Harry Potter and the Prancing of Ponies

by The Guy Who Writes

Chapter 78: UnKind

Hermione Granger saw a sealed and levitating letter on her bedstand that night, floating in front of her phoenix's perch as if to indicate its importance. The missive was a pure white color, not the dirty yellow of wizard's parchment, but it wasn't quite a muggle-style envelope. There was no flap that sticks after you lick it; the letter was literally seamless to the naked eye – no seams or slits or creases or openings or anything else that she could find, just a purely white envelope the size of a muggle envelope. A simple, handwritten scrawl in the dead center of the rectangle said only Ms. Granger. She wondered if Harry was involved, due to the non-wizard paper, but it's not Harry's handwriting. When she picked up the envelope and flipped it over, she found """instructions""" on the back:

How am I opened? That is the most important part of the riddle. (Please perform your attempts in private. If you would like a hint, cast Luminos upon the envelope.)

Hermione sighed and went into the room inside her trunk – a magical trunk which had been delivered to her over the summer, a hand-made gift from Twilight Sparkle and Rarity. There, she tried puzzling out the riddle.

Her cautious, timid, and failed attempts slowly escalated, until eventually she tried brute force – i.e. a "Finite Incantatum!" that did nothing, followed by a careful "Diffindo." charm. The cutting curse left the envelope completely uncut, undamaged, and even unwrinkled, just as all her previous attempts had left it. The letter – "Inflammare" – didn't burn either, and – "Aguamenti" – it was perfectly waterproof despite the feel of normal paper.

Then a new idea came to her…

"Alohomora."

…that didn't work either. She was beginning to suspect that she might be dealing with a Thing of Power. She also realized this test is going to be harder than she thought.

She looked at the instructions again.

How am I opened? That is the most important part of the riddle. (Please perform your attempts in private. If you would like a hint, cast Luminos upon the envelope.)

She decided she wanted the hint.

"Luminos."

Under the red glow of the spell that lit up the paper, new letters appeared:

The wording of the previous hint – not the part in parentheses, though that is useful information to the answer as well – is itself an obscure hint. (If you want another hint, you must wait at least fifteen minutes, then cast Luminos again.)

She sighed. She now suspected she knew who was behind this letter, given just how unashamedly difficult it was. Not to mention the wording. She had an impulse to leave the letter be… but it was probably fine? It was a test, a riddle, and she was a Ravenclaw.

She looked at the wording of the previous hint.

How am I opened? That is the most important part of the riddle.

She was… honestly drawing a blank. But she'd think about it for at least fifteen minutes.

…

…

…

…

…

After fifteen minutes, the best she managed to imagine was that 'riddle' might refer to she-knows-who. And he's asking how he himself is opened. And she had absolutely no clue.

Hint time.

"Luminos."

How do you successfully reach, open, and influence a closed-off mind in a positive way? (Fifteen more minutes, and you may cast Luminos one final time for your final hint.)

…

(She was almost tempted to get out her homework and wait out the fifteen minutes, but that felt like cheating.)

…

…

…

"Luminos."

Think back to the riddle you solved the day of the tour, before the young Slytherin saw and explained the answer at the end of the tour. Think back to what you were told after you solved it much earlier. (If you cannot solve this in thirty minutes, you will be told the answer after a final Luminos.)

…Oh.

She's pretty sure she sees the answer now. Checking back on previous hints… yes, it makes sense that she should be in private. Does it make sense in the other ways? Is this really the most important thing, the means by which a Riddle can be opened and changed?

Only one way to find out. After a moment to center herself…

"Expecto Patronum!"

When the letter still didn't open, she really was tempted to wait out the full thirty minutes. But as a last-ditch effort, she tried putting the letter into her corporeal Patronus and taking it out again.

The envelope opened, a seam cutting perfectly straight across the top where the fold had been.

When the stress of failing the test over and over had finally given way to relief, Hermione took out the contents of the envelope (written on muggle-style copy paper, folded into thirds so that the letter would fit inside the envelope). She let go of her wand to do so, deactivating her Patronus.

The letter flew back into the envelope, which resealed itself.

If she were Twilight Sparkle, her hair would be frizzing in frustration at this point. But since she is Hermione Granger, she simply took a few moments to centered herself again. She recast her Patronus and re-opened the letter, carefully keeping her Patronus active this time as she read the extremely fine print:

This is a request that we initiate and establish important communication between us. If your free will aligns with this request, please circle a date below for our first fully honest conversation.

Advice: One of three Princesses, L, recommends you bravely and prudently choose the same night you read this letter, and no later than next weekend. The other two, T and C, recommend no later than the end of the month, but they do not want to pressure you, and they remind you that you are free to never have the conversation if you do not wish to have it. I would prefer sooner rather than later as well, though I am also tempted to say that I would prefer we never have the conversation.

