Harry Potter and the Soul of the Hero
Chapter 28 – IDSS/ISDS
All that we see or seem
Is but a dream within a dream.
~~Poe
"You know, once upon a time I thought that this war would kill me," Harry said, swinging his sword around in his hand almost absently. "But I don't think that anymore. It's just going to grind me down, year after year, until I've nothing left. And it won't end with Voldemort, will it, Death? No, there'll be another madman, and then another – as long as I live."
You are a madman, are you not?
Harry smiled. He was sitting upon a small boulder under a star strewn night sky that stretched over a field of the whitest roses. It was cold enough for dew drops to begin forming on the ethereal petals, glistening in the faint light of a crescent moon.
"Is that another joke, Death?"
I fear that I'm picking up the traits of a human, Death said. A fate far worse than death.
"No pun intended?"
None whatsoever.
Harry's smile faded. "I may be the only sane person in existence, and that terrifies me. Am I the only one willing to go so far to save creation? I'm just human, one of billions, and here I am shooting the breeze with you, Death himself. Doesn't anyone else care?"
Is there anyone to care?
As for my lot, Harry, Death whispered. Creation could have done a lot worse than humanity as its backbone. And I do not think an eternity of war lies ahead of you. One way or another, there will soon be no darkness left to slay. What need for a Darkslayer then?
Harry cursed low under his breath, and rubbed the light stubble on his cheeks. "Do you know why I came here, Death, all the way from life?"
Standing in the shadows, his scythe a sickly crimson hue under the moon, Death didn't move but Harry felt his presence shrug in a that's-obvious kind of way.
You came because you are the Darkslayer. It is your purpose to lead the souls of your world against the Enemy. A design sewn into the fabric of creation at the dawn of time ensures this – this one chance for salvation.
Harry shook his head and slapped his knees, wanting to laugh but unable to do so. "I came for the girl," he said, and managed a bitter chuckle.
"That's all – nothing more, and nothing less. I came to rob you, Death, of a soul you took from me. Ginevra Weasley, died August 11th 1997 – because this creation—" Harry spat the word. "Because this nightmare gave me very powerful enemies.
Humans wake up from nightmares, and you are not sleeping.
"ENOUGH!" Harry roared, jumping to his feet. His patience had finally snapped into tempestuous lashings of righteous anger. "For the love of Christ, and all that is good, enough of the mystical bullshit!"
Easy, Harry, Ethan whispered. You get angry and things start falling apart.
The ground beneath his feet was shaking, and overhead a blanket of thick black storm clouds had gathered in a heartbeat and were crackling with barely suppressed lightning and fury.
A mirror of Harry's emotions. Creation was sensitive to him now, more than ever.
"…only human…." he muttered. "Only… only… human."
And do you have any idea just how magnificent that is? Death asked. Humanity… is the dividing force between all that is good, and all that is evil.
You are the grey! The Twilight between the day and the night. That is why you are constantly at war – your race are the self-appointed guardians of the Balance, whether you know it or not.
"We quit," Harry said, and unleashed hell.
He heard the roses scream as waves of liquid fire annihilated all that they were. Rivers of lightning jumped across the earth and around Harry, through Harry. Flakes of ash and the harsh acrid smell of burnt life fluttered on the breeze. Great fissures rippled across the field and geysers of superheated steam blistered the ground.
Harry had his eyes closed and he was fighting – fighting himself – to rein in his anger and tie it down hard, to obliterate the part of himself that was dark, that was terrifying. The part that would fight Evil with evil, would fight the Shadow with its own darkness. Fire with fire.
"No, Harry, we don't."
Soft hands alighted on his shoulders. As gentle as feathers and as weightless. Ghostly fingers ran down his black sleeves and onto the hardened skin of his arms. Harry spun, opened his eyes and all his anger was dispersed to the far corners of his mind, where it would fester so long as there was Voldemort to fight.
"Boy… when you want to be heard," Ginny whispered, smiling sadly. "Hello, hero."
Harry looked around himself, and sighed. "I… I'm sorry about the mess."
A whirlwind of ashy flakes were falling from the heavens like snow. The field of roses had become a graveyard of twisted storks and shrivelled buds, half-glimpsed through holes in the clouds in which beams of slanted starlight stretched across the sky and lit up the world.
