VOLDEMORT'S LAST SPELL, by Louis IX
Disclaimer: Check first chapter for full disclaimer and other warnings.
Chapter 4 – Of Blood and Elves...
posted April 12th, 2006
As he wanted to catch both of them quickly, Harry hoped against all hopes that his two quarries would stay together. They didn't, of course. After discussing with his previous comrades – revealing himself to them in the process – and having better leads towards the wolf-like beast, Harry decided to follow said beast's trail and travelled eastwards.
After a few years, he eventually found the unnatural beast, howling victoriously in the middle of a devastated hamlet near Sri Lanka. The original wolf-sized monster had grown to the height of nine feet, and had claws the size of a dagger. After an epic fight, during which Harry suffered greatly himself and discovered about the half-wolf inhumane strength and quasi-invulnerability, the beast was finally put down and then completely obliterated to prevent further regeneration. The little dregs of magic remaining in Harry's body were used to heal the few villagers still alive, and he then collapsed in exhaustion.
Several days later, his own regeneration power allowed him to wake up fully healed. He took a cursory glance around, only to find himself in some sort of a monastery, and it was night time. The time didn't prevent the monks from being extremely agitated, though. Harry heard fighting sounds from the entrance, and a howl crystallized his decision to intervene. He ran, jumped, and sidestepped fleeing monks and arrived in front of a nightmarish vision. In the courtyard, bathed in the moonlight, half a dozen beasts were panting and drooling, snarling and howling.
Half a dozen copies of the beast he had put down a few days before.
Of course, they looked less impressive, being more human-sized than the original monster. They were even half-clothed with rags. Rags that Harry identified as being clothes from the villagers he had healed before. His eyes widening in shock, he realized that he had forgotten something: in his travels to find the beast, he had never enquired about its victims. And, looking at him with their amber eyes, these victims seemed ready to pounce on him at a moment's notice.
Harry readied himself. His millennia of experience in fighting humans and animals had given him strength and agility, as well as techniques of fighting against each and every animal on the planet – some of them even extinct. And his millennia of experience in harnessing the ambient power – a power that would later be called magic – had often helped him in his tribulations.
Two of the beasts were disputing the body of an unfortunate monk, but the other four jumped on him at the same time. Harry rolled on the ground and stood up behind them. He extended his hand and one of them slumped forward, asleep and out for the count. Harry grasped one of the staves lying around, and smacked a second man-wolf in certain points around the head. On a normal human, these points were used to put the person to sleep. Of course, with the strength Harry currently applied, a normal human would be decapitated. The werewolf grunted and took a couple of menacing steps, before collapsing as well. Repeating the pattern, Harry subdued the others quickly.
While he was recovering, he called for the monks to imprison them: he wanted to test several theories about the new beasts.
Harry spent the following year in or around the monastery, helping its survival. Since their supporting village had been decimated, they had difficulties interacting with the outside world. He taught them some of his fighting techniques and his moral values as well. Unbeknownst to him, they wrote everything down and mixed with their own mythology. And, since their meeting with him was so strange – he had slept a whole week before awakening right before the battle, after all – they tended to call him the Awakened. Which, in their language, was pronounced Buddha.
Naturally, his teachings were separated in two, and, unknown to many of them, they would be propagated through two separate ways, eventually rejoining in certain temples, where Buddhist monks would practice martial arts.
Over his time at the monastery, he discovered that the werewolves transformed involuntarily when the moon was full. After several tests, he also found about their allergy to silver. And, after even more tests, he came up with a way to remove the evil spirit that took hold of them during the full moons. Unfortunately, two of them were too far gone in madness for their wolf spirit to bend to Harry's will, and it was decided that they would be kept prisoner in a completely closed cell, with only a hole for their food. Eventually, over the course of several years, they would become completely insane and fight each other to death.
Meanwhile, working with the four others, Harry made a startling discovery: even after his meddling with their spirit, they were still able to change into wolves, although it was at will and the "inner wolf" wasn't there anymore. Thus came the first tribe of reformed werewolves, also known as Lycans.
Harry studied their transformation in detail, and he came up with the Animagus theory. And, after some time, the practice as well.
