RICKY ATTANASIO AND THE DISHONOURED WAND - A fanfic by F.P.Barbieri
It was one of the first episodes in Ricky’s life that he was to remember, in a connected fashion, scene after scene and word after word; so that, decades later, he could have given a reasonably accurate account. What had stamped it in his mind - as with a few other episodes then or later - was his father’s wrath. A man of naturally mild temperament, tempered into further softness by the diplomatic requirements of his work as Minister, it was rare that he should lose his control with a bang, and almost unheard-of with strangers; but Ricky saw it happen, and, what is more, feared for a while that he had been the cause of it.
It happened one late autumn afternoon, as Ricky remembered it. He had just been taught some tenets of wizarding manners, including the rule that one knocked on another wizard’s door three times, no more, no less. Anything else was ill-bred. So when he heard three steady, carefully distinct knocks ringing from the oakwood of Castle Montegufo’s main door, he rushed to open it.
A man stood before him whom he had never seen before: a shortish man, dressed in the blue-and-black cape of a wizard lawyer (a dress with which Ricky was familiar from the many official visits to his father) over expensive subfusc robes, bearing out his pale, expressionless face framed by carefully slicked black hair.
“Good evening, young man. Is the Minister at home?”
“He is,” came the voice of Ricky’s father from behind him. As Ricky remembered it later, he could tell even from his voice that his father was furious. “You should not open the door to all and sundry, Ricky.”
“It’s not his fault, Minister. This is a Mandate To Be Heard, filled out in the most proper form by the Guild of Calligraphers. You cannot deny me audience, so don’t blame the boy.”
Ricky looked at his father nervously. The Minister was clearly holding himself in with great effort, and his brows were bearing down on his eyes in a way that Ricky had never, even after his worst escapades, seen. It took a second - one of the scariest seconds in Ricky’s life - to realize that he was not furious with him, but with the strange lawyer.
“You are not welcome here,” he said distinctly, “and while you are here you will taste neither food nor wine. The man you serve was a disgrace to the family, and we have made it clear what we think of him.” As he said that, he was making his way to the smaller sitting-room, the lawyer and Ricky following him.
“Nonetheless," the lawyer said as he coolly sat down in an armchair, "he was never expelled from the lists of the House of Attanasio. Perhaps because he was, for a while, a power in the Muggle world, and even the mighty House of Attanasio found it convenient to have a friend at Muggle court - so to speak.”
“Don’t you dare make this an issue of our behaviour! The Field-Marshal was a mass murderer, a traitor, the friend of tyrants and monsters. He should have been shot, and his body exposed to the mob to kick and abuse. Or hanged, and then burned and the ashes scattered away. We reject him utterly.”
“But he did not reject you.”
“That does not matter.”
“It does to me. I am the writer and executor of his last will and testament, and one of its provisions involves you and the House of Attanasio.”
The lawyer was silent for a second, and then stared straight into the Minister’s eyes. “You do realize that a wizarding testament is an Unbreakable Magical Contract, don’t you?” And Ricky, who had been following the exchanges with his heart in his mouth, felt the earth tremble softly beneath his feet. Ricky’s father stood quietly, as though nothing had happened, and then said: “Speak.”
“According to the last will and testament of my client, the Field-Marshal, his wand - the magical one, not his Field-Marshal’s stick - was to be delivered back to you once he was dead, to be kept in the Treasury of Wands according to the usage and precedent of the House of Attanasio. The Field-Marshal was conscious that his power was little above a Squib’s, but he had had reason to be grateful to be a wizard and an Attanasio in his career, and he felt that the wand might yet help another such in the future.”
“What our friend means, Ricky,” said the Minister in a frozen voice, “is that, although this monster was not strong enough to be a villain among wizards, he used the power he had to deflect any thought of punishment or prosecution from himself. While his accomplices went to the gallows or to life in jail, he lived on in a long an happy retirement.”
“I would not say he was happy.”
“Never as unhappy as his victims beneath the desert sands.”
“If you insist. Sir, I demand that you accept this wand according to the custom and precedent of the House of Attanasio.”
For a second, the Minister said nothing. Then a grim smile spread slowly across his face. He said distinctly: “Is that how you make your demand? That I should accept the wand according to the traditions and precedent of the House of Attanasio?”
“How else would I say it, sir?” answered the lawyer, but Ricky could see that suddenly he was unsettled. “So says the Mandate To Be Heard,” and he held it out, and the Minister read it.
“Now pay attention, Ricky, and maybe one day this will be useful to you too. A tradition is something that is done regularly, like the Attanasio Festival of Wands. A precedent, however, is something that may have happened as little as once, but it has happened and was not challenged. So-o-o-o…”
Ricky’s father stretched out his arm, wand out, and called sharply: “Accio papyrus of the sons of Isidore!” A soft hiss was heard, and a very ancient, battered-looking scroll flew into his left hand.
“In the year of the Consuls Dalmatius and Xenophilus, year 1087 from the founding of the City, year of the Lord 333, Lucius Antaeus Serapion son of Lucius Antaeus Isidorus died in his estate in the nome of Aphroditopolis in Egypt. He had been the head of the family when the dreadful time of the persecutions was going on. His successor as head of the house was his brother Lucius Antaeus Athanasius - yes, Ricky, the one we from whom we take our name.
