A.N: I posted the last chapter twice, so I replaced it yesterday, ok? Check it out anywayz…. Well, to be completely honest with you guys I had completely forgotten about Jack in all this hectic-ness so I'm going to put him in this one, okay? And Harry too.
WARNING: High volumes of religious (or sacrilegious) content.
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J.L.-
Pain. Extreme pain.
That's all I could think, feel, be. It was like my head and soul was imploding but with no physical evidence. It was something beyond comprehension. It was something I have felt so many times. So many times that I've lost count. Whenever I disobeyed Father. He sent wave upon wave of harsh judgment.
I dropped onto all fours as the back of my eyes seared with an almighty darkness. No light or happiness, but complete judgment and holiness.
My Father is not evil, nor is he good. He is neither nice nor pleasant but also not vile nor horrible. He is Him and always will be. He overrides and terrifies God, Satan, Lucifer, the Holy Spirit itself. He is the one who preordains all things. The Calvinists had it half right. Everything is preordained, there is no such thing as free will, but not by God. My Father, and God were brothers in arms, once upon a time, but now…. They split their souls into two and made themselves into separates. Now God resides over Heaven and is the creator of Earth and everything in it and surrounding it but, my Father he…. he is the ruler of God, of everything. He overrides everything God does or chooses to do, if he wishes it. He is the supreme ruler, my Father, but he has left this world to chaos, left hatred in hearts, killed innocents, sowed fear into every soul, stitched lathing into every eye. He…. he's just lazy.
I clenched my eyes. I could see the darkness. I could see the misery. I could see what I striving to rid the world of. Poverty, famine, disease, death. No more should ever have to endure any amount of pain in any form.
He was trying to speak to me but it wouldn't ever work, it never did in this dimension. His dimension resided in an existence of pure calm, pure nothingness. That is the only place he may ever be seen, be thought of without pain.
And it stopped.
I opened my eyes to see nothing. It was only the blackness, the misery that I had seen only moments ago. The pain had stopped but not the other symptoms to the illness that is my Father.
"J-Jack? What's up with you're eyes?" I heard Ashleigh ask me. I stood up, able to see the world through the nothingness, through the misery and pain. I looked around me all of the Death Eaters I was able to lull into a safe (and fake) sense of security while The Dark Lord was powerful on Earth, was surrounding me. I looked to each of their faces in turn seeing many shocked faces and what seemed to be….. fear. Although they had always done as I commanded I had never thought of them as if they had feared me. I never thought they had.
And it scared me now that they did.
"What ever do you mean, Ashleigh?" I replied calmly through another voice, not what the wizards and witches around me knew. My true voice. The one that isn't a voice but rather a soul trying to find a home. It was not a voice but something that you couldn't even hear, something that nestled into you're very soul and let you feel the meaning of words, rather than to hear the pathetic rhythms of air that vibrate to bring forth sound. Many died from it, as did six of the beings that surrounded me did, but those that had a chance to report it said that it didn't feel like the description I just gave, it just felt as if you were hearing words spoken but you just sort of knew that was what was happening. That what I say is true. Like their souls were trying to scream at them that what was happening was, in fact, happening. Those that hear my voice always come away different. Different as in, they will be more kind, loving, at peace. Will help others more, charity services, peace making. Sure they mightn't go and become a pope but they hold almost the same faith. I have no way to explain this, it just happened. Some even make it into heaven afterwards, a rare occurrence among those I expose myself to, as I only expose myself to those like the misfit group that I had subjected myself there, so that I may help the world into becoming a better place, one person at a time.
I looked at the remainders and asked them to explain what Ashleigh had meant before she had died of weakness toward my voice.
"They're on fire, Jack." One said. David, I think.
"Thank you, David, I thought they might've been." I turned around and strode out. "Why do I have a feeling they're not going to change back?" I mumbled to myself as I gripped the daggers on the table beside David, the one who spoke, with my hands and threw that at every remaining person in the room, killing them and then myself as I decided, instantaneously that now was the time to go. I, unlike the others, will return to Earth though, not just yet. I will return to my dimension, first, but so will Hermione when she is due.
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H.P.-
It wasn't my shift to watch over Draco, Fred and Hermione but it soon came to be. No one else could handle it. The way they thrashed about, the way she howled and how he just suddenly woke, as if he had been in a nightmare, nothing more. A nightmare that had gone on for about a year and a half.
Everyone rushed to the shed to see what was happening when Mrs. Weasley screamed blue murder. I swear, it must've taken all of her strength to make such a loud, obnoxious noise.
Once I was in there, most were already gone. They couldn't stand the way it was happening. McGonnagal was quickly sent a patronus with a message that her immediate assistance was required.
She came at the half hour mark. It lasted for three weeks. Hermione's screams and wails only paused for an approximate half a second whenever her body, physically, needed it. She was in unfathomable grief, sadness. Fred neither screamed nor wailed but just cried his eyes out, in a way I always thought he would if George ever died. The way George did when Fred died. I had already seen that complete sadness on George, but to see it on Fred too….
