A History of Magic – Cardiomyopathy
Just so we're clear, I know I've had some fractured points of view through the first two chapters. From now on, I'll be alternating chapters with the Founder's views and Harry's. We good?
Excellent.
Enjoy my twisted imagination!
….
Salazar did not truly believe in god. He swore by several of them, and he used faith as a weapon against others (Salazar could quote the doctrines of several faiths quite well), but he held onto none for himself.
But if he ever had believed in the divine, this asylum would be enough to drive the faith from him. Truly, this place was godforsaken.
No, not forsaken, Salazar frowned. Just godless.
Or perhaps there is a god, and this is hell.
He had been chained in the same dark room for three days. His cell – for it was most definitely a cell – was damp and cold, and the chains hurt. The smell of human refuse lay thick in this place.
Salazar tried to bear his discomfort with all the dignity of a Slytherin.
What dignity there is left in Slytherin's blood, Salazar thought bitterly. We are broken, our line ended. His uncle would bear no more children, and the estate would go to his cousins as a dowry. Salazar did not hate his squib cousins, but he was the heir to the Slytherin land. As women, they could not inherit, even if they were competent enough to. The law forbade it.
When he wasn't thinking about mounting his uncle's head on a stake or trying (and failing) to escape, Salazar was bored.
Really really bored.
And hungry.
The food was half rotten, and there wasn't enough of it to feed a growing boy.
Salazar was chained just loosely enough to reach a bundle of blankets at once side of the room. There was no place for refuse, and after a few days of painfully trying not to go, Salazar found that he couldn't even care that he was soiling himself.
Salazar didn't sleep, either. The screams and wailing kept him up at all hours, and unsettled him.
Three days of this, and Salazar feared he was already going mad.
This place was hell. It was a hell created by evil men who wished torment on others. Salazar understood that. Hell was not a metaphorical punishment of god; it was real, and he was living in it.
And the worst of it was not having a wand. He couldn't magic himself out without one – it was impossible to do. Salazar had never thought that being separated from his magic might frighten him so much.
It was huddling in cold, fear, and stink when he first heard the voice.
'Wet… Cold…'
'Hello?'
'Who are you? Can you hear me?'
Salazar realized it was a snake. He smiled.
'It's okay, I'm human, but I'm like you,' he explained, and watched the brown snake that came into view from a hole in the wall.
'You speak.'
'I do.'
'Quite well, for a human. I knew a speaker once, but I think much was lost in the translation,' the snake offered.
'Thank you,' Salazar replied, knowing it was high praise, from a snake. He too knew a few speakers, most of the really old wizarding lines like himself. The gift seemed to get more and more rare. He had learned at the very least to treat all snakes with a great deal of respect – they had their own internal magics, and pissing off one or two snakes might be signing your own death warrant if you were a parseltongue.
'What is your name, human speaker?'
'I am Salazar. By what name are you called?'
'You may call me Sophia. You are young.'
'I am.'
'Why are you in this cold place? It is not good for the young.'
Salazar could taste the bitter unfairness of his situation on his tongue, felt the rant coming.
Control yourself, he ordered himself sharply. No more. His temper had driven him to confront his uncle, and had gotten him into this whole mess, instead of being able to act proactively. He wasn't going to loose his temper like that again.
'It is nothing,' he offered, by way of explanation. 'But I cannot leave.'
Sophia slithered up to him, curling up his leg and settling near his collarbone.
'You are warm,' she observed from that position. 'I believe I will stay as well.'
'As you wish, Lady,' Salazar said, and he could swear the snake eyed him distainfully.
'Are you making fun of me?' she asked dangerously. Salazar giggled.
'Never, dear lady,' he replied. His new companion snapped her tail against his neck in a reminder to behave, before she settled.
Her presence kept the nightmares away, and seemed to hold the screams back too.
They would talk together. Sophia brought him news of the outside world, of real life and real people. She debated with him – as it turned out, she had been a wizard's familiar many years ago, and when he died, she had remained.
She knew loss as well as he, Salazar knew, which is one of the reasons he could not shun her presence. She comforted him in the way that only others who had walked through the depths of hell could.
After a week, he would only wake occasionally.
He had been there for two weeks when he caught typhus.
For the first time in his life, Salazar truly felt like he was going to die. It was the first time in his life that he could remember truly wanting to die. He had known it was only a matter of time before he caught something, but his vindication didn't stop his weak chest from shaking with coughs as he fought the sickness.
They moved him to the hospital ward for several weeks. The sounds of the dying and the stench of the dead surrounding him. Salazar lay awake at night, huddled tightly between two other sick patients. He woke one morning staring into cold dead eyes.
When he fever broke and the coughs ended, Salazar wanted to sing with joy. He was moved back to his disgusting cell, and was happy just to be with Sophia again – he refused to allow her anywhere near the crowded hospital.
