Chapter XVII

NOTT FAMILY SOULS CLAIMED IN WIZENGAMOT CHAMBER Ancient Court Magic Strikes During Trial

In a scene that has left the wizarding world stunned, the Nott family faced final judgement yesterday in the Wizengamot. Mr. Nott and his son Theodore Nott stood accused of wartime crimes including sheltering Death Eaters, supplying cursed artefacts used in civilian murders, and attempted corruption of Ministry officials during the final months of the conflict.

Minister Sheraldov himself presided. After the evidence was presented and no defence could sway the chamber, he invoked what officials now describe only as "the ancient magic embedded in this historic court."

What followed defied explanation.

A deep rumble shook the domed ceiling. Runes long thought decorative flared bright white. One by one, luminous threads of light tore from the chests of the accused, beginning with the son. Theodore Nott hung suspended for a heartbeat, his hands grasping at air, before the thread snapped free and spiralled into a vortex above the centre of the chamber. The father went last, his thicker darker thread joining the swirling mass before the vortex collapsed with a soft implosion that rattled every portrait on the walls.

The bodies remained standing for several seconds, chests still, faces slack and peaceful, before collapsing in a heap. No blood. No wounds. Only empty shells.

Minister Sheraldov addressed the chamber immediately after.

"Justice has been served. Swift. Unerring. The ancient safeguard of this court does not err. It sees the rot that mortal eyes might miss. The Notts carried the stain of their choices, and those choices have now been answered in full."

He continued, voice calm and deliberate.

"Were the Death Eaters kind to our children? Did they hesitate when they cursed the young at Hogwarts, when they hunted Muggle-born families through Diagon Alley, when they left parents to bury sons and daughters who never came home? No. The chamber's old magic has simply done what the law, in its mercy, could not always achieve. Let this be the final warning: guilt finds no refuge, not in time, not in silence, not behind family name or vaulted wealth."

Public reaction flooded the Prophet's owl post within hours. Selected letters appear below.

From a Hogsmeade mother whose son died at the Battle of Hogwarts: "The Notts helped make that night possible. If the courtroom itself reached out and took their children first, then perhaps the old magic remembers better than we do. Sheraldov has given us balance at last."

From an anonymous Diagon Alley shopkeeper: "Where was mercy when my niece was hexed into St Mungo's for life? The chamber did what trials never could. Let it keep working."

From a former Order member who lost family to Death Eater raids: "Starting with the young hurts to watch, but evil grows in houses like theirs. Better the Þing, or whatever name we dare not speak, ends the line now than lets another generation rise. The Minister speaks truth. The old wards woke for a reason."

Ministry spokeswizards stressed that the event was contained within the chamber's historic enchantments. No entity left the room. No curse spread beyond the trial. The safeguard, they insist, remains dormant until deliberately invoked again.

The Nott bodies have been removed to a secure location for examination. The family manor stands sealed.

The wizarding world waits to see whose name will next be called before the ancient court.

---

"They're all loving it!" Said Hermione, with a deeply disturbed expression on her face. She laid the newspaper flat on the kitchen table, starring at Sheraldov's satisfied silver eyes.

"Can you blame them?"

"Of course I can! They're even taking the children of death eaters Harry! How long before they start killing the ones below the legal age?"

"Theodore wasn't any younger than us, and the death eaters killed many children."

"That doesn't make this right! You can't possibly support this."

"No, but I'm not saying that I don't understand it either."

"How can you possibly understand the murder of children?" And before Harry could interrupt, she continued "And I don't care whose children were those!"

"Hermione I'm not saying that the children of death eaters should get executed alongside their parents. I'm saying that I can understand wanting vengeance. Just imagine you're a mother whose only son was cursed to death, or worst, cursed to a life in St Mungo's. Would you show mercy to the children of the caster?"

"I don't know." She said in an uncertain undertone. "But I know that the cycle of violence must be broken."

"Which allows for the recycling of violence in no more than a generation's time?"

"It doesn't have to be like that."

"So you're talking about a national reconciliation? Or some kind of granted amnesty?"

"Exactly. Street justice is not a solution. The society needs to be patched up, not torn to further pieces."

"This is not street justice, there is court, a judge and a jury..."

"You know very well that there is not! There is only Sheraldov and his monster."

