Storytime and grief

William was crying his eyes out he had never really processed the loss of his family. He had always drowned himself in new work, never did he stop, never let his mind rest. And now? Now it came back at him all of his suppressed feelings came up at once. The guilt for not visiting his family enough, the pain and grief about their death and the happiness about their heroic deed. He was sure that Hengist had lied to him.

He had seen his parents, their faces were not smiling ones, instead they were filled with pain and sorrow. But he appreciated the lie that was told to him. It was much more beautiful to imagine that they had new that they had succeeded. How they succeeded William didn't know even if they had sacrificed their lives it shouldn't have been enough to bind it to the house to the leyline.

Still crying William stood up he didn't want to impose another burden to the man who had told him so much about his family. He couldn't look at him without remembering the sad fate of his family, and he was sure Hengist had the same problem. He had seen it in the pained look that Hengist had every time he had looked at him. So he wanted to leave the house, to clear his head, to breathe a fresh breath of air and to calm his mind.

Woodcroft had called him out, that no one, not even wizards should leave the house at such a time. Looking out of the window William knew what Hengist was talking about. It was nighttime they had been talking through the whole day. William however said that he wanted to go to a tavern where he could get a room to sleep in, but he got turned down yet again. There were enough rooms in this house and that he could take one of those instead of leaving for the inn.

Defeated not knowing what to say, William let himself be guided to one of those guestrooms. This room unlike the rest of the house was tidy and neat. In the middle was a huge bed while from a small desk was a painting with a wizard family in it. The man hugged the woman from behind while the woman held a small bundle of clothes with a small arm was coming out of. Both man and woman beamed at him. William recognized this man it was Hengist.

This had to be a couple of days after the birth of his small son, both, wife and husband were so contagious with their happiness that you couldn't help but smile if you looked at them. That's when it hit William this wasn't some guest room he was in. No, it was the room of the very child he had shed tears for.

Now feeling even worse William laid down on the bed using his cat as a pillow and appreciating the warm Typhon gave to him. Not getting any sleep William laid like that for hours in thoughts about their misery. Some time later something in his chest pocket had bounced. He opened it and out of it stepped Hope. Hope over the time had gotten a complete feather dress and did not look line a plucked chicken anymore. If it wasn't for the color the beak and the talons you could confuse hope with the tiniest Phoenix ever.

While she now had the correct proportions to be deemed fully grown, she was still about the size of his hand. She also didn't have any of the abilities of her parents. Neither did she have healing tears nor could she adjust her height. When Hope would annoy Typhon he would call her his little mascot because she just possessed aesthetics. She would sulk then for days and would continue doing so if he did not apologize over and over again. Besides all of that when his small hope had come out of his pocket and sung a song for him, while it was no phoenix song, he wouldn't want to change it for anything. Listening to her, he dozed off to sleep.

When William awoke in the morning his head still laid down on the body of Typhon while Hope had laid on his chest over his heart. Laying down like that for a couple of minutes before standing up William went downstairs. Hengist had waited for him. He had breakfast prepared and said that it was now on William to tell of the adventures he had experienced.

So William did, he sat down next to Hengist Typhon walked over and laid down on Williams lap while Hope had secured herself a spot on top of his head. Greece the first place he had visited and the first he started to talk about. At first when he had gotten to Greece he did not know what to do. How should one find the digging sights of the ancient ruins if they were protected by charms. He had to get there somehow, but he wasn't sure how.

The moment he had visited Athen however, he did not ask himself those questions anymore. The wizards of Greece where while not openly practicing magic, still not really secretive about being magical. If a muggle pointed out some blatant use of magic, he would be killed the same night by some local wizard to scare the muggles out of speaking the truth. While very ruthless the strategy had its advantages the muggles fearing for their lives would due to this seldom point at wizards.

Some muggles had adapted to that of cause and would call them heretics but that was just a small minority. Avoiding that was again very easy you just needed a cross around your neck and whip it out whenever you were accused. This together with a confundus-charm protected the wizard folk there nearly perfectly.

