The Traveler's Secret

CHAPTER 27: THE PAST RECLAIMED

Light flickered across Jean's closed eyes and a warmth fell across his face, like veils of sunlit gossamer. A dull throbbing sensation covered his body, but was soon overcome by the rich smell of earth and flowers. Jean Fulver was a boy again, full of wonder and idealistic hopes. He sat under the trees listening to the soft tinkling of the nearby stream. He could hear the birds as they twittered away in the branches above. Jean felt the sticky residue of blackberries that was smeared over his face.

He and Marius had gone to a little stream nearby and had pretended they were great sea captains and commanded the entire stream. That was when they had stumbled upon the blackberry patch that grew wild near the river. Together they had filled their tiny hands with the berries and had taken them to the water's edge. The berries were warm from the summer sun and the juices succulent. They laughed heartily, telling wild tales of pirates and damsels in distress, each building off the other as they ate their berries.

A small breeze lifted off the river and the two boys, once their stomachs were full, lay back on the damp, packed ground of the bank. The coolness of the ground and the protective shade of the trees that overhung the river felt good on their backs. The yellow sun speckled their faces as it shone through the leaves. They stared up into the blue sky, in wonder at its vastness. What moved the clouds? What made the sun shine down just so to make the river sparkle as if a thousand golden stars lay underneath? Who blew the breeze that caressed their sticky faces? And what made the silence between them peaceful, the silence of two friends looking at the world in awe? All those questions ran through Jean's mind and yet their answers didn't seem important. Everything was as it was supposed to be. With his friend at his side, everything was perfect.

"Why won't the wound stop bleeding? What happened?"

The voice shot through Jean's mind. He knew it sounded familiar, knew he should try to reach out to that voice, but he was content where he was, which was on the cool bank of the river under the warm summer sky.

"Albus, we have to get him to the infirmary. We have to find a way to stop the bleeding!"

The words trailed off in Jean's mind as he drifted off again in the stream of his memories.

Jean stood outside the gates of the stone gray academy, trembling in anger and on the verge of tears. He looked down on his uniform, in particular the part where his mother had had to sew up a rip in the jacket. His mother and father did all they could to keep him in this school, but it never seemed to be enough, not to the students. They all had the newest books and the newest jackets because they all came from the most aristocratic and influential families. That was the way it had always been. And the academy boys had made it clear that Jean was not accepted, that he was an outsider, an imposter. His parents were of the middle class and thus he was not worthy to be here.

More than ever did Jean want to go back to the small country school he had been in, back to its simplicity. He knew that his parents would be disappointed and a sudden guilt filled him. His parents worked so hard to keep him in this place, sacrificing everything for him. He knew he should be grateful for their sacrifice, but it was hard for him to escape the hateful words that the other boys had called him. He wanted to be far from these dull walls and people.

Jean kicked a nearby rock with scorn and resolved never to come back to this hateful place again. As he did so, a new boy ran up to the gate. He was dressed as pristinely as the others, with the newest shoes and jacket and yet he had a wildness to him that no amount of refinement could tame. His green eyes locked on Jean and Fulver felt a need to hold in his tears and straighten himself up. He was not going to allow another one of these academy boys to bully him around.

The boy with the green eyes and brown, messy curls came striding over, a faint smile hovering over his lips.

"Are you late as well?" the boy asked Jean. Jean, not knowing what to say or if he could trust this newcomer, shook his head.

"Well then, why are you out here? I can see by your uniform that you belong here. They'll give us switches to be sure if we don't get in before anyone notices we're late! Come on, let's go in together!" The boy held out his hand, a large smile covering his face. "Hello, my name is Marius."

Jean shook Marius' hand and was glad to have a friend. The moment their hands touched, a keening pain ripped through him, setting his nerve endings on fire.

"Careful with how you move him, Albus! He is losing too much blood as it is!"

Jean felt his eyes flutter open to look up into the diamond studded sky above, all those thousands of worlds. Their light shone down on him, on the horrible pain that racked his body and he felt a terrible realization waited for him in this world of starlight. He didn't want to face that horror. So he closed his eyes again, but before he did, he heard a familiar voice say:

"Wolfbane, I think I just saw his eyes open! There's still hope for him. We need to get him to the infirmary now!"

Jean faded back into the world of his memories.

