The Four
Green flames from the fireplace bloomed to life as Albus Dumbledore stepped out of it in the Packhouse of Gryffindor. Molly Weasley was the first to greet him and ushered him further inside.
"Albus, it has been quite some time." Molly closed the distance between them and hugged the old man like she would a very good friend.
"Molly, good afternoon to you." Albus returned the hug and gave a small smile to the woman. "Where are they?"
Molly then gestured for Albus to follow her as they both walked towards the office of James Potter. She knocked on the door and soon they both heard a voice telling them to enter. The door opened to reveal Lily sitting at one of the couches near the bookshelves, her hands folded on top of a book. Sirius seated next to her while Beta Remus stood near the large mahogany table where James' hands were clasped.
Smiles bloomed from every person in the room when they all saw Dumbledore. Lily stood primly as she greeted Albus, followed by James who then gestured for the Headmaster to sit. Molly left the room saying that she would bring up some tea for all of them.
"What brought your sudden visit here?" James asked.
Dumbledore decided not to speak but instead, he took what seemed to have been a purple cloth. Everyone in the room waited with baited breath at what it was. As soon as Dumbledore revealed what was wrapped, an audible gasp was heard from Lily when she saw the achingly familiar dagger of Narcissa.
"Is that—" James began and Dumbledore could only nod.
James stood up from his seat along with Sirius and Remus to look at the dagger closer. Seeing as it was authentic, with trembling hands, Lily touched its scabbard and a single tear escaped her eyes.
"Where?" Sirius was the one who asked as he closed his eyes, his hands clenching. He was still feeling bitter for the way that he had no idea how his cousin died.
Then Dumbledore spoke the words that broke the sadness that enveloped the room in one swoop. "Draco."
All of them stood frozen. They stared wide-eyed at Dumbledore who just looked at them as if pleading to keep what he just said a secret to themselves.
"But how is that possible?" James began to reason.
Remus who remained silent throughout all replied. "He went to Hogwarts, did he not?"
Dumbledore could only nod as he offered the dagger to Sirius who was the closest to Narcissa. Sirius, with trembling hands, gingerly took the dagger that his cousin usually held. He touched the scabbard of the sword and to their astonishment, a hologram of some sort appeared. The hologram showed no face, as a hood carefully obscured it. All of them waited with baited breath to find out what was going to happen but all they heard was a smooth voice.
"If you could all see this, it means that I am dead and my son has yielded this dagger to my cousin Sirius Black." They all turned to Dumbledore for this sudden turn of events, but Dumbledore shook his head. He was shocked as well.
The hologram then removed the hood obscuring the face of Narcissa Black.
"It this dagger had fallen to any of my sisters, it would have burned their hands."
Sirius sighed at this, glad that he was never on the bad side of his cousin. He looked at the occupants of the room to see that they were all paying attention to what this message still had to say.
"This means that I am in the presence of my old friends." A small smile was shown on the lips of the hologram, her eyes kinder for a while before she continued. "Forgive me for suddenly disappearing, but I had to." Her hand unconsciously went to hold her stomach and a fond smile appeared on her lips as if remembering something.
"I guess I owe you all an explanation. At the start of the war, I prepared myself to choose a side to stop that monster. However, at that time Bellatrix and the Dark Lord was intent on finding me and calling me to their side. I glamoured myself into a muggle. Everything was chaotic, but it was also the time I met him, my mate."
Her face looked happy as she closed her eyes as if reminiscing those days. Once she opened them, they were now full of nothing but sadness.
"Our happiness was short lived. Bellatrix kept on tracking me and I have stayed at the same place for a long while. I had no choice but to leave. It was safer for him if I stayed away and if Bella never found out about him. I cast a magic to veil the identity of who my mate is. I left telling him nothing of who I really am and in hope that when the war ends, I would return to him. When I left, I headed to Romania to hide for a while. That was then that I found out about my child. My Draco."
Lily looked at her husband in understanding. They all know what kind of sacrifice she made in order to aid them to end the war. She could not help the tears that fell from her eyes as she heard her story.
They all listened but what shocked all of them was when she told them about the things she found out about the Dark Lord. Their eyes widened at what they learned and Dumbledore just closed his eyes because what he had learned from Hermione was true. They could not believe that the Dark Lord had such a secret they never knew about.
"The Dark Lord was born out of his mother's hate. He is an abomination that nature herself rejects. But these objects—those trapped souls are what allows him to stay rooted in this world."
