The Gloaming of the Gods

Prologue

1874

The little Bavarian opera house was packed and straining with the hundreds of people waiting to see the fourth and final piece of the composer\'s masterwork. The rise and fall of excited voices was like a steady drum roll, warming up to announce the long anticipated performance.

Albus Dumbledore stood beside his companion for the evening, a rather stout older man with severely thinning hair and jowls, who wheezed before every remark he made. He was quite a master of languages, though, and Albus was staying with him to learn as many as the older wizard could teach him. Always to learn. His thirty-four years had been industriously spent as best as he could judge. He spoke the language of seven types of magical creatures, on top of the eleven different human ones he was fluent in. He had been on every continent at some point, studying the creatures they held, and the ways of their people. There was so much still to find and observe. His brother always asked him why he was never satisfied. Hadn\'t he learned enough, already? Various departments of the Ministry had been clamoring to hire him for years. Countless masters of distinguished fields had offered apprenticeship, research, even partnership with him. He took offers of tutelage, but always moved on when he had learned all that they could teach him. He was said by many to be the most promising talent the wizarding world had seen for centuries.

Don\'t you ever get bored poring over parchments and formulas? Aberforth asked him once.

Bored? he had asked in mild surprise. There\'s never any excuse for boredom in life.

The heavy clouds of perfume and hair pomade were beginning to burn his acutely sensitive sense of smell. He unwrapped a caramel crème and popped it into his mouth as the lights flashed to usher people into their seats. As the composer strode from the wings in pompous strides Albus\'s gaze fell on a pair of spectators to his lower left. A mother and her daughter, judging by the exact shade of hair they shared and the mirrored golden skin that spoke of the Mediterranean. Such pleasant breezes in that part of the world, he reflected.

He watched the little girl, who looked to be five or six, pull on her mother\'s long cape and point excitedly at the instruments tuning up. Something about the way the mother brought her arm up to touch her daughter\'s cheek told him she was a witch. There was a certain fluidity in the movement of a talented witch\'s wand arm. Her rich brown hair hung unbound down her back, too, while the rest of the crowd was filled with elaborate plaits and chignons. Her dress was clearly not the Muggle fashion, yet no one seemed to notice. No one seemed to see them at all, in fact. As though something just beyond them caught the Muggles\' eyes instead. He smiled at the sight of the girl\'s brown, bare feet swinging in ecstatic little circles in front of her. The discarded shoes lay haphazardly under her seat.

The lights finally went out and the curtain came up on stage. The sweep of the music began Die Gotterdammerung. The Dusk of the Gods. The three fates appeared onstage, weaving and measuring the threads of destiny. The beginning of the end.

At some point Albus happened to glance over at the little girl. Her eyes shone, and she held herself absolutely still, rapt at the scene before her. The Ride of the Valkyrie began, and he noticed that she had leaned forward so that her arms rested on the back of the chair in front of her. There was a look on her softly rounded child\'s face that shook Albus to his core. It was as if a secret he could read somewhere deep in his belly. A pain and a stillness, measuring beauty with the sharp spear thrust of despair.

Sharper eyes took in the final battle; the twilight of the deities. The old world, of the gods and goddesses, of awful power and terrible love, of passion and sin is consumed. Burnt up in flames.

For the gods have broken moral law. They coveted power rather than love. Gold rather than truth. Their own pain above the hurt of the world. The desires of themselves over eternity.

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All homage to leogryffin, my wonderful beta. This story is for zagzagael (aka bleodswean) and rilla, who have banded with me to present to the world the true sex god that is Albus Dumbledore. It\'s all about the beard, ladies!! J

A/N:

1. Wagner\'s Ring Opera does have four parts, but The Ride of the Valkyrie is before the final one. Sorry to any die-hard fans of Wagner. I moved it to suit my own evil purposes. The mythology Wagner borrowed from in the creation of his opera is from the Norse Eddas and the legend of the Nibelungen Lied. Die Gotterdammerung is his version of Ragnarok, or the Twilight of the Gods, sometimes translated as \"God\'s Gloaming\".


2. The Valkyrie (\"choosers of the slain\") are warlike virgins mounted on horses, carrying spears. Odin (the god) sends them down to every battlefield to gather dead heroes and carry them to Valhalla (the great hall of Odin).