Chapter Seventy-Six: The Duel of Phoenix and Siren
Harry came out on the shore of the lake, sure that he'd brushed through wards as if they were spiderwebs, but not remembering if he had or not. His gaze was focused ahead, on the water and the sirens swimming there. He could see darker, darting shapes he assumed were the selkies, the usual inhabitants of the lake. The sirens swam with their heads lifted, their faces distended as they sang, but not enough to make them less beautiful. They were Dark creatures, every part of them made to compel and lure. Harry didn't think there was anything that would make them less beautiful.
I'll have to silence them and lessen their hold over the other students and professors first, Harry thought, as he narrowed his eyes at them. Otherwise, Falco could command someone to attack me or hold them in a hostage situation, and I hardly need that when I'm trying to stop him from sending sirens to the attack in other waters, too.
He tried a simple Silencing Charm first. Nothing happened. Harry nodded. He had thought it wouldn't—if it were that simple, then most wizards would have escaped siren clutches instead of falling prey to them—but he had wanted to make sure.
He could feel the strands of compulsion flicking into his mind, trying to weave webs around his thoughts. His will sliced them and speared them and dragged them away, but there were more and more as the sirens saw him, admitted him as someone dangerous, and focused their music on him.
I'll have to answer their weapon with a weapon.
Harry opened his mouth and called on the phoenix song.
It welled up from his throat as if it had been waiting for this exact moment, like a phoenix sitting in a bush and invisible until it was noticed. Harry felt the first rush of notes exit his mouth like the bouncing pebbles that heralded a landslide. When that passed, the landslide itself could come, a percussive symphony that made Harry feel a bit dazed to think he was making those sounds.
The sirens swam nearer and nearer the shore. Their leader, one with long, fluffy blonde curls, blue eyes, and a crown of twisted driftwood and pearls on her head, folded her arms on the bank and leaned forward to press her voice against Harry. A core of cool water slid down Harry's skin. He could feel the temptation to relax, to give in. The siren plucked at his desires for a holiday like fingers on the strings of a harp. He had only to yield, and he could have that pleasure he'd dreamed of. He liked to swim, didn't he? He could swim in this song, and no one would bother him.
Harry smiled, a bit grimly. The trap might even have caught him if he weren't used to having his holidays spoiled and his relaxation interrupted.
He flung the phoenix song like a spear at the siren, and she reeled back, catching herself just before she sank. She flipped her head up and hissed, and Harry caught a glimpse of sharp, curved fangs hiding among her ordinary teeth. A faint red mark was appearing on her pale cheek, as if she'd been burned.
Blue fire appeared around Harry in the same moment, wrapping his arms and his neck and his torso. He sang through it, spreading his voice like a net above the surface of the lake.
The phoenix was the singer of the Light, and the sirens the singers of the Dark. And they were creatures of water, and he was a creature—or at least the host of a creature—of fire. They were natural enemies.
At the same time, he didn't want to kill them. He merely wanted to break the web of their compulsion and drive them back. Harry knew that as soon as he stopped singing, though, or grew tired, they would renew their attack. They had agreed to aid Falco, from the image in Draco's spell. That meant they wouldn't simply swim free from his control as they had with Voldemort. They wanted this, this free source of prey that Falco had promised them.
He would have to come to some kind of compromise with them.
While, at the same time, fighting Falco, and making sure that they were held back from attacking people in the Thames and through whatever other bays or lakes or rivers Falco had sent them to.
Harry grinned, and thought the expression, to be proper, should be bloody and filled with half-chewed flesh.
I've done harder things, haven't I? he thought, and then paced forward, his eyes fixed on the siren queen. When she moved, he could see tendrils spreading out from her, clear glassy tunnels that tugged on the ears of the other sirens. More tendrils projected to north and east and south, though Harry had to squint to see them.
She's their queen. She's bound to them. And what influences her may influence them.
Harry aimed the phoenix song down the middle of that web. As he watched, the glass glittered and turned golden, lit as if by sunrise, and then his music shot away from him and down towards the distant places where other sirens swam.
And what should I sing of, to convince them?
Harry lifted his head and sang of freedom.