James could not help but feel powerless in the face of the Dark Lord. He feared for his son. He closed his eyes and clasped his hands tighter, wanting to take upon himself the duty of ending the Dark Lord and not his son.
Lily began to hug herself at what she heard. She couldn't believe that someone would be capable of performing that kind of magic, that kind of barbaric deed at this age. James instantly felt his mate's emotions as he stood up and hugged her. He tried his hardest to soothe her until she calmed down for a while.
"I already left the key to destroying the Dark Lord's objects in my Grimoire—" her eyes, as if she was right there, sought Sirius. A faint smile akin to hope flashed in those orbs as she continued, "the Clock of Fate."
Sirius' body froze, but his mind was alert and the gears could not stop trying to comprehend what she meant.
"I leave this world in hope that the prophesized child could end this war. Alone he will fail, but I hope that with this they could fix that we cannot rectify."
"Impossible." Lily's voice breathed out. All eyes in the room fell to her as she eased away from the arms of her husband and slowly approached the hologram of Narcissa that stood as if waiting. But before she could explain, the hologram slowly dissipated and her last words were heard.
"Once this dagger is embedded into the center of the ward, it will strengthen the ward as it was before when I was alive." Lily's head then suddenly snapped to the direction of her husband and she saw her doing the same. The two of them turned their heads to meet the eyes of Dumbledore.
Underlying the words that Narcissa spoke out loud, it seemed that a secret message only meant for the three of them to hear was embedded. ‘My friends, once the dagger is embedded in the center of the ward, the true prophecy that I have hidden shall reveal itself to you three. Someday you will understand its true meaning just as I have.'
Dumbledore's eyes widened. This was the first time he had heard of something like that. He had questions as to how or why or what Narcissa meant by the true prophecy but if there was anyone who could change the prophecy's words, it was her. So he masked his expression and turned to Lily and James who had done the same.
‘The prophecy must not be known to anyone and I trust you three to only reveal it to those you trust with your very life. The Dark Lord's forces draw near and I fear for all of you. I hope that the darkness I have seen shall not come to pass.'
Narcissa's eyes met every single one of them and with strong conviction within them, she gave them a rueful and sad smile. "Till we meet again, my friends."
The hologram disappeared. Sirius clutched it to him, his fists clenched to it. "What about my nephew? Where is he?"
Dumbledore shook his head. "He disappeared as soon as he left that dagger to me, saying that he will have nothing to do with this war."
James nodded, not wanting to add Narcissa's child in this war of theirs. The woman had already done so much for them.
"Lily, what do you know of what Narcissa was talking about the Dark Lord?" Albus then began to ask.
Lily swallowed before she hugged herself as she voiced out that cruel unforgivable name of the ritual. "Horcruxes."
Dumbledore could not help himself from feeling faint. Remus had to hold the old vampire and allow him to sit at one of the chairs as he sagged. Sirius looked at Lily as if she knows something that could help piece together what Narcissa had said to him.
"How could I not have foreseen this?" the vampire looked as if he had failed all of them and he closed his eyes as if the word pained him so.
Dumbledore had once read about that horrific ritual when he was young, so young that his great-grandfather had to punish him from ever reading or speaking about it. Not that he could ever talk about it as it brought nightmares to him every night since he read it. After that day, he never saw that book ever again. It was burnt in fiendfyre as if it needed to be cleansed by burning it to nothing but dust.
"What is a Horcrux, Lily?" Remus asked.
"A Horcrux is an object in which a witch could draw more power from the soul that they had trapped in."
Molly gasped at this and the other's eyes widened at such a fact. "There was such a thing?"
Lily nodded. "These objects could only be created by committing the supreme act of evil and that is murder." She looked pained as she voiced these things out.
"Good Heaven's," Molly gasped out.
"How did you know of this, Lily?" Albus began to ask.
Lily swallowed. "That ritual was written in a storybook that was passed down through our family for generations that my late sister Petunia inherited. I remembered her saying that it was a family heirloom written by our ancestor who likes to scare people or just practically insane." She remembered her sister saying those words to her before she was killed years later and her home burnt to ash. "Did you know about this as well, Albus?"
The old vampire could only nod as he began to speak. "The Horcrux I know of is an object that has hidden a fragment of the creator's soul for the purpose of attaining immortality."
