Sorcerer's Creed

Chapter 1

Written By: Lord Raine

Disclaimer: If you don't have jazz hands, you don't have a soul. Also, I don't own this.

It's been ten years. Ten long, long years.

Across the land, a darkness has fallen. You would have thought there would have been some great clash. There was not. You might have imagined it would have been obvious. It was not. In the beginning, they denied there was anything wrong at all. By the time he moved openly, it was already too late. Dumbledore's counter-plan was flawless. Perfect.

It still didn't work.

Someone was helping him. Someone, somewhere. An enemy we did not know, with strength we did not understand. You cannot fight what you do not understand.

It's been ten long, long years since the darkness fell. And the world doesn't even know. But I've come to understand the truth. The truth is, the darkness fell a long, long time ago. It's just that only a precious, precious few knew.

They locked me away. 'Public Undesireable Number One.' My friends, 'pacified.' My allies, vanished into the maw of a war none of us understood. A war that I did not get to participate in. They thought I would weaken here. Wither away. Die. By all rights, I should have. I'd like to say it's to my credit that I did not. But it is not.

I was always weak against the Dementors. Always. Dumbledore and Lupin thought it was because of my past, that the things I had experienced in life were worse than what most saw in their nightmares. I never really agreed, though. I felt it was something deeper than that. I still don't really know.

When they threw me in here, they pulled on me. Pulled on my memories, dragging up horror after horror, memory after memory. There were so many Dementors, always outside, always there. More than I had known existed. Stronger than I had thought possible. Happy, sad, horrible, wonderful, blood-soaked, all my memories were pulled. But then, something happened. Something broke. The memories became sharper, clearer, more vivid. But these memories, I did not remember them. Names I never knew, faces I had never seen. Places I had never been. People I had never killed.

At first, it was vague. Misty, smoky, distant, incoherent, like a fever dream. But as time went on, it became clearer, sharper. Time. Does time even mean anything? I've been here for thousands of years, haven't I? I can't remember. No, it's been only a hundred, hasn't it?

I learned the truth. The darkness hadn't fallen. It was already covering the land. We didn't lose the war. The war was lost a long, long time ago.

It doesn't matter. Nothing matters now. Nothing but killing them.

I will not cry. I ran out of tears a long time ago. I will not run. I ran out of fear a long time ago. I will not despair. I ran out of sorrow a long time ago.

I'm empty. Which is good. That's exactly what I need to be. An empty vessel can be filled to the brim. Erasmus told me that, once. That a man needed to make himself empty, so God could fill him with purpose.

I was emptied. And now I am full.

The bitter winds of the North Sea howled and whipped across the face of the massive obsidian obelisk that was Azkaban, jagged sharp claws tearing at the tiny windows and sucking away the warmth with a ravenous hunger. High, high atop the structure, on the very highest detention floor, there was the maximum security block. A recent addition, relatively speaking, proposed by the latest regime and installed by Azkaban's new management. Less than fifty cells were packed together, more vaults than prison cells, and guarded around the clock by over a dozen-score Dementors. Every single vault was currently vacant. Every single vault, save one.

A figure sat against the far wall of his vault, heedless of the wind screaming across the window. Grime and dirt covered his nearly naked body, giving ghastly pale skin a mockery of a tan. A thick, unkempt black beard hung from his face, and long, filthy hair covered the man's head, but it was swept aside at the front by the wind, revealing a jagged pink scar slashed across his forehead, sharp in contrast to his complexion.

Etched crudely into the walls, floor, and even the ceiling, there were symbols. Some as small as a fingernail, others the size of two grown hands placed side-by-side. Some where old and worn, covered in grime and filth and barely distinguishable from the natural lines in the walls. Others were fresh and stood out stark against the dark stone. But they were all the same. An upward pointing spade-shaped arrow, like a compass or a pair of callipers, and beneath, an embellished curve closing up the opening.

Sharp, emerald green eyes that seemed to glow with a faint luminescence in the dim light snapped open as the horrific, soul-numbing cold began to fade. With a harsh creak, the massive vault door slowly swung open for the first time in over a decade.

Slowly, legs that had not walked in years bent and twisted. The man put a hand out, steadying himself, and stood up to his full six foot height. With a steadiness that defied a decade of atrophy and disuse, he took one step forward, and then another. Any normal man would have died long, long ago. Any normal man could not have taken a single step. But this man was not normal. He was a wizard, built of the same constitution as the great figures of myth and lore. He was a sorcerer born.

Carefully, he placed a hand on the frame of the door, and pulled himself through.

Not a Dementor in sight.

Harry Potter's eyes burned in the darkness of the hallway, and his lips cracked as they slowly curved up.

"Are you sure zis is ze best course of action?" a smooth, masculine voice said with a faintly French accent.

"There is no other way. We couldn't get the passkeys to his cell. We're lucky to have even gotten the touchstone. The only way through is to take everything offline."

"Zat will open up all ze cells, though. Every block."

"And trip all the alarms too, but unless you fancy eighteen hours of cursebreaking..."

"True. We do not 'ave that kind of time."

The two figures, one in dusty brown robes and the other in rich red, pressed their hands onto two different spots on a large bank of stone, too far apart for a single man to attempt. Though nothing visibly changed, there was a subtle shift in the atmosphere, and both men knew that dozens of alarms had just been set off, both in Azkaban and in the Ministry itself.

Without wasting any time, they started walking across the security reception area towards the far stairs, ignoring the dozens of bleeding bodies strewn across the floor.

"And what if he iz gone when we get zere? We just opened ze doors."

"He's been in there for ten years."

"He 'az done more impossible things, if Dumbledore's journals are to be believed."

