Interlude: One Thousand Years Ago
"Godric! You can't be serious!" Rowena hissed at him. Here, with all of them entrenched and cowering behind the stone pillars at Hogwart's entrance, Godric Gryffindor's proposal seemed not only foolish, but actually perilous. "He'll rip you to pieces if you lower your wand even for a moment!"
"Dearest Rowena, but we have tried everything else, and nothing will stop him… I must try…"
It had all begun as a misunderstanding…
A few years before, when Rowena Ravenclaw had proposed to her friends that they ought to establish a house of learning for the children of magical folk, she had already been scouting for suitable locations. The glen in the vicinity of the small town of Hogsmead seemed to have all the proper attributes, so when Rowena was able to finally convince her best friend Helga Hufflepuff, and Salazar Slytherin and his inseparable friend Godric Gryffindor, they proceded directly to engage all the masons and artisans necessary to build Hogwarts Castle.
It was a great undertaking, and the four friends, who were also the foremost wizards and witches of their day, poured all their abilities, skills, and riches into the project.
It was during the excavation of the foundations, which Slytherin supervised, that a strange empty crypt was found in a cave deep underground. There were some artifacts strewn around the crypt, but everything was so old that mostly everything had turned to dust already. Slythering marked the location for future use, but had it erased from the foundations' building plans.
Some years went by, all preparations were ready, and students started attending Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry.
Until one day, a strange man dressed in rags showed up at the entrance. The four founders were alerted immediately that some stranger had found the school, because there were powerful charms in place to avoid precisely such thing from happening.
By the time they reached the gates the caretaker was there already, but cowering behind one of the trees. "He shouldn't be able to see the school, much less do that!" he shouted at them, trying to make himself heard over the clanging smashes as the stranger pounded both fists on the gate, with a snarl of fury at not being able to breach the entrance.
"I'll sort him out!" Rowena thrust her chin up and assumed all the hauteur of the noble born as she faced the stranger, fists on hips. "You! What is all this racket? Explain yourself!"
But the stranger only growled some more, and taking a few steps back, ran headlong into the gate. It was a titanic crash. The gate held on, but the ground underneath it wrinkled into small ridges, and several small fissures zig-zagged along the lawn. Rowena gasped and retreated a few steps back, and all four founders just stood there, stupefied, as the strange man flung himself again and again against the iron gates.
"Merlin's beard! The gate will not hold him for long! Quick, Geoff! Run to the castle and tell the teachers that they need to evacuate the students. Tell them to use whatever means! Get them all away! Once everyone is safe, tell them to come back to help us, if they can."
"Aye, master Gryffindor! But away where?"
"Anywhere but here! Go! Now!"
Godric looked around to see the determined faces of his friends. They all squared their shoulders and pulled out their wands, and faced the stranger.
"We must try to speak to him, find out what he wants!" Helga said, bemused.
"Very well: after you… Ladies first!"
"A fine time to get all chivalrous on me, Salazar!" but she smiled.
Helga and Rowena advanced slightly ahead of Godric and Salazar, and they faced the strange man ramming the gates with his head.
"Please, sir, will you not desist? What do you seek? Is there anything we might do to help you?"
The stranger actually stopped in mid-ram and straightened up. He was rather short, and had a vague resemblance to people from the Mediterranean. And when he saw them and smiled, he looked suddenly ten times crazier than when he had been head-butting the iron gate.
"Yessss… I tell you what you can do for me: get your castle off my land! Right now! Or I kill you. And you. And you. And especially you!" he said as he pointed his grimy finger at each one of them in turn, ending with Salazar Slytherin. "It is my time to go down into the earth and sleep off the madness, and you are in my way!"
"Sir, I assure you," Godric spoke up, "the castle grounds were properly purchased from the original owners, who've had the deed to the land for generations."
"Not my fault some cheeky magical monkey like you stole my lands when I wasn't around… You bought them from a thief! You, snake-charmer, what did you do to the things you found in my crypt? Ah, I see… so you've kept it a secret from your friends, eh? Fine! No matter… Now, can you, or can you not get the castle off my lands right now? No? Then I kill you!"
