Rehabilitation 13.4: We Shall Not See Each Other Again
Glacially, Celestia turned to face Tom. As if frozen once more, she stared at him, not speaking or moving.
Tom gazed back, also still and silent. After a while, he frowned, moving to the side a pace.
Celestia's head tracked him.
"Well?" he asked, now that he'd confirmed her ability to move. "Is there something you'd like to say?"
"There are many things I would like to say. But not a single one of them is something I am able to say. Thank you for that."
He couldn't tell if it was sarcasm or not, so he decided to give his own potentially-sarcastic reply. "You're welcome. The wild impulses of immediate emotional satisfaction which come at the expense of long-term goals can rarely be tamed without outside help. Or at all."
Again, staring, stillness, and silence.
Eventually, Riddle got bored of that. "What do you intend to do now?"
"I require a moment of privacy with my sister before this continues."
Riddle raised an eyebrow. "What would you say to her, precisely?"
"I would vent my frustration. Beyond that, I would prefer to keep it private," she repeated.
"In other words, you would like an empathetic ear to regulate your emotions. One would think an alicorn well over a thousand years old would be capable of regulating them herself."
Celestia said nothing in reply, appearing to take no offense. But perhaps that was only a strong control over her facial expressions.
"But I suppose," said Riddle, "the old saying is as true in this realm as on earth. Thou shouldst not have been old till thou hadst been wise," he said, quoting the fool of Shakespeare's King Lear.
"I would argue," said Celestia in a tone of flat neutrality, her facial expression still unchanging, "that asking a competent therapist for help with your emotions is the height of wisdom."
"Oh, I agree. I am simply remarking that you should no longer need such help, at your age, and it's rather pathetic that you still do."
"That's ironic, coming from you of all ponies."
He smiled. "I require a shift in perspective and a more accurate outlook on sapient nature. I do not require help controlling my counterproductive, reactionary, emotional impulses. Those I tamed to my will long ago. Besides, I am less than a twentieth of your age."
No reaction. Silence.
"You realize you will still be bound by the contract?" Riddle asked. "I can't imagine you'll be able to 'vent' without being paralyzed. As you heard me say a few minutes ago, Luna does not know everything, and you are bound not to discuss my secrets with those who do not already know them."
"Unless you give me leave."
"No."
"What about-"
"No. Not 'just this one time' or any other nonsense. You have neither narrow nor general leave to speak of my secrets."
The edges of her pastel mane began to tinge at the fringes with a red glow, but Celestia seemed capable of reigning herself in, at this point. She didn't speak though.
"Do you still wish to speak with your sister?"
"Yes."
"Have you thought of a way to do it without requiring me to unparalyze you every thirty seconds?"
"Funny," said Celestia, not smiling at all. Her face remained expressionless. "As much as I loathe the thought, that was exactly what I was about to suggest."
"Sister..." said Celestia slowly, tentatively, within a barrier of silence but not of blur or darkness.
"Yes?" asked Luna, who had asked Riddle if he would in any way attempt to eavesdrop, and who had received the honest answer of "No." He had, however, suggested that they permit Dumbledore to overhear, though not interfere, in their conversation.
Celestia had carefully considered this request, and declined to allow it.
The sisters were visible, though not audible, to Riddle. All of this was being carried out within seeing range of the Mirror, on Riddle's insistence. Riddle had returned to his desk in the back of the room, ready to un-paralyze Celestia, should Luna cast a bright spell of yellow to catch his attention.
"Sister," Celestia said with a bit more confidence. "How much have you learned of Riddle's past?"
"Tia," said Luna in tones of light rebuke. "You know not to pry into my petitioners. Unless it regards future criminality, what he told me is strictly confidential, if that is what he wishes. And it is. Besides, the Vow you helped me to compose prevents me from answering in any case."
Celestia sighed deeply. "I... yes, you're right of course. I just... Sister, I don't know what to do!"
"About what?"
"About Riddle!" she said, stomping a hoof for emphasis, as if that was enough to explain everything.
"Could you elaborate?" asked Luna gently.
"No!" Celestia said, stomping again. "I cannot! Just about everything I'd like to say would result in paralysis. And even if it didn't, Silver Wing made me promise to not discuss everything else I'd like to say, and that's not his fault, it's still Riddle's-"
There was a brief, involuntary break of paralysis.
When she recovered, Celestia concluded with, "Lulu, it's maddening!"
Luna took a moment to absorb that. "You... can't speak in generalities?"
"I don't know! And I can't risk it without risking paralysis! That's the maddening part!"
"Well, there's no better time to risk it than now," Luna pointed out reasonably. "That's the whole point of this set-up, no?"
"Even still I do not wish to risk it. He is truly awful, Luna. He is worse than Tirek, Sombra, and Chrysalis combined!"
"He is worse than them all," Luna repeated slowly, carefully, temporizingly, "or he used to be worse?"
"There's hardly a difference-" Celestia began, but then froze. And not due to paralysis. She caught her own tongue.
"There isn't?" asked Luna, still calmly. Her tone was understanding, not accusing.
"Luna... Luna, I know why you ask that, but you are truly different. Nightmare Moon was largely a result of direct magical mind control. You had plenty of good in you before Nightmare Moon. And after, of course."
"Only thanks to you, Tia," Luna said gently. "Had you not been around, had my father had his way, had I no sunlight in my life, I very well might have been Nightmare Moon from the very beginning."
"But-" said Celestia. "But you did have goodness without me! Even on the day we met, even before you could speak, you did!"
"I'm still not sure," said Luna. "You know you saw goodness in everypony back then, regardless of whether it was actually there. You know that believing in the goodness of ponies who did not believe it of themselves had the potential to create it where none existed before."
And unfortunately, knowing that about herself made it less honest, less true, less genuine, and therefore less effective, when she tried to do it deliberately. Which is partly why Celestia is no longer the bearer either of Generosity or of Kindness. Some amount of truly blind faith is necessary for those aspects of Kindness and Generosity to function, and she grew less blind with each passing year.
"There is little doubt in my mind," said Luna, "that my fool had plenty of endearing things about him when he was two years old, plenty of cute habits, plenty of sparks of goodness that a kind enough loved one could have nurtured into a true nature of decency and light. But he never had you, Tia, nor anypony like you. He only had a caretaker like my father, and peers like most of our tribesponies – self-interested and unempathetic beyond their immediate circle, and even then…" Luna trailed off, then shook her head sadly. "The man in the mirror was a mostly good influence for him, but he was ten years too late, and I do not think he ever believed in Riddle the same way you believed in me. And need I remind you that even without Nightmare Moon to blame, I did more than a few evil acts, during the warfare of tribal times. That era may be well over a millennium old to you, but it is still recent enough in my mind."
"Luna..." said Celestia, but she trailed off when she found she had nothing to say. Nothing except, "What do I do?"
