Silvanus had opened the window of his class room. Then sat down and leaned back against the edge. He looked back out over the Forbidden Forest. He sensed twenty adults three stallions and the rest all females. There were two mothers with young foals, one was the one with the twins. That had made him happy to see the pair. But they had been growing restless in the forest, he had sensed it last night, but it was beyond his reach whatever was disturbing them. It lay beyond the wards, his own wards that surrounded his lair.
He watched as the Half-Giant Hagrid greeted the two boys who had ran out of the castle and down to his hut. Silvanus liked Hagrid, he had a warm and tender heart, something not commonly found among giants. This was a good thing indeed. Harry would be safe around Hagrid.
He feared for this child. The fates hung over this child almost like a cloak of invisibility. He had powerful magic of love living within his very skin. This was very old magic, he had not seen this magic in centuries. This magic was not taught because it was the magic of fate and destiny. The boys scar was dark magic a binding in itself, but one that was different than what plagued the Potion Master. Both from the same wizard, the magical signature was there. He was grieved by what he had felt from this child and the magic that surrounded him.
Silvanus watched as the Defense Against the Dark Arts Professor walked out toward the forest. The man held a book in his hand. This wizard puzzled him, the wizard had a stutter, as if he had seen to much and was fearful. His bald head glistened with sweat as he continued walking towards the forest. His magical signature held a mixture of light and dark, he was in a grey period in his life.
The door to his classroom opened and Silvanus smiled as he felt Severus walk in. He could feel a slight difference in the man now, though he was still unsure of himself like a new born foal trying to stand up for the first time under its own strength, Silvanus knew he had made the right choice with Severus.
"Feeling better now Potion Master?" Silvanus asked as he turned his attention back to the boys who were at play around the borehound.
"Better than a few hours ago." Severus said as he walked over to where Silvanus was and looked out the window as well.
"I am glad for you." Silvanus said.
"I feel unsure in all of this, to many things can still go wrong. And if the dark lord comes back I am a dead man." Severus stated.
Silvanus turned and looked at Severus once the two boys went inside Hagrid's hut. "You are unsure because I gave you the choice to stand up for once on your own. You've never had the chance before, you've been influenced and pulled in directions that were not your choice. I do not like puppets, and it pained me to see one in my own lair, when you clearly have the abilities to think for yourself. I did what I had to do so you could see it. I led you to it, but you had to see it for yourself."
Silvanus watched as Severus turned and walked to one of the desks and sat down on it.
"I felt like you had abandon me after showing me my wand core. It hurt, everything has always left in my life that was ever good." Severus told him.
Silvanus closed his eyes and leaned his head against the wall. "I didn't abandoned you. You could have come to me at any time. I had to step back, to allow you to feel what has always been inside you. I regret deeply that it hurt you, but it was what you needed."
"I don't want to be bound anymore. I want to be free, I feel like a house-elf always having to do my masters bidding with no hope insight."
Silvanus opened his eyes, Severus's head was bowed, his shoulders hung forward as he grasp the desk on either side of his legs. Silvanus got up and walked to him and put his hand under his chin and tilted it up towards him. The broken and beaten man still did not open his eyes.
"I can not remove your mark, it is life binding. If I remove it, death will take you. I can change it but that will be your choice as well." Silvanus said.
He watched as Severus opened his eyes. "Change it to what? Who will have control then?"
Silvanus ran his hand through the wizards hair. "I can change the binding to myself. You will have control of your life, I will not take that from you nor will I ever ask of it. Your life should be your own. You are the master of your own destiny."
"I need answers, but I don't know what all the questions are." Severus said and then pulled back the sleeve of his robe over his left arm forearm. "How can I be the master of my own destiny when I am bound to a another?"
Silvanus released his chin and his fingers ran over the mark. It was very light, hardly there to the eye, almost invisible, yet not gone. He watched as Severus shuttered at this touch.
"You are bound, but your heart is not. You have fought for that control for many years and you gained a measure of it. You gained even more today with the choice you made to follow your heart." Silvanus let his arm go. "You need time to discover yourself. Find out who you truly are and to get to know me. I do not want to bind someone to myself who becomes a puppet. I loath such mastery, I want you to follow your heart."
"Have you ever bound anyone before?"
Silvanus turned and walked back to the window and sat back down. "Not in the way in which I will have to bind you to me. I have a granted very few wizards the ability to ride my dragon form. That binding was only the ability of Dragontongue, it is the ability to speak with anything that has wings and can fly. In my lifetime I have only found one wizard who had that ability that was not given by a dragon. That was Merlin and my last rider. He was young when I found him. I did not know he even had the gift until he revealed it. I cultivated a friendship with him it eased the pain of longing within myself."
Silvanus looked back at Severus and continued. "I can not look at someone and know everything about them. I am not make the maker of life and magic. I do not have the ability to know all. I am very perceptive, I have lived several ages for that perception. I am not immortal, even I can succumb to death."
Severus gave a small laugh. "You have lived far to long to be mortal."
Silvanus stood and took off his cloak, then his shirt. His body was riddled with the scars of battles, wounds of ages past. The small part of his skin he had allowed to show held no scars but the rest of his body was rank with it. He walked closer to Severus and turned allowing the wizard to see his back.
"If I was immortal then nothing could kill me, I would not have such scars." Silvanus pointed to one of the longest ones that ran from the front of his chest over his right shoulder, and down to the middle of his back it was ragged as part of his flesh had been ripped away. "That is from the blade of Dwarven sword called Draugwraith which means deathblade. Very nearly killed me to. The goblin who owned that sword at the time was vile, crafty and cunning. I have that blade in my lair now, that sword was forged by the breath of my father whom the Dwarves had enslaved once they captured my mother."
He turned back around and saw the look of pity in Severus's eyes. "Why have you not healed them fully?"
Silvanus leaned down so his face was close to Severus's. "I can not be healed by wizards magic. Potions yes, but even then they can not heal everything to wholeness. Potions was born in the age of Elves, the were the first masters and healers. Our healers used the fruits of the land it was in nature where we sought how to heal ourselves. When it is time for me to sleep the dragon comes back out and I can sleep in an enchantment for a time and even to almost a full age of time. But even in that form, I do not have the ability to heal myself."
"How did you survive for so long?" Serverus asked.
Silvanus laughed heartily then moved and sat down by Severus on the desk.
"By learning when not to fight. There has to be balance in the world. I learned that the hard way. Darkness rises and falls same as the light, I have learned to set aside what I can not change in the world. As much as I would like to change the darkness, I have to accept it as well. I have learned to stand back and not interfere, but at times it is very hard for me not to do so. Death has haunted my steps for age upon age. A very crafty trickster, death is not one to be trifled with so lightly. While I slept death needled its way inside my lair, death has the power to hide things from me and hid them well. I am afraid I have angered death one to many times and death is seeking retribution for it. By all account and according to deaths reckoning I should not be alive."
"What has death hidden?"
Silvanus could hear the curiosity in the silky voice coming from the man next to him.
"Two of the Deathly Hallows within my very lair. I made sure the first one that came around left the school." He raked his hands through his hair and turned to look at Severus. "Death has been a very worthy adversary. Death has my respect. In a way death has been my longest companion, I've grown to like Death over the years. If Death ever shows himself to you, don't tell death I've said that."
Silvanus laughed at the incredulity that was plainly showing upon Severus's face. Then he raked his fingers through the mans hair.
"You have much still to learn young one. And it will be my joy to give you that knowledge."
