Chapter 22: Songscore
"The doom of a nation can be averted only by a storm of flowing passion, but only those who are passionate themselves can arouse passion in others." - Adolph Hitler
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Ajax's body gave a violent shudder, and Harry's mind seemed to flicker for a second before returning, like a blinking light-bulb. Trying to work out what had happened, Harry calmed himself, just before he felt it. The bond - the link between his own body and this one - was still there, intact; but instead of the direct path to his body, the aura of welcome at the other end, he felt a sensation of dread further down.
As soon as he sensed it, he knew - just as he knew that fire was hot and snow was cold - that if he went down that path, back to his body, he would be dead. Gone. The tiny piece of soul that anchored him to his body had been hacked away, and the instead he forced the rest of his soul back into its original shell, the rest of it would be swept away.
He was dead.
But he was still here.
He'd alerted Dumbledore to the Forest again - he was only thankful the headmaster had realised it was the same place as last time (and the alarm for broken wards over in the Forest was certainly a great help as well). As far as he could tell, Dumbledore had alerted the teachers and Aurors, and were making their way towards the Forest.
He himself had been resting in the headmaster's office for a few moments: the attack had not come at a good time - the exam, party, kidnap and subsequent escape made him feel like he would drop dead at any moment... but if he was dead anyway, who cared? He spread his wings and took to flight again, locking the horrific realisation of his own demise away to be dealt with later.
The only thing running through his sleep-clouded mind now was to stop Leone and the daemon; the impulse to do so was so strong, he could almost feel it permeating his aching, agonising muscles.
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"Do it now!" Leone screamed, "Ignore him! Do it now, I'm commanding you!"
The daemon gave a screech and backed off the still breathing Voldemort, who forced himself off the ground in obvious anguish. The daemon gave another, longer, screech of mad joy as the air around it seemed to ripple for a second. Levina closed her eyes in brief despair. The ripple - it was Harry's magic, being absorbed into the daemon.
Leone had completed what she had hoped to do. She hadn't been able to stop her; nor even Voldemort. Harry was dead - the Phoenix was dead. It was obvious now what the 'Remembrance' meant.
Just as the King and Queen were sacrificed on an alter long ago, to complete a ritual and bring about the rise of those who hoped to conquer all... now Harry was sacrificed on an alter, to complete a ritual and bring about the rise of one who hoped to destroy all. But where was the Eclipse?
Levina frowned. This Eclipse of Remembrance; it was meant to be between Harry and Voldemort, the King of Serpents; not Harry and Leone. The prophecy had to be completed, she told herself, hope renewed. She had plenty of experience in these matters; how could she not, having lived so long with one of the greatest seers in history?
Harry would find a way to fight Voldemort, she knew it. He may lose then - but for now, he would be back.
She hoped.
There was a sudden rustle of leaves as they were beaten forwards; Ajax hurtled through the trees, exhaustion evident with the tensing of each wing. Levina felt her non-existent heart lighten considerably - if Harry's Familiar hadn't been destroyed then somehow, somewhere, Harry existed as well.
"Where's Potter?" she hissed, withdrawing back into the trees and coating herself with charms to make herself unnoticeable. She kept her eyes on the daemon, screaming in power-lust, with the occasional glance at Voldemort, who was trying to unobtrusively look for his wand and stem his bleeding.
Ajax fixed his eyes on the back of her head. 'I am Harry,' he croaked as quietly as possible. 'I managed to get in this body before she killed me. What's happening?'
Levina nodded grimly in understanding. "The daemon's still absorbing the last of your magic; it should be finished in a minute or so. Leone won't be much trouble, she's only Human - but Voldemort's here. Hurt, without his wand, no back-up, but still here." There was a crack of Apparition and she groaned. "Well, that's Voldie gone to get his followers. Anyway, she slit your throat."
'What's the daemon going to do?' Harry asked worriedly. 'And why haven't you done anything?'
"I'm a bit busy trying to figure out what I'm meant to do!" Levina hissed. "Leone's put bloody wards of her own making up around the Forest, so it's going to be a while before Dumbledore's reinforcements can even get in. We can only pass them because we're not technically alive, in these electrical bodies.
"But to answer your first question, I have no idea what the daemon's trying to do. However," she grimaced, "when there's a daemon with excess power and the word 'revenge' involved, it's nothing good."
"So we need to stop them." Harry surmised immediately. "Right then - kill Leone, kill the daemon, and be prepared for when Voldemort gets back."
"Too late," Levina snapped, and Harry glanced over to where she was staring. The undulating magical current around the daemon was now barely visible against its body; and with one final stretch of Syneeta's coarse body, it vanished completely - at the same moment that Leone stopped watching it as well, and spotted Ajax's body.
Harry was hardly an unsuspicious sight; an obviously magical bird sitting in plain view, especially when all the other wildlife had fled from the location of the screaming daemon long ago.
