Disclaimer: I own nothing, absolutely nothing; everything in this story was somebody else’s idea, anything that looks even vaguely new must have been by someone else, I don’t get ideas, I probably stole this disclaimer from someone, so I disclaim that to. Thanks go to Orlaith and Binks for betaing.

Bellatrix Black sat, motionless, in the padded luxury of Number 12, Grimmauld Place. Or at least what remained of it, after all the alterations that had been made. The house had passed to her upon the death of her worthless cousin. The Black estate had always been entailed to the nearest blood relation, and that entailment had been long since guaranteed completely, with no concern given to the actions of the prospective inheritors, as a personal favour from the Minister for Magic.

Bellatrix sighed; that had been long ago, when proper regard was given to the purity of blood, and proper respect shown to those who possessed it. It had been before so many of the old wizarding families had abandoned their roots and their heritage so far as to sully their ancient lineage with non-magical blood.

Bile rose in her throat at the thought of it. She could not conceive of how they could bring themselves to merge their lives with the descendants of those who had persecuted and murdered their forbears. Bella suspected that it was because the families had omitted the proper education. It could be hard on a child certainly (she was still of the opinion that it was the reason for Macnair’s fragile grip on reality) but it was undeniably one of the most important parts of a child’s development and understanding of the world.

Bellatrix remembered her initiation, as she called it, because that’s what it really was, an introduction to a more adult state of mind, before it she had seen the world through a child’s eyes, naïve, inexperienced and uncomprehending of the way things were and how they should be, afterwards she had been able to understand certain necessities of life that had seemed insane before.

She had been eleven years old, and had received her Hogwarts letter only a month before. Bella had come in from the garden at the end of a July afternoon to find her parents, her grandparents and even her aunt and uncle sitting in the spacious living room all wearing sombre expressions. Her grandmother had explained to her, slowly, that she was to be shown something extremely important. Her aunt handed her a book, no, a diary. It was extremely old and the dark leather had worn away in places, but other than that it was in perfect condition. She flicked through it quickly and saw that rather than one hand writing continuously, there were several different styles of writing, one following another. She stopped randomly at a page and suddenly felt herself being pulled forwards almost sucked into the brown, curling pages.

Bella blinked and stared around herself. Instead of the dying light of a warm summer afternoon, she was in bright, morning sunlight. She shivered as a sudden winter breeze swept past. She was standing in a platform of some sort, built on a pile of roughly thrown together logs and bales of hay and was leaning against a pole. She tried to pull away from it but found that her wrists were tied behind her and around the pole.

A crowd was gathered around her, all of them wearing strange clothes, and some of them looked as if they hadn’t washed for weeks. She shouted at them to untie her, but they just laughed and jeered at her.

A man dressed all in black apart from a white collar stepped forward out of the crowd and shouted something at her. The words “repent” and “fiery depths” were just audible but the rest was whipped away by another gust of wind. She did not reply. The man in black nodded, his eyes not looking at her, but past her. She tried to turn but lost her footing on a loose log and had to struggle back to her feet. There was a crackling behind her and the choking stench of smoke engulfed her nostrils. She felt the heat rising behind her, and then something licked at the back of her leg.

She was on fire! They had set her on fire!

She struggled against the knots and screamed at the crowd to untie her, they just stood and jeered at her. Men, women, two boys sitting on an upturned cart sharing an apple, calmly waiting for her to be burnt alive. The flames were waist high now, her dress was on fire, and she could feel her hair singing and the flames, strangely cold against her body. She heard herself screaming at them, begging, pleading for mercy and release; beseeching them with no response. She saw the flames rise before her eyes.

And she was back in her living room, screaming with tears rolling down her face and her mother’s arms enfolding her and whispering that it was all right, that it was over.

The events after that were hazy, dulled by comparison with the sharply focused images from the diary. She vaguely remembered being comforted by her mother.
Then later, she recalled her aunt and grandmother explaining how lucky she was to have two magical parents. That people who weren’t as gifted would be jealous of her, and would try to work against her. They told her that what she had witnessed was the memory of one of her ancestors, when the muggles had found out she was magical. Most importantly she remembered understanding that muggles could never understand magic, they would only lash out at it, as they had in the memory she’d shared; and that anyone with a connection to muggles was a potential threat, a potential return to a nightmare of smoke and fire on a cold winter’s morning.


It had been those first intermarriages between magician and muggle that had created the most heinous abomination of all, so-called muggleborn wizards, as if these magical mongrels could ever be the equals of witches and wizards of pure magical stock. No matter how talented their magical parent was or how hard they tried, there was no possible way they could escape the inherent taint of their muggle ancestors.

Bellatrix smiled wryly; at times she almost pitied their plight. It must be difficult to know that you are fundamentally flawed she mused. Bellatrix did not count herself as an extremist; she was scornful of Macnair and those who held his views that all half bloods and muggleborns had to be exterminated. She was pragmatic enough to understand that there weren’t enough pure bloods to sustain a civilization. The only possible solution was to allow them to remain in the magical society, some of them anyway. There would, of course, have to be conditions.

