The Life of Lucien de Bressolles
Disclaimer: Anything you see or hear has nothing whatsoever to do with me, whether by forms of ownership or acceptance…blame everything on the 9 muses.
A/N: To the people who reviewed I decided to dedicate this chapter to you because you are wonderful, glorious and magnificent. . . . On a side note it would be nice if some of the other people who read my stories review them to . . . .
Previously…
It is, or was a tradition at Beauxbatons at the start of each year to test each of the students, for everything really, talents, blood types, diseases, generally we assumed they just wanted some of our blood for one purpose or another, but they did actually test some of it, and at the beginning of my fifth year revealed to me a talent I never knew I had
Chapter III
Well I suppose you could call it a talent, I was different to my peers as they had talents which were in terms of powers like seers and elementals and such I on the other hand was an ancient.
Now before I attempt to explain what exactly an ancient is let me tell you about talents, power levels, blood types, at the moment I am sure in your mind you think you know what I am talking about, I assure you, you do not as different countries have different definitions and names, some talents are in fact considered taboo in places like England, and as I have no idea where my precious memoir has been found I shall attempt to educate, please do forgive me if by some small miniscule chance you know what I am talking about.
Blood types are or were the primary focus of the wizarding world, this originated both from witch burnings in the past, the fear of muggles which gradually developed into a sense of superiority over the superstitious religious zealots, thus one who comes from muggle stock is looked down upon and the concepts of blood gifts and superior power and skills, for you see a pure blooded witch or wizard is far more likely to have a higher level of power, and due to purebloods breeding with magical animals over the centuries often resulting in aspects of these creatures appearing in the blood of their descendents, which although can happen to a mudblood is highly improbable.
On a side note I suppose the ancient pureblood ideals that muggles could not possibly ever be better than them is technically a negative ideal for the wizarding world as we seem to have ceased progressing from around the 17th century, giving muggles an advantage in areas, however at least we maintain our dignity and etiquette.
On the issue of blood types, as you should know there are three main categories of blood, purebloods, half-bloods and mudbloods or muggleborn.
A pureblood wizard is a magical human whose parents were magical humans. This can be described in terms of endowed blood, every magical human has endowed blood whether mudblood or pure, the quality of said blood depends on the concentration.
Now a 1st generation pureblood is the issue of a pureblood and a half-blood, or two half-bloods or even a half-blood and a mudblood, a squib who has had a child with a pureblood, half-blood or mudblood also results in a 1st generation pureblood, as does the child of two mudbloods. Essentially a first generation pureblood is someone who has magical parents, who are not both purebloods, or at least they both aren't. A second generation pureblood is someone whose parents were both purebloods, a third generation whose parents and grandparents were purebloods and so on.
Once the later generations are reached, such as a 16th generation the inclusion of magical creatures such as vampires still counts as being pureblood, in fact sometimes it is considered better to have the blood of magical creatures in your veins, so long as it is watered down of course.
A half-blood on the other hand is an offspring of one magical being and a muggle. One entity with endowed blood and one with unendowed. They can also be deemed as partially endowed.
Finally a mudblood is an anomaly a child born with endowed blood to two unendowed parents; of course their blood does not possess the quality of potency of someone who has possessed only endowed blood used to channelling magic for millennia.
A muggle is a person with unendowed blood, not a drop of magic in their veins, whereas as squib has endowed blood it is just either cut off, blocked or the blood does not possess the quality to channel magical power, another sort if anomaly, the opposite of a mudblood.
Now my dear student that you should have known, unless the world has changed drastically since I wrote this, however since people like Dumbledore are intent upon releasing our world from its shroud of secrecy it is possible, although doubtful.
Power levels you may not be familiar with, or you may have heard of the levels but don't really know what they are. A basic power level table ranges from a Muggle to an Arch Mage.
A Muggle is a person with no endowed blood, and thus lacks the capacity to channel and perform magic.
A Squib is a child born to magically capable parents who either lacks endowed blood or cannot channel or perform magic for some other reason.
A Witch or Wizard is an individual with average power, their blood enables them to channel and perform most forms of magic to an extent. Most magical beings core is at this level, they advance themselves through rituals or through the concentration of endowed blood and blood gifts.
