The Prophecy Demanded A Union of Four Enemies; Their Bodies Were The Sacrifice

The dust in the Unnumbered Chamber tasted of millennia. It was a dry, mineral scent, the smell of forgotten things and magic left to curdle in the dark. For centuries, the chamber had been sealed by spells so potent they made the air around the door feel thin and sharp, like a blade against the throat. Today, they had finally broken them.

Two Unspeakables, their grey, featureless robes doing little to hide their tension, stood before a simple obsidian plinth. Upon it rested not a swirling glass orb, but a flat, black tablet, smooth as a frozen lake and colder than stone had any right to be. It seemed to drink the light from their wands, leaving them in a pocket of profound gloom.

"It's not emitting anything," whispered Podmore, his voice tight. "No magical signature, no aura. It’s just… there."

His partner, Croaker, a man whose face was a roadmap of arcane accidents, reached out a gloved hand. He hesitated, his fingers trembling an inch from the surface. "The seals were Old Kingdom. Pre-Merlin. Whatever this is, it wanted to stay hidden." He finally let his fingers touch the obsidian.

The moment he did, the runes carved into the tablet’s surface blazed with a sickly, green-white light. The light wasn't cast outward; it burned inward, a contained fire that illuminated the glyphs from within. Both men flinched back, hands flying to their wands, but the tablet remained inert on its plinth, the words now searingly clear. It was not a language either of them knew, yet the meaning poured directly into their minds, a violation of thought and sense. It was a prophecy, stark and brutal, without the usual poetic ambiguity.

When the Void starves the root, the world will scream for its unmaking.

The words came with a phantom sensation of cold, a creeping emptiness that seemed to leech the warmth from their bones. They saw a vision, quick as a blink: a wave of absolute nothingness rolling over the landscape, not destroying, but simply un-creating, leaving a silent, grey blankness where life had been.

Only the four pillars can bear the sky anew.
The Architect of Light, whose grand design brought shadow.
The Conqueror of Death, who would rule the ash.
The Scholar of Lore, whose mind is the sharpest blade.
The Zealot of Blood, whose devotion is a burning brand.

Podmore gasped, stumbling back a step. The archetypes were terrifyingly obvious. There was no room for interpretation, no wriggling free of the implications. The Architect who cast a long shadow could only be one man. The Conqueror, another. The Scholar… they had one of their own who fit that description so perfectly it made his stomach clench. And the Zealot… Merlin’s balls, the Zealot was still rotting in a cell in Azkaban, wasn’t she?

Croaker remained transfixed, his face pale, his mind absorbing the final, horrifying lines.

Their union, an alchemy of flesh and will, shall mend the fissure or shatter the last stone.

Alchemy of flesh.

The phrase was obscene. It was not a metaphor for a magical alliance or a joining of purpose. The ancient magic was blunt, agricultural, carnal. It spoke of bodies. Of a physical, sexual union. The thought was so repulsive, so fundamentally wrong, that Croaker felt a surge of nausea. The four pillars. Dumbledore. Voldemort. Hermione Granger. Bellatrix Lestrange. United in flesh. The concept was beyond madness; it was a cosmic joke of the cruelest kind.

"No," Podmore breathed, shaking his head. "It can't mean… it can't."

"It means exactly what it says," Croaker said, his voice hollow. The light in the runes faded, leaving the tablet cold and dead once more. The knowledge, however, remained branded into their minds. "The old magic is not subtle. It doesn't care for our morals." He turned away from the plinth, his movements stiff, as if he'd aged a century in a minute. "Record it. Every word. Send it to the Minister. Immediately. God help us all."

The Minister for Magic’s office was usually a place of controlled, quiet power. Tonight, it felt like a crypt. Kingsley Shacklebolt stood by the vast window, not looking at the rain-slicked London street below, but at the reflection of the obsidian tablet sitting on his mahogany desk. It seemed to absorb the room’s warmth, a black hole in the heart of the Ministry. He had read the Unspeakables’ report three times, and each time the words felt more like a death sentence.

He had resisted this for hours. Calling the man back from his hard-won peace felt like a desecration. But the phantom cold he’d felt just reading the report lingered in his marrow. The world was screaming for its unmaking. He had no choice. He turned from the window, strode to his fireplace, and threw a pinch of Floo powder into the embers. The flames roared green.

“Godstow Nunnery, Guest Cottage,” he said, his deep voice tight and clipped. He waited, his jaw clenched.

