Slytherin Chronicles : The Desire of Darkness

Less than a week after the end of October, Hogwarts was besieged by rain and icy winds that beat loud tattoos on the roofs of towers and gave blurred side-effects to all images seen from the tall windows of the castle. The coming of winter, surrounded by icy mountains and blinding fog, proved to be a rather dismal occasion for the occupants of the castle.

Except, of course, for Neve. While every other sane person was asleep early one Saturday morning, she was to be found taking a stroll in the grounds. She was feeling almost hot in four layers of clothing as she briskly strode through the grass, her breath causing a mist in front of her face.

She paused and lifted her face to the leaden sky, breathing in deeply. The crisp, cool air was beautiful. Neve noted the absence of the sun and was glad; she was sick of the sunny weather that everyone else adored. Summer had always been her least favourite season, on account of there usually being so much sun.

As she sucked in another deep breath of air, she was attacked by a spasm of coughing. She doubled over, clutching her throat, as she coughed out what felt like every bit of oxygen in her body, and then had to gasp in some more. She felt as though a firecracker had exploded within her chest and gone on a rampage throughout her body.

Her legs buckled beneath her, and she dropped down on all fours onto the frosted grass, immediately feeling the ice seep through her skin, chilling her to the bone. The only time when she had felt this bad was when she fainted in the Great Hall just before the news came out that she was possessed with a spirit. Now she was dizzy with pain as she felt the lack of oxygen go to her brain.

She gulped and gasped at the air until she could make herself stand up again. Wobbling slightly on her too thin legs, she trudged through the grass, not feeling the need to take out her wand and dry her clothes. One of her hands was still around her neck, as though trying to keep it in its place on her body, and she could barely swallow. Still she continued to walk.

She had never had such attacks before, but she was fast becoming used to them. She didn't question why they happened; she presumed they were an occupational hazard of being possessed by a spirit.

As she walked she spotted an enormous figure on the Quidditch pitch, and straight away guessed who it was.

Every morning for the past few days, Hagrid could be seen defrosting broomsticks on the pitch in his knee-length moleskin overcoat, beaver-skin boots and rabbit fur gloves. It was especially important that he defrosted them well today, because the first Quidditch game of the year (Slytherin versus Gryffindor) was to take place later that morning.

Neve couldn't say that she was particularly ecstatic about this fact, partly because she was apprehensive about the skills of the Gryffindor team (though most of them were flying on broomsticks that best belonged back in the Stone Age) and partly because she could not enjoy being a spectator of the game when she so badly wanted to be a participant.

She knew of Harry Potter's recent acceptance into the Gryffindor Quidditch team, even though he was only a first-year, but she also knew that she would never be accepted on the Slytherin team. The reason was simple but something that shamed her down to her bone-marrow: she was afraid of heights.

She could fly very well with her eyes closed - something she proved when first-years were still having flying lessons back in September with Madam Hooch - but when she opened them again and took a look at the ground some twenty or thirty feet beneath her ... well ... that was a different matter all together.

Neve hated being afraid, even of something as trivial as heights, though she knew it was really nothing to be ashamed of. Everyone feared something; even for the great and powerful Harry Potter there must be something that sent his bladder into paroxysms. Nevertheless, Neve still hated herself for being so weak and foolish; she could at least have found a fear to be proud of, like dying or Dark Lords. But no - she had to be lumped with a fear of heights.

There were other things which haunted her, of course, and not just the matter of how far above she was from the earth.

There was the fear of failure, which had been instilled in her from the moment she had brought home a nine out of ten for a piece of homework while she was in wizarding primary school. What was the point of being something if you couldn't be the best, her father had said. Neve honestly thought he had been ready to throw her out of the house that time and was almost shocked when all he did was give her a look of what she estimated to be pure loathing, and forbid her to come out of her room for a month, even for meals.

That was when she memorized every part of her room she could see and feel. Every crack and crevice had been located and every defect on the wallpaper counted. Before the week during which the punishment was designated was over, Neve ran out of things to do.

