The Charter

Chapter two

By: Kowareta

Quick! Find the Mary-Sue!

Disclaimer: I do not own Harry Potter.

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She had been the most beautiful girl he'd ever seen with blonde hair so light it was almost white and dazzling blue eyes. It didn't seem she could even be human, and indeed no human could compare to her beauty. Harry didn't think even a Veela could surpass it. However, she was a witch—a powerful one—and she'd faced off with He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named and lived, too.

Her lips were red. Lipstick, he'd assumed.

She'd danced gracefully under the moon, the pale light sinking into her skin, as she sang to him. He didn't remember the words, he didn't need to. They had been a liquid, flowing past his ears like a magnificent, bubbling wine. He was drunk on the sounds, drunk on the melody, drunk on the words. The stars shone in her hair.

Her lips were red.

She revealed her bare white skin: bright, unmarked, ivory skin that seemed to repel the night, as if the darkness was afraid to join her. She was a moving doll that stared at you knowingly, that knew you more intimately than anyone else had ever known you. She knew you in ways you knew she shouldn't know. A girl dressed in the struggling night, stars in her hair, moons in her eyes…

—Her lips were red—

…And the whole universe in her mouth.

—Their kiss—

She was the most beautiful thing in the world, and it hurt so much to look at her. It hurt so much to turn away, to move away, to get on with the life you were living. You'd think about her, and she'd take you with her, she'd take you away from you. The most beautiful thing…

Her lips were red…

..With the blood of his world.

The most beautiful thing… made of nothing.

Stars in her hair, moons in her eyes, universe in her mouth, and his soul in her stomach.

…A monster of no earthy flesh.

She'd touched him…

Harry woke, gasping, clutching at his nightshirt as he fumbled for his glasses. When he found them, he jammed them onto his nose. The light turned on.

"Nightmare?" asked Hermione. She was standing in the doorway dressed in plaid pajamas. Her hair was still bushy—after the terrors of his own world this was a good sign—and fell about her shoulders, unbrushed and unkempt. She was frowning—which had always been a common occurrence back when his world had been true, but now it seemed she never smiled—and inquired, "Was it her? Was it Mary?"

Harry swallowed.

The room was cramped. Books and clothes littered the ground, and Ron and Harry's traveling trunks sat at the end of their cots. There was only one tiny window in the room and it sat comfortably above Ron's sleeping place in the corner of the room. In actuality, Ron's cot looked more like the nest of some strange bird with the way he arranged the blankets and buried himself in it. Hermione tapped her foot.

"It's always her," she continued when Harry didn't answer. "You never dream about anyone else but her. You never dream of Neville—I know you know what happened; you were there. You never dream of poor Professor McGonagal. Never Colin, never Ginny—"

"Stop," said Harry. "I know, I know. But it's not like I can control my dreams. They're just dreams."

Hermione tapped her foot again, looking at him doubtfully, as if she expected something more from him. She fingered the book in her hand: The Charter. Harry's green eyes watched it for a moment.

Words…

On the wall hung an orange clock whose hands slowly counted away minutes and hours, and days, and weeks. Its hands pointed towards midnight.

The floor began to shake.

"S'not fair," mumbled Ron, pulling the blankets closer around him. "Was having a good dream, too."

The floor continued to shake, and jerk, and soon the walls were doing it too, like some popular new teenybopper dance craze.

The redhead boy soon gave up on trying to maintain a quake-free existence and sat up looking out the window. Mist curled, finger-like, and groped towards the building. Ron could just make out the ground below.

"The train tracks are always there, but when we leave and go look for them…" the boy trailed off.

Harry yawned and scratched his leg.

Ron was talking about the phenomenon that came with living in Duexmach. The Charter hadn't exactly called it Duexmach, it had called it a world between worlds, a half-way place. Hermione had named it "Dues Ex Machina" and after a while Ron had gotten lazy and renamed it Duexmach.

Duexmach consisted of only three-tenths of a city block. On that city block there was the apartment building, an open market, a few lonely office buildings, and a train station. Anything past that one tenth was filled surrounded by a mist so thick not even the sharpest of metaphorical blades could metaphorically cut through. They'd tried to go exploring in the mist once and ended up walking for miles, or days, only to find their way back in front of the train station.

The train station had a chain link fence around it and no entryway. At midnight every night a train departed. On one such night they'd gone down to the tracks to see if they could find a way onto the train, but when they'd gotten down to the tracks, the only thing they could find was the blare of the train and the whoosh of the wind as it barreled its way down the tracks they could not see. However, whenever they were inside the apartment and looked out Ron's window, they could always see an old red steam engine locomotive barrel past, a rivulet of steam pouring out of its top, and an eerie mist threading out of its way like a shadowy octopus withdrawing wispy tentacles.

