Chapter Seventy-One: The Traitor’s Bargain
Fornax woke in a sudden rush of the December cold. His usually warm bedroom had been bone chilling lately. He blinked around the dark room before sitting up.
With a flick of his wand, the room was full of light. He glanced from the rows of bookshelves to his wardrobe before finally settling his gaze on the desk and the troubling picture that lay on top of it.
His bare feet made no noise as he moved, and he sat down silently. On the wooden tabletop was an old photo. He frowned at it. Pictured was a young woman, perhaps nineteen or twenty. She was dressed in rich robes of lavender and wore her long hair down in graceful waves. A younger version of himself linked arms with her; his eyes were alight and his face stretched into a grin.
Fornax knew that this should have been a comforting reminder of the past, but he found it troubling. His heart ached with indescribable yearning as he watched the young woman laugh and toss her hair about.
“Melinda…”
What was more troubling was the scroll of parchment that lay beside it. The handwriting was plain and nondescript, but the message was cryptic.
This package had arrived a week earlier, by owl”again an odd occurrence. Owl post was hardly ever used now; the birds drew far too much attention to themselves and were too easily intercepted. But somehow this owl had managed to drop off this package unharmed.
Fornax looked back down at the note. He had told nobody of it, though it had weighed heavily on his heart for days. His mind could not escape it; no matter how hard he tried to concern himself with something else, his thoughts always wandered back to it.
If it was true... Fornax shook his head roughly, causing his shoulder-length, auburn hair to stick up at odd angles. But if the note was true, it was possible that what he had been dreaming of for years could finally become a reality.
He had spent half a century grieving. Fifty years of tears had passed, and fifty years worth of prayers might finally come true.
He shook his head again, violently this time, to shake the memories out of his mind. He didn’t want to look at this picture anymore. He didn’t want to be forever tied to a memory of something so fleeting. He slid the photo into his pocket and turned back to the note.
By now, he could probably have recited it by memory, but he still scanned it as though it were completely new.
‘I know what you want,’ it read. ‘Love is a noble cause. It is what the deceased Harry Potter stood for, after all. You have spent decades fighting this war, ignoring the ache in your heart.’
Fornax had tried to remain stoic about this, but continued to read.
‘I know what it means to love. I know what it means to be willing to die for somebody. When that person does die, what do you have? You can ask yourself countless times what you could have done differently; you can even pray to switch places, to die yourself”but for nothing.
‘I am offering you that chance now. I can give you what you want. You can see her again, but it does not come without a cost. I ask for you wand, nothing more. If you surrender your wand, I can make your prayer come true.
‘If you decide to take this opportunity, come to the graveyard in Little Hangleton on December seventeenth. I will be there.’
The note was not signed, but instead a small drawing was placed on the bottom. The symbol was a triangle, with a circle inscribed, and a vertical line cutting it in half.
Fornax knew what this meant. He had spent the days of his youth dreaming of journeying after the Peverell brothers and had studied their story obsessively. He put the note down and paced a lap around the room.
The graveyard in Little Hangleton was practically a war memorial now. It was, after all, where the Dark Lord had been reborn. School children visited it like a shrine these days, and professors at Hogwarts would tell them of the wonderful things that had happened there.
Fornax sat down against his bed. It was the seventeenth tonight. Whoever this mysterious person was was probably waiting there now. How long did he have before the offer expired?
Giving up his wand, of course, meant death. The traitor could not have written that the trade off was for his head in the note, but Fornax knew it to be true. He was too good of a dueler to be challenged; the only way was to disarm him. And this was surely an enemy. A friend would not disarm a friend on such dangerous territory.
But was he afraid of death?
The answer was, simply, no. He was not afraid. Over fifty years he had spent fighting. More than half a century had been passed in a battle. It was his entire life. And he was old now. He was an old man with a true understanding of what it meant to live and what it meant to die.
What he knew most of all was what it meant to want to be dead, but be stuck to life. The traitor was right. He had spent countless hours wondering why he had survived”why him and not Melinda. Had he been a better person than her? Why did he deserve life?
Before Harry Potter’s death, they had had a plan”him, Ryan, Naesa, and Melinda. They foresaw it and decided to be ready”to start a rebellion right away. But Melinda had died. And they had moved on.
Melinda was a Healer. She sustained life, fed it and nourished it in an attempt to ward off death. Fornax fought. He was angry. He was violent. He killed. He created death, so why wasn’t it he who had lost his life?