Moments later, the flames billowed higher, and Albus Dumbledore stepped out, brushing soot from robes that were simpler and more muted than Kingsley remembered. He looked older. The years since the final battle had settled into the lines around his eyes, and the familiar twinkle was dimmed, replaced by a quiet weariness. He leaned more heavily on his cane than he once had.

“Kingsley,” he said, his voice calm, but his gaze was sharp, immediately assessing the suffocating tension in the room. “I trust this isn’t a social call. I was just getting to the bottom of a rather fascinating argument between two gnomes about property lines.”

“I wish it were,” Kingsley said, gesturing to the chair opposite his desk. “Sit, Albus. Please.”

Dumbledore moved to the chair, his eyes falling on the black tablet. He said nothing, merely waited, his old power a dormant volcano beneath the placid surface of a retired academic. Kingsley slid a piece of parchment across the desk. It was Croaker’s direct transcription and interpretation of the runes.

“It was unearthed this morning. From a sealed chamber in the Department of Mysteries. The magic on the door was pre-Gringotts.”

Dumbledore picked up the parchment. As he read, the weariness fell away from him like a shed cloak. The quiet old man vanished, and in his place sat the wizard who had twice faced down a Dark Lord. His back straightened. The air in the room grew thick and heavy with his focus. He read the prophecy once, then a second time, his lips a thin, bloodless line. He set the parchment down with unnerving gentleness.

“The Void,” Dumbledore murmured, looking at the tablet. “Anti-magic. An ontological threat. I’ve only read of such concepts in the most forbidden texts.” He looked up, his blue eyes no longer twinkling but blazing with cold, hard intellect. “The archetypes. You’ve identified them.”

It wasn’t a question. Kingsley nodded, his throat dry. “The Architect of Light, whose grand design brought shadow,” he recited, his voice flat. He met Dumbledore’s gaze without flinching. “There is only one man whose plans, however well-intentioned, cast a shadow long enough to birth a Tom Riddle. It’s you, Albus.”

Dumbledore accepted the statement with a slow, solemn nod. There was no argument. The weight of his own history was a burden he had carried for a century.

“The Conqueror of Death,” Kingsley continued, the name a foul taste in his mouth. “Voldemort.”

“And the Scholar?” Dumbledore asked, his voice dangerously quiet.

“A mind of unparalleled sharpness, dedicated to lore, currently a senior Unspeakable with the highest clearance in the very department that found this.” Kingsley felt a pang of profound regret. “Hermione Granger.”

A flicker of pain crossed Dumbledore’s face, sharp and deep. He had sent that brilliant, brave girl to war once. This was worse. “And the Zealot?”

“There is only one whose fanaticism is legendary. Whose devotion to her master is a brand burned into her very soul.” Kingsley took a steadying breath. “We’re arranging her transfer from Azkaban as we speak. Bellatrix Lestrange.”

The four names hung in the air, a litany of impossibility. A hero, a monster, a scholar, and a madwoman. Dumbledore stared at the tablet, his mind clearly racing through a thousand potential strategies, a thousand ways to interpret the text, to find a loophole.

Kingsley knew he had to crush that hope now. He pointed a dark, trembling finger at the last line on the parchment.

“The Unspeakables are certain, Albus. The ancient magic is not poetic. It is literal.” He leaned forward, his voice dropping to a harsh, raw whisper. “It doesn’t say alliance. It doesn’t say truce. It says ‘union.’ An ‘alchemy of flesh and will.’ They believe… they are certain… it requires a physical joining. A sexual one. All four of you.”

The silence that followed was absolute. It was heavier than stone, deeper than any grave. Dumbledore did not move. He did not speak. He simply stared at the prophecy, the full, obscene weight of its demand settling upon him. The fate of the world rested not on a battle of wands, but on a monstrous, unthinkable act of violation and surrender in a bed. He closed his eyes, and for the first time since Kingsley had known him, Albus Dumbledore looked utterly and completely defeated.

Deep within the silent, climate-controlled levels of the Department of Mysteries, Hermione Granger worked. Her office was a stark contrast to the Minister’s opulent chamber above; it was a place of function, filled with floating holographic runes, stacks of carefully cataloged scrolls, and the faint, clean scent of old parchment and ozone. For years, this sterile sanctuary of knowledge had been her refuge, a place where the chaos of the world could be distilled into patterns, languages, and theories. Here, she was not the Golden Girl, not a war hero. She was Unspeakable Granger, a mind valued for its singular, ruthless sharpness.