With a snarl, the stranger threw himself at the gate again, and this time it buckled and then swooshed down slowly, with a horrible screeching noise. And then, the stranger put out his arms to the side, like a gesture of welcome, and rose a few feet off the ground, floating across the entrance threshold.
"Well, that's a nice trick!" sneered Salazar as he stepped forward and proceeded to onload all the magical hexes and curses he knew.
After a moment or two, all four of them were pouring out of their wands all sorts of magical spells for their protection and hexes to attack the strange floating man. In the first few moments he seemed to be caught by surprise as some of the nastier curses caused him horrible amounts of pain. But he just twitched on the air, and snarled and growled, growing more and more furious. He then stretched his hand at them, and they felt a huge shadow circle them, trying to get inside their bodies. Using all the magic they knew, they were able to repel whatever attack the strange man was hurling at them. The stranger snapped his fingers, and every object that was not rooted to the ground suddenly flew at the four founders. Casting spell after spell, they started retreating towards the castle, barely able to protect themselves from the debris raining all around them, and still repelling the shadow circling them.
Meanwhile, some of the teachers had returned, and joined the four founders, trying to take a stand.
Since their magical powers were not as great as those of the four founders, two of the teachers suddenly spouted blood from ears, nose, mouth, and eyes, and keeled over, immediately dead. Apparently that's what the shadow circling them could do. MacIntyre, Potions Master, had always been rather impulsive, so after seeing two of his collegues fall dead to unknown dark magic he ran towards the stranger in a fit of rage, brandishing his wand in one hand and a short sword in the other.
"MacIntyre! Get back!" Salazar yelled, but it was too late: as MacIntyre reached the stranger and stabbed with his short sword, it broke in half and the stranger smiled and folded the poor teacher into his arms. Slowly, and never taking his eyes off the founders and the teachers, he proceeded to bite down on MacIntyre's neck and drink deeply from the torrent of blood running down the neck. Still smiling and looking at the rest of the wizards, the stranger proceeded to rip pieces of clothing and skin off MacIntyre. In a matter of a few moments, the stranger had torn off arms and legs, and was in the process of eviscerating whatever was left of MacIntyre. Unfortunatelly, MacIntyre had not died quickly, and had screamed for as long as he physically could.
"But no vampire is this powerful! None! And none of them has any magic!" Salazar protested in a gasp, barely able to believe what he was witnessing. Rowena had sunk to her knees, and Helga had silent tears on her face.
"Let's retreat to the castle… We cannot withstand him!" Godric ordered, and they all ran as fast as they could to the entrance.
"Friends, do not think too badly of me…" Salazar said as they reached the threshold. He turned around and pointed his wand at the stranger, and shouted, "Avada Kedavra!"
Everyone looked shocked to see Salazar using forbidden dark magic, the killing curse, but no one dared say anything. The stranger, meanwhile, had fallen to the ground and was writhing in pain, all the while shouting obscenities and growling and screaming. But he did not die. Instead, once the worst part of the pain seemed to have passed, he resumed his raging with renewed vigor. He went around and ripped trees to the roots with his bare hands, and crumbled rocks into dust, and destroyed everything he could lay his hands on.
At that moment, Rowena stood up and said, "my friends, do not think badly of me, either…" and then with a long string of whispered secret words and complicated flourishes of her wand, she cast the ancient spell of summoning. A chill breeze started blowing and the moans and shrieks of the spirit of the earthbound dead descended on the stranger.
But an attack by ghosts that should have destroyed the body and the mind of any other creature only caused the stranger to laugh and laugh. "Ah! Stop it! It tickles!" And then he grew angry again, and with a deafening roar he stood with legs splayed and arms raised, and all around him small embers of fire ignitied in mid-air, creating a spiral of sparkles around him.
"That… that is just impossible… It cannot be! He has just destroyed all the spirits! How can he do that?" Rowena was pale as the moon, and her eyes were empty of hope now.
"Let's retreat to the castle and take refuge… I think I may have an idea. Come on! Let's go!" Godric again urged for retreat. When they had barricaded themselves at the entrance hall, Godric explained quickly his intentions. That's when Rowena said, "Godric! You can't be serious!"
But Gryffindor stood up, and hands held high, he stepped towards the stranger, who still was chewing up the grounds. "Sir!" he called out, "Please, I cry your pardon! I offer a truce!"
