Chapter 11: Nathan's Years at Hogwarts
May 29th, 1994, Hogwarts, Nathan's POV
Nathan was tense as he walked through the Chamber of Secrets alone.
Nathan was currently in his third year in Hogwarts and so far, it was his worst since he started. He should have expected as much when a house-elf named Dobby ambushed him Flourish and Blotts in order to warn him not to go to Hogwarts for his own safety. However, Nathan was too stubborn to listen and refused to pay head to the frantic house-elf's pleas. Dobby had responded by attempting to get him in trouble by causing all the books within the store to catch on fire while mimicking his magical signature which caused mass panic within the store.
Luckily, his parents had believed him when he said a house-elf did it and simply paid for the damages so the owner wouldn't report who it was that caused it. Luckily only a few books had been damaged beyond repair so it didn't cost that much. Seeing what Dobby did in order to implicate him made Nathan wonder how their magic was able to be tracked and his parents explained it had to do with unique signature a wand-caster gave off when they used magic. It was unique to wand-users and only highly advanced magical beings could replicate it.
Nathan turned a corner only to see the path reaching its end and his accomplice waiting for him in front of the door.
His accomplice was a ghost he had met during Nicholas's Death Day party. It was female knight that Nick said was from King Arthur's Court. Excited to meet a real Knight of the Round Table, a female one to boot, Nathan and Hermione, who had been convinced to go with him along with Ron, ran up to meet her.
However, the female knight had been rude, standoffish and refused to speak to "lowly peasants" like them. Hermione had been put off by her attitude and left quickly but Nathan was a Potter, and they were very stubborn.
Nathan had spent the rest of the year saying hi to the female knight whenever he saw her, which was a surprisingly large number of times, and slowly got through her icy demeanor. She refused to say her name, but Nathan managed to get out that she was part of the group that turned against the King in that fabled final Battle of Camlann.
"Did you see anyone?" asked Nathan as he walked up to the female knight as she floated in front of a large stone door with stone snakes engraved upon it.
The ghostly knight shook her head. "No. I have seen none pass through these halls. This door has some sort of enchantment upon it to keep me from passing through. This is why I'm waiting for you here. Are you ready for what lies ahead?"
As she asked that, Nathan thought back on his last two and a half years of schooling.
His first year had been fairly normal. He had quickly been sorted into Gryffindor to the cheers of his mother, who was the Muggle Studies Professor, as well as all of Gryffindor House. His childhood friend, Ron, had been sorted there as well and Nathan had been ecstatic to have his best friend with him. The Sorting Hat had briefly considered putting Nathan in Hufflepuff for his loyalty to his family but ultimately decided on Gryffindor.
The year would have been fairly normal if one ignored the gawking and pointed whispers that surrounded him whenever he left the common room. However, the news about Nathan's absent twin had finally come out and it had been in the news for weeks after the Sorting.
They had managed to keep it quiet ever since they found out 5 years ago. It wasn't that hard since Nathan himself was barely seen outside of his house and he was impossible to reach through normal means of communication due to the wards. It had made Nathan having a normal childhood with playmates his age very hard.
He hadn't even gone to normal muggle elementary school like his mother had originally planned for her children and so the only friends Nathan had as a child were the Weasleys, Luna and Neville. While Nathan liked Neville, he was always too shy for an exuberant boy like Nathan and Luna was strange even before her mother's death.
The Weasleys were nice enough, but Nathan was always annoyed at the way Mrs. Weasley acted like she was his mother. He already had a mother, thank you very much, and didn't need another. It had become worse when Mrs. Weasley always commented how much he and Ginny looked like his mother and father. She had even gone so far as try to spell his hair completely black once his red streaks started coming out.
That had been the straw that broke the camel's back for his mother, and she refused to leave him alone with the Weasleys after that. It hadn't helped that this was only a week after they found out his twin was missing.
Anyway, his first year had started out with people he never met before walking up to him for either autographs or to ask where his twin was, as if they had a right to know. This caused Nathan to put up a mask in order to hide his true feelings.
In order to hide his insecurities and shyness as well as anger for the way some people simply expected him to tell them everything, Nathan had acted a bit like an arrogant git during his first year. This was to hide the fact that he didn't feel like he lived up to his fame, as well as hide his shyness from not having many friends as a child. This only worked against him though since it turned off all but the most die-hard of fans from him, leaving with a very small group of friends.
Therefore, his first year was mostly spent studying (at his mother's insistence) or playing with Ron or Neville. He barely made any other friends and they were more acquaintances that true friends.
However, that all changed on Halloween of his second year.
