A shudder ran through the thing that looked like a man, and it bent over itself as if in pain.
He hoped it was.
Then, amidst a swirling torrent of wind, and with a deafening screech, it exploded, and the truth of the beast was made manifest.
It stood more than twice as tall as Harry himself, with long arms ending in short, black claws. It stood like a man upon wolf like legs, glaring at him with bloodshine eyes set in a vaguely human face. Covered in long, dark fur that would have dragged on the ground if it were to lay flat, but it's fur stood up on end, whipping and flowing to the ever-shifting winds that encircled the creature. Lightning arced and crackled between its upraised fur in a constant stream, sending shadows skittering across its malignant face.
A living Darkbeast. A worthy Hunt.
Harry ran his hands along his Moonlight's blade; softly, delicately, like a lover. He willed his blade to dance with him in truth this night, to not hide itself behind paltry steel and the runes inscribed by lesser men to contain it any longer. In the dark of his mind, where the shadowy void forever skittered and danced with him, bloomed motes of living light. Like sprites, they joined with the shadows and with him, and Harry knew certainty.
Pale blue Moonlight danced across the blade, a deadly portend given form. A blade of ethereal night within which the stars themselves glittered and shimmered as if enthralled.
He held his Moonlight aloft with both hands, feeling the power of the cosmos thrumming in his veins, eager for the coming battle. The creature eyed his blade with wide, knowing eyes. So old it was that it must have once witnessed this weapon held aloft at the head of the Hunts of Old, when Ludwig stood as the sentinel behind which the innocents of Yharnam took shelter.
It hesitated, and Harry laughed, low and menacing.
"I'm waiting, beast." He taunted in a lilting voice. His smile stretched from ear to ear, a wonderful, terrible thing of mirth and violence.
The abhorrent creature snarled, then rushed towards him as it screamed its rage in its unnatural voice.
"Die!" It's claws came down where Harry no longer was, a swirling storm of cutting wind etching the stones and kicking dust and blood up from Yharnam's streets. Harry swung his ethereal blade as he flowed around its arms like water around a forgotten mast, cutting deep into the beast's flank, before leaping back to avoid a savage backhand thrown his way as the beast swiveled to follow him.
"Die, die!" It came at him again and again; swiping at him in a desperate furor. It's claws came within a hair's breadth of him each time, the storm that lived within it grating on his skin painfully. It smelled of ozone and death, and Harry breathed deep, locking the scent in his mind.
He slashed across the things arm when it overextended itself, arterial spray arcing up and into the sky. It retaliated faster than he expected, slashing across his back and shoulder and sending a bloom of his blood flying. His blood mixed with the raging storms, fed back into the creature, and he watched as the wounds he'd dealt the beast didn't quite heal, but lessened.
The force of the blow nearly unbalanced him, but he managed to duck out of the way of another swipe that came on the heels of the first, rushing under its arms and running his Moonlight across its thigh. His blade bit deep, and its blood washed over him, invigorating him and dulling the pain of his wound.
He darted away, fast as he could to create distance, focusing on the motes of light that danced behind his eyes. When he turned towards the abhorrent thing chasing after him, he reared back, feeling the abyssal energy of his Moonlight building, so that, when he slashed his blade through the air, great crescents of shadowy moonlight leapt forth. The first opened the creature up from one shoulder to the opposite rib, bone peeking through the terrible wound, and the beast reeled. Before the second could land, it snatched up the corpse of a scourge beast from the bloodied street to use as a makeshift shield.
The dead scourge beast was rent in two, and though the lightwave continued on, it was greatly diminished and hardly even scratched the creature. It flung the two halves of it's makeshift shield at him, one after the other. He leapt aside the first, and slashed the second out of the air with a vicious smile.
Clever creature!
He darted towards the abhorrent beast, blood singing and crying in exultation in his veins.
His quarry reared back, the lightning crackling around it intensifying, then thrust its ghastly hands out at him. The strike would not have landed, he was too far away, but the storm leapt from the things hands; a roaring tornado of dust and blood and electricity slamming into him and flinging him away to land painfully on his back.
He rolled to the side the instant he landed, and it wasn't a moment too soon. The creature had leapt high with a terrible cry and come crashing down where he just was hard enough to crack the street and send a cloud of dust up around it. The dust swirled higher and higher, joining with the storm around it, and he saw its eyes glittering balefully in the gloom as it turned towards him.
It came at him again, and Harry recognized how it moved, ducking under its arm and stepping into its reach with the kind of mad aggression Evelyn had always admired. He brought his Moonlight up and thrust it forward, burying it up to the hilt in the things chest; just above it's last rib. Too low to hit the heart, dammit!
It screamed in unnatural tones, and before Harry could rip his blade out and retreat, it seized him in its massive hands. One hand dug deep into his stomach, claws curling around his ribs. The other grabbed him 'round the head like a vice. So tight that he thought his skull would crack and cave, but then it shifted its grip and its clawed thumb slid into his right eye.
The pain was terrible. It pierced straight through his eye, rupturing it and sending blood and the strange, clear liquid in his eye spurting all over its hand and his face. He could feel its claw clacking against the bone.
He screamed inarticulately, seeking those living wisps of light in his mind's eye once again, as he willed his Moonlight to grow brighter. Light spilled out of the space where his blade and the abhorrent creature's flesh touched, and the light set its flesh to sizzle and burn. It screamed again, high and terrible, and Harry thrust his Moonlight just the slightest bit deeper into the creature's chest.