William had no problem of finding a wizard who would bring him to the old digging sights. The Greek at that time were researching the tomb of an ancient wizard, who was named Herpo the fool. William had always been a very cautious individual and due to that hadn't run into the trap that herpo had set up for them. He had tried to convince his colleagues to not step into the snake dent but no one listened to him. When he had told them he had visions about a snake that would kill them if they looked into its eyes, they laughed at him. Not knowing what do he had watched his colleagues walk into their own doom.

He was right all but one of the researchers had been slaughtered they either fell to the gaze of the serpent or to the poisonous fangs. The one who survived had remembered what William had said to them and with a couple of others they had covered their eyes and ran out of the grave. The others however hadn't been as lucky as the survivor.

The survivor had reacted half a second faster than the others, that was what had given him the edge. He ran for his life and heard a snake slithering on the floor while the other wizards behind him were slaughtered like sheep. Nearing the exit the man had heard something weird. The cry of more than a hundred roosters. While for sure weird it didn't bring him any benefit or, so he thought at least. William the man he had deemed insane due to his foresight led the roosters down to the very corridor he was running in. while the noise they did, didn't even annoy the serpent the sheer amount of them distracted it quite a bit.

When Wander saw that the serpent was following the chickens he had charmed. He took a step outside and sealed the entrance of the grave they had tried to rob. From this point onward William Wander was known to be one of the greatest oracles in whole Greece.

While other oracles could just see glimpses of the future this Mr. Wander however had seen what would happen and managed to find a solution to his tragic vision. William had hated his celebrity status it wasn't that he hated being famous, but he hated what he was famous for.

In his years of living in this community he had solved many runic puzzles and provided translations to many ancient texts. Now he was famous for what he deemed to be the lowest form of magic possible. Now they would look at him astonishment and would say he could look into the future while William couldn't. He felt like a fraud because he was one, never in his life did he had something remotely close to a vision, usually he didn't even dream.

Some of that he couldn't tell Hengist of because he would rather live with being a fraud than to be deemed insane. Hengist was a good listener, listening to stories is a skill that would either be learned by having a wife and kid or it came with age, so William continued to tell about his life in Greece. Not wanting any attention or having to do with seers William went on to learn from the most seclusive magician and discuss arcane with them. Of course that belonged to the dark spectrum of magic.

While it wasn't forbidden to practice it, it was still frowned upon. There he had learned a lot of new curses and even introduced some of his own. Here in Greece these social customs on dark magic were not that harsh so you weren't a social outcast when you would learn it. What did made him a social outcast however was that he had refused to use his spells on humans. He had created the vilest spells of them all, and yet he didn't use any of them on humans.

He rarely had cast them at all. William instead would write his whole theory out and had the whole spell ready and working before he would try it on a mouse. He also didn't let the animals suffer much. Even if the spell was supposed to kill them horribly, he at most watched it for a couple of seconds before he had cast a killing curse at them. He would have also buried the test subjects he had killed, while the other wizards just incinerated their victims.

He however felt obligated to do so, most of the curses he had studied and created were to mimic specific diseases he had researched at that time. He had recreated the Black Death as a curse spell and had tried to look for healing spells that would work against it. He had found a solution for the curse he had created, but he still wasn't sure whether this would work on humans as well. While researching something had shocked him, he could indeed create infectious diseases with his curses.

The scope of that had shocked him, and he now understood while studying dark magic was forbidden in modern time. This research of that was the first thing, that he didn't even tell his parents about. He had burned his whole research papers and the only copies left were those in his personal almanac in which he had written down all of his research results. Like that he dwelled even deeper on the dark magic, amazed at the possibilities it could have. If he could create diseases like cancer maybe he could change the genetics all together.

He combined his knowledge of modern biology with the spells of old to try to create a new kind of magic. No matter how much he tried he didn't make any progress and was getting frustrated because he mad not a bit of progress. So he had changed his research topic yet again and tried his all to learn healing spells and to create new ones. This work gave him much more joy, he could talk to his family about it without feeling guilty.