Before her, suspended in the air, shimmered fragments of runic code. They were ancillary finds from the chamber Croaker’s team had breached—shards of a shattered ward stone that had flaked off the main tablet’s plinth. While the primary team focused on the monolith, the secondary debris had been routed to her. It was her specialty: piecing together the echoes of magic, the footnotes of cataclysms.

Her fingers moved with practiced grace, not touching, but guiding the flow of shimmering data with minute gestures. The language was proto-Gobbledygook, with an etymological root she suspected was tied to the magic of the earth itself. It was exhilarating. A thrill shot through her as a key cipher fell into place, and a string of glyphs resolved into legible, if archaic, English.

…the Architect of Light, whose grand design brought shadow…

Hermione paused, her brow furrowing. It was poetic, but the implication was clear. Dumbledore. A familiar ache, a mix of love and old resentment, stirred in her chest.

…the Conqueror of Death, who would rule the ash…

A cold knot formed in her stomach. There was no ambiguity there. The title was as distinctive as his snake-like face. Voldemort. The name alone was a physical thing, a memory of terror that made the back of her neck prickle.

She pushed the feeling down, forcing herself back into the intellectual puzzle. More fragments clicked into place, the magical script weaving itself together at her command.

…the Scholar of Lore, whose mind is the sharpest blade…

She froze. Her own breath caught in her throat. A cold, narcissistic part of her recognized the description instantly, even as every instinct screamed in denial. No. It couldn't be. She was a researcher, not a pillar of cosmic destiny. But the prophecy’s logic was relentless. If the first two were Dumbledore and Voldemort, then the Scholar…

Her hand began to tremble. She ignored it, forcing her focus onto the final archetype, her heart hammering against her ribs with a sick, frantic rhythm.

…the Zealot of Blood, whose devotion is a burning brand…

Bellatrix Lestrange.

The name was a curse. It was the shriek of a curse, the searing agony of the Cruciatus, the phantom sting of a cursed blade carving into her flesh. Unconsciously, Hermione’s left hand went to her right forearm, rubbing the smooth, healed skin where the word ‘Mudblood’ had been gouged into her. The scar was gone, vanished by the finest healing magic, but it was still there. A brand. A permanent part of her.

A wave of nausea washed over her. Dumbledore. Voldemort. Herself. Bellatrix. What fresh hell was this? What prophecy could possibly bind the four of them? It made no sense. It was a quartet of absolute contradiction.

With a final, dreadful surge of will, she linked the last, most corrupted fragment. The glyphs resisted, screeching with a faint, psychic static before snapping into place. The words were not poetic. They were brutally, obscenely clear.

Their union, an alchemy of flesh and will, shall mend the fissure…

Hermione stared.

Alchemy of flesh.

The clinical, analytical part of her mind, the Unspeakable, parsed the phrase instantly. It wasn't a metaphor. Ancient magic, primal magic, was never metaphorical. It was about blood, seed, soil, and bodies. It meant fucking.

The war hero, the girl who had been tortured on a drawing-room floor, finally broke through the scholar’s composure. A choked sound, half-sob, half-gag, escaped her lips. She stumbled back, her chair scraping harshly against the stone floor as she scrambled away from the floating words.

The images flooded her mind, unwanted and violating. Voldemort’s cold, waxy skin against hers. The feral, possessive grip of Bellatrix Lestrange, her mad laughter echoing as she… No.

Hermione’s stomach heaved. She bent over, bracing her hands on her knees, taking deep, shuddering breaths. The air in her perfectly climate-controlled office suddenly felt thick, suffocating, poisoned by the knowledge shimmering before her. It was a violation worse than any curse, a fate more horrific than death. To be bound not just in purpose but in body to her tormentors, to the very monster she had helped defeat and the crazed bitch who had branded her like cattle.

She looked at the words again, her intellectual curiosity now a source of self-loathing. She had wanted to solve the puzzle. She had solved it. And the answer was a fate that would require her to surrender her body, her will, her very self to the people she hated most in the universe. The prophecy wasn't a warning. It was a command. A cosmic rape sentence. And she, the Scholar, was one of its named victims.

The island was a shard of black rock jutting from a grey, churning sea. An ancient truce, brokered by magic far older than either the Ministry or the Dark Lord, held sway here. No offensive spells could be cast. It was a place of parley, a barren stage for impossible conversations. Dumbledore stood by a weathered standing stone, the wind whipping his silver hair and beard, the salt spray cold against his face. He held no wand. He needed none. The tablet containing the prophecy was in a simple leather satchel at his side.