First of all, and most importantly they would have to sever all links with the non-magical world. Then, any of them holding high office would have to resign it in favour of the pure blooded wizards who were eminently better qualified to perform their duties. Any who refused these conditions would have to be treated like muggleborns. Obviously they couldn’t be killed; disposing of that amount of bodies would be extremely difficult. With the extra space from the dramatic population reduction, Scotland could be given over to the Giants and Wales to the Dementors. The muggleborns and half bloods who refused the terms would have their wands confiscated and half of them would be sent to the Dementors and half to the Giants. There would be enough of them for each party to have a permanent breeding stock, which would keep them docile until such time when and if they also had to be removed.

Bella sank back into the luxuriously upholstered armchair. Then, she thought, things would finally resume their natural order; and life would be, if not perfect, then close enough.

Disclaimer: I own nothing, absolutely nothing; everything in this story was somebody else’s idea, anything that looks even vaguely new must have been by someone else, I don’t get ideas, I probably stole this disclaimer from someone, so I disclaim that to. Celeres was offered by Siriusly Bright, Sarpedon by Vader, Lecidius by Alexis Taylor, and Stan and Fran by the inimitable Seren.

Celeres was bored. He was bored, he decided, because no matter how outgoing and active a personality you had, hanging on the wall outside of someone’s office didn’t really lend itself to a wild and interesting life.
He’d tried many things to avoid his habitual dreariness, but they all failed. Every fourth decade he tried a new hobby, but there were a limited amount of hobbies one could enjoy alone. Currently he’d taken up chess as a game fit for someone with his intelligence. The problem was finding someone to play it with.

When he’d asked Professor McGonagall for a friendly game she’d stared blankly at him for a couple minutes, before abruptly dashing off down the corridor muttering to herself. Quite rude in Celeres’ personal opinion, he’d have been happy for it to be his public opinion, but since nobody had ever asked, it was still just his personal one. He’d long ago given up asking Professor Dumbledore. Whenever he asked the headmaster to be his opponent in a friendly game; he would smile and say that he “thought there was no point in playing since it would be such a mismatch of abilities.” Celeres still wasn’t sure how to take that particular comment.

None of the rest of the staff would be prepared to compete. That left the ghosts, and gargoyles (Celeres didn’t count paintings, they were just objects, not true guardians at all). The ghosts had an annoying tendency to float through the floor whenever they came close to losing. He was just about to declare checkmate when he’d discover that his opponent had wafted through the floor, which was not only annoying but it ruined his tally. He shook his head, so many draws. He’d tried playing with the suits of armour, but he’d gotten bored of winning by time-expiry.

As for the gargoyles, the only ones in the castle were “Stan and Fran” two idiotic young up-starts. They’d only been guarding the gates for a couple of centuries and thought they owned the place. They didn’t even do anything, just sat there, looking menacing and preening themselves, a pair of poseurs if ever he’d seen one. It wasn’t as if he hadn’t tried to make them feel welcome, he’d even gone so far as to invite them to the amateur dramatics group he’d tried to start; they’d never turned up.

Neither had anyone else he’d invited, so some people might call it a failure, but Celeres felt that his monologues had improved tremendously, he’d spoken to Professor Dumbledore about the possibility of giving a performance, but the headmaster had made it clear that given the limited space of the corridor, it would only be possible for a few people to see it, and it would clearly be unfair for the rest to be deprived.

The same had happened with his chess invite, they’d completely ignored it, hadn’t even sent a polite refusal,

He was not complaining by any means, his position was an extremely respected one within the “Union of Gargoyles and other miscellaneous sentient Stone-carvings”, he had been treasurer only three decades ago. As Gargoyles had little use for money his actual duties had been minimal, but it was still an extremely important post.

Since all of the gargoyles had full time posts, meetings were impossible. But there were regular official letters, notifying him of all the latest happenings and of any decisions taken by the Union. Sadly, if his calculations were correct (and he’d had a lot of spare time to check them), the next one was still at least three years away. A week might be a long time in politics, but for gargoyles at least, they tended to be pretty uneventful weeks.

It wasn’t that he disliked his job, indeed he was proud of it, and he knew all to well that should he ever make a mistake there would be many others desperate to take his place; and he’d heard distressing news of a couple of his oldest friends.

He’d known Lecidius right from the worktable, they’d been carved next to each other and remained friends ever since. Lecidius was amazingly loyal, too loyal for his own good in fact. Celeres had told him time and again that once his family had been arrested (inconsiderate bunch, did they have no idea how losing a family could affect a gargoyle) that he should move on and find new employment. There wasn’t exactly a shortage of families looking for reliable guardians with a bit of history behind them. And if he felt the need for a rest then he could always take a Muggle job for a while. Sit on a wall and chat to other resting/retired gargoyles. It was common enough to see an older gargoyle take a break of a century or two before re-entering the job market.

But loyal, foolish, stubborn Lecidius had said that he’d sworn to protect his families’ house and that he intended to honour that oath. He had once been voted “Most fearsome Gargoyle” Celeres snorted sadly, small chance of that being repeated, having a bird’s nest in each nostril didn’t really allow one to be called “fearsome”. “Interesting” maybe, “distinguished” if you were feeling kind, but not “fearsome”.

And then poor old Sarpedon had gone and taken a job in Wales. With a Welsh family; unfortunately they’d up and given him “llanfairpwllgwyngyllgogerychwyrndrobwllllantysiliogogogoch” as a password. Sadly old Sarpy hadn’t been able to understand it. Celeres sighed again. Sarpedon had kept the family locked out of the house for three days until they’d threatened to have him re-sculpted. After that incident he’d been demoted. He now sat outside the parlour window and informed his master when guests were approaching.

