Chapter 15 - Herpo the Foul
"Few are known to exceed the great and formidable powers of the ancient Greek warlock known as Herpo the Foul..."
"Alive during the Archaic Period, eighth century, B.C., Herpo is believed to have been a bastard child to a woman married to Athanosios the Fierce. She is not believed to have lived much past the birth of her son and killed presumably by Athanosios for the infidelity. Herpo was raised in that of indentured servitude by Athanosios, his birth father unknown, but apparently in possession of parseltongue abilities, and likely of Egyptian heritage.
Athanosios remarried upon the death of his wife. Soon thereafter, he fathered two girls, Persephone and Circi, both named after ancient Greek goddesses to embody his family's wealth, esteem, and influence."
"...Herpo the Foul would later move to earn his reputation and namesake by subsequently marrying Arhanosios's daughter and inventing a series of dark blood curses known as the ophidian curse, later used heavily in ancient Egypt, and a meladictus curse, both of which primarily used to entrap and enslave women. Herpo the Foul is accredited to breeding both a slew of meladictus, and the first known basilisk. His exploration into the murky waters of dark soul magic also led to the creation of the first known horcrux..."
"...Historians have translated excerpts and developed a timeline of his rise and his ultimate demise in the narration articulated in these historical archives," Hermione read from the Borgin and Berke's scroll Lizzie had stowed away.
"You said you got this from the shop? Was it on display?" Hermione asked.
"Yep, 7,000 galleons," Lizzie said with mock exaggeration.
"You stole priceless historical archives?" Hermione asked reprovingly.
"On Herpo the Foul, creator of horcruxes, because we're hunting horcruxes? Yes, Hermione, I didn't have that kind of money on me," Lizzie said blatantly.
"Sounds like we hit the target on who Riddle wanted to be," she responded.
Lizzie took the parchment and held it delicately as she read aloud:
"None would contest the uncompromising animosity Athanosios harbored for the illegitimate and only son of his late betrothed. Nor would they contest he resented his newly betrothed for exclusively producing daughters that would not suffice as rightful heir to Athanosios's fortune and legacy. Nonetheless, the patriarch of his noble bloodline was smitten with two beautiful daughters and promised the hand of one of his own to Herpo upon the commencement of his servitude to the noble house..." Lizzie read.
"Herpo needed not the company nor harbored any desire for the women in their fold of the empire. Whilst serving his time to Athanosios, he encountered a great deal of women, but was impervious to sorts that struck him as wholly unremarkable. Remarkable, in his eyes, was reserved for the lovely Persephone. The namesake revered for the goddess of both springtime and the underworld, the kindred spirit of Athanosios's youngest daughter captivated Herpo beyond any worldly desire..."
"Obsession besuited Herpo and Athanosios recognized the leverage he held over the young man. When it came time to make do on promises to offer a daughter in payment for Herpo's loyalty to the house and name, Athanosios obliged, leading Herpo to believe his one true desire to have and hold Persephone was soon to be a reality, one that hath been greatly anticipated..."
"Upon removing the veil on his bride, Herpo stared back with utter contempt and disdain at Circi, the eldest, the plain, the unremarkable."
"Oof, harsh," Lizzie commentated.
"In the dead of night, Herpo sought to punish Anthanosios and circumvent any man from collecting and claiming his prized Persephone. Herpo watched her wake in the confines of a cell, with his wife, Circi, estranged in their home above. Herpo brewed and administered a potion of his invention, comprised of the fetals of a mother serpent, the blood of his veins, and the venom not lethal enough to kill, but to horrendously maim. Persephone drank until she could not breathe. Her body writhed in pain and torment, and on the seventh night, he consummated the bond. Persephone was not his by marriage, but by magic, should she seek to disobey, or an action displease him, the fetals would grow in her bosom and feed on her from within..."
"On the eighth day of her capture, Herpo returned Athanosios's defiled daughter. Herpo watched the horror on Athanosios's face whilst Persephone was strangled to an inch of her life by the everlasting affliction. Athanosios proceeded to curse Herpo never to produce a male heir. His curse, however, rendered Circi barren for a decade..."
