Author's Note: It's the penultimate chapter, and let me just say that I'm grateful for this experience. Even if not a single person reads or comments on this story, (remember, I'm writing these before publishing), it will still have been worth it for the experience and the growth I've undergone as an author throughout.
That said, I would never have gotten even this far if it were not for the support of many people over on the Harry/Fleur Discord server, the link to which will be at the end along with a fanfic recommendation. Thanks to DaveAthenai, Charlennette, and x102reddragon in particular for inspiring me and encouraging me to write these stories. If you enjoy the story please leave a comment telling me what you think worked and what didn't, your feedback is crucial in helping me to improve as an author.
Opus:
Rebis
Less than thirty miles south of Dublin on the east Irish coast, Wicklow could be summarised, in a word, as cosy. Built around a harbour overlooked by the ruins of the old Black Castle, it was as small and quaint as a coastal town could be yet it still boasted a wealth of history.
Historians and archaeologists had discovered remains of ancient Celts there going back nearly three thousand years, it was said to be where the first Christian scholars landed in Ireland, Vikings had conducted raids there near the end of the first millennium, Black castle was raised up and brought low once more, and the Wicklow Gaol bore witness to the ends of countless executed criminals.
But he hadn't come there for ancient history.
Draco sat by a window in O'Sheas Corner looking out at the old abbey grounds on the other side of the main road. The abbey was the oldest standing structure in the area, what was left of it anyway, but again it wasn't history that had piqued his interest in the site.
Rada's journal, which he had packaged with a note to be sent to the Potters in France should he not return in time, had included accounts from Rada's daily life in the cult of the red sun as a child and, according to the accounts, their base of operations was hidden in plain sight underneath the abbey grounds.
He took a sip from the pint in front of him, grimacing at the intensity of the local brew's strong flavour though he had found to his surprise that he wasn't entirely opposed to it, if perhaps in smaller quantities.
There were trees blocking much of his view of the few standing walls of the ruin, but there was just enough of a gap that he could make out the occasional sightseer or local on a morning walk.
More importantly, he saw what he couldn't see.
There was a powerful spell hiding something in the ruins quite unlike any he had encountered before. It felt most similar to the part-alchemical wards Rada had erected over her townhouse in Paris and he doubted he would have been able to detect them at all if not for the alchemist's second sense he had acquired and honed over the past two and a half years.
There was something hidden there, just on the edge of his vision, but it was clearer than it had been ten minutes ago when he arrived.
Hours passed, the sun rose and began to dip toward the horizon once more, and with every minute that passed his vision of what was hidden became that much clearer. The barkeep asked him if he needed anything and Draco kept up a steady stream of the lightest drinks he could, careful not to let himself drink any more than half of what a sobering charm could dispel, and he waited.
Eventually, finally, night fell completely.
Draco cast the charm surreptitiously with the wand hidden in his sleeve and stood, paying his tab and walking out into the cool air. There were just enough people wandering the town centre that he could slip by unlooked for, yet not so many that he couldn't move about alone.
He crossed the street onto the abbey grounds, walking behind a group of young people and an elderly couple out for an evening stroll as they approached the ruins. He took a deep breath, quashing the acceleration of his beating heart, and did his utmost to appear just another blind muggle visitor. It was a necessary performance.
There, standing on either side of a low, filled-in arch just to the left of what had once been the Abbey's main window, were two figures in black robes.
The muggles didn't notice them, and indeed as Draco looked at them he could faintly see the shape of the wall behind them through their bodies, his second sense not having eliminated the wards' effect on him entirely.
The muggles passed them by, completely oblivious to their presence and the wizards completely apathetic to theirs, but when Draco came up beside them on the tail end of the group he slowed to a halt.
The cultists exchanged a wary look.
Draco stared right at them, willing his eyes to focus on the outline of the stones in the wall that he could see through the one on the left's head, keeping his shoulders relaxed and his stance non-threatening as he played the part of a tourist to perfection.
