First Spoke
Wheel of Time – Harry Potter Crossover
First Age – Post-Hogwarts
Harry Potter, while trying to find a counter to the killing curse, stumbles on something much more important.
Written as a prelude to my Wheel of time first age project, Hope and Darkness.
This is not a diary. I do not write this for the simple pleasure of having a paper friend who listens to me without comment. I intend this to be read, after I am gone.
The exact date is unimportant, but I will record it here. Twenty-first of January, two thousand.
For the sake of the uninformed reader, this is officially the third year of the second rise of Voldemort. I intend to finish this journal with the record of his demise, by a friend's hand if not mine.
Yesterday I retired from active Auror service, but they can call me back in extreme emergencies. I just hope that they don't come running with their tails between their legs with every situation. I played too long at invincible trouble shooter.
Ron is- For the sake of an uninformed reader, Ronald Weasley, Auror, also my oldest friend, and my accomplice in every single scheme of mine but this one. Ron is Furious. He blew his top, and spent half an hour yelling at me –as if that would make me go back- then, not for the first time, renounced me as his friend. But no one ever has managed to kill a snake by cutting its tail over and over again.
I start this journal with the end of my Auror career and the first day of my research and that research is the purpose of this journal. Bad guys gloat in front of the hero, and I Gloat on paper. My research notes are elsewhere, but I will record enough of it here so it can be reconstructed in the event of my demise before I finish or publish it.
Patronus charm. Little actual knowledge about it exists, and all are here.
Ancient magic. The incantation is Expecto Patronum. Strength of charm alone is negligible, augmented by concentrating on 'happy thoughts' at the moment of casting. Forms an incorporeal image, and determined by the caster's mental state, the shape varies. The image is always silver in colour. It is the only way of driving off creatures employing emotional broadcasting to render their prey helpless.
Now deductions and observation. The Patronus is at least semi-intelligent. It picks its targets with a measure of thought, going after the greatest threat to the caster even when faced with a much more obvious target. It seems to have some substance in a manner we cannot feel it, for creatures that the Patronus runs over show reactions appropriate to a physical strike, yet their physical strikes seem to pass through the Patronus. The magical structure of the enchantment itself is not known. It has simply existed, and it works, but no one knows how.
Hermione -Hermione Granger, childhood friend, genius- will write soon, ass soon as she receives the news of my retirement. I will have to mail her back with a request. She is the only charms specialist I know of, and she has her connections within the research community. If anyone can unravel the structure, it is her.
* * *
Twenty-third, January, Two thousand.
Gin… Virginia Weasley, younger sister of Ron, enchantress and rune carver, paid a visit yesterday, full of apparent concern. Suspicions of alliance between her and Hermione confirmed. There seems to be a conspiracy here. Hermione thinks I am distressed, and an hour later, Gin appears on my doorstep. Somewhere along our lives, Hermione decided that I needed a girlfriend; she also figured out that Ginny was single and willing, and she's done everything that she could to push us together.
I do not need a companion, nor can I afford one. There's too little time as it is.
Calmed Gin down, tried to keep from… She is gone. Experiments proved disappointing as expected, the Patronus does not answer to any but happy memories, and its colour and shape, once cast, does not change. This cannot be. I am not the boy I was back then, and I do not idolize my father anymore, nor do I use the same memory. But the Patronus is always a stag. Just the size and brilliance changes. Does the spell have its own memory, or does it leave something in the caster's aura?
* * *
Eleventh of February.
Summary of experiments since last entry.
Having the charm cast by different people created expected results. People undergone drastic personality changes with shock confirm to have their first Patronus still. Some, having developed aversions to their Patronus shapes, appear to be mildly phobic about casting the spell. Misdirection test also failed. People told that if they yell the charm and concentrate on the memory of their single, greatest moment of rage produced no effect. People convinced beforehand that the charm would produce a red shape produced silver shapes. I am missing something.
Hermione returned a negative answer. There seems to be missing parts of enchantment, she believes. Her current belief is that some parts of the charm are invisible to the current methods of magical examination, for the charm works when it should not.