"And I'm going to venture a guess he sought after Persephone to bare one for her sister..." Lizzie said. Hermione took the papers and scanned through the remaining text for several minutes in silence while Lizzie pondered in thought.
"Yes, but the attempts failed because of the ophidians," she said. Lizzie raised her eyebrows in a wholly unsurprised fashion. "Until he used dark magic to remove the unborn child and make Circi the surrogate... except," Hermione was frowning as she read. Then she raised her own eyebrows.
"The curse created the first meladictus blood curse. Circi bore a daughter that transformed into a serpent, but it killed her in birth," she said, and they stared at each other for a long moment.
"Their daughter was named Leta," Hermione continued after several minutes of intense reading. "He..." Hermione rubbed her mouth like she was erasing nausea. "He had Persephone raise the child... when Leta was old enough to bear children..." she continued.
"He bred her for more meladictus..." Lizzie said and Hermione's nod confirmed. "Personally?" Lizzie asked. She nodded again. Lizzie put down a cup she was holding and pushed her head between her knees through a wave of sick.
"When Leta resisted him, Persephone sought to murder him as to protect her daughter. She attempted to poison him as penance for the years of heinous abuse toward her, the death of her sister, and the curse, but his anger at the failed attempt compelled ophidians to kill her... they suspect Persephone's skull was the first horcrux and her death created it, that or her mother's necklace," Hermione explained. "Opal necklace..." she added. Lizzie thought about what Draco purchased from Borgin and almost killed Katie Bell with. "Leta was bred for ten years, the time he lost with Circi as a wife. There were seven daughters, no sons... Tanith, Nathaira, Lynda, Hava, Lindie, Egle, and... Nagini."
"He later bred the first basilisk and lured Leta into its lair... then bewitched and animated her to look like Persephone, who lured Athanosios into the same fate..." she continued.
"He sought out men of proper status and standing in the early Christian church to marry his daughters. When their afflictions became known they slayed their husbands and drove fear of witchcraft and the devil deep into the hearts of the religious subsects. This was Herpo's intention as a way to defile the church from within. They believe Nagini stole his horcrux and hid it from him, which is why he has never returned to a body with it. The daughters dispersed with his bloodline but bore no known sons, which is why no known parselmouths directly trace back to him. It is thought Nagini took the alias of Persephone and fled to Ireland as there are folklore stories of a Greek goddess who could transform into a serpent of the underworld..."
"Slytherin is the first known male since Herpo but it is not clear if they are in fact related. It's possible though, since he did not know who his father. Egyptian parcelmouths almost entirely died out after purchasing the knowledge of ophidian magic from Herpo who traveled there to seek out information on his father and hunt down his astray daughters. But - there are also no known records of them recreating the phenomenon of the serpent meladictus. So, I reckon Riddle's Nagini is a descendant of Herpo," Hermione concluded as she set down the materials. Lizzie picked them up a read through herself.
"Looks to me like Riddle used this as an instruction manual," Lizzie said finally. "He probably tracked down the blood line to find a descendant. I think he has an uncanny ability when it comes to that," she added.
Hermione nodded in agreement. "That would have been a prize, don't you think? A great-great-great-great-great granddaughter of Herpo the Foul? More so than a gypsy circus prostitute, right?"
"Yeah, he knew who she must be," Lizzie said. "It's probably why she took so long to find."
"You said that your Uncle's sister's late husband must have encountered her?" Hermione asked.
"Based on a letter from Vernon's mother begging him not to give her to the guy, yeah," Lizzie confirmed.
"Marge was pregnant with her uncle's child but told her husband it was Damien's... then sent Daisy to live with another family when my uncle wouldn't take her. I guess an inbred or even just an illegitimate love child would be a stain on the family in need of pruning. But Daisy was later married to Damien for a few weeks before he realized she was pregnant with another man's child as well. Who that was is not certain but based on what could be gathered from Father Matthew's request, I reckon probably him..." Lizzie explained.
"Nagini stays with him, doesn't she?" Hermione asked.
"As far as I know, yes," Lizzie confirmed.
