Mary Sue at Hogwarts

Mary Sue at Hogwarts

Since the late sixties and early seventies, the name Mary Sue has acquired a particular meaning at Hogwarts. That is because there is a ghost there of that name, which... oh, wait, the ghost is not actually at Hogwarts. I'm being confusing? Guess I am. Let's start from the beginning.

Mary Sue Petropavlovsky was slightly above middle height, blonde, blue-eyed, very pretty, and universally unpopular. She was the daughter of two Russian immigrants who had come to believe that Success with a capital S was all that America was about, and she had been brought up as a curious mixture of overachiever and old-fashioned home-loving girl; as a result, she found herself a complete fish out of water among her contemporaries. Those who might have liked her as a pretty, feminine creature were violently put off by her ambition and irritating know-it-all quality; the fashionable crowd found her old-fashioned and simpering; and the majority of students simply saw her as a pain. She did not even manage to be a teacher's pet, for it is a rare teacher who enjoys being corrected in class.

How, exactly, Mary Sue ended up in Hogwarts was not clear, even to Headmaster Armando Dippet and his deputy Albus Dumbledore, who succeeded him during her time there. The magic book that identified new students insisted on her name, and they could only find one Mary Sue Petropavlovsky, a second-year at Salem; but there did not seem to be any reason why she should go to Hogwarts. This was the cause of the first, but not the last, major rift in her life: her parents, who had a practically superstitious belief in the superiority of anything American - new, energetic, progressive, triumphant - over anything European - old, sterile, decadent, regressive - absolutely did not want her to go to Hogwarts. Mary Sue, on the other hand, was in some ways an incorrigible romantic; Hogwarts had the charm of distance, age and exoticism; and she went in spite of their prohibition, without telling the Hogwarts staff that she had no parental consent. By the time Armando Dippet, the then headmaster, found out, it was too late. There was an attempt to send her back, but her parents informed the school that they would not have her back as a gift; and so Mary Sue was forced to stay in Hogwarts, even during the holidays, a virtual orphan.

By now, she had also shown that she did not really fit in. Practically the first thing she did was to start campaigning to set up a cheerleader squad. A few mischievous fellow-Americans made a pretence of backing her up, only, really, in order to show her up; and it took some considerable amount of convincing - and more than a little open mockery - to get through her head that gyrating in skimpy shirts, sweaters and pom-poms, was not an activity suited to northern Scotland, nor yet traditional in British schools. Mary Sue gave up with bad grace; in her heart of hearts, she was still convinced that all her opponents were simply spoilsports, and that, if cheerleading suited the American town where she had been born, it suited the whole world equally.

The cheerleader affair had marked Mary Sue out; and, by her bad luck, this was the dawn of the "golden" (so to speak) age of the Marauders, the celebrated duo of Gryffindor troublemakers, James Potter and Sirius Black - soon to be joined by Remus Lupin, and Peter Pettigrew. It was their first year there, and it was inevitable that they should turn their attention to her. Mary Sue had set out to be top of the class in every subject, without bothering to disguise her ambition as a Briton would; and that made her a target. From the classics - a firework in her cauldron in Potions, a History of Magic textbook replaced with a bound set of porn mags on the day Binns took the textbooks back - to the surreal - an enchantment on her snood that made a chirping bird pop out at irregular intervals, mouse tails and whiskers and squeaking and cheeping noises from her shoes - the repertory of their pranks was endless. Nor was Mary Sue much good at retaliating: imaginative cruelty was not natural to her, and the best she could ever think of was sudden fires on their backsides - which, on one occasion, brought down on her the wrath of the Arithmancy teacher, Minerva McGonagall.

Mary Sue felt it natural to turn to authority. When she finally found evidence of Black and Potter messing with her property, she marched straight into the Headmaster's office.

