The Second Coming

"The Second Coming"

A Harry Potter Fanfiction By Peeler

Prologue: The Prophecy

Turning and turning in the widening gyre
The falcon cannot hear the falconer;
Things fall apart; the center cannot hold;
Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world,
The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere
The ceremony of innocence is drowned;
The best lack all convictions, while the worst
Are full of passionate intensity.

Surely some revelation is at hand;
Surely the Second Coming is at hand.
The Second Coming! Hardly are those words out
When a vast image out of Spiritus Mundi
Troubles my sight: somewhere in sands of the desert
A shape with lion body and the head of a man,
A gaze blank and pitiless as the sun,
Is moving its slow thighs, while all about it
Reel shadows of the indignant desert birds.
The darkness drops again; but now I know
That twenty centuries of stony sleep
Were vexed to nightmare by a rocking cradle,
And what rough beast, its hour come round at last,
Slouches towards Bethlehem to be born?

William Butler Yeats

Ulfric surveyed his guest with ever-growing distrust. His friends and other travelers were a raucous lot, drinking mead and ale either from their own horns or Ulfric's own crude wooden mugs. The inn, if one could call the collection of sod dwellings an inn, generally saw none but warriors from nearby tribes. Today, however, one of the men in the room was entirely unfamiliar to Ulfric, both in garb and in behaviour. Standing hunched in a corner where he had extinguished the nearby torches, the man was taller than anyone Ulfric could recall seeing. He was wrapped head to toe in a stained green travelling cloak that Ulfric mused had probably, at one point, been worth as much as his house was now. To make things even odder, he had arrived on a horse- a healthy horse such as had seldom been seen in these parts- and immediately staked out the dark corner, without removing his hood and without joining the crowd in the well-lit center of the low-ceilinged common room. And he had not talked to Ulfric to arrange rooms for the night, either. It was simply too strange for the aged warrior-turned-innkeeper to ignore; he stood up from the fire-pit in the center of the room and went to talk to the stranger.

The man marked Ulfric's approach by straightening his stance; he towered over the innkeeper's hunched frame, his hood brushing the ceiling. Put off, Ulfric stammered and looked down.

"If- if you don't mind my asking, master, will you be wanting a room for the night? It's just that I ought to be making it ready if you-" the stranger held up a hand for Ulfric to stop; when he spoke his voice was harsh and grating.

"I will need your largest room. See to it that my horse is tethered outside of it, and cared for properly. I will have a long ride in the morning."

"Of- of course, master," said Ulfric. "If I might inquire as to your name?" The man did not remove his hood.

"Slytherin," said the man, and swept past the innkeeper towards the door.

~*~

The clinging, obliterating darkness of true night had come over the inn with the extinguishing of the last torches. The howling of wolves occasionally drifted across from the nearby forests, causing the youngest of the guests to fumble near their bed-rolls for their swords. Salazar Slytherin's fine gray stallion slept at his post outside the low-roofed sod hut that was the finest room of the inn. Inside, his master also slept, trying to forget the events of the past month. As the howling of the wolves ceased, the more peaceful sounds of the night returned; nightingales and crickets sang their continuous songs. Slytherin's formerly dreamless sleep was interrupted by occasional visions of horses beating a steady drumbeat on the darkened ground, pursuing him. His eyes flickered open briefly, and the far-off hooves continued their beat, growing nearer. Slytherin sat up in the darkness, nearly putting his head into the low ceiling. There was a horse coming down the road to the inn, at a swift gallop, he was sure of it. The sound was unmistakable, and growing louder by the moment. He fumbled towards the low opening in the grassy walls that functioned as a door, and looked around.

Faint starlight painted the night in shades of black, and Slytherin, though he stood near by, could barely see the stallion he had ridden from Hogwarts. Slytherin took his wand from a pocket of his cloak and said "Lumos" in a quiet voice. The piece of wood emitted a very dim light, barely enough to walk by. The horse on the road grew closer; it must be reaching the edge of the woods by now, and approaching the moor on which the inn lay. Slytherin made up his mind, shaking his horse awake and hurriedly fitting the saddle before struggling to untie him from the post. The horse finally free, Slytherin clambered up into the saddle and urged him forward through the low buildings in which the other guests still slept. At the sound of his flight, several of them cried out, and one shaggy blue-painted warrior stood in the darkness, watching bemusedly as the gray stallion swept out past the inn's common room and onto the road.

A look behind showed Slytherin that, contrary to his expectations, only one horse approached down the road towards the inn; the rider had apparently already marked his flight, for he made no move to turn at the inn, and continued to pursue Slytherin. Unwilling to push his horse too hard to escape a single pursuer from Hogwarts, Slytherin made for the place where the road turned through a stand of young oaks, about a half-mile away. His pursuer, seemingly desperate to catch him, pushed on with all speed, gaining steadily. Passing the first trees that emerged thick and black in the pre-dawn light, Slytherin slowed his pace and turned his horse off into an acceptable hiding place amidst a thick growth of shrubbery. Crouching behind a tree near the road, he waited for his pursuer, eyes closed, listening hard and focusing on preparing a defense should he be sighted. The sound of hooves soon met his ears, moving slower as if the rider had guessed his quarry's strategy. The horse would be passing by soon...he could see it now, if he peered out far enough...a black mare, steaming from exertion even in the cold pre-dawn air. The rider was a young, silvery-haired man in a green cloak much like his own, and as the pursuer passed, Slytherin could see that the cloak was held shut by a clasp identical to his own...without second thought, he sprang from his hiding place as the young man passed, flecks of fire forming at his fingertips just in case.

