VOLDEMORT'S LAST SPELL, by Louis IX
Disclaimer: Check first chapter for full disclaimer and other warnings. Please also note that this is fantasy and take this with a pinch of salt – or a shovel, if you must.

Chapter 3 – The Dawn of Humanity
posted January 19th, 2006

After following the still-frozen coastline southwards for several months, Har-Kan arrived in a particularly welcoming tribe of fishermen – still mostly ice-dwelling fishermen, for the moment – and, once again, settled down for a couple of years. During these years, he noticed something strange... sort of. Even if most of the tribe's women were desirable, only half of them interested him. And none of the women he didn't want to know intimately took offence of it as well – contrarily to what could happen with the other males. He knew that it had happened before, in tribes where he had stayed more than fifteen years: the green-eyed young women he had started to refer as his daughters had simply not expressed any desire to be with him, something which suited him perfectly. However, he didn't remember being in this place before, and these women he just stayed friendly with didn't have green eyes. Their eyes were just a bit clearer than the others – and even with this physical trait, there were exceptions.

These realizations kindled his wanderlust again, and he decided to explore the area. A few weeks later, after an afternoon spent hunting, he found himself in front of white cliffs leading to a plateau, and it sparked a memory. Realizing where he was, he suddenly understood why the complex language used by the simple fishermen tribe had been so familiar: although distorted, it was the same language he had first learnt. His "mother tongue."

He wanted to climb, but it was night, and the clouds partially hid the moon, preventing a safe ascent.

He lied down and, looking at the night sky, he remembered some of the things that he had always kept for himself.

In the numerous millennia he had lived, he had shared his time between staying with the tribes and travelling with his wolves – there had been some rare occurrences of young men or women wanting to follow him, but they had usually settled down quickly after a few years, reinforcing another tribe's members. In the meantime, Har-Kan had made numerous discoveries about him, men, and Nature.

First of all, there were several species of men. The tribe of the Bear, the one that had adopted him, was made of different-looking people than the Inuit tribes he had met in his travels, and, despite this, Har-Kan mingled with all of them equally easily. He had also realized that the green-eyed children born of women he started to meet intimately were his. While he didn't know the reason behind his lack of attraction toward his descendants – even numerous generations away, as his last stay suggested – he had supposed that it participated to a cosmic order of some kind, and didn't explore further. He had also remarked, in his longest stays, that his progeny was generally faring better than the others in every part of the tribes' lives. They also brought some physical differences from the others, differences that had evolved over time as well. For instance, in the tribe of fishermen he had just left, the ones he identified as his descendants all had fairer skin and slanted eyes, as well as slightly pointy ears. 100000 years of evolution could do that to a mix of Neanderthal and wizard genes.

After his flight from Atlantis, he had also discovered that he could command Nature somewhat. Like his contemporaries, he had an ingrained respect for Nature, since it could deal death and life indiscriminately. However, in the course of his long life, he had made numerous experiments, and had discovered that he could actually command predators away and herds of wild animals towards the hunters. He had pushed the winds and cleared the weather. He had started fire without the appropriate tools. It was as if he could will anything to happen, and that had frightened him sufficiently so that he didn't speak about it to anyone. Human contact was what allowed him to stay sane, and he didn't want to lose that over their eventual fear of him – something which participated in his wanderlust.

The first rays of the sun found him climbing the white rocks, and he started to walk back to where he had started his life, a hundred thousand years before. It took him a few months to find traces of his childhood tribe, and, when he discovered what they had become, he could only gape.

When he had seen the fishermen tribe earlier, he had thought that his descendants' pointy ears were an important change from his rounded ones. The people that greeted him, though, brought that concept quite a bit farther. They were a tad shorter than him, but they carried themselves with a natural grace that their ancestors lacked – and which he lacked as well, he was sure. Their ears were also larger and pointier than the ones he had seen before crossing the sea.

One of them approached him, his greyish hair betraying his age despite his strong countenance indicating his leadership. "Welcome, stranger." he said, in a language Har-Kan understood perfectly, given that it hadn't changed much since he first learnt it. "I am Balor, son of Buarainech, and Druid of this tribe. You are on the territory of the Eleven Tribes of the Bear. Who are you and what brings you here?"

Har-Kan blinked.