"Things always came easier to you, Tia," said Luna. "Much easier. You would get spells on the first few tries, you would change ponies for the better in a few short words, you became an Alicorn at fifteen years old."
"Silver Wing crushed my record," said Celestia.
"Even still," said Luna. "Your nature was to burn quickly and brightly. The sprint, not the marathon. And when that did not work to solve a problem, it was my job to keep at it afterwards, however long it might take, and into whatever dark recesses it might take me."
For all that her subjects believe she has patience in spades, Celestia did not always have a great deal of it. Not when situations were getting worse instead of better, or when they were absolutely awful and abhorrent from the start.
"I know," said Celestia, smiling wryly. "It only took me about three hundred years of doing your jobs for that to sink in."
Luna briefly smiled back. "And now that it has sunk in... please, Tia, for all that he might tempt you otherwise, please try to view Riddle as one of those marathons. I understand how his history would trigger in you the mindset of swift and righteous retribution, the mindset necessary to save our little ponies from all the atrocities of the tribal times."
"And a good many eras after that," Celestia grumbled.
Luna slowly nodded. "But, as with many modern problems, swift and righteous retribution is not what is needed with Riddle, for that would simply introduce a whole host of other problems. At most there should be the swift and righteous removal of the thing he's addicted to, the thing that hurt others. Silver Wing accomplished that upon their arrival here, for the most part. As for the rest of the work… well, perhaps you should not get too closely involved on any front involving his redemption. I think he brings out the worst in you. And I think you and Dumbledore bring out the worst in him."
"And... you bring out the best in him," Celestia observed slowly.
"And he the best in me," said Luna. "Oh, don't look at me like that, Tia. I am at my best when I have a challenge, when I have to struggle and struggle and struggle to reach my goal, which is frankly not something I've experiencing much in modern Equestria. Not outside of Riddle, that is, where every sentence is a struggle. You are at your best when you can overcome your obstacles quickly and joyfully, picking up speed as you go. Which is absolutely NOT something you can do in the face of Riddle's brick wall. Well, not without smashing him to smithereens. Or smashing yourself to smithereens."
Celestia sighed deeply. "I understand, Sister. I understood that when he was tormenting me with my own impulsiveness."
Luna paused very briefly. "Then what are you having trouble understanding?" she asked after a visible hesitation.
"...My own feelings of impotence," said Celestia. "Another result of those thousand years, for all that they forced me to learn your virtue of perseverance in the face of problems, is that I always feel like I must do something when I am faced with large issues that won't go away by waiting them out or offloading them onto others. And Riddle seems like precisely one of those problems."
"Tia," said Luna, her voice steady and serious. "Do you trust me?"
Celestia blinked. "I- well, yes, of course I do."
"Nightmare Moon did not permanently damage your faith in me?" asked Luna, still serious and steady.
Celestia visibly hesitated. "...No. She did not. You struggled to overcome her, you are back, and you are better than ever."
Luna smiled. She stood from her seat and walked over to wrap her neck around her sister's, embracing the Alicorn of Day in the cool embrace of night, as the sun slowly set behind the horizon, though this was not visible from their vantage point. "Then trust that I can once again pick up the burdens you cannot. When it comes to Riddle, you needn't do more than that."
Celestia felt many impulses to object, to say that she simply could not abide what she'd learned. After many long seconds, perhaps a full minute, she let all those impulses go. "Okay, Sister."
After a few minutes more, Luna ended the embrace and said, "Now. What did you mean when you said he tormented you?"
After a bit more time, Luna left for Night Court, leaving her Court Scholar behind without a word, so that he could continue working on his private project without interference from her. For now.
Albus had been given the choice to stop watching all this drama, if he wished, but he had chosen to simply abide by whatever was shown him. He will not influence the direction of the play. He will only witness it, and critique afterwards. Perhaps he will propose a ponderance or two to the playwright, if there is a great enough pause between scenes.
"I am sorry for trying to burn the contract," said Celestia to Tom after countless seconds had passed.
"Are you sorrowful that you tried, or sorrowful that you failed?"
"That I tried," said Celestia. "I apologize for trying."
Tom scoffed. "Easy enough to say now. I refuse to be so naïve as to believe you are promising you wouldn't try it again, if you are promising that. I might accept your apology in a hundred years. I doubt you would be sorrowful, regretful, or apologizing if you had succeeded in burning my contract."
"If I had succeeded, I would have attacked you, you would have survived, or not, you would have left, or not, and either way my sister would have been very sad, and very mad, and very justified to feel those ways. I was not thinking that far ahead."
"I'd argue you were not thinking at all," said Tom.
(He decided not to challenge the first 'or not'. He didn't think she had a chance of truly killing him, but in complex, free-form arguments where many words are exchanged at every chance to speak, the winning strategy is rarely to point out every last incorrect detail. Besides, there's no good reason he can see to point out that she's underestimating his combat strength and survivability. It's strange that he had the impulse to point it out at all. He'd thought he had killed his impulse to brag long ago, replacing it with an impulse to calculate his revelations. But he can perform that bit of self-reflection another time. For now, he had a princess to humble.)
"You would have also betrayed your oath to Mr. Silver, no?"
"On that I must not speak."
"You are doing a poor job of it."
Her mane flared. "I am only equine. You are-" she began to say, then froze again.
"-'not', were you about to say?" Riddle asked. "Well. Now you've piqued my curiosity. I can see how attacking me breaks your contract. I can see how speaking some things in front of Dumbledore would violate your contract. But how could saying 'you are not equine' POSSIBLY harm my interests? You know Dumbledore knows my true nature." A glowing horn freed her to answer.
She took a deep, calming breath first. "If I could have said it, I would not have meant it in the literal sense. And that would not have been Kind," she answered. "Nor Generous."
...
"And?"
"Your primary interest is to become happy, correct?"
"...And?"
Celestia sighed deeply. "I do not think I could explain it to you directly. I might be able to tell it through a story."
"If that's what it takes," Tom shrugged.
"Very well. Once upon a time, back before my sister had fallen, I was asked to take care of a dragon who regularly tormented-"
"Pardon me-"
"-my little-"
"-for interrupting," said Tom, his voice winning out, "but do you remember it well enough to show it as a memory? I much prefer that to a verbal retelling. You can give the moral afterwards, if it is not apparent from watching. Or have you failed to learn memory sharing magics?"
Celestia blinked a few times. "I have not, but... well, it has been a long time since I last recalled that memory as a memory. I think I shall have to go to the Astral Plane for a refresher."
"How long do you suspect that will take?"
"Perhaps ten minutes. The relevant parts of the memory, when strung together, are not that long."
"I ask that you take that time. As a tip, if you have not tried it before, try extracting the memory as you watch it."
"Very well." She vanished from her spot.
Tom set up a memory screen in the meantime.
