Chaos Reigns Supreme

Chaos Reigns Supreme
by Calypso

The world was young. Chaos had just settled itself into a defined mass of sea, earth, and sky roughly two centuries earlier and had not yet begun to leak back into the orderly universe. Humans had not yet discovered the joys of eternal combat and magickal folk lived in peace amongst the non -- what they called Baroses. The Baroses did not shun the sorcerers, and in turn, these men who possessed this power did not hide.

It was not until two-hundred years after the Dawn of Time that the first maiden sorcerer was born. And it was not until millennia later that the first sorceress in history was discovered by her descendant, a famed witch by the name of Rowena Ravenclaw.

Eve was an average maiden; fair, pure, simple. At fifteen years of life she was the keeper of Unicorns in the forest near her village; an average job for a pure, sweet damsel such as herself. She was a simple Barose, nothing particularly distinctive about her.

But it just so happened that this common girl became the downfall of everything and ultimately was responsible for the End.

* * *

The Serpent and the Maiden / Set the Chaos free
Lady got her power / Snake got his revenge
The time of Destruction begins / Peace is forever lost
The serpent laughs tonight / And the maiden weeps from afar

* * *

The war had lasted for ages. Many a great witch and wizard had died in the fight, as well as far more Muggles than was safe. No one cared about the Secrecy law by then. Anarchy had crept into their society, until no government could resist it. Times were dark to say the very least.

Twenty years earlier an infamous Dark Lord had risen for a second time. People barely remembered his name now or the names of the children who had sacrificed themselves to defeat him. For they were children, all between the ages of sixteen and twenty-three. The few that did remember them would also recall the horrific manner in which they had given themselves up, made all the worse by the childish innocence that veiled their ritual.

The Forgotten ones had died needlessly. Their world suffered more now from the backlash of dark Magick and the hundreds of power-hungry criminals that had emerged after the first Dark Lord’s death. Those who weren’t dead wished they were; rapes, robberies, tortures, murders… all as regular as the rising sun.

They began to diminish. It was inevitable; the Good could only fight so long and the Evil could only reproduce so much. There finally came a day when all was still, too still, as though the very atmosphere was waiting with bated breath. The population had decreased so much that only a handful of witches and wizards were left in each continent. They regrouped, separating into two groups like the underlings in a Muggle gang. The Good Guys to this side of the blue line, the Bad Guys to the other.

The "line" happened to be an ocean. The Atlantic, to be precise. The wicked settled in Portugal; the virtuous in Canada. Weeks inched by, then months. Both sides argued, strategized, argued more… The self-proclaimed leaders of both parties waited patiently for the other to send out his pawns and leave the queen vulnerable. The less witty of the teams complained, and grew impatient and restless. It was finally agreed that both would send out thirty men to meet in Brazil and "work things out".

A lone owl soared above the pacified sea the day those sixty men set out. Hexes and curses filled the air the minute the soldiers appeared on Brazilian soil. As they fought, those they had left behind mysteriously died. And not one of them died from an earthly spell.

* * *

"Mankind must put an end to war, or war will put an end to mankind."

- John Fitzgerald Kennedy

* * *

The unicorns ran from her touch. Her hand had not grown less gentle, less delicate. Her soul, however, had grown impure, and the sensitive creatures could perceive that.

Eve blushed in shame, though she did not realize what she had done wrong. She did not remember clearly all that had happened since that morning. Her elation faded and she frowned, thinking.

There was a man, obviously one of the magick ones. He had spoken with her and had promised to share his power with her. His voice had been soft, coaxing though his narrow eyes frightened her. He showed her a trick, turning an ordinary apple into something golden and tempting. She had given in, dazzled by the fruit.

Things were not so clear after that. She drank from his table and had lain in his bed -- necessary to share the power, he had explained to the naïve girl. She trusted him, more willing to do so at the prospect of being something other than an average Barose.