After a time, Har-Kan discovered that all of them were his descendants, at some point or another. Even if they weren't all tall, graceful, and with pointed ears, they all lived in harmony in the forest. They had even found ways of using the trees to build their living places.

He spent a very long time with them, revelling in the knowledge they had acquired while he was away, and he participated as well, giving as much as he received. It wasn't long before he brought the subject of bending Nature to his will to the fore. The elders, who called themselves Druids – guardians of the people and the land – nodded, giving him hints that they knew what he was talking about. Like with more mundane information, they then exchanged ideas about how to create a campfire, how to ensure that a campsite was protected from wildlife, and how to make more filling food. That last thing was so ingrained in the Clan's current customs that they seldom preyed on the wildlife around them anymore, despite their quite large population. Har-Kan discovered fruits that could make a whole meal and meat that could fill one's stomach for a whole day. However, because of the small wildlife around them, the food had to be consumed as soon as harvested. To keep it away from the vermin, Har-Kan decided to teach them something he had learnt in Atlantis: Pottery.

When the elders learned of that new science, it started discussions about Nature: earth to dig, water to mix it into malleable matter, fire to make it harden, and air to cool it... four elements. Four powers. And they started to theorize ideas about magic and the elements, ideas that would be bear fruit several millennia later. But they weren't in a hurry. Never.

Since they had food that could fill them aplenty, and primitive wards around their camp, they weren't hard-pressed by circumstances to survive, and Har-Kan found that their main occupation was... to enjoy life. As such, even their sleep patterns had evolved. They could spend a week awake, and hibernate for the next – aided in that respect by the filling food they possessed. Har-Kan took some time to adapt his habits to theirs, but he quickly found out that they were exactly that: habits. After several years, he also came to the conclusion that, unlike them, he was able to stay awake for as long as he wanted. Despite their strange habits, they still had to recover at one point or another. Not him.

During his stay with them, Har-Kan also became interested in the shiny things men and women wore on top of their clothes. He learnt that these strange beads were dug from the soil of special places, and they taught him how to find those places by looking at the differences of colour in the flowers. Using this primitive ore, he learnt how to shape coarse jewellery by using a couple of hard stones.

One day, while he was participating to the evening dances, one of these ornaments inadvertently fell into a campfire, and he later found out that these orange beads were much more malleable when heated. It wasn't perfect, but he could make more detailed items in that way.

A related discovery was made when he thought about the fire itself: the larger the fire was, the more pliable the metal was. He didn't know that it was a metal, yet. Nor did he know that that particular metal would eventually be called copper. Using what he knew about bending Nature to his will – something he would later call "magic" – he discovered that he could create extremely hot fires without needing a large campfire. The heat of that fire caused a few painful burns, but he healed in the same way he always did: quickly. The fire, however, was enough to make the shiny baubles even more than pliable: it started to ooze, slowly becoming liquid. Not only that, but it also burnt out the impurities in it, allowing him to get pure metal from the ore.

Despite the fact that his contemporaries couldn't repeat the feat by themselves, Har-Kan had invented smelting. The Clan knew how to make very hot fires, though, and they learnt to do approximately the same thing. They succeeded in blending the baubles into larger and shinier pieces, which could then be hammered into almost anything.

It was only after a couple of years that he realized that few of the elders had died despite their apparent old age. He asked about it, and learnt that these elders were all over a hundred years old. It shocked him, because almost all humans he had met until then died around thirty. It made him realize that it was because of the mix between his genes and the Neanderthals' – although he didn't know these terms yet.

Because of this, he had no qualms in staying a relatively long time with the Eleven – while he didn't say so, he knew that these people were completely different from the original Tribe of the Bear, so he had taken the habit of referring them as "the Eleven". And, while he didn't procreate, he learnt a few games that could be played for lovers' mutual pleasure and relief – even between persons of the same sex.

He didn't realize it immediately, but the magic that had been spread through his descendants was linking them to the forest in which they lived, creating a comfortable living place even in the harshest of winters. And it brought some changes in his aspect, too. After a couple dozens years, he remarked that his hair wasn't entirely white anymore. Some more years afterwards, his mane had recovered its initial blackness. It stunned him, and he wondered about it, but he couldn't find a reason why that had happened, and let it slide for the moment.