She'd read all her books, learned all the spells within them, and promptly set about staring out the window and promising herself that she'd never get anything wrong ever again. Then she tought herself how to be invisible. She thought that maybe if she mastered the art of being unnoticed, she would be in trouble less.

Needless to say that the art came in handy, though her hypothesis was proved wrong. She could eavesdrop all she wanted, but it brought her no more positive attention than it would have had she broken all the family china instead.

Neve was an uncommonly bright child and this simply had to be one of her shortcomings. She always knew too much for her own good. She knew what her parents were like, knew that they hated her, knew that she hated them back, and knew that she hated herself for never being able to please them.

She also knew that she was likely to adopt their worst characteristics and become the product of their hate instead of their love when she was a fully-fledged adult. This she feared even more, because above everything else that she didn't desire, she did not ever want to turn into either of them.

There were times when she wanted to disappear; times when she wondered why she was living in the first place when she didn't really have anything to live for; times when she wished she was dead till she could wish no more, because she felt as dead as she hoped she would be.

But hate came to the rescue. Hate suggested a purpose for her life: sweet, deadly revenge. The question that was left was not how, but on whom?


When Neve's stomach forced her to provide it with food it was half past eight, and breakfast in the Great Hall was in full swing. The noise of exuberantly chattering students seemed to be louder than ever, perhaps because Neve compared it with the tomblike silence of oncoming winter.

There were platters of fried sausages, crisps and pancakes on every table, accompanied with fruit and cakes as usual. Most of the noise, Neve noticed, was coming from the Gryffindor, Ravenclaw and Hufflepuff tables. Her own housemates always seemed oddly subdued compared to the rest of the school.

The Slytherin Quidditch team was grouped at one end of the Slytherin table, heads together, excluding everyone else. Undoubtedly plotting something dastardly, thought Neve proudly.

The rest of the Slytherins were clumped in little groups on either side of the table, all united in shovelling food into their mouths as fast as they could, as though to show the rest of the school that they were not at all perturbed by their hopeful exuberance.

Neve shifted her eyes to the Gryffindor table and caught the eye of Harry Potter, who was looking extremely pale and nervous, and was not eating anything. She planted a smirk on her face and swaggered over to him.

"So, Potter," she said, "I hear you're Gryffindor's new Seeker. What happened? Was Oliver Wood forced to use you as a last resort?"

"If you've got nothing better to say," said Ron Weasley vehemently, "shut up and clear off!"

"Well!" Neve raised an insolent eyebrow at Ron. "Someone surely got up off the wrong side of the bed this morning, didn't he?"

Ron opened his mouth to retort, but Hermione Granger intervened with, "Neve, please, don't be mean. Harry's had enough of that in the past few days as it is."

"Me? Mean?" Neve chuckled. "You must be mistaken, Granger. I'm the kindest person in the world." She turned to Harry. "Honestly, Potter, I don't know how you're going to make it today if you're not going to eat anything. Look at Finnigan, there, he's got the right idea," she added, nodding at Seamus, who was drowning his sausages in ketchup.

"Why are you worried about whether or not Harry's eating, anyway?" demanded Ron forcefully.

"Oh, I'm not worried, Weasley. I'm just being kind. I mean, I'm not going to be the one running around beneath him, holding a mattress." Neve smirked at Harry, who was almost shaking with nerves. Out of the corner of her eye, Neve noticed Hermione putting her hand on Ron's arm to restrain him from saying something derogatory in return, and smirked harder.

"Well then, I best be off. I've got a great deal of cheering to do later on this morning, seeing as how Slytherin's going to win ..." Neve winked at the trio and sauntered off to the Slytherin table, planting herself between Roisin and Ted, both of whom were immersed in a heated conversation about the upcoming Quidditch match with Roisin's sister, Patrin and her friend Asmin Avery.

"... doesn't matter if Potter gets the Snitch, we can still win," Roisin was saying.

