Dream a Dream
He had a dream.
Many dreams.
He dreamt of the sun.
He dreamt of warmth.
He dreamt of laughter.
He dreamt of Freedom.
Harry Potter had many dreams but dreams were illusions to keep reality at bay. He allowed himself to dream so he could ignore the barren cold cell he had spent his youth and adulthood trapped in.
The company of Dementors his only friend and foe. The meager meals of gruel, bread, and stale water his only sustenance.
The cold had seeped into his very bones and he no longer felt the bitter chill. It was a part of him.
The darkness of his cell, the darkness of his soul that had one time been bright and full of hope was just a bitter taste in his mouth.
Harry Potter had long since died and now a old, wrinkled, frail, husk of a wizard was left.
A squib.
Magic stolen and banished to the four corners of the world and Harry could still hear weeping at times and it wasn't him nor the single memory of his mother pleading and begging.
No.
Harry believed it was something far larger than him, than Azkaban, than anything really. God? Goddess? He wasn't sure but the crying echoed in him and he learned to numb himself to the painful loss of a part of him that would never be returned to him.
The runes had been burned into his skin. Forced past his muscle and carved into his bones.
That was the day Harry Potter had died.
103 years later the body of the once Boy-Who-Lived rested on threadbare sheets surrounded by Dementors gave in to the inevitable.
Gladly.
Finally.
Eyes glassy, it had been years since he last saw a hint of light. Skin hung from bones, face gaunt, hair thin and the dullest of grays, hands gnarled and knotted by arthritis, Harry had gladly taken a shuddered breath as the Dementor closest to him leaned down and consumed the fragile wisp of what was left of his soul.
The crowd of Dementors had filled every inch of space, their cries had woken the massive prison. The once quiet still air that had settled over the prison broke as each insane prisoner felt the exact moment the longest living prisoner held in the very bowels passed on.
Screams, sobs, pandemonium broke out as those once catonic awoke with renewed energy and let their insanity and grief be known.
It would be a mystery how and why this happened.
To the public Harry Potter had long since passed. Disappeared into fairy-tale.
The Aurors stationed had never been privy to the prisoner locked and warded away.
So why the sudden explosion of madness?
The mad glazed over eyes?
The pounding on doors with fists?
The sobbing of why's and shouts of "Murderer".
It wouldn't be until hours later when the Warden arrived and made his way down to the bowels of the prison where Dementors crowded the locked and warded entrance.
The cold was bone chilling but the Wizard moved onward. The wisp of his Patronus pushed away the Dementors and he was able to get to the heavy set door and open it with a bit of blood and a rune password.
The corridor was just as filled but this time the Dementors parted on their own.
The Warden regretted coming down here on his own but he had sworn an oath not to reveal the truth of what Azkaban held. Carefully, wand in hand, the Warden pushed forward. Each step colder than the last until he made it to the very end and his fingers and toes had long since lost sensation.
The door was open.
Why was the door open?
Built and purchased by blood and gold the Goblins had made this door. Yet here it stood, mocking him, open.
There was only a single narrow path the Dementors had made for him and at the very end a single, larger, Dementor floated. Still. Hovering beside a lone bed inside the fairly large room he couldn't tell just how large it was as every inch of space was crowded.
The Warden wanted to turn and run, his courage had been sapped from him but he could feel the sudden presence of a Dementor at his back. Cold stale air breathed on the back of his neck making the hairs raise on his body. Bony fingers curled on his shoulders and the Warden couldn't stop himself from pissing. The hot urine stinging the cold of his skin and bringing him no warmth as he was forced to walk forward.
"Wizard..." the word was low and rough, it sent another chill down his spine, "Filth. Abomination. Wizard."
The cloaked Dementor floated aside just enough that the warden could see the skeletal remains of a prisoner he had never saw before. Skin and bones. Stomach con-caved, ribs you can count, and the crippled fetal position was perhaps the saddest sight he had the misfortune to see. "You live only so you can relay Wizard." The Warden made to speak but the Dementor suddenly turned and the Warden was without words. Speech had left him.
This wasn't a Dementor.
It was a woman.
Skin pale with tinge of gray stretched over her high cheekbones and shape of her skull. Her lips were thin, dark, and a mocking smile was carved into her face as a dark scar stretched from each corner of her lips to almost each ear. What stood out the most wasn't the dark smudges beneath each eye but the criss cross strands of thread that sewn her mouth shut.
"What is Death if I can not claim what is rightfully mine?"
The warden trembled where he stood. The words spoken couldn't have possibly have come from this... woman... creature... thing... yet it had to. He heard them as if they were spoken aloud.
"A gift you were given and THIS is what has become?" A bone thin hand peeked from the robes arms and gestured to the body on the threadbare mattress. "You DARE steal what does not belong to you!"
Frost formed on the ground, creeping on the walls from all corners. Still the Warden was unable to speak, his body shivering, breath coming out in panicked gasps of cold air. The bony hands of the Dementor the only thing keeping him standing and not a heap on the floor.
"Of course you know not what you should know. You are nothing. A conjuring of the One's adolescent whims, born of a liking of his flesh, but lacking in all manners."
A hand motioned in the air as if dismissing him. The Warden could only watch as the woman turned away from him and hovered beside the bedside. Time slipped slowly away and the frost was crawling ever closer from the ceiling to the walls and floors. It left behind a shattered ice appearance as it consumed every inch until it reached the bed and crept up the legs of the metal frame bent awkwardly by time and rust.
"I can not in good faith shepherd a lost Semideus across my bridge when a part of them was destroyed."
Pale fingers peeked from the folds of the cloak to gently trace the scar that had long since died and faded.