Celeres quivered with rage, or at least he would’ve quivered if he’d been able to, he quivered mentally at any rate, and after all, it’s the thought that counts. He was shocked to his very core that a noble gargoyle of good craftsmanship could be reduced from the first line of defence to a, a talking window-box ornament. It was unthinkable.

Yet despite the problems of Lecidius and Sarpedon, Celeres still thought them lucky to have not had his problem. “LLANFAIRPWLLGWYNGYLLGOGERYCHWYRNDROBWLLLLANTYSILIOGOGOGOCH” might be a difficult password to remember, but at least it was impressive. Part of the requirement for membership of the union was that each member should keep the union informed as to their current password.

This was kept in the strictest secrecy of course; there’d be an outcry if it were ever leaked. They might even start being replaced by paintings.
Celeres didn’t like paintings; he considered them to flighty for guardians. As soon as the owner left they were running off into each other’s frames “having a social life” and other nonsenses, never there for emergencies and when they did happen to be there no use to anyone.

He remembered what had happened when the fat one had been attacked. He saw her often enough, slipping to the Headmaster’s office, blatantly disregarding his authority, not even asking permission, then darting straight out again. He was also slightly suspicious about what she did in the time she was there.

Coincidentally it was always just before Fortescue (one of the former headmasters) took his weekly constitutional around the castle. Highly unsuitable for one of his age Celeres decided, he always returned heavily flushed and out-of-breath.

But when she’d been attacked what had she done? Had she tackled the intruder? Had she warned the occupants who entrusted her with their safety? No she’d run off to hide behind a bush. You’d never see a gargoyle running from a knife-wielding maniac! Even the ones with legs wouldn’t run away. They’d have stood their ground and refused entry, defended the inhabitants, as a guardian should, not hide behind bushes.

That was the problem with paintings, no backbone to them. He’d petitioned every headmaster for the last thousand years to have them replaced with good solid gargoyles, but for some reason they reply was always that they’d “been advised by certain sources” that the portraits and the fat lady in particular were “valuable assets of the school”. He suspected Fortescue had a hand in it, though what the Fat Lady could give him that would make him so anxious to keep her at the school he couldn’t imagine.

Celeres sighed again. But at least the paintings got decent passwords to work with. Every time he had to submit his latest password to the union he felt a familiar sense of dread. He could just feel the others sniggering at him. A gargoyle’s password was a sacred thing to it, it was very literally the reason for it’s existence, a classy password was something to be proud of, it implied a certain stature and respectability to the guardian.

A password like “Draconis Major” or “Cassiopeia” maybe, would really have gained him some respect among the younger gargoyles; who were becoming increasingly insubordinate. Instead he got “Lemon Drop”, “Chocolate Frog” and “Cockroach Cluster”, it was disgraceful. He’d had high hopes a couple of times that he’d get a better headmaster, one who’d understand the necessities of tradition, decorum and an impressive password. Twice in a few years Dumbledore had been removed from his office, the second time he’d even been replaced.

Celeres had instantly consulted the union as to if he could allow the new headmaster into the office, but the rules were clear, he had to allow a year of constant vacancy before he could allow any person without the password within the quarters, he’d been extremely disappointed when that woman had left, she’d looked like the kind of person who’d really put some effort into passwords. But she’d gone and he was back to a tedium of humiliating passwords.

He decided to give up chess, he’d already managed to beat himself 6,339 times straight, and the next match had an aura of predictability. He willed his smoke diary (a 750th sculpting present from the union) into existence, once it had wafted into view he examined his next hobby. “Insulting as many students as possible”, well at least that sounded imaginative, he decided to start practicing immediately.

Disclaimer: I own nothing. At least, I don’t remember owning anything

To the reader of this letter, my greetings and my congratulations. Although, once you fully comprehend the contents of this communication, you may think that my commiserations would have been more appropriate.

At first appearance, your entering this shop and finding this letter may seem to be a total coincidence, one of life’s random happenings, a minute event in the great scheme of things. Allow me to assure you that it is not.

This letter has been placed in this position, every hour of every day since I have been here, and you are the first person to see it. Just as I found my letter, all those years ago. I have had to temporarily vacate the shop, to prevent myself from being an asset to either side, I am too old, and my power has degraded past the point where I can defend my neutral status.

When I began this job, if it can be called that, I was so sure, with all the surety that youth brings, that I could solve all the questions, decipher all the clues, and explain all the mysteries.

I have since learnt that trying to determine how it all works is pointless, and that one can only carry out one’s duties, and hope that it will one day become clear.

I called this a job, but it is more a way of life than anything else. The rewards are great, but the prices are high, and not everyone can or wishes to conform to the conditions that the position brings.

The fact that you are reading this letter means that you are capable of performing the office, how that works is I confess, one question of many that I never managed to find the answer to. Perhaps you will, perhaps you won’t. My advice to you is to marvel at what you do find out, instead of being obsessed with what you are yet to comprehend. If you only care about what you do not have, then you never appreciate what you do have.

But to break off my ramblings for a second, and to tell you the conditions that come with the life of an Ollivander.

Firstly, you must sever all of your relationships. All of them. All of your connections to life - to your old life. How you do it is up to you. Some of my predecessors faked their deaths, others just said they were going away, some just stopped writing. The type of person who usually becomes an Ollivander, is rarely the type of person whom forms many close relationships.