"A truce?" the stranger was as surprised to hear this as the rest of the wizards and witches. He was so surprised that he stopped in the middle of crushing one of the castle's gargoyles into dust, and walked towards Gryffindor. "Don't be silly… What do you mean, a truce?"
"Yes, look, we cannot withstand you, and we do not wish to die at your hands. We understand that you feel we've wronged you, and so I beg for a truce so that we can save our lives. This is what I offer: please, allow us to live and to keep this castle and these lands, and I can promise you that my kind will look after you and shelter you when you seek a resting place. I can assure you that no one will ever disturb your sleep. You have seen that we have powers beyond the ordinary mortal, and we can be your guardians whenever you must abandon yourself to this madness of which you speak…"
"Hmm… That's interesting: in your mind you truly believe this is possible. Ah, I see, your kind already has an underground refuge which you keep secret and protected. Very interesting… Well, why not? Let's go! To London!"
The stranger took hold of Gryffindor's offered hand, and they disapparated.
"Well, I hope he knows what he's doing… That was very scary… He could read minds! I have never felt so helpless…" Salazar said to the rest of the wizards and witches with him, and then they turned back to the castle, starting to make repairs and sending word that the students could return.
***
And so it came to be that Benjamin the Vampire came to Hogwarts and Gryffindor traded their survival for the obligation of guarding the worst monster on the face of the planet whenever he felt the need to rest from the world. In a subterranean room closed off by the most powerful spells, and impossible to open except by him, Benjamin rested there for decades, until the madness passed. After a time he would resurface and cause grief to countless victims, and every time the madness would overwhelm him, and every time he would return to London, to rest from so much world, from so many memories, from so much evil, and he would be watched over by the wizards and witches in London, who would pass the secret down for generation after generation to their current leaders and the current headmaster at Hogwarts: guard the Vampire, lest he destroys the world.
***
But throughout all the centuries afterwards, Benjamin never forgave the humans for forcing him into a stalemate with the use of magic. He nursed his resentment for a thousand years, and planned his revenge.
"Godric! You can't be serious!" Rowena hissed at him. Here, with all of them entrenched and cowering behind the stone pillars at Hogwart's entrance, Godric Gryffindor's proposal seemed not only foolish, but actually perilous. "He'll rip you to pieces if you lower your wand even for a moment!"
"Dearest Rowena, but we have tried everything else, and nothing will stop him… I must try…"
It had all begun as a misunderstanding…
A few years before, when Rowena Ravenclaw had proposed to her friends that they ought to establish a house of learning for the children of magical folk, she had already been scouting for suitable locations. The glen in the vicinity of the small town of Hogsmead seemed to have all the proper attributes, so when Rowena was able to finally convince her best friend Helga Hufflepuff, and Salazar Slytherin and his inseparable friend Godric Gryffindor, they proceded directly to engage all the masons and artisans necessary to build Hogwarts Castle.
It was a great undertaking, and the four friends, who were also the foremost wizards and witches of their day, poured all their abilities, skills, and riches into the project.
It was during the excavation of the foundations, which Slytherin supervised, that a strange empty crypt was found in a cave deep underground. There were some artifacts strewn around the crypt, but everything was so old that mostly everything had turned to dust already. Slythering marked the location for future use, but had it erased from the foundations' building plans.
Some years went by, all preparations were ready, and students started attending Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry.
Until one day, a strange man dressed in rags showed up at the entrance. The four founders were alerted immediately that some stranger had found the school, because there were powerful charms in place to avoid precisely such thing from happening.
By the time they reached the gates the caretaker was there already, but cowering behind one of the trees. "He shouldn't be able to see the school, much less do that!" he shouted at them, trying to make himself heard over the clanging smashes as the stranger pounded both fists on the gate, with a snarl of fury at not being able to breach the entrance.
"I'll sort him out!" Rowena thrust her chin up and assumed all the hauteur of the noble born as she faced the stranger, fists on hips. "You! What is all this racket? Explain yourself!"