"What is the Astral Plane, precisely?" asked Albus, now that there was a pause in the play.
"I am not truly sure," said Tom. "I personally experience it as a rendition of drifting through the void of space, surrounded by empty bookshelves. I was forced to go there by powers beyond my perception when I first became an Alicorn- by which I mean the stupid Ravenclaw girl definition of the word. Having both wings and a horn is unusual here; anypony who achieves it instantly becomes national royalty."
"May I see yours?" asked Albus, who had not yet seen Tom's bare back. Furthermore, Tom hides his horn in a way that standard acute mage-sight could not pierce.
Mage-sight isn't anything formal, as magic goes. It's simply a skill that develops with the experience of seeing so many illusions that you can guess which ones are in use without using magic yourself. Like a muggle 'illusionist' looking at the tricks of another muggle magician and being able to guess what the trick is without actually seeing it. It's the sort of skill one might need when watching the memory of another, or when reading a legend, or a newspaper story about a young hero betrothed to Ginevra Weasley – basically any time you are unable to use magical detection to figure out what's going on.
But whatever Tom's using to hide his horn, it's clever enough that Albus isn't certain he knows the answer just by looking. Albus has not seen Tom's horn since the very first time he saw Tom-as-a-pony. "You have hidden them well," he said.
Tom shrugged at the request, took off his glasses and cloak, and only when they were off did he pause for the briefest of moments. "For the record," said the bat-winged alicorn (as defined by young Hogwarts girls), "bare fur is considered a perfectly normal choice of clothes in pony society."
"Thank you for mentioning that," Albus said. The thought had occurred in the back of his mind that Celestia, ruler of a nation, was wearing the human equivalent of an exhibitionist outfit, but he saw no good way of broaching the subject on his own. "You claimed you achieved your horns and wings. You did not arrive with them?"
Tom shook his head. "I arrived with my wings, not my horn, the same as Mr. Silver and Ms. Memory. I cannot speak for their experiences, but in the moment I become an Alicorn, I was forcibly transported to the Astral Plane, after which I could come and go as I pleased. I know for a fact the same thing happened to them, but I do not know how their Astral Planes look to them. To answer your original question on what it is, the primary function seems to be perfect recall. Any memory I can remember as a vague happenstance, or that had a significant impact on me- even if I haven't thought about it in years- the Astral Plane can show me in crisp detail, as it originally happened, as I first experienced it. Even emotions and feelings can seep through during the rewatching, unlike with Pensieves."
"Is your Astral Plane a place only you can reach?" Albus asked.
"Alicorns can visit each others' Astral Planes with permission. Ascended Alicorns can visit the planes of the unascended without permission. There is also a mechanism that transports an older, experienced Alicorn to the plane of brand new Alicorns on their moment of first ascension. I am told Luna came to mine, though I left before encountering her because I did not yet wish my new status to be known. I was told Celestia went to Ms. Memory's and Mr. Silver's on their first ascension, which is how I knew to suspect it might happen to me. I believe that covers the bare essentials. Beyond that, all I have is speculation. For instance, it is where, I believe, Mr. Silver took Ms. Memory to disclose to her the Azkaban breakout; it is where, I believe, Celestia eavesdropped on him, as older ascended Alicorns are wont to do whenever the Astral Plane is involved. "
(And it is a place where, he believes, the Mirror is more directly involved, as it seems to be the case that phoenixes can travel to Earth from there, but not from here, even despite the trap. But Riddle is keeping that part to himself. Just on the off-chance Dumbledore finds a way to access the Astral Plane and call Fawkes to himself, leaving Riddle forever stranded.)
"Can you say more of Alicorns in general?" asked Albus.
"What would you like to know?"
"You said they are rare?"
"Yes."
"How rare?"
"Currently alive, I know of five. Seven, if you include our students. Nine if you include the cases about which I only have suspicions."
"How did you become one?"
"By using the Stone of Permanence to infuse the powers of a Mountain Troll and an Earthly unicorn into my thestral body." (A method unavailable to Albus, and thus almost certainly safe to disclose.) "Alicorns are members of all three standard pony tribes – earth ponies, unicorns, pegasi. Earth, magic, air."
"I assume the sacrifice of earthly creatures is not the standard means of becoming an Alicorn."
"I'm not sure if it is correct to assume that there is a standard means. You'd be right to point out that I cheated, but as I trust you've heard by now, cheating is technique. Perhaps that is simply how I was meant to do it. In your terms, Alicorns have become who they were meant to be. Fully Ascended Alicorns even more so."
"Intriguing." Albus was stroking his beard again. "No doubt Godric Gryffindor would be one, if he had been a pony. Unascended, perhaps?" This, Albus said aloud, but mostly for his own benefit, in an attempt to wrap his mind around the subject. "What is the difference between ascended and unascended?"
"The hair."
...
"What else?" asked Albus, silently wondering if Tom was simply having more 'fun' at this point.
"Ascended Alicorns have more raw magical might, and they tend to represent some greater concept. Day. Night. Magic." He frowned. "Love. In my case, I'd guess Death. I may have cheated to get it so soon, but I likely would have achieved Alicornhood by this point regardless. Perhaps twice over. Making the third Horcrux in the fashion I did was likely how I was 'supposed' to ascend in the absence of shortcuts."
"So... you have ascended?"
"The term 'ascension' can refer both to the initial Alicorn transformation and to the subsequent stage above that." He flicked his mane with his hoof. "As you can see, I have not yet reached the highest level."
"I see. Can only ponies ascend?"
"Only Equinoids, as far as I know. Those two alicorns I mentioned, about whom I have suspicions, are not ponies, and so I am not certain if they are alicorns or not. But they are still Equinoids – that is, sapient creatures born in or transformed by this mirror. Caution has curtailed me from visiting the Astral Plane in my human form. Are you hoping to try it yourself?"
After absorbing that new set of (possibly fabricated) constraints, Albus shook his head. "I suppose I should not risk a deliberate effort. But you said it can happen unexpectedly?"
There was a pause.
Tom's eyebrows rose. "A good and worrying point. Perhaps we should avoid anything which might bring you closer to ascension. Would you be willing to reconsider your desire to learn the Patronus? Or your offer to help with the novel? Even that might not be safe."
Albus sighed. "I hope you realize how truly maddening it is, at this point, for me to wonder what level of the game you are playing with me – if you are genuinely surprised at my point of involuntary ascension; if you are genuinely trying to dissuade me from my intended paths of learning or writing; if you are merely pretending at dissuasion for some deeper deception; if my paths are truly mine, or if it was all your design from the start. You continue to claim that you are playing no deceptions at all?"
"Not beyond deceptions by omission. My claim is that I am not playing the game with you."
"Have you omitted anything about the Astral Plane?"
"Some of my speculations."
"Is anything important therein?"
A potential escape route for you. "Yes."
