hell- it's on his soul and it’s sickening that someone managed to—
“Moody, look deeper, if you can,” I breathe out, my voice trembling as I lean in, horrified. “Do you see that?”
“Wha—“ he starts, then goes silent. “That’s not the same scar at all,” he breathes out. "Looks damn near like-- aw, hell," he hisses.
And no, it’s not like my scar, at all, nor likely Dumbledore’s.
"Looks like what?" I demand, but Moody's too distracted now to answer, which-- okay, I can't stop watching either.
This scar, somehow, is like a living thing, chewing it’s way in, which a scar can’t do. Certainly not a psychic scar. “What in the inner seven levels of hell is that?” I ask, progressively more horrified as I watch it burrow deeper, twisting as it goes, stretching out and down in some bizarre kind of pattern. Every time he'd said ‘she’, it burrowed a bit deeper, moved a bit faster. And Penumbra, the poor, paranoid man, said it a lot.
“She,” I repeat, then step back, hand held out to halt the spell like pressing a ‘pause’ button.
“Did he ever say my name?” I demand, eyes flicking over to Pomfrey in her office, then to Snape. “Please? Ask her. My name specifically.”
"Does it matter?" Moody asks, still half-glaring at the scene with his human eye while his wonky one is aimed at me.
"Well--" I start, then pause. "No," I mutter, unsettled, though it'd be helpful if he hadn't. As it is, I sort of look like the lead suspect.
Snape's eyes dart to the echo'd cot and back. "I'm not seeing what you two are," he points out, frowning. “Is there any way—“
I cut him off with a nod and conjure up a pair of spectacles, dark tinted to filter the soul spectrum and with a bit of adjusting to key them to the psychic surface only-- done. He nods his thanks as he slips them on and I hesitantly restart the spell, vision intent and deep to see, as horrible as it was, how it ended. But it’s that deeper vision that shows me— not Penumbra. Or, not only him.
I stumble back at the sight of those yellow-slitted eyes peeking out from within layers of nearly invisible magic, then step forward again because memories can’t hurt.
“St. Mungo’s healer?!” Moody snarls, also stepping further away, wonky eye spinning crazily while I keep my focus on the woman, because she’s no woman. Well... she is, sort of. After sifting through the layers, she looks almost like a disguise or a puppet whose eyes are equally as serpentine as the spark of the soul-mutilating scar is. Fucking snakes, both of them, but-- no. Penumbra was no serpent; he was... infected?
"Cursed. His soul," I murmur queasily, "was cursed." Moody grunts his agreement while Snape stands motionless and looking ill.
And right there, while echo-Madam Pomfrey grappled with the man’s kicking feet, the snake in disguise leaned in, pinned his shoulders, slitted eyes intense and excited, and hissed out: ‘Sleep... Die.’
And Penumbra did, choking down the vial of liquid ‘remedy’ the snake fed him, his wide, fearful eyes fixed on hers until his own drooped and closed; until he stilled, still terrified, even as he edged toward sleep, then deeper. The scar on his soul finally completed it’s twisting design showing a skull, a grotesque snake slithering from it’s mouth and down, twisting and coiled to strike.
And, as instructed, Penumbra slept. And then Penumbra ceased, body seizing once before stilling a final time, his last vision one of horror, and finally, his soul had gladly escaped away. And from this close, I can feel how grateful it was to escape. That poor man.
I jerk when a hand lands on my shoulder, but it’s just Moody, handing me a handkerchief I hadn’t realized I needed while his own eyes stay fixed on the echo, the snake’s newly-satisfied smile barely hidden while she fussed and echo-Pomfrey panicked and echo-Dumbledore exclaimed over the newly dead man. But my cheeks are wet and I wipe at them futilely while I retreat across the room and perch on the edge of a cot while Snape removes the spelled spectacles with a shaking hand, ashen and sick-looking and swaying in place for a second before he all but falls into a visitor's chair.
So it's now that now-Dumbledore marches in with official-looking Ministry men and women on his heels, the last of which holds a St. Mungo’s healer’s cap in his hand, barely two hours after the deed’s been done. Mystery both solved and not. I just wish I could go back to this morning, maybe break my own rule, see the danger—
But Penumbra wasn’t my mission. I’ve known that all along.
The full crowd all leave me be until the echo’s been re-seen through my and Moody's replicated, tinted glasses to temporarily show the deeper near-soul-viewing to see that mark chewing through his very essence-- the replayed scene has the officials all buzzing nervously and aiming suspicious looks everywhere (primarily at Snape, but a few toward me as well), and now there’s little left to do in here but grieve the loss of a life.
But it’s a life lost to a war. And this war, active or cold, is one that began long after my origin and presumably ended long before my return. Only, it’s my war now because someone brought it into my house.
If this Riddle fellow (or Voldemort or Supreme Emperor of Earthly Snakekind for all that I care) is looking for a challenge to see who, ultimately, holds the power... then I’ve won already because they've just laid it at my door. They just made it personal.
I highly doubt it's genuinely going to be that easy.