"I'll Buy My Way To Talk To God So He Can Live With What I'm Not."
Don't Stop – InnerPartySystem.
The air was thick and syrupy and it clung to the back of his throat and coated his tongue with every breath. It felt like he was breathing underwater and his lungs ached from the strain of pulling in the near tangible air and his eyes stung from the lack of proper oxygen.
His mind was a disorganized mess, much like a toy box that had been roughly shaken with its contents strewn wildly around. He could barely think and his head felt as thick as the honey sweet air that he was drowning in. Who was he? Where was he and what was he doing here? What was he supposed to be doing? Was he supposed to be doing anything? Why would it matter?
The questions buzzed like angry hornets within the confused confines of his brain but the answers evaded his muddled grasp. He wasn't even entirely sure that he was a 'he'. What was a 'he'? Was it important? Gender. The thought swam to the surface of his mind. 'He' was a gender. Male, him, his, he. He was male.
He felt a thrill of satisfaction as that realization prompted several others. He was male and he had a name and an age. He was Harry and he was eighteen years old. Harry grinned fiercely at the knowledge and then opened his eyes and looked out at the pure, white expanse surrounding him.
Sight was a novelty, he hadn't even realized that he had eyes before he'd opened them. He had his mothers eyes and that was very important. He couldn't believe he'd forgotten them because with the new revelation of sight came the memories of his mother and, by extension, his father.
Hair. He had his father hair and suddenly his eyes were veiled behind a messy, black fringe that he was certain had not been there moments before. The fringe hid his scar. The scar he'd gotten when Voldemort had tried to kill him as a baby. Voldemort. The Dark Lord whom he'd defeated the year before at Hogwarts. Hogwarts. The closest place he had to a home.
Slowly, bit by bit, Harry began to piece himself together. One memory led to another and a after a time he was whole again. He'd remembered his limbs, his face, his clothes, his mind. He remembered his friends and family and co-workers. He remembered his life and the incredible events that had happened in it. More importantly he remembered why he was here.
The emerald eyed boy idly thought that it would be nice to be standing upright rather than lying down. No sooner than the thought crossed his mind then he suddenly found himself standing on his own two feet. It was nice, he mused, to be standing again. He liked standing, he liked it a lot. He also liked sitting too but there were no chairs-
He blinked in mute surprise and then sat gratefully down on the plush armchair that appeared out of no-where. He could certainly get used to this sort of thing. The last thing he'd been able to dredge up hadn't been nearly as pleasant as the endless monotony of this place. He vividly remembered being forced to kneel next to a large, ornately drawn circle on the ground. Around twenty or so terrified muggles were huddled in the center and eight, black cloaked wizards stood outside the circle with anticipatory looks on their faces.
It had been around three hours since he'd been captured by the black clad wizards and during that time all he'd managed to understand was that they were completely bat-shit insane. They were babbling something about Nicholas Flamel and alchemy and a philosophers stone and if Harry was honest most of it had gone way over his head.
Okay, sure, he, Ron and Hermione had researched the stone in their first year but that had been ages ago he'd been through a lot of life altering crap since then. He vaguely recalled the lead to gold and eternal life aspects of the stone but he'd never found out how you'd go about making one. In the end it hadn't mattered because Dumbledore had destroyed the stone at the end of first year but it seemed that these crazies were trying to create another one.
Harry had begun to get a very, very bad feeling about the entire situation before he was roughly grabbed by two of the cloaked wizards. They pulled his arms out taunt and then sliced open his palms and, before Harry could properly vocalize his displeasure at being manhandled, slammed his bleeding hands down onto the rim of the circle design.
The resulting chaos was bewildering. The circle had glowed bright blue and then it had turned an ominous red-purple that rushed around Harry in sly, malicious wisps. The wizards were all looking around in surprise and they began frantically backing away and scrambling for the doors. The black haired youth had no idea what was happening but he found that he couldn't take his hands away from the circle. It was like they were stuck with a permanent sticking charm or something and they refused to budge from their position, directly over a particularly intricate, swirly thing that looked a little bit like a snail.
