AN
Two 'Death Mountains' in this one – one is a cemetery and the other… well, take a guess.
Also, I cannot do the beauty of Koyasan's cemetery justice. Go and check out pictures and videos of it, if you have the time.
Travel Log 5: Japan, Koyasan, & Germany, Brocken
February to March 2000
The graves of the Oku-no-in cemetery on Mount Koya were covered with a thin blanket of snow when Harry and the others came to visit, but that did not at all take away from the serene, tranquil beauty of the place. With lanterns guiding their path and both old, moss-grown graves to one side and new, carefully tended-to graves on the other, all on different levels with stone steps in irregular intervals and small Torii gates separating some of the graves, the occasional tiny Buddhist monk statue or Shinto shrine nestled between trees and shrubs and graves – no single stop along the way looked the same.
Harry had never seen anything quite like this. He couldn't help but compare it to the cemeteries and graveyards he knew from back home. He had always found them beautiful, but they paled when put next to this. The shape of the gravestones alone already made for a much more pleasing sight, paired with the beautiful arrangements and the combination of old and new …
They had seen so many things during their travels, visited so many ancient burial sites of all kinds, yet somehow, this one was the most stunning of them all.
The beauty of the conifer forest alone would have taken Harry's breath away – and they had already seen their fair share of cemeteries in Japan – but the combination of the two and the sheer magnitude of the country's largest cemetery … It was truly magical – in all senses of the word.
They honoured their ancestors by praying at an offering hall and spraying water over the Bodhisattva statues lined up there – at least Harry, Theodore and Draco did. Tom just watched them with an inscrutable expression on his face.
After another trek through the beautiful cemetery mountain, they eventually reached the end of the path, where they stared at the eternally burning tens of thousands of lanterns in the hall of worship just in front of the Kobo Daishi's mausoleum for which they had originally come. The mausoleum itself was not accessible to outsiders, but none of them minded after the wonders they had already seen.
The sun was setting by the time they made their way back and the lanterns had been lit, bathing the path in a beautiful golden glow.
Harry almost didn't notice the faint whisper tugging at him. He only realised what was happening when he spotted the small group of black-clad mourners gathered ahead and stopped short before he accidentally interrupted what was clearly the burial of a departed family member.
"Oh," Theodore exclaimed softly to his left. "It's been so long since we attended a funeral."
They stayed at a respectful distance, hidden by magic, watching the proceedings in silence, and Harry found himself yearning to participate – to lead the rites and help prepare the grave and the body and assist those left behind to grieve.
He missed tending to the dead and preparing their funerals.
He knew, of course, that there were so many more sides to necromancy he had yet to discover – the things Lynea had told him about the Lémures' practices, the glimpses he had caught of Rhea's personal life, all the nefarious experiments the Totengräbers were rumoured to be conducting – but it was the funeral preparations he really wanted to return to, rather than delving deeper into the inner workings of Death's magic.
"I think I want to return for a bit," Harry told Theodore afterwards, during their mostly silent track back to the bridge that marked the entrance to Oku-no-in.
"To Britain?"
Harry hummed. "Maybe Germany, for now." He gave Theodore a small smile. "Perhaps we will finally see the Totengräbers' main residence."
Theodore squeezed his hand. "If that is what you want."
Harry glanced back at their two undead companions, but no retort came from either of them.
o
The Totengräbers' main residence was both not at all what Harry had expected and yet completely unsurprising at the same time.
Unlike the Lémure estate, the Totengräbers had apparently not stopped at a mere manor with surrounding cemetery and forest, but somehow acquired an entire castle.
"It's a fortress," Theodore explained. "A castle is meant for flaunting wealth, a fortress for defence."
"Then why did they call it a castle? Castle Wretchedness." Harry frowned. "Which is quite on the nose, if you ask me."
"Because 'Burg' and 'Schloss' both translate to castle," Theodore told him. "And it would be Castle Elend, if anything – Burg Elend was named after the place, not the state of suffering. That's the problem with translation magic – it has no nuance."
Fortress, then – the Totengräbers lived in a bloody fortress on top of one of the mountains that marked the region and called over ten thousand acres of the surrounding land their own, complete with large crop fields, livestock farms and what constituted as two small villages full of necromancers. And all of it hidden right underneath the Muggles' noses.
