Salt and Copper
Her hands are bloody.
She feels them prickle at her eyes, tears sharp like needles trying to stab their way free, and she resists. Crying seems like an effort in futility, because what good will her tears do her now? There's something in her throat, a chunky shard of ice that makes it hard to breathe, and there's a pain in her chest she's felt just twice before.
Little droplets of salt and water, what can they do for her that her magic could not?
The forest around her is dark, the flickering embers of the dying fire all that keeps the shadows at bay. She isn't sure, not any more, whether it's the night or perhaps the lingering stains of dark magic in the air which surrounds her.
To be perfectly honest, she isn't sure if she wants to know.
The air is chill against her clammy skin, but somehow, it's colder within. A frigid damsel in the night, she kneels beside the bloody corpse, and runs her fingers through the matted ginger locks. She doesn't look, instead choosing to keep her eyes focused on the bloody footprints leading off into the woods.
It's almost like a macabre rendition of Hansel and Gretel, but the trail here leads to the monster, not the way back home. She remembers the stories so clearly, the ones her mother would read to her by the light of her bedside lamp, and the one thing that stands out to her is that there's always supposed to be a happy ending.
Those are just stories though, and she's learned the hard way that in life it's the monsters who always win.
It's then that she feels the dam burst, and she doesn't even bother to try and regain control. The tears fall, running down her cheeks to water the gaping hole in his chest where his heart once beat. She could feel her own throb within her chest, because tonight's the night that she's lost it all.
And there's nobody left to break her fall.
"Ron," she sobs, her palm pressed against his pale cheek. "Why couldn't you have just stayed gone?"
"And you," she calls out into the night, "What have you become?"
The pain overwhelms her, and for a fleeting moment, she thinks that she's dying. Then, Hermione realises that it's the feeling of her titanium heart breaking.
.o0o.
This house no longer feels like home.
How can it be, redecorated in red as it is? Her robes are drenched in the blood of her family, clinging to her like a sticky second skin. She's on her knees, and what is left of her son and husband lie before her, barely recognisable.
Their limbs are bent at awkward, unnatural angles, their heads almost parted from their bodies, and the white-blond hair is stained a crusty shade of crimson. It's as though a wild animal's attacked them, with fang and claw, but she knows this notion to be a lie.
She's seen the one who did this, just for the barest fragment of a second, but it's been enough. Never before has she known green eyes to be so dark, and despite the stolen glimpse being brief, the stench of blood magic is heavy in the air.
The powers that foolish boy is playing with are not something to be trifled with, that much is known to her, but she cannot bring herself to feel pity for him. She is a Black by birth, and she knows the spell that he must have used.
He may have doomed himself to damnation by devouring the heart of one who is truly loyal, but he's already more beast than man as it is.
Her heart may still beat, and breath may still fill her lungs, but she is not a fool. She's dead in every way that matters.
This Manor is a tomb, a crypt, filled now only with those that are dead.
There is nothing left for her to do. No spell, no facet magic that can bring her husband and son back from the skeletal arms of Death. There's no way she can heal her sister, who hangs suspended from the chandelier, not after Bella's spine has been thrown across the room.
Not even the Dark Lord seems to have escaped the savagery that tore apart her home.
There's nothing left to do. Nothing. So instead, she cries, as it the only thing left to her.
She can taste it upon her lips, the bitter melody of salt and copper, blood and tears, and she feels something burst within her chest.
Narcissa slumps, her own blood bubbling out the corner of her mouth as she feels her steel heart break.
.o0o.
The sky is dark.
It's strange . . . she remembers the morning being quite bright and cheery, despite the dour mood surrounding Aunt Muriel's Manor. The sun's gone, though, hidden beneath a roiling bank of through which not a crack of blue shines through.
The washing blows about the line, and she's off half a mind to bring it in before the rain starts to fall, but she finds that she cannot move. Her gaze is frozen upon the clock, one of the only keepsakes she's brought with her from the Burrow, and she feels as though the earth is opening up beneath her feet.
These days, it's not uncommon for the hands to point at mortal peril. In fact, it's been that way ever since He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named returned. There's something different about it tonight.
The realization is like a slow poison, one that's creeping through her veins like a slow, sludgy, black tar, and she shakes herself, trying to dispel the feeling.
A hand has fallen off the clock . . . and hers points at lost.
Then, she sees the girl, half-obscured by the whipping sheets upon the line, and she knows those bushy, brunette curls. Hermione's face is streaked with dried tears, and her clothes are ripped, splattered with blood and other, clumpier things that can only be shredded hunks of flesh.
The world spins around her, but the girl is already knocking on the front door, and without a second thought she hastens to open it. Hermione's eyes are like broken mirrors, the cracks spreading further and further as she stumbles into the foyer.
And the girl says just one word, torn from her throat as though by hot thongs.
"Ron."
Molly crumples, and as the tears run down her cheeks, the first fat droplets splatter upon the ground. How fitting, she thinks, that heaven mourns with her, as her porcelain heart breaks.
.o0o.
Most girls are made of sugar, and spice, and everything nice, but she's not like most girls, not in the slightest. In fact, she's made of brimstone and fire, and blood-red desire, and she's ready for war.
It's just not the war she always expected to fight.
Her father's told her to stay home, and her brothers opt to echo his sentiment. Her mother's a wreck, but she's got a fire within her that can't be quenched by grief and mourning.
Revenge, vengeance, it's all that she thinks can cure her . . . but that's not really the case. Deep down, she knows that all she wants is the answer to her only question.
"Why?"
