“A thought, even a possibility, can shatter and transform us.”
-Friedrich Nietzsche
“Thea, where are you off to?”
Her hand on the doorknob, Althea froze reluctantly and turned to face Lilah Herbertson, her fellow Ravenclaw fifth-year and the closest thing she had to a best friend.
“I need to take a walk; clear my head,” said Althea, knowing full well that Lilah wasn’t going to let her alone unless she had the whole story “ or unless she made a run for it.
“Because of what happened with Malfoy in the library?” Lilah pressed, ignoring her dormmate’s clear desire to leave.
“No, it’s not Malfoy,” Althea lied, with one foot already out the door. Then she stopped and turned back, focusing her eyes on Lilah as though she had only just seen her. “What do you mean, ‘what happened with Malfoy’?”
“We-ell,” wheedled Lilah, “it’s not like I was there. Nobody but you would hang about the library on the first day at school, would they? I’ve only heard…accounts. But you can give me the facts, can’t you?”
“There are no facts to give,” said Althea, more sharply than she had intended. “I’ll see you later.” Spinning away from Lilah, she stepped out the door and shut it behind her with a snap.
The Ravenclaw common room was empty; it was nearing midnight. Sneaking out to stroll the Hogwarts halls had never been difficult for Althea, and now, in her fifth year, experience told her that she had nothing to worry about on this particular night. It was a Tuesday, and not long before the professors gave their first exams of the year. Her fellow Ravenclaws (with the exception of her nosy friend Lilah, perhaps) would all be studying quietly in their four-posters, or else sleeping in them. Assured of her virtual invisibility, Althea slipped through the portrait hole and into the darkened corridor, making her way toward the library.
Althea never made a conscious decision where to walk at night, but let her feet carry her where they willed. Occasionally that meant running into teachers or prefects on patrol, but usually she heard them coming from far enough away to seclude herself behind a tapestry or suit of armor. Even if she did not manage to avoid detection, Althea seldom received punishments for her wanderings. Her misdemeanors were so innocent and infrequent that professors tended to let her off with warnings and the intermittent detention.
But tonight, Althea could sense that there was no one else around. She was alone, she was free, she did not have to worry about her peers’ questions, nor her professors’ restrictions. The castle was hers for the taking.
Except that she was not the only person awake after all.
A lamp was burning in the back of the library; Althea could see its light from the doorway, which had been left cracked open in a manner suggesting complacency rather than haste. She was pretty sure whoever was inside was no inexperienced first-year.
“Hello?” Althea called, stepping into the musty, parchment-scented air of the library. She thought she knew who the lamp belonged to, and she had realized hours before that a confrontation was unavoidable. Like any true Ravenclaw, Althea was incapable of procrastination, and after the events of that afternoon she had decided most firmly that something needed to be done.
Scorpius, however, made no response, although Althea rather thought she could hear the softest sound of a turning page. Wand aloft and alight, Althea stepped forward through shelf-lined avenues until she reached the back table and stood looking down at the fair-haired boy whose face had been troubling her thoughts all afternoon.
“Hello, Scorpius.” This was all Althea could think to say; her words seemed to hang in the silence. Scorpius looked up at her with distant eyes.
“Have you ever read Atlas Shrugged?” he asked.
Althea refused to be taken aback. Still, she couldn’t quite locate her voice, so she sufficed with a curt head-shake to the negative. Scorpius looked back at the thick paperback volume and grudgingly closed it.
“That’s a pity. It would have been nice to discuss it with someone.”
This was more than Althea had ever heard Scorpius say at one time, and she found that she liked his voice. It was cool without being unkind, and sounded to Althea both humble and self-certain, like the voice of a very young boy or a very old man. More to get him to speak again than anything else, Althea posed a question.
“Have you read anything else by Ayn Rand?”
Scorpius’s eyes brightened, and the corners of his mouth slid up into a smile.
“No, but after this I think I’m going to try The Fountainhead. It’s not strictly philosophy, but Rand was a philosopher, and I think it will be interesting to compare works from different periods of her life…”
“You like philosophy, then?”
Scorpius became very serious. “Oh, yes. I’ve gotten through most of Hogwarts’ selection, and I order books from Muggle bookstores when I get the chance. But it’s difficult to manage with an owl.”
“Is that why you’re always in here?” Althea pressed. “You’re reading philosophy?”
“Among other things.”
“Well, I’ve always thought philosophy sounded dreadfully dull.”
Scorpius made a sound halfway between a laugh and a sigh.
“Yes, most people think that. But then, most people don’t much like reading. I wouldn’t expect “”
“I’ve got nothing against reading!” Althea interrupted, displeased. “I’ll bet I’ve read more Shakespeare than you, and probably Austen as well. Boys never like Austen.”
