The Order of the Memitim
By Sacrosanct Sofa
I don't remember much from my life, just a few key events. I remember the axe, I remember the man that wielded it, I remember my life's blood spurting out of my body, I remember the sight of the steam that rose from my hot blood melting the cold snow, but the thing I remember most is the day I became a force of nature.
I was non-magical, I know that. I don't remember my age but from the appearance of my body I'd say roughly mid-40s. I was a female of the human species. It is recommended that we don't consider ourselves human so as to distance ourselves from our targets. It helps instill a modicum of insouciance at times, but when I am alone in my room, counting sheep in the warm womb of my bed I can't help but to think as a human, to reflect on the days happenings and respond to them with ebullient emotion.
But these moments are moments where I am weak of mind and weak of character. I do not tell the others of these moments, even though I know they have them too. After all, how could they not? When we reap the dwindling magic from the dying bodies of men and women the world over, it is impossible to keep one's-self separate from what has to be done. For sure, our task is the most thankless of tasks, but it is another vital facet of the system that keeps the world from toppling.
I am a force of nature. I am a force of destruction. I am a force of death. I am a reaper of souls. I am an Orderly of the Memitim. And this is the story of my final death at the hands of Lord Voldemort.
It was a cold and bitter winter night, reminiscent of the day of my first death, the quaint Neo Tudor and Victorian houses were hiding beneath a weight of powdery snow and there were children running from door to door dressed as monsters of the night asking for candy. It was a sweet scene, a picturesque scene and happy scene, a rare thing in a time like this. I was invisible and intangible, I left no footprints in the snow and no heat or magic radiated from body, at least none that anyone could feel, in the eyes of humans and all other sentient species I was non-existent.
The wizard appeared without a whisper in the dark alleyway between two cottages. He was wearing a dark cloak with a hood and boots with metal heels that clicked lightly against the swept cobblestones of the path. To anyone else he seemed to be walking to house 4 on Albright Road, Godric's Hollow, but I had done my homework and I knew that he wasn't going to Number 4, Albright Road; he was going to the invisible house next to it, which had been a home for the Potter family for five generations.
As the man walked down the road, a muggle child ran past him and bumped him slightly causing the man to miss a step in his confident stalk.
Before the child could run passed a hand curled around his shoulder and a white thumb dug into the hollow between collarbone and neck. The young boy whimpered in pain, his friends didn't hear the sound of his pain over their laughter and screams of joy and continued running down the street to the next door, leaving their comrade behind in search of more sweets.
I was the only one close enough to see and hear what happened next. The man and child stood frozen in an all too familiar tableau of prejudice and the dominance of strong over weak. The man whispered in a sinister and sibilant voice the word Imperio and a command. I did not hear what the command was but the child's face was wiped of all emotion and he turned to the direction of the North Star and walked. Weeks later they would find the boy's body, still dressed in his goblin costume, dead from starvation and dehydration, with an expression of distinct emptiness upon his young face and feet with raw muscle and bone exposed.
There was nothing I could do for the boy. His life was forfeit the minute he crossed paths with Lord Voldemort.
Voldemort paused after giving his command to the boy to watch him walk away. "Far too easy." He murmured under his breath and spun on one spiked heal back on track to the Potter Household.
He stopped at the front of where the house should be, facing to the side. He whispered under his breath words given to him willingly by the traitorous Secret Keeper. He turned his head towards the house as it appeared brick by brick in front of him.
Unbeknownst to him, I was as close to him as I could be, less than a foot from him watching him as the Fidelius Charm unraveled. To this day, the Dark Lord has no idea just how close he came to the death he had so consistently evaded. But today, his decrepit soul would be mine.
My unknowing companion opened the cast iron gate onto the path. We were now on the Potters' land and thus were hidden from the neighbours' eyes and ears. The house was a small one story cottage with ivy growing on the walls, a frozen bird bath on the front lawn, large rose bushes grew in-front of the facade which partially blocked out the view through the front windows, and tall deciduous trees grew along the side edges of the property with widespread branches that leaned over the gravel path giving the garden a cozy yet grand ambience.
