Blood and Gold
"Incendio."
With a quiet whisper, the light of several small candles lit up the room, casting long shadows on the stone walls. The dim light revealed a young man walking towards the middle of the room with silent steps. In his hand, he held a broken paintbrush that was dripping dark liquid on his elegant fingers. When he got to the middle of the room he crouched down, observing his handiwork on the stone covered floor. From far away, it seemed like a circle had been painted on the floor but if one took a closer look, it would become immediately obvious why a shy but proud smile was gracing the man's lips.
Runes. Hundreds of them, in fact, interlocking with each other in an intimate, powerful dance. The young man hovered above the runic circle, carefully stepping inside so as not to disrupt the sequence that he had so carefully crafted. He leaned closer to his work and checked if each rune had been properly drawn, not a single tail missing, not a single letter missing. He was aware of how dangerous it was, the ritual that he was attempting to do, but he paid no heed to the warnings. Nonetheless, he knew that even the slightest of mistakes would have the most dire consequences, and for that reason he made sure to recheck his work even more carefully than he would have done so with a normal ritual.
He could feel it even now, even when the ritual hasn't even been started yet. The soft murmur of underlying magic, the power thrumming and dancing around him, Mother Magic caressing his face with her soft touch. He let out a short sigh and closed his eyes for a moment, turning his face upwards and staying motionless for a couple seconds, just existing and savouring the pure magic that surrounded him. The feeling, it was truly addictive. There was no other word to describe it.
It was a sensual dance, the humming vibratio of earthly magic inviting his own for the next imaginary song, cradling each other close as they danced, spinning around the room, filling the space with warmth and wonder. It wasn't supposed to feel like this, Harry knew. It should have felt dangerous and violent, dark and terrifying instead of the oh so sweet seduction.
Taking a deep breath, he opened his eyes again. He stood up and cautiously exited the circle. Walking to the side of the room, he placed his paintbrush a jar of murky dark red liquid.
Blood.
He had been carefully harvesting it, his own blood, for weeks and weeks and placed it carefully under a statis charm in preparation for this. The ritual.
Next to the jar lay a tray with several small bowls on it, each containing different herbs, carefully dried and preserved in their most magically effective state. Harry carefully picked up the tray and made his way back to the runic circle.
Around the circle lay twelve small candles whose dim flames were the only source of light in the room. They were spaced evenly, as if someone had put one on each hour markers on an invisible clock. Harry took the small bowls and placed them by their corresponding candles, within the runic circle. Twelve bowls exactly. Sage, ginger, saffron, and chamomile, the four most important ones, placed at the four opposite sides of the circle.
How ironic, that four so muggle herbs could fuel one of the most powerful dark rituals in existence. Alas, no sense in wasting time on such humorous coincidences. Time was pressing.
Harry walked back to the side of the room and placed the tray back on the floor. Checking that he had his wand and his ritual blade on him, he stepped back inside the runic circle and kneeled down, facing the largest candle which had the saffron next to it. The most expensive spice in the world, signifying that he was willing to pay anything to achieve his goal.
A family.
His heart thrummed just thinking about it. He would finally be able to have his own family. With this ritual that he had designed, he would be able to find the person he was destined to be with, a person who would support him, stand by him no matter what, and by whose side he would be able to stand in return.
His magic perked up at his thoughts, entering into a much quicker, more complicated dance with the surrounding natural magic. As if it was whistling wind, it caressed his face and blew his messy hair in thousands of different directions. Harry, however, didn't care. He felt it.
It was time.
He picked up his intricately carved dagger and softly pressed the sharp edge against the vulnerable skin of his left forearm. The one closest to his heart. He only applied a small amount of pressure, yet the dagger cut his arm deeply, collecting blood in its duct as it started pouring out from the wound.
Harry started chanting. Words of a long-forgotten language rolled off his tongue with careful precision as he dripped drops of his blood carefully into the bowls of herbs. One. Two. Three. Each bowl, three drops. The chanting didn't stop.
The magic around him sped up, pulsating in perfect rhythm with his ever-fastening heartbeat. Harry could feel it, wrapping around him in a comfortable cocoon, making feel more alive than he had ever felt before.
Safe. Powerful. Loved.
The feelings surged through him unexpectedly, as if a dam had been burst. It was glorious, and Harry could feel a tear escaping his eyes in his joy.
The magic around him built and evolved until it was so powerful you could see physical manifestations of it. It sparkled and shone in brilliant blue, poison green and luminous pink, as if some kind of aurora borealis was surrounding him. Harry looked around in wonder, stopping his chanting for a moment to appreciate the rare sight.
He picked up the chanting again a couple seconds later, repeating the well memorised words that he had rehearsed so many times before. He could feel the magic building up in the air, the colours turning brighter as they caressed each other in gentle waves, intertwining and separating to then be joined again.
Harry closed his eyes to avoid being distracted by the gorgeous manifestation of magic that was growing brighter and stronger at each passing second. Maybe that was why he hadn't noticed that something was wrong. He was feeling a pull, a caress from somewhere far away that was affecting his magic, yet he was too lost in the words to notice.
As his chanting soon came to end, the colours around him brightened to a blinding level and intertwined with each other so much that the individual colours couldn't be observed anymore. Harry felt it then, the sweet tug on his soul that wasn't supposed to be there. He cherished the feeling of magic surrounding him so closely and so powerfully, before he realised that something that should not be happening was going on.