"You had to let the power out somewhere," Ginny sighed, ever patient and caring. "Humans weren't made to hold so much magic, you know."
Harry had averted his gaze from Ginny's but now he brought it back, shaking his head and reaching for her hand. "I can see right through you," he said, as if over drinks.
"Being dead means I don't have to carry around that heavy body anymore, Harry. I'm no longer mortal."
Harry once again found laughter beyond his reach. "I'm sorry I couldn't save you, Gin."
A ghostly hand moved through his shoulder, as if to nudge him. "Oh pish posh, Potter," Ginny said. "You did what I wanted you to do – survive. We both knew there were more important things than you and I going on. This isn't some sappy romance story."
"No… nothing so terrifying, thank God."
Ginny laughed. "I hear these days you're the closest thing Creation has to a God... or a caretaker at least." Her hand brushed the Rose Mark that ran down his left arm to the back of his palm.
"I'm just looking after the place for the time being," Harry replied. "You know how it is… same shit, different day."
Ginny stroked a loose lock of Harry's hair away from his forehead and uncovered the infamous lightning bolt scar. She sighed, but then brightened.
"They're all waiting for you, you know. Just beyond the next sunrise, and on towards dusk, your parents – Sirius."
"I rather expected they were."
"Aren't you nervous… scared, even, Harry?"
Harry frowned. "I think… I think before I lost you I might have been, but all of my fears have been taken away now. I've faced and overcome everything Creation and the Enemy had to throw at me. It drove me insane, drove me to the edge many times, and billions suffered the consequences, but billions always will… no, Gin, not scared or nervous. Curious, I'm curious."
"There's trouble back home, you know."
Harry nodded. "I feel it… here," he said, and tapped his scar. "All of the worlds in all of the universes are crying out in pain, Gin – all of them, but none more so than our own. Earth… our Earth, knows she's about to die."
"But you'll save her." Not a question.
Harry shrugged and traced his fingers down the winding stork of the Mark on his left arm. He wasn't surprised in the least when he pricked his finger on one of the tattoo's thorns about his elbow.
A calm breeze was blowing over the land now, whisking away the smoke and dousing the flames of Harry's power.
Death will save the living, the Reaper said. Commanded by the Darkslayer your army will defeat the threat of Annihilation.
Harry sighed, felt for Ginny's hand and got nothing but mist, and then scrubbed away his own feelings and emotions, once again thinking of all others
before himself. He had to do what he had to do, and he had to do it fast.
"Gather the troops then, Death – no time for family reunions, not yet – I think we're very short of time."
"Three weeks have faded since my death," Ginny informed Harry, and he scowled.
It had only been a few short hours for Harry. Time was relative… flexible, almost non-existent in its bending reality – which was thin.
"Then we may be too late," Harry said, eternally calm. "So be it. I'll raze whatever's left to the ground and show the Enemy where the line is drawn. No more."
"Sure you're not scared, Mr. Twilight?" Ginny asked, smiling and winking.
"I don't fear the Enemy," Harry laughed. "No, no, no, no, no…. It offends me, Gin, and that is much worse. It should offend all of us. What right does this… this evil have to exist in our Creation – none!" Harry paused and absently wiped the blood from his rose-pricked finger on his shirt. "Why do only a few share outrage at this monster….?" he whispered.
We're all outraged, Harry, all of us that are good, and all of us who serve Twilight,Ethan muttered. But only you and your friends have the strength to turn that outrage into power. You were chosen, by a design beyond your story. All or nothing now – do or die.
It's been too long between battles… I want the demons to suffer again.
They will, but so will we....
*~*~*~*
A few short months ago, Ron mused, he had been worrying over very little, unimportant matters. He and Hermione both.
I was still in Hogwarts, dreading exams and wondering what had happened to Harry after the Hogsmeade Battle.
And now he felt old. Time had flown steadily onwards, days becoming weeks becoming months, but to each his own and it was all relative. Ron felt as if he had aged years since Hogwarts closed for the summer and Harry returned, only to bring with him tidings of the end of Time and Space, and enemies so powerful that entire continents were poised to be destroyed in merely the opening blows of the war.
All under You-Know-W…. Voldemort. Old habits die hard.