Wishing this body could use magic, Harry's only choice was to duck and dodge with his already drained body as Leone whipped her wand up and screamed the Killing Curse. The daemon watched interestedly, before grinning wickedly and languorously extending razor-sharp claws.
'Do something!' Harry snapped to the Unnoticeable android, who rolled her eyes and broke the spells that made herself inconspicuous.
"I would have thought birds were beneath your notice," she jibed, making her sword painfully obvious. Leone's face twisted in shock for a moment, and then even more quickly into fury.
"How did you get in?" she snapped, before "Syneeta, stay back!"
Levina smirked. "Seems like you have trouble controlling your pets -"
"Or just that I simply don't want to waste a drop of her energy," Leone purred devilishly. "I have big plans, Professor Carnaena; and if you're one of Voldemort's little cronies, don't bother. I'm in no mood for sorting out frivolous matters."
"Actually, I'm an acquaintance of Harry's," Levina said coldly, "and I'd really like to know why you think it's so important to kill him and give his power to your vermin, especially when you could easily take it yourself."
Leone didn't make the fool's mistake of looking over to Harry's body and leaving an opening for attack. Instead, she smiled sweetly. "Perhaps you can tell me how you through my wards, and I'll answer your question."
Harry, resting on a branch (and panicking considerably) noticed something just outside the Forest. 'Keep her talking!' he instructed urgently, 'They've nearly broken through her wards!'
Levina made no sign that she had heard, except for what she said next. Harry could feel every second ticking painfully away, careful not to look over at his too-still body, whose front was coated and smeared with the rust-red, runny liquid. "Deal; but you'll have to forgive me if I don't trust you. You answer first."
"Certainly," Leone leered gloriously. "All that magical energy, to be used as daemonic magic - which I could hardly use myself - is going to be used for one very special goal. Your turn."
"Your wards only keep out living creatures," Levina snapped, "not me."
As the wards gave one final shudder and splintered, shattered, split like a mirror and dissipated, Levina leapt at the girl.
Both hands on the massive broadsword, every poison filled barb on the blade was outstretched, ready to nick and infect should it touch the target's flesh. Levina gave a warrior's scream of insanity and lunacy, in a show of bravado that terrified those were unused to combat. It did its job, for Leone hesitated -
Levina twisted her sword up in the air, leaving herself open, but knowing Leone had no idea of how to take advantage of it -
Harry gave a cry of thankfulness as the Wizards stormed through the Forest to where they were -
Leone swung her wand round, and shrieked with all her strength, "Wingardium Leviosa!'
For a moment, Harry floundered in incomprehension; what was she doing? How could that stop Levina? But then, as Levina had already done, he realised where the spell was aimed. The target was the Myrrh Cage, which was hurtling through the air to crash, like the wards, over Levina's sword.
It flew high and true, and both he and Levina immediately understood why she had done it; there was a chance to catch it, to be able to put the daemon back inside it, easily and simply, to keep the rare and ancient object safe - but to do so would mean giving Leone time to attack or run.
Harry was still wondering what to do, wishing he had Levina's experience but knowing he was no use in this body anyway, but the woman had already made her choice; she turned and ran flat out, snatching the huge pearl like an oversized Snitch.
As she did so, Leone turned as well; it seemed for a moment that she was about to run, but it became clear she was just using every moment she could. She yelled at the daemon, which had obeyed her order to stay back until now, "You know the plan! Go! Get our revenge!"
The daemon screeched it's assent and - was gone.
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'It's gone!' Harry wailed, losing the last shred of nerve he had.
"Pull yourself together and follow him!" Levina snapped, face flushed. She was in command now; Levina had disappeared and become Professor Carnaena, his tutor, the one who sneered at his attempts in training, the one who refused to answer his questions. "Get back to your body, now! Before Syneeta can do anything!"
'But I'll die! And I don't know where -' Harry choked out, but Levina didn't care for excuses.
"Then make a new body! One that can come back from the dead! You're a phoenix Annumagus aren't you?" she roared, thrusting protective charms over the Myrrh Cage, "Once you do that, you'll know where it went!"
Harry didn't understand what she meant; he knew he'd die if he returned to his body; he'd never even turned into his phoenix form before; he could hardly be expected to defeat the daemon by himself - but a thread of hope appeared and he clung to it. If she was right - if she hadn't snapped - then he could be some use, finally.
As Levina fixed her attention once more on Leone, and hefted her sword into her hands, Harry also fixed his attention on something: the link which he knew lead to death. As Levina sped forwards, and the Wizards finally charged into the clearing, Harry threw himself down the dark bond that he and Ajax shared, willing himself to resurrect, to heal; to change.
As he fell - not travelled this time, but descended - he felt a sudden lightening of the link. The metaphysical shadows of his soul drifted, agonisingly slowly, but they did so all the same; 'Phoenix' Harry told himself fervently, 'You are a Phoenix. You think like a Phoenix, have the body of a Phoenix. You cannot die, you were never dead. I am the Phoenix.'