The first day, if there ever IS a first day, will last no longer than an hour, and you will be introduced to the format that will hopefully resolve conflict peacefully and positively in the long run. You may bring your phoenix to all sessions.

Hermione re-read it a few times, focusing mostly on the supposed recommendations of the princesses. If it was a lie, was it reverse psychology? Or reverse-reverse psychology? And if it wasn't a lie…

She looked down to the calendar below the paragraph, which showed only the current month. Future dates were glowing. Past dates were dimmed out and grey. Today's date was half-glowing – no, less than a quarter glowing, with a perfectly clear line cutting horizontally across the square, dividing the date into a dim upper part and a glowing lower part. The upper part was much bigger than the lower part. Checking her watch… yes, the ratio of glowing-to-not-glowing matched the ratio of time-remaining versus time-elapsed in today's date. It's almost exactly 8 PM right now, and the glowing section took up about one sixth of the overall square, just like how there was only one sixth of the hours in the day left.

There was also a dotted line above the glowing section, and another dotted line below the bottom of the calendar square…

…which must represent potential or elapsed Time-Turned hours, and/or the remaining potential Time-Turned hours in the day. This calendar has got to be Twilight Sparkle's idea. Memory Sunshine had been so deeply wishful to speak with Twilight Sparkle about Time Turners, but she hadn't been allowed. This calendar is exactly the sort of thing Twilight Sparkle would invent to keep track of it.

But that's not the important thing right now. She went back up to Twilight's and Princess Celestia's and Princess Luna's recommendations.

…

Hermione circled the only glowing date that had less glow than all the others. Today's date: Saturday, September 5^th.

New instructions appeared.

At 9:00 PM of the day you chose, the meeting will begin in the Astral Plane. You may request the presence of any others who are able to go there – that is to say you may request the presence of other ascendants – but they might not be able to attend on short notice, or even long notice if their schedule conflicts. The earlier you submit your request, the more likely they will be able to find the time. If you are reading this before 9:00 PM on the same day as the tour, L, T, and C all intend to be available, and H can probably make it that day and time as well. T also intends to help you learn how to interface with your plane. To let her know you'd like to speak with her, go to your plane and order your plane to knock on her door.

Sincerely,

-E

---

A visible clock informed Riddle that it was exactly 20:59:57, 58, 59, and 60.

With a twitch of will, he ordered his Plane to, as the Changelings would call it, 'ping' Memory Sunshine. She is probably hearing a doorbell on her end, or the sound of knocking on wood. Or perhaps there is some other simple audio cue that her brain more readily associates with 'someone is requesting my attention presently', like a teacher clearing his throat.

An aperture appeared in front of him, made from clear glass and embedded in stone like many windows you would find in Hogwarts. Through the pane he saw a chestnut brown alicorn filly with a glowing golden mane, standing alongside a purple alicorn mare with a mane of intricate and ever-fractal patterns and a midnight alicorn of a mane like the night sky.

Riddle Tome still has not quite guessed Memory Sunshine's realm of magic, should she ascend. What feels like his best guess thus far has been 'the magic of learning', but now that he's seen her mane, he suspects it's something different. If it's a golden light… 'the magic of example'? As in the magic of leading/guiding/inspiring others by example, like a shining beacon of gold, or like a lighthouse? But no, that probably wouldn't result in a mane of such a soft and warm glow. If that alicorn ever comes into existence one day – if, indeed, ALL alicorns do not already embody that realm of 'magic', the magic of leading by example – then the resulting ethereal mane would probably look different from Memory Sunshine's. The answer did not feel exactly right, and so he (mostly) discarded it.

All this introspection happened in the space of time that he waited for Ms. Granger to open her side of the window, for he had already opened his own.

Instead of opening her window, she took a stance and called forth her Patronus in such a fashion that he could not hear her speak the incantation. She had apparently learned from Twilight how to be specific and detailed enough in her intentions to only send visual information to other Alicorns. She said something to the Patronus, which listened to its caster politely. Her Patronus then turned around, phased its head through the window as if the window wasn't there, and said, "I shall repeat Hermione Granger's words as she speaks them." Then, after a brief pause, "We'll talk like this," said the Patronus, its lips moving in perfect synchrony with Memory's.

His own Patronus – which he had already cast and which he had been maintaining out of sight, a background habit he is now trying to get into at all times, like maintaining a barrier of Perfect Occlumency – his Patronus did not hesitate to move into a mirrored position.