"What?" Lily voiced out softy, confusion in her voice as she did not know that such a ritual had another effect or use. Then she began to counteract, as that was just a scary bedtime story. "But this was just a myth, a story made up, by old ancestors to warn us of the horrors if we ever try to dabble with achieving something impossible and unreachable unless—" at that moment, Lily could not help but feel nothing but despair, ‘what if that story was real?'
She looked up at Albus, her eyes pleading for something, trying to convince herself that it was just a made up story by old crazy cronies in her family. However, the old vampire could only close his eyes and Lily now knew that the story she had read was real.
"Why would a storybook contain such a thing?" Remus could not help but ask. No one answered the question.
"The Four Forbidden Grimoires."
All eyes snapped to Sirius who leaned back against the wall as he massaged his temples to ease a headache growing there.
"What?" James voiced out for all of them in the room.
Sirius just released a huge sigh as he then began to explain. "Those four grimoires show and depict our history itself, the beginning of everything and the end of it. No one knows how these grimoires came to be but they held such special power that no one has the capability of destroying them." He looked at the occupants of the room who looked clearly like they had never known of such a thing. "They were once owned by our oldest ancestors the Four Founders of Hogwarts. It is said that wars, murder, deceit, and death surrounded the books as they all each had a power that could tip the balance of our world."
James began to ask, curious. "Owned? You mean the other races could use these objects not just witches?"
Sirius nodded and a collective gasp was heard in the room.
"But those grimoires were lost, hidden by our ancestors never to be found. It is said to bring nothing but death and destruction in its wake but also happiness and peace in the right hands. It seems like they have been awakened." Sirius remained silent as the others took in the information given to them.
"But how is it that such powerful objects were not known in our history and only yours know of it?" Remus said.
"I think it was because Rowena Ravenclaw thought it would be wise for us to learn from past mistakes and not to redo them in our time. And because the Black Family was instructed to assure that none of these Grimoires to ever be awakened or used, and look where that brought us." Sirius scoffed as if mocking but there was sadness in his eyes.
"Sirius are you saying—" Lily swallowed, as she could not voice out the horror that the others were aware of but afraid of asking.
"It is possible that Bella has one as she knows about this myth as well since the Black Family never once told a story that was never real." Sirius ruffled his hair at the horror that Bella held one of the most powerful objects known to them.
"How would be able to go against such a thing?" Molly voiced out, feeling hopelessness seep through her body as she clutched her trembling fingers together.
"No!" Sirius' voice rang in the silence of the room and all of its occupants looked up at him, slightly shocked by his sudden outburst. "We cannot lose hope now, not when Narcissa left us something powerful that will allow us to fight back!"
"Her Grimoire?" James voiced out and Sirius nodded his head. Lily looked up at him in hope that what he said is true.
"She said that she left the key to destroying the Horcruxes in her Grimoire, but we don't even know where her Grimoire is."
That was then that Dumbledore stood up and all eyes went to him. "Her Grimoire was just recently inherited by Miss Hermione Granger."
"What!?" All the other occupants suddenly voiced out at once and James sat on his chair as if about to laugh at the sudden hope that filled them all.
"How?" Remus asked.
Albus went on and told them about what the children had planned for him and for Hogwarts, about Orion, about the Dark Lord, about Narcissa. When he finished, the room was fully silent. The shock was an understatement from the faces of the adults in the room. He tried his best to never once mention about Draco's or Marius' involvement on the matter.
James tilted his head up. He could not believe that the children have planned this far and they even got the offering of Lestrange's son to be a spy for their side. They were all having mixed feelings about the matter. They were the adults in this case and yet their children were also doing their best to prepare for the upcoming war.
"You agreed to this? Their plan?" James then asked the old vampire, looking straight into his eyes.
"I have already entrusted my life to the future." Albus smiled at them.
"I could understand if Hermione was able to plan this all out but how—how was any of them able to get the Lestrange boy to side with them?" and that was the question that Albus was dreading about. But he only has one answer to it all as he was sure that his allies would question him without a doubt from keeping such a crucial information.
"Draco." Once again the room was stunned into silence. Albus had to elaborate. "Orion Lestrange's loyalty lies to him and him alone, but it was his own decision to be a spy for our side all in order to assure that his cousin is safe from this war."
"He—he's at Hogwarts, right now?" Sirius asked his voice shaking and Albus could do nothing but nod his head. "Could I—" His question was stopped before he could ask it from Dumbledore.
