immortality [wizarding world] | ⚐

十七

"Sancho Clave? I've never heard of a Sancho Clave." Ambrose looked at Nicholas, skeptical.

"You are Sancho Clave, Ambrose, just as much as he is you."

"He?" Ambrose looked at Nicholas. "Nicholas – understand this – wait a minute – I'm not a boy. I'm a girl." She tried to explain, tripping on her words.

"Rosie, you're just as much as a boy as you are a girl."

"Nicholas, look, I'm positive that I'm a girl." She was starting to get frustrated, and perhaps slightly confused.

"I know you're a girl. But when you're out there," He gestured to the world outside. "You can be either. And this time, you're Sancho Clave." Ambrose tried to protest, but he gave her a stern look.

"Right," She mumbled, letting wisps of her hair fall into her eyes. "Tell me all about this bloody Sancho Clave."

"That's not very nice."

"Didn't you just claim Sancho was, well, me? I think I have the right to insult myself."

"Well – Sancho's a boy. He studies at Castelobruxo."

"I'm just saying – if I have to be the love interest of Isadora Praelia, I will murder you, Nicholas."

"Nice try – that's impossible. As I was just starting to explain, Sancho is a student, and no, not a lover of Headmistress Praelia, and he's incredibly special."

"Special?" Ambrose narrowed her eyes.

"Yes. Now, remember the Wekufes?" Ambrose felt a chill creep down her spine. "They're incredibly Dark creatures, and thus must be beaten by Light – in Headmistress Praelia's case, it'll be a Key," Ambrose noticed by the intonations of his words that this wasn't just any plain key, but a magical one. These Keys were often used for protection (Hogwarts had one), answers to seemingly impossible bouts of magic, and rarely, secrets to Light offensive magic. "Now, I don't want to point out the obvious, but Sancho's last name, as you've hopefully noticed, means key – which means he – you – will play a crucial part in finding it." Ambrose sighed before burying her face in her hands.

Another small thing about Keys was that they didn't have to physically manifest themselves as actual keys, but could be any object, much like a Portkey. It was always nearly impossible to find a real one – the Hogwarts founders had stumbled across theirs in the heart of their castle: it was the sturdy doors of the Great Hall (something that Ambrose had never even noticed when she was Mathilda).

"It'll be impossible." She murmured.

"Rosie, if it was truly impossible, would it be necessary for you to be there?"

"Could you give me a hint of what it is, Nicholas?" His eyes twinkled as they usually did when he knew something she didn't, but he glanced away, suddenly disturbed.

"I would... But a very old wizard that I once knew... Just... Excuse me..." He suddenly vanished without a trace. Ambrose frowned at where he had been a few seconds ago, knowing there was no way to find him if he didn't want to be found. She sighed again, and pulled open the page about the Wekufes, and began to read.

The origin of Wekufes is extremely strange, Ambrose smiled fondly at Nicholas' careful writing. Much like Obscurus [see page 81], they are formed from the souls of magical children. However, Wekufes are originally dark masses that prey on the weakest children, usually under the age of five, contributing to the higher levels of infant mortality in Our Land. They turn the Light magic of children into monsters that can be vicious when under a Commander [see next page for The Commander]. Ambrose shivered at the thought of innocent children being preyed on by these dark masses that the book described. She skimmed the rest and got to the book's portion about The Commander.

The Commander is often a very powerful Dark witch or wizard who has lost their ability to feel any emotion. They summon the Wekufes during the longest night of the year when the barriers between Wekufes and people are the thinnest. After this, The Commander provides for the Wekufes by allowing them to feed on wizards, witches and Muggles alike, much like the common vampire. This feeding allows for not only the Wekufes to be stronger but for The Commander to absorb any of the magical energy that the Wekufes take in, creating a... Ambrose couldn't read any further. She felt sick to her stomach, and Nicholas hadn't yet returned from wherever he was. She refused to look at the drawing of the Wekufes, disgusted by its existence. In a moment of anger, she flung the book across the room.

Instead of landing limply like she had hoped it would, the book floated in the air, opened to another page about Wekufes Ambrose had chosen to ignore. A strange cloud of swirling images appeared from it, and Ambrose could make out unfamiliar faces, and letting her curiosity lead the way, she got closer to it almost like a moth would approach a flame. The faces had become clearer now, and one of them was a young child, sleeping peacefully. She reached for him blindly, and just as she fell into the cloud, Nicholas reappeared, his face full of fear.

"Ambrose!" He yelled, grasping for her. He muttered a few desperate incantations, but the cloud and his companion had vanished into thin air.

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Ambrose knew what it was as soon as she had fallen in. She had merely theorised a couple things about Death's existence, and one of them was that there were forces stronger than Death itself – the Creator was one of them. Another one, evidently, was Time.

Ambrose had always thought that Time was merely a concept, but obviously, as she fell into this endless pit of flashing scenes of the past, present, and perhaps the future, Time was someone who quite clearly kept to themselves. However, they had presented themselves to Ambrose in this moment, and Ambrose still didn't know why.

As she continued to fall, she theorised a little more (of course, there was nothing better to do except sit and think when she was falling through these weird spirals of pictures). This was Time's great Nothing. Death had one, a pitch black, In-Between that was quite literally nothing. Time's Nothing (which Ambrose had cleverly dubbed Everything), had, as the name suggested, everything. There were scenes of births, deaths, battles, and things that Ambrose had never seen in her entire existence. There was no chronological order to anything. It was all strewn randomly around her. She tried to absorb it all but knew that in the end, she would never remember anything.

She looked down and saw her destination. A small house was modestly buried in a tropical jungle in the South, perhaps where Castelobruxo would be. She closed her eyes and took a breath, as if preparing to plunge into a body of water. As she neared the house, she only thought of one thing.

Nicholas. 

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it's been ages since i've updated but here it is. i hope it's okay, i'm so sorry for not updating!! 

love,

clara