TG - Harry Potter and the Descendent Covenant 6

“Lily my dear, I understand your situation, I truly do. However it would be most unfair for me to order a Hogwarts teacher to apologise for their actions, despite their severity, in cases where a student has not been harmed. While the usage of a stunning jinx was employed, I think we can both give Professor Snape some significant leeway. After all, it was within his classroom that your transformation occurred, he’s not been the same since.”

She knew he was right, listening to Dumbledore’s words echo about the cavernous office he hid himself away in.

“He hasn’t?” she said, beginning to wonder if something was wrong.

“Not since he saw what you’ve become. To divulge the whole story is Severus’ job, and Severus’ alone, but I can tell you this. He blames himself for what has happened to you.”

Lily realised that there might have been more going on in that lesson than she’d at first believed. Snape frequently took his anger out on other students, but when he’d stopped at her for a demonstration, there was barely any hesitation before he moved on. She’d been freaking out, and couldn’t even perform a basic spell, but he’d said nothing.

“Why can’t you tell the the full story Professor?” Lily asked, trying to change the subject somewhat.

Dumbledore shifted about in his chair, and then took a sip from his goblet. They both reacted simultaneously to his beard becoming stained with red wine. He shrugged, used a part of his robes to clean the hairs, and then leant in.

“The truth is Lily, I don’t know the whole story.”

She looked away, a little unsatisfied.

“But you’ll have all the time in the world to discuss it with him tonight when you show up for detention.”
Lily crumpled like a pile of rags. She had almost thought that the detention would at least be absolved, emotions were high, and both of them had acted out of turn.

“But Professor-!”

“No buts Lily, you’ll show up right on time for whatever punishment Severus has in mind, and you’ll not argue any longer, this decision is out of my hands… and you don’t want to anger him into more detention do you?”

“That’s true.”

“Then we’re in agreement. Fantastic!” Dumbledore took another sip of wine, and then repeated the process of removing it from his beard with the very tops of his now stained robes. “Is there anything else you were wanting to see me about Lily?”

She thought for a moment, the accident had only happened a few nights before, but she was already finding it less and less likely to feel sorry for herself about it. This was being replaced by a thirst for knowledge and finding the perpetrators.

“Sir, I was wondering-“

“About the necklace? Yes, it would be odd for you not to be. We’ve had the aurors all over it, as well as myself, Severus, and Professor McGonagall and there are no immediate signs as to the origin of the curses, never mind even what they were. This is old magic Lily, older than we had at first thought. We don’t know exactly the circumstances of how or why the necklace was made, but it was certainly before your time, and before mine too no doubt. But I do have a few ideas of my own”

Lily wasn’t sure what she was hearing.

“So… This wasn’t made by Voldemort?”

The words hung in the air, like they weren’t meant to be.

“Voldemort? Lily? What makes you think this was the work of Voldemort?”

She shrugged.

“I don’t know, it just seems like the kind of thing that he would do. I mean we’ve not seen hide not hair of him since my second year, he must have been planning something in all this time.”

Dumbledore considered the words carefully, and while he did pick up his glass of wine once again, he did not feel it necessary to actually drink from it. His thoughts were muddled, and focusing on holding the cup helped him focus.

“It hadn’t occurred to me, Lily, that his might be the work of Voldemort, but then again you very well might be right, you have before. In the beginning though, his plans were only ever for eternal life, to escape death and so on, therefore I find it hard to believe that his priorities will have changed so much that they focus on changing your gender.”

Lily bit her lip, and shifted about in her chair. It was uncomfortable, but everything in Dumbledore’s office was uncomfortable, it was his way of making sure that no one lingered longer than they absolutely needed to.

“Rather, there is a story I thought I might relate to you. There is no connection to Voldemort I’m afraid, and it is most likely apocryphal, but sooner or later Miss Grainger will no doubt stumble on it anyway. Would you like to hear it?”
“Of course Professor.”

“Then I’ll begin, though I must warn you there is a preamble, and it may get tiresome in the telling.”

Lily didn’t look too bothered with that suggestion.

“The story I’m about to tell is not one you will find on your ordinary household bookshelf Lily, nor is it featured in the restricted section of our own school library. The story I’m about to tell is not a whole story, it is something that has been cobbled together over the years from here-say, rumour, gossip, myth, and legend, but I think there is at least a grain of truth located somewhere within. The story I’m about to tell concerns not just your transformation, but also the beginnings of the wizarding world itself.”

The room was suddenly quite a bit darker, and the fire burning quite a bit more brightly, extending shadows and glinting off Dumbledore’s signature spectacles. It was as if the school itself knew that what was about to be told was that bit more important than the rest of the information delivered.

“It had spent me almost my entire career as a wizard to assemble this, and I do not tell it lightly, you must not speak a word of it beyond these walls, aside from to the ones you truly trust, because the rest of them won’t believe a word of it. It’s a tale a damn sight older than myself, despite my considerable age, it’s a tale older than anyone else alive, it’s a tale older than the school we’re sitting in. It’s just about as old as anything can be. Discounting any further adieu, I believe I can actually begin: the tale of the Descendent Covenant.”