"Then we can only hope that Albus-"

"Y-you-" a man gasped, blood pooling around him from the stump of his severed arm as he struggled to sit up. "That-that's impossible! You... you're dead! Nicolas Fla-"

A flash of green light cut him off and his head fell back, eyes vacant and empty. The red robed man didn't even break his stride.

Bare feet pounded against the dark stone, taking the stairs two at a time. Down was not an option. Down lay rocks and stone, endless corridors and an army of guards. Up. Up was the way. He was near the top. Centuries of stalking, fleeing, and fighting had ingrained into him the urgent need. He needed to go higher.

'I know the truth now. I've seen it. I have nothing left to give, but everything. I have nothing left to lose, because they took it all away. Do you understand?'

Rounding the corner, a pair of men loomed out of the darkness, black robes with frozen, emotionless faces. Harry spun, hair flying as his elbow sunk into one of the guards necks with a harsh snap, dropping him and sending his mask flying. Smoothly sidestepping a blast of green light from his companion, he lunged forwards. His left hand shot out like a serpent, crashing into the Death Eater's face and collapsing his nose with a fleshy crunch. Before the man could even register the pain, Harry's other hand shot upwards in a backhanded uppercut, rattling his brain and robbing him of consciousness.

One more floor, one more flight of stairs.

'I'm empty now. Because that's what I needed to become. All the pain, all the regret, all the sorrow, all the fear. It was drawn out of me, teardrop by teardrop. I was empty, and could be filled. Filled with the creed.'

The doors to the upper barracks exploded with the force of a bomb. A red light was pulsating along the entire length of the room, and the harsh whine of goblin alarms filled the air. Dozens of Death Eater guards who had been mobilizing were caught completely unawares, some with their pants literally down. A hurricane was amongst them.

Harry tore through the room like a man possessed, ignoring the screeching of the alarms and shoving confused and panicking guards aside. He had made it over halfway across before anyone had even realized what was happening.

A half-dressed man shouted in the din, raising his wand, only to have a comrade with his back to Harry deliberately shoved into him, knocking both men into one of the giant fireplaces that lined the walls between each bed. Another Death Eater knelt in the center walkway, buckling his shoes. He started at the shouts and explosive retort and turned towards the door, only for Harry to step on his back and vault over the central table like a gazelle, snatching a dagger stuck into a loaf of bread as he went.

A purple beam of light shot at him from his left, swinging wide and causing one of the bunks to explode into shrapnel, peppering the chaos with raining debris. Another Death Eater, fully dressed and with a crimson mask covering the top half of his face, stepped confidently out of the confusion, raising his wand. Harry lunged at him in a burst of speed even as his lips began to move, raising his dagger in a reverse grip and slashing clean across the man's neck, opening his throat and tearing his hood. The man crumpled gurgling, and Harry plucked his wand from loose fingers before he had even hit the ground.

With a sweeping gesture of his new wand, the group of Death Eaters in front of him flew backwards towards the entrance, crashing into beds, chairs, and other Death Eaters. The way clear, the door at the far end of the barracks exploded into cinders as the roar of confusion turned to anger behind him.

'Filled to the brim. Overflowing. Mine cup runneth over. They will not stop me. They couldn't stop me when I hunted their order across Europa and the Holy Land, the Far East and the Colonies, and they will not stop me now. I will not falter, because I know that the truth is that nothing is true. I will not hesitate, because I know that everything is permitted. That is the creed of war. The creed of doing what must be done. My creed.'

Harry sprinted across the massive expanse of the tilted roof, his legs pumping smoothly and his feet slapping against the rain-slicked obsidian stone as the fury of the North Sea screamed around him. Bolts and beams of multicolored light shot past him, colored every shade of death and destruction. He didn't break stride. His eyes were locked on the highest point on the entire structure. The entire roof was slanted to one side, raising the far corner of the diamond up higher than the rest. The proverbial peak.

Distant screams and shouts erupted behind him, the sounds of pursuit and anger changing to the sounds of battle and panic. Sparing a glance behind him, Harry saw two figures chasing after him across the rooftops from the smoking remains of another door, firing behind them as they ran.

It didn't matter. Nothing mattered except hunting down every last member of the order and wiping them out. Genocide. Standing and fighting against an army of hired help was pointless. He had learned that many times over. Hydra could never be slain by standing and fighting the heads.

He stopped, and looked out across the North Sea from the highest point of the tallest object in hundreds of miles. For an instant, he savored the view, beautiful as it always was at these heights. A seemingly infinite expanse of raging seas and howling storm stretched out before him, sheets of driving rain plunging down from on high and bolts of lightning arcing across the skies and into the sea. It was as though the angels of Heaven had declared war upon Poseidon and his ilk, as though the floodgates of the world had been cast open at his feet. His toes curled around the two edges that met at the point of the apex, and standing astride the prison fortress with his hair whipping wildly in the winds, he spread his arms wide and rapturous. Dagger in the left hand and wand in the right, he exalted in the power of the storm as it sang its song of fury, a Christ nailed to the wrathful sky.

'I'm not afraid anymore.'

He leapt, arms held out, and dove down from the heights, a form as flawless as an eagle's strike. The air tore at him and the rain battered him, but his dive was controlled, straight and true. Faster and faster he plunged, further and further out from the massive structure he fell, past the rocky jutting cliffside and towards the yawning sea. Closer and closer the leering skull of death loomed, but Harry stared into it unflinchingly, green eyes burning in the darkness.

Mere feet from the surface, a crack like a gunshot rang out, and Harry Potter was gone, leaving only a shockwave of ripples behind.