Götterdämmerung
I can sense it. The projectile is flying above ground, faster than sound. So much kinetic energy in the air inevitably disturbs the ambient magic. In the chaos above, I would not give it a second thought. It is different down here. Quieter.
The impact shakes the dull grey walls, and the electric lights flicker for an instant. I continue down the corridor at the same pace. It will take much more than mere artillery to crack this particular bunker. Of course, in a few hours' time, it will no longer matter.
'Folgen sie mir! Schneller!'
A lieutenant and several wounded soldiers armed with submachine guns rush past me, on their way to the conflagration above. They pay me no notice because I will it so. I know they will not be coming back.
I press on, down another flight of steps, and left down the other corridor. I have to stop, as the way forward is blocked.
The entire corridor has been turned into a makeshift field hospital. Several score wounded men are lying on the floor or slumped against the walls.
'Sanitär! Ich brauche mehr Morphin!' a medic calls out to his assistant. He is crouched a few paces in front of me, but does not notice my presence, as he in preoccupied with his patient. It is a boy, sixteen years old at most. The contrast between his school shorts and green soldier's jacket would be comical in peacetime.
'Es gibt nichts!' the orderly cries out, carefully stepping around the dying and the dead.
Not that it would do the child much good. He has several jagged shrapnel holes across his upper chest. His spasms are getting worse. 'Mein Gott…' he wheezes, and coughs out red.
I close my eyes.
I have no time for this.
With a single thought, my magic takes me to my destination. It is a much nicer room. Or it used to be.
I open my eyes and see a woman staring at me from behind the barrel of a P-38. Her golden-brown hair is a mess, and even though she has a field-marshal's trench-coat draped over her shoulders above her flowery summer dress, she is shivering.
I see my reflection in her tired, wet eyes, right there alongside the fear and confusion. She is unsure what to make of me. My anthracite officer's uniform she is well familiar with. The cloak on my shoulders and the triangular symbol on my armband—not so much. From my method of entry, she knows her weapon is useless against me.
Another artillery barrage rumbles from above. The walls shake, but she barely flinches.
This is becoming tiresome. I will the disguise away from my face. Surprise comes over her, and her eyes brighten momentarily.
'Oh, it's you,' she says, lowering her gun. She sighs in relief, and slumps down on the sofa behind her. I am surprised that she could stand at all in her state. She looks at me expectantly.
A minuscule part of me wants to reassure her. After all, this war is not of her making. She had merely followed her heart.
I extinguish the thought. Hope is useless now, and it would be more cruel than kind to kindle it.
'The Reds have crossed the Spree. It is over,' I declare.
The hope vanishes from her eyes. The ruins of her dreams finally crumble. I want to look away.
'Where is he?' I ask, knowing the answer. She merely turns her heard towards the door behind her, on the far side of the room.
I start walking, turning my eyes away from her. There, on the wall to my right, is a map. Our folly, recorded in ink. I feel the mocking gaze of the eagles above it. I suppress the urge to incinerate it as I walk by.
A sob makes me halt. I turn, and see tears running down her cheeks. 'I c-can't,' she rasps.
I take her trembling right hand in mine, and remove the small glass vial from her grip. The lethal liquid, I know, is the best her kind can produce. It is still far too slow.
The vial shatters on the floor, spilling its colourless contents.
'I will make it painless,' I declare, drawing my wand. Her eyes rest on the weapon of legend. She still has her hand in mine. She eventually withdraws it.
'Thank you.' Her eyes look into mine, and then she closes them. It is not my face that she wishes to remember last. I do not need my passive legilimency to perceive the sheer wave of emotion rolling over her as she conjures the image of her beloved.
I aim my wand straight at her heart.
I pause, having realised something quite amusing. I allow a half smile to form on my lips. If she had been a witch, her invocation of such an emotion, such a primordial, self-sacrificing love, would make what I am about to do end most unpleasantly for me. My soul would likely be fractured and scattered to the four corners of the earth.
