Author's Note:
Hi there! Chapter 10 is here! Sorry I didn't upload earlier, I was at a scout camp for the last week. Which was fun.
Also I would like to say Thank you, you guys, 60 followers and 31 favorites! What?! And all your lovely comments, thank you so much. If you're still here, Thank you for putting up with my rubbish writing and dodgy uploads, it's really great, so thanks! :3
Also, please LISTEN!: If you haven't noticed already, this story hops backwards and forwards in time quite a lot, so in this chapter Harry and Ron aren't actually at Hogwarts yet. Sorry if it confuses you, I'm not totally sure why I have to do that. Thank you. :)
Also, I got a review, but I couldn't reply to it personally because they weren't logged in, but it does relate to my writing, so I'm going to appoligize openly to all you guys.
No,I'm not the best at spelling, it's been the thing I've never really been able to get my head round for the whole of my life (this I've said on my profile as well). I do try my hardest, but when you're getting spell checks in nearly every sentence, it becomes quite hard to prevent. I'm aware I always get the word: 'minute' wrong, so if I do get that wrong I am sorry, now I know for sure the correct spelling I'll try to stop that.
As for 'Neville' though, that is unacceptable, if anyone was wondering, yes 'Nevil' is meant to be Neville Longbottom, I should have checked that really. So yeah, I'm gonna go change that. Thank you 'Zeph C' for your comment, and for making me aware of that!
Chapter 10: The Power of a Name
It wasn't the dream that woke him up, more so the irrevocable approach of the end, an end, which only destiny could play a part in.
Minutes before, a man had kneeled before him, a man whose blood was shed from his own immortal blade (not that having such a weapon could afford him the same power.). The man clasped on to unmarked armor, pulling himself up by its aid, his sword travelling with him, its tip piercing the same armour that he held so tight, the blade dug deeper and deeper until it reached cold air once again. He felt pain as the man yanked his sword up, once twice, then pulled it out; and then he was falling, falling, the ground was softer than expected, but when he hit it he carried on falling, falling, and for one last time he opened his eyes.
Leo jumped, someone's face centimetres away. He shuffled back in his bed sheets, taking several long, deep breaths as he calmed himself down.
"Hugo!" He gasped. "What the…"
"You were mumbling again." Hugo interrupted.
"Mumbling?"
Hugo nodded. "I couldn't quite make out what you were saying most of the time, but you said something along the lines of…" He paused for a moment. "'I had to' yes that's what you said! 'I had to'… What did you have to do Leo? Because I'm glad you got it over and done with. I would sorely love to get a little sleep once in a while." He winked at Leo to show he was joking, before flopping himself into his own bed and spontaneously falling back to sleep.
Leo sat there for a moment, his chest rising and falling, trying to take in the events of the last few seconds.
'Again'? What did Hugo mean by 'again'? He couldn't recall having any bad dreams since he had arrived at Hogwarts… Or had he?
"Oh" Leo thought aloud, remembering for the first time in four weeks, what his mind had somehow made him forget. The night of the sorting hat ceremony, when he had woken from a dream, that had shaken him for a least a week after.
Suddenly, a picture swam into his mind's eye and not just a picture but a whole plethora of feelings with it. He felt an overwhelming connection between he, the young boy sitting in the comfort of his own bed, and the battle hardened warrior that, his mind had minuets ago, imagined killing another.
Leo took his wand from under his pillow and without voicing the command he performed the 'wingardium leviosa' charm on the glass of water that stood on his bed side table. It fell gracefully into his hand (Leo, it seemed was a naturally when it came to any ability that involved his new wand) and he took a careful sip, milling things over.
Leo wasn't aware when sleep came, but when it was time to wake in the morning, he realised that he had not replaced his wand, nor the glass and they both lay on top of him, the contents of the glass now soaked up by his night shirt. He heaved himself out of bed and with a huge sigh, he mumbled to himself, "Oh great."
