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Dennis woke with a start in the gray dawn, sat up in a rush, and hit his head on the branch holding his hammock high above the boggy forest floor. After five years of confronting what became a full-blown and relentless zed, or undead, invasion of England, he formulated new habits and patterns when living out in the wilds. Dennis refrained from using magic as much as he could. Simply being a magi, a wizard, attracted any of the foul creatures within a fifty meters. Use of magic acted like a beacon for the zed. They would come streaming at him from almost half kilometer away, depending on the strength of the spell he used. Thus, the wizard trained himself to severely moderate the use of his natural powers. However, what woke him did not stem from the menace circulating around the base of the tall tree he used as an encampment.
“Shit,” he rumbled as he rubbed his head, but he quickly forgot the painful sensation as something else wormed around in his skull.
The man wondered if his best ghostly friend, Peeves the Poltergeist, tried to reach out to him, but the Unbreakable Vow lay quiescent in his brain The Opprima Anima spell also lay dormant, and Dennis never wanted it to become active again after it did so once several years before in Italy. In the midst of his ruminating, he discovered his sense of smell tingled. The usual vapors of decaying vegetation mixed with the rot of the undead seemed less dominant and more indistinct. In its place he found the smell of clean air and fresh greenery. It reminded him of spring in a far off place it seemed he could not quite remember. He deeply inhaled, and the aroma made his head spin in a pleasant fashion.
“No way!” Denis spouted when he suddenly understood the nature of what prickled in his mind. “Grandy?”
Inside of his brain three very potent spells existed: the Unbreakable Vow he made with Peeves to protect his ethereal friend’s history; the nasty Opprima Anima spell name that ended the life of Lord Thomas North along with someone who tried to kill Dennis, and it felt ready to jump to life with barely a thought; and, finally but not the least, his pledge to guard the life the daughter of his two closest elf friends, Chet and Nedwina. Grandiola Róvanúr, daughter of a long, old line of elvish blood, became one of charges in his life when he swore an oath before the elves to protect her and made his wand available at her beck and call. Although she only reached the age of five, Grandy understood Dennis placed himself in her service. She never abused the privilege and often called him her special human or guardian magi. Elf children appeared to mentally mature faster than the human variety.
Dennis twisted his head around until he felt he found the direction from which the summons originated. The presence of the oath seemed to grow stronger as he faced southeast. He began to pack his aerial campsite. Years of practice in a hostile world made it a simple short task. Basically, the wizard just dumped his belongings into the magically transformed backpack the held everything he owned in the world. It did not amount to much since St. Alban’s got overrun in the unstoppable zed incursion that consumed London as the number of zed grew. It tended to serve as the primary reason why Dennis seldom went toward cities, towns, or villages. Moreover, he continued to try and solve the mysteries for the various ghosts he knew.
The branch on which he stood wobbled a bit as the weight of a grown man, albeit one who appeared grossly underfed, moved and shifted as Dennis attempted to triangulate. Below him the zed came to life, if it could be called such, when he became active. Their groans and moans acted as a call to breakfast when the wizard started to tear down his camp. Dennis ignored them. It would take hundreds of zed to form a virtual ladder to reach him, and he carefully chose regions where numbers of that magnitude did not exist. He frowned a bit.
“Going to be tricky,” the wizard said to himself. “I don't get to Taf Fechan often enough. Fucking zed.”
The lives of everyone got severely disrupted as the undead beings overran any place where humans congregated. Furthermore, the gruesome creatures seemed to form a taste for magi or any magical flesh. Magi communities got hit the hardest once the invasion became irreversible. The fall of London only added to their woes. Undead streamed up from the Thames River to take over the city and every enclave in the vicinity. While the zed would eat any living person they could find, and why they needed to eat no one understood, they always went for the magic folk first and foremost. Three year ago Hogwarts got overrun despite the best efforts of Headmistress McGonagall and the remaining staff. It did not go well for the defenders of the castle. Peeves told him lurid stories of the final battles and the multitude of deaths while the castle fell despite everything the magi defenders threw at them. Thus, the zed seemed unbeatable as every person who died from their bite joined their ranks.
Dennis concentrated on the fastest route to reach the clearing the elves used to contain and conceal their forest homes in Taf Fechan Forest. Their houses, crafted inside living trees without apparently causing any damage to the tree, often sat nestled between rivers and streams that served as natural fortifications. The zed regularly got stuck in bogs, fens, and muddy areas. While they writhed against the entrapment, nature would take over and gradually decompose their bodies. Dennis saw more than one gnashing head resting atop the naked spine of a skeleton, unable to move or do anything aside from snapping its teeth. It taught the wizard a valuable lesson, and he routinely made his camps near similar areas.
“One, two, three,” Dennis said as he clutched the reinforced cricket bat, the edges covered in metal sheeting, he would use to beat back the zed if he encountered any. “Now!”
His body twisted into the nether. He made for one of the Dublin Apparation Stations, despite the danger it imposed, as he could not cross the Irish Sea in a single jump from his current location. Any spot loaded with magic made it a target for the zed, as the wizard repeatedly learned when he disapparated to magical locations. The outer, tertiary apparation stations suffered the same fate. He arrived in a zed infested building, but he only needed to touch a foot on the marble dais in order to get a boost for the next leg of his journey. Zed swarmed toward him as he landed, but Dennis disapparated faster than they could move. He apparated toward Cardigan Island just northwest of Gwbert on the western coast of England. Dennis used the location in the past, and he knew it to be largely free of zed.
“Fucking blighters,” he quietly railed at the distant zed as he stood on the island in a light drizzle as somewhere behind the clouds the sun began to rise. He gave himself a few minutes to get his bearings.
His sturdy jacket repelled the rain since he soaked it in a muggle water repellent several times. Per his new rules, Dennis did not wear any attire imbued with magic. He scavenged as fine of muggle outdoor clothing as possible. Given than entire areas got abandon to or consumed by the zed, it made for ample if exceedingly dangerous pickings. Dennis calculated he wore six- or seven-hundred galleons worth of premium gear that did not cost him a single knut. No one complained or filed larceny charges against him. With the exception of his backpack that he magicked within an inch of its existence but got layered with dampening contrivances, Dennis did not exude much of a magical aura. The weaving of copper and steel filaments together created a mesh that effectively blocked magical fields or stray seepage. He lined the inside of his backpack with the material. His wand rested in a specially prepared slot inside his jack also layered with the magic-dampening weave. He pulled the hood of the garment over his head to save his neck from a soaking.
“Okay, here’s their village,” Dennis said as he studied the map in his notebook, also highly magicked but safe from detection within his pack. He stabbed a finger on the page, and it crackled with energy. His notebook, in which he also kept countless other notations and wrote down spells, became increasingly temperamental as he applied charm after charm on it. “Awfully damn close to Cardiff. That’s a problem. Wonder how they’re dealing with it.”