An explosion of shadowy Moonlight burst from his sword, blowing the wound he had dealt wide and sending the creature stumbling back. It flung him away, his sword pulling free of it amidst a veritable fountain of blood.
He rolled twice before coming to a stop on his back, half propped up on the mangled corpse of what used to be a scourge beast. Breathing hard from the burning pain in his eye and stomach, Harry pushed himself up to one knee.
His quarry had fallen back as well, clutching the gaping wound in its chest in agony as its lifeblood matted its fur and painted the street at its feet.
With practiced ease, Harry slid his hand into his coat, withdrew a vial of healing blood, and jammed it into his thigh. The wound in his stomach sealed, disappearing as if it had never been there, but the pain in his eye was merely dulled. He jammed another vial into his leg, and the pain vanished, energy shooting through him and helping him rise to his feet, as steadily as if nothing had happened.
He blinked, and the world remained flat.
His eye was gone.
As powerful as the healing properties of the Blood were, there were some things it could not do. Regrowing eyes, it seemed, was one of them.
The abhorrent beast made to come at him, stumbled, fell to its knees, then slumped to the side, gasping in fast, shallow breaths as it glared at him with rapidly dulling eyes. He approached it at a casual pace, his Moonlight held low at his side in one hand, blade still dancing and true.
"You Hunter's are killers!" The abhorrent beast gasped out through bloodied lips."Nothing less! You call me a beast? A beast!?" It coughed raggedly as Harry came to a stop just in front of its collapsed form.
"What would you know?" It demanded weakly. "I didn't ask for this."
Harry considered the dying creature before him for a long moment. Then, he thrust his Moonlight into the street, and stepped forward decisively. His hand flashed forth, burying itself in the things chest up to the elbow, fingers curling around its weakly beating heart.
"Neither did I." He told it before he ripped its heart out of its chest amidst a rapturous shower of blood. It groaned weakly for a moment, then fell limp. The swirling storms came to a sudden end, its fur falling flat without the lightning to hold it aloft. Dead, even as its heart kept beating in his hand.
He clenched his fist, crushing its heart to a pulp, and tossed the mangled remains of its heart onto its corpse.
His eye was still gone. How humiliating. After all the myriad ways he'd been injured and killed in the Nightmare, for him to lose his eye in his first real battle outside of it?
Evelyn would be laughing at him if she could see him now. The shadowy void in his mind agreed, dancing gleefully with the motes of light.
A flash of a thought crossed his mind, and perhaps he would have dismissed it out of hand were he not nigh on the field of the Hunt, awash in fresh blood, high on the adrenaline of a mighty prey slaughtered.
Determined not to let this creature take anything from him.
He reached into his coat and withdrew a small, round thing wrapped in thick brown cloth. He pulled back the corners of the cloth with the utmost care, taking great pains not to accidentally rub the thing it concealed.
There, sat upon the cloth in the palm of his hand, was a single, soft eye. A deathly pale phantasm wriggled and writhed within it, bulging the eye in unsightly ways where it moved. The eye itself was dark, perhaps having been blue at some point, with an irregular, blown out pupil. Deep, deep down within it could be glimpsed a great field of stars; a night sky awash in an eternal meteor shower.
The Blacksky Eye.
He took the eye between his thumb and forefinger as carefully as he could, and pressed it into the empty socket where his right eye used to be. It popped into place with a sticky, wet sound that echoed in his mind. He could feel the phantasm writhing, a multitude of tiny limbs spreading out from the Blacksky Eye and into his skull. It didn't exactly hurt, nor was it pleasant, and Harry shuddered violently as the phantasm wrapped around his optic nerve, lights and colors he'd never seen before flashing across his vision for a moment before it settled; the cosmos itself overlaid upon his vision. Stars glittered in the distance, and there, just out of reach, the infinite field of meteors flared and burned as they fell from the sky.
He blinked, seeing the cosmos and the earth as one and yet also separate; overlapping, laying over each other like the ocean and the sky. Inseparable and yet insoluble. Never mixing, but always, always touching.
It was beautiful.
His eyes darted here and there, seeing the world so much more clearly than he thought possible. He looked at the ground, and beneath the bloodsoaked cobblestone street, far and away in the distance, he could see the shadow of the Pthumerian city that was once there, of which only the catacombs remained.
He turned his new gaze heavenwards, and there, hidden behind the Moon, was a great castle on a hill, students going about their day without a care in the world. At the peak of the Astronomy tower stood Marie and the Luna girl, looking off into the distance. Her eyes, exultant lunar eclipses filled to the brim with a gentleness that took his breath away, met his, and she smiled.
He blinked, and the vision was gone.
For a long moment he stood there, in awe of how much larger the world suddenly felt. He'd known, oh how he'd known that was the case for such a long time, but there is such an ocean of difference between knowing and seeing.
"Harry, on your six!" Tonks shouted, and he spun on the spot, yanking his Moonlight out of the ground as he went.
The remnants of the horde the abhorrent beast had summoned were rushing towards him. He glared at the beast patient that led the charge, a truly enormous example of its kind, and felt the phantasm in his eye writhe in response. His vision went somehow sideways, overlapping with itself, his eye rotating in the socket, and a rush of energy, similar yet so very different from his sword, flashed through his mind and rocketed out through his eye; a meteor ablaze in a haze of arcane power that slammed into the charging beast right between the eyes. It's head exploded in a shower of gore that splattered the street and its fellows.
Its body promptly collapsed, sliding in the blood that stained the cobblestone for a time before coming to rest.
