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INTERLUDE - The Master Of Death
🕑 Added 2023-12-20 17:47:44 +0000 UTCSomewhere in Trier, Germany.
The house had a gothic feel. Greyish gargoyles stood at the corners of the roof, with black iron gates glowering at the front, and statuary lined the walk to the front door. Long grassovergrew his ward, giving the impression of it being less than the house of a disgraced Head of the German Auror office, and more like an ominous speaker to the dead. Psychics, the muggles called them — squibs that retained some sensitivity to the whispers of the Anima, and could channel messages to and fro to the spirit world.
There were wards around, but they looked like they’d fall apart any moment. Then again, this was a man that no one knew or cared for. An empty existence.
Shaking his head, Voldemort lifted his hand to rap on the door. It opened before his knuckles touched it, and a well-rounded set of shoulders, below a shining, balding head backed through the doorway, grunting. He stepped to one side. The little man tugged an enormous trunk out onto the porch, never taking notice of him, his florid face streaked with perspiration.
Voldemort slid into the doorway as he turned to lug the bag out of the gate. The door was a business entrance, with absolutely no wards to prevent people from coming in. He sensed an enchantment, delicate and very finely woven along the doorway, casting a minor compulsion charm to make the visitor believe everything they saw or heard inside this chamber. Lots of black curtains draped down over the walls and other doorways, with red and black candles squatted all over the floor. A grinning human skull leered from a bookshelf with straining copies of the Necronomicon — the original, and not the addled, muggle version of it.
Inside was a table set up with chairs around it, with a high-backed chair at the rear, wood that had been carved with a number of demons and monstrous beings. Voldemort took a seat in the chair, folded his hands on the table and waited.
The little man came back in, wiping at his face with a bandana handkerchief, sweating and panting.
“Shut the door,” he said, and dropped the concealment charm that masked his magical presence. “We need to talk, Schulz.”
He squealed and whirled around.
“Y — you,” he stammered. “You are —”
Voldemort stared at him. “Come in, Schulz.”
He came closer, but left the door open. In spite of his pudginess, he moved with the nervous energy of a spooked cat. His white business shirt showed stains beneath his arms reaching halfway to his belt. He noticed two magic-suppression bracelets on each hand — carved with runes that made it impossible for one to cast magic, as well as alert the authorities if they were tampered in any way. Simple and effective, but limited. So very limited.
“Vy are you here?” He asked.
A brave response from a man unable to cast magic. But Schulz was no ordinary man either.
“Helmut Schulz,” said Voldemort. “Once the Left Hand of Grindelwald, and Head of German Auror Office —”
“Disgraced head of German Auror Office,” Schulz corrected instantly. “Zat’s how ze books print it. But zat is in ze past. I am now a psychic medium zat caters to ze needs of zese No-Maj. Vy are you here…. Britain’s Dark Lord?”
“For a number of reasons,” said Voldemort, eyeing the bracelets. “How much can I tell you in confidence?”
He shook his head. “I am bound to answer all inquiries from the ICW vardens honestly and truthfully, but zey are ze only ones I must answer to.”
“I was afraid of that. In that case, I can’t say much, at least not now. I’m looking for some answers, and I hoping —”
“I know nozzing.”
Voldemort arched an eyebrow. “The way this usually works is that I ask you a question, and then you tell me a lie. If you give me a dishonest answer before I have the chance to ask the question, it offends my sense of propriety.”
His head shook in quick, jerky spasms as his eyes widened. “N-no. I’m not lying. I don’t know anyzing. Ze others have approached me as vell. I’ve had a lot of unexpected guests, ever since summer.”
“The others…” murmured Voldemort. “I did not know that the Guilds —”
“Not ze Guilds. Zem. Librum Bellum.”
Ah. Those. He had almost forgotten about that lot. Created at the discretion of Albus Dumbledore, after he became Supreme Mugwump in 1948, the Librum Bellum was an ICW organisation committed to maintaining security of the magical world by ensuring that certain forms of magical knowledge was forever sealed away from the magical world. Voldemort had been a member of the Necromancer’s Guild when he had found out about the organisation, and laughed at Dumbledore’s attempt to unwittingly create a facsimile of the Sunken Vault.
“I see. Who else?”
Schulz looked hesitant. “Another group. One zat people call… Ze Cabal.”
“Never heard of them.”
“Consider yourself fortunate zen, Dark Lord.”
Voldemort frowned. “Tell me.”
Schulz looked around the room, as if expecting something to jump out of the shadows. “I can tell you zat zey are a sisterhood vith links to ze ICW, links to historical societies, fringe occult groups, ze Hidden Guilds…. Zey are not like us Acolytes, nor your rabid ragtag army you call ze Death Eaters. Zey’re assassins, poisoners, varriors, mages, sorcerers, nekromant — You have no idea vat kind of power zat group vields.”
