Nadir Night

Nadir Night

"To live forever one must often forsake himself to death" - Caspar David Friedrich

I'm lying down in the shadow. This evening is really cold, and I try to pull my cloak tighter.

The person next to me looks at me and smiles to himself. In his opinion I'm just a green.

"You cold, Weasley?" he's all self-important smiles and sarcasm, the boy.

"No, I'm fine, Valmont." His smile dies, then he turns his attention on what we're keeping an eye.

One to zero for me.

He hates it when I call him Valmont. Even though he's a veteran, that's how he likes to define himself, he's childish like a green. His real name is Sebastian Beaumont, but it's too strong the temptation to call him Valmont, like in that old novel of the eighteenth century, with his viscount of Valmont. Wasn't his name Sebastian?

He's got an aristocratic profile, that's for sure. I look at his face, while his gaze is still set in front of himself. His nose is straight, his eyes shadowed by long lashes, his mouth thin.

He reminds me of someone.

Cold walls... there's silence... the air... oppressive... but he's leading me... my steps resound, but his?... am I walking alone?

Valmont is staring at me.

"Would you like a photo, Weasley?"

I was staring at him!

"What..? No! It's.. I was thinking, I must have dozed off..."

Another self-satisfied smile.

I turn my head and look in front of me.

We are hiding between the trees, while opposite of us there's a path that ends fifty meters ahead, at the abbey.

Or at what remains of the abbey.

The Dark Sanctuary.

I can see only its tumbledown façade, and the huge window with its acute curvature, its glass strangely intact.

We're farther, considering what are the usual standards of the Order, but these are security reasons. Every tree around us is bleak. The oaks skeleton-like, the ashes bare. The clearing is too desolate for us to get any nearer without the risk of getting caught.

The atmosphere is gloomy and spectral; the sun has not set yet, but the fog has already come down, a fog that hides the borders and makes the branches that stand out towards the sky look even more like invoking skeletons.

I shudder.

The sky.

Now the sun is going down and the vault isn't celestial anymore, but grey-pink. My mother calls this colour ash of roses. Quite nineteenth century-ish, I agree, but very romantic. The last sunrays shimmer through the window of the abbey, giving it a supernatural charm.

I turn toward Sebastian, I don't want him to miss such a radiant event; but he's already watching it, while the same luminosity lights his face.

I turn again toward the abbey.

The borders of the ruin have a gleaming frame now, and the Dark Sanctuary does not look like the receptacle of hate and death that we're keeping an eye on.

He already looks at me with different eyes. He made his choice. He made his decision and he carried it out. The silver turned again steel. What am I doing here anymore?

Several hours have passed; the night has long since come down. But there are no uncertainties.

This is the Night of the Nadir.

A whisper, "Ginny, they are coming."

Here they are.

Hooded figures in the starlit night. A procession of survivors. A silent march honouring a dead guide.

They walk austere, the head help up high. Fierce as if in a battle.

A gathering in the name of their Lord.

He's here, too.

Loyal until the end. For him the sense of honour is stronger than any law.

A true Slytherin. He fought the battle in which Dumbledore died . The youngest of the seven Dark Knights.

It's just fencing, you used to repeat... you didn't use the foil, but the sabre... you used to exercise with such force that you cut through the air, in a strange dance... then your father sent you that nefarious object. You were ill after every practice; you even reached the point in at which you started spitting blood. Deep red on your candid hands. I've always believed it was cursed. Then as time passed by you managed to overcome that negative aura... now you never leave that sword. I've always wanted to ask you whether you were really good or whether it had a poisonous blade, like centaurs' arrows... you would have answered me with one of your enigmatic smiles, as if to say both things. Do you have that blade at your side now? I still believe it to be poisonous, I'm afraid you haven't exorcized all his influence yet. I do not doubt you, but I know your father.

The wind now takes the hood off and shakes the cloak of a figure. A figure with silver-blond hair and a sword hanging on his hip. A figure with a reddish scar on his jaw. War is cruel, but you're born in the Night of the Nadir.

You're hunted for war crimes, but this won't be the night you'll be arrested.

The silent procession keeps on walking until the Dark Sanctuary absorbs it. Tonight those ruins will see only an emaciated bend of survivors who pay homage to a fallen Lord.

But the date is getting nearer...

The prophecy tells about

"... The one born on the night of the Black Star,

The one that contains in himself both fire and ice,

Of the seven the only Sentinel survived,

The one that carries the name of the ancient City of the Twisted Snake,

Where the grey first approached the Dark Power..."

The prophecy... we won't have to wait long.

The king is dead. Long live the king.