Ron had been his typical rude self (something that secretly annoyed the hell out of Nathan) when Hermione, who had been partnered with him, tried to help him in Charms class. Nathan never really paid much attention to Hermione in his first year due to her bossy demeanor and tendency to always ask him if it was true, that he was trained by Dumbledore. He denied it but she didn't believe him since he always tended to get spells before her when it came to the practical portion of the class.
During that Charms class, Ron had started to become even surlier than normal and ignored her help and demanded for her to do better. When she cast the charm perfectly, Ron had been livid and spent the rest of the class grumbling under his breath. What was worse was that when they left and Hermione tried to offer to help him practice, he had blown up and called her a buck-toothed know-it-all with no friends.
Now, Nathan was still in his slightly cocky and arrogant phase, but even he would not be so cruel as to say that to someone to their face. Hermione had quickly teared up and left to cry in the girl's bathroom.
That would have been bad enough. However, it got worse when that year's defense professor, Professor Quirrell, alerted them to a troll in the dungeons during the Halloween feast.
Realizing that Hermione would not know the danger, Nathan had quickly run after her with Neville following since he and Hermione were sorta friends. Ron had washed his hands of it, saying while he was sorry for what he said he wasn't going to risk his neck for her. That was the first time Nathan saw a glimpse of the kind of person Ron really was.
Nathan and Neville had quickly reached the girl's bathroom in time to see the troll enter it before them. Without thinking of the consequences, Nathan had rushed in with Neville right behind him once he heard Hermione's scream.
Even now, that fight was a bit of a blur as all he remembered was sending spell after spell at the troll and only managing to enrage it more. They finally managed to get Hermione away from the troll before the three ran from the troll as fast as their feet could take them.
Unfortunately, the troll was faster and had quickly caught up to them. They only managed to survive because they had jumped onto a moving staircase before the troll could smash them into paste. The troll, idiot that it was, tried to follow only to fall down the stairways and down the 5 floors before smashing into the ground floor.
Resistant it might be but not even a troll could stay conscious after a fall like that while smashing into every staircase along the way.
Hermione had quickly become one of his best friends after that and Nathan was extremely glad for it. She managed to break him of his phase and hidden shyness before it became a permanent fixture.
The rest of the year had been a whirlwind of mystery and adventure as they discovered that the third corridor held Flamel's fabled Philosopher's (incorrectly called Sorcerer's by wizards) Stone. They had been convinced that Snape was after it after they saw he was bit by the three-headed dog, Fluffy, during Halloween and supposedly cursed Nathan's broom during his first ever Quidditch match.
They were completely wrong.
It turned out to be none other than Quirrell who was the would-be thief and Nathan confronted him and his master, Voldemort, in the Mirror Room.
The Mirror of Erised.
Nathan partially wondered where it could be now but knew better than to dwell on it. The Mirror had shown what he truly desired: his family, complete with his twin Jasmine.
Jasmine.
Nathan hadn't really thought a lot about his twin before they found out she was missing. His parents had always told him about Jasmine, of course, but only rarely due to how much they missed their firstborn. Being only a child, Nathan had at first been jealous of this mysterious girl he could barely remember that seemed to make his parents all quiet whenever she was mentioned. He was envious of her having a normal life with his aunt and uncle while he was trapped in his house with only his parents and sister for company. He was especially jealous of the fact that his parents seemed to miss her so much that they rarely spoke of her.
Nathan's birthdays (and later Rose's) had always been celebrated at Padfoot's house so that people could actually come visit. He had always wondered why there was always an empty chair put right next to him each year but always shrugged it off due to the excitement of his birthday. He wondered why his parents' eyes lingered on the empty chair at times and their eyes seemed to glaze over as if seeing something only they could see.
Now, he knew that they were imagining his twin celebrating with them as it should be. However, they had contented themselves imagining that she was probably celebrating her birthday as well with her relatives and was probably just as happy as him.
Then they found out about how Jasmine had lived.
His parents had been distraught for months afterwards and his father had been especially quick to anger during that time. During those few months, his mother would sometimes shut herself in what should have been Jasmine's room and cry into her old baby blanket. They would rarely go visit his uncle Moony and Padfoot during that time due to them always doing "errands" which he now understood meant they were looking for Jasmine whenever his father wasn't.
Nathan himself had been confused until it finally hit him a few weeks later.
His sister was missing.
The sister he had been jealous of for having a perfect life when the truth was far more horrifying.
In that moment, he had finally understood just what he may have lost. He had always been secretly jealous of the way Fred and George seemed to just connect. They were so close that they sometimes finished each other's sentences (they finally mastered how to do that a year later).
