Disclaimer: I don't own DP nor HP. If I did, DP would have more seasons and, Harry would have given better names to his kids.
~ Betaed by: Cordia.
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Prologue: In which the ending was just the beginning.
Hermione: "You — you really think this wand exists, then, Mr. Ollivander?"
Ollivander: "Oh yes, yes, it is perfectly possible to trace the wand's course through history. There are gaps, of course, and long ones, where it vanishes from view, temporarily lost or hidden; but it always resurfaces. It has certain identifying characteristics that those who are learned in wandlore recognize...Whether it needs to pass by murder, I do not know. Its history is bloody, but that may be simply due to the fact that it is such a desirable object, and arouses such passions in wizards. Immensely powerful, dangerous in the wrong hands, and an object of incredible fascination to all of us who study the power of wands."
— Garrick Ollivander to Hermione on the Elder Wand (source: Pottermore wikia).
...
A cold, silent breeze blew softly, carrying the dust-sized particles of debris into the wind. The smell in the air was quite peculiar, a hint of blood and ashes intermingling oddly with the pines in the Forbidden forest. It was as if the wind could not settle on whether to bring promises of death or hope… Nevertheless, one lone figure stood at the edge of a desolate bridge, rising over an abyss on the outskirts of the Hogwarts castle. Harry couldn't help but feel that the solemn vibes of life and death he was getting seemed appropriate, given the events that had taken place in the last hours.
Friends and enemies alike had lost their lives during battle. Students and teachers had stood side by side as equals. First came the fear. Then came the bravery, the hope, and the decisive duel between the Boy-Who-lived and darkest wizard in the story of British wizardry. Everything had grown quiet then, and all but those two figures seemed to vanish into nothing.
Harry had heard the beat of his own heart drumming in his ears when the whole world was consumed by complete silence. It was as if time itself had stopped except for him and Voldemort as the predestined encounter began.
Everyone in the vicinity had watched, knowing that only one of them would come out standing.
Now it was all over. The war was over. And the Boy-Who-No-Longer-Had-To-Fight finally managed to get himself a moment of peace after so many months in the wilderness.
"Why didn't it work for him… the Elder Wand?" Hermione, who been following the raven-haired boy silently and unhurriedly ever since she saw her friend walk away —with an expression that bordered on reverence— from the hall full of grateful and smiling faces.
Harry was brought out of his musings —glancing up from the most powerful Deathly Hollow— when the voice of his friend rang in his ears. He turned around to see his other best friend, Ron Weasley, standing right behind the brunette.
"It answered to somebody else," Harry replied absently. The same question had been bothering him, and it had taken quite a lot of thinking to figure out. "When he killed Snape," he began, knowing there was no need to explain to whom he referred to as 'he', "He thought it would become his. But, the truth is that it never belonged to Snape."
Harry looked down to the wand in his hand. He felt the powerful ancient magic running in the spots his skin made contact with it… He looked up again, forcing himself to continue. "It was Draco who disarmed Dumbledore that night in the astronomy tower…it belonged to him then…" The current holder of the Elder Wand looked down to it once more; he could almost feel it purring with delight in his hand. He shook the feeling off. "Until I disarmed him the other night in the Malfoy Manor."
Unable to focus on his own explanation he gazed at his friend, his vision blurry as he felt the seduction of the legendary item in his hand.
"So that means…" Ron trailed off, efficiently —albeit unknowingly— pulling Harry out of a trance he didn't know his friend had gotten into.
"It's mine," Harry responded simply, playing with the wand in his fingers. A part of him was begging to try the wand out, even if just once. But Harry, admirably, resisted the temptation.
"What should we do then?" Ron prodded further, a dumb look on his face.
"We?" Hermione echoed incredulous, yet chastising all in one syllable.
Ronald, under the glare of the girl that was and was not quite his girlfriend yet, gulped before elaborating. "I'm just saying it's the Elder Wand, the most powerful wand in the world. With it, you'd be invincible."
Harry's eyes flew to the wand in his hand once more, just like he had so many times after it fell into his hand. The power it promised was hypnotizing. But The-Boy-Who-Lived knew, all too well, that there was no such thing as being invincible; if there was, then none of the previous owners of the wand would have met their end prematurely. The fate he, himself, would fare if he keep the wand.
The last Potter looked down at the cursed wand for seconds that felt like hours. Then, deciding the cursed item had already been the downfall of too many lives, he grabbed one end with each hand. The motion that came soon after was quite predictable. He drew his two hands together, turning the straight line on an slight arch, then a much rounder one, until the abused piece of wood snapped like a helpless twig. A little flash of green light shone like fire for an instant. The most powerful wand in the world had been ruined.