Fornax remembered the day Harry Potter had died. Everyone was dead. The world was over. He had buried his face in his hands and sobbed, not for what the world had lost, but for what he had lost. And did that not make him selfish enough to deserve death?
He would never know. That was the worst part. He would never know why it had been Melinda and not him. He could spend his entire life wondering what would have happened if he had died instead, but he would never know. Surely, if he had been there when she had been hit, he would have leapt in front of her, begged, prayed, tried to bargain his life for hers”and maybe he would have died”and maybe she would be alive.
But she wasn’t. None of that was true. Nothing he dreamt for was even possible. All he wanted was five minutes”just five more minutes.
And that was what the traitor was offering him.
Fornax stood up again, but sat back down almost immediately. It meant nothing to him to die. He had lived through so much sorrow”he had lived through it all. To die would just be a break”a rest once and for all. And he could exchange that for his five minutes. It sounded too good to be true.
But what would it mean for Alsemore if he died? That was problematic. He was the best dueler they could have. Without him as a powerhouse slaughterer, they might not even stand a chance in another battle. They needed him.
Fornax groaned with frustration and stood up. He delivered a sharp kick to the chair and knocked it over. He wanted to die. He wanted this to end right now. He wanted to see Melinda; he would give anything to see Melinda.
It was his choice. He pulled the picture out of his pocket. Melinda smiled at him and waved. He could see her shoulders shake as she laughed silently”frozen in time.
It was his choice.
He pulled a cloak over his shoulders and put the photo back in his pocket. His eyes brimmed with tears, but he felt no fear. Without looking back, he strode through his bedroom and shut the door behind him.
Fornax walked through the castle for the last time with fondness. Memories permeated the walls as he descended the stairs and all he could do was smile. He reached the entrance hall and stared at it for the last time. For all of his sorrow, he was still proud.
He did not look back to Ryan or Naesa’s office guiltily, but strode out the front doors with a purpose. The winter night met his nostrils and he felt light and cleansed as he disappeared into the nighttime.
He appeared in the graveyard with a crack. It was empty. The dark green of the grass blended with the grey and block tombstones; it was all the same under a vast, pitch-black sky.
Now, alone and vulnerable, he began to question his decision. What kind of sacrifice was this? Who was he sacrificing beyond himself? It was for love, he knew that; he knew a love with all his heart that he could not imagine anything else. That’s what they were fighting for”that was a power so immense that the Dark Lord could not even imagine it.
Fornax stepped forward purposefully. He gazed at the graves as he did so. He was to die here, surrounded by unknowing, deceased Muggles. There was almost a peace in that. He walked on, letting his fingertips graze against the tombs, experiencing the sense of touch for the last time.
In the darkness before him, he caught sight of a golden statue, glinting in the waning moonlight. It was of the Dark Lord. Fornax knew it all too well, even though the metal cloak obscured its face and features. The statue was larger than life, and at its base, a lengthy narrative was inscribed, no doubt telling of the horrors of life before the Dark Lord’s reign.
In front of the statue stood another cloaked figure; this one, though, was alive. Fornax could not see inside the hood, but saw that it turned its featureless face to him. This was it”this was the traitor.
Fornax strode forward. He felt no rush of fear or twinge of anxiety, but was instead completely calm. He would see Melinda again soon”and that without a doubt was more valuable than anything that life had to offer him.
“You’re here,” he said once he was close enough.
The cloaked figure inclined its head slightly. Fornax looked at the man (his size and shape made his gender unquestionable) and frowned. All he could see was his hands, which were unlined and young, though scarred badly, and the fingernails bitten short. They trembled as they fumbled in his pocket”Fornax wondered what the traitor was afraid of.
The traitor pulled his hand out of the cloak, but held it shut firmly in a fist. Fornax knew what he held, and stared greedily at the fist as though he could force it to open. The cloaked man extended out his other hand before he relinquished the stone, though, and held it there, palm up.
Fornax reached into his own pocket and drew his wand. The traitor recoiled slightly. Fornax ran his thumb over the handle of the wand, feeling its warmth for the last time. Before he handed it over, he asked, “Why?”
The traitor’s cloak rustled; Fornax could tell he was adjusting his gaze. He didn’t say anything, but stretched his hand out farther. He probably thought that revealing himself when Fornax was still armed would lead to his death.
