Prologue

~oOo~

At the top of the crumbling stone steps, several figures stood, blurred by an unnatural breeze within the Department of Mysteries. Their points of focus all lay on the solitary arch that loomed above them, trapping the viscous fumes of the Veil. One figure moved away from the line, his own shadow cloaked by his taller companions. Though determination was set in his eyes, his hand was still clasped around the shrivelled remains of the Elder wand, and he took his time to gaze with a furrowed mind at the Veil.

"Are you sure about this?" One of his companions said, a last attempt to change their course. "Think about what you could do-"

"I have Ron, and that's exactly why it has to be destroyed. No one deserves this power, and if it can't be granted a chance to perform its duty as a wand, then there's no reason for its exsistence." Harry answered. He looked down at the splinters of pale wood, rolling the largest shard with his thumb around his palm. He had presented it to Olivander to study, but the wandmaker had merely confirmed what was clear to the naked eye – whatever core was used to fuel the Elder wand's magic had faded once it was snapped, though many still believed that Thestral hair was used.

Ron shook his head, the short crop of his hair quivering to mimic the motion, but did not try to push his point any further. He'd had days to convince his best friend, days of a world after the end of the second wizarding war. Any further attempts to change Harry's mind would have been a waste of a weak hope.

The third figure shifted to place a hand on Harry's forearm. Hermione gave him a solemn smile of encouragement, though it was in fact the sight of a still red scar twisting her strained lips that hardened his resolve. The continued existence of the weapon in his hand would prevent them from ever living in safety again.

And that was what separated the tool of Death from any other wand; while any could be used in aggression, its most common use was to assist a witch or wizard in their lives. With the Elder wand, it seemed impossible to imagine it being used to cast a simple lumos. It would always be a weapon among the instruments of life.

And with that conclusion wedged deeply in his heart and mind, Harry swept forwards to swing his arm towards the veil, watching the reminents of the Elder wand fly freely into the waiting cloak of the Veil. A heavy breath struggled to leave his chest. For a moment, he was terrified that even the Veil would not be able to combat such an old magic, and that the wand would simply clatter down the steps on the other side. For several moments, the trio stared into the swirling glaze, transfixed.

Hermione let out a single humourless laugh. "Well, that was extremely dramatic. Shall we get out of this wretched place then?"

Her voice snapped the other two out of their minds. "Yeah. Bloody freezing in here." Ron muttered, moving ahead of them to the bottom of the steps. "Harry, you coming?"

The dark haired boy's gaze flickered indecisively between the Veil and his friends. "One moment."

Behind him, his friends exchanged a look. Hermione wandered back up to his side, following his eyeline. "You know, in science, there's a law known as the conservation of energy. I've always thought that it applies to magic as well, what with all the power behind spells and such." When Harry's eyes met hers, she carried on with a strength in her voice. "It states, 'energy cannot be created or destroyed, but only changed from one form into another or transferred from one object to another'."

Harry's lips pulled up a little. "You know I never really read muggle texts now days, 'Mione."

"Well, maybe you should think about changing that." She said with a bossy intonation, the 'or I'll make you mind up for you' left unsaid. "I'm telling you the basis of my theory."

"And what's that?"

Her brown eyes became distant with thought, her next words instilling a comforting sense of resolve in Harry. "That when something goes into the Veil, when anything dies or ceases to exist, it's merely the rearrangement of energy. The Elder wand would have dissolved, and that raw energy would be used to create something else."

Harry tried to swallow against the lump in his throat. Sirius... Without another word, Hermione's hand had attatched itself to his, and he tightened their grip fiercly. He let her lead him back to Ron, and together they walked away from the Veil and its endless pool of secrecies.

~oOo~

Within the Veil, there were several layers that one could fall into, some gateways, others pockets of convulsing energy that would eventually seep throught the seams and pass into reality in some new mould of matter.

Somewhere within one shapeless chamber, where time was barely clinging together with hooks of losing determination, several formless globulars of energy that had all recently entered the Veil began to close into one another, the space between them narrowing until with a fantastic collision conjured by chance, something new began to form, and as Fate caught wind of this event, this new entity tumbled through the unseen cracks of the Veil and into a reality ready to be reshaped.

~oOo~

St Mungo's, 9th November,1957

The delivery room was physically painful to stand in. Hot stabs of some sort of electrical energy seemed to violently fling itself from the screaming Walburga Black, several healers having to leave the room to quickly treat their own burns, only to then run back in and continue working. All objects in the room were being held down by a sticking charm, and the healer holding half an infant had several shield charms to protect her.

Magical births tended to be quite an occasion. Not only were they more draining on the carrier, when the magic of a newborn makes first contact with the open air, it usually discharges, often with visible signs such as sparks or changes in temperature. However the birth of her first child was unusually violent, the only unharmed people in the room seemed to be the father and mother.

Eventually, several minutes after 3 in the morning, an unusually restless baby was lying in the arms of his mother. His eyes were already darting about with a sharp precision, though the fluttering of his eyelids gave away the desire to rest. His father's heavy hand was softly running through the thin layer of black hair, and already the Noble house of Black were planning the future of their heir, Marius Taranis Black.