Lo there do I see my father
Lo there do I see my mother
And my sisters
And my brothers
Lo there do I see the line of my people
Back to the beginning
Lo they do call to me
And bid me take my place among them
In the halls of Valhalla
Where the brave will live
Forever
~oOo~
As they closed the door on the mausoleum of the great general, their leader and saviour, Hermione looked up and counted the crows that had made the lone tree of the cemetery their home. Thirteen ravens in a dead-white tree, and Harry Potter entombed.
If it weren't for the fact that Harry had made sure that absolutely everything was alright before he died, or as alright as he could make it – which was almost impossibly alright, really – and if Hermione hadn't been an utterly practical witch who didn't believe in divination at all, then Hermione might have thought it an omen of things to come.
In actual fact, it was. But not for her or her world. It was an omen for the young man that had just been entombed. Alive.
~oOo~
The Great Conjunction Comes
~oOo~
It was the thirteenth moon cycle of that year. The thirteenth day of said lunar cycle and of the twelfth month of the year – the last month. The thirteen moons of Neptune were in an almost straight line, for those who watched the planets that closely. It was a Friday. It was the day of a solar eclipse.
All in all, for the superstitious, it was a good day to stay home, in a padded cell, surrounded by good-luck charms and doing nothing at all risky.
Thirteen ravens landed on the white marble structure that housed Harry Potter, and as the sun was covered by the moon and the land made dark, the birds disappeared.
Unknown to all, the body of Harry Potter disappeared with them.
Considering that he'd been buried alive in there, it was just as well really. It was a good thing they'd gotten him out before he'd woken up as well, or he'd have really panicked.
~oOo~
There is nothing either good or bad, but thinking makes it so
~oOo~
"Who are you?" Harry asked when he opened his eyes. He felt disconcertingly calm. Detached even. That wasn't normal for him. "Where am I?"
"We are the Choices," answered one raven. "You are at the Crossroads."
"That's not a metaphor, is it?" Harry asked.
"No," answered a different raven.
"You must make a decision, Harry Potter, and choose one of us to guide you from here to that which lies beyond," directed the third.
"Do not concern yourself with what is past. They believe you dead, and your task there complete," declared the fourth raven, pre-empting Harry's question.
"It does not matter which of us you follow," said the fifth.
"But we will each take you somewhere different," explained the sixth.
"There is no better Choice," stated the seventh firmly.
"All we Choices are equal," confirmed the eight.
"How you react to the situations your Choice will present to you is your own matter, and of no consequence to us," extrapolated the ninth raven.
"We but lead you to one place," said the tenth raven.
"Where you go from there has naught to do with us," the eleventh added.
"We are Choices at the Crossroads," intoned the twelfth raven.
The thirteenth raven, the thirteenth Choice, remained silent a moment, simply eyeing Harry shrewdly before opening its beak. "Are you waiting for something, Harry Potter?"
"I don't know where you will lead me," he answered.
The thirteenth raven nodded. "That is as it should be," it agreed easily. "It is like your simple human game, to pick a number between one and thirteen. There is no consequence but that which you create yourself."
Harry sighed, and raise a hand to point at one of the ravens. His Choice made clear by that simple action.
~oOo~
Which way shall you go?
Which way shall you take?
If you don't take any
You'll make a mistake
~oOo~
"You cannot go back, and you will never see us again," the raven instructed when Harry left the Crossroads behind and stepped out into daylight once more.
Harry nodded his understanding to the raven, and watched as it vanished, disappearing like so much mist being dissipated by a breeze.
A hand gripped Harry's ankle then, and he would have jumped if he could as he looked down.
A man lay there, bloody, with nothing that should have been attached to himself below the navel area attached at all properly if it was still attached at all. This was a man dead, but whose heart and brain had not yet caught up with the fact.
Harry watched, desensitised from having seen too many of his own battles ending badly, as this man's eyes became glassy and the desperate grip of his fingers became limp. Harry released himself before rigour-mortise could set in, as he knew it would, soon enough.
Harry was not dispassionate, and closed the man's eyes and mouth, laying him on his back, but he was also determined to be sensible in whatever this new situation was. Harry took everything from the man's pockets that wasn't ruined by the amount of blood on it, and even took the metal headband from his brow when he saw that other bodies, already dead, were also wearing such headbands.
Harry raided them of any valuables as well, and found that there seemed to be groups of people with the same symbol on their headbands.
Among the dead bodies of so many people, Harry eventually found one who was alive, cradled in the arms of a dead man with the same blond hair as the babe that was still crying. The only life in this place of death besides Harry.
Harry blinked at the child, naked and with a swirling black mark like a tattoo on his stomach. It was just as well that Harry had his wand and could still work magic wherever he was. Certainly it had allowed him to collect rather a lot from the cooling bodies around him without being weighed down. Now it allowed him to transfigure a bloody, torn-up uniform of one of the dead into a clean nappy for the infant and a clean, whole jumpsuit that would keep him warm.
Harry didn't know what was going on, what had happened here in this place – besides a slaughter that is – but he did know that he would not be leaving a child that young to die here, all alone. Harry was extra careful about raiding all of the pockets of the man who had been cradling the child so protectively, even in death.
~oOo~
The fool doth think his is wise
But a wise man knows himself to be a fool
~The End~