SSSSSSSSSSSSSS
Falco sighed when he heard Harry's voice. The boy was simply determined to oppose his plans, wasn't he?
But he was not as angry as he once would have been. He was too tired.
Hunting among the paths of Dark and Light, as well as cornering the wild Dark and demanding it teach him, was hard, endless labor. He had done the best he could, because he was fighting for the most sacred of causes, the balance of the British wizarding world.
But he carried the marks of his lessons on his body, and he always would. He almost looked forward to the death that he assumed would come now, when he faced Harry and Harry Declared Light to balance him.
But what mattered was that his death would restore the balance, and prevent Harry from being either undeclared or vates. He had to keep his gaze on that goal, and use it to pull himself through the hard, muddy roads that lay between him and that final, redeeming moment. He only hoped that he would live to see it.
He had visited Tom, and learned his technique for controlling the sirens, as well as a few other tactics that a Dark Lord would use. It had hurt his sense of the fitness of things to see Tom lying in the dirt, as if he did not understand the importance of his power and the position he would have again. Yes, Harry had cut a hole in his magical core, but there were ways to get past that, and Tom would find them.
Falco lifted an arm and held it up to the sky. He felt the wild Dark's attention center on him. Until sunset and the balancing moment, the Dark was still in control of this part of the year, slightly more powerful than the Light. And it paid attention when such a powerful wizard made a gesture that looked like the beginning of a Declaration ritual. Falco had felt it patiently dogging his steps as he set up this trap, and now it hovered just out of sight, sometimes watching the sirens and sometimes watching him.
"I yield myself," he began. "I yield my power, my magic, my soul, my heart, my mind, my body. I accept the strictures of wildness against order, of compulsion against free will, of war against peace, of solitude against cooperation, of deception against truth." He took a deep breath. "I Declare myself Dark, and name myself a Dark Lord."
The magic in his chest coalesced into a single bolt, which he flung into the sky. Above him, it turned and swirled dark green, as if his power had bruised it. Then the wild Dark caught the bolt, strengthened it, and sent it roaring back to him like an arrow fledged with night. Falco dropped to one knee as it hit him, but made sure it was only one knee. The wild Dark did not truly care for submission on the part of its wizards, even as it demanded that some acknowledgment of its greater power was made.
Falco took a deep breath, and counted the days over in his head. He would, of course, attack when he had the best chance of winning, even though he did not really believe he could win. This was meant only as a prelude, to show that he was serious and could act like a Dark Lord, in case Harry was tempted to doubt him.
Forty days. He would attack on Walpurgis Night, of course, the night when the wild Dark was in full force.
He felt claws hook around his shoulders as the wild Dark settled on him, and glanced to the side to see that it had sent him a dark bird, like a blackbird if one discounted the glossy blue markings on its wings. It hooked one foot through its beak and gave him a truly evil stare through one small eye.
Falco faced forward and began to prepare his next attack. He had studied Tom's tactics and the history of the Dark's magic to learn how this was done, but he had some of his own ideas, too. Harry had hit him with a flood of memories in the Department of Mysteries that Falco had not been prepared for.
But he could absorb those memories, and learn them, and make weapons out of them.
He took the first blade in hand, and held it tight, while he gazed into the distance, towards the shore of the lake, and watched Harry wrestle with his sirens.
SSSSSSSSSSSSSS
Rufus blinked, feeling as if he'd just awakened from a dream.
It was the most interesting feeling. He'd been sitting in his office, speaking with Elder Juniper about what further concessions to the magical creature the Wizengamot was prepared to make, when an image of water had surged in front of him. He couldn't immediately tell if the water was the river or the sea, and it hadn't seemed to matter. He should walk out of his office, and keep walking until he saw it. Then he should plunge forward. He need not worry about drowning. There would be hands waiting to catch him. He could almost see the hands, in fact, rising pale arms that gleamed as if from the reflection of lit water.
And then the compulsion had faded, and now he was hearing music, a rising and skirling song that made his heart beat faster and filled his eyes with tears. Rufus shook his head and turned away from Juniper. The Elder would never forget such a weakness, and Rufus must find out what had caused it soon.