But the stranger only growled some more, and taking a few steps back, ran headlong into the gate. It was a titanic crash. The gate held on, but the ground underneath it wrinkled into small ridges, and several small fissures zig-zagged along the lawn. Rowena gasped and retreated a few steps back, and all four founders just stood there, stupefied, as the strange man flung himself again and again against the iron gates.
"Merlin's beard! The gate will not hold him for long! Quick, Geoff! Run to the castle and tell the teachers that they need to evacuate the students. Tell them to use whatever means! Get them all away! Once everyone is safe, tell them to come back to help us, if they can."
"Aye, master Gryffindor! But away where?"
"Anywhere but here! Go! Now!"
Godric looked around to see the determined faces of his friends. They all squared their shoulders and pulled out their wands, and faced the stranger.
"We must try to speak to him, find out what he wants!" Helga said, bemused.
"Very well: after you… Ladies first!"
"A fine time to get all chivalrous on me, Salazar!" but she smiled.
Helga and Rowena advanced slightly ahead of Godric and Salazar, and they faced the strange man ramming the gates with his head.
"Please, sir, will you not desist? What do you seek? Is there anything we might do to help you?"
The stranger actually stopped in mid-ram and straightened up. He was rather short, and had a vague resemblance to people from the Mediterranean. And when he saw them and smiled, he looked suddenly ten times crazier than when he had been head-butting the iron gate.
"Yessss… I tell you what you can do for me: get your castle off my land! Right now! Or I kill you. And you. And you. And especially you!" he said as he pointed his grimy finger at each one of them in turn, ending with Salazar Slytherin. "It is my time to go down into the earth and sleep off the madness, and you are in my way!"
"Sir, I assure you," Godric spoke up, "the castle grounds were properly purchased from the original owners, who've had the deed to the land for generations."
"Not my fault some cheeky magical monkey like you stole my lands when I wasn't around… You bought them from a thief! You, snake-charmer, what did you do to the things you found in my crypt? Ah, I see… so you've kept it a secret from your friends, eh? Fine! No matter… Now, can you, or can you not get the castle off my lands right now? No? Then I kill you!"
With a snarl, the stranger threw himself at the gate again, and this time it buckled and then swooshed down slowly, with a horrible screeching noise. And then, the stranger put out his arms to the side, like a gesture of welcome, and rose a few feet off the ground, floating across the entrance threshold.
"Well, that's a nice trick!" sneered Salazar as he stepped forward and proceeded to onload all the magical hexes and curses he knew.
After a moment or two, all four of them were pouring out of their wands all sorts of magical spells for their protection and hexes to attack the strange floating man. In the first few moments he seemed to be caught by surprise as some of the nastier curses caused him horrible amounts of pain. But he just twitched on the air, and snarled and growled, growing more and more furious. He then stretched his hand at them, and they felt a huge shadow circle them, trying to get inside their bodies. Using all the magic they knew, they were able to repel whatever attack the strange man was hurling at them. The stranger snapped his fingers, and every object that was not rooted to the ground suddenly flew at the four founders. Casting spell after spell, they started retreating towards the castle, barely able to protect themselves from the debris raining all around them, and still repelling the shadow circling them.
Meanwhile, some of the teachers had returned, and joined the four founders, trying to take a stand.
Since their magical powers were not as great as those of the four founders, two of the teachers suddenly spouted blood from ears, nose, mouth, and eyes, and keeled over, immediately dead. Apparently that's what the shadow circling them could do. MacIntyre, Potions Master, had always been rather impulsive, so after seeing two of his collegues fall dead to unknown dark magic he ran towards the stranger in a fit of rage, brandishing his wand in one hand and a short sword in the other.
"MacIntyre! Get back!" Salazar yelled, but it was too late: as MacIntyre reached the stranger and stabbed with his short sword, it broke in half and the stranger smiled and folded the poor teacher into his arms. Slowly, and never taking his eyes off the founders and the teachers, he proceeded to bite down on MacIntyre's neck and drink deeply from the torrent of blood running down the neck. Still smiling and looking at the rest of the wizards, the stranger proceeded to rip pieces of clothing and skin off MacIntyre. In a matter of a few moments, the stranger had torn off arms and legs, and was in the process of eviscerating whatever was left of MacIntyre. Unfortunatelly, MacIntyre had not died quickly, and had screamed for as long as he physically could.