(His fine control over his own Patronus is nearly unmatched among any who can cast it, even Prince Horizon as far as he can tell. Partly because you have to know many intricate details about what, precisely, the Patronus charm is and is not capable of doing on a technical level, and you have to have a great deal of mental discipline to manipulate your own magic that precisely. Only Twilight Sparkle's skill might exceed his own in that regard. His charm's strength and stability, on the other hoof, still need plenty of work. There are many casters who are far happier than himself – actually, it's probably the case that all other true Patronus wielders are happier than himself. But a small fraction of his current pride/hope/ambition is that, when he does reach their level of strength, his own charm will be basically perfectly solid and unwavering in the face of reality's ugliness, which is something that most pony casters need to work on, even if their average happiness is stronger and less inhibited than his own.)

Without even speaking his own words aloud through his own physical lips, and without hearing confirmation that his message was getting through to Miss Sunshine, his Patronus said to her: "I take it you do not wish to speak face to face?"

"Correct," said her Patronus in a clipped tone, with Memory Sunshine's lips visibly (though not audibly, from his perspective) forming the words. Her eyes were firmly locked on his Patronus now. Not him.

"May I ask why you wish to speak like this?"

"I don't like looking at your mane."

"…Fair enough. You are not the first to hold that preference. I would turn it off, but our manes are untamable here."

You cannot use the mundane mane enchantment in the Astral Plane. Or rather, you can try, but it fizzles out in the face of power that is too strong to suppress. Even when Twilight is super-charging the mundane mane spell, it has a maximum power output. No mundane spell can match the power output of a mane belonging to an Alicorn who is standing in their own Astral Plane.

(And that circumstance is not fully unique to the Astral Plane. If the mundane mane enchantment had been placed upon Prince Horizon when he was purging the world's Dementors, the enchantment would have suffered a similar fate as it does in the Astral Plane.)

And Riddle still hasn't tested if it's possible to become human in the Astral Plane, which would also effectively suppress his mane. And he still isn't eager to test it.

Then Memory Sunshine said, "I also don't like looking at you."

Riddle's Patronus wavered ever-so-minutely, but he absorbed the obviously true fact with barely any difficulty at all. His nagging temptation was to ask, 'Then how do you get through defense class?', but he dismissed the snide remark as an anti-empathetic addiction to deflect and distract and deny, and in so doing, his Patronus charm stopped wavering.

"I don't blame you," his Patronus said to her.

There was a pause as the conversation halted. His own eyes were on Miss Sunshine's, even if her eyes were not on his – it was giving him a half-decent read on her emotions, even if her perfect Occlumency complicates that sort of thing (not that he was reading her mind, but perfect Occlumenses are better at controlling their facial expressions as well) – and so he did notice when her eyes flicked to meet his for a fraction of a second, then focused on his Patronus again.

"Um… okay," said she and her Patronus. "What now?"

"What indeed," his own Patronus conveyed. Not condescendingly, not 'mean'ly, just wearily. "I intend to go over some of our past interactions. Starting small, since this is our first day. If you wish to make a request at any time, including right now, you may."

"Twilight told me about how memory-viewing works," she/her Patronus said. "I don't want to go over to your Astral Plane. And I don't want you to come over to mine."

There was a pause.

It was not surprising in retrospect, and it should not have been unexpected.

His Patronus wavered as he considered objections; but he noticed the wavering, he isolated the root cause – sloth, laziness, not wanting to change a process that has worked perfectly well in the past – and then he brought those emotions to fully conscious attention.

It doesn't work 'perfectly well' in the PRESENT, now does it? he thought to himself. This counter-thought allowed him to resolve the inner conflict and allowed his will to realign with the reality known as 'Ms. Sunshine's preferences', where before his will had been aligned with his mere perceptions and beliefs about her preferences, or his perceptions and beliefs about her lack of preferences.

"Request acknowledged," his Patronus conveyed to her.

And then he took a moment to think. He truly thought. He engaged his brain and his will and his creativity to overcome the obstacle, absorbing the following constraints:

-She probably doesn't want to feel my emotions as she watches.
-She probably doesn't want to be in the same room as me, i.e. be at my mercy, even with Twilight there.
-She didn't say she's opposed to the general approach of viewing our past interactions through the memory-recall function of the Astral Plane.

Thanks to his past experience at creative problem-solving, it took him less than a few seconds to imagine a set-up that might work. And yet, if not for realigning his free will, he might not have seen the solution at all, or so soon.

He willed his window to take a certain shape – a solid wall of glass, like could be found in the Philosopher's Hospital instead of Hogwarts. To the left of where he was standing, along the straight vertical line of the glass stretching off into infinity, the glass pane folded towards himself , as if it were two panes instead of one, stopping when it formed a 120° angle with the glass in between himself and Memory Sunshine. Beyond the angled pane of glass, perpendicular to the pane between himself and Miss Sunshine, half of a memory-viewing window appeared.