"Yeah, all we need is to get way in front of Gryffindor and the cat's in the bag, as they say," said Ted, putting more cornflakes in his bowl.

But Asmin shook her head. "Gryffindors pretty much our only competition. Hufflepuff rarely stand a chance against us, and Ravenclaw have been pathetic during their training sessions, according to my sources. We've got a fairly good team this year, but I have a feeling that we're going to have to try extra-hard this year."

"Gryffindor seems more determined than ever to beat us," Patrin joined in, "and I suppose they're feeling more confident than ever with Potter on their side." She mimicked Asmin by shaking her head. "I'm worried, guys. I've seen what Gryffindors are capable of when they get really confident."

An outburst of angry protests met these words, but were almost immediately silenced when Beth Wilkes reached their side of the table.

"What's the team strategy, Bethie?" asked Ted eagerly. He was the only one out of the first years who had no qualms about using nicknames for the estimable girlfriend of Marcus Flint.

Beth cast an appraising eye over the group of Quidditch fanatics and Neve thought she almost smiled. "Marcus has a plan," she replied succinctly, totally refusing to answer Ted's question.

"Does it include knocking the Gryffindors off their brooms?" asked Neve, giggling maliciously with Roisin and Ted.

Beth's mouth twitched. "If nothing else works," she replied brusquely and moved on to speak with some other Slytherin fifth years.

"Well, that was very informative, wasn't it?" Neve ventured when Beth had gone.

Patrin slumped in her seat and propped her chin up on her hand. "They haven't got a plan," she stated moodily.

"Only one way to find out, isn't there?" Neve rose from her seat and was about to head over to the Slytherin Quidditch team when the back of her robes were grabbed by Ted and Roisin and she was pulled back.

"Are you insane?!" Roisin gaped at her.

"What?" Neve was bewildered.

"She's right, Neve," said Patrin, glancing over at the cheerless group of males. "Approaching the Slytherin Quidditch team before a match is pretty much like suicide - they'd sooner disembowel than greet you."


It was an equally sullen team that strode onto the Quidditch pitch out of the Slytherin changing rooms to encouraging roars from the square of green and silver in the stands, and unpleasant shouts from the sea of red and gold surrounding it. It seemed that anybody and everybody who wasn't a Slytherin had decked themselves out in Gryffindor colours, thus forming a solid wall of bias against one quarter of the school.

"Look at these bloody maggots," cried Neve, leaning out of her seat to view the mass of red and gold on all sides of the Slytherins. "They don't give a damn about the spirit of sportsmanship, so long as Gryffindor wins!"

"Disgusting, isn't it?" added Roisin contemptuously.

A malevolent smirk suddenly twisted Neve's face. "I have a great idea. Get Ted and follow me!" And, without further delay, she set off through the stands, an utterly mystified Roisin and Ted trailing behind her.

Neve kept moving, purposefully knocking other students out of their seats and not bothering to apologise, until she reached the middle of the stands where all the real Gryffindors were sitting. There were three empty seats, as though especially for them, but next to Hermione Granger, who was sitting beside Ron Weasley, whose jaw dropped open when he saw who had arrived.

"What the - " he spluttered, quite agog at the sight of Neve, Roisin and Ted calmly sitting down in the three spare seats next to Hermione. "You're Slytherins!"

"Thank you for that announcement from the Department of the Blatantly Obvious," said Neve sarcastically. "I suppose that's probably why we're in Slytherin colours, hmm?"

"But - but - " Ron ran a freckled hand through his already messy red hair. "What are you doing here?"

"Spreading Slytherin cheer," Neve replied smoothly. "If you haven't already noticed, we're rather confined to a single area of the stands ... but don't worry, our sentiments towards Gryffindor haven't changed, we still think you suck."

Neve ignored Ron bristling with anger and smirked indulgently at Roisin and Ted, who were both grinning. "Told you I had a great idea."


Despite the efforts of the Slytherins to increase their team's morale, the Slytherin Quidditch team was not doing very well as the match developed, though they had started out ahead of the Gryffindors. The latter soon caught up with them, causing Ted to cover his eyes with his hands, moaning as though he were mortally wounded.

