The tale of three friends

There were once three friends who were traveling along a lonely, winding road at twilight. In time, the friends reached a river too deep to wade through and too dangerous to swim across.. However, these friends were learned in the magical arts, and so the first friend waved his broken wand and made a potato. You see, that friend was kind of stupid. So the nerdy girl, after correcting her friend on the good way cast the spell, took out her wand with attitude and made a bridge appear across the treacherous water. They were halfway across it when they found their path blocked by a hooded figure.

And Death spoke to them. He was angry that he had been cheated out of three new victims, for travelers usually drowned in the river. But Death was cunning. He pretended to congratulate the three friends upon their magic and said that each had earned a prize for having been clever enough to evade him.


So the Ginger, who was a stupid man, asked for a wand more powerful than any in existence: a wand that must always win duels for its owner, a wand worthy of a wizard who had conquered Death! So Death crossed to an elder tree on the banks of the river, fashioned a wand from a branch that hung there, and gave it to the fool.


Then the second friend, who was as arrogant as his father, decided that he wanted to humiliate Death still further, and asked for the power to recall others from Death. So Death picked up a stone from the riverbank and gave it to the friend with messy hair, and told him that the stone would have the power to bring back the dead.


And then Death asked the third and cleverest friend what he would like. The smart ass girl was the humblest and also the wisest of the friends, and she did not trust Death. So she asked for something that would enable her to go forth from that place without being followed by Death. And death, most unwillingly, handed over his own Cloak of Invisibility.

Then Death stood aside and allowed the three friends to continue on their way, and they did so, talking with wonder of the adventure they had had, and admiring Death’s gifts. In due course the friends separated, each for his own destination.

The first one traveled on for a week or more, and reaching a distant village, sought out a fellow wizard with whom he had a quarrel. Naturally with the Elder Wand as his weapon, he could not fail to win the duel that followed. Leaving his enemy dead upon the floor, the first friend proceeded to an inn, where he boasted loudly of the powerful wand he had snatched from Death himself, and of how it made him invincible.

That very night, another wizard crept upon the first friend as he lay, wine-sodden, upon his bed. The theif took the wand and, for good measure, slit the ginger's throat.

And so Death took the first friend for his own.

Meanwhile, the second one journeyed to his own home, where he lived alone. Here he took out the stone that had the power to recall the dead, and turned it thrice in his hand. To his amazement and his delight, the figure of his parents he wanted to know, before their untimely death, appeared at once before him.

Yet they were sad and cold, separated from him as by a veil. Though they had returned to the mortal world, they did not truly belong there and suffered. Finally the second friend, driven mad with hopeless longing, killed himself so as truly to join them.

And so Death took the second friend for his own.

But though Death searched for the third friend for many years, he was never able to find her. You could think that Death couldn't see the muggle-born because of her magic Cloak, but why couldn't he hear her?

That's when Death himself learned, that he was deaf.