"But no vampire is this powerful! None! And none of them has any magic!" Salazar protested in a gasp, barely able to believe what he was witnessing. Rowena had sunk to her knees, and Helga had silent tears on her face.
"Let's retreat to the castle… We cannot withstand him!" Godric ordered, and they all ran as fast as they could to the entrance.
"Friends, do not think too badly of me…" Salazar said as they reached the threshold. He turned around and pointed his wand at the stranger, and shouted, "Avada Kedavra!"
Everyone looked shocked to see Salazar using forbidden dark magic, the killing curse, but no one dared say anything. The stranger, meanwhile, had fallen to the ground and was writhing in pain, all the while shouting obscenities and growling and screaming. But he did not die. Instead, once the worst part of the pain seemed to have passed, he resumed his raging with renewed vigor. He went around and ripped trees to the roots with his bare hands, and crumbled rocks into dust, and destroyed everything he could lay his hands on.
At that moment, Rowena stood up and said, "my friends, do not think badly of me, either…" and then with a long string of whispered secret words and complicated flourishes of her wand, she cast the ancient spell of summoning. A chill breeze started blowing and the moans and shrieks of the spirit of the earthbound dead descended on the stranger.
But an attack by ghosts that should have destroyed the body and the mind of any other creature only caused the stranger to laugh and laugh. "Ah! Stop it! It tickles!" And then he grew angry again, and with a deafening roar he stood with legs splayed and arms raised, and all around him small embers of fire ignitied in mid-air, creating a spiral of sparkles around him.
"That… that is just impossible… It cannot be! He has just destroyed all the spirits! How can he do that?" Rowena was pale as the moon, and her eyes were empty of hope now.
"Let's retreat to the castle and take refuge… I think I may have an idea. Come on! Let's go!" Godric again urged for retreat. When they had barricaded themselves at the entrance hall, Godric explained quickly his intentions. That's when Rowena said, "Godric! You can't be serious!"
But Gryffindor stood up, and hands held high, he stepped towards the stranger, who still was chewing up the grounds. "Sir!" he called out, "Please, I cry your pardon! I offer a truce!"
"A truce?" the stranger was as surprised to hear this as the rest of the wizards and witches. He was so surprised that he stopped in the middle of crushing one of the castle's gargoyles into dust, and walked towards Gryffindor. "Don't be silly… What do you mean, a truce?"
"Yes, look, we cannot withstand you, and we do not wish to die at your hands. We understand that you feel we've wronged you, and so I beg for a truce so that we can save our lives. This is what I offer: please, allow us to live and to keep this castle and these lands, and I can promise you that my kind will look after you and shelter you when you seek a resting place. I can assure you that no one will ever disturb your sleep. You have seen that we have powers beyond the ordinary mortal, and we can be your guardians whenever you must abandon yourself to this madness of which you speak…"
"Hmm… That's interesting: in your mind you truly believe this is possible. Ah, I see, your kind already has an underground refuge which you keep secret and protected. Very interesting… Well, why not? Let's go! To London!"
The stranger took hold of Gryffindor's offered hand, and they disapparated.
"Well, I hope he knows what he's doing… That was very scary… He could read minds! I have never felt so helpless…" Salazar said to the rest of the wizards and witches with him, and then they turned back to the castle, starting to make repairs and sending word that the students could return.
***
And so it came to be that Benjamin the Vampire came to Hogwarts and Gryffindor traded their survival for the obligation of guarding the worst monster on the face of the planet whenever he felt the need to rest from the world. In a subterranean room closed off by the most powerful spells, and impossible to open except by him, Benjamin rested there for decades, until the madness passed. After a time he would resurface and cause grief to countless victims, and every time the madness would overwhelm him, and every time he would return to London, to rest from so much world, from so many memories, from so much evil, and he would be watched over by the wizards and witches in London, who would pass the secret down for generation after generation to their current leaders and the current headmaster at Hogwarts: guard the Vampire, lest he destroys the world.
***
But throughout all the centuries afterwards, Benjamin never forgave the humans for forcing him into a stalemate with the use of magic. He nursed his resentment for a thousand years, and planned his revenge.
To Be Continued…
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