Disclaimer: I don't own Harry Potter, or any of it's characters, so don't sue me!
Pairing: Probably my fav. - H/D - eventually.
Plot: Harry 'kind of' defeated the Dark Lord (voldy), but in a way nobody had even suspected he would.
This is about the repercussions of what happened, and how people begin to cope with these results.
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Chapter One - Dicxto
Dust hovered in the air, creating a film of grey over the city of Los Angeles. The sound of brakes squealing broke the silence, as another car was no doubt stolen. Bricks which used to be red, but now reflected the same dismalness coating the entire city, had been used to make up the walls which split the city up into its different sections.
It was night-time, but the grey hanging over the city made it almost impossible to tell the difference, indeed the only difference was that the shadows were deeper during the night.
Scratching noises sounded, as some of the only remaining wildlife slunk by.
A shadow moved, coalescing into a young male as he stepped away from the crumpled building he had been hiding out in.
Breath sighed out in long gush, creating a stream of clear space, as the air displaced the dust momentarily. The space was soon refilled, and yet none of the dirt ever landed, just remained floating in the air, moving out of the way as soon as anyone tried to touch it.
A head tilted back, eyes sliding shut as the dark figure stretched luxuriously. His spine cracked, and he shrugged his shoulders as he limbered up for movement.
A siren sounded in the distance, the wailing drifting towards the man like the haunting cry of a phoenix, long dead. Stilling his movements, the man's head tilted, and he turned in a semi-circle, as though he was trying to track where the sound had come from.
Then he was moving. Turning to his left he ran, arms swinging, legs pumping. Reaching the end of the 'road', he immediately took the corner, going left again, and deeper into a shadowland of demolished buildings. Rubble littered the streets, and a pile up of cars cut off his escape route.
Not even slowing down, the man took the obstacle at a dead run, easily making the leap, up and over. He landed on both feet, and continued running, not wavering, and not giving any indication about whether or not he'd put any effort into the feat.
The wail of sirens came again, closer this time, as the police vehicle turned onto the blocked off road.
The car stopped just short of the pile up, and one cop got out. Lightly jogging over to the nearest car, he stood on his tiptoes and peered into the gloom beyond. Shaking his head, he turned and gestured to his partner, before turning his attention back to the obstacle.
Heaving a heartfelt sigh, Officer Mathews gripped the roof of the car with one hand, and clambered onto the bonnet as gracefully as he could, which wasn't very.
Cursing under his breath, his partner quickly grabbed the car radio and muttered a terse code into it, then leaped out of the car and followed his partner into the gloom.
The two men advanced quickly, sticking to the main street, and avoided lingering near the darker alleys and side streets. One of the officers though he saw something move out of the corner of his eye, and quickly turned. When he saw there was nothing there, he swallowed uneasily then turned his head back around, in time to walk into a chunk of building which had fallen into the road some time ago.
The other officer barked out a laugh, as his partner floundered on the ground, cursing. Eventually he went to help his friend, neither of them noticing the glowing green eyes that observed them from the nearby shadows.
The young man who had fled the oncoming police moments earlier, peered out of the shadows which hid him, watching with scorn the blundering fools he had resorted to sending after him.
With a bounty on his head worth several small fortunes, there had been plenty of people volunteering to bring him in - alive. Not doubting for an instant why he had requested that he be alive, the young man had shed his indentity, leaving his old self in the ashes of the dead and dying, sliding into the shadows of the future with the ease of one long gone, finally returning.
The first few had been hard, very hard. They hadn't been particularly good at their job, as bounty hunters, but then again, he'd never had to deal with being hunted before. Dispatching them had been difficult - not because it was beyond his capabilities - but because the men hadn't done anything to him, he hadn't even known their names. The need to survive had taken over before he could do anything stupid, like hand himself over to them, and he had killed them as easily as the others.
Then he had upped the ante, promising more and more wealth and power to the one who captured him. More skilled and better-trained people stepped forward. Not just bounty hunters now, mercenaries and hitmen, assassins and professional trackers. They provided more of a challenge, but that first experience of being hunted had taught him a lot, and he didn't hesitate over death anymore, that piece of him was long gone.
Eventually the level of training in those who came after him had dropped, as the more skilled were killed off. Now, he was beginning to run out of applicants for the contract, and was resorting to using the police force - keeping an alert out for him, 24/7, in the hopes that he would slip up and be spotted. The man suspected that he was waiting for a mistake to be made, so that he could send a contingent of killers after him - resorting to overkill as the only way of capturing him, alive.
Killing the two men in front of him would be the safest course of action, given that they could have caught a glimpse of him. He was, however, pretty sure they hadn't had a chance to do so, and leaving a trail of bodies wasn't exactly subtle. Leaving them to stumble around in the rubble, he stepped back again, allowing the shadows to swallow him as he moved to his destination. After all, it wouldn't be very good to let him catch him now, not when he finally had a goal, a mission, a way to atone for everything he had done.
Sorry, kind of weird beginning - again. I seem to have made that a habit, hope you readers don't mind too much. Anyway, you've probably guess who I was talking about in this chapter, but that's okay! It wasn't meant to be that obscure.
If you're having trouble trying to imagine what the place is like, just think the city in Final Fantasy (video/film), where the woman collects the plant from at the beginning.
R&R, please?