The Phoenix Prophecy

Chapter 17: Epilogue - Part 4

Monday — July 21^st

Harry:

When Kai told us that he had foreseen the extinction of all intelligent life on our worlds, I felt as if the wind had suddenly been knocked out of me by being hit square in the middle of my gut with a huge fist. Unable to move, or even breathe, panic and fear began to grip their icy fingers around my heart. Abruptly, the meadow now seemed to be a very dark and cold place. I would have shivered if I could have forced my body to do anything. The longer I sat there, the more alone and isolated I felt. Hermione and the others seemed to be moving farther and farther away from me. The loneliness and despair that filled my heart made my body feel heavy, which further intensified the fear that had worked its way to the top of my throat making it hard to swallow.

Just when I felt like screaming, a voice penetrated the veil of darkness that had settled over me. The voice was familiar, but I could not remember whose it was. As the voice continued to speak, I felt the veil of darkness lifting and my fear rapidly dissipating. Once the darkness was gone, I realized it was Professor Dumbledore’s voice that was calling out to me. I could see his shining face just a few feet in front of me. The more that I concentrated on his face, the more relaxed I became.

Even though I still could not will my body to speak, I understood what Dumbledore was telling me to do. It took every ounce of will power that I had to reach out my hand and take a hold of Hermione’s hand. When he mentioned chocolate, I suddenly felt better. Just the thought of its sweet, delicious flavor seemed to lift up my spirits. After closing my eyes and breathing deeply for several seconds, I found that I was beginning to feel almost normal. Now I could easily picture Hermione’s smiling face. I held her image in my mind and savored the intense love that I felt for her. All of a sudden, I felt an intense rush of energy wash over me that caused my whole body to tingle and come alive. Opening my eyes, I turned to look at Hermione. She was smiling back at me, her eyes sparkling with an intense liveliness that I had never noticed before. At that moment, I wanted desperately to hug me to me and never, never let go.

Professor Dumbledore’s instructions to see and feel the beauty that surround us interrupted my preoccupation with wanting to bind Hermione to me. When she turned her head to look out at the meadow we were sitting in, I did likewise. For several seconds I did not see anything unusual, just flowers, shrubs and trees. Then ever so slowly, I began to sense a deeper beauty than I had ever noticed before. Abruptly, without warning, the meadow burst alive in a rainbow of colors, sending waves of awe and wonder washing over my body. The sense of harmony that I felt was absolutely incredible. My body felt as light as a feather. I could not remember ever feeling this good in my entire life. I could have spent countless hours savoring the way I felt at this moment.

Professor Dumbledore’s voice penetrated into my mind and I opened my eyes as he had instructed. As my consciousness returned to the world around me, I felt myself slowly descend to the ground. I was only mildly surprised to find that I had actually been floating on air. Hermione attracted my attention by squeezing my hand and I turned to look at her just as we both settled on the ground.

“I love you so much,” I said as I returned her squeeze.

“I love you, too,” she replied ever so softly, leaned over, and kissed my cheek. We continued to gaze into each other eyes until Professor Dumbledore spoke to Kai, at which point we reluctantly turned our attention back to Kai and Nyssa.

“We have brought you all here in the hope that you can undo the damage we have done to your worlds,” Kai began, his voice soft with a trace of remorse. “A thousand years ago, in your time, we foolishly interfered with the natural course of events taking place in the Realm. The results of our meddling—as well intentioned as it was—has had dire consequences for the inhabitants of the Realm and all the worlds connected to it. In order to understand what has happened I need to tell you about a number of things.

“First, is the purpose of the island you were unfortunate enough to come in contact with. On each world there are two such islands. These islands are the ultimate source of all magical power on each world. The islands were constructed many eons ago, long before our time began. We do not have any knowledge of who created them. One of the islands, the one you were on, pulls a special kind of metaphysical energy from the world’s core and causes it to flow over the surface of the world. This energy is collected by the other island, which returns the energy to the core of the world. This creates a continuous flow of magical energy over the world’s surface. Think of the islands as pumps and sinks for magical energy. The islands are similar in nature to the magnetic poles on each world. This metaphysical, or magical, energy is what gives you the power to cast spells and perform feats of magic. The islands are very remotely located and go unnoticed by those without magical abilities. Since very few humans with magical abilities are drawn to a life on the sea, these islands are virtually unknown on most of the worlds.

“About eleven hundred years ago we began to notice in the Realm that the giants were killing many more humans than normal. After observing the interaction of the giants and the humans, who were encroaching on the giant’s domain, we concluded that the giants would eventually obliterate all of the humans living in the foothills of the Great Mystic Mountains. Even though the humans had brought the giant’s wrath upon themselves, we felt sorry for them in one of our weaker moments. This was especially true of the young children that the giants killed without mercy in there repeated raids on human villages.

