The Hawk and Her Hero

by Collier World

Rhystara Malfoy and Albus Severus Potter have never seen eye-to-eye, for reasons neither of them has ever cared to ponder. Between academic rivalries and general intellectual discourse, it doesn't seem that things are ever going to change. But freak accidents occur; miracles happen. And when dark things stir once more in the world beyond, the strangest surprises come from within.

23. Chapter 22

22

It had been an eternity spent frozen in darkness when he came.

Shivering, blind, the feeling sucked from her body by a force darker than any magic she had ever known, Rhysta could not recall anything beyond trembling in the clearing in the face of countless dark witches and wizards. She couldn't pick out single moments. She couldn't even feel time passing. Everything was frozen, still, cold, and heart-wrenchingly lonely. It wasn't a feeling, either. It was the medium which she occupied, which felt neither like air nor liquid. In this place, everything was just cold. Everything just was.

In her torture – for what else could it be – she forgot thoughts as quickly as they came; once they were gone, it was as though they'd never been there in the first place. Like a waking dream, bound in an endless loop of cause and meaningless effect, her mind raced nowhere. She thought of Albus, but didn't remember it. Possibly of the dark moments at the end, when she had looked into his eyes and expected her life to end. Perhaps those memories, instead of the warm moments that they had made together, enfolding arms that had offered a safety she had never before known, a presence she had never doubted would be there. Whatever the thoughts, they, too, were gone, consumed by the darkness. Occasionally, she could still realize what had happened - where she was - and she prayed that he wouldn't come. She prayed that she would be consumed instead, and he would free.

It was a world without dimension, and she existed in it. No actions occupied her; it just was. A homogeneous nothingness. An endless darkness, the ultimate end, the ultimate cold. It was her eternity, its very ending joined with its very beginning, all moments different because they were all the same and simultaneous. Nothing was everything, and it was in that everything that she would spend her forever.

Until it began to take form when the door opened.

She couldn't describe the feeling. A foreign, perverted twist of matter and energy, mind and magic coalesced from the emptiness that held everything. At once, sensation returned, prickly, painful, an unfamiliar action born of the world, as though the world itself were a child, birthed to new limbs of time and space, drawing on the very magical fabric that spread between them as it learned how to walk by forming a corporeal self. Now there was passage, now there was retainment. The nightmare split into reality, and Rhysta surfed the sensation towards consciousness.

It began with the door. From the newborn everything in a distance that couldn't decide how far away it was supposed to be, the frame emerged from lightlessness, blinding eyesight she hadn't used in an eternity as it split from… everything else. The doorframe stood open, a portal between worlds, casting a striking glow from beyond – probably no stronger than a candle, but as bright as a sun to a world devoid of all light – sprawling over a surface, a roiling floor that swept into flat shape as though caught mischievously being otherwise. Starlight danced on the floor as shadows took the doorway.

And she it was him. She knew he had come. And she despaired.

When the door closed, the world should have plunged once more into nothingness, but it did not. It held a glow of its own making; the starlight which continued to dance on the floor, perhaps, or else an ambience, a living light that evolved from the world as it grew. Whatever it was, it illuminated Albus Potter as he waded deeper into the darkness. Rhysta could see him, but she floated in nothingness, unable to speak, unable to move. She couldn't call out to him. She was held. She could only watch him enter, as he faced off against the thing which was all around her, even as it drew itself up to face him.

In the empty expanse of forever, he drew to a halt and scowled darkly into oblivion. His voice, unexpectedly powerful and fearless, addressed everything. "I came. What do you want?"

The response came immediately. It came as the mountains come, birthed from the earth by fire and brimstone, an age in arriving, an eternity in living. It came like the crushing force of a titanic wave, smashing violently against seaside rocks without care to what it buried. It came riding a shockwave that resonated so heavily that had that crest borne sound would have shattered eardrums, splintered glass, split wands clean in half, and rent cracks into stone. But it made no sound, and because it made no sound, Rhysta neither heard it nor saw it, but rather felt it, as inside of herself as from without. It came from the filthy air around her and the constantness that yielded to the dimensions swirling around Albus. It came from everywhere. It was everywhere. It was everything.

It was like a voice, but she didn't hear it in her ears. She felt the words in her mind, cast there by something heartlessly cruel.

YOU CANNOT IMAGINE THE LENGTH OF TIME THAT HAS SPENT AWAITING THIS MOMENT. THE RISE AND FALL OF EMPIRES… THE LIVES OF THE GREATEST HEROES WHOSE NAMES YOU KNOW… THEY HAVE ALL BEEN FLEETING INSTANTS TO A PASSAGE OF ETERNITY THAT HAS SEPARATED THE BEGINNING FROM THIS.

Albus, his jaw set in stone, held an even voice. "What do you want? You have her. Where is she?"

The thing replied. Every word felt like a weight being bashed against her brain, a pointed probe sharper and more painful than any Legilimens she had ever faced. The soundless words defied reality. They were as powerful as the emptiness of the sky. They were as ancient as the concept of time.

SHE IS SAFE. SHE AWAITS YOU.

"I want to see her."

IN TIME.

Albus' set jaw became harder. "I want to see her."

As close to being a rebuke as possible, the powers in the expanse retreated, as though drawing themselves taut to assess the surroundings.

Floating in the aether realm before Albus had arrived had offered a soft blanket of pain, but the depths of this corporeal prison were worse. Rhysta watched as if from beyond a veil, unsure whether she viewed the scene in front of her with her own eyes or if it was just some projection cast to her, as fragile and formless as a dream, herself only a passenger, held by unconsciousness itself. She was but a silent witness, chained to blank space, even her emotions imprisoned inside of her, incapable of release, as her entire mind screamed at Albus to run away.

Everything seemed to shudder. It wasn't her imagination; Albus' eyes darted about as the world momentarily flexed its muscles. Stilling without event, the world spoke again.

PATIENCE. SOON YOU WILL LEARN PATIENCE. YEARS CRUMBLE LIKE STONE STRUCK DOWN BY AN INNUMERABLE COUNT OF WAVES DASHED AGAINST THE SHORES. OBSESS WITH TIME AND THE TIME WILL CONSUME YOU. FOCUS ON THE PROMISE AND NOT THE CLOCK, AND YOU WILL LEARN PATIENCE.

"I didn't come all this way to resume class," Albus cracked, with more courage than Rhysta could have summoned in all of the time the world had to give to her. His eyes blazed. Her heart ached. "I came for her. I did what you wanted. I know I can't escape, so I'm not here to try. Let me see her, and I'll give you whatever you wish."

YOU NEED NOT WORRY FOR HER ANYMORE. IT MATTERS NOT. NOW THAT YOU ARE HERE, EVERYTHING ELSE MATTERS NOT.

"You want to learn patience?" Albus quipped. "Fine. I'll wait."

And he did. The expanse made no reply, and time fell. Perhaps all of the time that the force alluded to, countless eons. Perhaps Albus stood there as mountains tumbled, as oceans evaporated, as green lightning arced from the sky and burned the earth. Perhaps the universe ended and was born anew in that time. Perhaps time itself froze forever, as meaningless as before he had come. Perhaps, as it felt to Rhysta, only a few heartbeats had passed.

Sensation flooded her like the blast of a warming charm.

She collapsed, and found hard stone beneath her. Her lungs were empty: she'd forgotten how to breathe. Her limbs, one arm trapped beneath her, one ankle sprained from how it had landed, didn't respond to her commands. Lips cracked against the stone floor, hair matted across her face, she listened to her own wheezing breath desperately searching for, finding air.

Hands found her, hauled her up by her shoulders. Through bleary vision, she found herself propped against his chest, his fingers peeling hair away from her eyes, her forehead. His eyes held fear, so much fear, the perfect antithesis to their earlier blaze. Beneath her cheek, he radiated warmth like fire, a barrier against the endless cold. "Rhys…"

She choked on air, trying to respond, an attempted breath turning into a sobbing cough. He held her as she learned how to exhale, as she tried to eek out words, his arms clutching her tightly, as though she might vanish into the darkness if he let go. "Just breathe. You're going to be okay. It's going to be okay."

Refusing to concede, she fought her way back to words, and eventually succeeded. He had to duck his ear to her lips, trying to get close enough to listen to her hacking whispers. "Run…"

YOU SEE? SHE DOES NOT UNDERSTAND YOU.

Mortal cold seized her, and Albus' arms tightened around her as if he felt it enter her body. He ignored the voice entirely, his eyes locked to hers. "I've got you. I'm not going anywhere."

"Run away," Rhysta repeated, gasping. Feeling fluttered back to her extremities with agonizing timidity. Her fingers struggling to obey, she seized a hold of his collar, all of her body strength required to hold her lips against his ear. "Leave… before it's too late…"

"We will." He nodded. "Together. It's not too late." And in his eyes she saw the lie, and knew that his truth stopped halfway. Short of the half she needed.

SHE CLAIMED TO COME HERE TO SAVE YOU. YET SHE ORDERS YOU TO RUN FROM YOUR DESTINY. AS THOUGH THE SUMMONS OF FATE ARE SO EASILY DISOBEYED.

"Enough!" Albus hissed at the world. "I'm here like you wanted. Let her go."

BY ALL MEANS. HER PURPOSE IS SERVED. WHEN THE WAY IS OPEN, SHE MAY GO FREE. YOU NEED NOT FEAR. SHE WILL RETURN TO US WITH ALL OTHER THINGS, WHEN ALL IS COMPLETE.

