My Main Character

The Fool as he dances with Death fears not
the Hermited Raven and his Tower's Lot;
As Strength and Justice demand recompence,
The Devil and Lovers laugh at these mere mortals' expense.

The Moon may rise with the Star at her side,
Death's Judgement she brings with Temperance aligned;
For the Sun was blinded by the Devil's hand,
and the Fool, one with Death became he in last stand.

Still perhaps though can hope in the Wheel be found,
Temperance's lot and mediator's brow;
To shatter the curses of the past and of fates ahead,
Eluding the Chariot's net, that Empress of dread.

Hanged once and again, though not completely Dead,
The Tower has its fun with the Hermit outspread
Upon Fate's altar, both bound and yet freed,
By the heir he has sired, for whom without thought would he bleed.

Skeletons in the Closet

28 December, 1994

It should have come as no surprise that I have finally discovered all that I have in this short period of time, and yet I find myself repulsed. Even if we were to begin such assessments with the knowledge that my glass lens of this world was supposed to be not only clouded but also fractured and warped, melted by the heat and pressure of the things that I was taught in early years before I had taken pains to enlarge the scope of my view beyond Sight itself, then we would only progress towards the further evils and sins that this damned house is founded upon. These things that are supportive of the very bones of this family, that demonstrate only their endless cruelties and obsessions with those things that they prize most...

There always was a reason, I suppose, that curious children were not permitted to enter the attic, why the East Observatory was sequestered off, why the West Waterfront decomposes as it does now with rust and rubble, and why Ercole is frightened into silence by the rest of the ghosts and by the members of our family still living. It would be better for all to crumble, to fall. If I could will the foundations of this mansion to collapse upon me, upon my lineage at this very moment, I would will it. Let us meet our ends as the Ushers, let the last cry of sanity come from me in the moments before I too lose my mind.

If I had brothers, if I had cousins, I would not be permitted to speak, to write, in this way. Indeed, if I did have fellow brothers, fellow cousins, my name and face too would be scratched out and torn apart by their hands so as to erase my existence just as Ercole, just as the nameless children and the lost Chiadovini buds--I will have never existed both in name and in vision. By nature of my rarity, by nature of the whim of pure luck that I am their only inheritor, may I speak as a heretic in this way.

So I shall take what I am given. I shall act where I can. I shall do what I can. I have known for a while, perhaps too long without taking measures, but now I am ready to act in full. I am prepared to finally take motions to achieve the ends I do wish to see, and to do it in a way that would make this lineage proud at that. To kill those demons, must not their own slay them? A fitting end, a poetic justice.

I am only sorry that my inaction up to now has now caused others to be drawn into this whirlpool of madness. But, if I have anything to say about it, I shall free her from Charybdis. She will go to whom she desires most.

I avow it.

Death

Reducio'd for ENORMOUS Spoilers [I mean serious spoilers], do not read if you wish to see my intended plot unfold naturally.

Home Away From Home

The magician sighed as he sat down on his trunk. He had nestled himself soundly in the tree fork, and was now admiring the setting sun as it fell beneath the Northern European horizon. It was brisk this time of the year, brisk because the chill of winter was coming. He wasn't dressed warm, per say, but he was warm enough.

He would hit town the next day, and then maybe he would finally get hot food and perhaps some shelter in a gazebo where he would perform for some spare change. Blowing into his hands and rubbing them harshly, emerald eyes squinted into the light, watching orange turn to dark red and then into indigo. A light smile graced his features, lifting his curly moustache into a second smile. Fresh air only slightly polluted by the faintest smog... this was the way to live. Free, without a bind, without really anything to worry about other than where he would shelter and when he would get his next meal. And of course his brother was in Italy. If things went tail-end up he could always find a home there, he was sure.

But oh how much happier he was to be on the road, in the elements... nothing between him and his open road. A home away from his Italian home, if one would. A home that always kept moving, a home that was uncertain in all the most beautiful ways. The people he met, the things he experienced... It was always a new adventure.

As cold hands shuffled the deck of cards with faces and names on them that he had come to know so well, the moon rose behind and the sun rested before. Oh... how he loved it. Oh how he loved to be alive.

IC Item in Trunk

It was still the same voice, the Wandmaker reflected, even after all these years...

Facing the Darkness

It was a terrible sight, this... this thing that was now undulating and unfolding itself before the boy's eyes. It was familiar, oh yes. Very, very familiar it was; but it was also so dark and so twisted, a terrible sight even despite its once-familiarity from those few years ago when he had met his Boggart for the very first time.

Still snakish, still sinuous as he remembered with limbs that were to flexible, with a body and limbs that seemed too long to be natural. It loomed, it slunk, and it contorted like a demented puppet whose strings were no longer useful to control it. A wide smile that bared fangs grinned and a single green eye glowered with an unearthly gleam. The other eye, though, was now pitch black, obscured with a leather patch. Its hair, while the boy's in nature only by factor of curl and texture, was now blonde. It was just like... his.