As time went on, he was still trying to figure out what kind of snake she was. It hurt his cause that he had no way of seeing her properly in the light, because his cell was so dark, and he could not bring her outside.
After a month, he barely heard the screams at all.
He refused to dwell on the dark moments. The times when they dragged him from his cell to throw freezing water on him, or when he was stripped naked and beaten. Or the time he had seen them cut off a patients leg with no anesthetic to get the demons out of it. If he dwelled on that, then his chest began to constrict, and he could feel the tears rising.
He refused to think of being one of those screaming and moaning patients they tore from the cells.
He knew when he had been there a month, because his hair had grown out quite long, and bedlam sheared it all off.
They bound him to a chair and chopped with imprecise strikes that had cut skin as well as hair. Salazar's head had only patches of hair when they were done.
Sophia had been dismayed when he had returned. Salazar had shrugged.
'Its only hair,' he said. But he wanted to cry. Holy hell, how he wanted to cry and have someone to him and feel safe. It was completely irrational to feel this way about hair, but that's all he could think.
And has for having comforting arms to hold him that was pure fantasy. He was not safe. He would not seek comfort that could never be given, because there were no shoulders left for him to cry on, not even at home.
And so he stifled his tears.
'You know, many important wizards were bald,' Sophia observed.
'What are you on about?'
'Many important and powerful wizards had no hair,' Sophia repeated, as if he were slow.
'Like who?' Salazar challenged.
'Merlin was bald.'
'Come off it.'
'Really. No eyebrows either – apparently he kept burning them off with experiments.'
Salazar didn't know if he was sobbing or laughing anymore.
'My old master once said that he read an account of a whore that said Merlin didn't even have any hair on his –'
Salazar descended into giggles, and Sophia too seemed to be having trouble finishing that sentence.
'You were going to say feet, right?' he asked when Sophia and he were finally able to speak again.
'If you say so, wizardling.'
Salazar started giggling again.
The next morning, Salazar awoke to find his black curls were shoulder length again.
He was treated to a second shearing, and then a third and a fourth. After the sixth day in a row that he was strapped down and had his hair hacked off, it didn't come back.
The smirk Salazar had worn all week vanished when he awoke bald for the first time. Sophia comforted him, and reminded him of their earlier discussion, which led to a debate about whether or not having hair actually obstructed the use of magic. Salazar couldn't see how that could be possible, but Sophia seemed to think it might make a difference, listing some obscure tomes that Salazar wished he could get his hands on.
Around the same time they took his hair for good, they started letting him out into the communal area. It was always horrible.
Once, he brought Sophia. She was spotted by a drunken nurse, and Salazar was beaten until he could feel bones breaking.
He never brought Sophia there again, and spent all his time huddled in a small ball of terror, watching the other patients.
There were a lot of them. Salazar didn't even need to know how big the 'hospital' was to understand that it was overcrowded.
What he understood better than anything, however, was the desperate need to escape. All of his thoughts were bent on this – even his fantasies of revenge were not as important.
Weeks passed.
Sophia and Salazar had started planning pranks to play on the staff, but after the first time he had successfully pulled one off, he had been whipped to within an inch of his life, and hadn't been given food for a week.
Neither suggested the prank idea again.
Salazar hadn't said a word in English for who knew how long. His boy was emaciated, and there was simply no strength within his bones.
'You will die here,' Sophia told him coldly one day.
'I will not,' Salazar rasped.
'You will die here, and there will be no help for you child. You must gather your senses!'
'I can't even use magic to help myself!' Salazar cried out. 'What do you want me to do?'
'Oh dear one,' Sophia sighed. 'Not all magic requires a wand.'
And yet, try as he might, Salazar could not achieve such magics. If they existed, they were utterly beyond his capabilities. The trick with his hair never duplicated itself, and Salazar wondered if it was just a fluke sent by god to taunt him.
He was beginning to see the truth of it. He was going to die in this hellhole, and he had no way to escape it, no matter what Sophia said. He wasn't a wizard without his wand. He knew it. He was completely helpless.
What irked him most is that it meant that the bastard Ricardus would win.
….
I don't know in truth how far I ran that night.
I know that when I was finally aware of where I was, I was far away from home. My feet were raw and covered in blood. I am many things, but I most certainly not athletic.
I was still in the Iberian Peninsula, of that I was sure. Night still surrounded me, but I couldn't have run far enough to leave. And for the first time since my home had gone up in ashes around me, I had to figure out what to do. Where to go.
Everyone I knew was a nobleman who would now be under the iron law of the man who was going to have my father executed. My life was spared, but not so that I could remain in my home.
But where else was there? For the love of god, I was eleven!