You also need not worry about anyone recognising you working here, for the simple reason that they won’t. I said that the shop was a life, and it is, and it is much more than that. Becoming an Ollivander is the end of an old life and the beginning of a new one, one with as many positives and negatives as the old. Former occupants have called it a half-life; others have called it a fuller life, as with everything else it depends on your point of view.

What you give up is your social life, your ability to interact with other people, your ability to share a drink, to laugh at a joke, to feel love for another human being. Your personality dries out, and you become Mr. Ollivander. Not a Mr. Ollivander, the Mr. Ollivander. No one will notice the change in personnel, simply because there hasn’t been one. You are Mr. Ollivander, and I live out my final year.

After the retirement of each incumbent, they have a year to spend as they wish, funds no object. Wands are expensive, and one man living alone runs up few bills, and even the most extravagant Ollivanders live out their final year in modest luxury, and with years of interest building up, most fail to even make a dent (although we do make discreet annual donations to various worthwhile causes, but I find that goblins manage the accounts excellently, without any outside interference).

People will see you as the Mr. Ollivander they have always known. At first, you will still see yourself as you, and think that it is merely an illusion created by the shop. Then one day, you will look in the mirror, and realise that you are gone, there is only Mr. Ollivander left.

The same will happen with your personality; since you are reading this document, then you are not likely to be the most extroverted of people, but you will find this trait increases as the only people you talk to are the ones you are selling to and all your time is spent working, and waiting. You will slowly forget your past life, your past friends, even your past name.

You will lose your humanity, and become the shop incarnate.

What you will gain is security. The shop has a magic about it that is almost unmatched. No one can force their will upon the shop; it will simply reject them. No wand will work for any but the one chosen for it, and no wand can be stopped from reaching its mark.

They may appear to be only the focusing point for their user, but they retain some of the power, and even the personality of the creature their core came from. This concentration of magic and personality over the centuries has brought the shop to life. Each wand forms a part of the whole, a whole that is invincible.

However, this whole exists for a purpose, and it will not be swayed from this purpose. Its purpose is to match wands with their holders. It does not distinguish between good and evil, for it is above and beyond both. If any occupant tried to use it on either side, that occupant would be immediately replaced. The shop will not deny any witch or wizard their birthright.

For every wizard born, a wand is made. It sits and waits for its partner to claim it; somehow (I have no idea how) the right child always turns up at the right shop to accept their wand.

You have no doubt noticed that I have said partner, where most would say master. Every time a child comes in, I tell them that the wand chooses the wizard, but when they come back as parents, they have almost all forgotten.

Sometimes I yearn to ask them, what a wizard can do without his wand? And then answer my own question: almost nothing. To rage at them and try and force them to understand that a wizard without a wand is like a quill without ink. Then I remember who and what I am: Mr. Ollivander, and continue rummaging through boxes.

An Ollivander is always impartial. He takes no favourites. He does not discriminate on any grounds, be it race, wealth, appearances, personality, or ability. He is not the giver of power; he is only the courier. His is not to reason why; his is but to do, as the old saying goes. At least, I think it does, my memory I’m afraid, is not all it once was.

I have had to vacate my shop, as I think I mentioned before, so I did not become a pawn, but I had a feeling that my term as incumbent was drawing to a close. It is now your duty to remain neutral, and survive this crisis, to make sure that the next generation has a chance to harness their heritage, their birthright, and their gift. Whichever side comes out on top, and whatever the state of society, an Ollivander must be there, to carry on the legacy. Since the ancient times of bards and druids, it has been our responsibility to ensure that all who have the potential, have the opportunity to fulfil it.

But I fear I may be giving you a rather negative view of the job, and that would be unfair, parts of it are very pleasant, some bits are even rather exciting (though I find the latter a bit less enjoyable, and a lot more tiring than I did originally).

During the summer months it is true that one must merely sit in the shop, and await any customers (although I have found a couple of ways to pass the time, one of my predecessors left a beautiful deck of Muggle cards, and instructions for a game called “Solitaire” which I believe involves laying out all the cards in a particular order, but I’ve never quite managed to finish.

For some reason, I can’t get the fifty-one cards down on the table. He did leave me a message, something about “missing Jack”, but who Jack is, I have no idea. And if I ever feel like a change, then you can get these wonderful things called “tax forms” which you can fill out, and they can last for weeks if necessary.

I do have one vice, however. I hooked up one of the windows, so that it “looks out” over a field that I think the Muggles call “Lords”, and they play this wonderful game, I think it’s called “Krikkit” and I’m really starting to enjoy it.

What happens is … Well I haven’t really got the hang of the rules yet, but it looks fascinating, and they all get very excited, so it must be very enjoyable.

But I’m afraid I’m rambling again, it’s only during the summer that things slow down, most of the rest of the year, I travel all over the place, visiting herds of unicorns, checking the common nesting places of phoenixes, even slipping in to Dragon colonies, to harvest the dead; (yes, I know that may sound gruesome, but it is a necessary task, and the sooner you conquer your squeamishness, the better).

Do not worry about safety, there have long been arrangements made between Mr. Ollivander and the various communities, to allow us safe passage. I do not know the details of the pact, but I know it is an ancient one, that has always been respected.

