Through the Bars of Nurmengard
Ethan Case

The irony of my downfall has never once escaped me throughout the years I’ve spent here, looking out through the bars of Nurmengard.

For fifty-three years now, I have clouded my mind with nostalgia for the past; a time when I was free. There was a time, when I wore a younger gentleman’s clothes, when I walked the earth as a respected man. A man whom hundreds turned to for answers when they had none themselves, a man who had a plan for the betterment of man kind, a man who couldn’t recognize his own foolishness until it imprisoned him.

Nurmengard, an obelisk of power that stands erect amidst the lumbering, hunched creatures call men, who would walk on all fours if their arms could reach the ground. The stewards of this world are all foolish and savage. They substitute true enlightenment in lieu of cheap knock-offs that are easy attain.

I am the greatest fool of them all, for it is I, who was foolish enough to not recognize it in myself. The savages seek understanding. They know naught but the single fact that knowledge eludes them. I on the other hand did not recognize this within myself. For no simple human can ever hope to attain true enlightenment in this complex world where magic and physics interact in a cacophony of chaos so infinite that no physical brain could ever hope to scratch the surface of its mysteries.

They say that a good man is one who recognizes the evil within him. In my former life, I was not a good man. Back then it was all about the so called “Greater Good.” But the ends can never justify the means. One can never create something from nothing, not even in magic. So who, besides me, would have been foolish enough to believe that virtuous ends could be attained from moral-less action?

In my mind, I was the pure one, I was the light in the dark cave. I was to be the flicker that was to draw man’s attention away from the shadows on the cave wall and see the truth.

Magic and Muggle have always been separated, forever an affront to the natural laws of life and death. The weak die, and the strong triumph. There is no simpler truth in the world.

I sought to turn that philosophy into a reality. It was my goal to correct the follies of man and restore natural order to the world. Muggles are weak. They build mindless automations, destroying their own world in the process, for the soul purpose of emulating a higher form of man who can perform these tasks as naturally as they can walk.

I see the evil in me now. It has become so abundantly clear to me; surrounded by jet black walls, built by my own hands, put here by the one person who ever loved me.

Loving eyes see no evil, but even Albus couldn’t pretend the black veil I engulfed the world in didn’t exist. It was he who assisted me in beginning my endeavor, and it was he who put an end to it.

It all began with my thirst for power. Expelled from school, I set my focus on achieving my destiny. I sought the Deathly Hallows.

It was this search that led me to take up residence with my Great Aunt, and it was this search that intertwined my path with dear Albus. He was two years older, but in retrospect, twenty years wiser than I was. He too sought the Hallows. Together we formulated our plan for the world; a world where wizards and Muggles coexisted, and where wizards were in control. Nature made wizards the superior species, and it seemed only logical, and in accordance with natural law, that we rule the world.

After terrible tragedy struck dear Albus and his family, I knew that my plan would have to continue alone. Albus was besieged by trauma, and it softened his heart. It would take a heart of stone and a mind as sharp as Godric’s sword to complete the task ahead.

It wasn’t long before I stole the first Hallow, the Elder Wand, from famed wandmaker Gregorovitch. Perhaps that moment was the beginning of the end.

Those who select the Elder Wand put their faith in power. Power can be a devastating gift to receive when lacking the humility to control it.

My power attracted others, who sought to gain some power of their own. My followers fed my ego, increasing the cataract that prevented me from seeing the evil within myself. I was never a good man. I see that now. I was a perverted abomination of humanity, with a heart as black as the walls of my prison.

Nurmengard, one of two symbols of irony that plague me this day.

The historians will quarrel endlessly about the years after I parted ways with Albus, but all of them will agree that my defeat was a benefit to the world, and proof that the foolish savages were not so weak, or stupid after all.

The world shudders violently, as it did once before. It can be smelled on the breeze, tasted in the air, felt on the flesh. The black veil of evil has not escaped this world, and as I sit here pondering, I can feel its chilling presence crawl upon the horizon. There was a time when its presence went unnoticed by me. But evil and ignorance are brothers, just as age and wisdom are. As I’ve aged, wisdom has come to me, and I’ve become cognizant of evil, within myself, and within the world.

The Elder Wand, the other symbol of irony that plagues me.

I lost that wand to dear Albus fifty-three years ago, but its curse has remained to this day. Tyrants always fall for they fail to recognize the good in the people they rule, and the evil they represent. Good defeats evil, because love is the strongest force there is. Love is what binds this world together.

Those who are absent of love are alone, but we as a race have always drawn our true power from those around us. We evolved as a social species. None of us is nearly as powerful as all of us, and it is love that connects us together and makes this possible.

I received that wand and finally held in my hand a symbol of power. I became a tyrant, but though I’ve fallen from my position, my legacy has lived on. No news reaches my ears here in this dark cell, but the wind carries word of the black veil on the horizon, and tells me that the evil I created is still firmly rooted in place.

Another seeks to rectify my failure, and I can feel his presence ever closer. He comes to me for the Elder Wand; the symbol of the tyrant’s office.

It is the final nail in my coffin, and his. If I had the wand on my person, I would pass the baton to him, and watch him succumb to his hubris in the same was as I. However, Albus has the wand, and protects it with the power of love. My successor will not be pleased. Lust for the wand made me, and will undo me in due time.

I gaze through the bars of Nurmengard. Blackness hangs on the horizon and within it lurks the serpent of Eden. The chilling wind tells me that my time has come and I rise to greet the specter of my demise.