Xeno's tale

Written for the Hogwarts, term 10, assignment 1, Demonology Task #9 - Heresy: Write about someone who doesn't believe in something

Word count: 2326

Thanks to my Beta, Angel!

'Here!' He smiled at her encouragingly, pointing at words on the pages. 'Don't you see it, it even says so in the tale!'

She waved her head. 'I'm afraid I don't see it, Xeno, I don't see it at all.'

She bent forward to kiss him. 'You crazy bastard,' she said lovingly. 'You would consider anything true before it's proven.'

'But how am I crazy?' He looked at her in slight disbelief. 'How on earth is it crazy to believe stuff, Honey? It's all those non-believers who drive the world crazy – if everyone believed in the Deathly Hallows, for instance,' he pointed at the drawing, 'if everyone believed they existed, they could be found so much more easily! Because everyone would be looking for the objects...'

'If everyone believed in them,' Pandora closed the book shut, 'everyone would be fighting against one another out of despair to find the objects.'

Xenophilius looked at her. 'You want to see the bad in the world, sweet-heart,' he said.

She stroked his hair. 'Of course not,' she said gently.

'Where is you curiosity, Pan?,' he asked, his eyes wandering over her face as if he was searching something.'

She curled her eyebrows in confusion. 'It's still there, but-'

From above, they heard a silent cry. Pandora sighed silently. 'I will go and check Luna,' she said, 'I promised her to tell her a story tonight.'

Xeno nodded. 'Sure, I will come in a second.'

She gave her husband a quick smile and climbed up the stairs.

The last few days she had noticed more than once that Xeno seemed eager to discuss the Deathly Hallows – way too eager, in her opinion. Pandora liked to experience things and get to know new stuff every day, but she wasn't the woman who believed in any random craziness. Xeno was different though and at times she was getting the feeling he expected her to think more along his lines.

She pushed the door to Luna's bedroom open. The little girl was jumping up and down in her bed, thinking of everyone else but going to sleep. Pandora smiled at her. 'You little tomboy,' she said in a sweet voice as she approached her bed. 'You sweet, crazy girl.'

She started stroking Luna's head. Xeno swore she looked more like her than him, but she could see thought Luna resembled her father: the same wide, curious eyes and the same expression when something unforeseen happened.

'What is it, Lunaly?,' she asked. 'Do you want mummy to tell you a story before you go to the sleep?' Gently she patted the girl's head as she got more silent and stopped jumping up and down.

'So, which would you like?,' asked Pandora, thinking through all the stories she was knowing, 'surely something with animals, right?'

The door opened with a silent creak, and as Pandora turned around she saw Xeno, leaning at the door with a smile on his face. 'Hey, girls,' he said, and went to Luna's bed.

'Do you wanna hear a story?,' he asked. 'Shall Daddy do the storytelling tonight?'

Luna looked from one to another and chortled luckily.

'Right,' said Xeno, and cleared his throat.

'There were once three brothers on their way home from a long, long journey.'

Pandora frowned at Xenophilius, but he didn't look at her. His right hand was holding Luna's hand, his left hand Pandora's.

'They were all exhausted and desperate to reach their home. Then they should come across a river, blocking their direct way home. The river was massive, and there was no bridge, no way to cross it.'

'No bridge,' repeated Luna.

'No bridge. But the brothers were wizards like the three of us. Together, they conjured themselves a bridge to cross the river.

'They had already half crossed it when they should find their path blocked once again, by a hooded figure this time.'

Luna sat up in her bed. Pandora was poking Xeno's hand, and looked at him urgently, but he merely smiled at her in assurance and went on.

'The hooded figure was no one else but Death, who felt cheated by the three brothers.'

'Death,' repeated Luna, 'cheated.'

'That's right. Death was cunning and seeking for revenge. Usually the three brothers would have drowned in the river, but Death was not giving up on them.

'He started congratulating them for their magic, saying it was beyond extraordinary and all that.

"You have earned yourself a prize," said Death, and turned to the eldest of the three brothers.'

Pandora cleared her throat and looked from Xeno to Luna, who was listening to her father very carefully.

' "I thank you," said the eldest, determined to outwit Death once more, longing for an opportunity to overpower him. "Give me the most powerful wand in existence."

"I shall fulfil your wish," said Death with a bow, and he established a wand from an Elder tree. Then he turned to the second brother, who's plan it was to humiliate Death even further.

"Give me the power to recall loved once from the grave," he said, and smirked at Death.

Death bowed again, picked up a stone from the river, enchanted it and offered it to the youngest brother.

Now it was the youngest brother's turn. He was quite different from his brothers – he did not seek for power or might.

"Please,' he said, "allow me to go forth from this place, without being followed by death", for he had seen right through Death's plan.

Death looked around, before he reluctantly turned over his own cloak of invisibility. Then he left the brothers again, though not for good – he was not finished with them yet. The brothers departed on their way back – the first brother -'

'Xeno,' said Pandora silently, and tipped him on his shoulder. 'She's asleep.'

Xenophilius looked at her in downright confusion, and then turned to his daughter. 'Asleep?' he repeated, and then his voice changed to normal again. 'Ah, right. Of course.'

He bent forward to Luna to give her a kiss on a cheek. 'Goodnight, sweet-heart,' he said. Then he looked at Pandora, disappointed. 'She couldn't even hear the end of the story!'

Pandora rubbed her nose. 'Xeno, can we talk downstairs in the kitchen?'

'Sure...,' a bit bewildered, Xeno got up and followed his wife. She sat down at the kitchen table and pointed at the chair.

'Please, Xeno, do me a favour,' she said. 'I'm in love with you, you and your crazy ideas, but this is getting a little bit too much, don't you think?' She took his hand.