As his confident thoughts were hammered into his head, the shadows receded faster, like the curtains thrown open on a sunny morning. Whereas traversing still took but seconds, Harry's mind was stretching it out into what seemed an eternity. He screamed his words ahead into his own body, "Phoenix! I am the Phoenix!", and even in his momentarily-bodiless state he could still feel the words - like a powerful force - reaching his body and changing it, shifting it.
And now, finally, there were no shadows running throughout his mind and the bond that tethered him - no longer weakly - to his destination. Instead he could see the bond; no longer a metaphor of light, stretching away in his head, but there - physical, real. A pure white thread, slim as spider-silk but stronger than any magic Harry had ever known. And around it, entwining it, were speckles and freckles of gleaming, singing golds and proud, beautiful reds -
And finally, just as in the crystal ball he had gazed into a lifetime ago, there was a mist, fine and smooth, billowing in gentle curls around the thread, like an aura of incense-smoke instead of light. But no longer was it the dreary, ominous shade of the crystal smoke - this was an azure, a captivating, entrancing tint, that Harry longed to reach out to with his silken feathers; a cool and breezy blue that let the sparkles of glimmering reds and golds flow through, weaving and twirling in and out, out and in, like the dancing fairies Harry had seen wing their way through the air.
Another eternity passed, but Harry didn't notice, didn't care; this was perfection, this was absolute contentment - he was no longer falling, tumbling aimlessly down the link, as he had been before... this was like a blind man seeing for the first time. Every direction was warm yet cool, safe yet exciting, and Harry drifted at speeds unimaginable, never quite going anywhere, though he felt the unmistakeable sensation of swift movement.
With a sudden snap of renewed memory, Harry came back down to reality with a thud. He needed to get to his body - the view would still be there to admire later, should he survive. The moment his former determination reappeared, the sparkling vapour increased tenfold, swirling and whirling about him until it obscured his vision, and all the world was an incandescent blue; an instant later, Harry's mind no longer clutched to the slender path he followed, but instead was sent reeling into another place.
His body.
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Harry gave a cry of delight and extended vast wings; from glowing gold to lustrous orange to radiant ruby at the feather-tips. A crown of golden-yellow plumes bejewelled his crest, and streaks of crimson and claret adorned the chest, where each feather shone like a dazzling ray of Sunlight.
He was the Phoenix - he had conquered death and risen from the ashes. He was born again from the sliver of soul that remained, and bathed in the firelight that shone from his own feathers.
He was Harry; he was a phoenix. He was the Phoenix. But more importantly, he was alive: and he knew what to do.
For this was a different kind of 'bird's-eye' view; as the bindings which had held his body slipped uselessly away, he could see the whole scene around him, awash with the blue mist, and speckled with lines of the same glowing colour that ran like veins through the very air; it thrummed with power, entangling Harry and moving as he did, curling in lesser spirals around the humans who stood about, their faces unimportant and unnoticeable - the tendrils of crackling energy snaked and knitted through the bodies, inside them, like sending out shoots, and as they moved about, so the stems did - as though, Harry thought dimly, they were plug sockets, with wires streaming out of them.
Except that the vines that strung about from the Humans, and him, and the rock he throwing himself away from; and the trees and the very grass and air and -
And everything -
These vines didn't leech energy away; they were a complicated web, each merging into the other until truly he realised they all the same one, split off at different points; and the energy that swam through these conduits was streaming down them, into the people and plants, and pulsing vividly around their wands and hearts and spiralling around and inside their bodies...
And that wasn't energy, as he had thought a moment ago; he knew it just as he had known he was dead, as he had known that he had transformed; the phoenix body told him, and he understood this was pure, raw, unrefined magic -
And he knew.
Suddenly the thoughts that had spun through his head, repeating, thundering, awing him into a dazed sense of wonder - vanished as he realised what he had to do. There, where the daemon had stood, where it had disappeared; the phoenix vision saw it clearly.
Here, the channels of magic were bleached with a poisonous obsidian, and the crow-shaded ribbons were like jagged thorns; instead of the smooth curves and dreamy, speedy dashes of enthralling intensity, the murky slop of black pulsed heavily, dragging itself into that focal point, in a powerful display of revolting energy.
The phoenix mind tagged it quicker than Harry could have even guessed. Daemonic magic; he knew what he had to do. He knew.
It suddenly hit him that all this, from his transfer to transformation, freedom to realisation, had only taken perhaps five seconds; he scythed through the air with ease, for all his body was renewed and rejuvenated, and there was wonder in everything: he wanted to look everywhere, be everywhere, at once, and it was all he could do to remind himself to keep to the mission, to stop the daemon...