Har-Kan spent a whole millennium with the Clan, visiting the many tribes comprised in the name. He saw the young ones slowly evolving into elders and discovered that, even if they could have many more children thanks to their longer life, they restrained themselves from doing so, using their pleasuring games most of the time. That kept their number manageable, and Har-Kan knew that they wouldn't repeat the overpopulation problem of Atlantis.

It was during these years that something else happened: Har-Kan was teaching them all he knew, including his ideas about counting and writing, as well as magic. The clan quickly associated the idea of magic with his name, and started to use the term "arcane" to designate magical things. At the same time, they learnt that he was very old, and nicknamed him Har the Old. Or, more simply Har-Old.

And his magic made it so that he could change his name with no identity crisis. A few years later, he would try all the possible suffixes of his old name, and found that the most striking one was "Ree".

12000 years ago...

His wanderlust struck again, and, after promising to return later, Harry left the Eleven – they had adopted the nickname he had given them – and returned to the continent, a few domesticated wolves with him.

To his surprise, the people on the continent were different from the ones he had found on the island. He reflected that, in the thousand years he had spent there, things might have changed, but he hadn't thought that they could devolve like that. Gone were the bright-eyed men and women. He was facing savages. Savages who seemed to have copied the way of hunting and clothing from their predecessors, but savages nonetheless. Harry was attacked several times, and it was only through magic that he succeeded in driving them away. They were particularly impressed by the wolves he seemed to control and the fire he could summon, and, when the tribe was amicable enough for him to stay, he taught them to domesticate the wolves and to use fire for more than heat and cook fire – fire can harden wood and make stronger wooden spears.

His steps led him far to the east, until he found one of those savage tribes lording over an area on the steps of a mountain range. That particular area contained much copper ore, to the point of only needing to bend to the ground to get them. He decided to stop there for a bit. Using the fact that they were impressed by his magic, he taught the locals to gather the ore and dig for more, going as far as digging whole caves from which the ore could be excavated.

Despite knowing that the tribe wasn't advanced enough, Harry tried to teach them how to count and write, but, in their primitive mind, they mixed letters, and he stopped. They were more aggressive than the people he had met so far, though, and they were interested in his ideas about hunting and survival. After a few years of playing with metal, Harry left the tribe to their own devices and headed southwards, taking a few of his metal creations with him. He didn't know that the tribe would use the remains of his metal tools to antagonize their neighbours, to finally be decimated by a harsh winter, the accidental extinction of their campfire, and the subsequent attack from hungry predators.

On his way towards warmer grounds, Harry left the mountains that would later be called Ural, and spent some more years travelling. He met other tribes on the way, spending some time with them as well. Some of those were fishing in the waters of the Caspian Sea or the Black Sea, and others survived through the hunter-gatherer cycle of prehistoric survival. When the tribes were friendly enough, Harry decided to spend a few years with them, once again siring a couple children in each.

As he was following the Black Sea's coastline southwards, he eventually met a tribe with a peculiar mean of subsistence, and he decided to make a stop. That particular tribe, very small in size, happened to live near a river that would later be called Nile, and they seldom ate meat. There also weren't many fruit trees around, and the dozen men and women mainly ate strange kinds of plants growing haphazardly on the soil around them. Plants which would later be identified as wild cereals and vegetables, like the emmer wheat and the chickpea.

Harry stayed there, and spent the remaining of the summer, as well as the dozen summers afterwards, learning of their ways. He helped them survive, and, as the years passed, he investigated how these plants were reproducing – he knew, from his many years of observation of the Nature around him, that plants were reproducing. Once he gathered grain from similar plants, he successfully planted these on a patch of soil near the river, so that they would be quicker to harvest. Plants strengthened themselves too, and the harvested grain would be stronger and larger over time, too.

In the evenings, Harry tried to explain what he had done to the tribe, but they didn't understand the abstract concept behind it, and he went back to show them how to do it. As teaching writing hadn't gone well with the previous tribes either, he tried to explain things using drawings instead.

One day, as he was drawing on a rock to explain how they could hunt a particularly swift local animal, he inadvertently drew a man across the image of said animal, and he stopped his explanation, his interest sparked by the resulting picture.

After all, he had already a domesticated dog at his side, so... why not a horse?