* * *
Twenty-first of February.
For the first time, a step forward. I learned the magical structure examination charms myself. There seem to be missing parts to the charm, as Hermione said. This charm would not work like this. When I look at any other charm or curse, the examination charm shows me how they work, but with Patronus… Just pieces.
In another avenue of research, I have scheduled a field trip to ancient Smyrna, in Izmir, Turkey. I plan to test the Patronus in the magic-dead zone in there. Arranging the trip was easy, the dead magic zone is a major tourist attraction to wizarding folk. Unlike others of its kind, it is perfectly circular, a half-dome with a radius of three meters, standing just outside the newly-dug ruins of the Greek-era city.
I guess that it was artificially created by the wizards of that era… but by what means? Obviously, it cannot be created using magic.
* * *
Third of March.
Official result is mind-wrenching. The Dead magic zone is there. No charm can be cast inside, no exceptions. And charms sent from outside to the zone die, regardless of strength. Avada Kedavra fizzled without going in an inch. Effects die, too. Lumos charm, in cone form, projected to the ground at the edge of the zone produces a cut oval.
Except Patronus. The stag trotted in, looked around for dementors, came out. It cannot be cast inside, but…
There is one possible explanation. The charm itself is magical, but once cast; the Patronus is maintained by some other sort of energy. Nothing magical could be there. I kicked inside a wisp, and it went out like a candle. I chased inside a boggart, and it keeled over.
But that avenue must wait, for two other discoveries fell on me today.
* * *
Fourth of March.
Yesterday, in the archaeological dig site of Smyrna –muggle dig site- I found a marble arch that was standing before a formation of granite. It opened, only for wizarding folk, to a room. I think I am the first wizard to go there since ancient Greece. A circular room was past the door, which opened to the ceiling. Needless to point out, but I fell in facedown. The room was apparition proofed, and by construction at that. Some material was laced in the walls which made them repel scrying and apparition as well as magic cast directly or indirectly at the walls.
I used a pointer charm to be able to describe the room. The room itself was, as I wrote, circular. The radius measures three meters. I choose to record it not in feet; it is so precisely built that the creators must have had metric system in mind. With the identical sizes, I presume it at the very least has a connection with the dead magic zone, and my theory is that it is the cause. This room must be in a parallel dimension right on top of the dead magic zone. The north and southernmost points of the room are decorated with identical cabinets, whish have three deep, long drawers each. The east and west points are decorated with banners facing each other. The East banner is a rectangle, the greater, topmost part of it portraying a wheel with seven spokes. Six of the spokes are grey and lightly-painted, with the intention of giving the illusion that they are not really there. The first spoke is painted a brilliant green. The base of the banner is white. Under the wheel there is a curious symbol made of the two most famous signs of eternity. It is a serpent biting its own tail, which, as a circle, would be a sign of eternity, but the shape is that of an eight sideways, another sign of infinity. Eternally infinite?
The west banner is the ying-yang symbol… at least, it is close. A circle evenly divided from the middle with a straight line, one side black and the other white, but there is a black teardrop in the white half and a white flame in the black half. The base of this banner is a deep crimson, brining to mind the often used phrase. Colour of clotted blood. Under the circle, this one also portrays the golden serpent, biting its own tail in the sign of eternity.
The southern cabinet had but a piece of parchment in the top drawer.
You, who come to the vault of eternity, know that this vault can be visited only once. Everything you leave will be in the mother's womb for eternity.
Noting that no one could have known modern English at that age, I checked. It was charmed to display the words in a language the reader would understand. The second drawer held a book, not charmed, which I took to study later. The last drawer held a piece of paper with a long passage in Latin written on it, which proved to be gibberish about Giants fighting with spears of light. That I also took, to ask Hermione about it.
The northern cabinet held no documents. The top drawer held two earrings, one silver and one gold, both of them short chains with tiny butterflies dangling from the tips. The middle drawer had two rings, too small for adult fingers, and chained to each other with four hair-thin black chains. The rings themselves were made of a milky-white crystal and both of them were paper thin. The last drawer held a key, long as my f- this is a research journal- exactly one foot long, looking like a padlock key, made of a pure white stone. Needless to say, I gathered everything save the cabinets themselves –Banners included- and got out. The arch crumbled after me, and I was promptly put under arrest by muggle authorities for robbery. I was rescued after a short while by a passing local wizard who simply obliviated everyone in sight.