He wasn't a wolf, though. His form was a smaller one, although even better adapted to survival; one that was ferocious enough to successfully bring down animals four times bigger than it was: a glutton.
When he was certain that the hamlet's inhabitants were secure, he traced his steps back and tried to find if the initial beast had made more victims. Unfortunately, it was the case, and Harry had to heal a dozen more werewolves, in times forced by circumstances to kill some unredeemable ones. By now, however, he knew that the disease could spread, and, even with the best efforts, he couldn't destroy or convert all of them at once.
His travels brought him back to the Roman Empire, where he noticed that his teachings about peace had spread around, although it was mixed with local customs in some cases. However, the Romans had started to notice what they considered an upstart Judaic sect as troublesome, and numerous trials culminated in martyrdom for many believers. Using his powers, Harry discreetly tried to push these trials towards a fairer end, but there were too many of them. He resolved to travel to the imperial capital to force the Emperor to recognize the new religion as it was. Incidentally, on his way there, he went through Damascus and met two brothers shortly afterwards. One was called Rufus and the other Paul, and they were debating about the validity of Christianity's views – Paul being quite harsh against them. He stopped to explain his views, and thus created himself two new apostles, one of whom would ultimately spread his teachings better than the others.
Harry knew that appearance was important in Rome, and, when he arrived there, he used his magic to appear younger and with richer clothes so as to look like a young patrician. Also, just because he heard the name Darius being used in the street, he chose to assume that name as well. Then, after using of much rhetoric and a bit of magic to pass the guards, Harry met with the current emperor, Claudius.
To his dismay, he found out that the man wasn't that concerned by peace in Galilee: his current task was more like an expansion of the empire. At that particular time, Emperor Claudius was keen on invading Britain, and had deployed many legions to the particularly resisting island. With the many members of the Praetorian Guard around the man and his family, Harry couldn't use his powers to convince him. Well, he could, but it wouldn't be discreet, and he had long since learnt that some humans reacted badly when noticing magic. Either that, or he would be considered a god, and he didn't want that. Besides, he was worried about the Elven Kingdom.
The two men had argued about it for some time, and, after dismissing him, Claudius gratefully drank from the cup his wife Agrippina gave him. The next day, Harry was travelling northwards, and Claudius was dead.
Harry returned to find the realm of the Elves still intact despite the war raging at its doors. He learnt that the forest-dwelling tribes had enhanced their wards even further, and that some of these tribes had relocated in the forested areas of other parts of the world, a small part of them having started to do so even centuries before. It was evident only now, because, thanks to their research in magic, the elves had invented means of contacting each other from almost anywhere on Earth, using magic and undisturbed natural pools. Thanks to their magic, they were also as much at home in the hot jungle of South America than in the freezing forests of Siberia or Northern America. And all of them had efficiently warded their wooded homeland against the Homo Sapiens. Of course, Harry's blood being theirs, he could travel back and forth at will, as did the few remaining druids. However, as the Roman Empire progressed, the number of druids diminished, and soon, only people of Elven blood were able to enter the warded forests.
Since he was quite satisfied about the well-being of the civilization created by his oldest descendants, Harry continued his travels around the world, spreading his peaceful views while searching for his quarry at the same time. Even though he met vampires on his way and learnt about their strengths and weaknesses, he never found his prey: Joseph of Arimathea, the first human to have drunk his blood, seldom stayed in one place more than a couple months. Incidentally, the sire of all vampires also earned himself a nickname in his travels: the Wandering Jew.
At the same time period, the Romans saw Emperor Nero – at 17, the youngest emperor yet – poison his 14-year old step brother and Agrippina, his own mother later. Ten years into Nero's reign, a great fire erupted in his city, and he merely watched the flames from afar, singing madly and later claiming that the Christians caused it. After Nero's suicide, the empire spent a whole year in expectation, as several emperors came and went.
Near the end of Emperor Vespasian's rule, Harry, still in search of Joseph of Arimathea, made a brief stay in Rome. He quickly sensed the unrest under the Vesuvius, he tried to warn the emperor's counsellors about it. Although they nodded along, they thought he was an insane old man and left it at that. And Pompeii and Herculaneum were covered in lava less than a year later. Once again, Harry was far by then. In fact, at the same time, he was just visiting the mining villages in the Ural mountain range. Upon digging deeper and deeper, one of these had found an unknown substance, and Harry was extremely interested to find something new.