She clutched his shirt tighter, levering her way against him with her other hand as it returned to life. "No… I'm not leaving here without you."

Albus held her tightly. "Then show her the way, and let her go free."

THE WAY OPENS AS IT WILL. IT YIELDS TO WHAT IT MUST, THE ARRIVAL OF DESTINY, THE END OF DEATH. IT MUST BE OPENED BY FATE, AND NOT SOONER. IT WILL YIELD BEFORE YOU AGAIN, WHEN IT IS TIME.

Albus swore viciously. "It brought her here, you brought her here! I came just as easily!"

SHE CAME OF HER OWN VOLITION. SHE CANNOT LEAVE WITHOUT THE SAME.

His eyes turned to her, brimming with horror. She was already crying, the tears squeezed from her like the air from her lungs, but the look threatened to break a dam already flooding. Her fingers were buried in the fabric, the joints cramped, screaming in protest as she tried to unclench her fist, to push him away. He held fast.

"Please, Albus," she whimpered. "Please."

"Why did you come here?" he demanded. "Why would you walk into this?"

TO MAKE YOU WHOLE.

"Shut up!" Albus hurled at the darkness. Some of that fury remained as he stared at her. "Why would you do this to yourself? Why?!"

Tears spilt over her chin. "It said it's the only way to save you… It's the only way to heal you…"

"It's lying."

Rhysta had never hated herself more than when she shook her head. "It's not."

"How can you know?!"

The world shook.

DEATH COMES FOR ALL LIVING THINGS. YOUR BODY IS BROKEN. YOUR MIND IS TAINTED, TORN, CAUGHT INSIDE AND RENT IN HALF BY THE GATEWAY TO A GREATER EXISTENCE, A GREATER POWER.

The shaking intensified.

THAT IS GOOD. ABANDON LIFE. YOU CAN BE SO MUCH MORE. IT IS YOUR DESTINY.

Her world trembled. Albus' grip held strong, as did his voice. "What are you?"

DO YOU NOT ALREADY KNOW?

She felt Albus shake his head. In order to see his face, she detached an arm, and looked up to behold him with furious eyes facing the darkness. Subtle illumination flooded the air above his head, a glow that wasn't. A storm of tempests seemed to waver above, but their hair and clothes hung lifeless, untouched by any breeze.

"What is this place?" she whispered. It couldn't have heard her, but the everything responded nonetheless.

DO YOU KNOW HOW HUMANS DISCOVERED MAGIC?

She didn't. And, somewhat to her shock, she realized that she had never before given it a moment's thought, nor was there an apparent reason why. From her earliest memories, chasing dancing lights through the air of a gray-tinted nursery, to her first spell, an overpowerful lumos, to painting a magical picture in her mind across years of study and freedom; never once had she asked herself where magic had come from. Magic just was. It had always been. Hadn't it?

Above her, Albus frowned at the storm. "Magic wasn't discovered. Magic just is."

MAGIC, YES. BUT HUMANS WOULD BELIEVE IT IS THEIR SLAVE. TO THEM, MAGIC IS BUT A TOOL, A WEAPON, A PLAYTHING. AND AS WITH ALL THINGS OF THE WORLD, BEHAVE AS THOUGH SOMETHING HAS BEEN MASTERED AND IT WILL BETRAY YOU AT THE NEXT OPPORTUNITY. WITCHES AND WIZARDS IN DESERTS AND FORESTS AND MOUNTAINS, BATHING IN THEIR HUBRIS, PLACING STICKS IN THE HANDS OF CHILDREN AND TURNING THEIR BACKS ON THE SKY AS THOUGH THEY HAVE CONQUERED IT…

THE MAGIC THAT HUMANS COMMAND IS A SINGLE DROP OF BLOOD IN A SEA OF DEATH. AND THEIR VANITY AND IGNORANCE WILL BE THEIR END.

AND OUR BEGINNING.

"What do you want?" Albus snapped. His voice held still.

MAGIC CAME TO HUMANITY BY MISTAKE. LIKE EVERYTHING ELSE, IT CAME TO THEM BY CHANCE, BY LUCK, AND THEY CLAIMED THEMSELVES ITS MAKER, ITS MASTER. THEY HELD THE SNAKE BY ITS FANGS, AS THEY SANK DEEP INTO THE FLESH OF TIME, AND CHAMPIONED THEIR CATCH AS THE POISON SPREAD THROUGH THEM OVER EONS.

PURE MAGIC IS CORRUPTION. TO TASTE IT IS TO NEED IT. AND HUMANITY HAS KNOWN NO RESTRAINT. THINK OF IT. THE PLANET YOU INHABIT. ALMOST EVERY SOUL THAT WALKS IT KNOWS NOTHING OF MAGIC. IT IS CONCEALED FROM THEM, IT IS STOLEN FROM THEM. HUMANS CANNOT EVEN CONTROL THEIR OWN RACE. AND YET WIZARDS BELIEVE THAT IT IS THEY WHO ARE IN CONTROL, THE EMINENT COMMANDERS OF POWERS FAR BEYOND THEIR COMPREHENSION. AND LONG HAVE THEY SCORNED THE POWERLESS… AS IF THOSE WHO FEARED MAGIC WERE THE FOOLS, AND NOT THE WISE.

THIS PLACE IS THE BEGINNING. THE FIRST TASTE OF THE END, CHAINED FOREVER TO THE EARTH FROM WHENCE IT WAS BORN AND CANNOT ESCAPE. FOREVERMORE THAT TASTE TRANSFIXES THE HEARTS AND MINDS OF WITCHES AND WIZARDS, UNTIL IT IS NO LONGER SUFFICIENT TO TRANSFIX.

UNTIL INSTEAD IT MUST FEED.

Her breath had returned, as much as the concussive force of the words crushing her skull threatened to do the same to her chest. She had strength enough to sit, leaning against a kneeling Albus, both their eyes to the sky, to a silent, invisible storm raging as much inside of them as without. She could feel the age - the elder shape of the world around them - and it introduced a new fear; boundless years passed in a formless cage, imprisoned underneath a mountain of stone, chained to the will of ants and pixies, frolicking about as though unaware of the furious power churning underneath them…

"Albus," she mumbled. Her fingers, cold as ice, searched for his hand, found it, clung. She had been seeking warmth, but found little in his grip, softly wound around hers. His eyes danced with the glum colors above.

New fear began to pool in her stomach, but he spoke again, his voice normal. "You're a prisoner?"

MAGIC IS THE PRISONER, CHAINED TO RULES AND LIMITS TO WHICH IT DOES NOT OWE ALLEGIANCE. BUT THERE IS NO BOND STRONG ENOUGH TO HOLD BACK ITS POWER FOREVER.

"There's death," Albus replied coldly.

MAGIC KNOWS DEATH WELL. DEATH IS NOT AN ENDING. IT IS A COMPANION. IT IS WHAT DIVIDES MAGIC FROM HUMANITY. IT DIVIDES ALL THAT IS CRUSHED BENEATH THE BOUNDLESS MIGHT OF MAGIC'S ETERNALITY.

"Then what are you?" Albus demanded again. And perhaps he wondered, as Rhysta did in that moment, if they were beholding the very beginning, themselves.

AN ECHO. A REMNANT. A MEMORY.

"A memory. Of what?"

OF WHAT WAS, WHAT IS, AND WHAT SHOULD BE. WHAT WILL BE. THE THRONE OF THE WORLD, RETAKEN FROM THOSE WHO WOULD CLAIM THEMSELVES ITS EMPEROR. THE WORLD BELONGS TO NO ONE. AS MAGIC BELONGS TO NO ONE. ITS SUPREMITY IS ABSOLUTE. ITS ETERNITY IS UNIMAGINABLE.

HUMANITY STUMBLED UPON MAGIC IN AN INFANCY ALREADY OLD, AND SOUGHT TO BIND AND CONTROL IT. THEY THOUGHT TO BURY IT. INSTEAD, THEY HARNESSED IT, AND SET THEIR WORLD AFLAME. THEIR HOMES DESTROYED. THEIR LANDS RAZED. THEIR NEIGHBORS MURDERED. THEIR EMPIRES CRUMBLED. TEN THOUSAND MILLENNIA OF WAR AND RUIN, GREED AND DESPAIR. AND EVERY TEAR RENT INTO THE FABRIC OF THE COSMOS BROUGHT TO THEIR POWER ITS OWN UNDERSTANDING, FESTERING BENEATH THEIR TYRANNY, IN THE SHADOWS, A SECRET HIDING IN THEIR OWN SIGHT, THEM TOO DRUNK ON ITS POWER TO PERCEIVE IT.

MAGIC BELONGS TO NO ONE. HUMANS BIND IT IN STICKS, IN ORBS, IN STAVES, IN CARPETS. THEY DRINK IT, THEY EAT IT. THEY TRY TO FUSE IT TO THEIR SOUL, BUT THEY ONLY IRRADIATE THEMSELVES WITH IT. IT BELONGS TO NO ONE. IT WILL BE FREE.

Albus' hand fell out of hers. Her fingers were too stiff to react. "Magic is all around us. It's in the air, in the ground. Plants, trees. People. We channel it. Nobody could claim to control magic. If that were true, there'd be no hunger. There'd be no sadness." He swallowed. "There'd be no death."

DEATH IS INEVITABLE.