A Witch or Wizard can also be a Warlock, these are people who have the same amount of magical power as an average witch or wizard yet they excel at duelling and battle magic.
A Sorcerer or Sorceress possess marginally more power than a normal witch or wizard, they are more likely to be half-bloods or purebloods due to the concentration of endowed blood and blood gifts. They are generally more capable than witches and wizards at performing advanced magic such as ritual and blood magic.
A Mage is the highest level of magic usually achieved by the common wizard, more powerful than a sorcerer or a normal wizard, enabling them to access higher levels of magic; usually those who possess special abilities are mages. The four founders of Hogwarts school were born Mages, you see in Europe for centuries whenever a magical child was born their blood was tested for skills and power, this practice became obsolete when mudbloods were introduced into society so most countries forgo the practice.
There are three branches which possess the same basic power level as a Mage, they are known as Elemental Mages, Druids and Wild Mages.
An Elemental Mage is different from an elemental. Elemental Mages possess the added ability of being able to harness the raw power of at least one of the four elements, earth, fire, wind and water. They use this power to enhance themselves, for example turning their blood into molten fire in order to stop a vampire drinking their blood.
A Druid has the power of a Mage, although most of their power is limited to acts of nature, and defending nature as opposed to offensive magic along with many spells. A druid can grow a maze of trees in a forest or bind someone with vines, when in the vicinity of plants. Druids make brilliant herbologists, with their knowledge and ability to grow plants and such, not really something I have ever considered interesting or worthwhile, but I suppose that is the reason my prized acolyte that I never became a herbologist, or mourned over my lack of druidic power.
Following a Druid there are Wild Mages, these people possess the power of a mage yet focus utterly and entirely on wild magic, the magic of chaos, rich and uncontrollable, they dabble and experiment with things most consider to be taboo. Occasionally performing some great feat, but usually they cause havoc. Most are rumoured to be insane due to exposure to chaos and wild magic.
Higher than a Mage is a Grand Mage, this is the highest power level one can reach with rituals and enhancements, only one or two are born each century. The most famous born Grand Mage is Dumbledore, well in our time anyway, Lucrezia Borgia was a Grand Mage, although whether born or made is disputable, her blood was not tested or at least not recorded at birth. The Dark Lord Voldemort increased his power to that of a Grand Mage through extensive rituals.
Finally the most powerful of all is an Arch Mage, they have to be born, and cannot be made. Born only every few centuries or millennia, Arch Mages are always born in twos, one arch mage is destined to be light the other dark, the balance each other, such as Merlin and Morgan Le Fey (Morgaine of the Faeries), who consequently were the last two Arch Mages in recorded history, there may, of course, have been other I did not know about.
Now my cherished reader power levels were not the only thing blood was tested for, it was tested for talents, most purebloods had one talent or another along with their blood gifts, you see the secrets of family blood gifts and jealously guarded, only family members actually know what the family can do, well properly at any rate others may have experienced a part of a families blood gift as a result of an insult of some such thing. Talents are different they are just natural abilities born into a magical child, most will lie dormant until they are needed, when means most are never accessed in a wizards life at all, and hence the reason for the tests to establish talents and to allow the talented to practice, research and apply their abilities.
Talents are usually born into families of purebloods or half-bloods, as many are inherited along with blood gifts, but some are merely anomalies, mudbloods are born with talents, these often lead to large outbursts of accidental magic in childhood.
Talents range from the useful and power enhancing to novelties or annoyances.
Seer blood is common in most purebloods, but only to the extent that they have powerful intuition about things or something. The ability of a true seer is a rare and potentially dangerous talent. Children who are seers are often dismissed as daydreamers and whatnot which in the muggle world can lead to their deaths as the walk in front of cars or something. A Seer possesses the power to access the astral realm, time does not pass and they are told things, or can search for things. An untrained seer can get trapped in this realm, and cannot search for things or usually comprehend what they are told, hence the vital importance for training.
There are minor useful talents such as parseltongue, a person who possesses the ability to talk to serpents and perform serpent magic, to an extent, usually considered dark and dangerous, such as myself of course, although some do consider me to be dark and dangerous however I doubt this is merely because of my ability to talk to snakes.
