Stepping into the Past
In a darkened room, far away from other people, far away from other places, a woman knelt in the middle of a runic array. She was singularly focused on her tasks as she ever so carefully etched a rune into the granite floor that she was kneeling on. Jars of what appeared to be paint in silver, gold and blood red were arrayed around her.
Brown hair was pulled back, and tucked into a tight bun, kept away from her tasks. Jeans, sneakers and a baby-doll t-shirt were odd counterpoints to her setting. The room inside appeared to be part of a natural cave system, that had been rounded off. The granite floors, walls and ceiling gave everything a feeling of solidity and timeless purpose, while the lack of natural light, the flickering torches spread at regular intervals on the walls, spoke of arcane knowledge; the hiss of flames could have been whispers of secrets dark and dreadful. Powerful.
The woman leaned back slightly, shifting her weight until she was all but bouncing on the balls of her feet. The movement had lifted her hand away from the rune she had just finished carving. If anyone had been present, they would have seen that there was a shake to her hand; a tremble caused by extreme focus and the buildup of toxins from lack of rest. She scrubbed at her face, one that was lined with stress and worry, with her free hand. A vain attempt at physically pushing away the fatigue that tugged at her awareness and focus. An attempt to push away the fear and the loathing and the deep seated need that compelled her forward; that almost instinctive urge to do what she was doing.
She twisted her neck, and squeezed her eyes shut for a moment, as there was the odd crackle of popping joints. Exhaling, the stress lines seemed to fade, and decades dropped away from her countenance, leaving her looking impossibly young and scared. Her face lacked the sharp angular planes and haughtiness which was the current definition of beautiful according to the fashion magazines. There was a comforting beauty about her. Something attainable, and warm and caring and loving. She appeared as lovely as the proverbial girl-next-door. Understated beauty coupled with an open, accepting presence.
Her eyes opened, and though they were bloodshot and worn, there was a fire in those brown eyes. An awareness of what she was doing, of the ramifications, and how they coupled with her hopes and desires and dreams and needs. There was also pain in those eyes. Loss and grief gave life to a sorrow and an unyielding pain which provide the fuel for that fire.
She exhaled slowly.
Then drew in another deep breath.
She traded the carving tool for one of the thin paint brushes that were by her side. She lifted it. Felt it. She knew this brush. Intimately. There was a tingle that twisted inside of her own sense of self every time she touched it. It was almost the touch of a matched wand. She had carved its handle from a grapevine herself. It was in fact the exact same grapevine which old Ollivander had gotten the wood to carve her wand. Thin brown bristles were on its end, hairs the exact shade of brown as the hair she had tucked into a tight bun on her own head. Finally the ferrule, white gold; re-purposed for this by her own hand from her mother's wedding band. She watched it for a long second, before she dipped it into the container that held the silver paint. Ever so carefully, she filled in the rune she had just carved.
Then she covered that with the red.
And finally the gold.
Blowing out another breath, she stood, stumbling backwards a step or so in the process. The array was the largest she had ever seen. It was comprised of the central septagram-the Fairy Star- and then there were 36 rune circles surrounding that. It was a ritual array, an alchemical circle, which all but filled the chamber. Thousands of runes went into its creations as well as nearly a hundred pounds of gold, and silver and nearly fifty gallons of her own blood. It had taken her seven years to design and another three to actually carve into the granite floor.
She walked over to her workbench, and picked up seven small containers. Then she returned to the septagram, and stood in its center. She spun around and around, until she stopped facing one of the seven points. This was the first point in the fairy star, and it pointed towards the Pleiads; more specifically directly towards Alcyone. Stars that were important for Samhain, for tears and mourning; for the time between the autumn equinox and the winter solstice. Stars devoted to remembering the dead.
She focused on her own fairy star, and the first of her containers.
In the first star point was the symbol for Saturn; representative of material controlling mind and the encroachment of time over the works of men. Around this, she spread out the first container, which held the dust from a time turner.