He swung around and his long tail fanned out like rippling waves of fire behind him; and he dived into the black muck that filled him with so much dread, sloughing off his fear like a serpent skin, and with a flick of his mind, suddenly the azure mist that had been in the background of the real world was now the foreground, surrounding him; and the people around him became faded silhouettes - and though the roots that dived around the world almost vanished in visibility, more of the incorporeal wires appeared, though none obscured his view.
The mist... the mist was the source. It was the mist that ran through the wires, from this other reality that overlapped with their own world; this mist was magic, and this reality was its origin, the source. This was where Wizards and Witches drew their power from; these rivers of magic-carrying that wrapped snugly around and inside people, magical objects and places - the glistening streams that imparted their cargo when called upon; for a spell, or ward or to swim through the blood of a magical creature.
None of this was important now, though, and Harry shook his glossy head in a Human gesture, an attempt to clear it, to remind himself where he was, the urgency of the situation.
This was where the daemon had gone, this other realm; straight to the heart of magic, fuelled by its own daemonic magic, and the power stolen from Harry. But Harry himself was no longer drained; the veins were furiously pumping magic into his very core, more than he had ever felt as a human - he could feel every fiery speck of it within him, felt as though he himself were formed of it.
And there was the daemon, obvious to anyone. In this world of blue, it stuck out as a dark, figure of daemonic power, occasionally spitting out sparks of shadowy embers.
It sensed him, he knew it - Syneeta looked up, and Harry felt a coil of revulsion tighten within him. This was a daemon as it really appeared; and it was a thousand times more brutally terrifying than in the world he had just come from. He felt no fear though; the phoenix would not allow him to do so. It was physically, mentally, impossible.
Harry spread his wings further, floating on non-existent winds; and calling the magic into and around it, it obeyed his every will. But it obeyed the daemon as well, who manipulated it subtly and efficiently as Harry assessed the situation with the clear mind of the phoenix. It was using the magic, tainting it as it did so; weaving it to create some kind of effect. Part daemonic, part his own stolen magic - Syneeta was doing something. Something big.
But 'weaving' was not just a way of describing it; that was what she was doing. Weaving and braiding it into a closely interlaced net, black with darkness, that wouldn't even let the brilliant blue behind it shine through. It was huge already as the daemon whipped around it, with elegant movements and swift actions.
Whatever the spell it was creating, it was growing by the second. And Harry knew that whatever it was, it couldn't, mustn't be released into the world.
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Levina had melted into the trees again before anyone could identify her, leaving the Wizards and Witches searching for the elusive figure. Leone - cackling like a madman - had been taken away by Unspeakables on Dumbledore's orders: she would be interrogated for any information pertaining to Voldemort, and - if any - the Dark.
Levina herself was invisible, unnoticeable and silent, thanks to ancient spells and enchantments far more powerful than any revealing spells the remaining teachers and Aurors could cast. Ajax crouched low on her shoulder, once more in his rightful body (and complaining about being forced out in the first place). The teachers and Dumbledore were mostly panicked about Harry.
Those first into the clearing had sworn he was tied up on the rock, dead, coated in half-dried blood. They and the next few that had arrived swore even more definitely that his body had suddenly become a glowing, glorious phoenix - that the magical chains that bound his body had simply snapped, were thrown away -
And that was where the stories began to differ.
The few who had entered last had not seen a thing, so they were no help. But what those who saw (or at least thought they saw) said was that either; a) the phoenix had thrown itself across half the clearing and disappeared in a flash of blue light, or that b) the phoenix had erupted into tiny sapphire flames, covered with spiralling streaks of glowing trails, whereupon it seemed to expand and shrink at the same time. They hadn't quite been able to explain to the others.
Dumbledore, the Unspeakables, and the teachers who knew about the 'Phoenix' prophecy - and knew that a phoenix was one of Harry's Annumagus forms - had a sneaky suspicion they knew part of what had happened. Harry had been injured; he had changed into a phoenix to escape; and then what?
No-one knew what Leone had done, where her daemon was, where Harry was, and they were more than a little desperate about it.
Levina and Ajax did know, however... most of it, anyway. "I can sense him," Ajax boasted matter-of-factly. "There's going to be a battle for the fate of humanity going on not ten feet away from us in just a few seconds, and all these poor saps don't have a clue."
Levina snorted. "You know damn well I can't Switch. You can though, can't you? Why don't you go over and help him?"
"As you know," Ajax said calmly, turning her words back on her, "I can't use magic myself. All I can do is store magic - and Harry hardly needs any of that, since he's at the very source of the damned stuff - and act as a power booster when I'm near him. Well, I am near him. On a different wavelength of reality, but still physically close. All I'd do was irritate, distract him and get in the way."
There was a sigh. "So the fight's down to him. Wonderful. And we still have no idea what the daemon's doing, I suppose?"
"None whatsoever." cawed Ajax cheerfully, hopping onto his other foot. "Never mind. If Harry survives and the daemon does too, we'll pop it in the Myrrh Cage. You've got it, haven't you?"
