my future
better than the past
(Four years later)
‘Over my dead body!’
‘Look, it simply is not negotiable!’
Draco was pacing to and fro in front of the fireplace. There was a bottle of champagne opened on the coffee table, for a celebration which had been abruptly interrupted.
‘I can’t believe you would do that to your own son!’
‘I can’t believe you are putting so little faith in him!’
Cybele jaw’s drop.
‘This is way below the belt!’
Draco sat down next to her and took her hand apologetically.
‘Look, I just mean… He will be all right; it will be character building. Look at the parents he has; we learned our bit about being true to ourselves in our time, didn’t we?’
Cybele smiled.
‘You’re right, and I know he’ll be all right. But I still don’t see the point to burden him… I mean; you’ve been through that, and mind you, –Draco†is ten times easier a name to bear than –Scorpiusâ€, honestly!’
‘Cybele, for the thousandth time, it’s a family tradition, every seven generations, the Selwyn’s oldest son shall bear this name, in memory of…’
‘Yeah, yeah, I know. And the Selwyn’s are extinguished in the male line since the battle of Hogwarts, the Malfoys being their last heirs, I got that part. Look, my love, you have happily disowned your family’s name in every possible way in the past years. I say, a bit more, a bit less…’
‘Cybele, the Selwyns were one of the most remarkable wizarding families of all times, one of the most ancient. It has nothing to do with the Malfoy blood obsession. Even the last name-barer being a Death-Eater cannot stain such an ancient and glorious history as the Selwyns.’
‘People won’t know that, Draco.’
‘And so our son will tell them! Look, where we come from… What if I just want to give our son some heritage to be proud of? A family history, just the one, the tale of the Selwyn’s scorpion. We have made our way out there, Cybele, but let’s admit it; neither of us comes from anywhere we like to mention.’
‘And as you said, we made our way all the same…’ Cybele pointed out. But she could see her husband’s point.
‘All right, let me hear the tale first. It’s funny, you know, this book was the first one I ever took from Hogwarts library, but I never finished it.’
Draco stood up merrily, knowing his wife was half convinced already and proceeded to bring back the bottle to the kitchen, coming back with another glass of champagne, a mug of tea and a small book entitled Legends of the Wandering Wands.
‘No more of this for you, now,’ he teased, switching Cybele’s empty glass with the steaming mug, ‘come here.’
Cybele cuddled in his arms with her mug as he started to read in a soft voice the last of the thirteen tales, The Tale of Selwyn and Scorpius.
Selwyn and Scorpius
In the word of wizardry, long, long, before our modern times, there was a City where the greatest magical warriors of all were to be found. They were fearless, self-denying, and most skilled in all enchantments, spells and deadly curses.
Their superiority was well known all over the antique word. But also known and fearfully admired was the cost at which such superiority was acquired. The hardship of a Selw’s upbringing and training was legend; and though the stories about them spread far both in distance and in imagination, seldom did they surpass the truth.
From the most tender age the youths of Selw, boys and girls alike, were trained and hardened far from the comfort of their home and their families. They were trained to think of their family, not with the longings of love, but with the pride of their renown and the will to bring more honour and glory to their names.
One day brought among them an orphan, found at sea by Selws on their journey back from a victorious battle. Judged on her height, she was brought to training with the boys and girls of seven years of age, who had been training in the art of war for two years. Her inferiority of skills and strengths would have made her only the object of silent despise from her peers. But it was the shadow of her unknown origin which marked her down as an object of disgust to all. For she might have been the offspring of the defeated; and defeat couldn’t be within the Selws, as she was violently reminded every night and day.
The youths’ master; for fear his young charge would die under his supervision if he ever closed more than an eye at a time, brought the issue to the Academy’s Great Master after several sleepless nights. The Great Master thought silently for a while. He eventually sent the young master away with these words: ‘Pray keep your eyes open one more night, and I shall stop all in the morrow.’
The morrow was the seventh day of the week, when the Great Master reviewed all of the apprentice wizards, standing still under the sun in their best robes. Each young wizard and witch stood upright with their arms outstretched and their gleaming wands offered on their open palms for inspection, heads bowed down and looking at their feet.
