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•Caeracie's Tunnels, A forest somewhere•
Lavinia, Draco and Ezekiel walked in a slow procession along the various tunnels, the youngest blond boy keeping his eyes on the greying tips of his soulmates hair as they wound their way through random chambers and across platforms. Lavinia knew that if not for her connection with the Cauldron, they would have never been able to locate it in this labyrinth. She was still not entirely convinced she'd taken them in the right direction but it most definitely did not seem like the right time to point out her doubts.
"Shh," she urged them and they silenced from where they'd been bickering back and forth about how hungry they were. Lavinia hadn't a clue why that was a decent argument topic but she was focused on something else now... Namely, the sound of hushed whispers up ahead. Another of her parent's favourite tricks, then... Marvellous. Lavinia reached into the satchel she was carrying and pulled out her dress from the Merlin Festival. Using her knife, she cut off long strips. "Hold hands," she urged in the most serious voice she could muster and they wisely did not question her as they did as she asked.
Carefully, Lavinia tied their hands together and then instructed Ezekiel to tie her hand to Draco's. Their chain was now fully formed and there was no breaking it. Lavinia was glad for that security, knowing that they could not get lost or separated in what was to come.
"What is it, Nia?" Draco questioned, linking his fingers with hers and she smiled as she handed him more fabric to use as a blindfold-- he just did not know that yet.
"Up ahead is an Echo Chamber, it was designed using the science behind a Boggart. The whispers reflect different voices to each person who enters, they are designed to waylay you, if you look at them-- it will kill you. You need to keep your blindfolds on no matter what you hear and you need to keep moving. Just like before, do not allow it to get to you. It may very well be the last thing you ever do. Remember that we are together, that we are all that is real-- the whispers, they are all lies," she attempted, not wishing to show her terror. The creatures were daemons, Echo daemons but there was no use in telling them that. They did not need to be any more scared than they already were.
"So just ignore them?"
"Yes," she smiled.
"I say we sing a song and just keep singing it until we get to the other end. Do you both know the words to 'Do the Hippogriff?" Ezekiel offered and Draco scoffed around a smile. Lavinia didn't but listening to them sing it would certainly help distract her from the echoes. She was grateful for them.
"Blindfolds on and don't stop singing," she urged and they did as instructed. Lavinia tugged hers down and pulled them into the chamber, slowly moving the procession. Ezekiel started singing almost immediately.
"Move your body like a hairy troll, learn to rock and roll--" he started and Draco soon joined in, sounding much less excited about the singing but doing it regardless. Lavinia squeezed his hand reassuringly. She knew the instant the whispers must have reached them because they were suddenly singing much more loudly.
"You are a failure, Lavinia," her Hufflepuff mother hissed in her ear and she reminded herself that it was not real, even though it hurt so profusely to hear the woman she loved say that. "You had one job and you failed us. You are no daughter of mine," it switched to her Ravenclaw Mother instead.
"Can you dance like a Hippogriff, ma, ma, ma, ma, ma, ma, ma, ma, ma," Draco and Ezekiel chorused loudly, nearing a shout, loud enough to drown out the whispers and she was grateful as she continued to tug them... More managed to find their way through to her.
"You are not human, Nia," Draco said so suddenly that Lavinia startled and they walked into her. "You are not human and I have never loved you. How could I ever love you? When we get to this Cauldron, it is just going to prove that you aren't and I will leave you. You'll never see me again and I'll be glad for it,"
"Lavinia," Ezekiel broke off of his singing. "He's right, he's telling the truth. I only bonded with you because you're so powerful, I don't care about you and I never have,"
"How could anybody ever love you? You do not even have feelings," Draco chimed back in.
"We have one another, we don't need you and we never did," Ezekiel retorted and Lavinia felt her muscles seize... It was then that her intelligent mind caught back up with her through the shock. The three of them had fallen into the same situation. They were caught in a huddle in the middle of the room, listening to the whispers of one another-- thinking that they were talking to one another when truly it was just the echoes. Lavinia cursed herself for her own stupidity and focused on the song the two had been singing before they got distracted.