That was when he noticed that the Elder seemed to be having some troubles of his own, at least if the cough and the fist that scrubbed at his face were any indication. Of course, he recovered soon after. Juniper was a politician, and one who had survived years of power changes in the Ministry bobbing relatively near the surface—too powerful to indiscriminately anger, too weak to be seen as a threat every time the power change happened. "The bloody hell's that?" he demanded now, and his voice was gruff to conceal the presence of his own sorrow.
Rufus tapped his wand against the office's enchanted window in answer. It sped through several views that showed various glimpses of London in which nothing remarkable happened. Then they appeared to hover above the Thames, and Rufus saw its gray waters churning as magical creatures swam free around the foot of a Muggle bridge. From flashes of yellow hair, and given what had happened to him just a moment ago, he would guess they were sirens.
Hovering in the middle of the air above them, as much on display to Muggle London as the dragon had been, was the misty image of a young man wreathed in blue fire, singing in the voice of a phoenix.
"Harry vates," said Rufus. That should have been my first guess.
"Must he be so public in everything he does?" Juniper demanded, leaning over Rufus's shoulder to frown out the window. "The other Ministries are going to think we're holding a damn festival for the Muggles. Come learn about dragons! Come see that phoenixes are real!" He waved a disgusted hand.
"I don't think he means to be," said Rufus, and sat back with a little sigh to wait for the end of the display. "He's saving the world again, Elder, and that is sometimes a rather noisy endeavor."
SSSSSSSSSSSSSSS
Harry talked to the sirens.
He made every note he shed carry images of open water, oceans where Muggles never came, rocks where the sirens could sun themselves and never have to duck under the water for fear of a passing ship, air that would carry their voices to charm fish and dolphins and never leave them in fear of a sailor. Blue poured through his voice, and green, and the silver-white of foam. Did the sirens really mean to swim in this crowded, contaminated water for the rest of their lives? The seas around Britain swarmed with rubbish, with humans, with ships. But the oceans beyond the horizon were there, wastes of water only to those who could not see, as the sirens could, as Harry could, the remarkable freedom in them.
The siren queen answered slowly, clotted music pushing through her mouth. They had made a bargain. They would help the old wizard, and charm Muggles and wizards into the water. It fulfilled their deepest instincts. They were creatures of compulsion. They could not help but do what they were doing. The vision Harry offered was attractive, but without people to compel, an essential part of themselves was missing.
Harry changed his song, made it sharp and merciless. He showed the siren queen how she had served Voldemort, how she had served Falco, how she had done nothing but swarm around the coasts of Britain for months because she had to have some master to guide her. And was that really either being at liberty or compelling the people she wanted to compel? He knew the sirens were capable of greater things, that they did not need to depend on humans. But if she wanted to, if she wished to turn her back on greater things to answer some petty conception that wizards had formed of her people, then of course she could do so.
The music flowed more freely from the siren queen's mouth now. Of course she did not wish to serve others. But it was what they did.
And had they ever considered anything else?
Harry pitched the phoenix song high, his mind on Fawkes in the last dance he had done, so glorious and so wonderful that the thought of caging him seemed absurd. Phoenixes chose whom they bonded to, whom they served, if they served anyone at all, and they retained the will to leave an unworthy companion. And wizards respected them for that, for their freedom, as they would never respect sirens.
That was absurd in and of itself, the queen's voice said, filling Harry's mind with images of lapping, hot pools of dark water. Of course they should respect sirens. Sirens could kill them, and phoenixes would not.
But even they had the ability, Harry said, and cast out intricacies of warbles that charted the way around sharp beaks and curved, gleaming scarlet talons. Wizards knew there was a touch of danger in them. But they loved them nonetheless. And they would not love sirens.
We need no man's love, the queen sang.
Harry smiled, and strung his response, a series of rests and high notes that leaped and rose and dipped like waves and troughs, along her reasoning. They didn't need human love, did they? Any more than they needed human respect, or human victims. They could swim free of all of this. Their lives would only intersect with humanity's when they decided they should do so. They had gone from one master to another, really. Voldemort's trick of breaking their web had been only a trick. He had enslaved them again at once.
Would they like to see what it was like not to be slaves?