The Master was progressing slowly through the ranks, looking piercingly at all, sometimes picking up a wand and performing a Priori Incantatem, seldom silently bewitching a poorly attended attire against its owner: an unlaced shoe to bit a foot or a stained robe to itch cruelly the skin. But only a trained eye would have known to read the symptoms of such punishments on the stoic faces of the young sorcerers in a controlled clench of the jaws or a tensed frown. More seldom did he bestowed the deadly punishment of taking a wand from its owner for the week, if it was proving to have provided a forbidden comfort such as a warming or drying charm. Even more seldom did he utter a dry, short praise to a student of outstanding achievements.
If front of the new comer, as wasn’t unusual on one’s first review, he stopped.
‘You have survived a week, unknown one,’ he praised gravely. ‘You must be proud.’ His voice resonated in the severe silence, for all the young eager ears to catch.
‘Are you proud?’ he asked loudly, to the sheer terror of the orphan. She had prepared herself to resist scold and torture of all sort of physical pains and insults, but to be asked such a question!
‘You don’t answer,’ the Master pursued in a chilling voice. ‘Are you not proud?’
He let the deadly silence stretch excruciatingly, but the orphan couldn’t have spoken if they had stood there for days, all of her wits focused on not letting her cramped stretched arms shake.
‘Ah…’ he eventually broke in an unexpectedly light voice. ‘But maybe you are lacking something?’
He took a step back and in a raised, powerful voice, started a harangue.
‘Great names! Great names we must be proud to bare! Great victories! We must be proud to succeed with our own! Glory! Glory of our ancestors we must be proud enough to overtake and shade under our own! Glory! Names! Names of the Selws’ great clans! Great names!’
He turned back to his latest victim.
‘No-name!’ he dropped icily. ‘No-name has use for no pride.’
The boy next the orphan let his lips twitch in a small smile at this. The slash he received was too much for restraining from a cry as he dropped backward. His wand flew to the Master’s side, who continued as if there had been no interruption.
‘I am going to give you a name, No-name,’ he said next. ‘And I dare you to be proud of it!’
After a carefully calculated dramatic silence, he dropped:
‘You are Selwyn.’
Several intakes of breath were heard at this point among the younger; so many that the Master wisely chose to ignore them.
‘Selwyn: The One of Selw,’ he elaborated.
And again his voice rose powerfully:
‘Be proud if you dare, enough to bring glory not to one of our glorious clans, but to the whole City of Selw!’ And in a lower voice, ‘Or die trying.’ And he was gone.
It was a very great weight, the one that was put on the young witch’s shoulders. But from that day on, no Selw ever tried to harm her. For harming one with such a name, would be symbolically attacking the whole City.
And from that day on Selwyn could train, and learn, the hard Selw, way. She caught up to be the best, always, in all things. She was, at fifteen, when a Selw leaves school for war, the proudest of the Selws. The one, when it was time to leave the Academy, best among her peers. The one and only, who before the last task, would be received by the Great Master.
It was to be a short and formal reception. Selwyn’s heart beat with anticipation as she was brought before the Master and allowed to look up at him for the first time.
‘You can be proud, now,’ was his sober praise. And Selwyn felt happy, for these words were meaningful to her heart, and was ready to bow modestly and retire. But the Master, for the first time in memories, had a question.
‘But I am curious: why did you choose to be proud?’
‘Master?’
‘When you first came here. You were not Selwyn. You saw what the Selws can be to a foreigner. Why did you accept my gift of becoming one of us, that day?’
Selwyn thought and found that she knew her answer to the Master’s question.
‘If I had known only of the Selws’ glory, how could I have become one of them? Because I knew of their darkness, because I felt it in my skin and my heart, I could know them. Only then, I could embrace them.’
The Master had no more questions. He had a smile.
On the morrow, the final task was set for the four finest sorcerers leaving school. In the City of Selw, it was an honour, but also a great danger, to be the best. For glory, the four best ones each year were bestowed the questionable honour of one last deadly test.
Some didn’t survive. For it was a wandless test very unlike the violent fighting the Selws were trained for, but none the less formidable.
It was a well kept secret, the Final Task, and those even who survived it carried its secret to the tomb. It had been for many years that never more than three had survived their last day in the Academy, and there was fear, hidden deep in the four young sorcerers’ hearts, as they entered the location of the task. The Great Master, however, smiled to himself and felt hopeful.
Here, the four students discovered, were kept four legendary beasts, from whom they were to talk themselves out of harm. Hence they were simply informed, and immediately brought before the enclosures. They could see four giant beasts, none of which could be fought without a wand. An eagle, a lion, a dog and a scorpion.