The cultists tensed and they both reached for wands in their pockets, but Draco didn't move. The one whose face he was staring through raised a hand, slowly waving it in front of him, but Draco didn't react in the slightest.
He tilted his head, turning it to the side and staring up at the arch of the large window on the right as if comparing the architecture, and the cultists relaxed as they realised he couldn't see them.
He walked over to the window, following the edge of the concealing illusion and taking great care to appear as though he were moving around it unconsciously, but all the while he focused his attention on the silhouettes of the cultists in the corner of his vision.
They looked away.
His wand snapped into his hand in an instant, out of their line of sight on the right side of his body, and he cast a silent silencing charm over the entire area.
They didn't notice at first, they hadn't been making much noise, but one of them coughed and then stiffened as he realised no sound had come out. His head spun around just in time to see Draco stepping smoothly through the edge of the illusion and jab the tip of his wand into his fellow cultist's side, who crumpled as a muted flash of red light coursed into him.
The cultist brandished his wand at Draco, mouthing the words to some incantation he couldn't decipher, but nothing happened.
A flick of Draco's wand sent the cultist flying back to slam into the stone and he crumpled to the ground where Draco quickly tapped him with another stunner to keep him down. He then gathered the two cultists, hitting them sleeping charms and body-bind curses, and wrapping them in thick conjured ropes before disillusioning them and magically sticking them to the wall on either side of the filled-in archway which his magical senses were telling him was more than it appeared to be.
He crouched by the low archway, running the tip of his wand over the stone and muttering a series of detention charms as he identified a variety of traps and curses which had been laid with a surprising degree of subtlety upon the stone. He used his alchemist's senses as much as his wand, and soon enough he had navigated the protections to find the opening to the passage.
A small hole appeared in the middle of the filled archway, rapidly expanding until it became a broad entrance into a tunnel leading underground. He calmed his racing heart, cast disillusioning and silencing spells on himself, and stepped in.
The tunnel walls were smooth, almost unnaturally so as if they had been moulded from wet clay. It twisted and turned, curving down in a gentle spiral as the tunnel sloped to a point deep under the centre of the Abbey grounds. Every so often there would be an alcove to one side with a low wall partially concealing it from view, and he quickly identified them as cover placed to aid defenders resisting siege.
There were three cultists scattered along the tunnel in guard positions, none of them particularly attentive to their duties as Draco slipped silently by. Eventually, the smooth transfigured walls of the tunnel opened onto a broader space made of old stone with a low vaulted ceiling of tightly fitted quarried brick.
There were voices up ahead, emanating from another larger opening just down a short stretch of hall. He crept, invisible and silent across the stone, and soon the passage opened up into an enormous underground space.
It was shaped like a tiered arena, the lower circle on which he stood perhaps a hundred feet across and the high ringed walkway surrounding it partially hidden behind low walls and thick columns, draped with black and red banners and curtains and reinforced with wooden beams. The shallow domed ceiling loomed overhead at least thirty feet up, its many stone panels, and indeed many other stretches of bare stone, bearing old and worn decorations and reliefs barely recognisable, remnants of a past under the care of different hands.
But now it was in the clutches of the cult of the red sun.
Ahead of him a small crowd was gathered, perhaps twenty people in all, listening to a man he quickly recognised. Bellerophon's voice didn't echo the way he might have thought, perhaps due to the abundance of muffling hangings or out of habit from living in an echoic space for so long, and Draco couldn't make out any details of what was being said.
He briefly considered approaching, relying on his invisibility to protect him, but just behind the gathering there was a large arched doorway, ten feet tall at least and barred by a heavy gate, and looming just before the gate behind Bellerophon was another form, one he had at first dismissed to be a part of the wall behind it due to the poor lighting.
An enormous haemonculi.
