Author's Note:
Another new story which will be updated as sporadically as my others, so don't be mad if it goes unupdated for weeks.
The story is slightly based of a challenge I saw, Harry Potter and the four horsemen of the apocalypse, but I tweaked quite a bit so it doesn't really follow their guidelines anymore. Nevertheless, enjoy.
Apocalypse
Apart they were fractured, pieces of an incomplete puzzle. Together they were whole, a force of nature that will bring the world to its knees and break it apart, only to rebuild it again. They are the Apocalypse, the riders of a crimson dawn, and their will is absolute.
Chapter One
Hermione Granger was a winner.
She lived and breathed the feeling of absolute superiority that came with the rush of defeating someone, anyone, at anything. She never lost, never, the word was unknown to her. To lose. Instead she excelled, at anything anyone put her to. She forced herself to, even, because she wanted to win more than anything.
But despite that, she never cheated.
(The universe just did it for her).
And so she went to school, tiny and bucktoothed and with a hair of frizzy curls that never stayed the way she wanted them to. Her teacher was kind, towering above her and her classmates as she beckoned them to sit in a circle. And then she said the most memorable words of Hermione's life,
"School is like a game, there are some rules to follow but it will be great fun!"
But all Hermione's mind registered was the word game, a game could be won. A game could be conquered, defeated, a game had a loser and a victor.
School was a game she'd win.
She was a bright little girl, even as a toddler, but her parents never noticed anything outrageously different. She wasn't a genius, a prodigy or a wunderkind before.
It was the realisation that school could be won, grades could be better than another's, you could be faster, smarter, better at anything in school, that drove her mind to unknown peaks. She got smarter, better, faster at anything she put her mind to, she conquered reading and writing like a true conqueror, rushing in and taking everyone by surprise at how fast she had everything under control again.
She didn't know her magic was the one to blame, forcing her brain to develop. Creating new pathways to remember information, hotwiring her brains into remembering more, understanding things faster, working better than ever before.
And so she thrived, devouring information like a starved child in a quest to conquer all school had to offer. Her teachers encouraged her, her peers shunned her, but Hermione didn't notice. Her eyes were set on the imaginary trophy she had placed on a pedestal in her mind, shining gold beckoning her to work harder than ever before.
Her teachers, not dull but so dreadfully muggle, didn't notice the almost unhealthy way the girl kept on developing her own mind. They didn't see that what happened to her was inhuman, impossible and against nature itself. They didn't see the obsession with winning and how it seemed that she never lost at anything. She was always on the winning team with sports, always the one to know the answer first in class, always the one to never be surprised at the occasional unexpected victory.
Because her teachers, lovely but so blind to the world around them, couldn't see what was in front of them. But the universe, every living thing that exists knew, somewhere deep inside their core, that they were in the presence of victory personified. And so others stumbled, stuttered or fell, letting her win, because Hermione Granger was a victor.
Because if she lost the balance would be lost as well, for she couldn't possibly lose if she wanted to win.
And Hermione Granger wanted to win more than anything.
Neville Longbottom waged war on the Lestranges each and every night.
He'd go to bed, Blotty his house-elf handing him a glass of warm milk and tucking him in and he'd fall asleep a meek, pudgy boy. But in his dreams he woke up as a warlord, riding a horse whose blood-splattered coat had a crimson sheen as it reared high up on a hill overlooking his army. They'd charge ahead, laying siege to the castle that held Bellatrix and her husband and he'd slay them, saving his parents.
And then he'd ride on, urging his steed into a gallop and rushing ahead to slay them once more. And again. And again.
He commanded his armies with ease, thinking up strategies as he chased his enemies from their hiding places time and again only to flush them out into the open. Then he'd charge in again, defeat them one last time before he re-joined the land of living and went back to Neville, pudgy and meek, a boy instead of a warlord.
Then, by nightfall, he'd close his eyes and drifted off back into his eternal battlefield. A place where he reigned supreme.
But that was only what his grandmother saw, a witch sharper than any blade. She had eyes like a hawk and a nose for smelling lies but she was old, her vision troubled and her senses dulled. She did not see the importance of Neville's actions, could not see how he could change from boy to man whenever someone's eyes flicked past his form only to go back to a boy when they looked at him again.
She saw a child, weighed down by heavy expectations he would never fulfil (she loved him nevertheless) and sweet and innocent. She saw eyes that would go hazy whenever someone tried to explain something difficult to him, he was a bit dim sometimes, and a slumped posture whenever sitting in a chair.
But she never bothered to venture far into his own greenhouses, had never seen the way the plants (deadly and poisonous) dared not touch him. She never saw how he commanded the glass room like a general, or a king, the plants his soldiers and subjects to his will. In there, he reigned supreme. A boy-king in a glass-castle.
She never noted how his eyes would focus on something only he saw, a battlefield where his soldiers had to win against a wicked enemy as he counted the enemy's numbers and came up with plans to defeat them. She didn't see how his shoulders slumped down at dinner because he had walked back straight and chin up through his castle, regal as any king and only letting the façade crack away from his plants.
Augusta Longbottom saw a lot, she had to for Neville was all she had left and Algie was a poor excuse for a drunkard she wished she could have drowned at birth were it not for their kinship. She saw, watched and thought on what she had seen, but never did she think Neville was anything but her darling, dim-witted grandson.
Neville Longbottom was a warlord, a boy whose will was written in the blood he shed, whose reign was empowered by supreme force and by whose hands the world could end.
His plants knew, their pitiful magical force easily squashed by his and their wills bending beneath his superior one. They knew a lost fight when they saw one and had easily taken to obeying their lord's every will, growing according to his directions and letting him trim and cut whenever needed without making a fuss.