That held my second discovery.
The man –One Ali Akter- Was, he claimed, the leading expert in charms research in eastern Europe and Mediterranean. Could I be, judging from the mark on my forehead, A Harry Potter? No, he had not heard of it through the usual channels. Predictably, Turkish wizards did not exactly care if a dark wizard terrorized England. No sir, he had heard the name and description from a brilliant young researcher named Hermione Granger. –the man, by the way, was only one year older than Hermione- Had he, perhaps, Known the lady personally? He would like an introduction very much, perhaps to compare notes. Was it true that Harry Potter was researching the greatest mystery of modern magic? Yes, that was Patronus charm. He could help with that, yes he could. He knew something no one knew yet, something not yet published. Perhaps Harry Potter would be so kind to accept an invitation to his home on sixth of March? The discovery? Oh yes, an examination charm, it was. No, nothing like his version existed. This one actually showed the caster the structure of the spell visually-
My thought process ended with that. I could finally look at the Patronus charm and see why it was missing parts! I hastily accepted, took his mirror name, as they had no fireplaces for floo around here, and apparated for my Hotel as soon as we parted.
* * *
Fifth of March.
I examined the artefacts I took from the vault. Result, nothing. In the afternoon, I apparated back to England, artefacts and the book and the notes in tow. I dropped by the Burrow, ma Weasley and Arthur were not at home. I went directly for Ginny's room, chatted a bit, and gave her the artefacts. She is the enchantress, after all. The way her eyes lit up when I mentioned how and where I found them, one would think she had found the love of her life. I said my goodbye and apparated to Hermione's'. She explained that the passage about the spears of light was something about a nuclear war between muggles with giants being the nations. The same expression as Ginny's appeared on her face when I told her about the vault. I gave her the Book, the notes and the banners, and made her promise to give the book back as soon as she found a suitable translation charm.
Then I mentioned Ali Akter. And I had thought she was crazy before. She begged me to introduce them, praised his intelligence and ingenuity at length, and all but fainted when I told her he had had a similar reaction. This is a research journal, but just in case this gets out while she is still famous, I will announce this to the world. I SAW HERMIONE GRANGER SWOON. I set out to work immediately and an owl-post and two apparations later, I had her included in the dinner invitation for tomorrow.
* * *
Sixth of March.
Only one thing of significance today. The visual examination charm works.
I swear that those two are actually the same person, someone messed up with a cloning attempt or reincarnation. They have known each other for two hours and they smile at private jokes and complete each other's sentences.
The Patronus charm is complete, it just has invisible parts. Some strands of magic tie invisible things to invisible things, or some structures hang midair with invisible pieces holding them up. Ali and Hermione are arguing right now, there seems to be a discrepancy. Both claim to see things the other cannot and I suppo… oh, my.
* * *
Sixth of March.
I support Ali, I was about to write. And now I know why. One third of the charm we all can see. One third only Hermione can see. And one third only Ali and I can see. And there is only one explanation.
Gender-specific magic. There is a male part males can see, a female part we cannot see, and a part which everyone can see. On further examination, we found out that the universal part had only been used in two purposes. To tie male and female parts together, and to make sure either gender could cast the spell.
I called a break. I was falling further apart from my original avenue, and however important, the gender-specific magic was not what I was looking for. I asked the two lovebirds to study that part, and they both agreed to drop their current projects –that was something grand, they told- to work on it, and so I could return to my previous pursuit. To find where the Patronus draws its strength from, and to use that.
* * *
Fourth of May.