"Well I'm not entirely sold on the concept of a national reconciliation, it doesn't work. When people are hurt, wounded and grieving and angry, they need an outlet so that the society can even begin to fantasize about peace."

"So you think a purge is just?"

"I don't know. I wouldn't say so to that extent. But I do know that the anger has to go somewhere. At least this is what the history teaches us."

"What history would that be? The history of uncivilized barbaric slaughter of anyone who disagrees with you?"

"Hermione death eaters do more than just disagree."

"I know that. But when they don't have any power or autonomy, then what does it matter what believes they have?

"So you'd have them grow and fester in the underworld until the next time they can rally? That cycle never ends!"

"Just look at the recent revolutions in the world, they all put the high ranking officials on trial, and pardoned the rest. They were soldiers who followed orders, what were they supposed to do? Disobey direct orders and get court marshalled and executed by the same oppressors?"

"Fantastic." Said Harry sarcastically. "So now rapists and murderer's are victims?"

"Is it any less than what you testified for the Malfoys?"

"That was different, the Malfoys really did help us. Draco did, and so did Narcissa."

"And that forgives rape and murder and muggle torture?"

"It does not! I testified against those too, I asked for punishment, justly and lawfully, but I wouldn't throw them to the dementors, or that þing."

"But its alright for the Notts?"

"No Hermione why are you pretending to be deaf! I said I get it, that's all! If my children were killed by Theodore Nott, I'd want his entire bloodline burnt to ash. I'd even dig up his grandparents and burn their bones too."

"With that logic, what the Bolsheviks did to the Romanovs was just another afternoon?"

"The Romanovs were officially executed due to the angry mob's that spontaneously killed the tsarists. Bolsheviks offered amnesties to White Army defectors and tsarists officials during the Civil War, but that very act sparked the angry people to rise up and take justice into their own hands."

"That's exactly my point."

"No that's my point! Under a weak regime that wants everyone to hug and kiss in Jesus name after mopping the streets from their children's blood, people take action. What happened to the Romanovs happened because of weak administration and an idiotic attempt at quenching people's thirst for blood."

Harry had to admit that it was such a relief to be able to discuss the larger world with Hermione so easily. After all they had both grew up in the muggle world, took muggle lessons and learned about a world that wizarding children never did. Hermione's knowledge of history was impressive. It ranked much higher than school history. Perhaps she had picked up a book or two in the past few months, after everything that had been happening.

"No that is false. Yakov Yurovsky ordered the regicide of the Romanovs under explicit order from Lenin after his assassination attempt. They wanted to erase all symbols of the old regime."

"The assassination attempt was a month later. That is irrelevant."

"It is-as I said-also irrelevant to the mob problem. It was a calculated act of regicide. So you're wrong, and I have to double check that assassination date."

"Be that as it may, your idealistic perspective fails to clasp the reality of any revolution. Does it hold for the French Reign of Terror?"

"It does work for post-apartheid South Africa or post-WWII denazification in Germany."

"That wasn't my question."

"Just because of poor execution, it doesn't mean that my ideals are naive."

"Poor execution? Hermione who are you trying to fool? How can something so deeply flawed be executed properly! If anything amnesties coexisted with purges, showing reconciliation was selective and often a tool for control rather than genuine healing."

"Alright, I have to agree to that-which just yanks us back to the execution issue-but Sheraldov's methods go far beyond even Bolshevik extremes in scale. It risks creating martyrs and endless cycles of resentment, much like unchecked purges historically did."

"Martyrs! The death eaters?!"

"Yes Harry martyrs! How long do you think people will go with it because they were death eaters? At some point people will be more concerned about the reckless bloodshed than their own need for vengeance."

"I don't believe it. You're actually turning into a death eater apologist!"

"Then are you becoming a Sheraldov apologist?"

"Reintegration and social reconciliation are inherently naive and idealistic, and there is no room for such weak sentiments when people have just buried their 11 year olds!"

"Harry ideals of breaking violence cycles are not automatically naive, they just require realistic mechanisms, not blind mercy or total annihilation. The wizarding world's anger needs channelling through fair trials, not a magical purge that turns justice into a sadistic spectacle."

"Tell that to a weeping mother and see if she'll take it."

"But we are not weeping mothers! We can see reason, we can see what's good in the long run."