Harry was honestly impressed.
He did not get to see much of the fortress, itself, for access to most of its many rooms was apparently restricted for security reasons. Whose security it was that was in danger was anyone's guess, really.
"We rarely entertain guests," Sephoneia told them as she led them through the long stone corridors that reminded Harry more of the old prison she had once taken them to rather than Hogwarts as he had expected.
At least they weren't cold – tracking through all the snow outside had been bone-chilling enough. They weren't very warm, either, though.
"But how do you gain access to –" Harry faltered. "How do you acquire the necessary amount of corpses for your practices?"
Sephoneia raised her eyebrows at him. "That is hardly a difficult task, Harry dear. Truly, in which way would we have a problem with that?"
"Well, you live in a remote place, in a rather inaccessible fortress, hidden by magic with no – er – non-necromancer settlements around for miles, so …" He shrugged.
Sephoneia shook her head with a disappointed sigh. "You forget we have access to magic, Harry."
Then she turned around and continued on her way.
Theodore and the others, Tom in particular, were oddly silent throughout it all.
"These are Rhea's rooms," the old woman eventually said, gesturing to a door that looked like every other. "They were my sister's once, but she has no need for such things, anymore. I'm sure Rhea won't mind sharing with you."
"Is Rhea currently here?"
"Oh, I'm sure she will be here before you notice she was ever meant to be absent." Sephoneia made a gesture and Harry could almost see the shimmer of magic unlocking the warded door. "Now, I wonder where Gellert wandered off to."
Harry paused with his hand on the door. "Gellert? Gellert Grindelwald?"
Sephoneia tilted her head at him. "You once expressed your wish to talk to him, did you not?"
Harry had never gotten around to that, had he? He had forgotten, somewhere along the way – and it didn't seem relevant anymore, now.
"I thought he died."
"Well, yes. Of course, he did. They all do, eventually."
Harry blinked. "You turned him into an Inferius?"
Sephoneia sighed wistfully. "I asked Albus, too, so they could have at least been united in death, but the old fool declined my offer. I take it you do not wish to talk to him, then, after all?"
"Perhaps some other time," Harry said, too overwhelmed to really consider what he might want to talk about with a former Dark Lord of all people.
He glanced at his companions, but their faces were as closed off as they had been ever since they had entered the castle and Tom's complaints about the snow had abruptly ceased.
"Take your time to get settled in, then," Sephoneia said. "I will send someone over with dinner. Do try not to wander around, most in this family are not the most … sociable of creatures. My children may be inclined to listen to reason still, but the same cannot be said for the rest of the family – the older they are the worse your chances of making it out intact. Or making it out at all. And I dare say they might actually take offense to your translation magic, so you would find yourself unable to communicate on top of that. Do take care."
"Thank you, we will."
They entered Rhea's rooms and Harry barely had time to take in the rather homely interior, for the moment the door closed behind them, a shudder went through all three of his companions – Tom's more violent than the others'.
"Are you alright?" Harry asked, mildly concerned.
All three of them simultaneously replied with a shaky, "No."
"This castle is vile," Tom spat out. "I can feel the rot down to the foundations – a perversion of magic."
Theodore, looking green around the edges, made a vaguely agreeing noise.
"I didn't – It doesn't feel like that to me," Harry said, nonplussed. "This place is thrumming with a strange kind of magic I haven't encountered before, but … It doesn't feel that much different from the magics we encountered during our travels."
"Lucky you," Tom groused.
Harry ignored him in favour of walking over to Theodore and grasping his hands. "Is there anything I can do to help?" he asked, looking at his friend in concern.
Theodore gave him a weak smile, but shook his head. "I'll figure something out. Sephoneia taught us enough techniques to protect us from magic corrupted by ill intent, I'm sure I can come up with something that will help here."
"What she taught us isn't enough?"
It was Tom who answered, "It is too strong. There is too much of it – in the walls, the floors, the air. It is everywhere, there is no escape."
"Maybe we can seal this room somehow," Harry suggested. "Localised wards usually work better, especially when using runes, right?" He looked to Theodore for confirmation.