It was Armando Dippet's last year as Headmaster, and - had she but known it - he was no longer the man to go to; his deputy Dumbledore was practically in charge already. Nevertheless, the old, tired, and rather cynical wizard did take notice of what she said, summoning Potter and Black, and giving them a severe talking-to. There was, however, a strange, distant look in Dippet's eyes, something between puzzled and foreboding, which Mary Sue did not understand.

She was soon to find out. Only a few minutes after, a third-year she hardly knew tackled her in the corridor: "Why are you such a sneak, Petropavlovsky?"

Mary Sue looked blank - and the other girl exploded. In British boarding schools - all of them, certainly not excluding Hogwarts - there is an absolutely fundamental rule that no student needs to be taught. It is called no sneaking, and means that, whatever happens, a student - especially a junior - does not go to the teachers and "tell" against anyone. To tell is what is called sneaking, and to be a sneak is to be the lowest of the low. Mary Sue had now broken the no-sneaking rule; not only were the Marauders outraged, but so was virtually every other student.

For the next term and the year after that, the Marauders tormented her. She could hardly sit down anywhere without setting off a whoopee cushion, and her nights were haunted by anything from flights of Thestrals to owls delivering April Fool letters out of season and love messages from the most unlikely member of school. The first time this happened, she took it seriously, and went to seek the letter's purported author; and young Severus Snape, whom Peter Pettigrew had just struck with a nasty pins-and-needles hex, took it for another prank, and reacted savagely. He put Mary Sue under a full and vicious body-bind, and then spat in her face.

God, she fought it. How she fought: day after day, shunned by colleagues and hounded by vicious gags, she walked the corridors of Hogwarts, her nose in the air, as if nothing that was being done could possibly affect her.

...............................................................................................................

"I think you're sweet."

It was the first time in years that anyone had said that to her. She felt something break in her heart at the words; she could hardly keep herself from sobbing, and her date looked at her with wonder and concern in his eyes.

Her date... he was not really a date, just a good-looking, dark-haired young man she had occasionally met in the Three Broomsticks. She had rarely ever paid him any attention, but on her last couple of Hogsmeade visits they had fallen into talk, so that today, for the first time in years, she had gone out in the hope of meeting him. And she had. And it had been incredible. He liked the same things that she did, and he had such clever things to say about everything. Sometimes he left her quite speechless, and the first time he noticed, he grinned and told her - that simple, unmeaning sentence that had unnerved her so much.

Sweet? My God, there he was looking at her like she was some kind of amusing, loveable, sweet - sweet? - little human puzzle, something he wished he understood, and enjoyed being baffled by. Sweet? There he was, strong and tall and sane, making her feel... this was something she had lost even the memory of... Sweet? And she had to go back to Gryffindor in two hours...

..............................................................................................................

"Is she saying anything?" asked Madam Pomfrey, neat and spruce in her doctor's white smock, trying to keep up with Minerva McGonagall's urgent strides.

"Mostly, she is sobbing. What is clear is that she is not coming out of her bed of her own free will."

"And what brought this about? She seemed to be coping with Sirius and his gang pretty well so far..."

"Or else we were telling ourselves that, to avoid thinking that we had any duty in the matter. I'm sorry, Poppy, I shouldn't have said that. It's not your business. I, on the other hand... as Head of House..."

"Don't reproach yourself, Minnie. Teachers aren't infallible. And you can't do much if the kids won't confide in you. And this is only your first year as Head of House."

"And they're just little boys and girls in their teens, Poppy; and their lives are in my hand. It's just not good enough to go It's-not-my-fault-I-shouldn't-worry! Even if that's true, I should worry just because they're children and it's our duty as adults to protect them!"

Professor McGonagall's strides had grown swifter and jerkier as her voice rose, as she climbed the stairs of her own tower; but both suddenly fell, Poppy Pomfrey catching up with her, as she approached the chamber they were making for. She did not want the inmate to be worried by raised voices and rushing steps.

"Good morning, Mary Sue," said Madam Pomfrey in her kindest tones, to a lump hidden under a mass of blankets and bedsheets.

.........................................................................................................