-30 minutes later
Since, the wand incident on his first day, Leo and Professor Pollywood had become close, and apart from their somewhat creepy start to their relationship Leo couldn't see anything wrong with her. This was unlike most Gryffindor's it seemed, and to his surprise Leo had found that Hugo in particular had a silent loathing toward her. His friend said she set him on edge; apparently it was the way her eyes darted around the room, like the snake from which her house was bread.
"She's the type of person who could say one thing and mean the other." Was what Hugo had told him only the day before, but Leo couldn't understand that, he thought she was very kind and considerate compared to most of the Hogwarts teachers, and her smile was friendly enough, in fact it would be warm if it weren't for the fact that the dungeon in which she taught was cold, with no natural light penetrating its thick stone walls.
Leo shivered as he entered the potions lab; it seemed colder today than it had before, and the cold autumn wind whispered into the room even though light could not.
Leo sat down next to Hugo and Lily (in the past few weeks Leo had become nearly just as good friends with Lily as he was with Hugo) and folded his arms in anticipation of the lesson. As Professor Pollywood entered the room, the happy buzz of the class ceased, until all that could be heard where the echoing footsteps of the potions teacher.
"Hello class," Melantha smiled sweetly, Leo smile back, though he could feel Hugo fidgeting next to him. "Today we will be making a sleeping potion of sorts. Unfortunately we cannot make a full-fledged potion of this sort, because of the high danger level (such potions have been known to render a man unconscious for days and in extreme cases: years) and the fact that such a potion is high above any of your levels, due to this, the potion will merely make you dozy." She paused, her eyes dancing across the class room. "Are we ready to begin?"
As usual, the potion consisted of many strange ingredients, with exception of lavender of course. The Professor explained, as the class ground the purple flower into their caldrons, that such a herb (though most commonly used in muggle remedies.) had magical properties, and was used in many closely related potions.
The last sprinkle of ingredients entered their potions, and they were all told to sit back down again and listen.
"Well done all of you." The Professor said as she looked over everyone's potions. "Although…" she paused, standing over a desk at the far back. "Nathan; take a look around at your classmate's potions, and compare it to the one sitting before you." The tall, lanky boy whom she stood over got up, and standing on his tip toes he surveyed the room.
Then sitting down he said: "Ah."
"Indeed." Pollywood said, and turning round she walked back to her usual place at the front of the class room. The class instinctively got up and craned to see what the boy had done wrong and soon Nathan was cringing under the inquisitive glare of thirty, first years. It seemed that the sleeping potion, (or for the first years: drowsy potion) as mirrored in the majority of the student's caldrons, was intended to be a dark turquoise. Nathan's on the other hand, was an electric pink.
The Professor sighed. "Sit down class." The students followed suit, but Leo faltered for a moment, still slightly in the haze which lingered after little sleep.
"Now please Leo." Melantha's sharp voice snapped him out of his daze and he sat down. She nodded to him the carried on talking. "Right then, seen as you all tried so hard today, I think you deserve to see the side effects of the potion that you just made." She produced a vial from her pocket; in it was the same turquoise liquid that simmered before the each of the students (with the exception of one).
"Any volunteers?" She asked. None raised a hand, they all recalled the last time someone had been called to the front of the class to test a magical liquid; the liquid in particular had been a vomiting potion. Leo could feel the class grimacing at the memory.
The Professor sighed. "No one? Well I'll have to pick for myself then won't I? Leo, how about you; seen as you were so eager to find out the wrong outcome of this potion?" She smiled kindly at him.
Leo groaned quietly to himself, but got up all the same. Melantha handed him the vial and tipping his head back, Leo drank.
As the last drop touched Leo's tongue, the faces around him smudged and leaked, like an oil painting left out in the rain. His head began to swim and the voice of the professor became muffled and distorted so that it resembled the moaning of an old oak tree in a storm. His legs gave way, and he collapsed to the ground.
