Ladies and Gentlemen; boys and soulless abominations of all ages; welcome to another spectacular epic from the twisted depths of my mind! This story was partially inspired by The-Caitiff's Master of Past and Present, and largely by Rowling's Harry Potter series. I do not own either of these works. I only wish I could write as well as either of these people. I wrote this story while listening to 'Crunchy Granola Suite' by Neil Diamond. I wish I was him too. He has money, I don't. On with the show!
Return of the Whispered One
Chapter I: the Old World
Agony. Torment. Just plain pain. All of these words danced in the mind of an old man clutching a bird's tail, but none of them adequately described the feeling in his arm. It was burning and freezing, stretching and shrinking, itching and wrenching. Worse, the feeling was spreading. It was only through swift reflex and prodigious skill that he was still alive.
One blackened and withered hand clutched a small gold ring with a black stone inset. The source of his present discomfort. Though the defense which struck at his arm was expended, the ring was encouraging the wound. It's single onyx stone pulsing with dark light. Pulsing in tune to the pain in his arm.
With a burst of flame he arrived in his office, and with one hand swept the stacks of parchment from his desk to drop the ring there. The spreading slowed a little and the ring pulsed still, taunting him with a laughter not quite heard. Heart pounding to join the strange rhythm, he raced across to room to grasp a gold device, similar to a Chinese seismograph, a large gold pot with a four dragon heads protruding, and it joined the ring on the desk. A quick rotation ensured the four heads pointed to the four compass points.
Albus Dumbledore knew he could not destroy the band of gold on his own, but the risk was too great to involve any others, save one, who he resolved to inform later. For now he had to undo the ring before it undid him and if he lacked a convenient volcano, he still perhaps had the means.
He forced his right hand around his wand and held it over his artifact. With his left he dropped the ring in the pot and his voice sounded with authority. "Divinitus praesenita, ego posco. Ego posco te subvenio in litis letifer. In litis obsto rem maleficus. In obsto mortifera. Ego posco statim. Ego posco iterum. Ego posco denuo. Ego posco denique."
He tapped his wand against the dragon's head closest to him and intoned, "robur aquilo, affligo." The eyes of the dragon head glowed a pure white. It shook its head as if to clear it and roared its challenge to the object within. Dumbledore smiled and tapped the head opposite him. "Robur notos, obruo." The second dragon turned to look at Dumbledore. It's eyes glowed blue and if it's roar was not as loud as the first, it had no less steel in it. Dumbledore held his wand against the dragon on his left. "Robur papilla, subruo." The third dragon turned to look into his eyes searchingly. What ever the green-eyed dragon saw in his gaze it liked, and it's roar was harsh and loud. Dumbledore held his wand at the snout of the last. "Robur occasus, emundo." The final dragon twisted to the left to face him, eyes shimmering orange and added a soft, gentle roar to the strange choir.
Dumbledore reflected a moment on the oddities of life in general and this moment in particular as four gold faces looked to him to complete the work. But he was tired, this old wizard, and he shelved those thoughts for later. Better to see this through. He held his throbbing hand a foot over the opening of the small gold cauldron and a white light began to grow there as he spoke again.
"Ego sum Albus Percival Wulfric Brian Dumbledore, fidi vasallus canonus lucis. Posco solacium in hic atrox certo. Iuro meus anima immortalis ab lucem." By now the light had filled the room. What was just soft and gentle quickly became blinding as Fawkes joined his song to the chant of his master and the roar of the dragons.
"Si lucere magna et numens me decerno dissolutus, oportet mea anima immortalis condoleo saeculorum. Posco me rem nocens explico. Posco in nomen primoris Arcanum. Posco pio. Defaeco! Purgo! Abluo!" With the last word a beam of purest white shot from his wand into the artifact, even as four different colored lights filled it from the points where the dragons met it. For a moment they were frozen as he felt the desperate struggles of the darkness in the ring to overcome, to survive. It was a surreal moment where he heard a strange silence over everything, even as the roars and the song and the quicker, desperate pulses of pain in his arm combined in a surreal tempo. Then the moment ended. The light filling the room drained into his wand, and from there into the artifact. There was a shriek like no creature on earth had made or heard before, a rushing of shadowy vapor in an impossible direction at right angles to all the others. Just like that it was over, the light was gone, the ring was just a ring, the gold dragons were just fancy ornamentation, and an old man finally submitted to the rigors of the evening.