Professor McGonagall and Madam Pomfrey had already decided on their course. This was a mental breakdown rather than an illness; nevertheless, would be better for everyone if she spent some time in Madam Pomfrey's care. Someone had to remove her from Gryffindor house, and place her where her intense unhappiness could be given the care and attention it needed.

Madam Pomfrey was a kind person; yet there were one or two occasions when Mary Sue's immature arrogance reappeared to such an effect that she had to speak to her quite firmly.

"It will do you no good at all to keep this attitude, young woman. You are not always right, nor are your opponents always wrong. You are here to learn and not to teach. And finally, not everything can be run the way they do it back home."

"I wasn't saying that!"

"No? What were you saying, then? In the last thirty minutes, you have, so far as I can see, tried to teach me my own job, commented unfavourably on the Headmaster," (Mary Sue did not much like Dumbledore; his informal approach, his tendency to pepper his speeches with silly jokes - in short, his utter failure to act as she thought a Headmaster ought to act - just put her off) "and decided that everything in this place is inferior to everything you knew back home..."

"I didn't mean it..."

And the truth is, she didn't. She did not feel, in heart of hearts, that she was setting herself above everyone else; she did not feel that she was laying down the law or doing anything special. But that was the impression she left on others. She never seemed to speak without judging, without taking views that seemed to drop on others from above. It was simply a lifetime's bad habits, confirmed by the fact that they were really rather pleasant - no matter how much she might be told otherwise, it felt nice to be able to put someone in their place or to state as fact something she thought she knew - and easy, indeed comfortable. She did not know how to act otherwise; and when she was faced with a demand to change her ways, she could only understand it as being told to shut up.

............................................................................................................

It was a time for talking-tos; at almost the same time, McGonagall, had some quite firm words with the Marauders.

"...it so happens that you are among our finest students. But that does not make you better than anyone else. As I see you right now, it makes you singularly like a bunch of Dark Wizards on a spree."

"Oh, come on, madam..."

"James Potter, you have hounded this young woman until she is nearly suicidal. I had to send her to Madam Pomfrey's ward just to be out of your way. If you have the nerve to say that you have nothing with her breakdown, you will get detention, not just for what you have done to her, but for insulting my intelligence."

"Well, Madam, she..."

"Listen carefully, all you four. I am no longer interested in discussing anything with you. I only want to inform you that if anything happens to Mary Sue again, you will be on your way home so fast your feet won't touch the ground. I guess that argument won't deal with your obstinate adolescent self-satisfaction, so I am going to pull rank. I am your own housemistress, and I tell you right here and now to lay off Mary Sue. You have already lost Gryffindor twenty points, and don't think I would hesitate to increase it."

"Madam, you did not give her any points when she went to sneak to Dippet!" said Peter Pettigrew, outraged. Minerva McGonagall's eyes narrowed.

"Thirty points from Gryffindor, Mr.Pettigrew. And counting. You seem to think that to go to the Headmaster to complain of being harassed is on the same level as carrying out the harassment concerned. All I can tell you is that you are in bad need of a lesson in basic morality. Not to mention that one more word from you would see you sent off so fast, you would be sleeping in your own homes tonight. Those who were let in by their parents, that is."

That was a nasty crack, which Minerva McGonagall should never have made. Sirius Black had just ran away from his own home and taken refuge with James Potter's parents, an upheaval that had involved the school for weeks. Both Sirius and James looked sulky and mutinous.

Remus spoke. "Madam, we apologize. We promise to leave Mary Sue alone from now on... there are other ways" (here he looked very firmly at his friends) "to have fun without hurting people. We are sorry she was so unhappy."

"Yes," whispered Peter to Sirius, "unless she does something else, of course..." McGonagall, who had turned, missed the exchange.