The second star point held the symbol for Jupiter: or mind over material, and the gods over the earth. Into this, she poured out a vial which contained the ground up horn of a unicorn.
The third point held the symbol for Mars; matter above spirit. Around this circle was the blood of a thestral.
The fourth point held the symbol for the Sun; pure spirit. Pure soul. The source of magic and life. Into this, she placed the ashes of a phoenix.
The fifth point held the symbol for the moon. This was the symbol of the mind. Of memory. Into this container she poured out a circle of her own blood.
The sixth point held the symbol for Venus. Spirit over matter. She poured out a circle of the tears of a phoenix.
The seventh and final point held the symbol for Mercury. Mind above spirit over material. Into this, she poured out a vial of quicksilver.
Then she spoke.
She spoke words in the language of creation.
Those words were spoken in an oddly inflected sound. Both guttural and lyrical. Harsh music and tinkling bells. Words, a language, even a sound, that was not truly meant to be spoken from the tongue of a human or mortal. It was the sound of something from ages gone past, and from before time and before life and the universe. It was the sound of the unrealized tomorrows and the promises of the next moment.
It was the sound of the hereafter and the never come. The sound of the next second, and the hour before. The sound of nothing and everything.
It was the sound of life and death. Of beginnings and Endings, and the nothing and everything that separated and joined the two.
It was the sound of Armageddon. Of battles and wars. Of the unending clash between darkness and light; between chaos and order, and the unyielding march towards entropy.
And it was the sound of rebirth. Of renewal and spring, and the promise that there was something more. That there would always be something above and beyond us. Call it Heaven or Nirvana, or even the Next Great Adventure, there was just something to attain and grow into after death.
With that sound, those words, echoing in the confines of the room, the array flared into life. Eldricth energies coursed around the room, energizing the array, giving it an unearthly green glow. It was a glow she recognized. A color she recognized. It was a color that both thrilled her and terrified her. One she loved and loathed and felt at home at, and tried her best to run away from.
It was the color of soul magics.
The color of the Killing Curse.
And of course, the color of Harry Potter's eyes.
Power surge through the array, and reality itself trembled. The phrases she had been speaking had taken on a life of their own. They continued to spill out of everywhere and nowhere; the chant growing in power and speed. Even as that light grew brighter. The array began spinning, and twisting. First the outer-most circle, but with each repetition of the mantra, the next circle in would begin turning.
Finally, the fairy star she stood in began twisting around her, unless she focused on it, then it was perfectly still. All while still turning and twisting about her. The power and focus of the ritual circle drew itself down upon her. Focusing its intent and will and power. Limitless power that grew and grew with each second. Power which stretched from here to the hereafter, and fell backwards to the time before.
She watch the watch strapped to her wrist. Waiting. Waiting for that right moment; that specific need, special time.
The second hand moved slowly. Seemingly dragging hours between each tick.
Finally, inevitably, the hour hand struck 3 a.m. The Witching Hour. That moment of the day when magic would be at its most potent. Especially a witch's magic.
She spoke the final word of the ritual. The focal word. Still in that harsh, guttural and lyrical language. A demand of magic. An entreaty of magic. A plea for the ritual to work. The sound of the word reverberated in the room. Echoed throughout it, seeming to twist through the still ongoing chant.
Magic surged.
Silence gripped everything. The last haunting syllable hung in the air, an almost physical presence even as the ritual circle snapped to a stop. The power that coursed through everything trembled, even as the green light brightened, into a glaring whiteness.
Then the white was gone.
The world stopped.
The universe paused.
Light and Dark ceased its struggles.
Existence held its breath.
For a frozen moment of time, everything was absolutely still. No births. No death. For that singular, unending moment, entropy ceased. Life and death ceased.
The power surged through her; touched her, and burned her. It fractured her mental processes, even as it clarified her thinking. Her heart, her body, fried up, burned away to ashes, only to reform anew within the swirling, all-consuming energies. The power, the MAGIC, was everywhere and nowhere and she felt the urge to scream; yet at the same time she wanted to laugh.
She had done it.
