Disclaimer: Hogwarts etc. belongs to JKR. "Butterflies and Hurricanes" is from the lovely Muse (though this doesn't even vaguely relate to the song, as much as I love it (the song… not the fic – yeah, you know what I mean. I'll shut up.))
Midnight butterflies flutter over moonlit planes.
It is a strange dream.
There is music, a whispering hint of mournful choirs.
It returns to you every night.
The wind picks up, water rippling in its wake.
Whether you lie in school behind velvet curtains, or curled at home surrounded by miscellaneous necessities…The butterflies scatter.
Every night, without fail.
Suddenly you are one of them. A butterfly in the storm. Tossing and turning, buffeted by the wind only to be thrown back on course before collision.
For ages you would try to dodge sleep… Reading until the early hours of the morning and then getting up for classes, or breakfast, or whatever else was required of you, without rest.
You flap your wings, desperate in your bid for freedom, but the water below rises to form waves, caging you in.
It never worked. Instead you drifted off in lessons, grades faltering.
The whispering music is gone now, replaced by tortured screams. In every pained cry there is a story, and you see it played before you in the water, in the wind… in the wings of you estranged companions.
It became worse when the war began in earnest, with every death your subconscious suffering was heightened. With every tear shed another dimension opened in your dreamscape of colour and movement and hopelessness.
Waves crash and coloured wings panic. Twisting and plummeting only to be rear up upon the next swell.
Your awareness warped. Reality blurred by coloured wings until you witnessed a death and birth and soul-shaking cry in every flake of snow that brushed your fingers in February's chill.
You see faces of people you grew up with, of those you love, hate and mourn.
He turned to you and in his eyes you saw his death. She whispered brightly and her last words rang bitter in your ears.
You see them laughing and shouting and dieing with such vibrancy and life that you wish to die with them rather than be trapped in this vortex, with only butterflies for company.
The ghosts would look at you strangely, coloured wings flickering through their faded forms. The paintings whisper as you pass and you know the castle sees something you are nearing, if all of humanity stands oblivious at the sidelines.
Cloud of butterflies crash and burst, shattering to hit the raging water in shards of broken mirror.
"Did you see the game last night? You should have seen the look on Malfoy's face when Harry caught the snitch…"But the wind steps in, its screams of anguish echoing to recall the broken souls, and again the insects rise.
The corridors fly past, years passing as minutes and you stand in an army before the Dark Side.
As one the creatures surge, wretched as they struggle against the very strings that command them. United they fall, dropping as tears in the rain.
You fight, you trip, you right yourself. The Hope of the world is by your side and he is tiring. Through bloodstained hair you watch him stumble and fall.
On your butterfly wings you will yourself to move, to escape… and then you are falling.
Green light bursts in the darkness and with a run and jump it meets you, dumbstruck boy knocked to the side.
Through the wind, the waves, the clouds of coloured insects. Light years pass in moments.
You feel the light caress your soul. Gently teasing it from its distorted shell. Primitive instincts struggle to keep hold but the light persuades even them. "Come", the voices sing, choirs of angels chanting through broken mirrors, broken souls. The second never passes and in an eternity of light your body dies.
On shattered wings you fall and you feel yourself reborn.
AN: That was fun! Slightly random and vaguely pointless but I enjoyed it… I can't tell whether it only makes sense to me because I wrote it and really it's just disjointed, or if there is something there to follow... I'm not making sense. Again. I'll leave now. Comments much appreciated.