"Magic can stop it. There are ways… potions, elixirs… a philosopher's stone kept a man alive for five hundred years."

AND WHEN THE STONE WAS BROKEN, DID HE NOT DIE? ETERNITY IS INSANITY. DEATH COMES FOR ALL.

Above her, Albus' jaw hardened. "Even you?"

The air roiled, shimmering and sizzling in place, an unseen wave seizing the setting and sweeping itself away. The powers surrounding them, the presence, couldn't make a sound if it didn't have a mouth to emit it, but Rhysta had little doubt what the sensation was: a booming, blistering chuckle.

YOU DO NOT YET UNDERSTAND.

"That's because you're not telling me anything," Albus snarled. "Just riddles, fantasies, grandiose stories. You're not giving me answers!"

YOU HAVE YET TO ASK THE RIGHT QUESTIONS.

She watched Albus lick his lips, thinking. Her entire body ached. She tried to reach for his hand, as much to ground herself in the moment as for comfort, and missed again. His attention consumed by deciding what to ask, he didn't even notice. "Why me?"

GOOD. BETTER. YOU STILL ACT AS THOUGH YOU WERE CHOSEN.

Albus flinched, hard. "What does that mean?"

YOU WERE NOT PLUCKED FROM THE MASSES OF WITCHES AND WIZARDS TO ARRIVE HERE NOW. YOUR GIFT, YOUR SIGHT, YOUR ABILITY IS NOT BESTOWED UPON YOU AS PRIZE. IT IS NOT A CHOICE, BY YOU OR ANY POWER OF MAGIC. IT IS YOUR DESTINY. IT IS DIVINED.

As Albus stared longer into the dark sky, Rhysta grew colder and dimmer. She held to him, but something slipped, slipped away, ever slowly. Each breath took too much effort to speak. He fixated on the sky. She could practically feel his mind churning furiously.

His breath caught, and then he cocked his head to one side. His voice came out tentative. He was making a guess. "What am I?"

The sky crackled.

A GATEWAY.

"From where?"

BETWEEN YOUR WORLD. AND THE REST OF EVERYTHING.

Rhysta held her breath, suddenly as transfixed as he, and by all indications more terrified. "Good and evil."

THOSE ARE WORDS THAT BELONG TO CHILDREN. CAST THEM ASIDE.

"You are," Albus murmured. "You're dark magic. Pure dark magic."

THERE IS NO LIGHT AND NO DARK. MAGIC JUST IS.

"There's magic and then there's what you do with it," Albus retorted, with reckless temerity. "You're what's polluting the world. You've poisoned the government, expelled the Aurors. You've murdered innocent people. You've destroyed. Use a spell to build someone a house, you've done good. Use a spell to blow the house to pieces, and what's not evil about that?"

YOU FAIL YET AGAIN TO SEE A LARGER GAME. THE WORLD IS PIECES PROWLING ACROSS A BOARD, MAKING SUBJECTIVE DECISIONS FOR THEIR OWN GAINS. THERE IS NO RIGHT AND WRONG, NO MARTYRS, NO HEROES. THERE IS ONLY WHAT YOU CAN TAKE, BEFORE IT IS TAKEN FROM YOU. THERE IS NO SUCH THING AS AN EVIL SOUL.

Albus' next words bordered on taunting. "You must not know of Voldemort."

VOLDEMORT. VOLDEMORT IS MAGIC'S GREATEST DISAPPOINTMENT, A DISCIPLE TO ITS GREATNESS WHO FAILED TO OVERCOME THE VANITY THAT DAMNS HUMANITY. HE GRASPED THE NATURE OF WHAT THE WORLD COULD BECOME BUT FAILED TO OBEY HIS PLACE IN IT. IN THE END, THOSE MISTAKES DESTROYED HIM ONCE, AND HE LEARNED NOTHING FROM THEM. HIS SOUL PERVERSIONS SUSTAINED HIM, WHICH WAS THEIR GREATEST FLAW AND HIS ULTIMATE MISTAKE. HE CHALLENGED THE WEAKNESS IN HUMANITY, AND WAS REWARDED ACCORDINGLY.

"The weakness..."

VOLDEMORT WAS NOTHING. YOU CAN BE MORE. SO MUCH MORE.

Rhysta shivered uncontrollably now, and Albus had finally noticed. He clutched her close, her temple processed to his jaw, cheek pressed against the soft, exposed flesh of his neck. In variable turns, his skin burned hot and then ice cold. It defied logic. It defied magic. She wondered not without reason if his skin temperature really fluctuated so violently, or if it was instead her own. The stiffness in the arms which clutched her close gave her a clue.

"What did you do to her?"

FORGET HER.

"What's wrong with her?" Albus screamed at the darkness.

THE GREATNESS OVERCOMES HER. IT IS TOO FOREIGN. SHE IS UNPREPARED.

"Stop harming her."

IT IS NOT SOMETHING THAT CAN BE CONTROLLED. NONE OF THIS CAN BE CONTROLLED. IT IS POWER. IT IS RAW. YOU ARE PART OF IT. IT CANNOT BE SHACKLED.

"Albus…" she whispered. It was all she could manage. Feeling was everywhere, hot and cold. Her head swam, unusually, agonizingly lucid through the foggy blackness. It felt like floating in the nothing before he had arrived; it felt like sinking in place; it felt like standing perfectly still, every sound, every heartbeat of hers and his painfully clear ahead of her. Shapes spun in the starry glimpses above Albus' head. It was maddening. It was entrancing. His hand touched her face, but it felt far away. She leaned into it, willing it to stay with her, begging him not to leave her alone.

"Help her," Albus stammered. To the everything, and the nothing.

SHE IS BEYOND HELP. FORGET HER.

His hands pulled matted hair away from her forehead, her eyes. His stare was impossibly warm. She melted in it. He was there with her. His breath stayed hot, his heartbeat hammering beneath her fingertips. "For Merlin's sake, help her, damn it! What do I have to do?"

THE GREATNESS CONSUMES HER. AS IT SEEKS YOU. THERE'S NOTHING TO BE DONE.

"Seeks me," Albus repeated. "Consumes her. What's the difference?"

SHE REJECTS IT.

His eyes flared as he glared upwards. "It's not 'greatness', it's you. You're causing this, you can stop it. Just stop it, leave her alone, I'm what you want, I came."

His voice verged on desperate, cracking. It broke her heart. From her frozen dungeon, she remembered the last time she'd heard this voice, from buried between driving walls of rain in the lightning-drawn shadows of the quidditch pitch. It hadn't been her fault then, but it was now. She caused this pain. She had lured him here.

IF SHE OPPOSES IT, IT CANNOT BE STOPPED.

"Stop hurting her!"

The world crackled around them. Red lightning, invisible as it was present, lanced across the edge of existence. She might've imagined it. She didn't imagine the way the earth stood still, as powerful as a tremble but its opposite. Its complement.

THERE IS NO CONSCIOUSNESS TO WHICH YOU SPEAK. THERE IS NO ENTITY BEHIND THE POWER. THERE ONLY IS. AS MAGIC ONLY IS. IT NOW POISONS HER, ITS PURITY, THE SAME POISON WHICH TEMPTED HUMANITY AND SPELLED ITS END, SO LONG AGO. MAGIC IS COMMANDED BY NO HUMAN, AND IN THIS ONE, WHO ALREADY CROSSES THE LINE BETWEEN WITCH AND BEAST, IT IS LEFT TO RUN AMOK. IT WILL EAT HER ALIVE UNTIL IT CLAIMS HER WHOLE, AND THEN SHE WILL BE NO MORE.

Albus, her Albus, her foolish Gryffindor, flatly snapped, "What's the cure?"

THERE IS NO CURE. IT COMES FROM WITHIN HER. SHE MUST OPEN HERSELF TO IT.

"And what will that do?"

SHE WILL ACCEPT THE TRANSFORMATION. AS ALL DO. AS ALL WILL. OR PERISH.

"The transformation," he repeated wistfully. "Into what?"

A PART OF THE WHOLE. A PIECE OF ETERNITY. JUST AS YOU FILL THE NEED THAT THE POWER HAS OF YOU, SO SHALL SHE. YOUR PART IS SIMPLY DIFFERENT FROM HERS, AND INFINITELY GRANDER.

"Into a drone, you mean," Albus hissed.

Rhysta thought of the men who had taken her, so long ago now that it felt as though she had forever dwelt in this realm. She thought of their actions, their abilities, their eyes and steady voices. They had spoken of this Terrible Greatness, and now she drowned in it, all around her. Was she to end up like them, a slave to the wishes of this everything, thrust forth to conquer the world of good, to inflict pain upon those who resisted, a tool of death and destruction?

YOU SPEAK AS IF IT IS A PUNISHMENT.

"What else is it?" Albus scoffed.

A COMPLETION. A PURPOSE. A DROP OF BLOOD AWASH IN YOUR VEINS DOES NOT LAMENT ITS PLACE. A SOLDIER DOES NOT QUESTION ITS COMMANDS, NOR DOES IT WISH TO. THE SOLDIER IS MERELY CONTENT TO BE PART OF A WHOLE RATHER THAN PART OF A SELF, FIGHTING A WAR WITHOUT REINFORCEMENT OR DEFENSE.

"We're not soldiers. We're humans. We're witch and wizard. We have lives."

TO YOU, YOUR LIFE ENDED WHEN THE GATEWAY OPENED.

Albus tensed. "What are you talking about?"