But Harry had also brought hope with him back from the abyss. Sure, he could set fire to the sky, battle demons and monsters beyond imagining that shouldn't exist, but did, and constantly rewrite the rules of magic and life, death and reality.
He was both Hero and Villain.
Ron knew that he had lost his old friend one hundred years ago in another reality. Harry knew it, had lived it, and in the place of that confused, sometimes scared, and always questioning himself boy… he now had a new Harry.
A Harry wrought in the fury of a million worlds. The Darkslayer.
When he had left he was sixteen, and sickened by the death he had recently caused in key battles of the Second Dark War. Now… just short months
later – a century – Harry was steel, the champion of a thousand battle campaigns and the natural leader of a torn, but powerful, human race.
He didn't kill without question… but it didn't faze him anymore, probably hadn't for decades… and he killed with such a cruel ease that it frightened
Ron, and he knew it terrified Hermione.
Ginny had… Ginny had understood.
And now they're both dead. They are both in death… but I think they'll be back.
Standing on the balcony that jutted out of the second floor of the command centre in Harry's compound – buried deep in the Australian desert – Ron sighed and ran his hand back through his hair. He felt old. The sun was hot overhead and the heat shimmered transparently on the dome of the shields that covered this facility for miles.
Dark rings ran around Ron's eyes but that was all right, he was adjusting to his rough schedule of five-minutes-sleep-whenever-there-was-a-spare-five-minutes, and knew he'd have to keep adjusting for some time yet. He stifled a yawn, glared at the sun on the horizon, and gazed down at the
bustling camp splayed out beneath him.
As far as he could see in this direction the landscape was dotted with quickly constructed housing and city facilities, maintained and operated solely by magic. Lush green parkland separated the dusty streets, and, contrary to all the laws of nature, a vast lake bubbled quite happily at the centre of this park. Upon it, soldiers were training in speedboats – zooming back and forth in the modified muggle contraptions.
It was the last day of August.
Thousands of people milled about the growing city, which was still mostly deserted (and still growing), and the majority of them were getting ready for a battle not of this world, not of any world, that would decide the future of every world.
A pair of arms wrapped themselves around his chest and Hermione rested her head on his shoulder, looking just as tired as he felt. Always beautiful,
Ron thought, always.
"They ready back in there?" Ron asked, and while he was alone with Hermione he allowed his voice to sound tired.
"Not quite yet," she sighed, and leaned over his shoulder to kiss his cheek. "Forgot to shave this morning."
Ron laughed. "I've been jumping so many time zones that I haven't seen a morning in days. Gryffindor and I, Ric I mean, we've been chasing the twilight."
"Why?"
Ron shrugged and sighed. "I don't really know, but Ric seemed to think it important. 'The impossible is no longer so when twilight descends upon the world, Ronald. At times such as that, we have to be very, very careful.'"
"Find anything interesting?"
"Reality is tearing itself apart," he replied, with a calm that would have impressed Harry. "We saw it on the African coast last night… or maybe this morning… I can't work time zones… anyways, the sky was bleeding, Hermione."
"What!?" she exclaimed, grasping his hand and spinning him around to meet her eyes.
Ron laughed – bitterly. "Yeah, I know. It was… awful. You don't think it… but the world is alive, the universe is alive… and to watch it burn like that. It was, it was like when paint runs on a canvas, you know. A picture melting, our reality, this story, ending."
Hermione didn't have much to say. "You sound like Harry, you know."
Ron scowled and tapped his fingers restlessly against the balcony ledge. "How in the hell did it come to this?" he asked, not Hermione but merely
existence.
Hermione laughed and patted his shoulder soothingly. "It could be worse," she sighed, and they both laughed, both unable to see how it could possibly be any worse.
"We're going in an hour," Ron said after the following silence in their fading laughter. "That makes the most sense – tactically, you know."
"Ten thousand against… ten million," Hermione said, her voice void of emotion. "And this isn't really the final battle against Voldemort and his armies… what if the demons do break through, Ron, what then?"
Ron shrugged back and turned to lean against the ledge. He was smiling, and that was reassuring. "If it gets to that stage then I reckon Harry will probably make a heroic entrance and save the day – you know, milking the drama for all its worth like he usually does. Fire from his fingertips, rumbling earthquakes, wrenching mountains and furious winds – the full Harry Potter experience."