It was metal ore, for sure, but the local blacksmiths couldn't even refine it, much less work it: it simply refused to melt when put in fire. They had even decided to discontinue the digging of that particular ore just before Harry's arrival in their town.
When Harry gave it a try, though, the ore melted almost immediately, relinquishing a metal that was gleaming like polished silver. To say that the locals were impressed would be an understatement. Harry smiled around, but, unexpectedly, he was quite tired. He had a faint idea about the reason, though: he had distinctly felt the pull on his magic when the metal was put into the fire. While he was sleeping, the blacksmith tried to work the gleaming metal, but, once again, it was of no use. Harry tried again the next day, and it worked, although the pull on his magic was even stronger.
Thinking about the perceptible amount of magic in the elves, Harry suggested that he knew people who could work the metal, or at least buy the ore, and he promptly – over a few months – set up a trade road between the mines of the town named Myridine and the closest elf settlement. The elves were wary of trading with humans, though, and they didn't relinquish the products made of the strange metal. They only gave natural products like furs and food. The nearly-indestructible metal was effectively worked by them and they produced arms and armours of even higher quality than they were used to. However, they had long since decided not to favour the Homo Sapiens with any advantage over them, and they kept those arms and armours for their own people.
Incidentally, the metal was called Myridine's metal, a name that would be later shortened into… mithril. As only a few sets of armours and weapons were issued to the humans, it acquired a reputation of legend even after the last mithril vein would be exhausted, a thousand years later.
And Harry, being responsible for this discovery, was given a name-like title: he would be Harold of Myridine.
The trade route opened, Harry continued his journey across the world. He met several historians like Josephus, with whom he discussed about past time; he met astronomers like Ptolemy, with whom he discussed about his observations; he met emperors again, some of whom valued his counsels while some didn't; he met all kind of people, and had all sorts of interactions. But he didn't find Joseph.
His travels often brought him back to the Elves, with whom he had many interesting interactions, lasting as little as a day or as long as a few years.
The Elven kingdom had long since reorganized itself into Courts, a name that encompassed the loosely-held group of a hundred individuals living in the trees of a given forest. Each of these courts had names, often chosen after the name of the Court's founder or ruling family. For instance, there were the Courts of Calaëdon in northern Britain, of Amazonyel in South America, of Saskatiëwa in North America, and of Sibyria in what would be eastern Russia. In most case, these names would be picked up by the humans colonizing the place afterwards.
Over his stays in the numerous Courts, Harry learnt about their magic wards of avoidance and their magic pools of communication. He also found out that, with their better understanding of magic, borne of millennia of active study, they were able to decipher the strange drawings on his body. These tattoos had been on his body for as long as he remembered, but they weren't always clearly visible. Some where particularly discernible when he was angry, others were when he was hurt. After studying them, the Elves would later come to a unified theory, in which they would call these drawings Runes. In the process, the Elven scholars found out that most of the runes on Harry's body were protective in nature, and that they were extremely old, but extremely powerful as well – mainly because they were being powered by Harry himself.
The power of magical beings rose steadily with time, eventually counterbalancing the effect of age until they were really too old to maintain that delicate balance. Elves, who had a natural life span of several centuries, were quite powerful already. Harry was different in the fact that his life expectancy was… indefinite. Consequently, the power he was feeding the runes with was always increasing.
Three centuries later, Harry was still searching for Joseph of Arimathea but still hadn't gotten any chance in killing him. He had decided long ago that the vampires were as much an abomination as the werewolves were. Unfortunately, there was no cure to the vampirism, and Harry killed all those he met. He had had several trails on the man, most of them yielding nothing. He had seen the old vampire a few times, but his prey had fled from each confrontation.
By that time, the Roman Empire was in shambles, the barbarian tribes from Götaland – in Scandinavia – having sacked most of it, and several individuals were hailed as kings of the miscellaneous former Roman provinces, ruling either with the blessing of the population, or with a steely hand.