The wide bay window on the right side of the front door was radiating golden light from the merry fire that was crackling in the fire place and emitting white smoke from the chimney. A young man and a young woman nursing an infant in front of the fire could be seen through the rose bushes.
There must have been an alarm ward set on the gate as the man rose as soon as it was opened and peered through the bushes covering the windows. The young woman placed the child on the floor, tied her copper coloured hair back from her face and said something to her husband.
The Dark Lord enjoyed a moment of true schadenfreude and stood still with his hood thrown back as the young man searched for their surprise guest. The Dark Lord chuckled darkly as James Potter paled upon seeing the man who had plagued his nightmares for months waiting for him to make the first move.
James whipped his head back to his wife Lily. He had taken control of the situation but there was nothing he could have done to stop this from happening. The young woman scooped up the child and ran to the back of the house. By the time James had turned back to the window, the Dark Lord had already reached the front door with me right behind him.
Voldemort knocked loudly on the solid oak door, "James! Open this door and I'll give your wife a chance to live." he called with a slightly sardonic grin on his sickly looking face.
I took this opportunity to enter the building. While I may have been non-magical before my first death I was given set abilities when I was reborn so as to make my job a smooth process. I phased through the wall, feeling every pipe and every nail in the wall and stepped onto soft, thick carpet.
James was still in the sitting room on the right with his wand out and a pale countenance. I knew he was a recently graduated Auror but he could not stand a chance against a Dark Lord who had decades of experience and time spent gathering knowledge to draw on whilst James had 3 years of learning how to control crowds and do paperwork.
Three seconds had passed since Voldemort had knocked on the door. That was enough. He would wait no longer.
Dark Lord's, especially this one, never do anything by halves. That's why Voldemort decided to blast the door off its hinges right into a certain Reaper who was standing on the other side rather than use the doorknob.
Fortunately, it sailed right through me and into the wall behind me.
James, forgoing his usual pacifist tendencies, jumped right into action as soon as the Dark Lord stepped into his home. But Voldemort was ready for him and simply deflected his over-powered Castrating Curse right back at him with perfect accuracy and without drawing his wand.
James screamed as the curse came into contact. An undignified way to die perhaps but I'd seen worse and the Dark Lord had done worse. Nobody expected James to be able to hold off the Dark Lord for more than a couple of seconds. He was not a great wizard, his ability to draw upon the magic in his system was just above average and his talent with transfiguration was impressive but when it comes down to it, he was just a boy forced to grow up too fast.
It had been less than twenty seconds since the Dark Lord Voldemort had walked through the front gate and James Potter was lying on the ground in the fetal position crying and pressing his hands to his groin. He was incapable of the concentration necessary for any kind of defense and he was going to bleed to death in a matter of minutes.
The Dark Lord had not spoken a word since his grand entrance and he did not say a word while he stood over the boy to watch his face constrict with paint.
This is where my task must be fulfilled, I had four souls to remove from this world on this night October 31st, 1981, and James was the first to be harvested.
I closed my eyes and breathed in and out slowly and patiently. When I opened them again I could see the magic that held their bodies together and hid their souls from plain view; James was shining like the first break of light over the horizon with pure silver and bronze rays and the Dark Lord was gleaming softly with a dark red and silver light. Their eyes were swirling pools of infinite colour, light, complexity and contrast. One man was a broken, abused, aged and disturbed man while the other was a pure, naive, young and caring father who loved his wife and son more than magic itself. The contrast between the two, murderer and victim, war lord and soldier, hate and love was beautiful, deadly and fantastical.
I shook myself out of my daze and knelt down by the young father and pressed my lips to his. He could not see me or feel me but he could feel his body getting colder and colder and that spark of life, that pure magic and raw purpose and personality was drained from him and given to me to hold until it could be given back to the world as new and unfettered magic ready to be used to make the impossible possible.
The Dark Lord waited until the very last of James Potter's spirit had been siphoned away before he continued through the rest of the family. He followed the sound of crying through to where Lily and Harry Potter were hiding.
