Chapter Text
A piece of flaming parchment launches into the hand of Headmistress Niamh. An even more colorful gathering of students than usual are seated before her, on account of including students wearing the uniforms of other schools thrown into the mix of the average red, blue, yellow, and green. “The champion of Durmstrag shall be…” Niamh pauses for dramatic effect and loudly declares, “Morgan Valor!”
The young lady proudly rises from her seat and promptly crosses the hall to stand in the champion's designated area. Not a single step unmeasured.
The students of Durmstrag cheer and clap in excitement. Niamh is slightly surprised by the cup's choice of a third year student but moves the ceremony along. The goblet shoots another flaming scrap of paper into her hands in a bright show of fireworks. “The champion of Beauxbatons shall be…” Niamh's pause is of more concern this time, but she still manages to maintain her facade for the ceremony. “Nephis of Immortal Flame!”
Nephis is seen sitting in the second row of the gathered students of Beauxbatons, she gives a quick embrace of assurance to a blonde girl wearing a veil over her eyes. After exchanging some unheard words with her friend, she stands confidently and marches across the hall.
The students of Beauxbatons cheer just as loudly as Durmstrag had. However Niamh is becoming concerned, Nephis is a second year student. Before she can think too much on the matter however, the goblet is already throwing another burning scrap her way again. “And last but not least, the champion of this year's hosting school of Hogwarts shall be…” Niamh does not manage to reign in her dismay this time. “Sunless.”
A few visiting students clap politely but the applause quickly dies out when they notice the stifling atmosphere that's built up with the utterance of one name. Nobody rises from the crowd to join the other two champions.
Niamh is forced to ask the question on everyone's minds. “Where is Sunless?”
-o-
Sunless hates the talking portraits, the ghosts, and all of the other seemingly random pieces of semi-sentient furniture. It's easy to distract professors. It's simple to sneak into all sorts of places he shouldn't be allowed. Despite Sunless's great proficiency at sneaking around, it's the random guards in the guise of whimsical background decoration that are the single greatest obstacle to his mission. There's no rhyme or reason to their placements and patrols, but they'll report Sunless to the groundskeeper all the same.
Individually each obstacle is easy to work around. Just remember their placements and habits and they can be avoided like any normal witness or guard. The trouble is in their chaotic nature, the paintings can teleport from frame to frame, the ghosts can faze through walls at any time. The furniture can stay dormant for weeks, leading you to think it's a reliable cover, only to get up and walk away when the Potions teacher is right there!
Infuriating. All of them.
Today Sunless decided to aim for a more roundabout exit. He recently heard there was a secret passageway to Hogsmeade hiding somewhere in the tower of the Grand Staircase. If he can just find it, he can escape Hogwarts, find a way station with a fireplace, and hopefully use the floo to get back to Rain.
Luckily, everyone in the castle should be distracted by their tournament ceremony so none of them will notice that Sunless is mysteriously absent.
Sunless looks up at the tower walls, the numerous paintings lining the pathways are daunting. He wishes he were more proactive in finding a way to avoid these stupid wizards before they snatched him up from his village. Sadly he'd grown overconfident after evading their detection for a year, and now his sister will have to fend for herself until he returns.
Sunless curses his past complacency and reasserts his Disillusionment Charm before starting his exploration of the blasted moving staircase. He has a statue of a One Eyed Witch to find.
-o-
Village life is simple in the 1500s. You are born, you work to support your village, maybe survive childhood, maybe survive childbirth or drafting depending on your gender, and then live on to become an elder. Then you die.
The death part is guaranteed, but when it happens isn't really up to you. It usually happens in all manner of ways too.
Sunless's parents didn't manage to reach the last step of becoming elders, not many do, while sad it is expected. His father was drafted into some kind of war the local Baron had started with another territory and was never heard from again. Usually the Baron would send some form of compensation for the death, but because he simply disappeared, the Baron decided to treat his case as desertion, and so sent nothing. Sunless's mother was doing fine, despite her grief, with support from the other villagers. Until she had her foot crushed by a fool with a wagon and she died from a bacterial infection the injury caused. Not that anybody in the village knew enough about medicine to diagnose that.
Which left Sunless and Rain to be raised by the village at the fragile ages of 7 and 3.
They weren't thrown to the wolves or anything however. Kids are future able bodies and a growing community always needs more of those. So over the years, Sunless could usually expect to be allowed to ask around for basic necessities when needed.
Unless the other villagers weren't feeling charitable for any given reason.
At which point Sunless does wonder what his mother was thinking when she named him. It was enough of an ill omen to be born when the sun suddenly went dark, why would she name him after the event!? So the villagers can always remember to ostracize him? She may not have lived to regret it, but he and Rain sure will.