It took him three years and numerous wounds to do so, but he finally succeeded in taming a mare sufficiently for him to ride it. However, as his endeavour had compelled him to follow the herd, he had left his tribe to their own devices, and, unfortunately, they wouldn't fare well enough against the surrounding culture of hunters-gatherers for their way of life to survive. The writing would, though.

Using the horse, Harry discovered that he was able to travel quicker, and he spent some time exploring the surrounding area, earning the awe of tribes nearby. Each time he stopped, he tried to teach things for the tribes' well-being, like writing or agriculture, and, when they were particularly unreceptive, he told them stories about his life instead. That got their interest, and they would continue to talk about it long after his departure, giving birth to numerous legends which would be compiled later. Among these, his trip in a whale's mouth and his torture on the Atlantis mountain were favourites. His continued existence was also a mystery for his "current contemporaries" and they mingled that, his name, and the mark on his forehead – the only scar that wouldn't go – into a story that would later refer to that scar as the "mark of Kan" – or Cain; he had no brother named Abel, but oral stories had the tendency to be embellished and exaggerated over time.

Harry found and travelled up and down the Euphrates River, eventually meeting each of the numerous tribes living in the area, and he taught them as well. He quickly discovered that the harvested cereals and vegetables could be stored for a relatively long time, but that they would attract insects and other vermin unless held away from the soil. And the best way to do so was to create some... pots. Repeating what he had done with the Eleven clan-nation, he taught them how to bake clay to make pots, thus allowing them to keep the harvested plants much longer.

While teaching this to the tribes, he came to a possible problem: because of the pots' weight, the tribes weren't able to use too many of them if they were constantly on the move. Once again, he repeated one of his earlier teachings, and some tribes started to make bricks, using the technique of mixing a particular type of earth with water before making them rest near a fire.

A few of these tribes also used bricks to build surrounding walls, protecting them against the nightly wildlife, and some others used small slabs of stone which were held together by clay.

Thus came to life cities like Ur or Eridu, the first permanent settlements of Mesopotamia, and the tribes started to flourish. Despite not having the same language – Harry learnt the three main language groups through his numerous stays – they promptly shared the same culture through their exchanges. Some of their own people even started to repeat Harry's example, migrating to teach his lessons into the world around them. Harry himself led a large group towards the early mine he had dug in the Ural, thus starting a trade route bringing copper to the Mesopotamian area.

Those post-glaciation times were difficult, as the warmed ice melt and made the sea level rise substantially, eventually wiping out some sedentary tribes completely. Most of the inland tribes survived, though, but that added fuel to the orally-transmitted legends already in place.

As he travelled from one tribe to another, Harry continued to try to domesticate animals. For some of them, he was successful, while others proved a real difficulty. His first tries with cats, for instance, were a complete disaster and it would be several centuries before he tried again. He had several successes, though, with sheep first, quickly followed by goats. However, these were of close to no use for travelling or defending, and he simply gave the animals to the tribe where he had done so. However, as they were easier to kill, he had the idea of keeping a stock of them, thus obtaining the idea of cattle.

After that, the tribes started to exchange livestock, pelts, and food on a regular basis, and they also started to use clay-sculpted miniatures of the items they exchanged as currency.

Harry spent seven millennia travelling the world, going from the fertile pastoral area we now know as the Sahara to the plains of Asia and back to the Mediterranean Sea, helping the tribes evolve from their hunting-gathering nomadic state into primitive agricultural settlements. In some, he settled for a dozen years, just enough for them to grasp the concepts he was giving them. In others, he stayed for longer, especially when he found the ground for expanding their knowledge. In one of them, he found that the people were ready for abstract thoughts, and he started teaching them about writing and counting again, notions which evolved into advanced concepts like mathematics, astronomy, and navigation.

That city was called Sumer.

5000 years ago...

Harry thought that, by giving free access to technology, the primitive tribes would forget their dissensions and unite. Unfortunately, given the innate belligerence the Homo Sapiens had displayed until then, he relatively quickly found that peace wasn't to be. Importing metal and teaching them metalworking allowed the tribes to create weapons to go warring each other, sometimes bringing an end to both as the warriors killed each other. Bringing cattle near sedentary humans also created diseases such as measles or smallpox, and the trade routes allowed these diseases to travel.

All in all, Harry wasn't too much happy of his work.