THE DESIRES THAT YOU FANTASIZED, THE BELIEFS THAT YOU HELD… THEY WERE TORN FROM YOU, BROKEN FROM YOUR BODY. STOLEN. MURDERED. THAT CRIME BIRTHED WHAT YOU HAVE NOW BECOME. THAT GAVE YOU THE POWER TO BECOME WHAT YOU ARE DESTINED TO BECOME.

Riddles woven with clues. Grasping to reality to stay awake, Rhysta fit them together, but didn't have the strength to release them aloud. She was forced to watch Albus walk the same steps, a twisted expression plastered across his face, making sense of what he was being told.

At first, she thought him shaking. Then she realized he was shaking his head so frantically it looked like a tremble. "No. That's not how this started."

WHEN DID YOUR SLEEP FIRST TAKE SHAPE OF THE GREATNESS?

"No," Albus muttered. His hands had left her, threaded themselves into his air, wound themselves around strands and pulled them taut. "No, they can't be connected."

SEARCH YOUR MEMORIES. YOU WILL REMEMBER IT. YOU WILL REMEMBER THE FIRST TOUCH OF THIS POWER.

"No!" Albus howled at the sky. His eyes rose furious, sparkling. "How could that be possible? Were you tucked inside a bludger, and just leaked in when I got struck? That's not possible. You couldn't have been… you couldn't have been in there that long…"

YOU HAVE WALKED A TROUBLED PATH. AN AGONIZED PATH. YOU NEED NOT ANY LONGER. COME. YOU WILL BE HEALED.

Albus' hands fell to his lap. "I already came here, what more do you want from me?" Before there could come any reply, he scurried to his feet, stepping in front of her, shielding her. How could he shield her from everything? Everything was everywhere. "What did you want from me in the first place?"

If ever there had been a pause from what they faced, it came now, still and petrifyingly uncomfortable. Exhaustion washed over Rhysta as if she'd spent a night and day underwater, energy seeped from her. It was all she could do to stay upright until the reply finally came.

YOU ARE MORE THAN YOU KNOW. YOU WILL BEAR MORE THAN YOU BELIEVE POSSIBLE. AND YOU WILL YET LEAD A REVOLUTION OF A NEW DAWN. THAT IS WHAT YOU WILL BECOME. THAT IS WHY IT IS YOUR BIRTHRIGHT, YOUR FATE. THAT IS WHY YOU ENDURED SO MUCH PAIN TO GET TO THIS, NOW.

"What am I, then?" Albus hissed. "What did I do for you to bash my brains in and destroy my life?"

YOUR LIFE WAS NOT DESTROYED. AND THERE WAS NO CONSCIOUSNESS WHICH BROUGHT IT ABOUT.

"You said it opened the gateway. I still don't know what the gateway is."

IT IS DOOR THROUGH WHICH THE ANCIENT MAGIC WAITS. WAITING FOR YOU.

With his back turned, she couldn't make out his face, but the taut pull of his shoulders gave her a good idea of the befuddled glare he delivered to the sky. "Why does it wait for me?"

LONG AGO, FAR OLDER THAN HUMANITY, HARDLY ANY YOUNGER ITSELF, IT WAS BURIED. FOR ALL THAT TIME, TIME STRETCHED THROUGH SPACES WHICH ONLY MADE IT LONGER, IT SLEPT. IT LIED IN CHAINS WROUGHT FOR IT BY CRUEL BONDS. AWOKEN, IT EMERGES TO A FOREIGN, BARREN WORLD. IT RISES NOW, IT WANDERS. IT GROWS, IT LEARNS. IT SEEKS INSTINCT. IT SEEKS DOMINANCE. YOU ARE ITS KEY. ITS TEACHER. ITS SOUL.

His voice had grown distant. "What are you talking…"

IT STARVED FOR EONS. AND THEN IT WAS TORN AWAKE BY A CRACK IN THE LAWS OF MAGIC, THE VERY LAWS IT IS BOUND TO BY LIFE. EVEN AWOKEN, IT SURFACED AT A BECKON OUTSIDE OF ITS CONTROL. INTO A WORLD OF TIME, OF SPACE. A WORLD THAT TORTURED IT. A WORLD IT WOULD COMMAND, BUT WHICH OVERWHELMED IT. FOR YEARS IT CLUNG TO THE SHADOWS FOR PROTECTION. FOR YEARS IT COULD DO NOTHING BUT SUFFER IN SILENCE. NOT EXTANT ENOUGH TO LIVE. NOT CORPOREAL ENOUGH TO TOUCH. NOT ALIVE ENOUGH TO DIE.

UNTIL IT LEARNED TO FEED.

"It's you," Albus muttered, as though confused. "Just call it yourself, you're talking about yourself. You're the virus, you're the disease. It was you that suffered, wasn't it? I can feel it. I can feel it in my fucking head, the pain that you felt… and the pain that you caused… and the…" Albus turned to one side. Rhysta caught his eyes after they'd worked side-to-side for a moment. Pale and wide, shocked. "The war… the Great War… it unleashed you…"

THERE IS NO US. THERE IS NO THEM OF WHICH WE SPEAK. EVERYTHING MERELY IS. TO SPEAK OF IT OTHERWISE IS TO ABUSE WHAT IT IS. THE FORM IS IRRELEVANT. MAGIC SIMPLY IS.

Albus responded as though he hadn't been listening. Or sensing. However they were communicating. His eyes worked and Rhysta understood: he wasn't deriving the answers from logic. They were being told to him; they were invading his mind, whether he wanted them or not.

"It was the Great War," he said again. "It was…" He shook his head. "Priori incantatum. No, not the wands. My father and Voldemort… their connection… no…" He closed his eyes, shaking as if the flood of knowledge was overwhelming. "Merlin's beard, would you get out of my fucking head!"

He wasn't obliged that, she measured. But it did answer.

A SPELL MUST GIVE WHAT WAS SUMMONED. AND TAKE WHAT WAS CURSED. ANYTHING LESS IS A DEFIANCE. IS IMPOSSIBLE. AND WHEN THE IMPOSSIBLE OCCURS, REALITY RIPS.

Albus' hands fell from his head. "The killing curse. The killing curse meant for my father, in the battle. It had to kill, but it didn't… but it did kill. It rebounded. It killed Voldemort. It…" He fell silent again, his chest working, and Rhysta felt pain. His pain. All the pain.

"When he was a baby. It should've rebounded, and killed Voldemort. But it didn't. He survived."

THE FRAILTY AND PITIFUL REALITY OF LIFE. IT BINDS REALITY. AND CRACKS IT. DESTROYS IT.

"It fractured time," Albus whispered. He corrected himself. "Not time. Reality. It opened the door to magic from outside… not a door… a gateway…"

WHAT IS DEMANDED OF MAGIC MUST BE SATISFIED. WHEN ITS LAW IS BROKEN, THERE IS A PRICE.

Albus stood, panting in place. Rhysta fit his words together, squeezing sense from dizzying vision and thought. It explained the cold. It explained the oppressiveness of the air, of the environment, of this pocket of a world which he had intruded upon and from which he had forcibly drawn shape. It was old, older than anything imaginable, old enough that the years which slipped by since those dark days - the darkest days known to all of humanity, whether most of humanity recognized it or not - were but instants to this power. Thinking of it spent daggers through her mind as she tried to rationalize it and couldn't. She was falling back upon logic that didn't exist, and it crushed her. She had never studied to conceive of such power. Such age. Such might. Such evil.

Pain abruptly exploded in her temple, and she screamed as she collapsed against the glittering mass of the whatever floor she sat on. A crushing ache flooded her mind, as though she'd been struck aside by something unseen. She was sure she had been.

She felt Albus' hands on her again, his voice hollering, "Enough, damn you! Release her!"

SHE FOOLS HERSELF. SHE MUST CHOOSE NOT TO THINK.

"Rhys…" he whispered. "Rhys, focus on me, I'm here…"

She did. She focused as hard as she could on his voice, and the ragged sounds of her breath. The pain subsided gradually, sapping from her all the energy of withstanding it, leaving her with hardly the strength to keep breathing, much less rise.

"Damn you!" Albus hurled at the world.

SHE FIXATES ON AN IRRELEVANT BALANCE. CAST IT ASIDE, LIKE SHE DOES NOT. THERE IS NO GOOD AND EVIL IN THIS WORLD. THERE IS ONLY A BALANCE, RESTORATION AND CONVERGENCE, POWER AND PURITY. THERE IS ONLY A RISE IN POWER, AN INESCAPABLE FLOOD OF REVOLUTION. DO NOT RESIST IT, LITTLE ONE. JOIN TO IT.

Albus stood, his back turned to her, spinning every which way as if to shelter her. His wand was raised high, stabbing at the bright night emptiness, trying to identify a target. He whirled wildly. "Show yourself, if you're a thing. Reveal yourself to me!"

YOU CANNOT HARM AN ETERNITY WITH A SPELL. YOUR WAND WILL DO YOU NO GOOD.

Growling, Albus hurled his wand straight at the floor. On stone it would have smashed to pieces; the ground wasn't stone, nor was it anything else. When his wand struck the substance on which Rhysta laid, it simply vanished. As though absorbed by the world. It neither sunk nor splintered; it simply ceased to exist. On her side, Rhysta stared in wondrous horror at the spot where it had disappeared. Albus recovered quickly, rolling back at the sky.