'Trabian!" he called, and the young man wheeled his horse around with a start. "Why are you here? Why are you not at Hogwarts?"

"I have traveled many weeks seeking you, master," said Trabian, dismounting. "I have urgent news that I knew you would want to hear. That fool, Gryffindor, sought to prevent my going, but Mistress Ravenclaw gave me a horse, and news of your direction. It was a dangerous journey; these lands are unfriendly, and I encountered Gryffindor's men who pursue you with ill intentions. I have put them well off the trail, though, master." Slytherin relaxed, the flames vanishing from his fingers.

"You have my heartfelt thanks, Trabian Mal Fois," he said, moving to embrace the young man. "I am in your debt. For a while I thought you were one of Gryffindor's pursuers."

"Ah, of course...I wondered why you fled from me so swiftly. It is good, actually, to be gone from Hogwarts, master," said Trabian, pacing across the road. "Things have not gone well since your flight. The Chamber, of course, remains hidden, though they have gone to great measures trying to find it."

"None may find it," said Slytherin smiling. "None of them, only myself, and those of my family who will share my gifts in the future. Not even you, cunning Trabian, could find it, or enter it if you should."

"I am glad to hear of it, master," said the blonde man, bowing slightly. "But, as I was saying, things go poorly at the school. The blood of the students is increasingly befouled. Even as the danger from outsiders increases, Gryffindor has allowed mudmen into the very halls! They are the parents of some of his foul students. The very rooms you sanctified in the name of the ancient magic are now home to their ill-bred progeny! The power and influence of the great families is falling ever farther from what it was; everything is happening just as you said it would, were your words not heeded. Even had I not had such news as I bring, I doubt I should wish to stay their there longer. Better to return to France, I think. Noble Beauxbatons still does not permit the filth within sight of its walls, on pain of death."

"That is indeed ill news, my apprentice. But do not worry yourself. Their time will come soon enough, Gryffindor's especially. Now, I think you must tell me what it is you have come so far to speak."

"Of course," said Trabian, withdrawing a stained sheaf of parchment tied round with a black and silver silk ribbon from one of his saddlebags. "I trust you remember Mistress Irulana, one of our noble house?"

"Of course," replied Slytherin. "Her father is the noble Reynald of Norfolk, who they call The Black."

"Yes," said Trabian. "I do not know if you were ever made aware, but Mistress Irulana was possessed of the gift of prophecy. She often saw events in the near future. Though they were usually of a very inconsequential nature, it is a rare gift, and she was often troubled with odd dreams..."

"Yes, I recall hearing something about this," said Slytherin. "Why is it of such import?"

"Seven days, to the very moment, after you left Hogwarts, Mistress Irulana was heard screaming as if she were tortured. I found her lying in a corridor on the second floor. Her eyes would not open, and she could not speak coherently for several minutes. I feared Gryffindor would come and beat her for disturbing classes, but she fell silent and seemed to fall into a trance. She clutched my wrist, and called my name though her eyes remained shut. She gave me words- a prophecy- to transcribe and to give to you." Trabian unfurled the parchment he held.

"The people of mud press on the gates

The world we built is threatened.

Our blood is diluted, estranged from the fates

In one thousand years, it is reckoned.

A savior shall arise from the master's blood

To cleanse the earth of the plague

That afflicts us all, and to rid our kind

Of the filth and the animals of the mud."

"This was the prophecy she gave to me. When she was certain I had written it down, she charged me on my life to find you and relay it in full. She told me many other things she had seen: towering rocks with sharp edges, the like of which she had never seen, piercing the skies and bursting into flame...Hogwarts befouled by legions of mud-blooded students, and the masters all sympathetic to them...this savior, she said, will arise from the most unlikely place possible, that he will have the greatest of destinies...that he will gather those of like mind to his side, and that he shall be struck down but rise again, to reign for all time..."

"All this, she told you?" said Slytherin, a shrewd smile on his face as he thought it over. "She was more gifted than anyone thought. How did this prophecy reach its end?" Trabian looked at his feet uncertainly.

"I...I regret to tell you, master, but...just as it seemed she had finished the prophecy, Gryffindor arrived in the corridor. He demanded to know what was happening...Mistress Irulana's eyes shot open. She drew a knife from her robes and tried to stab him in the heart. He overpowered her, took the knife, and slit her throat. I disarmed him, but it was too late...he drew his wand, and I think he meant to kill me, but Hufflepuff arrived at just that moment and forbade it. There was great unrest in the other three houses at Gryffindor's killing a student, especially of such a family as Black. He lost much support from Hufflepuff, and especially Ravenclaw. Mistress Irulana was buried in the sacred forest at the roots of the great oak, where her spirit will be bound with the others buried there." Slytherin seemed unconcerned, musing on the prophecy.

"In one thousand years it is reckoned...a savior shall arise from the master's blood..."

~*~

Juliana Christine Luciana Marvolo, or, as she thought bitterly, now just Juliana Riddle, pulled her tattered shawl tighter about her shoulders. An icy wind bore down between the tall spires of London, cutting her tender skin; she gave a wince as the baby inside her stretched stomach gave a particularly vicious kick.

"Not long now, my dear," she said softly, "please, not long."