Disclaimer: Just something I found in the backyard of a castle in England. Thought I'd type it in and post it here…Nah. This is just a figment of my imagination. HP, however sad the thought makes me after reading HBP, belongs to JKR.
A/N: My first try at fanfic. If anyone is interested in doing beta-reading for me, let me know. I'd like your opinions in reviews if I should continue or keep my fingers away from the keyboard from now on. Story will be my take on what would happen after HPB. It will certainly have some humor, romance, angst and action with a few zombies (infernus) thrown in for good measure. And all who understand who the characters are in the prologue can give themselves a cookie and a pat on the back ;) Also, at the moment I'm not sure what the final rating for the story will be so don't ask.
BTW, after uploading I noticed the formatting had removed my separation borders from the story. Bloody html, going to revise and upload again.
Prologue - Amor vincit omnia
Four will create, one will almost destroy
that which was created with his evil ploy.
When the truth is revealed, two will fight.
One kills the other, sealing his fate.
Those actions will echo to distant time
'Til their heirs will meet - and one shall die.
And though one's power sets him above,
The other will win, because he has love.
The four just stood there for a moment - tired mentally and physically after what they had just done - and felt completely ecstatic. They had done what they had dreamed of, planned...and finally, created. The creation was looking exactly like the drawings they had made together and with two of the four friends being absolute perfectionists - not to mention that each and every one of them was a considered a genius by their contemporaries - it wasn't really a wonder.
"Sleazy, I think You made Your part a bit too perfect!" one of the four, a man looking not a day older than 25 years, told to the other man standing next to him.
The speaker was tall, handsome, and if the people of that time would have known the expression - just plain sexy to every female that laid eyes on him. He had long light-blond hair that was tied together with a piece of thin rope, clean face without beard or moustache, blue sparkling eyes and he was wearing simple but well-fitting red clothes on his muscular body. It wasn't the sort of muscles one has trained to impress the ladies or make others say "damn!" but the sort that tell you that this person is used to physical activity and could outrun a Greek legionnaire if he had to. The clothes weren't like the ones the current "high society" fancied, but still had a classy feel about them. His voice was pleasant, clear and cheerful.
"What about making one of them 'lean' a bit, just to give it some...you know...personality?" The young man continued with a grin, winking to his two female companions.
"Why on earth would you like to do that...is it for some other reason or to cover the total lack of yours? And please stop calling me that." The other man came right back with a quick response, raising an eyebrow as he looked at the younger man.
The older of the two men seemed to be about 50 or so years old and was wearing robes, so he could easily be taken for a highly placed official or a priest. The robes were black with occasional green and silver here and there. Also, he was wearing sandals unlike the other one, who preferred boots. He was very much the opposite of the other one in almost everything - one was muscular, other thin; one with a clean face, the other with a long black beard; one looked like someone who lived outdoors, the other like he had never set his foot outside his dusty study room and so on. His voice was even, slightly sibilant and with the feel of superiority in it. Only the ease with which the jokes flew from their lips was the same.
"Hey!" they younger man exclaimed in offended voice. "I got lots of personality! It's inherited, you know, but there's lots of it!"
"I'm not sure it got passed on to you by your parents. Considering the fact that I knew them quite well, are you sure you're indeed their child and not a bastard?" The older man was quick-witted with his returns and usually aimed for a quick kill.
"I…uhh…" the young man was at a loss for words for a moment, trying to come up with a quick retort of his own. He cast a quick pleading look towards the other two who were again trying hard not to laugh out loud over the two friends jokes. "Touché," he mumbled when the time set for a response by a mutual agreement long time ago ran out.
Both men looked expectantly at the third member of the group who was still busy trying to calm down. The young lady was shorter than either man, but slightly taller than the other woman. She had long raven-black hair and wore an elegant dress and shoes of same color with touch of blue here and there. She too looked young - around 25 - and was quite beautiful. If you'd put all the men on the ice of the north pole and then asked them to look into her deep, mysterious green eyes and at her beautiful, smiling lips…well, let's say that global warming would have occurred quite a few centuries earlier than expected. She was physically charming, but she also possessed the personality that would have made a dragon curl at her feet and look at her with puppy-eyed admiring stare. And by the gods, was she smart…they all were considered to be geniuses, but the other three all admitted she had the sharpest mind of them all. Noticing the looks now all the others were giving her, she spoke in a musical voice that would have made anyone looking for someone to play an angel in a Christmas play cry from happiness.