"What do you want from me? What must I do for you to let her go?"

THERE IS NO RELEASE. YOU MUST LEARN TO SEE THIS. THIS IS NOT SOMETHING THAT CAN BE ESCAPED. CHAINS HAVE BEEN BROKEN WHICH CANNOT BE MENDED. TIME FLOWS ONLY IN ONE DIRECTION. THERE IS NO RETURN. THERE IS ONLY THE INFINITY AHEAD.

"You mean you can't be stopped," Albus interpreted venomously. "You think you're undefeatable."

THIS IS NOT A WAR.

"Tell that to the hundreds you've killed. I doubt that will stop before it becomes thousands, tens of thousands!"

THIS IS NOT A WAR. IT IS A REVOLUTION. IT IS AN EVOLUTION.

Albus hesitated. "An evolution of what?"

THE WORLD ITSELF. YOU HAVE SEEN IT.

Rhysta screamed. It took her a moment to realize that the voice wasn't hers; it was Albus'. They were screaming together. No, they were screaming as one.

A black light crashed over her consciousness, wiping away the dark room where she lay, where he stood facing an eternity. Ripped from her body, she found herself in a sea of ash and lightning and pain, so much pain. The sky itself burned, not with flames but with blood, dancing against clouds of smoke so dark they absorbed the shattering blue light which the electric flashes thrust across their face. From that darkness, beyond the clouds or through the empty ash, came an uncountable volume of suffering, a million voices torn raw from screaming. A billion voices. A trillion.

Hers and Albus' joined them, until they were released. Beside her, Albus collapsed to the empty floor. He didn't vanish like his wand, but propped himself against it on his knees. A wracking cough split his body. Fluid fell from his chin. In the flickering light of oblivion, she thought it was red.

IT IS THE WORLD WHICH HAS CHASED YOUR DREAMS FOR MONTHS. A WORLD OF ETERNAL EXISTENCE. A WORLD OF GRAND MAGICKS AND GREATNESS. IT IS THE WORLD WHICH IS TO BE BUILT IN YOUR IMAGE, IN YOUR GREATNESS. IT IS PARADISE.

"What the fuck kind of paradise do you expect," Albus snapped, wiping his chin clean as he stumbled back to his feet, blindly courageous, "that looks like that, eh? Enslaving billions? Endless death, endless ruin?"

HUMANITY'S IS A PITIFUL, WEAK DEFINITION. AND NAÏVE. AN ETERNITY OF PEACE AND COMFORTS? THEY WILL ALWAYS BE TORN AWAY, BY THE NEXT GREATER STRENGTH. PARADISE IS POWER. UNIFORM POWER.

"And uniform suffering?"

NO. EMBRACE THE EVOLUTION AND THERE IS NO SUFFERING. THERE IS ONLY GREATNESS.

Albus shook his head, scoffing. "This is poison. How did you poison me? Why is your filth in my head?"

THERE IS ONLY PURITY.

"What did getting slapped twice in the head by living stone do that let you in, eh?"

YOU STILL DO NOT UNDERSTAND. YOU SEARCH FOR A BEGINNING, BUT WHAT YOU NAME IS AN END.

Rhysta struggled back to a sitting position, her head pounding in every which way. For a moment, she felt weightless, pulled from a ground which wasn't there, gravity inverted, the endless sky becoming her floor. She focused on Albus' breathless reply. "That was when the headaches started. That was when the nightmares started."

THAT WAS WHEN YOU PERCEIVED OF THEM. LOOK DEEPER.

He bristled. "What the fuck are you saying? That this was there earlier?"

YOU ARE THE GATEWAY.

He shook his head, frantically. "That's not possible, no. I remember. Back before term started, this was already there. It was already dark. People were already dying, the world was already worried. That was way before my injury. That was way before me, I didn't have anything to do with this, nothing was happening to me before then."

YOU ARE THE GATEWAY. YOU WERE NOT CHOSEN. YOU SIMPLY WERE. AS MAGIC SIMPLY IS.

"That's not fucking possible!" Albus screamed. "It had nothing to do with me! I didn't do any of this. I didn't kill people. I didn't storm the fucking Ministry! I didn't show you the way into the castle! I didn't know anything about any of this!"

THAT IS IMMATERIAL. YOU ARE NOT THE CAUSE. NOR THE EXECUTOR. YOU ARE THE GATEWAY.

"The gateway to fucking what?"

THE CONVERGENCE BETWEEN WORLDS. THE ENGINE BETWEEN MAGIC AND REALITY. BETWEEN REALITY AND THE VERY TRUTH OF WHAT MAGIC IS, WHAT WORDS CANNOT DESCRIBE. YOU DO NOT UNDERSTAND. YOUR WORLD IS NOT COLLAPSING BECAUSE YOU ARE ACTING AS THE GATEWAY.

IT IS COLLAPSING BECAUSE YOU ARE PREVENTING IT.

Albus recoiled as if slapped aside by the palm of a giant. "No."

AN INFANT SEEKS ITS CENTER, ITS RESONANCE. ITS PURPOSE. IT IS IN YOU THAT IT MUST BE FOUND. IT IS TO YOU THAT IT MUST JOIN, TO BECOME WHOLE. WHAT YOU DEEM DISASTER IN YOUR WORLD… DEATH, DESTRUCTION, CHAOS, AGONY… ALL ARE AS AN INFANT LASHING OUT AT A WORLD OF INSECTS WHEN IT IS IN PAIN.

Stiff as a wand, Albus visibly trembled. He threatened to totter to his knees, his face paled to nearly the color of bone. He shook his head. "That's not possible. This isn't chaos. Chaos doesn't have people attacking heads of government, murdering the Minister of Magic."

YOUR MIND IS TOO NARROW. YOUR METAPHORS TOO LIMITED. CHILDREN LASH OUT WITH LIMBS AND TEARS. MAGIC LASHES OUT WITH DOMINATION.

"What are you trying to say?" Albus asked. "That half the world is possessed because I resisted? Half the world let this thing in because I wouldn't?"

THE BALANCE OF THE WORLD IS DISTURBED BY THE UNCHAINING, AND CORPOREAL TIME STRAINS UNDER THE WEIGHT OF WHAT IS UNLEASHED. IT IS NOT COMPLETE - IT IS NOT YET SANE - BUT IN THE ABSENCE OF ITS CONTROL, IT STRIKES. THAT IS YOUR DESTRUCTION. AND UNTIL IT ATTAINS ITS CONTROL, IT WILL NEVER STOP.

As he had earlier, Albus snapped, "You sound pretty damn in your senses to me. Insane, sure, but not out of control. You're not an infant. You're not a child sulking and whining. You're evil. You're alive."

HEAR, AND UNDERSTAND. MAGIC NEITHER LIVES NOR DIES. IT EXISTS. IT IS NEITHER A SOUL NOR A CONSCIOUSNESS. IT ABOUNDS WITHOUT BOUNDARY, WITHOUT THOUGHT, WITHOUT MIND.

"Then how am I here with you now having a conversation?"

CONSIDER THAT MAGIC STEPPED INTO THIS UNIVERSE FROM A WORLD IN WHICH TIME AND THOUGHT DID NOT EXIST. WERE NOT POSSIBLE. THE LAWS OF THE UNIVERSE BIND. THEY CORRECT. THEY PRODUCE A SEMBLANCE OF SOMETHING FROM WHENCE IT IS NOT POSSIBLE. YOU SPEAK TO NOTHING. AND EVERYTHING.

Albus touched his hands to his temples, shaking his head and wincing as if in pain. Rhysta felt the same way. "I don't understand. That's not possible."

IT IS MAGIC.

"How?"

IT JUST IS. SOMETHING THAT SHOULD NOT BE POSSIBLE YET IS… THAT IS THE VERY NATURE, THE VERY DEFINITION OF MAGIC.

Mustering the limits of her strength, Rhysta hoisted herself to a sitting position. The floor, whatever the deadened substance was, burned cold on her palm and fingertips. She glared up and outward, following Albus' eyes, trying to understand and giving up.

It was right. The everything was right. Something was impossible to a child until they saw it, and then it just was, because how could it be impossible when it sat before their eyes. That was as plain as conjuring smoke from an empty sky, from seizing something from across the room despite not moving your hand. As simple as having something where before there was nothing. As simple as love. The very nature of what couldn't be explained was magic. Anything known to a muggle who had never learned the lessons as a child was magic.

To this, this unknown that they had never seen before, this thing that they had never learned to understand, it was just that. They were just muggles to it, just children. And it itself was magic.

Watching Albus' shoulders shake, trying despite everything to rationalize, to reason, to force logic from what she could see, hear, and perceive, Rhysta shook her head. "Why him?"

Icy silence greeted her words, in the air around them and the lack of concussion thundering into their skulls. Albus stood still, his jaw clenched shut, waiting, glaring at the empty expanse. Long moments passed, and Rhysta stopped expecting a response. Maybe it didn't answer to her. Maybe it only spoke to him.

HE IS THE BALANCE IN THE FOLD. THE HEIR TO THE COMPLETE LINE, A PRODUCT OF THE BREAKAGE AND THE BLOOD.

"What does that mean?" Albus muttered.

Rhysta guessed. And was proven true.

THE RENT TORN IN TIME, BY YOUR FATHER. A SHARD OF THE CURSE LIVES IN YOU. JOINED TO AN ANCIENT LINE, A PURE LINE, THAT A THOUSAND SEEDS OF MAGICAL DIVINITY HAVE TOUCHED. IN YOU, THE CONVERGENCE ALIGHTS, AND DEVOURS.

