The Quest for Cleo Malfoy

Biagio Zabini goes on a quest

Chapter 1: the vow

As the Earth, an exquisite blue ball shining against the everlasting black of the cosmic ocean, spins on its course, held in motion and place by terrible primeval forces, the sun watches each of its regions spin in turn, presenting themselves to its rays to be made to live, then sinking westwards out of its sight again. Day after day it strikes the surface, regularly, evenly; and plants and animals live and die in its light. When it is dawn in Istanbul, it is still night in Rome; but the rays move across the surface of the lands, taking wakefulness to one and sleep to another. After striking the enormous knot of green mountains of the Balkans, they stretch across the sea and starts outlining another knot of hill and mountain, valleys and deep rivers: the beautiful, deeply carved, ancient land of Italy. First light strikes the peaks; then it reaches down and ever further down into deep sunken valleys, till only the deepest canyons - never reached by the sun at any time - remain in shadow, only the great caves that have slept under the mountains for time out of mind are left untouched and unwarmed. The hills are dug, worked, shaped by men, terraced to hold vine and olive, shaped to hold up walls and towns; and as the blinding, tyrannous sun of summer reaches the small hilltop towns, its rays search out the very depths of their stone streets and buildings.

The rays of the dawn were beginning to strike the ancient town of Ormagno, due east from Rome; but a beautiful renaissance villa, scenically placed just outside the city across the slope of a great mountain, had not seen its owners sleep the night. The servants (the family was rich) had gone to bed, slept, and woken up; but the lights in the main dining room had burned all night, as the elder members discussed a situation of extraordinary gravity. The oldest of them still remembered the Hammering, the terrible time in the late nineteenth century in which (while all Muggle Europe, cradled in peace and prosperity, watched the Industrial Revolution stride like a giant across its plains to the gates of Russia and beyond) the continent's wizards had fought till the whole breed bled itself almost to death. Now another war was threatening, driven by a wizard who had fallen victim to the dreams that so many of them had suffered down the ages - dreams of godhead, of immortality, of power over men and things.

A dozen men and women, with a prevalence of women, still sat around a table, lingering in the rising light of dawn. The discussion slowly petered out. Nobody actually said, "Well, I think we have covered all the important points, let's call it a day:" but the talk drifted away into more domestic and ordinary channels - or, in the case of some of the most uninspired family members, fell back into grooves so well worn as not to be worth wearing again.

"I still think, Biagio, that you could have done something differently," said Fabrizia Cirioncello, elder sister of Biagio Zabini's mother, an unintelligent and censorious woman, but one who, as eldest daughter in her generation, could hardly be kept out of the family council. A few of those present rolled their eyes up to heaven behind her back; others braced themselves for Biagio (or Blaise) Zabini, the England-born eldest grandson, on whose account the family council was being held, to finally explode.

Instead, he displayed a self-control which nobody around the table had expected. "And I'm still telling you, Aunt Fabrizia, the only thing I could have done differently would have been not to fall in love with Cleo. And quite frankly, I would not change that for any reason." The boy had clearly done some growing up, thought a few of the older family members.

"Non è colpa sua, he is not to blame, Fabrizia," said the elderly, but still hale, maternal grandmother. "It is quite clear that everything that has taken place had to do with the internal affairs of the Malfoy family. As he said, all he could have done was not to fall in love with the daughter of that [censored] Englishman - and they haven't yet invented the spell to dictate to the heart." This was a deliberate blow: love potions and spells were Fabrzia's specialities, and she held herself able to make anyone fall in love with anyone. It was a long and unsolved debate whether a love potion could be made whose effects would be permanent; and so Fabrizia started to expostulate. Biagio, left alone, breathed a sigh of relief.