He was running through the woods with Marius just ahead of him. Behind them, a farmer was giving chase. They had been pretending to hunt big game in his fields and were trampling his crops. They were running to their hidden fort deep within the woods. Dappled sunlight fell through the trees, covering Marius, who was up ahead, in shades of light and dark. He was always in the lead, always ahead. Jean followed his friend, who fearlessly plunged forward. It was always like this. Marius led and Jean followed. Marius planned and Jean executed.

"He'll never catch us because we're invincible and no one can catch the invincible!" Marius said as he turned towards Jean, flushed with excitement and the thrill of their adventure. Marius laughed wildly and sped up.

Jean felt the sting of the foliage as the bushes slapped his arms and face. He felt his heart pump madly in his chest and tasted his sweat as he ran. He ignored it all. Jean felt unbreakable at that moment, a wild and reckless abandon coursing through his veins. He was young and free and all the world was open to him. There wasn't anything he couldn't do and he ran with the wind of bold ideas pushing him forward.

"Hurry, Albus. We don't have much time. He's growing paler by the minute. He's slipping!" a voice growled.

Jean felt his body move faster, but his mind couldn't reconcile what it was his body was feeling. His body seemed to be floating, though his mind couldn't understand how that could be.

"I know, Wolfbane! We only have a few more flights to get down...Frederick, what are you doing here?"

Jean felt his body lurch to a halt.

Jean was in his father's study, running his hands over the smooth surfaces of the shelves his father had made. His small fingers marveled at the different textures under them. He loved the deep grooves of the wood, so intricate and so unique. He loved the differing shades of color. And most importantly, he loved the sanctity of this room, as if the wood was wise and knowing. If he looked close enough, the shelves told a story.

In every piece of wood he saw, there was a history, a past. Some of the planks had lived for hundreds of years. They had seen the rise and fall of empires, a thousand sunsets and a thousand magnificent sunrises. They had seen the birth of new life and the death of old.

Jean brought his nose closer to the planks and inhaled the fragrance as he had seen his father do so many times before. Maybe he would be able to catch a glimpse of the past, feel a shadow of the great heroes. Maybe he could see a glimmer of the beauty that his father saw.

For carpentry was not a profession that his father only deigned to work, but one that his father was born to do. It was an art. His father saw beauty when others saw a log or a plank. Jean's fingers continued down the shelves and landed on the large desk made of mahogany. A certain joy came out of touching what his father had created.

"Jean, what are you doing here?" asked his father warmly from the doorway of the study. "Shouldn't you be out in the sunshine with your friend?"

Jean turned to his father, who was a tall, lean man with a shock of white blond hair and kind, brown eyes.

"I'm happy here with you!"

"I'm here to check that the castle is clear. What happened?" Frederick asked sternly, but then quickly continued before an answer could be given. "I heard that several people spotted a group of wizards on brooms leaving the Astronomy Tower. It seems we now know what Professor Vikious was doing on the tower. I suspect he was creating a hole in the castle's protection."

"We don't know anything as of now. The only person who does know is Jean and he will die if we don't get him to the infirmary!" said an older and wiser voice. Jean connected the voice with a name: Albus.

"Oh, I'm sure he does know what happened. In fact, I think he handed Sergei Krum over to his counterpart, the person he has been communicating with outside of Hogwarts. I warned you that we can't trust Muggles."

Jean felt his pain flare up in him. He groaned and his eyes fluttered open. He saw snatches of light, though they weren't sharp and pure as the starlight, but warm and golden. The light came from candles fixed in black brackets on the worn, gray stone walls. The candles spelled him into a drowsy acceptance of his situation and he began to lose more and more grasp of where he was.

"We don't have time for this! MOVE OUT OF THE WAY, FREDERICK, OR I'LL MAKE YOU MOVE!" roared a voice he suddenly remembered. It was Wolfbane and he was more of a friend to Jean than he had ever known before.

Frederick must have stepped aside because Jean felt his body begin to move again.

Jean looked down into his father's grave. He held back his tears because he was now the man in the family and the man of the family was not allowed to cry. His mother leaned her head on his shoulder and wept openly. He held her close and all the while the agony of his grief remained trapped in his chest and throat. Hot tears stung the edge of his eyes, but he held them back with every inch of will in him. He could not break down. Not now, when his mother needed his strength.

The sun shone brightly down and the sky was wide and perfect. Jean hated the cheerfulness, hated the light at that moment. His stony, blue eyes looked down into the dark grave and knew that eventually all life would lead to this place. Jean turned his head away, unable to bear the idea of his father being buried forever in that dark, lonely place. His father was not that still, cold form in the coffin. His father had been full of life and had created true beauty. Yet now, the only consolation to Jean was that his father would be buried in a mahogany coffin. He would be encased forever in the wood's embrace and Jean took comfort in the knowledge that his father was being buried with one of his true loves. As Jean turned away he saw Marius at his side, his head bowed in respect.