"Right here," Levina said, using her sword to tap the orb that lay by her foot. "But please don't forget, Harry thinks daemons are impossible to kill. He might only try to play for time, or something."
Ajax scoffed. "He's in a completely different Realm right now, for crying out loud. I'm sure he can figure out that the rules aren't the same over there."
Levina pursed her lips. "Probably." She dodged aside to allow an oblivious Auror to search through the bush she was standing in front of. "Do you think we should ask Dumbledore's phoenix for help? I mean, all phoenixes can Switch naturally, can't they - it's how they usually travel - so maybe it could help him?"
"You're acting like an unsure teenager," came the reply. "Come off it; if Potter can win, he will. What I'm worried about is the prophecy; the one by Elspeth Glades. It mentions armies. The problem is, I don't think Harry versus a single daemon really counts as an army."
Levina frowned as this thought clicked in her head. "You don't think this is the Eclipse then?"
Ajax pecked his wing feathers thoughtfully. "No, I don't. I mean, this is meant to be against his 'most feared adversary', the 'king of serpents'. I still think it's Voldemort, and I'm mostly worried about where he's gone. He knows that Harry's here, and he thinks Leone and the daemon are - obviously, he's going to come back with his followers. That's one army..."
"And you think these Wizards are going to be the opposing side." Levina stated.
"Exactly," the bird croaked, pleased at her deduction. "However, it says that the Phoenix is the one to face the serpent king, which means Potter is going to battle ol' Voldie; so unless Snake-Face is actually the daemon, which I very much doubt, Harry's going to have to survive to come back and battle Voldemort."
"But just surviving to return, doesn't mean he'll actually defeat the daemon, nor stop its task," Levina warned.
Ajax bobbed his head in agreement. "No, it doesn't. It'll take a while for Voldemort to gather his forces at such short notice, but not too long. If I were you, I'd get the Cage safely out of the way and prepare to fight."
Levina nodded. "Sound advice, even if it is from a bird. Fine, you stay here and keep me updated with Telepathy. Send me a few mental pictures of how the situation develops, if it does... stay out of the way. I'm going to put this in my quarters - and get seen by a few students, so I have an alibi if anyone gets suspicious."
Ajax shifted his location to a tree branch overhead, while she slipped off to the castle, not daring to use Seportion in case it destroyed the spells that made her unseen and inconspicuous.
Meanwhile, Ajax kept one eye on the Realm he was in now, watching as the Wizards searched and searched for the woman they had seen rushing towards Leone with a sword, or the Boy-Who-Lived, with no results; and one eye Switched into the mana Realm - keeping track of Harry and the daemon's ill-omened spell.
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As Harry flew, not needing to beat his wings in this eerily comforting pace, yet doing so out of instinct, he didn't even make a ripple in the fog, nor in the overlapping, criss-crossing threads that ferried the mist out from this place into the physical world. The threads that were connected to him were the only ones that moved, remained in him as if attached, and he discovered that with a single thought, he could influence them as he wished.
He make them wider, thicker so that more magic pulsed into his body, filling him until his head span with power - but he was a glass that could only hold so much, and soon the hollow wires' cargo was unmoving. The daemon had ceased its binding now, and was warily crouching into a position to defend itself, unsure of this threat.
Harry cried out in a melodious announcement of his presence, his great wings - each eight feet long to their very tip- unfurled massively. The daemon regarded this manifestation as a serious threat now, seeing the power he held, and hissed lowly. With a whirl of movement, before Harry could react, it had stretched out its claws and snagged the strings of blue as though they were physical, tangible. Harry knew that it only appeared that way - that the daemon was in fact only moving them with its mind - but he still had to dodge aside when it became a river of venomous black, slashing out like a whip and narrowly slicing past Harry's left wing.
Thankful it hadn't touched him, but still strangely fearless, Harry tilted at a slight angle to dodge a second and third lashing, before hovering uncertainly at a distance of a dozen metres away from the daemon.
Syneeta saw him give pause, and seemed to think he was stopping. Immediately, it commenced its pollution of the blue strands, continuing interlocking them into a mass of thick shadows.
Harry brought his wings to his sides and perched on non-existent air. What was he meant to do now? There was no way he could defeat the daemon, was there? Obviously it couldn't the magic itself, not without the ritual Leone had performed; none of the conduits wrapped around or connected to its body, and the only source of Human magic it had was Harry's.
'Perhaps,' Harry thought as inspiration struck, 'I could get it to use up its supply of my magic, before it finishes the spell. It won't be able to complete it with just daemonic magic.' He watched it carefully; the gruesome entity was no longer regarding him as a threat - it seemed to have forgotten everything but its mistress' orders. In fact, he realised suddenly, it seemed to need the Human magic to actually manipulate the strands. It could defile them - turn them into the strange black mess - but to use it as a weapon in its own right, it had used Harry's magic. And if it could do that with Human magic: then so could he.