His eyes narrowed. 'I don't know what you are talking about,' he said.

Pandora was rubbing over her face. 'I mean,' she started, 'that you have skipped dinners. I mean that I have caught you sitting out there in the cold, turning around every stone you could find. I mean that you don't sleep at night because you are brooding over old parchment and stories and family trees. I mean that you can't think of a better story to tell your daughter.' She pressed his hand. 'It's okay to believe stuff, honey,' she said, 'but you should not give yourself up to it completely...'

Xeno looked up. 'I should not give myself up to it completely?' he whispered. 'You don't understand, Pan...The most powerful wand that has ever been made... We got reason to believe in his existence...' With his hands he drew a triangle on the kitchen table.

'We?' asked Pandora sceptically, 'who is this we?'

He ignored her. 'The resurrection stone... I could see my loved ones just once again...' He drew the outline of a circle.

'And the cloak... the cloak to hide you from your enemies... from death... escape his hands...'

He stared on the table.

'Xeno,' she said. 'I see your reasons, but you give up your life to this "Master-of-Death"-idea – it is not reasonable. I don't want to lose you to your illusions.'

'Illusions,' he repeated bitterly. 'Do you know how it feels, that I could lose you... or Luna... in an accident... Don't you see it helps knowing there is that one stone in case I ever lose someone I love again?'

Of course Pandora could see it. Of course she knew what his parent's death had meant to him... what it had made of him. 'Or if someone attacked? There could be no harm done to any of us if we had the wand... And we could hide from death... forever.'

He looked into Pandora's eyes. 'Do you think I want the objects for me?' he croaked. 'No, I want them for us.'

A tear was escaping his eyes. Pandora petted his hand. 'Shh,' she said helplessly.

'Xeno,' she then said. 'You are not making any sense... We are here – Luna and I, we live, and we will all live, for many precious years. You have got no reason to be afraid to lose us.'

He looked up. 'No reason, is that right?,' he asked. 'Maybe you think it is easy having a family, maybe it is easy for you, but not for a single second I can relax – No, I don't blame you guys,' he said, 'I blame myself. We have to face the truth, Pandora.' He looked at her. 'We got lucky last time,' he said, 'but when the Dark Lord returns, and I reckon he will, we might not get lucky and I saw – I realised, that I wouldn't be the person that could protect you – us. Not me on myself, at least...

'And people are talking about the Deathly Hallows. They are a thing, Pandora! And see, it is not only that I want them – we must assure the Dark side never finds out about them, we'd be doomed, I can tell you that. And - '

'Xeno.' Pandora put her hand on his shoulder. 'Calm down, and take a breath.'

He looked at her, closed his eyes, and then removed her hand from his shoulder. 'I am calm, Pandora,' he said.

'No,' she said gently, 'you are not. Listen Xeno, the Dark Lord is gone -'

'"The Dark Lord is gone" - are you telling me you believe in that rubbish?'

'Are you telling me you believe in this ghost story?' Pandora was stunned.

Xeno nodded confidently. 'Sure. This is You-Know-Who we're talking about, it would be dumb to believe him gone!'

'So you expect him to come here and try his luck with another infant?'

'It's that time of year again.'

Pandora frowned. 'Listen, Xeno,' she said kindly, 'I love you – and I tell you this because I love you – but please, grow up and think! It's utter nonsense what you are talking – in your belief, the Dark Lord isn't in fact dead but waits in the shadow to attack a child every other year? That's a story a child would come up with!'

Xeno didn't reply; he was leaning against the window and looked outside. He thought that he should have never confided in her; she would never understand how important she was for him – and that he was afraid of his own cowardice; he had heard of what had happened at Godric's Hollow and he knew he would be lying if he'd say that he would have had James' or Lily's courage – he wasn't sure if he was up for facing death, like they had... The idea of the Deathly Hallows was more than appealing to him...

'So you would like to have your hallows to protect this place?,' she asked, and came closer. 'Xeno, your fear is without cause – there is no danger and if there were, the Hallows would not be a solution.'

She took his hand. 'Please, Xeno,' she said, 'I don't want to lose you to those Deathly Hallows.'

'But they are real.'

She kissed him. 'Here,' she said, 'this is real... That's what we should hold on to... By all means, believe in your hallows, but also believe in yourself, Xeno, will you?'

He looked at her. She knew him like no one – and he was thankful for having her – but this one thing they couldn't have in common. He sighed. 'You don't believe in them?'

'No,' she said simply.

He nodded slowly and turned outside. He gazed at the landscape, knowing somewhere out there, the Hallows existed, that they were waiting for someone to find them... He would seek them, one day. And if not with her, then it should be him alone who went looking for them. The air was whispering to him, and only him. Xeno touched his neck where his necklace was, hidden under his clothes so Pandora wouldn't see...

Would she ever understand?

While he looked outside and his dreams carried him away, over oceans and mountains, on his journey to find what he desired, he almost forgot where he was, that he was a Nobody standing in his kitchen, with his wife, who didn't believe in what he knew was real...

'Xeno.' He heard his name, said by her, as if from far, far away, a long distance between himself and the speaker...

And then he felt a hand touching his own, pressing it slightly.

'Xeno,' the voice said again, and he thought he heard it a bit closer now, 'Time to come home.'

Xeno looked to his right, where she stood, smiling at him, stroking his fingers, and he smiled at her, too, knowing she knew what he was thinking, even if she didn't understand. And that comforted him far more than anything else in the world, he gave her a kiss, put his arm around her and they left the kitchen to go to bed, together.

One day he would go and seek the Deathly Hallows, alone, but today would not be that day.