Rowena's Quill

Tom was sure that Starkle's quill would be the solution to his problems. It could probably translate all of Slytherin's writings for him. He would never again have to ask for her help. It could think for itself! And translating runes was one of its lesser abilities! Perhaps it could teach him how to create a Horcrux.

Taking it from her would be easy enough. She was always misplacing her things. It might be weeks before she even noticed it missing. The difficulty would be in getting past Dumbledore. He was hovering over her like a bird protecting its nestlings.

Starkle brought the quill to class every day. Its black feather was unusually small, but otherwise, it looked perfectly ordinary. Sometimes she bewitched it to make notes for herself, but mostly it stayed unobtrusively on her desk. It wasn't until after their first examination that he discovered another one of its powers. As a prefect, Tom had been asked to distribute the graded test scrolls, but he did not see Starkle's writing on any of them.

"To see your results," she told the class, "Sign your name near the place you wrote it last time. Anyone who received less than "Acceptable" should see me privately. I will be in my office after dinner tonight."

There were murmurings throughout the class as everyone read their results. The reactions were so telling, Tom wondered why she had bothered hiding the results in the first place. Predictably, his usual following of Slytherin boys had done badly. None of them had the knack for Runes; they only took the course because Tom did. But as always, they could serve his present purpose.

"What a waste of an evening," complained Avery in their dorm room. He widened his eyes unnaturally in imitation of Starkle.

"She wrote I was on the border of acceptable," said Lestrange, "so I'm free and clear."

"You two have to learn to seize the opportunities presented to you," said Tom. "If you're stuck going to her office tonight, think about what you can pick up there. She's just spent a few years abroad. She's bound to have a few trinkets around."

"I suppose I could nick some of that invisible ink," considered Avery.

"Wrong again," sighed Tom. "Invisible ink reveals itself with a simple spell. Those test scrolls had something better on them. Hand yours over, Lestrange."

The test scroll looked just as it did before Lestrange had signed it; Professor Starkle's corrections were completely invisible.

"Watch," said Tom. He signed his name. Professor Starkle's writing did not appear. "Now you sign," he told Lestrange. Lestrange did it and the Starkle's comment, bordering on acceptable appeared at the top of the scroll and disappeared in the next instant. "You see," said Tom, "It will only reveal itself to the person she intended the message for. Now that's some kind of advanced magic."

"Bloody h-l, you're onto of everybody all the time, aren't you?" said Lestrange. Avery was also making sounds of admiration.

"Keep your wits about you and you're always on top. Got that, Avery?"

But all Avery returned with that evening was a new test scroll. "I have to retake the test," he told them.

"Didn't you see anything of interest?" asked Tom. As he expected, Lestrange took the bait.

"You're pathetic, Avery. I'm going over there to tell her I want to improve my grade. And we'll see what I bring back."

And half an hour later, Lestrange had the quill.

"What does it do?" asked Tom, feigning doubt. He never let them know when they pleased him. That way, they kept trying.

"It writes examinations, apparently. She was surprised to see me. 'Delighted' she said. But, naturally, not expecting me, she hadn't prepared me a test scroll, and she had to do it right then and there. Touched her wand to this quill and off it went, writing me my own personalized test scroll."

"Big deal," said Avery, looking from the quill to Tom.

"I'll bet it knows the answers," said Lestrange. "Tom, would you?"

Tom said the incantations to remove anti-cheating hexes. It had taken him several months in their first year to work those out, but it had been well worth it. He never needed to cheat himself, but he performed the spells for those of his choosing whenever the teachers weren't watching. It bought loyalty.

With the hexes removed, Lestrange touched his own wand to the quill. They watched and waited. The quill floated above the test scroll, but it would not write.

Avery snorted. "Some find."

"It probably needs some incantation we don't know."

"It's not worth much, then, is it?"

"Or maybe it's the test scroll. Maybe there's some new hex on it."

"Likely story."

"You're asking for it, Avery."

"You wouldn't dare."