He tried to unite the tribes, though, and his first success in that endeavour was a kingdom encompassing the fertile valley of the Nile. But, then again, despite having his magic on their side, the rulers thought it was a good thing to enslave the disorganized neighbouring tribes rather than letting them live in peace. Coming back from his numerous travels, Harry saw humongous buildings being built over the dead bodies of underfed slaves, and, when the current Pharaoh ordered to kill the resisting slaves' children, he decided to put a stop to it.

One of the first one to die by the Pharaoh's new law was called Moses, and Harry magically assumed that name in homage of the poor boy. He then went to the Pharaoh, and, through a great deal of magic allowing him to charm his mind – making him believe in disasters striking his country if he didn't comply – he obtained the permission to leave the country with all the slaves.

It wasn't easy to do so, and Harry had to show the safe-conduct to officers repeatedly. On top of that, the slaves coming from twelve different tribes, it wasn't easy to make them walk in a coherent way. However, after deciding on a particular beacon for them to follow – he knew how to make a magical fire, after all – he succeeded and thousands of slaves left Egypt.

During his walk through the desert, Harry ruminated bitterly about the different civilizations he had nurtured, and decided to try something else. If rulers were corrupt and lacked morals, he could perhaps enforce their ethics by making fear some gods. Gods already existed, though: after noticing the fright his magic induced in people, he had explained it by some spiritual mumbo-jumbo and had created a pantheon for them to believe in. But having numerous spiritual factions weakened the message, and he decided to make them actually fear a spiritual power by giving them one god only. And a vengeful one, at that.

Noticing a mountain on the way, he established an encampment there, magically created food and water, and told them about the one god they were going to follow. He then hid in the mountain and worked on his idea. Several days later, he came back with simple rules of ethics engraved on slabs of stone. He had expected them to wait faithfully, but came to a scene of orgy. 'Of course.' he thought. 'They were just freed from a civilization where orgies were common thing, and they want to enjoy that.'

While he waited for the night to finish, letting his people sleep at last, Harry reflected about this. He had long since remarked that the most developed tribes were the one where inbreeding was at its lowest, and the wild reproduction session he had just witnessed wasn't going to enforce that. On top of that, partying around wasn't going to help give these people the fear they needed to strive towards achievement rather than wild pleasure.

When the sun rose, he had reached a conclusion. He did want his ideas to be applied, and, as he was leading them through the desert again, he decided to make them stew for a little while. A little while for him, but forty years for them. After all that time, the old generation was dead and the new one had forgotten about the Egyptian way of life, and then Harry brought them to the Sinai again, where he recovered his engraved laws for them to follow. He even added a couple of rules to enforce the family cell.

During the time they spent in the desert, he taught them many things, and told them stories about him as well. As they knew how to write, a few of them decided to write down everything that he said. Harry didn't see any problem there, as long as his simple principles were understood and copied onto their rolls as well. After making them build a settlement near a fertile river, he left them to their own devices.

3000 years ago...

Harry continued to travel around the world. There simply wasn't a single place where he could settle once and for all. Even in the Clan of the Eleven Bears – which was now officially known as the Elven Kingdom; and their people, the Elves. There, peace reigned despite the primitive tribes that had set foot on the island. After Harry's warning about the Homo Sapiens' aggressiveness and greed, and after a few trades finishing in bloodshed, the Elven elders agreed to ward their realm even more thoroughly, preventing access to those who were uninvited. Only a few educated humans were allowed in the forest, and, among their people, these acquired the title of Druid. They were allowed to repeat the Elves' teachings, and thus came the Celt civilization.

Despite the peace reigning in the Elven Kingdom, Harry merely spent a century or two there before returning to the Homo Sapiens tribes and their tribulations.

He often stayed with the Greeks, enjoying having insightful talks with intelligent people and telling them his stories. However, even those literate people had their bad moments. The episode of Troy, for instance, left him with bitter thoughts at seeing all these young men killed for what was, basically, a love affair blown out of proportions. Since he was one of the few knowing the whole story and still alive to report it, he went back to Greece and wrote it under his current name: Homer. Another bard, incidentally called Homer as well, would add the Odyssey twenty years later, when Ulysses would come back home and tell of his travels.

Harry left Greece on one of the merchant ships and set foot in the peaceful Etruscan realm, and stayed there for quite some time, learning about and influencing their way of life. He even gave them ideas to write the numbers, ideas that would be expanded upon by the future inhabitants of the place.

