A/N: So glad everyone was happy to see me back! This Camp NaNoWriMo, I am doing NOTHING but different types of fanfics, this one included! So plan to see more chapters over the course of this month here on Until The Very End and on my Black Butler/HP crossover! :D Also, I have a youtube channel now under the name MyServiceDogLife and I'm going to be doing a Diablo 3 series of playthroughs starting today or tomorrow so check it out! Link: channel/UCTypSMGevQBG2VHDvpazFcA
Chapter Seven...The Thread That Binds Me
'I grew disgusted by humanity in my time on Sanctuary. When at last I found Malthael, I was not surprised to find he felt the same way. We will cleanse creation of the scourge that is humankind, and when we are finished, the tragic mistake of Inarius will be gone.'-Urzael's Journal
When we arrived back at the enclave, Tyrael was standing there awaiting our arrival. He took in my sorry, red-eyed and shaky state and the grim-faced witchdoctor at my side. Lorath was shaking his head, face still filled with pity whenever he cast his eyes over to look at me.
"Malthael sent his shadow-form to speak with Harry." Was all Suna said.
It didn't take a genius to figure out how the conversation had gone. Realizing the turmoil, the pain, I was so obviously in, I could see the moment when a small chink appeared in the armor Tyrael had held up against me since we first met. Something new appeared in his gaze when he looked at me then, something strange and unexpected. He crossed over to where Suna eased my shaking figure down to sit on a low step and squeezed my shoulder in a quiet show of support.
"I am sorry, Harry. I'm sorry that you have to go through all of this."
What could I say? I wanted to be angry and rage about how many times I would have to live through wars in my life. I wanted to scream about how many people I would have to lose. Instead, what came out was soft, almost imperceptible and so wounded. Merlin.
"I told him...that I couldn't stand by while he killed all of those people. Even when every inch of my spirit is screaming at me to run back, to find him, to tell him I'm sorry and that I love him. My very soul is pulling, tugging me, towards his own. There is a thread that binds us together, you see...But I can't let him do this...I can't let him become a monster like Voldemort..."
The tears were flowing freely once more, so unchecked that I didn't even realize they were falling until Tyrael reached up to wipe them from my face. Surprised, my emerald eyes darted up to meet his own chocolate brown.
"You are a good man, Harry Potter. You continue to impress me no matter which world you are living in." The Angel of Justice gave me a rare, comforting smile, the ice that formed that impenetrable armor around him melting that much more. "You are my brother's beloved, his chosen mate, and even though Malthael has lost himself, he is still my brother. That means that until we can see Malthael back to his senses, you are my responsibility. My brother chose you as his lifemate and in his absence I will protect and care for you as he would if he could."
His hand came to rest on the top of my head and it finally occurred to me what he meant. I suppose that did, in a way, make Tyrael my brother-in-law by their standards. Taking his sword calloused hand in mine, I squeezed it and pressed his hand to my forehead as if I could somehow absorb some of the strength he seemed to embody.
"Thank you..."
~O~
"Adria is dead. Before she died, she summoned an image of Pandemonium. Malthael is there." The words chilled me to the core, sickened me with the sadness that clawed at my insides.
Pandemonium. Where we had lived so happily for so many years. A place that I had once called home now reduced to a place of horror. Had he gone there because it was the first place I would try to return if I came back to him on my own? Or had he simply not been able to bear the thought of abandoning our little home that we had made there together? It had been the place where he brought me into this world, the only place I had ever really been until I left his side, save for that one visit to the Pools of Wisdom.
"No doubt he has gone to the fortress. Malthael can hold out there until the end of time. He is forcing us to come to him."
Forcing me to come to him.
I must have made a sound of distress for Tyrael and Suna turned to me as one, their faces a mask of concern.
"He is there...It was where we lived for so many years. After he pulled me from the void." My exhalation was shaky and I clenched my fists tightly in front of my eyes, pressing them against my face as if doing so could help me to unsee everything I had witnessed since this disaster began. "We were so happy there once. Before...all of this. He had grown quiet but he often was! I should have seen, though. I should have seen that something was bothering him."
I shook off the thoughts almost violently. There was no sense in beating myself up with those thoughts. It wouldn't help us and it certainly wouldn't help Malthael.
