The Erlking

Prologue

1945

Even weeks after, there were still many who doubted the outcome of the battle or just couldn't believe it. Wide parts of the magical population were downright shocked, and who could blame them? For much too long they had not lived, but merely existed under the deadly shadow--immobilised by their fear for their lives and the loss of friends and relatives in the war. Now that the threat was vanished over night, the good news needed time to get through to them.

Grindelwald was defeated.

Meanwhile, the man to whom the whole magical community was now indebted, had in a diplomatic yet unmistakable way explained that he didn't wish any fuss about his role in the battle. For a long time, he was sitting in his office in an enchanted castle ruin far in the north of Great Britain, sucking sherbet lemons and carrying out his deputy headmaster duties by writing the graduation reports for the class of '45. Later in his life, this always would appear as perfect irony to him.

While down in the castle the reports got the Hogwarts seal and the Great Hall was prepared for the graduation feast, one of Albus Dumbledore's pupils was leaning against the balustrade of the Astronomy tower and looking into the sunset or what was showing of it that day. His long-fingered hands touched the black leather case of a small book as he saw the storm coming and the thundery air softly whispered in his ears.

"Figures I'd find you here."

Big, dark eyes under black, wing-like brows searched for his friend's when another black-haired boy joined him at the balustrade. The other's look lingered on the book.

"Your memoirs?"

He didn't reply.

The wind caught into two identical robes, coloured green and black, which only differed by the Head Boy badge on the diary writer's chest. For a little while, they stood in silence, faces turned towards the approaching storm. It had always been the unwritten golden rule of this friendship started on the Hogwarts Express in autumn 1938--that one would tell the other everything, and the other would tell him almost everything.

He removed his hand from the book and rested it on the masonry, which felt moist and mossy under his skin and strangely familiar. Later he would often claim that he had felt it at once when he had entered the castle for the first time--a kind of harmony between the magic humming in the ancient walls and his own heartbeat.

To tell the truth, he had felt nothing at all. But he knew now.

Voices, whispers from the past, still alive in the stone that rose from the valley's ground as his ancestor had helped putting it there. Caring. Defending. Yet vaguely dangerous. Or, as Professor Dumbledore had put it some days ago, the castle's ancient magic itself had risen to fight the intruders during the battle which had carried the war onto the school grounds for the first time. At the same time, it had meant its end.

"I believe I didn't say thank you yet."

"What do you want to say thank you for?" the other asked, sounding honestly curious.

"You do know." he answered, sounding slightly reproachful. Throwing yourself in the way of an Unforgivable Curse that was meant for me.

"Oh--that. Any time, then." It was nothing compared with what you did for me.

"I knew you'd say that." he answered, lips twisting into a helpless smile. "It was written in your face when he lifted the curse from you. This only proves me right."

"About?"

"About how much your friendship means to me and how wrong I used to treat you."

"You mustn't talk like that, Tom." The other knew very well, what was about to come.

"Yes, Sander, I have to. If I can't pick up the courage today, I never will, because I know you'll hate me for what I'm going to say. No, listen, will you." He had turned around to his friend and held his gaze anxiously. "I want you to know that I'm terribly sorry for you losing your father, but a part of me can't help being glad about it. With his death, something changed, as if your grief brought us closer together. As if in the past, your complete happiness had always stood between us. So forgive me, if you can."

Sander did so, calling his name quietly. Dark eyes met his for a long, weird, although not exactly awkward moment. They silently agreed that talking things out hadn't put their friendship on stake, but only made it stronger.

Truth was, Sander had often felt guilty with regard to Tom, although it surely wasn't his fault that he was a pureblood and had a family. Had had a family. The message of his father's murder--this war casualty as they had called it--had turned his world upside down. He didn't know what he would have done if it hadn't been for Tom. If Tom hadn't pulled him back, when he was standing on the balustrade of this very tower, pissed as a newt and determined to jump...

It was only fair, he thought, that his friend also could rely on him when their places were changed.

Finally Tom shifted and cast a look towards the tower entrance. "They probably want me downstairs. "

For a second Sander had to suppress the urge to reach for his friend. "Your last night, then. Tomorrow you're a free man."

They divided with a smile.

When the first lightnings tore the western sky and rolling thunder reached his ears, he made his way to the Great Hall and the festivities that were about to begin, still going on about the other's train of thoughts.

Tom had been wrong.

He was light-years away from hating his friend. And should be for the rest of his life.