And every time I closed my eyes, I saw my tutors' bloodstained hands, my mothers gorgeous dress, marred with red from her slit throat. My father's pained and determined expression as he was restrained and leg away with his king. The blood pooled so deep it splashed in red clouds around me.
I gave myself over to weeping at last, unable to do anything else, and not knowing what I could do.
I must have slept. I didn't want to, because I could imagine the dark dreams that hovered around me like wraiths.
But when I dreamed, I did not recall the carnage I had left in my home. I saw four figures shining with light. They stood in a magnificent hall, weapons drawn.
"So long as there are any left standing, they will be welcome here," one of them said. She had golden hair and soft features that were hardened with determination.
Another one snorted as if he would contest that, but his eyes were fixed on the door, his sword drawn.
"Swear it Salazar," she might have been begging, though she said it like an order.
"I stand to defend all of those who ask for aid," he said, too patiently. "Though as the world is like as not to end today…"
But the woman already turned away.
"I will hold the defenses for as long as I can if you fall," she said softly, and the other woman among the four hugged her.
"It will not come to that, my sister."
There was something familiar about the second woman, but I couldn't place it. She was wearing men's livery, with shining chain mail underneath. What drew my attention however, was her coat of arms. It was blue and copper, and depicted a raven carrying a scroll.
The crest of Ravenclaw. Who was this woman?
"Yeah, these demons are like kittens. All brawn, no brain. They can't fight," the last man said with an easy grin. He was built like a bear and had his naked sword in hand as well. "Ugly too," he added.
"They must be related to you then," the first man drawled.
The blonde woman giggled.
"The end of the world is here, and the two of you are still fighting," she said, sighing dramatically.
"It's okay," the bear-like man said. "Old snake face is just jealous of my panache."
The other man rolled his eyes, but grinned.
Don't worry, we'll get through this," he assured her.
The four waited as the hall filled with men and women. Some wore armor, but most didn't. Almost none carried swords, favoring little sticks instead. If they were gearing for a fight, they would loose.
"Ready yourselves," the bear-like man called. "Be strong – today we fight not for glory or conquest, but for all that we love. For the very right to exist. If we must die at the hands of this menace, let us die with honor, rather than groveling on the floor like dogs!"
The men and women did not cheer, but the words seemed to strengthen them.
"They are here," the woman said.
The doors slammed open.
I awoke to streaming sunlight, confused.
Who were those people? Just what had I seen?
It was just a dream, I reminded myself steadily. It was all in my head.
I forced the four figures out of my mind. They looked so familiar!
And why was that woman bearing my coat of arms? I shuddered at that; for me to be the only Ravenclaw left, the last of my line. Even if I married, I was the last Ravenclaw.
I sighed. I had more pressing problems than nighttime visions at the moment. I had to decide what to do, where to go.
I could not go back. No noble would take in a Ravenclaw now. I needed water, shelter, and food in that order, and I needed a source of income if I was to go into urban areas. I doubted I'd be much good at begging or thieving, but I might be able to pick up a trade as a scribe.
I made a face. Nobody took on women for apprenticeships. If that was truly my plan, I would have to go as a man. I also knew that traveling as a young boy alone was safer than traveling as a woman.
I carried a ceremonial dagger with me bearing my mother's coat of arms – a raven holding a scroll – on it. I used the dull blade to shear my hair short.
I tried to tell myself that my people were wanderers by nature, that it was in our blood to be sensible and know what to do, but I felt nothing but fear.
Common blood might thrum in my veins, but I was raised noble, with noble sensitivities and cares. I barely knew the first thing about surviving on my own.
I needed to determine where I was, first thing, so I could see about getting as far away from home as I could. I wasn't going to give anyone a reason to execute me.
Well, I was in a wood, after all. I picked a tree and began the slow business of climbing. I fumbled several times, and I nearly fell more times than I could admit.
Pathetic, lilly-handed noble, I snarled at myself as I reached the top of the tree gasping for air.
To the west, opposite the newly risen sun, I saw smoke rising. I flinched. I saw the unmistakable spires of Cuenca to the south. For a moment, I entertained the wild idea that I could go to Grenada, and hide among the Muslims. I could work for passage across the channel and go to North Africa. Many men had traveled the trade routes all the way to the coast of China – surely I could too? I saw the land spread out before me. If it didn't mean passing the capital, I could even go to Protugal and join a ship bound for the currents that would bring them into the west. I could follow my father's dream and see if the world truly was round.
The dream that would never be realized.
I wanted to know. I wanted to see the end of the world, and discover where it led.
I snorted, knowing my so called plans were romantic fantasy. No sane man would hire an eleven year old aboard any ship going in any direction, even if I could pass as a boy.
Especially an eleven year old that was as useless as I was, I grumbled, feeling a wash of self-pity run through me.