He was glad his friend was there with him, but he knew that their friendship could never be the same. Jean could feel a change inside him, had felt it the moment his father had passed. He was no longer as reckless or as carefree as he used to be. Jean had faced the realization that nothing was invincible, nothing lasted. What was once so full of energy and joy could be gone the very next day. He learned that life was fragile and that he had taken it for granted for too long. Marius would never understand because he still believed that neither the world nor death would ever catch them. For Jean, that fantasy was now gone and he could see reality as it was: everything must come to an end; the life of a loving father must end and eventually, even a friendship.

"What happened, Albus?" called out a soft, warm female voice.

"He was shot!" Wolfbane answered loudly. Those words rang throughout Jean's mind and he knew that something terrible was on the edge of his memory.

"By what spell? Where?" the woman asked.

By now, Jean felt his body land gently on a soft surface.

"No spell. He was shot by a Muggle weapon in the shoulder up on the Astronomy Tower. Marigold, we need to stop the bleeding!" said Albus.

"I don't know anything about healing wounds caused by Muggle weapons. I wouldn't know the first thing to do!"

"I do," Wolfbane answered quickly.

"You do?" Albus asked, a puzzlement filling his voice.

"I was shot once. Luckily it looks as if the bullet only hit Fulver in the shoulder. We need to dig the bullet out and then we can heal the wound, but we have to do it quickly. Fulver doesn't have much time left!"

"Will you be able to pull the bullet out, Wolfbane?" Albus asked.

There was a pause and a ragged breathing as if Wolfbane was in physical pain of some kind.

"I can't, Albus. I'm on the verge of transforming and his warm blood on my hands will only change me faster. I'm sorry my friend. I'm not fully in control of my ability right now. You'll have to do it, but I can advise you!"

"Okay Marigold, I'm going to need you to find something to numb his pain." Jean heard the whisper of Marigold's robes as she moved away from him. "Wolfbane, I'm going to need all the advice you can give because I have never done this before," Albus said nervously.

Jean closed his eyes and slipped away again.

When Jean opened his eyes, he was still in a graveyard, but the scene had changed drastically. Instead of blue skies and warm sunlight, a thick coat of snow covered the ground and headstones. A bitter cold wind raked over him. Instead of looking down into one grave, he was looking down into two, one much smaller than the other. His mother no longer leaned on his shoulder and his friends and family were no longer at his side. Instead standing by his side alone in the sharp, metallic cold, was a stout man with a thick beard covering his face. His eyes were red and his body was hunched over in pain. His grief overwhelmed him and shook his body.

The man turned towards him and Jean suddenly remembered who he was. Sergei Krum was in pain, tears falling freely from his eyes. Fulver felt his heart clench as a growing realization filled his mind as to whose graves he was looking at.

Sergei turned and searched Jean's face for answers.

"They're gone, Jean. My wife and son are gone!"

A sudden pain ripped through Fulver's heart and spread upwards into his shoulder. A terrible knot of guilt and sorrow threatened to close off his throat. Jean wanted to scream out, but felt the scream catch in his chest, burning inside him. Fulver looked down at his hands and saw that they were covered in blood, though he knew it was not his own.

He knew that he was responsible for their deaths and he suddenly remembered one name: Marius. The instant that name lit in his mind, a terrible anger began to broil inside him. It shook his body as it slowly welled up in him.

"Marigold, you gave him something for the pain, right?" Albus asked, a tremor marking his words.

"Yes, but he keeps shaking. I don't know what else to give him. Albus, you need to get that Muggle object out fast!"

The growing anger had turned into a rushing river of rage, coursing through Fulver's body. It burned every recent memory like molten lava. With his eyes closed, he could barely feel the wintry cold of the graveyard. All he could see was the truth as his recent memories came hurtling back to him, scalding his mind and fueling the river inside him.

When he opened his eyes he was back on the Astronomy Tower roof. The stars were falling and Sergei was nearly gone, incapacitated and being loaded onto a broom.

Jean was on his knees, a terrible pain burning his shoulder. He knew he was mortally wounded, knew that his energy was flagging. Jean looked up into Marius' face as his former friend held his chin, and a terrible, dark feeling eclipsed everything else around him.