"Pandemonium was our home together. He wants me to return to him and that is where he will wait. It's the only place I know here in this world. If he wants me to know how to find him, that is where he will be."
They both nodded at the logic but there was a strange frown on Suna's face, her cocoa eyes never leaving mine. Were her spirits whispering to her of some danger ahead? Of some fate to come?
"You must come with us to Pandemonium." She said simply though firmly, her eyes turning skywards to search the heavens as if she were looking for some enemy to befall us at the very moment. Her brow was creased in tension and concern. "Your magic will be an invaluable asset."
Nothing got a demon out of the way faster than fiendfyre or a quick 'Bombarda', that was the truth.
The Archangel of Justice, however, was not so sure.
"No. Harry must remain here with the survivors where he can be safe. Malthael is powerful already but I fear what may happen if he regains his master. I fear what will happen if Harry goes into his domain freely." The man rejected, sticking fast to his determination that he be the protector that my beloved could not be.
"I fear what will happen if he does not." Suna insisted but her words fell on deaf ears. I was to stay behind and help the survivors clear the city of rubble and the dead and perhaps even add in some wards to help the city should the army of the dead return to see it's awful deed completed.
That night, we stayed within the enclave so that Suna and Tyrael might gather their strength. The darkness spread across the city but, for what seemed like the first time in an eternity, it was a quiet, natural stillness. A progression of night into day. Of course there were still those out working in the city around the clock but they were fewer and further between at this hour. Everyone seemed far more content to sit around the large fire in the corner of the area or sit in groups here or there with friends or loved ones who had made it through the siege. I had helped a group of ladies prepare the evening meal for everyone, scavenged from items that could be dug out of partially destroyed structures or taken from homes where only the silent, still dead watched on.
Several more survivors, fifty or so who had holed up in basements or locked cellars and ridden out the massacre, had made their way to the enclave in varying states of injury. We did all that we could for the ones who could be helped, my own paltry healing abilities doing what little they could. Mostly, I simply summoned and heated water and transfigured bandages. Hogwarts, despite all of the random violence and insanity, had offered little by way of battlefield readiness or medical training. Nonetheless, to my embarrassment, the locals of Westmarch were singing my praises by the end of the night. It seemed only right to help though, considering that it had been my beloved who destroyed their homes and killed their loved ones, not that any of them knew that. I had no doubts that they would be burning me at the stake rather than praising my skills if they did.
Nevertheless, I found myself seeking solitude after a time, peace in order to sort out my own thoughts and feelings. The cool night breeze whispered of a coming fall, carrying with it the stale taste of smoke from the last of the fires that had been at last eradicated. I shrugged the cloak Lorath had procured for me tighter around my body to fight against the chill. No cloth, however, could defend against the chill in my heart. Fears that I had been too afraid to examine before were beginning to creep back into my mind. Hope was giving way to despair.
What if Malthael wouldn't be dissuaded from the destruction of Sanctuary?
What if there was nothing that I could do?
What if I was too late to alter Malthael's fate and the only thing that could be done...was to put him down?
What happened to Angels when they died? Did they go to the Void? Or was that only under certain circumstances? There had been precious few Angels in the Void when I had roamed its darkness. Was the Void what Suna referred to as the Undying Land, or just some place between there and here? Perhaps the Void was a place for lost things. Things stuck in a state of...transition. If Malthael ended up in there in that blackness then nothing on this world would stop me from joining him there. It hadn't been a terrible existence. Boring, desolate and lonely on my own but with my Angel? It was a far, far better place to go to than the thought of walking all of this wonderful world alone.
"Your thoughts are heavy tonight, Harry." Tyrael's deep voice broke through my introspection like a strike of thunder, startling me practically out of my skin. I hadn't even heard him approach so lost in my own mind I'd been. "Won't you share them with me?"
My gaze turned back to the city down below as the sun died behind the roofs and steeples. Should I confide in him? He doubtless understood Malthael more than many others. He was my Angel's brother, after all. Tyrael seemed as though he would much rather see the Aspect of Death imprisoned rather than destroyed. He seemed as if he actually loved Malthael despite the destruction and tragedy that had been done.