"Is one of your reasons for reticence that it might advantage me and disadvantage you?"
"...Obviously."
"Would it make it easier for me to gauge your overall honesty, if you told me?"
"Did my telling you some of my old weaknesses make it any easier for you to gauge my honesty?"
That question gave Albus some pause. In truth, his "trust" in Tom Riddle had been put so far into the negative by Voldemort and Professor Quirrell that it will likely never turn positive again. The appearance of straightforward honesty out of Tom now has the effect of putting Albus on high alert, immediately suspecting deeper tricks along with the nagging reminder that sometimes things are just straightforward, but that's no virtue of Tom's even if it turns out to be the case in any one instance of truth-telling.
An abusive, manipulative liar might easily and honestly tell you the time of day, the weather outside, the options at the dinner table later in the day. Because maintaining a general veneer of trustworthiness is also part of the deception, so they'll tell the truth about anything inconsequential to their deeper aims. The key to unraveling deception, therefore, is to first find out what is consequential to their deeper aims. Which means understanding their deeper aims. Which almost always means being cynical about their motivations, a trick Albus prefers to reserve for his enemies, and which is in full effect with Tom.
"...No," Albus admitted. "Telling me your former vulnerabilities did not make it easier for me to gauge your honesty."
Tom gave a derisive huff. "Then I see no reason to humor any future requests along those lines."
"Perhaps it failed to affect me because you shared no true weaknesses, no current vulnerabilities. Even under the constraint of speaking only the truth, it is obvious you are not being candid. You are still calculating what to speak, what to hide, to what end."
"Welcome to the concept of conversation," Tom said, rather sharply and sarcastically.
"Indeed," Albus agreed, "when we speak of natural conversation. But what I ultimately require of you, Tom, is something supernatural. I require from you a conversation- no, a connection that would otherwise only be found between the closest of friends and family, something which I am not even sure can be done between the two of us, from your starting point, but which I am certain will not happen if you continue calculating every revelation. If it is within your means, I'll point out that the sooner you start being fully candid with me, the sooner you will reach your goals- if you were honest with me about them."
"Oh? Would that be a two-way street, then?"
"It is only possible as a two-way street, so yes. Though, under the circumstances, it might take me some time to acknowledge to myself that you are being candid and deserve the same courtesy in turn."
There was a pause. Then Tom's cloak and glasses returned to his body, followed by a blur, which was surprising enough to give Albus a small start, even though he knew he was safe.
"Apologies for the surprise- well, you have my courteous apology, not my deep apologies, I might do it again- whatever."
Albus raised an eyebrow.
"My inner-phoenix was getting annoyingly insistent, but I do not hear it in my human form."
"Ah," said a man who has had to deal with the downsides of a phoenix's companionship for the past few decades of his life. "I see."
For the first time, Albus got a good, solid look at the man Tom Riddle is now claiming to have become, perhaps the man he had been meant to become instead of a red-eyed, pale-skinned, flat-nosed, bald-headed, serpentine monster.
The man standing before Albus currently wore the same robes as Quirinus Quirrell. He looked like an austere yet eminent Hogwarts Professor, firm in his features, expression, and posture. Danger, power, and strength. Tamed, honed, and refined. Like a blade of finest sharpness, sheathed in a scabbard of solid steel. Ready to be drawn at a moment's notice, in the hands of a master who would never cut an inch more than intended.
In that moment, Albus briefly indulged in an old fantasy he had stopped caring about since his brother had been tortured into insanity. He wondered how things might have turned out, had he not denied Tom Riddle the position of Defense Professor at Hogwarts all those years ago.
And then Celestia reappeared, bringing an end to his brief daydream.
"I have- who are-" she began, then paused.
The corners of Tom's lips twitched upward, ever so slightly. "I suppose we never were properly introduced," said the man whose voice perfectly matched the tone and timbre of his pony form's. "I am Tom Riddle... human of Earth, I suppose. I don't believe I ever amassed any official titles outside of my aliases."
If only 'Defense Professor of Hogwarts' could have been that title, Albus briefly thought. How long has it been, Albus wondered, since that man introduced himself as himself to someone who did not already know him. Decades, probably. Maybe almost a full half-century.
"'Descendant of Salazar' would serve," Albus offered. "Or would you prefer 'Wearer of Masks'?"
"I created most of the masks I wore."
"Hm... 'Master of Masks'?"
Tom blinked. "That is actually half-decent."
"Thank you."
"You're welcome. Madman of Prophecy."
Albus was torn between allowing his expression to sour and bursting into mad laughter, and ended up doing neither.
"Human of earth is fine," said Celestia, who seemed to be having a bit of trouble not impolitely staring at Tom. She cleared her throat. "I have the memory. For context, what you are about to see happened after multiple nearby villages reported dragon attacks, and in particular after a report that a foal had been hurt. Are you ready?"
"Go ahead."
Upon the parchment screen, the silver sliver of liquid shifted and drifted into the shape of a vast verdant forest beneath a blue sky, passing swiftly beneath the vantage point of the viewer, though only an experienced broomstick rider might be able to recognize the high speed, at this height.
It wasn't a perfect, unbroken canopy of green. The memory started with the viewer gazing directly down at many rooftops peaking above the forest at various points. Then the perspective gazed upwards. The destination of the flyer was clear: a rising pillar of smoke billowed up from just beyond the peak of one of the many tree-covered mountains. As the viewpoint approached the smoke, sounds of battle drifted towards her, causing her to pick up speed.
The battle, upon arrival, was not one-sided. A deep blue unicorn held her own against a raging scaled beast twice her size. Neither was doing any damage to the other, though the pony was breathing heavily.
"Just- tell me- why!" shouted the blue unicorn in a female voice, accompanied by a large burst of what looked like pure magic, from her horn.
The magic washed over the dragon's head, and there was a roar of pain, followed by a roar of anger and a blast of fire. The fire collided against the shield of the unicorn, which did not shatter, but did not stay in one place. The fire forced the shield backwards into the caster, which pushed her backwards into a tree in a manner that did not look painless. Her concentration on the spell broke and she fell to the ground.
The dragon didn't hesitate to pounce. "Trespassers must suffer!" it shouted, raising a claw.
"LULU!" shouted a voice from the screen.
(It was loud enough to startle Albus.
Tom didn't flinch.)
Dragon claws descended towards the fallen unicorn, but met a golden barrier. The dragon gave a hiss and reeled, glancing in shock at the char marks on its own scales.
"Are you alright, Lulu?" asked the screen's disembodied voice, looking at the downed blue unicorn.
There was a groan. "You- know- I'm- too old- for- nicknames- Tia."
There was an audible sigh of relief. "Are you alright, Selena?"
"I- had it- under- control," said the pony who was struggling to breathe, let alone stand. Her horn did glow dangerously, at least.
