I feel it is fitting that as this year ends, a new, fresh beginning if born from the ashes of the old. With my new job, I have been granted a bit more reliable downtime to work on stories. To that end, I am working on a daily challenge over on Tumblr, and two fanfics of my own for posting. This is one I've been yearning to get out for a while now, and I'm so glad that I get to share it with all of you. To all my old fans, I want to thank you for sticking with me during my prolonged silences. To my new fans, hope you enjoy the stay.
Emerald eyes closed as the final breath rattled out of his chest, Harry had done it. He had killed Voldemort, and all it had taken him was his childhood, his friends, even his very life. But everyone else was safe from Voldemort now. He wanted to be mad, that he had to sacrifice everything for people that didn't give two shits about him. He wanted to sob for all the ones he couldn't save. He wanted to see the future.
But as his body continued to shut itself down, he realized, he didn't have time for any of that. It was his turn to go beyond the veil.
As his broken spirit left this plane, heading towards that one of muted colors and blue saturation, a single robed figure reached out of the ether and took it by the hand, leading it to a secluded area. Laying the boy's shattered spiritual remains out on a slab of some grey stone or other, it began letting it gain the rest it was refused in life.
Looking the figure over, it pulled out a slip of parchment that it had been given for this occasion. "Orders from top of the chain kid… let's see what you have in store," it offered in a raspy whisper that spoke volumes of just how little it was used. "A hero most noble, a martyr so young, and yet… those on high decree that thy battle is not yet won…"
"Nay childe of man, though your rest is earned hundred fold, they charge your task incomplete. To battle you must return, but not a fight to die, but to learn what it is to truly live," the figure stated while a boney hand slipped into the cowl to rub its chin. After a moment, it reached out to trace a single finger along the lightning bolt shaped scar upon his charge's forehead. "Nay, one so young and pure need not die in such an ignoble manner as the puppet of one that knows less than they think."
"A curse and a boon both, this second chance be," the figure stated as it continued going down from the head, heading along the spectral form that had once been Harry Potter, the form rippling and changing in its wake. Where there had once before been the wiry muscles and haggard skin of a life born from fighting to survive, were now curves and a softness that belied the great hidden power within. The Boy-Who-Lived-To-Die was replaced in a single wave of the hand with a young girl, just on the cusp of womanhood. "Aye there lass, now this form is more in tune with the core of your magic, don't you believe?"
A dry, raspy chuckle escaped at its own joke as the spiritual form rested mute as the grave. Instead of waiting for a response that would not come, the figure lifted Harry's head, and began running its fingers through the black hair, smirking as red spread through it like wildfire, spilling out and lengthening with each stroke, once it came to her shoulders, the figure let the head settle onto its new pillow of hair of molten fire. "Ah, a little darker than your mother, but such a nice hue for a beautiful girl that will need every ounce of fire in her to stand against the cold machinations of those that would squelch her life before its begun," the figure whispered softly as its hands drifted down from the hair to the face, rubbing its long slender fingers over the face slowly to smooth out the lines of a face of a boy who had seen more than men twice his age, to the contrasting face of a woman that was at the same time hard as rock, but softened like a marble statue carved at the hands of a master to show the beauty of an ancient forgotten goddess.
The forefingers and middle fingers lighted upon the girl's slumbering eyelids, sliding them up to reveal the dulled emerald eyes one final time. The life that had once sparkled and shone in them had faded, leaving only hollow echoes of what they had once been. "Ah, but we cannot have all your father gone, now can we? The hazel he had would not suit you as you deserve, but perhaps something a bit more dramatic? I fear you shall keep his eyesight though," the voice offered in a weak joke as it paused while looking into the hauntingly empty eyes. After a second, the lids were lowered with nary a word more, before being reopened to reveal blue eyes.