Taf Fechan sat northwest of Cardiff, one of the hardest hit areas when the zed incursion first started. The homestead of the elves, at least the community in which Chet and Nedwina lived with their family and relatives, stood within an easy half-day’s walking distance of the Methyr Tydfil area if one discounted the number of bogs and streams. Dennis heard the town wholly belonged to the zed. It almost begged the question of how the elves managed to keep their homes safe with such a large undead presence just to the south of them. He saw in the past how the zed could dismantle a standard modern house when enough of their number got involved. Dark memories of seeing what happened to his parents row house in St. Albans during the first wave flickered in his mind. No one needed to tell Dennis they did not survive, and he did not wish to see their reanimated corpses.
“Guess there’s nothing to do but give it a go,” the wizard finally admitted. He stood up. Years before as a student at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry, Dennis got intense and rigorous instruction from the portrait of a famed instructor at the school, Professor Artura, in the ways of nonverbal magic. He used it to propel himself to the next available station closer to Taf Fechan without needing to activate his wand. As with the one in Dublin, the wizard needed only to touch the marble pad inlaid with a brass sigil to propel him further toward his destination. Two more jumps followed until he reached the village of his friends.
Three years of self-training taught Dennis to land in a crouch to keep himself from getting toppled by zed upon arrival. Once he touched down, the man with strawberry-blond hair spun on one foot while swinging his cricket bat. The thin mat of leaves crackled under his feet. His bat hit a tree. The thunk reverberated into the distance. He paused and waited for the tell-tale groan or grunt of a zed. He heard none. Then he stood. Dennis felt thrown off balance by the utter lack of undead. Seconds later a thick bolt thudded into the ground next to his left foot. Dennis danced to one side.
“I’m not zed!” He yelled as he feared further assault. Zed never used words.
“State your business, wizard!” A voice called out from overhead.
Dennis glanced up and saw carefully constructed rope bridges suspended from tree to tree high above, and it effectively created an overhead pathway. Several elves trained very powerful looking crossbows in his direction. The gray-green of elf cloth nearly made them invisible to the naked eye. Dennis held up his arms to show he did not brandish a wand.
“I’m Dennis Creevey,” he shouted his name. “Grandiola Róvanúr called out to me, and I’m answering.”
“You’re name is known to us, Wizard Creevey, and you are welcome,” the voice said in a more pleasant fashion.
A ladder made of stout branches and handwoven rope descended from the edge of a bridge next to a tree. Dennis made for it as standing exposed on the ground made him nervous and filled him with a want to giggle. Despite the efforts of the elves, he remained fully aware zed could appear from nearly any quarter and sometimes without making a sound if their throat got damaged. Dennis grabbed the ladder. Instead of scaling it like a standard ladder, one of the stile ropes got nestled in his crotch while his feet found purchase on the rungs. He climbed as if shimmying up the rope. When he neared the top, a hand reached out. It looked too large for the body onto which it got affixed. It also exerted an nearly unnatural strength as the owner pulled him forward and upward.
“Thanks,” Dennis said once he stood safely on the narrow bridge. He bowed as he spoke even though the hand did not release his.
“It’s good to see you again, Denny,” the female voice said.
“Rotilda!” Dennis exclaimed with happiness at the elf he met long before when he would visit the Ministry of Magic to conduct research in the library. It came as a natural act to him when he swamped her in a hug. Her hands clamped around his shoulder blades. “By Merlin… I didn’t know how much I needed to see a friendly face.”
They ended their embrace, but held onto each others arms. Dennis felt the elf magic flow through his limbs. Elves often used their innate magic as a form of greeting. He whispered the patronus spell in his mind and let the effect surge down his hands. Rotilda smiled at him.
“You look about as un-magical as I ever seen you… and that wasn’t a lot to begin with,” she said through grin. Her small, square teeth looked artificial, but the disfiguring blood magic created the appearance.
“Doesn’t help to advertise to these bleeding zed lunch is nearby. Normally they got to be pretty close to me to sense me,” he explained.
“I heard you survived and, weirdly enough, were making a go of it. Where’re you coming in from?” Rotilda inquired.
“Was over in Ireland doing some field work for one of the Hogwarts’ ghosts, just north of Dublin.”
The elf woman raised her eyes in surprise. Dennis nodded. Dublin, like most other larger metropolises, got swarmed and overrun. However, the lithe wizard started to understand some of the behaviors of the zed, and large congregations of the undead tended to keep them congregated. They liked to move in sizable packs for completely unknown reasons.
“Yeah, and Chet is probably right in what he says ‘bout you, Creevey,” the woman stated without any real condemnation and only a soupçon of sarcasm.
“Strangest damn wizard he knows,” Dennis spoke what his friend said every time they managed to see one another.
Rotilda laughed, but then grew more somber before she said: “And Grandy called out to you, huh?”
He nodded his head again and replied: “Would you happen to know why?”
“It’s… I’m just going to tell you, it’s Neddy. She… not long, Denny. She got bit while tending one of the gardening plots. It’s not good.”
Dennis lowered his head and fought back the urge to cry. Like every other magical creature, elves became primary targets for the zed. However, the fact elves lived inside of living trees with doorways only an elf could open, they accidentally created a formidable protective barrier. Moreover, the use of overhead roadways gave them a means to travel from one home to the next; thereby negating the need to open the ground-level doors or even disapparate. The diminutive, once enslaved beings became yet again masters of their environment. It out-shown even the best efforts of the magi. Dennis felt his respect form them grow as a crack formed in his heart.
“She probably thinks you can do something for her,” Rotilda continued.
Three other elves stood near then, dressed in their amazingly concealing clothing and clutching the deadly crossbows, looked as equally downcast as Dennis felt. He shook his head from side to side. His rather shaggy and somewhat greasy hair flopped around. It galled him to admit the truth, but he did.
“I can’t. You have to know what happens if you try to magic… them,” he quietly mumbled as another wave of woe crashed through him.
“Grandy probably thinks it might be different for your kind,” his old friend intoned.
“They eat my people like candy… and any application of magic only makes… the infection move faster. It’d be an immediate death sentence for Neddy if I tried.”
In spite of the horror at ground level, birds flitted though the trees singing and giving a sense of life to the surroundings along with the scrambling squirrels. The leaves twitched in the late-winter light breeze passing through the branches. Only the reality of what existed countered the serene, even bucolic setting. Dennis wanted to cry, but he withheld since the elves tended toward stoicism from what they endured in the past.
Rotilda appeared stern.
“Row?” He asked using her nickname.
“Then they’re going to need your… arms, Denny. I don’t think Chet or Grandy can do it,” the elf woman ground out the words. “We worked so long just staying alive that… ending… killing one of our own….”
When she faltered, Dennis sent another surge of magic through his hands. Rotilda’s head popped up. She looked completely distressed, as did the other elves who listened to them talk. Survival of their kind became one of sole objectives of elf life during their centuries of cruelly enforced servitude, slavery in the truest sense.
“You know I’ll serve the elves like I promised… even if what they need to me to do… hurts,” the wizard reaffirmed the oath he made to the elves shortly after Grandiola’s birth.