And voices answered from everywhere, bay and inlet and lake and ocean and river running to the sea. Yes.
Harry ignored the ache in his throat that came from his tiring voice. He could do this. He would spin them a vision of freedom so enchanting that they would never want to come closer to shore than the side of a rock where they could sit and comb their hair. They should have their own existence, separate from everything a human could conceive. Harry would not be able to paint the whole of it, since he was human, but he would show them the traces of it and hope they would follow them.
And then he staggered, because a memory had hit him like a knife. Suddenly he could not see the lake, or the grass at his feet. Suddenly, he could see nothing but the day that Lily had told him he would never have a lover or a family, because he was needed to protect Connor. He felt as if he were seven years old, and the reasoning echoed from every corner of his mind, picking up resonances from his training, whispering in circles that he could not break.
Harry flung his voice against the bonds. It didn't seem to make a difference. The memory closed in on him and constricted him like a net, and he felt himself shrinking to match it. Other memories flickered past him, fading when he grasped at them. Draco, and Regulus, and Snape, were fading, fading, fading, and he did not know why.
SSSSSSSSSSSSSS
Falco had spun his web carefully.
Its heart, its spider if one willed, was the memory of Harry being told he would never have a family or a lover of his own. That was powerful. But, by itself, it would have done no good. If Harry had simply lived through the experience at one time, the most Falco could have hoped to do was distract him with the image.
The anchors of the web were the corners of Harry's mind where he still wished for a life something like that of his childhood self. Falco found envy of a girl undergoing war witch training, for the simplicity of her existence and her ability to put emotion away at a moment's notice. He found a time just a few months ago when Harry had tried to slide all his negative reactions into Occlumency pools, and what had happened when that attempt failed; along with the relief had come self-disgust, that he could not manage it. He found a dream, suffered more than a year ago under Tom's curse, of a world where Harry existed only to make alliances for his brother, and how happy it made him, a deep and soaring joy that he'd taken care to shield from his allies. In small and scattered parts of himself, Harry still wished to be what he had been. If nothing had ever changed, his life would have hurt much less, and he would not need to take so much responsibility for so many positions he felt inadequate for.
What made the trap perfect was that it depended on what Harry wanted. Let Falco set up the web, and Harry's mind would weave it for him.
He stepped back, holding his breath as he watched. This might be the moment when Harry Declared, after all, he thought. Urge him deeply enough, and Harry would have to call on the Light, and use its power to rise from the trap.
SSSSSSSSSSSSSS
"What's happening now?" Juniper demanded abruptly.
Rufus, who'd looked away from the struggle in the sky to the paperwork on his desk, glanced back, and then stood. "I don't know," he said. His voice rippled and shook with tension. He couldn't be bothered to worry about that, or what effect it might have on Juniper's future treatment of him.
Something had happened. Something was going wrong.
The misty image of Harry bound in phoenix fire had faded. Now it only showed as a dim outline against a much stronger image of a white spider crouched in the middle of a black-and-white spider web. Through the web whispered two voices, voices which Rufus could hear as well as he had the phoenix song a moment before, and, seemingly, the siren song before that, though he did not remember the siren song as an experience of music.
Harry, you'll never have children.
Why not, Mum?
Because children take time. They take almost all your time when they're little, and they would be little for several years. Do you remember being little for several years?
Some of it.
Rufus shuddered. He recognized Lily Potter's voice, and Harry's, though it was younger than it sounded now, of course. He was not sure what made him wince more—the thought of what this scene being played out over London right now meant for the defense against the sirens, or the fact that he had a seat right next to something this private, now dragged out on the stage of the public sky like a flayed corpse.
And you would have to devote all your time to them, and to your spouse or partner.
I wouldn't have any time for Connor!
Of course you wouldn't. And it wouldn't be fair to your spouse or partner, would it? Just like it wouldn't be fair to your father if I had someone to serve like you have Connor, and I spent all my time away from him.
Juniper touched his shoulder. Rufus, feeling sick, glanced up at him, only to find the Elder's eyes fixed on the sky.
"And now what's happening?"
Rufus blinked and turned back to the struggling sea of images, trying as best as he could to ignore the voices.