It stood nearly as tall as the archway behind it, the slenderest part of its body as thick as a centennial oak, and when he focused his alchemist's sense upon it the haemonculi nearly radiated with power.
A flicker of unease penetrated his enforced calm and he hesitated.
Glancing around the arena once again he let his eyes focus more on the walls and he saw a number of passageways leading off from both the lower level and the balcony overhead, as well as a staircase which connected the two. Taking one more look back at Bellerophon and the enhanced haemonculi, Draco moved quickly and carefully over to one of the side doors and slipped through.
He found a cafeteria. It was filled with tables and benches and, at the back of the room, there were windows which glimpsed into a kitchen. There were several cultists throughout the room, a very few of them old and frail looking but most of them much younger, younger than him.
He backed out of the eating area and tried another door.
It was a library, neither the largest nor the smallest he had ever seen but certainly the dingiest. Rough shelves of bare wood filled the open space, and it was only the presence of the many books and scrolls which prevented it from looking like a storeroom.
He tried again.
An open space filled with worktables, scattered with cultists and materials sourced from the library, but nothing of an alchemical nature more complex than basic exercises.
Again.
Dormitories this time, never less than five beds to a single cramped room.
Again.
A social space with a trio of old men.
Again.
A storage cupboard.
The gathering in the central space was breaking up now, the cultists wandering off in ones and twos. Bellerophon was conversing with three cultists in more ornate-looking robes, moving slowly toward the steps leading to the upper level as he did so. Draco moved to follow, but as he did so a red gleam caught his gaze in the corner of his vision.
When he'd come through the entrance he hadn't at the proper angle to look through the large gate to the chamber beyond, but now that he was and the crowd had started to clear he was able to catch a glimpse of what was on the other side.
A dark room, and in the of the room was a pedestal upon which sat an object with a dull red glow.
He tore his gaze off the stone and did a quick sweep of the room. The haemonculi stayed in place, but the group that Bellerophon was walking with had broken apart. The three cultists he had been speaking to were heading off toward the cafeteria while Bellerophon began to climb the stairs to the upper level.
He looked back at the stone.
There was no way he would be able to get through that gate without arousing suspicion. There were still too many cultists milling about, speaking in small groups about whatever message their leader had just passed on.
He looked back at Bellerophon.
He was halfway up the stairs now, and Draco realised that if anyone would be able to access the stone without raising an alarm it would be him.
The imperius.
Something twisted in his stomach at the thought of the curse, a sense of wrongness that he hadn't ever felt before. Maybe it was the thought of actually using it on another person, for all that he had served Voldemort it had always been in a supporting role and he hadn't ever been put into a position where actually using the unforgivables was demanded of him. Then again, he and the cult leader were of similar heights, and Bellerophon always wore a mask.
He moved.
The light in the underground space was dim, the lanterns hanging from the ceiling were few and far between, and the gaps between the groups of milling cultists were large enough that he risked crossing through the middle of the open space. He ran in a half crouch, keeping his head well below the eye line of anyone watching.
Bellerophon had already set off around the balcony by the time Draco reached the foot of the stairs. He took them two at a time, thanking his earlier self for not stopping with mere invisibility as he silently thundered up the stone steps. His quarry was already a third of the way around the circuit of the balcony by the time he reached the top. Fortunately, he wasn't walking quickly.
Draco pursued, closing the distance as quickly as he dared and praying that Bellerophon stayed in the open and not turn into any of the many doors that lined the outer wall.
He seemed to be in luck.
They were almost around the balcony now, very nearly on top of the large gate below, and Draco began to entertain the idea that Bellerophon was heading to the door at the very end of the balcony overlooking the steps from the other side, but just as the cult leader was about to pass over the slight bump in the walkway over the gate he stopped, lifting the ornate pendant around his neck and pressing into a matching seal on a door.
It briefly glowed, then swung open.