It burnt away some of my soul.
Draco was silently crying. That's all. He didn't even cry for that long, but that's too be expected, I guess. We all knew that the only reason that he agreed to go into Hermione's curse dream was because Luna asked him to, but we all thought that he had changed for the better, and I guess he did if he's crying over Fred and Hermione's misfortunes.
"I….I think Mr. Weasley is dying and now coming back." McGonnagal said halfheartedly, almost as if it was a question. It was so unlike her, as if she really didn't know. It was scary.
We tried to hold them down while everyone just kind of waited outside, letting their normal lives wait, as if on hold, while they waited to see what was actually happening.
Everyone but George. Ever since that day he'd…. he had stopped believing that Fred was actually alive. He believed that Fred, the Fred that he knew was actually dead and that the spell that Hermione had use wasn't natural, it brought almost a zombie like creature back. To an extent I believe it also but not to such a bad extent. I always knew that Fred would change after Hermione had to do that, to bring him back, but…. I thought that it wasn't just because that he was once dead. I thought that the change in him might've of been enlarged by this whole experience.
I know it had changed me.
I had never been there, personally, in the same room when Hermione or Ron or any of my other friends were actually, physically, tortured and to see the physical marks of torture appear on Fred and Hermione's bodies…. It killed me. I just wanted it all to end, and at that point I didn't care about how it ended up, as long as it was over. I was just so tired.
"Harry! Fred!" I heard McGonnagal yell above Hermione's screams.
I looked down to the man I was restraining from thrashing around, so that he wouldn't get even more physically hurt than humanly possible, only to see his eyes open and to hear his screams along with Hermione's as he stared at her.
His skin was as pale as newly fallen snow, his eyes were flooding down tears as his mouth was set wider than should be physically possible. He looked thoroughly heartbroken.
"Get the bloody hell off me, Potter!" He whispered at me while he still stared at Hermione, after about thirty seconds of screaming. I slowly got off him and walked over to Hermione. McGonnagal let Hermione go by loosening her grip on her arms and legs but not by much. She still held her. "Get off of her please, Professor." He again whispered. He hadn't started screaming again, he hadn't stopped crying though, albeit silently. He walked over to her as McGonnagal let go of her completely.
He slid his right hand in one of hers. She quieted slightly but not much. She almost breathed though, a proper breath not one that had a scream come out as it was exhaled, one that had an almost normal inhale and exhale. In turn. Repeatedly. After so long with her having short, quick inhales and long, loud, drawn out screams for exhales it was miraculous to hear and to see her make her inhales a bit more drawn out and the exhales a bit quieter, a bit shorter and a bit more human.
He gently traced over all her new wounds with one of his fingers as he shook with suppressed screams. He gently brought his lips down to each new wound. The ones that bled, the ones that had scabs or pus or the ones almost healed and quickly, lightly kissed every single one of them. It pained to see him like this. In such rage but sadness. Such lost hoper but so much faith. He let his fingers trail back over the one on her forearm, the one that scared us the most, the one that a whole team of St. Mungos witches had to come and heal. He let his tears fall freely then. He put his forehead upon her shoulder as he kneeled down beside the counter that she was resting on and just cried.
I looked toward Malfoy. He wasn't calm or peaceful but…. he seemed as if he was mourning, as if he was not hysterical but in the verge of. He seemed tame.
McGonnagal swiftly left and I decided to follow, Fred needed Hermione and I have a feeling the need was mutual between the two.
I walked out into the darkness of the night sky. I hadn't slept in what seemed like forever, I hadn't eaten, nor drunk. I was wasting away. I could see my ribs when my shirt was off, Mrs. Weasley kept trying to feed me because I looked 'as if a strong wind could blow me away', but whenever I did eat or drink the little I could get down wouldn't stay down. I had gone back to being addicted to smoking and drugs in the last year and a half and Mrs. Weasley had even caught me once. All hell broke loose, expectingly, but only when Ginny caught me did I freak out. She didn't judge nor scold me but, in fact, asked if she could try both. She did without waiting for my answer and instantly regretted it. She spent the next day or two coughing as if her lungs were trying to jump out of her esophagus. I spent those days and the next couple days crying whenever I thought about it, sometimes still did. I really did love her and to see her that bad…. Because I wasn't the only one wasting away, everyone was. It was driving Molly insane, always cooking and practically shoving food down everyone's throats. She was slowly starting to loose a lot of weight, as well. She now was able to fit into a size ten in clothing. She was both happy and sad about that. Happy for obvious reasons and sad because of other, more obvious, reasons. It really was bad when Molly starts to stop eating, huh?
