Finding a Place to Call Home
Wanda: (collapsed on the floor) Ugh. Agh. Groan. Okay, I owe all of you lovely readers two apologies. Firstly, I'm sorry that it took so long to get this up, but school reared it's ugly head and saddled me with both a good deal of work and a stress induced breakdown. Secondly, said stress induced breakdown is the reason this is a good deal shorter then last chapter. However, all this is important to establishing the dramatic arc of this story, and hinting at some of the plot that will occur in one of my other planned stories Coming Winter. Again, sorry, but I barely managed to scrape this together thanks to the stress I've been going through, and I hope that over March Break I'll be able to get more out for you guys.
Anyway, I don't own Harry Potter. Enjoy!
Chapter 8 Interlude: Higher Magic
The ghosts that haunt Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry aren't the only spirits in the world, even if many haven't been seen in dozens of generations.
Ghosts were always a staple of muggle stories, though they couldn't see them the way that wizards were able to. The ones that most non magicals were familiar with where the kind that haunted the halls of Hogwarts. They're the lost spirits. They are the ones that cannot leave for heaven because of personal grievances, barred from the afterlife, trapped in the anger of the last days of their lives. Some times this is inflicted as a punishment on one who has committed a grave sin, forced to haunt the earth forever until the time of their repentance.
It's a painful and lonely experience, not able to rejoin your loved ones in the afterlife, or move on from the bad things that happened to you. The only way to leave that existence is for an empath or a gypsy to address the past grievance and help them move on, or for an exorcism to take place.
Of course, there are other spirits in the world, and many are far more dangerous then the ones who watch over the children.
Malevolent spirits stalk unwary muggles and curse them with bad luck, giving long and difficult lives to many. Some end up in asylums because they can't explain what's happening around them, and the only explanation is the one that normal people don't have access to. Imps and poltergeists both fall into this category, depending on how malicious they are. Peeves, for instance, is a fairly low-functioning poltergeist, virtually harmless compared to the more dangerous ones that have stalked the shadows before his time.
And then there are the spirits that ascended to higher existences.
One of such spirits was the Light of the Moon.
One of the oldest myths in the world, forgotten by most except a select few. The Moon's spirit was once a young woman, free and gentle, who drowned in the sea under a black sky because she couldn't see her way. As she passed on, she wished that no one else would have to die under the lightless sky, and she became the Moon, spreading silver light across the night so fewer people would die before their time as she did. Others who had died during the light less night became a number of the stars.
Years went by, and eventually the Moon became lonely. One night, she looked down from the sky and saw a boy walking along the shore of the sea she had drowned in. He was beautiful, and a dreamer, and she fell in love instantly. She appeared to him, and he returned to that beach every night afterwards to see her.
The boy's name was Julian Moon.
Now, Julian's father was a pureblood traditionalist with seven sons including Julian himself, and he was part of a war between a number of pureblood families. He had tried to gain control of what is modern day Norway by seducing a young Katelyn Potter, but she caught onto his deception and cost him a handhold in the war.
Angry, Kaius Moon began to seek out ways to defeat his enemies and become the supreme power of the magical world. When he overheard his son talking about his love for the Moon spirit, Kaius came up with a wicked plan – he would use his son to enslave the Moon and force her to do his bidding.
Kaius approached his youngest and demanded he be lead to the moon. However, Julian suspected his father's less then honourable nature and refused, repeatedly. Kaius grew increasingly enraged. One night, he followed Julian to the beach where he usually met the Moon spirit and, upon Julian's seventh refusal to enslave the spirit, killed him in a fit of rage.
As the sun had not yet set, the Moon could only watch in agony. When she rose to the sky, however, she had become very angry and vengeful. She told Kaius that she would give him and his family her powers – and he would be the sight of all those mortals who dared to try and control a spirits power.
Kaius froze to death, and four of his remaining sons died as well, bringing many with them as winter winds and the pull of the ocean tides was too much for their weaker bodies all at once.
