Many thanks to CrimsonShocker for beta-reading this chapter.
Disclaimer: I do not own J.K. Rowling's works and forfeit any claim of profit from publishing on this site.
Sacred Fire
Chapter 07
Harry felt warm heat wash over him as he rested. He could feel his body pressing against a horizontal surface, the pressure of gravity pinning him to the ground. He could feel a body pushed up against his side. Another wave of gentle heat rushed through him, and he cracked open his eyes.
Too bright! Harry quickly shut them again. When he felt that his eyes could handle the light, he opened them.
A red glow, imbued with bright orange and gold, suffused through the air. Harry lay on his back, staring upwards. He closed his eyes, held them shut for a moment – he was so tired – and opened them again. His sight was a little clearer – though Harry noticed something was missing - and he saw massive flames surrounding and washing over him, blocking out any other sight. The heat suffused into his body, leaving no place untouched. The fire licked him from top to bottom; he could feel another wave of benign heat wash over him wherever the fire rolled across his body, and yet he was not burnt. He could feel the scratch of his clothes. So that wasn't gone either.
Harry was so tired.
He watched the flames spin and roil above him, bathing him, cleansing him.
Harry realised that he could hear. As he did, he noticed the soft music of a phoenix song playing in his ears, an undercurrent of sound that caressed and comforted him while he lay there as the flames roared above and about him.
His eyes began to pick out a form in the dancing flames.
Harry stared in wonder.
It was a phoenix – was it? - a great, beautiful, massive phoenix; a thousand times the size of Dumbledore's bird, Fawkes; as large as a dragon. Harry knew that the bird, though as elegant and majestic as any phoenix, was too large for it to actually be one. Its enormous wings were stretched out to either side of him. Harry gazed into the not-phoenix's face. Its eyes were twin embers of smouldering flame and flickered as the bird, towering above him, returned his gaze. Its beak was obsidian black, in contrast to the rest of its body, where the plumage was a gaudy, burnt orange. As Harry watched, he discerned more colours within the feathers – cheerful yellows, intense ochre, pale browns and even a flicker of light, electric blue.
The flames rolled off to either side, keeping the phoenix visible and exposing Harry to the open air above. He saw stars, barely visible in the glow of the fire's light, and his eyes were drawn to a part of the sky that was obscured by a huge apparition that hung in midair. It was a large, sickly green skull nestled within a bed of clouds and, as Harry watched, a long snake slithered out of the skull's mouth as some hideous travesty of a tongue.
The song roared louder in Harry's ears. The not-phoenix flared its wings and threw back its head. A single ball of fire shot out of the bird's open mouth and flew upward towards the skull. It crashed into the apparition and was absorbed into it. For a moment, nothing happened; then lines of fire shot throughout the image and it imploded in on itself.
Harry was so tired.
When he re-opened his eyes, the Dark Mark had dissipated, leaving nothing but the open sky behind.
Harry felt the not-phoenix's warm gaze upon him.
He was so tired.
Harry closed his eyes and everything went dark as he dropped off to sleep, the phoenix song still ringing in his ears.