I just stood there and stared up into the night sky. The stars and the sky were practically swirling with colour, always is. VanGough got it right, alright. The colours and the way it moved. It truly was beautiful. I couldn't believe Fred was awake and when Hermione wasn't…. He was sent to retrieve her not to come back without her. He loves her, I knew that, but it really didn't seem like it then. I was angry at him. Why couldn't he bring back my best friend? My sister, for all intents and purposes.
I looked towards the house, only to see everyone listening to McGonnagal as she explained what was happening. They looked like Hogwarts students, crowding around her, looking so eager like that.
George was walking toward me. Not to the shed to see his newly awoken twin but to me. He shouldn't of been, he should of gone to his better half.
"Is he him?" He asked with their voice but with venom laced through his.
"Yes, he has always been him. He never was anyone else." I replied with a sigh. George and I had grown close over the period of time that had shaken everyone's lives, but him believing what he did really peeved me off. And scared me.
He chuckled. "He hasn't been him since he died." He said with a smirk.
I punched him. "You get in there and talk to him, George Weasley, if you want to know how he's changed!" I screamed at him. I didn't care how loud I was, or who hear me, or what the repercussions were. "He has been through hell and back and you disown him?!"
"What?" Came a whispered voice behind me, from the now quiet night. I slowly turned around to see Fred. Why did it feel as though as I was the one that was in the wrong?
"Georgie?" Fred asked, still whispering. George walked closer to him and stood in front of him, about an arms length away. Fred looked down to George's chest. George had grown into the habit of wearing faded white shirts so that the words on his chest showed through it quite clearly. As in you can read every letter.
As Fred red the words he said them out loud, through a whisper, as if he was waiting for someone to tell him he wasn't reading what he was, in fact, reading quite clearly. "I am myself, and no one else. I am the only me, I do not share." He sounded as if he was breaking, tearing at the seams as he uttered the words slowly, carefully, disbelievingly. He looked back up to his twin's face that he shared. "What does that mean, Georgie?" He sounded so fragile, so childlike.
"It means that I'm no longer your twin in anything other than physical. For you are not Fred, you're the remains of him." George said clearly, precisely, with venom in his voice. As if he was sickened at the sight of Fred.
Fred just crumbled he fell on the ground and just cried. I started to walk over to him, as did his mother but he wouldn't have it. "No!" He screamed. The first word he hadn't whispered since waking up was a scream of terror, of hurt, of mourning, of complete and utter fear and betrayal. "Who else is going to disown me because I have changed due to the situation that I have never wanted to be apart of?! Who else is going to make sure I can never change back?! Who else is going to make my life utter hell?!" He again screamed into the night sky.
A higher pitch, louder scream echoed his words. We all turned towards the shed at the sound of it. We all knew it was Hermione. We had heard it for so long now that we no longer had to assume or guess who it was.
I, again, tried to step towards the entrance of the shed but as soon as I got there Fred pushed me back.
"Because this is the moment to tell me, ok?! I want to know now! Now not when she wakes up and has to go through the utter torture of coming back! Because it is! To have a thousand hot pokers sear your skin, to have a million bulls stampede over your body would be a blessing compared to what it is like!" He screamed, until his voice was hoarse. He then started to whisper again. "It feels as if every piece of your skin is being harshly ripped off of your bones one piece at a time, only to re-grow and have it happen all over again. It feels as if your head really is imploding. As if every piece of your heart and soul is being torn to shreds. All of your deepest nightmares and secrets leak out of your head and emerge right in front of your eyes. As if you've cried and screamed a thousand men's lifetimes. It feels as if it'd never stop, as if it has your torturer is pausing every few seconds to let the pain sink in, then start again to renew it. As if you've lived through this immense pain for millenniums, tens of millions of millenniums." He had tears flowing down his face in a heavy stream, but he never once wavered nor did his voice crack. He just looked into George's eyes as his twin slowly started to sink to the ground in tears and heartbreaking sobs. "I had lost all hope of ever seeing any of you again, of ever seeing you George, ever again. And I come back to this!" He again started to scream. "A group of worthless, pathetic, wasting away family and friends!" He cracked. He fell again and he didn't seem able to scream anymore or to even get up. "And the scary part is I love all of you. Every single one of you." He whispered.
No one moved.
Fred looked towards me. "Harry, I'm s-sorry." He whisper-stammered.
I looked at him through tear filled eyes and took the step towards him and helped him up. "Fred, it's ok." I also whispered, as I led him back into the shed and he slammed the door behind him.
No one was going to come back in here that night. No one was going to see him, me, Draco or the still screaming Hermione that night.
I placed him down next to Hermione and sat in front of him so that I was also there for her…. and him.
"I-I'm s-sorry H-Harry." He said choking on his own tears but at least in a normal volume.
I smiled at him. I grabbed his hand and placed it into Hermione's. "It really is fine, Fred. And both of them know it is too." I said. I didn't need to explain that I was talking about Hermione and George. We both knew it.
I then watched as Fred fell asleep while crying into Hermione's palm and while Hermione slowly started to stop screaming.
And the incredible happened. I fell asleep.