"But you can tap into her mind as well?" She asked curiously.
"I think only when he's actively using her," Lizzie explained.
"Any ideas on Estrella?" Hermione asked. Lizzie shrugged and sighed.
"No... not particularly," she said, rubbing her eyes as if they were crystal balls with answers. "I was thinking perhaps Bellatrix had something to do with it, pruning their tree, like what they're trying to do with Tonks... but I have no connection point from her to Riddle to a girl I grew up with like l have with most of the others thus far..." she continued. There was a pause of deep thought.
Hermione suddenly looked like a heavy weight was anchored to her heart and dropped it into her stomach. Her face fell and then she shut her eyes like she was both bracing for blow and holding on for dear life. "'You, ok?" Lizzie said, suddenly suffocated with apprehension.
"We won't know if something happens to him," she said after a moment of clenched teeth. Lizzie closed her mouth around shallow words. Her heart started to sink too, like a body descending into deep waters.
"No... we won't," Lizzie said quietly. "But he's got a better chance than most, I reckon," she added. Hermione opened her eyes and frowned.
"He loves you; you know? He might have done what he did, but he loves you..." Lizzie said.
Hermione put down what she was reading and retreated to bed without a word. Lizzie was getting used to being iced out, her not wearing the locket seemed to help a little bit, though the bloody thing still kept the air heavy with dread.
Lizzie opened her eyes on her bunk late into the evening to the sound of crying, but it wasn't remotely similar to the stifled sobs Hermione bit back when she was especially missing Ron. Lizzie sat up apprehensively and made her way over to her carefully. Hermione was deeply asleep with soaked skin almost pruning the skin under her eyes. Lizzie put a hand on her face and her body washed over with intense cold. An impossibly fast rush of memories ran course through her mind like every brain cell was combusting.
Katie's face, getting a blow in the gut, a threatening straight edge to her throat, stepping back into the bathroom now drenched with blood. Her body being removed on the stretcher. Myrtle's body being removed on a stretcher. Emily's scared eyes being dragged by the wrist from the orphanage, yelling for her brother, Brian. Emily's heart being cut out of her cold body and placed in a jar. Lizzie herself, but no more than thirteen, staring at the same, but now dusty jar on the shelf at Borgin & Berkes. Lizzie standing behind Katie waiting for her to use the straight edge on herself. Lizzie sobbing and vomiting while cleaning up the blood, then being hauled out of the school by the wrist by her uncle with nobody to call for to help. Lizzie lying face down on the ground with a foot on the side of her face. Vernon pulling off most of her clothes and throwing his belt over every inch of her body. Lizzie grabbing at her uncle's pant leg for him to stop, digging nails into his ankle, not even trying to swallow the cries whilst knowing they made each blow worse. Petunia sitting out of sight on the floor of the kitchen with her back to cabinet and arms pressed tight around her ears, only faintly muting the sound of the assault. Lizzie lying still sobbing into the carpeted floor, her body curling into something resembling a very broken fetal position.
"I'm calling Father Simon about an exorcism" he said. Petunia was cautiously walking into the room, the horror on her face only thinly veiled. "The Lawrence and Heard girls...now Teller's daughter," he added.
"Lizzie didn't hit that ball though, and she wasn't even there when Lisa..." Petunia said.
"It's not a coincidence... is it, Azalea?" He asked, looking down at her like he was ready to spit. Lizzie didn't respond, she was shaking in her skin. He was taking a knee, leaning forward close to her face, and grabbing the disheveled braid on the back of her head. "IS IT?!" He roared. She wished the floor would absorb her body. Footsteps were ascending the steps, but they became less resigned and more urgent until a men flung a door open to a room she didn't recognize.
"Stop! Please! He was killed! On the eastern front. Please! I don't have what you want!" a woman Lizzie didn't recognize shrieked. She could see only part of her from her hiding place under a bed but shook so hard the floor probably vibrated. She wanted the floorboards to swallow her whole. There was loud crack, and the woman keeled to the side, her face facing her daughter's. Her mother, Lily, flashed before her eyes, but it wasn't quite Lily. Blood was pooling where the object struck her skull and her green eyes died in their sockets as the deep red blood soaked her already vibrant red hair.