Ginny came today. We talked a bit, and it was pleasantly distracting. Then she reported on her progress… she had not made any until she heard from Ali and Hermione. The artefacts were laden to the brim with gender-specific magic, except the key which was completely void of magic –not only that, but it absorbed magic. The rings were amplifiers. One for male and one for female. You attached them both to you wand –the black chains were impervious to attempts of manipulation- and the correct one amplified you magic, even when you were using 'normal' magic. The earrings were detectors. They did not respond to 'normal' magic, but silver one pointed the male magic and the gold one to the female, if any were used within a range of… over six miles. She handed them all over to me, saying that I could need them, but made me promise to hand them over to her when 'Voldemort is over and done with.'
Delightful, Ginny is. Probably, it will be me who is over and done with.
* * *
Fourth of May.
I slipped the rings on to my wand, I pinned the earrings to my shirt and I cast the Patronus. Size and colour remained same. It just crashed though my back wall to search for dementors. The rings tried to pull me of my feet, so strong were the readings.
They have substance! Patronus has substance thought at the normal power levels it hasn't enough to affect anything.
* * *
May twelve, Two-thousand.
Ron's dead. Malfoy junior took him alive and questioned him on my research then sent back his remains to the ministry. At first news, I moved Hermione in with Ali and Ginny in with them, put fidelius on the Burrow and became Weasley's secret keeper. Ali guarantees no dark wizard ever can touch any wizard or muggle in a house owned by a turkishman, something about ancient pacts with old gods. Everyone else is safe.
I will mourn now.
* * *
Fifteenth of May.
Vengeance Burns in me now, more than ever. My experiments with multi-dimensional tracking are complete. As soon as there is a reliable result in isolating the male and female magic, I will try the tracking and the Patronus together. I will find the dimension which Patronus and dementors and lethifold partially exist, and I will work on more ways of using that dimension.
Now would be a good time to speak about what made me work on the Patronus. In field, I produce the strongest Patronus among the Auror corps. In one operation, a Patronus I cast at a dementor collided with a killing curse. The Patronus dissipated, the killing curse struck, and my comrade went to a deep, never-ending coma. Final as death, but his heart did not stop, nor did his breathing.
Now facts about the killing curse. Contrary to popular belief, Avada Kedavra does not travel in a straight line, nor does jumping in front of a victim accomplishes anything. It travels in a different dimension, which makes it impossible to block. It is kept in that dimension by magic from this dimension, but that kind of magic is not susceptible to any kind of counter magic we know. It is being maintained from this dimension which makes it vulnerable to the dead magic zones. Dementors, too, are there but maintained from here, which leads to the result. Avada Kedavra is a distilled form of dementor's kiss. Patronus is quite the reverse. It is maintained from the other side, a side where emotions and desires and beliefs are real as physics on this side. A dream world, if you will.
As it is, dementors are more here than there. Patronus is a little more there, so it is strong against the dementors and weak against anything else. The Avada Kedavra is completely on the other side, which makes it able to disperse a Patronus. Normally this would have made the spell completely impotent against humans, but that is where another factor comes in.
A tiny part of us, but the most crucial one, exists there too. The part of us which dreams when we sleep. A part of our subconscious, which is perpetually there, but keeps us alive here. The Avada kedavra destroys that part, which turns us to vegetables. The death of the body is just from the shock. If it was a little weaker, our bodies would live when our minds died.
Like Matt, who is not any less dead in mind than Ron, but still breathes.
Deducting, that points us to the fact. Patronus weakens the killing curse. Killing curse is Dementor's kiss strengthened. Patronus was created against dementors. Patronus distilled… would stop the killing curse.
And, counting the intelligence and memory seemingly granted by that dimension that would be a shield seeking out incoming curses to stop.
Bereft of their one true advantage, an unblockable spell that our side dares not use, the dark wizards would be brought on equal footing.
Besides, if I can break the part of the spell which keys the Patronus to happiness, I can make it common. Happiness is rare. Why not fear? A barrier which comes alive when you fear for your life?
* * *
Sixth of June
Hermione found out the translating charm, and true to her word, delivered the book and the charm without reading beyond the first page. She read enough, I think.
Thousands of years in the future, when the need overwhelms the danger, someone will come looking for the dead magic zone. At the foot of the zone, our gate will be found. The first age will be about to end.