"I can't watch," he wailed, "it's too painful!"

Roisin sat frowning and chewing on her hair, while Neve muttered obsenities under her breath that made Hermione cast horrified glances at her from time to time.

"Fucking morons can't play fucking Quidditch worth a flying fuck, and they're still fucking beating us!" she snapped.

"Could you please refrain from using such foul language?" Hermione asked her, hands on her hips. "It's really quite disgusting."

Neve cast her an angry look and shouted, "FUCK!" so loudly that she not only made Hermione but several other Gryffindor first-years jump and look over at her almost fearfully. Then she noticed Roisin tugging at her sleeve and looking out to where she was pointing.

A figure was hovering above the Quidditch pitch on a broomstick that seemed thoroughly intent upon throwing him off; after grabbing Roisin's binoculars and recognising Harry Potter to be the owner of the broomstick, Neve shook her head in mock disappointment. "Oh dear, it seems that Potter isn't quite the saint we all thought him to be," she said ruefully. "Probably attempted to tamper with the Snitch, but ended up cursing his own broomstick instead."

"Harry would never cheat!" Hermione bridled with indignation.

"Well, what's happened to his broomstick, then?"

Hermione bit her lip and, as though a sudden idea took hold of her, she looked at the teachers' stands through her binoculars, she cried, "It's Snape! He's jinxing the broom!"

Neve stared at her doubtfully. She had witnessed the animosity the Potions Master, Professor Snape, entertained towards Harry Potter, but didn't think that it would extend beyond the boundaries of the dungeons and onto the Quidditch pitch. It was acceptable if a student manipulated Quidditch games, but teachers were supposed to be responsible for the welfare of their students! No, something was just not right.

Neve lifted Roisin's binoculars to her eyes again and focused on the teachers' stands: there were Professors Dumbledore and McGonagall; Lee Jordan, the Gryffindor commentator for the Quidditch matches; Professors Sprout and Sinistra; and finally she found Snape, who was indeed muttering something under his breath without pause, it seemed, and not breaking eye contact with something in the air that Neve presumed to be Harry's broom.

Then, Neve saw Snape's hands twitch, as if he was trying to provide her with a clue, but she couldn't understand to what. She looked at either side of Snape's seat, but the professors were discussing something amongst themselves, so she looked at the seat above Snape and saw Professor Quirrell. She was about to move the binoculars away from him when she noticed the expression on his face: he, too, was staring up at Harry's broom, but, in contrast with Snape's look of determination, Quirrell's face bore a distinctly sinister expression.

So Quirrell, not Snape, was the one who was jinxing Harry Potter's broomstick! But why? What had Harry done to evoke the wrath of Quirrell, who was as much afraid of his own shadow as of monsters ... And why was Quirrell so bold all of a sudden? What had happened to dispel the ever-present look of tremulous fear on his pasty face?

It was then that Neve was alerted, not for the first time, that Gryffindors often do rather stupid things without thinking them through. Hermione had sprung up out of her seat, nearly knocking Neve out of hers, and bustled off without another word. Neve nudged Ron Weasley and asked, "Where is she going?"

Ron was so worried about Harry's predicament that he didn't even think to insult Neve. "To the teachers' stands," he replied, anxious eyes still fixed on Harry. "She said she'd take care of it."

Neve groaned with frustration. Hermione still thought that Snape was the culprit and she might end up making things even worse! Neve looked around her: everyone who had come out to watch the match was standing on their feet and watching Harry, the Gryffindor supporters with horror and the Slytherins with malicious amusement. She looked back at Quirrell through the binoculars and saw a small figure with bushy, brown hair knock him into the row in front of him, narrowly missing Snape; she saw the brown hair disappear for a moment, then Snape started stamping the fire out that had singed his robes, and Neve saw the bushy, brown-haired figure crawl away, unnoticed by everyone else.