While they quarreled, Tom examined the quill. Up close he could see detail he'd never noticed in class. All around the nib was an intricate carving in the shape of a talon. Tom was sure it was solid gold. It was more valuable than he realized, but that meant it would be missed all the sooner. And Lestrange had been so ridiculously obvious. He had to get it out of their dormitory.

"Nice try, Lestrange. I'm going to put it back and have a look around for something better."

Avery and Lestrange were so surprised, they forgot they'd nearly been at fists.

"Put it back? "Why?" they each asked at once.

"Because we can't run any risks for things we can't use. If they don't serve, hide your tracks and move on."

The two nodded in agreement, and as he walked out, he added, "And will you two stop fighting? It's getting very boring."

He slammed the door behind him, pocketed the quill, and headed to the room where he had hidden Slytherin's texts. It was the most magical place he had yet encountered within Hogwarts and was therefore his favorite. Whatever he needed while there, he found immediately.

"Here's your new home," he told the quill in case it could understand him. If it did, it gave no indication.

"Accio heritage!" he called out and the old book of Slytherin's writings came floating toward him. He caught it and seated himself at the desk and chair the room always provided for him. Touching his wand to the quill, he whispered, "Go to it."

The quill wrote furiously. It was so fast, Tom could not keep up with it. As soon as he'd made sense of a few words, more pages turned themselves and the quill moved further. Tom let it work at its own pace. He would read everything later. And then it stopped.

"Move!" Tom commanded, but it did not. It remained as still as it had been for Lestrange in the dormitory. Tom was so angry, he could have torn it in two, but he would not be so foolish.

"Accio!" he called to the writings on the Horcrux. He set the quill to translate that. Again, it would not budge.

"D-n you!" he yelled, grabbing the quill. Then, suddenly, inexplicably, he was pushed from the room. Nothing like it had ever happened before. He assumed it meant that he and the quill needed to leave. Perhaps Starkle had noticed her quill missing. Hiding the quill deep in his robes, Tom made a reckless decision. He wanted to hear Starkle grovel and he wanted his prize near him as he did it. Pain of his own causing always gave him intense pleasure. He raced down the stairs to her office.

He stopped short outside her closed door. There was so much noise coming from behind it that the sound of his own footsteps had been pretty well muffled. Starkle must have been turning over every object in her office in search of the quill. She was also talking to somebody. Tom had a sinking feeling in his stomach that it might be Dumbledore.

"I've always been hopelessly disorganized. My mother always said it would cause me grief one day, but I've always been careful about this."

"Sophie," said the calm voice of Professor Merrythought, "you said you saw students here alone today. Which ones?"

"Miss Hornby, Smith, Avery, and Lestrange, but if you are thinking one of them stole it to cheat, it is impossible. The quill has too much respect for knowledge to allow anyone to come by it dishonorably."

"That may be, but your students don't know that."

"It's only a matter of time before Lestrange is implicated," thought Tom, fingering the quill.

"It was a family heirloom," said Starkle, her voice breaking. "It was handed down from mother to daughter ever since - " but she could not finish and burst into tears.

Tom reveled in the sound of her sobs. He lost all sense of time and place, and heard only the pain. Professor Merrythought's voice brought him to the present.

"Sophie, look up."

Starkle sniffled and then exclaimed, "Oh, Professor, you found it! How can I ever thank you?"

Tom felt around his pocket. The quill was gone.

"I did not find it. It simply reappeared. That's quite an honor code it has. It will not let anyone cheat and it returns itself to its rightful owner."

"I didn't know. It has never gone missing before. Oh, thank you, Professor, for being such a comfort!"

"Not at all. I am glad you have it again. Now we must question the students. I'd imagine at least one of them will have to pay for his crime."

"Oh, no," pleaded Starkle. "I would much rather keep this incident between ourselves. It makes me look so foolish . . . and green. I'd much rather Professor Dumbledore, and Professor Dippet, didn't know. I have the quill, and that is really all that matters."

