Chapter 20: THE EXPLICATRIX
With that, Harry stood up; straightened his robes; pushed his glasses up; said, "Okay," softly to himself; took a deep, calming breath and properly hid Cho's letter.
"All right, Raides," he said, "I think I'm feeling better. C'mon then, I'm going to Dumbledore."
Harry set off down the spiral staircase and to his dismay, was met with a bunch of hushed whispers.
"I think he's finally lost it."
"Aaron told me that curse started by making him really angry."
"D'you think he's safe?"
"No. Honestly, I wouldn't go near him."
His hand unfortunately sliding up to the plaque, Harry tried to shut them out and, without looking over at Ron's and Hermione's worried faces, pushed open the portrait hole and left the Gryffindor common room. Staring at the ugly gargoyle blocking entry the grand staircase leading into Dumbledore's office on the seventh floor, Harry didn't have any miraculous ideas for the password. Instead, he resorted to Raides. Staff in hand, Harry pointed it at the gargoyle. He wasn't surprised to watch it immediately spring to life upon being hit with white light and step aside, allowing Harry entrance to the spiral staircase. Rising like an escalator, in seconds, before him was a grand oak door. Using the brass door knocker, a voice inside said, "Come in, Harry, and please tell Raides to go back to Gryffindor Tower."
Raides grunted moodily and set off on her own after looking up at Harry.
Alone, Harry pushed open the great oak door and stepped inside Dumbledore's office. It was easily the grandest office of all at Hogwarts. Circular in shape, Dumbledore's desk sat in the middle and his phoenix, Fawkes, was resting upon a golden perch just behind the door. All around the office were pictures of previous headmasters of Hogwarts. Dumbledore himself was sitting at his desk, holding a peculiar object indeed.
At first glance, Harry thought it was a slightly transparent blue orb but upon closer inspection, saw that it was really a crystal ball. It was a very small one, barely four inches in diameter. There was swirly silver smoke inside of it that looked like a mist of sorts and there were black runes written all around the outside of it. Dumbledore was staring intently at it.
"Sit down, Harry," he said, very distracted by whatever he was seeing in the ball.
There was a minute's silence, filled with nothing but Fawkes cleaning his feathers and Harry shifting in his seat. Dumbledore stared and stared until Harry felt the need to speak.
"Professor," he said, "er -- did you want to speak with me?"
Dumbledore blinked, made a very strained face then covered the strange blue crystal ball with a cloth.
"In all my years..." he said in a very offhand voice. "And I thought the Book of Memories was a strange item. Strange, indeed."
"What is that?"
"That?" asked Dumbledore, looking at Harry and putting the orb into a cabinet next to his Pensieve. "That is known as Cybele's Orb, known by her as an Explicatrix. In my research of her staff, which she quite obviously named Raides, I've found that she was quite the adept witch. Not only did she manage to give the staff the ability to freely shape-shift, that staff was made before the discovery of the Mark of Ancients and is an order of magnitude more powerful. The ability of the ancients, even the weakest ones, quite easily rivals that of myself and Lord Voldemort," he said matter-of-factly. "That is, naturally, providing they were using their mark. Of course, to them it wasn't referred to the Mark of Ancients since they were the ones who discovered it. That name was only gotten through time. To them, it was called the Nota Vetustum."
Harry sat, listening intently.
"It was Cybele herself, sometimes referred to as The Mother, who initially discovered it. They quite worshipped her, brought her gifts and when she died, continued it all by sacrificing themselves in her name. Frankly, she didn't care for the attention and she'd rather not have it but she had a following anyway. Does this remind you of anyone, Harry?" Dumbledore asked, smiling. Harry couldn't think of anyone in particular.
"People back in those times were, if you will, silly," Dumbledore went on. "Every branch of magic that included sacrifice as part of it's study eventually killed all of it's followers off, all except one particular line of ancients. While many of the ancients had turned arrogant and began to abuse the Nota Vetustum, the Charm that enhanced their ability, Cybele's family line stayed on the side of good. They watched in utter horror as their brethren fell to the first ever record of the Dark side."
"It was the ancients who started this good-side Dark-side stuff?"
"Yes, Harry," said Dumbledore, gazing at him over the top of his half-moon spectacles. "Cybele tried, as a last ditch effort, to eradicate Raides. No one dared look for the staff while she was alive, lest she kill them herself. She did live a good two hundred years, her longevity nurtured by her research into increasing one's life span but her death signified nothing but a frantic search to find the supposedly broken staff. There were nothing but writings of what she had done with it. The world over was searched for it until someone who should not have found it did find it. His name is unknown but he forced the family line of Cybele into hiding, using the power of the staff to it's full extent. While she did make it that only ancients could use it, by this time there were ancients evil enough where it didn't make a difference.
