Seven Sundays

London, England

Quarter 'Til Midnight

19 April, 1960

The brownstone deep in the heart of London was nearing three-hundred years of age, and to be perfectly frank, it was beginning to look it, too. But that was not the main concern of its occupants, who merely wanted protection from Muggles. The house was Unplottable, it had anti-Muggle wards and many security charms placed all over it. Nearing midnight, any of the normal passersby would never see it, even though each and every window was ablaze with lights. But the Mediwitch who specialized in midwifery found it just fine, as she was a certified graduate from Hogwarts and straight out to the house from St. Mungo's.

The man who had answered the door when she knocked was tall, with an aristocratic air about him and in his features, including his deep gray eyes which seemed to bore through her, as though searching for something, like her bloodlines. He had answered the door in standard attire, black robes with silver adornments; he had two large rings on, one of them bearing an ancient crest, the ring itself so old that it looked as if it belonged in the Middle Ages section of a history museum, the other just a maze of snakes. He hadn't spoken a word, just led her down the hall and up a staircase to a bedroom.

That same man was now pacing the hallway outside that bedroom door, from the stairs to the ground floor, to the attic door, back and forth past the bedroom where his wife laid on the bed, screaming in pain every few minutes. The only other visitor to the hall after the midwife Mediwitch had been the little house-elf, a wedding gift from a close friend, who had taken it upon himself (and rightly so) to clean up the flood where the lady of house's water had broken.

The Mediwitch had taken over the situation entirely too easily, the man didn't like how she had rushed into the bedroom and closed the door, then performed a Lockout Charm so he could not enter or even stick his head in. He was overwrought by his wife's labored screams, which came regardless of how many soothing sounds the Mediwitch made. The man continued to pace, grimacing slightly every now and again, his long robes billowing out behind him, then resettling around his ankles as he slowed to pivot near the top of the stairs and begin his trek toward the attic door again. He sighed heavily, impatiently, and as he reached the attic door, his wife let out a particularly anguished scream that made him wince. As her scream died out it was succeeded by another, very different cry.

A baby's cry, bringing the man to a pause, still facing the attic door. The cry finally registered in the man's mind for what it was, and he whirled around and raced down the hall to where the midwife now stood in the bedroom doorway with a smile, one hand on the doorknob and the other holding a black doctor's satchel. As he turned into the room, the father threw her a small coin purse containing six Sickles and ten Knuts.

The father came into the room to find his wife, pale but glowing magnificently, reclining in the bed with a bundle of blankets in her arms. The woman was beautiful, with long, flowing black hair scraped off her forehead and rippling down her back and over the pillows, her pale skin clear and the apples in her cheeks tinged with the pinkness of excitement. Her face was oval-shaped, set with dark eyes framed by long lashes, offset by both an elegant nose and a red bow-shaped mouth.

The room was already clean, his wife in a white nightgown and the bed in white sheets - the midwife must have waved her wand quite fast - and so was the newborn, clean and wrapped in a soft white blanket made of cashmere. The mother handed the child to the father, who cradled the infant with such care it was almost as though he were carrying the most sacred relic of the known world.

"Is it a must?" The wife asked reluctantly, as though she already knew the answer to a time-worn question but couldn't resist trying to get a different answer just once more.

"It is. It is a family tradition, and I will not be the one to break it in this ancient and most noble house," answered the husband, tersely but not angrily.

She sighed, defeated and too tired to ask again, then gave in with a new question, "Tonight or tomorrow morning, then?"

"As soon as you are ready to travel," replied her husband.

"I think sooner is wiser. No use in keeping him waiting," she mused almost regretfully.

"Then you get dressed and we shall go. Is it safe to Apparate with the child, or shall we go the other way?"

"It is safe. Please, wrap the child in the black woolen blanket on the foyer table. The white is too noticeable." The man left his wife to change, still carefully carrying the child. Cradling the infant in the crook of his left arm, he walked down the stairs to the foyer, where he wrapped the baby in the black blanket, concealing as much of the white blankets as possible.

His wife joined him in the foyer, looking beautiful as always in her favorite set of moss green satin robes. She put on her cloak, and then took the child while he did the same, then arranged her cloak to fall over the bundle of blankets. The couple left the house and walked quickly down the road, the man guiding her with a hand placed gently at the small of her back. They briskly continued three blocks up before turning into the entry of a neighborhood park on their right. They stopped by a lamppost that was not working, and closed their eyes. Their faces contorted into looks of severe concentration and then, with two tiny, almost inaudible little pops, they vanished.