"You exhaust me with your blind ideals." Harry rose from the chair and made to leave.

"You are blinded by hatred!" She shouted after him.

---

Ron woke to the same cold that had claimed him the night before. Snow had fallen again in the dark hours, a thin fresh layer that coated the surrounding grounds. The Stonehenge was as dry as it was last night. Somehow Ron hadn't even realized that there was no snow on the stone structure. The platform beneath him no longer felt warm as the night before, yet he had slept deeper there than anywhere else since leaving Grimmauld Place. He still had nightmares, but he felt strongly indifferent towards them. Only a heavy blankness, like someone had pressed a palm over his thoughts and held them still.

He sat for a long minute listening to the forest breathe. Branches shifted overhead with small deliberate sounds. Somewhere far off a raven called once, twice, then fell silent. The other platforms waited in their places, half buried now under white.

His stomach growled. He had several cakes and fruits left. Supplies would run thin soon.

As he rubbed his temples to shake off the lingering haze of sleep, and noticed movement high in the branches above him. The white owl perched there, its bright blue eyes fixed on him with an intensity that felt almost human. He recalled the transformation from the night before, and a mix of curiosity and wariness stirred within him. Before he could speak, the owl spread its wings and glided down, landing gracefully on the edge of the platform. In a shimmer of feathers and light, it shifted back into the form of the old man, his brown cloak wrapping around him like a second skin.

Ron met the stare. "Back again."

"You slept easier."

"Yeah I suppose." Said Ron, scrambling to his feet. Pine needles stuck to the knees of his trousers in damp clumps. He brushed them off absently. The motion sent fresh pinpricks through his chilled fingers.

"You chose the observer's stand. You could watch your dreams, couldn't you?"

"Yeah, I just watched them happen like a spectator. Didn't make them any more pleasant though."

"Of course not."

"So that one's the observer's stone," He pointed at the podium he just rose from. Moss clung to its edges in thin green lines. "What are the rest?"

"The Oblation," The old man pointed at the right-most podium. Morning light caught the shallow rune carved into its face, making it gleam like wet ink. "The Hunter." He pointed at the one facing south, where wind had sculpted fallen leaves into soft drifts against its base. "And the Observer," He pointed back at Ron.

"Oblation?" Ron repeated vaguely.

"The victim."

"So this thing is for a trinity ritual."

"Indeed, you are smarter than you look. You pretend to stumble upon this place on a hunch, but your intellect brought you here."

"You know about trinity?"

"Very few do."

"I don't know about that. It seems like everyone knows about it."

"It is not forbidden knowledge. Those who fight darkness eventually learn about it."

'Like Bill' Ron thought to himself. "Who are you?" He asked.

"Does it matter? I mean you no harm."

"You tracked me since I got here."

"You were hard to miss. Specially with that explosion."

"Do you live here?"

"I frequent it. I find these woods riddled with sorrow. With the anguish of generations of men who sought themselves and found a different man."

Ron paused for a moment. The wind moved high in the branches, a low steady hiss like distant water. Sunlight filtered through the canopy in thin pale shafts, warming the stone platforms just enough. "I don't have time for philosophical riddles." He said not impolitely.

"What do you know about trinity?"

"I know that it fucked me up good."

"Did it really?" The old man asked curiously.

"Why does it matter?"

"Because trinity unleashes the truth, it doesn't hurt, nor does it take, unless the taking is through volition, or from giving."

"I might have missed the instructions then." Said Ron sarcastically as he reached into his bag for his water flask, shook it and found it empty. He tossed the flask away. It fell unto the stone with a dull clank and rolled away, coming to rest against the base of the hunter podium.

"I need to get going. I should find water. That lake, its sweet water right?"

The old man produced his costrel and uncorked it. Hot steam rose from the spout in lazy curls, carrying the scent of slow-simmered meat and unfamiliar herbs across the morning air. He offered it to Ron.

"Here, drink, its better than water."

"What is it?" But even as he asked that, he could smell the hot broth, carried by the gentle breeze.

He took the costrel, and drank despite himself. Warm liquid coated his throat, heat quickly spread through his chest and stomach, and he felt a strange calm, like a sense of relief that seemed unearned. He sat on the platform behind him, and took another gulp. The broth was smooth and even against his palette. It tasted like meatloafs and herbs, as well as spices he could not detect. It soothed his mind as well as the aching hunger in his chest.