The air tore open with a sharp crack. Voldemort appeared twenty feet away, his black robes billowing around his skeletal frame as if they were made of shadow and malice. His red eyes, slitted and venomous, fixed on Dumbledore. The raw hatred between them was a physical force, a pressure against the eardrums. The ancient magic of the truce pulsed, a silent, heavy blanket smothering the urge for violence that radiated from the Dark Lord.

“Dumbledore,” Voldemort hissed, the sound like grinding bone. “To what do I owe this suicidal whim?”

“There is no whim, Tom,” Dumbledore said, his voice calm and steady against the wind. He reached into his satchel and withdrew the heavy stone tablet, placing it on the flat top of the standing stone between them. “Only a fact. One that concerns us both. Profoundly.”

Voldemort glided closer, his serpentine face contorting in a sneer of contempt. He looked at the ancient runes, his eyes narrowing. His knowledge of archaic magic was as deep, if not deeper, than Dumbledore’s. He didn't need a translation. His long, white fingers, unnaturally spider-like, hovered over the stone, not quite touching it. He read.

Silence stretched, broken only by the crash of waves and the cry of gulls. Dumbledore watched him, his expression unreadable. He saw the flicker of recognition in those red eyes as Voldemort identified the archetypes. The Conqueror. The Architect. He saw the flash of fury, the sheer, undiluted rage at the prophecy’s core demand.

“Union?” Voldemort’s voice was a low, deadly whisper. He looked up from the tablet, his face a mask of disbelief and murderous insult. “Union? With you? With that Mudblood filth Granger and my half-mad servant?” He laughed, a high, cold sound devoid of any mirth. “You are more senile than I thought, old man. You would drag me here to share this… this obscene joke?”

“Look at the ancillary texts,” Dumbledore said, his gaze unwavering. He gestured to the finer script etched around the main prophecy. “Read about the threat. The creeping void. The anti-magic. It is not a story, Tom. It is a diagnosis. Our world has a cancer, and it is terminal.”

Voldemort’s eyes flicked back to the tablet. He read again, his sharp mind absorbing the details of the coming apocalypse. Dumbledore saw the subtle shift in his posture. The rage was still there, a simmering furnace, but it was now tempered by cold, reptilian calculation. Voldemort’s supreme arrogance was predicated on the existence of a world to rule. A void that consumed magic, life, and reality itself was not a kingdom; it was an insult to his very being.

“This void,” Voldemort said slowly, testing the words. “It would consume everything? My followers? My horcruxes? Me?”

“It would unmake reality itself,” Dumbledore stated simply. “There will be nothing left. No one left to fear you, no one left to worship you. No power to wield. Just an endless, silent nothing. Your reign would be over before it truly began, a footnote in a book that no longer exists.”

He let the words sink in. He wasn't appealing to morality. He was appealing to ego. He was presenting Voldemort with the one enemy he could not dominate, intimidate, or kill: utter annihilation.

Voldemort stared at the tablet, at the final, damning lines. An alchemy of flesh and will. The raw, physical meaning was unavoidable. For a long moment, he seemed to be on the verge of shattering the stone with a blast of pure, uncontrolled magic, truce or no truce. But he didn't. Instead, a new look entered his eyes. The rage receded, replaced by a dark, predatory curiosity.

He was beginning to see it not as a demand for surrender, but as a path to a new kind of power. A power born of a forbidden, monstrous act. The idea of forcing a union, of being the dominant force in such an ‘alchemy,’ began to appeal to his perversity. To take Dumbledore, the symbol of all that opposed him, and not just kill him, but use him. To take the brilliant Mudblood who had defied him and not just break her, but make her a component in his ascension. To use his most devoted servant in the manner for which she was truly intended.

The thought was intoxicating. It was a conquest on a level he had never imagined—not of land or people, but of the fundamental laws of magic and nature. To master the flesh and will of his greatest enemy, his most irritating obstacle, and his most fanatical tool.

“A physical joining,” Voldemort murmured, the words tasting strange. He looked at Dumbledore, and for the first time, the hatred in his eyes was mingled with something else. A cold, appraising hunger. He was no longer seeing his old headmaster. He was seeing a component. A necessary ingredient. “This is not a truce, old man. It is a transaction. And I will set the terms.”

Dumbledore met his gaze, the ancient calm in his blue eyes a fragile shield against the predatory intent he saw there. “The terms are not for us to set. They are dictated by the magic itself, and by the necessity of survival.”