Paris, France

Quarter Past

20 April, 1960

The dark alley the couple and their child reappeared in reeked of week-old trash, sweat and mould. The wife grimace, her elegant nose wrinkling and in turn scrunching he rest of her face. The newborn under her cloak let out a whimper. She shushed the child quietly as her husband guided her out to the cobblestone road.

There was not a soul in sight, in any direction. It was better that way. There were no lights save for the streetlamps. From a pocket in his cloak, the husband withdrew a small object that resembled a Zippo lighter. He smoothly flipped the top and clicked it six times - the six closest streetlamps went out - the Put-Outer went back into his pocket and this time he took out a mottled gray hand, a human hand.

It had been removed halfway up the forearm, the hand clamped into a fist and fitted with a NeverMelt candle. There was no chance of the candle falling out; the yellowed fingernails, grown out to three inches long, had been filed into sharp points and pierced into the hand's palm. The Hand of Glory lit itself when the man held it by the forearm right below the wrist.

The wife, coddling her child, felt herself being guided through the darkness by her husband, though only he could see the path illuminated by the Hand. They continued at a slower pace than in London, not completely sure of the way, taking care on the uneven cobblestones. The man led her down a smaller alley, which sloped downward until they came to a gate about twenty feet below street level. The slab stone walls were damp and mossy, very slippery. In between the stones, little rivers trickled down from above. They stood in a few centimeters of water, which seeped into their expensive albeit insubstantial shoes. The man checked the padlock on the gate, below a sign that read,

Attention ! Les catacombes sont fermé par les ordres des police ! Entrez á la risque de empêchement de loi, les dommages sérieux ou mort !

"Attention! The catacombs are closed by police orders! Enter at risk of impediment of law, serious injury or death!" As advertised, the padlock was indeed locked. The man took out his wand, an Ollivander's creation, elm and dragon heartstring, 9¾ inches long. A swish of the wand and the padlock clicked open. He removed the lock and chain, re-pocketed his wand and opened the gate. Holding the Hand of Glory properly again, it relit itself and the man continued leading his wife into the dark catacombs.

The wife took out her wand from its safe pocket in her cloak, to which she whispered "Lumos!" illuminating the underground passageway softly but not faintly. She almost tripped over a skeleton that was decidedly inhuman but still two-legged, nearly dropping her hour-old infant, but the man turned at the scuffle of bones against floor and caught her, standing her upright and reminding her to be cautious.

A mouse squeaked and scampered away as they passed by it; the walls were covered with marked in all different ancient languages - French, Germanic, Latin, Old English, and even in Ancient Runes. In some places the floor was stained a rusty brown, and the air above these spots smelled gorily of dried blood and rotting corpses. More than once the young woman nearly gagged near one of these spots, wanting to retch but swallowing gracefully and continuing on.

He husband led the way through the labyrinth, down twisting passages, making turns at what seemed to be random. The air grew heavier and staler, and the ground gave way to a downward slope. A wet chill settled over them, and the walls once again grew mossy and damp; little rivers were trickling past in small canals dug on either side of the floor next to the walls. As they continued on the reek of death grew stronger, to where it just wasn't in stained spots, but all over. The stains themselves then grew more frequent until they were more common than empty stone wall.

"What madness took place here?" the woman whispered so quietly her husband didn't even hear. Underfoot an unstable carpet of bones began to increasingly resemble those of the human skeleton, crunching with each step they took. The bones began to be piled in stacks to either side, making the passage narrower and narrower; more than once, the young mother knocked over a stack, disturbing the eerie silence that followed the couple with a resounding crash. Involuntarily, as they rounded a corner that led to the final passageway, the light from the woman's wand dimmed until it was just barely there, leaving her almost completely in the dark. Her breathing became more labored, both from the strenuous walk and the impeding darkness.

The final tunnel was filled with bones waist high, some of the nearest still hung with pieces of rotting flesh and muscle. The young woman was gasping for breaths through her mouth, trying not to take in air through her nose. The infant awoke, and, taking one whiff of air, began whimpering - when the mother did not soothe the child, the whimpers became incessant crying, prompting the father to take the child from his wife. Infant in one arm and Hand of Glory in the other hand, he instructed his wife to clear the pathway with her wand. She swept bones out of their path with little flicks of her wrist.