But now she did not feel powerful and the unicorns fled from her. She cried as any maiden would. Through her tears, she sought the magician, moved by a sudden anger and hatred that had never before been felt by anyone in the land. She found him; he let her.

He simply laughed as she furiously explained herself and made a sweeping gesture to the land around her.

"Look, look there. Do you see the farmers quarrelling? And those men fighting by the hill?"

Eve looked and she saw the sudden disruptions in the peaceful way of life. With wide, innocent eyes, she looked back at the man and nodded. These words were not all familiar to her but she suddenly understood them perfectly.

"I have made you such a powerful sorceress that your own anger became theirs, your own stupidity shared by all your people. This is your doing, girl!"

She burst into tears again, unsure of what else to do. She sought comfort in the Sorcerer’s shoulder and he grinned wickedly as her tears dampened his shirt, stroking the back of her head. The foolish girl had given him so much more power when she had lain with him; all it took was one foolish mortal to give herself to him. He was now free to wreak revenge on earth until the End came.

* * *

Isaiah 14:12 How art thou fallen from heaven, O Lucifer, son of the morning!
how art thou cut down to the ground, which didst weaken the nations!

* * *

Fifty young men and women stood in a circle surrounding a grave. They were all young; a few looked young enough to still be in school. One observing might have noted the peculiar order in which they stood… boy, girl, Ravenclaw, Slytherin, Gryffindor, Hufflepuff. That observer might have also noticed that these children made up the more dominating part of their classes in the last few years and that not long ago, not all of them had gotten along.

There was no one within miles, however, a fact confirmed by the combined efforts Hermione Granger, Cho Chang, and Percy Weasley. The circle hummed with a low chant, something that sounded oddly like a children’s rhyme coming from the young people, clinging each other’s hands as their only sign of fright.

Their summons were successful. An intimidating figure in a cloak appeared over the grave of Marvolo Riddle. The chanting became more fervent as the Dark Lord cast his eyes around, mystified as to why he was forced to that spot.

"Fools," he hissed, eyes narrowing dangerously. "Stupid children. Stop playing your games. Lord Voldemort cannot be defeated in such a pathetic manner."

Their chant did not cease. Each and every person in the ring looked to be in a trance, their eyes glazed over and faces expressionless. Moments later -- though it seemed an eternity -- the first of the ring perished.

Pansy Parkinson fell to her knees, crushing the hands of Ron Weasley and Justin Finch-Fletchley in her agony. Her internal organs had burst, and as she died, the Dark Lord screamed with her pain.

They began to drop faster now, each dying in a different way. Soon only five remained standing, still holding the hands of those who had fallen and still chanting. In all the agony of their deaths, the ring had not been broken; everyone had held onto the hands on either side of them even as they slipped into a painful death.

The Boy-Who-Lived, his best friend and last of the living Weasleys, and his former school enemy dropped at the exact moment, all three burning with an invisible fire that only stopped after their hearts had. Two left. By this time, Voldemort was prostrate on his father’s grave, screaming with such an unearthly sound it seemed some supernatural demon was wailing from another world.

It was a sick irony that the two left standing were the very sort the agonizing Dark Lord loathed. A Muggle-born witch and wizard remained chanting until Colin Creevey at last went down in fits. And now there was just one left to finish the hypnotic chant himself.

Scarcely seconds after Colin, Hermione Granger fell, blood pouring from her mouth and streaming down her front. An unearthly wail was heard for miles around. Voldemort perished and vanished in the center of this ring of self-sacrificed children. The wind howled and blew one fierce circle around the grave as the Dark Lord faded from sight.

The power unleashed from the ritual quickly began work, destroying what the children had sacrificed themselves to save.

* * *

The Children of the Serpent and the Lady / Destroyed each other at Last
When the Serpent’s son / And the Lady’s daughter Fell
The Beginning of the End / Was marked
And soon Chaos would Reign Supreme

* * *

The End