You, who have found us, know that we had foretellers among our number. We know your time and your need. The vision is strained and unclear, but you seek the secrets of the one spell we had to leave within the artificial weave. You must read on, if you will save your race, but the answer to your current need lies in the dreaming world.
Know that death and destruction lies beyond the point when you destroy the dark one you seek, for he is but a disciple of the one who threatens the world. We have met our end at the hands of the first disciple of the first age, and your foe is the last disciple of the first age.
Set aside the book, and come back to read on once he is dead, Harry Potter.
I sat before the book, my stomach churning, dizzied by the trains of though rampaging inside my head. A weaver's wheel on a banner, and a symbol of eternity. Destiny being weaved. Only one spoke colored. The first age. The undying darkness and the eternal light.
The wheel weaves as the wheel wills.
The last words on the page swirling before my eyes. Spears of light. Death and destruction.
A nuclear war was coming, and if I didn't discover the gender specific magic after I killed Voldemort, no one would survive. Even if I did, not everyone would survive. The artificial weave. The magic I was using now was created by the people who wrote this book, to replace the power they used after they sealed it out. What kind of power did this imply, to have created the entire… magic? It implied enough to stop a nuclear explosion, at least… and more.
And more.
If only I knew how to use it…
* * *
Twentieth of June.
I met with Hermione and Ali today. They are getting married at thirtieth of July, and Ali wants me as the best man. He decided on me rather than a close friend, for I am the reason they are together. I declined politely, not wanting to be between him and his friends. Also, I'm the girl's close relative this time. I cannot be the best man.
On a more serious note, they have managed to alter the Lumos charm to use the gender specific magic. It comes out horribly powerful. Hermione lit up the house with her ball, and almost blinded Ginny, and Ali burned a hole through the wall with the cone version. Now I know how pure male and female magic feels, and I can track the Patronus charm now.
I still cannot use it, though. Ali tried to explain, something about suppressing your emotions and oceans of light, but it eludes me. Now all three of them can, and Hermione and Ali have established that the two halves –they call it that, the power and its two halves- are radically different. They claim to have to use different methods to accomplish the same thing. Ginny said that in the future there would have to be separate schools for men and women, she claims that the things Ali says does not make any sense to her.
Gin wants to be there when I begin the tests, and frankly, I need her. I can see the male magic, but I can only feel the female part, and that only when I am close.
* * *
Thirtieth of June.
We did it… and we were in the other side for four days. You don't feel fatigue there, so we spent four days awake there, came back here, and slept for another five. It was rather pleasant, with her…
First, Ginny surprised me. She locked some kind of weave on me, and suddenly, I could feel magic flowing to me from her, and I could SEE both female and male and neutral magic. The 'normal' magic we use looks like faded grey lines and the others… Ginny names them the Power, not magic, the others are brilliant. The male half is a slightly reddish white, pulsing with need to be unleashed, and the female is slightly bluish white, flowing with quiet power. We cast the Patronus, and saw where it originated from, and we travelled there… not exactly. We pulled ourselves there, like climbing a hatch.
Thoughts are power, there. What you think is real. Ginny actually set a death eater on us by pure imagination, and thank the gods for she thinks I am stronger than any death eater. I fear if she though the other was stronger, it would have been.
Lighter note, momentary fancies work there. Our pretty daydreamer dreamed me out of my clothes, quite literally. In the end, she was more embarrassed than I was. At least I know that she still fancies me. I wonder what would have happened if she fancied us on the act. Would I be compelled, or would a look alike have appeared?
Better part of the four days was spent on experimenting. I have a lot of new data to process.
* * *
Twelfth of July.
Death and destruction.
I completed the spell yesterday. Ginny finally left for her home yesterday. Ginny came back today.
With Draco Malfoy and Lucius Malfoy and fourteen men she came, wearing black cloaks and white masks except the Malfoys and her.
She came to kill me, not knowing I had completed the spell. They had known all along, my research and the spell. She had been commanded to stick with me as much as possible, to learn my research and dispose of me once I was close to finding the spell. I cast it today.