"Move your body like a hairy troll, learn to rock and roll," she started again and they both jolted from whatever torment they were drowning in. Lavinia was already moving, humming the tune because she could not remember the words. Thankfully, the two of them continued the singing for her and she dragged them along for a long while longer. Draco and Ezekiel sang the song five times over before they finally were far enough away from the whispers. There was no way of calculating how long they had been working their way through the various chambers. But still, they had made it. They'd survived.
"I am going to take my blindfold off now but leave yours on for a moment," she warned them and tugged it off before they could protest. Glancing around, she was glad to see that they had exited the chamber and wound their way down the tunnels a long while further. "It is safe," and they pulled theirs off too. The both of them were looking pale as though just coming around from a bought of flu and she was sure that she could not have looked much better. "The whispers got the better of us for a moment," she squeezed their hands. "But I want you to know that none of that was real. Whatever you heard, do not pay it any heed,"
"You either, Nia, it was all just a lie," Draco promised, kissing her on the forehead and carefully undoing all of their hands from one another's. "Your parents truly do know how to set a trap," he sighed to himself and Lavinia smiled softly, sadly. Of course, her parents had sent her to find the cauldron, all while knowing the horrors she'd face along the way. She was not sure why their lack of care for her even shocked her anymore.
"They do indeed," Lavinia sighed and slowly led them further along. She had no idea what they would face next but she was forever hopeful that they had surpassed the last obstacle. She did not know how much longer they could physically or mentally survive this torment. The Cauldron pulsed so nearby that she could feel her magic pull toward it, her limbs feeling hollow as her magic concentrated in her chest, tugging her toward it. They were so very near and she almost could not stop herself from sprinting off to find it. She did not know yet what lay between.
They rounded one more corner and she froze. This was it. She knew it, somehow, deep in her bones that they had finally found what she had been searching for. They'd found it and she was moments away from getting answers. Why did that terrify her so much? Tugging Draco and Ezekiel they entered the final chamber and Lavinia's soul felt as if it had fallen through her feet. The instant she saw it-- she knew the answer.
The room was vast and wide, a pretty pink stone cavern embedded with chips of rose quartz but it was what stood strongly at its centre that had her full undivided attention. That was not a cauldron at all. Lavinia had no idea why she had been expecting it to be at this point, Elentiya had good as told her that her entire life was a lie, to expect the unexpected... This was certainly unexpected.
It was a doorway.
It reminded her of the Veil at the Department of Mysteries, though not quite so large. It was about as tall as Hagrid, an archway, each arch beginning with that same pink stone at the base and flowing into gold over the top. In the space, there was a swirling have of magic. She hated how much sense it made now that she could see it.
Elentiya had told her that there were multiple worlds that lay over one another and that there were holes poked in them to let people slip through, that is how the original Tarugons had gotten here and the witches and wizards had been born. This was one of the holes. Just as the veil at the department of mysteries was. Only, the veil at the Ministry was a one-way trip. Lavinia knew that this was more. She now also knew something more.
"What is this? This is it?" Ezekiel frowned, the two of them on her either side but Lavinia was having too much of an existential crisis to pay attention as she ran her eyes along the various markings in the stone. This archway was much stronger than the one at the Ministry, that one just showed the doorway between the living and the dead, a single passage... this-- was a multiple doorway passage. You could get to any other land through this and somehow she just knew that.
"She told me it was all a lie but I did not believe her, I could not believe her," Lavinia spoke through unmoving lips and the two of them turned to her with frowns. It was likely, they had never seen her quite so unravelled but she did not care at that current moment. "It was-- It was all always a lie... everything,"
"Lavinia, I did not wish for you to learn this way... It was never supposed to be a secret," Ezekiel and Draco whipped around to the archway when a figure stepped through it but Lavinia just continued to stare at the stone at her feet. She did not have to look up to know who it was. "I never wished for you to be lied to, I-- I told them to always tell you the truth, from day one," Elentiya approached and Lavinia glanced up at her with glassy eyes. "Oh, My Sweet Love," the gorgeous woman placed her hands to the girl's cheeks and rested their foreheads together. Ezekiel and Draco stepped forward a pace as a tear dribbled down Lavinia's cheeks.