"He was quite like Lord Voldemort, terrifying the people so much that his name was probably long forgotten by the time the book I found any reference of him was written. A Clades Ultimus here, a Light of Faith there -- yes," he added, noticing Harry's mouth creep open at hearing he killed Dark wizards too. Light of Faith was a special spell that only killed Dark wizards. "He was just as ruthless to his own followers if they betrayed him. Quite funny, though, as sometimes the Light of Faith failed because the wizard had receeded to the side of good before he found them. This was when the Cruciatus Curse was developed, too. Light of Faith did nothing but torture good wizards and they didn't think it was strong enough.
"He, unfortunately, lived for three hundred years but for the last seventy fifty years of his life he was nothing more than skin and bone, barely able to do anything. This Dark wizard was desperate for something to restore him to power and, frankly, life. And as you can easily guess, this was the first record of the start of the branch of Dark magic dealing with immortality. Such was also the start of ancient alchemy's study of the Philosopher's Stone. Who would ever want to live seventy five years when you cannot even walk is beyond me."
"Seventy five years and he couldn't even walk?" Harry asked quietly, making sure he heard right. "That's insane! Who would want that?"
"Oh, yes," Dumbledore went on and Harry was eager to hear more. "Purely sickened by this wizard's followers and their reign, it mentions that Cybele herself and some other wizard (or wizards; it's not clear) locked and bound the staff to a book so it would never get out."
"Never get out?" asked Harry slowly. "That almost sounds like it was trying to escape, like it's full of dark magic? But, she -- she didn't -- come back to life?"
"The book that had this information in it was none too reliable," said Dumbledore, shaking his aged head. He then heaved a great sigh, mumbling something about the publisher of the book constantly making errors. "Changing people's names, incorrect dates, referring to Raides as a plain, wooden stick, refering to Cybele herself as the darkest witch ever to exist, even going so far to say as this took place thirty thousand years ago, fifty thousand years ago, ten thousand and simply one thousand.
"In any case, this other wizard eradicated Raides' memory just before he sealed her inside the book so if she ever was found, the magic would be long lost. He only wanted to prevent that Dark wizard from abusing the magic it held... of which he had been. There is no mention of what it was, only that it is magic that no witch or wizard should be using -- period," said Dumbledore in a very serious voice but continuing much more casually. "Only the other wizard knew how to unlock it and retrieve the staff; Cybele herself had been dead almost four hundred years. The book itself was thrown away and not seen for nearly nine thousand. How you were able to find it is beyond the dreams of many of us. Whether you found it using ancient magic accidently, or it wanted you to find it..."
"I don't even know," said Harry, vaguely recalling the time he spent two years ago as a floating spirit and trying not to think about why a book would want him to find it. "It was -- one minute I was floating in the forbidden forest here and then I was in some dark place with what somehow I knew was the Book of Memories."
"Seeing as how you found the staff as a badger," said Dumbledore softly and suddenly grinning broadly, "and not a lion... and seeing as how Cybele's family name was Gryffindor" -- and then Harry's mouth fell open -- "clearly, Cybele did not simply rise from the dead."
"I -- I'm a descendent of -- of Cybele?" said Harry, astounded. "But, how? I mean, she lived so long ago!"
"Cybele Gryffindor. Had she touched the staff last, it would have been a lion like it had changed into when you touched it. I believe this was done to determine the type of wizard wielding the staff. She is thought to have been born ten thousand years ago.
"There really is no explanation. Cybele was many, many times more powerful than Gryffindor who alone was quite stronger than myself. Godric was the only notable descendent of the Gryffindor line since Cybele, having done something of note in nine thousand years since her staff. I daresay, we have another notable member of the Gryffindor line among us and he is sitting right in front of me," said Dumbledore, still grinning broadly.
Harry felt his cheeks turn red.
"Is there anything else you wanted to talk to me about?" he asked Dumbledore, wanting to get off the subject of Raides now that it had come back around to him.
"On the contrary, Harry, I feel it is important to tell you all that I have found out," Dumbledore told Harry calmly. "There was a sort of purging done shortly after the staff had been hidden, ripping the Nota Vetustum out of any wizard or witch who had abused it and their body subjected to a Clades Ultimus. This was mainly used as a scare tactic but it clearly violated Cybele's original intent and slowly but surely, still more of the ancients died out. Those that were tricky to remove the mark from were put under a permanent Imperius -- the spell having been perfected -- and killed. It took the good part of one millenium -- one thousand years -- to do this and it left only the Gryffindors and very few other families who had had the Nota Vetustum. The Gryffindors themselves removed it from each other and the only person with it left agreed to sacrifice himself so no one would ever be able to use it again. The staff gone and the last person with Nota Vetustum killed, they felt they had put Cybele's tormented spirit to rest."
"How did the mark survive if it was removed from everyone? And why couldn't they just do to each other what you did for me two years ago? No one needed to die to remove it from me..."
"Someone somewhere along the line had to have kept it but hid it very well. This, as much as I hate to admit, had to have been a dark wizard." Harry's spirits dulled slightly on the note that somewhere along the line, there had been a very dark wizard in his family tree. He slouched in his chair. "But please, do not let it bother you. He did not make himself known and so his intents could not have been all bad."