Fortunately, love untempered by magic can do very little.
'Avada kedavra,' I whisper. The green flash impacts instantaneously. Her head gently slumps. Her eyes remain closed. To anyone else, she appears asleep.
'Goodbye, Eva.'
I proceed to the door, not looking back. Another wall-shaking blast conceals the sound of my entrance. There, in the small office, behind a desk covered with maps, the man I am looking for sits perfectly still, looking at nothing in particular. I note the messy hair, the pallid countenance, the bags under his eyes. He has probably not slept a wink in the past forty-eight hours.
I look down at the desk, where several bullets have been placed as counters over a map of the city. I notice an empty magazine and a pistol next to his left hand. I look up at his worn brown uniform, and the single decoration on his chest. He always made it a point never to award himself honours ex officio, and wore only the one medal he had earned on the field of battle. I know it is well-merited. I have seen his memory; the blasts, the shouts, the noxious cloud, and the horrible burning.
Another barrage from above finally shakes him from his stupor and he acknowledges my presence. He calls out my name by way of greeting. I reciprocate.
'They have crossed the river,' I declare. He says nothing, and moves one of the bullets on the map across the blue line. The circle tightens.
'I suppose,' he says, 'that you have come to say farewell.' He fixes me with his deep-set blue eyes. Gone is their fire, that determination, that unholy charisma which made legions follow him into the depths of Hell. What stands before me is a ruin.
'What will you do?' he asks, 'You can easily escape them. I have no such choice.' He picks up the magazine and starts inserting the bullets one by one. He knows that in a mere instant, I could secure his escape and hide him, and that his kind would never find him. Yet I know that he would never ask that of me.
'I will go to Dumbledore. We will fight.'
The words 'and I will fall' stick in my throat.
He snorts. 'I have seen what you are capable of. The Devil himself couldn't stop you.'
That is not true. He has seen only a fraction. The full range of my ability is beyond the powers of his imagination.
'They will say that I tried to make super-men. If they only knew that such a race already exists,' he laughs. The sound is faint, though from the tone I recognise it is not flattery.
'They will say that I was a monster,' he says, more sombrely.
'They will,' I echo.
If they only knew… His armies and trinkets have merely been the tools for the bloody harvest. Even he does not know what I did to the souls! So many millions!—and yet, no success. The Final Enemy remains unconquered.
'I've cleaned some of it up,' I say. It is a lie. There is only so much that can be done, when I am fighting a war of my own. At least the evidence of magic is destroyed. If anyone wants the secret, he will have to pry it from me.
Another blast shakes the walls and the lights flicker.
He is lost in thought again. Once again, I am surprised by my feelings. There is the faintest trace of pity forming in of the corners of my mind. It is really quite amusing.
As I look again into those empty eyes, so reminiscent of a man kissed by a dementor, I realise the cause of my feeling, and my amusement disappears.
What this man now is, I will soon become.
He suddenly snaps up.
'Eva?' he calls. I raise my wand, pointing it up. He eyes the weapon, more terrible than any instrument his kind can devise. He has seen it deliver death in an instant.
He nods approvingly, but I keep it raised.
'No,' he declines the offer, placing the magazine into the gun, 'I will do it my way.'
I nod and return my weapon to its holster.
'Goodbye,' I say, and turn to the door. His war may be over, but I still have a last stand to make.
'Gellert,' he calls out, as I am leaving. 'Our bodies.'
'Yes. I will do that.' The horrible power of the Fiendfyre will erase all trace of them from the earth.
'Farewell,' I hear him say. I close the door behind me.
The gunshot echoes behind me as I walk down the corridor.
A/N: This is an idea I had while trying to write the next chapter for my other fic. I am stuck on that one, so I thought better write something, even if it is a one-shot. Never experimented with first-person before, so we'll see how that goes.
Disclaimer: I do not own the Harry Potter franchise, or any of its associated intellectual property. Any name, concept or other part thereof appearing here has been borrowed for non-commercial entertainment purposes.