"All this time?" she whispered.
"I am so sorry, Lavinia," she tried and as completely broken and conflicted internally as Lavinia felt-- she could not blame Elentiya for this. She blamed the founders, the four people who, no matter the love they had at one time showed her, she could likely never love again. They had lied to her all this time-- and for what?
"What is this? Who is this?" Ezekiel tried and Lavinia looked across at him.
"Will you tell us the story?" She asked the immortal warrior and she smiled, nodding sadly as she guided the four of them to sit on the step by the veil together.
"There are multiple lands that exist in the same space, atop one another. Yours is the land or muggles but there are others. For instance, there is the land of the dead, there is the land of Tarugon from where I originate. This portal, that you have been told is Caeracie's Cauldron, is a space between each of the realms, through it-- you can get to any of them. In the beginning, this realm had only muggles but some of the immortal warriors of Tarugon stepped through and the males mated with muggles which created the witch and wizard race. Caeracie, one of the first hybrid daughters, found and secured this portal so that she could see her Tarugon father whenever she pleased,"
"I don't understand how Lavinia comes into this," Draco tried, squeezing his soulmates hand reassuringly.
"While Tarugon males can produce children-- the females cannot, it is a byproduct of evolution. Instead, we grow and produce our young in cauldrons, passing on to them our best features and attributes so that the next generation will be stronger than the last," Lavinia dropped her head into her hands at the information.
"Are you saying that Lavinia...?" Ezekiel glanced back at the archway and he understood as well as she did. Perhaps he was missing one vital piece of information but Elentiya was in an incredibly telling mood.
"A thousand years ago, a powerful seer approached the four founders of Hogwarts and prophesied a battle," Elentiya began and Lavinia did not move her head from her hands. She felt like if she moved a single inch, she would explode and it would all be over-- it was too much, too fast to learn that everything she had ever known was a lie. "She foretold that a saviour would arrive to save the wizarding world from harm, a descendant of the original warriors who had first created said race. Together, they set out to locate the daughter and found this chamber, through the archway-- they managed to reach Tarugon.
"The Founders went to the strongest female they could find, the heir to the Tarugon Throne. The Princess was young, impressionable and without parents, guided by advisers until she reached the age of coronation. The Founders told her of the prophecy. They told the young, immature princess that her daughter would save the world. The Princess did not yet have a daughter and she did not like the idea of her future daughter being taken away to live a life away from her but the Founders promised that they would eventually be reunited-- they also told her that the Daughter would meet her soulmate in their world, that she must travel there. Soulmates are a treasured thing in Tarugon-- to refuse the bond is illegal.
"And so, The Princess of Tarugon used the Cauldron her mother had used to create her and with the help of the Four Founders, created her child. She was the most precious infant, the most beautiful and she had the map to her soulmate in her eyes. The Princess called her Aeliana Darthoridan and the Founders promised to protect her. They said that when the time came, they would be reunited. The Princess pled with them that they would tell her daughter about her and the land where she came from. They agreed and before the Princess could change her mind, they took the daughter away.
"The founders of Hogwarts took Baby Aeliana and changed her story, changed her name and set her on a path the Princess disapproved of. The Princess bade her time, waiting to be reunited with the sun of her life again so that they could fight together-- side by side," Elentiya concluded and they all sat in silence. Lavinia felt as though the world had drifted away from her-- Lavinia was not even her name, she had a mother who had created her lovingly and named her Aeliana Darthoridan and she had been lied to every single day of her life. She was not even a witch. Everything, absolutely everything was a lie.
"Who are you?" Draco asked, perpetually calm and Lavinia glanced between her soulmate, her seran and the woman who had finally told her the truth.