The occasional beast speaker, those who possess the ability to speak to all or a certain type of animal/s, if powerful enough a beast speaker can harness some of the power of the creature/s they can speak to. Most beast speakers are Druids in one form or another.
There are hundred upon hundreds of talents, most are insignificant or minor. In my opinion the talent I would love to possess, but sadly don't is that of a Viatoris, also known as a traveller, those who possess the ability to travel by portals instantaneously around the human realm, and has access to all other realms with a guarantee of not being stranded, such as the faerie realm, the dream realm, the realm of the dead etc. They also usually possess abilities of telekinesis, they can move and summon things at will, wandlessly, and those truly powerful can summon people or beings from other dimensions.
Now enough about talents, I may explain them later perhaps, or merely instruct you to use your own brains and find out, although knowing my luck the person who found this memoir is a complete and utter imbecile and will get them wrong even if they do research, especially considering that most of my knowledge come from being an unspeakable for years.
On our arrival at the hall on the first day they removed approximately two vials of blood from each person. Using a piece of parchment they dropped a small amount of blood in the centre, I have never understood why they said they needed two vials, in all likelihood it was too track us when we left school of something as they do always know where the alumni are, anyway pointing their wands at the centre of the parchment and spoke the words "Acclaro Mysteria", and simultaneously sprinkled one drop of a potion known as aperio. The parchment then revealed any talents and power levels, it is fascinating to see your very power written in your own blood, line by line, almost as if it was alive, the blood moved from a droplet in the centre to the top of a page and writes.
Now talent hunting, as I used to call it, was done every year at Beauxbatons in order to see if power levels had increased or decreased or new talents which your body previously could not handle have been revealed. Once you have reached the age of fifteen and choose more advanced subjects, the likes of which I will explain later, you are left with an hour each day to explore and study your talents, and many advanced subjects had prerequisites of one talent or another
My blood revealed to me many things that first day I was tested, some of which I knew others I had never heard of. I was a parseltongue, which I already knew, I had the power to do parselmagic, which I had never heard of, my parselmagic also lead me to have passing skills as an Umbrian, more of a side effect than and actual talent. I along with many others in my year was a Mage. The most unforeseen thing revealed was my station as an Ancient, it is not a talent per se, in reality it is more like a magical mutation.
An Ancient is someone who lives an extraordinary amount of time due to their magic. You cannot become an ancient, they are only born to old pure blooded families of great magic and power, basically a magical mutation an Ancient basically lives a hell of a long time, on average between 600-800 years old, compared to normal wizards' average life span of around 160 years. Ancients physically age until they are about 35 years old then simply cease aging physically; it is presumed this is because for a long period in history most people did not live much longer than around 35.
My status as an ancient did very little in term of my power and abilities, but it was a welcome surprise none the less, as I discovered that I was essentially immortal, unable to be killed by age or sickness, well for a hell of a long time anyway, ancient also have a sort of natural healing ability, hence the reason they do not age beyond 35 their cells regenerate themselves to stay at that age.
The discovery of powers and abilities was perhaps the first in a long line of unusual things at Beauxbatons, well for me who ha never experienced life like this before, you see Beauxbatons was very old fashioned almost as if it had never advanced from the ages of the French revolution, etiquette and dignity were the same, rank and blood were as important as always, our classes were the same as well as our expected reactions to insults and the like, which usually resulted in a duel.
The purpose of testing the blood was also a concept of choosing our classes, certain classes needed certain characteristics or power levels to participate, like blood magic, which could be taken at some level by all was only generally taken as an advanced course by those of us who were essentially immortal, a.k.a. me and lose who were elemental mages, travellers, nethermancers, necromancers and ardethas, unless of course we had a few rampant vampires hanging around, oh and of course those who had specific inherited pureblood gifts for blood magic.
The classes we took at Beauxbatons were well complicated and exceedingly different than classes anywhere in the world, well anywhere that openly described what they were doing, and I like most people loved every minute of it.
A/N: Hmm… This chapter and the next one are mainly explaining things, ill post a list and table of power levels and classes and such somewhere so its easier to understand, unless everyone already does, but since no one ever reviews I guess I don't know….It would be really nice of you to review you know, you can yell and rant and curse me if you want to, I really don't care.