Title: Caecus
Pairings: You'll need to wait to figure out this one. . . .
Categories: Action/Adventure, Mystery, a tinge of Romance, lots of Angst.
Rating: PG for now. PG-13 perhaps for future chapters, but we'll meet that hurdle when it comes.
Spoilers: SS, CoS, PoA, GoF, OotP. . . the whole shebang.
Summary: "I have to suck it up and face the facts. After all, the facts are right there, in front of me. They always have been. It's the one, infallible truth that I have always been too stubborn to see. I am Harry Potter, the Boy Who Lived, and I am going to save the world." 6th year fic. Action and angst abound.


Of Death and Veils and Saving the World

What is death, after all?

Is it just dead leaves and broken branches and perhaps a chilling wind sweeping through a ghost town? Or is it an emptiness, a vacancy, just an empty shell? Where does the mind go, once it is severed from the body? And what of a person's soul? Does it remain with the mind or float off on it's own to join other lost souls in some horrible land of death? Do people really live on inside their loved ones? If they do, how can there possibly be a heaven? Or an afterlife? What if our dead relatives are really just trapped inside of us, and our bodies are their tombs? And do they remain there, living on as we slowly forget them? Maybe ghosts are just escaped souls. Or maybe they're people with no loved ones in which to live.

Or maybe death is none of these things. Maybe death is just. . . darkness. Nothingness. Like a light switch being flipped from on to off, and that's it. No pearly gates or life on the clouds.

I have thought of these things continually. I have mulled them over in my mind, knowing, in some dark recess of my brain, that one day I'll have an answer. One day, I'll know. And when that day comes, it will be too late.

It terrifies me to think of it, and yet. . . .

I've always had a belief that's been with me as long as I can remember. It wasn't something I decided on one day, it was just something that was always there for me. I always knew that my parents were waiting for me, perhaps watching over me, from wherever death had taken them, and that they would be waiting when my time came. But lately, I've begun to question that simple idea.

The night, or morning, rather, that Sirius fell through that veil, everything I knew was turned upside-down. Suddenly, there was a dark ball of doubt slowly engulfing me as I struggled to make sense of a senseless world.

How could a piece of fabric, so thin and fragile, take a life? I saw it before it committed the crime, I almost touched it. It was no threat, it was something to be admired, even preserved with the state it was in. Hah. How ironic. Something that should be taken care of, and yet it kills.

I can still see the crumbling arch in my minds eye, and I wonder if I had touched it, and it had fallen over, if Sirius' life could have been spared. It was odd, the way the portal to death called to me, pulling me closer, taunting me with inaudible whispers that I might be able to discern with a mere step closer. . . .

But it was a curse, a threat, a danger. It was as simple as that, and yet as complicated. I can't explain why the veil called to me or Ginny or Neville or Luna. Or why the few of use it lured were the same few squirted with the pus of that Mimbulus Mimbletonia plant earlier that year on the train. I can't explain what was so tantalizing about it, or why it's so impossible to grasp the fact that Sirius is dead.

Sirius is dead.

Those three words cause such an ache in my heart that some nights I just wish to curl up and disappear. Maybe if I cry and cause myself as much pain and suffering as I can, I can earn an ounce of forgiveness. The guilt is killing me, slowly and cruelly. It wasn't noticeable at first, the skipped meals, the lack of sleep. But as the days pass, it's becoming more obvious. Clothes which had once fit me to a certain degree now drape off my shoulders. Above the collar of my shirts, a drastically protruding collar-bone is clearly visible, and beneath it are spiny ribs. My eyes, once so bright and green, have lost their sheen and hold a haunting coldness in them that scares even me when I glance in the mirror. Even my voice has changed, rarely containing any excitement or happiness, or even any concern for the world around me.

I deserve this. That's one of the few things I know to be true now. I deserve this punishment. I deserve even worse than this. I deserve to die.

Yes, my own death is something that appears in my thoughts every once in a while. I've become so used to it that a cold chill no longer tingles down my spine at the thought of it. It's not like I'd ever actually kill myself, though. I'm to cowardly for that. Instead, I sometimes muse that perhaps Voldemort will appear at my doorstep one day, and he'll kill me. That way there'd be no more pain, and people won't think of me as some quitter. People are so stupid sometimes, they would see me as a hero.

But the musings don't last long. No, there's no time for foolishness like that. There's only one thing that could possible occupy my thoughts 24 hours a day. There's only one thing that could possibly scare me worse than the thought of living forever with this pain.

And that one thing happened 17 years ago in an upstairs room of the Hog's Head pub in Hogsmeade. Before I was even born.

Yes, believe it or not, I do think about the Prophecy. The Prophecy. That's such a ridiculous name, isn't it? It's more like the Death Sentence to me.

But it's there, and whether I decide to accept it or ignore it, it will always be there and it will always be true. I wish it were one of those things that I could just shove into the back of my mind and avoid; somewhat like what I do to Potions essays or Divination homework. But it's not. Instead, it's always there, at the top of my thoughts and dreams.

Kill or be killed. It's the basic instinct of survival, and yet nothing's ever felt so foreign to me. It's always been escape or be killed or fight for your life or be killed. It's never been kill or be killed.

Me, a murderer. Honestly. That would send Rita Skeeter right through the roof. Even if it would be killing the Dark Lord. I suppose I'd get praised for that, for taking a life.

The world is so twisted.

I wish there were a way that I could pass on this burden to someone else, but I'm not that cruel. I swear, I can't handle it by myself. It's only been a couple of months since I heard it, and I'm already closer to death than I was the day that Killing Curse hit me.

This would all be a lot easier of no one died. But death is no trivial matter. A life is so important. A life could change the world and, if cut short, everyone's future could be changed. A life is so powerful, but yet, it seems, a death is even more so.

I know, too well, the heavy weight in the pit of your stomach, the gaping hole in the center of your heart, the agonizing pain flooding your veins and carving your bones after someone you truly loved has left you. I know it all too well, and I do not wish to know it any longer.

But I must if I wish to survive. I have to suck it up and face the facts. After all, the facts are right there, in front of me. They always have been.

It's the one, infallible truth that I have always been too stubborn to see.

I am Harry Potter, the Boy Who Lived, and I am going to save the world.

But whether my death is a result of that remains to be seen.

I wish I could see Sirius one last time. To tell him how much he meant to me. To tell him how much I miss him. To tell him that I never meant for him to be killed, that I never meant to be so stupid.

But most of all, I want to tell him that I'll make him proud. His death won't have been in vain.


A/N I was just kind of testing this out. If I get a good response to it, I'll continue on. The rest of the story, after this chapter, is written in 3rd person ambiguous, the same way the actual Harry Potter books are written. It's going to be a very dark fic, so if you're into the whole rainbows and unicorn stuff, you probably should go find another fic.

Review, please. Chapter 2 will be up tomorrow.

The title, Caecus is Latin for "blind." You'll see why it's named that later.

(btw: the new chapter for "Solus" was almost done before I realized that I hated it and deleted it all. Sorry guys! I'm rewriting it as quickly as possible. Also, I might start a sequel to "The Will to Survive" at the request of many readers. Updates on that later.)