Luckily things started going well when the Baron decided to sponsor a Printing Press in their village. The money that thing brought in was more than enough to make the villagers ignore the bad omen in their midst. Sunless himself volunteered to work in the Printing house. The place needed small fingers to move the type around, and Sunless knows a good opportunity when he sees one.
It was during a humid summer morning, an hour or two away from dawn. Sunless was arranging a page pattern by dim candlelight. That an owl flew in through an open window and dropped a letter next to his station and promptly left. Baffled by this turn of events, Sunless forgets caution and reaches to pick it up. He didn't have much of a goal in mind, even with his job of arranging print every day he was still an orphan boy from a nameless village, Sunless was just as illiterate as the majority of his fellow villagers. He couldn't read the letter if he wanted to.
It seems someone out there had the foresight to keep track of such things, because as soon as he touched it, the letter levitated into the air and began to narrate its contents out loud. Sunless would later find out the voice belongs to the Headmistress Niamh Fitzgerald of the Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry.
Modern wizards would recognize this type of letter as the precursor of the howler. Once literacy becomes widespread, talking letters lose much of their purpose and become berating letters instead. Not to say this quiet version doesn't exist in modern times, as a matter of fact it still sees use for the vision impaired amongst wizard kind.
Sunless listens to the Headmistress explain how a professor from their school is going to come and help him prepare for an entire year of boarding school. He listens in silence as the woman describes how his room and boarding will be provided at no expense to Sunless or his family.
In the midst of all this, he takes a second to marvel at the fact that Witches and Wizards are more than just an old wives’ tale and Sunless himself can be counted as one.
Usually Sunless would've been more skeptical about how valid a source of information a talking letter could be. Maybe this is all just a hallucination brought on by sleep deprivation? The deciding factor was the multiple accounts of travelers that have shared their anecdotes about Wizards over the years. The stories were always a little fantastical, but that doesn't matter.
The existence of Wizards is common knowledge spread far and wide amongst muggle-kind.
After basking in the shock and awe for another second, and allowing the talking letter to finish saying its piece, Sunless grabs the letter by a corner and holds it over his sputtering candle and burns it to ashes. Sunless doesn't have the time or resources to run off and play with magic. He has to make sure his 7 year old sister is taken care of, and he can't do that at some wizard school half a country away. The letter said a representative from the school would be arriving soon.
Sunless needs to come up with a plan.
-o-
A mysterious wizard man going by the name San Bakar would arrive in the village and begin asking around for him. It would seem this invitation was less of a suggestion and more of a dictation. Sunless ponders the nature of these wizards’ tracking spells, it seems they have his exact name and residence. Yet this San Bakar can't seem to pin down exactly where Sunless is, or what he looks like based on his line of questioning.
After shadowing the man for a while and listening in on his conversations with the villagers, Sunless starts to get a good idea of the type of person this man is. Opinionated, and thinks very highly of himself. Any time someone tries to ask Bakar questions about himself in turn, the man's mood sours further. The man is better at agitating the locals than Sunless himself, he's almost impressed.
Sunless begins to put his plan into action. He'll make this man leave the village and go back to his wizard school. Even better, Sunless will make sure the man never wants to return.
Sunless hurries to the butcher's slaughter house. A treacherous tale beginning to weave itself into reality.
-o-
Being a wizard in the 1500s can be very complicated. If you're born to a magical family, you have some advantages. Such as already knowing the history and inner workings of the Wizarding world. If not, then you have some catching up to do in school. Despite the absense of the Statute of Secrecy, Witches and Wizards are still a solitary bunch and tend to avoid explaining themselves to muggles. This leads Muggles to find them a rather standoffish and peculiar community. To be caught between communities often leads to tragic results.
San Bakar is one such individual. Born to an unmagical family in Yemen, he attended the local wizarding school. After his family and school came into conflict, San Bakar decided to leave both behind and travel to another country in his late teens.
His travels would eventually take him to Hogwarts where he finished his schooling as a member of Slytherin house. Slytherin house was not kind to Bakar and he never quite managed to make any true friends amongst his classmates. Instead he formed fellowship with the local magical beasts. This would eventually lead to him finding his calling in life.
San Bakar, Magical Beasts Professor at Hogwarts, now finds himself in a small hamlet in search of the first student on his list of muggle born first years. After traveling to the closest floo station, and checking the station's map of landmarks and dangerous beast sightings, he still had to fly by broom for over half an hour. His trials still weren't over, for the boy is nowhere to be found.
Bakar was able to find the boy's residence however a young muggle girl to refused to even open the front door for Bakar after shouting that she is, “Not allowed to talk to strangers.”
Professor Bakar does his best to ask the villagers about Sunless, he tries to at least get a description of what the boy looks like, but none would even speak about him. Some would only say the boy is cursed, while others simply refused to allow a strange wizard near one of the village's children.
