The Marauders: Year Seven Part Two

The Blood of Calchus

"My Mother and Father had long made a spectacle of their Sight," Mopsus began, his voice rasping and low as he leaned his weight into the knotted cane. James and Lily stood before him, transfixed into silence.

"In those days, the era was young and the world was dusty and many wars were raged for power. Kings sought answers from the seers - would their kingdoms rise or fall, would their names be recalled in the days to come, which land should they seek to conquer next. Seers were much in fashion, you might imagine, and they flocked forth from the shadows of every township, oracles of all sorts, seeking employment by the rich and seeking power that can only be obtained when one has the skill set to manipulate a man who is richer than he...

"My father, Octavius Mopsus was one such man. He worked in smoke and mirror, in predictions that could easily be made with a bit of logic and invention. He rose to the top - a man of great fame throughout the islands of the Mediterranean. Kings came to him and bowed down before him, requesting of him their fortunes, which the good Seer sold them for a pretty penny and a promise to be remembered should the day come in whence his predictions had come to pass. His wife, my mother Agatha, she, too, dealt in such ways, supplementing their income as seers with potions and amulets, charmed for various moods and influencing powers. She was a witch, you see, and he a wizard, ours was one of the eldest wizarding family names.

"I was born blind - of vision and of Sight. It pained my mother and father, a disgrace on the name of Mopsus. And so I was kept from society, hidden away where the world could not harm me, nor could I harm the family name. I was coddled by my mother, and forgotten by my father. A squib, they called me, and I was treated by them and my brother as though I were a broken toy, something to be pitied. It was a role I felt destined to play, and fell into with the resignation of one who knows no better, who has no options. Without even my eyes, I could not hope to be anything except at the mercy of the family who thought me useless and treated me as though my purpose in life was to be purely ornamental.

"I had no interest in the family 'business' anyway - they were peddlers of deception and manipulation, not true Seers. Their racket was made up from the reactions of the people as they spoke, bending and twisting, speaking in riddles that were indecipherable and could be applied to most anything. The art of taking advantage of a coincidence was in them, as it had been for generations of the Mopsus line. Not a true Seer among them, it turns out.

"But in this time when the gift of the Sight was so feverishly sought out, so handsomely paid, there arose others who claimed the gift, who used tricks similar to my family's, so that the trade was more and more commonplace. My father had to work thrice as hard to bring about the things which he predicted, in order to rebuild his authenticity, in order to stay in good spirits with the king whom he was employed by.

"But then there came a man with power in his sights, a man who would halt at no lengths to rise up. Asidius Calchus was his name, and he had a very, very ugly countenance, a bad temper, and a ruthless spirit. He thirsted for blood - and read entrails as his fortune telling medium, slaughtering goats and prisoners to read from."

Lily had her face pressed into James's shoulder at this. "Oh dear," she murmured.

James's face was twisted with disgust. "Reading entrails? Well bloody hell they never taught us that in Divination at Hogwarts."

"And thank gods for that," Lily said.

Mopsus shook his head, "No, Hogwarts would not delve into such dark magic - but at Durmstrang and many other schools they would train you on rabbits and other small creatures of that kind." He paused, "No, Hogwarts steers students far from the dark arts of that nature... Though this was long before any of the wizarding schools yet existed. Witches and wizards were trained up under mentors in those days, or else learned from books what they needed to know about the craft. The statute of secrecy had not yet been enforced, and magic was no secret from the muggle world."