Hearing a great cheer from the Gryffindors around her, Neve moved the binoculars to Harry, who had managed to finally clamber back onto his broomstick after hanging onto it with his hands for several agonising minutes, and was suddenly speeding towards the ground. He fell onto the ground on all fours, however, and tried to cough something out that he seemed to have swallowed mid-air - the little Golden Snitch popped into his cupped hands, and Madam Hooch blew the whistle, signalling the end of the game.

On one side of Neve, Ted and Roisin were groaning miserably, and on the other side of her, Ron and Neville Longbottom were jumping up and down with glee. Neve handed the binoculars back to Roisin and stalked away with her nose in the air, accompanied by two fuming Slytherin first-years.


When they had reached the Slytherin common-room they had a lot of trouble finding spare seats - it seemed that all the Slytherins in the school were grouped in the common-room to badmouth the Gryffindors and swear to curse the entire Slytherin team to hell and beyond when they came back from the changing rooms.

"Rather a vindictive bunch, aren't we?" Neve commented as she, Ted and Roisin made their way to the last spare corner of the room.

When they had all settled themselves cross-legged in a triangle, blocking out everyone else who was interested in over-hearing their conversation, Neve told them what she had seen through Roisin's binoculars. To her dismay, Ted and Roisin were just as confused about Quirrell's behaviour as she was. Then, she remembered something that had happened to her during her first Defence Against The Dark Arts lesson that year.

"Have any of you felt anything when Quirrell looks at you?" she asked the others.

Ted and Roisin exchanged looks.

"You mean like deeply amorous desires?" Ted grimaced. "None whatsoever."

Neve sighed, exasperated. "No, you dolthead. I meant, did any of you get a bad feeling when he looked at you? Like fear or hate?"

Both Ted and Roisin shook their heads looking bewildered.

Neve took a deep breath and stared at the dark, highly polished parquet. "Well, I have. And I only get it when our eyes meet."

Ted scratched his head thoughtfully. "Maybe it's something to do with this spirit thing that you have?"

But Neve's attention had wandered to the group of students a little way away from them. She nodded almost imperceptibly towards the group, but Ted and Roisin got the point and also began listening intently to their quiet conversation.

"... My father doesn't believe He was vanquished," a pallid, dark-haired seventh-year was saying, whom Neve recognised to be Morton Avery, the eldest Avery child and brother of Arlene and Asmin. Neve got the impression that Morton was putting a capital letter in front of 'he' and immediately understood who he was speaking of. "And my father was in His innermost circle."

"But then why has He disappeared?" countered Nathaniel Macnair, a sallow-skinned seventh-year and only child of Walden Macnair, former Death Eater and current executioner of dangerous beasts for the Ministry of Magic.

"The Dark Lord works in cunning and mysterious ways," said Arlene Avery, glaring at the two boys. "It is not up to us to criticise His motives; we should all trust Him to do what He thinks best. It is our job to be loyal to Him."

Even though Arlene was only a third-year, Neve could see that her words held considerable sway over the seventh-year boys, who glanced away from the blonde and muttered something almost embarrassedly.

"The Dark Lord does everything for his own personal gain," spoke a strong voice from an armchair behind the group, silencing pretty much everyone else in the common-room. "He cannot be trusted."

"I shall trust you, however, to keep your opinions to yourself, Beth Wilkes!" retaliated Arlene heatedly.

Beth peered around at Arlene from the armchair; the corners of her mouth turned down and even her ponytail seemed to sag with weariness, but a fierce determination burned in her eyes. Neve suddenly recalled hearing Roisin tell her that Beth's father, Brendan Wilkes, had been killed by an Auror before his youngest son, Louvin, was born, who was due to start Hogwarts the next year.

"Your father isn't buried six feet under the ground, Arlene," said Beth bitterly. "You don't know what you're talking about. Everybody knows your mother sells poison in Knockturn Alley, and, though you may oppose it, the fact that your father wormed his way out of life imprisonment in Azkaban by ratting on other Death Eaters to the Ministry is public knowledge." She paused to take a breath and compose herself, as she was almost shouting, and all the Slytherins knew that Beth Wilkes never shouted.