"I had hoped to grant mercy befitting status."
The frost showed no mercy as flesh changed color and skin naturally brittle tore and froze over.
"A Semideus must cross whole and complete, that is law, it is not questioned, to question is to fall and burn!" Her fingers ghosted over the last of unfrozen flesh before it too was encased in cold, "They cross and shed their skin to become what they are destined to be... my powers are useless."
The Warden could only stare and watch as her arm outstretched and he was gifted to see bits of her flesh as part of her arm was revealed. Bone and flesh. Held together by the same criss cross thread sewn at her lips. Flesh pulled taught but never meeting and covering the show of bone. A scythe appeared from thin air and her fingers curled around the aged wood. Gnarled and crooked like it had been plucked from a tree, the sharp curved blade was attached by frayed twine. It looked less than ideal but the Warden was sure it was was powerful all on its own.
"This world you puss filled sacks have created will come to an end soon Wizard. Tomorrow. Possibly. Or the year to come I'm sure, but Time and Fate are the most fickle of lovers and take great delight in surprising me."
The cold breadth of the Dementor was suddenly gone and the Warden dropped to the ground with a cry. His bare flesh burned and he scrambled to sit up but finding a grip was difficult as his hands blistered from the intensity of the burn, the skin around the edges turning black. Had he been paying attention he would have known just him and Death were left alone.
"To return what you had taken there is a price. Payment must be made." With a lazy swipe of her Scythe in the air a rip appeared from no where. She jabbed the pointed tip into the rip and with a grunt widened it, up and down. "I can see beyond the cosmos. Every spec of dust that holds life i feel, i know, i rule. There is no escaping me, I am the end of the beginning. All must meet and end. Some may never, not because they're immune but because they still hold use. So they slumber. One such creature is old, before speech, before thoughts, before much really. They aided in the creation of all that is beyond your comprehension."
The bottom of the scythe suddenly hit the frosted over ground causing the Warden to cry in fear and huddle in on himself.
"Your debt Wizard can not be paid in gold or blood."
The gap was just a dark hole with the occasional shooting light that passed over but now sparks crackled at the edges and the Warden let out a terrifying scream as suddenly an eye appeared. Reptilian, 2 sets of irises, unblinking, its gaze shifted around the room until it passed over his blubbering self to Death who stood calmly. The Warden tried to make himself move, to run, to do anything but huddle in a ball in a pathetic heap but he could not move. For the life of him he couldn't budge beyond that small patch of ground.
"Only Death can renew Life. Not just a single soul, no. You destroyed what should not, could not, have been removed in the first place. A Semideus created on a rock is to be cherished, held close, not ripped from its host and scattered into the Cosmos. I spent every beat of his heart trying to find what you had destroyed but only a fraction of dust I could find."
Death hefted her Scythe so she held it in both hands, still her gaze remained on the eye that now flicked from her to the body encased in ice.
"The only way to put the pieces back together Wizard is time. Nothing but time i have but souls do not. So what do we do when a Semideus needs to cross but unable to because he is incomplete and law states no Semideus shall be left to Wander?" Silence passed for the briefest of moments, "We start over. Time is given to us because we do not stop until every spec is collected and gathered and returned to complete its cycle."
With a quickness barely caught by any eye in the room Death moved. The scythe rose high in the air and brought down with such force it pierced through ice, flesh, and bone. The body of Harry Potter shattered and the bed folded collapsing to the ground. The Warden choked as suddenly she was right before him, her cold fingers curling around his neck. He was picked up, toes just barely brushing the ground.
"Payment Wizard is for this world to be swallowed whole and another to be created in its place." The Warden choked, he tried what he could to remove those fingers but he couldn't, "Once every speck has been gathered, my Semideus will be anew and may their be no mercy. The souls i will reap will be more than enough to sustain me and know this Wizard " she moved him closer, eye to eye, "All those that had dealt me this hand will woe the day of their rebirth. Souls can writhe in agony for eons."
Darkness crept in his vision and as the world began to fade he heard a roar like the rush of wind, water, gravel, and the very foundations of the prison shook, "Remember this Wizard for this is the only warning. Redemption is neither here or elsewhere."
The world went black.
O.o.O.o.O
Darkness.
Awareness came with the ever present blackness that mimicked his life.
Bleak.
Depressing.
Agonizing.
The sweet death he could remember vanished like all his other dreams and he was stuck... wait...
/Open your eyes and see.../
The words caressed him like the softest of feathers. It took him far longer than he liked to lift his eye lids and close them. A soft glow. Light. He could see the blurry glow and he prayed it wasn't his mind mocking him again.
/Your end Semideus is now your beginning./ touch ghosted over the back of his neck and a shudder passed through him. It had been so long since he last felt touch. Skin to skin.
In fact he felt warm.
He was warm.
/Open your eyes and face your new destiny Semideus./
He opened his eyes and Harry saw.
The old world that he had been born, enslaved, and died had no warning as a black hole ripped through the air and a serpent appeared and with a gaping jaw swallowed the world whole. It slithered onward in the direction of the sun and coiled its lengthy body around the star until its tail hung low from the very bottom and its head settled on top, its body wrapped tightly around the star. Warm. Satiated. The giant serpent slept, hopefully for another eternity.
End. Possibly.
So. What do you think?
Please Google Semideus if you're at all interested.
I won't lie. I remember reading a fic where Harry was in Azkaban and had gotten old where death arrived but I can't for the life of me recall anything else except that it inspired this. If I find it again I would give proper thanks :)
I'm tentatively working on a part 2 that could possibly be chaptered or just one long one-shot. I'm not the fastest of writers so bare withe me :)