“We just… don’t have any experience with this,” his long-time friend mumbled.
“What do you do with… the ones who turn?” He gingerly inquired about what he understood as a sensitive topic for the elves.
“The i fírina never leave enough of one of us to turn. They tear us to shreds.”
The three other elves looked totally repulsed as they nodded their heads in agreement. Dennis did not know that particular fact, and he carefully stored it in his brain. It helped explain why Rotilda told him they would need his bat. In a small manner, it made sense to the wizard since the zed appeared wholly attracted to magic. The mere presence of elves, as almost wholly magical beings, would send the undead into a frenzy.
“I didn’t know,” he confessed.
“Least ways we’re not making it any worse,” Rotilda stated, and the darkness behind her words seemed to soak up the sparse dawn light around them. “I understand why Grandy reached out to you, Wizard Creevey. They really need you. That you came… you’ve always been a human of your word. Glad to see that hasn’t changed.”
“You know I love your people,” Dennis firmly stated without any embarrassment.
Elf magic flowed into his arms.
“Okay,” he said as he drank in the sensation. “Take me to them.”
“Merkley?” Rotilda said the name as she withdrew her arms from Dennis’s hands. “I still have patrol duty, so can you show him?”
“Sure,” the elf named Merkley said as he stepped forward.
Like almost every other elf, Merkley barely stood at three feet, looked liked a scarcely coherent assemblage of body and limbs, and his head seemed out-sized. A fat nose rested in the middle of his face, but his overly large mouth helped mitigate the appearance. While Dennis made note of the features so he could remember them as belonging to Merkley for future use, he did not find it odd, off-putting, or unusual. Elves got disfigured by the magi nearly fourteen centuries before. While children of the free elves seemed less distorted, no one could gauge how long it would take for the elves to regain their former physical stature.
Dennis stood as Merkley turned. His full cloak made him invisible against the tree toward which they walked. Behind him, Rotilda and the two other elves resumed their duty and, likewise, seemed to disappear into their environment. They walked without making a sound or swaying the bridge. Dennis began to modify the manner in which he stepped. He heard Merkley snort.
“Wasn’t made for birches,” Merkley said, “but thanks for trying.”
When they reached the tree used to anchor the rope and timber bridge, Merkley pressed his hand against the trunk. A glowing silver outline of a doorway took shape, and then the passage appeared. Unlike the other times when he witnessed the opening of an elven door, this one passed straight through the tree. Dennis began to lower himself to his knees before Merkley turned to him.
“Not my first time in an elf dwelling,” he said the short man.
“You know they still tell stories about Grandy’s Gladdening Day. Did you really imitate the old ways?” He asked with an open hint of asperity in his voice.
“Yes, because I wanted Chet and Nedwina to know I meant what I said. My wand is Grandy’s when she needs it. Still got her teeth marks on it,” Dennis said while he slipped the wand out of the heavily dampened slot inside his jacket. He showed it to his guide.
“Core, but haven’t seen one of those in a while,” Merkley rejoined. Then he grinned. “You really let her chew on it?”
“She needed to teethe, and I promised her my wand when needed.”
The elf man smiled at him for several seconds, a rarity by any stretch of the imagination. Elves normally flashed a smile at humans if they really liked them, but Merkley set a new record for Dennis. His slightly offset teeth did not detract from the gesture. When it ended, a somber expression took its place.
“Elf Merkley?” Dennis requested with deference.
“Just Merkley for you, Wizard Creevey…”
“And Denny works just as good for me,” he countered in a friendly manner.
“Thank you.”
“I cut you off. What were you going to say?” Dennis responded.
“Will you? You know, use… your bat if it comes down to it?”
The question chilled Dennis, but then he thought of the real reason for the summons. He imagined Grandy panicked as she watched her mother deteriorate and sicken beyond hope. It made the wizard wonder just when his long-time friend got infected.
“Grandy probably won’t understand why, but Chet will. I’ll spare them that… duty. It’ll be out of love, Merkley. It’s the least I owe them for all the friendship and kindness they showed me all these years.”
A hand reached out and touched his shoulder. A small wave of power rippled through his skin. Dennis nodded in appreciation.
“You really are the strangest wizard,” Merkley said as he retracted his hand.
“Thank you,” Dennis replied as he accepted the compliment.
They did not speak any further. Merkley appeared to satisfy his somewhat morose curiosity as to what Dennis would do. To Dennis’ amazement, he got led through the tree onto another bridge. The tree closed behind them, and Dennis thought it a smart defensive tactic. Even should a zed manage to get onto a bridge, it would be trapped there. Then, from further up or from other trees, the elves could dispatch it without endangering themselves. Because the pass-through depended on magic, the zed would not be able activate it or circumvent the measure. The practical cleverness, the sheer ingenuity, of the elves impressed the wizard.
When they reached the fourth tree passage, Merkley stooped and touched the floor of the opening. A spiral staircase descending into the wide tree took form, outlined in silver. His elf guide stood to one side. Dennis looked down into the opening.
“They know you’ve arrived,” Merkley informed him.
“Thank you for leading the way, Merkley,” said Dennis and bowed while he mentally debated what kind of contortions to use to worm his way down the elf-sized stairwell. He felt completely certain he would not find Peeves at the bottom.
“You’re a good friend to us, Denny.”
“Wish more of my kind were.”
Merkley nodded once and spun on his naked heel. It only made a whispering sound. The elf then stepped forward onto the bridge on which they arrived. He looked ready to rejoin the Rotilda and the patrol. Dennis stepped onto the first stair. He twisted his body so his back pressed against the rounded wall. He would need to keep the posture in order move downward without getting stuck. The wizard began his descent. As he moved down, the passage closed shut casting Dennis into a deep twilight. It took him far longer to navigate the stairs than he believed it would.
When he reached the bottom, he knelt in the central living room. He saw Chet sitting at the gathering table he last used shortly before the zed invasion when Dennis got invited to dinner with the family so he could spend time with Grandiola. Chet looked up while the wizard set down his backpack and shrugged out of his damp jacket. They lay unceremoniously on the floor behind him. The elf’s face seemed nothing more than a wreckage of misery made mortal. Dennis started to scuttle forward while Chet stood and walked toward him. Dennis raised his arms and enfolded his friend in them. Chet sank into the embrace. The wizard felt the elf’s body begin to quake.
They did not move for several minutes.
“My wand is yours, Chet,” Dennis quietly said.
His words renewed his friend’s weeping. Dennis held him close. He never experienced an elf in such a state of distress, and the human man could not think of what he should do. Thus, Dennis simply offered what comfort he could to one of his best friends. Deep in the recesses of his mind, the rage he felt at the zed took on new life. He started to squeeze the elf in response.
“Denny!” Chet croaked as if being suffocated.
“Oh, sorry,” Dennis rejoined as he eased his hold. He let his arms fall away.
Chet gazed at him through an obvious veil of internal pain. His big eyes bloodshot and puffy. He looked anguished in the way in which his mouth turned downward. Dennis placed his hand on his friend’s shoulder. Chet reached up and covered it with his own.