San Bakar resigned himself to waiting outside the boy's residence until he came home. He inwardly cursed the waste of time. There are more muggle-born students to find and explain their situation to. He didn't anticipate hitting such a snag so soon.
Bakar passively watches a gaggle of curious children playing with sticks slowly grow closer and closer to his location. They all think they're sneaky, but every one of them gives him a nosey stare when they think he isn't looking. He pretends to pull out his wand and most of the children shriek and run away. All except for one boy.
The boy has hair and eyes as black as the pupil of an eclipse, yet is also oddly pale skinned, and slightly gaunt from malnourishment. If there were ever a person that could represent a Grim, Bakar would say this child would be it. The child calls out to him, “What are you doing at the cursed shack mister wizard?”
San Bakar almost tells the brat to mind his own business and follow the rest of his friends, but decides not to. The boy might personally know Sunless and where he might be found. “I am not at liberty to tell anybody what exact business I have here, but I need to speak with the boy that lives in this shack. He should be about a year or two older than you. His name is Sunless, do you know him?”
The boy seems slightly disgruntled about something for a second but Bakar dismisses it when the boy speaks, “The cursed boy? Yeah I've seen him around, but my parents tell me not to talk to him.”
Bakar is not surprised to hear the young boy say this, he's been hearing the sentiment all day. Apparently Sunless was born during an eclipse, and the superstitious villagers have been wary of him ever since. “Do you know where I might find him?”
The small lad mulls over his question for a few seconds, and just when Bakar is ready to tell the boy to forget the matter entirely he finally responds, “I think he was helping the Shepard's wife today.”
“The Shepard's wife?” Bakar prompts.
“Yeah, the Shepard's been gone selling his wool a few towns over, so his wife has been in charge of the flock, but their newborn has been pretty sick lately so she's been having us watch the herd graze instead, and today is Sunless's turn.” For every bit of useful information it seems the boy is determined to share three other useless anecdotes. “It's kinda strange though…”
An odd premonition overcomes Bakar when the boy says that. “What was strange about it?”
The boy points toward a more densely wooded area of the forest. “The Shepard's wife told Sunless to take the flock out that way.”
San Bakar's blood runs cold. That area was highlighted as a danger zone on the map in the Floo Waystation. Often times magical beasts will produce offspring with mundane animals in the wild, and one of the most commonly troublesome creatures that result from it is known as the Dark Mongrel. A type of wolf creature that stubbornly holds onto its magical ancestry and often flaunts it in displays of vicious speed and brutality.
San Bakar abandons the muggle child, and dashes into the woodlands without a word. It's not too long before he hears the sounds of wolves barking and howling to each other.
Then he comes upon the clearing.
There's a pack of Dark Mongrels ripping into bloody meat at the opposite edge of the clearing. Something within Bakar snaps.
He pulls out his wand but he doesn't chant or cast a normal spell, instead he channels a magic most ancient. A bolt of natural lightning tears down from a clear sky, tens of times more powerful than any normal wizard could produce from a measly wand. Electricity violently rips into the Mongrels gathered around what must've remained of the boy. The bolt's collision with the earth causes a shock wave of violence throwing the beasts’ bodies across the clearing like ragdolls.
This is the power of a wizard that can wield ancient magic. San Bakar is a member of a select group of wizards dedicated to protecting and controlling the use of this elusive power. They call themselves the Keepers.
Most of the pack is wiped out instantly. There were four that stood apart from the abhorrent feasters, who manage to stand up again. Twitching but alive, and just as ready to rip and tear as they always are. Stupid Mongrels.
Two dash to either side of Bakar, limping but still agile. The others dash at him head on, but one experiences a muscle spasm mid-stride and takes a tumble. The remaining Mongrel is leaping for Bakar's throat within an instant when Bakar utters his first spell.
“Diffindo.”
A discus made of translucent energy slips right through the hinge of its jaw, and bisects the upper portion of its body from the lower. The discus continues flying through the air and cuts off the head of the spasming Mongrel before finally disintegrating.
The other two mongrels launch themselves at Bakar from opposite ends, both ready to rend his arms from their sockets. Bakar casts his next spell.
“Depulso.”
The Mongrels are blasted away from Bakar by a powerful force of kinetic energy. Bakar turns to his right and launches a blasting curse at the still flying creature.
“Confringo.”
A deceptively small meteorite flies from his wand and hones in on the creature. Upon making contact, it bursts into a concussive blast that engulfs the mongrel. The last beast has already gotten to its feet and makes a hasty retreat, but Bakar will not allow it.
“Accio.”
The last mongrel is pulled by an unseen force and dragged back to Bakar. The beast is suspended in midair, helpless in the face of Bakar's next attack.
“Incendio.”
A small sphere around Bakar flashes into intense flames, burning everything inside to nothing but ash, all except for Bakar.