Harry was currently staying in Wales, isolated by the Elven magic from the humans' wars raging around them, and enjoying peace while playing his lyre: over time, he had picked another habit from the graceful people, and it was singing and the playing of musical instruments. The current tradition at the Elven courts implied that everyone could play the age-long instruments of the Elves: the lyre, the flute, and the drum. The Elves had invented these instruments after their first few millennia of peaceful civilization, as well as poetry and singing. By now, several variations of the base instruments had been developed, and the Elven bards, specialized in singing or music playing, had enough talent to influence their audience's mood or even stun them. Harry had explored that line of thought as well, and he had noticed that the best among the bards could interlace magic with their music so as to actually cast spells.
One particular day, a group of several Elves came to him, and he stood up in respect.
"Harold of Myridine?" asked Leatha, current ruling queen of the Court – of course, she spoke Elvish, a language Harry knew very well.
Harry bowed, conscious that the Queen calling him with his current full name was sign of an official discussion. "Queen Leatha of Waëls, what may I do for you?"
"Uninvited humans have been spotted in our woods, and I would like you to meet them, investigate the issue, and lead them out eventually."
Harry didn't ask why the queen was asking him to do the job of a guard because he knew the answer already. Most of the tribes didn't have druid acquaintances anymore, and, to repel the occasional wanderer, they had to use magic or bodily push them away, while hiding their features. Elves didn't want to be seen by humans, in fear of being dragged into their feuds. Of course, counter-examples existed, and there have been several interactions between the two races. Given the strength of the Elves' magic and their nature, all of these interactions were love stories between individuals. Most of these stories hadn't gone well for different reasons – the humans' counterpart aging factor being the prominent one – but in the few cases it went well, magic even helped the Elven counterparts to conceive children despite the differences in their genetic heritage. These fruitful cases were closely watched by the full-blooded Elves, but it was difficult to do so if they wanted to live in the humans' world. In either case, the women of these lines continued to display an Elven-like unearthly beautiful figure to the third generation. At one point in time, the Elves had decided to give a collective name to these family names and they came up with an anagram of their race name. They called them Veels.
Harry shook his head, distracted by his thoughts. "Have the wards failed, my queen?"
"They are still there, strong as ever, and they haven't been disturbed at all. It is as though they were the druids of old, but we haven't invited any in these last century – and you know about the humans' life expectancy."
Harry could see that, under her mask of dignity and grace, the queen was quite distraught. If humans could stumble upon their woods, it would mean danger for them to be mingled in inane wars, a true danger for their peaceful civilization. He bowed. "I will see to them, my queen."
"Very well. Kaliel will lead you to them. Joy and harmony." she finished, using the Elvish usual salutation.
"Joy and harmony to you too, my queen."
With these parting words, the queen left with her retinue, bar one man, and Harry stowed the lyre he had been playing on the uneven floor, near an uneven wall – living in trees can make houses like that, but the Elves found it better than a construction blocking the view of nature around them. Despite the rough aspect of their homes, the Elves were very realistic about them, and could live in their trees much better than the humans in their cold castles. Arranging their homes was one of their most important activity, besides playing music and games. Incidentally, one of those games – despite having several versions going around – had a simple aim: it represented human armies warring on a battlefield, represented by pieces on a chequered board. Later, it would be called chess.
Harry nodded when he was ready, and Kaliel nodded back before leaving. Using the trees to move, the two of them found the "invaders" quickly enough, and Harry was surprised to find that they were quite young. Two boys they were, one barely a teenager while the other was well under his teens. And, strangely, it was the younger who led the older through the woods. Harry and his guide were close enough to hear their voices arguing in Welsh.
"Seriously, brother, I don't know where you lead me, but I have a bad feeling about those woods." the older boy was saying. "People say they are haunted." he added in an undertone.
"Rhys, please!" the young one exclaimed. "You follow a legend spread by peasants? Want to return… there?"
The one called Rhys shivered and shook his head. The other boy – his brother, apparently – resumed dragging him towards the depth of the forest, and Harry knew he had to act soon. Jumping in front of the boys, he addressed them.
"You, there! Who are you and what are you doing here?"
The younger, who had seemed resolute before, turned tail and hid behind his larger brother. Upon seeing a threat that could be dealt with – instead of the lingering fear the warded forest was sure to give any human – the older one lifted his sword.