Summoning up his courage - and a few choice spells - Harry prepared himself to move quickly, and felt with his mind for the channels around him. If it was pure magic, which he was quite sure of, then that meant it could be changed into any kind of spell; and so he drew in as much magic as he could from the threads and threw it at the daemon, willing the words saevus incendium!
His efforts were immediately visible, though not as effective as he had hoped; the daemon screamed an ear-splitting shriek, wrenching itself away from its work as the wildfire flashed around it. There was a strange sensation of burning, charred flesh, rather than a smell; the beast writhed for a moment, spitting furious pain, before it finally came to enough to reshape the nearby magic into water, which rushed in a torrent over the flames, dousing them in seconds.
Its scales were blistered blacker than even before, and glistening red wounds wept in small, shiny patches. The rest of it was drenched, soaking, but Harry was glad to see (sense) that he'd managed to deplete its reserves ever so slightly; it had foolishly used Human instead of daemonic magic.
That was it. The first proper blow struck. There was no ignoring the phoenix now; Syneeta thrust a wall of pure torture at Harry, a thousand times worse than the Cruciatus curse, and Harry too slow to dodge the entirety of it. A screaming, blinding pain, like a wall of knives, stabbed down his wing, and his nerves cried as if on fire.
Retaliations began; unthinking, pure instinct, primeval and sadistic on both sides.
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Levina had made sure she was sighted by no fewer than eight reliable witnesses, and securely stored the Cage in a warded safe in her private quarters. In the back of her mind, she was receiving Telepathically-sent images from Ajax of what was happening in the mana Realm; she suspected that nothing interesting or important was happening in the forest clearing.
She was delayed on her way back outside by several students clamouring to know why some of the teachers had rushed off - after assuring them she had no idea as to the reason, she was forced to back-track until they were gone, to make sure no-one saw her leave the castle.
She had a nasty feeling she would be needed back at the Forest, at least for the purpose of encouraging Harry; should he return. She was no Seer, despite teaching Divination, but she'd spent enough time around them to know that gut instincts (even when you technically didn't have a gut!) were always to be listened to.
All this urgency, this rushing about in a critical event - an occurrence that could mean life or death for every Human being on the planet - it certainly brought back some memories, though it was hardly the time to stop and reminisce. It had been the same as on the very day she was first activated; unsure of the reasons why Humans who buzzed around her, practically ignoring her, handling precious data, snapping out orders; there had been no Eclipse then, no Dark, no daemonic threat - but the tight fear that was coiled into a tiny spot inside her was exactly the same. Uncertainty.
She winced as Ajax's continuous Telepathic updates showed Harry - a smaller but physically weaker target in his phoenix form - receive a jagged slash from the daemon's claws. Harry, obviously in pain, healed it within seconds by calling in more of the pure blue mana - taken from the Hawaiian name for magic, though it wasn't; it was the very essence of magic, the raw, unrefined state before it was processed - called 'carnai' in Atlantean.
This could turn out to be a stalemate, Levina mused. On the one hand, Harry was surrounded by unlimited reserves of mana which he could almost as he wished by converting it into the type of magic of his choosing; for healing, transfiguration, defence, offence, and the daemon was stuck only with its own magic, and the dwindling supply of the magic stolen from Harry. It couldn't heal itself, nor absorb any of the mana around it.
On the other hand, the daemon was bound by its orders, and by its own insatiable taste for vengeance. Harry; though driven by a feral desire to stop it - was obviously being slowly but surely worn down. Even if he converted the mana into a rejuvenating or energising spell for himself, it could only do so much.
Mental power was as much a factor in the conversion of mana to magic as the amount of mana one could absorb - and the pure quantity of mana he was soaking in, in such a small length of time, so carelessly, was making him less sharp, more easy to miss or make repetitive, easily predictable attacks.
Quite simply, Harry didn't have the mental or magical stamina to keep dragging the mana in, reshaping it into magic and then throwing it back out. It could be built up if he had the time, but that was one thing he was definitely lacking. The daemon couldn't heal when it was hurt - but Harry couldn't stop himself suffering from magical exhaustion. With every passing moment it was more likely that Harry - unless he started playing a slower, more intelligent, defensive battle - would find the blue conduits of his 'shorting out'; blocking up, wearing out and letting the mana leak uselessly out instead of going into him.
Throwing enchantments around her that made her immediately ignored and forgotten by anyone who might see her, Levina once again retrieved her sword from where she had hidden it outside the main entrance door, and made her way back to the Forest. If Ajax was right - and likely he was - they would have a fight on their hands; and dead people were unlikely to give Harry any help.
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Lord Abyssay ran strangely blue eyes over the assembled troops who stood, unaware of the leader's surveillance. Some of them were excellent, talented in magical combat. A few were also good in close-up fighting, strong enough to land a good punch should they be disarmed of their wands. Many more were average to well-trained; and several more were quite useless.