“I didn’t know she was going to call you,” the elf man stated in an apologetic manner. “Didn’t know she could like that.”
“I live by my oath, Chet. She has a need… and so do you. That’s why I came,” he replied in complete sincerity.
“Neddy.”
The whispered name reverberated through the small home.
“Rotilda told me. I… will do whatever you want me to do.”
Huge tears rolled down the gray face of the elf. Although they did not directly address what would need to be done, the intent seemed plain. Chet appeared frozen in his spot. Dennis whispered the patronus spell in his mind, and let the magic flow down to his hand. The elf’s head jerked up a little.
“Chet… how?” Dennis asked a thousand questions with one word.
“She was tending the potato field. The manky blighter was missing it’s lower half and didn’t have a throat. She never saw it crawl under the fence or heard it come toward her ‘til… it was too late. Bit Neddy on the back of the leg. Her scream… others came running, but it was too late. They killed it, but Neddy was bit. She got bit, Denny. It bit her.”
Chet spoke like an automaton. His words came out flat and lacked any inflection. Dennis could not detect a drop of emotion in his friend’s voice. The elf wore his plain study brown pants, blue and black flannel shirt of which he became fond over the years, and a pair of black suspenders holding his pants up. The slight, ungainly carriage of most elves left them without hip protrusions to aid in wearing pants. Like most elves, Chet did not wear shoes. In nearly every respect he appeared as Dennis normally saw him, except for the torment writ large on his face.
“How long ago?”
“Four days. We thought at first… but… by that night, she got the sweats and her color was off. The bite doesn’t… look right. There’s a shimmer, like one of your spells,” Chet again spoke without any affectation.
Dennis felt the surprise take shape on his face.
“There’s something ‘bout this shouting birches to us,” the elf said, grating the words out between his big teeth, and used one of the elves’ favorite derogatory terms for humans. “Is this something Voldemort left behind?”
“I don’t know. Could be. Sounds like something he’d make when he was alive,” Dennis partially agreed to the speculation because he sensed his friend needed some form of mental support.
“If it’s magic…?”
Dennis twitched his head back and forth as he said: “I’ve seen others who thought magic could cure it. Only made it worse. Made it work faster. Nobody knows what caused this, Chet, and I’ve been listening to the wireless and reading every paper I can find. Muggle world is getting hit just as hard once they ran out of wizards and witches to eat.”
“They came after us pretty hard, too. Heard tell the centaurs and goblins are almost wiped out.”
“No one got spared. It’s everywhere all over the world,” Dennis told him. “They say China and India are pretty much all zed now. Most of Mexico, too. US is trying to keep it contained, but everyone says they’re going to fall, too. All the big populations… once it got started, it just went wild.”
They stood in the sumptuously plain surroundings of the elf home and grew silent. The zed invasion spread rapidly across the globe. In the beginning, governments tried to downplay what actually happened. As a result, several countries got consumed before a defense could be mounted. For nearly a year newspapers, radio, and television reports refused to use the words undead, zed, or zombie in most parts of the world until the truth could no longer be contained. London fell because both the Ministry of Magic and the muggle Prime Minister and Parliament refused to act once Cardiff got overrun. Day by day the reports grew more grim until even the transmission of news got affected. Dennis only got sporadic updates, and it seemed the elves got even less news despite living so close to Cardiff.
“Why?” Chet hissed the question, a damnation by any other account.
“I don’t know,” Dennis replied and stared off into the distance. “Lost my mom and dad when they got London. Haven’t seen anyone I know, ‘cept you and Peeves, for months. Don’t know how many are really left.”
“I’m sorry,” his elf friend responded with a bit of contrition. “Guess it’s our turn.”
“Doesn’t make it fair or right. It was nobody’s turn to go through… this. Fucking zed.”
Chet bobbed his head in agreement. Elves typically never swore after getting trained by their former masters to always speak in respectful terms unless confronting a family adversary. Even then they tended toward the mildest of human vulgarities. Dennis pushed down the rage building in his gut.
“Can I see her?” He quietly inquired.
“She’d love to see you if she’s awake. Neddy sort of drifts in and out,” his friend explained. “Grandy refuses to leave her side.”
“You know you’re going to have to keep her away sooner or later?”
Chet curtly nodded his head.
“But Grandy can sit with me if she wants,” Dennis offered the compromise. “But not… at the end. She shouldn’t see that.”
“Why?” Chet barked at him. “It’s the truth of the world right now, isn’t it? She’s going to see it sooner or later!”
“Chet…”
“She’ll make up her own mind that account,” the girl’s father said and effectively ended the debate.
Dennis silently agreed. With that, Chet turned and started walking toward the private quarters of the house. The wizard followed along, walking on his knees. He knew the layout of the home, but custom dictated he let the owner lead. They came to bedroom Chet and Nedwina shared. A pivoting bar of the sturdy wood already got attached to the door, and brackets to either side of the door. It appeared a formidable precaution. When they reached door, Chet turned the handle without making a sound. The door floated inward as if carried on a cloud.
The soft glow of an elvish lamp spread outward. Inside the room, on a bed with a frame made of the same gray wood elves favored and seemingly plump mattress, Dennis could clearly see the sickened face of his dear friend. Sitting on a chair beside the bed, one made of the same wood, Grandiola held her mother’s hand. When the door finished opening, the elf girl looked their way. A complex series of expressions cross her face as Dennis entered the room. Grandiola carefully lay her mother’s hand on the bed before she got up and walked to the man. As he did with her father. Dennis enfolded the slight figure into his arms.
“Uncle Denny,” Grandiola half-sobbed the words as she sank into his arms.
“I heard you, Sweet Girl,” he said, calling her by the pet name he coined the first time he met her. “I came as fast as I could.”
“Help imelanyi. Save her, Uncle Denny,” the girl begged.
Dennis felt power ripple in the elvish word she used, and he forced himself to say: “If I… had the power, I would, Grandy. No one does.”
She wept harder at the truth.
“I’d give my own life to save her.”
“Dennis!” Chet said from where he stood by the doorway. He sounded affronted.
The human man turned his head and fixed his friend with a stare. After a few seconds, he said: “You know I would.”
Following ten seconds of strained silence, Chet nodded.
“I don’t say that lightly, my friend. Neddy, Grandy, and you mean that much to me.”
“No,” Grandiola mumbled from where she stood buried in the wizard’s arms. She seemed to speak for both her and her father. “There’s… nothing?”
“If I use magic, it will only make it worse,” he informed her of another hard truth.
The elf child resumed sobbing. Dennis felt his heart break even more. He held Grandiola and gently rocked her. The man spoke truly: he would do anything to spare the elf family the tragedy it faced. His mind could not conceive of a world devoid of Nedwina’s goodness and grace. It seemed the promise of the elven future lay in the generosity of her spirit. As much as he tried to keep himself together, Dennis felt himself begin to crumble. He wept as he held the girl close to him. He shared in their misery. After the loss of his family, the elves became his substitute. They showered him with affection, and Nedwina led the cause.