The room slowly emptied itself. Most of those who had been present did not live there, and had business elsewhere - business the more important now that they all knew they were going to war. Grave decisions had been made; already throughout Italy and elsewhere, members and dependants of the House of Zabini were equipping themselves for violent magic, securing their premises against assault, setting up long-range wards and surveillance spells, and - most important of all - making contact with other magical groups and winning allies. The Zabinis were one of Italy's foremost magical clans, and had good reason to think that, in a major crisis, they could count on the unconditional support of at least two more. That would be enough to sway the Italian Ministry of Magic, where the Zabini interest was powerful; the Zabinis reckoned that, within twenty-four hours, they would have made Italy very hot indeed for any Voldemort supporter, and also brought formidable accession of strength to the villain's enemies in Britain, France, Belgium, Tunisia, Romania, Albania, Bulgaria, and the United States - all countries where they had interests. Altogether, thought Biagio, Lucius Malfoy had done his master no favours when he had decided to offend Biagio mortally by selling his, Lucius' daughter, to whom Biagio had promised himself, to the Dark Elves.

In the room, apart from its ordinary occupiers - Biagio's paternal grandfather and grandmother, the current Duke and Duchess of Ormagno - remained Biagio himself, who had business on the estate later that day, and the family's incredibly aged great-great-grandmother. This ancient, shrunken figure, whose bright blue eyes twinkled in a withered and bony face, had listened through the night, and rarely spoken; but her words had been heard with respect. Biagio looked at her with sadness: he knew that, as a young woman, she had lived through the horrors of the Hammering, and thought it wrong that she should see war again before she died. The Hammering had begun as a disagreement about the new-fangled Ministries of Magic and their powers; it had swiftly degenerated into a frightful free-for-all in which whole families, down to the smallest baby, had their throats cut before witnesses, or were flayed alive and burned. Everyone had turned against everyone else, paying off in blood the hatreds and feuds of centuries; that is why - as every pureblood family from Tromsø to Lampedusa was heard to lament - there were so few purebloods left. More than 60% of European wizards and witches had died in those hideous thirty years; almost half the survivors had fled (even though wizards hate to change their residence) to the new white countries outside Europe, Argentina, America, Australia, South Africa; or else they had renounced their magical identity in fear or in disgust and hidden among Muggles. Whole countries, such as Switzerland, Swede and Russia, had lost every sorcerous family. When peace had finally come, it had been the peace of exhaustion and the grave - with the collateral result that the Ministries, which had only been conceived as liaison offices with Muggle governments, had become far more powerful than anyone had expected.

"I'm sorry, Nonna. It's not fair that you should see these horrors again."

"Ah, well, Biagio... we shall hope that it does not get as bad this time. After all, war doesn't come when you want it, but when it pleases. Anyway," the ancient voice ground on, croaky and broken-toned, "you are in worse danger than we, my son. Filligudella" (that, for reasons nobody knew, was her nickname for Voldemort) "will not attack Italy now. He thinks he can win if he beats young Domplidor in England..."

"Scotland, Nonna, Scotland."

"Scotland. That is where he will use all his forces."

His grandfather's head turned in shock. "Nonna? But then do you think we don't need to go to war?"

"Of course we do, Baldassarre," said the old woman patiently, as if explaining the alphabet to a child. "Where do you think we shall be if Domplidor loses? We must not only fortify Italy, but send him all the help we can. Filligudella won't stop with him."

"All I am saying," she resumed, "is that right now Biagio is in more danger than we are. He is the one who is going to start a dangerous quest. We don't know if the war will reach us, but we do know that he will have war and hardship and danger in plenty. He may never return."

"Nonna," said Biagio, glad that she, at least, remembered that he had a tragedy of his own to attend, "tell me more about the Dark Elves."

"You do it, Carolina," said the crone to her granddaughter, herself of advanced years; "I'm tired." And almost as soon as she had said it, the old woman was asleep.

