Raylynx's POV
My eyes cracked open and I was confused to find myself at the dusty end of the passageway. But then I remembered what happened. The terror existed for half a second before I realized- I had all four swords.
I trembled with excitement. Now, there is only one thing left to do.
I hurried down the secret passageway to Hogsmeade. It was still too early for the village to be awake. Dawn had not yet cracked. Even though it had felt like a long time, I had only passed out for an hour or so. In its quiet slumber, I slipped out of Honeydukes and found a safe alleyway. Ducking behind a trash can, I crouched down and carefully pulled out the last shard. It was the shard of a black crystal. The shard felt hot in my palm and I could the metal of the swords hidden in my cloak heat up in response.
"There is a cave, high in the mountains. This stone came from that cave. It will lead you there, and that is the point where you may take the four swords and summon the wand. Show your respect to the wand. Then, perhaps it will take you as its new Master."
I gripped the stone tightly in my fist. I felt the stone's energy of bonding gathered in my hand as if it were silver liquid. I pressed my lips against my fit and whispered, "Take me there."
For a moment, it felt the shard cut into my skin, but before I could cry out or open my fist, it sucked me into the vortex of Apparition.
I appeared in the midst of the highest moments. The wind was roaring, blowing about in such frenzy that I could hardly catch my breath. I managed to get up, my cloak whipping about behind me.
My eyes widened in shock as I took in the sight of endless snow-capped mountains. Here, the sun showed its face first in all the world, for just now the first rays of sunlight lit up the whole terrain, which was absolutely barren and merciless. But it was still so utterly beautiful, so captivating. For a moment, I soaked in the magnificence of the soul-shattering lights splayed across the mountaintops.
Then, I felt the shard vibrating in my hand. I looked down, opening up my fingers. The shard suddenly swiveled, pointing to my left. I followed its direction and saw what was easily the tallest mountain cap. It wasn't far, but it was a steep climb.
I knew that this was my final test- to show my respect for the wand. I could not resort to magic here. There are no shortcuts in life, or at least not for power. For my wand to be as strong as it was, this climb would have to be equally as grueling.
I began the treacherous climb towards the mountain top. Many times, I had to climb over icy ledges and cling to the mountain side, mere inches away from a fatal drop.
A few hours later, my muscles shook and ached at first, but then I was too numb to feel anything. My fingers bled from scratching at the rock walls, but I had to hold on. I was too close to fail now.
I nearly fell asleep on a ledge, hanging miles above the nearest drop onto a snowy ledge. That was how exhausted I was. If death promised sleep, I would take it. But I was too close to fail now.
That thought was the only thing that kept me going, and finally, I pushed myself over that last ledge. I got to my feet and saw the mouth of the cave.
Without hesitation, I entered it.
The whole cave sparkled eerily; it was made of black obsidian sharp as glass. It was difficult to tell the height or depths of the cave, because it all melded into the same, almost-liquid black.
Without the wind howling in my ears, everything sounded a thousand times louder. My own ragged breathing, my own heartbeat, the clink of metal from the swords as I walked forward… In some sense, it was all too real, each and every sensation too sharp, to be believable.
I walked forward, until I saw that in the middle of the cave floor was an ancient magic circle, surrounded by numerous burnt-down wicks.
I gazed down on it in wonder. I had only ever studied these in Ancient Runes textbooks; never had I imagined that I would truly get to witness the remnants of the first ever magical language.
While the breadth of magic these ancient magic circles allowed for was not wide, its depth had yet to be duplicated in modern spells. Rather, our connection to such deep understanding was ebbing away, shrouded in fear of the unknown and unwillingness to venture into our own souls.
I knelt down and passed my hand, red and raw from the cold, over the candle. A small flame blossomed. The heat from the small flame felt foreign to my skin. If I had burned myself, I wouldn't have been able to tell.
Then, I carefully brushed some of the excess powder from the original magic circle, carved in the ground. I was able to read the ancient language. At the outer edge of the circle, the ancient runes read RAGNAROK. This word was connected to the center by a line, which had runic words on either side of it. The phrase above the line read: "Sword of the King and the Courtier" and the line below it read "Sword of Mithril". This, then, was King Damocles' sword. I drew it out of my cloak and laid it down on the line, pointing inwards. The next line read: JOYEUSE, "Sword of the Exiled King and the Pagans", "Sword of Gold". I laid King Charlemange's sword on the line. Next, Lancelot's sword: ARONDIGHT, "Sword of the Knight of All Knights" and "Sword of Steel", and finally, King Arthur, or Godric Gryffindor's Sword: EXCALIBUR, "King Amongst Lion-Hearted Men", "Sword of Adamant".
Then, I placed the shard in the middle of the circle.
For a moment, all was still.
Then, all the wind from the mountain tops rushed into the small cave, roaring until it was physical painful to hear it. But contrary to the laws of physics, all of the candles suddenly flickered on, in a myriad of rainbow flames. All of the swords suddenly gave off a river of light, that raced each other down the runic lines to the shard in the middle. Then, the shard itself flashed and disappeared.