A terrible hybrid, an awful merging of two that were so similar that they did appear to bleed into one another in appearance and in psyche. It leered towards the boy, strings cut with head lolling and with the lopsided gleam of the emerald eye ever-present. Glowing, glimmering, as if to say:

'Did you miss me?'

Graduation

30 June, 2026

In a twinkling, the young man had climbed on top of the table and immediately started to kick the goblets and plates away from the immediate vicinity of his feet. With a raucous laughter of reckless abandon, the glimmering green eyes of the graduated man sought out target after acceptable target, punting entire towers of fruit and pitcher of pumpkin juice with glee and the knowledge that now that the end of the road was here at last, there was no more need for stuffy presentation or care. Celebratory this event was, after all, the last day in which the students of the graduation class of 2026 would be forced to remain within the halls of this castle and the closed-minded ideals that it held.

Freedom was out there, out there waiting for the boy who started to dance a vivacious tarantella complete with his gilt-stringed mandolin, still kicking away those unfortunate meal fragments, goblets, cutlery, and plates that just so happened to fall beneath his feet. As he danced and cajoled this way and that, he sang out loud at the top of his voice the ballad that most certainly could encapsulate his feelings on his experience here at the Pig-School:

"Off the plate and into the hand,
Slap the fatty reveler with your fishy tail!
Whap-smack! And blamma-whamma-boom!
Put the apple in the mouth of Hoggies for good!

Porkied pig turned around and round on the spit,
Out of the pan and into the fire pit!
Cause a little chaos, make a little noise!
What's the worst they'll do? Expel us?! Oh boy!

Let's get as far as we can from this place,
Before they catch us again and force us our tests to retake!
The ball and chain of Hoggie's halls,
I'm crying, screaming, vomiting for another NEWT fail!

Congrats to the passing class, we're the ones who survived,
Don't worry little ones, your times as well will one day arrive!
I'll watch my tongue, I'm not in the mood to be crass;
but as far as I'm concerned, this school can kiss my~"

And he proceeded to flaunt the object of the rhyme in a mocking wiggle before laughing wildly once more, ready for the worst that the administration could give to him now. It was just too funny. A perfect end to a perfect seven years of schooling indeed.

Tenūsa, Isle of Divination

The curious boy had two most curious patchwork eyes, one in a dark slate grey and the other an odd light lilac like silver that had just a bit too much violet and not enough argent in it. His hair was a dirty blonde, but that was mostly because of the twigs and leaves and dirt that was in it, and his pearly white smile stuck out against a healthily golden tan that attested to many sunburns and hours out in the plain daylight.

Yet most curious of all were the strange and violently red crisscrossing marks on both of his legs that climbed up even into his trouser legs. He had similar marks on his hands. They were quite obviously scars, that much was certain, but how vibrant and angry crimson they were, almost as if they were recent somehow...! In those scarred hands he held an enormous black funnel spider, which he was showing off happily to anyone not immediately terrified by the size of the arachnid or its seemingly 'salivating' fanged chelicerae.

In Character Family

The Marchonnés: A family name previously unheard of before the year 2015, the Marchonné family claims to have hailed from Italy but seems to have found roots both in Italy and in the area of northern Europe. They do not appear to have any other children thus far, but have been known to 'adopt' several squires under their wings instead, teaching them the way of magic as the child's home situation may be what others consider to be 'dire'. There is some speculation that the Marchonné are in some way related to the Veros, but such claims have failed so far to find substantiation. As of [REDACTED], Pierré Marchonné was [REDACTED], and Romeo Marchonné's last known location and place of residence is in Florence, Italy. This family is related to the [REDACTED] family, members of [REDACTED], and are to have a close eye kept on them because of it.

See: Pierré Marchonné, Romeo Marchonné, Valentin Schnell, [REDACTED] and [REDACTED] [REDACTED], as well as Gitano Luca Vero.

The Veros: An ancient family tracing its lineage back to ancient Rome in the Italian Peninsula and Sicily, the earliest records of this family came from around 218BC, though it is likely that earlier records of this family have been lost. Today this family has fallen out of regard of the Pureblooded eye and keeps politely to itself. In 2024, two of the six remaining sons of Marius were known to have children, and the whereabouts of one of the sons--Gitano Luca Vero--remained unknown. However, rumors have said that he has been seen about Northern Europe, indicating there may be a relation between himself and the [REDACTED] family, which claims to be related to the Marchonnés. Gitano Luca Vero, as of [REDACTED], has [REDACTED].

The [REDACTED]s: Appearing in the year 2026, the [REDACTED]s are most infamed for [REDACTED]'s formation of [REDACTED] around the year 2034 when it came to the attention of public eye. Related to the Marchonné family, [REDACTED] has claimed that [REDACTED] was formed in response to the event of [REDACTED]. Today the [REDACTED]s are actively hunted by Hitwizard and Auror forces and deemed a modern terrorist threat to the wizarding world's way of life.

Anyone with any information on the whereabouts or the missions of [REDACTED] will be paid 100 galleons and offered the assistance of witness protection services for themselves and their loved ones for their assistance.