Not feeling satisfied with completely crippling the Elder Wand, Harry took one of the halves and threw it to the abyss that rose in front of him. Then, before it had the chance to reach the bottom of the seemly endless void, he threw the second half. A feeling of accomplishment rushed into the young, smiling, wizard.
The other two thirds of the golden trio stared, absolutely dumbfounded, in the direction the broken wand had vanished.
Had this been a movie, all eyes would have been focused in the emotive moment the trio shared before the mandatory 'and they lived happily lived after'. Guided by an unspoken agreement, the golden trio moved to stand next to each other, then held hands as they watched the horizon. As they saw the sky subtly sift colors the slightest bit, they held in their hearts their hopes for the future; on that moment they could pretend that they could see into the future, a future filled with happy days and new beginnings.
That would have been quite the tear-jerking ending.
But, truth be told, things were far from over.
There is this thing about legends that pass down into history. They might survive for centuries, passed down from one generation to another. However, as time passes, things that should have not have been forgotten are. Details about the nature of the Hollows, for example.
One part of a long forgotten history spoke of a man —a man whose name nobody remembered —who took the Elder Wand just as the previous owner was killed. The man with no name and no face took the magical item in a fist clenched with fingers as pale as death itself.
It is unknown what the man was doing there. It is unknown if his strength was worthy of the legend that was being mockingly offered by a whim of fate. But, if any magician did know about this person, they might have as easily concluded that the man was either very wise, very stupid, or just downright crazy. The man broke the wand, relinquishing absolute power, then vanished in the shadows.
No mortal remembers this story any longer. And, thus, they couldn't know that the Elder Wand had found its way back to the realm of the living.
Only those who are destined to watch over time still know the full truth. The Elder Wand, just like the other two Deathly Hallows handed to the Peverell brothers, belonged to Death.
And, those who belonged to death could never truly die.
Just like Death would never cease to exist.
It was scarcely known, even in the old days of the wizard world, that those objects that have been around long enough could learn awareness; becoming sentient. Such was the case with the Deathly Hollows, which had been around even before the ages of Merlin. The Wand had gone one step further than most objects, though: beyond becoming sentient it had developed an obsession. An obsession to serve the strongest.
So, now that The-Boy-Who-Won-The-War threw the wand halves fell out of the sight of any mortal, they started giving off a green glow, calling forth the power to travel back home, to the realm of death—the Ghost Zone.
The severed parts of black wood glowing green attracted each other like magnets as they fell. When the two halves met, the contact was sublime and light, like an innocent kiss, but then became something deeper. The splintered areas met, and the splinters met, repairing themselves back to their original shape as they fell, twirling into an intimate dance. Soon, two parts became one, and the wand that had been falling burst with an unnatural glow that ripped the veil of existence.
The bright swirl of green that came out of the wand stayed in place for a timeless moment, before swallowing the now-repaired wand.
Smooth, black wood hummed in delight as it made it home, to the realm of obsessive beings that refused to pass on the other side.
The Ghost Zone, the limbo thought off as an absurd impossibility by the few wizards that had ever heard of it, hugged the wand welcomingly.
Days, months and years blurred into one for the Elder Wand —for there were no days and nights in the always bright green expanses of The Zone— while the time in the realm of the living kept on moving on normally.
And then, as fate would have it, the Elder Wand found his ticket out from the Ghost Zone
...
"BEWARE MY SANDWICHES OF DOOM!" The Box Ghost screamed to nobody, as he raised a lunchbox in the air. "YES! Now those humans will SCREAM IN FRIGHT OF MY UNHEALTHY, HIGH-CHOLESTEROL FOOD!" He cheered. Then, something bumped into him.
"Ouch, what's… a stick? Hmm," he was pensive for a moment then, exclaimed, "FEAR MY MIGHTY STICK OF TERROR!
"YES! THOSE PATHETIC HUMANS WILL FEAR ME, THE BOX GHOST, MASTER OF ALL THINGS CARDBOARD AND SQUARE!"
And, with that, the most harmless ghost in existence unknowingly went to Amity Park with one of the most powerful magic objects in the world stuffed in a box of sandwiches…
To be continued.
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AN: Thanks for giving this fic a chance. It will take me some chapters to actually get Danny to Hogwarts, so please be patient.
This prologue has been betaed by Cordia, a quite awesome writer whose fic "I'm still here" was one of the first fics ever to make it on my favorite list. I would strongly recommend it to fans of DP eager to read something different.
I hope to see you soon on the next one. Please remember to review.