Only in Death Does Duty End
Very loose inspiration on Warhammer 40K's Emperor of Man and the Adepta Sororitas. No need of knowing the lore though. I barely know it in the most superficial way myself.
Her knees dug into the soft, damp ground, a part of her as dead as the boy laying on her arms. Her tears fell no more. Her whole world stilled. Rain dripped down marble cheeks as if to try and word the pain of a frozen soul.
Harry Potter was dead.
He had endured time and time again, a continuous fight between two sides of the same coin, flipping to the air, always coming on top. This time luck did not smile at him.
The coin had fallen on the other face.
Her mind cracked in tandem with her world, violent, uneven. Serrated edges of cognizance jarring against ideals that had been half-hidden, to begin with. Ideals she had tried not to hope for, ideals born on bright green eyes.
Dumped into a senseless world, her body disjointed, her mind likewise, she felt her chest shrink into the whole of her heart, her jaw break to accommodate a soundless scream, her eyes burst with boiling tears. The world distorted and changed, and she with it. A million broken pieces howled into the silence of an all-consuming void.
He was dead.
She screeched, the last unbroken part of her shattering, letting blazing wings flare wide into the steaming air.
The broiling manifestation of her pain struck everyone around her almost physically, the people nearing stamping against it. She could not have cared less. Her soul had withered and died with him.
He had been the greatest gift she ever had. A piece that melded around the jagged edges of herself, a self that had been whole on its own, but rough. He had softened that roughness, and the breaking of that piece that had become irrevocably melded to her, her whole had broken.
If she was bound to be a broken mirror of rage and pain, then she would use her sharpness.
Keratined lips anointed him as he lowered him to the ground. His voice resonated in her mind, a distant fragment of a meaningless conversation.
'It was him. Malfoy senior.' the phantom caress of his hand on hers stole across her talons 'His greed and pride almost got us all killed. Even his own son. A basilisk does not recognize who is pure or not, you know?' he scoffed, 'Ron's father told me he had been a death eater but got off because of his money. What else could you expect from a man like that?'
The rage of the wronged filled her eyes even as they fell on the culprit. The look of his long, almost silver hair inflaming her further.
Pretender.
Mocker.
Murderer.
Coward.
Dead.
inhuman strength erupted from the parts of her that were fixed on that one leetle boy, launching her through the air, the rain evaporating against her anger, men fleeing her shrill battle cry. All except one.
A face frozen on the torrent of her passion, eyes terrified, visage enraptured. The face of Lucius Malfoy grew fast as the space between them dwindled.
One second.
Deformed arms swung with stolen strength, taloned fingers she did not recognize as her's cleaved through fabric and meat.
Two seconds.
Magic rose to stop her, her fire burned through it.
Three seconds.
Magic broke, and tender flesh conceded to steely revenge.
Four seconds.
A head fell to the damp floor, and Lucious Malfoy was no more.
"Good"
Hope.
Her posture straightened, stiff. The flaming violence that surrounded her shifting into the different flame of love. Her mind warred with her body, pushing, begging for her to turn, to look at him. But she could not. She was hearing things.
To turn and look at the broken body of her beloved on the mud where she had left him would finish her. Her body would fail as her mind already had.
She was trembling. Eyes closed tight, jaw clenched, fists balled. She could not trust herself.
"Then trust me."
Slowly, she turned, her eyes opening to a burning wing of white feathers that refused to move, sparing her the ruinous sight.
It moved away with a shaky flutter. Nothing ever stood between them, not even themselves.
He was there. Inert. Damp. Surrounded by people, wands waving over him. Her eyes clenched shut again, mouth opening and closing soundlessly, her chest heaving.
"Look at me"
She fell to the floor, cackling as she laughed at the weeping skies, tears falling freely down her cheeks, around her ears. That her mind may break, her body turn to that of a beast and still she'd be cursed to listen to the imagined voice of the only person she ever wanted to hear. Her laughter rang bitter, monstrous.
Fitting then that he would be the one to haunt her.
"Stop. You are not a monster. He is. He was. He will not hurt anyone anymore."
The horror-struck head laid a couple of feet away from her in a pool of blood and long, argentian hair. She saw her reflection on his wide eyes, crystalline with death. Her own flowing head of silver reflected there, and it disgusted her.
Taloned fingers rose again, slashed, and the length of her hair fell to the floor.
Tainted.
Cursed.
"Beautiful."
Her face snapped back to him, to her Harry. Green eyes met hers. She burned again, her joy lighting a candle of faith that rivalled the brightest star.
He would never leave her. Not-
"Not even in death."
Everyone retreated further at her smile, wands poising up to her as she got up. Step by measured step she trodded the carpet of scorched grass she had left in her wake before. She kneeled beside him again, not paying attention to the shaking arms that aimed to threaten.
He was still as death, not even his heart beating against her palm, nothing gave any sign of life except his eyes. He could see him there, deep inside. He was not dead. He was with her, and he would stay-
"Forever."
Her eyes closed as she held him closer, and she saw in her mind everything he was. Bravery and strength, skill and ferociousness she had not seen before. She saw him now as if he was a part of her. Because he was.
A fierce grin split her face, her hacked-off hair following the line of her maniacal smile. With his talents and her own, they'd be indomitable.
"I won't stop, mon Coeur," She whispered into his ear, "I will cleanse creation from them. They will know the death they so boldly defy. For as long as your life pulses I'll live, and as long as I live no enemy of you will. Only in death will my duty end."