Hermione laughed, but that laughter – like so much else – died on the wind. "Hogwarts starts again tomorrow. Seventh year, all our old friends. I'm going to miss it."
Ron didn't say anything for some time, and then:
"I don't think we'll miss that much. For what it's worth, I reckon all this war business is going to be over, said, and done by Christmas."
Hermione shivered despite the heat. "That terrifies me," was all she said.
Ron nodded his agreement. "Keeps me up at night," he whispered, and then chuckled. "Although I haven't seen a night in a week or two, so I'm not sure about that."
"Can you imagine the world after this is all over?" Hermione asked. "Everything is going to be so different."
"Yeah, I know," Ron said. "Humans will bounce back though, when we win. Harry knows that, I think, even though he's not quite human anymore – probably because of it, actually. Humanity has enough imagination to bounce back from anything."
"What do you mean?"
"I don't know," Ron shrugged. "But it sounded deep."
"It sounded right. Sounded like Harry again."
"What do you think he is?" Ron asked then. "He's… different, more than ever. And not just because of this Darkslayer nonsense. He does what he wants, whenever he wants." Ron took a deep breath. "He knows the rules, but can choose to ignore them. It's almost as if… as if…."
"He's a God," Hermione finished. "Or halfway there at least."
"Do you think he knows that?"
"Without a doubt he does, and he's fighting it tooth and nail… but he has to keep breaking the rules. If he didn't, then all of this would have been over before we could blink, back in March and one hundred years ago to Harry."
Ron nodded. "I feel so sorry for him… so much it hurts."
Hermione knew the feeling. The pounding of her heart against her chest, the aching behind her eyes where tears threatened most of the time.
"It goes beyond not fair, doesn't it," Ron continued, speaking almost to himself. "For Harry, I mean, it's never been fair – but this is just ridiculous… and we haven't even gotten to the hard part yet."
"No, the end of Harry's story… well, I get the feeling that it's going to be big, and probably not very happy."
"I'll settle for a little happiness. He's earned it a million times over, after all."
*~*~*~*
And so it had begun.
The march towards the final chapter of this story, this war.
All across the worlds beyond mortal comprehension, beyond worlds of the flesh and into the realm that we are all doomed to tread one unknown day – the realm that fades darker than midnight on a starless eve, towards the rush of a cold and clear dawn, drenched in the sparkling remnants of a fiery twilight that, like humanity, stands between the warring factions of Light and Dark.
Through the endless paths and infinite ways that twisted and curved through the time and space between… not just universes… but entire clusters of alternate, parallel, and ultimately foreign realms, through that marched an army of souls – humans, of course, the souls of humanity's old warriors – and at their head walked a tired and almost utterly spent man.
Millions trod behind this man, walking in his wake and awed by his presence.
A man who was just a boy, who had always been just Harry.
The Darkslayer, the Heir to the Creator's Legacy.
The closest thing to a God existence had – and yet a human still bound by the laws of pain, and emotion… and, yes, even death.
Harry could still die.
A glittering sword was strapped to his back, and raw power jumped between his fingertips and over his skin, rippling across his eyes and
through his hair.
He was headed for home, yet again.
Earth – his Earth.
And Voldemort.
With all the fury of the Dead Legion he was coming, hand in hand with Ginny.
But am I too late….? Harry wondered. Who would dare stand against Voldemort without me there?
Harry thought he knew, and the thought was enough to terrify him.
His friends would fight in his absence, of course, as would Dumbledore and his scattering number of allies.
Voldemort would obliterate them beyond salvation with a wave of his hand. Of that, Harry was certain.
Tom Riddle still existed inside the Enemy that Voldemort had become, he still had his human thoughts and emotions. He… It… would not have surrendered his hate for Dumbledore, nor his prejudice against those of less than worthy blood.
And, Harry guessed, Voldemort would expect him there. And there was no word strong enough in any language to represent the level of hate that Voldemort held for him.
Some emotions cannot be described in language. They just were.
And I will be there, Harry thought, letting his fingers move slowly through the mist that was Ginny's hand. I will make it in time….
No, he wouldn't.
There was no way to escape that.
Fate, that old bitch, was blocking all the exits.
