I wrote this, and then I posted it. Universe doesn't belong to me (although it's not really noticeable that this is actually Harry Potter).
They crowned him with many crowns and they laid palm leaves before him; he took their burdens upon him and then he died. Crucifixion is not an easy way to die unless you make it so.
Word count: 1000
Coronation
The beams stand starkly against the sky. Only two of them, a shorter crossed over a longer. They are newly cut, green and young. Thick enough to support him, thin enough to be burnt by the end of the ceremony. But they are empty now, the two black lines on the cloudless pale sky, undisturbed on the hill.
The grass is green on the hill. Soft beneath his feet as the dew still clings to the blades, dampening his toes. The ground before him is covered in leaves, great fronds of green that lead from the wagon to the crest of the rise where the beams stand. The palm leaves rub against the soles of his feet, their veins breaking under his tread as he climbs upwards to the shadow.
The sun is rising, a pale half-crescent on the colorless sky. It's white like the stars that still shine faintly in the misty air even as it's hidden by the fog that rolls over the hills in suffocating waves, blanketing the vegetation in roiling tendrils of grey. And so the forest behind the hills is hidden and the road to the left cannot be seen. He thinks that it might just be magic but isn't sure.
His head is bowed, not of its own accord but by that of the rope that encircles his throat. It cuts into the tendons and rubs harshly against the lily-white skin that shines in the morning light. He can smell it in the sharp air; he can smell everything. The grass smells of wet and the figure in front of him smells of black and the sky around him smells of purity. He thinks that those are the right words but perhaps that is because no others come to him.
And then he is there. His feet stop their moving; the rope slackens around his neck. He is at the top of the hill and he thinks that if he looks he can see the pastures and farms beneath. He doesn't look at anything, though, except his twisting hands folded in front of him. In a second they will be not-hands, wraiths of things that were thin and cold and alive.
A muttered spell in the air and he leaves the ground. His feet are cold after leaving the warm moistness of the grass and soil and his hands unclasp themselves. His body unfolds, he knows not if of his own choice or the spell's. Another few Latin words and his arms unfurl like a flower, and then comes the pain.
Something comes through his wrist, and the blood spurts. It stains his arm red and rapidly dries in the cooling air as he watches. His feet, then, secured to the bottom of the post. Enough so that his limbs will hang down and he will suffocate from the weight of his own body.
It's scary for a second when he finds it hard to breathe, and then it's easy. He can look out over the lands below now; he thinks they are peaceful and secure in their warmth, beneath the rising sun. He believes that a day ago, an hour ago, he would have given anything to be in their position.
And then he can feel his body pulling down again. The nails bite further into his flesh as he sinks and the bleeding starts again. A sponge pokes at his lips and then withdraws before he can register it; a faint and bitter taste lingers on his lips when he licks them with a dry, cracked tongue.
Some minutes pass, and he can hear the quiet murmuring of the robed figures below him. They've discarded their masks to better see him strung up for them, an offering to the gods by a hating people. He is vaguely surprised that they are not rolling for his clothing, the prize to be taken. But the allusion cannot be taken so far; they are not willing to play their parts any longer than necessary.
He can feel his windpipe closing as he falls lower. The back of his feet scrape against the rough wood of the vertical beam and a splinter bites into his skin. His breaths grow more ragged as the sun rises above his head; he thinks it must be like a halo around his matted hair. And then he hears the voices stop their whispering below him as one of their number steps out. Unlike the others, he has a mask on, and unlike the others he addresses him directly.
"Will you say nothing?"
As the cool wind rips across his heaving chest he realizes that he was expecting a taunt, or something more dramatic. He thinks that this event, come so many years in planning, should close with something different than this quiet ending, but he finds that there is nothing to say. Apparently reading his silence for refusal the man steps back, his face hidden underneath a plain, white façade.
He doesn't look at them anymore and instead looks ahead of him at the sky. The clouds are slowly coloring with reds and oranges and they float quietly across the mist. He looks to the forest, which he can see clearly, and the trees rustle in the breeze, their new leaves fragile in the blowing gusts.
It's colder now, or maybe it's just his body. He finds it hard to keep breathing and so he tries to think on other things. His mind keeps turning to the night in the bushes when he found her body, and then the day when his mangled head was dropped off in the fireplace by a passing owl. He can still see its eyes, or maybe they were still his eyes, staring up. One of them was punctured and bloody; the pupil destroyed and fragmented. The other was whole and pure and it was then he realized that there was nothing left.
He remembers that it's hard to keep breathing, and then he stops.