"Damn, what is this stuff?" He asked before drinking even more.

"You can have all of it, I brought it for you. Its an old recipe, my father used to make it whenever I was sick."

"My mother is an awesome cook, but this is even beyond her cooking."

"I never knew my mother." The old man said, and even though his tone wasn't sad, Ron could pick-up the hurt in it.

"I'm sorry about that."

"Such is life," The old man gave a half-shrug. "You cannot miss what you never had."

"This is great! Thanks, err, I don't know your name." Ron wiped his mouth on his sleeve.

"I'm Gerald."

"I'm Ron. Ron Weasley."

"Of course you are." The man smiled and sat across him on the opposite edge of the stone circle. The structure was surrounded by snow, but the sun warmed the stones enough that faint heat rose in thin shimmering waves from the colourful labradorite.

"Its the hair, isn't it?" Ron asked half-irritated.

"Only Weasleys can produce such orange hair. Though you might be the first Weasley I've seen with a beard." He smiled kindly.

"Yeah I'm not a very good one."

"False. You pulled off a Trinity ritual, didn't you?"

"Well no... Not entirely... Hermione... My gir,-friend, she did most of it." His heart burnt with pain and the familiar hunger as he almost said girl friend.

"Let me enlighten you on the matter of the trinity."

He continued as Ron made no objection. He felt oddly distant from objecting to anything. He sensed an openness that seemed foreign, yet he could not summon any dislike for it.

"Everything in the world exists in threes." The old man spoke with calm authority as if teaching a fundamental truth of existence. His tone carried the weight of ages, as though reciting an ancient law carved into stone.

"The good the bad and the gray between them... Light dark and the twilight that joins them... Father mother and child... Ruler enforcer and subject... Birth life and death... Past present and future... Thesis antithesis and synthesis... Creation preservation and destruction... Desire aversion and indifference... Joy sorrow and the quiet that follows both..."

"The list stretches forever. Trinity forms the very essence of this world both magical and muggle. Everything aligns in threes. The triangle stands as the strongest shape precisely because it rests on three sides. Trinity cannot err. It is impossible for it to fail. It performs what must be done and leaves you to wrestle with its meaning.

"So you're telling me that I had an equal part in the whole thing?"

"Naturally."

"That's...That's not what I felt like..."

"Why?"

"Because it failed. It wasn't supposed to! What happened wasn't supposed to happen! It failed because of me!"

"Failed because of you? Or accelerated to its destination through you?"

"You mean it was supposed to fail?"

"It did not fail Ronald. It cannot fail. You carried your part, as did your friends. The ritual revealed the truth."

"You don't know anything about it."

"I am old Ronald. I have studied these things. I have spent my entire life in pursuit of the truth. I think I know a few things."

"How do I know if I can trust you?"

"You shouldn't. Yet you already have. Trust is for the young, and the pets we adore. You are neither. You are a man. Assess and decide." He smiled encouragingly.

Ron considered for a moment. An old man in the middle of nowhere who knew about soul magic and ancient law was too far fetched. He had followed him since he got to the forest of Dean. He wasn't sure if he was in fighting shape if it came to it, but the old man seemed helpful, and harmless. He was comforted by his presence, even though he scared him as an owl first-he had helped him sleep, and now had fed him. It was a relief knowing that he wasn't alone in these woods. Though he wasn't sure if he could reveal everything to him.

"This stuff is banned by the ministry."

"The ministry? I wouldn't tell them anything. They're not very fond of me."

"Why?"

"The unspeakables keep trying to recruit me. They try every century."

"The unspeakables? One of them is minister now! Did you know? Wait did you say every century?"

"That's right."

"How old are you? You're not telling me that you're immortal are you?"

"Longevity is a side effect of the soul arts, it is a curse really."

"That guy is also supposed to be ancient... The new minister I mean."

"I know..."

"Do you know him? How? Are you a member of the circles?"

"He is my brother."

"No!" Ron gasped in shock.

"I sought you, for I knew that he'd seek you. If I felt the magic that erupted from your ritual, he has as well."

"Then I have to warn them." He stood abruptly.