They had reached the door. The woman shivered uncontrollably at the sight of it as she took her child back from her husband. The door was maybe a meter by a meter square, with no handle. It was made of an impervious material, yet this was not the frightening part that wracked the woman's nerves. It was the set of handprints adorning it, ending in claws that had scraped a centimeter into the face of the door, handprints made in the blood of the first unfortunate to sign a piece of his soul to the Devil. One of her husband's descendants from centuries, possibly a millennium, before. Underneath the prints was an inscription written in Old English, reading, quite simply,

Deofol

Thine Gatewaye to Helle

Her husband raised his left hand and placed it on the corresponding handprint. Swallowing hard, he whispered, "Devil, I bring you my child for Horcruxing." He tore his hand away and began wringing it; the palm was scalded and already blistered, the fingertips charred black, the fingernails melted and deformed, the skin underneath the nails a deep purple. The door swung open and a wave of heat rolled out like a gust of wind, reddening the couple's cheeks - the mother clutched her infant to her bosom, protecting the child's face from it - so hot it dried out their eye sockets, nearly singed off their eyebrows and swept their cloaks back over their shoulders, held on only by the fastenings to their robes.

The man climbed in first, then took the child and helped his wife up; the place was scalding hot, a veritable furnace. An unknown creature stood before them, greatly resembling the god Pan; a ram by his legs and cloven hooves, a man by his upper and a bat or dragon by his great black wings. Atop his head was a crown of thorns, great barbs dripping what appeared to be blood, and inside the crown were two small nubs protruding from his skull, tapering to rounded points and curving inward toward each other: horns. He wore no clothing, allowing his lower parts, though a ram's, to go free; in his left hand he held a staff with three prongs atop it that each had a point like an arrow.

He ignored the husband and walked straight to the mother, who was once again holding the child close to her bosom, although the sheen of sweat across her brow only added to both her beauty and her look of fear. The beast let his pleasure at her looks surface not only in the look in his eyes, but in other parts, too, and the young woman struggled to keep her eyes on the beast's face and not let them roam freely, as he chose to, resting on her breasts and the cling of her robes to her legs.

The beast came up close, right to her face and whispered to her, "Your wand?" The two words were released with a breath of hot, heavy air that carried the stench of an unwashed mouth. The voice was deep, though, almost melodious in its roughness, the syllables well-formed, and its sound intoxicating, almost enticing, seducing. Her breath hitching from both his voice and regret to Horcrux her own child's soul, the mother reached into a pocket in her robes and pulled out her wand. It, too, was an Ollivander's, cedar and unicorn hair, 7¼ inches. The beast came to stand behind her, so close she could feel his body nearly pressed against hers.

"It's time," he whispered in her ear, his breath stirring her hair and making it fall forward into her face; he took one clawed hand and pulled it back behind her shoulder. In the action, he scratched through her satin robes on her collarbone with the razor sharp nail on his forefinger and cut her skin, right to the bone, making her gasp in pain. The blood blossomed out from the wound, ruining the robes.

She closed her eyes and concentrated all her energy on performing the Horcrux silently, bringing on a pain in her head that caused her to grimace. She began to draw the wand away from the infant's chest, who promptly began crying loudly, hysterically. A tear squeezed out of the woman's eyes, splashing onto her wand, which was drawing out a thick strand of glistening, blinding light. Pure soul. The strand was nearing six centimeters but the beast whispered into her ear to double it if she expected to be leaving with her child and husband.

Sobbing now, the Devil at her backside still, caressing her body, his nails reducing her thin robes to ribbons and leaving marks all over her previously unmarred skin, she quickly drew out her wand double as far as it already was. The beast cut it off with the nails of his right forefinger and thumb, and she didn't see it again. He waved the three-pronged staff and a bit of parchment and a knife appeared, hovering in midair. It was the signing and sealing of the deal.

Still shaking from the ordeal of creating the Horcrux the woman took the knife in her hands and pricked her right forefinger, intending just to get it deep enough to bleed, but in shock, nearly cut off the tip of her finger. Her husband jumped forward with a cry and healed it, muttering, "Evanesco!" and then re-pricked her finger for her. She put her bloody finger to the parchment, signing it quickly, shuddering and turning away, sobbing into her child's blankets.

Gleefully the Devil reminded her, "You're not quite done." His voice didn't have the same seducing, musical qualities as it did only minutes before.

"What did I forget?" she asked fearfully, looking over he should.

"The child's name. How else am I to keep track of whose Horcrux is whose?"

The mother's breath hitched once again, and she turned around, lifted her still bloody forefinger once more to the document and signed her son's name.

Sirius Black