2Prologue
Excerpt from Tales of Beedle the Bard
The Angel's Heart
"Once there was a King who ruled over a prosperous kingdom in a time when the harvest was bountiful, the skies clear, and the subjects joyful and content.
Alas, the peace was not meant to last. The kingdom was besieged by an army of thousands led by a cruel tyrant from a nearby land. As enemy forces surrounded the city walls, the King summoned his advisors in a panic. The defenses could not hold for long and the King's army was greatly outnumbered. Death seemed eminent as the King looked between the faces of his advisors; all wore the same mask of hopelessness and none could offer a viable solution.
A great creak resounded through the hall as the heavy wooden doors swung slowly open to reveal a single figure in a cloak of midnight black. The Stranger claimed he could stop the enemy's armies. He promised a power greater than any the world would ever see.
The advisors were dismissed, the doors locked, and the windows covered at the Stranger's request. The Warlock, as that was what he claimed to be, commanded great power, and was well versed in the Magical Arts.
The Warlock warned the King of the sacrifice that accompanied such a ritual. He would require the blood of an innocent. The King agreed to the dark price, reasoning that a single life was nothing to a thousand lives.
With the King's permission, the Warlock took a young soldier, a boy of no more than 17, recruited in the King's desperation to increase the number of warriors defending the city. He cut out the boy's heart, tracing a circle in his blood on the gleaming marble of the the throne room floor.
He turned to the King and again asked if he was willing to sacrifice anything to gain the power to destroy his enemies. The Warlock smiled grimly and commanded him to proceed to the center of the bloody circle. The King nodded and stepped forward.
The Warlock circled the King, chanting in a lost language, each word drawing the circle closer to the King's feet. When the blood touched his boots, the Warlock stopped chanting, meeting the King's terrified eyes with a final merciless look. He swept his arms in a wide arc, fire erupting between his fingers, and the marble floor fell away leaving a pit black as tar and the horrified King suspended above it. Directing his flaming palms towards the pit, the Warlock screamed a final word: "Consurgo!" and the King's dying cry was engulfed by a monstrous, inhuman roar.
Where once stood a desperate King, there was an otherworldly creature of darkness and fire, risen from the abyss, a child of Hell itself. A Demon.
The Warlock began to give it a command, but was tossed aside by the beast, as it charged through a wall of stain glass windows. Colored glass rained upon the destroyed throne room, glinting shards scattering across the marble stones.
The Demon consumed every living creature it encountered with an insatiable bloodlust. Friend and foe, man and woman, soldier and servant, not one was spared the cruel fate brought upon them all by the foolish King's hunger for power.
A lone figure watched from the ruined palace as the Demon ravaged the village. The Warlock looked on in horror as the creature he summoned massacred the villagers without restraint. He had expected it to be a slave to his will, a servant to do his bidding and strike fear into the hearts of all who opposed him. He was to be King of the Earth, now he was the fool of the damned. He could not control the creature, no amount of magic could, it would seem. He turned from the shattered window wracked with guilt and despair, and his eyes fixed upon a small shape huddled beside the toppled throne of the King. A girl in white was cradling the forgotten body of the young guard whose heart had been used to complete the summoning ritual. Scarlet stained her gown like a rose in the snow, her hair falling around them in a curtain of gold.
"What have you done?" Her voice, no louder than a whisper, shook with grief. Clear blue eyes, watery with tears, glistened as the Warlock met her gaze.
He fell to his knees, his head hanging in defeat. She turned from him to the boy lying cold and motionless in her lap. Taking his limp hand in hers, she intertwined their fingers, placing them over her heart. She rested her forehead against his, speaking in a whisper lighter than a misty rain.
"I offer my heart, broken but beating, in exchange for yours, cold and silent. Should the Angels hear my plea, may they take mercy on a grieving soul."
A pair of tears fell from her eyes as she raised her head and brushed her lips to the boy's brow.
As the Warlock watched, the candles all around the throne room came alive with bright, warm flames. The newborn flames detached themselves from their candle wicks and converged in the air above the girl in white and her broken boy. From the glow of the candles emerged a figure too beautiful to look at directly, cloaked in light burning bright as the sun. The Warlock cowered, but the girl looked fearlessly at the figure. The creature extended a glowing hand to the girl and she took hold of it, her other hand still tightly clasping the boy's hand to her heart.
From the joined hands of the girl and the heavenly creature, a shimmering stream of gold began to twine up the girl's arm like a vine climbing a stone tower. Light bloomed across her skin until she, too, was glittering like the creature. The place above her heart where her hand clasped the hand of the boy began to glow brighter than the rest of her body. A spark of light like the North Star washed the room in white, blocking out even the sickening screams of fear and destruction coming from the besieged village below.
A voice reverberated in the blinding white. "The Angels have heard your plea. I, Arathiel, offer you the Gift of the Heavens. The Stars will forever run in your blood, brave one; the light manifesting in the most worthy of your descendants. Destiny will come for your kin one day. The Light will call them home; they will heed the call or the world will be consumed by darkness. I have armed you with the powers of the Angels, this power and all its consequences are your burden to bear now, brave one. Use it well and wisely."
The girl gently moved the boy from her lap to the cool marble floor. She rose, still shimmering with the Angel's gift. She stepped forward, eyes fixed on the sky outside the shattered stain glass windows. Her feet did not touch the floor, her white gown billowed in an invisible breeze, her hair floated around her head in a halo of gold.