"There's more questions than answers to this stuff, isn't there?"
"It would appear so, yes," said Dumbledore heavily. "But one thing is certain. You, Harry, are not yourself lately. Is there something you wish to make known?"
Harry's insides gave a guilty squirm.
"Yes," he said, resolving to tell Dumbledore the truth. "I did drink unicorn blood -- but only a very small tiny bit," he added hastily, noticing Dumbledore's mouth opening.
"And it has not affected you," said Dumbledore in a soft, airy voice, more to himself than to Harry.
He leaned back in his chair and gave Harry a look-over, from the top of his jet black, untidy hair and the lightning scar on his forehead, down to the black shoes on his feet.
"I spent the last hour trying to figure it out and all I know for sure is that if I try to make any sense out of it, it's going to drive me insane," Harry told Dumbledore.
"Indeed," said Dumbledore airily again, his crooked nose pointed at an angle so as to make Harry feel like he did something wrong.
Harry blinked.
"Er -- d'you know why?"
"Why it will drive you insane?" Dumbledore asked stupidly, his mind so obviously lost in thought about how Harry could drink unicorn blood and not get cursed.
Harry stared.
"Why it didn't do anything to me."
"No, Harry, I do not," said Dumbledore very fast in a slightly shaky voice and as he spoke, he changed from leaning back in his chair to learning forward, putting his ancient arms on his desk.
Harry slumped back in his chair. He was hoping to be able to return to Gryffindor Tower with things at least slightly close to normal but with Dumbledore stumped, it just wasn't going to happen. He informed Dumbledore of this, to which Dumbledore just told him to return to Gryffindor Tower anyway and repeat to Raides what he told Harry.
Disgruntled, Harry made his way back to Gryffindor Tower, passing by an extremely happy Argus Filch ("Good day to you, Potter!" he squeaked in such an ecstaticly happy voice that Harry stared at him as he passed).
"What's with Mr. Filch?" Harry asked Ron as the Fat Lady swung open to admit him.
"Raides came in, telling us about how she just warned Peeves that he better behave as long as she's in the castle or she's going to ask you if you won't mind binding him inside a crystal ball and then shattering it, causing Peeves to simply stop existing," Ron informed Harry casually which left Harry speechless. "Fuming isn't the word for it and I don't think there is one. She's upstairs."
"Bind him in a crystal ball and then shatter it?" Harry repeated to himself, wondering if he heard correctly. He was happy to note that Ron appeared to have forgotten about earlier.
"And yes," Ron assured him. "When Hermione asked if that was possible, she told Hermione that you will be willing to try it out on her first. Now Hermione's scared stiff in the library. I think you ought to go talk to her because I don't think she's ever going to want to look at your or Raides ever again."
"Wow," said Harry, shocked. "I'll talk to her, then."
"Which 'her?'"
"Both."
Harry sat down at an empty armchair, many of which had freed up upon his entrance to the common room.
"Raides," Harry said in his head, knowing Raides could hear him.
"What," he heard her voice snap at him. "Oh, sorry. It's just that stupid poltergeist," she went on angrily, "what's-his-name --"
"Peeves."
"-- snuck up on me and screamed. I growled so loud that Filch came running and he was just in time to hear me yelling at Peeves. You might have seen him, Filch is now as happy as a pig in mud because Peeves went white as a... well... and then bolted in the opposite direction. The Bloody Baron came by with The Gray Lady and they applauded me."
Forgetting he was in a room full of people and talking to Raides in his head, Harry bursted out laughing to many stares. Luckily, Raides entered the room not a moment later and took her usual seat in front of the fire, resembling a large, glamorous ornament.
"Peeves knows I can do it," she spat. "It's ancient magic and absolutely nothing you will have trouble with. You can use one of the crystal orbs you used for Divination. Just bind him inside it and then drop it so it shatters. He will have been attached to it and when it shatters, his spirit breaks apart and it's like his body never left any remnants."
"I don't really want to -- to kill Peeves," said Harry, feeling a great internal struggle that was personified exactly by the words provided by a Gryffindor first year who spoke next.
"He's a menace, Harry!" she shouted and there were nods of agreement from the two girls sitting next to her. "Even IF it's nice to see him play tricks on the teachers, especially Mr. Filch, he's made me late for Herbology three times and I've gotten detention once already!"
Harry looked around at several faces that were looking in his direction and he was torn between seriously considering it and having known Peeves so long. Either way, the fact would remain -- person or poltergeist -- he would be killing someone and that didn't smooth over too well. He was at least pleased to see that, in light of Peeves, they all forgot about what happened earlier.
"Er -- I have a lot to tell you all if you want to hear it," said Harry, desperately hoping to distract everyone from Peeves. "But first, Raides, I need to get Hermione and I don't really want to walk all the way to the library?"