“I have dealt with my fair share of those on the continent, Schulz.”
The old man laughed. “Not zis kind, Victor’s apprentice. Your leetle terrorist venture vent on for vat… a decade? Ze Cabal has been around for centuries. Zat much time, even modest talents can grow teeth. Never mind everything experience vould have taught zem, everything zey could have found to make zemselves stronger over the years. Even vithout your immortality and… höllisch power, they are a force to be reckoned with.”
“And they are interested in the El—”
Schulz hissed vehemently. “Don’t say zat name.”
“The… stick,” said Voldemort after a moment’s consideration. “They are interested in the legacy of the Peverells.”
“Not for ze reasons you think.”
“What can you tell me?”
“Exactly vat I told zem,” said Schulz. “I know nozzing about ze wand. If Grindelwald had it, he did not see fit to tell me.”
Voldemort tilted his head. “You were Grindelwald’s strongest, Schulz. His Left-hand, and the one privy to all his secrets.”
“Left-hand… perhaps. But privy to his secrets I vas not, Voldemort. Zat honour vent to Vinda Rosier, and she is no more among us.”
Voldemort knew that too. Vinda Rosier, Grindelwald’s Right Hand, had perished after being hit by the Transmogrifian torture — a curse of her own making, at the hands of Porpentina Goldstien through use of a reflection spell.
“And would Vinda Rosier know if Grindelwald actually possessed it?”
Schulz shrugged. “Perhaps. Ve can never know. Dead men tell no tales, Dark Lord.”
“Not from what I’ve heard,” said Voldemort. “I know you, Helmut Schulz. Back in your time, you were an accomplished Invocator in the business, extremely sensitive to spiritual energies and apparitions of the other world. I have heard tales about how you summoned spirits of the dead to find out forgotten lore about the stick, and help your Master trace the way to its whereabouts.”
“Da,” he said. His eyes softened a little, if not his voice. He avoided looking directly at Voldemort’s face. Most people did. “Zat was a long time ago.”
A soft sneer appeared on Voldemort’s face. “And now what? You run seances for muggles. How many times do you actually get to contact a spirit from the other world? One time in ten? Twenty? Must be a real letdown from the actual stuff.”
The man was good at covering his expressions, but Voldemort was good at watching people. He saw anger in the way he held his neck and shoulders. “It is the most I can do. With these,” he held out his bracelet-ringed wrists, “Zere is little I can do, and even zen, it is not so bad.”
“Fooling muggles?”
The man let out a mirthless laugh. “You don’t know vat it’s like, Voldemort. To speak to things that exist in ze past and in ze future as well as ze now. To have zem walk up to you at ze dining table, and start telling you how zey murdered zer wife in her sleep. Yes, I helped Grindelwald. But after all zat I suffered, after all zat happened, zis is simpler. Zese no-maj don’t give a flying fuck if zer Oncle Goeffrey really forgives zem. Zey want to know zat zer world is a place where Oncle Geoffrey can and should forgive them.”
He swallowed, and looked around at the room, at the softly billowing curtains and the grinning skull. “Zat’s what I sell them. Closure. And zey are happy to pay for it.”
“I need to know what happened to the stick, if Grindelwald even had it.”
“You are… decades too late, Dark Lord,” said the man, grabbing his pipe from the table and taking a long whiff. “Perhaps you can ask Grindelwald himself.”
Voldemort snorted in dismissal. “Empty words, Schulz. A man such as yourself knows quite well what will happen should I try to infiltrate Nurmengard. I have heard of the rumours. No magic works within that labyrinth where he is held. And even if I find him, there is no reason for your Master to bare his secrets.”
“Da. Zen you go back, Dark Lord. Zere iz nozing you vill find here.”
Voldemort cursed under his breath, frustration slowly rising within him. He’d have killed others for less. But his issues with magic, and the danger of being consumed by Peverell magic from inside out needed a permanent solution. Acting rashly was no longer an option he enjoyed.
Ollivander had told him about how Mykew Gregorovitch, a celebrated wandmaker in Austria, had started the rumour that he was studying and duplicating the qualities of the Elder Wand, though Ollivander presumed it was merely a false marketing campaign. Still, he had tracked down the wandmaker, only to find him completely addled from a bout of cerebrumous spattergroit. All he could find were memories of his attempts to create failed replicas. Disappointed, Voldemort had traced the myths surrounding the Elder wand across the continent. He had learned how the Deathstick had come into possession of Egbert the Egregious, after his slaughter of Emeric the Evil. He had heard about how Godelot died in his own cellar, after his son Hereward took it from him. He had traced the lineage of the dreadful Loxias, who took the wand from Barnabas Deverill, only for the wand to vanish in a disastrous fight between Loxias, and the Germanic heroes Arcus and Livius. It stayed that way for at least two centuries before rumours about Gellert Grindelwald gaining a powerful wand came into prominence, especially after his display at the Lestrange Mausoleum at Pere Lachaise in Paris.