And the thing about Deuxmach was that there were no people.

Hermione leaned over Ron's shoulder to track the train's progress.

"I wonder where it goes?" she said aloud.

"What's The Charter say?" asked Ron, looking at Hermione with his ears turning pink.

She consulted her book.

Ron once again glanced out the window. The train had passed, thick, misty fog in its wake. The misty tendrils reached out, wraithlike, to the red-haired boy who shrank back and found new interest in his bed sheets. Hermione was still looking through the book. Harry was staring off into space, no doubt plagued by thoughts.

Ron felt sleepy.

And hungry.

And scared.

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"Stand up my brothers and sisters! Hard have we strived and long have we yearned for this day. This day of days! The Pairing Crack Pact! The PCP!"

Molly Payne remembered that the attendees had cheered, stood, and clapped. A few individuals pumped their fists into the air, and others decided it might be fun to start fist fights with their neighbors. It was New York after all.

Molly had smiled and punched her best friend and fellow roommate Karen Drake. They had laughed to themselves and surged forward with the rest of the crowd as her other fellow fan fiction writers filtered around the building looking at various tables full of various strange works. Molly and Karen had their own table to attend to: The prestigious Ron 'x' Moody table where they would hand out links to their stories about this particular pairing.

They were good writers too, or at least society considered them as such. Obviously whenever the whole of society considered a few individuals good at a skill those who disagreed were nothing more than jealous. The two girls were rolling in reviews and had enough to pay for minions to protect them against the ever looming threat of con-crit. In fact, they could have built a mansion out of loyal and dedicated fans. The only reason they hadn't was because they thought it might get a little crowded.

…And was probably no good during winter.

…And if you considered bathroom breaks…

"Wasn't it great," Molly remembered saying, "the way they created a slash pit instead of a mosh pit?"

Karen had grinned as they crossed the street and cut into an alley. It was the proper kind of alley where shadows were clustered in the corners and everything.

"So what convenient plot device are we going to use for our next Ron-Moody fic?"

"Hmmm," she had murmured, like all great thinkers of the modern century. "Let's do something a little dark and angsty."

"We've been doing dark and angsty forever! Can't we just do something fluffy? Like… Moody and Ron go out for sushi and end up confessing their love for one another."

"Nah. That's clichéd. We need something original… like… Ron gets raped by Voldemort and Moody rushes in to comfort him and they end up having hot healing sex!"

The ficcers had considered this for a moment.

"That's great!" said Karen. "Nobody's done a story like that before!"

Pleased with themselves the girls had continued on their way home.

Here… here was where Molly's memory got a little fuzzy. She remembered that a red-headed boy, who looked like he was in high school (but was wearing funny clothes), stepped out just as they were about to reach the mouth of the alleyway. She could have just ignored him, she could have just looked away, but for a second she saw his face and saw the look of pure disgust.

Karen, too, had caught the look.

"Hey, what's your problem?"

The boy had opened his mouth, angry, but seemed at a loss for words. Or perhaps he had so many words to choose from, he didn't know where to start.

This is where Molly's memory got really obscure.

Two other figures, a girl with a book, and a boy with glasses joined the red-headed boy. The girl was asking them something about fan fiction. Karen had answered and the red-head's lips flapped open and closed, still speechless. The boy with glasses, seemed twitchy though he tried to hide it, and the girl with book said something bossy.

The red-head had started to shout, pulled something from his funny clothes, and waved it about. The bossy girl tried to calm him, but he only took the book and then…

…Words.

And terror…

---

Glumly, the trio headed back to Deuxmach in silence.

"Ron…" said Hermione.

"You read what The Charter says! They're monsters! Like Harry's pretty girl back when all this started!"

"Yes," said Hermione as Harry sent Ron a warning look. "Yes, but it's Harry's job to—"

"You heard what they were saying! Why's it always Harry who does the—?"

"Look, it says right here in The Charter that—"

Any normal observer would see three children pass under the archway of a looming building. Any normal observer would find that they did not come out the other side and, in the fashion of really cheap plot hole sealing literary devices, would tell themselves, "Well gosh, if I saw them go under, but not out, then I must have not really seen them at all."

Most people's minds can't handle the sheer reality of what their eyes tell them and instead tend to believe the sheer unreality their imagination provides them.

But he was not a normal observer. His eyes were blank, a smooth plane of starless night, and his teeth gleamed in a way that suggested the word "sharp" contrary to the evidence. When you shook hands with him, it always left you feeling cold…

He was the eater of worlds and shadows lived in his skin.

His name is Mr.Wonderful.

And Mr.Wonderful smiled, cheerily.

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