Elucidation of the Darkest Hues

Chapter 1

Diary,

I have modified the spell. You will not be a replica of my life; therein is where Tom's book went wrong so many years ago. It is far too dangerous for me to leave my youthful mind to deal with a future world changed beyond all comprehension. Besides, trapping my psyche in the pages of a book would only lead to madness--a state I must avoid if I am to maintain the empathy of my audience.

Now to my task, to make some semblance of a recording of my life. Sometimes I will write, and sometimes I will show you my memories, whichever I feel better serves my need to explain.

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Nothing else appears after a moment, so I turn the next leaf and watch happily, as more words appear. This is much better than that dusty old book Mum was making me read. She's much more interesting than family history. No one in the Cronk family ever did anything interesting! Stuffy and boring the whole lot! I wonder why the words don't stay on the paper. It might be the ink or a spell...I loose interest as a new paragraph kindles and burns down the page ************************************************************************

I feel that at the start of such an undertaking one must spend some time contemplating beginnings and their significance. Historically my beginning was rather messy. Throughout my childhood, I sneaked and spied and eavesdropped in a desperate attempt to find out what the world was keeping from me, and gleaned the bare facts of my creation and subsequent emergence into the world. I often wonder why the adults of my childhood kept such information from me. I was never easily frightened and often showed an aptitude for handling adult information that startled my mentors. I blame mostly Dumbledore's misplaced kindness for sheltering me from my past, but perhaps, after much thought, the entire staff of Hogwarts is culpable for my ignorance. Why do adults always assume that children are innocent, and that innocence is a state that one should maintain? Truly, I have never found a use for it.

My earliest memory comes from the first few months after I was born. I have no way of knowing its exact date or even the extent of its accuracy, but from its parallelism to the cold facts I do know, I believe it is a true impression. I refuse to preserve this part of my life, and thus you, guardian of my thoughts, must simply keep my words and need not carry the heavy burden of another evil memory--there are so many yet to come.

*

As I turn my mind back, I experience it again. Things are dark and unfocused; the world feels like a black and white Muggle moving picture only blurry for everything is unrecognizable. There are movements and sounds that I do not understand, nor even wonder about. But, I feel. Fear. It is overwhelming. I am a newborn rabbit and every conceivable predator stalks my small little world, gathering round and salivating. I can put names to and quantify the feelings now; there is terror...grief...hopelessness...helplessness...darkness, everywhere. It is not pleasant, and for all the terrible things I have seen and felt, and despite meticulous emotional manipulation on my part, it is this memory that haunts my nights and flickers in the shadows of my dreams. My earliest recollection of life.

************************************************************************The words slowly fade from the page. Despite its apparent blankness, the page seems dimmer than it was before. Almost as if the ink of the words is still there, lurking beneath the surface of the page. Murky darkness has tainted the crisp neutrality of the sheet, as single drop of blood corrupts a large bowl; no matter how much liquid you add it will never be clear again. I turn the page and am slightly relieved when nothing happens. It seems the journal must rest for a period, until the churning emotions trapped in its print fade again into dormancy. Good that will give me time as well. She's creepy! Merlin, if she was the woman on the door no wonder I got the chills! I shudder.

There's a pop and a clatter behind me. I dive over the arm of the chair and huddle behind it. I didn't think there was anyone here! I'm breathing way too fast. They'll hear me! Why didn't they say something? Friendly people don't sneak up on someone like that! I hold my breath for a second, no sound. Okay, okay, I'm eleven years old now; I'm too big to be frightened. I'm braver than that! Besides, the chair is definitely too small for me to crawl under and the bed is too far away. Okay, I'm a big girl I can do this.... But what if it's just waiting, and as soon as I move, it'll grab me? Oh bugger, it's probably a werewolf or a troll! I'm too young to die! I huddle lower.

Hmmmm. It's not coming to get me. Okay, it must be waiting like I thought. So, I can't peak out...wait! I have the book! But, it's not heavy enough to hurt a werewolf. I wish I had Curiosities of Local something or other--that bloody big book would probably kill a troll. Wait, I could throw it.... Yes, throw the diary and...run for the door! Mum is outside she can kill a werewolf just by glaring, I bet. Okay, one, two... ...three...I fling the book over the chair and sprint in the other direction straight for the door. I skid to a stop inches from the metal. There's no handle! WHAT KIND OF IDIOT MAKES A DOOR WITH NO HANDLE AND LOCKS LITTLE GIRLS IN ROOMS WITH A PACK OF WEREWOLVES? I am going to die! This is what Jordan was talking about! Pain and death! I don't even have a wand! Humph, not that I could actually do anything with a wand, except look silly while I get eaten. I turn around slowly to face my doom at the hands of...beans on toast? I am going to die anyway, of embarrassment. I am so STUPID! Jordan would be laughing his face off. Disgustedly, I walk to the little table and eat the lunch sitting there. As I swallow the last bite, the dishes disappear with another pop. I thump my head on the wood. I am so glad no one else was here. I will never live that one down if anyone finds out. Abruptly, the abused little book against the wall to my left draws my attention. Muttering an apology and immediately feeling foolish again for talking to a book, I pick it up and return to the comfortable chair. On second thought...I drag the chair until its back is against the wall next to the fireplace. There, cozy, warm, and safe. I open the journal again, paging through until I see words again.