*~*~*~*
Millions of galleons and millions of dollars had been poured into the construction and outfitting of the Darkslayer Army base in the central desert of
Australia. As it stood, ten thousand soldiers were fitted with modified muggle weaponry – guns, grenades, and other such devices powered by the strength imbued in everyday crystal.
The army was supposed to be a hundred times bigger, a thousand times stronger, but time had run out. There had been only time to recruit and outfit people from the magical world, witches and wizards, and as such ten thousand lives were all that stood between humanity and the end of the world.
No report was sure, nothing was confirmed – there were no definitive answers, but Harry had spoken of the demons in their millions. Millions of rotting creatures trapped in a fold of reality, a prison of nothingness between universes, with a vast hate for life that transcended all bounds of rage.
Ten thousand against ten million, and anything else the Dark Lord Voldemort had to throw into the fray. And there the reports were more definite. At least fifteen thousand Inferi – corpses stolen from all across Europe and reanimated to serve the Shadow – as well as a Death Eater force, capable of using magic, of a few thousand.
Most of the magical folk in the world had chosen a side, and not all fought for the Light or the Dark. The majority of that community watched from the sidelines.
And then there was the select few Voldemort had changed, twisted his power into their very souls and made them his puppets. Puppets with power beyond a thousand normal witches and wizards. No doubt they would stand before the Army of the Darkslayer, whilst Voldemort worked his cruel purpose and unleashed the demons across the central grassy plains of North America.
All of this passed through Ron's mind as he prepared himself to follow the army to the plains and throw themselves against the might of the Dark Lord without their own champion, without Harry Potter.
Of all who knew him, none had thought he would abandon the cause, and yet word of his disappearance had spread through the army and even across international borders.
It had been leaked to the world that Harry Potter had not been seen in three weeks, and that his power base was crumbling. Thousands had come to serve Harry, and millions believed in him. Morale was at an all time low.
Damn you, Harry, Ron thought, strapping his third wand to a holster around his shin. He checked his first in the holster on his left arm, and then
second on the right. He wore shielded leather armour, the armour Harry had bought the entire DA so many months ago. It would stop most curses, deflect most weapons, but not the Unforgivables.
A new addition was the muggle firearm he had. A fourth holster, this one for a modified pistol, hung from his belt, but he didn't trust the weapon that much. Not having much time to practice with it was one of the reasons why. Another was that he had been defending himself against dark wizards since meeting Harry with his wand, and had more faith in what he knew.
Ron wished Hermione was not coming, but he knew he couldn't stop her – had no right to stop her.
He couldn't shake the feeling that something was going to go terribly wrong, that they had all overlooked something vastly important, something the Dark Lord had done, or was planning to do, that would decimate them all.
Ron sighed. He hadn't seen his family in weeks, and now he was off to a battle that would decide the fate of – if not just one country, depending on the outcome, the entire planet. And he was going with the full knowledge of what they were up against, without Harry.
Where was he supposed to find the courage?
Gryffindor, of course.
With Harry gone, Gryffindor was all they had against Voldemort. Dumbledore had no illusions of matching Tom Riddle strength for strength, spell for spell, not after seeing Harry fight with the same power. But Gryffindor had… different magic.
He was also a Guardian, a transcended being of mammoth strength. At the very least, he would be a distraction for Voldemort.
So Ron holstered his wands, checked the crystal in his pistol, and tied his hair back out of his eyes. He was a Gryffindor, by God, and he would go down swinging.
For Harry.
For Ginny.
For Hermione.
For those he loved.
He would fight, he would kill, and he'd hope against all he knew that the next few hours would see the Dark Lord Voldemort defeated.
But, as Harry would have said, hope was a fleeting thing, a luxury that none of them could afford.
Harry wasn't a happy soul.
*~*~*~*
Hermione had been tasked with preparing the transfer of ten thousand men and women, heavily armed, with a few days worth of supplies, across several international boundaries and into a country illegally without alerting the authorities of the United States and her allies.
A task that would have been impossible, if not for Harry, who frowned at the impossible
The Department of Twilight technology had, using the plans and details Harry had brought back with him from the epicentre of Creation – although only a handful of people knew that – created a device that used coordinates around the globe, programmed down to within an inch anywhere on the planet, to open a portal.