Harry laughed a manic, delighted laugh, casting his vision over another creature, willing his eye to twist just so, and another meteoric bolt flew straight and true, blasting the thing apart at the seams.
The rest, a paltry handful all that remains, stopped in their tracks, eyeing him with animal fear in their eyes. He took one step towards them, intent on finishing them up close and personal, and they turned on the spot and bolted. Rushing away, back up the stairs into Cathedral Ward, running as if the devil himself were on their heels.
They were wrong. The Kind Hunter was on their tail, and he would grant them the greatest kindness he knew: a swift death.
He darted after them, flying up the stairs almost without touching them, cleaving them in half one by one, laughing all the while, until, in the end, he stood upon the top of the stairs.
Awash in the blood of his foes. Victorious.
Looking down at Oedon Chapel, over the innumerable dead beasts he'd left in his wake, past the corpse of his great prey of the night, he saw the others. They were all standing in the open doorway of Oedon Chapel.
Watching him.
Albus watched him with a strange mix of pride and concern twisting at his features, and the Aurors whose names he hadn't yet learned were looking at him in shock; unable to believe what they'd just witnessed.
Tonks was cheering, pumping her fist in the air in victory. Her eyes were still exact copies of his own. He made his way back to them at a clip, dismissing the motes of light in his mind gratefully and sheathing his Moonlight.
"Fuck! YEAH! That's what I'm talking about!" Tonks clapped him on the back the moment he was in reach. Harry chuckled, returning the favor.
"Not gonna kiss me again, are you?" He grinned cheekily at her as he pulled her back into the chapel. The others followed suit, closing the doors behind them.
"Not complaining, are you?" She asked him seriously, but there was a glimmer of mischief in her eye.
"Perish the thought! I'd just like a warning next time."
"What makes you think there's gonna be a next time, mister?" She poked him in the chest. She was fighting a smile as she glared at him.
"Enough flirting you two." One of the Aurors, the one in charge if Harry had his guess, cut in. "You said you had a plan to get us home and I'd like to hear it."
"Right," Harry sobered. "C'mere." He motioned for them to follow him, and led them to the lamp in the heart of Oedon Chapel. The ground around it rippled, the messengers praying at its base turning to him as he approached.
"The lantern!" Albus exclaimed the moment Harry opened his mouth, the light of epiphany bright in his eye. "We can use them to travel, can't we?"
"That's right. The lantern's act as-" He thought for a moment, looking for the right word. "Maypoles, or lightning rods of a sort. They're places where memories are numerous and strong, acting as anchors, and they allow one to travel across the- the Nightmare planes." A terrible, dawning terror loomed in his mind. A realization growing ever louder and stronger in its surety.
"One appeared in Hogwarts recently." He said quietly, trailing off as he stared at the others without really seeing them.
A lantern appeared in Hogwarts.
A lantern appeared in Hogwarts.
A lantern appeared in Hogwarts.
A lantern that is only found in the Nightmare planes that he so desperately fled. The very same Nightmare that had swallowed Yharnam long before he awoke there.
Marie's words, that he had tried so desperately to forget, tried so incredibly hard to flat out ignore the implications of, came to him again. This place will make a lovely home.
The Nightmare wasn't over.
He'd never escaped.
The Nightmare had only grown to swallow the world, with Yharnam at its heart. A gaping wound in the sky. A hole torn in the protective veil between the Cosmos and the rest of reality by Rom's death, slowly leaking the Cosmos itself into what used to be the Waking World.
He was only the first thing to come through that hole. Like the herald of some terrible and unsightly god, he appeared through a keyhole that he had forged.
He'd thought they were doing the right thing. They both did. But, killing Rom changed everything, didn't it?
Had Gehrman lied to him? Or had the Old Hunter not known what fate would befall him, believing the words he spoke so prettily as he pulled and picked at the ties binding him to Evelyn, convincing him with such sweet concern to leave her behind and accept his death.
Was it his fault? Had he, in his refusal to let go of his hope for a future with Evelyn, even as he fled her ambitions and the terrible Dream, only damned himself and the world?
"Harry? My boy, are you alright?" Albus shook him slightly, and Harry came back to himself; blinking furiously as he tried to focus through the dreadful despair squeezing his lungs and making it feel like he couldn't breathe.
He hadn't escaped the Nightmare after all. He's still lost in it, same as everyone else now. Same as Evelyn-
Another realization crashed through him like a freight train.
Evelyn! She's still out there! Somewhere, somewhere in the Dream that has taken the world. He can find her! He can find her, and if the worst has come to pass he will drag her out of the Hunter's Nightmare if he has to reorganize the Cosmos itself to do it!
"My dear, sweet Harry. You will find me in time, but you have work, yet." Her voice, her voice that he had thought was simple madness these past few days, sounded in his mind. He shivered as pure, ecstatic bliss bloomed in his heart.
"Harry?" Albus asked again, truly looking concerned now. Harry laughed, starting low but slowly rising until he was bent double over himself as he cackled like a madman.
"Oh, oh Albus, I've just realized something." He babbled.
"What is it? What have you realized?" Harry had never seen him look so worried before.
"That there is no escaping it. No way out, but-" He seized the man by the shoulders, pinning him with his gaze.
"I can get you all back to Hogwarts. And that's something, at least." He murmured, slowly releasing his grip on the Headmaster. He stepped away, looking over them all.