An impotent roar drew the gaze of memory towards a dragon reeling from the golden barrier once again, its tail burnt black.
"Enough," said Celestia, and with a golden glow, chains sprung up around the dragon. These did not burn, though they held firm. "Do you want to die?" she asked the dragon in a frustrated voice. "This behavior is going to get you killed. If not by me or my sister, then by somepony else who is not strong enough to stop you without killing you."
"Good!" the dragon barked from beneath its bonds. "Better dead than weak! If you don't kill me, I may as well kill myself."
"What? Why?! What would that solve? And you did not seem weak to me."
"I lost to a pony," he spat. "A dragon's worst shame. And now she-" he snarled, as if stating her sex was an insult "-tries to comfort me about it?"
"I am an Alicorn. The first of my kind, as far as I'm aware."
"A pony is a pony!" declared the dragon. "Our pride is to be the strongest, and the strong would never lose to one. Perhaps an army. But never just one. Your condescension is the greatest insult you could have possibly offered."
An audible sigh came from the memory's viewpoint and... "I move. The sun." ...a brief demonstration was provided. (It was not shown in the memory, nor mentioned by Celestia to the viewers, but in the moment where she grasped the sun, her mane had burned a bright, pure white, the same color as the orb in the sky.) "I would be surprised if any dragon could overcome me at this point. Individually or as an army."
The dragon was, understandably, speechless.
This is the moment that a new voice cut in. A heavily panting voice. "I am- not sure- that- is the weakness- he truly means- Tia."
The viewing window was now occupied by the visage of a navy blue pony. "Beg pardon, Lulu? Actually, hold. Philomena!" And a phoenix appeared on the blue unicorn's back.
There was a blissful sigh. "Thank you, Philomena," said the blue unicorn. The Phoenix crooned, nodding its head once.
"You were saying?" asked Celestia's voice.
"Well…" said Luna, glancing at the Dragon briefly. "Think of it this way," she whispered in a voice low enough that it wouldn't be heard by fellow ponies at the range the dragon had been restrained to. "Instead of trying to carve out greater territory by putting himself at risk in contest against other dragons, he instead picks on the helpless, hapless, defenseless ponies who enter his territory. He bullies those he perceives to be weaker than himself, instead of challenging those he suspects to be his equal, or perhaps his better. He does to ponies what he wishes, what he perhaps believes he should be able to do against his fellow dragons. But the fact of the matter is he does not do it to his fellow dragons, and in particular his fellow males. Or at least he does not go out of his way to do it. He is cheating his way to emotional satisfaction, which leaves him deeply unsatisfied. He is weak because he fights ponies instead of dragons. Fundamentally, he is weak because he cannot impress a dragoness, if I had to guess. He is weak in his character, and weak in his convictions, and he is weak because he fears true tests of strength. He does not believe he is weak because he failed to beat you, his loss to you was simply the final nail in his coffin regarding a matter he already believed, deep down."
"...Do you know all of this," said Celestia, whispering back, "or is it just a theory?"
"I have my ways of knowing things about dragons," said Selena, somewhat mysteriously.
("I did not know about the Master Fool, at this point," Celestia said to Riddle, pausing the memory. "Nor my sister's apprenticeship to him."
"I picked up on that."
"The Master Fool?" asked Dumbledore.
It would have been so easy for Riddle to have a bit of fun at that point. But fun at Merlin's expense isn't wise... and it would also violate the trust Merlin placed in him. If he were to say "Oh, nobody. It's just Merlin," or anything along those lines, it would produce a revealing reaction in Dumbledore. Even the line itself might be enough for Celestia to deduce that the Master Fool was once human, or at the very least a known quantity by entities from beyond the planet Equus. Thus, Riddle would bear responsibility for violating Merlin's confidences. Perhaps even the old him would have cared about that from a pure question of power calculation, from his first rule of not making strong, potentially vicious enemies. But the new him cares about Merlin's trust as valuable in itself, regardless of the power dynamic between them- well, no, perhaps simply with less regard to the power dynamic than usual.
"A powerful and ancient dragon," Riddle said simply. "Digression over, and unnecessary in the first place."
Despite his imperiousness, Celestia did not object to his tone, nor to his unspoken request.)
"It is just a theory," Selena said, still whispering, "but I suspect at least some of those factors are at play."
"Hm..." Tia whispered. The viewing window turned to face the dragon, whose head was now bowed. "Dragon," she addressed in the Royal Canterlot Voice.
A scaled head crowned with horns rose to face her.
"I am Celestia, Princess of Equestria. What is your name?"
"Firescale." After he said it, his chains disappeared.
"Harass my subjects no more, and we shall not see each other again."
That was when the staring contest began.
"So if I want a rematch, I should harass your subjects?"
"If you want to be teleported to the other side of the world- I don't care if your scales are magic-proof, I will find a way- you should harass my subjects. Killing my subjects will earn your death, and not necessarily at my or my sister's horns. Antagonizing ponies is never a wise move in the long run. Not all of us are forgiving. Not all of us are weak enough that we'd lose to you. And not all of us are strong enough to spare you."
The staring contest continued.
"Tia..." Selena whispered nervously. "Perhaps we should not let him go."
"Hush, Lulu," Tia whispered back. The center of the viewing window did not shift away from those slitted yellow eyes. "Your doubts and suspicions are reasonable, but they are still a matter of belief. I choose to believe there is true strength in him. Or at the very least, the potential for it."
The yellow eyes broke contact, looking down. "Very well."
And then the dragon took to the skies. Then the memory ended.
"The moral?" asked Riddle instantly.
"Here," said Celestia, removing a... a rock? Yes, removing a rock from her regalia. "Read this."
He looked at the letters carved onto the rock- more of a stone slab, actually, now that he could see the letters.
To Celestia, Princess of Equestria
Your sister was right about everything. But so were you.
Firescale, Dragon Lord
Riddle looked back up to Celestia, raising an eyebrow.
"That rock is how I and Firescale learned of the message delivery function of dragon's breath. He carved that message onto stone and kept it with him, not wishing to violate my promise by coming to meet me, not wishing to entrust it to a messenger. One day he burned it in a fit of impotent rage. Along with my congratulations at his new station of Dragon Lord and a request for clarification, I asked a brave pegasus to convey to Lord Firescale the great surprise of me and my court when his message appeared before me and slammed into my marbled floor. I am told he laughed, claiming he didn't know dragon breath could do that, but he's glad he now has a means of speaking to me, even though we were not to see each other again. I only learned of this after I got his second message."
She pulled out another slab.
When we first met, I was in such a state that I was seriously considering your offer of assisted suicide. It is only due to your whispered words to your sister that I found reason to live. My kin would think less of me if they knew I felt this way about my famed encounter with 'The Sun God'. From the depths of my heart, thank you for believing in me. Someone had to be the first. May we never see each other again.
The message ended there.