"Three hundred and seventy six to four hundred and ten." She looked at the younger man and said, "Sorry, but you're slipping behind." She then winked at him and gave him a look that clearly said "You might be loosing, but I still love you".
The last of the four, an older lady wearing a brown-and-yellow dress, spoke to the older man in a motherly voice that was a bit shaky from holding back the laughter. You could tell from a mile away that she had a warm temperament of someone used to see the best in every person.
"Now that we have established his lineage," he nodded towards the younger man, "what about his suggestion? I have to admit it, it sounds interesting."
"No. Not with this. This shall be exactly as planned." The older man said in a serious voice allowing no compromise. "If he's so much into the 'leaning' stuff, he can do it at his manor in…Pisa, wasn't it? I'm sorry dear lady, I know you want everyone to feel good and every idea to find acceptance, but this" and he nodded towards what they had just created "will be just as we planned - perfect."
"That's fine," the younger man spoke up, "and thanks for the idea, by the way! I'll be sure to come up with something suitably extravagant next time I'll visit my place in Pisa!"
"You sure you can do it alone? Why not ask your lady to help you? You might just push it over instead of making it 'lean' without her help!" the old wizard joked, looking at the two younger people of the four.
"Hey! Not fair hitting the one on the ground already!" the young man said indignantly.
"I don't hit them, I use them as rugs." The older came back with a quick reply.
"What?" the other asked, sure he was missing something.
"Three hundred and seventy six to four hundred and eleven," the raven-haired beauty remarked. "But enough of this…I personally would like to take a nice hot shower after what we've been just through, and then proceed to the last, most important part of our creation."
The younger man hugged the woman close and kissed her. "I totally agree with the shower, but please," she gave her another kiss "do tell me, what exactly do you mean with the 'most important part'?"
"Students, of course, my dear!" She kissed him back, "Students…" and gazed fondly at the creation the four had just finished - a huge castle with many straight and tall towers that was to become the best school for witchcraft and wizardry, ever.
"Oh, that!" the young man exclaimed. "Well, you all will be glad to know that I already have my first lesson planned!"
"What!? Really!?" the older man looked rather surprised. "What's it going to be then?" he asked, giving the other man a suspicious stare.
"Can't you guess? I thought you were my best friend!" he told in a loud voice, trying very hard to sound wounded and offended. "I thought we had an almost telepathic understanding with each-other!"
"Well, I'm a fairly good Legilimens, would that count?" the older one never missed a beat, throwing the ball right back to the other. That finally made the two women laugh out loud and announced a break in the game…till the next dawn.
"Awww, Sleazy, there's a cruel and nasty side in you I've never noticed before," the younger man muttered under his breath as the four friends walked forward to have a closer look at their creation.
The older man looked back at him then and asked, "So, what's the lesson about, anyway? Ladies? Ladies and charms? Or ladies and transfiguration? No-no-no! I know! Ladies and the defense against the dark arts of modesty!"
The ladies and the older man were again laughing at the best 'offended' expression to date the younger man had managed to conjure.
"While your idea, my esteemed colleague, certainly holds a lot of appeal, I must inform you that you're mistaken. My first lessons will be about something entirely different!" he also to his pride managed to give an indignant sniff, then pulled an old pointy hat from one of his pockets. "Please observe!"
The other three were now focused on their companion, wondering what was coming next. The younger man turned the hat upside down and with a theatrical move, stuck his hand inside it. When the hand was halfway in, there was suddenly a sharp click that made the three onlookers jump. The hand was quickly withdrawn, and it now had a mousetrap attached to it. The public burst into laughter while the owner of the hand got rid of the nasty contraption.
