Story: Grey Birds In Grey Towns
Author: coenseo (formerly grey chemistry)
Edited: Yes [On 21.05.15]
Rating: T
About the story: it is a dark side wins AU. Part One of Greyverse.
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C×G
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Grey Birds In Grey Towns
"This city is dead"
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Diagon Alley is not what it once used to be.
Gone are the days when wizards and witches of every kind roamed the streets with freedom and fearlessness. Gone are the days when children used to crowd at Flourish and Blott's. Gone are the days when people used to be happy.
Gone.
Going is what people are doing these days. Running, escaping, fleeing. Though it is not easy.
She knows this, and so does he. Now it is up to them to end this tyranny, this shallow suppression by the deep darkness. Will they be able to do this? They can't say. They don't know.
Diagon Alley is not what it once used to be.
The streets are empty. They're empty of noises and the pitter patter of footsteps. They're empty like people's hearts are empty of hope.
Empty.
Emptiness is what she feels, what he experiences. But they don't let it get to them, but it is hard, very hard. They have lost too much— she her brothers, her lover and countless other faces buried in the unfathomable depths of her mind and he, his whole family. His parents are dead and his only brother is probably dead too, but he prefers to think of him as 'missing'.
But they stay put and fight the emptiness, for they have a bigger battle to fight. They have a job to do.
Diagon Alley is not what it once used to be.
Her rusty curls, disguised as brown, bounce beneath the black of her muffler wrapped around her head as she prepares the one last supper from the materials he has managed to get hold of. Supplies are running low.
They will have to loot somewhere. Soon.
She and him, they're hiding. The Order is dead and there is no one to give and take orders. Most of the members are either dead, invalid or escapers, but they don't take any lessons from them. They are too high on vengeance to let go of their agenda— revenge.
He is reading something in a book he bought last month from the Black Market held every second tuesday in the outskirts of the city. She can see that he is excited about it by the way he is flipping through the pages and muttering something along the lines of "Spells in foreign languages..."
Perhaps his bubble of excitement is the only one present in this desolated street.
She smiles, a little. It is a half smile burdened by the repercussions of war.
Diagon Alley is not what it once used to be.
They are hiding in the shadows, from the shadows. The place has been destroyed and distorted beyond recognition. It used to be a book shop and now it is a long forgotten ruin, a sad relic from a happy past. No one frequents here any longer, not even the Death Eaters. How stupid of them. They don't even know that one of them is practically a defect from their ranks. That one is a frequent visitor at their poor living quarters.
He is here today. He is concerned, she notes, as he tells them of an upcoming sweep of the entire city in the next week. She also notes that her partner's grasp on her waist tightens as he stands protectively beside her.
As she serves both of them some tea and nearly moldy biscuits, she notes the same spark in their eyes. Revenge.
And she knows that it burns in her eyes too.
Draco Malfoy is not the man he used to be. He no longer continues to be proud of his blood status. It is quite evident in his demeanour, the way he talks, the way he doesn't hesitate in sitting where they sit. No longer does he call her a 'blood traitor' or him a 'mudblood'. His mother was murdered. His father stood and watched. He doesn't believe those evil bigots any longer. She is glad for that.
He tells them of nefarious schemes— plans to burn down the town as their enemies think that muggleborns like her partner and their allies are teaming up and hiding in there. Draco isn't sure about exactly when all this will happen but he is pretty certain that it will happen soon. He tells them that he had tried to trickle out the information from the others— the seniors but he is still considered a junior and very incapable and due to that, not all knowledge was passed onto him.
All three of them take collective sighs. They can do nothing. Just wait and wait and wait.
When he leaves, he tells them two words.
"Be prepared."
Diagon Alley is not what it once used to be.
He checks the protective shields around their adobe along with her and finds out them to be good enough. But is it? They practice spells in forgotten languages. They duel and vent out their frustation. They are birds. They are birds trapped in ashen cages, unable to do anything, not because of dearth of courage, but dearth of people to support their cause. They are birds and they can't fly out into the night.
So they fly at each other. They are angry and remorseful and so mad that it nears absolute insanity. On the brink of madness, they pull each other back.
She is screaming at him for some pathetically random reason she doesn't even remember when it happens— when he pulls her back from the edge and she does the same for him. He kisses her, just to shut her up and it works. So they do that everytime something begins to boil between them and don't feel awkward. It happens a lot. But they're only seventeen; they don't care. Besides, they think to themselves while lying in their crude makeshift bed in cold nights, we are going to be dead soon.
Sometimes he looks at her with those brown eyes of his, a pained look on his face, a mirror of her expression and she knows that he means something her. She doesn't know what. She doesn't want to know. War is already brewing out there; wars of the heart are not needed, she whispers to herself.
Diagon Alley is not what it once used to be.
