A Night of Stars
by Polydicta
Summary:
A young man waits under a starry sky, an abused woman dies. Character death, torture and abuse.
Disclaimer:
All fiction is derivative and fan fiction doubly so. I make no claim to own any part of any of the following, all I have done is an attempt to put together the elements in a novel fashion, using words and ideas like Lego ™ bricks.
There is no money involved – all I do is to share what I do for my own amusement.
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A Night of Stars
It was definitely a night of stars … the pinpricks of light shone brilliant in the velvet sky, a sky unsullied, spoiled by neither cloud nor moon nor the yellow glow of civilisation.
The young man lay on the now bedewed grass looking up at the sky, his glasses occasionally glinting in the pale light, but there was something else.
A teardrop slid from the corner of his eyes and disappeared into his hair. His heart was breaking for feeling so alone.
The young man's tale was a sad one, full of adventure and loss, of betrayal and, at the end, failure.
He lay, this cloudless night of stars reflecting, as every night, upon his failure …
Indeed, he seemed to have been watching these same stars like some celestial marauders' map … watching for interminable years on end …
.
.
A woman lay regarding the stars, perhaps the same stars as the young man. Unlike him, she lay on naked stone. Her thoughts were also on failure, on her past mistakes, of failures and upon the wrongness of her life.
A tear slipped from her eye. Her breath caught and was expelled as a faint sob.
"Oi! Aren't you going to cook dinner then?"
Her features hardened and she rose from her place on the patio.
She entered the house and saw her … husband. Owner, actually. The man for whom her dislike had grown to detestation.
He had taken off his work robes and now sat in boxers and tee-shirt, a beer-bottle in his hand.
"Well, you going to cook or what?"
Sweeping her now greying hair back, she nodded. "Five minutes."
The balding redhead grinned. "And make sure that's all it is, too."
He gestured with the bottle, displaying the brand on the inside of his arm … a skull and snake. The mark of belonging to the new regime. In her mind, the mark of a pureblood coward.
.
Careful to use only the low-level household charms that she was permitted as a mudblood underbeing, she prepared a meal for her owner.
Another tear escaped from her eye. He noticed.
"You still blubbing for that loser are you? Learn not to trouble me with that git any more! Crucio!"
She collapsed, writhing on the floor. In the dim recesses of her mind she was aware that this was the fifth or sixth time today.
Her bladder and bowel cut loose as she twitched and writhed under the prolonged torture. In disgust he cancelled the curse, but she continued to spasm.
The seizure continued, her eyes rolled back into her skull, her mouth frothed pink foam and at last, a single agonised gasp left her throat as her back arched like a croquet hoop.
And it was over. Her lifeless body collapsed, exhaling her last breath, and she was free of the tyranny of the flesh.
Her wand, bound and traced, flared violet, and became inert, dead vine-wood, no better than kindling.
The wizard cursed, complaining that he'd have to get a replacement, but, he reflected, at least a replacement would already be housebroken. Younger and more willing too, he thought, grinning.
.
.
A young woman walked unsteadily through the dew-covered grass beneath a star-filled, velvet sky - her last memories were painful and somewhat hazy. Her footsteps left a trail of blackness across the star-rimed meadow. She saw a dark shape laying in the grass.
"Hermione?"
The young man sat up, regarding the approaching figure.
"Harry? What? … where?"
The young man stood gracefully.
"I've been watching for you, waiting … I knew you'd come eventually …"
She looked at him. He seemed to be the same age as he had been the last time she had seen him all that time ago. Thirty years and more …
"I've watched for you throughout the night …"
"H-how? W-what?"
"Oh, 'Mione, haven't you realised? This is the next, great adventure."
She gazed at him.
"Harry? I've missed you so much …"
Her arms were flung around his neck and her lips met his.
Behind them, the sun began to rise, calling a cessation of the endless night of stars … and lighting the castle that had been destroyed the day that her heart was torn in two. The day that the light fell and darkness ruled the world.
He broke the kiss and picked her up.
"Welcome home, Mrs Potter …"
She smiled into her real husband's shoulder. Yes, she was finally home.