"Sorry, that never happened before!" he said in an embarrassed voice. "Give me a moment." He turned the hat over and started shaking it. Out of it fell…three mice ("Oh, right, those bloody rodents!" the young man muttered loudly enough to be heard over the laughter and gave the discarded mousetrap a good kick), a cat (who ran after the mice), a broom, a grandfather clock and a sword. The young man have the hat a half-hearted last shake, then turned to the others who were on the verge of tears and doubling over from the laughter.
"I'm terribly sorry, but it seems like I'm out of rabbits," he said in an apologizing tone.
"All right! Enough! That was well worth at least ten points, I admit it!" the older wizard managed to say through the gasps for breath. "Now lets finally go INSIDE the bloody thing. And by the way…I think I just had a rather brilliant idea based on our scorekeeping. I think you're going to love this one…"
"Good!" the younger man exclaimed and was about to put his hand on his friends shoulder when something moving in one of the older man's robes pockets caught his eye. "Holy! Sleazy! Not another of your usual pets, please!" He sounded a bit appalled.
"Oh no! Absolutely not! This is something quite different altogether! I just need to come up with a suitable use for it…" The older man replied, his gaze glassy as if he was exploring the possible versions of the future and the part his latest, most unique pet, would have in it. Maybe it could even 'take care' of his young friends extremely annoying feathered pet, because so far all his plots to remove the bothersome creature had been unsuccessful, the old man was privately musing.
"You and your 'suitable uses'!" the young man sighed. "I bet you could find a 'suitable use' even for this!" He held out his old hat he had just used for the performance.
"My young friend, you have no idea!" his friend answered with a wicked grin.
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Several years later the two youngest of the original four friends were having a very different conversation in one of the private study rooms set aside for the creators, hidden from the rest of the school. Hidden so well, in fact, that even the ghost, who could just drift through the walls, had no idea of its existence. The castle had attracted a fair share of them and had even managed to produce a few of its own - which was exactly the topic of the discussion between the two finding place in one late evening. The still quite young-looking man was pacing angrily around the study, the young woman sitting in a chair by the fireplace and looking at the man with worried eyes.
"I can't believe he would - could - do something like this!" the young man said angrily. "When he left, babbling about his pureblood mania, I thought he was going to take it slow for a time, calm down and …" A pained expression flashed across his face and he could almost feel the tears of loss, anger and extreme disappointment that would come any moment now. "That bastard! When I find him, I'm going to blow him to pieces!" he added in a deep growl, sounding like a lion about to jump and pounce on his unsuspecting victim.
"Don't be stupid!" the woman shouted. "Yes, you have the most experience among us in fighting monsters, others like us and…stuff!" she yelled at him, on the verge of crying, too. "But he KNOWS you so well! Your ability to use wandless magic, your most effective spells, maneuvers AND your weaknesses - he KNOWS them all!" She looked at him, so afraid that if he went to battle their former friend, she was never going to see him again, hear his voice again, feel his lips…
"Well, I KNOW him well, too, and that is going to be the end of him," the young man answered, stopping before the chair, crouching down, taking the woman's hands into his and bringing them to his lips. "You know those kids were more than just students for me - they were friends, almost family. That's why we call the students in our care a 'House'. And that's why I'm going to kill that snake-loving cold-blooded bastard. If I don't, then who?" he asked with a smile, drawing a short laugh from the woman and a smile.
"You take your bloody titles way too seriously, mister 'Lionheart', or was it the 'Last Protector'? And what about the 'Dragonrider' last year?" the woman asked with an involuntary smile.
"A little bit of both, and a whole lot more, including - according to a rather passionate dark-haired beauty - 'Mister Love-" he never managed to finish saying it before the woman drew his head down for a passionate kiss, then pushed him back a step and glared at him.
"I swear that if you are ever going to tell anyone what I called you during my moment of…"
"Passion, love, lust, ecstasy?" the young man was there to help her find the correct words.
"Weakness," the woman finished in a furious, low tone, "I'm going to curse your handsome ass into oblivion!"
"Love you too, dear…" the man answered and gave her another kiss that took her breath away. "But still, I can't let the matter go. I can't even tell you what all I felt when I missed two students in my class today and then found one of them floating around in the dungeons…as a ghost." He finished in a whisper. "If Patrick hadn't found the courage and strength to…"he swallowed hard, "remain behind, we never would've found out."