He has his arms around her, holding her so tight as if he would never let her go. Like all other nights, it is a cold night and they are snuggled together for warmth. And as he smells in the strange fragrance of hers— a mixture of tea leaves, cinnamon and death, he knows that somehow he has come to love her. He doesn't tell her.
Diagon Alley is not what it once used to be.
He wonders how the world is eclipsed by grey. The grey of uncertainty. The grey of good men who do terrible things. A danger lurks around them, and the world seems unwilling to admit it. The silvery mists of Dementors sucking the happiness still present. Grey, because even the Dementors would cease to exist in a world of no happiness. Better to let man hope, and suck this hope away, then to allow them the privilege of utter despair.
Grey.
The beginning of the end.
Grey fades to blue. Sadness. Remember Harry Potter, nearly a child, people would say, and yet children younger than he would give up their lives. Do not let his death be in vain. Be brave, be loyal, be wise, be cunning. Blue fades again to grey, to the shadows, but the shadows cannot prevail. They absolutely cannot prevail.
Diagon Alley is not what it once used to be.
Grey secedes to red. Crimson, scarlet, blood and war.
She is buried along with him in their bed when a loud scream from outside disturbs her slumber. It is a shrill, faint cry of Incendio. Her eyes widen and her pupils dilate. Beside her, he is moving too, throwing away the last of his sleep. There is no time to waste.
They are here.
They. Are. Here.
Bloody hell.
Quick as light, she gets up, he not far behind her. They will fight fire with fire and they aren't afraid of being burnt because somewhere in the deep, dark depths of their souls, they know that that is what is exactly going to happen to them. He rushes out of the attic, only to see the bottom half of the ruined bookshop in flames.
She comes up behind him. Fires are burning in her eyes and they match those burning around her. If they are going to go down, they won't do so without a fight. She catches a glimpse of a silver masked face through the curtain of fire. And without a second's hesitation she yells—
"Sectusempra!"
The unknown death eater falls. She smiles but the happiness is short lived. Her cry has alarmed the others and they enter, firing spells of various kinds. Beside her, he fires spell after spell.
Crossfire begins. Meanwhile, the fire is increasing too. It eats up the walls and all the memories attached to them. They have no time to waste; they need to get out. It is the moment to use the deadliest curse.
"Avada Kedavra!"
She doesn't count how many times the pair of them use it but it seems to be a lot. But she doesn't care. This is war and everything is fair. This is revenge and anything is possible. And this is the word that reverberates through them as they make their way past the rubble and the smell of burning wood and flesh— Revenge.
An army of black awaits them outside. And he knows, he knows that their is no escape for them, no happy ending.
Diagon Alley is not what it once used to be.
It is a battlefield, not a place to recreate.
They escaped death once, she in the Chamber of Slytherin and he in the Battle of Hogwarts but this time there is no running away. This time there are flashes of green and their slowly dissolving strength. After all, how long the two of them could survive against hundreds?
It is long night made of dying embers of courage and the chauvinism of people who call themselves superior. The air is choking with the cackles of these people, smoke, war and the essence of death.
Their enemies are growing restless. They begin throwing more and more people at them simultaneously. She is exhausted and he is exhausted too.
Seconds, minutes, hours pass but they fight their exhaustion and continue to fight.
But they are only human.
The crowd collectively raises its wands after a whispered discussion and collectively attacks them with Sectusempra.
It is a cruel way to kill. It is a nasty way to die.
They fall and the clocks seems to be ticking more and more slowly as they hit the ground. The Death Eaters leave them, cackling as usual, to be swallowed by the vultures that have taken a permanent residence in the city.
They are alone and she wants to get up even after all this but she can't. Blood seeps freely from the two of them and reddens the ground. Up in the sky, dark clouds are gathered. It is going to rain. Sounds of distant thunder reach their ears. These are the last sounds they will hear. Flashes of lightening light the sky every now and then, as if beckoning them with their ghostly, mauve hands. This the last thing they will ever truly see.
The rain falls; it pours down upon them, soothing their aching, bleeding bodies. It cools them down.
The world is a grey mess. Maybe someday, someone, somewhere will restore its colours, but neither today is that day, nor they are the ones meant for that task. The water makes the fires die.
Soon the grey is gone. As soon as he closes his eyes, she knows that the grey has gone. And so that leaves only the black and the white, the life and the death… what is she to choose? The certainty of the end, the uncertainty of going on?
But then these questions are never truly important, for it is fate who answers for her, for it is death that catches her in its blissful arms. Soon she is swirling, she is dancing, she is one with the wind. Curiously she thinks if this was how it had happened to him, but now it doesn't really matter if it did or it did not, for she is now flying, she is now free… she is slowly reaching the throes of infinity…
… and in that moment she grasps the solidity of his hand, in the grey of infinity she finally finds assurance.
They are birds and they have escaped.
-end-
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This story is preceded by 'All That We Lost'