Delphini gets given a diary by her uncle Lucius right before she leaves on the train to Hogwarts with the simple but profound statement 'it was your fathers'.
On the back in gold block capital lettering is the name 'TOM MARVOLO RIDDLE'.
What happens next... ?
The pages are blank. Delphini may be young but she’s no fool. There is a wonderful magic that radiates from this empty book, its gilt page ends shimmering even in the darkness of Hogwart's dungeons. Delphini sleeps with it just beside her bed, she stares at it long into the night wondering when it might be safe to explore.
Tom Marvolo Riddle. It sounds so wrong - plain. It couldn’t (shouldn’t) belong to her father. Still, her fingers trace the engraving constantly, a sense of familiarity comes every time she touches the leather. The pages are still blank.
Dumbledore seems to have a set of eyes just for Delphini. She can feel his gaze tearing into her in the Great Hall - even when he’s not looking. Their magic is all over her, she knows that much, the traces of it obvious - dark. Dumbledore couldn’t possibly recognize that… could he? She suspects the Headmaster has a hunch, if there was any sort of proper evidence to go off of Delphini very much doubts she’d have been allowed past the castle gates.
The pages are blank - until they are not. It is a dreary October afternoon when she finally allows herself to bring a Quill to the paper. She dates the corner, watching as the ink seeps into the paper. She waits. Nothing.
‘Delphini Cassiopeia Black’. She writes it in large bold letters right in the center of the page. This quickly fades too and she feels a sense of frustration budding inside her. That’s it? It takes a moment before - ‘Is that so?’ - something writes back, the handwriting perfect. Delphini’s heart is in her throat. ‘For as long as I have been alive.’ She answers, sharing her birth date with the pages for good measure. ‘Not just a Black.’ It tells her.
‘What is this magic?’ It’s a few days before she can muster up the courage to ask. She’s figured her father must’ve charmed the pages something fierce when he was young. That whatever is responding back to her is just the subset of a protection spell. Or that perhaps her magic is merely resonating with the bit of his that was left behind? Perhaps he even spelled the notebook in jest? To deter anyone who dare try to decipher the pages? Still, it feels much too powerful for the magic to simply be residual... ‘Not what - who.’
‘You are my father.’ She asks and tells it. There is memory to this magic, like a person - a soul. ‘How did you come to possess this diary, Delphini?’
‘So, you are still alive?’ They’ve been telling her as much but it has gotten harder and harder to believe as the years went on. ‘What can I do - how can I bring you back home?’
It takes time, but eventually she learns that He is somewhere in Albania and that, yes, He is very much alive. It’s after Hols that he instructs her down to the chamber. Delphini offers herself to him quickly, already so loyal, so ready to serve, so eager for His praise.
She meets the basilisk who quickly bends to the will of the heiress. It is almost strange, she spent her whole life only ever acknowledging herself as a Black, being the last in a long line of Salazar Slytherin's descendants certainly has its perks. The basilisk reminds her of herself - lonely, hiding.
Over summer they agree to keep the snake confined to the chamber - for now. Such sudden deaths would very quickly get Dumbledore's unwanted attention and Delphini has already explained to her father her concerns regarding the Headmaster. Turns out he very much shares in the sentiment.
Whatever piece of her father that lives within the pages refuses to take her life-source. ‘Find us someone we can manipulate, bring them here.’ It’s her first mission.
It takes time, finding the perfect victim. Luckily, Delphini is well practiced in patience.
She terrorizes Neville Longbottom because she can. And why shouldn’t she? He makes it too easy and that look on his face is too hilarious. Still, witches and wizards would notice if he were to somehow turn up missing. She needs a mudblood, or perhaps someone even less relevant? It would be so much easier if her insipid half-blood cousin were still traipsing around the school.
Delphini spends several nights a week in the chamber practicing magic at her father’s written instruction. It’s on her walking back one evening, when she is forced to duck into a nearby classroom to escape a Prefect, that she finds it. The classroom is quiet and Delphini even quieter, she turns readying her exit before startling immediately. It takes her a second to realize it’s her own reflection that frightened her, only.. It’s not just her. Delphini is mesmerized, she recognizes them instantly. Her father looks proud, her mother looks loving, they are exactly as she remembers them and strangers at the same time.
She suggests they use Harry Potter. Two birds one stone, petty revenge and everything in-between. She hates the half-blood so much she can hardly even look at him but would revel in the chance to watch on as he chokes on his own blood. He deserves to suffer. 'The boy remains alive - for now.'
It takes time, and much more patience, but one day, her father sends the perfect victim straight to her.
Professor Quirrell follows her down the wet and winding corridors, sputtering the whole way.
Finally.