Enough, I finally threw myself out of that funk. All of Castile was lain out before me like a map. It was beautiful. It was enormous. I could hardly imagine the world that lay beyond the borders of my sight.
The world was indeed a very large place. And what was I? I felt like I was drowning. Like I was awash in a storm at sea. I had never seen one, but my father had. He told me of the boundless fear such a storm could inspire in the most stoic of men.
How do you fight an enemy you can't even understand?
I looked away and began my long journey down. I would like to think that my journey down was lightly more graceful than the journey up, but the truth is, I slipped more than once, and I landed on my ass when I finally hit the ground.
Ouch.
I pulled myself to my feet, feeling frustrated. I felt tears burning in my eyes, and I brushed them away. I set to walking northeast. There were trade roads that led into Europe proper, and the going would be easier than moving through forests and rivers in the outlands.
Hours of walking turned into days.
I couldn't remember a time when everything didn't hurt. My feet burned from walking, and my leg muscles were sore. My arms burned from practice with the bow I had taken. I was almost always hungry, and my stomach gurgled constantly. Memories from a lifetime ago helped me remember diagrams of plants and berries, and after getting sick twice, I learned how to find the edible ones.
I missed Johannes and our debates. I missed my mother's soft smile, and my father's clever grin. I missed my home, where I could pass among adult circles without hesitation. And I missed my books. There was one on the culture differences between Catalonia and Grenada which I had wanted to finish. It had burned with my home.
With every step, I couldn't stop the rant in my mind. I missed being clean. I missed sleeping in a bed. Reading. I missed people. Books.
At night, I was too exhausted to dream.
The countryside passed agonizingly slowly. After two weeks, I thought I might still be in Castile, and I had yet to see the trade route I had expected.
I was forced to admit I was lost.
I stumbled upon a small trading village. They didn't speak any dialects I knew, but I could make out what the woman I was speaking to had said; I had quite seriously misjudged the distance I had run that first night. The city I had seen from the forest hadn't been Cuenca. It had been Salamanca, which was several weeks' walk west of Cuenca.
I groaned.
Of course.
I set off again, feeling more stupid than I ever had, but ready to correct that mistake.
I shot a rabbit for the very first time, and couldn't wait to tell Johannes. I grinned about my victory for a full minute before I remembered.
My mood much subdued, I started gathering sticks for a fire. It was only when I had everything set up that I remembered that I had no way of actually setting my wood alight. I had no flint, nothing to strike a spark.
I stared at the bloody rabbit dejectedly.
Anger rose within me. Was this to be my fate then? Was I to die in the wilderness rather than by a kings' sword? Was my mothers' gift to me meaningless?
I nearly screamed in surprise when my pathetic tinder burst into flames.
It took me a long time staring at the fire before I leapt into action, feeding wood to the fire and skinning the rabbit with the ceremonial dagger. Trial and error (and many cut fingers) taught me how to sharpen it to hold an edge that was workable enough to use.
The food – my first meat in a long time – felt like ash in my mouth, though I suppose I hadn't done the most thorough job removing all the hair, nor was I skilled at cooking in general.
As I ate, I remembered the fire that exploded behind me as I ran from my home. What devilry was this that followed me in my grief?
The question hung heavily upon me, and I stared glumly at the embers until they burned themselves out. Normally, I would love such a mystery. Now it just depressed me to know I had no books to seek information from, and no Johannes to talk through theories with.
I passed several towns, but I avoided people in general. I was dirty and I smelled.
I dreamed several times of the four men and women, puzzling over their faces and identities. Who were they? Why did I dream of them? I wished for my books, so that I could find out.
I had been on my own for a month when it started to rain.
It was cold and wet. I couldn't sleep. The rain continued all the next day, and the day after.
I was sick, and soaked to my bones. Muddy too.
I curled up into a ball in a bush, delirious with fever. I thought I saw my mother reaching out to hold me, thought I heard my mother's voice.
And if I thought for some time that perhaps my month alone had been a fevered dream, and that soon I would wake up, I hope I shall be forgiven. I was never the strongest of us, and I missed my home dearly.
I saw bodies rise from pools of blood to dance. Blood rained from the ceiling, skeletons shed their skins…. I dreamed of shrieking animals and creatures with green eyes that burned with destructive power. I dreamed of a little girl with blonde hair and sad eyes who was destroyed by her grief. Power rolled off of her in waves, completely uncontrolled. She was sobbing, begging for forgiveness in a dark and hostile wasteland.
I saw a boy shivering with cold refusing to cry as a whip came down upon his back, and rain crashed down around him.
I saw an emaciated figure standing in the rubble of a building, surrounded by the dead and dying. He looked up, and his eyes were full of grief.
I saw the dancing skeletons tearing out a man's gut and dancing around with it. The screams were awful.
I don't know how long it was that I lay there, seeing these horrible visions.