"The Dark Lord demands loyalty," Beth continued, "but your father spat on Him when he betrayed the other Death Eaters. Remember, Arlene, the less Death Eaters that are out of Azkaban, the more powerful the Dark Lord is." She paused again, suddenly looking much older than her fifteen years. "You haven't experienced a loss. You don't know what you're talking about."

Then she rose out of the armchair and calmly headed off to the girls' dormitories.

But Arlene jumped up out of her seat, her face contorted with fury, and shouted at Beth's retreating back, "We'll see who doesn't know what they're talking about! We're not finished yet, Beth Wilkes!"

Beth half-turned, surveyed Arlene's rigid form with quiet contempt, and uttered, "You are a disgrace to the house of Slytherin, Arlene Avery, and a stain on the banner of Hogwarts. People like you should be executed before they are born."

It was then that Arlene whipped out her wand and was about to cast some sort of a curse, which Neve thought most likely to be in the realm of the Unforgivables, but Beth brandished her own with a softly spoken, "Expelliarmus," and Arlene's wand went flying into a corner of the common-room.

"I'll not be taking points off you now, Arlene, out of respect for Slytherins better than yourself" said Beth warningly, "but another trick like that and I'll make sure you're stuck in detention every evening from now until the end of term." Then she turned on her heel and walked out of the common-room all together, leaving Arlene quivering with impotent rage.

Several seconds passed before Arlene sat back down, crossed her legs, and glowered at nothing in particular, gnashing her teeth. The entire common-room seemed to breathe a sigh of relief; nobody would have objected to a cat-fight between two of the most dangerous witches in Slytherin house, but there would have been hell to pay for all of them if someone had got seriously hurt.

Everybody was, however, glad for more gossip material that they could ruminate over for days on end. Of course, nobody who wasn't a true Slytherin would spread any of it around the school - it was an unsaid Slytherin policy: whatever occurred within the walls of the Slytherin common-room stayed there - but now there would be more to talk about when conversation ran dry.

"That's Slytherin politics for you," said Ted darkly. "Everyone's out to get everyone else."

"I expected Arlene to have more discretion, to be honest," said Neve. "She really shouldn't go around spreading those kind of beliefs, even among Slytherins."

"She's a worm if I ever saw one," Roisin pitched in, glaring at Arlene with distaste. "She makes me sick."

"But all that has brought an interesting if somewhat unpleasant idea to mind," said Ted, scratching his head again. "Could the Dark Lord return?"

Roisin shuddered. "I hope not. Otherwise we're all in for a bumpy ride until the end of the world arrives."

"It's not a matter of hoping," Neve snapped. "It's a matter of preventing what is awfully possible."

"It's a matter of preventing the unstoppable, Neve," corrected Ted gently. "If he returns to full power, we can all look forward to an early death, because he will find out who's with him and who's not, and act accordingly."

The three Slytherins sat pondering this for a while, then -

"Neve, are you all right?" asked Roisin, touching the other girl's arm.

All the blood had drained from Neve's face as a horrible idea flew into her mind. "What if he wasn't completely destroyed when Potter supposedly vanquished him?" she said hoarsely. "What if he remained alive, but barely? And what if he coerced someone into helping him back to life? Back to power?"

Ted was the first to put it all together. "You're not suggesting that Quirrell - " he broke off, frowning.

"That pasty, pathetic excuse for a wizard consorting with the most fearsome Dark wizard of our time?" Roisin shook her head skeptically. "Get real."

"I think it's possible," said Ted slowly. "What Neve saw today is probably the least of what he's capable of ..." His frown deepened. "... And I always thought his stammering was rather fake."

"Now all that remains is finding out exactly how he's aiming to get old Mouldy Voldie back to power," said Neve darkly.

"Oh, joy," sighed Roisin despondently. "More adventure."