"Did you even think about what he told us?" There was a note of fear in her voice. "If it's true he invented an unstoppable killing curse…" she shuddered at the thought, "then any battle with him will prove to be short, fatal and quickly over! I can't see the point in throwing away your life when there's no chance of winning!" she pleaded with him.
"That's where you're mistaken, my love. It's not throwing away my life that I'm famous for, it's winning against all odds. I'm sure something will happen that will give me an edge over th- AH BUGGER!" he suddenly screamed and fell on the floor.
The lady jumped up with a desperate scream, quickly looking around for the source of the attack…but there was nothing. He carefully stepped to the man and looked at him.
"Love, are you all right?" she asked. She saw him open his blue eyes and give her a wink, then he groaned something.
"What did you say?" she asked.
"Really hate divination…" came the reply in a weak voice. She couldn't help but laugh at that. She knew he got occasional 'visions' - prophecies, if you'd like, but they usually didn't happen when you needed them. Heck, he could be hanging a hundred meters above the ground, begging for one that would tell you to count to ten, then let go because there will be a friendly hippogriff flying past at exactly that moment, and get…absolutely nothing. And then there are the ones you DO get, mostly about the time you try to enjoy the company of a certain raven-haired beauty, in private and butt-naked. They both agreed that those were their least favorites.
"Want to tell me about it?"
"Amor vincit omnia…" - love conquers all - like most 'educated' people of the time, she knew Latin quite well. Or if you asked him, she knew Latin well enough to edit Cesar's speeches to fix the grammatical errors.
"Uhh…You're supposed to snog him to death?"
"Ahh, thank you, that was exactly the mental image I was looking for my entire life!" he called back, still lying on the floor. "But no, that wasn't it." He stood up and shook his head to clear it. "That reminds me something…" he muttered.
And with a snap of his fingers he disappeared.
"What?!" she looked shocked. She had a good reason, too. They all had agreed that there will be an enchantment preventing anyone from apparating inside the school and so it was done. "Bastard," she muttered. "Never had any respect for rules - man-made, magical or otherwise. Wonder where he went?"
She quickly left the private chambers and hurried to the office the young man had always used. She entered the room, looking for him, but it was empty, save for the young man's pet, his 'second great love' as he called it. She went to his desk to see if there's a note or something…anything. And there was. On a piece of parchment, written in his hasty handwriting was what she assumed to be the prophecy. It was indeed - in the rhymed, mystical nonsense style they all seemed to come.
"Four will…" she quickly scanned the first sentence. The first piece fell into place in her mind. It was indeed about them. She cast a quick glance at the pet - a beautiful and rare bird. The bird was…"One kills…" crying.
There have been many philosophical discussions about the subject of breaking hearts. Most of them are about if there is a sound when a heart is instantly broken into million pieces and if it can be heard. The true answer is - there is, and it can be. It's rather like a whisper and sounds like…
"No!"
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The dark dungeon he had dug in the swamp was his new home, study and stronghold. Additionally, it provided him with many, many spies that most intruders wouldn't even notice, wouldn't expect, wouldn't watch out for until it was too late. After all, snakes were the natural inhabitants of swamps.
It wasn't really a surprise when his spies informed him of a young man making his way towards his stronghold. He had expected it the moment he saw the white, transparent form of a ghost appearing above one of his victims… No, he reminded himself. Not victims - test subjects. They should have been honored. They were the first to be on the receiving end of his latest invention - the unstoppable killing curse, the years-long product of his research, his greatest achievement and mightiest weapon. It took just two words to render even the mightiest opponent to his basic components - flesh and blood lacking a soul.
"So the arrogant fool thinks his luck will protect him against the curse?" The old man laughed aloud, a high-pitched laugh that would have sent a cold shudder through any warm-blooded creature. "Kill him!" he ordered his spies.
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The young man storming through the dark stronghold was paying close attention to his surroundings. There was plenty of evidence of the dark nature of it's inhabitants - stuffed creatures in one room, jars of various 'stuff' that made him feel sick in another and a dead house elf in the third.
