Chapter 35 – Ally

She'd become accustomed to outliving people. In three hundred years she'd watched so many people she loved (and some she hated) grow old and die while she remained unchanging. In the beginning, it had been so hard, that first time she'd lost someone she'd known since they were a child she had been cast adrift with no idea what she was supposed to do, no idea how she was supposed to go on.

Eventually, she got used to it. As harsh as it sounded, she hardened her heart to the loss, remembered the strength of the love and friendship she'd had and forged on, looking for the new and wonderful people she could welcome into her life.

Until Harry. He'd been just a kid when she first learned of him, just fourteen when she'd had no choice but to approach him. Fourteen but so old, he'd seen so much, done so much he reminded her of the men she'd known centuries before, the ones who had already been working for years by the time they reached proper manhood, the ones who cared for families and younger siblings, the ones who never knew what it was to be coddled and cared for because their loved ones needed food and clothes.

Strange, how a few centuries could change what it meant to be a kid. Strange how a few centuries could change what it meant to be an adult, to be a man or woman in societies eyes. Strange, how even then with all the new rules and laws protecting children that one boy could slip through those cracks, forced to become a man long before he was ready.

When he'd had nightmares, she wanted to hold him, like a child, but the things he'd been through the strength and maturity she saw in him turned things on their head and by the time they'd spent years hiding out in her trunk training him up he truly had become a man and their relationship reflected that.

She'd grown to love him for who he was not because he was the first person she would not lose.

But he'd been one and now, now there were so many. They had children, two beautiful girls afflicted with the same phoenix gifts, destined to live long lives.

Destined to fight like they had, and even younger than she and Harry.

They were all snuggled up in the bed she and Harry shared. Sheets kicked aside in sleep, both girls were sandwiched between them, tears dried on their cheeks. They each killed two people at the Burrow earlier, two Crazy People, horrible mistakes created by a man desperate for power and fame, but people nonetheless.

It wasn't what she wanted. She'd known her girls were never going to be normal, but she'd hoped they could spare them some of the horrors she and Harry had faced (especially Harry) when they were growing up. Fate had taken that choice right out of their hands in the form of yet another prophecy.

And she hated prophecy now.

The dreams they'd been sharing, they weren't about something that was coming now, they weren't even sure they were about something coming soon, but something was coming and according to a prophecy a seer had spoken centuries ago, she and her family and the friends that had become family were destined to stand and fight it.

They were destined to stand and fight, those family members, for centuries.

Centuries.

No longer would she be forced to lose all the people she loved to age and time. Now she'd been gifted with friends and family who would stand beside her until they deemed it was time for them to experience death. Much as Harry had once told her about Dumbledore's alchemy partner.

For the first time in her life Ally had everything she had ever dreamed of. A family and friends who could walk through the years unchanging by her side and she didn't know how she could possibly make them see how much this meant to her.

She didn't know who would choose to take the elixir, she had a few guesses, but it didn't matter who would choose to, only that she knew there was a choice now.

These people were willing to give up ordinary lives to spend the rest of theirs fighting dark wizards alongside her and Harry and that meant more than Ally could put into words.

She could put it into action, though. There was one last thing that needed doing before they could set this fight behind them. The girls had taken care of four of the Crazy People, but the rest were still out there. She knew one was still in muggle police custody, locked up in old fashioned chains and away from most muggle eyes because that went against a few of their laws. She also knew Bea was still safely tucked away in her room at the Malfoy Institute.

Thanks to Nathanial, the old man who had started it all, she knew how to find the others, the last three of his experiments. She was horrified and disgusted by what he had done to the innocent muggles he had captured and turned into their own version of a monster and a part of her thought his death had been to quick and far too peaceful but she didn't hold with torturing someone needlessly. Nathanial had given them all the information he had, left them with some important memories of the telling of the prophecy and then knelt with his arms spread wide to welcome death.

Harry had been the one to use his bare hand to take Nathanial's life. He'd looked on the man with a strange sort of cold compassion as he wrapped his fingers around the man's throat and gently squeezed. Nathanial hadn't cried out but the look on his face said plenty about how much Harry's touch had hurt him.

Her girls had put four of them to rest, Harry, their creator, the least she could do was hunt down and take care of the others.

She slipped from bed without waking the other three occupants and quietly dressed. She would go for the three who were loose first, the other two weren't going anywhere. It was trickier than she'd expected but after an hour of following the tips Nathanial had given her she found a short, older man, standing in the middle of a country lane in Wales. His shirt was wrinkled and tucked into a worn pair of jeans but when he saw her he straightened up and faced her head on with a dignity his clothes didn't show.