"Queen Elentiya Darthoridan of Tarugon," she whispered and Lavinia fell forward, coughing up her breakfast on the stones. Draco was there first to pull back her long hair from her eyes. "I am so sorry," the woman hiccuped out a sob and Lavinia turned to her with wide, horrified eyes. Where could she even begin to pick apart what she had just learned. "I am your mother,"
"Holy Merlin," Ezekiel gasped out and Lavinia slumped into Draco who wrapped his arms around her, anchoring her to the world she felt she was slipping so far away from. Everything was a lie, the four founders had not even created her themselves, they had gotten the princess of Tarugon to do it-- the princess of a land that should not even exist. Where did Lavinia begin asking questions? What did this mean for her? For any of them?
"I know that this is a lot to consider all at once, that it is a lot to take in but-- I need you to believe me," Eletinya tried and when Lavinia looked up into her face, she already had no doubt. This was her mother, of course, it was-- the prophecy had said as much but because she was so busy picking everything apart, never taking anything for what it actually said, she had missed it. She, who had always claimed to be so smart-- had been a complete and utter idiot.
"Nia," Draco rocked them slightly, peppering kisses to the side of her head and she clung to him as though he was the only thing stopping her from drowning-- in a way, he was. "It is okay, everything is going to be okay. I love you," he urged and she sobbed into him.
"I am so sorry," Elentiya tried again but the sound barely registered to Lavinia now. This was her mother, she was from a different world, she was the princess of that different world. It was too much. Far, far too much.
"If you created Lavinia does that mean that she is an immortal like you?" Ezekiel frowned up at the Queen and Lavinia was no longer even surprised by the answers-- she was numb, positively numb.
"She is, that is why she did not die all those years that she slept. The Founders did not have the power to preserve her, she was just immortal,"
"But... that means," Ezekiel swallowed and Lavinia turned her eyes to him.
"I'm sorry," Lavinia gasped out.
"You and Draco are immortal too as you are bonded to her," Elentiya concluded and Lavinia did not know how she was even still in one piece.
"No more, no more," Lavinia sobbed, turning her face into Draco's chest and he ran his fingers through her hair, whispering soft words but none of them could do anything to help her now.
"I am so sorry, to all three of you," Elentiya just kept trying and the White Warrior approached, crouching onto the floor to wrap his arms around both Lavinia and Draco-- they collectively melted together, holding on for dear life.
Through the haze of horror and betrayal, Lavinia could see the good in what she had learned. They had access to other worlds, they could bring creatures and armies through them. The war with the wizards would be a walk in the park now-- but they had much more profound issues now.
"Aeliana, my Dear Daughter, you are the princess of Tarugon and its armies are, of course, at your disposal. I have failed you greatly as a mother from that very first day but I will fail you no longer. We do this together from now on, you have me from now on," Lavinia stumbled to her feet and the two men allowed her to, the both of them hugging one another instead and she made her way to the slightly taller woman who looked only a few years younger. "Together," Elentiya tried and Lavinia threw her arms around her mother's waist. The Queen returned immediately, holding on for dear life and Lavinia was grateful.
The four of them would be together for eternity.
"I don't know about you but I quite like the idea of living forever," Ezekiel smirked and Lavinia actually chanced a laugh, turning her eyes to Draco who was grinning somehow, as though this news was a marvellous gift instead of the unravelling of terrible lies.
"Putting up with Zeke forever will not be the highlight of my life but having you, Nia, for eternity certainly makes up for that," Draco extended an arm and she slipped under it, hugging him around the waist. Perhaps, all that she had learned would not be the end of the world after all.
"So, Aeliana then?" Ezekiel smirked and Lavinia smiled tightly. That was just another thing to add to her headache. Too much, too fast as ever.
"Let us get back to your camp and bring the portal with us," Elentiya decided and they nodded in agreement. At least, Lavinia would have her mothers power to help her bring the archway out of the tunnels and teleport it to their camp.
The wizarding world felt a thousand miles away now.
Lavinia stared into the flames of the bonfire, aware of Draco greeting his parents at one side ad Ezekiel greeting his at the other. Now, because of her, they were going to have to live long enough for their parents to die and become memories-- live long enough, perhaps, for their minds to forget them altogether. She felt terrible. And yet, Elentiya had not removed her hand from Lavinia's since the caves. They had arrived back at camp only a few moments ago, tucked the mythical doorway in one of the caves many empty chambers and surfaced to find that night had long since fallen. Still, a few had surfaced from their sleep to greet them.