SSSSSSSSSSSSS
A longing to relax and let the memory wrap him swept Harry. He could go back into the egg, and then everything would be over. No one but Falco would ever know it had been weakness that made him surrender, and not simply the Dark Lord's overwhelming strength. He had the magic of the wild Dark backing him now, making the web, a tool of compulsion, thicker and stronger. No one would ever know what had happened. And Harry himself would lose the memories, and never know he had been anything different than what he was now.
He still wanted that simple life. He still thought it would be easier, when he was exhausted from a long day of making mistakes that other people would never have made, to give in and let his training have its way.
He had told Draco that some of his sacrificial instincts were never going away. That was true. They were too deeply buried in him. He would always bear some scars, would never be completely healed.
And it was those same instincts that saved him now, sparking out like shards of broken bone or eggshell from the sides of his mind, and slicing through the strands of the web where they tried to come down.
Oh, yes, it would be comfortable to surrender, but since when had comfort ever been a priority of his, or something he needed?
And oh, yes, he would be happy, since for him the world would never have changed from what it was when he was a child, but what about Draco, Snape, Regulus, Connor, Peter, all those who had learned to know and love him the way he was? They would be devastated. He could not do that to them.
What would happen to the sirens, and the vision of freedom he had promised them? What would happen to the other magical creatures? Harry could not abandon them, either. It was not something a true vates would do. For the sake of others, he had to continue with the same degree of freedom he had now.
He whirled through the strands of the web, and cut it loose. A stray thought did whisper to him as he watched it drift through his mind, a bit of displaced silk.
If there was a way that I could still accomplish everything I need to do, but not feel the emotions…
And then he remembered that, no, he needed the emotions, because Draco needed them from him. And his affection was the only thing that seemed to get through to Snape, not his rational arguments. Harry hissed and shook his head in irritation. Yes, he had changed, and he was too adult to go back into what he had been as a child, but it was still a shock, to be confronted with how much he had changed.
He faced the sirens again, and saw the siren queen drifting with her eyes fixed on him, uncertain.
Bring it home now.
Harry channeled his anger through the phoenix song, making what had begun as fury at his own enslavement into fury at the mere thought of slavery, of any creature and to any master. The sirens should swim free, out into waves where they would never see the sight of a human being. They should dive as deeply as they could, explore the secrets of the ocean bottom that no one else would see. What lay in the water? Harry, limited and trapped by his human body, could never know. The sirens could.
And then the siren queen's voice turned to align itself with his, like one fish of a school swimming the same way as another. And then more and more turned, and Harry felt the sirens in London and elsewhere face the stream that was running to the sea. Turn, and turn, and plunge. They would go home. No mere human could stop them, and no mere human could command them.
Why would I want to? Harry replied, through the medium of the phoenix voice.
The siren queen laughed at him, and said, Because all wizards have that element of desire to command, and then plunged away before Harry could tell her he did not. When he opened his eyes, the school was gone from the lake in front of him, swimming into hidden tunnels in the bed and sides, too small for any human to access, but which would carry them ultimately to the ocean.
Harry's throat was so sore he didn't think he could speak aloud for hours, and his mind felt like stirred rubbish. He wanted to collapse. But instead he turned to the Forbidden Forest and Falco, because that was what he was supposed to do.
SSSSSSSSSSSS
Falco felt the moment when his trap failed, and he sighed, because, although he understood the memories of Harry's childhood much more than he had when he first faced his enemy, he did not understand the memories of Harry's adulthood. Obviously, Harry had changed since his seventh year, and the fleeting desires he felt to go back to what he had been were not strong enough to overcome all the changes, bridge all the gaps and lead him back.
He waited until Harry was close enough to see him go, and then changed into his sea eagle form. Harry tilted his head back to watch him lift. He did snap out a few spells, but Falco's shields, of course, were firm and simply deflected the magic. Falco was stronger than Harry was. Strange, that someone small and weak, in terms of Lords and Ladies in the world, could cause such trouble.
Harry watched him with the simple, uncompromising, piercing stare of a hawk.
Falco sighed again and shook his head, turning for the distant skyline. He would face Harry on Walpurgis, and he suspected he would be facing his own death.