“To help you understand our anguish over the death of the human children you need to know that for us a child is almost sacred. In our world, an adult couple will have just two children. We spend more than one hundred of your years nurturing our children until they reach adulthood. The loss of a single child to us would be almost unbearable.”

“It is much the same with us,” Martha interjected. “Even though many of us have more than two children and we only spend twenty years raising them, the death of a child is the most difficult task a person ever has to deal with. You have no idea how big a hole the loss of a child puts in you…unless you have experienced it personally. I suspect most people carry this loss with them to their grave.”

Martha’s voice came very close to breaking with her last statement. The look of anguish on her face tore at me more deeply that I thought possible. While I watched Walt place his arm around Martha’s shoulder, I suddenly realized that Hermione was looking at me with a startled look on her face.

“Hun, what’s the matter?” I whispered to her as soon as I realized she was suddenly very upset.

“I…I just had a vision of holding a…a dying child in my arms,” she whispered, her voice a mixture of panic and agony.

“How old was this child? Did you recognize it?”

“It was a young boy, about five or six years of age,” Hermione whispered back. “I don’t think I have ever seen this young boy before, but yet he seemed vaguely familiar to me.”

“Hermione, maybe the vision was nothing more than a reflection of Tom’s death. Try not to let it bother you, okay?”

“I’ll try,” was all that she replied and fell thoughtfully silent.

“As I was saying,” Kai continued, “witnessing the death of so many children was very difficult for us. For many years we endured this pain until we decided that there must be some way that we could help the children with out directly interfering. After much thought we came up with a plan to help the human children that would not unduly change the course of history in the Realm.

“We knew that from time to time young dragons observed the conflict between giants and humans as part of their education. We had observed that a young dragon named Cetus was particularly sensitive to the needs of others. We subtly planted an idea in the mind of Cetus’ mentor that it would be good training for Cetus to observe the hostilities between the giants and humans. Just as we suspected, once Cetus began to witness the slaughter of human children he felt compelled to try to do something about it.”

“Are you referring to the Cetus who Mortius imprisoned on the island along with Cetus’ brother and sister?” Ron blurted out.

“Yes, that is the Cetus we are referring to,” Kai replied. “At first we were pleased with Cetus’ plan to help one of the humans expand his natural potential to use magic. It seemed the perfect solution to the problem. Unfortunately, in the long term this turned into a disaster of unimaginable proportions.”

“You underestimated just how powerful and thoroughly evil Mortius would become, didn’t you?” Hermione asked pointedly. The moment her words reached me, I knew that she was right. One look at Kai or Nyssa’s faces told me that she was correct in her assumption.

“Underestimated doesn’t come close to describing how badly we misjudged the potential for what might go wrong with our plan,” Nyssa answered bitterly. “You are, of course, quite correct in your assumption young lady.”

“If you can see into our future, then why didn’t you see that this might happen?” Hermione asked quickly, before several of the others could speak.

“The future we see is based on events following a normal course of action, free from outside influences. Since we never interfere directly in events taking place in your worlds, the future we see is in all likelihood the way the future will unfold.”

“But you did interfere, even though the interference was through another party, you did in fact interfere and therefore changed the future of our worlds,” Hermione stated as only she can when pointing out how you just managed to hurt yourself through your own stupidity.

“Do you know what it is like to lose a child or someone that you love?” Nyssa shot back angrily. I flinched at the sudden anger and hostility in her voice but Hermione didn’t budge an inch.

“No I do not. Fortunately for me, I have not had to endure the pain and suffering of losing someone that I love. I can only imagine…

“You can’t even begin to imagine what it is like,” Nyssa shot back, cutting Hermione off in mid sentence. “Perhaps you would be a little more understanding of why we did what we did if you knew first hand what it felt like to lose a child.”

This time Hermione did flinch from Nyssa’s scathing words. Instinctively I squeezed her hand tighter to let her know that I was ready to help in any way that I could. Just as Hermione turned her head towards me and started to say something, we found ourselves in a dark room illuminated only by the moonlight streaming in through a broken window.

Hermione and I were sitting on the floor at the foot of a large bed with our backs to a wall. Abruptly I sensed that the door was closing and I could hear a hideous laugh that sent chills shooting throughout my entire body. I felt numbingly cold, colder than I had ever felt in my life. My mind refused to work, I could not figure out where we were or how we had gotten here.