“Ze stick isn’t exactly difficult to trace, Dark Lord,” said Schulz. “Venever zere is a Dark Lord, ze stick shows itself. Ze vand always finds its vay into ze hand of der killers. You do not find ze vand, Ze vand finds you, as Grindelwald used to say.”
“The Wand makes you unbeatable,” said Voldemort. “That’s why it always changes hands through murder, treachery, and deceit. Albus Dumbledore would never do any of those things, and he defeated Grindelwald in a fair fight.”
He did not want to believe it, but it was true. His brain held two entirely contradictory notions. The first, that the Master of the Elder Wand was unbeatable. The second — Albus Dumbledore defeated Grindelwald, who possessed the Elder Wand, a foe he stood absolutely no statistical chance of winning against.
“Both of them cannot be right. Either the infallibility of the Wand is a myth, or Grindelwald never possessed the Elder Wand.”
“Gut!” laughed Schulz. “Zen you have your answer.”
Voldemort scowled. Schulz was not wrong, but there was something about Grindelwald that just rubbed him the wrong way. Something that did not make sense. Unfortunately, he could not be the fool that shot blindly in the dark until he hit something.
For the briefest of moments, he assumed that Gellert Grindelwald might as well have obtained this legendary Deathstick. A wand unlike any other. A wand that always found its way into the hands of Dark Wizards that cut swathes of death and destruction across the world. And as much as he hated to admit, Grindelwald’s reign of terror was far more bloody and destructive than anything the Death Eaters had ever achieved. Even Voldemort’s greatest acts of magic had been less theatrical and more esoteric. And Transfiguration Guild Master or not, Albus Dumbledore simply wasn’t powerful enough to beat the unbeatable. Yes, there were those that questioned his ability to destroy the old fool, but the truth was — Albus Dumbledore held the wards of Hogwarts, and trying to fight a sorcerer in his home ground was tantamount to failure.
He knew it. Dumbledore knew it. And Dumbledore knew that he knew it. And to be frank, the idea of Albus Dumbledore holding the Elder Wand, but never using it, even when the lives of his supporters were in danger was a bad joke at best. The Elder Wand was supposed to amplify negative traits in its Master — the desire for power, for revenge, to rebuild the world in their image through slaughter. The Albus Dumbledore that led the 45th ICW Regiment was a war-hardened battler, but post his victory over Grindelwald, he had turned into this… flower-loving pacifist that even the young Tom Riddle felt embarrassed of. All that power, all that influence, and he went right back to teaching without comment.
So why did the idea of Grindelwald possessing the Elder Wand feel more likely the more he dwelled upon it? And if he truly did, then what happened to it post his defeat? There were two…. No, three people out there that potentially held the answer, and two of them were at Hogwarts, and the third one now lived under the protection of the Fidelius Charm.
He decided to throw subtlety out of the window. “I’ve been at the Lestrange Mausoleum, Schulz. No witch or wizard could’ve summoned that much Abstract Magic, let alone control it. I’ve been there, Schulz. I’ve seen it. The very air itself is corrupted. Even to this day, no witch or wizard may use magic within a mile of that place.” He raised his wand. “Tell me the truth, or I will have your head right here. How did Gellert Grindelwald perform that act at the Lestrange Mausoleum?”
Schulz blinked in surprise, bewilderment and confusion. “He cast ze spell with his vand. Zat is all I know. Don’t believe me, look into my head.”
“But Vinda Rosier would, wouldn’t she?”
The invocator shrugged. “Might.”
His right eye twitched. “Can you help me connect with Rosier’s shade?”
“You are an accomplished nekromant, Dark Lord. Vy not do it yourself? Vy come to me?”
The very first stirrings of annoyance flickered in Voldemort’s eyes. This is why he hated dealing with fellow necromancers or Invocators. Nothing went past them. “Certain aspects of my power… make Spiritual Invocation deadly to me, should I attempt it.”
Schulz widened his eyes briefly, recognition flooding through them. “I see. I had vondered.”
“You said that this… Cabal contacted you this summer. After Potter’s Ascension to the Peverell Lordship, I imagine. What is this Cabal’s interest in the stick?”
The man gave him a toothless smile. “Everyzing,” he said. “Not just ze stick, but ze bearer. Ze Master of Death. Tell me, Dark Lord, you are a nekromant. Perhaps, you have read ‘Ze Prophecy 33 of Tycho Dodonas, Zey Shall Rise?’”
