The Flight of Icarus
by a true Elsewhere
Harry smells like the subtle scent of peppermint candy that he hid away in a paper bag in a secret compartment of his black trunk from under his bed. He smells like wet dirt and healthy vibrant grass of the Quidditch field to which he would tumble onto ever so often when reaching for the snitch in strange positions and angles. He smells of blood and of pain whenever he wakes up at the cold of night, breathless for air, desperate to forget the dreams Darkness brings.
Severus smells of lizard pieces, parsley, and some rare anime found only in selective areas of Greece and the Mediterranean that he gets from a specialty store at Diagon Alley. He smells of runny dark black ink and fresh parchment to which he would apply onto a fresh sheet of parchment using a single gray-feathered quill. He smells of vomit, of disgust, whenever he returns from his meetings; unable to control the emotions Darkness brings to him.
Together, the two smelt of many things.
Many, many things.
He likes (thrives, obsesses, adores, worships) the taste of peppermint on his tongue, expanding itself throughout his mouth before lingering on the warmth of his breath. He enjoys the way the piece of candy melts. It melts in his mouth, slowly letting the coats of the candy leave the hard shell before enticing the taste buds that squeals with delight on his tongue, allowing him to explore the concoction of sugar and mint leaves infuse together to bring about such a delectable treat.
He likes (is thankful for, grateful of, relieve of) the way peppermint chased away the taste of blood in his mouth. It is blood for keeping silent, blood from biting one's lip to keep quiet from the pain. The pain of seeing another die, the pain of a curse scar, the pain of being weak, of being alive and not being able to do anything about it. That is to not be able to do anything but to bite one's lip and be quiet as the red liquid escaped from biting too hard, too much before polluting one's mouth. But peppermints chased that away, the taste of his blood, the taste of his existence.
The taste of peppermints is sweet and refreshing. It is surreal. It almost allows him to forget (deny, ignore, acknowledge naught of) the realities of what is occurring. The war, the death, the destruction and the expectations. The way all those eyes look at him, telling him to save them, save them from this maniac because he has done it before and therefore should be able to do it again.
He takes a piece of peppermint from his pocket, helping the piece of white and red circle escape the waxy imprisonment before popping it into his mouth.
Relief flooded into him.
It is nice (convenient, easy, distasteful?) how the peppermint overpowered the taste of bitterness.
It clings to him like a second skin, the fused odor of lizard pieces and parsley, not loosening its grip on him even though he washed himself many times in hot and cold water, lathering himself with soap. He's been sporting this scent since last Tuesday.
The scent is an interesting scent, of living freshness as well as skin and bones grated together to make up something far thicker, richer, and intense. Some believe the scent's repulsive; others believed it was heavenly. He thought naught of it being either. Instead, he believes it smelt like potions, like art.
In the end, it is art. Potions making is something inexplicable. The method that one uses in order to combine ingredients together could result in something that could manipulate (thwart, harm, poison) as well as heal. But it is not just the ingredients that bring about the potion, but how one prepares the ingredients (chop, grind, slice) and how and when one stirs in the substances.
Time (minutes, hours, days) has been invested into this. Time that sometimes left him idle and contemplating a world beyond the masterpieces he creates using lizard pieces and parsley. He let his mind drift then, steady eye on the potion while he wanders off, recalling the past, frustrated at the present, dreading the future. He is overwhelmed. Everything is too much for him sometimes, the disgust, the anger, the hate. It's too many people, to many things, too many choices…
He bundled it up, took it in, and stirred it around as he did with the ladle in the dark cauldron, until he couldn't take it anymore. One could only stir the potion so much before it becomes spoilt or too tiring. It takes too much to hate so many, so much. But he is unwilling to let it go, he wants to preserve it, this hate (disgust, anger, frustration) so he decided to pick one man and hate him instead. It is easier this way, he tells himself after deciding who it would be.
It is always easier to hate a dead man.
The air around him is alive, breathing onto the back of his neck with a soft moist puff of air that almost chilled him if it were not for the sun, the warm globe that sat brightly in it's place in heaven, beaming down upon him most welcomingly.
He sits on wood, deep dark cherry with a fine glossy finish that is polish every two weeks. He sits twenty meters up in the air, slightly in awe as the fabric of space between the ground and himself increases more and more. He flies himself higher into the air; further and further away from the gravitational force that holds him to the ground like an empty weight.
He wants to fly up and touch the sun, to catch the dancing globe within his hand like the golden snitch while watching in a morbid curiosity as the heat of it melts away his skin (flesh, bones, self) leaving nothing more but ashes. He wants nothing more but to see everything melt away from him the way that Icarus's wax wings did when he flew too close to that orb.
Higher and higher he goes, until the air is sparse and his lungs lack of oxygen. He ignores the fact that his head feels a bit dizzy; he ignores the fact that all this flying is making him tired. All he wants is to reach it, the blinding light that threatens to swallow him.
He never reaches the height of Icarus.
Instead, from the far distance, voices float up from below him, bellows of his teammates calling him down. Voices filled with frustration but still very understanding in the very end. He tries to ignore them, he tries to fly even higher to a place and distance to which their voices will lolly off and not reach him but…
His lungs feels the pressure, he feels his body shudder at the strain. He feels the voice become more violent as he succumbs to them, tilting his broom so that it moved to an angle to which it would descend at a slow pace, his eyes dancing about the familiar face in a bored manner.