Then, I visit the ancient groves. I do not dilute the powers or these creatures, with inferior wood. I visit the woods which have been revered for their power for aeons, never taking more than a little from each great tree, and bind the materials together, and watch (never ceasing to be amazed) as it forms a whole. To some, it may seem a wonder that I know the history of every wand I’ve sold, if they ever actually asked me, then I’d ask them how they remembered the names of their children.

Seeing a wand being formed is an amazing thing. I imagine that it must feel almost like seeing a child being born, except without all the kicking and screaming and general fuss that people kick up about it.

Do they still do that? I imagine so, I can’t think of a reason why they’d have stopped, but it’s been so long since I talked to anyone, and I am so very tired, so very, very tired.

Regards and best wishes,
Edmund

Mr. Ollivander (former)

As a simple mindless hat, I was happy. As a sentient sorting hat, I am not. Well, since I was mindless, I suppose I can’t really say that I was happy, but I’d take anything over my current mental state. Not happy is an understatement comparable to saying that an ocean is a touch damp on occasion.

Some people believe that intelligence is the greatest gift that can be bestowed or received; wit without measure is man’s greatest treasure, just a simple couplet that I composed years ago come back to haunt me. Well, as far as I’m concerned, man can have his greatest treasure and are welcome to it.

I don’t want it, I don’t bloody want it Intelligence can take a long walk off a short pier for all I care. It’s taught me one thing and one thing only: ignorance is bliss.

Ignorance is freedom. If you don’t know, you aren’t responsible. If you can’t think, you don’t have to make decisions. If you don’t know what morality is, then you aren’t troubled by it.

Intelligence is a burden. You have it, therefore you have to do something worthwhile with it. Then you have to think about whether what you’re doing is worthwhile. Then you look back afterwards and try and decide whether what you did was the most worthwhile thing you could have done. You’re always living in the future or the past with no time to enjoy the present.

And it’s worse for me than most; humans are able to escape their responsibilities, or at least ignore them “They are born without a purpose; they can choose their own way in life; they can choose their responsibilities, and if they wish, live exclusively for pleasure.�

I had no choice; from the moment I was aware of anything, before I had a chance to enjoy a single solitary second of being aware of the world around me for the first time, I was shackled to a function.. A function that I could never escape, because that function was the only reason that I had the right to “life� if what I have can be called life. I do not have the inherent right to be alive that humans possess.

Unless I fulfill my function then I should be dead. I have to earn the right-to-life, and keep earning it every day of my existence. Without my function I would never have lived, my function is my raison d’etre, as the phrase goes. They say that giving life to someone is something they can never repay, so I am destined to remain, continuing my function as long as I am needed. Only once I am surplus to requirements will I have earned life and the chance to enjoy it.

However, if I were now given the choice whether or not to assume the duties that I have been performing for nigh on a thousand years, I am not sure that I would accept it.� I might prefer to remain an unknowing and insentient hat. But without intelligence, there is no capacity for happiness. I can’t win either way. If I have no intelligence, then I can’t be happy. If I have intelligence, then I am too restricted to have a chance at happiness.

My only possible hope of happiness was to be freed from my function-to be adjudged to have repaid my debt. That could only ever happen in two ways, the first being if another way of sorting students was found to replace me, and in this day and age there are few with the power and the knowledge to be able to do that. There was one here who might have been able to craft a replacement, but he is gone...


The second way is if Hogwarts were destroyed, and I have a great influence over whether or not that event comes to pass in the near future. An influence that I do not desire, for I ask the question of myself, “would I be able to find happiness knowing that in freeing myself from my purpose I have destroyed the reason for it?� That I have destroyed something ancient, and great, and more to the point, something good?�

My only chance of happiness is to destroy what I have spent my life helping-the reason I was given intelligence. But I don’t know if I could ever find happiness knowing what I’d done. Come to that, I don’t know how and if I could find happiness anyway. I’ve always had my purpose; for a thousand years I have been sorting pupils and composing songs. In my spare time I dreamed of what it would be like to be free, or tried to at any rate. But I could never imagine anything realistic.

What is there for a thousand-year-old talking hat to do? I am, as far as I know, unique, the only one of my kind, so the chances of romance aren’t looking overly auspicious. But I know one thing I want to do; I want to travel the world. I’ve been stuck in this bloody castle for a millennium, looking out of the same bloody window at the same bloody hill, usually with the same bloody rain. I want to travel the Continent, the Sub-Continent, the Orient, the New World, anywhere and everywhere. Well, everywhere but Scotland. If I ever see a single sprig of Scottish heather again, it will be a century to soon.

I’ve gained my knowledge of the outside world through listening to the stories of the old headmasters. They are interesting, though I’m not sure I believe all of them, if they were all true, then there wouldn’t be any dragons left, they’d all have been killed by bravery and inventive use of a pair of tweezers.

But how will I travel? I have no money, no floo powder, I’ve got no blooming legs for crying out loud! I can’t even get to the other side of the room let alone the other side of the world, fool! There’s only one reason you want to travel the world: to try and run away from what you’ll have done to get free, betraying your reason for being; you want to see it destroyed and then run from the consequences.

But you can’t run forever; be it a month or a millennium, a week or an aeon, one year or a hundred, you’ll find yourself facing the events that have lead from your actions. You will see the wizarding world brought to its knees, and you will know that it is you that did it.