“What did we do wrong?” Fornax persisted. This was not the first traitor Alsemore had ever seen, but he hoped it was the last. He hoped Naesa would be kind to the students when he was gone”to prevent this from happening again.
The traitor was growing more impatient. He kept his hand outstretched and finally spoke. “Your wand.”
Fornax knew the voice. He couldn’t identify it, but it was a student, he was sure. His heart was full of sorrow as he held out his wand, not for his own life, but for the students’. He dropped the piece of wood, and as he watched it tumble from his fingers, he knew there was no turning back.
The traitor caught it and wrapped his own fingers around its handle. He made an impulsive movement, almost like a twitch, and jerked the wand. For a moment Fornax thought that he was going to be killed right then, before he even saw her.
But the traitor hesitated, and that was the key. The traitor did not wave Fornax’s own wand on him”yet, but let it droop. He seemed caught in the middle of a decision; one hand weighed the wand, and the other, the stone.
The stone prevailed. The traitor unfolded his left fist and revealed a glittering ring. He tossed it, and in the air it caught the moonlight, glimmering darkly. Fornax caught it in one hand and took just a moment to look at it”just a moment to make sure that this dream was actually true.
The ring was ancient, and the stone inside was cracked, but Fornax could still make out a small design that made his heart calm knowing it was real. The design was the triangle, with a circle inscribed and a line running up the middle. The stone felt oddly heavy in his hand and a warmth emanated from it.
He turned it over three times in his hand.
She appeared gradually, first in the form of a light mist, but soon that mist took a clear shape. It enveloped her body and made her whole, and suddenly she was standing there, not quite solid, but definitely real.
Fornax feasted on her image. It had been all he had ever seen in the black of dark windows or the endless sky, but now she stood here before him”finally, finally real.
She looked exactly as he had remembered her. Her face was unlined, unmarked by time and sorrow as his was; it was tinged with a pink that he had remembered. Her lips were pink as well”and thin, but they fit perfectly above her pointed chin. Her eyes were dark, as they had always been, but they were alight with joy”they exuded warmth that he felt all the way down to his core. And her hair was the same. It reached down to her elbows and its light curls fluttered, though there was no breeze.
He wanted to touch her”to make contact with the warmth that he had been missing for so long”but he knew he could not”not yet. Fornax blinked, and a rush of tears fell down his face. He moved closer to Melinda, who was smiling widely at him.
He wanted to say a thousand things. He wanted to hear everything she could tell him. He wanted their voices to ring together, like they used to, making perfect harmonies without trying. But he was comfortable in the silence that told both of their stories.
Melinda moved her mouth and began to speak. Her voice was soft, but Fornax heard the words as though he had been waiting for them his entire life. “I am so proud of you.”
Fornax didn’t know what to say; he didn’t know how long he had. “I missed you so much,” he said in a rush of tears and words. “Every minute all I could do to”I would have done anything”you know that. I would have died for you”I hadn’t known. I hadn’t known you were in danger, otherwise I would’ve come. I miss you so much.”
She silenced him with a melancholy smile. It was warm and lonely and reassuring”it was perfect. She reached out her hand in a gesture of comfort, even though he could not touch her. She smiled and said, “Soon.”
If Fornax had been watching, he would have seen the traitor take off his hood. He would have seen him revealed and vulnerable, and would have been sick with shock. He would have seen the guilt that swam in the boy’s eyes, and would have felt just as sorry for making him kill as the boy felt for killing. He would have seen the boy raise his wand, and maybe would have been able to protect himself somehow.
He was not watching, though. He stood, gazing between times and worlds. He stood in a pool of happiness, completely foreign. He did not see who the traitor was, and did not care to. It was not his problem; he belonged to the dead now.
He stood, gazing at Melinda. He hardly heard the incantation being spoken, and barely saw the flash of green light. He saw Melinda, and nothing more, and when his body fell, lifeless and broken to the ground, it was almost like relief.
Thousands of miles away, in the drafty castle of Alsemore, Lottie Rowe woke in a sudden rush. She sat up and pulled up the sleeve of her pajamas. There, painfully against her skin, the Dark Mark burned black.
Halfway to Infinity by Eponine
Chapter Notes: As always, thanks, coolh5000, for helping me out with this one!
This chapter's dedicated to my sister.