He stepped through, and Draco began running full tilt to reach the door before it closed. But just as he came within arms reach it latched shut with a soft click and a second glow. He grabbed the handle, pulling and pushing and twisting as hard as he could, but it was no use. The door was sealed tight, and unless he was willing to alert the entire cult around him he would have to wait until it opened again.
His heart pounded in his chest.
He leaned against the door, resting his forehead against his bare arm, suddenly winded from the short pursuit.
He closed his eyes.
Whatever was behind this door was important enough to warrant a magical seal that only the cult's leader himself could open, and using a key that could neither be missed nor passed off as other than it was, a key that was on Bellerophon's person at all times.
Could there be another way in?
He doubted it, but if there was then that meant there was another way out as well.
His eyes opened.
He couldn't afford to miss him. Draco turned away from the door, he would hear it opening whether he was looking at it or not after all, and moved to the edge of the balcony, leaning on the railing as he caught his breath. He looked out over the assembled cultists. They were a strange mix, either old or quite young without fail, their faces marked with feverish excitement and desperation. Some of the older cultists had the look of scholars to them, but they were also the ones with the greatest madness in their eyes.
His thoughts wandered to Rada's stories.
There were no children in the arena, indeed he hadn't seen a single child anywhere in his search of the hideout. Draco supposed he should be grateful for that, but some of the younger-looking cultists gave him pause. There were no children but certainly a few teens.
He cast his mind back to his own teenage years, at how disastrous the combination of teenage confidence and naivete had been for him, and he wondered how many of the young men and women before him had been taken in by false promises just like him.
His left hand drifted up to finger the pendant resting on his invisible chest. Rada had made it to hide his presence from an alchemist's second sense, and he doubted she would have ever thought he would test its capabilities in this way.
He remained there for perhaps half an hour, watching and listening as the cultist dispersed and recongregated and dispersed again. Their chatter was surprisingly normal, almost reassuringly so, but he remained on edge.
~{}~
He was just starting to wonder if he had somehow missed Bellerophon among the cultists milling about below when it happened.
There was a rattle behind him, and Draco spun around just in time to see the handle turn and the door start to open. He leapt to the side out of the way as Bellerophon stormed out with only a split second in which to make his decision.
In the moment between seconds, Draco's mind was about to resolve on pursuing the cult leader when he felt something from within the locked chamber, calling him.
He slipped inside, just barely darting through the opening left in Bellerophon's wake when the door slammed shut behind him and glowed, sealing him in.
Not counting the storage closet, it was the smallest room he had found so far.
A mere ten feet across and twenty long, it had all the furnishings of someone's living quarters, yet he was disappointed to see that it was also incredibly impersonal in appearance, like a cell.
Suddenly, he felt an overwhelming pressure coming from behind him to his left, the one corner of the room he had yet to inspect, and he spun around and then froze.
Standing in the long shadow of an armoire, half hidden, was a person.
"Who are you?"
The voice was soft, musical and gentle, yet it struck him like a physical thing. No, not physical. Spiritual. His sense of self, something that had become far more tangible to him ever since he started practically interacting with it, reverberated within him, the question resonating against it and demanding a reply.
He gave none, taking a shaky step back and pointing his wand at the figure with an unshakable hand.
"I ask again, who are you?"
The figure emerged into the light. Draco's eyes widened and his mouth fell open in shock as he witnessed them, his wand arm falling away.
"It has been a long time since I have had any new visitors," the Rebis said speculatively. "I wonder what sort of person you will turn out to be."
~{}~
They reminded Draco of his dreams. They wore a thin tunic of sheer white cloth and simple wraps around their feet. The left side of their body was unmistakably feminine, feline and graceful, the soft dip and curve of pale flesh appearing as though it had been carved by a master sculptor, long golden-white hair flowing down from the crest of their head around a face he recognised to drape elegantly over their shoulder. But while their left was feminine, the right side of the Rebis' body was unmistakably masculine, strong and lithe. It bore angular features and a familiar sharp eye under red hair, and Draco was struck with the realisation of just who this being was.