Once he had spent a couple of years there, having rested enough from his earlier difficulties, he started moving again, intending to return to the Elves. On his way, though, he heard cries in a nearby area. Investigating, he found the remains of a battlefield. Houses were burnt, dead people were littering the road, and the only living person was a pregnant woman, kneeling in the middle of the mess, her fur clothes in tatters. She was wailing and clutching her belly, and Harry quickly realized that she was pregnant. And heavily so.

"What is it?" he asked, rushing to her side and preparing his magic to help her. 'Duh! Everybody died.' he thought cynically. 'Next question?'

"Err... what can I do for you?"

"My babies." she said, and it earned her a raised eyebrow.

She grunted suddenly. "They... Come..."

And she pushed.

An hour later, Harry was holding two little boys, and the mother was dead from the strain. There wasn't much to do for her, but the wailing babies needed something. Something particular that he couldn't give them right now. Milk.

"Orion, Quick." he called his faithful dog. "Find a female nearby."

The dog disappeared in the surrounding forest for several minutes. When he came back, Harry noticed the body language and he knew the animal had found what he wanted. He followed him and came in front of a small cave. Inside...

...was not a woman. 'Duh!' he thought again. He had thought that the term "female" was better understood by the dog, but he hadn't thought that the dog would find and lead him to a wolf female. The babies were weakening, though, and Harry didn't have much choice in the matter. Thankfully, the wolf had a litter of cubs, and was milking already. Even with his magic, Harry would be hard-pressed to get milk from a non-milking and unwilling female wolf.

As it was, he magically convinced the she-wolf that she had two more cubs, and he put the babies in the appropriate position. When the two were full, he pulled them back and wrapped them in warm clothes. After a few hours of travel, he found a willing family for the two boys to grow in, and, when asked for the reason, he told them the truth.

Eighteen years later, two young men called Romulus and Remus would fight over the location of their future city. Romulus would win, and the town would be called after him: Rome.

2000 years ago...

Harry was bored. He was currently a self-appointed member of the Sanhedrin – the supreme court of Israel, at the time – and his tasks included several debates about laws, something he didn't like very much. Even if he had participated in the creation of these laws centuries before.

He closed his eyes and remembered how he had arrived here. Eighty years before, the Catuvellauni – one of the Celtic tribes living on the south-eastern border of the Elven kingdom – had been targeted by a Roman invader. Asked for help, the Elves had discussed about it, but they had felt unconcerned by Homo Sapiens problems, and they had simply laid the question onto Harry's lap. Using magic on the weather and illusions to give the troops a fearsome appearance, he had successfully pushed the first invading fleet back and had followed them right afterwards, intent on discovering the reason behind the attack. He had simply found a Roman general wanting to impress his people back home, and had gone to Rome to see what the little settlement had become.

Julius Caesar was a persistent man, though, and, after leading a second attack the following year, he had successfully set foot on the island. Not for long, but it had been enough to secure some political weight.

Harry had been impressed by Rome's grandeur and decadence. Having lived with the elves, Harry knew about erotic games, but the richer Romans had mixed religion, politics, and sex, and it gave scenes of debauchery that he hadn't been accustomed to. That, and their treatment of plebeian people and slaves, had made him wary of staying there, and he had left the town. Once again, he had spent numerous years travelling around, visiting the "Roman empire" – including the newly-rebuilt Carthage – until he had arrived in Judea, a decade ago.

He opened his eyes.

When the morning session was finished, he headed to the Temple courtyard to grab a bite. The merchants yelling around him were disturbing, but the market was always more alive than the members of the supreme court.

He was in the middle of his fig cake when he heard a disturbance and noticed a visibly impoverished young man throwing a fit at the merchants. It wasn't unusual – it was a marketplace, after all – but what caught his attention was the diatribe's content: he was asking them to leave his father's house, and violently so, upturning tables and destroying merchandise.

His father?

The angry merchants bodily pushed the poor man out of the marketplace, and he left, led by an old woman who could only be his mother. Harry followed them and, upon reaching the substandard house where they were lodged, he decided to have a talk with the man. After introducing himself as Nicodemus – his current identity – he learnt of the man's identity and story, listening between the words to catch the hidden meanings.

