[See note regarding source FILOFAX.]
DUMBLEDORE: You’re aware that this is the 50th-year anniversary of the opening of the Chamber of Secrets, I’m sure.
FILOFAX: I – was not.
DUMBLEDORE: You know of the Chamber, though, I’m sure.
FILOFAX: Tell me more.
DUMBLEDORE: [Pause] I forget sometimes how far our efforts go at – covering things up.
FILOFAX: You tease, you.
DUMBLEDORE: [Pause] The Chamber of Secrets is – why, you haven’t even heard rumours?
FILOFAX: Well, I suppose I have. The Heir of Slytherin and all that. When I was at school there were rumours that someone of our parents’ generation had died. Funny though how none of our parents could confirm that.
DUMBLEDORE: Rumours are more often partly true than completely false. The truth comes out . . . unfortunately, a girl did die.
FILOFAX: At Hogwarts? In 1942?
DUMBLEDORE: Indeed. She’ll be in your records, if you search them. Myrtle Warren. A third year, Ravenclaw, unremarkable student. She passed away in the W.C., and unfortunately haunts it to this day. Makes it rather hard to bury one’s dead when they wisp around the premises, doesn’t it? But again, such is the nature of secrets.
FILOFAX: Myrtle Warren. And she was killed by the, er, beast of the chamber?
DUMBLEDORE: Yes. Your files will credit the work to another third year, one Rubeus Hagrid. His accessory will be listed as an infantile acromantula.
FILOFAX: You jest.
DUMBLEDORE: I do not.
FILOFAX: Well, someone does. What a pile of pish posh.
DUMBLEDORE: It was sloppy work, I agree. We needed to expel the boy, afte rall – parent complaints regarding his heritage, you understand – but to blame him for the death of a girl, accidental or otherwise – but then, he was storing an acromantula in a basement cupboard . . . I wasn’t headmaster at the time, and a rather junior version of my current self. Perhaps it was sensible after all. Regardless. The girl was not killed by an acromantula, as anyone who inspected her body then or her spectral form now could determine. She died without a mark. She was murdered, surely – but not that way.
FILOFAX: I’m on my hands and knees, lapping up your every word.
DUMBLEDORE: The Chamber was opened by a student – a prefect, Slytherin. He, like a handful of Hogwarts students before him, could trace his lineage to Salazar Slytherin himself. He had the gift of Parseltongue and therefore the capacity to open Salazar’s Chamber and release the beast therein. I’d like you to make your wildest guest as to what that beast might be.
FILOFAX: I suspect it’s serpentine.
DUMBLEDORE: A basilisk, yes. And I suspect you know who was it’s master.
FILOFAX: Hmmm. Oh, pick me, pick me. Of course it was a certain Master Riddle. Thomas Marvolo, yes? Now there’s a rumour you haven’t so succeeded in burying, at least not in my parts.
DUMBLEDORE: Indeed. Now, you see, as Headmaster you learn quite a bit about this school and its secrets. The Chamber is a rather poorly kept one. It is well known in Slytherin House, or was at least. Slytherin, on building the school, thought it would be – humorous to include an underground chamber, in which he stored various monstrosities, most prized of them being his basilisk. And his humour extended – the wit! – to informing his House of the entrance to this chamber, with the request that it be opened every 50 years or so to terrorize the other houses. Nothing untoward, of course – just to give the school an occassional Halloween scare, and thus preserve his legacy. He even went so far as to cast a permanent charm on the basilisk’s eyes – the basilisk’s gaze being, as I’m sure you’re aware, lethal. Slytherin’s basilisk, much domesticated, causes a mere temporary paralysis. Every 50 years around All Souls Day, some Slytherin – necessarily one blessed with parseltongue – would open the chamber, let loose the basilisk, cause terror in the Hufflepuffs and the Ravenclaws, convince someone that someone had died, so on, so on. All quite tiresome, all rather funny to the juvenile and the sadistic, faculty and student both.
FILOFAX: I see. But something different happened with Riddle.
DUMBLEDORE: Hardly. There was a longer gap – the Slytherin heirs had long stopped matriculating. A degenerate line. He was the first in around 200 years I believe. So there was a bit more – legend, I suppose, about his opening. And then there was of course the unfortunate matter of the murder.
FILOFAX: But not by basilisk, surely.
DUMBLEDORE: Of course not. There are much more effective hexes for such things. And I daresay young Master Riddle knew how to use them.
FILOFAX: Why did he do it?
DUMBLEDORE: I never inquired fully. I believe the least execrable explanation is that the Chamber’s entrance, by a joke of history, has come to be located in a girl’s loo, and poor Myrtle had the unlucky experience of needing to relieve herself at the wrong time.
FILOFAX: Dare I ask the more execrable?
DUMBLEDORE: [Standing and walking to the window] Riddle was a sadist. And a curious one. I do not know what depths of cruelty and curiosity he had plumbed at that point. Was she his first, or yet another? I am not a killer, Gilderoy. I don’t understand that particular thrill.
FILOFAX: And you covered it up?
DUMBLEDORE: [Stroking the phoenix and looking out the window] We had to. You understand, I’m sure. Most embarrassing. All talk of the Chamber was strictly forbidden after that. We kept it out of the papers. Miss Bagshot edited her book. It took some effort, but by the time you matriculated it was effectively forgotten.
FILOFAX: Until now.
DUMBLEDORE: Until now. Surely you know why?
FILOFAX: There’s another heir –
DUMBLEDORE: In a manner of speaking.
FILOFAX: [Pause.] Potter. Potter is a Parselmouth. I filed the report . . . you’ve read it.
DUMBLEDORE: Two years ago now, yes? At a zoological garden in Surrey.
FILOFAX: Potter. [Grinning] You devil you. You’ve gotten me intrigued.
next file: b. bagshot deleted sect. >>
THE PENSIEVE PAPERS 