Portal magic had always been a temperamental thing – neglected mostly by magical society, who relied on Apparation, portkeys and the like. Portals, on the other hand, could open a gateway to anywhere on the planet. A single step could take a person from the equator to the south pole, south pole to north.
A series of portal devices, like the three dozen Hermione had linked on the edge of the compound in the Australian desert, could even open a gateway two miles long and a hundred feet high. A gateway large enough to transport an army many times larger than the one she had in mind across continents in a heartbeat, avoiding all the nonsense that came with portkey travel and the wards that prevented mass-transit portkeys from crossing the borders of the U.S.
And with scouts, under the command of the Twilight Guardians, already searching the American plains for the armies of the Dark Lord, it was – unfortunately – only a matter of time before she could key in the exact location, latitude and longitude, of the battle.
And then, slaughter – the largest magical battle the world had ever seen, but maybe not the last.
To Hermione, it didn't feel like the end.
This was only a warm up round before the gloves came off and Harry and Voldemort broke all bonds of reality and, after long last, fought to the death.
But there was a wild card in that deck – several, in fact. One was the laughing, smiling face of Allarius, which Hermione knew and feared. The
Destroyers, billions of monstrous enemies, were still unaccounted for, but if Harry was to be believed were poised on attacking the world.
That was a concern that couldn't be ignored, but had to be for now.
We're lost without Harry, Hermione thought, checking the connections on her portal beams. She wiped away a tear angrily, and sniffed back further such drops of her fear. How could it all come down to one man? What force did Harry trigger with his unwavering defiance that has brought it this far?
The Darkslayer.
Hermione feared the answer to her questions, feared it more than death and life. But she felt, deep down in her heart, that Harry had been given a glimpse of those answers, and it had angered him.
*~*~*~*
Imagine a city – any city, but a big one would probably best. Five million or more inhabitants just to be on the safe side.
This city has towering skyscrapers, grid-like roads, parks and lakes, pedestrians and countless slow-moving automobiles. It is a modern city, very
shiny and full of shiny things. Within this city, let's call it Exist, within the city of Exist there are a myriad of different and ever changing stories that, like the city, are always growing.
So, above the surface we have buildings, people and the lives they lead, as well as the things in the background that we all notice but never take any notice of. Like the homeless folk, or the graffiti.
Exist exists in every sense of the modern word.
And beneath the city?
A network of pipes – sewerage pipes, drainage pipes, electrical conduits and what have you. The city works because of its foundations and the lack of such a network would, undoubtedly, destroy the fair metropolis of Exist.
The millions of people, millions of lives, and the construct of the city itself – the buildings, parks, lakes and what have you – could not survive without the underground, behind the scenes, workings of the network.
It simply wouldn't be, or… at the very least, wouldn't be as we see it.
No doubt it would be something less impressive than the metal jungle it is now.
Exist exists, and is, when you get right down to it, a model of the majesty of Creation.
Existence can be likened to a small human city, with its network of sustaining pipes and power supplies. But instead of buildings we have universes, and instead of cars and park, lakes and all the other features of a city, we have worlds – alive and dead – and stars.
Countless universes all lined up on top of one another, like a deck of cards.
In between each one runs Existence's pipes, supplying life and energy – power and drainage- to a Creation that was, in the beginning, designed to run as smoothly as a city. Well… as smoothly as could be expected. A lot of stuff goes on behind the scenes we never see.
But, like with any city, time and use corrodes, corrupts, the sewerage, power, and water lines. They keep working, however, because they are renewed and replaced by trained guardians – workmen – the lines are made to last.
But what would happen to Exist if the workmen, the guardians, stopped their work. Were stopped from doing it.
A whole shit storm of trouble is the most probably (inevitable) outcome.
And if Existence lost its guardians, its heroes, then what would become of the universes and the plethora of other levels of creation. Realties that transcend normal time and space, beyond a contemporary universe. What would happen?
The sewers back up… the power flickers on and off and, after a short time, dies completely... contaminated water sources… piles of refuse and worse… disease spreads, chaos ensues….
Chaos claims the city in a very, very short time. Entropy – that destroyer of order, the unavoidable decay of society – unravels even time itself.
On the scale of Creation, a very short time could be a billion millenniums, or it could be a heartbeat.