Harry extended his hand and the sword jumped there, to the boys' surprise. Harry could hear a soft chuckle over him and knew that Kaliel hadn't left. "Do I need to repeat my question?"
"Please, good sir." the young one implored. "We are but two boys."
"Whose names I'd be glad to know." Harry interrupted.
"I'm Ambrosius Aurelianus, son of…" the older one started proudly, using his Romanized name for better effect. However, his composure crumbled suddenly. "It doesn't matter now. Father is dead, our brother is dead, and Gwrtheyrn is after us."
"Who was your father?" Harry asked, kindness in his voice. He always had a soft spot for stranded orphans.
"Father was the High King of Britain. Custennin was his name. When he died, our brother Constans took his place, but Gwrtheyrn, his advisor, killed him and took his place. He's after us, now."
"And… what are you doing here?" Harry enquired.
"Gwthyr said the soldiers never enter the Forbidden Forest." Ambrose replied, nodding back towards his brother.
"Without your brother, would you have come here?"
"No." was the instant response. "I was sure that animals were going to attack us, and that the trees wouldn't let us pass, but Gwthyr had already walked through them and I had to follow." He paused for a second. "I have to take care of him, you know. Even if we are only half-brothers. Both our mums died and Father took equally good care of the three of us."
Harry cast a brief glance upwards. Things started to make sense, and Kaliel would notice it as well. "How old are the two of you, and what is the name of Gwthyr's mother?"
"Why?" asked Ambrose suspiciously.
His brother didn't have the same self-control. "I'm seven-and-a-half years old!" he proclaimed proudly.
"You are a strong one." Harry said, looking at him fondly. His eyes were searching, though. Yes… that could be. He would ask Kaliel later.
His eyes returned to Ambrose. "I asked because you shouldn't be here. There are reasons why this forest is called Forbidden Woods. However, your brother seems to have inherited something from his mother's side, and I want to know her name to get my facts right. Was she a beautiful woman?"
"Yes." the boy immediately answered. "Many men tried to court her, even after she vowed herself to Father. She turned all of them down." He paused, before turning to his brother and smiling fondly. "I remember Father calling her "my huntress" but everyone else referred to her as Lady Dyana." He frowned. "Now that I think of it, I remember… the last month of expectancy, she went ailing, and she said a couple of times that if the child was a girl, she had to be named after her, like her mother and grandmother." he said, shrugging. "I don't know why I recall this, but… eeek!"
Used to the elfish style of life, Harry hadn't moved, but the two boys were startled when Kaliel dropped from the trees behind them, his hood firmly in place and obscuring his pointy ears.
"Don't be afraid, young ones." Harry said, still thinking about the young boy's parentage. Visibly, Kaliel had had the same thoughts because he was kneeling in front of the boy and peering at his face attentively. Harry paused, knowing that the elf's vision was better than his for this kind of task. The elf still needed to stay several seconds face-to-face with a prospective human before reaching a decision. When it was done, he nodded, and a smile graced his already graceful features.
"Fourth generation." he simply said.
Harry nodded back. It confirmed his hunch: Gwthyr was a Veel. As a male one, he didn't have many distinctive traits, but the wards around the forest affected him differently and that was why he was able to lead his half-brother through them. As soon as he reached this conclusion, though, another one came forward immediately: Elves took care of themselves, and they also took care of the Veels.
There was one problem, though: only having each other to count on, the two brothers wouldn't accept being separated, and Ambrose, as fully-blooded human, wouldn't be accepted anywhere near Elven Courts. Sure, the Elves took care of the Veels, but they had always stayed discreet about this.
An hour later, Harry had conferred with the queen, and it was decided that the two boys be educated in the human world. Leatha had cousins leading the Court of Broceliande, in Brittany, and the humans leaving nearby were in relative peace. It would be years before the two brothers would come back to Britain to bring an end to Gwrtheyrn's reign. In the meantime, Harry decided to keep an eye on the repressive king.
Not only was Vortigern – the Briton name of Gwrtheyrn – a cruel man, but he was also devious and paranoid. He only kept men he could trust around him and was followed with guards everywhere he went, a habit that prevented Harry's interference. The king was also warring actively against the barbarian tribes that were pouring through the defences vacated by the Romans mere decades ago. Following the Roman custom of employing a barbarian tribe to fight against another, the king successfully brought a tribe of Saxon mercenaries from the continent.