Eight survivors arrayed in front of him. Of an expedition of 29, only ten survived, if the Department of Mysteries wasn't lying about their Unspeakables managing to return. Had they discovered how to use the lamps? Or had they found another way?
Does it matter? These people here, these fighters, these scrappy survivors are his responsibility, not anyone else.
"Kneel at the lantern. Touch it, keeping the image of the Great Hall of Hogwarts in your mind all the while, and let it take you." He explained to the group. Tonks' brow knit together, while the others gave him dubious looks.
"That simple, is it?" She asked him.
"It should be." He shrugged.
"Alright." She mirrored his shrug and stepped up to kneel at the lantern. "Let's give it a crack."
She breathed deep, eyes slipping closed as she focused on the image in her mind, then reached out for the lantern when she had it firmly in place.
Nothing happened.
Harry's brow furrowed. She kept touching the lantern, trying to focus harder in an attempt to make it work, but he knew she'd done it right. So why hadn't it worked?
He looked down, rubbing his chin in thought, and noticed that the pale light of the lamp cast shadows from the messengers, and himself, but not Tonks. Its light passed straight through her as if she wasn't there.
Not acknowledging her. Like how a keyhole only accepts a certain key and she's the wrong shape-
No, that's not quite right. More, like the Fat Lady that guards the Gryffindor common room will only open for those that know the password.
The password …
He kneeled next to her, reaching out to touch the lamp, calling to mind the Great Hall, and felt the lantern reaching out, accepting him, as the dangling, upside down rune etched in the deepest part of his mind flashed.
He jerked his hand away, breaking the connection before he could be washed away.
He took Tonks' hand in his own, and she jerked her eyes open, sending him a questioning look.
"Let me try something." She nodded her consent, and Harry reached for the lantern again, focusing on the Great Hall and imagining them both standing there. He felt the lantern accept him, his Hunter's rune flashing again, and the current rose up to drag him under.
He flowed along the connection between the lamps; a mote of dust on cosmic winds. Swept along by the tide of memory in a journey that felt at once like it took no time at all and was never ending. A moment, stretched on and on unto the end of the universe and then condensed back into a barely there instant.
He blinked, and looked around the Great Hall. It was utterly deserted aside from himself. No students, no teachers, no food on the table. He'd never seen it so empty before.
It felt almost lifeless. Like something out of a bad dream. He snorted as he realized how true it was, now.
Wait-
He looked around again. He was truly alone.
Tonks hadn't come with him.
"I should have known it wouldn't be that easy." He sighed, kneeling at the lantern once more.
An eternity in a moment later he was rising to his feet in Oedon Chapel, everyone there looking at him with wide eyes.
"That didn't work." He crossed his arms, scowling at the lantern. "We're going to have to do this the hard way."
Tonks wasn't sure she wanted to know what the hard way was to a man capable of what Harry was. Circe's tits! She'd watched him slaughter a horde of lycans and the same creatures that had nearly killed her, then go toe to toe with that lightning infused monstrosity with the most beautiful weapon she had ever had the pleasure of witnessing in her life, laughing all the while.
Sure, he took a few hits. Lost an eye. But he recovered, took the beast down, and finished off the horde and came out bloody but alive.
"What's the hard way?" Scrimgeour barked, patience running thin. Like the rest of them, he's anxious to get home. To get away from this horrid place.
Harry eyed him for a moment, something strange glimmering in the depths of his new, writhing eye. Tonks wondered how it felt, to have something like that in your head. Moving around without your say so. Could he actually see out of it?
Why else would he have shoved it in there? Aside from the whole 'it can shoot bolts of magic the likes of which she'd never seen before' thing.
"There is a rune," Harry started, voice low and deadly serious. Just like when he was explaining the curse of the Blood to her.
"A dangling, upside down rune. The mark of a Hunter, like me. It is the key, the password needed to access the lanterns."
"So what do we do? Tattoo it on our arses?" She snarked in an attempt to lighten the mood. Life and death situation or not, there's no need to be so bloody morbid about it.
It worked. A few of her fellows snorted, and she watched him fight and lose the battle against an amused smirk, but it was wiped away as quickly as it came.
"Not quite. The rune must be inscribed upon your mind. For that, we need two things: a specially made tool for inscribing the rune, which I have, and a specially anointed ritual altar. I only know of one such altar in all of Yharnam. The Old Hunter's Workshop, at the base of Cathedral Ward."
"What the hell do you mean, 'inscribed in our mind?'" She blurted out, unable to wrap her head around the idea.
"It's difficult to explain." He said apologetically. "Trust me, it'll work. Won't even hurt."
"Well I wasn't worried about that until you mentioned it!" She poked him in the chest, hard. He just barked out a laugh and muttered a totally insincere apology.
"Follow me. Stay close, stay alert. Albus?" Albus bloody Dumbledore, who she still couldn't believe was young again -somehow- snapped to attention, ready to receive orders. Tonks had seen him do it before, but it hadn't really registered at the time. What kind of alternate dimension had she stepped into where Dumbledore took orders from Harry Potter?
It's like something out of one of those mind-numbingly shit children's books they pumped out all about the adventures of the Boy-Who-Lived. Vapid nonsense, the lot of it. She hadn't even liked them as a squeaker herself.
"Make sure no one gets left behind and nothing follows us. I'll lead the way. Let's go."
He led them to the sealed set of doors off to the side of the central dais of the chapel, throwing them open and moving at a brisk clip down the short hall. They followed, Tonks herself in the front, Shack to her right, and everyone else in loose formation behind.
