Author's Note: I do not own Harry Potter or the Tales of Beedle the Bard. I do own the OC known as Death to the Brothers though. Enjoy this retold tale of how the Peverell Brothers got the Deathly Hallows. This is actually kind of a supplement to Nymph if I ever get around to writing it. It's taking a lot more planning than I had planned (though some encouragement would be appreciated.)
"Antioch, we have been walking for ages. Cannot we take a break?" Cadmus asked stumbling yet again over a hidden stone. Antioch stopped and wiped the sweat from his brow with his cloak. Then he turned around as Ignotus, the youngest, collapsed on a tree stump.
"Just let him go," Ignotus gasped clutching a stitch in his side. "One cow is not that big of a loss."
"It is a very big loss, Ignotus," Antioch retorted. "That is several gallons of milk we will not sell and a weeks' worth of food we cannot buy."
"We have fifty-two cows, we will not starve," Cadmus grumbled. "It is not like we are poor."
"If we do nothing now the thief will return and he might bring friends," Antioch scolded his brothers.
"How do we know that the cow did not just wander off? It is not like they are intelligent," Ignotus said. Antioch gave him a withering look before storming off into the woods. Cadmus rolled his eyes and Ignotus sighed in exhaustion and then they followed their elder brother. It wasn't long before the sound of running water reached their ears. They broke through the undergrowth and into a wide, open meadow. A large, fast-moving river split it in half.
"We do not have to cross that do we? I mean, how would the thief get the cow across?" Ignotus asked nervously.
"Easy," Antioch said pulling his wand out of his pocket. "He built a bridge."
Cadmus frowned. "I do not see a bridge."
"That is because he Vanished it," Antioch snapped.
"Antioch, why would a wizard steal a cow?" Cadmus demanded. "They could just transfigure one out of a water goblet!"
Antioch glared viciously silencing his younger brother. "You just want to go home. Fine, go, Ignotus and I will catch the thief and you can muck out the cow pen."
Cadmus glowered but didn't move. Antioch nodded in satisfaction.
"On the count of three we will build a bridge," he said. Cadmus and Ignotus pulled out their wands. The three brothers raised their wands.
"One," Antioch said confidently.
"Two," Cadmus quavered.
"Three," Ignotus gulped. The three waved their wands in unison and a magnificent bridge appeared over the river. Antioch smirked and took a confident step forward. The sun went out. Cadmus screamed and clutched Ignotus who stood poker stiff, eyes wide in terror. Antioch clutched his wand glaring into the darkness, willing the culprit out into the open. It was no use, not an inch of light was in the vicinity.
"Lumos," Antioch muttered. His wand sputtered but no light came on. How was that possible? Antioch tried to ignore the twisting feeling in his gut. Someone powerful was messing with them. It was certainly no thief.
"Oh no, oh no, oh no," Cadmus muttered to himself looking this way and that trying to see something. He was shaking so badly that he couldn't hold his wand straight. Ignotus was still rooted to the spot, knuckles white around his wand.
"Cadmus, do be quiet, I need to listen!" Antioch snapped barely above a whisper. Cadmus stuck his fist in his mouth to deaden his voice. Antioch strained his ears. He could no longer hear the river. Was he still next to it? The birds had stopped singing as well. Even the gentle breeze had vanished to be replaced by a cold, stagnant air.
A twig snapped somewhere to their left. Cadmus yelped and released Ignotus, running away from the sound. He ran headlong into Antioch knocking them both to the ground.
"Cadmus, you imbecile! You cannot just leave Ignotus by himself!" Antioch shouted forgetting about the twig in his anger. Cadmus didn't respond. Either he had not heard his brother or he was ignoring him. He had pulled himself into a fetal position, his face hidden, body shaking violently. Antioch shoved his brother off his lap and stood up. He wished he could see where Ignotus was.
"Get up you useless lump!" Antioch shouted giving Cadmus a swift kick in the ribs.
"No! I do not want to meet whoever turned the sun off!" Cadmus said.
"No one can turn the sun off," Antioch scoffed.
"Then what the hell just happened?" Cadmus demanded in a muffled voice.
A bloodcurdling scream rent the air. Cadmus looked up abruptly then pulled back into the fetal position repeating "Oh no," in a high pitched wail. Antioch whipped around trying to see Ignotus.
"Igno-oof!" Antioch felt a body slam into him for the second time as Ignotus collided with him. Both tumbled to the ground. Ignotus clutched the front of his brother's robes trying to feel safe again. Antioch forced Ignotus up so they could sit facing each other.
"Ignotus, what happened? What did you see?" Antioch asked urgently.
"I want to go home!" Ignotus wailed.
"You need to tell me what you saw," Antioch insisted. "Then we can go home."
"I don't know! I couldn't tell for sure but I think…I think they were…eyes. Glowing white eyes without pupils."
Ignotus began to cry. Antioch was shocked. Ignotus hadn't cried since he had reached his eighteenth summer. Whatever he had seen had terrified him. Cadmus had sat up. He reached a hand to Ignotus' shoulder. He may have been a coward but his brothers meant everything to him.
"We need to get out of here, Antioch," Cadmus said quietly, his voice shaky.
"I know-"
"Who dare defies me?" a cold voice asked. The brothers clutched each other in horror. They had never heard a voice like that before. It was a deep baritone with a whispered echo a beat behind. It was bone-chilling.
"Wh-who are you?" Antioch stammered bravely.
"I am thine worst fear, Antioch Peverell," the voice said. Cadmus let out a small squeak hiding behind Antioch. Ignotus leaned into Antioch clearly terrified.