"They are safe. He'd have no interest in them, for a while."

"How do you know?"

"Because the surge erupted from you. Not them. He seeks power, and the powerful."

"I'm not powerful, Hermione carried out the ritual. She was... So different... Her power was unlike anything I felt from her that night..."

"You underestimate your power, and she, has taken upon herself a transformation that is ought to empower her. She will soon cease to be herself."

"What do you mean?"

"Who was the other in your ritual?"

"My friend Harry."

"And this girl, Hermione was it? Was your girl friend?"

"She was, before she started working on this cursed ritual." He'd have hoped that his slip of tongue had gone unnoticed, but the old man had picked it up.

"She will fuse with him to the extent of forgetting herself. She will be a shadow, a ghost, a wisp in an ever setting night, and all through him."

"How do you know?"

"I don't. Its a guess. But I'm rarely wrong."

"They said this vow of sorts, before drinking..." He hesitated. 'Too far' he thought, he didn't have to know about the blood.

"Mangling blood and soul is dangerous," The old man continued in the same tone, unfazed by the prospect of blood magic. "It was blood wasn't it?"

"Yeah." Ron said bitterly, nothing got past this old fellow it seemed.

"Even so, the ritual would've been carried out the same without it. I understand that you didn't drink, did you?"

"Like hell I would. I'd never take part in such a foul magic."

"A good call overall." He nodded.

"What did you mean by 'the ritual would've carried out the same without it?'"

"People who add a blood pact to trinity, are either slavers, or lesser wizards, trying to secure a connection regardless of the dangers, and the all together repulsive act of drinking blood."

"So you mean it had no effect? It had nothing to do with the soul bond?"

"A blood pact of that nature, would only ensure a binding of fates, not a fusion of essence."

"Can you speak English? You just said she will become a shadow."

"That depends on her strength. It may or may not come to pass."

"She's not weak." Ron said, thinking about 'lesser wizards'. "And she's definitely not a slaver, I have no idea why she insisted on a blood pact... But regardless, I feel like her hatred for me has pushed her more to his side." He paused. "I don't blame her... I would hate me too... Think I already do..." He said more to himself than him. He sat on the cool stone again. His hand pressed to his chest again. Under the pressure he felt a faint warmth pulse once, green light flickering briefly through the gaps between his fingers like veins under skin.

"love can change everything in this."

"I don't know if she loves him... He promised me that he doesn't..."

Gerald lifted his hand. His palm faced upward. Between thumb and forefinger a faint silver thread appeared, spinning slowly like smoke caught in sunlight. The thread thickened, stretched, and opened into a window no bigger than a dinner plate. Inside it the air shimmered and cleared.

Ron rose to his feet. Shaking head to toe yet determined to not look away.

Harry bent over Hermione on a low bed in a dimly lit room. It didn't look like Grimmauld Place. The bed was unlike any he had seen there. Hermione wore an elegant night gown, one that he'd never seen, and Harry was clad in a dark robe that pooled around him as he towered over her. Her shirt was pulled aside just enough to reveal her cleavage. His fingers, careful and steady, traced a rune across the pale skin between her breasts. Green paste glowed under his touch. Her chest rose and fell in shallow rhythm, each breath a soft audible sigh in the quiet room. The faint scrape of his fingertips against skin carried through the vision. She did not stir. Harry's face was tight with worry, but his hand never faltered.

Ron's stomach lurched.

"What's he doing to her?"

"A gypsy curse. Skin to skin, the rune he draws on her forced a shackle on her heart."

Ron staggered back a step. His breath came fast and ragged.

"You're messing with me... Showing me visions like 'you-know-who' did... Like some bloody trick to twist my head again..."

Gerald regarded him calmly.

"Tshh... Voldemort..." He scoffed in disdain. "I could've discarded him myself..." He lifted his right hand. Index finger and thumb touched at the tips in a loose circle. He pointed the gesture toward a distant fir tree on the far side of the clearing. "...like that."

He snapped the fingers apart.

The tree did not burn or splinter. It simply collapsed inward. Bark, needles, branches, trunk, all of it folded into itself in perfect silence, then burst outward in a soft cloud of pale grey powder. The wind carried it away in seconds. Nothing remained but a faint circle of bare earth.