While Nathan didn't want a connection that close, the idea of not only having a sister who understood him but also an older sister was a good one. To have someone who would always have his back no matter the circumstances was something he fervently wished for.
His parents had raised him telling him why he was famous and that it was only by luck that he survived. Nathan had always been secretly scared of the way some people seemed to expect things from him, as if he was some kind of reincarnation of Merlin. He had hidden it behind his arrogant attitude but it was always there, beneath the surface.
However, Nathan wondered how different things would have been if his older twin had been there. Would he have had to hide himself behind a cocky mask if he had a twin who understood him to help ease his insecurities? Would he have applied himself harder if he had a sister to strive to emulate?
Nathan didn't know.
There were times, however, that he wished his sister was there. Like this year.
Dobby's antics had only been the start of the troubles of the year. Dobby had quickly found out that his first plan to keep him from Hogwarts didn't work and tried to keep him from going by locking the portal to Platform Nine-and-Three-Quarters. Nathan was forced to wait until his parents appeared so they could apparate him to Hogwarts. At least he hadn't listened to Ron who had tried to convince him to fly his dad's car to Hogwarts. Ron was still in trouble over that stunt.
With no other alternative, Dumbledore had been forced to hire Gilderoy Lockhart as the Defense Professor. Lockhart acted like the sun shined out of his ass and constantly reminded people of the many rewards he had won, in what he probably thought was a subtle manner. Worse yet, was that he somehow thought Nathan was his sort -of protege and constantly followed him around to give "advice". Nathan could only shiver in terror when Neville pointed out that Lockhart was acting sort of like he was during his first year.
Nathan had never been so happy for Hermione breaking him out of that phase.
While Lockhart was bad, the year became worse with the opening of the Chamber of Secrets on Halloween, christened by the petrification of Mrs. Norris under a warning written in blood. Nathan was seriously starting to consider Halloween a cursed day since every bad thing to have happened to him always started on freaking Halloween.
Nathan and Ron were convinced that it was Malfoy, but his mother quickly shot them down by saying that the last Heir of Slytherin was none other than Voldemort himself. So, unless Malfoy was secretly Voldemort's bastard child, then he couldn't be the Heir. A prick Malfoy may be but son of that monster he wasn't. Just him standing beside his father was proof enough that they were father and son. That and the idea of Voldemort reproducing with ANY woman much less Mrs. Malfoy was enough to make them hurl.
This didn't help Nathan's nerves since without anything to distract him, the paranoia in the castle was slowly getting to him.
This was made worse by the fact that Dobby's third attempt to "save" him resulted in him losing all the bones in his right arm due to a combination of Dobby's psychotic bulger and Lockhart's idiocy. Nathan swore that someday he'd beat the stupid out of Lockhart if it was the last thing, he did.
In order to distract himself, Nathan had attended the dueling club with Ron, Hermione and Neville in hopes of learning something that would help him defend himself. Sadly, the club was headed by none other than Lockhart and the only things he'd learned was the Disarming Charm and the fact that he was a parseltongue.
That started the downhill path of the year as people started to believe he was behind the attacks and that he was the Heir of Slytherin. The worst rumors were that he had sacrificed his twin in a dark ritual to gain power and that that was why she wasn't attending Hogwarts.
Idiots, the lot of them.
His mother and Hermione tried to calm him down but unfortunately, Nathan had his father's temper and the rumors and pointed whispers were fraying on his nerves by December.
The rest of the year since had been a time of frayed nerves due to people actively avoiding him and the slow dissolution of his and Ron's friendship. Nathan had decided to research parseltongue to see if he could identify any other speakers as well as to see its uses in combat. He had found that parseltongue was good in healing but little else since it was the "common tongue" of snakes unlike the "noble" serpent tongue that could allow one to speak to all reptiles, even dragon and gave one a masterful ability in breaking down and creating wards and barriers.
Despite evidence to the contrary, Ron insisted that parseltongue was a dark art and that he should be ashamed of having it. Nathan quickly became angry at his friend's bigotry to anything he didn't understand. Ron was like much of the wizarding world that labeled anything it didn't understand as "dark".
Sure, some things actually were dark in nature. However, Nathan's mother had taught him that "dark" wasn't the same as "evil". The dark arts DID tempt you and they tended to depend on the darker emotions to be cast. Someone who relied only on the dark arts meant that they constantly channeled darker emotions rather than happy ones and anyone would become twisted if they constantly thought that way.