Raides raised her golden head in Harry's direction and a second later he was catching Foresight with Hermione, telling her Raides wasn't going to kill her and that she needed to come back to Gryffindor Tower. Hermione hestiantly agreed and, in the middle of Raides' diatribe over why Peeves should never have been allowed to stay, came in through the portrait hole, giving Raides a dirty look.
"Apologize," Harry ordered Raides and, ironically not able to refuse, she did so.
Hermione was all smiles.
By the time Harry had finished explaining everything Dumbledore had told him -- about Cybele, the staff, the Dark wizard much like Voldemort terrorizing the ancients, the Nota Vetustum, him being a descendent of Cybele herself -- he then realized Dumbledore forgot to talk about the Explicatrix. Not terribly interested, the urge to go ask Dumbledore about it left as quickly as it came.
On the other hand, far apart from being simply shocked, the entirety of the common room was staring unblinkingly at Harry like he just drank a goblet full of unicorn blood in front of them -- Ron, Hermione and Ginny included. Dennis, Harry had a sick feeling, would start chasing Harry around Hogwarts with a camera like his late older brother, Colin.
"So that explains why I'm just so good," said Raides haughtily and wearing such a cheeky grin Harry thought it should be illegal. Luckily, she had Peeves completely driven from her mind.
It was that that finally made Harry turned redder than the armchair he was sitting on, his arms on the big rests and his hands clutching it like he felt like doing to the Order of Merlin plaque. The act of spilling his ancestral history felt strangely like talking about his parents but that didn't stop the feeling that he would be getting even more unwanted attention. He did fail to mention the Dark wizard in his family tree and would be informing Ron and Hermione of that later.
"But who had the Nota Vetus -- oh forget it, I'm calling it the Mark of Ancients -- so it managed to survive so many years?" Hermioned asked. "I mean, you were the only one to show it in, what, eight thousand years? That was when nobody was really referred to as an ancient anymore since they all had it removed and the last one killed himself, you said."
Harry didn't answer and hoped no one else caught the gap in his story.
"Wow," breathed Dennis in a voice full of awe.
Craig Stone and James Griffith, two people who usually treated Harry as any other person, were very out of their usual selves and were gaping with their mouths open. Harry was plucking the seams of the armrests' ends nervously with the tips of his fingers.
"But you're still going to get rid of Peeves for us, won't you?" asked a third year, the only one that wasn't in awe.
"No," said Harry flatly.
"I knew it!" shouted Hermione suddenly, standing up from her chair and making everyone's eyes turn to her. "How else could you have pulled Godric Gryffindor's blade out of the Sorting Hat?" she said as if that was the answer to everything, referring to when Harry had killed the basilisk.
"Oh, shut up," Harry said, closing his eyes lazily as everyone's eyes turned back to him. "And can you lot stop staring at me? It's giving me the creeps."
The first five to return to what they were doing prior to Harry's entry were Ron, Hermione, Ginny, James and Craig. It took quite a while for many others to stop raking Harry's hairline for the scar as if they were just meeting him for the first time and Harry didn't think Dennis would ever stop. Not able to find any peace trying to play chess with Ron, for people kept staring at him in set intervals, Harry beckoned Ron and Hermione up the staircase. Raides followed them, growling at Dennis who tried to follow her.
"There's something I didn't tell you," Harry began and Hermione instinctively smirked and made a short laugh in the back of her throat as if to say "I knew it."
"Cough it up," she said, taking a seat next to Ron on his four-poster, across from Harry who sat on his own.
"There was one Dark wizard who they didn't catch and remove it from," Harry explained. "It was him who brought it down to, well, me."
"They didn't catch him?" Ron asked incredulously. "But how? I don't get it?"
"It just went and turned itself off or something?" Hermioned asked next.
"Your guesses are just as good as mine," said Harry, not even bothering to figure it out.
"This is just too weird!" waving his hand and shaking his head in frustration. "Some Dark wizard keeps the thing, hides from the others perfectly, they never find him and no one since then has used it."
"Yep," said Harry. "That's what Dumbledore read."
"But he could have just lived as an outcast and moved to another country or something," Hermione suggested.
"Maybe," said Ron, "yeah..."
"I'm not letting it bother me, though," said Harry truthfully, who had just noticed Hermione staring pointedly at him. "He was only one, and with Cybele and Godric in my family tree..."
"Right," said Hermione.
"Wait a minute, didn't someone once say that the mark can just disappear and return later?" said Ron, his stroke of brilliance surprising himself and even Hermione.
"That's it!" said Hermione at once. "That's how he did it! They didn't even know he had it and it stayed in him and he passed it down, generation to generation, until it showed up in Harry!"
And she clapped her hands together happily. Ron was overjoyed at himself.
"Now that that's settled," said Harry, glad he didn't have to fall asleep with that mystery hanging over his head, "what do I do about everyone staring at me again?"
Although he knew the attention would annoy him greatly later, at the moment Harry couldn't help but find it funny that, every so often, there was another reason for people to gape and stare and look for the lightning-shaped scar under his untidy black hair.
But the point was easily seen and Harry only grinned more broadly as Ron and Hermione exchanged dark looks.