“Necessity is the mother of invention,” Voldemort purred, the sound a silken threat. He took a step closer, violating the space between them until Dumbledore could feel the cold radiating from his form. “And I find myself feeling very… inventive. The idea of an alchemy of flesh… to meld my magic, my will, with that of the great Albus Dumbledore… it has a certain appeal. To finally get inside you, old man. To see what breaks first.”

The words were a calculated violation, meant to strip away Dumbledore’s dignity and reframe their lifelong battle as a prelude to a forced, intimate conquest. Dumbledore’s jaw tightened, a flicker of profound weariness crossing his features before being suppressed. He had known this would be the price. “The survival of the world is worth any price.”

“Good,” Voldemort breathed, a triumphant smile twisting his lipless mouth. “I’m glad you see it that way. It will make the transaction so much simpler.” He turned away, his black robes sweeping over the damp stone. “This union requires four. The Architect, the Conqueror…” His red eyes flicked back to Dumbledore, then stared out at the grey sea. “The Scholar. And the Zealot.”

He raised his left arm, the sleeve of his robe falling away to reveal the livid, skull-and-serpent tattoo branded on his pale forearm. He ignored his wand. He didn’t need it for this. With a long, white finger from his other hand, he pressed down hard on the Dark Mark.

The magic that erupted from him was not a spell but a raw command, a shriek of will that tore through space. It was a summons that was part pain, part ecstasy for the one who received it. A jagged crack split the air nearby, and from it stumbled Bellatrix Lestrange.

She landed in a crouch, a wild animal scenting blood. Her black, dishevelled hair flew around her face, her eyes wide with a familiar, feverish madness. She held her crooked wand in a white-knuckled grip, already scanning for a threat, for an enemy to destroy for her master. Her gaze fell upon Dumbledore, and a guttural snarl ripped from her throat.

“You!” she shrieked, raising her wand, a curse already forming on her lips.

“Bellatrix.”

Voldemort’s voice was quiet, almost conversational, yet it struck her with the force of a physical blow. She froze instantly, her body locked in place, the spell dying in her throat. The rabid fury in her eyes was immediately subsumed by absolute, unquestioning adoration as she turned to face him. She fell to one knee, her head bowed low.

“My Lord,” she gasped, her voice trembling with devotion. “You summoned me. I am here. Command me! Let me kill him for you!”

“Stand up,” Voldemort ordered, his tone bored.

She scrambled to her feet, her posture still one of complete subservience, her eyes fixed on him, drinking him in. She was panting slightly, high on the proximity to her master.

“Your devotion is a useful tool, Bellatrix,” Voldemort said, his gaze cold and clinical. “But it will need to be… broadened. The prophecy that governs our immediate future requires your participation.” He gestured dismissively toward the stone tablet resting between him and a silent Dumbledore. “It requires a union. An alchemy of four.”

Bellatrix stared, her brow furrowed in confusion. “A union, my Lord?”

“Indeed.” Voldemort’s lips stretched into that terrible smile again. “Between myself, your Zealot. Between him,” he nodded at Dumbledore, “the Architect. And the Granger girl, the Scholar.”

The name hit Bellatrix like a slap. Her face contorted, a mask of pure revulsion and hatred. “The Mudblood? My Lord, no! She is filth! Unworthy to even be in your presence, let alone—”

“She is a required ingredient,” Voldemort cut her off, his voice dropping to a deadly hiss that made her flinch. He glided towards her, cupping her chin with his cold fingers, forcing her to look at him. “And so are you. The prophecy speaks of an alchemy of flesh and will. A physical joining of the four of us. You will be a part of it. You will offer your body to this cause, just as you have offered your wand and your soul.”

Bellatrix’s eyes widened in horror. The full implication slammed into her. To be joined, physically, with Dumbledore? With the Mudblood? It was a blasphemy beyond comprehension. A wave of revulsion, betrayal, and confusion washed over her face. She looked from her master’s cold, demanding eyes to Dumbledore’s stoic, bearded face, and a tremor ran through her.

But beneath the horror was the bedrock of her being: absolute obedience. Her Lord had commanded it. His will was her reality. If he commanded her to lie with a corpse, with a Mudblood, with the leader of the light, she would do it. Her sanity was a small price to pay for his favour.

Her expression shifted, the conflict draining away, replaced by a stark, terrifying acceptance. The madness in her eyes did not vanish; it simply found a new, horrifying focus.

“As you command, my Lord,” she whispered, the words catching in her throat. “My flesh is yours to use.”

Voldemort released her, satisfied. The three of them stood in a tense triangle on the desolate rock, bound by a prophecy more terrible than any curse. The Conqueror, the Architect, and the Zealot. Awaiting their Scholar.