They approached the enclosures to be introduced and chose their adversary, or partner as they were to negotiate their life with the beast of their choice. That day, as the four sorcerers stepped in front of the first beast, the eagle, a white mouse squeezed effortlessly through the bars and marched unconsciously in front of the beast.
‘This is Agilos,’ the Master introduced.
The eagle remained still and unperturbed, as the sorcerers and the unscathed mouse proceeded further.
‘This is Leos,’ was heard next.
The lion ignored completely the guests, including the mouse that seemed to be following them recklessly within the bars.
‘This is Sirius.’
The dog, motionless, didn’t give a sign that he had heard his name or noticed any of his human guests nor the mouse intruder.
‘This is Scorpius.’
A great shiny dark scorpion clicked its pinches dangerously. The humans concealed their fear and the mouse stopped hesitantly before resuming her trotting across the enclosure. In a spit second, Scorpius’ tail, large, tall and powerful, rose and stroke mercilessly, slashing the mouse in a pool of blood. He then turned menacingly to the sorcerers, before they were ushered further by the Master.
‘You will now choose your opponent. In order of merit, Selwyn will choose first.’
Her three companions looked at Selwyn, with envy and fear hidden within them, as they then would have to choose from the three remaining opponents in order of merit, the last of the four dreading to be left with the terrible Scorpius.
Selwyn didn’t allow much suspense, though, as she immediately declared, ‘I choose Scorpius.’
Looks of disbelief followed by relief crossed the faces. The Master, if he had any emotions, didn’t show them. After all had chosen their opponents, they were taken into each enclosure to attempt negotiating their grace.
Ignoring the blood in his home, Selwyn kneeled down to level Scorpius’ great frame but relatively short height, sitting right within his formidable pinches, as she knew well there would be no shield, but the power of negotiation.
‘You always win, great Scorpius,’ she started. ‘But nobody knows of you. This is unfair.’
And Scorpius listened. Selwyn was talking, she was explaining her plans and Scorpius was listening on and on and letting her live. Eventually, Scorpius was agreeing. The negotiation had been successful.
‘One day, our story will be told. It will be told forever,’ was her parting promise.
That year, all four best students left the Final Task alive. It had been years since more than three students had gone through, since as only the participant knew, Scorpius always won. It was a great wonder. The Great Master was satisfied. But Selw’s master, who had several years earlier negotiated with Sirius and lost a companion to Scorpius, wanted to talk to his student.
‘You are lucky to have survived this act of bravado. Why have you chosen the most deadly opponent, when you had the choice?’ he asked her.
‘But I chose the easiest, Master.’
‘Of three placid opponents and a murderous one, you chose the murderous one. How could you mark him down as the easiest one?’
‘I saw a powerful eagle, I saw a powerful lion, I saw a powerful dog. And I could know nothing of them. Then I saw Scorpius and he made a gift to us. He let us know something of him. Isn’t it a great gift in a negotiation, Master? Do you think I was wrong?’
‘At least you knew the three others were not murderous.’
‘I am sorry, Master. I must disagree. They chose to show nothing, and I knew nothing. There remained only a chance that they were not actually murderous in their heart. Over the uncertainty of a chance, I chose the certainty Scorpius gave me, however frightful. I saw Scorpius. I saw his darkness and so I knew of his darkness. I saw him frightening and so I knew my own fear. Because I witness his cruelty and his violence, I could judge him and know him, and so I could embrace him as my partner for my task.’
The Master was reminded of her previous answer to the Great Master on the eve and now he understood Selwyn, and he knew with pride what a very great adversary she would be to all her enemies.
Several years later, when both Masters were old and Selwyn had retired from warfare to marry and give her name to a new clan, as the glory she had brought to the name of Selwyn called for, they were able to satisfy their curiosity as to what had been the object of the negotiation between her and the scorpion: she named her first son Scorpius. The final task had changed years ago and as it wasn’t a secret anymore, the story soon spread around her elder son’s name.
Selwyn was true to her word. She ensured her clan would carry the name of Scorpius every seven generations and as she had predicted, long after Agilos, Leos and Sirius were forgotten by the Selws themselves, long even after the civilization of the City of Selw had vanquished from Earth, their story was still told, the tale of Selwyn and Scorpius.
‘And sons named Scorpius were still born,’ was Cybele’s quiet addendum to Draco’s reading.
A few months later, late at night, Draco took the book off the shelf again and taking up a quill and ink, wrote below the end of the last tale: