From the Hands of Chaos
A/N: This was inspired by one of the latest trailers for 'Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part 2' in which Harry says "I never wanted any of you to die for me." Most likely spoilers for the latter half of the book.
Also, first Harry Potter fic... please don't eat me.
Disclaimer: If I really owned Harry Potter, I would have a huge vault in Gringotts brimming with gold and feast on butter beer :) But I could never match the genius that is J.K. Rowling, and I will not try to.
He's everything but calm.
In the halls of Hogwarts, spells ricochet off the cavernous ceilings, screaming like gargoyles as Harry battles through the chaos. Curses splice through the air; angry reds and malevolent greens streaking through the corridors. Screaming has become something he knows all too well, as more cries smash against his ears.
It happens when he's running down a particularly large corridor, full of witches and wizards duelling and colours whizzing through the air.
That's where Harry falls.
He loses his footing for only a second, but it's enough for him to stumble. His elbows hit the hard stone of the floor as his glasses fly away on an invisible wind. He hears a slight crack and hopes that it's not his knee, which throbs slightly against the thick stone. There's the bitter tang of copper in his mouth and he spits, an amber splatter forming on the floor.
His wand is the first thing that he searches for, groping madly until his fingers coil around it, then for his glasses. The spindly frames push against the pads of his fingers when he finds them, blurry images blending into a muddle of colour.
He puts the glasses back on, and that's when he sees it.
He's come face to face with chaos, and it's breathing in his face like a hungry chimera. Its hot breath steams in his face, teeth barred like swords.
But he's come this far and his point of no return fell out of sight more than eight years ago. His destiny is a spinning wheel, twirling him into the fabric of a destiny he did not choose. But in destiny's books choice is categorized under the ornate script that reads optional.
There's more than just chaos around him, the air drips with it; is ripe with a pure, rabid desperation. There's not enough for equal share; the world is not divided into equal parts of its whole.
Harry knows this, knows it all too well.
Desire muddies the waters of equality, and that's more than enough to stir motivation. It was enough for Voldemort to unravel his family, take scissors to his family tapestry and shred it.
But he; Harry Potter, is the reason for his vendetta. Revenge brews its own nasty concoction, and his survival was a powerful broth left to simmer in Voldemort's black heart. His survival of the stroke of a lethal curse encroached upon territory that Voldemort deemed his.
As he stands, his mind drifts to a thought that he's only had once before, and one that he's never mentioned to anyone. It's a plentiful Pandora's Box in his mind, filled with a plethora of controversy.
It's the consideration of another life, one that he didn't have and chose to ignore. But under the presumption of inevitable warfare, more desirable circumstances always come to light.
He wonders if in the absence of magic, if his life would be any different. The normalcy is almost sickening, but there's a wisp of relief to it, a lack of responsibility that alleviates some of the pressure on his narrow shoulders.
As he walks down another hall, his intentions different from his companions he thinks of giving up this; this emporium of wonders for a private school with a monochromatic dress code.
The last time such a thought crossed his mind was after Sirius had died; after the veil had swept him away to the land beyond and whatever utopia awaited him there.
Sickening doesn't even begin to cover the sensation that ripples through Harry's stomach at the thought.
Then he sees the bodies, and his gut twirls around inside him, a broomstick gone completely mad. These people died fighting against the Death Eaters under Voldemort's charge, sworn to fight any opposing party.
These people died defending Hogwarts, the last of a cavalry of hopefuls.
They died defending him. They fell for the cause of his future, shining like a beacon amongst these ugly thorns.
It opposes everything he's ever wanted in this life, his vision of morality. He's never wanted death for the sake of his beliefs, and that's only a fraction of the undesirables that he encounters on this little trip down memory lane.
He's never wanted a war fought simply over the momentary eclipse that is his life.
It's nothing short of depressing, that the body count will exceed the number of years he's lived.
He hopes that it doesn't exceed the number of breaths he's taken.
He passes beneath a small archway, laced with the contorted faces of gargoyles and webbed with intricate stone patterns. He tries to commit them to memory, because he doesn't know if he'll see it again.
The lump in his throat grows when he sees who's waiting for him in the distance.
The Reaper has come with his sickle sharpened, hands eager to swing.
Even from a distance Harry can see the flat span of his nose, two serpentine slits carved into his flesh. His eyes are dark with lustful power, oozing with arrogance that makes Harry's skin crawl.
As he walks towards the bridge, built over the hands of destiny's lackey Harry thinks of what he's gained from this. He thinks of what chaos has delivered to him, in the most unorthodox of ways.
There's Ron and Hermione, with which the moments of laughter outnumber all the others. Their loyalty soars higher than a mountain, piled high beneath his feet.
There are the professors of Hogwarts, his mentors, supporters and the occasional thorn in his side. Dumbledore, Hagrid, McGonagall, Snape...
There's Ginny, who's been more than a simple romance or friend but a light through the thick fog of his life, shinning the way home.
There's an accumulation of memories in his mind, a treasure trove of precious moments locked away in his own enchanted box for no others and that is how they shall remain.
The bridge is closer now, and he can feel the wet beat of his heart in his ears, the pant of his breath in the air. Then there's his snarl that raises the skin on his arms and makes him grit his teeth.
Those memories outnumber anything else and that, he realises is paramount in this quandary.
That is his motivation; a rippling wave of memories that spans miles, overpowering and daunting in its magnitude.
He fights for what has shaped him, moulded him into the simulacrum of who he's become. He stands for the righteous, whose hands are just out of reach of salvation's promise.
He fights for what is his.
So he steps onto the bridge, Voldemort's sneer glaring at him in the haze and has no shade of regret.
He's fighting for the world that has raised him; for the world that is anything but ordinary.
Fin
Please review :D