Ironically, the family's hope of salvation lies in the blood of one Kaius tried to wrong. Katelyn Potter spoke to the Moon and asked if she would damn an entire family for what Kaius did. Remaining ever vengeful, the Moon responded that the curse would only lift when one the Moon family had wronged decided to save them.
-Story Fact
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"Remember to take your shoes off in certain buildings, Harry."
Harry turned towards Graham in confusion. The younger boy elaborated, "It's a tradition in Japan, and a sign of respect. Some of them don't like foreigners, so you'd best remember these little things."
Harry blushed in embarrassment, "Right." He quickly kicked his boots off and followed Astoria and Lilith into the living room of their current apartment, Graham following behind him. The younger boy looked nervous, and he kept looking at Lilith like she was something he hadn't seen before. Lilith looked distinctly out of her element, and Harry wondered if she'd been able to go anywhere with this curse hanging over her head.
That alone was enough to make both him and Astoria sympathetic to her, they knew what it was like to feel trapped. Harry still wasn't sure exactly how he was supposed to lift the Moon curse; he'd asked Dobby to bring him some of the books from his parent's vaults but he hadn't had a chance to look at them yet and he wasn't sure they'd have exactly what he needed. But he knew he wasn't going to leave her to hang like what had happened to him.
"I invited Daphne over," He said, "She should be here tomorrow. I hope you don't mind another person in here Lilith."
Lilith said nothing for a moment before, "It is fine. I...don't mind the company."
Astoria squeezed Harry's hand and said, "How about I go see if there's anything in the fridge. Maybe you and Lilith can figure something out in the meantime."
Harry leaned over and kissed her on the cheek. "Thanks Tori. I'll come and help you as soon as I can."
Astoria smiled and said, "Come on Graham, let's see what's there. You didn't tell me what kind of stuff you liked to eat..." She left the room with the youngest in their group reluctantly following along behind her, shooting one last look at Lilith before turning the corner.
Lilith sat down on the couch, Harry taking a moment before deciding to sit down next to her. "I'm sorry I didn't talk to you before this," He said.
Lilith shook her head, the late sunlight coming from the window making her look even paler then usual; Harry could see the veins on her neck.
"You wouldn't have," She said. "You were new to the world and didn't know the story. I would have terrified you. You would have stayed far away from me. It's better this way."
"I wouldn't say that," Harry said. "I wouldn't have left you hanging if I knew that you were in trouble. That's not what I do."
"I know," Lilith said. "But we're not like most people."
"Can you tell me more about this curse?" Harry asked.
Lilith sighed. "A long time ago, a member of my family fell in love with the Moon spirit. But the head of the family was greedy and cruel and tried to corrupt and use the spirit to his own ends through that son. The son refused and the head killed him. The Moon was furious and decided that if he wanted a spirit, he could try and control her powers."
She looked down at her hands, the golden shackles looking as forbidding as the scar on Harry's forehead. "Mortals were never meant to have Higher Magics like this. It burns us out. Destroys everything around us. Most of my family has died because of this."
"Higher magics?" Harry repeated.
"Magic that works and exists on the cosmic level," Lilith responded. "It belongs to nature spirits, and gods. Mortal people covet the power, but in reality most can't control it. It destroys them, brings the exact opposite of what they want. Voldemort wanted power like that, back in the day. He would have approached us if he had known where to look."
She looked at the ceiling. "Maybe I would have been bitter enough about how little I can live that I might have joined him. It would have been a mistake, and I would have destroyed most of what he wanted to rule before he put me down. But it would have killed anyone near me."
Harry shook his head. "I don't think your like that, Lilith. You just haven't had a chance to be anything else. I'll give you that chance if I can."
Lilith looked up at him with frigid ice colored eyes, but there was a spark of warmth in them that Harry hadn't seen before, and took as a sign of success. "You are a hero," She decided. "Even if you're not what Britian wanted or was expecting. Pity for them."
