A/N-Thank you to my anonymous reviewer! Here is the next chapter, which is quite a bit longer than my previous two. Don't expect regularity on the length, as the story for the most part is a series of one-shots that are linked together into a cohesive whole. Any who, now we hear from Gryffindor. Hope you enjoy! Please read and review!Godric
Godric from wild moor. Otherwise known as Ric to those he considered friends, and Sir Gryffindor to all else. His mother had been a well-known healer, Muggles and Gifted alike receiving care from her gentle hands. His father, a great knight in one of the few magic-friendly kingdoms left—Camelot. Shortly after the birth of Godric, his mother passed gently into the night, unable to heal herself, leaving his father to teach him the ways of war, with both wand and sword.
"But why must I learn the sword, Pop?" young Ric would ask. "Surely my wand will keep me safe!"
"Against the Gifted, yea, that is true," Druart would say in his deep, rumbling voice. "But not against the Muggles."
"Why not? Will magic not work on them?" Ric would ask, utterly confused. His father laughed.
"Of course magic will work on Muggles—how else would our Healers be able to help them?" Druart would say. "Nay, 'tis the height of dishonour to strike an unarmed opponent, and so it would be if you were to try to use magic against a Muggle. That is why you must learn to use the sword. Besides," Druart added with a wink, "both Muggle and Gifted ladies love a man with a sword."
And so Ric took his father's lessons on honor (and on love) to heart. He never once rose a wand against a Muggle, often instead protecting the non-magical with his wand against the more nefarious Gift-users. And wherever he went, he carried the sword that his father had given him for his tenth birthday—a goblin-made blade beset with the red jewels of the House of Gryffindor—causing ladies, magical and non-magical alike, to fawn over him. Throughout the land, he had gained a reputation for being a valiant warrior, a superb dueller, and a favorite of women, all by the time he was sixteen.
It was at that time that a darkness came over the land. A plague had come to the land, killing the Muggle and leaving the Gifted scarred for life. The Muggles were fearful, and that fearfulness turned into resentment towards the Gifted. And all over, there were burnings and hangings of Gifted and Muggle alike, as people tried to suss out those who were different than themselves. Ric grew restless, desiring to be out there, helping the helpless get to safety. He felt like a coward just sitting inside of Camelot's walls doing nothing.
So one day when Ric's father was distracted with a dispute on the edge of their family lands, Ric sought an audience with the king, Asher Pendragon.
"My lord king," Ric said in a voice that sounded far more confident than he actually felt.
"Godric, son of Sir Druart Gryffindor and Healer Hildegard Prewett, rise," the king said. Ric stood slowly, taking in the blonde man in front of him, nearly the same age as his father, with many visible battle scars, likely with even more hidden beneath his finery. The man had strange blue-ish eyes, almost purple in appearance. "What is it that you bring before me, young man?"
"I seek your permission to help my Gifted brethren," Ric said. "As you know, sire, plague has swept the isles of Briton, and has struck fear into the hearts of men. My Gifted brethren and innocent Muggles alike are being hunted down, and I wish to come to their aid."
"Have they been hunted in Camelot?" the king said, stroking his beard.
"No, sire," Ric replied.
"Then why is it any concern of mine? I am charged to defend the people of my kingdom, not the world."
"The code of honor demands we defend the helpless!" Ric nearly shouted. "We have the means to keep innocents out of the fires, we ought use them! Otherwise you are no man of honor, you are nothing more than a coward!"
The guards surrounding the king immediately drew their swords, seemingly ready to skewer Ric. On an instinct honed by nearly half a decade fighting, Ric drew his own sword (but not his wand, never his wand against hapless Muggles), more than ready to fight to his death if that was what fate had in store. Ric stood tall and proud, half a dozen swords at his throat.
"You remember who I am, boy?" the king said in a low, dangerous voice.
"Of course I do, you are the king," Ric said in as calm a voice as he could manage. "I once believed you to be the bravest man to have walked this earth, but it is possible that I may have been mistaken."
The king slowly stalked toward Ric, waving the guards away, his face close enough to smell the garlic on his breath. "You dare test me, boy?" the king hissed.
"I dare to stand for the helpless and the code of honor," Ric replied, refusing to back down.
Suddenly, the king backhanded Ric, the metal gauntlets leaving a deep cut on his face. Though Ric stumbled slightly, he remained standing tall.
"Go," the king said. "Take your father and do as you must. And if you dare speak this way in my presence again, be not mistaken, you will die."
When Druart came back to their manor home, he first railed at Ric for being so reckless as to disrespect a king in front of all his courtiers. Then, when he noticed the cut on his son's face, he grew still, looking at his son in utter horror.
"What is it, Pop?"
"Your… your face," he murmured.
"'Tis but a scratch, I've had far worse you know," Ric replied offhandedly. "Besides, if all I have is a scratch in order to follow the code of honor and help the helpless, then I will have done well."
Then, Ric saw his father do something he had never seen his father do before.
His father wept.
"I am so proud of you," he kept saying over and over again as he held his son close. "I am so proud of you, my son."