"You're Rada's parent."
Shock flitted across the face followed quickly by regret and pain. He almost missed it, too preoccupied with trying to find where the feminine ended and the masculine began. It was almost as if there was no distinction between them at all.
"I am," they said after a moment, their voice a harmony of a high feminine alto and a masculine tenor, an odd choral quality infusing every word. "But you have yet to tell me who you claim to be."
There was something about the voice, it wasn't hypnotic but it pierced him to his core with every word, and he had opened his mouth to answer when an inconsistency registered. Alarms went off in his mind and he took another step back, his wand snapping up once more.
"How can you see me, hear me?" he demanded.
The Rebis raised their eyebrows, their eyes following his with perfect precision despite his invisibility.
"So many questions while you still refuse to answer mine? Ah well, it hardly matters. I can see you because you are there to be seen."
He frowned in confusion, fighting to master his racing heart and focus past the adrenaline and uncertainty.
"I see you do not understand," the Rebis said gently, beginning to walk over to a cushion in the middle of the floor and sitting down. "Come, sit, I will explain."
Draco did not move to sit, opting instead to remain standing while the Rebis knelt with their legs folded beneath them.
"How can you see me?"
"Because you are there to be seen. Your body has not been removed from the world, nor has your voice truly been silenced. These things have merely been deferred to another layer of reality," said the Rebis, their voice calm even as their eyes lingered on the wand still clutched tight in Draco's hand. "Nothing destroyed through magic is ever truly gone."
"What about the dead?"
They hesitated as a flicker of unease or perhaps regret passed across their supernaturally even face.
"The spirit is eternal and indestructible. It comes into this world from I know not where and passes on again after its earthly tether is severed. Magic has no power to destroy it, and so the law I have described is not contravened, but it has no power to create it or recall it once it has departed either."
"And what about you? The greatest works of alchemy make little distinction between matter and spirit, what is your nature?"
They were silent, and it was as if a shadow passed over their eyes for a moment and he could not see them.
"You still have not told me your name."
"Why should I?" he said, his face hardening as he finally regained some level of equilibrium in the surreal situation. "You are the Rebis of the red sun, the founder of the cult and the source of all the pain and misery they have caused. Why would I tell you anything?"
The Rebis' face fell, a depth of sorrow and pain appearing suddenly on their face as if there were no barrier between their heart and their expression. The wounds of the spirit manifest in the flesh.
"You are right," they admitted, the purest note of self-loathing that he had ever heard poisoning the music of their voice and turning it sour and bitter. "I deserve little consideration, from you or anyone else. I am as you say and I am more besides, I am Rada's parent in both aspects of my being, and I am the reason for all of her suffering."
Draco hesitated.
He could not help but feel for them, the pain and regret in their voice so sharp and poignant that instinctively believed it to be genuine, but he knew that the empathy he felt had not come from within him. The Rebis had a strange power to them, they were evidently present and perceptive in multiple facets of reality at once.
He was reminded of the alchemist's second sense and how it allowed one to peer into the nature of magic and the deeper mysteries of the world with an instinctive clarity that surpassed any interface of wand or spell, and even if those glimpses were limited they still revealed much that no other method could reveal.
But when he looked at the Rebis through this sense he saw nothing that his eyes could not see. It was as if they were a sort of constant as if the sum of their being across all planes of physicality and spirituality and magic had been combined and made fully present in all. They were as they were with no division or distinction within them. A single, perfect, unified being whose face and heart and spirit and mind were one and the same.
"Why are you admitting this?"
"Because it is the truth."
"Since when do cult leaders care about truth?"
They sighed and their shoulders slumped slightly, and once again he struggled against his instinctive human response to comfort a creature in such obvious distress.
"I am no leader, not anymore. Once I was blinded twice over by my ambition and my bitterness and my pride, and in those lives I was the sort of person you would expect to be involved in the cult as it is now, but that has changed."