With that, Harry stood up; straightened his robes; pushed his glasses up; said, "Okay," softly to himself; took a deep, calming breath and properly hid Cho's letter.
"All right, Raides," he said, "I think I'm feeling better. C'mon then, I'm going to Dumbledore."
Harry set off down the spiral staircase and to his dismay, was met with a bunch of hushed whispers.
"I think he's finally lost it."
"Aaron told me that curse started by making him really angry."
"D'you think he's safe?"
"No. Honestly, I wouldn't go near him."
His hand unfortunately sliding up to the plaque, Harry tried to shut them out and, without looking over at Ron's and Hermione's worried faces, pushed open the portrait hole and left the Gryffindor common room. Staring at the ugly gargoyle blocking entry the grand staircase leading into Dumbledore's office on the seventh floor, Harry didn't have any miraculous ideas for the password. Instead, he resorted to Raides. Staff in hand, Harry pointed it at the gargoyle. He wasn't surprised to watch it immediately spring to life upon being hit with white light and step aside, allowing Harry entrance to the spiral staircase. Rising like an escalator, in seconds, before him was a grand oak door. Using the brass door knocker, a voice inside said, "Come in, Harry, and please tell Raides to go back to Gryffindor Tower."
Raides grunted moodily and set off on her own after looking up at Harry.
Alone, Harry pushed open the great oak door and stepped inside Dumbledore's office. It was easily the grandest office of all at Hogwarts. Circular in shape, Dumbledore's desk sat in the middle and his phoenix, Fawkes, was resting upon a golden perch just behind the door. All around the office were pictures of previous headmasters of Hogwarts. Dumbledore himself was sitting at his desk, holding a peculiar object indeed.
At first glance, Harry thought it was a slightly transparent blue orb but upon closer inspection, saw that it was really a crystal ball. It was a very small one, barely four inches in diameter. There was swirly silver smoke inside of it that looked like a mist of sorts and there were black runes written all around the outside of it. Dumbledore was staring intently at it.
"Sit down, Harry," he said, very distracted by whatever he was seeing in the ball.
There was a minute's silence, filled with nothing but Fawkes cleaning his feathers and Harry shifting in his seat. Dumbledore stared and stared until Harry felt the need to speak.
"Professor," he said, "er -- did you want to speak with me?"
Dumbledore blinked, made a very strained face then covered the strange blue crystal ball with a cloth.
"In all my years..." he said in a very offhand voice. "And I thought the Book of Memories was a strange item. Strange, indeed."
"What is that?"
"That?" asked Dumbledore, looking at Harry and putting the orb into a cabinet next to his Pensieve. "That is known as Cybele's Orb, known by her as an Explicatrix. In my research of her staff, which she quite obviously named Raides, I've found that she was quite the adept witch. Not only did she manage to give the staff the ability to freely shape-shift, that staff was made before the discovery of the Mark of Ancients and is an order of magnitude more powerful. The ability of the ancients, even the weakest ones, quite easily rivals that of myself and Lord Voldemort," he said matter-of-factly. "That is, naturally, providing they were using their mark. Of course, to them it wasn't referred to the Mark of Ancients since they were the ones who discovered it. That name was only gotten through time. To them, it was called the Nota Vetustum."
Harry sat, listening intently.
"It was Cybele herself, sometimes referred to as The Mother, who initially discovered it. They quite worshipped her, brought her gifts and when she died, continued it all by sacrificing themselves in her name. Frankly, she didn't care for the attention and she'd rather not have it but she had a following anyway. Does this remind you of anyone, Harry?" Dumbledore asked, smiling. Harry couldn't think of anyone in particular.
"People back in those times were, if you will, silly," Dumbledore went on. "Every branch of magic that included sacrifice as part of it's study eventually killed all of it's followers off, all except one particular line of ancients. While many of the ancients had turned arrogant and began to abuse the Nota Vetustum, the Charm that enhanced their ability, Cybele's family line stayed on the side of good. They watched in utter horror as their brethren fell to the first ever record of the Dark side."
"It was the ancients who started this good-side Dark-side stuff?"
"Yes, Harry," said Dumbledore, gazing at him over the top of his half-moon spectacles. "Cybele tried, as a last ditch effort, to eradicate Raides. No one dared look for the staff while she was alive, lest she kill them herself. She did live a good two hundred years, her longevity nurtured by her research into increasing one's life span but her death signified nothing but a frantic search to find the supposedly broken staff. There were nothing but writings of what she had done with it. The world over was searched for it until someone who should not have found it did find it. His name is unknown but he forced the family line of Cybele into hiding, using the power of the staff to it's full extent. While she did make it that only ancients could use it, by this time there were ancients evil enough where it didn't make a difference.