"Perfect," Abyssay gave a rare compliment. Commander Tom Fallow managed a strained grin in thanks, though it was hidden under the Illusion Charm which altered his appearance. Abyssay could see the expression though - the only person who could. His leader was miles away at the moment, giving orders through the tiny, hidden earpiece. It was magical - a technological would be all right for now, but in just a few minutes, it would be made useless; too much interference from the spells that would be flying around.
The man was observing them through a miniscule Muggle camera hidden in a tapestry at the moment. Once they moved away, there would no longer be anyone watching them; a portable camera was impossible, again because of the problem of magical interference...
There were rumours of course; theories that said it was possible for magic and technology to mix... but even if it were true, rather than the kooky conjectures of rambling magi-physicists, no-one had been able to find the right setting or way to bring this about. One of the loonies down in the R&D labs (honestly, he didn't why they kept half those nutters working on such stupid ideas) kept promising a breakthrough any day. He'd been promising the same thing for more than five years now.
Tom allowed himself a rueful smile. There he was, doing what he had been for the past two days; avoiding the subject of what he was going to do, unwilling to think about it. His death... or Harry Potter's. He wasn't sure what was worse for himself. The world would not shed a tear at his passing, but if Potter died, they were all doomed. But for himself - he wasn't sure whether he'd prefer to live in a condemned world, or to be dead in a world with a hope of triumph for the light.
So, he denied the subject the honour of rising into his conscious mind. It had gnawed away at the back of his head, woken him screaming in the middle of the night these past few weeks, as every day slipped closer to this fateful time - until finally he had attempted to give himself security by simply not thinking about it.
He thought up jokes and wondered about his superiors' social lives - he flirted with one of the more attractive girls who served tea and should have known better than to even consider becoming involved with the infamous Commander Fallow. He had spent his little remaining free time slipping hints about the passing on of his possessions, not wanting to make a will (for that would bring reality too far home). He had carried on as if he was planning to die of old age surrounded by grand-children; and besides, it wasn't as though he hadn't had long to live. He was long past the usual age considered to be the 'prime'.
Now though, he had no choice but to consider his next move; to do or die. Maybe both.
This was it. The normally indefinable moment where the present became the future, rather than the past. Where you weren't living for that one moment, but living against it and up to it at the same time. Where you tried to choose between the lesser of two evils; one that would destroy you, and the other destroy everything you loved. He'd known that someday, this would come, but he'd waved it aside when he was young and foolish. When he thought by then, there would be another path to walk. When he thought he could do anything, and there was too much to gain and nothing to lose.
When he thought he'd live forever.
And now he was going to die. It might be today, by Potter's wand if he lost (won?). It might be next year, by the Dark, if he succeeded (failed?). Either way, he was going to die. And however it happened would be his own choice; but it was also destiny's. There was the whole programming of the universe - he could follow his own encoding and do as destiny decreed; or he could botch the test. Mess up the programming. He could stand over Potter, knowing that Potter was meant to die - and not kill him. What would that mean? Would that be what fate wanted? Or would he have destroyed it all, given the experiment false results?
He didn't know. Curiously, he found he didn't care, either. This was life. Not just his, but everyone's. Not life as in 'a matter of life and death'; life as in the everyday continuing existence of everyday, the quality of life; the dangers faced everyday by everyone, their feelings, their minds. It was just another struggle, the same as any bar-room brawl in a physical sense, or grieving in a mental sense. It was simply pre-violence, pre-death. And that somehow made it worse, knowing what would come.
Or wouldn't come.
Either way, he lost.
But he had to do it: it was his duty, his future; it was what he'd sworn to Lord Abyssay, to his recruiters, his tutors, himself, that he'd do. He'd known it was coming. And now...
Now it was here.
He would lead his troops one final time, and hopefully they would all die. Die now, today. Because, if they didn't - if these heartless, wretched murderers he called his men (and they didn't deserve that title) didn't die, then they would kill. They would kill, and then they would die themselves, later.
But first and foremost, the very rule of life came to mind. Kill or be killed. And it had never rung more true than for one Tom Fallow, on this crossroads of a morning.
All he had to do was finish the task that had slowly driven him insane.
In whatever role he needed.
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Dumbledore was not a happy chap. Harry had, quite literally, disappeared. He had turned into a phoenix first, which at least meant that he was almost certainly the Phoenix - but that didn't change the fact that he was quite, quite gone. Very gone, in fact. He hadn't known anyone more gone than Harry.
Realising his train of thought was suspiciously near derailing, Dumbledore popped another lemon-drop in his mouth, and reattempted to form a satisfactory conclusion from the few clues they had. The daemon had been here (or at least, it had from what they managed to make out from Leone's gleefully insane hysterics) and was now gone.
Harry, the demented girl also insisted was dead, and indeed, the blood that coated the stone-alter, the area surrounding it, and herself were all a perfect match for Harry's. One of the Aurors - also a certified medi-Wizard - insisted that there was far too much blood lost to even consider Harry was still alive.