Ron dropped to one knee. His legs refused to hold him. Bile rose in his throat. The costrel slipped from his fingers and rolled into the leaves. He drew a hard and ragged breath, his lungs rattled like a punctured balloon.

"That's impossible... No one has such power..."

"The soul arts are the closest to the primordial magic. And thus to the essence of life. Once you wield it, you can do anything."

Ron's voice cracked.

"You're telling me that you could've prevented all that death? All of that suffering could've been stopped before they happened? Fred didn't have to die! Why didn't you do anything"

"There is a balance to everything, and the balance to life is through death. It is unfortunate that your brother had to lay his life down to fight such evil. But age as much as I have and you will learn that meddling with fate, has dire side effects."

Ron stared at the empty space where the tree had stood. Powder still drifted in the morning light like fine ash.

"So what... You just watch? You let people die because... Balance?"

"I watch because interference twists the thread until it snaps. One life saved today becomes ten lost tomorrow. One curse broken becomes a wound that festers across generations. I learned that lesson the hard way. Many times. I stood on a hill once and watched a village burn because I had sworn never to lift a hand again after the last time I tried. The ashes still smell the same. I watched for I know that houses can be rebuild, the dead can be mourned and the wounded could be healed, but disrupt natural order, and you risk condemning them to a life in agony, and far worst deaths."

Ron pressed his palms to his eyes. The ache in his chest burned sharper now. Not just hunger. Something colder. Something that felt like recognition.

"Before I left home, I thought I'd die here. I picked this place to be my grave." He confessed solemnly.

"In a way you will die. Same death that your friends have experienced, each in their own right."

"They are alive. Aren't they?"

"Death is not merely in the physical world. The walk through Hades is what matures a soul. It is in the face of death, that we realize the value of life. And it is through the death of an old self, that a new one can blossom. Much like a phoenix, you will rise from the ashes in flames, and shine brighter than any shade can contain.

"I can't do that... I'm not meant for these things..." Ron nearly moaned, years of being overshadowed and dismissed catching up to him.

"Ancient tribes used to kill a maturing young in a symbolic rite, stripping them of the name they had as a boy, so that they can live as a man. The young, careless boy with no responsibility would die and give its place to a man that could carry the burden of life on his shoulders."

"My problem is bigger than a change of name."

"I can help you overcome the hunger. Nay use it to become stronger."

"I don't want to have any sort of hunger!"

"You are quite past that point boy. Is this how you want to save her?"

"Can I, can I save her?"

"Yes, only you will be able to. You alone can sunder her from the foul bond that weaves her into his essence, like the threads that close a yawning wound and fail to stop the bleeding, she will bleed out... Entirely... Until she is no more that a memory..."

"No! I can't let that happen!" He fell to his hands, gasping for air. His heart beat against his eardrums. The runes around him pulsed an eerie green that made him dizzy.

"Then do something about it!" The old man rose, tall and steady.

"I would fight him," He panted. "I'd fight her too, if only I knew it would make things right, all of it, for all of us..." He looked up, clutching at his aching chest. "I don't care if they hate me, they can hate all they want, I don't hate them, I haven't forgotten that we were friends!"

"Good." The old man said firmly, and for the first time in that one word, he sounded sinister.

"Can you teach me?"

"I'm not a teacher. But I can guide you down a path that forces you to learn."

"And if I learn from you... What happens to the balance then?"

"The balance remains. Trinity sundered you from your friends, for you will be the one to stop them. Only you will be able to construct the triangle that was broken anew."

"Why me? I'm nobody, I'm not the chosen one, or the smartest in our year..."

"You are now," The old man approached slowly. "You are the chosen one, chosen to save your friends, and the world they will ruin in the path."

"Is there no hope for them? Are they so tainted by dark magic already?"

"They walk the path of darkness. They are bound to be tempted. You do want to save her don't you? Or are you the type of man who allows the things he loves to be taken from him without consequences?"

"He won't take her from me. He promised." Ron said through gritted teeth.

"One that he will break, if not forced to break it by her."

"No... I don't believe it... I won't believe it..." He grabbed his hair in his fists. "He promised me."

"Find the strength that enables you to help them both. You can put things right. Before he comes for you, or them."