"He was quite like Lord Voldemort, terrifying the people so much that his name was probably long forgotten by the time the book I found any reference of him was written. A Clades Ultimus here, a Light of Faith there -- yes," he added, noticing Harry's mouth creep open at hearing he killed Dark wizards too. Light of Faith was a special spell that only killed Dark wizards. "He was just as ruthless to his own followers if they betrayed him. Quite funny, though, as sometimes the Light of Faith failed because the wizard had receeded to the side of good before he found them. This was when the Cruciatus Curse was developed, too. Light of Faith did nothing but torture good wizards and they didn't think it was strong enough.
"He, unfortunately, lived for three hundred years but for the last seventy fifty years of his life he was nothing more than skin and bone, barely able to do anything. This Dark wizard was desperate for something to restore him to power and, frankly, life. And as you can easily guess, this was the first record of the start of the branch of Dark magic dealing with immortality. Such was also the start of ancient alchemy's study of the Philosopher's Stone. Who would ever want to live seventy five years when you cannot even walk is beyond me."
"Seventy five years and he couldn't even walk?" Harry asked quietly, making sure he heard right. "That's insane! Who would want that?"
"Oh, yes," Dumbledore went on and Harry was eager to hear more. "Purely sickened by this wizard's followers and their reign, it mentions that Cybele herself and some other wizard (or wizards; it's not clear) locked and bound the staff to a book so it would never get out."
"Never get out?" asked Harry slowly. "That almost sounds like it was trying to escape, like it's full of dark magic? But, she -- she didn't -- come back to life?"
"The book that had this information in it was none too reliable," said Dumbledore, shaking his aged head. He then heaved a great sigh, mumbling something about the publisher of the book constantly making errors. "Changing people's names, incorrect dates, referring to Raides as a plain, wooden stick, refering to Cybele herself as the darkest witch ever to exist, even going so far to say as this took place thirty thousand years ago, fifty thousand years ago, ten thousand and simply one thousand.
"In any case, this other wizard eradicated Raides' memory just before he sealed her inside the book so if she ever was found, the magic would be long lost. He only wanted to prevent that Dark wizard from abusing the magic it held... of which he had been. There is no mention of what it was, only that it is magic that no witch or wizard should be using -- period," said Dumbledore in a very serious voice but continuing much more casually. "Only the other wizard knew how to unlock it and retrieve the staff; Cybele herself had been dead almost four hundred years. The book itself was thrown away and not seen for nearly nine thousand. How you were able to find it is beyond the dreams of many of us. Whether you found it using ancient magic accidently, or it wanted you to find it..."
"I don't even know," said Harry, vaguely recalling the time he spent two years ago as a floating spirit and trying not to think about why a book would want him to find it. "It was -- one minute I was floating in the forbidden forest here and then I was in some dark place with what somehow I knew was the Book of Memories."
"Seeing as how you found the staff as a badger," said Dumbledore softly and suddenly grinning broadly, "and not a lion... and seeing as how Cybele's family name was Gryffindor" -- and then Harry's mouth fell open -- "clearly, Cybele did not simply rise from the dead."
"I -- I'm a descendent of -- of Cybele?" said Harry, astounded. "But, how? I mean, she lived so long ago!"
"Cybele Gryffindor. Had she touched the staff last, it would have been a lion like it had changed into when you touched it. I believe this was done to determine the type of wizard wielding the staff. She is thought to have been born ten thousand years ago.
"There really is no explanation. Cybele was many, many times more powerful than Gryffindor who alone was quite stronger than myself. Godric was the only notable descendent of the Gryffindor line since Cybele, having done something of note in nine thousand years since her staff. I daresay, we have another notable member of the Gryffindor line among us and he is sitting right in front of me," said Dumbledore, still grinning broadly.
Harry felt his cheeks turn red.
"Is there anything else you wanted to talk to me about?" he asked Dumbledore, wanting to get off the subject of Raides now that it had come back around to him.
"On the contrary, Harry, I feel it is important to tell you all that I have found out," Dumbledore told Harry calmly. "There was a sort of purging done shortly after the staff had been hidden, ripping the Nota Vetustum out of any wizard or witch who had abused it and their body subjected to a Clades Ultimus. This was mainly used as a scare tactic but it clearly violated Cybele's original intent and slowly but surely, still more of the ancients died out. Those that were tricky to remove the mark from were put under a permanent Imperius -- the spell having been perfected -- and killed. It took the good part of one millenium -- one thousand years -- to do this and it left only the Gryffindors and very few other families who had had the Nota Vetustum. The Gryffindors themselves removed it from each other and the only person with it left agreed to sacrifice himself so no one would ever be able to use it again. The staff gone and the last person with Nota Vetustum killed, they felt they had put Cybele's tormented spirit to rest."
"How did the mark survive if it was removed from everyone? And why couldn't they just do to each other what you did for me two years ago? No one needed to die to remove it from me..."
"Someone somewhere along the line had to have kept it but hid it very well. This, as much as I hate to admit, had to have been a dark wizard." Harry's spirits dulled slightly on the note that somewhere along the line, there had been a very dark wizard in his family tree. He slouched in his chair. "But please, do not let it bother you. He did not make himself known and so his intents could not have been all bad."