A voice, both great and terrible, roared amidst the wind: WHY HAVE YOU COME…. WHY HAVE YOU… WHY HAVE… WHY?
My hair whipped around me and I could hardly raise my voice above it. I yelled out, "To pay my respects to the swords and to the kings that wielded them!"
TELL ME, ARE YOU PURE OF HEART? TELL ME ARE YOU PURE? TELL ME…
"I… I cannot say!" I shouted back. "But I will use my powers to save those who are, with Merlin as my witness!"
The wind suddenly died and a stream of golden light shined down to the middle of the magic circle.
A wand- no, not just any wand- but the King's Wand- materialized. It seemed to grow from the ground and then it rose, enveloped in the gold, silver, mithril blue, and adamant green of the swords' energies. It floated up just above my head.
"Take it," a voice rumbled.
I stepped forth, into the golden light. I began to raise my trembling hand, when suddenly, I saw from the depths of the cave, two ember gold eyes.
Startled, I stepped back.
The snout beneath the eyes snorted.
"Take it," the dragon repeated, his sharp eyes glinting in the depths.
Was this some sort of test?
But there is no way forward except to take the wand. My heart has already resolved itself.
I stepped forward again and this time, I reached out and grasped the wand.
The light of the swords swirled around me, spreading from my arm to my whole body, before disappearing. All that was left was the sound of my own breathing.
The wand fit perfectly in my hand and yet-
"You feel it, don't you?" the dragon asked.
I looked up at the dragon.
"That wand will never be truly fit for you," the dragon told me, his voice grumbling through the cave. "You are too pure to wield it to its full destructive potential."
Disappointment marred my fleeting triumph.
"Then how will I protect the ones I set out to save?" I asked the dragon.
The dragon roared angrily. I covered my ears and cringed.
"DO NOT MAKE THE FOOLISH ASSUMPTION THAT DESTRUCTION CAN SAVE ANYTHING!"
He fell quiet and I slowly lowered my hands.
"As I said," the dragon repeated. "You will never be able to fulfill its destructive potential. That is why I have blessed you with it."
Confused, I stared at the dragon, but the dragon was already backing away.
"Who are you?" I wondered.
The dragon paused and snorted. "What a useless question. 'Who' is not needed for dragons because we already know our purpose in this world. It is only humans who need concepts like 'who'. You are all lost children."
He began to back away again, but I called out "Wait!"
Ignoring the fear in my veins, I stepped forward.
The dragon stopped again. "What more do you want?"
"Why are you allowing me to have this wand?" I asked.
The dragon paused. "I did not know what illusions the humans held of power when I made a bond with a wizard to craft that wand. It led to great misery."
"A wizard? You made a bond with a wizard?"
"Yes, he was a great wizard, but he forgot who he was." The dragon blinked his heavy eyelids. "Even though he took my name, he used it with great dishonor. It was very shameful."
Took his name? "Uther Pendragon?" I guessed, remembering my father reading the story to me years ago as he tucked me in bed. I'd had a stuffed dragon as my sleeping buddy, then. However, that cute thing was nothing like the terrifyingly real dragon in front of me now.
The dragon snorted and shook himself. I swallowed hard.
The dragon addressed me again. "But insofar as you cannot use the wand to its full power, there is the chance that you may salvage something worth saving, that you may be the first of its wielder to allow room to create, rather than burn and destroy. After all, that is what the dragons did, hiding in caverns and dying for the first time, of old age, to allow the human populations to grow and flourish."
"Is that what you're doing now?" I asked, half-afraid of the answer.
The dragon seemed to sigh somewhere deep inside of him. "It is not a sacrifice. It is merely what is right. My blood tells me this."
I fell silent, awed by his greatness and humbleness.
"Go," the dragon told me. "Go, do what you need."
The dragon withdrew his head from my sight.
I gripped the wand tightly.
All my life I've thought that power was action, but I'll remember that it is in the silences and in the patience holding back that the better forces of nature and the better parts of ourselves shine through.
I called out into the darkness, "I will share your burden! If only for a fleeting human life…"
My voice trailed off, but I hoped that he had heard my feeble attempt at a reply.
With one last look at the ancient runic circle in the cave, I exited the cave. The piercing high-altitude sunlight burned my eyes. For a moment, I closed them. I gripped the King's Wand tightly. I felt it responding to me. My magic felt lighter, and a strange feeling that could only be described as liquid light, coursed through my body. Though the King's Wand was bound by the limitations of my own potential, I knew that spells would come to me more easily now.
Having successfully acquired the King's Wand, I risked a visit to see Sola and Jamie.
But when I went to see them, I was surprised to see that there was already another guest.
She stood up when she saw me and began nervously, "I don't know if you remember, but-"
"Course I do," I said, smiling. "Amy Benson. You were Jamie's friend at St. Mungo's."
Amy nodded.
"Well," Sola said slyly, "I'd say they're a bit more than friends now."
I looked on in surprise as Jamie sat beside Amy and put an arm around her, rubbing her shoulder as he kissed her cheek. Amy beamed but she looked at me nervously.
"That's… wonderful," I managed to say. A strange feeling rose up inside me. It took me a moment to realize that it was happiness, happiness free of selfish triumph or relief- just happiness.