The room was at the back of the house where the most light was and the moonlight was casting an ethereal glaze to every surface and a sharp intensity to every outline. The baby was in his crib crying and wailing having sensed the stress in the air. Lily Potter had used the time that the Dark Lord spent observing the death of her husband to good use by placing wards and protective charms around the crib. Glowing runes could be seen just fading as the last of her spell work was completed. Ever practical Lily had spent her last few moments setting up a mini ward system which would weaken the presence of magic in that small area for a time, making highly powerful curses such as the Killing Curse, that require the circular absorption of magic to work, nigh on impossible to perform.
Lily Potter had given her son the best defense she could, all it would require was her sacrifice and the cycle would be completed.
"Stand aside, girl."
"No, no! Please, not Harry! Take me instead! Please, not Harry!"
"Stand aside!"
"No! I won't! Take me! Kill me! Not Harry! Please!"
He was losing his patience with her. He had made a bargain with Severus Snape, but I knew that if that bargain became too irritating to uphold then he would abandon it without a second thought. He would most likely use the Killing Curse. I would have to act fast. The Killing Curse is hard to do as the soul and the magic that binds it to the body and hides it from outside forces are split apart and the Reaper has to do a broad sweep of the area so as to get every last fragment of personality and spirit. This is what makes the sound of rushing air when Avada Kedavra is cast, not the actual spell itself but rather the sound of the pure magic expelled pushing its way through the air towards to Reaper in question.
"I will let you live if you let me have him."
"No! I won't give him to you! Just kill me! Isn't that enough?"
"No, it isn't. Avada Kedavra."
I breathed in as hard and fast as I could as Lily Potter's soul was ripped away from its body and its magic and flung out into the ether. It looked like I was going to lose it for one heart-stopping moment but then they slowed down and started spiraling around my head faster and faster until finally they plunged down my throat.
Lily and James Potter were dead and it had been less than five minutes since Voldemort had appeared without a whisper in that dark alleyway on a cold and bitter winter night.
Harry James Potter the last of the Potter line was drooling and crying in his crib as the Dark Lord Voldemort stepped up to the edge of his crib and looked down at his supposed equal. The sneer upon his face was formidable in its intensity. I followed him as close as I could so I was within arm's reach of both targets.
Harry James Potter's magic was dull and his small incomplete soul could be seen through the lacework of the magic within his body that kept him alive.
I was getting ready for my final death, for I knew this was coming, it was what I had been ordered to do, it would lead to my final death but I was glad and proud to accept the responsibility. I was old. Very old. My first death had been during the Crusades. I had lived a long time and I was glad to finally let my tired soul rest forever.
Magic is a beautiful thing. It makes things come alive and makes the impossible an everyday occurrence, but it also does the work that no one is aware of. It keeps the fabric of the universe, the warp and the weft of the world from unraveling. The thinner the magic in an area the more likely a magical vacuum will be created.
The area around the crib had almost no magic and the fabric of the world was extremely thin and liable to rupture with just the right push. Lord Voldemort, I and the golem of Harry James Potter in the crib would be that push; the right combination of factors that would create a magical vacuum that would suck up any magic that is not ambient so as to fill the hole and repair to damage.
All that was needed was for one wizard to perform a high powered spell that would finally drain the area of the little magic it had left.
"Avada Kedavra!"
I knew my targets well.
All three sentient beings were within the magical vacuum that was created at the end of Lord Voldemort's wand and so all of the magic that was within our bodies was first stripped away to reveal our pulsing souls, throbbing against the last strands of magic hiding our souls like birds in a cage, then the cage was opened and our souls escaped our bodies, turned into ambient magic and patched up the hole in the fabric.
I regret nothing. We are all born to die. It was my time. And I was glad to finally put my heavy head to rest.
There would be no afterlife for me. I faded into non-existence and the pure magic that is my soul returned to the Earth along with the fake soul and magic of the golem and the incomplete and fractured soul of the Dark Lord.
Ashes to ashes, dust to dust, magic to magic. By ending we all return to the beginning as our souls become the magic that binds us, the magic that heals us, the magic that kills us, the magic that keeps us going when nothing else does. Oh, one could not hope for a more glorious denouement than the one gifted to I.
Authors Note
This will turn out to be an epic length fic. Please note this is note for people who like Neville. He's gonna get a fair share of the misfortune.