When she reached the window she stepped out beyond the sill before the Warlock could cry out for her to stop. But she did not fall. She floated just beyond the window, a beacon in the night.
Below her the Demon turned, fixing its red eyes on the white light hovering in the sky with a look of burning hatred. It leapt at her, covering an impossible distance in a single bound, claws outstretched, tattered leathery wings springing from its back. Just before it reached her, the girl began to glow brighter. She was a blur of pure light, blinding and dangerously beautiful. The Demon made to advance towards her like a moth drawn to a flame. Suddenly, a beam of golden light erupted from the center of the glowing star, piercing the Demon straight through the heart.
It let out an unearthly shriek of pain and began to collapse in upon itself like a black hole until the Demon had vanished entirely, banished back to Hell.
The light around the girl began to fade and she turned, stepping over the sill and back into the throne room where the Warlock watched her with fear and awe. She descended, landing soundlessly beside the boy.
Turning to the Angel who remained where it had appeared, she spoke in her feather soft voice.
"What good is the Angel's Gift if it cannot save an innocent soul like him," she gestured to the fallen soldier. "I did not ask to save the world. I asked to save the boy."
"The Angel's Gift is not a force in and of itself. Alone it is useless. It must be wielded by one who is pure and strong of heart. Selfless, innocent, and brave. No, it is not the Gift, but the heart that contains the power. The Gift merely manifests that power, expressing its magic in a way the heart itself cannot," the Angel explained.
"So you cannot do what I've asked you here to do? You cannot help me. I am to be left with a powerful, but broken heart," she whispered in defeat. The Angel nodded solemnly, "I cannot create a new heart for him."
"Wait," she called, as the Angel began to fade. "You cannot give him a new heart...but perhaps I can give him mine."
"There is only one way an Angelic heart can be given," stated the Angel. The girl nodded, as if she already knew what to do. She bent over the boy again.
The Warlock gasped. Give up the most powerful heart, now imbued with Angelic magic for a dead soldier? Impossible. The girl looked up at the sound of his gasp, meeting the Warlock's eyes questioningly.
The Warlock stammered, "I...I...I just don't understand. Why would you give up your power...your heart...your very life for this soldier?"
She smiled faintly at him, a look of compassion and sympathy for the poor man who, despite mastering the Magical Arts, did not understand the real magic of the world.
"Because I love him."
Her whisper echoed in his ears as she leaned towards the boy, softly kissing his cold lips. A burst of white light flashed between the boy and the girl. She glowed faintly, a golden haze hanging about her, blurring the edges of her silhouette. The boy shimmered and with a great shuddering breath, he opened his eyes, life flowing in his veins again. He looked up at the girl, a look of pure love blazing in his eyes. He pulled her to him, kissing her gently. A farewell. When she finally drew away, she met his eyes with a look that spoke infinities. They rose from the floor, hands clasped, and pressed their foreheads together, eyes shut.
The Angel turned to the Warlock.
"Warlock you have brought death upon this place tonight. Your error cannot be so easily overlooked. As punishment for your deeds, I place a curse on you and your descendants. Love is the true power of this world. It is a power that some cannot wield because they are too full of selfishness or hate. You selfishly sought dominance and control, now I lay a curse upon you and your descendants that you may never know Love, nor learn to master it. You are doomed to seek its magic in fruitless pursuit, never knowing what you seek, only that you will never obtain it. This is your curse," the Angel commanded.
The Warlock sank to his knees, looking up to see the boy and girl parting from each other. The boy held on to her fingers with the strength of an unspoken promise, until the girl and the Angel ascended into the sky, fading until there was nothing left but a single candle flickering at the boy's feet.
The Warlock and the boy turned to look out of the shattered window. The sun had just begun to creep up over the horizon. The Night was over, Dawn had come at last."
Malfoy Manor, 1984
The book closed with a soft snap. Narcissa Malfoy looked down at the little blonde boy in her lap, meeting his wide grey eyes.
"Mother?"
"Yes, Draco?"
"Are Demons and Angels real? Did all this really happen?"
Narcissa smiled at her son. "Of course not, my love. It is only a story."
The outskirts of Little Hangleton, June 1997
The dry, sun-scorched grass rippled in the light breeze. The night was clear, but a dark bank of clouds was creeping in from the East. Distant thunder rumbled, a warning of the oncoming storm.
A dark figure stood on the hill, eyes closed, still as death. He finished speaking, voice permeating the silence like poison moving in a man's veins. The words were not of any human language, but the cold hiss of a snake; the great viper coiled at the man's feet stirred, her great head lifting towards her master.
"My Lord, I do not understand. Of what importance is a child's fairy tale to your divine plan?"
He did not turn to her. He spoke, his eyes never leaving the gathering storm on the horizon.
"Nagini, my pet, this story may be but a fairy tale, but the power spoken of here is as real as any magic. To summon a Demon and command its monstrous power…I would be invincible. The world, Muggle and Magical alike, would be mine to control. I could cleanse this Earth of the muggle stain, bringing the pure of blood to their rightful place of power. A world born anew, that is my vision of the future. I will destroy all who oppose me, removing all obstacles standing between Harry Potter and myself. He will fall. All the world will bow before my might."
"But my Lord, the Angel's Gift…" hissed Nagini.
The Dark Lord silenced her with a wave of his hand, a cruel smile twisting his lips.
"Now that, my pet, is only a story."