In His Memory
Part 8: Spirit Lost…
By: WeasleyTwin2
Sometimes you wonder if this fight is worthwhile.
The precious moments are all lost in the tide.
Listen to Your Heart
Roxette
I see it perfectly clear and I cry for the dreams that you kill
View from a Hill
Roxette
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The darkness around him began to recede. He could hear muffled voices, but he saw and felt nothing. The voices faded in and out and he seemed to be floating in the air. Then quite suddenly he could see but dimly. The Light and Dark were swirling above him. The voices around him rose and fell, chanting softly, calling to him. Two opposing chants swirled around him and called him to join them but he was too weak to answer. The voices seemed familiar but he had no memories of whom they might belong to nor could he remember how he had ended up here. He tried to move, tried to speak but nothing would work right. Anger surged through him and he tried again to move but it was in vain. He lay there unmoving and silent with the voices around him and the Light and Dark swirling above him. He was nothing and knew nothing but that Light and Darkness moving around him and through him. He knew nothing but the voices which spoke so softly that he couldn't make out the words of the chants being sung around him.
Time passed, minutes, hours, days- he didn't know. There was no time in this place. The Dark battled the Light for his wavering attention. As he watched them fight, a thought… a memory surfaced. There was a great battle raging all around him… he stood on a bloody field…Darkness surrounded him…he was alone. This memory, if that's what it was, led to others and soon he had seen the whole life and the death of someone. The memories came in flashes, glimpses of things, people, and places that looked familiar but that he couldn't name. Was this his former life? He decided that it must be. It seemed familiar to him, like the voices were but he couldn't remember having lived through the things in the images. It felt far away, long ago, not a part of him or anything he had lived through.
It was then that he realized that he couldn't remember his own name. He grew afraid then. His name…what was his name..? It was important; extremely important for him to remember who he was though he couldn't remember why it was so important. Desperately, he strove to find it among the memories he had found, to hold it in his thoughts but each time he would find it, it would slip from his weak grasp like an elusive Snitch. He couldn't keep a hold of it but he knew with certainty that it was important for him to hold onto it. It would tell him who he was and why he was trapped in this place. It might even tell him how he had come to be here. He waited thinking his name would float to the surface of his thoughts buoyed up by his need to know it. It didn't. He cried in frustration and rage. As he did so, the chanting crescendo and then stopped altogether. He was left alone in the deeper Darkness, which was swirling around and through him. The Light had gone, taking its chant away with it. The Darkness round him was cold and oppressive. It was weighing his spirit down, trying to make him like itself. He shivered, trembling with fear. The Darkness around him pulsed and he grew more afraid still, though he couldn't figure out why. He was mortally afraid of this Darkness. He felt the fear coursing through him and with it his vague memories began to fade. He grew more afraid in the Darkness
A voice in his mind said: "No, do not be afraid. In this Darkness is a place to be hidden and made whole again. Here you are safe forever…Sleep…. Sleep…Sleep…."
He slipped off into the darkness of a deep sleep and as he did so, somewhere in the Darkness above him someone laughed a deep, resounding and evil laugh.
* * *
He awoke to more and deeper Darkness and chanting. The Darkness penetrated into his very being, chilling his blood and making him shiver. The voices in the song called to him but he still couldn't make out the words that hissed in his ears. There was no light and the second group of chanters had fallen away. The voices around him where familiar. He knew those voices…they belonged to… no names would come to his tired mind. Frantic with desperation, he cast about in his mind for the names and faces that went with the voices, but there was nothing but the Darkness within him: horrible, cold and unending Darkness. He was alone. He had nothing. No Light, no memories, no body, no existence, no power. He had nothing but the Darkness that swirled around and through him, blocking all light from reaching him, stealing everything from him, sapping the strength from his will and spirit. It was eating him, taking his memories and spirit with it. He fought and struggles against it not knowing why he did so, only knowing that if he wanted to survive he must fight…"don't give up without a fight"…an echo from the past. He fought the Darkness grimly but it was still swirling around and through him, stifling him and stealing his light a piece at a time. In the end he slumped back, defeated and severely weaken by the attack he had launched.