"There's more questions than answers to this stuff, isn't there?"
"It would appear so, yes," said Dumbledore heavily. "But one thing is certain. You, Harry, are not yourself lately. Is there something you wish to make known?"
Harry's insides gave a guilty squirm.
"Yes," he said, resolving to tell Dumbledore the truth. "I did drink unicorn blood -- but only a very small tiny bit," he added hastily, noticing Dumbledore's mouth opening.
"And it has not affected you," said Dumbledore in a soft, airy voice, more to himself than to Harry.
He leaned back in his chair and gave Harry a look-over, from the top of his jet black, untidy hair and the lightning scar on his forehead, down to the black shoes on his feet.
"I spent the last hour trying to figure it out and all I know for sure is that if I try to make any sense out of it, it's going to drive me insane," Harry told Dumbledore.
"Indeed," said Dumbledore airily again, his crooked nose pointed at an angle so as to make Harry feel like he did something wrong.
Harry blinked.
"Er -- d'you know why?"
"Why it will drive you insane?" Dumbledore asked stupidly, his mind so obviously lost in thought about how Harry could drink unicorn blood and not get cursed.
Harry stared.
"Why it didn't do anything to me."
"No, Harry, I do not," said Dumbledore very fast in a slightly shaky voice and as he spoke, he changed from leaning back in his chair to learning forward, putting his ancient arms on his desk.
Harry slumped back in his chair. He was hoping to be able to return to Gryffindor Tower with things at least slightly close to normal but with Dumbledore stumped, it just wasn't going to happen. He informed Dumbledore of this, to which Dumbledore just told him to return to Gryffindor Tower anyway and repeat to Raides what he told Harry.
Disgruntled, Harry made his way back to Gryffindor Tower, passing by an extremely happy Argus Filch ("Good day to you, Potter!" he squeaked in such an ecstaticly happy voice that Harry stared at him as he passed).
"What's with Mr. Filch?" Harry asked Ron as the Fat Lady swung open to admit him.
"Raides came in, telling us about how she just warned Peeves that he better behave as long as she's in the castle or she's going to ask you if you won't mind binding him inside a crystal ball and then shattering it, causing Peeves to simply stop existing," Ron informed Harry casually which left Harry speechless. "Fuming isn't the word for it and I don't think there is one. She's upstairs."
"Bind him in a crystal ball and then shatter it?" Harry repeated to himself, wondering if he heard correctly. He was happy to note that Ron appeared to have forgotten about earlier.
"And yes," Ron assured him. "When Hermione asked if that was possible, she told Hermione that you will be willing to try it out on her first. Now Hermione's scared stiff in the library. I think you ought to go talk to her because I don't think she's ever going to want to look at your or Raides ever again."
"Wow," said Harry, shocked. "I'll talk to her, then."
"Which 'her?'"
"Both."
Harry sat down at an empty armchair, many of which had freed up upon his entrance to the common room.
"Raides," Harry said in his head, knowing Raides could hear him.
"What," he heard her voice snap at him. "Oh, sorry. It's just that stupid poltergeist," she went on angrily, "what's-his-name --"
"Peeves."
"-- snuck up on me and screamed. I growled so loud that Filch came running and he was just in time to hear me yelling at Peeves. You might have seen him, Filch is now as happy as a pig in mud because Peeves went white as a... well... and then bolted in the opposite direction. The Bloody Baron came by with The Gray Lady and they applauded me."
Forgetting he was in a room full of people and talking to Raides in his head, Harry bursted out laughing to many stares. Luckily, Raides entered the room not a moment later and took her usual seat in front of the fire, resembling a large, glamorous ornament.
"Peeves knows I can do it," she spat. "It's ancient magic and absolutely nothing you will have trouble with. You can use one of the crystal orbs you used for Divination. Just bind him inside it and then drop it so it shatters. He will have been attached to it and when it shatters, his spirit breaks apart and it's like his body never left any remnants."
"I don't really want to -- to kill Peeves," said Harry, feeling a great internal struggle that was personified exactly by the words provided by a Gryffindor first year who spoke next.
"He's a menace, Harry!" she shouted and there were nods of agreement from the two girls sitting next to her. "Even IF it's nice to see him play tricks on the teachers, especially Mr. Filch, he's made me late for Herbology three times and I've gotten detention once already!"
Harry looked around at several faces that were looking in his direction and he was torn between seriously considering it and having known Peeves so long. Either way, the fact would remain -- person or poltergeist -- he would be killing someone and that didn't smooth over too well. He was at least pleased to see that, in light of Peeves, they all forgot about what happened earlier.
"Er -- I have a lot to tell you all if you want to hear it," said Harry, desperately hoping to distract everyone from Peeves. "But first, Raides, I need to get Hermione and I don't really want to walk all the way to the library?"
Raides raised her golden head in Harry's direction and a second later he was catching Foresight with Hermione, telling her Raides wasn't going to kill her and that she needed to come back to Gryffindor Tower. Hermione hestiantly agreed and, in the middle of Raides' diatribe over why Peeves should never have been allowed to stay, came in through the portrait hole, giving Raides a dirty look.