"An odd valediction," Riddle observed, ignoring his temptation to remark on the message's eloquence. Who knows but that Draconic might be capable of conveying some concepts more eloquently than English.
"A natural valediction," Celestia replied. "From his perspective. His encounter with me became a legend in the minds of many, including himself."
"How so?" asked Riddle.
"Well... he traveled from territory to territory, challenging his kin to contests of dominance with prizes of gems- but not land- as the stakes. It was, at the time, an equitable yet unusual practice that he himself pioneered. Win or lose, he would never claim his prize, saying afterwards that he only sought to grow stronger through battle, and this allowed for a friendly exchange of words that was rare in the dragon culture of that era. Among other tales, he spread the story of 'The pony who can move the sun' – though he only retold the fact that he saw me do it, not the fact that he fought me, for he still felt that was a source of shame at the time, and he believed his kin would believe him even less if he included our fight, or think less of him if he admitted he lost to a pony. So for many years, he would fight, he would tell tales, he would grow stronger. And then when it became clear to all of Equus that someone other than Discord was indeed controlling the sun – and the moon, for that matter – and when it became clear it was likely a pony responsible for both, in a manner that could not be faked – he was asked for more details about his tale. At that point he was one of the strongest dragons on Equus, if not the strongest dragon, aside from the rumored 'great recluse', and so his words carried more weight when he recalled the full encounter to his kin. Including my final words." She adopted a minor cadence. "Harass my subjects no more, and we shall not see each other again." She sighed, and her gaze went a bit distant. "Those words lasted far longer than I thought they would…"
The following final remarks of the first Dragon Lord regarding Celestia have not quite been lost to time and the records of history. So long as, someday, Merlin is asked to personally share his memory of this gathering of dragons, which he attended in disguise, and out of curiosity, these words might one day live on in more than distant, embellished legend.
"NO. She is not offering a means of challenging her, she is nature declaring its edict. Only a fool tries to vaporize the ocean; every drop you burn, the rain shall refill. Only a fool tries to challenge the moon; you will run out of air long before you reach it. And only a fool tries to challenge the sun; you will be vaporized, for all that your scales are fireproof. If I ever harassed her subjects, it would be from a desire to see if I could handle the challenge of being teleported to the other side of the world. And I shall certainly never kill her subjects. There is a line all wise dragons must deal with, the line between pride and arrogance. And while that line can be difficult for even the best of us to draw, or even admit exists in the first place-" he glared at a few dragons in particular "-I think that challenging the greatest forces of nature clearly crosses it, going well beyond pride and far into the realm of sheer, foolish arrogance. One might challenge a maelstrom with the goal of surviving it. You do not challenge one with the hopes of dispelling it. Such is a challenge to Celestia. If I hear any of you fools hurt her subjects more than necessary to expel them from your territory, I will come to challenge you for that territory- all of it. And if I hear any of you killed one of her subjects, and if Celestia or an army of ponies does not kill you first, I will personally hunt you down and-"
"But I did see him again," said Celestia, her gaze returning sharply to Riddle. "For I did not mean it in quite the way he took it. Though of course I exchanged a few more letters first, to ensure he would not take it the wrong way again."
"Hm," said Riddle. "As mildly interesting as all that was, I ask you to relate it to my original question. You claim that calling me 'inequine' would have harmed my interests. I would prefer to hear an explanation, now in plain language, as to why that might be the case."
"Then I shall speak as plainly as possible. If I had, at any point, said something that caused Firescale to hate me forever, if I had called him inequine due to his past actions, or tried to inflict any other manner of shame upon him, he would not have come around. If 'mere' faith in someone has the power to improve their life, if believing in them enables them to adopt and chase a new vision for themselves that was until that point beyond their scope of imagination, then 'mere' BAD faith can have the opposite effect. When you speak ill of someone else, when you are not empathizing, when you criticize, when you 'moralize', as you put it, even if what you are saying is true, the target of your criticism will perceive that they are in a scenario of bad faith – which is also true – and that will make them just a little more of what they already are."
Riddle tilted his head at the surprisingly reasonable observation. He got the sense that Celestia was finally giving this matter more weight of cautious and careful consideration – and thus more mental effort – than she'd given to any matter in a long time. It was not quite like speaking to a different person. More like speaking to a different mode of the same person. A mode that hasn't properly been fully activated and alert for years, or decades, or centuries, and so it's coming with a good deal of rust.
"The words that nearly left my lips," Celestia continued, "made it fully obvious to me that I was speaking and acting in full-fledged, unbridled, and unlimited bad faith towards you. Which would have made you just a little bit more of what you already are, and not just a little bit more of what you aspire to be. Which was going against your interests, which is why the contract kicked in, et cetera."
And the rust was quickly being shed.
Riddle found that no immediate criticisms of her argument itself were coming to mind – in fact, he felt that his own perceptions were on the edge of a deeper insight, almost like a half-decent Night Court session. "You also called it unKind and unGenerous," he prompted. (The Tongues spell, or perhaps his own familiarity with pony culture, now lets him know when those words are being spoken with enough weight to deserve capitalization, in the speaker's opinion.)
"Yes. Being good faith is at the heart of Kindness. Offering good faith is at the heart of Generosity. Being bad faith is the opposite of Kindness, and offering bad faith is the opposite of Generosity."
And even though Riddle found no criticisms of the argument – in that her wise claims about what Kindness and Generosity are were more or less in-line with everything he knew about them – that didn't mean he saw nothing at all to criticize.
"Meaning that you, former bearer of those elements, were about to embody their opposites."
"Yes," said Celestia. Only her sister might have noticed the slight hesitation, the visible difficulty in admitting that. "Emphasis on former. Unfortunately, I could not always find a way for Kindness and Generosity to work. Unfortunately, there exist those who will readily exploit the Kindness and Generosity of others to gain power and to further their own ends, in the process undermining Kindness and Generosity themselves. As a leader of a nation, I learned the hard way that there are hard limits to my now-former elements."
Riddle gave a sardonic smile. "Do you believe the current bearers are better suited to handle those hard limits than you are?"
"Given that neither Fluttershy nor Rarity are leaders, and do not aspire to be leaders, and given that fewer exploiters exist in Equestria in general in this day and age, it is my current hope that they can embody those elements more purely than I ever did. Or perhaps they will be tested by fire and overcome the 'hard limits' I could not. Perhaps those two will find new and creative ways to be truly and genuinely Kind and Generous, even to the nefarious, in such a way that the interests of Kindness and Generosity themselves are not undermined."
The oddity of that phrasing was, again, something that only could have been noticed by her sister. Celestia was going above and beyond in an effort to understand Riddle's way of looking at the world – that of competing interests – to the point that she was quite literally trying to speak his language.
"But to get back on topic," she continued, "do you now see why my outright statement that I view you in bad faith would harm your interests, if your greatest current interest is to be happy?"