A hand touched his shoulder. A wave of elf magic flowed through his body. Chet lent him strength through the contact that Dennis critically needed. He raised one hand and covered over the elf man’s hand. He sent his magic forward. It flowed through his body. In what seemed like a faraway place, Dennis sensed Grandiola reacting to it. The three silently communed and lent one another the power to see the terrible moment through to the end. He would serve his dear friends to the best of his ability.
“Grandy?” A hoarse voice rose barely above a whisper.
Dennis did not waste time and unclasped his arms. Grandiola grabbed his hand and dragged him to her mother’s bed. Dennis saw the sickness in Nedwina’s features. She looked wan, a pale yellow instead of the customary light pinkish-gray of elves, and coated in a sheen of sweat. When her eyes flicked open, the once expressive large orbs seemed unfocused and gazed at nothing. Grandiola grabbed the woman’s hand. Nedwina turned her head a small bit.
“Imela, imela,” Grandiola all but pleaded with their native informal word for mother. “Imela, Uncle Denny is here. He came.”
“Dennis?” Nedwina asked with the word.
Dennis lay his hand along side her chill, damp cheek. He did not let any magic flow forth as it would only worsen her condition. Instead, the wizard pressed his appendage against her face.
“I’m here, Neddy,” he responded, his voice scratchy and thick form the emotional torment inside his form.
“Dennis… why?”
Although he could not find any context for her question, Dennis replied: “Because you, Grandy, and Chet need me… just like all those times I needed you. I had to come. Grandy called me.”
A faint smile lit her lips.
“I hold to my vow, Neddy.”
“Always… a good… man,” she struggled to say.
“I’m a better person because of you,” he told her as renewed tears streamed down his face.
She smiled, and the act seemed to sap her of strength.
“Rest,” he instructed her while patting her cheek.
“No time,” Nedwina countered. “When it happens…”
It astounded the wizard the elf, given her state, understood one of the real reasons for his appearance.
“I’ll… be… ready.”
“Thank… you,” she sighed. “Spare Grandy?”
“We will,” Dennis promised.
“Me what?” Grandy asked, her voice shook as if she panicked.
“The end, Grandy. The end,” Chet answered.
Grandiola dropped her mother’s hand, leapt up from the chair, and seemed to charge at her father. Chet caught her and held her close. Seconds later the girl screamed into her father’s chest. No one could hide from the reality of what they confronted at that moment. Dennis could not fathom where Chet found the fortitude, the sheer will, to speak the grim truth to his daughter. The wizard knew the elves to be a pragmatic race of people given their history. For fourteen-hundred years they lived in brutish oppression perpetuated by the human magi. Dennis knew the elves as forthright, and Chet gave him another example. He realized he needed to take example and follow the man’s lead.
“We’ll give you a few minutes,” Chet stated in a voice that sounded harder than diamond.
“Thank you,” Dennis rejoined as he reached down and took the hand of his beloved friend.
He never heard the door close, but felt the slight whoosh of air when it did. Dennis stroked the small three-fingered hand. The thin digits trembled a little. It became a fight to keep from sending a wave of magic forward as succor to Nedwina.
“I miss… them already,” her voice quietly intoned.
Dennis could not keep the small sob from escaping his lips.
“I leave them… to you, Denny. Watch.. over Chet. He’ll need you.”
“I’ll take good care of both of them, Neddy. You have my word,” Dennis answered although he could not keep his voice from shaking.
“Such a strange wizard,” Nedwina returned and a another small smile lit on her face.
“I know,” Dennis cried the words. He lowered his head until it touched the woman’s hand. “I know.”
Her fingers moved in his grasp. Dennis kissed her hand. It felt clammy against his lips. Whatever agent created the zed, they seemed able to transmit it with lethal consequences. The wizard’s hatred for the creatures bubbled furiously in his gut as he spent what little time remained with his friend. Of all people, Dennis believed the undead invasion the most cruel toward the elves as they just got their first tastes of freedom and began to rebuild their communities. He kissed her hand again.
“Good person,” she whispered.
Nedwina stopped speaking. Dennis understood she exhausted herself in the brief exchange. Her hand ceased trembling. Her breathing, very shallow for an elf, became more even more so as she slipped into unconsciousness. Her silence allowed Dennis to internally fall apart for a tiny time. While giving into his grief, he looked to Chet’s resolve to be honest with his daughter. Thus, he began to build his courage for what he knew he would face later in the day. The ridiculously inappropriate urge to laugh became increasingly difficult to control. He focused his attention on his dying friend, and it gradually surprised the wizard Nedwina still lived given humans could succumb to a zed bite within an hour and sometimes even less. In the quiet of the room, Dennis thought of all the reasons why he loved the elves, and Nedwina and Chet in particular.
A longer span of time passed than he realized. After an hour, Nedwina let out with a small groan that sounded like pain personified. She did not actually wake. It appeared evident her time grew short. Dennis gently slid her hand from his. He shifted to his knees and went to the door. A few moments later he found Chet and Grandiola sitting at the dining table. On small plates sat food they barely touched. Chet glanced up at him.
“I think you both need to spend… these… moments with her,” he said and hoped his circumlocution addressed the reality.
Chet stood. He grabbed his daughter’s hand. Grandiola rose from her seat as if compelled by the Imperius curse. They turned and faced him. Dennis’ resolve almost fled him when he saw the anguish on their features. The two shuffled toward him. The wizard moved to the side and pressed his body against the wall of the short hallway. Chet and Grandiola walked past him. Dennis followed in their wake, but he did not enter the room after them. Instead, the man went back to where Chet stored his gear. He retrieved his modified cricket bat. A hiccup jumped out of mouth as he suppressed the morbid urge to laugh as his entire body responded to the stress the situation induced. His hands shook while he carried the bat back to the door. Dennis then sat, keeping silent vigil, and rested his weapon across his lap.
Over an hour passed before the partially closed door fully opened. Grandiola ran crying form the room to her own tiny bedroom. Dennis internally quailed when he saw the expressions of despair and gloom. Traces of wetness lined each side of the elf man’s face. He seemed look somewhere in the distance even though he leveled his gaze at the wizard.
“She’s gone,” Chet flatly told him. “Denny?”
“I’ll take care of… it from here,” Dennis replied with greater control than what he felt. “Go be with Grandy. This my last duty to Neddy.”
Chet strode up to him. The elf’s eyes glanced down at the bat. Then he placed a hand on Dennis’ shoulder. A powerful wave of magic entered his body. Dennis nodded his head.
“I don’t know how…”
“You already did, Chet. You, Neddy, and Grandy paid me back so much. I… owe this to all three of you,” the wizard interjected.