“The two brothers had lived through the dreadful time of the great Diocletian persecution, and Athanasius had not been impressed by the behaviour of his brother. Serapion had personally led murder mobs to slaughter and dismember Christians, had sent women and children to the mines, and had gorged himself on confiscated properties till he was one of the richest landowners in the east of the Empire. And when the Christians had won at last, he had not only survived the following clean-up, he had managed to impose one of his creatures as Bishop and been protected from any retribution. Only his brother had dared denounce him in public.
“Serapion eventually died of a foul disease - as many people did in that dirty time - and his brother came to claim his property. The estate and the nome were full of the friends of Serapion, and Athanasius knew that; but the Emperor was his friend, and he went to his brother’s estate with a detachment of legionnaires to keep him company. His reputation as a wizard did not hurt either.
“There, before Serapion’s great villa, Athanasius had a mighty funeral pyre built, and placed his brother’s body on top. No Christian priest was allowed near the body; Serapion’s puppet Bishop had been given the honour of a guard of legionnaires, who went everywhere with him, and it was while surrounded by them that he saw Athanasius set fire to the pile of wood and precious ointment.
“Then, standing grimly with his back to the burning hulk, back-lit by the raging fire, Athanasius drew out a register of his brother’s property and spoke an ancient verse aloud: Behold, Lord, the half of my goods I give to the poor; and if I have taken any thing from any man by false accusation, I restore fourfold.” He then said: I have here a list of all the properties that were got by malice from their previous owners in the evil days. Every legitimate claimant and heir to them will have them restored, and where no claimant can be found, they shall be given to the Church, on one condition -“ and he looked to where Serapion’s miserable puppet Bishop stood surrounded by soldiers - “that the current Bishop resign, and another one be appointed by the people.” Serapion’s friends could only stand and glower as people rushed to Athanasius with old papyri and every kind of what had thus far been worthless tokens of stolen property. He methodically referred them to his secretaries.
“Finally Athanasius stood up and turned to the still-burning pyre. Everyone fell silent for everyone knew that something final was about to happen. He drew from his clothes a piece of wood that everyone recognized - Serapion’s wand, in the shape of an ankh. He raised it and spoke:
‘ “From time out of mind our ancestors have handed down their staffs of office to the family when they died, and the head of the family kept them in trust till the next generation should claim them. But I, who am now the head of our family and clan, declare that I no longer wish this wand, tainted as it is, handed down to our children and to their children. Let it fall out and away from my house for ever, following my brother to any fate that awaits him!”
“And the broke the wand in two (everyone could hear the crack) and tossed the pieces on his brother’s funeral pyre.
“There was a roar, and the flames seemed to redoubled in fury and heat. Serapion’s body, which had still been visible on top of the pile of wood, vanished in a whirl of fire. People moved back and back - Athanasius less than anyone, but even he had to withdraw - till a space like a great city square had been cleared around the burning bulk. And there they stood until the fire began to die down, and the remains of the pyre to fall in on themselves. Nobody stood near Lucius Antaeus Serapion, prefect and decenarius, on his last journey, not even his brother.
“This is the precedent of the House of Attanasio, Mr.Attorney,” said Minister Attanasio as Ricky shook himself, as if he had just awakened from a dream. “It is a precedent indeed: it is from Lucius Antaeus Athanasius that we draw our name. And I would that it had been applied more often, for not all of the wands in our treasury are clean. But it will be applied this time. By my two authorities, as Head of the House of Attanasio and as Minister of Magic in Italy, I declare Field-Marshal Graziano expelled from the House, and break his wand -“ he forced it, and it broke with a tremendous report - “and assign it to the flames.” The two pieces flew from his hand.
The ancient domestic chimney that had shed a pleasant, comfortable light over the room ever since the lawyer had forced his way, seemed suddenly to shake and twist. The fire multiplied almost with the strength of an explosion, and grew intolerably white, roaring across the chimney’s whole face and up the flue. Minister Attanasio drew his wand and kept it steadily pointed at the chimney, occasionally speaking a few Words of Comfort, till the rage had died down and the fire had been reduced to a pile of reddish ashes. He summoned a house-elf to replenish the fire, since it seemed to risk going off altogether; and, without a word, he saw the lawyer off the premises.
…………………………………………………….
Ricky was seven when he heard this story. He was thirteen when he read the rest; about both to get his final wand from the Attanasio treasury, and to start studying History at school. He and all his fellow-students were looking forward to that eagerly, for the Headmaster himself was going to give the lessons, and everyone expected something wonderful. His previous classes had whetted their appetite.
So Ricky thought of that story, and asked his father for it. His father looked at him rather strangely, but he handed over a textbook without demur. And Ricky found out that there was a lot more to be told - and a lot worse. The story did not end happily, if indeed it ended at all. Athanasius had acted with the help and support of the Emperor; but that Emperor died on that same year, and his successor had little time or interest in Athanasius’ issues. In his reign, the Christian Church broke in two between Catholics and Arians; and the Bishop chased out by Athanasius discovered in himself a firm Arian faith - and came back to the nome as Arian claimant. Athanasius had had nothing to do with the nomination of a Catholic’ Bishop, beyond expelling Serapion’s creature; but he was reckoned as his man, and so some of Serapion’s friends fed him to the crocodiles, and stood watching as he died. (This gave Ricky nightmares for weeks). Athanasius was forced to flee to far-away Phrygia and make his home among the mountains - from there, four centuries later, his descendants made their way to Constantinople, to help the Empire in its worst ever crisis. Chaos and vengeance seized the nome, as the ownership of every bit of land became a matter for litigation and murder; it took more than fifty years for peace of a sort to settle down over an exhausted region.
The questions planted in Ricky’s mind by this discovery haunted him for years.