"Rooms," came Draco's faint voice.
Harry blinked and turned his head towards him. Draco made a vague gesture and following it, Harry discovered a door to each side of the room, both standing ajar. Looking around properly, he realised that the room they were standing in really was more of a living room than anything else – with bookshelves on one wall and a set of armchairs in the middle of the room, facing the tall windows, a table on a small rug in-between.
Theodore gave him a peck on the forehead. "Go and explore. We'll start with the calculations in the meantime."
One of the doors led to a bedroom with a King-sized canopy bed, a writing desk and a pair of wardrobes, the entire floor covered by a thick carpet. At first, Harry thought the curtains of the bed were in Slytherin colours, but then he took a closer look and saw that it was a different shade of green and the embroidery was white rather than silver.
The other door led to a bathroom with tiles that were nicely warm under his feet. (He had exchanged his shoes for slippers by the door leading out to the corridor.) It was nothing special at first glance safe for the large bathtub that seemed to be made of marble of all things.
Harry would later learn that the bathroom floors of the building were heated by hot water running through pipes, powered by a mix of magic and clever engineering – and for some reason, this really was the case only for the bathroom floors, which didn't make any bloody sense. Originally, they had apparently been heated by hot air in a system inspired by the Roman hypocausts, but the castle had supposedly undergone many constructions and modernisations since then – which, again, in this particular case had only been applied to the bathroom floors rather than using the opportunity to install floor heating in all rooms.
Finding no sign of necromancy-related tools safe for some of the titles written on the spines of the books in the living room, Harry came to the conclusion that the living quarters were strictly separated from the laboratories or whatever the rooms meant for necromantic practices were called. Some of the Totengräbers might not even have living quarters – it was likely that the sister Sephoneia had mentioned was still around, simply having no need for these rooms, anymore.
The rooms were overall quite nice and cosy, yet didn't really feel lived-in with no indicator as to Rhea's previous stays anywhere.
Not wanting to snoop around too much without permission, Harry rejoined the others in the main room.
The four of them were in the middle of constructing rune circles under Theodore's guidance when an Inferius knocked on their door to bring them dinner. Harry had almost expected it to be forgotten or ridiculously proportioned or otherwise unsuited for living beings – but they did get a fine meal meant for two.
They finished their work after dinner and Harry went to sleep feeling reassured that Theodore could now finally relax at least inside the rooms assigned to them.
Breakfast the next morning came in the company of a young woman Harry thought might have been only a few years older than them. She was, at the very least, still alive. Not that she looked the part at first glance – skin so pale and thin it was almost translucent, framed by dark hair and dark robes and dark red lipstick the colour of blood. She had the same white irises as Sephoneia.
"You may call me Proserpina," she introduced herself in fluent English devoid of the accent Sephoneia spoke with. "I came to ask whether you would like a tour of our castle."
"May I ask how you are related to Sephoneia?" Harry asked curiously.
The woman looked at him for a moment, standing unnaturally still, before she replied, "Assuming you mean our Head of House, I am her great-great-granddaughter."
Great-great-granddaughter. Harry racked his brain. She must have been the same generation as Rhea and Lynea then – at least in relation to Sephoneia if not in age.
"I would appreciate a tour," Harry said, turning to the others.
"I'm coming with you," Theodore quickly replied before Harry even had the chance to ask.
"Are you sure?"
Theodore nodded, putting a reassuring hand on Harry's shoulder. "I would rather come with you than let you wander the castle on your own."
"In that case," Tom spoke up, "I would also like to accompany you."
Harry raised his eyebrows. "And what is your reason?"
Tom raised his chin. "Curiosity, of course."
Harry rather suspected Tom didn't want to stay behind with only Draco for company, but allowed him to keep up the illusion of confidence.
Contrary to what Sephoneia's words had made them believe the day before, they could actually access a fair share of the fortress. It was not a very large portion when compared to the sheer size of the entire complex, but still quite a lot if viewed on its own.
Proserpina showed them around some of the chambers used for special rituals and a few of the laboratories that currently were neither in use nor sealed for security or privacy reasons, as well as the various dining halls that rarely saw use, the kitchens and one of the libraries. Throughout it all, they did not come across a single person.