Chet nodded and removed his hand. He continued his silent trek to his daughter’s room. Like all elven doors, it closed without a sound. Dennis then propelled himself to his knees. He needed to act fast after witnessing too many succumb to the bite of the undead. Once inside, Dennis set about tightly wrapping his now late friend’s corpse in a bed sheet after moving it to the floor. Pressure built in his gut as he prepared for the expected outcome. He swaddled the body like an infant. Dennis knew it would impeded any movement. Lastly, he stripped the damp case from the pillow and covered Nedwina’s head in it. Then he stood by her side and waited. His eyes remained fixed on her remains.
Nearly ten minutes lapsed before Dennis saw the first signs of reanimation. A hiss issued from under the pillow case. The transformation took hold, the wizard told himself. He continued to stand off to the side, but made ready with his cricket bat. A small chortle edged out of him. The body began to writhe. Dennis called forth every bit of mental fortitude he possessed.
“Shit,” he whispered to himself instead of letting his nerves make him laugh.
As Nedwina’s body started to really struggle, Dennis raised the bat. A nervous giggle slipped out of his mouth as his nerves became taut. Years of fighting the zed taught him many important lessons. First and foremost he knew he did not need to make a head shot at first. The zed still obeyed some of the physical laws of the world. If the spinal column got damaged enough, the zed stopped moving from the neck downward. Thus, Dennis’ first swing centered on crushing his dear, departed friend’s neck and did so accompanied by an remorseful and uncontrollable snicker. His blow made a gruesome crunch. Yet it produced the desired effect. Nedwina’s body stopped moving even as the head continued to thrash around back and forth. Dennis laughed again, but not from humor. His emotions started to turn into train wreck.
“I love you,” Dennis clearly said as he lifted his arms as much as he could and brought them down with a swift, sure stroke.
It stunned the wizard when his cricket bat rebounded off of Nedwina’s skull. Another chuckle tore out of him as he sought to marshal his heart and mind. Tears flowed freely from his eyes, his breath came in ragged gasps, as he lifted his arms a third time. He adjusted his grip to make certain the metal edge would strike first. Then he applied as much strength as possible. This time, when the bat made contact, Nedwina’s skull gave way. The pillow case immediately became a sheet of crimson. Dennis enacted a fourth blow. The sound of splintering skull reached his ears, but he also saw the head stop moving. Deep in his mind he told himself he gave his beloved friend peace, but his heart felt betrayed by his own actions. Dennis sank down onto his knees and thighs. A laugh and a sob ripped out of him. He wept for his friend and her family. The cricket bat slipped from his hands, clattered on the floor, and the man grieved for his friend.
It seemed a small eternity to him before Dennis felt a hand, the four-fingered configuration belonging only to an elf, slip across his shoulders. The human twisted at the waist and wrapped his arms around the slight form of Chet. Chet encased the man’s head in a hug. Dennis cried in the embrace of one who became family to him. The elf squeezed the wizard’s head. In that moment, energies rose up, and they shared in the loss of the woman. Dennis knew it would be far more profound for Chet, so he squeezed a little harder. He heard Chet cry as well. Together they gave voice to the sadness housed in their forms. The wizard knew the elf man got faced with other concerns, but he could not let go of his friend.
“She… loved you… Denny,” Chet grunted out the words. “She would… love you even… more for… what you just did… for her… for us.”
Dennis sobbed against his friend. It did not feel as though he performed an act of mercy even while the logical part of his mind told him Nedwina ceased to exist before he entered her room for the last time. Chet patted the side of his face while holding onto the wizard’s heard.
“She… loved you more… than the… world,” Dennis rejoined as he recalled how Nedwina adored Chet even when everyone thought her a little crazy. He also knew, deep down, he should be supporting his friend in that dire moment. “Neddy loved… everything… ‘bout you.”
Chet squeezed him. Although it felt a bit suffocating, Dennis did nothing to ease the embrace. He could feel his friend’s small body shuddering as if going through an earthquake. The wizard recited the patronus charm in his head, as Professor Autura taught him a decade before, and let the magic seep through his entire form. Chet held him even tighter.
Several minutes passed before the two men collected themselves enough to properly see to girl hidden away in her bedroom. Dennis steeled himself for what he foresaw as a painful moment. When they entered the tiny room, the wizard stood back while the elf man when to his daughter. Grandiola besought the wizard with her eyes. Dennis held the girl’s gaze and slowly shook his head. Chet already stated he wanted his daughter to know the truth. In response, Grandiola buried herself in her father’s embrace. Dennis slowly took a seat on the floor. He felt like an intruder. Yet the human man felt compelled to stay as he did not know what his friend, his two friends, would need. In the face of his own emotional pain at the loss of Nedwina, Dennis could hear his father reminding him to set his priorities in order. Thus, Chet and Grandiola came far ahead of his own wants.
Later in the evening, when the elf girl fell into an exhausted sleep, Chet implored Dennis to remain in the house. Dennis heard so many requests it moved him to acquiesce. Moreover, he did not think it right to leave his friend alone at the time. Furthermore, Dennis also took on the chore of directing other elves in locating and removing Nedwina’s body. He also set about cleaning up the pool of blood left behind that seeped through the sheets wrapped around the tiny inert figure. All the while Dennis conducted a mental conversation with his late brother. The fact Colin died alone at Hogwarts during the final battle with Voldemort never stopped haunting him, even though Colin clearly passed from the world. Hence, he could not leave Chet or Grandiola to face the aftermath alone. In that realm Dennis thought himself capable of lending real aid.
For two days the wizard comforted the two elves, although Grandiola shot him looks as though he betrayed or failed the family. Regardless of the clear and obvious pain Nedwina’s death caused, Chet did not allow himself to be consumed by his grief and saw what unfolded. He pulled Dennis aside while Grandiola slept that afternoon.
“She doesn’t understand, Denny,” Chet said in a quiet voice. “She thought… you’re a wizard and can do anything. You heard her call, you came, and she thought… like a child thinks.”
“I know,” Dennis agreed, and he did understand. It did not make the silent rebukes hurt any less, but he truly understood.
“Time. It’ll take time ‘fore she really understands… what… you did for us.”
The wizard nodded his head.
“And I do understand, and… I don’t know how to thank you for coming here like you did, and did… what had to be done.”
“You and Neddy are two of my best friends, so there’s nothing to thank me for. That’s the answer you’ll always get from me, Chet.”
“Strangest damn wizard,” the elf muttered as he placed a hand on the human’s arm.
Dennis twitched from the flow of magic he felt course through his limb. Chet left his hand in place gently gripping the man’s right forearm. The magic turned to a trickle, but did not end.
“We’re burying her tonight and the memorial is in the morning tomorrow. You’re welcome, you know. I think most everyone expects you to be there.”
“I’m… honored, and I… need to say good-bye to her, too,” Dennis admitted as much as he dared. His tears rode on the edge of his control.
They sat at the dining table, beautifully constructed out of the unique gray wood. Chet sat in a chair. Dennis sat on the floor with his legs crossed. He got used to constantly being on his knees and stooping to pass through entryways. The builders of the home apparently never expected a human to ever visit.
“Can I ask you something… probably pretty personal?”
“Anything,” Dennis immediately agreed.
“Can you see her? Her… shade?”