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Please forgive me, little book, for leaving you alone in the damp air. I could not bear to sit another moment remembering. I went for a swim in the lake; cold water is the best catharsis I know, and now that it is so cold, the squid is sleepy and less inclined to interact with visitors. Ms. Poppy would be furious with me; sitting on the roof at night, with wet hair, in the freezing cold is so irresponsible! Actually, my hair is more frozen now than wet...but, it will thaw; and if I fall ill, I will have an excuse to skive off more classes. But my robes are warm enough, and icy cold compels detached logic, a necessity if I am to finish this.

I never expected it to be so hard to write these thoughts. I am a master of emotions. I never feel anything without my conscious permission to do so. Yet somehow, I cannot shake this reluctance. I greatly fear what the conclusion of this exercise in self-contemplation will bring forth. A line from a text I was reading, in third year, aptly haunts my thoughts, Extrema semper de ante factis iudicant.* I am very afraid that in the end my past will seem very dark indeed, the kind of darkness that never washes out, ink stains on my soul. This is unacceptable. I will not fail again. Perhaps then, just the facts as cleanly and quickly as possible. If I just focus on the emotionless facts.... Focus...focus...focus....

*

My mother was born Cyrusa Cronk into a seventh generation pureblood family. Due to her grandfather, Crispin Cronk's unfortunate fascination with sphinxes, and his subsequent internment in Azkaban, the Cronk family had little prestige or influence in the Wizarding world at the time of her birth. She grew up in a shabby apartment above a shop in Knockturn Alley that peddled restricted potions ingredients from the back room. During Cyrusa's first year at Hogwarts, a Muggle-born wizard who mistakenly ingested Alihotsy, while poking around in the shop, killed her father Cyan Cronk in a fit of hysteria He was later acquitted after claiming, that the Alihotsy appeared to be a sampling of mint.

Perhaps in your mind, future reader, these facts explain to a certain extent Cyrusa's suddenly Slytherinesque alliances. One can deduce that the pressures of her father's murder, her lack of proper standing despite the purity of her blood, and the lures of developing her divination skills to their fullest would indeed be delectable lures to a young impressionable, Ravenclaw, orphan. She became a strong advocate of restricting the acceptance of Muggle-born wizards into Hogwarts, and everyone often saw her in the company of the older Slytherins. At the end of first year, she took up with Lucius Malfoy. It was through him that she joined Lord Voldemort, or You-Know-Who if you prefer. Savvy and beautiful, to all accounts, she rose quickly in the ranks, matching her power, intelligence, and ambition to his. Cyrusa fawned upon Tom, and he gave her power in return. Slowly, she manipulated her way higher in his affections. As Voldemort's power grew, so did his obsession with the future. Cyrusa, I am sure, fed his madness with her predictions, intertwining lust, fear, and insanity until Voldemort accepted her, needed her at his side. She maintained her place as his soothsayer and consort up until such time as she slipped and became pregnant.

I was born in Midsummer, 1981, on a Sunday, superstitious Muggles might consider my timing rather auspicious for a witch, but I have less faith in the mythic cosmos than I do in flesh and blood. I refuse to believe in fate, but when contemplating my birth, it is enough to cause most to wonder about the presence of some sort of universal direction.* Perhaps, my birth is in fact responsible for Cyrusa's downfall. At the end of summer, Snape started reporting Voldemort's obsession with a prediction Cyrusa had made. It was a warning about a powerful child. Cyrusa, likely worn out by my birth and care, could not give specifics and the portent consumed Voldemort. Likely, she angered him with her inability to deliver details. She began taking hallucinogens and stimulants, anything she could lay her hands on in order to boost her second sight; adversely, her predictions became more and more wild. Soon she was heavily addicted to a dozen different substances, a dangerous situation, which retarded her utter loyalty to the Dark Lord who took no pity on her habits. It is thought that Voldemort killed Cyrusa on the night he heard the true prophesy, feeling that it was an omen. She failed to outlive her usefulness by even a minute.

As far a Dumbledore can guess, a few minutes before her death, she activated an unknown spell, and my crib port keyed to the great hall at Hogwarts. Apparently, in one of her more lucid moments, Cyrusa was able to foresee her death at the hands of her Master. Perhaps she did not love him anymore, or perhaps she saw the error of her ways; perhaps she wanted the revenge of depriving Voldemort of his only child; I know only that my mother sent me to Dumbledore.

There was a brief note of explanation inked into my blanket; I read it many times until the cloth fell apart. This is HIS daughter. Hide her.... I have no true memory of my mother; I cannot sort her feelings from the chaos of the Riddle mansion. I do not know if she loved me.

*

I am fatigued, little book, and I will have to make the long journey up to the infirmary. I will need to steal a Sleeping Drought if I am to have any peace tonight. Dawn breaks in two hours; I must hurry.

Tonight I think I need to be just me for a while, a cold girl sitting on a roof in the dark. So, I leave you here, diary of my thoughts. I am just

~Ella

************************************************************************The fire has died down, and I'm sad now. I don't want to read anymore. I put the dairy gently on the chair and curl up into a ball on the bed. I picture everyone's faces in my mind. Mum...Dad...Marcus...Mira...Jordan...Gran...Papa...Catha-my best friend...Ixsa-Papa's fluffy brown owl...the black kitten in Diagon Alley I that I hope Mum got me for my birthday...my new blue dress robes...lilac bushes...chocolate frogs....

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