"I just want her back," Leah said to Tom. "I don't want to be here..."
"No family?" He asked with jaded eyes.
"I don't know where my brother is. He left not long after my dad but to front lines... so no... I don't think so," she said, wiping her eyes.
"Don't hold your breath then," Tom said coldly.
"I want her back," Melody said at her mother Cassandra's grave site. Lizzie reached for her hand with sad eyes before catching site of Nadine's headstone. They were leaving when she heard a faint scream from beneath the earth and the name 'Christopher' rattled her brain like a distant terrified echo.
Leah was hanging from the banister, but it was Lizzie screaming for Melody at the base of the stairwell, not Tom staring up with contempt.
Lizzie was being dragged beneath the surface of the lake in the cave, but it was Lisa she saw at her throat not Voldemort's herd of inferi or the girl Kreacher insisted was Estrella.
Now she was backing herself into the corner of Father Matthew's office as he fell from heart palpitations, but the body on the floor was Mrs. Wool, and she stared up at a middle-aged Riddle tossing adoption papers into the fire. Lizzie was climbing through the window away from him and running down into the embankment of trees where she ran as fast as the caned legs would take her. Running through the trees away from her uncle in a desperate attempt to flee and get on the first train to Hogwarts. Running through the maze with Cedric away from the girl that turned into the billowing, black mass, then her feet crunched on the roots of the trees in the forbidden forest after Sirius and Remus, with the sound of a rat squeaking in earnest as it ran for its life. Running now as a doe on the hillside of the castle, charging after Snape, Draco, and death eaters who'd killed Dumbledore. But she stopped at the railroad tracks, the railroad tracks where the freight train blazed a horn and Lizzie stared at it wanting desperately to board and be taken to heaven.
She closed her eyes and stepped onto the metal tracks. As the sound of the freight tore through her ears and grew closer in the distance, she watched Tom remove a pair of eyes with a spoon and place them in the locket, only for her hand to come down on Bethany's, pull it from the socket and then plunge a letter opener into her own, but when she looked into the bedside mirror, she stared back at Heather while small children cried in the background.
Children crying screamed in her ears like a gas fire as it mixed with the roar of the train. Children from the orphanage, children at mass, Lizzie's own pleas for her mother to wake up. Nadine jolted awake to the noise that now sounded like pathetic pleas from a scared little girl in the backseat of her car. She laid back down and pulled the covers over her head only to get stuck in the once empty casket.
Riddle was turning over dirt to reveal something, a hand, a closed hand around an object resembling some sort of curved blade in the dark, except a diamond or a sapphire gleamed in fragmented moonlight. The hand was decayed, and he pried the object from it. He tucked it away too soon and collected the bones and frayed skin of her fingers.
The sound of a train came back into focus and Nora stared wide-eyed and timid out of it as the countryside passed her by. She was clutching a child's blanket and a picture of a baby with a rosary wrapped around her wrist in a tight hold. Her hair was covered, she didn't want to be seen. Lizzie was now hanging her rosary on her bedside post in Gryffindor Tower, not noticing a sinister stare from a much younger Ginny in the doorway. 'Dear Tom' Lizzie started to write in the diary, and it faded.
"Tom don't go," she whispered in the now dark and stale-aired cupboard on Privet Drive.
"Remember to count backwards from 1000, she hits much harder if you make noise," Tom whispered to Leah when Mrs. Wool descended the stairs toward Leah and clutched her wrist in fury. The woman glared at her and then back at Tom.
"What were you thinking?" She growled. Leah sobbed but Tom smirked to himself, it was a telling smirk that Leah was not solely to blame for whatever they had done but he would not be the one suffering.
Wool ripped down her knickers, pushed her to the ground, bore a foot into her back and savagely took a strap to her while Tom watched. He didn't flinch. Leah closed her eyes and started etching tally marks in the punishment closet. "Tom don't go" she said through the crack in the door frame desperate for company. She didn't talk for months after each week spent in the dark. What he was doing was working. She was angry and willing to do anything to anyone including terrorizing those children in that cave, hanging a pair of feet in the attic, and Timothy's rabbit from the rafters. She looked sick and pale; her eyes looked different. He didn't even know what he was creating, didn't know she had magic or that it was turning inward, Lizzie could see almost see an impending obscurial just in the way her hands trembled.