Neville Longbottom could win any war should he decide to fight, he was born to do so, but he rarely chose to do so.
Because he refused to battle anyone, wage war on anyone who didn't know what they were getting themselves into.
But should the opportunity arise he would ride to Azkaban and slaughter the one that tortured his parents and spit on her grave.
And then he'd go to bed and dream of doing it all again. And again. And again.
Draco Malfoy was a thief.
He didn't steal on purpose, of course, why would he? He was loved and spoiled by his parents, had anything his heart could ever desire and enough money to last him a dozen centuries of living in luxury. So why would he steal?
(He didn't, not on purpose anyway.)
Sometimes, when he was young and short, all pale cheeks and wispy blond locks, his parents would let him sleep in between them on their gigantic bed. The next morning they would wake up tired, as if their sleep had not seen to restoring their energy but they chalk it off to having their darling son sleeping alongside them, that ought to make any parent tired.
Draco however would wake up energized, feeling as if he could scale a mountain and not be tired. He would be as energetic as any child, dashing from room to room to play hide-and-seek with his friends and still put on a fight when getting a bath later that evening.
His parents never noticed how everyone around him seemed so much more tired the longer they spent in his presence. If they did they would say it was because Draco tired them out, like many young children did.
Narcissa Malfoy never knew that Draco was the reason she couldn't gift her husband a second child, that the nine months he spent in her womb had drained it of any life-sustaining capabilities and left her barren.
The gardener, an old, willowy man that had worked in and around the manor for close to a century, never bothered to see how the plants and flowers seemingly wilted whenever the young master would pass through the extensive gardens. He noticed, of course, but he was old and thought he was losing his touch. The Malfoys never noticed either, the colours of the roses and tulips were just a fraction less than perfection and that was enough for them.
But the weakest flowers would wither and die, the ground around them losing their potency to sustain any plant life until the gardener would force unearthly amounts of magical manure on it to restore the soil back to its original value.
Each winter more and more plants died, even protected by the spells woven into the gardens, but no occupant of the Wiltshire Manor ever bothered to see the pattern. The winters were getting harsher, after all, and the spells must have been worn down by the decades they've been in place.
But never did anyone notice, all too caught up in their work to notice how a peculiar child was stealing their energy, their life, and kept it for himself.
Because Draco didn't give back what he had stolen.
Even if he didn't know it wasn't his and that it made him a thief.
Harry Potter was four years old when he noticed that he couldn't die.
A clumsy classmate had accidentally pushed him off a ledge during a school trip, the fall wasn't steep but he fell on a rock. The crack had alerted the teacher who had turned around to see the boy and a few others who had seen what happened sobbing and pointing downwards.
An helicopter was called and the teacher performed CPR, as did the paramedics, but his heart wouldn't properly beat on his own until the helicopter touched down on the hospital roof when suddenly it started again, heartbeat perfectly stable and lungs working properly again.
They made X-rays of his bones, he had looked like a marionette that had had its strings cut off. He was sprawled out on the rock, neck in an unnatural angle and limbs forced in ways impossible unless the bone was broken.
The X-rays showed nothing, not even a fracture.
Harry was proclaimed a medical mystery and the boy that had caused his accident had visited him every day, which Harry liked for they became friends. But they boy moved away two months later, his father's job making them move to Scotland.
And Harry was alone again, Dudley and his aunt and uncle the only who'd talk (yell) at him and no one to share his discovery with.
Years passed and more accidents (some less accidental than others) had passed. He couldn't swim, but didn't drown when Dudley shoved him in the pool. He didn't get nearly enough to eat, yet never grew thinner than he was already. He never bruised when Dudley pushed him into the cupboards or the one time Petunia whacked him on the arm for almost touching the stove when it was on.
("Stupid, stupid boy. Do you want to burn your hand? Ungrateful brat-")
They didn't know that Harry was more than just a wizard, a freak, for that was all they wished to see. They never saw how the hedge he trimmed stayed in shape for years or how weeds he'd pull never came back.
One time he grew angry, oh so angry, and they found Dudley's hamster dead that day. He didn't touch it, wasn't allowed to, but the hamster had felt the oppressive aura emitted by him that was accompanied by his anger. The animal did the only thing he could and died.
Because it weak, weaker than Harry's fledgling magic and when Harry willed something, anything, dead because he was angry, the critter obliged.
No one noticed it was him who did it, not even Harry himself.
But maybe he did, but he didn't want to be a murderer as well as a freak. He already couldn't die, he knew that much, and he knew that that was wrong.
He never knew he wasn't even supposed to care as to what others thought of him.
He was immortal.
The master of death.
But all four of them knew that they missed something vital, something that made them whole. It caused them to obsess, latching onto things in an unhealthy way that could prove disastrous if left alone for too long. Like a fungus it thrived on the empty piece in their souls only to disappear when it was filled.
One was obsessed with winning, lashing out to vanquish anything that stood in her path.
Another focussed on a bloody goal, swearing vengeance for his parents and letting it stew in his mind for years, growing darker with each passing day.
The third was spoiled, never lacking anything yet taking more than others had to offer without knowing he did. And even if he knew he'd still take, for it was his privilege to do so.
The last was misguided and in his own twisted ways equally obsessed with being nothing and inconsequential and trying to be as normal as he could. Forcing himself to be as little as possible, downplaying every strength he had in a pathetic attempt to please his relatives and ease his conscience.
And then they were in the same place, on a station hidden for those lacking magic in front of a brilliant red train that exhaled big plumes of smoke, and their eyes met.
At that moment the world stood still.
Thank you for reading.