The question surprised Dennis for half a second before he began to shake his head back and forth. Chet watched him with a focused gaze. Then Dennis said: “She knows Grandy is safe and you’ll look after her like the lost treasure of Urahmen. She knows my wand is always at your service. There was nothing for her to worry about at the end. It was peaceful, Chet. What came after… not her. She went to her peace.”
Large tears rolled down Chet’s face, yet he looked relieved to Dennis. His head slowly went up and down as he appeared to weigh the words. Throughout the English magical world, many people took Dennis as an expert on ghosts of every variety. His work in helping the spirits at his old school and especially his close friendship with Peeves the Poltergeist, gave people the mistaken impression he understood the secrets of what caused the spirit of a person to remain. Even in the face of all the research he did over the years, Dennis never found out what caused the consciousness of a person to stay when the body passed.
The afternoon passed in relative quiet, even as other elves slipped in to help finalize the funeral plans. Dennis could not form an educated guess as to what the elves would do for a funeral. During their fourteen centuries of slavery, the remains of their dead still got controlled by the magi. Some of the more foul families actually collected the heads of their deceased servants and displayed them on the walls like trophies. The practice, when he learned of it from Hermione Granger-Weasley years before, galled him beyond measure. Thus, Dennis slipped into the background while private discussions took shape.
The next morning Dennis cast the Aurem ad Aurem spell on himself. He explained to Chet what he did in using the translation spell over breakfast, and the elf did not protest. Dennis got a comforting pat on the shoulder. It signaled approval as far as he could tell. To his surprise, Grandiola looked interested in what he stated, but she continue to withhold interaction from him. Her large eyes displayed the depth of her pain. Chet took the momentary conversation to explain they would hold the service at mid-morning, in keeping with ancient elvish traditions. It did not give Dennis much time to make himself presentable before the appointed hour came nigh.
“By blood, earth, sun, moon, tree, and leaf,” Herman, one of the oldest elves Dennis ever met, said and used a familiar elven phrase. “We meet on the green.”
Dennis felt the words twist around in his brain as the aurem spell translated the words. It told him the elvish language itself contained power. As the elves around him repeated the last phrase, it made the inside of his skull feel fuzzy. He wobbled a bit. Rotilda shot him a look from across the assemblage of every elf within the community. They gathered around the mound of the already buried body. By elf tradition, Nedwina got interred deep in the night – away from prying eyes as the elves claimed – and an engraved stone rested above her. He knew Chet and Grandiola witnessed the burial, also in accordance with old elvish customs, along with the leaders of the clan.
“Here we laid to rest Nedwina of the Róvanúr, daughter of the first sun, under the light of the moon. She sits now in the fields of our ancestors, bathed in the true light of the sun, and forever at peace,” Herman continued.
Many of the elves muttered under the breath, and Dennis could feel the magical energy roll past and through him.
“There are no good-byes for us, we who came through the long struggle together. We will join her, all of us, in those fair pastures where the sun shines and the moon gleams in perfect harmony. The grass grows thick, the trees tall, and the leaves plentiful. The smell of flowers and life surround all. It is a promise kept for us who continue. There is no death here… even with those… things, but just what life demands.”
Several elves threw heated, even somewhat hostile glances, at the wizard. He heard the rumor elves believed the undead came about from the meddling of human magi with powers they did not fully comprehend. Dennis could hardly disagree given his history with a Heptagon, Druids, and ancient Roman magi. He accept their scorn with grace.
“Let us now sing lineage of Róvanúr, so that Nedwina may know her place among those who came before her.”
Dennis recalled little of the long song the elves sang. It evoked a power unlike any he ever witnessed. The song forced him to sit as the aurem spell floundered and sent jolts of lighting through his brain as word after elvish word rolled through the air. The man tried to pay attention, but the magic suffusing his body and brain made it a complete battle just to stay conscious. He did, but Dennis figured out he missed nearly all of the calling of the Róvanúr line. It took him almost a minute to refocus once the song finished.
“… good authority Neddy is at peace,” Chet said as he stood and addressed his community. “Grandy and me will go on, like we do, and we’ll never forget. Our blood is hers, and she lives through us. By the sun, by the moon, by everything that lives and grows, Nedwina goes on… and we will miss her until the day we stand on the green with her.”
Most of the elves whispered ‘so it shall be’ as one, and Dennis felt the words leave his mouth as well. It became apparent to him some form of deep and powerful magic got invoked. It commanded him with ease and used the aurem spell. For the umpteenth time the wizard could not fathom how the magi managed to subdue the elves back in the seventh century. He made a mental note to uncover the real history of that war. As the pulse of magic ebbed from him, Dennis saw the service came to a conclusion. Elves began to congregate in small clusters around the grave of Nedwina Róvanúr. It seemed a natural part of the ceremony, as if they included her in their conversations.
“You did good, human,” Herman said to him, and Dennis never saw him approach.
“Ah… thanks,” he answered with more than a little confusion.
Herman, his skin sagging and wrinkled on every part of his carriage, graced the wizard with a quick smile. The elder spoke completely in elvish, and Dennis spoke entirely in English. However, he understood every word and did not feel overwhelmed.
“Those that had to look said it was clean what you did for us. Chet says she’s truly gone over. To be honest, I never though we’d need humans for anything ever again,” the wizened elf intoned.
“It wasn’t a human who came here, sir. You should know how much I loved Neddy… love Grandy and Chet. I was doing for family ‘cause that’s how I think of them,” he rejoined at the unusual accusation in the elf man’s tone.
“Seems to go both ways. Never heard Chet talk about a human like he does you,” Herman intone. “A lot of others who know you from back before the i fírina gave testament about you. You’ll always be welcome here, young human wizard, as I told you before this day.”
“Thank you,” Dennis rejoined with renewed gratitude. “I know Grandy isn’t…”
“She’s young, but she’ll figure it out soon enough,” the elderly elf interjected. “Rotilda says you told her magic makes it only worse when someone survives a bite.”
“Don’t ever apply any magic. It makes the… infection… go crazy. I know there’s a lot of magic built into elves, and that’s why the zed target you so much, but… don’t ever try to use magic to cure it. You can’t.”
Around them the other elves began to disperse. Chet would host a meal, a buffet, brought to him by other elves. Dennis learned they would not speak of Nedwina’s death, but rather talk about what the future would hold and how they would go on. Elves grieved in unique ways that seemed both exceptionally public and private at one and the same time. Herman began to walk away from the grave site as they continued to talk.
“You tried once?”
“Just once. It was so fucking horrific,” the human wizard all but whispered as the memory surged through his brain. “Seconds, Herman, just five or six seconds once I got started, and McCarver just transformed into one of them. I saw his ghost move off. I… have some work to do on that score. I owe it to him.”
“And you never saw Nedwina’s?”
Dennis heard the doubt in the old elf’s voice. As he shuffled through the crisp late winter morning, he surmised Chet already explained what the wizard earlier stated. Apparently, the elf leader wanted to hear it for himself. The human decided to elaborate.
