Mourning Dawn (A Prelude to The Wand of Elder)

Alexander cringed again as his uncle cast a last cold glance towards him before shutting the bedroom door. With his absence, the temperature in Alexander's room seemed to rise a few degrees. Alexander exhaled. The ordeal was over, at least for tonight.

His uncle had been terrible since his meeting with Harry Potter. Something had happened in that meeting that had made Trimble Didact even colder than his normal metallic demeanor.

Alexander shook his head. He was only shaking it to clear the unpleasant aftereffects of his uncle's penetrating Legillimency. He was just tired from his uncle's invasive manner of determining if Alexander had completed his set tasks for the day. He was not shaking his head to clear the fluid that he felt welling behind his eyes. Alexander was merely a bit dazed. He was not sad. He would not weep.

Weeping was for those with less sturdy mental constitutions than he. He followed the mold of his powerful uncle. He had incredible willpower for a boy of eleven. And his uncle had repeatedly told him that the Didact family did not weep over trifles such as a rebuke from a guardian.

He turned his thoughts away from his Uncle. But weeping still sprang to his mind. He had thought a lot about weeping lately. He had thought about it ever since he went to his secret place.

He often felt the need for refuge when his uncle's tongue became sharp. This occurred almost daily, because such a great man as Trimble Didact had little patience for the trifling of a boy such as Alexander. His uncle often told Alexander this simple fact of life.

Alexander had been lucky the day after the Battle, however. He had been lucky to be at Hogwarts when his uncle's mood turned sour. Hogwarts had been Alexander's refuge for the past year, particularly the spot in the Forest. Even when his uncle had stormed back into their allotted quarters, fresh from his mysterious interview with Harry Potter, and with criticism and spite dripping from his lips, Alexander had known where to go for solace.

He had gone to be among the Spiders.

In his first few months at Hogwarts, Alexander had discovered three things. The first and most unpleasant of these things was that he did not seem to get along well with the other children in his year. They could not understand the expectations of his uncle, or the obligations of the name of Didact. They were too distracted by their young inanities and their own little petty rivalries. He did not begrudge them their pastimes, but Alexander did not have time for such things.

So his schoolmates left him alone, and he left them alone, to their mutual satisfaction. Alexander did not feel a sharp pang of loneliness thinking about it now. Not in the least. And if he did, he would squash the emotion as his uncle would have done.

The second of his discoveries was that he was very good at magic. He had quickly established himself as the most talented wizard of his year. Alexander was driven and smart, and he knew it. What's more, his fellow students had known it. The Ravenclaws had warmed to his otherwise detached manner when he began earning house points at a record clip.

But the third and strangest of his discoveries had concerned, of all things, spiders. He had discovered that the clicking and scuttling of Spiders seemed to make sense to him. He always remembered having an affinity for the creatures, and a fascination for their creepy forms. Yet, as his magic grew and as he learned control, he began to see that spiders did not only make sense to him, he made sense to them.

He was soon able to turn his affinity into understanding, and ultimately, control. That is, the Spiders began to do what he wanted them to do. And, from the tilt of a leg or the way they canted their body, he began to understand what the creatures needed or wanted.

Alexander had researched the phenomenon in the library and had quickly discovered that he had a particular Talent. He found that he was an Aranea Familiar. This was a rare ability that was often, but not always, associated with dark wizards. It allowed him to command and communicate with those eight-legged denizens of the world. Most importantly for Alexander, it had become a key to staunching the initial feelings of loneliness that he refused to admit he suffered.

It was odd, actually, with the little ones. The spiders around the castle did not talk, or anything like that. They simply wanted dark safe places and, perhaps, a warm bug or two. But then, just before leaving for the Christmas holidays, Alexander had innocently ventured to the edge of the Forbidden Forest. He had encountered a larger spider. It had almost seemed able to speak. It had made known to him the fact that there were even larger brethren deeper in the Forest.

Intrigued, Alexander had broken the rules for the first time at his new school and entered the Forbidden Forest. He had ventured into its dank depths and discovered the Tribe of Aragog.

These spiders, the Acromantulas as wizards called them, had been a boon to Alexander. He would not call them friends exactly. Yet they certainly were not people who demanded that he devote himself exclusively to his studies and to upholding the family name. The spider's glade had been his refuge throughout the year, and they had accepted the strange little boy and his peculiar affinity for them.

Thus it was that Alexander had sought his little tribe when his uncle had returned from his meeting with Harry Potter. Trimble Didact's eyes had cast silently cold abuse while his mouth had simply formed a thin disapproving line. Alexander had fled the castle and sought out the glade of the spidery tribe. He had found it empty of all but a few of the smallest and youngest of Aragog's descendants. These remnants of the spiders had communicated to Alexander their great and terrible fear of an innocuous looking patch of grass, and the small cracked stone that Alexander had found within.

Alexander had bent down and enfolded the cracked stone in his small hands. That is when he heard the terrible weeping.

In his bedroom, Alexander shoved his head under the covers and closed his young eyes tight in an effort to drive the memory from his mind. Such a sound as he hoped he would never hear again. Against his will and his uncle's training, Alexander whimpered in his bed as he remembered the image that had appeared shimmering in that Forest Glade.

A man appeared as Alexander held the Stone. A twisted, scarred and terrible man.

The man, or the ghost perhaps, appeared somehow...broken. He was a man, but he was also many wretched little things writhing amongst each other. It was like he had been torn to pieces or shattered like heavy crystal.

His voice sounded as if it came from many disparate throats. It was a high cold rasp just out of the range of hearing. Whispers of loss, and hopelessness and defeat had drifted through the dark air of the glade. The man knew that something had changed, and had noticed the world around him. Yet the torn things had gasped their frustration in many airy groans. The man had looked around the glade mournfully, and seemed to despair at the nearness of it.

And it had wept. Oh, how the man, how the torn things, had wept at the loss!

Alexander curled into a fetal ball and tried to push the thoughts from his head, feeling his gorge rise as the terrible images washed over him. Alexander had felt paralyzed at the horrible being before him in the glade. He had stood and simply hoped that the torn things would not notice him. And now, many days later, in the safety of his bed, Alexander dreaded the memory of the torn things turning slowly towards him. The man had realized that he was not alone.

The man, the torn things, had looked at Alexander with twisted eyes and said something. Alexander had run after hearing the single word that was uttered. The boy had dropped the stone from his hands and run flat out for all of the many miles to the edge of the forest. He had...

Alexander could not bear to think of it. It was too much for even his disciplined mind. He felt hot bile in his throat. He was smothering under the blankets of his bed. Alexander thought of the evil red eyes overflowing with destructive malice. Against his will, Alexander thought of the chilling word screeching from the throat of the torn man.

"Revenge!"

And Alexander wept.