Capítulo 44: The Morrigan
I would like to thank my beta, AvidReader2425, for his help in this chapter.
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17th March 1995, Hogwarts
(Dumbledore POV)
Dumbledore woke up, disoriented. He was feeling strange. He was feeling good, like he had the best night of sleep of his life. He was sore, like he ran a marathon last night, but his body was full of energy. He was struggling with finding a description of what he's feeling. If there was a word to say it, it would be young. Albus Dumbledore was feeling young.
Suddenly, he remembered about what happened before he passed out, the ritual, Fawkes' death. Albus started weeping for his life companion. He would never see him again. Fawkes had been at his side ever since Dumbledore abandoned his plans with Gellert when he was younger. He stayed there as the symbol of his redemption, that there was still good in him.
And while Fawkes disapproved of his ambitions, something he expressed a multiple of times, he still stayed at his side. Even when he did something he knew in his heart was wrong, Fawkes stayed. He was Albus' last remaining true friend. He had stopped trusting people after Gellert's treachery. And now, Fawkes was gone. Whatever he had gained from the ritual will always feel bitter.
Trying to distract himself from his loss, Albus reached out to his magic and was amazed with how powerful it felt. It was stronger than before. Several times stronger than when he was still the master of the elder wand. He wondered how powerful he would feel after getting the wand's allegiance again. He tried to use a spell, a simple transfiguration, to check for any anomalies. He pointed his wand at a chair, and it immediately turned into a lion. He didn't even think of a spell, it was just instinct. This must be why magical creatures have a deeper understanding of magic.
"Hello, Albus."
Albus Dumbledore turned around and pointed his wand at the intruder in his office. How had he not noticed that someone else was there? He focused for a second and paled at the man. This was his former master, the oldest man alive, Nicholas Flamel.
He didn't understand why the man was here. Did he know what he has become? Did he know what he did? Albus was nervous, while he was probably more powerful than his master now, he hasn't tested his newfound power and Flamel still outclasses him in term of experience.
"Relax, boy. I'm not planning on attacking you."
Albus was very relieved about this fact. He put his wand back in his holster and looked at the man.
"Then why are you here?" Albus asked.
"This is a courtesy call. But first, I have to ask. What have you done, boy?"
"Nothing that needs concern you." Replied Albus coldly.
Flamel snorted, "If it didn't concern me, then I wouldn't be here. I know about your ambitions, your plan, and while I think it was a foolish one, I didn't stop you. After centuries of life, I have witnessed horrible things, I have seen monsters, mad scientists, prodigies, and fools. I have seen so many atrocities that I stopped caring. I have seen you do awful things for your mad plan and that didn't faze me. But whatever you did yesterday wasn't just a horrible, it was an abomination and anyone that can feel magic will tell what you did. What happened last night created a beacon that awoke me in France. I have felt demon summons with less impact. The earth itself has marked you as a traitor. So again, Albus, what the hell did you do?"
"I achieved immortality, as you did."
"No, you didn't, I never told you this, but I'm not the only immortal around. There are beings far older and far more powerful than myself. Gaining immortality isn't enough to get marked like you did."
This worried Albus greatly, how didn't he know about this.
"How many other immortals are there?"
"A lot more than you think. We regroup at least once a century, to make sure people know about new immortals and about the death of one. We only induct the powerful immortals in these meetings. Wizards are generally automatically invited, but there's a few that aren't strong enough to add them. For example, there's these two brothers whose whole powers is to just heal themselves. They're almost two centuries old now but we never invited them. Us, Immortals, tend to avoid each other as much as possible. We are generally either scientists, heroes or conquerors."
"You said there are magical immortals as well?"
"Ah yes, there aren't many of us really. There are muggles that became immortal because of some artifact. There's this man called the Mandarin, that has lived for centuries because of some enchanted rings that he wears around hands. It seems silly but those rings allow for some of the best magical protection I have ever seen. Even a killing curse is just absorbed by them. The man pretty much conquered all of Asia using them. There are five immortals that use some sort of alternate magic they call chi, also known as life energy. They call themselves the hand and they have a hand in almost all the criminal underworld, and not just in the muggle world. There's the sorcerer supreme and a few sorcerers as well, of course. But wizards and witches, there's just myself, my wife, and Morgan Le Fey."
"Morgan Le Fey is still alive?" Bellowed Dumbledore.
"Yes, nice woman. She was my wife's mistress, as you were mine."
"How didn't you kill her? This is the darkest witch that ever lived. The woman that killed Merlin himself. She's a monster."
"Albus, my boy, the story between Merlin and Morgan Le Fey is a lot more complicated than the legends. And the world often mistakes Morgan Le Fey and Morgause Le Fey. And even if she was a monster, that woman could probably beat me in her sleep. I'm not suicidal enough to try to kill her. But enough of that, I'm not here to recruit you into the council. I'm here to warn you."
"Warn me?"
"I don't know what you did and I'm not sure I want to know. But actions have consequences, and you did break a natural law. The laws of the universe itself and that means that you have earned her attention. She has marked you and everyone knows it."
Dumbledore was starting to get nervous. This didn't sound good at all.
"She?"
"The Morrigan."
"The death goddess from the Celtic Pantheon?" Albus asked bewildered.