"Do you really expect me to believe that?" he asked incredulously, studiously ignoring the supernatural tug on his heartstrings insisting exactly that. "Your followers out there are creating monsters and preparing for worse, all using the knowledge that you gave them."
"I may be the object of their affection, but it has been a very long time since I gave them anything of my own free will."
Draco frowned. He almost wanted to believe them, to listen to the voice in the back of his head shouting at him that they were telling the truth, but he remembered the stories Rada had told him of her father. How she had described neglect with fondness and recklessness with ease, all the things she had refused to see, and he resisted. But he also remembered what she had told him of her mother, of the endless criticism and dismissal which she condemned completely but in which Draco saw the shadow of a parent's love and concern for her daughter's wellbeing.
With a flick of his wand, he cancelled the disillusionment and silencing charms, sitting down across from the Rebis with his wand in his lap and wariness on his face.
"If that's true then tell me this, did you love your daughter?"
Whatever they had been expecting it wasn't that, and pain followed immediately behind shock as they processed what he had said.
"Yes, I loved her very much," they said after a moment, voice thick with emotion.
"In both your lives, or only one?"
They glared at him, the supernatural heat in their expression almost enough to make him flinch away. Almost.
"Of course I did," they growled.
"And did you hurt her in both of them as well?"
The fire went out at once as their face crumpled.
"I… Yes, yes I did."
Regret and guilt filled their voice.
"As her father I neglected her, entertaining her needs only when they suited me and taking interest only when I thought I might mould her in my own image, and as her mother I neglected her also, abandoning her without ceremony to the dubious care of my other half and intervening only when the irritation of my conscience could be silenced no longer."
"What changed?"
They smiled bitterly.
"I got what I wanted."
"And what was it you wanted?"
They looked at him, their gaze piercing to his core as they judged him.
"You are an alchemist, are you not? A disciple of the great work?"
"I'm here for Rada, nothing more."
"Did she send you?"
Draco blinked, frowning in uncertainty.
"Rebis, do you know what happened to your daughter?"
Fear and unease flashed across their face and their jaw tightened as their hands clenched into fists.
"Bellerophon tells me very little when he tells me anything at all," they said, their eyes narrowing and gaining suddenly in intensity. "But now that you are here you will tell me instead. What has happened to Rada, is she safe? Is she alright?"
Of all the possibilities Draco had considered might be behind the locked door, this conversation hadn't even occurred to him. He opened his mouth but found himself at a loss for words without the faintest idea of how to proceed.
"Rebis… Rada is dead."
They froze.
"… what?"
Draco winced, panicking slightly as he watched their eyes widen, darting side to side, and their mouth fall open in shock.
"She died finishing the stone, hers was the vital essence that had to be infused into it to complete the Rubedo."
They gaped at him in horror, disbelief mixing with realisation as they looked down at the floor, staring without seeing.
"That's not… They shouldn't— WHY?"
He recoiled at the sudden outburst, fighting to keep himself calm as the demand for answers struck him like a blow.
"They wanted to complete your work, to go beyond the limits of the Philosopher's Stone and create a truly perfect form of life.
They stilled, their wide eyes frozen and lips parted as they listened, then nodded.
"She is in the stone, her spirit infused into it, and so there is a chance to save her," they looked at him, gaze intense and intent as they focused on his being. "Where is the stone?"
He hesitated and their jaw tightened further.
"Where. Is. The. Stone?" they said through gritted teeth.
"It's here, in the compound. I came to retrieve it."
The Rebis' eyes widened once again.
"Bellerophon has it?"
"Yes."
The fight went out of them and they slumped back, clear despondency etched in every line of their fused features.
"Then it is already too late."
Now Draco began to get angry, the sight of this being giving up triggering a sudden and inexplicable burst of heat within him.
"I didn't come all this way to give up at the last hurdle," he hissed. "I'm here and so is the stone, and when all is said and done I will be walking out of here with it in my hand. I'll figure out a way to get her back."