These were not the icy blue of the sky over the Arctic in the middle of winter, a blue that would drive daggers of ice through the hearts of even the hardiest of folk. Nor were they the sky blue of an odd little seer that had been belittled by those that did not understand. No, they were simply the sapphire blue of a deep and inviting lake at midday during the hottest days of summer. Cooling and inviting, tender with hints of mischief in its depths. "Ah yes, the contrast does suit you so much the better young one…"
Lifting one hand away, the other traced the scar again, a sound of grating boulders escaping from the cowl as it leaned in to study the scar. "Such an offense upon a delicate flower should not be borne, nay and it shall not."
Trailing the finger down, the scar moved with it, over eyebrow and nose, past lips and cheek, curled around the chin and down the neck. At the base of the neck, nestled between the two ends of the collarbone chamber of what had once been a shard of a soul befouled by fell, cowardly magic. "Though that I could remove it, the scar would be gone to never mar your features again. Yet, there is hope young one; for a scar shall it shall not be, but a birthmark in its stead." A twist of the hand changed it from the bolt of lightning to a blushing red mark, a rounded bottom curving up along its sides to two gentle rosy hills, the valley of which meeting in the middle. "Ah, there we go, a mark that will be far easier to conceal than that uncouth and foul scar."
Standing back, the figure observed its work quietly, using a sleeve to brush away the remaining taint her former life left clinging to the slumbering form. But after its first pass, the figure took a surprised step back as a heart-shaped ruby emerged through the flesh of the chest and hovered in front of the robed form. "A love-based magic core…" it whispered reverently as it cradled the faintly glowing object between its hand, drawing it closer without actually daring to touch it. "Never in all of my days had a dared imagining seeing one before me, but what does it wish of me I wonder?"
The heart parted down the middle with a single line from crown to cockle, opening to reveal a tangled mass of jet black tendrils clogging every inch. "What fool would dare taint where even angels dare not tread?"
A moment's pause to steel against the repercussions that its work might bring, the robed figure plunged its hand into the taint and ripped it free, casting into the air where it vanished into the nothing it was born from. Inside the heart there was revealed a figure huddled in the corner, her beaten and battered form holding her wand towards where the darkness had once been. "A valiant little spirit: I can see you have fought so long unknown and alone. Such abandonment is not worthy of the sacrifice you have given. So allow me to be of assistance to you."
The finger reached into the cavity and swirled around the brave little figure, replacing the remains of what might have once been a dress with a gleaming suit of armor that shone with an inner light. "Armor of purest light, to prevent darkness overwhelming."
"And for such a heroine as you, a special boon to save the one you guard against darkness that would steal the heart of me, a spell to your wand," the figure offered with the hints of amusement in its voice as the young woman in the heart knelt and brushed unruly brown hair back before presenting the wand across her open palms. "A fan of the old forms such as you would appreciate this boon, the basis for the human Patronus is granted to you to drive back the darkness you face."
As a misty light from around the room coalesced around the wand's tip, the figure let out a laugh as the Guardian made a vow to do it proud. "You have done so and more, little one. I leave young Harriet Jasmine Potter to your care."
The salute was held until the heart sealed itself once more, and drifted back towards the body it had once resided inside. Once the core had returned to its resting place, color and life returned to the body that remained on the hard stone. "Final words of advice childe of a life lived twice. Remember that love will always find a way, I have opened the gates to a love once denied. Turn it not away."
The robe sleeves passed over the slumbering form twice more, each pass removing years from the girl, turning her from a teen on the verge of adulthood to a child, to a baby coming into toddlerhood. Leaning in, the figure gave the sleeping babe a gentle kiss on the forehead as it picked it up off the tablet.
Holding the baby in its arms, it looked up at the portal that had opened itself to the world. If it could cry, it might have done so at this moment. Raising the baby up out of its outstretched arms, it watched as she vanished from sight, reappearing on the other side of the portal in a crib one fateful night. Turning away from the viewing portal, it refused to watch as the events unfolded on the rails that even it could not alter. It refused to listen as the baby relived a night of horrors that it was subjecting the girl to, nor to the cries that would go unanswered for hours.
It was following orders from on high, but damn if it did not feel like it was being dragged through the deepest depths of Hell itself for this.