But the Dark flew with him now, a reservoir of untapped power, like a black companion eagle, singing in his ears and whispering promises that things would be different next time. Falco supposed he could do worse than listen.
SSSSSSSSSSSSS
Fire and song burst back into the world again, so brilliant that Rufus had to cover his eyes, and had the urge to cover his ears. So loud, so shining, so insistent on freedom that for a moment he wanted to jump out his office window—though it was false, enchanted to show any view he wanted but not actually a window—and find his own waterway that would lead to the sea.
When the song faded, he lifted his hand to see that the Thames was free of sirens. There were Muggles halted on the bridge, though, pointing to both the sky and the river. Rufus shook his head. The Obliviators would be busy tonight.
"So that's Harry saving the world."
Rufus glanced at Juniper. The Elder had sat back in his chair and looped his hands together around his belly, his frown still directed at the place where the image and the memory of Harry had gleamed.
"One way he does it, yes," said Rufus. "Granted, this was a bit more public than usual. When he went into the Department of Mysteries, I'm certain that no Muggles saw him."
"I have never been this close," said Juniper calmly, as if they were discussing some neutral magical phenomenon. "It was—rather different from what I expected. If what I suspect is true, though, young Harry had just saved us from compulsion by sirens in more places than London."
Rufus nodded. "I believe so, yes, Elder. If he had been in London, I don't think the image would have been necessary. He could simply have sung on the bank of the Thames, and that would have worked."
Juniper half-closed his eyes. "It seems that some form of celebration is in order for our phoenix-voiced young savior."
Rufus concealed a chuckle. If Juniper thought to use Harry for a political purpose, he would quickly find out how much of a subordinate Harry refused to be.
But it might do the magical world good to be reminded of what they owed Harry. Negative articles had started appearing again, as the reporters recovered from the shock of learning what wizards had done to house elves. Most of them charged that Harry had done more stunts than actual, solid moves for the public good. Dionysus Hornblower had decided that he was too powerful this week, and those copies of the Vox Populi were selling very well.
"Tell me what kind of festival you had in mind," he told the Elder.
SSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSS
Harry glared at Falco as the older wizard flew away. He was somewhat disappointed that he hadn't been able to settle the contest here and now, but he didn't think he could have. He had thrown more magic than he had thought into that contest with the siren queen and the memory Falco had summoned to torment him. His muscles trembled and ached, and his throat felt as if someone had looped it with bands of hot iron. Magical exhaustion stalked the edges of his vision, making it blur.
He still managed to jump and whirl around when someone touched his shoulder, of course.
Draco stared at him worriedly, before grabbing and crushing him in a hug. Harry braced himself to be scolded. The barriers he had put around the Great Hall must have fallen when he pulled all his strength into himself to fight, but he had put them up in the first place. Draco wouldn't have liked being separated from him.
"Are you all right?" Draco whispered.
Wary—when would the scolding appear?—Harry nodded against his shoulder. He touched his throat and shook his head when Draco glanced at him expectantly. Draco smiled. Harry had the impulse to take a step back from him. Where is the Draco who would yell at me?
"I'm not surprised, with how much effort you put into the song," he murmured, and kissed Harry's forehead. He glanced up as other footsteps sounded outside the Forbidden Forest, then turned back to Harry. "That was the most beautiful music I've ever heard," he whispered.
Harry smiled, uneasily.
Draco's arms tightened around him, and his head came up like an antelope scenting the wind—or a fox, Harry supposed. "And don't worry," he said. "We are going to have that chance you talked about showing me if I'd changed enough on the vernal equinox." His hand caressed the back of Harry's neck. "It was a holiday, right?"
Harry nodded again.
"Good." Draco rubbed his cheek against Harry's before he dragged him around to face the rapidly approaching professors. "We deserve it, you and I, after everything we've done in the past week."
With Draco standing beside him, Harry thought, and sounding like that, he could believe the holiday might actually happen.
Content in the knowledge that he had someone else to fight for him, he leaned his head on Draco's shoulder and waited for the inevitable crowd who couldn't accept the idea that this was just something a vates did.