Of course, even he admitted that he had no clue as to where the body was.
Many had seen Harry's corpse (for they swore blind it was definitely a corpse, and that they would recognise the 'Boy-Who-Lived', even with his scar hidden and body soaked in blood) change into a phoenix and then... disappear.
One claim of this would be dismissed almost instantly, but everyone was willing to believe anything at this point. Plus of course, it hadn't been one claim; of the twenty-eight people here, nearly eleven people vowed they'd seen it, and three more were unsure of what they'd seen, though their stories were similar. A couple more had seen the phoenix, though not the transformation, and had thought that Fawkes had managed to arrive faster than them.
One of the Unspeakables - the Defence professor Figg, to be precise, was ambling seemingly aimlessly around the almost-circular clearing, deep in thought. She was obviously concerned over the mysterious woman who had apparently been visible for a few seconds as the first group of Aurors came on the scene.
The woman (described as having long red hair, slightly below-average height and tanned skin - and a whopping great sword) had not been found. No-one had even managed to get a glimpse of her face, for she had swept several charms around herself and disappeared from view. Who knew where she was now? And who she was? Flitwick and Sprout had been sent back to the school, in case she was a danger to the students, but that was all they could do.
Now, as the Aurors searched for magical evidence of her identity and clues to Harry's condition and location, the Unspeakables hunted for non-magical clues; DNA, footprints, fingerprints, clothes fibres; anything that could be tested back at the Resistance Headquarters.
They had even called in a pair of Finders to start work on tracking Harry; their particular skills should have been able to track him within a matter of days, but what if Harry was already dead or untraceable - or would be so within days?
Dumbledore didn't groan, because that would destroy the little morale the teams had; but he did rub his forehead when he was sure no-one was watching. He could feel a headache coming on.
Abyssay was not going to like this. This could throw the whole schedule off; if the Commander came too soon, who knew what would happen? Or if Harry had disappeared completely - never to return - what then?
It had been only eleven minutes since the boy had vanished, and the Ministry was already on Full Alert. If Harry couldn't be found within the day, it would go up to Critical Alert; one of the levels withheld from public knowledge. If the boy still could not be found - or if his corpse or useless body was retrieved - then by the end of the week, the Arthur Initiative would be invoked. Dumbledore gave a momentary shudder at the thought of that happening.
Harry would have to be retrieved; even if the only result was still his death.
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Harry himself was unaware that he was the subject of various worried thoughts and search-parties, and a factor in more than a couple of secret plots (though he could have worked that out for himself without much consideration). He was, instead, more concerned with staying alive for the next few minutes - and preferably longer, while he was at it.
He'd worked out that he was in serious trouble just two minutes ago, though it seemed at least several hours had passed since then; a flurry of long, thin, black needles had stormed through the air (courtesy, of course, of his dear friend Syneeta) and swiftly pierced straight through part of his right wing. One of them had even managed to skewer his side, though there wasn't much bleeding.
Much bleeding.
That was the trouble.
He'd thought he'd been imagining it - that it was getting harder to pull the magic into himself, that it was taking more time, effort - he'd thought he was simply becoming more aware of what it took to do so; or that perhaps he was focusing on it more. Now though, every drop of the magic he pulled in was being reluctantly thrown out in half-useless attacks.
His supposedly constant streams of magic were running dry, and he was sucking in every last drop too slowly. The almost imperceptible glow of the threads into him had turned completely imperceptible; they were gone. They were thinner, diminished, dimmer.
He couldn't heal his side, nor his wing.
He was exhausted - physically, mentally, magically.
And the daemon? It was still going strong - not as strong as before, perhaps, but it had wised up to his plan to exhaust it of human magic; it now tossed only daemonic magic at him, and that was rare. It knew he wasn't much of a threat. Instead, it bobbed and weaved (literally) around the ever expanding circle of dark magic, that gazed around like a single eye pronouncing doom on all it saw.
And then, as Harry threw up a lack-lustre shield to protect against a quick fireball, draining the final trickle of his magic: it was done.
The daemon, resplendent in its unbeatable glory, finally stretched out its back, throwing its head joyously to the air, and crowed the triumph of its masterpiece.
Harry started, for he hadn't even realised the creature's magnum opus was complete - and at that moment, he knew that all he had done was in vain. He was weak and pathetic, unable to so much as send a tickling charm; while the daemon was about to unleash whatever dreaded blight it was upon the world.
Harry knew his life was worthless. With the screaming pain in his wing and side slowing him down, distracting him - and with only seconds until the daemon either decided to finish him or freeing the hex - he made the most of its distraction and shoved the threads wider with all his will, heaving the seeping dribble of magic into him as best he could.
Then he opened his beak to trill a final shriek, and spread his agonising wings, before lunging at the daemon's throat, claws outstretched to rake its defenceless jugular.