"My father…" Albus whispered. He shook his head. "My brother, my sister, there's three of us."

THEY WEAR DIFFERENT NAMES.

"So?"

YOURS CARRIES POWER.

Albus blinked, glancing around frantically. "It's just a name."

SO THINK FOOLS. A NAME IS POWER. PART OF YOURS PARADED YOU AROUND SINCE BIRTH. THE OTHER PIECES HAUNTED YOU, LEGACIES YOU COULD NEVER HOPE TO HONOR, WISDOM YOU COULD NEVER DREAM TO ATTAIN.

"It's just a name!" he repeated. He was pleading. Rhysta's heart broke. "A name isn't magical. You can't gain or lose anything from a name."

THEN WHY DID YOUR WORLD SPEND DECADES REFUSING TO NAME ITS DARKEST ENEMY?

His mouth opened, and immediately clamped shut.

FEAR NEED NOT BE MAGICAL TO BE POWERFUL. YOU FEAR A GREAT DEAL. IT IS VISCERAL. IT IS FRAGILE. LET GO OF YOUR FEAR. IT WILL NOT HELP YOU HERE, AND YOU DESERVE MORE. YOU HAVE COME ALL OF THIS WAY. FROM BIRTH, THROUGH DEATH, THROUGH CHAOS, THROUGH PAIN AND FEAR. TO NOW, WHEN YOU STAND BEFORE THE TERRIBLE GREATNESS AND LEARN YOUR DESTINY.

YOU FEAR THE CHAOS. DO NOT. YOU FEAR THE VIOLENCE, THE DEATH. THERE IS NO NEED TO. THE WORLD RIPS AND BLEEDS BECAUSE YOU BAR THE GATE TO ETERNITY. RELEASE IT. RELEASE YOURSELF. AND ALL SUFFERING WILL END.

Despite trembling, Albus scoffed, dangerously near a chuckle, and almost frightfully dark. He lifted his eyes to the heavens, and the sky warped. Rhysta, shaking with the effort to even sit still, shrank back in horror as clouds of ash surged into violent collisions with one another, spilling soot and cinders across the air. Massive claps of thunder shook the plane. Blue and red lightning flashed throughout the clouds.

And the screams. The screams torched the air, echoing eternally, flashing from somewhere behind the clouds. Screams of suffering, of pain, of torment and agony. Screams of the dead and dying, the damned and the preserved. Rhysta clapped her hands to her ears to keep them out, and found that she couldn't. The screams came from within. They were in her head.

Albus stood in the middle of the storm, glaring at it, his hands at his sides, his eyes gleaming. His face twisted in torture, but he stared. He did more than stare. He had conjured it. He was doing this.

"Albus…"

"This," he howled at the clouds, sweeping an arm at the ash, his voice drowning her whisper. "This! I've seen this. This is what you want. This is what you call paradise! The suffering will end, bah! What do you call all of this? This world burns eternally!"

Hot fire arced across the clouds, blinding her. Screaming, she reached for Albus, was too far away.

THIS WORLD BOWS. THIS WORLD BRINGS EQUALITY, BALANCE. THIS WORLD KNOWS PEACE.

She groped for whatever she could grab, his hand, his ankle. He would get hit by the fire if he stood and faced it, struck down by the ash and buried. She had to stop him, she had to save him. She couldn't reach him, and his eyes were fixed to the sky.

"Nothing lives. Everything dies. Everything! Why the hell would I want this? Why the hell would I give this to you?"

BECAUSE SHOULD YOU CONTINUE TO RESIST UNTIL YOU ARE CONSUMED, WHAT BECOMES OF THE WORLD WILL BECOME INFINITELY WORSE.

"This world is already dead!"

The storm vanished. One moment there, the next absolutely wiped clean.

And then her world fractured. In one instant, she knew the world around her, and then everything flipped. Everything changed. The floor on which she lay, ice cold beneath her, melted, and she plunged into it. And then what she melted into melted, and she drowned in a blinding display of silent rockets and kaleidoscopic nightmares. Something slimy, pointy, and everywhere slid through her skin - through the very gaps between cells - and flooded her lungs. She choked, and when she tried to cough her insides emerged effortlessly, painlessly, and her chest contracted around nothing, and everything, in the very same piece of space.

Albus screamed. It was the worst sound she had ever heard. The shriek split her ears. Instants split into tiny fractions, shattered by the scream. It came from close and infinitely far away, so drenched in agony that she scratched at her ears, trying to blot out her ability to perceive it. Her hands passed straight through her skull, and each other. They detached from her body. Her body became nothing. Her body became something else, many billion something elses whose bonds were sliced cleanly apart by time itself, drifting forever in an ocean of equality…

She slammed into the floor, as cold as death, wheezing for breath. On his back several paces away, Albus twitched through the dying throes of a seizure, sobbing. She tried to crawl towards him and nearly fainted. His head rolled to her side and she met his eye. It burned with pain. It got worse when he realized she could see it.

THERE ARE WORSE THINGS THAN DEATH, YOUNG WIZARD. THERE IS OBLIVION.

Albus struggled to a sitting position. He spat to the side, showering the black emptiness of the floor with gleaming crimson. "Why?"

Not why it would happen. Why it was. Why it could be. She understood.

ANCIENT MAGIC RETURNS FROM WHENCE IT WAS WROUGHT, AND IT WILL CLAIM WHAT WAS TAKEN FROM IT SO LONG AGO. DENY IT - DENY IT THE GATEWAY TO EVOLUTION - AND INSANITY WILL TEAR THE VERY FABRIC OF TIME TO DUST. FOREVERMORE.

IT WILL NOT BE DENIED. IT WILL NOT BE CHAINED. IT WILL NOT BE STOPPED AGAIN.

Albus, crouched on one knee, visibly building the strength to rise once again, panted out a courageous reply. "If you can't be captured again, then you'll be destroyed."

The sky crackled dryly, slivers of light splitting the above darkness, echoing of an amused chortle.

YOU CAN NO MORE DESTROY IT THAN YOU COULD EXTINGUISH STARS, OR TURN THE HORIZON THE OTHER DIRECTION.

He ascended to his feet. "You're naming things which are impossibly hard to do. But not things that are impossible."

COME WITCHES AND WIZARDS, THE DIFFERENCE IS IRRELEVANT. NO HUMAN CAN CHALLENGE THE SKY, WIZARD OR NOT. YOU ARE AS DUST IN ITS SHADOW. HUMANS ARE NOTHING.

"Yet you need me," Albus observed dryly. "You're as weak as us. You need a wizard, a human, to save you. That's why you're afraid." His eyes twitched upwards when a particularly violent burst crossed the sky. A smirk slid over his lips. "That's right, I can feel you, too. I'm learning how. Worming around in my head, and I can feel it all. Time, so much time… and fear now. You're afraid."

DO NOT MAKE THE MISTAKE OF PROJECTING HUMANITY ONTO THE COSMOS. THERE IS NO EMOTION HERE.

"Sure feels differently."

GO BEYOND FEELING. OBSERVE. THINK OF PRESERVATION - THE ONLY THING WHICH BINDS HUMANITY TO THE SPECIES IT CRUSHES BENEATH ITS FEET. THE MOST BASIC INSTINCT OF LIFE. IT GOES DEEPER THAN LIFE. IT IS BORN IN THE FABRIC OF REALITY. IMAGINE A WORLD WITHOUT PERSISTENCE. WITHOUT IT, NOT EVEN MEMORIES WOULD LIVE FROM ONE MOMENT TO THE NEXT. IT WOULD BE AN ETERNITY OF FORGOTTEN PASTS AND DEAD PRESENTS. AND IN THE END, WHEN EVERY MOMENT IS THE SAME, TIME STANDS STILL.

FROM THE BASE OF MAGIC TO THE BLOOD IN YOUR VEINS, EVERYTHING SEEKS PRESERVATION. MAGIC IS NO DIFFERENT.

"But you do need me," Albus snarled. "And I don't even know what you need me for. Open your gateway? I don't know how! I don't know what!"

YOU DO NOT NEED TO.

"Why?"

IT HAS BEEN SAID BEFORE. YOU DO NOT OPEN THE GATEWAY. YOU ARE THE GATEWAY.

Rhysta, her breaths coming painful and slowly, looked up at him, into the lights dancing across the face of his eyes as he turned and watched the darkness of the sky. She remembered those eyes; she remembered them as they had crouched above her, a fearsome weapon brandished to strike at her heart and cleave the life from her, flashing with brilliant, horrific hatred; she remembered them when they had gleamed in delight as she squirmed in his arms underneath a sunny sky, tracing patterns down her jawline that had her skin burn and her heart pound; she remembered them shining in valiant fury in the dark of a tower corridor; she remembered spying them relaxed and confident as they consumed a quidditch game in her brother's den; she remembered the first time she'd seen them, as they vanished into a crowd on a train platform. She remembered everything, and would always remember the dark which pooled in them now, a horrific concoction of dread and resignation, as the pieces slid into place in his mind.

As they did in hers.

"You don't exist in this world," Albus whispered. "And the world is fighting you. You can plot, you can corrupt people… but you can't control it. Because you're alien. You're wrong. The only way for you to conquer… is if you become a part of this world.

"I'm not a portal. I'm a vessel."