The hall ended in a sharp corner, around which was a round platform set in the floor with a huge, tarnished copper lever in the floor before it.
"Don't step on the center of the platform until we're all on it." Harry told them, moving to the farthest point of the platform. The center of the platform was slightly raised from the rest, and Tonks figured it was an activation switch of some sort. The rest piled on, having to squeeze in rather tight to manage it with all ten of them. She ended up right behind him, pressed against his shoulder.
Harry stepped on the center switch, gears and pulleys could be heard grinding against each other in the walls, and the platform rocketed upwards at a surprising pace.
"How do you know all this stuff, Harry?" She asked him. He was facing away from the others, nose nearly getting sheared off by the uneven walls as they moved, he was standing so close to the edge.
He turned his head, looking at her over his shoulder with his new eye. This close to him she could see how the eye was such a deep midnight blue that it could easily be mistaken for black, but the darkness of the irregularly shaped, quivering pupil was so deep and unfathomable that you could never mistake the iris for being black. It was like looking into the void. She swore she could see something glittering in the depths of that blackness, shooting across it like a meteor shower. Something writhed around the edges of it, the ends of tentacle-like limbs occasionally roving over the iris and pupil.
"I spent Halloween night in Yharnam. Time fuckery might have been involved, so it was a lot more than one night for me. It's a long story." He shrugged carelessly.
"I'd like to hear it some time. We can get drinks at Madam Rosmerta's on one of your Hogsmeade weekends, yeah?" She bumped him with her shoulder, and he smiled, but it was patently fake. Her heart sank, just a little. He opened his mouth, to reject the idea no doubt, then shut it again hard enough she heard his teeth clack against each other. He looked thoughtful for a moment, still looking in her direction but not at her. Then his smile changed, shifting to a rather shy but entirely genuine one as he focused on her again.
"I'd like that, I think. Send me an owl, we'll set up a date."
"Will do!" She smirked, pleased with herself.
"Did you just score a date with Harry Potter while he was in the middle of saving our sorry asses?" Dawson whispered to her, awestruck, but it hadn't been quiet enough because Harry snickered.
He didn't deny it.
"I mighta done, what's it to ya?"
"Might be a bit miffed that you beat me to the punch is all." He clapped her on the back, and she chuckled.
The elevator came to a rather jarring stop, and Tonks noticed that she and Harry were the only ones not to stumble. Odd. Had the Blood he'd given her fixed her coordination issues?
Through a short, narrow corridor she could see a rather large, square room with walls that were more veranda than wall. The ceiling was held up by four thick, intricately carved pillars. She thought the floor might have some sort of mosaic tile or base relief, but she couldn't tell through the blood and multitude of bodies littering the floor. The bodies were all human, or humanoid, wearing what used to be pristine white long coats and pants, with matching wide brimmed hats. Their faces were all the same: shockingly white -not pale, but white- empty things utterly devoid of life or thought.
They may have been dead, but Tonks got the impression they hadn't looked much more lively in life.
At the very center of the room, crouched down to gather something from one of the bodies, was a person. They were wearing a rather plain, dark long coat, but the cape they had on over top of it was anything but plain. It was long, split up the center so it vaguely resembled wings, and was made entirely of raven feathers. They were wearing intricate armor under their coat, with a closed helmet hiding their face. The armor might have once gleamed, but now it was tarnished with blood, the same as the rest of them. They looked like a bloodied crow, picking over the carrion.
They turned their helmeted head towards the elevator as it came to a stop, and rose sinuously to their feet. Tonks had her wand pointed, a curse on the tip of her tongue.
"You!" Harry hissed malevolently, drawing his sword and stalking towards the stranger.
"Me." They said simply, their voice clearly masculine. A man then.
"You two know each other?" Tonks asked, already sure of the answer. They ignored her.
"Queen Annalise has missed you at court in recent years, Kind Hunter. You and your partner." The stranger tutted, unconcerned with the threat of violence in every step Harry took in his direction.
"You should have stayed dead." Harry growled.
"Because Eileen bit off more than she could chew? I think not. Come now, we need not fight again."
"You killed my friend." Harry ran his hand over his blade, and it came alive with pale Moonlight once more.
"You don't get to walk away." With that, Harry rushed forward, sword held aloft as he charged the bloody crow.
They raised their hand, holding what looked like a piece of bone. What they were going to do with it, Tonks didn't know, and she wasn't about to find out. A cutting curse lept from her wand and impacted the crow's wrist, sending their hand spinning away through the air amidst a fountain of blood. They didn't so much as flinch at the pain, drawing a blade of what looked like pure blood from a sheath at their waist just in time to parry Harry's attempt to run them through the heart.
They spun away from each other, and a hail of spells flew from the group at the bloody crow. He dashed forward, towards Harry, just managing to dodge the barrage of deadly lights that would have probably turned him into an unrecognizable pile of meat and feathers.
He carried the momentum of his dodge into a fast strike with his sword, aimed for Harry's head, but Harry saw the blow coming and ducked under it. The crow kept running, heading through a side door, Harry hot on his heels.
Tonks and the rest followed, and she cursed when she saw how the terrain had turned against them.
The door let out onto a narrow bridge connecting the building they were in to a high, multileveled tower. With Harry between them and the crow, there was no way they could risk trying to help. It'd be too easy to hit Harry by mistake.
"Get him, Harry." She muttered, wand raised and ready to take advantage of any openings she saw.