"I swore to keep his identity when he came to me."
Sirius could not stop but protest even though in his mind he knew that Draco would be safer away from them right now. So he resigned and decided to just meet the boy when this was all over.
James looked up at Remus and it seemed like they both agreed about something as James began to speak. "No one must know about this. We will continue the search as to not draw any suspicions, but we will make sure that if anything happens those sent to search could return back here immediately. He has the Werewolves protection should he ever need it."
Lily agreed to this by nodding her head. Albus gave a small smile to express his gratitude and for their understanding of the matter. The old vampire thought they were going to ask the child to join them in the upcoming war but it seems like James do not wish for Narcissa's child to join along in the war. As if the wolf could read his thoughts, he began to speak.
"I cannot ask him nor force him to fight a war that his mother never wanted him to participate in. Just by the way that Narcissa hid her pregnancy from all of us I could understand why she would not want his son to be born to fight a war she could not win. He has his own choice and whatever it is, I am willing to accept it", Remus and Molly nodded at this. They understood as Narcissa had given up too much for them to win the previous war.
"We could win this war," Sirius said. All eyes fell on him, questioning but he looked up with a grin on his lips, "with Narcissa's grimoire or I should call it ‘The Clock of Fate'—one of the Four Forbidden Grimoires."
....
Silver, mercurial eyes snapped open only to see nothing but the white ceiling. He suddenly sat up only to feel a tinge of a headache as he clutched his head with one of his hand and closed his eyes. He tried his hardest to remember what happened. When he did, his eyes snapped open once again.
"Take it easy, Marius," came the soft voice of someone he knew. When he looked at the person who was drawing soothing circles on his back, he was met with a slightly worried expression.
"Luna?" he voiced out.
Luna gave him a small but tentative smile before she moved away to pick up a glass of water and handed it to him. "Here, drink."
His mind was so muffled that he did not think but drink on the given liquid to him. "Thank you," he said as he handed the glass back to her.
She took the glass from him and placed it near the tabletop.
"Uh, where are we?" Marius' eyesight was still muddled along with his brain apparently.
"Well, after I saw you collapsed at one of the alcoves, I rushed out to help you. I levitated you to the Hospital Wing. Madam Pomphey was shocked."
Marius noticed that she was fiddling with her hands and so he released a sigh. "What is it that you want to ask me?"
Luna looked down at her hands and she seemed to be thinking it over whether she was going to ask it or not. When she looked up, Marius knew she had decided. "Marius, are you sick?"
Slightly, his eyes widened as he remembered himself coughing up black blood—rotten black blood that would soon happen to him often as the change and battle for his magic would begin within him. He felt pathetic letting a single word from Harry break him.
His eye twitched as he remembered Harry. His stomach churned as if he was going to vomit up that black goo all over again but a hand that suddenly held his took him back to reality.
"Marius?"
He did not realize he was clutching the sheets so tightly until he saw it. He released them slowly and feigned ignorance.
"I'm not sick Luna." He knew that did not convince the blonde.
She held his hand in her small ones tighter. "I know what I saw, Marius. There were—" Marius looked at her, pleading her not to say anything so she bit her lip and kept silent.
Madam Pomphrey soon came to check on him as her monitor showed that he was awake.
"Mr. Clarke, have you been pushing yourself too much from your studies?" The Matron huffed. "Honestly, you should take more care of yourself. Goodness, gracious, please do not scare me again."
Marius just smiled sheepishly at the woman who then placed her hands on her hips.
"Just last night you were involved in an incident. You should've listened to me and took some needed rest. Now stay here until tomorrow morning and I will not take a no for an answer," she commanded.
Marius nodded at her with a smile as she walked away muttering about stubborn students. Marius noticed that the Matron did not ask about the black blood. He turned to Luna who looked at him guiltily and she then began to speak.
"I'm sorry. I thought you might want to keep it a secret. You were muttering words like ‘no one must know' and so I thought—"
Marius then smiled at her. "Thank you, Luna. I don't really want anyone to know about it."
Luna looked up at him, eyes worried. He just clutched her hand in reassurance. Soon he yawned, feeling the tiredness all of a sudden. Luna tucked him in as she voiced out softly. "Don't worry, Marius. Your secret is safe with me." She gave him a smile and he could not help but see the tiny glint of something in her eyes but he could not place what it was as he once again fell into a deep slumber.