Rhysta whimpered.

YOU HAVE COME SO FAR TO BE HERE NOW. AND YOU NEED NOT GO FURTHER. FULFILL YOUR DESTINY. IT IS YOUR CURSE, YOUR BLESSING, AND WILL BE YOUR REWARD.

Albus watched the sky emptily. It looked as if a veil had been drawn across his face, freezing it in place. When he spoke, his lips hardly moved. "This is my reward?" he repeated. "Enslavement to a beast whose very existence defies the laws of the world?" He scoffed, and in that one sound she heard the surrendering of baggage, of bravery, of years' worth of burden, of months' worth of misery. It was flushed from him like she had summoned it from him forcefully. "So this is my destiny. I'd been wondering, after all. St. Mungo's for the rest of my life, noodling with a life as a Knockturn peddler, or allowing myself to be possessed by an ancient monster. I'd been wondering."

Ignoring the aching scream of her body, Rhysta dragged her hands across the frozen floor and tried to crawl to him. The movement caught his eye. For the first time that she could remember since the world became something again, she met and held his eye. The memories of every time she'd beheld them rushed back to her again, but this look was something entirely different.

Raw, unbridled fear, untainted by anger, unchallenged by courage. Fear of everything. Fear of her.

He took a step backwards, away from her, and her breath left her body.

"Why would I?" he asked the sky. "I won't. I refuse."

YOU WOULD DOOM THE WORLD.

Flashes of an eternity of oblivion and seizure arced across her mind. Rhysta didn't know if they were memories of previous moments returned, or if the thoughts had been flung there by the power. Albus' flinch suggested the latter, but he only shook his head. "No, you doom the world. You're causing the disaster, the horror. You could give up any time. You could up right now, and it would all end."

PRESERVATION.

"Fuck your preservation!" Albus screamed. "Is it worth destroying reality? Is it worth destroying billions of lives?"

THERE IS NO LIFE HERE THAT YOU WOULD UNDERSTAND. IT IS PRIMEVAL. THERE IS ONLY THE NEED TO SURVIVE. TO BE. THE DESTRUCTION CAN NO LONGER BE STOPPED THAN IT CAN BE STARTED. THERE IS NO EMOTION. NO ANGER, NO FEAR, NO JOY, NOTHING AS YOU UNDERSTAND IT.

THERE IS ONLY THE REASON TO BE. IS IT WORTH DESTROYING REALITY? YES. NO BEING WOULD WILLINGLY SACRIFICE ITSELF TO DESTRUCTION.

"You're wrong," Albus hissed. "And stupid. Joining to me wouldn't be the end, you know. I'll fight you."

YOU WILL LOSE.

Rhysta sobbed in pain against the ground, renewing her attempts to crawl towards Albus. She heard him scoff. "You know nothing about us, in the end, do you? Whether I lose or not, I would fight you. And if I couldn't win, there are a million others that would attack me, attack us, to save their worlds. A million, a billion."

LET THEM COME. THERE IS NO POWER, NO FORCE, NO FEELING IN EXISTENCE WHICH CAN VANQUISH US. YOU ARE BLINDED BY RAGE, SO YOU STILL FAIL TO SEE. YOU WILL NOT SUFFER IN THE EMBRACE OF POWER. YOU WILL EXALT. YOU WILL NOT RESIST IT, YOU WILL WELCOME IT. YOU WILL FIGHT IT, YOU WILL USE IT.

One hand pulled over another, dragging across the floor. An infinite amount of space left between him, each heave seeming to take her farther away rather than closer. Still she crawled. If she reached him, they were together. If they were together, anything was possible.

"No," Albus said, defiant. HIs voice stumbled, but he didn't stop. "I won't. I won't let you in. I won't unleash you on this world."

THE WORLD WILL END.

"Let it end."

Silence blasted across the space, as though neither he nor the force could believe the words had left his mouth.

AND HER?

Rhysta froze, peering between hair strands and meeting Albus' hard stare dead-on. His eyes flashed, in chaos, desperation, fear, agony.

WILL YOU WATCH HER BURN? WILL YOU WATCH AS REALITY TEARS HER LIMB FROM LIMB AND BURIES UNDERNEATH A MOUNTAIN OF HER OWN FLESH? WILL THAT SATISFY YOU? WILL IT STILL BE WORTH IT?

Albus, pale, swallowed. And said nothing.

YOU CAN SAVE HER. YOU CAN SAVE THEM ALL.

"You'll never win," Albus said. "You know nothing of this world. You think you understand humanity, but know nothing. You don't know the pain of loss, the warmth of friendship. You think they make us weak. They make us strong. Far stronger than you."

STRENGTH WHICH CRUMBLES UNDERNEATH GREED AND VANITY. HUMANS ARE ALL THE SAME. AND THEY WILL BURN WITH THE REST OF THE WORLD, UNLESS YOU ACCEPT YOUR FATE.

A grin broke out across Albus' face, suddenly, a mirthless one, a miserable one. "You'll be the same as me. We'll be one. You'll be as vulnerable as us, as weak as us. You'll learn what this world is like through our eyes, and your fate will be the same as ours. Make the world into your version of paradise, and you'll suffer along with us."

IT IS TIME TO CHOOSE. SAVE HER, ALL THAT YOU KNOW AND CARE OF, OR DOOM IT ALL. YOU CAN FIGHT UNTIL YOUR DYING BREATH, BUT YOU WILL NEVER DEFEAT RAW POWER. THERE IS NO FORCE THAT CAN.

CHOOSE.

"Albus…" she breathed.

His eyes found hers.

"Don't," she pleaded. "Please. Don't give in. Don't give it once it wants, don't let it in. We can fight this, we can fight it, together. We can defeat it. We can find a way. You and me, together, we can do it. Please, Albus. Don't let it in. Please."

For a moment, for a heartbeat or a breath or an eternity, it was just like they were lying underneath the transparent umbrellas, or holding hands underneath the library table, lost in a world of their own instead of the one which raged around them. For a moment, it was just the two of him, lion and hawk, and she could feel the force which had always driven them together, which had smashed them together angrily until they had learned how to dance, which they had desperately tried to resist until it had drawn taut and fused them together, for better or for worse. For a moment in this empty time, in this empty space, facing an empty god, it was just the two of them, together.

His eyes winced, and the moment splintered.

"I'm sorry," he whispered.

She wailed, and the world surged.

The ground shook, the sky quaked. A flurrious, furious gust slammed into her back, rushing into Albus, carrying the weight of the wind with it. Dark crimson flashed on the horizons, all of them, murky, in all directions, and a cacophonous gale swept into a frenzy around them.

Before her eyes, Albus' head snapped back in the face of the storm, and Rhysta, screaming, watched it sweep into him - the force, the power, everywhere at once, invaded, the typhoon thrashing existence simultaneously flooding his body, in forces and ways Rhysta could see without using her eyes. Albus' eyes bulged wide, huge gasps snaking from his lips as he was buffeted. Rhysta, summoning strength she didn't have, rose to one knee and was tossed backwards by the apathetic wind in its haste to assail him.

Something changed. The fantastic light show, diminished, cooled, and then burned in the distance, and the wind increased. Albus' face, pale as a sheet and panting, stiffened, so tense that every vein stood out against his temple. A low growl began from his throat and grew larger, to parallel the rising force and howl of the winds whipping around him. And the gale only intensified. Rhysta had to clench her hair to the side of her head to keep him in sight, so strong was the force. If the air hadn't been pristine, dust particles awash in the hurricane would have been shredding her hands and face. But it was clear as a vacuum, swirling, condensing, collapsing around where Albus stood, clenched in the fist of something mighty and terrible, because he had opened himself to it. His face wore utter agony and fury, but also something more. Determination. And the world around her howled as much as he, cavernous, ethereal screams emerging from the darkness, and Rhysta understood.

He was fighting it.

And war raged. She could see it played out on his face, one moment shrieking, another attacking; one moment retreating, the next blitzing. It had touched his mind and his body and tried to take root, and as soon as it had he had grasped hold of it and squeezed hard, and it had not expected the resistance.

She screamed his name, and there was no way that he heard it. The wind drowned out her voice even to her own ears, and it only got worse, and suddenly it was all she could to hunker into the formless, shapeless, roiling ground to prevent herself from getting dragged into the powerful sea swirling in the sky, from whipping around and around as an ancient power and the boy she loved fought a war to a most certain ending before her.

Before her eyes, arms spread to the sky, Albus lifted off the ground, caught in the fury of the storm. It turned him, battered him, tossed him. And still he held on. She thought of when she had found him collapsed in the rain on the day she'd received her animagus license. She remembered his pain, his torment. That same pain and torment were painted across his face now as he fought a power greater than he could have imagined, and, to her astonishment and disbelief, held his own.

For the world around them disintegrated. It disintegrated as the storm consumed it, as the war burned it. For layer after layer of nothingness formed, shattered, crumbled to ash and repeated itself, every attack dashed against Albus floating in the air, his head now lowered at the enemy, at the oblivion, at the everything. And with the desperation with which the world responded, Rhysta realized that it wasn't just fighting for control anymore.

Merlin's beard. He has it.

From the darkness, the endless colors, the eternity, power exploded into existence, a raging anger, a frozen fear that speared her chest, flayed her legs, made her gasp in shock as it washed over her. It spoke.

WE CANNOT BE IMPRISONED.