I was very weak when I awoke, but I was alive. Being dead didn't hurt this much.
My pack was gone, but I still had my cloak, my bow, and my dagger. I didn't know if the rains had carried the pack away, or if it had been stolen, but I moved on without a second thought.
I had lost too much to care.
It started raining again, much to my dismay. I found what little shelter I could under a tree, but there was still a lot of water. I sighed, wishing for my mother. She used to sing all the time. I hummed one of the tunes she had taught me. It didn't hurt as much as I thought it would, to remember her.
I didn't see the branches of the tree as they knit together, but I did feel it when the rain stopped coming down on me. I looked up to see a very workable roof over my head.
And I was dry.
I didn't have the energy to disagree with a tree, so I simply lay down. Whatever this mysterious power was, it seemed to be protecting me.
I shuddered at the thought of the blazing inferno that had been my home.
I had to remember that this protector also destroyed. But perhaps that is the nature of all power, yes? To be both sword and shield? To kill and defend, to protect and destroy?
But I had too few resources to deny such a gift, if it was within my power to control it.
Whatever this power was, I would find out, and I would use it to survive this.
I would not – could not – let my mother's final gift to me be wasted.
I slept fitfully, and dreamed of four blazing figures.
…
Helga Hufflepuff woke to find herself clutching her sister's dead body.
"Dear god, what have I done?" she whispered, hoarse with horror. "Kayla."
The girl had suffered so much in her life – it didn't seem fair that she could meet such an end now. Her body was cold and lifeless. Helga held onto it as though it was her very last line to life.
"There must be something," Helga whispered, her eyes closed against the pain. She didn't want to see her sister pale and rigid with death, to look into her unseeing eyes and feel her cold hands.
It was like drowning on land. Her lungs couldn't hold air, and her heart seemed to be working at half capacity.
Helga gasped for breath, and all she could think was that she wished she had died.
She would suffer yesterday's pain a thousand times and then some if it meant that her sister could live again.
Helga knew that she was a powerful witch. Her mother had always cautioned her about practicing magic because of it. There had to be something she could do to fix this. She didn't know if her magic could even work without a wand, but she had to try. She would make this right.
The magic poured out of her like water. It flowed into the clearing, leveling trees and killing plants and animals until a large circle was cleared. Runes Helga could not have known were carved into the ground, but when Helga opened her eyes, her vision was filled with her sister's body. The magic was being pulled out of her.
She could return a broken stick to the body of a tree. She could give a lame dog a new limb. What was that but returning something dead back to life? Reconnecting the soul to the body?
She released her power, trusting that it knew what to do. She pulled it towards her sister.
Live, she ordered. Come back to me Kayla.
The earth shook around the dead girl and her sister.
Helga felt the power rise up like a tsunami within her. It was the darkest kind of magics, practiced by the evilest of people. The kind of power that frightened Helga in the night.
She smiled as tears ran down her face. She was completely blind to the outside world.
The magic was wrong, but she pulled it up and out of herself anyway, uncaring.
Kayla, I love you, she thought desperately.
The magic exploded out from underneath her. It poured from every place in her skin, shining with green light. It swirled around Hela, and she called it to heel. It paused, like a dog at its masters' call.
And then it broke free of her control.
Helga screamed. The magic was ripped from her, and pushed itself into her sister. Helga didn't see the mark it left burning like a brand in Kayla's body. She had to follow along with the power as it reached through Kayla. Helga whimpered with fright as she caught a glimpse of decaying trees and shrieking animals. Something with menacing red eyes and huge teeth roared angrily, and Helga drew back. The magic reveled, escaping into the black abyss around her.
Helga was pulled back into her own body as the magic returned. She was shaking now, though she didn't know it.
She opened her eyes at last.
"Kayla?" Helga called hoarsely, uncertainly.
A hand twitched. Helga grabbed onto it, but the touch burned her skin. She drew back, hissing with pain.
Kayla slowly sat up, and opened her eyes.
They were red.
Kayla opened her mouth and screamed. It was a horrible, tortured sound, more animal than human. It was like the shrieking call of the creatures in the world beyond.
Helga covered her ears, crying out. She wanted to help her sister, make it better, but she didn't know what to do. She was helpless.
"Kayla!" Helga sobbed, blinded by tears.
The girl exploded.
Helga was struck speechless as blood and organs went flying, hitting trees. Helga stared at the hand that had flown into her lap. She was soaked with blood.
No.
Nonononononononononono!
The harsh reality swelled over Helga, and she felt as though she were drowning. It overwhelmed her, threatened to undo her.
"Hello Human."
Helga's eyes rose and widened.
The… thing… in front of her towered over her. Well, Helga was always small, so this wasn't hard to do, but the creature was about six feet tall, made of smoky shadows. Its body was vaguely like that of a human, except that the limbs were far too spindly, and the face was snakelike, with large teeth the length of Helga's palm. The mouth was twisted in an evil grin. Shadowy power hung around the creature like smoke or fog.
