Magic in Life
Liber Unus ex Tria

A/N: Warning - R-rated Harry Potter 'fic. Highly mature issues, things that Mommy and Daddy warned you about, etc. This is your last chance to turn back. . .

On this story in general - much of it was written as far back as two years ago. A lot of intervening circumstances happened between then and now, and for some unknown reason, I decided to continue the story . . . I like to think I've changed as a writer (although whether it's for the better or for the worse is seriously in doubt). If anyone even remembers this story, I'll be highly amazed. But still . . . here goes.

For the real Saraja and Rue.

Prologus -- Intentionem Lucubrare

Remember when the days were long
And rolled beneath a deep blue sky
Didn't have a care in the world
With mommy and daddy standin' by
But "happily ever after" fails
And we've been poisoned by these fairy tales
The lawyers dwell on small details
Since daddy had to fly

The wind blew the dead leaves along the ground with a hesitant rustling like they did every year as autumn came round; as they had done for countless years in the past, and as they would do for countless more to come. It was the kind of day when children run outside and laugh and have a good time, the wind in their hair; the days when every breath you take has the slight tang to it of smoke, the days when you feel happy just to be alive and real.

But things change, like they always do. People change. Time passes. The look in people's eyes can go from love to tolerance to hatred in a split second, and you'll be left standing still alone, wondering when and how and why everything changed.

Picture another time and place, if you will. Keep the season autumn, keep the sky cool and clear, but change the scenery. Make the pavement cold and hard, streaked with rusty stains that can never - and will never - be washed away. Take the slight hint of laughter still borne in the air by so many children away.

There is no more life here.

What there is - what there is are ghosts. Ghosts are still here, packed tightly in every centimeter and inch and atom of the surrounding air. Ghosts of men, women, children; people that perished so long ago with no one to see them go - or to care when they finally went.

No, people don't care about these long ago ghosts if they remember them anymore. They don't look for the quick glimpses of shadows rounding the corner, nor the remembered feel of a familiar hand in theirs. But at night, when it's all dark and black, when they're all alone, they can close their eyes tightly and hear the long ago keens of the innocent and lost and forgotten, still in the stagnant air with the promise of pain. And then they shed silent tears for all those long ago joyous years with their smoky autumns.

The wind is still blowing. It blows, not at any particular strength or weakness, but with the kind of strength behind it that diverts rivers and breaks down mountains to nothing but rubble. It has been there for thousands of millennia, and it has seen kingdoms fall and empires rise. It cares nothing for the fragile lives of the small beings who suffer on Terra, this world of only millions.

Perhaps that is the true horror behind it - the lack of caring.

There is nothing but darkness in the light, the girl thinks to herself, grimacing slightly as she does so. The grimace deepens as the appropriate rebuttal that she does not bother to speak aloud comes to mind, and she sighs for a long drawn out second. The Light has a fierce and cold Darkness at the heart of It; but even the Dark is surrounded by something so empty that it must give way to the Light at the end.

The girl raises a small chin, looking bored, her usual expression of choice for the last several hundred years or so. She's disarmingly small and fragile, and in the oversized shirt and jeans she's wearing, the sense of frailness is only painfully exacerbated.

And then suddenly, sharply, she smiles, pulling thin lips back to reveal long ivory fangs that slip gracefully and almost childishly over her lower lip. A fine-boned hand brushes back long pale hair that frames her sharp face - pointed with a desperate kind of hunger - and almost swallowed by large, startlingly golden eyes.

There's a sudden rustle from her, one that would be indiscernible to human ears, but she blinks and looks up sharply, her eyes turning dark brown. Her surprise is only momentary, though, because the next thing she does is to stretch languorously, stirring the limp carcass of the rabbit at her feet with one bare foot, careful to register her unconcern.

Done yet? A quiet voice that's not quite a voice asks quietly, and the girl looks up, her eyes fading slowly back to their earlier color. For no apparent reason at all, she seems to be irritated, and she blows out a long breath of air, exposing her fangs again.

Yes, she replies, a strange smile touching her lips briefly. Yes, I'm done, Saraj. She laughs suddenly, a quick peal of humorless merriment, and then she pivots suddenly, jumping off the top of the building she's on to the next one in a single lithe movement. Her feet are silent as she sprints from roof to roof, her lips still curved in that odd smile - and then she whirls and changes direction far too fast for any observer to catch and jumps, letting herself free-fall thirty feet to the hard ground so far beneath her.

The wind is still blowing, keening away as a small boy runs and falls on the pavement, sending a slash of cold ice through his veins, cutting out any other possible thought he might have.

"No!" he cries out, his voice sobbing in panic. "No no no no no -"

He knows it's too late now, and nothing can save him, but he's still praying. It's an incantation to keep the dark back, to keep the predators away, to make daylight come again, to make the dreams not so real anymore, but . . .

But it's real. Dreams are always real.

His pursuer, a large bat with a three foot wingspan, is on the boy now, ignoring his cries. It strikes at his face first, drawing blood with its wingclaws, and the boy ducks, hands covering himself in a futile effort to protect his head. He's still crying, but the tears have faded now to grim acceptance. And as that acceptance comes into his eyes, the bat is on him - his face, his arms, his throat, everywhere - and sharp fangs are slashing through arteries and veins.

Bright splashes of red go everywhere, but the boy's scream of panic chokes and dies in his throat. Even as he dies, he knows that he was marked for death this day, and there are worse deaths than this one . . . his cries go silent after several long minutes, and the predator pushes itself away from him, its hunger temporarily satiated. It has to move on now, find more food.

Silently, the bat takes wing into the air, its eyes bright scarlet and mouth smeared crimson. The boy lies on the empty cement, his skin a glowing white.

The wind blows on . . .

And out of all this chaos, there is a small piece of order in a single fractured moment of time, somehow emerging out of so many stormy emotions.

A voice speaks out of the shadows, so silent, so quiet, that nobody hears it - or if they do, they don't acknowledge it. "Strike."

The authority with which these words are spoken is strange, as if it should be known throughout the land. The owner of the voice does not repeat himself. His orders have already been obeyed, just as he expected them to be, and he is already gone.

But his words hang in the dark night air, fragile and present, the empty and hollow eye of the storm in so much madness. "Strike."

As if in response to that one small word, the sky darkens, clouds rolling over the lovely luminescence of the moon, and then without warning, out of nowhere, lightning strikes the earth with a harsh crash, making bright emerald eyes flare in the night sky, backlit by the crimson of the evening sunset.