Harry smiled. "Thank you."
Dinner
"So you think Riddle was trying to access Higher Magics back during the first war?" Astoria summed up during dinner. Lilith nodded as she cut up her steak. Harry was frowning over a plate full of pasta. Lilith had shared what she had talked to Harry about and everyone was chewing it over.
"It makes sense," Graham remarked before taking a drink of milk. "Voldemort bragged that he was going to master death, back in the old days. Common knoweldge states that there's no way for magic to interfere with death, but that doesn't account for higher or cosmic magic. That must be why Voldemort seemed so powerful – he was turning to magics that most people didn't use, or were even aware existed."
"Master death..." Lilith echoed slowly, "Oh, he couldn't have."
"Couldn't have what?" Astoria repeated, startled.
"The Deathly Hallows," Lilith responded. "My family is familiar with Higher Magics because of our history. The Will of Peverell stated that whoever united the three Hallows would become the master of death."
"What are the Hallows?" Harry asked.
Lilith set down her cutlery. "A long time ago, three brothers used their magic to cross a raging river, only for Death to appear before them. She was angry that she had been cheated out of three new souls, but she was canny, and she offered them gifts for outsmarting her."
"Death is a girl?" Graham asked, sounding a bit hung up at this particular bit of information.
Lilith nodded. "Yes. The eldest brother asked for a wand that could never loose a battle. Death gave him one, and it became known as the Elder Wand."
"Did it work?" Graham asked curiously.
"It did," Lilith responded. "But one night the eldest brother got drunk, and a thief, desiring the power the wand gave him, murdered him in his bed and stole the wand. And later, that thief was murdered for the wand. The wand as a bloodsoaked history and even my family lost track of it a few generations ago because whoever carried it was usually killed."
Astoria turned slightly green. "No wonder Riddle wanted something like that."
"The Second brother asked for a stone that could bring back the dead," Lilith continued the story, "Because he had lost the woman he loved out of tragic circumstances. The stone could bring her back, but not entirely, and they could not truly interact, the woman calling for him to simply cross the border and join her so they wouldn't suffer this way. Eventually the second brother despaired and hung himself so he could properly rejoin his beloved."
"Charming," Harry said weakly. He imagined coming across a stone like that, and taken by the chance to see his parents for real, using it... "And the third brother?"
"The third brother did not trust Death. When she asked him what he wanted, he simply asked that he be allowed to continue on his way without her following him. Most reluctantly, she gave him his cloak. This cloak could hide one person forever, though eventually the third brother gave his cloak to his son and walked away with Death, who he had come to feel affection for."
"A cloak..." Harry's heart began to beat heavily in his chest as something occurred to him, "Wait one... but it couldn't possibly..." He stood up and hurried to his trunks, the baffled calls of Astoria following him. He quickly dug out his father's invisibility cloak and rushed back into the dining hall.
"That cloak. Did it look like this?" Harry held the cloak up for everyone to see.
Lilith was so startled she dropped her glass, causing it to shatter and spill on the table. Graham vanished the mess, but the action was purely perfunctory, as his attention was on Harry.
"How...where did you get that?" Lilith stammered, loosing the emotionless face she had worn ever since Harry had seen her.
"It was my fathers. It's a family heirloom." Harry explained.
Astoria's jaw dropped. "But then...oh my goodness...but that couldn't...Harry, your ancestor is the youngest Peverell?"
"Of course," Lilith said softly, as all of this was coming together for her. "Harry. You're the one spoken of in the Peverell Will. You're meant to unite and unlock the Hallows."
End Chapter
And there's that. Just as a quick warning, the meaning of the Master of Death is going to be slightly different from in canon, because I don't like the suggestion that the only people 'worthy' are the ones who choose to do absolutely nothing, even in the face of stuff like having to walk out and kill themselves. Plus, in the context of this story it means something different, and is tied to Lilith's curse. And I'll try not to have another long delay for the next chapter.
Read and Review please!