It's eyes burned with green power.
The creature opened its mouth in a hiss.
Helga vanished with a crack.
She was at home, in the kitchen. She was safe and warm, and there was food on the table. Kayla would be in her room playing. Her father was herding sheep in the fields, and her mother would be weaving. Just like every other morning. The horror she had suffered was just a passing nightmare; everything was fine.
Helga's mother was staring at her oddly, and the girl began to shake.
"Helga, what happened?"
Beyond words, all Helga could do was cry.
"Helga, where's Kayla? What did you do to my daughter?"
Helga didn't feel her mother's arms around her, didn't feel the cloth she used to blot at the blood that covered her from head to toe.
"You stupid girl, you've been using magic!"
She didn't feel the blow, or the next one. Didn't try to explain – for what could she say?
A shriek crossed into Helga's numb mind.
Terror.
Sheer, immobilizing terror.
Not here.
Screams filled the air. Helga stood, pushing away her mother's hand. In the shadows of the morning light, she looked like she was ten feet tall.
Helga stumbled out into the village.
Carnage filled her eyes. Blood and innards were everywhere. It looked like a slaughterhouse.
Helga felt violently ill.
"Please!"
The weak gasp was Jamie, the blacksmith's apprentice. The bastard who had raped Helga and her sister. His guts were pulled out into a long string that ran all the way back into his house.
Helga just looked on, her mind unable to process what was going on.
Bodies were strewn everywhere. Some had faces bashed in. A mother lay in her doorway, holding a babe to her chest, still crying out in depth.
"Thank you for freeing me."
That malevolent voice jarred in her very soul.
Helga turned to face the shadow.
"Please," she sobbed. "Go away!"
A chuckle. This godforsaken creature laughed at the death he had left in his wake. Flesh still clung to his teeth. Helga recoiled, revolted.
She turned and ran.
"The small ones are always so tasty."
Helga felt the bite pierce her leg and she screamed. She felt to the ground in pain, felt darkness encroaching on her vision.
"I'm sorry," she whimpered. "I'm sorry I'm sorry I'm sorry!"
The magic rose up again, like bile. It reached out to destroy, to ruin. Helga forced it down. Again and again they fought, struggling for dominance. Helga's magic encircled her, wrapping itself around her like a cloak.
Take me away, far away from anyone, Helga begged, not knowing how else to use her magic. It was practically sentient, and it responded to her. Please, don't let me hurt anyone else.
The world blacked out.
Helga opened her eyes. It was dark.
She needed a light. But as she thought this, a ball of green light appeared beside her, blinding her. The ball of light dimmed slightly, and she blinked.
The landscape around her was hard to make out. She was sitting on some kind of bridge. The river below her looked like dark sludge, and a smoky black fog hung around everything. Only one bank of the river was visible, and so Helga stood and set off in that direction. The light followed. There was a tree on the shore, but it wasn't like anything Helga had ever seen. It was twisted and grotesque, and its leaves were wilted. It was hard to tell color with only a green light to judge by, but she thought the bark might have been bright red.
In the distance, the shriek of some unnamed and horrible creature sounded.
Helga shuddered.
This is hell, she realized dully. I've died and gone to hell, and this is my punishment for not taking care of my sister.
Helga felt dizzy. There was another shriek.
The world blurred together, and the light went out.
Helga fell to her knees then, and cried. She knew that the events of the last day had shattered her. She was a monster.
She was worse than that… thing that had killed her entire village, because she had brought it here! And it was by her doing that her sister had suffered so greatly.
I should have taken better care of her, I should have been more careful! This is all my fault!
"Forgive me, please!" she begged into the silence. It was cold here, she realized. She was shaking.
Another shriek came, but it didn't scare Helga as much as she thought it would.
She deserved to die.
She deserved to die a thousand times over, and suffer the worst that hell had to offer for being such a horrible guardian – and such a horrible sister. She didn't deserve forgiveness.
"I'm a monster," she whispered, horrified.
Saying it out loud is what finally broke her. The tears dried slowly on her face and her torn dress. She was tired – exhausted. She had no more tears to spend.
Silence wrapped itself around her like a blanket. She didn't see, didn't here. It was better this way. She couldn't hurt anyone.
She felt like she was spinning. She couldn't even feel the ground underneath her. The world – or whatever was left of it – was fading away. She couldn't even feel her own fingers. It was blessed comfort. Was she dead? This wasn't all so bad, really.
She floated there, feeling serene.
Breathe.
In and out. She knew how to do that. The air flowed in and out of her chest. Her heart beat.
Mon-ster, her heart accused her. Helga faltered.
Breathe child.