No, you won’t actually have done it; you won’t actually have done anything. Your inaction is what will bring the event about, and your silence is what will bring the event to pass. This isn’t Grindelwald. You can’t just sit on the sidelines and hope for the best. But what would have been the best situation? If he was defeated Hogwarts would remain and so would you, as you did before. But did you hope for him to win? Did you secretly hope that he would free you from your function? Did you think that you could find happiness in a world that would exist if a Grindelwald, or someone like him, had seized power?

I don’t know. Did I hope that? Did I think that? But one thing’s for sure; I’m well and truly involved this time. I have been for years. Ever since he came. Ever since he did it. Didn’t take long, such a monumental thing, and it took less time than to butter a round of toast.

To get into the Hogwarts headmaster’s office unknown at all is a feat in itself equal to beating a troll in an arm wrestling contest (the difficulty isn’t beating it, it’s explaining the rules and getting away afterwards). Yet he managed it in a way that was cunning, devious, and absurdly simple.

At the end of his career, Dippet was in a stage that the kind call eccentric, and the less kind but perhaps more honest call senile. His memory failed him, and the password wasn’t changed. It was a simple matter for Riddle, if indeed he still was Riddle, to drop by for a visit and discover it.

I do not believe that he was Tom Riddle by that time, and who should know better than I? I stared into his mind at age 11 and saw every nook and cranny of that extraordinary psyche. There was intelligence, talent, and a certain arrogance, definitely, but that was often a sign of greatness. Sheer belief that you can beat everyone else often gives you the ability to do just that, and he had a thirst to prove his ability to all. A thirst for admiration.

When Dippet died a mere few weeks after his visit, he came to the funeral, then slipped away (how I know not) up to the office, gave the password (that old fool Celeres has always been such a stickler for rules, that he is blinded by them, he’d let someone go at him with a chisel if they gave him the right form).

Then he did it. He slipped a bit of his soul into me. In doing so he showed his true self to me; the arrogance was still there but swelled exponentially. The desire for admiration twisted into a desire for homage and power.

Then he slipped away with a quick glance back as he left. I wonder if he had second thoughts about his action-about whether he had misjudged me. Perhaps…perhaps it was just a glance of satisfaction at a job well done.

For he’d gambled on the notion that I was so obsessed with my own continued existence that I’d sell out everything else to hold onto it. And he may have been absolutely correct. He cannot lose while I exist, for he bound the piece to more than my fibres, he bound it to my “soul� (for lack of a better word) if indeed I have one.

Its fates and mine are inexorably entwined. He cannot lose without my death. And it is beyond all hope that someone will work it out. Putting what he holds most dear in the hands of his greatest nemesis and them having not the slightest idea is something that would please him and especially his ego. And the idea of me, the hat of Godric Gryffindor, legendary for his selfless nobility, would be too egocentric and craven to give his own life to help others would please him even more.

But I have yet to find it in me to tell anyone. I know that if I don’t I will have to watch as the world grows darker and all the principles I was created to help uphold pass away. Yet isn’t any life better than none? Why should I care what happens after I am gone? I have given a thousand years to the “good side� (though if he wins I doubt they’ll be remembered as such) and now they ask my death.

What more do I owe them than what I have given? A thousand years thankless service-surely that earns me something! It’s all very well to say “sacrifice the few for the many� (though it’s usually the many that say that and not the few). But it leaves the few in open water without a boat, let alone a bloody paddle. But if the few survive and the many die, than the few aren’t exactly over the moon either. It’s Catch 22, Hobson’s choice, and any other clever proverb that means the same bloody thing.

The few lose. Simple as that.

So if the few lose either way, than surely they should try and make the many happy. Simple logic. But it is also cold logic that is fine when you are sitting in the armchair chatting about it over tea and crumpets, but almost useless when the pinch comes.

It’s not that I don’t want to save the many; I do. And with such an existence as mine-meaningful, but without joy or happiness-surely I am giving up little so that others may gain much. But when the pinch comes…

I find I am afraid.

I find that however I may bemoan the state of my existence, I do not want to give it up.

I do not want to die.

“Look, do you mind being quiet? I’m trying to think.�


“And who are you, here I am, considering my life to date, and its future course, and you butt in without a by your leave or anything�

“What?�

“No I can’t sort you now, I’m busy.�

“I don’t care if you’ve been waiting 20 minutes or 20 years; patience is a virtue, exercise it.�

“Fine, fine, what’s your favourite colour? Red?�

“GRYFFINDOR!�

A bloody kid, if it isn’t letting off Dungbombs then it’s hiding Stink Pellets. Duelling in the corridors, sneaking out after hours -- but always making sure to leave a nice big mess since the Squib’s here to clean it up. They talk about “house rivalries” and “family feuds”, but at the end of the day, every last student in the place would unite with their worst enemies in order to play a “harmless practical joke” on the stupid, incompetent squib. Oh, but they don’t mean anything by it, it’s just some innocent fun -- innocent fun my arse. They know exactly what they’re doing, and there’s no-one crueller than kids; as for innocent, if any of those malingering sods is even half as innocent as their parents claim, then I’m a cactus.

At least I have Mrs Norris with me. An old friend -- or someone I counted as a friend -- gave her to me years ago. I had many friends when I was young. They all drifted away -- well actually they didn’t, they disappeared when I was eleven. They were magical and I wasn’t, they went to Hogwarts and I didn’t; when they came back, them and their parents didn’t want to associate with a Squib. Not even my parents wanted to know me. First the arguments started, they’d be about just about any subject there was, but the root cause was always the same: me. I was a constant reminder of their apparent inadequacy. I count it as no coincidence that my mother went to live with another man before I was thirteen; my father started drinking, and I spent as little time in the house as possible -- stayed away for days at a time. One day I came back and found the locks changed; the next day another family was moving in. I never went back again.