Sadly not long after the sad news had gotten to him, so he didn't dwell on the topic much longer. When he went home he was so struck with grief, he didn't even notice the true weight of the ritual they had performed. All he did was cursing at him self. He had told his grandfather about they leyline theory. Something that wasn't developed until a millennium later and even then no one had the power to prove it. His grandfather however grew fascinated by the theory and would always talk with his whole family about it. Discussing new thoughts in their letters and altering the theory they had.

His grandfather ones said that he would wish to prove this theory at one time in his life and when William had buried his whole family he accused himself of not seeing the clear signs his grandfather had sent him. He was depressed and left in denial without even looking on their notes. He had just understood parts of the rune scheme they had written on the floor where they had died and researching it was too painful to him.

The only things he did understand at that time was the leyline rune a rune they had discussed a great time in their letters together but that was about it. So he didn't know that they knew what they were doing, he thought that they were just excited to research, so he felt responsible for their death by not reminding them of the danger of those runes. When he heard that they sacrificed their lives he felt a guilt he didn't know he was carrying dropping from his heart.

William had told Hengist a slightly changed version of this recounting when they decided it was time to call it a day. Hengist now knew what the prodigious child had done in Greece, but he still didn't know what he did in the time after that. It had been a long time after all, and he was sure he didn't even get to know half of the adventure William had been in. This man looked so young and yet was even older then Hengist himself. Hengist was struggling with every breath while William probably wrestle the strongest man of this village.

Woodcroft was also sure that the cat and the bird that were always around William were special. He had heard the song of the bird last night. And it reminded him of the times when all had been how it should be. He shouldn't get sentimental when William himself was struggling to pull himself together. William went out of the front door and said his goodbye to Hengist they had enough time to talk about everything.

He wanted to visit the grave of his family. William went to the house of his parents. He had buried his family there and hid this place with a charm. He saw that nature had taken over the grave he had made for them was overflowing with plant life, nevertheless, he saw beauty in it. He liked the idea that his family had given even more life to the planet. He cleaned their tombstones with his hands, talking about all the things he had experienced, the friends he had found and even introduced his new family members to them. All that while a constant stream of tears had been coming out of his eyes.

He went on and on about the new theories he had about all the old theories he had not yet researched, the adventures he had lived through. Yet this wasn't sad to him anymore. With every word he spoke to them, he felt lighter. Like they were alive and would comfort him again. William had talked to them the rest of the day and most of the night. He had cast several healing charms on his throat already. He wasn't familiar with all the talking he had done today. Watching the night sky William stood up and walked inside of the house he was born in.

It hadn't changed since he had left. When he had last visited this house he had been 15 years old and yet it looked like nothing had changed since back then. There were still the runes he had carved in the sink to clean dishes and runes on the washboard, doors and lamps. Even his old room was the same. It was like he had never left home.

He sat down on his bed and reached under it. He picked up a small book. It was his diary. Back when he was around 5 years old he had tried to learn a new spell a day. He wrote down the wand movement the pronunciation and the effect of the spell and then tried to do it. Like that he had continued until he had filled this book up to them brim. Browsing to the pages William got tired and laid down on his bed.

It was too small for him his feet hung down at the end, but he didn't care he had a great sleep he felt safe and secure like he did back in his childhood.

Hengist felt himself getting tired he had solved his last regrets he had told the lost son that his family had died as heroes protecting innocent and doing what they loved. Thinking about that Hengist step got lighter. He went upstairs to his bedroom and lied down on his bed. He watched the portrait next to him until he grew tired.

I'm coming to you, he said, we will be united again as he caressed the portrait of a woman and a small boy. He shed a tear of happiness, he would see them again he knew it. Like that laying down the eternal sleep came over him.

He would lay there with a smile on his face, hugging the portrait, when the village-mayor came to check on him the next morning, but all them man could do was to diagnose the death of old age.