Helga did it again, uncertainly.
Mon-ster, her heart answered calmly.
Again, the voice ordered. She followed.
Mon-ster, mon-ster.
"Can you hear me?"
Helga opened her eyes slowly.
The eyes that met her were hard, calculating. Helga nodded uncertainly.
"Good. One can never be sure about a journey to the Other realm, though you humans do tend to do worse than most."
"What?"
The word was hoarse and raspy.
"The Other realm," the man said, standing back. Helga saw now that he looked young, in his twenties. He had a sharp beard and straight black hair. His armor was dull and black, made from some kind of hide she couldn't identify. His voice had some kind of foreign accent, but she could detect a sarcastic cheerfulness that caught her off guard. "Birthplace of the shadowlings, home to many unsavory types of monsters, demons, werewolves, some nasty fairies, and of course, vampires, like myself."
"What?"
Helga's mind seemed to have stopped working.
The man smiled a smile that revealed pointed teeth, and the girl thought she might back out again.
So I was right, this really is hell, she thought, staring into those cruel eyes.
God have mercy on my soul, not that I deserve it.
…
Godric Gryffindor had learned form a young age that no Gryffindor was ever scared.
It was drilled into him over and over again. It was the reason for his father's many painful and inane tests, the reason Godric's childhood was harsh, and why at ten years old, he could skin a rabbit as fast as a seasoned soldier, and hit a deer with the same accuracy. It was why the only reason he failed to beat trained knights with a sword was his size.
No, Godric had learned to be contemptuous of fear, to loathe terror, and to act despite dread and horror.
Arctus Gryffindor had raised a strong son, if nothing else.
But the absence of his magic was something Godric had never learned to live with. He used his sword to channel power when he could not have a wand, and he could sometimes do without either, though sporadically and with no control.
He had acclimated enough to the drug to be able to eat without wanting to throw up. The other captured slaves ignored him, or watched him with terror out of the corner of their eyes.
They knew what he was.
Godric would have laughed, if he felt like laughing. Except nothing felt particularly funny when he had to fight to keep the world from falling apart in front of him.
There was a collar around his neck that was slowly replacing the effects of the drug. Godric figured it must take time to get used to his magic to be able to work right. He figured if he had spent more time studying and listening to his father, he would know what to do to be able to escape; but he sat there, useless.
He was not scared.
Godric repeated that to himself. He wasn't scared. He wasn't scared.
If he said it enough times, it would be true.
He was not scared.
But Godric knew what happened to wizards kept as slaves. There was a rather large underground market for magical folk, and he was frightened out of his mind.
He had to escape.
Once a day, the slaves in the caravan were allowed out to use the restroom, and were fed a bowl of soup. One of their captors cleaned the wagon with magic, and returned the slaves to their prison.
By the time a week had passed, Godric's fear had burned low, and his anger was well overtaking it. From what he could tell of their direction through gaps in the wood they were headed south, probably to Italy.
Or maybe they just want to board a ship and take us across the sea, Godric thought despondently.
Two weeks into traveling, Godric didn't feel the pull of the collar at all. They had stopped feeding him drugs, so he could concentrate now, but he had no magic. The slavers must have thought the young wizard to be cowed.
The other slaves had seemed beaten down at first, but as Godric grew lucid enough to listen, they told stories as the long days of travel passed. They talked about history, medicine, and lore. Godric listened and learned, for the first time in his life.
For some reason, information was much easier to absorb like this, chained and fearing for his life. It kept his mind off the situation, and didn't let him feel afraid.
I'm a Gryffindor, not a lousy coward, Godric reminded himself. He often let his anger build within him, storing it quite carefully. He had a short temper, and the long rides of silence punctuated by softly whispered stories forced him to control it.
The girl chained on his left was as meek as a mouse. She had wide, sad eyes, and didn't speak a word. Godric wondered if she didn't speak French (which would be strange because everyone else seemed to), if she was mute, or if she had simply suffered beyond the ability to speak. He had seen the last happen to soldiers who came back from the Crusades sometimes.
He tried to speak to her, but she shied away from him. Godric gave up on this line of contact, though he did sneak some of his food to her – she looked much worse than he, and he was used to going without food.
Besides, as he intended to escape as soon as he could, he figured he could simply find food then.
Weeks into their travel, the slavers ran into terrible rains that didn't stop. The mouse girl huddled in her corner, shivering. Water leaked into the caravan, and almost all the captured people got sick. Godric didn't know enough to recognize influenza from the symptoms, but he did know that four dead bodies were abandoned on an anonymous French road.
And he knew that the mouse girl was next. She was coughing hard, and weak. Godric went completely without to care for her. He didn't know why he was so driven to protect this girl, but she was so helpless! She deserved being here less than anyone. He knew it.
