Luna Lovegood and the Chamber of Secrets—Part 12
“Stupefy,” Professor Lockhart said.
Lord Voldemort spat a verbal non-somatic counterspell. He dodged too, just in case.
“Do not do that again,” said Lord Voldemort.
Lord Voldemort cast another non-somatic spell. Animated skeleton hands grew from his wrists. He picked up Harry Potter’s wand.
“Take a look at this map,” Luna said, “Do you see this nargle? It will hunt you forever unless we work together to stop it.”
Lord Voldemort’s Legilimency tore through Luna’s mind.
“It is almost here,” said Professor Lockhart.
“Place your hands on my astrolabe,” Luna said.
“Rennervate the boy to awaken after we leave,” said Lord Voldemort to Professor Lockhart.
Headmistress Minerva McGonagall, Chief Warlock Amelia Bones and Auror Mad-Eye Moody burst into Harry Potter’s office.
“What did you do this time?” said Auror Moody.
“Nothing,” said Harry James Potter-Evans-Verres.
“Uh-huh,” said Headmistress McGonagall.
The Forgotten Library was a regular heptagon centered around a giant Pensieve. Seven giant shelves radiated toward the corners. The shelves held brown tattered diaries, vials of silvery memories and endless stacks of stationary. Six desks were interlaced in six aisles between the seven shelves. The seventh aisle led to the entrance. Each desk was covered in parchment covered in Luna’s handwriting. A flowchart on the far left desk said START HERE in giant letters.
Luna checked the Marauder’s Map. The nargle moved faster than it had before.
According to Luna’s notes, they had all three components of the ritual: the Sword of Gryffindor, the secrets of Slytherin and the Diadem of Ravenclaw. Lockhart wielded the sword. Lord Voldemort wielded the secrets. Luna placed Ravenclaw’s Diadem on her head. The diadem forced Luna’s thoughts into coherence.
There was an epic battle.
The vials had been smashed. The diaries had been burned. Something was missing.
Ravenclaw’s horcrux continued to overwrite the Luna personality. Not yet. Luna had unanswered questions. The power of Gryffindor. What had destroyed Atlantis? The intellect of Ravenclaw. Where was Platform Nine and One Half? The secrets of Slytherin. What had happened to the third cauldron? The sacrifice of Hufflepuff.
Luna wondered where the Wrackspurt could have come from. It had to have been there before she shut the door. But the Wrackspurt had not immediately entered Luna’s ears when she had first entered the compartment. There may not have been any free Wrackspurts in the compartment when Luna had entered it. Luna’s trapped Wrackspurt must have been in someone else’s ear.
But who? Luna’s eyes slid from one end of her compartment to the other, as if nothing important existed in-between.
Luna never met Kirito on the train. He wasn’t sorted into Hufflepuff. He didn’t nudge her into exploring the kitchens. He didn’t place a blanket over her the night she slept outside the Ravenclaw Common Room. He never founded Smite Club. He never joined Lockhart’s dueling club. He didn’t sacrifice himself to defeat the nargle. Kirito had never existed.
Where do vanished objects go?
Atlantis had never existed. Platform Nine and one Half had never existed. There had never been a third cauldron.
Why had Luna never worn shoes?
Luna yanked the diadem off her head.
“We just have one more loose end to tie up,” said Professor Lockhart. The Sword of Gryffindor cut through Lord Voldemort’s wards, counterspells and skull. Lord Voldemort died. Professor Quirrell revived. Professor Quirrell opened a portal to Hell underneath Professor Lockhart. The Sword of Gryffindor clattered to the floor.
“Is there a self-interested reason why I ought not to kill you too before I leave this room?” said Professor Quirrell to Luna.
Aw, she did have a friend all along!
She didn’t have a friend all along!
Immovable stacks, clearly. Stacks of what? Stacks of immovability.
I’m disappointed at the lack of acknowledgement that Lord Voldemort should be unable to do anything due to being supposedly killed for good by Obliviation, and this includes being of any help in Luna’s ritual which requires the secrets of Slytherin. Having HJPEV’s main accomplishment from HPMoR undone by a single Finite Incantatem is deeply unsatisfying and entirely implausible.
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I’m still not clear on what the astrolabe actually does. Is it a time machine that violates the 6-hour limit, after all?
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“According to Luna’s notes, they had all three components of the ritual: [...] The power of Gryffindor. [...] The intellect of Ravenclaw. [...] The secrets of Slytherin. [...] The sacrifice of Hufflepuff.”
Scary. So besides Luna’s atypical personality, supposedly part of what made the story so disjointed was the nargle erasing things that would’ve tied the scenes together.
The nargle strongly reminds me of Ur in Wildbow’s Pact story, or a number of entities in the Antimemetics Division of the SCP. As scary, too.
HPMOR chapter 115 says: “After future-Harry had figured out what to do with an almost-completely-amnesiac wizard who still had some bad habits of thought and some highly negative emotional patterns—a dark side, as ’twere—plus a great deal of declarative and procedural knowledge about powerful magic. Harry had tried his best not to Obliviate that part, because he might need it, someday.”
Okay, so he might still have some of the secrets of Slytherin, but he can’t speak, walk, stand, or do anything else a toddler couldn’t do—much like Harry when he was an infant in Godric’s Hollow, minus the hands. He also lacks a developed personality, and his personas like Quirrel and Voldemort are gone for good. I’ll grant you that if amnesiac!Tom were put into the same position as infant!Harry and were adopted by HJPEV’s parents, he might again grow up to become a dark wizard. But he doesn’t have 10 years’ time to do that.
Put differently, what did you think Obliviating Voldemort in chapter 115 was supposed to do?
Well i assume he lost most of his episodic memory, but probably not much more.
Yeah, I assumed the same. The chapter specifies “episodic memory” (although, somewhat confusingly, it says “everything” earlier in the sentence):
Everything, forget everything, Tom Riddle, Professor Quirrell, forget your whole life, forget your entire episodic memory, forget the disappointment and the bitterness and the wrong decisions, forget Voldemort -
It seems this is a real thing that can happen. “In the case of dissociative amnesia, individuals are separated from their memories … they may forget who they are and everything about themselves and their personal history”, yet they can walk and talk and do everything well enough to “move to a new location and establish a new identity” as an adult: https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/conditions/dissociative-amnesia
why is this so fun
Your particular taste? I loved HPMOR but this is too absurd to be fun for me.
Seven bookcases pointing at the six corners of a hexagon? Was that intentional, or did you mean heptagon?
Seems to me that the 7th side may never have existed
Or is the author a text predicting neural network which has no visuospatial capacities and sucks at geometry?
It is supposed to be heptagon, not hexagon. Thanks. I have fixed it.
Typos:
Lord Voldemort’s legillimancy tore through Luna’s mind. → Legilimency (at least it’s always capitalized in the official wiki)
“Uh-huh,” said Hadmistress McGonagall. → Headmistress
There had never been third cauldron. → a third cauldron
Also:
“The Forgotten Library was a regular hexagon centered around a giant Pensieve. Seven giant shelves radiated toward the corners. [...] Six desks were interlaced between the seven shelves.” → I don’t understand. Where in this symmetrical library with six sides and six corners do you fit seven shelves in a regular pattern?
Fixed the typos. Thanks.
The thing about six desks was bad writing. I have clarified the geometry.
Also, “Quirrell” is globally missing its second l.
Fixed. Thanks.
He would have dodged that one. Wouldn’t he?
Nice touch, though now i’m confused. It sounds like Kirito was retroactively deletet. But the shoes were not?
I think the shoes were retroactively deleted.