Biagio sat squatting on the floor with his legs crossed and his hands on his knees, taking instinctively the ancient pose of the disciple expecting instruction; Carolina smiled at the sight. Then she started. The Dark Elves, she said, are the gypsies of the gods. They wander from divine court to divine court, making weapons and jewelry and objects of powers and heirlooms. They made the thunder-hammer for Donar, the caduceus and the winged sandals for Hermes, the flying cape for Athena. As far as the wizarding world was concerned, the most important thing they had created was the breed of House-elves; and the story behind this was of particular interest.

Long ago, it is said, the leader of the Elves fell in love with a woman of the giant tribe. To his great disgust, he was forced to realize that he could not compete with Freigwu of the Esar, even though Freigwu was an enemy by birth of the maiden's family - Esar and Etinar, gods and giants, had been killing each other since before either Freigwu or his bride had been born. On that day, the Elf had sworn a great oath that never again would he or his tribe be subject or obedient to any breed, giant, man or god; and he had set out to create a recipient into which the instinctive servility of his race could be cast, so as never again to be intimidated or outstared by anyone. He and the twelve masters of the tribe laboured one hundred and forty-four months; and at the end of this labour, they said, they had made the first house-elf. Into this creature was cast the servile nature and sense of inferiority that had lived in the breast of the Elf leader; and from that moment, he was the first of the Dark Elves. They called their creation "House-elves", because, in their language, to belong to anyone's "house" was to be their servants. From then on, the Dark Elves never lived in a house again, but formed a caravan and wandered at will between worlds. It is said that, whenever a new Dark Elf is conceived, the Elves set to work and create a House-Elf, and that as soon as the elf child is born, certain parts of their souls are taken from them and cast into the House-Elf. Certain it is that the Dark Elves sell House-Elves to wizards, charging so much for them that only rich families can afford them.

Certain it is, too, that there is nothing servile about the Dark Elves. To the contrary, they are both powerful and immensely proud. They do not allow even the gods to see their faces, but wear their sun masks at all times. They are immortal, essentially of divine rather than human blood, and very hard to track down. It is said that Godan, having discovered what they had done, swore an oath in their despite that they should never have a king or be numbered among the nations of earth and heaven until they chose one of lesser blood than themselves; but this is not known for certain, since nobody knows the counsels of Godan. These - concluded Carolina, Duchess of Ormagno and mighty sorceress - are the enemies you must pursue; and we, Biagio, cannot help you this time, because of the war.

............................................................................................................

As Biagio left the Villa Zabini by one of the back entrances, the sun was near the top of its journey. He had waited for this particular time; for it was when the sun had really reached its zenith, and not when the watches struck twelve, that he had to be exactly where he had to be, and say what he had to say. He went out of the garden and into an ancient path, overgrown with ilex and alders, whose branches he had to smash with his arms and legs as he pushed through. Intense smells, sometimes of flowers, sometimes of crushed leaves and rotting trees, floated past him time and again as he made his way down the deep-sunken wooded valley, a real canyon, that lay east of Ormagno, crossed by an ancient, spectacular bridge. This land had never been cultivated, because the sides were too steep; but hunters often prowled in search of birds and game. He reached the bottom and saw the trickle of the little river, such a small thing to have dug such a valley, pouring over smooth black stones with the occasional chatter, surrounded by high, fat, wet green grass that never needed the sun to grow. For the sun never reached so far down; the sides of the mountains, on both sides, fell so steeply that they prevented the light.

Yet as the valley opened out into a larger valley, cultivated and rich with vine and orchards, one lonely sundial stood, ancient and neglected. Few people went there: too far for farmers, not wild enough for huntsmen, it lay in an overgrown belt of shrub where the waters of the stream broadened in a sort of pond or small swamp. Nobody, except the heirs of the house of Zabini, knew or cared who had put it there; but now, as Biagio, sunken in freezing cold and muddy water almost to his crotch, crossed the swamp and made its way to the tiny island where the sundial stood, he knew exactly what he wanted it for. For this dial had a peculiarity: it was only struck by the sun for a few minutes each side of noon - less in winter, more in summer - and even then its shadow would only work for those of the right birth.