Godric gave her his overcoat. The warmth and the food seemed to revive her, but still she didn't speak. She just looked at Godric with wide, sad eyes.
With the mystery of the girl and stories told by his fellow captives to fill his mind, time passed faster than it should have.
Slowly, however, Godric was going insane from the confinement. He often slept with the window open, or just climbed the walls to sleep outside, because his lavish rooms were too much. He was going stir crazy.
He had been traveling with the slavers and their cargo for more than a month when he finally broke down and made a run for it when they were cleaning out the caravan. He waited until Vane and Romulous (the two biggest threats among the four) were occupied, Vane with cleaning and Romulous with dinner. Juliet was speaking with Veris about something, and nobody was looking in his direction.
Godric edged away from the group, putting the caravan between himself and the four.
Slowly, trying to make no sound whatsoever, he walked backwards several steps, waiting to see if anyone would follow.
The girl with the sad, wide eyes, who looked like there was nothing more to her body but skin and bones, followed his movements, looking frightened. But then again, there wasn't a time he hadn't seen her as meek as a mouse. Godric bit his lip, and extended his hand. It would be more difficult going with both of them than he would have alone, but gods damn it all, Godric was raised a gentleman.
She stared, and then moved forward, quiet as the mouse Godric had likened her too. She moved like she was scampering across the ground, like she was half animal.
Perhaps she had been in captivity long enough that she really was.
Hands met, eyes exchanged glances, and both drew a collective breath.
Godric smiled reassuringly, and the girl tightened her hold on him.
Godric nodded, and the two ran for it.
The two were caught within moments. It was Romulous again, looking furious. He froze the two with a spell that terrified the girl.
Godric was beaten. He closed his eyes, and could almost imagine it was his father who was kicking him, sending him flying into trees. Arctus had never used magic to punish him before, but Godric was no stranger to his father's fists or violence.
Arctus didn't need the crutch of magic to discipline his son.
Father would have escaped already, Godric thought as a foot collided with his stomach. He felt oddly distant from the pain. It didn't particularly matter.
Veris sun quietly to Godric as she bandaged him.
Nobody had ever sung to him before.
Godric fought an odd feeling in his chest as he listened. He didn't understand the words, but he let the music flow through him.
He did notice when his body no longer hurt. If he bothered looking, he would find a broken leg straightened, a mass of bruises gone, and many bloodied cuts healed up like month-old scars.
Then they fed him the drug again.
Reduced to the nausea and exhaustion that accompanied it, Godric weathered his pain as best as he could.
As the days wore on, Godric felt the wear of the last month. He hurt down to his very bones. He was hungry and cold all the time, and most of the time wet as well, because the slavers had developed the annoying game of dunking Godric into a river with their wands.
In Orleans, the four slavers sold most of their cargo. Godric watched through a hole in the wood as the girl with the wide, sad eyes was handed over to a merchant, and coins rattled into Romulous' purse.
White hot fury filled Godric then, burning like a second sun. The girl's face as she was dragged away burned into him.
He yelled, and slammed the side of the wagon with his fist, hoping the walls would give way. His fury was useless, and pointless. He wasn't able to do anything to save the girl. That night, he cried for the first time since his capture.
The slavers, with their hands free of their cargo, decided to spend some more time in Orleans. They also decided to enjoy some of their ill gotten gold.
Godric had been hoping for this, because it would give him a chance to get away. However, the slavers didn't go anywhere unless one of them had an eye on their precious wizard.
Two nights after they arrived in Orleans, Romulous threw open the doors to the caravan and froze Godric with a wave of his wand. He picked up the boy, disconnecting his manacles from the side of the wagon.
"It's time," Romulous said with a vicious smile. "Don't want you misbehaving in front of your new owner, now do we?"
Godric tried to fight the paralysis spell, but he couldn't fight it even when he was free and he had his magic. How could he possibly be expected to fight it now?
He made no headway against the spell, and was forced to lie inert in his captors arms as he was carried off to be sold.
I can't be sold – I'm a person damn it! Godric wanted to yell. Nobody can own me!
Even if he could speak, the words would have fallen on deaf ears.
As Romulous, Vane, and Juliet headed towards a shady inn and followed a stairwell to the second floor that was guarded by a very large man in black, Godric felt his heart sink.
And he realized that it was possible for Gryffindors to feel afraid.
What he saw when Juliet pulled open the door of the room where he was to be sold made him want to vomit. It made him want to scream and rage until he was hoarse, to cry until he could shed no more tears. It made him want to drop to the floor and never move again.
There was a rushing sound in Godric's ears as he understood what true, icy fear can do to any person, even a Gryffindor. If it was in his ability, he would have turned tail and run as fast as he could from this evil face.
He had been carried into a nightmare.
Above him, just inside his field of vision, Romulous was grinning like a loon.
…..
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~InK