Ron collapsed unto his hands again. The forest spun around him like a tornado. He drew as much air as he could into his aching lungs. His knees and elbows shivered, refusing to carry him any more. It was as though a giant foot was pressed on his back, forcing him to give in, or be crushed under its weight. He tried to breathe, only to cough frantically. His chest and throat burned as if they were scorched by fire. The world seemed blurred and ghostly. The runes on the stone shone bright, bright enough to make him squint, and through the gap of his eyelids, he saw the old man standing before him. He seemed to be talking to him, but he couldn't make out a single word against the beating in his ears. He blinked, and fell head first unto the smooth stone.

---

Ron woke slowly.

Time had passed. The light through the branches had shifted from pale morning gold to the warmer, slanting amber of late afternoon. Sunbeams slanted lower now, catching dust motes. The air smelled of dry pine resin and the faint char of old coals that had burned down to grey ash in a conjured fire pit, while he slept.

He lay on his back on the observer platform. The moss beneath him had warmed from the day's sun and felt almost soft against his shoulders. His beard itched where sweat had dried.

A low thrumming sound filled the clearing. Not loud. Steady. Yet eerie, unlike any music he had ever heard. It was dark and chromatic, but carried a sorrow that could be the dawn of a new one, or the sunset of all pain.

Gerald sat cross-legged on the hunter stone. In his lap rested a long-necked instrument, pear-shaped body of polished dark wood, It had no sound hole except for the tiny holes near the neck. The frets were simple gut that were tied around the neck in even spaces.

Gerald's fingers moved with slow deliberate grace, coaxing a melody that rose and fell in minor modes, ancient and unhurried. Each note lingered just long enough to fade before the next arrived. The sound wrapped the stones like smoke.

Ron pushed himself up on one elbow. His head swam for a moment then steadied. Muscles ached in a dull familiar way, the way they did after a long Quidditch practice.

Gerald did not look up from the strings. His thumb brushed the only two strings across the soundboard. Each finger plucked after the other in an upward motion, index, middle, ring and pinky.

"You returned."

"Yeah." Ron's voice rasped. Throat still dry. "How long this time?"

"Long enough for the sun to cross half the sky." Gerald plucked a descending phrase. The notes fell like water into still pools. "Your body needed the silence. The hunger had begun to howl. It quiets when you sleep deeply enough."

Ron sat fully upright. He rubbed his face with both hands. Skin felt tight. Lips cracked when he spoke.

"That instrument... What is it?"

"Tanbur." Gerald let the last note decay. "Older than most languages still spoken. My father taught me its voice when I was a boy. Before the world grew loud."

Ron watched the fingers move again. Slow strums. No flourish. Just quiet certainty.

"Sounds... Sad."

"It remembers sadness." Gerald's thumb circled the body once. "And joy. And the space between. Music does not choose sides. It simply speaks what is."

"Sounds like the mental things Dumbledore would say, no offence..."

Gerald laughed. "Dumbledore understood many things, and failed to grasp the others, this one, he may have understood."

"What was it that you were playing?"

"Its an ancient scale, its called Sahari. It is only played when waiting for the dawn. That's what it means, 'for the dawn'. I shouldn't have played it now, but in a way I was waiting for a dawn..."

"What do you mean?"

"Sahari is played during the night that leads to the morning of meeting one's 'Yar', or friend, sometimes a lover, but it really means God amongst the followers..."

"I don't understand. Do you believe in God?"

"Don't you?"

"Those are just muggle stories to explain magic, and the first coming of Merlin aren't they?" And when Gerald didn't answer, and kept playing the instrument, Ron pressed on. "I've never seen a wizard who believes in God..."

"You think you can live as long as I have, see as much as I've seen, suffer for eons and watch the passing of time in a corrupt world, and not believe? No Ronald I believe in God, and I absolutely hate him!" His face was blank and his tone flat, yet a note of deep hatred, mangled with a ferocious wrath, chimed through for a heartbeat, just long enough for Ron to notice.

"You won't give me a straight answer will you? You're evading my question..."

"I will answer if you ask the right question."

"I thought there were no wrong questions."

"For children, you are not a child."

Ron thought for a second, He couldn't make sense of his analogy. Believing in a God and resenting him, it made no sense. But he might have been speaking metaphorically, and he couldn't summon the mental gymnastics needed to get to the bottom of it now. So he asked the only question that made sense to him.

