notes notes notes:
wonderful characters do no belong to me, obviously, though every once in a while, i slap my knee and wonder: why didn't i think of that?! will be sirius/remus -- just.. not at the moment. :\ enjoy!
dark before the vision
part i.
prologue
You know this story already. You do, I promise.
Not only do you know it, but you've played it out yourself, in every role imaginable, in every setting, in every time. The problem is that you forget, you see. It's not that the information is gone. You hold on to it yourself; in what Pierre Janet called your subconsciousness, and also -- deeper still -- in the coiling memories of your DNA. Forgetting is something that was taught to you.
So, I'll tell it to you again. Even though you already know.
There is a girl, and they keep her in a bell jar, in a locked room in the Department of Mysteries.
It's not an ordinary bell jar. It needs to hold a girl who stands over six-feet tall, and for whom glass would crumble like antique lace. The bearded man can sense the power of the place, even before the boy unlocks the door to let him in. The boy is sickly and has the sort of face that is much too calm, which is a fair indication of insanity. It does not help that, as he opens the door, he says in a hollow voice, "If you feel a rush of panic, leading you into death, you should leave."
Inside, the air is cold and tremulous, full of static electricity. And, there is something beneath that too, a monotone hum, and he can not tell whether it is inside his mind or outside of it. It is old magic, layered and complicated. It has been allowed to grow unchecked, and it is festering. It is coming into the awareness of itself.
The room is circular and undecorated, save for the bronze statue of Shiva in the Western corner, dancing in a aureole of fire. Of his four hands, sculpted into mudras, the bearded man feels that two are the most important. The one which signifies destruction. And, the other, the one which says do not be afraid.
He knows the girl has been asking for the statue for a long time. He's made sure she knows it is him who has granted her request.
Even the bell jar is blanketed in dust. Research has been largely abandoned after a long series of failures and strange accidents. The Ministry does not like to admit to its mistakes -- it likes to forget them.
The girl looks up as he enters, but she does move otherwise. She is naked, with her legs crossed, sitting in the lotus position. For a moment, her skin appears luminous and black, but he blinks. When the beaded man reopens his eyes, she is pale again. Her hair is blonde and just barely covers her breasts. He wipes away a streak of dust from the bell jar with the palm of his hand. The boy at the door makes a noise, but then quiets at the bearded man's glare and shuts himself out.
He pushes his glasses up on his nose. "I want you to know that I don't agree with what they have done to you, and I have come to help."
She laughs, and it makes him feel ill. Her tongue falls out of her mouth and grazes her belly. There are things he sees, but he can not be sure of -- like one image superimposed over another. A serpent. A black dog -- no, not a dog, a jackal. Ten faces. Ten arms. A bowl collecting the blood of a man's severed head.
But, these things are not really there. What's there is just a naked girl, a beautiful girl, who echoes him: "Help me."
The Minister had told him he would feel nauseous, but he had not understood. Something in his stomach feels bloated and heavy.
"I want to help you. But, we need your help as well."
"Why did they send you? You do not understand my symbols."
"Everyone else was too afraid."
"And, you are not afraid?"
"I am afraid," he says, "But, I recognize an injustice when I see one. They have imprisoned you here for too long."
"Two hundred years," she says
The old man bows his head. "Two hundred years. Your original captors are all dead."
She rests her chin in the palm of her hand. There is something artificial about her movements. She is not alive in the same sense that he is. "You want to bargain. I was the one who was captured and imprisoned for two centuries. And, now, you're asking me to do you a favor?"
The old man takes off his glasses and cleans them with the hem of his sleeve. He wishes they would just let him sleep. He wishes he would just let himself sleep, without seeing the faces that materialized in the night, faces of the dead and faces of those who were about to die. "I don't pretend to believe it is fair. The truth is -- we need help."
The girl stands up. It is so quick and happens after such a long period of stillness, that it causes him to take a step back, and then cringe at himself. But, she seems closer now. If he leaned in, just an inch, their noses would touch. The space held in her eyes is immense -- a size men were not meant to understand. A space like the distance in-between stars, encompassing him, and the Order, and Voldemort, and England, and the whole Earth.
She knows, he realizes. She knows everything.
"Why should I help you?" she says. "You and your enemies, you cannot do anything to each other that I have not already done. I gave birth to you. And, you must all return to me in the end."
"But, your power is not absolute. You remain trapped here, by men."
She does not look angry, at this, but sad. "No, we are not infallible. We love and we hate and we make mistakes, just as you do." She pauses for a moment, and then continues, "How do you know I wouldn't destroy all of you, once you let me go?"
"Because that's not how your stories go."
She smiles and it is terrible. "In India, there is a hill where they sacrifice goats, and chickens, and sometimes little children, in my name. They chop their heads off and the blood soaks into the ground. That's what it takes for a god to grow. Stories, and time, and blood. I should like to see that hill again.
"But, I can't help you in the way you'd like. The world has changed in two hundred years. I know that, even though I've been locked in this room, in the darkness. When men have atom bombs, and genetic engineering, they realize that they do not need the gods around anymore."
"But, you're talking about Muggles. Not Wizards."
"Wizards have always had magic. They have never needed the gods."
"Are they the same thing?"
"No," she says. "They have the same source, but they are different."
Her cheekbones are like half-shells of abalone. She looks both old and young. "I will help you, because I do not want to die in this room. I can give you a child."
He lets a long breath drawl out of him. "I don't understand."
"My daughter," she says. "Her symbol is the moon, who dies and is reborn. Her nature is also dual. One of her aspects is hunger. Another is bliss. She can be yours, but I will need two things. I will need a man to be her father. It will be better if he is pale. If he has a round face. He must be tied to the moon.
"The second thing I need is a promise. You must let her forget who she is. You must allow her to think she is one of you. If she does not love you, she will not fight for you.
"You will like my daughter," she says, and smiles again. Her teeth are like those of a dog. "She will devour whatever lies in your path, Albus, my friend. Her appetite is insatiable."
He has the feeling he has just heard a curse. The kind that will act slowly, almost imperceptibly, but the seed of death has been planted already. He remembers the words of the boy who unlocked the door and wonders if now is the time to heed his advice. "We need insurance, you see," he mutters. His own voice is foreign to him. "If Voldemort destroys us all, what hope will there be?"
The tongue presses itself against the glass and runs upwards. "Bring me a man," she says. And, then she adds, "Make sure he is on your side. She will belong to him, not you. She will never belong to you, remember that."
"Yes," he says. He hears the boy cough on the other side of the door. "But, how do I know she won't devour us as well?"
The girl cocks her head to the side and her belly twitches when she laughs. "You should know. That's not how my stories go."