"What hope do you have of defeating him when he has the power of eternity in his hand?"
"I have faced monsters before."
"… I will ask again, then. Who are you?"
"… My name is Draco Malfoy."
Their eyes widened, and they looked him over with new perspective.
"You are the son of Lucius, the Death Eater?"
"And of Narcissa, yes."
"… Perhaps you stand a chance after all."
The last words had been spoken in a whisper, and the Rebis looked at him strangely for a few seconds before nodding.
"Tell me Draco, did Rada tell you the nature of the Prima Materia?"
"No," he answered after a moment, unsure where this was going, "I got the impression she didn't fully understand it herself. She certainly didn't know how to get more.
"I suppose that is to be expected."
They were quiet for a moment, thinking, then continued.
"The Philosopher's Stone is such a powerful artefact because it, like me, exists simultaneously in both matter and spirit."
"If that's so, then why did you need the stone at all?"
"Because I cannot wield magic."
"… I'm sorry, what?"
"I am a constant, a being in balance. Any motion, any expression would violate that balance. There is great power within me but it is locked, static. For it to be released I would first have to be destroyed."
"Ok, but what does that have to do with the stone?"
"Do you not see it? For a power to interact with the eternal, what must it be?"
"Eternal?"
"Precisely, only that which is already eternal may act as a lever against eternity. Now tell me, what substance is there in this world that possesses such qualities?"
Draco frowned in confusion for a moment, then his blood ran cold.
"Ah, I see you understand."
"The soul… The Prima Materia is a soul."
"The immaterial made material, the eternal made physical. A living soul transmuted into incarnate form, later infused once again with living spirit to create a catalyst capable of leveraging the might of infinity."
"… Who?"
"Me."
He tilted his head slightly, narrowing his eyes as he tried to understand.
"A soul can be changed, transformed, but not destroyed, separated, or combined, and a body may only contain one."
"But you began as two people."
"I did, and it was for exactly that reason that I sought to become a Rebis in the first place. By doing so my two souls would become the same, perfect reflections of each other with combined identities. One would remain in my body, animating me and giving me life, while the other would be transmuted into the Prima Materia. In this way nothing would be truly lost for only the reflection of me would be destroyed."
"You knew what would happen?"
"I did, and I knew that to complete the stone I would need to infuse it with another spirit in the end…"
"You were planning it to be you."
"I was. I intended to fully invest myself in the stone, to have Rada guide me through the next stage of the transmutation and undergo apotheosis with her help, to become something divine."
"What went wrong?"
"I did," they paused, their face twisting bitterly as they reflected on their failures. "I was arrogant. And in my arrogance, I thought I knew everything, understood everything. I know better now, but by the time I realised it was already too late. I did not reconcile the division within myself, either of my selves, before undergoing the transmutation and the result of that was a profound limitation of my abilities in this form, including my capacity to become one with the stone."
"Why?"
They smiled sadly.
"An alchemist does their work by reaching out with their soul, they affect transmutation by creating a bridge between the eternal within the self and the world around them. But conflict within the self is a barrier to such transmutation, and in refusing to address my flaws before becoming as I am that barrier was codified into the very essence of my being. Alchemy, wizardry, witchcraft, all magic is lost to me now."
Draco shuddered. He couldn't imagine being cut off from magic, especially not now that he had learned just how profound that connection truly was. And as he looked at the Rebis with their soft sad smile and hopeless resignation, this living irony of perfection incarnated to be perfectly impotent, he began to feel pity. But even then, he didn't forget why he was there.
"Why are you telling me this?" he asked after a short pause.
"So that you understand what you are up against. If Bellerophon has the stone then he has access to the greatest tool and weapon this world has ever seen," they said, dire seriousness painted across their every feature. "He cannot create souls nor call them back from beyond, not even the stone has that power, but every other law of magic is mutable before the power of transmutation channelled through the stone."