Turning to look at Hermione, I received the shock of my life. She was sitting next to me, rocking back and forth, clutching a baby to her chest. When she turned to look at me, I felt my heart sink right through the floor. A look of wretched misery filled her tear-streaked face.

“Our son is dead,” she choked out. “That evil bastard kill him, he killed him just to hurt us. He knew he couldn’t kill us, so he killed our son instead. Oh Harry, why…how could we…

Hermione never finished her sentence. Instead, she collapsed against my side, clutching our dead son as the agony of despair completely overtook her.

I was so numb that I couldn’t feel anything. My body, the room, nothing existed except Hermione whose body was racked with gasping sobs from the nightmare we were living. The hideous laughter echoed through my head over and over until I was ready to scream. Just as I felt that I couldn’t take another second of this madness my mind cleared just long enough for me to realize that the laugh I was hearing was none other than Voldemort. The wizard that had killed my parents had just killed my son. My rage exploded in a scream that hurt my ears and forced Hermione to jump away from me.

Professor Albus Dumbledore:

I was a bit shocked at the anger Nyssa directed at Hermione. Even though most adults disliked having their mistakes pointed out to them, especially by those younger than themselves, that in and of itself did not seem to account for the intensity of Nyssa’s anger. I was about to inquire why this seemed to be such a personally sensitive subject when I noticed that Harry and Hermione were both twitching as if they were in a trance. The looks of terror and anguish that flashed across their faces told me that they were indeed in some sort of trance. Glancing back at Nyssa I saw that her eyes were closed, but that her face was distorted with a twisted smile. I had no doubt that she was casting some type of spell over Harry and Hermione.

“Nyssa!…Release Harry and Hermione!…At once!” I demanded firmly, with a voice as loud and strong as I could make. The sheer volume of my voice had its desired effect. Everyone jumped, including Nyssa and Kai. My demand must have broken her concentration. The moment she flashed angry eyes at me, I heard Harry and Hermione start gasping for breath.

“Why have you done this?” I demanded of Nyssa before anyone could speak. For a moment I had Nyssa and Kai off balance. Hopefully, they would not strike out at us in anger, because if they did there was damn little I would be able to do about it.

For several long seconds, Nyssa and I just glared at each other. I refused to break eye contact with her until she acknowledged that what she did was wrong. To me what she had done was no more excusable than for me to intimidate a first year student just because the child happened to irritate me for some reason or other. Finally, Nyssa lowered her eyes, as her body seemed to deflate slightly.

After our stare-down was over Kai moved to stand next to Nyssa and placed a comforting arm around her shoulder. “Please do not be too angry with us,” Kai pleaded. “What you do not know is that our only child was taken from us as punishment for our interfering in your worlds when he was barely more than an infant. On top of that, we were banished from our society and no one has spoken to us since.”

Following Kai’s statement, you could have pushed me over with a feather. I was truly at a loss for words as to what to say or how to respond. Before I could think of how to express my sympathies, Martha and Walt, each with a twin, were on their feet, headed directly towards Nyssa and Kai. As soon as Martha reached Nyssa, she held out the twin she was carrying for Nyssa to hold. After looking at the child for several seconds, Nyssa took the child into her arms and began to cry softly as she rocked the child back and forth in her arms.

It was apparent to me that what was ailing Nyssa and Kai was something that only another parent could help cure. Martha and Walt were the perfect couple for the job, their boundless love of children and the terrible loss they had recently suffered made them the perfect couple to help Nyssa and Kai. As I would be of little use in this healing process, I turned my attention back to Harry and Hermione only to discover that Ron and Gretchen were already at their sides.

“Well, this day certainly is one for the books,” I said to Sirius when he walked over to where I was standing.

“You can say that again,” he replied. “However, I have a feeling we have many more surprises in store for us before this day is finished.”

“Yes, of that, I am quite sure that you are right.”

Authors Note:

As the Epilogue continues to unfold most of the questions raised during the chapter will be answered. Plus, several new ones will be raised. By now, I’m sure you realize that I can’t resist taunting you with new puzzles and challenges for the characters in the story.

Following this lengthy Epilogue will be a Prologue for ‘Day 18’, the next chapter in the saga. With then next chapter our band of adventurers will continue with their quest for the ‘Impervious Charm’. The mood of the next chapter will be lighter as they rest from Day 17’s harrowing adventures. Some of the good-natured fun and humor will resurface as everyone relaxes in preparation for traveling to the land of Trolls.

As always, I hope that you enjoy reading this story as much as I enjoy creating it. I appreciate your reviews, so please keep them coming. Comments and suggestions are always welcome.

The Hogwarts Oracle (Mark)