Suddenly, I wanted to cry.
"Care for some tea?" Sola asked me.
I nodded. "Yes, I'll help."
We entered the kitchen together.
"You sure you're all right?" Sola asked me. "It was a bit of a shock for me as well. Not because Amy's lacking in any way, just…"
"That he found a love other than Quidditch," I finished for her.
"Yes," Sola said, and she smiled as she handed me a cup of tea. I gently blew on the hot tea as I studied Sola. She seemed so much healthier now.
"Speaking of surprise loves, there was someone who came by looking for you," Sola said.
"Oh yeah, who?" I asked, taking a sip of tea. In my head, I tried to run through a list of Muggle family that would contact Sola about me, but I couldn't think of anyone.
"What was his name? Was it Sirius?"
I choked, then coughed. "Sirius Black?" I said incredulously.
"Yes, him."
"Well, what did you say?" I asked.
Sola shook her head. "Well, obviously I don't know anything about what you've been up to. So I said that."
I calmed down and said, "Right, of course."
Sola hesitated and then she said quietly, "I know I haven't been very available. That is, I know I haven't really allowed you to talk about your life with me. But I am still your sister, so I want to know- Are you all right?"
She looked right at me, and for the first time in a long while, I saw her strength again.
I wanted to cry. I nearly lost it then, to be honest.
"Because this guy… He was really worried about you," Sola said. "It made me worried too."
Oh, Sirius. I'm so sorry.
I nodded and tried to keep my voice steady as I answered, "I'm all right, Sola. Really."
I spent a lovely evening with the three of them. I learned a lot about Amy in that evening. She had come from an orphanage in London. She was practically a Squib and they hadn't detected her magic until very late. But this confused me very much. Because I could sense a good amount of magic in her. It was just that it stayed inside her, never leaving her body, simply circulating there. I wonder what had happened to cut off her ability to transfer magic outside of her body.
When Sola asked what the orphanage was like, Amy shook her head. "They tried, but there wasn't very much funding. The only saving grace was my friends. I had one friend in particular, named Dennis Bishop. He always stood up for me, even when we were bullied…"
Her voice trailed off, as if she were remembering something.
"What is it, Amy?" Jamie asked, reaching over to take her hand.
"I only just remembered… I'd forgotten about him," Amy said quietly.
"Dennis?" Jamie asked.
Amy shook her head. "No, not Dennis. There was this one boy in particular who was very mean to us. He bullied us."
Then she whispered something and reflexively, I repeated it back to her.
"Tom Riddle?" I said urgently. "Is that what you said?"
Amy looked at me with frightened eyes.
And I- I will regret this forever- but I used Occulumency on her.
It wasn't even a conscious choice. Like a hunter with the first sign of prey, I pounced without hesitation. And to my own surprise, the Wand of Kings displayed its brilliant power, making it so much easier to navigate the minds of the subject, and to find even what they did not want to show me.
Tom Riddle had always liked to steal the few coins and trinkets she managed to find here and there. He had always bullied Dennis too, taking away his harmonica, the only thing his father had ever left him. That was the first time Dennis fought back. Normally, he was so soft and shy, but he couldn't bear to lose the only thing his parents had left him. The next week, they had gone out on a picnic and Tom had persuaded them to take a little side trip…
"What did you do to her!?" Jamie was shaking me by the shoulders. "What did you do to Amy?"
Amy just sat there, tears pouring down her face.
I stared past Jamie numbly, staring at her. I knew why her magic couldn't leave her now.
I stood in the middle of a busy Muggle sidewalk, staring at a shiny new office block. Clearly, the old orphanage was gone, replaced by an industrial office.
I headed further down the street, to the city hall. There, I found the records I was looking for. Everything was written down meticulously- even the field trips they went on. I ripped out the page in the documents and pocketed it when no one was watching.
I made my way out of the building and ventured outside until I came upon a small neighborhood park. As I checked the papers again, seeing Amy's name made my heart pang with guilt. After what I had done to her, I wasn't welcome back anytime soon. I swallowed hard as I remembered the look of shock on Sola's face as I had forced her to remember that Legilimency, and by extension, the magical world, existed and the anger pouring from Jamie when he realized that I forced Amy to recount the most traumatic memory of her life. I held back tears. I never thought I'd make a mistake like that with my family. This is all to protect them. How could I have done that to Amy? How could I have messed up so bad? I took a long, shuddering breath. I remembered what I had once said to Regulus: Regulus, what is the point of your facade if you lose the very thing you are trying to protect?
I closed my eyes.
Nearby, a fiddler was playing a violin and besides him, a girl wrapped in shawls sang:
Are you, are you, coming to the tree?
They strung up a man, they say who murdered three
Strange things did happen here, no stranger would it be
If we met at midnight, in the hanging tree.
Are you, are you, coming to the tree?
Where dead man called out for his love to flee
Strange things did happen here, no stranger would it be
If we met at midnight, in the hanging tree...
The tune was sorrowful and longing, but also familiar, for the melody was almost exactly the same as the one produced by Regulus' music box.