"You said you weren't supposed to play that scale, the one for the dawn. It sounded like you wouldn't be permitted, I don't know if it is by some law or tradition. Why did you play it then?"

"I wait for your dawn, the dawn in which you'll be one again with the one you love. It only felt right to play it."

"So... This dawn thing. Meeting your Yar. You really think that's what waiting for me? Like there is a chance?"

"The night has been long, it is time for a ray of light, don't you think?"

"And if I don't like what I see when the light hits?"

"Then crawl back into the shadows and perish."

"So I don't really have a choice then."

"You can choose life. That's the hardest choice to make."

"Will I, will I die if this keeps up?"

"Death has many forms. Yet for you, only the one in a cold tomb awaits."

"I thought I was healing... Bill, my brother, drew these runes on my walls, they helped a lot. But I still couldn't eat..."

"The runes here are stronger." He said pointing around them.

"So I am healing."

"Only if you stay here forever."

"What should I do then? I can't live here forever."

"You need to learn to draw soul from around you. That is the only way to sustain yourself, without feeding."

Ron held his face in both palms. Somehow he knew it all along, yet had hoped to be wrong like never before.

"Is there no other way? A potion, some kind of spell... Anything..."

"It is the only way. Besides, drawing soul from the surrounding world is not a bad thing. It isn't like feeding on a person, that you have already experienced."

"How did you, I never told you that!"

"You shouted it loud and clear to the forest." He smiled kindly.

"Ah, I forgot about that."

Ron drew his knees up. Wrapped arms around them. The stone under him had retained some warmth from the day.

"Ask your questions. I see their shadow on your face. We don't have much time. We must begin as soon as the moon glides above us."

Ron paused. He had many questions, and he didn't know if he could pull off this 'drawing soul' thing. But he had no choice, he had to stay alive so that he could try to set things right.

"What does Sheraldov want with me? Or with them?"

Gerald's fingers paused on the strings. The silence that followed felt deliberate. He set the Tanbur carefully across his lap. The wood caught the late light and gleamed like old blood.

"In his mind he sees a world where no one will suffer ever again. A world wrought in order, and balance, and justice. A world in which fools such as Voldemort cannot reign havoc so easily."

Ron stared at the ash in the fire pit. A single ember still glowed faintly red at its heart.

"That doesn't sound so bad."

Gerald's mouth curved. Not quite a smile.

"It never does. At first."

"Order without pain requires control without exception. Balance without choice requires chains disguised as fairness. Justice without mercy becomes a blade that cuts both ways. My brother believes suffering is the flaw in creation. He would burn the flaw out. Even if it means burning the world that carries it."

Ron felt the ache in his chest stir again. Not hungry this time. Curious.

"And you? What do you believe?"

"I believe the flaw is the point. Without it there is no growth. No choice. No story worth telling. A world without suffering is a world without meaning. Choices that are immune to err by the poison of correctness are the choices of slaves. Human agency and volition shall not be restrained without the peril of creating a society of mindless ghosts. It's a cage painted gold, but will feel no different."

Ron looked up. The afternoon light had begun to thin. Shadows stretched long across the stones.

"So he wants to cage us. To stop the suffering."

"He wants to cage the possibility of suffering. There is a difference."

"Where have you been all this time? These centuries as you claim?"

"Everywhere..."

"You think you can beat him? Sheraldov, are you stronger than him?"

"I'd say we are equals, that's why I need your help..."

"And the þing?"

"I know how to destroy it..."

"I'm useless against someone with that much power... How am I supposed to help? You made that tree explode without a wand."

"He would believe that your friend Harry carries the spark that could ignite chaos again. Hermione carries the mind that could refine it. You... You carry the will that could break it open."

"Me?"

"You." Gerald rose. Stepped closer. Sunlight caught the lines in his face. Deep. Patient. "The ritual sundered you. Not by accident. By design. You are the fracture line. The place where the cage can be pried apart... Or sealed forever."

Ron swallowed, and stared at the ember in the pit. It flickered once. Then dimmed.

He thought of Hermione's shallow breaths in the vision. Harry's careful fingers. The green glow.

He thought of Fred.

He thought of the ache in his chest that no longer howled.

It waited for recognition.

"What do I have to do?"

"Listen."