Before reaching the ground he catches sight of a shimmer of gold, like a mockery of the sun jittering around his face like a tease. He reaches his arm out to get it and captured it a moment later, disappointed at how cool it felt within his grasp. He tumbles to the ground with the grace of a gymnast. The healthy green grass, enchanted to be soft against falling masses, licks his exposed skin like a kitten while the earth swallows him in it's comfort as if it were a bed.
He stays immobile on the ground, feeling the snitch beat madly against his grasp. He lets it go, watching it fly away from him again, with a zing.
He closes his eyes and allows the scents of the field fill him, of earthly grass and dirt and sweat from sun and movement.
"Are you alright mate?" A voice comes from above, like a contemplative question from God. He opens one eye at the red head with the extended arm.
He nods, allowing the other boy to help aide him up. "Of course. Just a bit pre-occupied, that's all."
Ron places his hand around Harry's shoulder in a comforting manner as if he didn't see his friend attempts to escape the atmosphere in fascination (confusion, awe?, disgust?). As if he didn't just watch his friend and wonder if he was going to let go of his broom when he floated high above in the air and tumble and fall with a sickening thud (a remorseful end, a wicked sight, a disturbing satisfaction).
While walking together (casually, indifferent, awkwardly), the freckled friend responded to him with something along the lines of "I understand".
But the words are lost between the two of them because they both knew that he didn't.
Not really.
He takes his quill, an owl feather sharpened at the tip of it, and dips it into the black of the ink bottle, carefully tapping away the excessive droplets of ink back into the bottle. He reads the essay, a quarter of a length shorter than he had requested, handwriting sloppily, ink blotched up incorrigibly that he wonders if this boy was ever taught proper quill-writing.
He scrunches his nose in disgust at the boy's improper use of the greenwich root in this discussion of potions and writes a note on top about how the boy has wasted his time with his poor excuse of a homework assignment and that he should pray to Merlin because there is no way but luck that he could pass his class.
He is sort of pleased the way the black ink looks on top of the paper. You see, he was taught proper quill writing from his grandmother when he was young. He puts the paper away, dipping his quill back into the bottle of ink that smells like black liquorish and looked like it also.
He picks up another paper, glancing at the window thoughtfully before starting his critique yet again.
He hates the night because he knows that's when he is most active. He who was insane (daft, cynical, great?) thrived within the darkness. He was the one that shared the thread of fate with him. And, with each passing day, their connection thickens until he can feel him even when he's not unconscious.
They both know that the moment is coming, the moment when the truth of their prophecy comes to life. The moment when he becomes a murderer… or was it the moment where he dies?
He reaches a point where he skips sleep a few days a week because dreaming became too unbearable. He's tired of seeing the faces of victims. He's tired of knowing who died and how. He's tired of hearing the screams, the pleading, and the laughter.
The chilling laughter of a man with no bounds.
He hates dreaming.
And still, his eyes rest close, in the depths of the night, pulling him to another nightmare with a little girl and her father.
He wakes up hours later, smelling of sweat and blood, crying over lost youth.
Susie Maple was seven years old. She likes her hair in pigtails and tied with red ribbons that match her shoes. Her father had given her those shoes for her birthday and now she never goes out without them on.
He knows by looking at her that if she were to go to Hogwarts, she would have been a Hufflepuff. She wouldn't stand out, however, she would have been happy that way. She would have possibly date a boy from her house or possibly even Griffindor…
However, she wouldn't be attending Hogwarts.
Not ever.
He feels sick (disgusted, angry, upset), his stomach churns as he stands idly and watches the scene unfold. He doesn't want this, not at all. He wants to say something, to save her but he's immobilized in his spot as her eyes pleading meet his in a half scream.
He wishes to apologize, but he doesn't. He can't ask for forgiveness from her, not when he was apart of her doom. He should be use to this by now, especially since he was the one that use to cause the bloodshed instead of just mindlessly watch. However, he never can. He thinks age is making him weaker and is almost ecstatic (overjoyed, relieved) when the Dark Lord says they're finish and allows them to leave.
He leaves quickly then as he goes in search for the nearest place where he can vomit everything that was in him until his throat felt bruised and his stomach felt numb.
He decides not to take off any points from Hufflepuff the next day.
The two of them clash (collide, met) together during a sleepless moonless night. Green to dark, eyes glaring at one another, one mouth snaring, the other in a frown. Through their heated exchange of words (phrases, insults, arguments), they hated and longed for one another, the tired youth and the aging man.
They would later on forget who was the one that asked for consolation, and which one was the one that agreed to it. The both of them were broken (distraught, torn, worn out) and sought within the other the thing that they were most lacking.
And in that moment, their scents collided. His peppermint touched upon the licorice ink, teasing it, embracing it. His moments were strong, passionate, angry, and gentle. His voice: deep, sinful, and raspy. Together they discovered something during that restless night, in the hallways, covered within darkness.
They discovered a scent worth remembering.
Please also don't take that last sentence to mean something really… well, sexual. It just goes with the theme.
But this chapter wasn't formally edited. I apologize for that; I have actually been working on this story since last year, however due to my hectic schedule and life, I left it until now. I really liked the way this story was going so I couldn't bare to just leave it unpublished. Thus I pushed myself into finishing it. So if the ending seems sort of blah compared to the beginning, sorry.
Thanks so much to everyone that has been reviewing my other stories. I really really do appreciate it. Especially since I read them over and over again some days to motivate me or whenever I feel sort of down. They always make me really happy.