"Then I'll just have to get there first."
"It won't be easy."
"You sound like you think it's impossible."
They said nothing, and Draco's eyes narrowed.
"I wonder, what you've said makes it seem like you've been against Bellerophon's plans for years, why haven't you done anything? The cult worships you, why haven't you rebelled and overthrown him?"
"What would that have achieved?"
"Your daughter might not be dead for a start."
The Rebis winced, and Draco felt another pang of sympathy even as he continued.
"Hell, with you in charge of the cult you might have even been able to track her down yourself, explain things and reconnect."
"Is there a point to this?" they said acidly.
"Yes," he said, his face hard, "to get you to stop wallowing in your misery and help me save Rada's soul."
Their mouth opened, held for a moment with no sound coming out, and then closed.
"I don't know what Bellerophon has planned for the stone exactly, but I imagine his version of apotheosis won't be safe for anyone or anything involved, the stone included."
He leaned forward, encroaching on the supernatural being's space as he emphasised his point.
"I'm stuck underground with dozens of cultists, a madman, and at least one haemonculi. If all you can do for me is sprint naked through the hallways and cause a distraction then that's still what I need you to do, understand?"
They looked away.
"Everything I have ever touched turned to ruin."
"Rada didn't."
"Rada is dead."
"She's only mostly dead, and yes it was at least partially your fault, but she was a hell of a lot more than the sum of your mistakes."
He stuck out his left arm, pulling up the sleeve and showing the bare skin.
"You see this? I was a marked Death Eater, and that is where Voldemort's mark was on my skin. Rada and I found a way to remove it completely. We solved Organic Transmutation together, removed my mark and healed her scars. We made a miracle, and then we made another one in the Philosopher's Stone."
He leaned down, peeking under their brow to look them in the eyes.
"She was proud of what she accomplished. She wanted it to mean something, to carry on the legacy of the man she thought her father was regardless of the sort of person he had actually been."
They looked up, fear and doubt warring in their eyes.
"You have a choice in front of you. You can either do what's right, help me save the stone and stop the cult you enabled to rise in the first place, or you can do what's easy, stay here and give yourself up to your doubt and misery like you've been doing for the past sixteen years."
They were crying, pearlescent tears tracing silent paths down their asymmetric yet still perfectly balanced face.
"You've failed her for her whole life, are you going to fail her again now?"
"… No."
"Then get up, we have work to do."
He stood, holding out his left hand to the supernatural being who slowly took it and stood. Their skin was hotter than even the most intense fever, their grip unnaturally strong, and Draco was forcibly reminded that they weren't merely human.
"For my daughter," they said, their face set with determination.
Draco nodded, his thoughts racing as he considered plans and rejected them just as quickly. His mind stopped on one that had the potential to work and he opened his mouth to see what his new comrade thought of it, but before he could speak a sound fell like thunder behind him.
The sound of a pendant clanking into a metal slot on the other side of the door. He whirled around, his wand rising instinctively to a ready position as the Rebis darted off to one side. The handle turned, and Draco cursed internally as he realised he wouldn't have enough time to reapply his disillusionment and silencing charms.
The door began to open.
He felt a sudden calm come over him. He had come here anticipating the possibility of a fight, knowing even that he might not make it out alive. He felt many things at that moment. Anticipation, anxiety, the rush of adrenaline as the door swung wide and Bellerophon stepped in, brown eyes in a golden face meeting his grey and going wide. But there was one thing he didn't feel.
He wasn't afraid.
AN: Thank you for reading. If you liked the story then please leave a comment telling me what you think worked and what didn't, your feedback is crucial to helping me improve as an author and is always appreciated.
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Fanfic Recommendation: The Family that Chooses You by WokFriedRice, a truly heartwarming story of how the Gryffindor Quidditch team realised there was more to Harry Potter than they ever thought and what they decide to do with that information.