Lily made sure she was comfortable, and Dumbledore refilled her glass.

“While Hogwarts is proud to be the oldest running wizarding school in the world, we are careful not to say the oldest wizarding school definitively, because that would be inaccurate, though would certainly gain us considerably more tourist exposure over the summer months. No, in fact, it could be said that the dawn of wizardry, and the dawn of wizard schooling, are inexorably intertwined.

Yes. I see you’re having trouble understanding that, but hopefully I can illuminate. There had to be a first wizard didn’t there? There are no magical animals after all. We may have evolved from a species not completely unlike apes, but if you put a wand in their hands you find there are none who can cast a spell. Magic and humanity are linked together in a strange way, but I digress. There had to be a first wizard, and there was indeed a first wizard, and then a second wizard and so on. Notice I haven’t said witch, but more about that later.

While his name is lost to time, the first wizard discovered his powers around the times of the earliest Egyptian pharaohs, but he himself came from the rugged plains of northern Russia. I’m going to call him Victor, because I’ve always been a fan of that particular name. He was the first to discover his powers, and was in fact, the first to actually have powers, the first human who could manipulate the latent magic in the air around him. And so Victor travelled the world, performing great feats, sinking certain islands beneath the ocean, building gigantic buildings that still stand today, if you know where to look, one of them being the great refinery of information that at the time was called Ignis, an enormous palace carved from living rock, which was both his home and his work. But there was no point having a school to teach when he was the only one who could be instructed.

Then something changed, there came to be another wizard, someone else who was equally capable of using the energy of the universe in the way we know know as magic. He was a boy, around your age, named Amelin, we know that much is true. The story goes that Victor was travelling through the skies as a great eagle when he came upon Amelin, who was burning wood with fire emanating only from his own cloak. Victor was so intrigued, he negotiated the purchase of the boy from his parents, who gave their only son away willingly.

They started off on their relationship in a particularly treacherous way. With Victor already an older man, the younger wizard lacked discipline, nor the patience to be taught. It was only with great effort that they formed a bond, and soon became student and master, both learning from each other, and growing in skill day after day after day.

Their power was great, greater than any wizard could hope to achieve, with the magical field spread so thin, being used by every one of us. Can you imagine what it would be like to control the power of half of all magic? To wield it alone?”

Lily burst back up, she’d been enjoying the story so much that far that she was starting to slip off into sleep.

“I suppose I can’t headmaster.”

“You’re supposition is correct. How they managed is beyond comprehension, but at the same time, they did it. This absurd concentration of magic allowed Victor a very extended lifespan, and he waited for the day that a female magic wielder would be born into the world, one with which he could share his seed, and begin a family. Decades passed, centuries passed, and still there was only Victor and Amelin, no more, no less. Not even another wizard was born, never mind a witch.

This worried them. The purity of wizard blood did not come into question within the last few years, as some have thought, rather it existed right at the beginning, and neither Victor, nor Amelin wanted to risk non magical children. Only Victor conceived of a plan that his apprentice would certainly not have been a part of willingly.

He thrust his power into booby trapping the whole of the fortress itself, transmuting his energy into impregnating almost every object he could conceive of Amelin using with a curse that would do his bidding.”

“You mean he-“

“That’s right, rather than patiently waiting for a witch to be born, or to lay with a muggle, he transformed his only friend, and apprentice into a bride for himself. Of course Amelin clambered out of his bed in the morning, and wiped the sleep from his eyes, possibly drank a glass of water, exactly as you or I would have. But there would have been one article that would have been filled with dark magic, and soon, at some point, Amelin would have succumbed to it. The histories that followed this event are unclear, but what is certain is this. Ameli, as she came to be known, birthed for Victor thirteen wizard children, who in turn birthed him hundreds of grandchildren, and so on and so on. We are all descended from the first two, increasingly diluted of course, but nevertheless containing both the blood of Victor, and his pupil, come lover, Ameli.”

Lily was still focusing on a detail the Professor had mentioned earlier.

“So you think the necklace was one of these booby trapped items from Ignis? From thousands of years ago?”

Dumbledore shrugged.

“It’s not certain, but it’s a damn good story isn’t it?”

“Apart from the part where Amelin fell in love with Victor.”

“You’re right to feel scared in this new situation Harry, but love is love, and from the sounds of things, Ameli must have felt it so to have bore Victor thirteen children. Ah-“

He checked his watch.

“Five o’ clock! I can’t believe I’ve kept you so long, what will Severus say? Run along, run along.”

He pushed Lily to her feet, and right out of the door, despite the protestations and continued questions of the black haired girl who struggled against him. Lily soon found herself once again on the winding staircase back down into the castle, feeling the air rush up against her skirt in quite an unnerving manner. While thoughts of returning to her dormitory early did plague her mind, she was resolute in accepting her punishment, and she stalked off toward the dungeons, trying not to think too much about the fact that Amelin’s fate may turn out to be very much her own.