He only had the briefest of seconds to panic as fear flooded his body, snapping his eyes open, he took one last glance at his surroundings before his world went black.
1950
When Harry started to regain his consciousness, he let out a growl as he pressed his hand against his pounding skull.
"Ey lad, y'alright?" he heard someone say. He struggled to open his eyes as the splitting headache got marginally worse, but he fought through the pain. When his eyes finally opened, he looked around in confusion.
He was laying on the ground. It looked like he was out in a street, but it was somehow different than what he was used to. People were running around him in frenzy and he could see a lot of panicked faces. He noticed someone standing above him and he let out a pained gasp as he tried to turn his head to take a closer look. The figure crouched down next to him and lifted a hand to Harry's temples in concern. It was a man with broad shoulders and a strong build, he was sporting a well-kept, ashy coloured beard, his couple inches long hair dangled loosely in front of his eyes. He looked kind, laughter lines creasing his eyes and forehead even when he was looking at Harry in concern. He drew his hand back from Harry's temples and took a sharp breath when he noticed the blood staining the tips of his fingers.
The background noise suddenly started getting louder and louder instead of a quiet hum, and Harry realised there were people shouting around him, sirens blaring, wind howling. He tried to look around again to figure out what had happened, but he was yet again unsuccessful as the pounding in his head got stronger with each movement. His attention turned back to the man again as he heard the words addressed to him.
"The blast took you quite bad, eh? Must've hit'ya head when ya fell," the man said.
"What happened?" Harry asked, still not processing the world around him.
"Gas explosion," came the gruff reply. "Come on, let's getcha to a medic." With that, the man stretched out a hand for Harry to take. Harry placed his hand in the man's outstretched one and he felt a gentle pull as the man hauled him up, stabilising him by the shoulder when his knees buckled beneath him. The man put a supporting arm around his shoulder as he guided Harry off the street and to a woman dressed in what looked like an old nurse's uniform.
Harry took the opportunity to look around the street. He noticed what he hadn't before: the flaming building behind him that he hadn't seen. Firefighters struggled to contain the flames as the house kept burning, but Harry paid no attention to that. He stared, the street looked somehow off.
It all looked… Wrong.
He was distracted by the nurse hurrying to him.
"What happened to him, sir?" she asked the man that was still holding Harry upright.
"Lad prolly hit his head inda blast," the man replied. Harry let out an undignified sound. He was there, damn it, they didn't have to talk about him like he wasn't.
"Come on, let's get you checked out," she said, taking him from the man who took one last look at him and left, probably going back to the site of the blast to look for more injured people.
The nurse spent a couple minutes checking his vitals and his eyes, casting worried looks at him as she did so.
"It is probably a concussion," she concluded. "I will have to take you to the hospital. It is a serious injury that must not be taken lightly, you will need to spend the night under supervision," she addressed him.
Harry, still being quite out of it, let out the sound of protest but the nurse was not having it, she made him sit in the back of a large white van. It looked as if it was a seriously out of date ambulance, but Harry, still bearing a splitting headache from the blast, couldn't make sense of it.
He blinked around in confusion, still unsure of what had happened. He tried to figure out, maybe it was a mistake in the runic circle? No, it cannot be. He had checked and rechecked his work numerous times, he made sure that no mistakes had been made. Maybe it was the incantation that was wrong? He didn't think so he had painstakingly slowly translated it. However, it was still more likely than a mistake with the runes. Runes were, after all, his speciality. He let his thoughts run wild, remembering every single miniscule detail of the ritual, replaying it over and over in his head.
Harry didn't notice how much he had lost track of time until the nurse came back with another patient and addressed them both, telling them that they would be going to the hospital to get checked out properly. Even that couldn't stop Harry's brain from running top speed, still trying to make sense of the situation.
He had no idea what to do, where he was, what happened.
"Where are we?" he asked as the door of the ambulance was closed.
"South London," the other patient replied. It was a woman who looked like she was in her forties, cradling her arm to her chest. "We'll be going to the nearest hospital."
Harry nodded and with a quiet thanks he drew back to himself.
Throughout the ride to the hospital his thoughts were running wild but failing to find answers to his unending list of questions. When he was transferred to a hospital bed and given a painkiller, he let the hospital staff guide him, barely giving any answers to their questions.
No, he didn't know what happened. No, he didn't have any family to notify. His name was Harry. He didn't know what he was doing there before the blast.
Thankfully, it was a busy afternoon so the hospital staff had better things to do than to harass him with more questions. In order to try to distract his own mind from his own million questions, Harry asked for the newspaper. After all, it never hurt to get caught up with the muggle world, did it? Especially because now it looked like he would be spending at least the night at the hospital.
A young nurse complied with his request and handed him the day's newspaper, or so she said.
He took a look at the top of the newspaper and froze.
No.
That was absolutely not possible.
No no no no no.
Harry took a deep breath and closed his eyes. He counted to three and hoped that he saw it wrong. He wished with everything he had that when he opened his eyes again, he would see something different. That he would see November 12, 2003. Today's date.
He slowly opened his eyes again and glanced at the top of the front page.
It hadn't changed.
The words stood out in black ink against the pale milky white paper. Glaring at him, mocking him somehow. He ran his fingertips over it, just to make sure the words were really there. And they were, bright and clear:
March 15, 1950.