"Not really. I already knew you would view me that way after learning more of my history; an admission to the fact changes little."
Celestia sighed. "Then can you at least see why being in the presence of those who view you in bad faith would harm your interest to be happy?"
"That I can see. Which raises the interesting technical question of how you stand here unparalyzed."
Celestia scowled. "You really are an awful pony," she successfully said without paralytic intervention. "You asked me to be here, you asked me to interact with that human, you asked me to explain myself, all because it serves your interests. This whole set-up with the Mirror only works when all of us are in the same place, according to you. I did not leave at the moment of realizing my presence might hurt your interests because I was not fully aware which interest of yours I should be attempting to not violate at any given moment. I hate that contract, and I wish I hadn't signed it. But since I have, I am declaring an ultimatum, for it has vividly occurred to me over the course of the last hour that the contract does not force me to help your interests. I am simply forced to not use your secrets to deliberately harm them, which is much easier to do when I am nowhere near you or your interests or your secrets. Nothing is physically stopping me from getting up and leaving this room. And I will do exactly that unless you adhere to some manner of common courtesy. Or simpler yet, a permanent silencing barrier between us whenever I'm down here."
"Sensible," Riddle allowed. "I think I can agree to that."
"Good," said Celestia. Her horn glowed, and a piece of blank parchment was drawn from her regalia. "Because I am going to ask you to sign to it. Along with a few other conditions."
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11721559
Thank you for your response. I did enjoy it immensely and I am very excited to see another update. Alas, it's going to have to wait for tomorrow. I have learned not to read MoR or PoP while exhausted. So many times during both stories I had to just stop and curl up into a ball while my head exploded (figuratively, unlike certain ponies) from the various reveals, big and small. Welcome back and I hope to follow you onto this journey's end.
I don't know why, but as I was trying to think of something to say about the content of this chapter, I put to words why I like playing video games using glitches. I like playing games with glitches because the set of rules that the programmers layed out, and the set of rules that the game designer tried to enforce are different things. And rules that can't be enforced with the tools the players are given, are not rules. I find it fun to use the real rules to overcome the challenges laid out in the games.
I think I can only think of one example where this technically occured and the entity survived? Spitfire, killing the Mega Dust Storm in The Maretian?
Maybe Rainbow Dash when she pulled a Launchpad McQuack in Austreoh?
Celestia has found wiggle room again even under such contracts?
Riddle is maybe going to have to think more along deep time planning than before?
well this is a interesting chapter.
i love it.
And that's obviously not a lie because stuff like that happens all the time
... Will Tom get a taste of his own medicine now?
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In a sense, yes. In another sense, I could have written the scene where he's skeptical, and then Celestia backs it up with the actual memory of the stone appearing in her court, the second one appearing in her court, her later reunion on friendly terms with Firescale, etc. Or I could have had Riddle demand Luna to appear to confirm her sister's honesty, or simply have him legilimize Celestia, or have her take a few drops of Veritaserum. But that would have bogged down the flow of the story, and the truth is I simply didn't intend for that rock to be a fakeable piece of evidence that warranted a demand for better evidence. Ideally, the first time around I would have written the scene such that Celestia's memory screen jumps to the point where she received the rock, and then further jump to the second rock, just to make it clear she wasn't trying to pull anything funny when she showed him the ACTUAL rocks.
The paranoid and skeptical one, in this sequence of scenes, is Dumbledore even more than Riddle. Riddle will call a callable bluff, and he won't bother with things that he doesn't consider likely to be bluffs. Being skeptical of literally everything all the time is currently Dumbledore's role in the narrative, and having Riddle do it too... you're not wrong that it's in character for him to do it, and slightly out-of-character for him to NOT do it. But it just slipped my mind.
I guess I'm falling into the trap that Oda did with Sanji and Law, where Law became the one that fulfilled a lot of narrative roles that Sanji used to, and left Sanji to rot a little.
11722102
That is indeed Celestia's intention, and it might have perhaps been among my own intentions when writing, at some point or another.
11721530
Thanks for the reply!
I hereby grant you an official poetic license to keep this mechanic, despite any plot hole problems, in the interest of writing an enjoyable story :).
It is obvious how such a device feels necessary to bend the plot the right way, much like Parseltongue served the same purpose in HPMOR. Though if you really really wanted, maybe you could have used some elaboration of Parseltongue in the places where you currently use the Patronus lie detector plot device? Or you could make it a property of the True Patronus only, and if e.g. Dumbledore needed to know about it, say that Dumbledore learned about it privately from hints an old book about Godric Gryffindor, which Dumbledore only understood after thinking about seeing the True Patronus.
Chapter 27 of HPMOR actually talks about how mental privacy won the magical arms race. In the context of Occlumency vs Legilimency, but the Patronus-lie thing has much the same effect. Which is why your introduction of a supposedly widely known perfect lie detector surprised me. Harry entering the elite club of interesting people able to lie is quite central to the HPMOR plot.
Though to be fair, this is arguably also a plot hole (probably deliberately glossed over) in HPMOR. Because the world of HPMOR does contain a perfect lie detector, namely the unbreakable vow "I will tell truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth, for the next 5 minutes".
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Well, the Vow can be used at great cost, so with a great enough reason, wizards DO use it as a lie detector. It's just that it can't be spammed left and right. The Patronus charm has a different constraint on why it isn't used as a lie detector, in my imaginings. It boils down to the fact that it isn't something you can force someone to cast. You can try all manner of coersion, but if they simply refuse, you're sorry out of luck. If refusal to testify via your own Patronus message is used against you in the court of law, there are probably a lot of Patronus casters who would take offense to that, and Patronus casters are powerful wizards on average, and as a government you don't want a lot of powerful wizards angry at you. In the wizarding world, for those in the know about Patronus message truth-telling, as I envision it, wizards powerful enough to cast a corporeal Patronus in the first place are given the respect of not being forced to testify against themselves. "Oh, you learned one of the most difficult and brightest magics in existence and can now help us guard against Dementors? That's great! Say, would you mind if the government was allowed to force you to cast the spell to verify your honesty at any given point?" Smart Patronus casters: "HA! Yeah, not a chance."
Also, Professor Quirrell said this:
"Let us hope," Professor Quirrell said, "that you succeed upon this try, Mr. Potter. For if you do, the Headmaster may teach you his trick of using a Patronus to send messages that cannot be forged or intercepted,"
This line implies that in canon HPMoR, Dumbledore was the first/only modern wizard to discover that Patronuses even COULD send messages. I don't think Professor Quirrell would specifically call it Dumbledore's trick otherwise. Even if that's not the case and there's historical precedent for the ability, sending messages is another layer of complexity and difficulty on top of a corporeal Patronus. Not all Patronus casters can do it. Punishing powerful wizards for learning bright and diffcult magics by using a quirk of those magics against them in a court of law... is not grounds that 'the light' would be willing to concede, if 'the light' is smart, and Dumbledore certainly is.