The crow turned to face him on the bridge, and Harry slung a wide arc of shadowy light at him. With nowhere else to go, the crow took the hit, darting forward to close the gap even as blood gushed from the wide slash across his chest.
She watched as the two came together, exchanging and parrying blows in equal measure. Their movements were so fast that they were almost a blur, their weapons moving as extensions of them, wielded with preternatural ease. When their blades touched they fizzled and hissed, the blood of the crows weapon smoking and boiling away against Harry's ethereal blade.
Sometimes, one or the other would take a hit they could have otherwise dodged in an attempt to strike a mortal blow of their own, but always did the other manage to retreat, or parry, or dodge. Back and forth it went, blood raining down on the bridge and painting it crimson.
Then, Harry made a mistake. He made a great lunge with his blade, energy bursting out of it in a great blast that left it nothing but steel once more. The crow sidestepped the attack, pouncing forward with a thrust of his own. A blade of flowing blood burst out of Harry's back, and Tonks screamed her denial.
"You've grown overconfident, Kind Hunter." The smug bastard drawled, and it was only that he was mostly behind Harry that kept Tonks from spitting a killing curse at him.
Harry seized him by the throat, holding him in place. In the next instant, a swirling vortex of stars and galaxies formed around Harry's head, and a bolt of cosmic energy leapt from his eye, liquifying the crow's head from the jaw up. The rippling blade of blood that he'd been run through with hissed and shrank, and then it was nothing more than an elegant katana.
Harry threw the crow's headless corpse away from him to land in an unceremonious pile a few feet away, then ripped the sword from his chest and tossed that away as well.
"I was the overconfident one, was I?" He snarked the dead man as he jammed a syringe into his leg.
"I thought that simple impalement was enough to kill a Hunter, was I?" He snorted derisively. "Arrogant bastard."
"You alright, mate?" Tonks asked, stepping out onto the bridge herself. He turned to face her, nodding his head.
"I'm fine. That was some quick thinking on your part, taking his hand off when you did. Appreciate it. He'd have been a right nightmare otherwise. Probably wouldn't have taken my bait if he weren't that slight bit desperate." Bait? What bait?
"Did you bait him into impaling you?" He smirked viciously. Well. God damn. "Why?"
"So the fucker would sit still long enough for me to take his head off. He'd have dodged it, otherwise." Bloody buggering shite, that's a risky play! She rather likes it.
"What's that bone he had even do?" She wondered.
"Grants the art of Quickening. A forgotten technique that used to be commonplace. Now it's only remembered by the bones of the dead." He shook his head mournfully. "C'mon you lot. Not much farther now." He called out to the rest before turning and heading across the bridge.
"Hope you don't have any troubles with heights." He smirked at her over his shoulder.
"You sure this is going to work?" Tonks asked dubiously as she kneeled before the ritual altar.
"I'm sure. Now, lay your forehead against the stone, and repeat the prayer as I say it." She took a deep breath, steadying herself, and did as he said. The stone was cold against her skin.
"Oh Flora, of the Moon, of the Dream," he intoned deliberately as he pressed the cold iron brand against the base of her skull. She dutifully repeated the words.
"Take this one as your own. Grant them strength, and surety, and purpose." She felt the brand grow hot against her skin. The shape of it came to life in her mind's eye. Dangling and faint.
"Oh Flora, of the Hunt, bless this one with your mark, raise them up into the ranks of your Hunters." As she repeated the words, the brand turned searing, but the heat was not on her skin. No, it was within her. Burning the mark of the Hunter into her mind irrevocably. It felt almost like a legilimency probe in her mind, but so much more and so much less at the same time. She could see it now, when she closed her eyes it was right there, and its meaning rushed into her, and through her, and she knew what it meant to be a Hunter.
Venator Sanguinis Astris.
Harry pulled the brand away, and she slumped to the side to stare up at the ceiling with wide eyes.
"Hey," Harry kneeled in front of her. "You alright?"
"That was a lot weirder than I expected it would be." She said in a perfect monotone. Harry chuckled and held his hand out to help her onto her feet. His laugh unwound some of the shock from her system, and she smiled faintly at him. She took his hand and let him pull her onto her feet.
"You get used to it eventually. Care to try the lantern again?" He gestured at the rather conveniently placed lantern in the center of the Old Workshop, around which the others were arrayed, awaiting their turn at the altar.
"You bet your sweet arse I am! I'm beyond ready to get out of here."
"Well get on with it then!" He laughed.
She knelt before the lantern, foraging around in her occlumency barriers to make sure the image she summoned was the newest and sharpest image she could manage. She reinforced the image again and again, planting it like a tree in the forefront of her mind.
"You're putting more effort into it than you need to." Harry pointed out, a teasing grin stretching his lips. She raised an eyebrow in his direction.
"And how do you know how much effort I'm putting into it, hm?"
"I-" His teasing smile slipped away, and he was so confused so suddenly that it threw Tonks for a loop.
"I don't know." He muttered absently, a far away look in his eyes.
"Right," she drawled uncertainly, then shook herself and focused on the task at hand.
Getting the everloving fuck out of this place. Right. The image was still locked in place, thank Merlin for occlumency, so she reached out to the lamp.
The difference was immediately apparent. Where before precisely nothing had happened, this time she felt something reach out to her, a magic indefinable, pulling her down down down into an irresistible current. She shut her eyes, and the moment dragged on into years and decades before snapping back into a single instant.
When she opened her eyes, she was in the Great Hall of Hogwarts, kneeling before an identical lantern to the ones she'd seen in Yharnam, right down to the little creatures praying at its base. There was a cacophony of voices and the sound of silverware on plates on the air. A classic Hogwarts evening feast.