'I know why you're here,' he told her. 'We all felt it when the master died.'

'Are you going to fight me?'

'I will not,' he told her. 'The ones who did not wish to die are all gone. Those of us who are left welcome death for it is a freedom from the prison the master made for us.'

'It'll hurt,' she cautioned.

'As it must.'

She wondered if this was how Harry felt when he laid his hands on Nathanial. It was different to taking a life in the middle of a fight. This calm acceptance somehow made the act wrong while at the same time making it right.

He held out his hand and she took it in her own, fingers wrapping tightly around his and squeezing. The sound of flesh sizzling was loud in the night, but the man made no sound. He was calm and accepting right until his legs buckled beneath him and his body fell lifeless to the ground. With compassion she hadn't expected to feel, she reached down and closed his eyes. She could offer him no proper burial or any rites that he may have wished for when he was still alive. Instead she left his body lying in the middle of the road for the next passer-by to find.

She'd left no sign that she'd been there that muggles would be able to find and no trace that would make sense to any magical law enforcement that might stumble on him.

The second was a girl, she looked no more than twelve and she wept when Ally appeared before her in the alleyway. Her death was harder than any at Ally's hands because she curled herself into Ally's arms and let the comfort of her embrace take her from this world. Like the other man, she didn't cry for the pain but she steadily wept as whatever Ally's phoenix gifts did to the Crazy People worked to take her life.

Ally found herself crying with her.

The third was perhaps the easiest of all. Ally found him sitting in the back of a muggle church. She took a seat in the pew beside him and met his tired gaze.

'I don't sleep anymore,' he told her. 'It will be nice to rest properly again.'

'I'm sorry this was done to you,' she murmured before she reached out and took his hand.

She wished she knew exactly what it was her touch did to them, what it was about her and her family that undid the painful magical experimentation, but she didn't know that they would ever understand the magic in it. She wasn't sure she wanted to know. She would just take comfort in the knowledge that it did work and that they seemed to want an end to their messed-up existence much like Nathanial, their creator, did.

It was simple to slip into the cell where Dudley was holding the first Crazy Man they'd encountered. Muggles couldn't prepare for magic, even ones who were as aware as Dudley. The necessity to use muggle technology made it difficult to set up proper wards.

His behaviour was markedly different from the last time she'd seen him. Then he'd been angry and hateful, now he was calm, he greeted her with a simple nod and knelt as best as his chains would allow. He didn't say a word, just watched her with accepting eyes as she reached out a hand and cupped his cheek. When her bare skin made contact with his, he closed his eyes and let out a sigh of relief.

He made no other sound.

She didn't realise until she arrived at the Malfoy Institute that she should have come here first. She didn't realise she'd been putting off visiting Bea until she was standing on the other side of the door to her room. But she had been putting it off because Bea was not like the other Crazy People. From the beginning, Bea had been gentler, she had been sad (in James' words) and she had been quite content to sit in her room at the hospital and read everything the healers gave her.

She'd been sweet and while not helpful or particularly forthcoming, she had been content to stay out of the violence and the fight her fellow experiments had started.

Feeling guilty, Ally pushed open the door and stepped inside. She hadn't thought to ask before but as she stepped inside and crossed the room to where Bea sat reading on her bed, she wondered how each of the Crazy People had known Nathanial was dead. She wondered how they had known she was coming for them and why, after so much violence and so much time, now they were so accepting of death.

Bea would have the answers, she knew that, but she also knew that Bea would not speak of them. She had held her tongue through all of the questioning, answering only direct questions about herself and her immediate needs. The one time they had allowed James to speak with her they had learned nothing of real value.

Bea looked up at the sound of the door closing and she smiled. 'Will you thank your daughter for me?' she requested in a soft whisper. 'She was kind to me.'

'I will,' Ally promised.

'I'd like to be buried where the sunlight will touch me.'

'I can arrange that,' she promised again.

'Thank you.' Bea held a hand out and Ally took it. 'It was always supposed to be you,' Bea told Ally. 'This is the right thing to do.'

It felt like forgiveness. When she went home, when she next saw James and Alex she would be able to share this with them, she would be able to share with them Bea's last words and those of the others who had finally felt freedom in her touch.

She hoped the forgiveness would help them overcome the harsh reality of taking a life. She hoped it would help them prepare for the future laid out before them in prophecy and song. She hoped that a future filled with love and laughter, with family and friends, would mean that future was bright and not paved with the darkness foreshadowed in dream.

Ally knew that she had hope for the future.