Wizarding World: The Mediani Myth
MEDIANI SYMBOL DEATHLY HALLOWS SYMBOL
"Time, time, oh what precious time, slipping aimlessly away. The time approaches quickly. No shedding of magical blood in the war shall be lost in vain, yet each drop of blood as priceless as the last. As in the last month in the year of 2051, the crumbling shadow of what is left of the wizarding world will see an end from which there is no coming back, for once darkness arrives, it consumes every last bit of magical blood." ~ Amelia Mediani, 1251
Among certain groups of Harry Potter fans, rumors run rampant about the true fate of the wizarding world. Many believe that the Battle of Hogwarts was not the end of an era of fear and persecution, but in rather the catalyst for the downfall of all of wizarding kind.
A prophecy was made. A prophecy older than the Peverell brothers. It goes "Time, time, oh what precious time, slipping aimlessly away. The time approaches quickly. No shedding of magical blood in the war shall be lost in vain, yet each drop of blood as priceless as the last. As in the last month in the year of 2051, the crumbling shadow of what is left of the wizarding world will see an end from which there is no coming back for once darkness arrives, it consumes every last bit of magical blood." The speaker of the prophecy was Amelia Mediani of Italy in the year 1251, before the names Albus Dumbledore or Nicholas Flamel held any significance for the wizarding world.
Few knew of the prophecy aside from the unspeakables working in the newly established Department of Mysteries. Even then, not all unspeakables were given the privilege of the knowledge the prophecy held. However, after the second wizarding war, the prophecy couldn't be kept secret for any longer. So many magical lives were lost in battle and each life taken, each drop of magical blood lost turned out to be as costly as the prophecy states. JK Rowling focuses on the confrontation between the teenage hero Harry Potter and the Dark Lord, Lord Voldemort. Yet, once the confrontation was resolved, the wizarding world was left with an even bigger problem. The consequences of the battle, of the civil war in a sense, were much wider spread than Lord Voldemort and his Death Eaters.
Those who survived the battle were faced with repairing a fractured world. With so much lost life and power, Wizards were never able to regain their former glory and their numbers slowly dwindled toward extinction. The defeat of Lord Voldemort meant the light side had won, but what had they won? A broken world that was beyond repair. No government, no laws, no Hogwarts, abandoned Death Eaters still on the loose starving for revenge, and many prominent wizards unreachable and still in hiding unsure of the permanence of the Dark Lord's defeat. Amidst the clutter of war, wizards had become less conscious in their efforts to keep their powers secret, and Death Eaters in their blood lust became sloppy. As the violence against muggles increased, interest in cleaning muggle raid sites of any signs of magic disappeared. As a result, word had gotten around the muggle world of superhumans that looked like normal people but carried around sticks to wield their dangerous powers. In response, the muggle world prepared defenses and hunts for these "superhumans".
Persecution and fear was at a whole new level for wizarding kind. Muggle numbers largely outweighed the few hundred wizards, and muggle weapons were one thing wizards couldn't defend themselves from. At this point, the few hundred remaining had become acquainted with the prophecy and dispersed to hide as muggles in order to disguise their magic. They identified themselves with the mediani symbol. Wizards in hiding decorated their clothing with subtle flourishes containing the mediana, anything from pins to necklaces were used as identifiers. Most importantly, when another wizard fell to Death, their grave stones and coffins were marked with a Mediani sign. TO the lost, it was a sign of rebellion; a refusal to bend completely to fear. To those who knew, the mediani could be used to recognize fellow witches and wizards. Thus, wizarding kind thrived until the 12th month of the year 2051 when the last bit of magic blood was collected by Death. Now the Mediani is the last remaining symbol of what was once a flourishing society. The broken resurrection stone a tribute to the fallen, the cloak of invisibility a ode to wizarding-kind's years of hiding, and the shattered wand as the break and loss of magical power.
Symbolism of the Mediani Symbol
The Mediani symbol was marked onto the prophecy along with the words when it was made in 1251. While reciting the prophecy for the first time, Amilia etched the exact Mediani symbol into a wooden table with her fingernail. The figure is almost an exact replica of the Deathly Hallows symbol. This is no mistake. The Deathly Hallows symbol evolved from the Mediani, by those who were facinated and terrified by the certain death Amilia prescribed. Unlike the Deathly Hallows symbol, in the Mediani the Elder wand and resurrection stone appear broken while the invisibility cloak is whole. Many ancient runic scholars were recruited by Unspeakables to distinguish the symbol and its meaning, but no ancient rune seemed to be associated with the symbol. Instead, it is speculated that the broken wand symbolizes the complete loss of power and hundreds of years of written spells and knowledge lost after the fall of wizardkind. The incomplete resurrection stone signifies the incapability of resurrection:. The wizarding community's failure to escape Death. Some rumors take a psychological stance, and push that the broken wand is a broken phallic symbol and the broken stone and infertile womb signifying the lack in reproduction of the wizarding line and the loss of language and phallic power. Most importantly, the cloak of invisibility symbolizes wizard kind's forced hiding, and the complete disappearance of what was once a powerful and vibrant society.
Mediani today in their essence...
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