"Observe," he said, and manifested a tall mirror, then slowly turned it so she might see his set-up. "If you mirror this window shape on your side, we might be able to jointly form a cordoned-off room, shaped like an equilateral triangle, made of two walls of glass and one wall of memory, so that we are both looking at the same screen, and we can still see and speak with each other while we watch, without ever entering the other's Astral Plane."

For now, the chestnut filly's window frame – how she viewed him – did not change: clear glass set inside cold stone. "How do I know that won't make it easier for you to break through the glass?" her voice asked, though he saw a flicker of wavering in her Patronus as it spoke the words.

Riddle allowed Miss Sparkle to handle that question. Or rather, before Riddle even had a chance to respond, Twilight Sparkle had begun to whisper what was likely an answer to Miss Sunshine's technical/magical question about the Astral Plane.

"Well, what if I don't even want him seeing the rest of my Astral Plane?" asked her Patronus in a voice that, from the outside perspective, sounded much like whining child who is looking for excuses. Miss Granger had instructed her Patronus to repeat what she said as she said it, not realizing…

"You might wish," his Patronus said to her, "to include a clause to your Patronus that it should only repeat the words you intend for me to hear. Also-" his Patronus wavered as he considered what to say next, things to the effect that she clearly didn't want to do this and was just looking for excuses. "-Also, if you don't want to view memories at all, we can take a different approach until you agree to return to that idea. If you ever agree." His Patronus did not waver as it said that, for it was not delivered in a critical/unempathetic tone and it did not contain critical/unempathetic words or ideas.

Again, Miss Sunshine's eyes flicked to meet his, a bit longer this time, and again her eyes wrenched back to his Patronus. "What?" she/her Patronus asked.

"I never asked you how you wished to approach this conversation," said his Patronus, shining brightly. "I only stated my own intended path. I should have asked first. But before you answer, you might wish to tell your Patronus to only repeat that which you consciously intend for me to hear. I overheard your question to Twilight about not wanting me to so much as see more of your Astral Plane."

The now-embarrassed Ravenclaw pony repeated that set of instructions to her Patronus, then said, "Okay. What I want to know is exactly what all you did to me."

Riddle's eyebrows rose. "Well," he said. "That is a tall order, and it contains a great deal of information that will take much longer than an hour." He gestured to his left. "I intended to show you our primary interactions sequentially so that I don't miss anything, and so that we could handle it in multiple sessions. Are you are saying you would prefer I say it in words first?"

"In your own words, yes," said the alicorn filly's Patronus.

She should already know. Riddle had spent long hours with Mr. Potter carefully combining and composing their memories of that conversation in the third floor corridor for maximum watchability. Ms. Granger should have seen that entire thing on the Hogwarts express, and she should have been particularly focused on the moments where Professor Quirrell answered Harry's question of 'What exactly did you do to Hermione?'

…

He shut down the stray, annoyed thought.

"…Very well," his Patronus said after it had stopped flickering, the very same moment he shut down the stray thought.

(And it should be mentioned that it was not a visible flickering. Much of what he has to deal with these days, in an effort to head off problems before they arise, is incredibly subtle. After so long, he has trained himself to recognize even the subtle wavering – the flutterings so small that anybody else who was watching his Patronus from the outside wouldn't be able to notice or tell the difference.)

In his own words, he began his explanation. "What I magically did to you that you don't remember was four-fold: Obliviation, False Memory Charms, a hypnosis-trance spell, and, in order to give myself time as I set the stage for my various direct plots concerning you, I used a stasis-paralysis-stunning hex that essentially freezes the victim in place, such that they don't realize any time has passed when the hex is lifted so long as they are caught unawares. My changing of guises was not instant, back when I was trying to tempt you into a conspiracy, and the blood cooling plot required that stasis charm a few times as well, when you and Mr. Malfoy were in the trophy room. I did nothing else overtly magical to you that you don't remember. Oh, and I cursed your items before I sent the troll after you, but you already knew that, and that wasn't technically done to your person, only your effects. I don't recall doing anything else to your effects, at any other point in time."

Twilight Sparkle, next to Memory Sunshine, was twitching violently. Like she really, really wanted to speak, but was restraining herself, because this wasn't her conversation. Luna continued observing silently.

"What all did you Obliviate?" Miss Sunshine asked almost immediately. "And what False Memories do I have?"

"I Obliviated the hours of manipulation attempts I tried on you. At the end of those hours, I False Memory Charmed you to make you obsess about Mr. Malfoy and Snape. I obliviated that False Memory later, during the blood cooling plot. In the trophy room, I False Memory Charmed you to believe you cast the blood cooling charm. I did not False Memory Charm the duel. I wanted as much of it to be real as possible. When Mr. Malfoy did not taunt you after his victory, as I had been expecting of him, only then did I intervene and craft the story from there. So your only remaining False Memory that I know about is of Mr. Malfoy taunting you after your loss, and of your casting the Blood Cooling Charm on him, as well as everything else you remember of that night after that moment. I allowed your mind's own suggestibility to fill in the blanks from there. It was the hypnosis trance spell that returned you to your bed and put you to sleep for the night."