"Poor buggers… Told 'em to grow a backbone and hex his ass off, but 'No, master! We are good elves! We cannot disobey our master!'," the young invader muttered.
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He had to admit - he was surprised that the young man had gone down so quickly. He hadn't even managed to get to his inner sanctum to confront him directly. What a miserable last performance from the 'great hero' of the common folk. He used to be so jovial, so full of life. And now - he was just dead. At his feet.
"Well-well!" he gloated at the body. "No more jokes? No more laughs? Not even a single punch-line?"
The body suddenly rolled to his feet and putting all the strength of the momentum into an uppercut that lifted the other out of his sandals.
"How's that for a punch-line?" the young man, quite alive, asked the older one in an icy tone. The older man was lying on his back quite a distance from his sandals he noticed with a satisfaction. With any luck he'd broken the bastards jaw, making him unable to utter another curse. Then, suddenly, the body disappeared. "Oh well, I knew it wouldn't be over that easy…" he muttered. In fact, he knew it would not be easy at all. He knew exactly how this was going to end. Badly. 'Badly' sucks, he thought.
He instinctively sidestepped a curse that drilled a neat smoking hole in the wall where he had just been standing and shot off one of his own. He wasn't really aiming at him - he knew he wouldn't hit, he was just putting on a good show. 'Still, it's a nice, cozy blaze' he admitted, watching his fireball consume the bastards books, research notes and who knows what other precious belongings. 'If I'm going down hard, might as well enjoy myself!'
Through all the cursing, jinxing, counterspelling and dispelling the two managed to hold another battle - one they had started a long time ago. It was a battle of wills and wits, and this, they knew, was the last scene of it. It was a battle each wanted to win more desperately than the battle of spells for the spells were merely the physical manifestations of their wills. It was a battle where winner takes all. It was a battle with no price for the second place.
"So, come to avenge your pathetic little mudbloods?" the older man asked as he shot off his first spell.
"I told you that this 'pureblood' mania of yours will be the end of you," his opponent answered, sidestepping the curse and throwing off a spell of his own. "Just didn't expect it to me who will be finishing you off."
With rage born from watching his precious books and research notes, not to mention research equipment worth a dragons hoard, burning to ashes he screamed another spell at the arrogant fool. "You think you can defeat me?! I have an unstoppable curse that will kill you in a heartbeat!"
"Well, why not use it then?" he asked calmly, changing the giant black snake flying at his face to a flock of butterflies.
"I'd rather have your death long, painful and full of suffering!" the older one replied. It was a cold, cruel and arrogant voice his opponent noticed. He wondered if it had always been such and he never noticed. He DID notice another curse flying his way and decided it was best not to stand in its way.
"Oh no! Please! Not another one of your lectures!" the young man laughed at his face, suddenly apparating in front of his enemy and threw another punch at his face. That long, crooked nose of his was a rather inviting target. And it made a nice crunching sound as his fist connected with it. 'A rather good one,' he thought. 'Worth at least another ten points if I do say so myself'.
"Fine," the older man said in a cold voice and apparated to a safe distance. "You want it quick, I'll give you quick…for old times sake." He pointed at the young man.
"Ah, good! I hate long goodbyes!" the young man managed to reply before the final curse was uttered. The end was near. It was his time.
"AVADA KEDAVRA!" the old man screamed and there was a green explosion of light.
The young man gently slid to the ground. His face was still smiling. He had won.
"The fool," the old man sighed, watching at the smile. "Didn't even realize he had already lost." And then…
There was a sudden 'crack' and a young raven-haired woman appeared next to the dead man. Without even thinking the old man screamed out the curse again. 'Good,' he thought with satisfaction, 'no loose ends.' And suddenly he was very much afraid, for she was smiling, and the smile was telling him exactly what he himself had said just a moment ago. And then his masterpiece - the unstoppable curse - rebounded and his soul was torn from his body and cast into a dark place.
With tears replacing the smile she looked at the young man and saw his smile. It displayed mischief, courage, strength - and above all else - love.
The End….
…of the Prologue.