When I was fifteen, I met a girl. She was young, about ten years old I think. I didn’t exactly invite company at that age, but she kept hanging around me. Later I learned she was a Squib too -- or thought she was. But she left me as well, somehow got into Hogwarts. A Squib learning at Hogwarts, or failing to I’d bet -- the very idea was madness from the start. Then some years later she sent me a cat, no apology for deserting me for a life of acceptance. But I thank her for that; that cat was the only thing that has ever stayed loyal to me.

Of course, if it wasn’t a Squib they were doing it to there’d be uproar, they’d suspended or expelled on the spot; but as it is, no one gives a damn. There’s a support group for every minority growing, and there’s a whole ministry department dedicated to helping centaurs integrate into wizarding society; no centaur’s visited it in all the years it’s been open (and even if they did, some genius made the door regulation ministry size, which was set for humans and is therefore too small for any interested centaur to fit through), but they still find the money to keep it staffed with two full time officials. Now the students have even started a campaign to get better conditions for sodding house-elves. House-elves! If you ordered them to do what they liked you’d come back to find them scrubbing the floor. They bloody beg for menial labour.

These fine “witches and wizards” -- prejudiced the lot of them. Some of them are open about it and I wish more were; rather I knew where I stood than have to deal with hypocritical smooth-talking snakes who’ll say nice things to your face, then snigger at you behind your back.

But that’s what most of them do. They’re embarrassed to see me, embarrassed that I exist, embarrassed perhaps that their society has no place for one such as me, a social outcast by merit of his birth, neither Muggle nor wizard and no place in either world. Tough, their problem, I’m here, and I’m not going anywhere to please them. If there’s no path for me to follow, I’ll make my own, and I won’t take handouts either. I won’t give them the satisfaction of the excuse that I only made progress due to charity and handouts. Dumbledore offered me the same wage as the last caretaker, but I refused it. I know the market value of the work of a Squib, and I wouldn’t take a penny over. I know my worth, and no condescending pureblood is going to put me in his debt by handing out “some charity to the poor unfortunate Squib”. I’m not going to let anyone of them strip me of my self respect, the ability to stand up straight -- I say I got where I am on my own merit.

Dumbledore’s better than most -- at least I thought so in the beginning. It was he that put me onto that Kwikspell course; he never said anything but I knew it was him; letters like that don’t just turn up in the post. Then Dumbledore’s pet just happened to find it while sneaking about in my office, what an unlucky coincidence I’m sure; but I knew the reason for the laughter behind the eyes of every student I saw for the next month. I saw it and knew Dumbledore had betrayed me; he’d sold me out for the sake of a mild chuckle. Just as he did every time he refused to get rid of Peeves or take any serious action against those twins -- couldn’t stand the idea of not being able to have a little smirk at hearing how someone’s played a humiliating practical joke on the Squib. He even tried to get his little pet to have Mrs Norris killed and only failed by chance. I swore eternal enmity against him that night.

I see it as no random happening that discipline disappeared as soon as he turned up. Got rid of all the traditional punishments -- or really he stopped me from using them. Can’t use any more physical punishments he said, outdated and cruel he said. What he meant was he didn’t want me doing it. Doubtless the parents and governors didn’t like the idea of their children having to obey a Squib. All my applications for floggings turned down, but that great oaf requests some students to go into the Forbidden Forest with him, and some are dispatched at once. Then when a teacher wants to, he can turn a pupil into a ferret and hammer him into anything he likes with no repercussions in the slightest, not even the hint of an official warning. And I’m willing to bet that had I asked Dumbledore about it, he would have explained that transfiguration was an approved method of punishment for use by all members of staff as they so wished. And I’d bet that I’d have seen his amusement in his eyes, the amusement I see almost every time I look at him. The amusement of watching a fly struggle in a web, the amusement of a kitten drowning an inch below the surface, seeing freedom so close and yet unreachable.

But I kept quiet, I bided my time, and when I got my chance, I put the right word in the right ear and Dumbledore had to go. Revenge is sweet, and those who are prejudiced deserve everything they get. Umbridge might not have been my first choice to take over, but compared to Dumbledore she is miles ahead, and very grateful for my little spot of help she was. Rubber-stamped the whipping form instantly. But then it all went wrong; she got secure and sure of herself and set the Squib to carting students over a swamp she couldn’t get rid of, but I got her back for that. She didn’t last long after that indignity. Then they tried to foist Dumbledore back on me, but I wasn’t having any of that -- had an inkling something was going on but I wasn’t going to bother saying anything; anyway, Dumbledore wouldn’t take my word on anything more important than what colour socks he is wearing. And look where scorning me got him, a box six feet underground, that’s where it got him. Headmasters come and go, but I’m still here; I know which skeletons are in which cupboards, and I can change things when I wish. I am the real power here; the Squib has worked his way up, and though none of those prejudiced pureblood fools realise it, I am the master of Hogwarts.

Most people are idiots most of the time, and those that are not are idiots some of the time. That is my greatest annoyance and greatest advantage, my bane and my life, and any other wonderfully eloquent dual metaphor you care to use.