When he woke, he was lying on stone, but not the stone of the dungeons, for light was streaming through a gap in a ruby red, embroidered screen. He felt a sharp pain in his arm and closed his eyes against the pain, when he opened them again he realised there was a man in the room with him. He was in his late teens or early twenties and was peering through the crack in the screen; listening to a conversation on the other side. Leo sharpened his ears to join him. Two voices could be heard from the other side of the screen, one belonging to a man, and the other: a woman. The woman's voice seemed familiar and as Leo began to fully regain consciousness, the face of Melantha Pollywood swam into his head.
"You're not searching my chambers." The woman's voice was had a strict authority in it; such an authority that most men would have at least been set a back a little, but when the man answered, he just sounded board.
"Don't take it personally I have to search the entire castle. It'll only take a few minutes."
From behind the young man Leo could see the couple; the man was dressed in a soft leather jacket with silver buttons at the shoulder, he had blond hair, Leo couldn't see his face, and the woman was clad in a long purple dress, the type of which princesses of old would have worn and when the man spoke, she turned toward the screen, a look of anxiety in her features; but as she did Leo gave out a quiet gasp of amazement. The woman didn't just sound like Melantha Pollywood. She was Melantha Pollywood!
"I'm not having you mess up my things!" She said.
"I'm not interested in your things." Came her answer. "I'm just looking for any evidence that the druid boy's in the castle."
At that, the man peeking through screen turned to look at him, confusion on his face. The man had chiselled features, a sharp jawline, large lips and ears and deep blue eyes. The man looked around quickly, then seeming to realise something, he looked back through the gap in the screen. Softly, he began to whisper words of magic and without being able to stop them; Leo's eyes began to close, the man's words sounding like a lullaby to his drowsy ears.
Suddenly the words stopped, and he was outside, standing above a court yard paved in stone.
His eyes met two figures, and he began running down the steps before of him. The figures were of two men. One of which was walking towards him with a huge amount of relief on his face, the other though, walked slowly behind the first, and to Leo's surprise he recognised him and for a second Leo flashed back to the face that had turned to look at him from behind the scene what seemed like only seconds ago, but years had aged that face and now Leo looked upon the face of a grown man, and that man looked back at him, with fear in his eyes.
Finally Leo reached the first man and they embraced. Leo's eyes closed for a second and when they opened he was back at the battle field from his dream earlier that morning. The same man that had been so eager to see him was now kneeling on the ground, and when Leo looked into his eyes he felt hatred, anger and betrayal, but he felt another feeling too, one entirely different from the others, regret.
"You gave me no choice." Leo's words shook as he stood there, looking down at the man who he felt so much hatred for and yet so much love. Leo couldn't begging to comprehend what had happened in the minuets or even years before, all he knew was that, somehow, he was there, and when the blade touched his heart, he began to fall.
He forced his eyes open, pain clasping every inch of his body. Melantha Pollywood sat there, he was in the same place, but the body of the man he had killed was gone.
Melantha's voice quivered when she spoke, and a tear trickled down her face.
"You are fading, but know this: you have succeeded, and all that we have worked for has come to pass. They may have won the battle, but they haven't won the war. Arthur is dying and unless he is taken to Avalon soon he will surely be gone." She paused, her lip curling in hatred. "He will not arrive there Mordred, I shall make sure of that."
The vision faded, but one word lingered in the air. Mordred. There was still for a moment, Melantha's voice echoed from none existent walls. "Mordred" that name, his name repeated through history and as Leo listened, he could feel the weight of all the people that it had touched.
Suddenly he was sucked into a whirling vortex. Memories rushed by him, faces of people lost to time. He couldn't understand what was happening, his head span and he faded as dizziness overcame him.
And when he woke, he remembered everything.
Author's Note:
So Leo is Mordred. I personally thought Asa Butterfield (Little Mordred) looked like a Leo. Anyone else think that?... No? Okay I'll shut up.