“Something about the barrier between worlds shattering and the rise of the old gods to bring about an apocalypse, the end of the world?”
“Da.”
“What of it?” He asked. Frankly, he never gave much credit to these apocalyptic cryptic talks. The boundaries between the real and the ethereal had been there since the dawn of time. He doubted they would collapse anytime soon. And if that ever happened, Hogwarts would be the first place to get shredded out of existence, simply because the powers sealed beneath the Sunken Vault would run amok and sink the world into darkness. Voldemort had read all about meaningless poetry about beings that stood outside the ebb and flow of true Time, meandering between nothingness and non-existence, searching for mortal playthings. Powerless gods that were still floating in the Anima, waiting for an appropriate vessel on the earthly realm.
“And have you not heard of ze power zat flows in the Peverell?”
“Death….” Voldemort murmured, feeling an echo of that power flood through him, making him weaker and stronger at the same time.
“A power beyond Magic,” said Schulz with something like reverence in his tone. “Grindelwald always believed zat ze stick, no, ze Hallows vere the secret to Peverell magic. And zis boy, he has it. He vields it. Just like ze old gods.”
“Harry Potter is no God,” sneered Voldemort.
“You don’t understand,” said Schulz. “But you will. Ze old gods were never born, zey were forged — by time, by circumstances, by ze power of ze ancient past. Harry Potter is already making waves, da? Ever since summer, ze barriers are bubbling. Like stormy seas. You are a nekromant. You must have felt it.”
He… did actually. Something truly ancient had entered the mortal world that night at the cemetery. And the more he was finding out about the Peverell legacy, the more he was beginning to feel less like an accomplished necromancer and more like that eleven-year-old watching Albus Dumbledore set fire to his cupboard.
Voldemort made up his mind. “Tell me, Schulz. If I set you free, will you serve me as you did, Grindelwald?”
“If you set me free, ze ICW will start another manhunt.”
“I can protect you.”
“Bah! You are already trying to save yourself, Dark Lord. Zat is why you hunt for ze stick. Is zat not right?”
His fingers twitched. Anyone else would’ve already been spasming in agony under the cruciatus for less. Much, much less.
“If you help me find the wand, then I won’t need saving. And I can protect you. You will be part of my Inner Circle, my personal invocator. Nothing would be denied to you.”
Schulz laughed. “I stood side by side with Grindelwald. Your leetle rebellion does not interest me. But…” he took another whiff. “Being able to cast magic would be nice. Without ze ICW after me.”
“Agreed.”
Schulz gave him an annoyed look for whatever reason. “But zis I tell you, Dark Lord. I have not, can not raise zose zat have passed on. Only ze shades zat linger answer my call.”
“Ghosts.”
“Ghosts, nightmares, curses, raiths, memories, nameless zings… all zat is anchored to zis plain, I could call. Zose that have lost zemselves to Illusion, I cannot.”
“And Vinda…”
“I do not know. Not for certain.”
Voldemort struggled not to curse the emaciated man. But neither the pain of curses nor the fear of death would affect someone that was already reduced to a husk of his true self. Even if he helped Schulz out, there was absolutely no guarantee that Vinda Rosier hadn’t passed on.
“But, zere is a vay, for you to speak to shades zat have passed on. Tell me, have you heard of ze ozzer Hallows? Ze one descended from ze second brother?”
Voldemort narrowed his eyes. The man was referring to Cadmus Peverell, the second brother. Interestingly, Cadmus’s daughter Prestonia married Eldred Gaunt, from whom Salazar Slytherin himself was descended.
His own ancestor.
“You’re talking of… the stone.”
“Da,” said Schulz. “Ze gateway between life, death and rebirth. With zat, you can call all souls. Any souls. Vinda Rosier. Emeric ze Evil. Even ze Peverells. Grindelwald vas a fool to seek ze wand, as are you, Voldemort. Ze stone is ze key. With it, you can know anyone, learn anything. Knowledge of the past, secrets, prophecies…. Zat who controls ze Past, controls ze Present.”
Schulz let out a coarse laugh. “He iz a Potter. He must have ze Cloak. If I ver you, Dark Lord, I vud find ze last hallow.”
“But the wand….”
“You listen,” Schulz snarled. “But you don’t understand. Fool you are, Dark Lord. Vand finds you, not otherwise. Seek ze power of ze stone. Learn. Understand. Before it is too late. Vat do you think happens when ze vand and ze other Hallow falls into his hands?”
“Let me guess,” drawled Voldemort. “He’ll transform into a god?”
“Not just any god,” said Schulz. “Ze Master of Death.”
Comments
Atsumu
You guys create some of the sickest lore there is damn
Krishna Rao
Finally, the ethereal elements are back!