Time doesn't matter, but… in the end… it is all that exists.
Thoughts such as these swam through Harry's head as he walked through the very same network of pipes and ways that kept Creation on its feet.
Behind him, still following silently, were the souls of the dead, compelled to fight for the Darkslayer by a design beyond their reckoning.
When they had first entered these paths, walking back from the edge of True Death, Harry had gagged on the rotten and fetid smell that assaulted his senses, made his eyes water and even throbbed in his ears. It was the hanging odour of disease, rotting matter, and of fever.
Existence was crumbling, it was melting, it was rotting and dying and splitting at the seams, across the edges of the worlds and along the borders of the universes. Creation was in pain, with corruption swarming through its veins.
And as the Rightful Heir, for the time being at least, Harry was particularly sensitive to that pain.
Sensitive is putting it lightly, he thought, scratching at his neck. The air, if it could be called air, irritated his skin. He was getting sick, very sick, and if he didn't do something soon then he would be in no shape to face the Dark Lord.
Voldemort.
That crazy old son of a bitch.
I'm rambling, Harry thought, glancing at Ginny on his right, shining faintly blue in the pressing darkness. Sanity's slipping away again….
"You don't look too well, kid," Ginny said, a whisper.
"I'm just having an off day," Harry shrugged, lying with all his skill. "I'm only human, after all, Gin. And I haven't slept in a very long time."
Ginny nodded. She looked as though she was going to press the matter further, but instead said nothing more about that. "How far do we have left to go?"
"Death didn't say," Harry replied, "and I don't know where he's gone so I can't ask, but it feels as though we're approaching something now… you feel it?"
"No…."
Harry nodded. He didn't believe Ginny could feel it. It was like sensing a light in the darkness, although there was no light. His Mark – the tattoo of the Rose – was slowly getting warmer, and Harry intuitively knew he was approaching a place where he could punch back into his own world.
The only world that mattered.
The last bastion of Good, of Light, and of Hope.
Had he tried now, to bring not just himself but a million souls with him, he would likely get lost trying to open the way. His power was not infinite, and it was never reliable. Anything could happen should he attempt to open a way between reality and time, universes and space, this close to the realm of the Dead.
God, he felt terrible.
Human life was never meant to walk beyond mortality and all the worlds it could hold.
He felt feverish – sweating and finding himself short of breath.
Of this sickness he could do nothing. He wasn't a healer, his magic had never really been able to heal. Sure, a few cuts and bruises here and there – a broken bone or two – but his power was too wild, he used it too crudely, to fight off disease or worse. Even his metal leg was just brute power forcing an element into a form he desired.
No, he was sick and getting sicker.
And it was a wasting sickness.
Harry glanced down at the back of his right hand and saw a red sore festering where, an hour ago, the skin had been blemish free and whole. Soon that sore would rupture, and it was beyond his skill to heal the sickness.
Harry cursed under his breath.
Was this the heroic end to the Darkslayer?
After everything, was his body simply going to eat itself away…?
DEFIANCE!
Harry would be damned if it would. He knew of a cure, of course, had known of it for decades, but it would be near impossible to reach. In fact,
Harry thought it would be truly impossible.
The only impossible thing he had ever faced, and not found himself a match to it.
He knew what caused his sickness. His connection to Creation, a necessary link, was responsible. Without it he would not have his army, Existence
would fail much faster, and any chance of defeating Voldemort was gone, but this sickness tightened the odds considerably.
And the cure… Nothing less than the total eradication of the Enemy from Creation. Every last trace of the Destroyer, of Evil, would have to be wiped away beyond oblivion for his body to have any chance to heal itself.
Somehow, Harry did not think he would have an afterlife if he failed to destroy his enemies. He would simply cease to exist, and while that appealed to his darker side, his tired side, he did not truly want to die.
Not when he had love.
And love, above and beyond all other power, was a rare challenge against the impossible.
"We're close to a… nexus point in Existence, Gin," Harry said. "A place where a million, million universes intersect, and if I'm right then our world is
inside one of them. I can open a door there."
"And then what?"
A million souls echoed the same question.
Harry did not honestly know. He had suspicions, rough ideas, but he wasn't sure.
