A Tale of Three Brothers
This is the backstory of the antagonist in my story 'Death's True Hallows'. It was originally the prologue, but lately I've decided I will put it somewhere else in the storyline. So, consider this a sneak-peak!
They say there's a school in Britain. A school, thankfully, unlike any other. A school where most students actually like learning and look forward to their classes. Why?
Because this school teaches magic.
Magic that, to a small population of the world, comes as naturally as breathing. And though they may be smaller by comparison, they thrive in pockets of societies that have existed since the beginning of magic itself. There are family trees centuries tall, proud bearers of a long history of talent.
Each year hundreds of these families send their children to learn more about their own gifts, their own talents. Sent with a wand in hand, excitement in their eyes and minds brimming with curiosity, these young children start their lives with the first step inside. Some go on to become healers, others fight for just causes, still more face an average life that has more wonder than their magicless counterparts could dream.
This never changes. Through centuries through tragedy through peace and past war, this school has always been and likely will always be. It was important that it always would be. To this world, magic is so vital that they can't imagine life without it, wouldn't even be able to function. These proud and successful people base their existence on skills they always expect to have. Not one of them question why they have these powers in the first place, or what it means that a magical child can be born to a family without magic. Yet, there is a better question they should ask instead: Why doesn't everyone have magic?
For if a wizard ever gained the talent and inclination to cast his gaze back thousands of years, he would find a truth that would shake the beliefs of his entire life.
He would find that once, every being in the world walked with magic in their step, a magic that grew stronger with each generation. That it was only much, much later that the Wizarding world was banned from the society. And he would be terrified to see that it was not the Muggles who chased them away, but the Wizards themselves that fled.
Fled before a dark power that plagued the young world; a power that even the greatest witches and wizards of ancient times trembled before in fear, in horror. A power which had cast a curse across the entire planet.
For that is what a wizard would discover, could he see this; the clueless, magicless muggles were no such thing. The ancestors of muggles were wizards, wizards bound beneath a curse so malicious and strong that the first wizards feared it couldn't be undone. And the poor, cursed wizards that had lost all their power were also Cursed to never know, never even remember what they had lost. That simple knowledge flung seventy magical families into the corners of the world to hide and, they thought, to never emerge again.
Generations later, three wizard brothers stood together at the edge of their world and dared to cross a bridge back into the one that had been left behind. They were suicidal, their family warned. You'll be caught as well, friends and lovers begged. All thought they were doomed to die. The three were not strong, nor were they particularly bright, and they were certainly not the most magical of the community. And yet these three wizards crossed the bridge to use magic more powerful than anything the world had seen for ages.
Before a river they stopped and performed magic darker than any before in hope it would save their lives. Their spell was cast deep and it was cast wide, it pulled strength from every struggling, suffering thing that still held their magic before the Curse, save for the families they had left behind. They each hoped to create the one item that could help them do what no other had, and bent their entire creation into forging it.
The first wizard held a determined thirst of knowledge; to know fully, finally, what it was that spread this Curse. For those that had seen it were either dead, or cursed to forget all about what it was. The wizard reasoned if he could not question the survivors then he must learn from the deceased. And so, he created a stone that could return the dead to living and hoped that in addition to their knowledge they could fight alongside him, avenge themselves and save the living.
The second wizard begged, pleaded for a way to truly hide from the Curse. A means to shelter and protect his family and all those he loved. A way, he thought, to be concealed from this plague and outlive it. And so, this wizard's wishes turned his ordinary traveling gear into a flawless invisibility cloak, the likes of which had never and would never be created again.
The third, oldest wizard was determined to end this fight. Why would he seek knowledge or the means to flee if he could just end this Curse, destroy it as it had destroyed so many of their families? And so, he created a weapon for all wizards to use to strengthen their skills.
And yet, they had miscalculated. For amidst all the forces they drew upon to weave their magic, they had no means to hide it from the influence of the Curse. And so, their grand Quest fell short.
The stone of the first wizard could only let him question the dead, not let them fight. He had no allies to aid him in defeating the enemy he had discovered.
The cloak of the second wizard was flawless, and hid him from their foe without fail. But it was small, it could not protect all he cared for.
The weapon of the third was grand and powerful, but could only be used by him and him alone. All that power, which could only be passed on through death.
A hallow victory. A stone, a cloak, and a wand. Despite their falling the three brothers determined that they would use what they had gained. They learned the Curse was wielded by a Hunter, one who fed on the very essence of magic and had already devoured all things that were not too clever, too strong, or too abundant to be fully destroyed. Yet its appetite had never waned and now, this Hunter had sensed their magic. It was coming for them.
It would never stop, they knew. And they feared that if the Hunter gained what they had created it would never be stopped. Only their demise could prevent it from finding them and what they had forged. The clever and eldest brothers went back to their home, hearts heavy with what had to be done. They told their families this was an enemy that would not stop, would not flee, that would never, ever leave magic to be what it once was. And once it felt the magic of a being, if would forever be able to track it down. Their task had only endangered their home.
The eldest brother gave the wand he had created to their best wizard and begged for his own death, so that their families could use its power to protect themselves.
The clever brother took his own life and bound his essence to the stone he had created, so that he could always watch and learn still more about what they had fought, and failed, to destroy.
And the youngest, kindest brother that had wished for naught but the means to keep everyone safe? Did just that. He never returned home and instead led the Hunter on a merry chase that crossed over continents and decades, always using his Cloak to escape at the last second and lead the Hunter farther and farther from the wizards that remained.
When his age grew too great he hid the cloak and finally fought the Hunter, who had become fatigued as the chase grew longer. Their battle was long and bloody, but both knew which would win. As the Hunter stood to finally claim the death of the third brother, it acknowledged him as the greatest prey it had yet to vanquish. A prey that had eluded him for years and dealt him many wounds, it admitted the wizard who now faced him without fear as an equal. It confessed that upon completing this Hunt, it would need to rest and regain the strength it had lost, for how long even it did not know.
If the Hunter had known this man could speak beyond the grave, it would never have said that, nor done what it did next. Perhaps it was respect, perhaps it was to see some horror in his longstanding enemy; perhaps it was even because the Hunter was a lonely, unrivaled singularity who's longest and closest thing to a companion was now dying before it. Whatever the reason, the Wizard Hunter sat before the exhausted man that was finally dying and told the tale of its creation. It explained the existence of the Dark Curse and why the Hunter used it the way it did. And so it was that the last wizard finally learned the secret of the being that hunted magic itself, and died with the guarded knowledge.
The secret, one would assume, died with him. But the clever brother had given his resurrecting stone to a nephew, the only living family member of the three wizards, and instructed him to wait for the ghost of the third and last of them.
So the youngest brother did the impossible and told the living of his own fate at the hands of death. He told his nephew where his cloak had been hidden and what he had learned of their enemy, and his nephew passed the word. The nature of the Hunter enraged the surviving wizards, turned them against their cursed companions even as they swore to bury the truth, despite the warnings of the three, dead men that had sacrificed their very lives to give them the knowledge.
The cloak was reclaimed, the wand and stone were passed on in the bloodlines of their new owners, and as the Hunter slumbered the wizards grew past their terror and eventually forgot it all together. They built their homes and cities, they founded their schools and government and though they no longer remembered precisely why, they never, ever allowed their magic to be revealed.
It was many, many eons later that the Hunter began to stir. And in the hallways of Hogwarts, Peeves the Poltergeist started to sing a new song.