"I disagree, but I will respect your decision," said Professor Merrythought. "If you wish me to keep it quiet, I certainly will."

"Oh, thank you, Professor. How will I ever cope when you retire?"

"I assure you, you'll do just fine."

Starkle began weeping again and thanked Merrythought repeatedly. Tom walked away. He had heard all he needed to hear. He didn't believe in the honor code for a moment. The quill disappeared when he lost concentration.

"Next time," he told himself, "will be very, very different."

Tom ran back up the stairs to check on what the quill had translated for him. It had gone into painstaking detail about Slytherin's contributions to Hogwarts. Slytherin was proudest of a subterranean chamber he created beneath the castle, designed to defend it against enemies for centuries. It was the dwelling place for a deadly monster under his sole control. No enemy could ever vanquish the castle as long as the monster breathed, and its life expectancy was hundreds of years.

Knowing the monster would outlive him, Slytherin was training his son to succeed him as master of the chamber, and he expected his son to do the same with his grandson in the next generation. The monster had already been commanded to respond only to wizards of the Slytherin bloodline, and it was for this reason that Slytherin returned to Hogwarts despite his differences with the other founders. The chamber was his magnum opus, and he would not leave it unattended.

"I must find it," thought Tom. "It is my right, my destiny."

Then, just because it pleased him, Tom reached for The Genealogy of the Hogwarts Four, a book he'd appropriated from the school library. He spent many hours poring over it, rereading the long list of names that took him from Merope Gaunt all the way back to Salazar Slytherin. He had even added his own name to the list.

"What other treasures await your heir?" Tom whispered, putting aside the book and looking again at Slytherin's own writings.

He read about principles of magical lineage. Slytherin wrote that a wizard's powers followed that of his father's and a witch's that of her mother's. These sorts of direct father-to-son and mother-to-daughter lines were the most powerful in wizardry. This did not sit well with Tom. His magic came from his mother.

"I will prove him wrong," thought Tom. "If I can control the monster in the chamber, then I will achieve everything he wanted for his successors. It will be undisputable. I am the Heir of Slytherin."

He looked again at his own name in The Genealogy of the Hogwarts Four and flipped the pages backwards to reread Slytherin's name. But he did it a little too quickly and went back a page too far. He found himself looking at the end of Rowena Ravenclaw's genealogy, and what he saw made him go cold. The final name listed was Sophie Starkle.

"It can't be!" he exclaimed, "That blubbering dimwit cannot be the Heiress of Ravenclaw!" He ran his finger back over the names. It was undeniably clear. Sophie Starkle was the last of a long line of witches tracing directly back to Rowena Ravenclaw herself.

Tom then scanned the list of husbands, and found a shocking number of mudbloods. That explained Starkle's weakness. Her blood and powers had been tainted for generations. He had the taint of only one mudblood, and that impurity would end with him. He would never do the fool thing of marrying and having children. He would create Horcruxes and have real immortality.

Feeling vindicated in his superiority, Tom then remembered the quill. Only half an hour ago he had been holding it in his hand. The image of the slender black feather and the golden carving beneath it came to his mind.

"A raven's claw," he thought. Why hadn't he realized before? Starkle had said it was a family heirloom, but he never would have guessed she came from so illustrious a family. What powers that quill must have! Tom simply had to own it. Anyone as careless as Starkle didn't deserve to keep it.

Tom looked at what else the quill had translated for him, but his mind was racing. He could not concentrate. All he took in was a short rhyme that concluded the book.

Ephemeral justice, elusive truth

take time to be uncovered,

but truth wills out in many years,

and all will be discovered.

He supposed this was some sort of encouragement, a message that in time, he would learn all the secrets he had to know. That was encouragement he sorely needed. As instructive as the night had been for him, it had left many more questions unanswered. He now had three goals before him: to acquire the Ravenclaw quill, to become master of Slytherin's chamber, and to create Horcruxes, but he had yet to form a clear plan of action.