This was her chance to change everything. To really help Harry Potter. To give him the chance to live and survive and not fall prey to the machinations of manipulative old men, and their followers. To ensure that he lived a good life, free from potions and pain. To help him, as she had done so many times before, and ultimately to correct the greatest mistake of both of their lives.
The air in front of her shuddered and spasmed and then tore.
The universe itself seemed to bleed from the wound that was before her. Liquid quicksilver flowed and roiled in the air above the symbol for Saturn. Slowly the liquefied remains of space and time solidified in front of her, becoming a solid crystal. In the thousands of facets, she could see scenes and memories and things she had not known. A well storm of knowledge and choices-some taken and some adverted. Some never given the chance to have been chosen.
Then it fractured.
The shards flew outwards for roughly three inches, and then began rotating faster and faster. A vortex of energy flickered into life. Energy arced around the room, in a vain attempt to stabilize itself. One significantly powerful bolt jumped out and scored a deep dark gash across the ceiling.
Ozone hung heavy on the air, coupled with the aftertaste of blood and sulfur.
Finally, the arcs of power slowed down. The vortex stabilized becoming a pool of quicksilver hanging before her. The shards of the crystal swirled around the pool, giving it an edge that glittered and shimmered.
It was beautiful and terrifying and everything she had hoped.
She grinned at the thing, and then jumped into it.
Everything that she was was pulled and stretched and twisted. She felt the focus of something above her. Instinctively, she knew that what she had done had called to something; had caused it to look her way. Something that was greater and just more than she was. Something that was greater and more than her magic or the world or the universe itself.
Light flared around her. She found herself in an area of complete whiteness.
A doorway appeared before her, one covered with eyes.
The eyes blinked open, and fully focused on her.
She felt small.
Insignificant.
For the first time in her life, she fully understood what the Bible meant when it said to fear the Lord. This was a fearfull reverence. An awe that gripped her and filled her and flared within her.
The focus of those eyes burned through her, gouging at bits of her self and her subconscious. She felt the weight of the attention, alongside the knowledge that this was attention she should not have. She should not be its sole focus. It should not be so intimately aware of her. She knew just how an amoeba should feel when being stared at by a human.
This awareness was so far outside her understanding of everything that it should never look her way.
Yet it did.
And apparently, it found her acceptable.
More importantly, it found her quest acceptable.
That task that she had fixed for herself. The reason for the runes and the array and the ritual.
It approved.
The doorway opened, and she saw.
What she saw she knew she would never be able to describe in detail. It was everything and nothing. It was the sum of all time and choices and lives. The collective yes that was reality as a whole. Universes and choices and possibilities all rolled into a spiral of function and plans and abilities and choices.
It was all the same and all the different. Beneath everything, beneath every symbol, every power, every life, every choice and every moment, there was an underlying oneness. A commonality to everything and to nothing. A commonality to every choice taken and every choice denied. It was a sameness, one which highlighted every choice and every facet of its self, yet the greatest aspect of this sameness, this commonality, is how it created the illusion of difference. This was what gave everything magic. This sameness is what allowed magic to work and to thrive and to breath and to live.
There was the same being or entity or force. Call it magic, God or merely the Presence, it was there. It just was.
She fell into the spiral, drawn to one of an infinite number of beads that were the exactly same, but vastly different, as every other bead. And while she fell, so did an infinite number of other hers, towards an infinite number of other beads, while another infinite number of beads lacked her falling towards them.
Yet for all this, all of those other hers they were all the same and yet each one was different.
Power crackled around her. Drawing her focus back to her own self and towards the world which flew towards her. It called to her, and she was drawn to it.
She knew that she would be back in what she viewed as the past. That she would have the chance to change things. To fix things. To ensure that Harry did not grow up unloved and alone. To ensure that he had the tools he needed to be effective at saving the world. To ensure that he had the tools he needed to recognize the fact that he loved her, long before the Weasleys and Dumbledore got their claws and their potions into him. And into her.
She felt power pour through her. The energy of life and time and magic and death itself twisting around her.
And then darkness.