The Curse of the Eberbachs

by Heather Sparrows and Anne-Li

For disclaimers see the index page.

Part 1: The Curse. 1588.

Sinking into the Atlantic Ocean beyond the horizon, the sun created a spectacle of strong, vibrant colours: brightest yellow, striped by fire orange and circled by fresh blood red that gave way to royal purple clouds over a slowly darkening sky. Below, a mirror image made the sea shimmer like precious stones set in blue jade. The water lay mostly calm, but along the coast line steady waves whipped up pearls of foam to wash over the cliffs.

High above, on a mountain that abruptly ended in a steep cliff overlooking a small fishing village, stood the solitary figure of a tall, blond man. The setting dusk made his robes look pitch black, but in better light they would have glittered in patterns of silver and green. He had shoulder length, flaxen hair; sharp, proud features and eyes so pale blue that they might as well could have been called white. A talented observer, open for things beyond what is commonly known, might have noted that while the man did have black pupils, they were slightly elongated – not quite like a feline's but certainly not round. A ship sailing out from the small port held the man's fixed attention. The El Alcon was a grand ship, captained by the handsomest beast to ever grace the Spanish navy.

"'At dawn'," the blond man hissed. "'Meet me at dawn.' Oh, Tyrian, you faithless bastard, may the kraken squeeze your precious boat to splinters from under you! May the leviathan himself pull you down to your final grave! May Neptune raise and bugger you senseless with his trident rod! 'At dawn!' At dawn we would meet, you said! 'At dawn!'"

His voice rose in strength until he screamed the final words. As if in response a multi-forked lightning bolt momentarily bleached the sunset's colours, followed almost at once by the spreading rumble of thunder so close that the sound made the very air vibrate. A strong gust blew in from the west, whipping in the trees and pushing the man closer to the cliff's edge. "Yes! Thunderbolts to strike you down! Burn you like you burned my heart! No one makes a fool of me unpunished!"

More lightning followed – and more thunder. The flashes of light allowed the man – whose eyes were quick to adjust both to light and darkness – to see the ship more clearly. He also noted a second ship – no, that really was more of a boat – smaller than the first one, which had previously hidden in the semi-darkness. It had just left the shore in the same direction as El Alcon and noticeably had neither lights nor lanterns lit, as if hoping to avoid being spotted. Thomasin – for that was the man's name – spat into the grass. "Your whore still follows you, I see. You toy with him too – you toy with us all! You evil, black-hearted, depraved son of a donkey-loving cow! Burning would be too good for you! Drowning would be too good for you! I'd curse you with leprosy if I could but bear the thought of your lovely skin in ruin!"

A drop of water landed on his high, noble forehead, making him lose his momentum. Rain started falling and the sky quickly darkened. He could still see the ship, especially when the lightning struck, which happened so frequently that the air had taken on a strong, heady smell as if the fumes of Hell had clawed their way to the upper world. "Protego ab aquam," Thomasin said in a somewhat calmer voice. In a small area around him the rainfall ceased. "Everything is too good for you, you fickle-hearted rogue. Would you even know true love if it declared itself to you a thousand times, forsook all others and followed you from one end of the Earth to the other? No, no and no! You would take it, use it and throw it away – like you did me. Or laugh at it in scorn, rejecting it! You have no heart, Tyrian Persimmon! You're a rutting animal, seeking only your own pleasure! But by Merlin, this time you have gone too far! No one toys with the heart of a Slytherin and gets away with it! Oh, yes, a beast you are! A handsome beast for sure, but a beast!"

His right hand moved into his left sleeve, in a movement performed with such practiced ease that he must have made it thousand upon thousand times before. Out came a wand, seven inches long, dwarf birch around a core of basilisk fang. He aimed at the cause of his wrath. "I curse thee, Tyrian Persimmon! [Through to the last of your line: if you have not acknowledged your true love by your thirtieth birthday you will forever remain the beast you have shown yourself to be!]"

The magic, spurred on by both passionate hatred and a twisted kind of furious love, left the wand with such strength that the man stumbled back. A line of pale green – almost Avada Kedavraish in colour – shot towards the departing ship, but was soon lost to the approaching evening, so Thomasin could not see it hit its intended target. With a smug smile and eyes not quite as mad as before, he lowered his arm.

"Arrrre you finnnisssshed now? 'Tsssss coooold ..." a sleepy voice muttered from close to Thomasin's collar bone.

Smiling faintly, he sheathed his wand and reached up to caress the scales of his familiar. "Yes, I do think I am. For now, at least. I'll check up on him later. Hah! That'll be fun. And his son and grandson too, if I can manage it."

"Eggssss?"

"He has a young son, that I know. Just a babe now, of course, but you just wait and see, sweet Ssssaaaaa, he's a rotten egg too, just like his sire. How could he not be, with that blood? No descendants of such a lecherous, lusty man can be anything but blights on humanity, lacking all morals and following in his perverted footsteps! They'll get what's coming to them, every single one of them!"

end part 1.


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