Knox.
From within or from behind, a light shines through us upon things, and makes us aware that we are nothing, but the light is all. ~Ralph Waldo Emerson
Light, when suddenly let in, dazzles and hurts and almost blinds us: but this soon passes away, and it seems to become the only element we can exist in. ~Augustus William Hare and Julius Charles Hare, Guesses at Truth, by Two Brothers, 1827
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Before I start, I would like to apologize for what is sure to be a rather jumbled mix of colloquialism and sophisticated speech. I haven’t quite mastered the complexities of the Human tongue, despite, or perhaps because of, the fact that I was present when the first one of you opened your mouth and discovered that you could make noises. (Even if the first attempts at speech were more like grunts than anything else.)
I find it rather silly that you Wizards fancy yourselves the source of your magic. You wave one of your pretty sticks in the air, think that your spells are something other than a way to call us and claim that you are the ones lifting the feather in the air. But I suppose I’m being cruel to insult your intelligence like I am. I mean, it was only natural that at some point those members of the human race who managed to call us would think themselves gods among men and climb up onto a pedestal: its human nature to be prone to puffery. (And let me tell you, those first Neanderthals who pulled a stick out of the mud and grunted until Feera appeared just to shut them up were definitely into making themselves seem the greater male. Although, I do find it necessary to point out that it was the female who first called something more complex than a fire starter.) But that is beside the point. What is the point is that Wizards, as they were so quick to define themselves, call us, the Spirits, and we come to do your bidding. I don't know why, but I think it has something to do with the fact that we are bored and you give us something to pass the time with.
You think that the wand is the facilitator but that’s just an old wives tale. I mean, if someone calls you thirty times, are you going to respond regardless of whether or not you’re irritated? Yes, of course. Sometimes you’ll pop up just to get the idiot to shut up. But you think that the wand pulls the magic from wherever you think it comes and we just let you think that so there is some form of ceremony. We’ve found over watching centuries of blood and violence that you generally behave a little better when there is some form of routine to get you through the day. (I don’t even want to think about the Aztec sacrifices. We’d get called in and then we’d have to watch the whole ceremony while trying to keep our essences intact. Let me tell you, it is really hard to try and hold a corporeal form when the grimy blood of some priest is dripping in and you have to spread yourself around twenty or thirty enemy hearts and skulls.) I mean, look at what happened when the Protestants tried to break with the Roman Catholic ceremonies… Not good. So we let you think that you are waving your sticks for a purpose and that it matters how pure the ability to call us is.
Speaking of Pure, I have to make one more detour before I get into the nitty-gritty of what this whole off topic rambling has been about: that whole “Pure-blood, Dirty blood” thing? Well, it doesn’t really matter. All those people who have died because of their relatives, where their line came from, died for absolutely no reason at all. Sometimes it’s hard being a Spirit and being the source of prejudice. (Particularly one as close to my heart as this one, but I’ll get to that in a minute.) Its one reason I wish the Wizards could see us: so we could explain that the only difference between you and the Mundane is that you speak in a way so that we can hear you. That when you are created, there is absolutely no difference between you at all. That you make those distinctions. That for some reason we can’t hear the call of the “non-Magic folk.” That who your parents are has absolutely nothing to do with the price of China in rice, or whatever that human expression is.
I wish there was a better way to tell this story, but there isn’t really another way. It’s high time that whoever finds this writing (a tricky bit of work that required actually leaving dark essence on a page. I hope the lack of ink will lead to some authenticity…) let the truth be known. I know: kind of a contradiction after I’ve already said that the Wizards need their ceremony and their sticks, but I get the feeling that the Wizards will still wave their sticks long after I have made it clear that there is no need to do so, so I am just going to carry on as though I haven’t written anything that would make you think I don’t want you to know about me or the spirits that followed. Or the one that came before.
Most importantly the one who came before.
I’m the spirit Knox, prince of darkness, lord of night and all that other stuff that humans think (again) actually means anything in the grand scheme of things. Before you get the wrong idea, I am not what goes bump in the night, I am far too busy to do that too. I am what hides the things that scare you, though. Sorry about that: just a side effect of my essence (which is much bigger and reaches further than your closet.) But before I get off track again, the next part of what I was going to say: the scheme of things.
What does matter in the grand scheme of things is that I came second. Yeah, yeah, in that human book about God and creation and all that other stuff, first there was nothing (or darkness if you take the literal translation) and then there was light. What Humans can’t seem to grasp is that nothing was Light. That bright, beautiful Light was everywhere and everything. She was unrestrained and this miserable scrap of real estate was Glory. And then I appeared and pulled that white Light, that striking Light, into an order that made sense and allowed beings, such as the miserable experiment that was the Human race, to exist.
At first I hated whoever had created me for reigning in her Glory. For bringing order to something so pure and powerful and magnificent. And then I hated myself for not being strong enough to resist my calling and let her go once more.