"What about the next morning?" asked a young filly's Patronus, a strange tone in her voice. Desperation? Pleading? Something like that.

"All charms should have worn off by the time you woke up," said his Patronus, which could not convey a falsehood. "If anything happened to you then, I don't know about it."

"You didn't hypnotize me to prevent me from turning myself in when I woke up?"

He blinked. "I honestly did not consider that you might do that. Did you consider it?"

"Yes," said her Patronus. "Did you mess with my mind to make me too scared of Dementors to turn myself in like I knew I should do?"

…

(Behind his Perfect Occlumency, his true self shifted. A little. And his Patronus strengthened. A little. What a way to thwart Voledmort's plans that would have been. Or at least hinder them, and provide credence to the true claim of a false memory charm.)

…

"…No," he answered her question after the pause had passed. "As I said, I hadn't considered it. If I had considered it… no, I never would have imagined you might do that. But if I had, I probably would have accepted the risk as so incredibly unlikely that it wasn't worth the added risk of further magic. To guard against that scenario perfectly would have required a Legilimency impulse."

"You didn't do that to me?"

"No. Legilimency would have been caught by the court examiners. I never Legilimized you at any point until your perfect Occlumency lessons."

A new Patronus sprung up and stuck its head through the window. "When did you do perfect Occlumency lessons on her?" asked Twilight's indignant voice.

"While she was in Equestria," said Riddle's. "Among other private lessons. We waited until Silver declared she could perform the standard block so I would not see her every thought, but Silver was not nearly a good enough Legilimens to push and probe and prod her shields with a truly strong offense."

"Well no wonder she was stressed out all the time and I couldn't figure out why! You- you- you can't just-" there was a sound of frustration.

"-I need five minutes to speak with Memory," said a third Patronus. Luna's Patronus. "No more words between you two until I do."

The exposed windowpane tinted black, and Riddle could no longer see the other side.

Instead of twiddling his hooves, he tried to imagine what Luna might wish to discuss- no, he instead tried to examine his own private lessons with Miss Sunshine, what he remembered of them after thirty-five years, and retroactively see his own ethical errors.

As usual when examining memories from that long ago, in came the initial wave of excuses.

I did not wish to reveal Occlumency/Legilimency to Equestria. Thus I could not Vow that I would never share her secrets and/or Obliviate myself of what I saw after the fact, even if I wanted to, because the Vow would have revealed it to one or more third parties, not to mention the permanent sacrifice of magic.

Counter: I could have composed a contract, signed it in front of Miss Memory, told her to keep it and always check if it is active. A contract that said I would Obliviate myself after every session, or refrain from repeating her secrets seen with Legilimency. What I actually didn't want to do was Obliviate myself. At all. Nor bind my free will.

His past self had been fine with Obliviating himself to better hide his Horcruxes. His past self had not been fine with Obliviating himself for just about any other reason. Especially not for the benefit of others. At most he could be convinced to lock memories away, and that was for his own personal benefit.

Even with the hindsight bias that past Obliviations don't matter anymore due to the memory restoration ritual – that in this day and age what really matters is the nondisclosure Vow/contract – making that kind of promise to Memory Sunshine is still not something he would have done.

…

Is it something he would do today?

…

Yes. Today he would be more than willing to contract himself to not share her mental secrets. He would be able to form a Parseltongue promise about it if necessary. He would be capable of aligning and committing his free will to that permanent course of future action. When they speak again, he should make that offer pro bono. Actually, he could do it right away with his Patronus charm.

Is there anything else about his past lessons with Miss Sunshine that he should examine?

…

…

…

Not that he could easily see, though the slight wavering in his Patronus informed him there was something there.

The window untinted.

"May I say something immediately?" asked his Patronus.

Twilight looked at him skeptically. As did Memory.

Luna simply said, "What is it?"

"I swear I have not, to my knowledge, used information seen from within your mind against you, Miss Sunshine, nor shared it with others, and I swear that, to the best of my ability, I will not use it against you in the future, nor allow it to be used against you, nor shall I share it with others."

There was a brief pause.

"Okay," said Luna. "On behalf of Memory, thank you, but that's not what I was going to say. What I was going to say- what I was going to ask, is this: Are you, Tom Riddle, able to give a deep, heart-felt apology to her, Hermione Granger, for being unKind to her? Are you able to promise to never be unKind to her again without her express permission, in advance, for every occurrence of potential unKindness? Until you do, she'd rather you not speak to her directly outside necessary and normal Defense class interactions."

"…Could you clarify?" he asked. "What, precisely, do you mean by 'unKind'?"

"Well, that you cannot precisely nail it down yourself is part of the problem," said Luna, to Hermione's and Twilight's agreeing nods. "In the past, you were evil to her, which was extremely unKind. Recently, you have not been evil to her, but you have still been mildly unKind on a consistent basis. You still do not meet her minimum standards of virtue for her to want to speak with you. The absence of a negative does not necessarily equal a positive."

"And the worst part is that you think you're being nice," said the sunshine-maned filly. "Like that one time when Harry scared Padma with the ghost, he thought he was being nice when he really, really wasn't."

That gave the thestral a bit of pause. "Acknowledged, but informing a blind man he is blind does not help him to see what he cannot see. May I ask precisely how I've been unKind recently?"

"Like this," said Luna. She took on a false cadence. "'I know I mind-raped you, tried to Dement you, and then killed you, Miss Granger. Now let's talk about your homework."

This drew an involuntary laugh out of Miss Granger, where before her expression had been dour and serious. "No, no," she said, taking on a voice of her own, "let's talk about some life advice! Let's talk about how to solve puzzles. That's extremely important, you know.'"

Luna was smiling at the young pony. But she let her expression return to neutral before summarizing the problem for Riddle's benefit. "You lecture and preach and try to strike up unimportant conversations. For the past 35 years, in a world where nopony suffered great evil from you, that might have been fine. But with someone you have deeply hurt, it is not fine. Every time you speak to her without addressing the important issues, it is unKind of you to do so."

"…I see. Anything else?"

"She does not like your presence. She wishes to exercise her freedom of disassociation from you outside of classes, until you are Kind. And you are not noticing or respecting that preference of hers." Luna's eyes turned to face the young Alicorn. "Unless I am misrepresenting you?"

"No, that was good."

"…Acknowledged," said Riddle. "So what now?"

"Now I think it is best if we put this conversation between you and Miss Granger on hold. Wait until she comes to you. Wait until your personality and interactions in class suggest to her that you are Kinder. Eventually, if you come to meet her standards, she will voluntarily speak with you. Until then, do not impose your presence on her. Until you can make that apology to Miss Granger, and mean it enough to never be unKind to her again, these sessions might do more harm than good."

…

(His Patronus was wavering now. Visibly so.)

…

"…Your request is a tall order," he eventually remarked. "In the sense that it shall be difficult to be outwardly Kind when the dark, ambiguous Defense Professor has appearances to keep up."

"Does he though?" asked Luna's Patronus. "He can't finally be the Kind sort of dark and ambiguous?"

He had literally no words to respond to that.

"And we're not even in class right now," added the young girl's Patronus. "Are you even able to be Kind at times like this?"

Even harder wavering, and it took a while to try to see something that would stop the wavering.

"Not quite yet," he said honestly. "Which is to say that even if I made that apology to you, I imagine I wouldn't meet your standards for a good long while. I should mention my redemption was not complete when Dumbledore released me. It was merely adequate."

"And you've been drifting along in a sea of adequacy ever since," Luna pointed out.

"I've been making progress each night," he remarked. "Even if it's slow."

"Slow, you say," Luna repeated thoughtfully. "May I ask what your current ambition is?"

"To-" he began, then he blinked as he realized what he had been about to say would not have fit his old definition of an actual ambition. "Hm. Interesting. It would seem I don't have a solid one."

And he hadn't even noticed.

After escaping the Mirror, he'd been generally happy and occupied. Enough that he hadn't felt like he needed an ambition to keep from being bored. Things like 'saving the world' and 'saving as many lives as possible' and 'providing restitution for past wrongs' are not solid ambitions because there is no means for him to succeed to the point of conclusion, there is no definitive end date, no tangible overarching goal with a clearly defined end-point. There are lesser goals, but he's already fallen into routine and habit of succeeding at those, and now he needs a new and better ambition, something that pushes him to go faster.

Especially in the moral realm. Even he can admit his own progress is slow. At some point – at this point – it might be helpful to ask if there are any means of going just a bit faster. Or better yet, why he is not going faster.

Luna asked, "Do you think it might be good for you to adopt a new ambition?"

"I think that it would be," he agreed.

"Can you think of any ambitions to adopt? Something you genuinely want to do, something you genuinely want to achieve? Think carefully."

…

…

…

"I think I genuinely want to…"

Achieve peace between himself and her? Yes, but not solid… no, that is solid enough, but it relies on her.

Adopting an ambition that the free will of someone else shall change on a deep level is like trying to orchestrate a plot that requires a million things to go right. (And when you take Crucio off the table, it's like trying to orchestrate that same plot without cheating.)

So what can he strive for, if not peace with his past victims?