"Everything is going to be okay, Sweet Aeliana, you are safe now, safer than you have ever been," Elentiya assured and Lavinia turned her eyes to face her mother. There was no denying the likeness though people would likely call them sisters rather than mother and daughter. Despite everything she had learned that day-- most of which did not feel real-- Lavinia was glad to be Elentiya's daughter, proud to be the daughter of the greatest warrior who ever lived. Elentiya was legendary, so famously incredible in fact that her name made its way all the way to the wizarding world. That was an accomplishment all on its own.
"I named my Basilisk after you," Lavinia spoke the first thing that came to mind, oddly monotone but grateful that her crying had stopped. She gestured to her right where Tiya the Basilisk was wrapped up with Eltanin, the both of them asleep in the shade of the trees, impossibly long and thick now. Prongs had his head rested on his sisters middle but none of them moved, all pleasantly unaware. They looked almost sweet like that.
"You have done so incredibly, my Love," Elentiya smiled warmly, glancing around at what her daughter had created. Lavinia had no idea how to act with the woman who was supposed to be her mother. Did she treat her as she had Rowena and Helga? Lavinia was not even entirely sure how she had treated them anymore, they felt worlds away. "So incredibly well,"
"Do you have to return to Tarugon?" Lavinia asked as calmly as she could, glancing at her mother. The Malfoys and Ezekiel's family must have seen that they were having a moment because they had not yet approached to try and greet Lavinia and she was grateful.
"I do, briefly, but I will be back. I am now only a room away, Aeliana Dear," Elentiya seemed to be saying Lavinia's true name in every sentence just to convince herself that Lavinia was actually there and the daughter accepted it. It sounded odd, foreign to be called that but everything felt wrong now. "I will come back for you tomorrow... I would like to take you home for a visit so that you can finally see the world in which you came from, the world you will someday rule," Lavinia had so much to ask Elentiya and she did not even wish to consider ruling a world but the worries were for tomorrow.
"Thank you," she nodded and Elentiya kissed her on the forehead.
"Sleep tonight, My love. Sleep and feel better, I know that this is a lot to process. You would be a fool if you were not conflicted but I assure you... Everything is going to be okay now," she promised, kissed her again and then bid a farewell. Elentiya offered the others a mere smile as she made her way into the tunnels. The order members watched her go with vague expressions of confusion and bemusement.
"A new ally," Lavinia smiled smoothly, accepting a hug from Narcissa, a grunt of greeting from Lucius, a bow from Algernon and his wife and a second hug from Elara. With Elentiya temporarily gone, Lavinia felt suddenly much more normal and she was grateful to duck under Draco's arm. They were home, with their family and just as Elentiya had promised-- everything was going to be okay now.
"I think it is time to sleep," Narcissa declared. "Now that you are all home safely,"
"That sounds like a wonderful idea," Ezekiel chuckled, rubbing his eyes and Lavinia smiled despite the world. That night, Lavinia ended up crashing into sleep in her own bed between Ezekiel and Draco-- the only thing keeping her from falling apart was them.
They made it all feel worth the pain.
WORD COUNT: 4472
Authors note: Hello Everybody! a bit of a shorter one this time but so so much happened that I just wanted to cut it off. What do you make of everything that we learned here today? Lavinia, Draco and Ezekiel will be together for eternity which is a definite bonus. But what do you think of this bombshell? Did you see it coming? The Founders lied to Lavinia all along... shocker. Aha. I hope you enjoyed it.
Again, I know how outlandish the story is getting, it is just creating itself now. I have a rough plan but I don't really bother to follow it anymore because it just steers so far away from it. I hope you enjoyed it nonetheless, even with all the absurdity. Be sure to leave your comments and thoughts, tell me what you thought and what you'd like to see.
More coming soon.
Thank you for reading.
--Sy, xx