Defiance had led him to Soul, or maybe Soul had led him to Defiance. Those two, at least, could go either way. But presiding over it all was Sword – the Beginning and the End – it was the governing force of all Creation. The Sword, the weapon – war and peace – where the mighty fought and died.
He carried a sword on his back.
But what made humanity different was not their mortality, but rather their Imagination.
Imagination led to Sword – the governing force of all – and beyond that lay Defiance and Soul, Soul and Defiance.
And these forces were the code of the Guardians, of the Protectors of Twilight.
Perhaps these forces were… Harry thought they were… the foundation for Creation. The Creator had to start somewhere, why not there? It made sense. To Harry it made sense.
IDSS, he thought, ISDS…
He felt sick.
And then a twist in his gut made him retch, stumble and nearly fall. But that wrench had nothing to do with his wasting sickness. He knew that pull well, had felt it for a one hundred years.
It was his Darkslayer sense… the pull that alerted him to the forces of the Enemy.
"DESTROYERS!" he yelled, and his cry rang back through the army that marched behind him, whispered by a thousand ghostly voices. "PREPARE FOR BATTLE!"
Harry's arms were, in the blink of an eye, fused with liquid white and silver power. And argent blaze of pure strength that even dulled the edge of his sickness. Harry allowed himself a moment to bask in the impossible surge of strength that rushed though his veins. An ocean of power that he had only ever barely tapped, and yet it was enough to destroy Time and Space.
That was the paradox of Good and Evil.
The Balance.
His cry went out not a moment too soon, as from above – from all around, rising out of the dark ground and from all sides – black masses of destruction and chaos took form.
An ambush, Harry's mind screamed. They're guarding the ways back to my world, and Voldemort.
Harry amplified his voice with magic and levitated himself into the air. He carried with him an ethereal glow, and was visible for tens of miles in all directions. For where they were there was no horizon, no curvature of the world. The network of Creation was infinite in all directions.
"HEAR ME!" he roared, as the Destroyers took form into horrendous nightmares. "YOUR FIRST FIGHT IS HERE, AND YOU WILL NOT FALTER! YOU ARE HUMAN, YOU ARE DEFIANT! SHOW THIS FOUL RABBLE WHAT IT MEANS TO WAKE THE RAGE OF MORTALITY, OF THE SOUL!"
And not waiting to see if he was obeyed, Harry became power incarnate.
A sea of raw power burst from him with the strength of a supernova. Of the end. No one should have been able to control such power, but Harry had learnt his craft well. He directed the flow of energy, which poured from him effortlessly, away from his army and forward.
Tens of thousands of Destroyers, those guarding the way ahead, simply disintegrated into less than nothing. The rest fell on the army of human souls, several hundred thousands of twisted shapes and dark shadows, and cries of rending flesh, of battered origins, echoed across the expanse of this level of existence.
Harry's army was not invincible, especially to the Destroyers. Being dead had its disadvantages. The Destroyers were not creatures of life and flesh, they could be if they so choose, but their true form was one that didn't exist on any real level of Creation.
They were the Enemy that had struck down the Creator, and they would not be denied.
It was a heavy price to pay, but sharp claws, jagged teeth and untamed strength flowed from the Destroyers – from legion after legion – and it destroyed the radiance of the soul. Like a candle exposed to the wind, the light in many souls was extinguished in the heat of the battle. To where the lost souls went is unknown, but it wasn't back to the afterlife.
They were already dead, after all. What lay beyond death?
Harry directed his rage towards the flying monstrosities that were attacking his army from overhead. Beams of power cut smooth ribbons through the mass of enemy in the air, lighting up the area as clear as day, before fading as Harry spun faster and faster, directing his power to where it was needed most.
Something struck his forehead and blood splattered down into his eyes. He didn't notice it – the first cut of many to come.
But even in the surge of the battle he could not help thinking about this delay, and what it might mean to the world he knew and fought for.
Ron and Hermione were alone with Voldemort. His opposite, equal.
Every second he delayed meant minutes lost back home. Days were weeks.
Time was running out, and something told him the Destroyers would not just let him return to his own world without a fight. And this force, four hundred thousand maybe, was not even a millionth of their true number. How many more fights before he could cut his way back into the mortal universes?
One was too many.
He would be too late.
Rage and white fire consumed Harry Potter, and beneath that disease wasted him away.
*~*~*~*