Then she noticed a man, with a stern, guard-like demeanor making them all line up for tranquilizer pills before bed and passing them out to each orphan, then patrolling the halls at night with an ominous whistle and a walking stick that he dragged down the wall of the hallway. The train horn still echoed in the distance.
Tom never took the pills, he'd told Leah not to swallow them either, but she'd caved for escape. The whistling stopped, Tom slithered out of his bed and across the hall to peer into Leah's room where the door was ajar. 'How pathetic' he mouthed at the sight of her unconscious body being violated. He noted the deadness in her eyes through the heavy lids, her lovable nature depleted from her soul, he imagined her heart in a jar and the company and companionship he craved without the love, friendship, and kindness he'd never been able to stomach.
"Tom, the Wilson's adopted me," she said in the doorway. Lizzie recognized this. His expression made more sense now. He was not jealous; he was disappointed at wasted effort. He knew exactly what she was now that he'd just been told by Dumbledore what he was.
Now her body dangled and for the briefest of moments his face twitched like he wanted her back. Lizzie opened her eyes with her knees pulled into her chest on the train tracks, rocking backwards and forwards as tears streamed her face. The train was inches from her body and hit her with an impossible, shattering force. It continued on like she was nothing more than a bug on the windshield, blood soaked the tracks. Hermione was screaming.
"LIZZIE!" She shrieked repeatedly. Lizzie's body convulsed, she threw up, and her muscles cramped. She'd bitten her tongue hard because she only tasted blood, and only began to come around when Hermione tossed cold water on her face and tapped her cheeks with a firm open hand. She shivered violently and coughed, Hermione wrapped arms and a heavy blanket tight around her to steady the shaking.
"Breathe, ok...just breathe..." but Hermione was shaking too.
It was hours before Lizzie recovered.
Hermione sat down next to her on the sofa as morning crept over the horizon. She'd gotten the radio to work to a decent station and a Nick Cave song hummed in the stream of light that penetrated the window and illuminated the dust in the air.
"Once was blind but now I see, have you left a seat for me, is that such a stretch of imagination," she whispered.
"This is it, that song... the one about the train that went to heaven. I'd forgotten the name," she said in a hoarse voice.
Hermione, having seen everything Lizzie saw, and shaken to the core herself, had sympathy etched into every pore on her face. She leaned into Lizzie's shoulder.
"We need to go to Godric's Hollow. I think we should go tomorrow... I think Bagshot might have the sword and the first thing we need to do is destroy this thing... or I think it might kill us before we have a chance to do it in," Lizzie said.
Hermione tensed but knew it was inevitable. "I know you want to stay, but we can't hold out for him forever," Lizzie said apologetically.
"No... I know. But... You're right, day after tomorrow though, we need a plan to get in and out, you know, not as us..." Hermione said apprehensively. "Listen...I've been up all night reading the book Dumbledore left me. The images of the heart in the jar reminded me of the Warlocks Moldy Heart story, but then I saw this rune... or something, it's inked in, it's not part of the book, have you seen it? It looks really familiar," Hermione asked.
Lizzie took the book and frowned at the mark. "I have, twice. I didn't realize at the time, but I guess I was rather drunk," Lizzie said, shaking her head now with Godric's Hollow on her mind. Hermione stared at her for a better answer.
"Sorry, Xenophilius had a necklace of it, at the wedding. Viktor was fuming over it, said it was Grindelwald's mark. But I've seen it elsewhere," Lizzie said, but paused because now she didn't understand it at all.
"Where?" Hermione asked.
"My father's grave. If I'm remembering correctly it's engraved on my father's grave," Lizzie said.
"Why would your father have this mark on his grave? I've never read anything about Grindelwald having a mark," Hermione asked incredulously.