Harry wrinkled his nose in distaste when one of the purple tendrils drifted across his face. It felt... wrong. It felt fundamentally wrong and it made his skin crawl with goosebumps. Harry renewed his efforts to pull himself free but it was in vain as suddenly what seemed to be a giant grey eyed blinked open beneath the captured muggles.
The people began to scream and writhe as black tentacles rose sinuously from the circle and wrapped around the muggles. Harry watched in mute horror as the screaming men, women and children were dragged down into the yawning abyss. He was so caught up in their plight that he didn't notice the black hands reaching out for him before they wound their way around his limbs and dragged him into the center of the circle. His hands were
no longer stuck and Harry gripped that they sticking charm would have to wear off just when he needed it the most.
He'd been pulled through the malignant eye and then had experienced the singular worst sensation he'd ever felt before, crutiatus and adeva kevada included. It had been like his very essence was being ripped back at the seams. It felt like he was being dissolved into
nothingness molecule by molecule and there wasn't anything he could do about it.
Then he'd woken up here and he still had no clue what was going on. He guessed that the whole 'philosophers stone' thing had gone tits up but other than that he had no clue what was happening. Where was he and where were the muggles? Were they somewhere in
this nothingness as well or where they somewhere else?
"They are not here, foolish alchemist." a voice called from behind him. Harry froze and then slowly glanced over his shoulder. It had been his own voice, distorted and stretched to form an eerie quality but his own voice nonetheless. The source of the his-but-not voice was a ghost. It was an odd, human shaped ghost that was barely distinguishable from the blank canvas behind him.
Except, it wasn't so blank anymore. Resting in the space on front of Harry was the largest set of doors he'd ever seen. It was around a foot or two bigger than the one leading into the main hall in Hogwarts and it was covered in a large, sweeping design that had been carved into the grey stone. He was kind of getting used to the whole things-appearing-out-of-nowhere thing so the fact that the Doors where there didn't disturb him. What did make him shiver was the feeling he was getting from the structure.
Mentally he gave the Doors a capital 'D' because magic was rolling off it in waves and it felt ancient. The mirror of Erised had nothing on this thing, heck, Hogwarts herself had nothing on the stone monstrosity on front of him and Harry was left feeling incredibly small and humbled.
He frowned minutely and narrowed his eyes at the ghost before pointing a finger at his chest. "Me? I'm not an alchemist. I'm a wizard. See." he said as he plucked his wand out of his back pocket and waved it about. He'd forgotten he'd had it for a while but, as with everything else, it had appeared as soon as he'd needed it. The ghost just laughed and the sound send shivers racing down Harry's spine.
"Do not lie, alchemist. You will pay the price for daring to walk in Gods domain." the spirit proclaimed with a grin before it stood from its crouched position on the floor and walked over to stand beside the Doors. Harry was impossibly more confused then when he'd first arrived and he shook his head emphatically at the ghosts words.
"No, honestly mate, I'm a wizard. Eh, look, Lumos." he said a bit desperately and the tip of his wand lit up, the glow was faint against the whiteness of the surrounding area but it was still there. He had no idea what all this talk of alchemy and tolls and God was about but he was willing to bet that it was nothing good. The spirit paused and tilted it's head in a painfully familiar gesture. Harry remembered preforming it himself whenever he was thinking something over.
"Perhaps you are a wizard also, but that does not excuse your sin." the ghost said firmly before its grin stretched impossibly wider and it seemed to leer at Harry, which was an amazing feat considering it had no eyes and was roughly the same size as him, meaning that it'd have to stand on it's tip toes to produce the scary looming affect. Harry took a small step backwards and then another and another until he was jogging away from the ghost.
While he was well aware that he looked ridiculous running backwards Harry didn't really want to let the ghost out of his sights, he had a feeling that it would be a bad idea to let the malicious little spirit get the better of him. It just watched him go with the amused tolerance of a parent watching its child do something unbelievable stupid but loving it nonetheless.
"Going somewhere?" an bored voice asked from behind him and Harry swore violently as he turned around and glared daggers at the ghost who was somehow floating upside down with his head still level with Harry's. "Fuck damn it! Don't do that! You nearly gave be a heart attack!" He scowled and pressed a hand to his chest, willing his heart rate to slow down.