By Merlin and Morgana, she had never heard such a comforting sound in all her life!
The lamp was behind the staff table, somewhat out of sight of the students, so she might not have been spotted yet by the prepubescent masses. All's the better. She's splattered with half dried blood, shirtless but for the bandage wrap around her chest and her half ruined Auror coat, and she knows she's in no mood to deal with that kind of attention.
Seven years of the Hogwarts rumor mill was quite enough, thank you very much. She dropped a weak notice-me-not on herself.
"Miss Tonks!?" Professor McGonogall exclaimed, climbing up out of her seat at the head table to rush to her side. Apparently the spell had been a little too weak.
"Professor!" She shot back, straightening unconsciously.
"What are you doing here? How did you get here? My word!" The Professor's eyes widened dramatically as she got a good look at the state she was in. "What happened to you?"
Tonks laughed and it was a manic, desperate thing. The laugh of someone who has just escaped certain death and knows it. All relief and adrenaline and the irrepressible joy of being alive.
"A lot. A lot happened, Professor. I'm sure it'll make the Prophet, even."
The bells attached to the lantern jerked of their own accord, sending a light and airy chime floating through the Great Hall. It was quiet enough that Tonks was sure it should have been drowned out by the noise of the feast, but at the same time it echoed; reverberating in her head in soothing waves.
The strange creatures arrayed around the lantern reached into the strangely rippling floor, and between them rose the familiar bald head of her partner. She should have known Shack would be the next to take the plunge. He's always had her back, for as long as she's known him.
"Shack!" She rushed to help him up.
"Tonks." He gripped her upper arm as he rose unsteadily to his feet, shaking his head as if to banish cobwebs. "How are you of all people on your feet as if nothing happened? I can't- everything's spinning."
"Dunno, mate. You need to sit down?" He nodded his head, and she led him to the nearest chair, turning it around so he wouldn't be sat facing the students, and lowered him into it.
"Oh my!" Flitwick squeaked from his own seat further down the table. "Miss Tonks, Mister Shacklebot, what's happening?" The rest of the staff turned to look at them.
"Not sure, can you get Madame Pomfrey? Shack doesn't look so good." His eyes were glazed over, sweat beading across his face and yet he felt deathly cold to the touch. Something must've gone wrong. She'd gotten through the lantern and come out the other side perfectly fine, why was he in such a sorry state?
"Yes, of course!" The diminutive professor snapped off a quick messenger patronus, then hopped down off his chair to approach the pair.
"If you would allow me, I'm well versed in basic first aid, I can take a look at him?" He asked them.
"Whaddya think, Shack?" His head lolled, burying his chin in his chest. "Shack!?" He groaned in response, his grip on her arm tightening as his expression tightened in pain.
"Check him out, Flit, something ain't right." She told him, barely keeping herself from shouting in her panic. She can't lose her partner, not now. Not after they've finally gotten out of that nightmare city.
Flitwick jumped into a series of familiar triage diagnostic charms, not even as numerous and varied as the bog standard set drilled into the heads of every Auror recruit in their first few weeks. Shite, fecking civilians. She'd be doing a better job of it than him right now!
The lantern bell rang again, and Tonks tore her eyes away from her partner long enough to see Mcdonnel rising up out of the floor into a kneeling position, the same as Shack had. He wavered on the spot, and Tonks only just managed to dart out and catch him before he collapsed into a groaning pile.
"Shite, Tonks? Why're there so blasted many of you?"
"How many of me you seeing?" She asked as she led him to a chair of his own, right next to Shack. He blinked at her, pale as a sheet, sweating and cold just like Shack.
"Like, seven? It's hard to keep track of 'em all, they keep moving. Oh Merlin, I think I'm gonna be sick." He bent over himself, emptying the meager contents of his stomach onto the floor and his own feet. Tonks sidestepped the spew, rubbing his back and shoulders as worry gnawed at her insides.
Was everyone going to come out the other side sick? What the fuck is happening to them?
"McGonogall," she snapped her gaze onto the Deputy Headmistress. She was standing over Shack, clearly concerned but unsure of how to help. At her call, she turned to face the battered Auror.
"Clear the Great Hall. This is an official DMLE matter, and we don't need that many prying eyes. 'Specially not kids." She ordered in her clearest, most official sounding voice. It came out a lot stronger than she expected it would, and McGonogall snapped to attention with a perfunct:
"Of course." Then she was marching away, voice booming over the Great Hall, ordering the children to return to their common rooms at once. They groaned and complained, apparently dinner had only just started, but Tonks didn't give a toss. They can have the elves bring them food in their common rooms. The little squirts will be fine.
It's her teammates that she's worried about.
The bell chimed again, and Tonks moved once again to help an ailing Auror, Proudfoot this time, to their feet and into a chair. He was a big, burly bloke, and Tonks was surprised by how easily she carried his weight. His eyes were bloodshot and clouded, and he blinked repeatedly as she knelt in front of him.
"Proudfoot, talk to me man." She insisted when his silence stretched too long for her to bear. He blinked again, eyes moving over her but not seeing her.
"Tonks? That you? I can't see anything, where are we? Why is it so bleedin' dark?" She swallowed convulsively, trying to choke down the lump in her throat.