By February, Nathan and Ron's friendship was hanging by a thread and it didn't help that Ron's sister Ginny had basically abandoned Nathan's sister, Rose, even though she had promised to watch out for her. Nathan's growing reputation as a dark wizard meant she hardly made any friends amongst her year despite being sorted into Hufflepuff, the supposed "House of the loyal". The only friend she had outside of Nathan's group was a quirky Ravenclaw named Luna Lovegood. She might be weird but Nathan considered Luna a true friend and would gladly put up with hours of her seemingly insane lectures in thanks for her loyalty.
Despite this, Rose seemed to start to put up a bitchy and tough persona that looked so out of place on her previously bubbly sister's face and more like Tracey's friend Daphne's Ice Queen persona. She only reverted to her old self when around him and even then, it was only when there was no one else around.
As his and Ron's friendship deteriorated, Nathan reconnected with another old childhood friend, Tracey Davis. Being a half-blood, the blond girl only had two friends within Slytherin House, Daphne Greengrass, also known as the Ice Queen, and Blaise Zabini, whose mother still starred in many teenage boys' fantasies even though she was in her 50s.
Tracey had at first been wary of reconnecting with Nathan since he hadn't exactly been the best friend in the world ever since she was sorted into Slytherin. Sure, he had never picked on her or anything but he also hadn't defended her despite suspecting she was having a bad time being a half-blood in Slytherin. However, he had eventually gotten her forgiveness and the two old friends had reconnected over Arithmancy and how hard it was as well as how stupid some people were to believe the rumors about him.
Nathan was glad he had chosen to take Arithmancy instead of Divination like Ron wanted. While Runes sounded nice, he had no talent for memorizing all those runes and wizards only studied Egyptian and Nordic runes anyway. All the others were ignored due to the difficulty it takes in even understanding them much less teaching them to others, that it was considered post-graduate study.
Hermione had barely been convinced from trying to take all the electives by taking classes every day including the weekends. Luckily, Nathan's mother had spoken to Hermione and explained that her class only explained Muggle developments up to the 17th century before OWLS and only entered "recent" developments afterwards. Even that much was only due to his mother being the Professor and updating the curriculum. Before her, they only studied up to Arthur's time in their seventh year!
Around April, a journal by Tom Riddle which Nathan found in January was stolen in his own room. He quickly came to the conclusion that it was the Heir's doing due to fear of the journal revealing their identity. Tom had already shown him a memory of him catching Hagrid as the culprit but Nathan didn't believe it. While the new Care of Magical Creatures teacher was a little overenthusiastic when it came to dangerous magical creatures, he was too kind to attack anyone, much less kill. Tracey had agreed with him but also pointed out that it could have only have been a Gryffindor who stole the journal since only Gryffindors knew the password. She also pointed out that maybe Hagrid opened the Chamber unknowingly since she also doubted, he did it on purpose.
Either way, Nathan had gone to him with Hermione and Tracey in order to see what he knew only to get a cryptic suggestion to follow the spiders and watch the corruption of the Ministry send an innocent man to Hell on Earth, otherwise known as Azkaban, and sack Dumbledore who was the best chance they had of catching the Heir.
Nathan and Tracey had followed Hagrid's advice five days ago only to almost be killed by the acromantulas when they decided he was looking especially tasty. It was only thanks to the now-wild car of Mr. Weasley coming to his rescue that he survived.
These altogether gave Hermione the insight needed to identify the monster in the Chamber just in time to be petrified before she could tell Nathan. Nathan and Neville had been distraught and Ron's tactlessness in regards to her health had been the last straw and completely broken Nathan's friendship with him.
Today was supposed to be a good day as the ones petrified were supposed to be fed the antidote only for an announcement to be made about someone being taken to the Chamber itself. Nathan had gone to visit Hermione when the announcement sounded and found out that the beast was none other than a Basilisk thanks to Hermione writing it down. The Basilisk using the plumbing certainly explained the strange voices in the walls he'd been hearing all year. When Nathan had found out that it was Ron's sister Ginny, he had acted quickly and followed the clues to Moaning Myrtle. He had found her, along with the ghostly female knight who, after hearing Myrtle's story, decided to help Nathan avenge Myrtle's murder.
Now here they were, in the Chamber of Secrets itself about to face the Heir.
Nathan set his shoulders and held onto his courage. "As ready as I'll ever be. Thank you for coming with me, female knight."
The female knight eyed him before speaking. "Mordred. If we are going into battle together then you deserve to know my name is Mordred."
Nathan quickly started at the revelation but held any questions he had for after the battle. 'If there was an "after the battle",' thought Nathan fearfully.
Nathan hissed 'open' in parseltongue and watched the doors open before stepping inside.