The sun begins to set, Bakar strides over to the other edge of the clearing, and stops just short of the blast mark left by the lightning he summoned. Bakar leaves a prayer for the poor boy he wasn't quick enough to save. He considers his options for what to do next.
Should he return to the village and seek retribution for the boy they sent to slaughter? Perhaps. Would it be the right thing to do? Perhaps not. Bakar decides to discuss this matter with his fellow Keepers and request a vote on what should be done here. Bakar chooses to apparate back to the waystation.
He refuses to step foot in that village ever again. Not unless it's to burn it to the ground.
…
Several minutes pass in the now empty clearing. The once bright embers in the surrounding craters dim and fade to black. The smoke stacks peter out, and the ashes cool. Shadows lengthen as the sun sets further beyond the horizon. Then a young boy of about 11 years of age, but doesn't look it, slowly creeps into the clearing to inspect the remains of the short but violent battle.
Sunless can still hardly believe his plan went so terribly wrong, and yet so wonderfully right.
Sunless had a simple plan. The first step was to stage a scene where he had been brutally murdered by wild animals. So he stole a sack of meat cuts from the butcher's shack and a canteen of pigs blood. Ran off into the woods and dumped it all in a pile in a clearing, then hurried back to the village. It was after goading the other kids into approaching the wizard that things started to veer off script.
Sunless thought it would take a lot more convincing to get the wizard off his doorstep for starters. He had come up with an entire narrative for the grudge the Shepard's wife had against the fake Sunless, but he hardly needed to say anything. He was nervous it hadn't been long enough for any wild animals to tear into the meat he left out.
Following the man was both easy and difficult. Difficult to keep up with, because the wizard is an adult and Sunless is much smaller than him, but it's easy to hear the sounds of snarling wolves and chaos.
Of all the things that could've gone wrong, the wolves could've been the worst. Sunless didn't know there was a pack so close to the village, they could've attacked him on his first trip into the woods and then this wouldn't have just been a staged attack. Sunless would be dead and nobody would know where to even begin looking.
Sunless only arrived just before the wizard cast ‘depulso,’ but he could see through the branches as strange white wisps called down lightning and thunder, then the added sounds of chaos was enough to have Sunless fearing for the man's life. He was just trying to scare the wizard away, not get him struck by lightning and mauled by wolves! After the wizard left, Sunless was dumbfounded.
The remains of the wolves told a story of one-sided slaughter. He'd heard about some Wizards being capable of many weird and complicated spells, charms, and even curses, but never stories of their abilities in brute force. Perhaps it's because no one who witnessed such a scene ever lived to tell the tale?
Sunless shakes himself from his stupor and retreats back to his home. Who knows what else might be hiding in these woods?
In the end, Sunless returns to his average life as a village outcast. So long as he gets to live in peace with his sister, nothing else really matters all that much to him.
…
A year later, San Bakar would be called to the office of Headmistress Niamh. San Bakar had been awfully cold toward his fellow Keepers after they all voted not to intervene in the case of the village boy in the year prior, but he followed in accordance with their ruling.
Niamh wouldn't say much as Bakar entered her office. She would simply take him to the room where the Book of Acceptance and the Quill of Admittance reside. The two animated objects are having one of their usual squabbles but halt when the two arrive.
Not much is known about these two artifacts aside from the fact that they are the tools Hogwarts uses to locate new students. The quill is highly sensitive to all magical fluctuations in its range of senses, but the book is picky about the strength of said fluctuations. The quill will attempt to write down a name and location for every instance of a person casting accidental magic. The book will read the quill's intentions and close itself if the strength of the reading is too small. That is all they are known to do.
The book closes itself and reopens to an earlier page. The quill begins pointedly circling and tapping an entry. The ink is a bright red color and disappears a few seconds after it's been put to paper.
Nobody knew the book could turn back to earlier pages and entries. Nobody knew the quill even had a second type of ink.
San Bakar reads the entry and immediately recognizes it. The Headmistress asks the question Bakar has already begun asking himself, “Are you sure that boy actually died Professor Bakar?”
Bakar takes a deep, centering, breath. He makes a request, “May I use your Pensieve as well as your input Headmistress?” Bakar watches as the Quill of Acceptance circles that blasted name again.
Sunless.
An hour later, after having Niamh look over Bakar's memory of the village, she gave him three key insights. One, the small and malnourished boy had no business knowing where the supposed Shepard's wife would send Sunless off to graze the sheep. Two, there were no sheep to be found around the clearing, dead, or otherwise. Three, the mongrels were merely tearing into a pile of meat, there was no clothing or distinguishable body parts around.
After hearing this, Bakar said, “It would seem someone has made an utter fool out of me.”
Bakar promised Niamh he would find the real Sunless and ensure he gets a proper education in magic.