And with regards to your suggested Parseltongue integration idea, well... it's never confirmed in HPMoR that Godric knew the Patronus 2.0, only that he saw the truth of Dementors and Death, which prevented him from casting the Patronus 1.0. Headcanon for this story is that Godric never managed 2.0. So he wouldn't have left a journal behind for Dumbledore to go 'AHA!' about it. And anything that Harry CLAIMS about magical truth-telling functions isn't something Dumbledore could have trusted under those circumstances, it had to be a magical mechanic Dumbledore ALREADY knew about prior to being frozen, otherwise it gets written off as 'untrustworthy Voldemort manipulation'. Even what he saw with Harry wasn't fully trustworthy, it could have all been smoke and mirrors, but he can at least trust his own prior knowledge, and anything he can verify on his side of the Mirror, like not being able to cast the Patronus anymore.
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But even Dumbledore is very much not all-powerful in the Wizengamot. And it looks really, really bad if everybody knows that you have the ability to tell the truth, but choose not to.
In many situations, it is incredibly beneficial to be able to say something, and have it believed beyond doubt. Look at Harry and Tom Riddle - they use Parseltungue all the time in their relationship, because the generated trust enables a positive sum cooperation. In the same way, powerful Wizards in the Wizengamot would benefit enormously politically, from being able to selectively say things which are true beyond doubt in a Wizengamot debate.
So soon enough, voluntary patronus lie detection would become normalized in the Wizengamot. And it would become obvious and politically untenuous when a wizard refused to confirm the truth of a claim using his patronus. Which would likely soon lead to most wizards keeping it a secret whether they could cast the patronus - which clearly has not happened in HPMOR canon.
I agree that it is never confirmed, but it is clearly hinted at as a possibility. And Godric would have kept it secret for the same reason that Harry does. The point is that Godric knowing Patronus 2.0 would be completely consistent with canon, no plot holes, if you were to make it true in your headcanon and in your fanfic. Since the lie detector was not widely known or available, it would not be a plothole for all of HPMOR wizarding history.
Good point about Dumbledore saying his trick. If everybody had known about patronus messages forever, then it would quickly have been discovered that you can't lie with them. Harry does not discover so easily, because Harry almost never lies, But most people lie more, and would surely have discovered it easily when lying failed blatantly for them. But if only Dumbledore knew, then it doesn't make all of HPMOR history a plot hole.
11723302
I'm aware it's perfectly plausible in HPMoR canon that Godric knew the Patronus 2.0. That's why I said it's headcanon for this story that he didn't. I've already referenced it a few times, including in the most recent chapter, when Dumbledore was speculating on how Alicorns worked, and proposed that Godric might have reached the unascended level if he'd been born a pony. And earlier with Harry, when Harry pointed out that Dumbledore now stands where Godric did, which happened in the very chapter in question. That line works WAAAAAY better if Godric didn't actually ever manage to realize that he needed to wish to destroy death / preserve all sapient life from death to cast the Patronus 2.0.
Maybe I should say 'headcanon for this story so far', maybe I should have it simply be the case that Harry puts more subjective probability on the hypothesis that Godric didn't figure it out, thus keeping open the possibility that Godric DID figure it out in unrecorded history. I've never actually confirmed it outright in narration, I don't think, just had characters speculate or reference it. But up until this point, I think the story works much better under the 'Godric couldn't cast it' hypothesis.
And the speculation about the Patronus messages isn't quite that only Dumbledore knew how to do them; it's that he discovered how to do them, then he taught the trick to all the members of the Order of the Phoenix, including Bones, McGonagall, Moody, Snape, and that auror from the Azkaban breakout. So the explanation is that there simply isn't much legal precedent yet for people sending truthful messages via Patronus. And like I said, any/all of Dumbledore's actions or inactions can be justified via 'prophecy told him to do it'. So if prophecy told Dumbledore 'don't use Patronus message honesty to prove innocence in trials', then we wouldn't see them used in trials unless some OTHER Order member got put on trial and independently got the bright idea to use Patronus honesty messages to prove their innocence.
But when it comes to refusing to use a Patronus to prove your innocence, again, if the precedent isn't already 'this can't be used against you in the court of law', then that's what the precedent WILL be if the Harry/Riddle team have anything to say about it. You are ALLOWED to use it to prove your belief in your own innocence and your testified claims, if you're an Occlumens and can't testify under Veritaserum. The lack of using it does NOT prove or suggest your guilt. At the very least, that is the legal precedent Harry/Riddle will want to set somehow, just so that the act of learning a corporeal Patronus charm does not have any legal disincentives attached to it.
The Wizengamot might not give a flying hoot about Muggle America's 5th Amendment prohibiting lowly citizen criminal suspects from being compelled to testify against themselves, but if compelling a Patronus caster in the way you think the Wizengamot would has the consequence of infuriating the most powerful wizard in the world - and their current biggest military asset now that Dementors are off the table and Dumbledore is gone - they WILL think twice. One of the general insights of HPMoR is that, just because something is useful (cough cough FALSE BELIEFS cough cough), that doesn't make it GOOD. It might be USEFUL for Patronus messages to be used as lie detectors (for the caster only, remember, it can't detect lies, it simply can't repeat lies spoken BY THE CASTER, in this story), but that doesn't mean using them in that way for the express cause of proving honesty or building trust will be an ultimately good thing, no mstter how good it LOOKS on paper.
Plus, remember that phoenixes aren't considered important, politically speaking. The opposition to truth and justice would probably have found a way to invalidate Patronus messages as well, if casters all of the sudden start using them as truth-telling vectors to good effect, which is another reason why prophecy might tell Dumbledore to avoid lie-detection patronus legal schemes (until Harry/Vodlemort implement it competently, though the prophecies wouldn't say that and would just leave Dumbledore in the dark, of course). You can see the excuses already, can't you? "We can only take it on the word of the caster that the Patronus isn't telling a lie. It could be a conspiracy by all Patornus casters to PRETEND Patronus messages have that restriction. What? A Vow to prove you are telling the truth? No, that would be a tragic waste of magic for a matter as minor as this. Better to let the idea drop and proceed as usual; Patronus testimony will be viewed no differently than ordinary testimony."
This fic is full of contracts how do you even keep up with all of them?
11756681
Mostly by having Riddle have a firm "I shall not be bound" attitude. And everything else is mostly "if this contract isn't formed, the plot explodes". Like by having anybody who knows them revealing Riddle's secrets.
Can't say who is in a worse spot, Celestia or Dumbledore. Riddle sure knows to make himself a pain in someone side
The Alicorn realm is the perfect anti Alzheimer place.
Perfect recall would be amazing for science and other professionals.