But Biagio had come in time. He saw the shadow strike the mark of the one eye in the sign of the Lion. Before the shadow had left the sign, he grabbed the dial with his right hand and spoke in a language that had not been spoken - in Italy or anywhere - for more than a thousand years:

"I am a son of Gambara, and the blood of Ibor and Aghio flows in my veins. I call upon the patrons of our nation, upon Godan Longobardisnot and Frea Longobardisnotin, upon Donar and Freigwu; and I ask for their protection. I ask for wisdom and victory; I ask for strength to break the enemy like the earth shakes under the hammer; I ask for the woman I love wherever she may be and against any power. I ask that the open sky with its one eye the Sun, I ask that the sky with thunder and cloud, I ask that the earth and the sea watch after me and be my friends in my quest; and I ask that the sword of my fathers, the sword that the Elf-friend drew from the earth when he stood upon the mountain and saw the land of Longobardy unfold under his feet, be given to me."

A slight shiver went through all things, and four enormous figures were suddenly to be seen in outline, over and across the bright blue sky of summer. Two stood together, the man with only one eye visible from under a blue cloak and hood, the woman tall and royal; on their right side stood a large, red-bearded figure clad in a bearskin and carrying a carved hammer; on their left, a handsome fair-haired man carrying a pair of antlers, an empty scabbard hanging by his side. A slight sigh was felt again, and words were there, and music - though neither spoken nor sounded:

"The Crown of Iron Is indeed your charge;

You are Siccard, child of the kings we chose.

But victory none deliver, but the Norns;

Not what is held in your mind's vision

Will you have indeed, but have what you ask."

Eloise Midgen looked on with astonishment. The last thing she would have expected would have been to see this swarthy, black-haired southerner consort with the gods of the ancient North. As she stared, he suddenly drew back; the dial seemed to come out in his hand - and she realized that he was holding an enormous sword, and that the dial was its hilt. The four gods were no longer there, though she had not seen them vanish.

And it was perhaps because his attention had finally left the four otherworldly giants, that he noticed her at last. For a few seconds, he literally could not believe his eyes. He did not know Eloise Midgen very well, but he knew that she was a close friend of his fiancée Cleo Malfoy, and that she had been s heartbroken as he was when she was handed over to the Elves. But what she was doing in that secret place of the Zabini family, where they concentrated the magic of the Longobards among their ancestors, he could not understand. The place was not actually taboo; they had never bothered to put a forbidding spell on it, because it was so lonely and unwelcoming. But nobody except a heir of his own house, taking the sword of the Kings of old in his hand, had ever entered it.

He did not need to ask; she spoke first. "I am sorry to have followed you without asking, Blaise. When you said that you would be going on a quest to find Cleo, I wanted to ask if I could come along... only you walked away too fast. And afterwards there never was any time."

Biagio Zabini was staggered. The very last thing he had imagined is that this rather pathetic little creature, one of Hogwarts' most notorious wallflowers, should harbour such dreams. He looked her over. She certainly looked ridiculous: short and plump, she wore something so like a Boy Scout uniform that he suspected she must have used a textbook as a guide to outfit herself. She had it all - boots, thick below-the-knee woollen socks, shorts, belt, shirt, neckerchief, hat, and a stout iron-tipped walking stick. She carried a huge backpack, all neatly folded and looking as if it had just come out of a shop, and he could see all sorts of gear from a frying-pan to a bit of fishing line. He was willing to bet that she had a Swiss Army knife in there somewhere. But her muscles were soft, and her complexion - apart from the celebrated pockmarks left over when her acne had finally dissipated - had an unwholesome indoors kind of paleness that told him its own story.