"Apologize," Harry ordered Raides and, ironically not able to refuse, she did so.
Hermione was all smiles.
By the time Harry had finished explaining everything Dumbledore had told him -- about Cybele, the staff, the Dark wizard much like Voldemort terrorizing the ancients, the Nota Vetustum, him being a descendent of Cybele herself -- he then realized Dumbledore forgot to talk about the Explicatrix. Not terribly interested, the urge to go ask Dumbledore about it left as quickly as it came.
On the other hand, far apart from being simply shocked, the entirety of the common room was staring unblinkingly at Harry like he just drank a goblet full of unicorn blood in front of them -- Ron, Hermione and Ginny included. Dennis, Harry had a sick feeling, would start chasing Harry around Hogwarts with a camera like his late older brother, Colin.
"So that explains why I'm just so good," said Raides haughtily and wearing such a cheeky grin Harry thought it should be illegal. Luckily, she had Peeves completely driven from her mind.
It was that that finally made Harry turned redder than the armchair he was sitting on, his arms on the big rests and his hands clutching it like he felt like doing to the Order of Merlin plaque. The act of spilling his ancestral history felt strangely like talking about his parents but that didn't stop the feeling that he would be getting even more unwanted attention. He did fail to mention the Dark wizard in his family tree and would be informing Ron and Hermione of that later.
"But who had the Nota Vetus -- oh forget it, I'm calling it the Mark of Ancients -- so it managed to survive so many years?" Hermioned asked. "I mean, you were the only one to show it in, what, eight thousand years? That was when nobody was really referred to as an ancient anymore since they all had it removed and the last one killed himself, you said."
Harry didn't answer and hoped no one else caught the gap in his story.
"Wow," breathed Dennis in a voice full of awe.
Craig Stone and James Griffith, two people who usually treated Harry as any other person, were very out of their usual selves and were gaping with their mouths open. Harry was plucking the seams of the armrests' ends nervously with the tips of his fingers.
"But you're still going to get rid of Peeves for us, won't you?" asked a third year, the only one that wasn't in awe.
"No," said Harry flatly.
"I knew it!" shouted Hermione suddenly, standing up from her chair and making everyone's eyes turn to her. "How else could you have pulled Godric Gryffindor's blade out of the Sorting Hat?" she said as if that was the answer to everything, referring to when Harry had killed the basilisk.
"Oh, shut up," Harry said, closing his eyes lazily as everyone's eyes turned back to him. "And can you lot stop staring at me? It's giving me the creeps."
The first five to return to what they were doing prior to Harry's entry were Ron, Hermione, Ginny, James and Craig. It took quite a while for many others to stop raking Harry's hairline for the scar as if they were just meeting him for the first time and Harry didn't think Dennis would ever stop. Not able to find any peace trying to play chess with Ron, for people kept staring at him in set intervals, Harry beckoned Ron and Hermione up the staircase. Raides followed them, growling at Dennis who tried to follow her.
"There's something I didn't tell you," Harry began and Hermione instinctively smirked and made a short laugh in the back of her throat as if to say "I knew it."
"Cough it up," she said, taking a seat next to Ron on his four-poster, across from Harry who sat on his own.
"There was one Dark wizard who they didn't catch and remove it from," Harry explained. "It was him who brought it down to, well, me."
"They didn't catch him?" Ron asked incredulously. "But how? I don't get it?"
"It just went and turned itself off or something?" Hermioned asked next.
"Your guesses are just as good as mine," said Harry, not even bothering to figure it out.
"This is just too weird!" waving his hand and shaking his head in frustration. "Some Dark wizard keeps the thing, hides from the others perfectly, they never find him and no one since then has used it."
"Yep," said Harry. "That's what Dumbledore read."
"But he could have just lived as an outcast and moved to another country or something," Hermione suggested.
"Maybe," said Ron, "yeah..."
"I'm not letting it bother me, though," said Harry truthfully, who had just noticed Hermione staring pointedly at him. "He was only one, and with Cybele and Godric in my family tree..."
"Right," said Hermione.
"Wait a minute, didn't someone once say that the mark can just disappear and return later?" said Ron, his stroke of brilliance surprising himself and even Hermione.
"That's it!" said Hermione at once. "That's how he did it! They didn't even know he had it and it stayed in him and he passed it down, generation to generation, until it showed up in Harry!"
And she clapped her hands together happily. Ron was overjoyed at himself.
"Now that that's settled," said Harry, glad he didn't have to fall asleep with that mystery hanging over his head, "what do I do about everyone staring at me again?"
Although he knew the attention would annoy him greatly later, at the moment Harry couldn't help but find it funny that, every so often, there was another reason for people to gape and stare and look for the lightning-shaped scar under his untidy black hair.
But the point was easily seen and Harry only grinned more broadly as Ron and Hermione exchanged dark looks.