DUST TO DUST
Author: Sthrissa
Summary: A look at a possible outcome of the Final Battle. (It sticks with the Potter kills Voldemort).
Disclaimer: Someone else's world.
It was quiet.
That was the first thing his mind registered as it clawed into consciousness. After the obligatory rush of pain, as frayed nerves announced the battered state of his body, he realized that he was prostrate, face pushed into scorched dirt. It took another moment for the memories to return...
-----FLASHBACK-----
The pain-filled screams and the terror, as ally after ally fell to the same six syllables. Across the bloody soil of this field of the slaughter, prenamed the Final Battle, burst flashes of poisonous green from wands of both those marching under the banners of the Light and under the banners of Dark.
He was darting, crawling, spinning in adrenaline-gripped fever, dodging the green lightning cast by silver-masked foe, as he edged closer to the unmasked creature at the epicentre of this living maelstrom.
Breaking through the sea of black cloaked figures, he was distantly aware of the three at his back, deflecting the green fire aimed at him in the only way possible. Even as his emerald globes locked with the fiery eyes of his Enemy, he was aware of those three forms.
Two had been with him since the beginning, walking with him upon this blood-paved road hand in hand, as they travelled from childhood innocence towards the terror that was this madman before him. The third was an ally gained before his birth, and had walked with him also, though for many years he had known it not, for this third had hidden in shadow, a silent watcher and protector. Yet now this third body joins with the other two upon the ground, the hated iron upon his face reflecting the red hair of one of the companions, seeming as if blood seeped from metallic flesh.
The boy did not react even though his soul wailed for the loss of friends and not-quite-friends. Continuing to stare into the slitted windows that revealed the burning hell encased within the reptilian monster, the raven haired boy mentally prepared himself for his duty.
Words bubbled forth from his lips – long, complex words of a language dead for eons, strings of learned and recited words that wove a Spell of Power around them. The spell that was the final hope for their cause, the creation of months of research and debate, cobbled together by friends and mentor and not-quite-friend, guided by tomes whose authors were a thousand years dead. It was a spell of destruction. A spell to kill.
Despite such spells – designed to take life – being in abundance, this was a spell forged for the purpose of ensuring that the Enemy's destruction was absolute, without the chance for another resurrection. And so, it was after months of toil that a spell was wrought by those of Light, which would desiccate the Enemy's body, shatter its Magical Core, and deliver irreversible justice for all the suffering caused by its hand. A spell that would obliterate its body and its soul.
He laboured also. Whereas once allies would have encouraged him to eat, to sleep and chase away the dark rings that danced beneath his emerald eyes, desperation meant that this child was daily greeted by exhortations to practice, and comforted with reminders of his duty. Yet no longer did he falter and question their regard for him. For this Spell of Power, made to be cast by prophecy's pawn and the people's knight, completed after months of labour and cut into his memory by weeks of continual recitation, though it would drain him of strength, drain him of power and leave him incapacitated and vulnerable for months, unlike its counterparts, this spell was designed so it would leave the caster alive.
The words spewing forth dragged with them his magic, yet, although he felt his strength pour from him as a torrent off a cliff, he maintained his efforts, ignoring the rush of liquid – whether blood or sweat he knew not – down his face and onto his chin, to splatter against the ground.
After an eternity he had finally been rewarded with an inhuman howl of pain, terror and rage, whether from himself or his opponent he knew not – and it had mattered not. He allowed himself to indulge in the sight of his Enemy of almost two decades crumble into nothingness, before himself collapsing into the black abyss of unconsciousness.
-----END FLASHBACK-----
With energy dragged screaming from depths unknown, he lifted himself from his prone position, ignoring blazing muscles to observe the carnage.
He blinked.
Face slack with fatigue and shock, he stared at that which surrounded him. Or rather, at that which did not.
For he saw nothing.
Everywhere, from himself until sight disappeared beyond the horizon, there was nothing but the flat brown monotony of unmarred earth, no bodies, no trees, no animals or birds, not even any grass.
As his mind finally processed the reason for the silence his strength fled him, and he again crumpled into the dirt with a dull thud that no-one would ever hear.
-----EPILOGUE-----
Perhaps, after the passage of ages, others may stumble upon this place, strangers who have traversed the firmament, seeking lands of fantasy and wonder, searching for the land beyond the stars. And upon this waterless rock, orbiting a star that witnessed in apathy the death of a planet, they will find a single prostrate form upon a world of dust.