His first impulse was to laugh. But Biagio, in spite of the violence in his character, had been well brought up. He remembered an occasion when, as a small child, he had laughed at a disabled man shuffling along with a grotesque kind of waddling gait. His mother had favoured him with a slap on the face for his pains, and had angrily asked him: "Se fossi al suo posto, ti piacerebbe? How would you like it if you were in his place?" Even in his bewilderment, he had perceived that she was really angry, and that he had done something wrong. And once home, she had underlined the message by sending him to bed without supper. The thought came to him now: Se fossi al suo posto, ti piacerebbe? And it made him look at her again. No doubt, she looked ridiculous. But the effort she had made showed that she realized that the enterprise would be neither easy nor quick; she had tried to outfit herself seriously. And she was a Hogwarts student: she knew how many dangers the world outside held, and how remote was the chance of finding the Elves. She knew that she was going into labour and danger; and, it seemed, she was willing to do it.

"I'm sorry, Blaise," said she, misunderstanding his silence, "it's just that I want to help Cleo too. She has always been good to me, and I really feel I have to do something for her... even if it's only getting myself killed to get her back."

Biagio felt a surge of appreciation for the plump little woman. She was a Gryffindor after all, he remembered: of the clan of the lion, brave and chivalrous. Chivalry, he reflected, could take many shapes, and not all of them the obvious ones. He smiled, bowed from the waist, took her right hand in his, and kissed it gently. "In that case, signorina," he said, "it would be my privilege to share this adventure with you." She blushed and giggled at the old-fashioned hand-kissing. "But no more talk of getting killed, OK? To die means to fail. We'll stay alive, and we'll bring Cleo back alive too."

His smile was dazzling and heartwarming; but he did not expect her to chuckle softly to herself and answer back. "I've got a friend who doesn't think so. You will not be annoyed if I invite a third person along?"

"Why not?" said Biagio, who was by now past being surprised. "The more, the merrier."

A whining voice rang out apparently out of thin air. "Oh, Eloise, I wish you had arranged it some other time. I hate showing myself in sunlight, it makes me look so... well... ghostly."

Eloise openly laughed. "You are so vain, you ghosts. Come on, show yourself." And the glum figure of Moaning Myrtle, Hogwarts' most cheerless resident spook, appeared in mid-air.

It is true that ghosts hate to appear in sunlight, or at any time other than night. In anything but starlight or deep gloom, they show as miserable appearances, pitiful rather than frightening; which hardly suits them. Some people are actually incapable of seeing them at all, except in the dark. But that Moaning Myrtle, whom Biagio only knew by reputation, should have left the toilet where she had whined for half a century to cross half a continent, left him almost speechless.

"Er... are... are you a friend of Cleo's too?"

"Yes. Cleo always had time for me. She came and listened to my stories and laughed at my jokes. I think the Malfoys stink and I want to help. And if you get married, I'll come and haunt your house!" She did not mean that as a threat.

"Actually, Blaise, a ghost can be very useful. She is the reason why I managed to catch up with you, she can be invisible, and she cannot be killed."

"I was thinking that. Well, signorina, I regret not being able to kiss your hand, but please consider it done. Do us the honour to come with us on our quest." Then his expression became serious. He raised his sword to the sun, and said: "Let the gods of all the nations whose blood flows in my veins, let the Sun and the waters of the river Styx, let the Ethnarch and the Patrons of Italy, and let the Three-in-One who is over all, bear witness that I, Siccard Biagio Baldassarre Zabini, legitimate heir to the Crown of Iron and to all the title of the noble House of Zabini, set out from the house of my fathers and will not return, come what may, until I have found the Dark Elves and freed Cleopatra Glory-of-the-Father Malfoy from their power. So be it by all the powers of justice, wisdom, courage, and love!"

Eloise reached out and placed her hand over his on the hilt: "And so say I, Cassandra Eloise Midgen."

Then Myrtle's insubstantial hand reached through both of theirs, making them both shudder: "And so say I, the ghost of Myrtle Joan-of-Arc Murtaught."

"Joan of Arc? Is that your name?" giggled Eloise.

"Hey, you know, parents..." muttered Myrtle, blushing - this was not the enclosed space of her toilet - not silver but ashen, and spreading both arms wide.

"Come on, girls. Let's go!"