“I don’t know why people turn into ghosts,” he began. “None of the ones at Hogwarts could explain why it happened, except those who’ll talk about it all say they felt they needed to stay for some reason.”
“And the dead lord friend of yours?” Herman expertly queried and displayed knowledge regarding the human wizard’s past.
“We know under extreme circumstances a person’s… consciousness can keep from doing… going wherever it is a mind goes after death. Lord North died under very extreme circumstances, and someone bound his spirit to the school on purpose. I’m still trying to work out how to undo it. But, mostly a person turns into a ghost because they feel… compelled by something in their life they need to set to rights.”
“Nedwina told me some years ago you lost your brother in Voldemort’s war. He did not become a ghost?”
Dennis shook his head and said: “I think when someone dies for a purpose – a cause maybe – they really believe in, then they don’t feel like they need to stick around. I believe they feel their lives are complete. Colin, my brother, loved magic, loved Hogwarts… loved everything about being a wizard. He died defending that. He died feeling complete.”
“And Nedwina?”
“Knows… knew Chet would take care of Grandiola, and that I would help take care of them. She knows… knew this community will look after them, too. She had nothing to fear, nothing to feel like she needed to see to. She was a peace when she died, Herman. It gave her freedom.”
By that point the two wended their way through the grounds stripped bare of underbrush, but with a fine mat of dried leaves. Elf hearing, superior to humans’ in every regard, would easily detect if an undead wandered around the forest. Hence, the rhythmic and steady trod of two sets of legs announced living beings walked under the rope trestles tying the trees together. The zed that attacked and ultimately killed Nedwina used a rare and all but invisible chink in the elven defenses: without legs, the mostly eviscerated animated corpse did not sound like an undead on the prowl.
“You don’t seem too certain, wizard,” the old elf opined.
“I’m not. I don’t know how or even really why it happens. Even the ghosts don’t know,” Dennis again openly confessed. “But from what I’ve observed, what I said seems to be generally true. It’s the best I can offer, and I can say for certainty I never saw Nedwina’s spirit. Didn’t even feel it. She’s gone off to the green, Herman, like you said.”
Herman flashed him another if somewhat cryptic smile. Then he reached over and touched Dennis on the right arm. A wave of magic passed through his limb. Dennis recited the patronus charm in his head and directed it down the same arm. The old elf’s eyes went slightly wide.
“I appreciate what the gesture says,” Dennis said as he watched the elf react.
“We weren’t allowed to speak our feelings, you know?”
The human head nodded.
“You are most unusual, Wizard Creevey, and I always found you oddly likable. Some of us will never trust humans again…”
“And you shouldn’t,” Dennis sternly interrupted. “We’ve still got too many lessons to learn as a race before we can be considered trustworthy. I don’t even trust most humans.”
“And honest, so let me return the favor: some elves dislike you just for being human as you've known all along. It doesn’t matter what you did at Grandiola’s Gladdening Day celebration, you’re still one of them. It won’t be until the next generation, the ones born into true freedom, is free from the controlling magic of humans. We who survived will always look at you as a magical human, and a few will find that reason enough to distrust you.”
“I understand… and it makes sense. I’m… I guess a living symbol of what the elves endured for fourteen centuries. And it took a dark wizard for you to gain your freedom. Sometimes… I can’t get my head around that fact.”
“I never thought of it like that,” Herman quietly intoned, but then he stood up as straight. “But you are welcome here, Wizard Creevey, even though others object to it. You’ve proven to me and the majority who live here of your worth time after time. The service you did for Chet, and for all of us, will not be forgotten. Be welcomed, wizard, and know we share in this sadness together.”
Dennis slowly slipped his wand from the secret pocket in his jacket. Then, he held it before the elf in his two open hands. After bowing his head, he said: “My wand is always at your service, Herman. It’s at the service of all elves who rightly need it.”
When he looked up, Dennis saw the ancient elf staring at the wand. Seconds later, Herman glanced up and stared at the human. The wizard nodded his head and held his hands out a little further. The importance of gesture could not be missed. Herman gently took the wand from his open hands, and Dennis instantly suppressed his instinctive protective reaction.
“I’ve never held a magi wand before,” Herman said as he rubbed his strangely elegant fingers along the length of the wood. “Very… strange thing it is. It’s magical, but somehow empty. I don’t think an elf could ever wield one like a magi.”
With that, he returned the wand to Dennis. The human did not make a rushed show of returning it to the magic-dampening secret slot in his jacket. He met the narrow-eyed gaze of the elf.
“In the old days not so long ago, I would’ve been executed for touching a wand like I just did. Thank you, human.”
“The old days are gone. Almost all the old days are gone. All we have is what’s in front of us, and it’s a lot different than it used to be,” Dennis replied as emotion welled in him. “That… Neddy won’t see it with us…”
“Has happened. We laid her to peace and – and now I think I really know – she waits for us in those hallowed fields. We take the days given to us and do with them as we can. Like you, we elves do not cower from this scourge. We will defend our homes, our lives with everything we have. It does me good to see you continue to join with us in this struggle,” Herman stated with more than a note of finality in his voice. Dennis heard resolve.
The two regarded one another for several seconds. Dennis got the impression he passed another test of sorts in the conversation with the wizened elf. He did not shy away from the fact some elves would see him as nothing more than the face of an enemy who once enslaved them. He refused to hide from the truth of their sentiments. It bolstered Dennis to know he earned the affection, in some cases love, and respect of a number of elves. He felt it forced him to be honest with himself and the history of his kind as much as he could. The friendship with the elves demanded it.
“There was some American who once said either we hang together or we die alone,” he responded. “I spend a lot of time by myself out there, but… I’m still connected to the elves through Grandy. Only death will stop me from answering her call, Herman… and even then I’ll still probably show up. I’ve sworn myself to her, sir, and I meant it.”
“Oh, we know, Wizard Creevey, we know.”
Dennis bobbed his head once. A breeze blew through leaves that somehow remained a pale green throughout the winter. It appeared a perpetual spring resided where the elves chose to inhabit.
“I used to wonder why Chet calls you the strangest damn wizard he knows, and I finally understand what he means. Even were you an elf, you’d still be one of the strangest in existence. I don’t understand how you came to be this way, but rest assured I, at the least, am grateful for your allegiance to us. It seems certain we will all need one another before we see an end to this… plague of the dead. I again accept your pledge for myself and all elven kind.”
Herman bowed to Dennis, and Dennis returned it. The act did not feel subservient on either of their part, but rather respect accorded to one another. The stood upright.
“And, come, join with us while we see to our grief at the passing of one we loved. We will talk of future days, brighter days if we can make them such, and in our communion we will find ease for our wounded spirits. You’ve earned the right to commune with us, Wizard Creevey, and… I think Grandiola will have need of you before you depart.”
“I hope so,” Dennis sighed. “I can’t stand knowing that beautiful girl is upset with me.”
“Chet was so right about you,” Herman said, chuckled, and began to lead Dennis toward the home of his friends.