Chapter 11: Nathan's Years at Hogwarts
May 29th, 1994, Hogwarts, Nathan's POV
Nathan was tense as he walked through the Chamber of Secrets alone.
Nathan was currently in his third year in Hogwarts and so far, it was his worst since he started. He should have expected as much when a house-elf named Dobby ambushed him Flourish and Blotts in order to warn him not to go to Hogwarts for his own safety. However, Nathan was too stubborn to listen and refused to pay head to the frantic house-elf's pleas. Dobby had responded by attempting to get him in trouble by causing all the books within the store to catch on fire while mimicking his magical signature which caused mass panic within the store.
Luckily, his parents had believed him when he said a house-elf did it and simply paid for the damages so the owner wouldn't report who it was that caused it. Luckily only a few books had been damaged beyond repair so it didn't cost that much. Seeing what Dobby did in order to implicate him made Nathan wonder how their magic was able to be tracked and his parents explained it had to do with unique signature a wand-caster gave off when they used magic. It was unique to wand-users and only highly advanced magical beings could replicate it.
Nathan turned a corner only to see the path reaching its end and his accomplice waiting for him in front of the door.
His accomplice was a ghost he had met during Nicholas's Death Day party. It was female knight that Nick said was from King Arthur's Court. Excited to meet a real Knight of the Round Table, a female one to boot, Nathan and Hermione, who had been convinced to go with him along with Ron, ran up to meet her.
However, the female knight had been rude, standoffish and refused to speak to "lowly peasants" like them. Hermione had been put off by her attitude and left quickly but Nathan was a Potter, and they were very stubborn.
Nathan had spent the rest of the year saying hi to the female knight whenever he saw her, which was a surprisingly large number of times, and slowly got through her icy demeanor. She refused to say her name, but Nathan managed to get out that she was part of the group that turned against the King in that fabled final Battle of Camlann.
"Did you see anyone?" asked Nathan as he walked up to the female knight as she floated in front of a large stone door with stone snakes engraved upon it.
The ghostly knight shook her head. "No. I have seen none pass through these halls. This door has some sort of enchantment upon it to keep me from passing through. This is why I'm waiting for you here. Are you ready for what lies ahead?"
As she asked that, Nathan thought back on his last two and a half years of schooling.
His first year had been fairly normal. He had quickly been sorted into Gryffindor to the cheers of his mother, who was the Muggle Studies Professor, as well as all of Gryffindor House. His childhood friend, Ron, had been sorted there as well and Nathan had been ecstatic to have his best friend with him. The Sorting Hat had briefly considered putting Nathan in Hufflepuff for his loyalty to his family but ultimately decided on Gryffindor.
The year would have been fairly normal if one ignored the gawking and pointed whispers that surrounded him whenever he left the common room. However, the news about Nathan's absent twin had finally come out and it had been in the news for weeks after the Sorting.
They had managed to keep it quiet ever since they found out 5 years ago. It wasn't that hard since Nathan himself was barely seen outside of his house and he was impossible to reach through normal means of communication due to the wards. It had made Nathan having a normal childhood with playmates his age very hard.
He hadn't even gone to normal muggle elementary school like his mother had originally planned for her children and so the only friends Nathan had as a child were the Weasleys, Luna and Neville. While Nathan liked Neville, he was always too shy for an exuberant boy like Nathan and Luna was strange even before her mother's death.
The Weasleys were nice enough, but Nathan was always annoyed at the way Mrs. Weasley acted like she was his mother. He already had a mother, thank you very much, and didn't need another. It had become worse when Mrs. Weasley always commented how much he and Ginny looked like his mother and father. She had even gone so far as try to spell his hair completely black once his red streaks started coming out.
That had been the straw that broke the camel's back for his mother, and she refused to leave him alone with the Weasleys after that. It hadn't helped that this was only a week after they found out his twin was missing.
Anyway, his first year had started out with people he never met before walking up to him for either autographs or to ask where his twin was, as if they had a right to know. This caused Nathan to put up a mask in order to hide his true feelings.
In order to hide his insecurities and shyness as well as anger for the way some people simply expected him to tell them everything, Nathan had acted a bit like an arrogant git during his first year. This was to hide the fact that he didn't feel like he lived up to his fame, as well as hide his shyness from not having many friends as a child. This only worked against him though since it turned off all but the most die-hard of fans from him, leaving with a very small group of friends.
Therefore, his first year was mostly spent studying (at his mother's insistence) or playing with Ron or Neville. He barely made any other friends and they were more acquaintances that true friends.
However, that all changed on Halloween of his second year.
Ron had been his typical rude self (something that secretly annoyed the hell out of Nathan) when Hermione, who had been partnered with him, tried to help him in Charms class. Nathan never really paid much attention to Hermione in his first year due to her bossy demeanor and tendency to always ask him if it was true, that he was trained by Dumbledore. He denied it but she didn't believe him since he always tended to get spells before her when it came to the practical portion of the class.
During that Charms class, Ron had started to become even surlier than normal and ignored her help and demanded for her to do better. When she cast the charm perfectly, Ron had been livid and spent the rest of the class grumbling under his breath. What was worse was that when they left and Hermione tried to offer to help him practice, he had blown up and called her a buck-toothed know-it-all with no friends.
Now, Nathan was still in his slightly cocky and arrogant phase, but even he would not be so cruel as to say that to someone to their face. Hermione had quickly teared up and left to cry in the girl's bathroom.
That would have been bad enough. However, it got worse when that year's defense professor, Professor Quirrell, alerted them to a troll in the dungeons during the Halloween feast.
Realizing that Hermione would not know the danger, Nathan had quickly run after her with Neville following since he and Hermione were sorta friends. Ron had washed his hands of it, saying while he was sorry for what he said he wasn't going to risk his neck for her. That was the first time Nathan saw a glimpse of the kind of person Ron really was.
Nathan and Neville had quickly reached the girl's bathroom in time to see the troll enter it before them. Without thinking of the consequences, Nathan had rushed in with Neville right behind him once he heard Hermione's scream.
Even now, that fight was a bit of a blur as all he remembered was sending spell after spell at the troll and only managing to enrage it more. They finally managed to get Hermione away from the troll before the three ran from the troll as fast as their feet could take them.
Unfortunately, the troll was faster and had quickly caught up to them. They only managed to survive because they had jumped onto a moving staircase before the troll could smash them into paste. The troll, idiot that it was, tried to follow only to fall down the stairways and down the 5 floors before smashing into the ground floor.
Resistant it might be but not even a troll could stay conscious after a fall like that while smashing into every staircase along the way.
Hermione had quickly become one of his best friends after that and Nathan was extremely glad for it. She managed to break him of his phase and hidden shyness before it became a permanent fixture.
The rest of the year had been a whirlwind of mystery and adventure as they discovered that the third corridor held Flamel's fabled Philosopher's (incorrectly called Sorcerer's by wizards) Stone. They had been convinced that Snape was after it after they saw he was bit by the three-headed dog, Fluffy, during Halloween and supposedly cursed Nathan's broom during his first ever Quidditch match.
They were completely wrong.
It turned out to be none other than Quirrell who was the would-be thief and Nathan confronted him and his master, Voldemort, in the Mirror Room.
The Mirror of Erised.
Nathan partially wondered where it could be now but knew better than to dwell on it. The Mirror had shown what he truly desired: his family, complete with his twin Jasmine.
Jasmine.
Nathan hadn't really thought a lot about his twin before they found out she was missing. His parents had always told him about Jasmine, of course, but only rarely due to how much they missed their firstborn. Being only a child, Nathan had at first been jealous of this mysterious girl he could barely remember that seemed to make his parents all quiet whenever she was mentioned. He was envious of her having a normal life with his aunt and uncle while he was trapped in his house with only his parents and sister for company. He was especially jealous of the fact that his parents seemed to miss her so much that they rarely spoke of her.
Nathan's birthdays (and later Rose's) had always been celebrated at Padfoot's house so that people could actually come visit. He had always wondered why there was always an empty chair put right next to him each year but always shrugged it off due to the excitement of his birthday. He wondered why his parents' eyes lingered on the empty chair at times and their eyes seemed to glaze over as if seeing something only they could see.
Now, he knew that they were imagining his twin celebrating with them as it should be. However, they had contented themselves imagining that she was probably celebrating her birthday as well with her relatives and was probably just as happy as him.
Then they found out about how Jasmine had lived.
His parents had been distraught for months afterwards and his father had been especially quick to anger during that time. During those few months, his mother would sometimes shut herself in what should have been Jasmine's room and cry into her old baby blanket. They would rarely go visit his uncle Moony and Padfoot during that time due to them always doing "errands" which he now understood meant they were looking for Jasmine whenever his father wasn't.
Nathan himself had been confused until it finally hit him a few weeks later.
His sister was missing.
The sister he had been jealous of for having a perfect life when the truth was far more horrifying.
In that moment, he had finally understood just what he may have lost. He had always been secretly jealous of the way Fred and George seemed to just connect. They were so close that they sometimes finished each other's sentences (they finally mastered how to do that a year later).
While Nathan didn't want a connection that close, the idea of not only having a sister who understood him but also an older sister was a good one. To have someone who would always have his back no matter the circumstances was something he fervently wished for.
His parents had raised him telling him why he was famous and that it was only by luck that he survived. Nathan had always been secretly scared of the way some people seemed to expect things from him, as if he was some kind of reincarnation of Merlin. He had hidden it behind his arrogant attitude but it was always there, beneath the surface.
However, Nathan wondered how different things would have been if his older twin had been there. Would he have had to hide himself behind a cocky mask if he had a twin who understood him to help ease his insecurities? Would he have applied himself harder if he had a sister to strive to emulate?
Nathan didn't know.
There were times, however, that he wished his sister was there. Like this year.
Dobby's antics had only been the start of the troubles of the year. Dobby had quickly found out that his first plan to keep him from Hogwarts didn't work and tried to keep him from going by locking the portal to Platform Nine-and-Three-Quarters. Nathan was forced to wait until his parents appeared so they could apparate him to Hogwarts. At least he hadn't listened to Ron who had tried to convince him to fly his dad's car to Hogwarts. Ron was still in trouble over that stunt.
With no other alternative, Dumbledore had been forced to hire Gilderoy Lockhart as the Defense Professor. Lockhart acted like the sun shined out of his ass and constantly reminded people of the many rewards he had won, in what he probably thought was a subtle manner. Worse yet, was that he somehow thought Nathan was his sort -of protege and constantly followed him around to give "advice". Nathan could only shiver in terror when Neville pointed out that Lockhart was acting sort of like he was during his first year.
Nathan had never been so happy for Hermione breaking him out of that phase.
While Lockhart was bad, the year became worse with the opening of the Chamber of Secrets on Halloween, christened by the petrification of Mrs. Norris under a warning written in blood. Nathan was seriously starting to consider Halloween a cursed day since every bad thing to have happened to him always started on freaking Halloween.
Nathan and Ron were convinced that it was Malfoy, but his mother quickly shot them down by saying that the last Heir of Slytherin was none other than Voldemort himself. So, unless Malfoy was secretly Voldemort's bastard child, then he couldn't be the Heir. A prick Malfoy may be but son of that monster he wasn't. Just him standing beside his father was proof enough that they were father and son. That and the idea of Voldemort reproducing with ANY woman much less Mrs. Malfoy was enough to make them hurl.
This didn't help Nathan's nerves since without anything to distract him, the paranoia in the castle was slowly getting to him.
This was made worse by the fact that Dobby's third attempt to "save" him resulted in him losing all the bones in his right arm due to a combination of Dobby's psychotic bulger and Lockhart's idiocy. Nathan swore that someday he'd beat the stupid out of Lockhart if it was the last thing, he did.
In order to distract himself, Nathan had attended the dueling club with Ron, Hermione and Neville in hopes of learning something that would help him defend himself. Sadly, the club was headed by none other than Lockhart and the only things he'd learned was the Disarming Charm and the fact that he was a parseltongue.
That started the downhill path of the year as people started to believe he was behind the attacks and that he was the Heir of Slytherin. The worst rumors were that he had sacrificed his twin in a dark ritual to gain power and that that was why she wasn't attending Hogwarts.
Idiots, the lot of them.
His mother and Hermione tried to calm him down but unfortunately, Nathan had his father's temper and the rumors and pointed whispers were fraying on his nerves by December.
The rest of the year since had been a time of frayed nerves due to people actively avoiding him and the slow dissolution of his and Ron's friendship. Nathan had decided to research parseltongue to see if he could identify any other speakers as well as to see its uses in combat. He had found that parseltongue was good in healing but little else since it was the "common tongue" of snakes unlike the "noble" serpent tongue that could allow one to speak to all reptiles, even dragon and gave one a masterful ability in breaking down and creating wards and barriers.
Despite evidence to the contrary, Ron insisted that parseltongue was a dark art and that he should be ashamed of having it. Nathan quickly became angry at his friend's bigotry to anything he didn't understand. Ron was like much of the wizarding world that labeled anything it didn't understand as "dark".
Sure, some things actually were dark in nature. However, Nathan's mother had taught him that "dark" wasn't the same as "evil". The dark arts DID tempt you and they tended to depend on the darker emotions to be cast. Someone who relied only on the dark arts meant that they constantly channeled darker emotions rather than happy ones and anyone would become twisted if they constantly thought that way.