"I'm sorry it had to be this way. You were always a good friend. Pity you couldn't see reason," Marius said.

Jean knew what was coming as Marius raised his fist, but the moment he felt the crunch of his nose, the pain of this betrayal reverberated throughout his entire body.

"Marigold, hand me something to stop the bleeding! Wolfbane, I got the bullet out. What do we do next and why won't he stop shaking?" Albus roared, a panic growing with his words.

Jean was sprinting through the forest of his youth again, but everything had changed. What was once green and alive was now brown and withering away. What had once been large trees, now were thin specters of their former selves. Jean felt his anger push him forward as he ran through the forest, dodging this way and that, heedless of everything around except one thing. His prey flitted ahead, just out of his reach. Marius had always been faster than him, but Jean had what Marius did not; he had endurance and perseverance. Jean sped up, his lithe movements moving through the forest like a shadow, unheard and unseen.

"Albus, I'm not sure why he's still shaking! There must be something else going on that we are not aware of. Marigold, you have to heal the wound now before too much more blood is lost!" Wolfbane answered.

Jean ran out of the dead forest into blinding sunlight. He stumbled a bit due to the disorientation, but was soon back on his single-minded course, the anger in him just below the surface. The hot sun beat down and the air was thick with humid moisture. Mosquitoes buzzed around his face. Ahead of him lay a river, the same river of his boyhood, but like the forest it was different. The trees were gone, with only shorn trunks in their place as proof of their existence. The blackberry bushes were gone and the river was a tired, muddy brown, lacking the ebullience of his youth.

Marius jumped into the dirty water and waded across the shore. Jean ran up to the bank as Marius reached the other side of the river. The two men stopped and looked at each other for the first time. A hatred burned out of the eyes of Jean and a rampant fear spilled out of the eyes of Marius. Only the river separated them, but Jean knew it was so much more than that. Different beliefs, different moral codes and different journey's ahead of them were what really separated them now and there was no going back to their former friendship. Marius opened his mouth to speak, but Jean knew there was nothing his former friend could say that would be acceptable to him. Fulver pulled out his gun and as he did so, so did Marius.

The two men stood on either side of this dark river, guns drawn and far from the life they had once known. Jean felt all of his doubt and empathy for Marius burn away, the dark beast inside him taking over. Jean pulled the trigger, but Marius had disappeared and Fulver's bullet hit a tree on the other side of the river.

Jean screamed out in rage, letting all of his anger explode out of him.

Marius may have won this battle, but he would pay for his actions. Jean knew that soon the two former friends now enemies would no longer be able to hide from what they had done. Sooner or later, Marius would have to face Fulver's wrath.

"Albus, why is he screaming like that?"

Dumbledore was silent for a moment as he looked down on the ferocity he saw on Fulver's face. The Muggle writhed and struggled as Wolfbane and Albus tried to hold him down. Though Jean's shoulder wound was healed by magic, Albus still wasn't sure if the wound wouldn't open up again.

Dumbledore tried to think of spells and remedies he could give Fulver to calm him, to stop the violent thrashing of his body. Jean's veins in his neck and head throbbed, his face was flushed and the roar of his voice ricocheted off the walls. He bucked and writhed and it took a lot of energy for Albus and Johnny to hold him down.

Just as Albus tried to come up with a logical conclusion for this, Jean suddenly fell silent and his body dropped limply back down on the hospital bed. A hush fell as Wolfbane, Dumbledore and Marigold looked at each other in utter shock. Tentatively, Wolfbane reached out and touched the side of Jean's neck with two fingers. Albus wasn't exactly sure what his friend was doing, but then Wolfbane let out a breath of relief.

"He's still alive, though his pulse is weak. I have no idea what it is that happened just now, but at least he is alive. He should sleep, but we need him awake soon. Albus, have you alerted your Ministry of Magic as to what has happened?"

"The Headmaster sent an owl to them straight away about Sergei. The Ministry have contacts in and outside of England. Hopefully those wizards won't get far with Krum, but I fear Grindelwald has other plans of transport for Sergei and...Wolfbane, Fulver's just opened his eyes!"

All eyes looked down on the Muggle, who though weak, stared back at them fiercely.

A/N: Thank you for reading this story. I'm so sorry it took so long to finish this chapter. I also wanted to let everyone know that the next chapter will be the end of The Traveler's Secret, but don't worry, this story will continue on in its sequel, On the Road to Nuremgard, which is currently in the planning stages. Let me know if you see any mistakes and thank you again!