He was named Iesus, and was actually an illegitimate son of the temple's High Priest – or so his mother said. Harry understood that the priest wasn't giving them anything, and he also knew that a woman bearing a bastard wasn't considered well with the laws as they were written. Having heard that the young man was trained as a carpenter, he gave him a little money to build himself a shop nearby, and left them to their own devices.

Harry should have known, after all these millennia, that people left to their own devices didn't fare well. As he was walking the street towards the Sanhedrin for the afternoon session, he saw several law enforcement officers as well as a couple of priests, walking in the other direction. He didn't make the connection, though, and would learn about the young carpenter's death sentence only days afterwards. Apparently, the happenstance he had witnessed hadn't been the first occurrence, and the insulted merchants had taken the problem in front of a local tribunal, which, in turn, had put the man under arrest. Surprisingly – or not – they found no money on the man, and applied the usual sentence for thugs: the death by crucifixion.

Harry was profoundly shocked. Not only he knew for a fact that he had given the man some money – and, given the amount, he couldn't have drunken it in five minutes – but he also knew that no law authorized the crucifixion simply for troublemaking. He realized at once that his initial monotheistic system had been warped by corruption, and that the laws they discussed in the Sanhedrin were applied differently outside, where tribunals were equally corrupted by wealthy merchants.

On top of all this, he couldn't push for new laws, because the Romans appointed a new governor the exact same week. The Sanhedrin found itself devoid of real power, and Harry resigned. Like before, he decided to pay homage to the dead youth by taking his place. After growing his beard in the like of Iesus, he assumed his identity and started to preach for peace and non-violence.

This time, he started his teachings by the lowest categories of population. He even allowed himself to use magic to impress them. He realized that, with the support of a large group of people, he was able to defy the authorities. It took seven years for them to reach him through treason, but it was too late already: the peaceful sect was started, and it wouldn't stop there. Ultimately, his death on the cross and his "resurrection" afterwards – he still couldn't die, and he succeeded in escaping his tomb by himself – would push his followers further on that road.

Eventually, the non-violence message would be transmitted around the Mediterranean Sea and around the world itself, but following it would come the usual problems of power and corruption. It wasn't here and now, though.

Here and now was a little something that had escaped his notice while he had been on the cross: his blood had been recuperated in a wooden cup, which a man named Joseph of Arimathea had brought home after the burial. Harry went there, but it was too late.

The rich man's house was full of dead bodies.

Harry extended his magic towards the past to learn what had happened, and he gasped.

Apparently, the man had been in league with some of the temple's priests, and they had had a party after his burial. Intoxicated by the wine, and mistakenly thinking that the red liquid in the cup was wine as well, Joseph had drunk the highly magical blood from it.

Under Harry's shocked gaze, the memory continued to play and showed the man snapping upright, his eyes wide. The numerous guests started to laugh at the exhibition, but their mirth evaporated when the cup dropped with a clatter, and when he grabbed his throat in visible pain. His canine teeth slowly elongated, eventually piercing his lips, drawing blood which started to leak, joining Harry's on the man's chin.

At the same time, another transformation was taking place. Joseph's dog – which was, in fact, a recently-tamed wolf – had lapped the blood fallen from the cup, and its body transformed as well. After much pain-inducing morphing and shuffling, a larger beast stood there. Stood. It looked like a mix between a man and a wolf.

The two of them looked at each other. At that moment, the guests weren't laughing anymore, and some of them had even started to flee the house, wailing at the horror. The man-wolf reached them in three leaps and brought an end to their cries, while the fanged man took care of those inside with inhuman speed. When the silence came back in the house, the man-wolf had fled the premises already, and Joseph looked around with haunted eyes. He noticed the cup on the ground, and his eyes lit up. By some strange happenstance, the cup was standing upright, and it was still full of blood. With a last look around, he took it and, carefully putting a stopper over it, he pocketed it and left.

Harry's vision returned to the present, and he broke into a cold sweat. He now knew that his works had been thwarted again, earning him some more difficulties later. As if there was a force in the universe actively preventing him from doing good deeds for the world. Food and technology had backfired into war and corruption, and peaceful religion had indirectly produced highly dangerous beasts...

...which would ultimately be known as vampires and werewolves.

To be continued in next chapter: Of Blood and Elves...

This chapter is not at all
A religion thesis!
If not, my poor head would roll
At the Inquisition's feet.