He collapsed heavily into his favorite (and most comfortable) chair. Before he dropped his wand, he flicked it like he was trying to shake something off and a silver light streaked off to summon his healer. He had no doubt Poppy was going to take him to task for his injury, nor that she would be more upset when he couldn't tell her how he got it. Still, she was among the best of her profession and wouldn't pursue the matter beyond grumbling. He was less likely to lose the hand now. It had stopped trying to burn his hand off, which he considered a good sign even if it did still hurt greatly.
Dumbledore chided himself lightly for the attempt. There was no way to escape the train of thought, so he decided to get it over with. This confirmed his theories. All of the worst theories he'd silently apologized to Tom for entertaining. Surely not even Voldemort… No, apparently he did have the nerve and the evil. Albus wondered how he gained the knowledge and hit on Borgin and Horace as the most likely sources. He would have to…talk to Horace about that, and he doubted it would be a pleasant conversation. Which brought his mind to another unpleasant conversation he'd need to have soon. He would have to be very careful around Harry Potter. He'd promised the boy there would be no more secrets, and he intended to honor. Besides which, he deserved, had, to know, it was his Destiny. Yet, he would have to be delicate, ease him into the knowledge. He was still a child in so many ways, and so few.
Albus Dumbledore was heavily burdened tonight. Weighed down with age, pain, and fatigue. Thinking thoughts no man should ever have to think. His normally sharp eyes were closed and turned inward. If he did not notice the blood-hued gems in a displayed swords hilt glimmer a little brighter then should be possible, he can be forgiven, can't he? But if he had noticed, he might have prevented all that followed.
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The ceiling in the Atrium of the Ministry of Magic is a work of art. Lacking the rough beauty of nature shown in Hogwarts famous Great Hall, it has its own charm. The ceiling is sky-blue with gold lines continually appearing, shifting, and disappearing to form intricate mystic-looking patterns and runes so obscure no one outside the ministry knew what they were. How grand must the ministry be to make such a thing! How powerful that they and they alone, use the runes on the ceiling! What protections there must be there, what secrets!
Only a select few in the ministry know the secret of the ceiling. Only a few know that it has no power. It was commissioned two and a half centuries ago by then-minister Telfetch for the express purpose of showing the power of the Ministry without doing or costing anything. The greatest runic experts in the world couldn't recognize the runes because they were made up for the occasion. And though those who cared about such things claimed the ceiling never repeated a pattern, it has a predictable cycle that repeats itself, with some variation, every week. Of course, a week is about as long as it takes new employees to stop gawking at the ceiling and get to work. It's also a lot longer than anyone has in one sitting, so the secret is safe.
The ceiling is, in a great many ways, symbolic of the Ministry itself. It is very flashy, intricate enough to defy comprehension by most people, and exists almost solely to deceive and reassure the populace. Like the ceiling, the Ministry exudes an air of mystery, and like the ceiling, the Ministry is almost totally irrelevant. The Ministry exists to sustain itself. It does this with the illusion of competence, the illusion of action.
Cornelius Fudge has long understood this. He is now a man defeated. A man incapable of maintaining the illusion that keeps the mob in check. A man on his way to complete the final tasks of his term, the final humiliations. To clean out his office and report the change of power to his muggle counterpart. Only he isn't your counterpart anymore, is he Cornelius. Such bitter thoughts had become common in the last week. He'd lost two people and a small town this week, and combined with his earlier fumble of the Voldemort issue, he'd know most of the week he was on the way out the door. But never, in a hundred thousand years, did I think Scrimgoeur would be my replacement. Amelia, if she'd lived, yes. Mothridge, perhaps. Hell, even Weasly in Muggle Artifacts could've done it if he enlisted the Old Man's support, but Scrimgoeur? From walking a beat to the highest office in the Ministry? Unheard of. Here the former Minister was doing Rufus Scrimgoeur a grave injustice. Auror captains are exempt from patrols and a decade behind a desk had given the lion-like auror keen political instincts. Delores, Weatherby, all his old supporters flocked to him. Clutching at him like a lifeline and basking in his presence as though he could give them some of the magic. Not because he was a good leader for war, though there was that. Because he was a winner, because he could sustain the illusion. Fudge had seen this, done it, and received it. He bore his people no ill-will. Or at least, not much. Fudge asked what the auror had that he didn't. He looked back at his long and illustrious career, his accomplishments. He swore softly as he realized how few they were, and how much he meant to do but never got around to.
And we're off! Yes the sword is important. Yes I'll try to update soon. Anymore questions can be sent my way by the blue review button. Any support too. And criticism. And flames, deaththreats etc. Just be sure you hit that button.