Even as I bound her, tried to extinguish that brightness, she comforted me. She soothed the soul of a Spirit (me if you lost track, I’m kind of easily distracted. It all stems from having a lot to do and not a lot of time to do it.) when I honestly felt I didn’t deserve it.
She whispered sweet nothings into the fabric of suffocating darkness and told me that I had a wonderful purpose. That together we could create things that would never exist without out interference. It was she who bullied me into sinking deep beneath the waters of the sea and allowing her light to touch the surface and make things grow. It she who managed to soften me enough that I wanted to let light in at night, the last place I truly had control.
But that Light and Dark thing, my hold on her, the tether! I hated how my whole purpose was to restrict something as amazing as her light! But she loved me.
Loved what we could make when we were one.
We had a real problem with it when it came time to bend light and create Humans. Again, the Hebrew were a bit mistaken: something may have created us, but we were the ones who gave the Humans a form and a conscious mind. Although if the other spirits had had their way, I would have smothered her completely and they would have free reign. But she loved me too much for me to dream of hiding her light. To dream of stopping her when she desired creatures with minds and abilities to rival our own.
I wanted to escape binding the creatures that I thought would rival Light unrestrained. But the rules of our world set by the original Creator made that impossible for me. The rules gave me another task I hated.
She bent the light into arms and legs and wiry body and head and I just watched her create them, loving the glow that poured from their skins. But when she went to Spark them to life, the only forms of unrestrained Light winked out of existence. I watched her wail when her unfettered creatures consumed her Spark and burned up, and I knew she would come to me; beg me to allow her beings to be bound. When the last Bright one winked out of existence, I hoped I would have the restraint to resist her. But you, dear reader, know that I did not. That as strong as I am, Light always manages to break through and get her way.
When the wailing stopped, when she realised the piece that she needed to make them live, she came to me.
I fought for so long against the last restraint she wanted for her light, this last creation that she wanted to make.
I didn’t think she understood what the darkness would do to her beautiful beings, that those beautiful souls she had created would forever hate the darkness that would always linger in their hearts. Just as surely as I hated my whole self and my purpose.
I caved in to her demand, though, like I always did. And still do.
I gave her the Darkness to hold her beautiful, miserable creations together.
I watched as the Darkness ate at the soul of the first murderer, knew his intent and watched as the rock caved in his brother’s skull (sadly, Mankind’s records are perfect when it comes to crime.) Watched as cities grew and fell to the Darkness. Hated myself for this new purpose Light had forced on me.
For you see, dear reader: Light and Dark are in every one of you. She brings me and my Dark to every birth, where we wait for that pink, slick child to burst into the world. Without her Light and my Dark, the fragile thing would die. So we bathe it in Light and Dark and sometimes I push too hard or she pushes too hard and we have one that destroys or creates. Sometimes I push too hard to spite her. To make her pay for the pain she puts me through. For the pain she puts you through just so you can exist. But whenever I do, I hate what I have done after. Blackening the soul of something so pink and fresh and perfect. I regret every one of them.
She never regrets you. She never cries over you. She loves each and every one of you. Or rather, she delights in the Light that the Darkness lets shine through.
I wish I could share her joy.
But I am here to rein her in. Bind her tight. To be everything she is not.
For her to love when I can’t bear love myself.
When a Wizard scared of the dark cries “Lumos!” she appears, lighting your world and reminding you that the Light is always there. That she will return in her full Glory with the rising sun. That I will leave and that the Dark parts of you, that are so awake in the tired hours, will leave with me.
She brightens your worlds, never seeming to realise that I am there to hold her tight. No, that’s not right. She is very aware that I am there to rein her in. Maybe she is there to remind you that Light can love the Darkness in you. That Light still appears, whenever you want it. Even when the Dark twists in your heart and makes you wonder you would be better off not existing at all.
But remember, she, the fettered Queen, loves you: be you Wizard or Mundane. She loves your light and your moments of joy. Remember, even as I bind her tight so you can’t see her, that she is always there.
Even after the soothed human whispers, “Knox.”
Knox by Emily_the_Poet
Story Notes:
Hey people who read this: this is the first fic I've submitted since the beginning of my VERY long hiatus which began about a month or two after the seventh book came out. I've been on sporadically since then, but haven't posted anything. Here's to coming back!
To the Mod: I left the contractions in on purpose because I wanted the feeling that he was speaking to us rather than writing because all he knows is the spoken word.
Chapter Endnotes: Hoped you all liked it, its been bouncing around in my head for a while now and I finally wrote it out on the computer. For those who did like it, I am working on a chaptered Draco/Hermione that I still need to get on the computer but is completely written and I have this Idea for a post-Hogwarts (Epilogue, what Epilogue?) story that will quite possibly fry your brain.
Forever bound,
-Miki