By February, Nathan and Ron's friendship was hanging by a thread and it didn't help that Ron's sister Ginny had basically abandoned Nathan's sister, Rose, even though she had promised to watch out for her. Nathan's growing reputation as a dark wizard meant she hardly made any friends amongst her year despite being sorted into Hufflepuff, the supposed "House of the loyal". The only friend she had outside of Nathan's group was a quirky Ravenclaw named Luna Lovegood. She might be weird but Nathan considered Luna a true friend and would gladly put up with hours of her seemingly insane lectures in thanks for her loyalty.
Despite this, Rose seemed to start to put up a bitchy and tough persona that looked so out of place on her previously bubbly sister's face and more like Tracey's friend Daphne's Ice Queen persona. She only reverted to her old self when around him and even then, it was only when there was no one else around.
As his and Ron's friendship deteriorated, Nathan reconnected with another old childhood friend, Tracey Davis. Being a half-blood, the blond girl only had two friends within Slytherin House, Daphne Greengrass, also known as the Ice Queen, and Blaise Zabini, whose mother still starred in many teenage boys' fantasies even though she was in her 50s.
Tracey had at first been wary of reconnecting with Nathan since he hadn't exactly been the best friend in the world ever since she was sorted into Slytherin. Sure, he had never picked on her or anything but he also hadn't defended her despite suspecting she was having a bad time being a half-blood in Slytherin. However, he had eventually gotten her forgiveness and the two old friends had reconnected over Arithmancy and how hard it was as well as how stupid some people were to believe the rumors about him.
Nathan was glad he had chosen to take Arithmancy instead of Divination like Ron wanted. While Runes sounded nice, he had no talent for memorizing all those runes and wizards only studied Egyptian and Nordic runes anyway. All the others were ignored due to the difficulty it takes in even understanding them much less teaching them to others, that it was considered post-graduate study.
Hermione had barely been convinced from trying to take all the electives by taking classes every day including the weekends. Luckily, Nathan's mother had spoken to Hermione and explained that her class only explained Muggle developments up to the 17th century before OWLS and only entered "recent" developments afterwards. Even that much was only due to his mother being the Professor and updating the curriculum. Before her, they only studied up to Arthur's time in their seventh year!
Around April, a journal by Tom Riddle which Nathan found in January was stolen in his own room. He quickly came to the conclusion that it was the Heir's doing due to fear of the journal revealing their identity. Tom had already shown him a memory of him catching Hagrid as the culprit but Nathan didn't believe it. While the new Care of Magical Creatures teacher was a little overenthusiastic when it came to dangerous magical creatures, he was too kind to attack anyone, much less kill. Tracey had agreed with him but also pointed out that it could have only have been a Gryffindor who stole the journal since only Gryffindors knew the password. She also pointed out that maybe Hagrid opened the Chamber unknowingly since she also doubted, he did it on purpose.
Either way, Nathan had gone to him with Hermione and Tracey in order to see what he knew only to get a cryptic suggestion to follow the spiders and watch the corruption of the Ministry send an innocent man to Hell on Earth, otherwise known as Azkaban, and sack Dumbledore who was the best chance they had of catching the Heir.
Nathan and Tracey had followed Hagrid's advice five days ago only to almost be killed by the acromantulas when they decided he was looking especially tasty. It was only thanks to the now-wild car of Mr. Weasley coming to his rescue that he survived.
These altogether gave Hermione the insight needed to identify the monster in the Chamber just in time to be petrified before she could tell Nathan. Nathan and Neville had been distraught and Ron's tactlessness in regards to her health had been the last straw and completely broken Nathan's friendship with him.
Today was supposed to be a good day as the ones petrified were supposed to be fed the antidote only for an announcement to be made about someone being taken to the Chamber itself. Nathan had gone to visit Hermione when the announcement sounded and found out that the beast was none other than a Basilisk thanks to Hermione writing it down. The Basilisk using the plumbing certainly explained the strange voices in the walls he'd been hearing all year. When Nathan had found out that it was Ron's sister Ginny, he had acted quickly and followed the clues to Moaning Myrtle. He had found her, along with the ghostly female knight who, after hearing Myrtle's story, decided to help Nathan avenge Myrtle's murder.
Now here they were, in the Chamber of Secrets itself about to face the Heir.
Nathan set his shoulders and held onto his courage. "As ready as I'll ever be. Thank you for coming with me, female knight."
The female knight eyed him before speaking. "Mordred. If we are going into battle together then you deserve to know my name is Mordred."
Nathan quickly started at the revelation but held any questions he had for after the battle. 'If there was an "after the battle",' thought Nathan fearfully.
Nathan hissed 'open' in parseltongue and watched the doors open before stepping inside.