Lizzie's mouth fell open to speak but words came up dry and she shook her head. "It... it wasn't just his. It was on several in that cemetery if I'm not mistaken," she said quietly. Hermione looked bewildered and confused.
Lizzie sat down with the book and flipped to the bookmarked chapter on The Warlock's Moldy Heart and started to read as she sipped a warm cup of coffee. Hermione sat across from her and stared for her impending reaction.
A handsome young warlock who lived in a mansion on a dwelling's highest hill was revered by all as the most powerful, most formidable, and most respected of noble warlocks of their time.
His triumphs over enemies and commanded respect amongst his peers won him much desired envy and power, but the secret he thought to his success was his lack of emotion, his disassociation with love and compassion, which brought clarity to his unrelenting ambition and ensured his ascension into power.
As the years moved forward, he noticed his praise dwindle, the respect begin to die, he struck fear into hearts instead and began a reign of terror to cultivate the similar feeling of perceived envy he thrived upon. But still, he was met with condensation, he was not married, he had not a single friend, family he had since survived in their entirety, and he realized how pathetic it must be to appear lonely.
Except, he was not lonely, his solitude had not bothered him, he had no desire to marry or befriend, but began to realize the longer he carried forward, the more obvious and the more pathetic it would appear to others. This was by far his greatest strength, he knew that, but what others would perceive was inherent weakness.
Years prior, this warlock had mastered the art of dark magic. In an attempt to rid himself of grief and loneliness, he removed his heart from his chest and placed it in a jar. He carried forth in life unperturbed by emotion and made his most impressive strides in its absence.
Now, however, in a weak moment of self-doubt, he sought a woman he could marry. He did not want just any woman, he wanted a witch, a powerful witch, but an obedient wife. He wanted above all a wife almost as completely void of emotion as he was, as to not be liable to expectations his heartless chest would be unable to satisfy.
During his quest for such a woman, his endeavors were unsuccessful. He determined instead that he would find a powerful witch but render her meek and obedient with his superseding power, and break her spirit, as to not necessarily remove her heart, but rather render it cold and void of life.
He watched his wife succumb to his abuses, whether it be isolation and solitude, fear of his wrath, or residing as a prisoner in a defiled body. Her powers became obsolete, but this was not his intention. He wanted a partner, but she insisted he wanted a puppet.
Enraged by her ineptness, he brought her to the Chamber he kept the jar with his now gray and moldy heart and told her of his exchange. Her eyes grew scared and fearful, but she mustered the courage to dare him to put his heart back in his chest. That he was ten folds more powerful with the ability to love. He laughed at the sentiment. She cried but struck a chord when she reminded him that his respect was and always would be conditional.
The bruised ego and his desire to prove her wrong drove him to place the heart in his chest. He was quickly consumed by the dark magic and violently tore her heart from her chest in return before he realized what he had done. Her death in turn violently tore a hole straight down his chest where she emerged. She stared at her body and then back at the warlock for more. He did not know what this rendition of her wanted until it pulled the moldy heart from his chest.
The warlock died slowly as she stood holding both hearts in either hand. His body now sprawled next to his wife's, the figure that was her became but an echo in the air as his heart turned to mold and hers beat to a steady rhythm behind the glass of the jar, preserved forever with dignity.
"Tom and Leah," Lizzie said, her eyes were fixed in thought. Hermione nodded.
"You sure we have nothing about her?" Hermione asked hopefully. Lizzie shook her head. "The article about her mother's murder was vague, the primary focus being on the gang she owed money to..." Lizzie thought about the visions of the orphanage. The abuses were too familiar, he'd led her into all of them. The beatings, starvation, isolation, sedation, and violation, it was all to manipulate and break her. He didn't want to kill her, not initially, he wanted to use her.
Lizzie wondered if her uncle got his inspiration from the church, or from Tom. She grasped the pouch with the locket knowing the only way he could get it from Tom was if he was possessed by Tom, but as far as she knew only she had been possessed by him. She paused in consideration but resigned to reconsider her wandering thought process. All of those men were evil, she thought dismissively, whilst reminding herself that he was the only person who ever scared her more than Voldemort, and was slowly coming to conclusions as to why.