Well, Luna's primary concern is his unKindness…

"My goal is to become the sort of pony that the Element of Kindness would not outright reject- no. My goal is to become the sort of pony capable of bearing it."

One thing he grew to suspect after thirty five years, after interacting so much with Luna-the-'former'-Bearer-of-Honesty, is that there are no definitive 'Bearers' of the Elements. There are only those who are more fit than others, and those who are less fit, and those who are most fit, and those who are unfit. Luna is fit for Honesty, but not typically the most fit on any given day, though she has her moments, moments where her own fitness far exceeds Applejack's.

Riddle suspected that, in theory, it's possible for anypony, anywhere, at any time to grow fit to bear an Element, if they make the right decisions and adopt the right thought patterns and grow strong enough in those thought patterns. If Riddle is unfit for Kindness due to his current habits, and he almost certainly is unfit, then his ambition should be to grow fit enough to be a potential Bearer for Kindness, as Luna is a potential Bearer for Honesty.

His Patronus shone strongly, now.

Luna's right. Absence of a negative is not the same as the presence of a positive. He's been focusing on the practical positives so much – immortality for the world, hedging against war between muggles and wizards, making Harmony win – that he lost sight of the people directly in front of his face. The things in his personal life. He lost sight of his goal to personal virtue. The problem of abstracting to avoid the here-and-now is ever the addictive temptation to the intelligent mind.

An ambition is exactly what he needs to stir and him to greater speeds and heights. His slow pace in recent months proves his lack of a pressing ambition. He needs a solid goal that he can strive towards.

He will not abandon or in any way shirk his efforts at improving life and the world. But along the way, his ambition is to not be unKind while he does it. While simultaneously not being stupid. A terribly difficult ambition indeed.

"Hmm…" said Luna. "How long do you expect that to take?"

An ambition with a deadline, that is correct, thank you Luna. Because he no longer has the luxury of Time being frozen.

"It took thirty-five years to go from extremely unKind to mildly unKind. Another thirty-five would be a realistic time frame to from mild to not at all."

Luna took a deep breath, then sighed. "While I admire why you wish to adopt that ambition," she said gently, "I genuinely think Kindness is out of your grasp for now. Because to my ears, you sound like Fluttershy declaring she shall learn the Killing Curse. Your ultimate ability to be Kind would be better served by tackling a different Element first, I think."

There was a pause.

"…Is this another attempt to get me to admit the truth to Magical Britain right away, without further delay?"

"Possibly. What do you think, Memory?" asked Luna's Patronus, which had faced to turn Memory's. "Can any of his interactions in Britain be truly Kind while he is deliberately hiding such a scarily massive secret, looming in his shadow like a Lethifold?"

"No," said Memory without hesitation. "That's a good point, and it's been bothering me this whole time." Her Patronus faced Riddle. "Admit the truth to Magical Britain. Then we can talk."

---

Around three hours later, the Saturday after the first week of Hogwarts classes came to an end. Meaning that the weekend is only half-over.

Comments

[Sixtenfour]

Maybe it’s just me, but Riddle jeopardizing his position in Magical Britain to appease one person seems like a terrible idea. He’s putting at risk the political stability he’s achieved, people’s trust in the Stone of Permanence hospitals, his damage control in working to instill caution in the Hogwarts students despite cultural muggle influence, teaching the next generation how to actually fight, Harry’s own credibility due to working with Tom, and his ability to try to head off a muggle-wizard conflict from an influential position. That seems like too much to risk at the moment, mainly for the sake of Earth.

[Booster Spice]

Riddle is going to have to say to Dumbledoor?

Youre all paper figures in a cardboard castle and the Muggle mice are about to use devices of Fireball that will turn everything to less than ash in an instant?

[The Guy Who Writes]

11828637
If he did it, it would not be to appease "one" person. Or even two people, or three. It would be so that he could continue being capable of casting the Patronus Charm at all.

It's a question of deontology versus consequentialism. Consequentialism demands that he never tell the truth, that he always and forever maintain the deception, until perhaps the world can accept the truth without lighting a torch to all the good things he's currently doing. But deontology demands that you don't lie, cheat, or steal your way to 'good' consequences, because (1) in real life, that strategy rarely if ever leads to actually good consequences, but even in the rare, one in a thousand case when it does lead to 'good' consequences, (2) it's unsustainable in the long run. Eventually the lies are called out, the cheating is noticed, the stealing is stopped at gunpoint, et cetera, and then everything comes crashing down anyway.

When things are seemingly going well, it's easy to imagine things will always go well. It's always the rational choice in the short term to smoke that extra cigarrette, to maintain the lie just a little bit longer, because look at all the immediate benefits. But when your time horizon is the opposite of short-term, i.e. immortality, the rational choice is to quit as soon as you can, while you are ahead. To quit the long-term-unhealthy behavior of your own free will.