"Tyrael...where do Angels go when they die?"
To his credit, he didn't appear surprised by the question. He came to lean against the wall at my side, his own eyes finding Westmarch below. A scant few lanterns and torches had been lit within and without occupied domiciles. The people were beginning the slow process of moving on. They would rebuild but the city would likely never be what it once was. Far too much had been lost. His large bulk heaved a sigh.
"My brother has changed many things. There was no Aspect of Death in the Heavens before his change, even. It is...impossible to know what will happen to Malthael should he be destroyed." He admitted begrudgingly, softly. The answer came to me like a physical blow. My eyes closed against the pain of it. Not even a fellow Archangel could begin to guess at what was to come.
I found myself speaking, though, before the cognitive decision had even been made. My words came spilling forth without any permission of my own and I found myself confiding in the solemn man at my side.
"My life in my home realm was nothing but despair and fighting. When I became Master of Death, I wasn't even aware of it until my Angel brought me to Sanctuary. Death, it seemed, followed at my heels no matter which realm I wandered. When Malthael found me, I had been traversing the Void for an eon. Then, suddenly, out of the darkness, came this shining creature. Beautiful and more kind than I had ever experienced. He plucked me from the abyss and nursed my body back to health, all without asking anything in return but my companionship. He claimed me as his own and he was mine in turn."
The wind sent strands of my hair whipping around me in a dance, the strands tickling my cheeks like the featherlight touch of tears. It was painful to recount those happier times. Those moments when we had just been, simply and undeniably. Would we ever have those easier times again?
"Now, after everything that's been done, I fear that we will never have that happiness again. I fear that I will lose him and, in him, everything that I hold dear. I fear forgetting how happiness felt." I ran a frustrated hand through my errant locks, furiously tugging on the strands as if they had somehow caused all of this grief, "What if the soulstone has changed Malthael? What if it's proximity will corrupt him?"
The Aspect of Justice appeared to take in my words, carefully mulling them over for a long silent moment. What could be going through his mind in that minute, I wondered. What did Justice ponder in the quiet times? At last he chuffed a heavy sigh and with a rolling of his large shoulders, Tyrael hefted up his longsword. He held the weapon out for my eyes to peruse, its metal gleaming beneath the torchlight. After my momentary surprise at his seemingly random drawing of his weapon, I observed the sword carefully and tried to see what it was that the man was trying to show me.
The weapon was obviously crafted by heavenly hands, that much was obvious. Its hilt burst outward in a starburst, reminiscent of angelic armor, and the curvature of the blade itself was very much a relic of the architecture found within the High Heavens. Inlaid in the center of its hilt was a strange gem that sang with an angelic resonance. It was truly a work of art.
"This is El'druin, the Sword of Justice. It has been my lifelong companion these many eons. I lost it once for a long while but we were reunited at long last. It is so much a part of my soul that when it was lost to me, I actually lost all sense and memory of who and what I was. El'druin is just as much a part of me as I am of it, just as Malthael is with his scythes and just as you are with Malthael. Do you understand?"
No. Not at all.
I must have had a strange look on my face because he laughed out a short sound before he waved on that strange and convoluted explanation to begin anew.
"El'druin, Harry, is a fierce and powerful protector of the good and righteous. It cannot harm that which is righteous in cause." Oh? Then, slowly, the lightbulb began to turn on in my mind. Oh. "When you and I first saw each other there in the Tomb of Rakkis, I attacked Malthael with this sword and the blade passed through him. El'druin could not harm him because, at the heart of all of this, my brother still only seeks to do good. He wishes only to save his fellow brothers and sisters from more death by ending the eternal conflict in the way we always have since time immemorial. By eradicating every last demon from existence."
He sheathed the sword in one smooth movement, a soft smile on his otherwise stern face.
"I do not believe Malthael is being corrupted by the soulstone. I believe that he simply thinks that humanity is more demon than anything else and is acting accordingly."
It was both news that was good...and troublesome. How could my beloved be turned away from a path when he believed that the lives of his brothers and sisters depended on that path? When he truly believed that what he was doing was the actual fulfillment of Justice?
Once again, I was left with no answers.
