Within Darkness
Darkness, hollow. A hollow darkness. A darkness, so hollow, that he wasn't sure at all what it was, what it bore, where he was, how he was. If he was. A vague sense of identity, of being floated around inside him, around him, through him without permanence. Everything seemed incredibly vague, no past, no future, hardly a present. And it was comforting, really, not like the darkness of nightmares or dementors.
This was it, surely. Just the way he had always imagined it, and imagining – that, he had done frequently. He had a sense of smiling, although he couldn't actually feel his lips. It was all over now, gone was the pain, the mattering gone. No more thinking, no more worries about good, or evil, or good, or evil, which all amounted to the same thing in the end, anyway: death, the absence of feeling. No more doubt, no more weariness.
But still, his head, or what was left of it, burst into flames at the endless possibilities. In a world of magic, nothing was impossible, after all. He felt, with an inexplicable certainty, with pangs of suffocating joy, that he would see them now, all of them. Remus, Sirius, Dumbledore and his parents. His parents, James and Lily, bright-eyed, messy-haired, beaming with happiness.
The happiness was soaring around him, golden and red, like the song of a phoenix, like phoenix tears. It reminded him of Dumbledore the way he remembered him, old and wise, affectionate, with a twinkle in his blue eyes. Nothing was real anymore, or unreal for that matter, and he could see them behind closed eyes, feel them around him, hear their voices. He was free, wanted to cry, but you couldn't cry if you didn't have a body, right? Which he wasn't sure about. A flood of phoenix tears seemed to surround him, making him drift, float without direction into the deep nothingness.
'NO!'
A sharp, white light filled his head, the pain flooding every nerve of his body, which was there again, clear and present. His skull was sure to burst into two halves at the scar, and he had the strange sensation of hearing himself scream, scream with rage, scream with a cold, high-pitched voice.
'He was mine!'
The tall man was cowering in front of him, trying to suppress the shaking, attempting to touch his slender feet. 'My Lord, I thought-'
'I didn't order you to think, Lucius!' He kicked him violently, causing blood to splutter out of his nose. 'Crucio!' The man started screeching, cringing on the dark earth. It provided no satisfaction. Nothing could, too great was his disgust with the pathetic creature, this ugly, creeping insect about to be crushed. He wiped his foot on the grass calmly, watching the blood smear.
Under Malfoy's screams, he could feel an uncomfortable, unfamiliar sensation - pain…the boy's pain, his own pain. Something burning in his veins. He was alive. Malfoy's importance vanished in an instant at the possibility of Harry Potter's survival. How? He was his. But the pain of it…he could hear himself scream, scream in ecstasy, pain, satisfaction, rage…he was his, his alone. Yet the more he strengthened the connection, the more it blocked him, the pain of it, the confusion of it - how could one single person be so confused, so emotional? It was so…messy. No location, no information. The pain of it pierced him.
He opened his eyes with a start. Blackness. Earth, not darkness. The smell of moist grass. Rain on his clothes. His hand brushed over his pulsing scar, through his messy, wet hair.
He was alive. Tears fell on the night earth, mixing with the rain, running. Trickling away.