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are you going to read tsc when it comes out? and, if not: would you like your acolytes to give you the important kevin day updates or would you rather not?
oh my acolytes huh! well i don’t know :) it’s so nice of you to ask and i’m very touched actually…. nice to me 🥹…. i guess any (good) kevin updates would be nice and probably sway the balance on whether i read it or not, but at first glance i probably won’t read it unless it sparks my curiosity once it’s out and the story starts making its rounds around my circles :) i’m plenty interested in the period where jean stays with the foxes but i don’t much care for the trojans nor the proposed storyline*, though even a picky reader like yours truly can be convinced into buying a story if kevin day’s in it
*by this i don’t mean that i Dislike the process of jean healing but it’s just overall not my favorite theme and, to be frank, i don’t have much interest in reading about a normal well-adjusted team either. from my view tsc is aftg without my favorite parts (namely kevin day as a main character, the foxes’ messy dynamic, problematic and controversial side characters, neil’s narration, The Mafia, andrew in general) and while i am always and forever a ride or die for jean moreau, and i am glad he’s going to get better and be happy, a lot of my feelings for him don’t really stem from the idea that there is a softness underneath all the grit but actually and sincerely the fact that he is crazy. i Love jean because he’s horrible and scared and cruel and i don’t know if i’ll care much for him once he’s out of that state :) i meant it when i said a few months ago that i would’ve been more onboard with a story about the ravens (no matter how gruesome) or even a glimpse of jean’s pov in the nest, though of course nora sakavic should probably choose to be happy every once in a while so i wouldn’t ask her to write that
so tl;dr: you can send me good and relevant kevin updates if you want to and if they’re interesting enough i might read tsc in the future
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are there any other historical figures you like I'm intrigued 👀
Okay buckle in, somehow this post will be weirder than any of my f1 stuff bcs for some reason I'm very intense about historical figures, I think I just have a tendency to treat them like blorbos
Mostly I'm endeared to powerful figures, idk why, it's the way it is. Okay so obviously you already know I like Napoleon(and Wellington to an extent), that really doesn't need to be emphasized anymore
Since being in Austria, I feel super endeared to Maria Theresa. She just seemed like such a boss! I think she's just really cool. Her father changed the plan of succession so she'd become Empress(rather than her cousins), but immediately upon taking power, she was immediately embroiled in war over her being the new ruler(everyone who had signed the treaty of succession suddeny reversed) But she defended her rule of the Habsburg monarchy! I think the coolest part about her is that her husband, who married into the Habsburgs, was supposed to be in charge, but she wouldn't let him be involved at all practically and was the de facto ruler of the Holy Roman Empire for like 20 years. She had 16 children and was basically constantly pregnant and having kids while involved in war, yet still held power and guided Austro-Hungary through it all 🥹 I think it's very funny also that she was laying out so many reforms, guiding the country basically just herself, and still found time to write letters to all their kids and be an overbearing mother. Also she was Marie Antoinette's mother?? I'm still shocked by how many important kids she had. If you've been to any part of the former Austro-Hungarian(+ Bohemian) Empire, she really left her mark, there's soooo much stuff named after her. The statue of her in between the Kunsthistorisches and the Natural History Museum in Vienna is really cool, and that she has a whole Platz named after her with her giant statue!!! I think it's just really admirable that a woman at that period of time had so much power and ruled so efficiently. (MY god sorry I wrote so much)
Okay now I'll try to refrain from the historical rambles, I also like: Julius Caeser(cliche sorry I know), Dmitri Shostakovich(my favorite composer ever), Pyotr Tchaikovsky(pls read about his sugar mommy patron), Erwin Rommel(I like his nickname: The Desert Fox), J.C. Leyendecker(favorite artist, I am obsessed with his work), Alphonse Mucha, Calvin Coolidge(not the best president by far but the anecdotes about his social awkwardness and quietness are hilarious to me), Ernst Gideon von Laudon(not completely insane about him, but it's like with the Napoleon Crossing the Alps painting, I saw a painting and bust of him and now feel weirdly endeared.) And then there's probably some others I can't recall atm because it's 3 am
I think my top three though are Napoleon, Julius Caesar and Maria Theresa. They're all just very: "Catie saw a painting/statue and is now very weird about it." And then being in the vicinity of so much history made it 1000x worse. Things I saw in Vienna that made me go "oh my god it's blorbo from my history book": Napoleon Crossing The Alps painting(I seriously sat in that room for probably 20 mins just staring at it, I didn't want to leave) + some other various Napoleon artifacts in the Heeresgesichtliche, a very nice bust of Julius Caesar, and literally the entirety of Vienna had Maria Theresa everywhere
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