They died. I killed them all, except the two that escaped. I got out without a scratch, and they died, even Ginny despite using the power. My shield… kills.
I killed them all…
* * *
Thirteenth of July.
I wonder if this is a side effect of the shield. Last night, I killed the woman I loved and fourteen men in my living room wrote a note about it in the journal, checked on Hermione and Ali, and then went to sleep. I forgot the corpses lying there in my living room until this morning, and I don't feel anything.
The Aurors came and went without a word. They will hold back on the questioning until tomorrow.
I must write what happened.
I had bound the shield to the incantation, It was to be 'light!' when Ginny apparated to my living room. I had reprogrammed my wards to let her in without prompting. As soon as she was in, she reached out with the power, and put a hole through my ceiling…
Once the structural integrity fails, building-specific wards fail. In a heartbeat, there were sixteen death eaters in my living room. It was when I noticed the cloak she was wearing, the dark cloak of a death eater.
As if mocking me, she pleaded me to join their side. It was hopeless, she said, the dark one made Voldemort seem like a speck of dust. It was all doomed, but we could survive.
I pushed down my feelings, and I called on the shield instead of answering. The male ring on my wand shone for a moment, and a palm sized silver falcon flew out from the tip. A dozen more appeared out of thin air in front of me, their light so bright that I couldn't see through them, unlike a Patronus.
Lucius cast the killing curse. One of my falcons dove in front of it, and the curse dispersed when it struck the falcon. Then it flew and crashed on his chest. He died, falling over like a log before my eyes. Draco raised his wand. The second falcon decided not to wait for him to cast a spell. In less than a second, he joined his father. Two more falcons materialized to replace the two that had attacked.
Over the space of a second, fourteen corpses littered the ground behind Ginny, beautiful, wide-eyed Ginny. I silently begged her not to try anything, not to attack, just for her to go away.
She struck with the power, dispersing all but one of the falcons. It dove at her, from right behind her.
Voldemort knows the spell is complete now. He will try to kill me when he is ready. I am ready for him.
* * *
July, twenty-nine.
I talked with Ali and Hermione and I begged them not to postpone the wedding. You cannot put off living for just a dead death eater, I told them. I will miss the wedding, I told them. I will bring you the ashes of Voldemort as a present, I told them.
I got them to agree.
* * *
First of August, two-thousand.
I was waylaid as expected. When I tried to apparate to the wedding, the spell was interrupted and I found myself in a stone building, warded against apparition and port keys, surrounded by the bulk of his senior death eaters, face-to-face with him with no avenues of escape. All the same, for I did not want to escape.
I cast the spell, not with a memory of happiness, but one of hatred. Over a hundred live-sized falcons filled the air, and then dived at the surrounding death eaters with murderous cries. I still wonder how I, having never heard a falcon cry out, created a spell that accurately mimicked the sound. I checked afterwards, and the cries were accurate.
None of them touched Voldemort. He grinned, and cast the killing curse.
Everything fled, and I saw a light in my mind, a pulsing, infinite ocean of reddish white light. The male source. In a torrent it filled me, and I knew why Ginny refused to call it magic. It was pure life, I was pure life! It was an ocean of raging fire in my mind, and I was aware that I glowed to the naked eye. I directed the power, and in a torrent of unseen fire, it ate the killing curse. Then I looked at Voldemort, with hundreds of black and grey strands around him…
He had been using the power from the start, and that had been what made him so powerful. But now I was at equal footing.
I directed the power, not at him, but at the strands. They shrivelled and fell, but almost as fast as I severed them, he established new ones. Almost as fast.
Fifteen minutes of intense concentration later, he was cut off. As soon as he lost the protection offered to him by the power, the remaining dozen of red falcons dived at his body together. He was screaming hysterically in fear. Somehow, Voldemort screaming and squealing did not give me any satisfaction. I was only disgusted, with him and myself, myself for pitying him and him for… ruining my victory. He could at least have gone with dignity.
I still have his ashes in my pocket, as a souvenir.
The research is complete. This is, conceivably, my last entry in that journal.
Harry Potter.
First of November, two-thousand and two.