"The Darkness will always be there, my servant. The Light is now departed. I have sent it far away…"
"No…Never…Serve…Darkness…Light…" he said weakly to the voice above him.
The voice laughed and he felt his will weaken under the influence of the spell cast on him.
"Stay here in the Dark where you can rest. Hide within it; make it as a second skin around you. Use it to strengthen you. Let it inside you. You are ill now but soon you will be well again and all its power will be yours to command. Sleep now…Sleep."
The hissing voice was lulling him into sleep once again. He felt himself fall and then sleep overtook him and he slept heavily.
* * *
He awoke feeling more tired then he had ever been before and so weak that he knew if he had the power to move he would have been to weak to do so. He had spent the night in dreams full of Darkness, pain, fire and screaming, pleading voices. Things half seen and half remembered. A castle stood, gleaming white in the bright sunlight, a ruin cloaked in Darkness so deep that it was only to be seen by the faint glow of it walls, a battle seen through a veil of mist, hazy and distant, voices crying out in anguish and pain. These were the disjointed pieces of his life but he could not name any of the places or things he saw nor any of the faces that floated like a kaleidoscope before him. It was all lost to him, lost forever, never to be regained. Did these memories even belong to him? He was beginning to doubt that they did. All he knew, all he had was the Darkness.
"Yes…" a voice hissed.
The Dark scared him and yet it drew him at the same time. It was strange. The deep impenetrable Darkness around him reached out to comfort him in his sorrow and yet still feared it, still fought against it. The Dark was all he had left. It held the clues to his past. He should be embracing it, learning what it would teach, and yet he continued to push it away. What made him do this?
"I will restore you to power and make you whole again…"
There was no light within him anymore; the darkness had stolen into its place. And yet…could he turn his back on it…betray what he had once embraced and believed…
"The Light had turned it's back on you," said a soothing voice. "It has left you here to die alone. The Light betrayed you first. It left you alone in the world and now it takes your life. It has now become your enemy. Come with me…Come…"
He tried to block the subtle voice from his mind but it quickly became evident that he could not do so. It was all around him and within him. His resolve to fight the Darkness was weakening. He could feel the Darkness within him was taking over inch by painful inch.
"The Light has abandoned you, discarded you when your usefulness had ended. Take my darkness into you. Let it flourish and grow within your heart."
The chanting started again, this time it was a chant of Darkness and despair. He felt his spirit begin to crumple beneath the weight of the attack. Silently he fought, grimly. He was still not willing to just surrender, not without a fight. He knew the battle was hopeless, knew that he would lose and still he fought on. There was nothing else to do. He fought until he had nothing left with which to fight. He laid, his strength totally spent, his will in tatters and his spirit scattered across the darkness. He knew, with certainty, that all was lost in that moment. There was no hope left, no Light. He had nothing left to give. He closed his eyes, tears streaming down his face, and waited for the final blow to fall. He would truly be dead now. He heard a deep, cruel, mocking laugh high above him.
"You will learn that the Dark always wins. Yes, my unwilling servant, you will watch and learn this lesson well. I shall enjoy turning you to my eternal Darkness… Heir of Osirius…Horus that was…"
He felt the final blow fall, his will shattered and in that instant… when the Darkness flooded though him… when Seth-Ra's laughter rose in triumph…he remembered. He remembered everything: who he was, his lineage, the quest, everything and in that moment despair and fear filled him.
"Nooooooo!" he heard himself scream.
"I'm never going over to the Dark side!" The statement echoed hollowly down the years, to haunt him.
Seth-Ra's laughter filled the air and echoed in his mind. The darkness closed around him, stifling him and he felt himself falling, falling.
"So dies the Light."
Harry seemed to fall forever, into the cold Darkness and the part of him that was still Harry wondered what would happen when he hit the bottom.
A/N: Sorry this part is so short but it refused to be expanded in editing. Hope you enjoy it. As always, Seth-Ra is mine and all the rest are J.K.Rowlings. The ninth part will be called "…Hope Found" Please be sure to review. Thanks so much.
WeasleyTWin2