"How'd you get from over there-" Harry dramatically flung out his arm and pointed it at the ominous doors. "-to all the way over here you sneaky bastard! Just what in the name or Merlin are you?" He demanded with a petulant air.
He'd seen a lot of freaky shit in his life but this took first place on his list of Hopelessly-Weird-Shit-That-Has-Happened-To-Me-Before-I-Turn-Twenty. Keeping in mind that that was the very same list that included such memorable gems as surviving a killing curse, defeating a dark lord, killing a basilisk, going back in time to save his not-mass-murderer of a god-father from a bunch of soul sucking nazguls and that one time he'd been dead for a few minutes.
Hmm... well perhaps it wasn't the weirdest thing he'd ever had happen to him but it was pretty damn close. Beneath dying but well above the basilisk. Harry knew that there was something seriously wrong with his life when all the important milestones were times when he'd nearly (and, on one occasion, actually had) died.
"I am what you would call God. I am the world and the universe. I am all and I am one. I am you." the ghost replied calmly before an ominous creaking noise sounded from behind him and Harry's heart dropped to his feet – metaphorically of course - as he turned back slowly to see the giant doors opening up to reveal an eye much like the one that had appeared in the weird circle. The dark haired youth had a few quick flashbacks to waving black tentacles and screaming muggles before he decided to screw his pride and get the hell out of dodge.
The ghost just laughed eerily as he turned tail and ran in the opposite direction. His feet made no sound as they slammed against the nothingness of the floor but his breath was unnaturally loud in his ears as he sucked in lungful after lungful of the sickly-sweet air. Harry was fast. He was exceptionally fast, he could run like no-bodies business but he got the sinking feeling that it wouldn't be enough because he could feel the dark, wispy, grabbing things just behind his back, their shadow fingers drifting over the material of his robes before they got a good hold and jerked him to a halt.
He would later deny the frightened yelp that forced it's way out of his mouth as he kicked and swore and struggled against the tenacious hands that were swiftly dragging him backwards towards the gaping maw of the open door. Harry flailed wildly before his eyes landed on the ghost and he reached out pleadingly.
"Help me!" he screamed in desperation, his fingers stretching towards the figure as his eyes begged him to take his hand and pull him free. The spirit just grinned, showing off perfect rows of pearly white teeth, as the hands dragged him over the threshold and the doors slammed shut.
[_]
A/N: Gah! I hate plot bunnies! I've had three quarters of Razors Wires next chapter waiting patiently for me to finish since the start of the month and, instead of being a good authoress and completing the little ducky, I'm off scribbling new crap!
This was born out of an attempt to create a Harry Potter/FMA crossover that didn't include Ed getting sent to Hogwarts for whatever reason [usually that pesky un-useful philosophers stone], falling in love with Mustang [Not that there's anything wrong with a bit of yaoi. =P], randomly getting a cat, learning magic and saving the wizarding world on top of his own.
Ed's good darlings but he's not that good.
Bah, anywho, I don't know how I came up with this shizz, I really, really don't. What I do know is that writing the Truth is hilarious fun. The astral sadist is probably completely OCC [and if he/she/it is then please tell me so I can fix it!] but he/she/it's just so much fudging fun to write.
I know the Truth isn't a ghost but Harry isn't an alchemist so he's just calling things as he sees them. He's got an aptitude for the clap, snap, boom stuff but he absolutely will not end up learning it! I fully intend to have Harry alchemy-less and, for the most part, magic-less. I'm evil, I know, but it will make for a more interesting story if he doesn't just sit there and AK every sonovaFather that tries to attack them until the bitch stays dead. Savvy?
[I'm beginning to think I have a penchant for super long A/Ns, it's a weakness, I'm sorry! TT_TT ]
If you enjoyed the story then please review and let me know what you think. And, heck, if you didn't like the story then it would be awesome if you could still review and let me know why you thought it sucked. Criticism is welcome but if your going to pester me with flames then at least make them amusing.
Lastly, thank you very much for reading! I do appreciate the time an effort you awesome guys and gals spent reading over my humble slice of fiction and I hope it was worth it.
- Softie.