The book has spoken true. The dead Soviet Union rose from death, resurrected with financial sources no-one can pinpoint. Trust is in short supply, hatred and racism and isolation grows. America and Moscow are gearing to turn each other to ashes now. I can feel the sense of evil descending on the world, the blanket of darkness. The tensions are supernatural. It is reinforcing the darkness in men's hearts with all its power, and when this fails; its agents arrange incidents to elevate tensions. Things roam the world now, things that would put fear to Voldemort's heart, things that demonstrate what happens to animals when the dark one touches them. Even worse are the dark ones, men who have felt its touch. I had to kill a man yesterday, one of my first students in the one power; he was promised immortality in exchange of destroying the first bunker. The dark one tries to subvert channelers hardest, and he tries to subvert me. It mocks me, it challenges me, it offers me eternity and power and dominion and peace…
But I cannot accept, for all it can offer to me are illusions and emptiness. So I stand at the edge of the night, on top of the highest mountain of the world, and I look at the tear at its base. Palpable darkness bubbles from the tear visible even to the naked eye, making me wonder how the muggles haven't noticed this yet. The earth cries out in pain, the nature becomes dark and subverted. That thing tears at the fabric of reality itself, and its target is not the world. In the web of ages, its place is to attack the world over and over, and be defeated by one of my reincarnations. So, it does not try very hard. It actually attacks the web itself. It only has to pull apart one strand to succeed, and the repeating destinies will fail, and the triumph of light will not be as certain.
And before my very eyes, one of those who would follow it, for the promise of power, becomes unravelled. One more strand out of the web. Enough of these and light's victory will not only be uncertain, but impossible. But to make it impossible, it needs everyone to die. And the war and the desolation and despair after the war will see to that. The scattered pockets of humanity will lose civilization and none of the pockets having enough racial diversity to survive, the gene pool will stagnate, and in the millennium following the war, humankind will degenerate to extinction. The night promises to be eternal.
But dawn shines over the horizon. The one power has been rediscovered, as Hermione and Ali work with all their might for the dawn. I convinced them that the night is inevitable. Channelers are being educated, artefacts, both of magic and one power and muggle origins, are being made and stored in bunkers held by the one power. People are being chosen. The seeds of rebirth are being sown. The phoenix readies its nest.
I am not sure of two-thousand and three, but two-thousand and four will never end. But, after that, what comes will not be the eternal night. It will be a beautiful second age, even more glorious than our first. It will end with a situation like this, but the third will be even grander…
Seventh age will be the final spoke. The pattern of night and dawn will continue, but when the seventh spoke is in place, the wheel will have pinned the dark one down. It will have to be content with destroying civilization every two or three thousand years, but it will not be able to try its hand at eternal victory again.
My friends are ensuring that the second spoke will be in place. Hope and darkness.
I must win.
Everyday, I roam the world, with me my guardians, my small, strong army of channelling men and women, and I cut as many arms of Darkness as I can find.
He sprouts more than I can hunt, I know. Yet I slow him. I buy time. My wife fights by my side, and she will until the final battle.
None of the guardians know that they are with me until the final battle. I will fight that alone… I cannot take any of them to die with me. My blood spilled into the rift, my death to appease the darkness. I will seal him, a seal that will hold until the end of the second age. Second age will only know darkness in men's hearts, until the end.
I will stand where I am now, and I will take the unbreakable key and I will bind such an enchantment to it that every erg of energy IT sends out will be sucked into the key, and the key can absorb anything it sends, for longer than two millennia.
I will stand where I am now when the giants hurl their spears and the ground shrivels and dies, when flames cover the sky.
She will be in a bunker, a bunker even I can't penetrate once it is sealed, a bunker which won't open for a hundred years, well after I die of old age.
Why have I written down the last part?
I dream and I see. When the second age draws to an end, I will return… or my reincarnation will. My memories distant and his fresh, he will be a different person, bearing the same pain. He will chance upon the vault I leave my journal in, and he will know of the end of the first age.
Hail to you, Lews Therin Telamon. Hail to you, Lord of the Morning.
All the glory and all the pain to Lord Dragon.