The truth is that the Transfiguration teacher, still new at her job as Head of House, had bungled this interview. Except perhaps for Remus, none of the Marauders left with a real feeling that they had done anything very wrong in hounding the girl. Professor McGonagall had made a rare mistake, which would later maker her blush to remember, in not linking their persecution of Mary Sue with the similar treatment that they were meting out to young Severus Snape; therefore the Marauders did not feel challenged about the basic pattern of persecuting odd, isolated, unpopular individuals - and it took some time before they realized that there was anything wrong with it. But, at the time, Professor McGonagall was only thinking of Mary Sue, who had once or twice been reported to be suicidal.

Those moods, if they ever were anything more than Madam Pomfrey's alarm, did not last long. Mary Sue came back to Griffyndor house towards the end of the Trinity term, that is the end of the first year; and for as long as the year lasted, she was left alone. But come the summer vacation, another blow awaited her. Her parents were not only still furious with her, but they had been forced to take in a couple of cousins by the sudden death of their parents; so they had no space for her, even if they had wanted to take her in. So Mary Sue spent the summer in Hogwarts, alone except for the odd professor and a couple of lonely orphans who had no parents or home.

No wonder she spent so much time in Hogsmeade, in the company of the handsome lad who had once told her she was sweet.

..............................................................................................................

Mary Sue was feeling romantic. It was a full, bright, silver moon, with not a cloud in the sky, but ten thousand stars to keep it company in a sky of black velvet; and she wanted more than to just sleep on her lonely if downy pillow in an empty room in Hogwarts. Against regulations, she sneaked out of college in the middle of the night, barefoot and on tiptoe to make no noise, stealing out to the village. Her beloved Thomas lived there, and she wanted to be in his arms before the night was over.

Still on tiptoe, still with her heart in her mouth, she slipped around the cobbled streets of Hogsmeade, in her search for Tom's house - which was one of the not infrequent enchanted mansions in the magical village, which appeared and disappeared from place to place as they pleased. This time she had no trouble finding it; but it was empty.

There was another place where he could be, she thought: their own special place, a small tower set above the reefs looking out to sea, to the place from where high-masted galleons and junks, all enchanted and some from other worlds, came from time to time to search for what they needed in Hogsmeade. There they loved to sit and watch the sea.... What could he be doing there alone, she asked herself suddenly, or has he taken someone else to their own private place? She hurried out of the village, searching for her boyfriend's figure on the tower.

There certainly was someone there, she saw. As she climbed up the ruined steps to the top, she saw a man - a young man - Thomas. He was sitting there, without noticing her, and he was talking... talking down... talking to someone else. Talking to a rat, whose upturned face seemed focussed to catch every word.

Then suddenly the rat sped away, and Thomas relaxed. His head turned; he saw her, standing there in trembling astonishment. Suddenly he was speaking to her, looking at her, with a look that bore no resemblance whatever to the tender expression she remembered. He said: "Do not leave," and she realized that she could no more leave the tower than she could fly. He turned from her, looking, it seemed, down at the surf crashing against the rocks; and, when he spoke, it was as much to himself as to her.

"Yes, my dear, I was speaking with a rat. You were not allowed to know that, and if you had had any sense, you would not have let me know you saw. I do not intend that you should spread it around."

And then he spoke a sentence that chilled her.

"I am not a vampire myself... I mean, I am not restricted by the bonds that hold vampires."

Mary Sue stood there, rooted, horrified, unable to speak, as the back of the boy she had wanted to kiss and marry spoke pleasantly of her murder. "But I can acquire the characteristics of the vampire as and when I want to, for instance to drink your blood. Drinking the blood of witches is not terribly important to me - there are so many more reliable ways to gain power - but it is a pleasure - and Bella is right, there is nothing better than the flavour of pure unadulterated terror. The thought that my enemies know what is about to happen to them makes them taste so much better."

"B-but I'm not..."

"...not my enemy? You will be, my dear; in only a few minutes. You are stupid, but you cannot be altogether seduced to my side. Besides, if it ever occurred to you to tell Dumbledore who I was speaking with tonight, my plans would be greatly hampered."