And let's be clear, when it comes to moral integrity - which is necessary to cast the Patronus Charm - lying about the fact that he used to be Voldemort is HIGHLY long-term-unhealthy behavior, for his own conscience if nothing else. Even excuses like "It's to save the world!" eventually fall apart, because objections like "There are ways to save the world after you tell the truth, you're just not cleverly searching for them because you are terrified of the prospect," eventually take hold in minds that think like Riddle and HJPEV. He gave himself the 'saving the world' excuse in the past. It literally produced Voldemort.

[AndrewV]

11828736
Stealing to get good outcomes pretty consistently fails, and most kinds of lying do this too, but I'd like to point out one exception to this: lying to protect people from an unjust rule. This has good effects in general that I'd endorse even in the long term. The classic examples are lying about harboring people during the holocaust and lying about helping people on the "underground railroad" escape slavery, and the underground railroad had such good long-term effects laying groundwork for emancipation that I still think it would be worth it if people often do this with laws that are actually just.
In fact, the benefits in my own life have been so strong long-term that I've learned that people shouldn't be trusted unless they'd be willing to lie to authority figures in some circumstances (the bullying situation I mentioned before wouldn't have gotten as bad as it was if there wasn't other bad stuff too) and the biggest reason I'm impressed with MLP is that in the episode with Starlight Glimmer's communist equality town a couple times ponies lied to protect their friends from punishment and this was seen as proper. It wasn't until as an adult I decided to cut back on lies a bit that I got a massive problem, and the result of telling the truth went so far beyond what I expected that I doubt even Yud would say lying would have been wrong there. Now I am only consistently truthful to people who have demonstrated that they are sane, or if they don't know who I am and can't affect my life.

[TheGreatFox]

11829842
Put another way, honesty is good... as long as it's not being twisted to evil several steps along the way, as so often happens in the real world. Same with generosity, kindness, or loyalty. Even laughter, if it's being used to distract from evil.

[keybounce]

In comparison, I have been strict about being honest to myself, and trying to be honest in my dealings with others for ... at least 10-15 years, probably more. Yes, it has been costly. But in general? The people that are no longer in my life are people I would not have wanted.

[The Guy Who Writes]

11829842

Stealing to get good outcomes pretty consistently fails, and most kinds of lying do this too, but I'd like to point out one exception to this: lying to protect people from an unjust rule.

...and...

I've learned that people shouldn't be trusted unless they'd be willing to lie to authority figures in some circumstances

...are both things that I 100% agree with. But it doesn't apply when you ARE the authority figure who is doing the lying, and you're lying to people specifically because you used to be a mass-murdering psychopath dark lord.

Telling the truth to people who will twist your true words, or who will use your true words against you because they are evil, narcissistic, incompetent, or just an entrenched power trying to maintain their power, or any of the other circumstances that cause people without integrity to do that sort of thing... well, let's just say that a big part of the problem is the massive power imbalance between the truth teller and the truth twister. If you tell the truth, but you're not the one with the gun, or the legally permitted use of force, or expensive lawyers... if you're not the one with the power in the situation, then you're subject to the whims of the powerful in any case, and morals have to take a backseat to tactics, although morals should NOT leaving the car entirely, of course.

It's like asking "What is the moral thing to do if you're a kulak living in a gulag? Let's really focus on the moral things for kulak prisoners to do, and how they should behave." My response is: "THEY ARE PRISONERS! Let's focus on the gulag, and the people who are labeling others as 'kulaks', and the people who are throwing kulaks into gulags, and why that's a thing, and who's benefiting from that." TL;DR - When you ARE the powerful one, when you have friends in the media, when you are wealthy, when you are respected, when you are a leader, then you don't get to use the same excuses that the weak, the meek, and the powerless get to use.

The story doesn't touch on this directly, but a major prerequisite for outstanding virtue that lasts is outstanding power to back it up. Which is to say that there are a lot of entrenched interests out there in the world whose continued existinces rely on immoral or amoral behaviors. To promote moral action threatens their interests. And threatening the interests of entrenched powers is not something that's wise to do when you're powerless. Which is why competent moral action requires power of some kind to back it up - financial, political, tactical, military, social, legal, SOMETHING. Otherwise 'moral' people get squished like bugs, and then they complain that it's their upstanding morals that got them squished. No. It's the powerlessness that got them squished. They challenged the powerful without having power themselves.

But again, when you ARE the powerful one, i.e. Riddle, you don't get to make a moral case for lying because the truth would be used against you. Yeah. It will be used against you. That's the point, AND you know that going in.

[The Guy Who Writes]

11830667
Exactly. Short-term cost, long term benefit. Lies are the opposite: short-term benefits, long-term costs. Like any other addiction.