What glimpses Harry caught of the Totengräbers' various experiments were enough to deter him from ever asking about them. Out of sight, out of mind.
The tour Proserpina gave them kept them busy for the better part of the day and by the time they finally returned to their assigned quarters, night had already fallen.
They were greeted by the sight of Rhea chatting happily with Draco, Lynea's undead cat sprawled across her lap, gloves draped over one of the armrests so she could properly pet Murr.
Rhea gave them a wave when she spotted them and leaned to the side to peer around them. "Is that my favourite cousin I spy?"
"I was never your favourite cousin," Proserpina replied tonelessly, looking pointedly at the cat in Rhea's lap. "If you would please excuse me, then."
Harry closed the door behind her and then went over to the windows to conjure up some more chairs for Theodore and himself – Tom had already taken the last armchair.
"Spoilsport." Rhea put on an exaggerated pout. "You'd think it's the age, but she's always been like that."
"How much older is your cousin?" Harry asked curiously as he sat down.
Rhea made a so-so gesture. "Nine for me, ten for you, I think."
Years, Harry assumed, given the context – though if it were months or days or decades, Harry couldn't say he would have been surprised.
"Draco says you haven't been feeling well? Impressive runework, by the way."
"Thank you," Theodore said.
"The magic of this bloody castle is rotten down to the foundations," Tom said, sounding cranky.
For some reason that made Rhea laugh. "Yes, I can imagine you would describe it like that."
Tom looked her up and down and then deliberately turned away to look out of the windows.
"Aw, another spoilsport. Are you still mad I tried to kill you once?"
"You tried to kill me four times, from what I remember," Tom replied, which prompted both Harry and Theodore to stare at Rhea incredulously.
They had known that she had tried to cut Voldemort's tether to life once, but four times? And Voldemort had been aware?! He wasn't even supposed to know who Rhea was in the first place!
"Well," Rhea shrugged carelessly. "I had to try different things and four is always such a lovely number. Shows you how much I still have to learn if some measly Horcruxes were enough to waylay me."
Tom didn't deign to reply to that, eyes resolutely fixed on the windows, even though it was pitch-black outside, apparently resolved to ignore them.
"So what about me?" Harry asked. "Why am I different when it comes to the castle's magic?"
"I'm rather surprised Draco and Theodore also feel it," Rhea said with a shrug. "Then again, Theo has always been sensitive and Death likes to play games and you," she pointed at Harry, "have been touched by Death in a way no other has. You can't expect things to remain normal after such a thing."
Rattling skulls and reanimated mummies, Harry thought to himself.
"And Draco is affected by my magic," he realised, glancing at Draco, who was calmly watching them converse. "But I still don't understand – You always told me that it is the intention that shapes magic. Why would the castle's magic feel vile and rotten to them but not to me?"
Rhea wagged her finger at him, "Ah-ah-ah! What did I just say?"
"Death likes to play games," Theodore replied in Harry's stead.
Rhea pointed at him. "He got it."
"Right," Harry said, still not quite sure he understood.
Rhea allowed him to then change the topic and for the rest of the evening, she regaled them with stories from back home.
Eventually, Theodore got up to retire to bed, throwing a silent question Harry's way.
"It has become rather late," he agreed.
Rhea also rose from her armchair, putting Murr down on the place she had just vacated, picking up her gloves and stretching her arms above her head. "Would you mind if we share the bedroom?" She winked at Harry. "Don't want to make Tom any more uncomfortable than he already is."
"Do you have a spare bed?" Harry asked, momentarily distracted.
"Oh, I'm sure the castle will provide me with what I need. So? Would you mind?"
"Not at all, Rhea."
"Lovely."
AN
Well, I managed to revive my computer, so here we are.
The Totengräbers' Burg Elend does not exist in our world, but the place Elend (misery/wretchedness) does and it is next to the Brocken – a famous mountain in Germany that was also called Blocksberg occasionally and said to have been a gathering place for witch covens, especially during Walpurgis Night. Goethe's Faust is one of the stories mentioning the Brocken with the context of witch gatherings.
There's also a place called Sorge (concern/worry) nearby.