Mary Sue tried to articulate the sounds, I wouldn't; but only distortions came out of her trembling, terrified throat. Riddle still had his back to her, but she had the precise impression that he wore a cruel smile as he spoke. "I did not come here for you; you were a pleasant diversion that has now ceased to have any significance. But in everything you do, my dear, however wrong-headed, you have one feature that does not and cannot serve me: you try to do the right thing, however wrong-headedly. And what I want is people who will do what I want. Add that to the fact that you saw me converse with a rat, and you must conclude that the only way in which you can be of use to me from now on is as food."

Riddle turned, and showed himself finally as he was - a face that had almost nothing human left, except for the corpse-like complexion. It was a face in which the shapes of all animals most odious to man - the snake, the ape, the wolf, the tiger - had left a trace and an outline; but in which death was most in control, with its unnatural rigidity, its white-bluish tint, and that faint, horrible smell of decay that never left. It was as if everything that could have been uprooted from nature had been uprooted, and organized in a fixed, unnatural pattern whose sole meaning was destruction. Mary Sue screamed uncontrollably: the mere sight of that object deprived her of all control over her limbs, over her feelings, over her thoughts.

Perhaps for that reason, she did the only thing that could possibly have saved her. A rational Mary Sue would have drawn her wand, trusting to her skills, and would have been hexed into a million pieces; for this was Lord Voldemort, and only one or two living wizards, perhaps, could stand alone before him without being destroyed on the spot in any of a hundred ways. And if she had fled, he would not even have needed to pursue her: his magic wand would have taken care of everything. Instead, she was seized by an instinctive animal loathing, by a mad flight-or-fight reaction, and she threw herself at him, with a large jagged stone in her right hand, striking and screaming like a mad woman.

Lord Voldemort was not only taken aback, he took some immediate damage. The stone bruised his face, cracked his nose, and nearly stove in the side of his skull; and if only it had (although the first thing a sorcerer of quality learns is to make himself as hard to kill as possible, as a famous quotation had it), it is hard to believe that he would not have been seriously hurt. But Mary Sue's blow, delivered at random, came from an awkward angle and with not enough power to go through; and Voldemort felt nothing more than a nasty jar. He turned to the wildly flailing girl, and, dodging one blow, closed in upon her till his hands met behind her back, and he trapped her in a bear hug. His mouth open to a gaping, impossible angle, and his canines extended as if sliding out from a slot, long and sharp and aimed straight at her unprotected throat.

She struggled desperately, forcing the heel of her hand under the vampire's chin, and managed to force its head back; but she had forgotten where she was. As she forced herself from its grip, she reeled, lost her balance, and fell screaming... fifteen feet, back first, on to solid stone. This was not the first time that Lord Voldemort had killed someone; but it was the first time he killed someone who loved him. The first, but hardly the last.

Mary Sue lay at the bottom of the tower. She could feel that various things in her were broken, and there was a horrible sort of cold that was slowly stealing over her, beginning with her feet. She managed to turn her head, and saw a dense stream of red liquid flowing from her. Her mind was exhausted, still under the spell of her enemy; she could think of no magic to heal or to staunch. She felt sleep stealing over her.

"I only wanted..." she gasped, "I only wanted... to be l-l-liked..."

Those were her last words; and that was the end of poor Mary Sue. Nobody even noticed, except Lord Voldemort - and he had little interest. As the blood bled away from her body and mingled with the filthy ground, there was nothing there for him to even taste. Her body lay at the bottom of the stairwell for several days, until a chance visitor notified the authorities; and it was only after a good deal of head-scratching and investigation that someone thought of notifying the Ministry of Magic, who found that Hogwarts had sent out a missing-student notice. As she had quarrelled with her parents, they refused to have her body sent home; and so she was buried in Hogsmeade. But they say that you can still, from time to time, see her in the moonlight, the most lonely and timid of all the local ghosts; still wandering around, trying to understand, trying to find a way to do the right thing.