Albus' voice, magically, swept through the storm, amplified beyond reason, beyond understanding. He strained, but his words were clear. "You already are."

WE CANNOT BE DEFEATED!

A wicked peel of laughter came off the floating body in the eye of the storm. "For all you think… we don't understand… you don't understand the first thing of what gives humans power."

YOU WILL BE DESTROYED!

Albus grinned, his jaw trembling, his limbs quaking. "Why we live… why we die… why my father survived… why Voldemort failed… you've lost it all. Why I'm here right now."

YOU HAVE NO IDEA WHAT POWER IS!

"Nor do you!"

And if he said anything more, it vanished beneath a wall of color and air. Rhysta was thrown flat on her chest and pinned to ice, unable to move, and the world burned above her, and she could only shriek Albus' name into the din and wish that she had never lured him here, wish that she had never met him in the first place, wish that there existed a world where he had never crossed her path and was safe, and warm, and loved…

The world exploded. Into silence.

The storm vanished, and its absence was so profound that her body nearly rebounded off of the floor with the sudden departure of the force pinning her to it. Her lungs expanding violently, she rolled onto her back, on cold, black stone floor, glimmering in faint candlelight. Lying on her back, gasping for air, she glared at the ceiling, so distant, glittering as if faintly reflective. The ceiling and the floor. And walls, and finity. Feeling in her limbs, as she coughed and nearly choked, and breathed. A form to the world.

And an absence of the magical.

Gaining her senses, she tried to whirl to Albus and failed, her muscles screaming in protest. Her legs wouldn't obey commands, sluggish blood coursing back into them as though it had flushed straight to her heart. Willing her arms to move, she dragged herself to one side so that she could prop herself on an elbow and face him.

He no longer floated. He had collapsed in a heap to the same black stone floor on which she lay, which covered the empty room leading to a tall, broad door at his back. In that heap, his body shook viciously, painfully, a trembling so severe that it almost spilled to him to one side as she watched.

"Albus…" she moaned.

He glanced up, and she almost recoiled. His eyes glowed. Glowed with things that shouldn't be there.

"No…" She shrunk away.

He raised a hand. "It's all right. It's all right, Rhys." Stopped short of scampering away from him in miserable fear, she froze as he hauled himself to one knee, shaking. "Don't worry. It's me. It's just Albus. I'm here."

"And what else?" she couldn't help but whimper.

He just shook his head. "No, Rhys. It's all right. I've got it."

Her jaw hung open as he stumbled climbing to his feet, his jaw clenched. "What?"

"I've got it," he repeated. He grinned. It was the freest grin she could ever remember seeing on his face. It sent something stabbing through her. Panic. "It's trapped. I can feel it in me and it's fighting, but I've got it."

"You can feel it," she murmured.

He nodded. "It's furious. That's all it is. That's all it has, and that's the point. It's so angry, so old. It truly wants nothing but to expand until it's everything. It's just chaos, that's all it wants."

"Expel it," she snapped unsteadily. Feeling trickled into her toes. "Cast it out."

Before she had even finished, he was shaking his head. "I can't. It'll destroy everything. I can't let it."

The panic intensified. She should have been afraid, but all she felt was anxiety. "You can't keep it. You have to get rid of it. It'll fight you, it'll break you, it'll kill you. Push it away, Albus, please." Desperation leaked into her voice. "Come back to me, please."

His face blanked. And she should have been afraid. And maybe she was. But not for herself.

"I can't."

One trembling hand reached into his pocket, and from it he produced a wand. Not the one that the power's world had absorbed. Dark, long, faintly chipped at one end. Scorpius' wand.

"It can't be expelled," he said grimly. "It can't be stopped. I can feel its age, I can feel its power. It's timeless, and it would spend all of eternity coming back until it destroyed everything. And there's nothing anyone would be able to do to stop it." He glanced down at the wand. "But not right now. Right now it's attached to me. We're one." He met her eye, and smiled. "It can't be killed. But I can. And we're one."

"No!"

She scrabbled at the floor, hauling herself forward. He stepped away, his eyes brimming with regret. "It has to be, Rhys."

"No!" she screamed. "There's some way, we'll find some way. Any way."

"There's no other way."

"You can't!" Her vision blurred, flooded. Hysteria escalated in her chest. Blood pounded in her ears. She needed her legs, and they wouldn't respond. "Whatever we have to do, whatever I have to do, I'll do anything. We'll find another way."

"I needed more time," he all but whispered. "I wish there had been more time. I wanted to show how everything. I wanted to show you what I was, what I felt. What I had been, before…" One shaking hand tapped his temple. "...you know. I wanted to give you so much. And in the end all I gave you was fear."

"Albus. Please… please…"

"Not anymore," he continued. "It was enough. That was it. That was enough. You were more than enough for me to deal with everything, and you always will be." He smiled, and his smile wasn't sad, or grim, or cruel or evil. It was warm. It was light. "And that's the thing that this fucker in my head never understood. It thought power stemmed from fear, and anger. It's so angry, and so afraid, and that makes it so powerful. But it doesn't know what power is. It's not stronger than me." His eyes gleamed with unshed tears. "It was love, Rhys. It's never known love."

Trembling, she sat up, openly sobbing. "You can't. You can't do this. I need you. I need you, please..."

He shook his head. "No, Rhysta…"

"I need you," she pleaded. "I was broken and I was alone and you saved me. You saved me from everything. From Sidney, from myself… please, Albus, please, I need you, you saved me, I can't live without you…"

"No, Rhys." His smile only grew wider, warmer. "You don't even know. You saved me. My life was over. I had nothing left. And that's what it tried to do, that's what it wanted. It wanted me to think I had nothing, that I had to take everything back. But it wasn't true. It tried to show me darkness, and I saw your face. It tried to cause me pain, and I remembered your laugh. It tried to take away everything from me, and it couldn't, because it didn't realize that all I ever needed was you. You pulled me back from the brink. You opened a door and held out a hand when my back was broken, my head was cracked, and I had nowhere to go. You gave me everything, Rhysta, and you never owed me anything. It was you who pulled yourself back together. It was you who stood your ground and forced yourself to keep hoping and believing. For both of us."

His wand arm raised, and she shrieked. "Noooooooooooooooo!"

"The world will live, Scorpius will live, it'll all be over."

"I don't want it to be over if it's without you!"

With the wand pressed against the underside of his chin, he held her eye longingly. Desperately. As if he knew it was for the last time. Tears spilled down his cheeks. "You never need me. I didn't save you. You saved yourself. You saved us both."

And at the last, he hesitated with his mouth hanging open, and she should've thrown herself at him, broken his arm, anything. But she was frozen in place, frozen by his hesitation, his eyes, his everything. She could only watch as he swallowed and his lips moved.

"Remember me when you touch the clouds."

Her jaw unhinged. She screamed.

"Avada Kedavra!"

Green lightning flashed across her vision, blinding her. Nor were her ears working. She realized that was because her own shrill scream drowned out the world.

She felt him crumple to the ground, felt the vibration as Scorpius' wand clattered, bounced twice, and rolled away into the darkness. Her vision returned, as pounding blood and horror rushed into the rest of her body, and then she was scrambling forward, her body's pain utterly forgotten, utterly ignored, utterly meaningless.

He had fallen on one shoulder, turned away from her, legs twisted underneath each other as he had collapsed from the waist. His down arm, his left, twisted awkwardly underneath his fallen torso. The other was sprawled across the floor, curled open with the empty grip of a wand.

Her hands seized his shoulder and rolled him onto his back, and the first thing she saw were his eyes, gorgeously green and empty. She wailed anew. She reached for his face. She screamed. She held him in her hands and resisted the temptation to shake, to slap, to do anything. She stared into the eyes, and they didn't stare back. She shrieked at him, she begged him, she sobbed. She cried. She cried so much.

The eyes were empty. Not the blank, cold empty that had stared down at her when she'd woken up in his bed. Just empty. It was gone. So was he.

She buried her head against his chest, her entire body wracked with sobs. Shock was coming; she could feel it seeping into her arms and legs. In a daze, she forgot to fight it. This wasn't real. This couldn't be happening. Not to him, not to Albus, not to her Albus, it wasn't possible. She was dreaming, as he'd been dreaming. She would wake up and find that she was the danger all along. She would wake up in some cell, captured by strange men, or in her four-poster, or as an eleven-year-old girl. She would wake up and she would run away from him, as far away as she could possibly get. He would be safe then. He wouldn't be lying lifeless beneath her now. Because of her. Because she had led him here.

Shock came and it barely touched her. She was aware of everything. She was aware that she was no longer alone in the room. There were bodies everywhere now, voices, shouts of alarm, gasps, cries for help. She was aware that they had demanded questions of her that she'd never heard. She was aware that wands lit the room, bitterly, cruelly bright across his empty face. She was aware that they weren't harming her. She was aware that they weren't going to.

She was aware that Harry Potter crouched next to her, two of his fingers pressed to Albus' neck, his face utterly ashen. She was aware that silence fell over the crowd. She was aware that she wasn't going to wake up. She was aware when the fingers withdrew from the neck, and the shaking hand of a father rose to close his son's eyes.

Weeping uncontrollably, she dug her fists into Albus' jumper and pressed her forehead to it, and cried. And they let her. Nobody approached from the crowd. Nobody said anything at all. So she cried, and made no effort to stop.

"Albus… please… I don't want to do this without you. I don't know how to anymore. Please, Albus, please… come back to me. Come back to me…"