"H-how d-do you kn-know m-m-my n-n-name?" Antioch stammered, his wand held tightly in his shaking hand. Suddenly, a pair of gleaming white eyes shone through the gloom. Ignotus hid his face in Antioch's chest. The eyes had no pupils. A dark purple light began to outline the figure of a tall, broad, muscular man. The light showed that the man wore nothing but a deerskin loin cloth and a wolf pelt cloak. On his head sprouted a pair of regal antlers.
"That river has claimed many lives for me…until now," the deer man began to walk towards them.
"Please, we weren't trying to cross you! We were following a thief!" Cadmus cried.
"Silence mortal!" the man shouted. Cadmus ducked behind Antioch again. "No man has ever escaped me. I shall reward thee for thine…luck."
He said the last word with so much venom that the brothers flinched. Antioch swallowed and faced the man.
"What do mean reward us?" he asked. Something felt very wrong around this man, if he was even close to being a man.
"For Antioch Peverell I give thee a wand of elder." An extremely long wand appeared between the deer man and the brothers. Antioch couldn't help it. He was drawn toward the wand. He could feel the power of it as though it were calling to him.
"I already have a wand," he managed to say weakly, still staring at the wand.
"This wand is different, no being alive has a wand such as this," the deer man said. "It will only answer to thee; no other being could wield its power. It will never fail in a duel for it cannot be beat."
Slowly, Antioch stood. An unbeatable wand…he could finally settle his dispute with Antonius Mooreheart. The man did not deserve to live after he had dishonored the Peverell's cousin. He could fight off every thief, every villain, who threatened his home and family. He'd be unstoppable.
"Take it and use it wisely, young Peverell," the man said. He released the wand and it hung in midair for a moment. Then it slowly floated over to Antioch's hand. Antioch's hands went limp and his wand fell out of his hand. He reached for the unbeatable wand. Once it touched his hand it glowed a violent red and then went dark like the rest of the surroundings. Antioch spun it in his hand in awe. Cadmus and Ignotus stared at him.
"I do not like this," Ignotus whispered.
"Silence, Ignotus Peverell," the man hissed. Ignotus shrank into Antioch. "For Cadmus Peverell, I give thee a stone of resurrection." A stone appeared hovering over the man's hand. It too glowed a violent red. Cadmus stood a little straighter. Had he heard right? A stone of resurrection?
"I b-b-beg your p-p-pardon?" Cadmus stuttered sure he had heard wrong.
"Turn this stone three times and all thine lost loved ones shall return to thee," the man said sending the stone to Cadmus. Cadmus caught the stone as it fell. He stared at it, trembling as he thought about his darling Sophia who had died the week before they were to be wed. Now they could be.
"Finally, for Ignotus Peverell, I give thee mine own cloak of invisibility," the man said. Antioch and Cadmus looked up from their gifts in surprise. Ignotus pulled away from Antioch just enough to look at the frightening man. From off his wolf skin cloak he pulled a shimmering invisibility cloak. It looked like no other invisibility cloak the brothers had ever seen. There was no sheen like one made from Demiguise hair and it made no noise as the man sent it over to Ignotus. Ignotus caught it. It was lighter than air and softer and smoother than any fabric he had ever touched. He looked at the man in awe.
"Cherish these gifts," the man said. "For this is the day you escaped Death."
With that the man vanished and everything came rushing back; the sunlight, the birdsong, the murmuring river and the ground. The three brothers toppled over in surprise, blinded and deafened by everything around them. Antioch sat up first, blinking rapidly to try and adjust to the sudden light. Cadmus groaned and rolled over onto his stomach. He got up on his knees and rubbed his eyes furiously. Ignotus just lay where he fell not sure what was real anymore.
Antioch looked at the wand in his hand. The power he thought he had felt was gone. It looked any other wand. It felt like any other wand. He pointed it at the bridge and Vanished it. He barely flicked it and the deed was done. Antioch stared in shock. For a brief moment he had felt that power again.
"Are you all right, Cadmus?" Antioch asked. Cadmus nodded. He picked up the stone he had dropped. There was nothing special about the appearance of this rock. It simply looked a like a pebble smoothed by a creek.
Antioch crawled over to Ignotus. "You okay, Ignotus?" he asked.
"I…I think so," Ignotus said weakly. "Can we go home now?"
Antioch couldn't help it. He started to laugh. Ignotus gave a small grin and began to chuckle too. Even Cadmus couldn't help but join in. Soon the three brothers were laughing hysterically.
"You realize no one is going to believe us, right?" Cadmus gasped. "Hey everybody, we just met Death himself and he was so impressed by us he gave us an unbeatable wand, a resurrection stone and his very own cloak of invisibility!"
Antioch stopped laughing. It so abrupt that his brothers stopped too and looked at him.
"Antioch?" Ignotus asked warily.
"Cadmus is right," Antioch said. "Nobody will believe us and before you two start arguing with me I say we keep this encounter to ourselves. If anyone asks, we bumped into a lord and he granted us these gifts for saving his daughter or something."
"Would not one of us get his daughter?" Cadmus asked. Antioch gave him a withering look.
"We should go; the sun is near the western horizon. We will not make it home before sunset," Ignotus said glancing between his brothers.
"Let us go home then," Antioch said helping Ignotus to his feet. Cadmus frowned but stood up too. He slipped his stone into the leather pouch at his side. Ignotus gingerly folded up his new cloak and put it in his leather pouch. Then the three brothers set off for their home in the late afternoon sun.