However, the mercenaries' chief, a strong man named Hengist, was even more deceitful than Vortigern was. Despite successfully assisting the king in fighting the invaders out, Hengist conned the king into giving him a whole town to settle in. How? By only asking for the land they could cover with a single ox hide. Vortigern greedily accepted, but the Saxons sliced the hide and assembled it into one thin cord with which they encircled a whole city!
A while later, Vortigern got himself drunk in a party and fell in love with the Saxon chief's daughter. To have her, he gave the land of Kent to the mercenaries. When they asked for more food and gold for their increased numbers, Vortigern refused, arguing that it wasn't the original plan and that the initial threat had disappeared. The Saxons declared war on him then and tore through the land, leaving devastation wherever they went.
Eventually, Hengist asked for a peace conference, as was the custom of the time… but that was another trap, where he killed the half-thousand Briton nobles who attended.
The high king of the Britons was forced to flee and he decided to build a stronghold to hold his troops and regroup. Having been taken by his own affairs, Harry hadn't been able to act before. He had relocated the two brothers in Brittany and had found a trail to Joseph of Arimathea leading far into Africa. It had ended without bearing any fruit except an opportunity for him to spread his peaceful views of life further – these would be written down a century later as well (and distorted as well). He had then followed another lead into India but it was empty as well. Now that he was back in Britain, he decided to take care of the current king.
Each night, Harry sneaked in the construction site of Vortigern's keep, and he used his magic to provoke an earthquake. After a couple of days of bringing the walls down, he started a rumour about a young boy having the answer to the problem – he had already decided to appear to these humans as a boy: Harry felt that he would spend a long time with the humans, and he preferred not to be asked questions about his life expectancy; he also knew that Vortigern's heightened paranoia would be lowered when confronted to a mere boy. Thankfully, he had already found, several millennia ago, how to use his magic to alter his physical age, and he could return to his kid years quite easily. He had already done so without any incentive on several occasions, if only to enjoy the different kinds of childhoods that were going on wherever he went.
Like most men of this era, Vortigern believed in presages, and, although he found strange the fact that a seven-year-old boy could have the answer to his predicament, he demanded to see him. When, having retrieved a child's appearance, Harry was presented to the high king, he introduced himself as "Harold of Myridine" but the immature voice carried badly over the din that was the high king's meeting room and everyone only heard a mangled version of the last word. Vortigern would call him Myrddin, and so would his successors.
And, seven centuries later, the poet Geoffrey of Monmouth would write his name as… Merlin.
When asked about it, Harry told Vortigern a fable story about a subterranean lake with two fighting dragons. The king was curious about this and ordered his men to dig far into the earth. Taking advantage of the fact that everybody was focused on the digging, Harry brought forth his powers of illusion and made the prediction appear true. He created a white dragon and a red one, and the two fought viciously. For a moment, the white seemed to win, but the red one struck and the two of them exploded in a blinding and deafening explosion. When pressed for explanation, Harry told the king that he often had this kind of visions. Although he didn't have to explain it, Harry told the king that the white dragon represented him and the red was Ambrose – who had, by now, grown into a fine young man. After all, Ambrose's family emblem was a red dragon's head.
When Ambrose came into power after Vortigern's defeat, he kept the strange boy as a private advisor and the two of them worked well. Among other things, they built a tomb for the 500 nobles slaughtered by the Saxons. Harry chose the building site carefully, selecting one where the concentration of magic in the land was already strong, and he went with Gwthyr to collect magical stone slabs in Ireland. They called the site the Giant's Ring, but future generation would refer to it as Stonehenge. Even though he won several great battles against the Saxons, Ambrose was poisoned by his enemies and he was interred there as well.
And, when he died, his brother Gwthyr assumed the role of king. Gwthyr, whose name had been Britonized into Uther, would later be called with his family name: Uther Pendragon.
To be continued in next chapter: Once Upon a Time...
Author's Notes: Many of the events outlined are stuff of legends. Even if I did my research quite well, it is highly probable that nothing it true. At least in our non-magical history books. As a rule of thumb, Vortigern is said to have lived between 370 and 459 and Uther between 410 and 495.