"We're in Hogwarts, we're safe. You've gone blind, but Pomfrey is on her way and she'll fix you right up in a jiffy." She forced the words out despite not believing them herself. Merlin, Pomfrey had better be able to help them. Proudfoot nodded, leaning back in his chair. His hands were shaking, and Tonks swore she could see the veins around his eyes turning black.
Just what is taking that damn woman so long!?
The lantern rang out once more, and Tonks turned to it with dread squeezing her heart like a vice.
Cerric this time, and he rose out of the ground screaming. There were long, deep cuts running down his left arm and over his shoulder where he got caught by something, probably the same things that got her on the bridge, but they'd been mostly healed and well bandaged last she saw. Now, they must have torn open somehow because he'd bled through his bandages something awful!
She rushed to his side, pulling him away from the lantern and laying him on his back some feet away. He was babbling in Gaelic, pale as a ghost, gripping at his injured arm as if he was trying to hold it together. She launched into a diagnostic stream of her own, and while some of the spells came back with results she didn't know what to make of, the important bit was that he was losing a lot of blood very fast. Faster than his wounds would suggest.
Internal bleeding, shite. She hasn't got the control necessary for that kind of delicate work.
"Cerric, Cerric? You with me, mate?" He didn't react, babbling turning to murmuring, eyes glazed and unseeing. Shite, shite shite shite!
"WHERE THE FUCK IS POMFREY!?" She roared, looking up and finally taking note of the crowd of teachers present. Everyone but Mad-Eye was there, standing in a group by the head table, being utterly useless, feckless idiots. For an instant, she hated them. To stand there, frozen bystanders, thinking to themselves that, 'oh, someone else will solve the problem right in front of my face. There's no need for me to get involved.'
"Snape, you've got some medical training, haven't you?" She barked. The man scowled, arms crossed petulantly. Oh sure, he probably thought he looked intimidating, glaring down his stupidly long nose at her, but Tonks had probably never seen anything less intimidating in her life.
"I have some, yes." He intoned flatly, clearly bored.
"Then why the fuck aren't you helping?" She glared at him with such sulfurous rage that she was surprised he didn't immolate on the spot. If he had the gall to keep standing there, passively watching as men better than he will ever be fall ill, bleed out and die, she won't even need her wand to kill him.
Her bare hands will do just fine.
The man snorted, clearly annoyed with being called out, and Tonks was a microsecond away from killing him on the spot, when he finally drew his wand and stepped forward to help.
Bastard should've been helping from the word go.
"He's bleeding internally, is there anything you can do for that?" She asked him as she did her best to get his surface wounds to close, or at least stop bleeding out all over the floor. Nothing worked.
Frustrated, she tore his ruined bandages off so she could look at his wounds properly. They were a lot worse than she expected; wide and deep, and growing steadily wider by the second, like a doll being pulled apart at the seams.
"It's beyond my ability to fix," he reported after swishing his wand in a diagnostic of his own. He retrieved a bottle from his voluminous robes and tilted it into Cerric's mouth.
"Blood replenisher is the best I can do for him at the moment." All the potion accomplished was making his wounds spurt blood like a fountain all over her lower body for a moment, before resuming their steady flow.
"Make way! Make way! What's happening here?" Pomfrey's voice preceded her as she finally cut through the throng of professors and made a beeline straight for them.
"That's enough Severus, back away now, let me handle this." She frowned at the man, and he retreated back to the rest of the useless idiots watching them.
"He's bleeding internally, his wounds are getting steadily worse, and he's non-responsive." Tonks reported, as quickly and clearly as she could manage. The matron's wand was already weaving a veritable tapestry of diagnostics, monitoring charms, and the occasional healing spell she didn't recognize. Her frown only intensified as she looked the results over.
"We need to get him to the Hospital Wing." She flicked her wand and Cerric rose up off the ground to hover near her shoulder.
"What about the others?" The lantern chimed again, and she looked between it and the matron frantically.
"Others?" Pomfrey questioned, looking around and realizing how many patients she'd suddenly been handed. "You lot!" She barked at the onlookers.
"Help the others to the Hospital Wing, quick as you can." They all jumped into action, Hagrid physically picking Shack up in his arms while the others used levitation charms.
Tonks rushed to the lantern just in time to catch Bently as he collapsed, unconscious and pale, but otherwise fine looking.
"Someone take Bently, and be ready! We've got four more coming through after him!"
Harry opened his eyes after the interminable moment spent traveling through the lantern, and Tonks was there, wrapping her arm around him and helping him to his feet.
"Er, Tonks? Much as I appreciate the thought, I don't need … help." He trailed off as he took in her harried appearance, the fresh blood staining her hands and lower body, and the sticky puddle of blood not even ten feet from the lantern. Albus, the last one he branded and sent through the lantern, was being levitated away by a frightened Professor Vector. The Great Hall was otherwise empty.
"What the hell happened?" Her grip on him shifted, going from supportive to threatening in an instant.
"Why don't you tell me, huh?" She snarled into his face. "We went through with your plan, and the others all came out fucking dying!"
"What?" He gasped out. "No, no that shouldn't be! They should be fine! Evelyn and I used the lanterns all the time and we never came out any worse for wear."
Her grip on him tightened for a moment, and he really thought she might try to hurt him, and he was going to let her, but then she slumped, her rage gone in an instant. Her hands slid off of him to wrap around herself.
"It's the Blood, isn't it?" She looked away, towards the doors to the Great Hall. "That's why you and I were the only ones to come through in one piece. Because we've got the Blood in us."
Author's Note: I feel pretty good about this chapter. Please let me know what ya'll think of it!