It's a strange place for her to find him, a rocky cliff upon the Irish coast. He stands with his back turned to her, messy hair tousled by the salt breeze, and she can see his nails – almost claws – dig into his palms.
He doesn't answer.
"Why, dammit, why?" she screams, her own ginger locks billowing about her face as the wind intensifies from nowhere. A gale whips up the shore, the waves rising high enough to douse them both in spray, and she draws her wand.
"Go ahead," he says, his voice raising the hairs along her arms. Gooseflesh spreads across her skin, and against her will she feels a shiver caress her spine. Taking an instinctive step back at the sound of his voice, she nearly trips over a malformed pebble, and then freezes when she looks down.
It isn't a pebble. . .
It's what's left of a human heart. Dry as dirt, as though all moisture's been stripped from it, it lies between them – and it's then that she notices that there's not one heart between them.
There are dozens, each carelessly discarded upon the cliff and discoloured by something which feels fouler and more macabre than the diary which possessed her all those years ago.
She moves to slash her wand, realising, above her horror and anguish, that something's broken in him, and that he's already lost to them all. Too late, though, she casts, and his hand is already upon her throat.
Chill fingers press into her skin, the nails drawing blood, and she gasps as she meets his eyes. They're a murky green, nothing like the bright emerald she remembers, and she can see the shadows dancing within them. Bloodshot, he glares at her, and then she's sailing backwards through the air like a feather in the wind.
Too late, she realises that he's not let go, and that instead, he's flung her over the edge.
Her tears are never shed, but her glass heart breaks all the same, shattered upon the jagged rocks and writhing waves.
.o0o.
This is the end.
"Get inside," she calls, gesturing to the faux safety of the stone walls. Hogwarts cannot help them now . . . she doubts if anything can.
The wards are weaker than ever, barely holding back the writhing tide of darkness. They swim around the outskirts, wraith-like and twisted, and she can barely make out their deformed faces in the mist.
She blames the wretched locket for starting all this . . . the cursed talisman she recognises from the history books. Hermione's told her of their quest, of their failure, and most importantly, of his fall from grace.
She remembers another boy, a strange boy with a strange name. Years ago, she recalls seeing the locket in his possession, and she knows full well what it did to him.
Her wand falls from her grasp, slipping from between trembling fingers as the finest filigree of cracks begin to spread across the sky. The last barrier is decaying, crumbling under the weight of the assault, and it's so easy for her to finally abandon all hope.
After all, there isn't much of a world left outside these grounds, and soon, this last fortress will fall to ruin.
The spiderweb spreads, enveloping the school, and she can hear their shrieking. It's tattered and shredded, and it makes her ears bleed in agony. Her throat is raw, and she closes her eyes.
Her heart beats in her chest, frail and stitched a half-dozen times. It thumps within her, and even when the shield cracks apart like glass, she refuses to open her eyes. Death will meet her on her own terms . . . and she will not show her fear.
The shadows come to dance around her, and for the barest second she can see him in her mind's eye, a young boy with a scar on his head and eyes as green as the most priceless of gems.
Minerva feels her gold heart break long before she feels it stop, and perhaps that should be a blessing. The pain's enough to dim the anguish of her flesh being ripped off her bones by the shadows thrashing around her, and it's more than sufficient in dimming the screams of those she's sworn to protect.
.o0o.
Her heart is gone.
It's been eaten by maggots and worms decades ago, but even so, she cannot deny the stabbing sensation beneath her spectral ribs. It's no longer with her, and yet, she can still feel it break.
Every day and every night, it breaks, and she fears what will happen when she finally decides to escape the pain and relinquish her lingering grasp upon this blighted world.
She glides across the blistered ground, avoiding the hissing jets of acrid sulphur, and stares up at the broken sky. There are deep gashes across in in the place of clouds, chasms where space and time are turning in upon themselves.
There is nothing left.
Nothing but him.
She approaches, her stomach roiling at the mountains of bones and desiccated hearts to find him kneeling beside a lake. The waters are red and thick, and with a startling realization she realises that it's filled with blood, afloat with thousands of little white orbs.
The eyes are blank, staring emptily at her, and she somehow feels accused.
"I know you're there." His voice is raspy, barely human, but still so remarkably his that she feels her dead heart break all over again, for what she hopes is to be the last time in forever.
She, like him, is the last of anything. Like the starving serpent, he's turned upon himself when there is nought left to devour, and now he swallows his own tail in an attempt to sate his ever-growing hunger.
Still, she can never deny him anything.
He reaches out a hand, and she knows that if she takes it she will be lost, shredded to pieces and consumed to fuel his steadily-beating heart. It's obvious what she is . . . a soul. A battery that will power the almost godlike entity he's become.
He looks at her, and for a sliver of a second she imagines a glimmer of bright green flashing through his black eyes. Lips part, and he asks,
"Had you known my destiny, would you still have died for me?"
"Yes," Lily replies, and offers him her hand.
AN: Written for QLFC Season 3, Finals Round 2. Write a cliché. The cliché I was given was Dark!Harry, and despite being given such an odious task, I tried to make it as believable as powerful.
The main concept was that Harry became corrupted by the Locket, and since he was a Horcrux, he consumed his own soul to sustain himself. Craving more, he ate Ron's heart and, well, the story should tell you the rest.
Also, I, as the writer, understand that this piece is overdone, but I was stuck with having to write for a trope that I can't bring myself to like. I thus decided that, since the trope is already OOC and AU, then it's in for a penny, in for a pound.
Prompts: Big Girls Cry by Sia / Spice / Linger
Also written for the epic exchange as a gift for .Xanda. A Dark!Harry just for her xD