Flamel shook his head, "Not quite. She's far older than the celt culture; they probably witnessed her one day and thought she was a goddess. The Morrigan is a legend for us immortals. We don't know what she is, vampire, sorcerer, witch. We never even seen her face. She's the one that keeps us immortals in checks, that maintains the natural laws that keep our reality afloat."
"You're telling me that you're afraid of a story?"
Nicholas chuckled bitterly.
"I, too, thought that she was a story. A way to make sure immortals don't go too far. Let me tell you a story. Have you ever heard of the roman vampires?"
Dumbledore looked at his former master confused by the change in topic. "No, I can't say that I have."
"They were a race of vampire created by a roman emperor that wanted to achieve immortality and thought that becoming a vampire would help him achieve his goal. But vampires are slaves to their appetite and lost their magic when they turned, and he wanted to rectify that. After decades of research and experimentations on vampires, he succeeded and created the first roman vampire, Dracula. Dracula wasn't just any normal vampire; his magic got even stronger, and he was able to command darkness like no other. He didn't need a wand to use magic anymore and had an instinctive grasp on blood magic never seen before. Outraged by what happened to his fellow vampire, Dracula massacred every single person involved in the experiments."
"What happened next?" asked Dumbledore.
"He started turning vampires to his race. He became the father of vampires and ruled over all the vampire covens. By the time I was born, there were hundreds of thousands of roman vampires in Europe. A couple of centuries later, Dracula wasn't satisfied with his species position in the world. He wanted to be the apex predator, the strongest species there was. So, he devised a ritual, that would make the vampires ascend so to speak and every member of his race approved. But a ritual to empower that many vampires needed a large sacrifice. So, he created a plague and unleashed it to the world. Tens of millions died, in a ritual that was being charged for almost a century. On Samhain, during a full moon, Dracula attempted to summon a ritual but exactly one hundred days before the ritual, every roman vampire was marked. There was a black crow just above their hearts. They tried to get rid of it but even when he removed the skin, it returned. What was more worrying was the crow was circled by small lines. One hundred lines to be exact, with one line disappearing each day. On the day of the ritual, there were no lines around the crow. The entire wizarding communities, having been warned about the ritual prepared to attack the vampires to stop the ritual. Even I was ready to fight them. But fighting hundreds of thousands of vampires that are faster than what can be seen, stronger than giants and with command over shadows, was a daunting experience."
"And did you defeat them?"
"No, they were defeated just not by me. Before the ritual, I saw her. The Morrigan. I instinctively knew this was her. She was a woman made of shadows with a staff that was so black it looked like it absorbed the light around it. That night every single wizard attacked the vampire stronghold, and we didn't find any opposition. There weren't any vampires or any ritual, only dust. We later found out that it wasn't dust, it was all that remained from the roman vampires. In one night, every single roman vampire was slaughtered. In one night, an entire race was extinguished."
"Genocide?"
"Oh yes. This is the power of the Morrigan. It's the ultimate authority, judge jury and executioner. It hunts people that break the natural laws. There is no stopping it, there is no negotiating with it. There are some exceptions, especially when some things are fated somehow but even then, they are punished after they fulfill their destiny. But it is the closest thing to a god I have ever seen in my long life. After seeing her, I started to research her. The stories I heard about what she did to Herpo the foul gave me nightmares for weeks. I ever read somewhere that she is the reason the Asgardians aren't interfering with earth right now. Apparently, the daughter of Odin, Hela, attempted to invade the planet a few thousand years ago. The so-called goddess of death was utterly annihilated and barely escaped with her life. Her army, however, was slaughtered. From what I heard from the sorcerer supreme, Odin imprisoned her in her weakened state because she tried to revolt against him. And let me tell you about the Frost giant massacre when they tried to invade Earth. Dozens of legions disappeared without a trace. This is what the Morrigan is. It's not a woman, it's a force of nature."
Albus was flabbergasted with what he heard, and more than a little terrified.
"Are you sure that she's after me?", he asked hopefully.
"That depends, do you have a mark above your heart?"
Albus gripped his purple robes and tore it with his superior strength, ignoring the unbreakable charm applied to it. But he didn't marvel at his newfound strength and didn't care about Flamel's raising of eyebrows at his new powers. No, he cared about the crow tattoo above his heart, encircled by exactly a hundred lines. He was so fucked.
"Is there anything I can do?"
"No."
"I can make this right, I can fight her, I can kill her."
"You will do nothing because you can do nothing. The Morrigan will come for you in one hundred days, and you will die, like thousands did before you."
"There has to be something I can do…"
"There is only one thing, but it's a legend. If you weren't my apprentice, I wouldn't have mentioned it. One time, when I was researching the Morrigan, I came upon a phrase written in ancient tomb in Greece. 'Only a true master of death can defeat the goddess of death.' There is nothing else about the Morrigan being defeated anywhere else."
"The Hallows?" Dumbledore asked with hope for the first time ever since the start of the conversation.
"I don't know. Maybe. But it's the only chance at surviving. The Morrigan will come for you, Albus. Get your affairs in order. After all, to the well-organized mind, death is but the next great adventure. Farewell Albus and good luck."
With those parting words, Nicholas Flamel disappeared from his office. Dumbledore sighed. It looks like getting the elder wand's allegiance is now a priority. He still has to locate the stone somehow. He now recognized that performing the phoenix ritual was a mistake.
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