“Actually, I thought Northanger Abbey was “”
“And then there are the Brontes, and Edith Wharton, and Thoreau and Fitzgerald and Dickinson and Yeats and...” Althea stopped. “Look, don’t go accusing me of not understanding what it’s like.”
“What what’s like?” Scorpius asked, suddenly shy and quiet again, and Althea knew there was fear beneath his words.
For a moment they were both silent, staring.
“What it’s like, being as we are. We’re separated from all of the others, you know? I mean, every family has got a history, and war stories, and all that, but our families…they were in the thick of it. We don’t just have war stories “ we have horror stories.”
Scorpius couldn’t stop staring at Althea. As she spoke her blue eyes shone hot like the innermost layer of a candle flame, and, like a moth, he found himself mesmerized by the light. Silence fell again for a time.
“‘But they whose guilt within their bosoms lie imagine every eye beholds their blame.’”
Scorpius did not respond.
“Shakespeare might as well have been a philosopher, for all the stuff he figured out.”
Scorpius could not look into her eyes any longer.
“Hey. Look at me.”
“No.”
“Do you see me blaming you?” Althea asked, trying to catch his gaze. “Do you see me accusing you? Scorpius, look at me!”
“No!”
He was on his feet, without knowing how he had gotten there, and Althea suddenly realized that Scorpius was very tall, and that, if he had really wanted to, he could be intimidating. It was a good thing that they were both angry now, or she might have been frightened.
“I won’t sit here and pretend you don’t hate a part of me,” Scorpius whispered, his face deathly white in the lamplight. “I’ve kept my distance, Althea Burbage “ not just from you, but from everyone, because I know what everyone sees. I won’t let you tell me that it’s not my fault, what happened back then. I know it’s not! Everybody does! But that doesn’t make a difference, does it?” He breathed for a moment, and recited, “‘To take upon oneself not punishment, but guilt “ that alone would be godlike.’”
“Who said that, apart from you?”
Scorpius opened his eyes.
“Nietzsche.”
“Ah.”
Silence fell again, a tense one. Althea thought privately that it might have been electrically charged, had they not been in Hogwarts.
“Do you mean to say,” Althea ventured, after a time, “that you’ve done all this “ you do all this “ as punishment…because you can’t have the guilt?”
“It isn’t that simple. You don’t understand.”
“Stop telling me about myself and try to explain.”
Scorpius’ mouth crept upward again, but the smile was incomplete. Or maybe it was just wry.
“All right. I’ll try you. What Nietzsche meant is that punishment is what we all put in the place of true guilt, because punishment we can endure, punishment we can live through. But guilt is so raw, so powerful, that no human can actually withstand it. It is for the gods to feel. So whenever we begin to feel guilt we replace it with punishment as soon as we can, because punishment, no matter how terrible, cannot match the pain of simple, untainted guilt.”
“So you choose to punish yourself, instead of feeling guilt…which, incidentally, you shouldn’t even feel at all?”
“No,” Scorpius replied flatly. “I choose neither. If I can separate myself entirely from those around me, I can escape the need for both guilt and punishment. With no one to judge you, there is no need for them.”
“What about when you’re with your family?” Althea challenged. “Aren't you’re forced to feel something then?”
“My family “ they don’t like talking about what happened. Of course, they made sure I knew” “ a shadow passed over Scorpius’ face “ “but they refused to speak of it, generally. My father would rather forget, and my grandfather…we don’t see much of him.”
Althea nodded. She could empathize. Her family had never answered her questions either.
“It doesn’t matter, though,” Scorpius said abruptly, as though conversation had not broken off. “None of it matters. If you’d read what I’ve read, you’d understand.” He looked to Althea for a fraction of a second, then looked away. “Rand has this theory called Objectivism. A person’s own happiness and productivity are the noblest purposes of life, and reason is the only absolute. You see, guilt, the past, they don’t add up to anything. If I devote my life to philosophy, and the study of truth….If I don’t think about any of it….If I am happy….”
“Do you really believe all that?”
As Scorpius glared defiantly at the lamp, Althea reached across the table and picked up the worn copy of Atlas Shrugged. She held the book loosely in her hands and allowed it to fall open to an arbitrary page, on which she found a single sentence underlined.
“‘The worst guilt is to accept an unearned guilt.’”
Scorpius closed his eyes.
“You don’t really believe it.”
“I don’t know what I believe. I’d rather I didn’t have to believe anything.”
“You mean you’d rather not feel anything, or think about anything, or come to terms with anything.”
Scorpius’ gaze groped back to meet Althea’s, and she felt her heart break as his eyes begged her for a relief she could not grant.
“You’re loathsome, Scorpius. But not for the reasons you think.”
The silence was becoming unbearable.
“I’m sorry.”
Walking away from the lamp and the boy, Althea felt a dark gaze upon her back.
“I know the Muggle literature in Hogwarts is pretty awful. If you ever need a book from a Muggle shop,” she called, not looking around, “just let me know. I’ll do what I can.”