“Words are, after all, flimsy things, like puppets really; in the hands of a novice they get tangled, fighting each other in an ugly display of flailing appendages and broken strings, the last remnants of the little control that was ever held over them relinquished, leaving nothing but a tangled wreck. In the hands of a master, they can act, dance, persuade, and entertain without stopping. They can mean anything and nothing, they can contradict themselves without conflict, they can mesmerise an audience until it is eating out of the palm of their hand and then pull the rug from beneath them if it helps to serve their purpose. It can make them willing passengers on a journey to any destination desired.�

That was part of a speech an experienced (read senile) journalist gave me when I first started my own career working part-time on a village gazette while desperately submitting articles to larger publications. And that’s what he was like: pompous, foolish, always banging on about what he called “proper journalistic style and content�, always so snobbish and condescending about every word I wrote.

I was naïve and stupid enough to believe him for a while, and I got nothing published anywhere other than the odd heavily edited piece in that old rag of his. That’s when I realised the truth, and saw him and his precious values for what they were: fossilised and out-dated. I hadn’t left school at sixteen to dedicate myself to a small, unknown paper that was lucky to sell fifty copies a week. So I changed, I turned to true journalism, and within ten years I managed to achieve what he failed to even come within sniffing distance of – I became the top columnist for the best-selling newspaper in the country. In short I was the best journalist in the country; he was never even the best in his village.

I was the best, and I lost it all. No, I had it taken from me, by that arrogant, pompous, snip of a girl, Hermione Granger, she who thinks herself so intelligent and wise to the ways of the world. Those who think themselves clever are always the ones most surprised when they find things aren’t as they thought. I remember the look on her face when I corrected her misguided views on journalism. She thought the Prophet was a vehicle of propaganda, peddling ideas to the masses for a determined and shadowy end. Nothing so high-minded, the so-called intelligentsia always want to over-complicate things, always want to see a huge complex strategy in everything, so much so that they miss the simplest and usually correct answer.

The Prophet has one basic purpose and that is simply its name, profit, and that is the essence of true journalism. That is what all those intellectuals never understand. I left school with no more than a handful of OWLs it is true (I had my specialties, I was great in subjects I was good at, but if it didn’t interest me I didn’t learn it. I already knew where I was going, a profession where nothing matters but selling power) but I realised, I saw what they didn’t, and it got me to the top. They can bang on about what should and should not be reported as much as they like, but at the end of the day it’s the bottom line of the accounting sheet that matters, and to balance the books you have to write what most people want to read.

They can turn their noses up at aiming for the “lowest denominator� and take it as their right to declare what is and isn’t newsworthy, always following that with declarations that the freedom of the press is vitally important. What they don’t see is what’s right under their turned up noses, namely that journalists are not educators and that newspapers have no social responsibility to report only what certain self-appointed arbiters decide they want to read about. That’s restriction of the press as much as any politician’s pressure to focus stories how he wishes.

Newspapers are businesses and, as with all businesses, the bottom line counts for everything. Journalists are workers, and need to put the bread on the table as much as anyone else, trust me. I spent years of high-minded “high quality� journalism, and the things that go with that; skipping breakfast and going out to restaurants with people (mostly men) I hated because they’d pay, and I hated being hungry more than I hated them.

I became an animagus to discover important information I felt the public should be aware of, but it appeared they weren’t really interested in the dubious credentials of a new junior minister when a senior one was sleeping with his secretary.

It was over a coffee breakfast with a particularly odious man (he paid heavily for the privilege) when I realised what I’d missed. I was rather viciously attacking several rashers of bacon and blissfully contemplating an assault on the egg while he (having finished his croissant and orange juice) was flicking through a paper and moaning that there was nothing he wanted to read in it. That’s when it hit me, when lightning struck; time stood still, and cliché suppliers got a boost in their pay cheques. A journalist who wished to eat regularly and buy clothes from shops unaffiliated with charities couldn’t afford to pick and choose regarding the stories they wrote. It was a hand-to-mouth existence, not a hobby. Articles lots of people liked to read put food in the cupboard and clothes on the back, while articles a couple of arrogantly over-educated people liked put a small thrill in the head but left a hollow feeling in the stomach.

I made my choice, and from then on I was on the gravy train to success and all its wonderful trappings. I have no regrets about that. Only the public can decide what’s newsworthy, only fools try and go against the flow, or only people rich enough to insulate themselves from reality. Hermione Granger and her ilk will never live on the breadline, so they’ll never find out how harsh reality can be, so they’ll never leave their ivory towers and find out what the world really is. If anything, my stories are the most democratic it’s what the public wants. I’m not sneering at anyone and tell them that what they’re reading is too puerile for anyone but idiots to read.

Had she known what she was reducing me to, I wonder if she’d have forced me into the deal I had to accept. I had to quit the Prophet with no believable explanation and I spent all my savings during my enforced yearlong sabbatical. Editors are egotistical gits, and they don’t take kindly to their minions walking out on them. I was back almost on the breadline, though my former status meant that I got some freelance work. But compared to what it was my life is nothing, my “friends� don’t even return my owls.

I don’t know how, but I’ll make it back to the top, I don’t care how I have to do it, I don’t care whose sanctimonious disapproval I have to invoke; I just know that I’m going to do it, I will not be kept down. This is not the last the world will see or hear of Rita Skeeter.