And yet still I am half in love with pain,
With what is imperfect, with both tears and mirth,
With things that have an end, with life and earth,
And this moon that leaves me dark within the door.
~ Liberty by Edward Thomas (cont.)
The world burst. That was the only way Draco could describe it. Something... rolled, like the way a carcass rolled when it decayed, bloated and heavy with maggot. He'd heard people say they'd seen corpses explode during the worst of the summer swelters. He didn't really believe them until now.
The world puked black. Draco covered his face, and when the air righted, a nightmare stood in the center of the pitch, standing atop the still squirming darkness.
The Death Eaters spread out, undulating against them like undertow. Draco would have been done in in the first few seconds if his mother had not thrown a shield over him. Spells flew in a maddening array, and Draco, for the first time in his life, grasped the chaos of war.
He might have been a hare. He didn't understand this. There was not one place that his eyes could stay. He was in the middle of a vortex. There was screaming, fighting, grunts of pain, cries of triumph, and in the midst of it, Draco stood like an island, lost.
Finally, someone grabbed him. He could have wet himself with relief when he saw it was Victor. He had Hermione behind him, protecting her. Though she had out her wand and was firing spells, she had the wild, frightened look that he felt blooming in his chest. It was obvious she could not have stood without Victor.
Victor snarled at him, captured in a duel with man that looked like a condor. Hermione grabbed his arm and hauled him beside her.
"You alright?" she screamed in his ear to be heard over the riot.
He nodded, still shell-shocked. His father blazed in front of him, holding his own against a leaping Death Eater. He didn't even spare his son a glance, rolling away on the ground. The earth blistered where he'd been.
Draco swallowed, clinging to Hermione.
"Draco," she whimpered.
He shook himself. There was no time to worry, no space for anything but survival. Victor was trying to move them to the cover of the stands. Draco didn't even try to draw his wand. He was a terrible shot, useless when put on the spot.
Instead, his eyes traveled back to the point where the world had bled. Though he'd never seen him, he knew it was Voldemort. He watched his retainers with a private smile, not joining the fray. And in his arms was Dyre.
Draco felt the world, spinning in confusion, stop. He felt the air travel through his lungs, painful with the presence of lightning. Dyre hung limp in Voldemort's grasp, limbs dangling, his throat exposed.
No, he thought. He can't be dead. He promised. He promised!
He wasn't stupid enough to slip out of the circle of safety Victor had provided him, but he couldn't look away. He couldn't stop searching. His skin was so pale, carrying blue and grey tints that he knew belonged to death.
"No," he cried, fisting the ground. Nothing existed, not a war, not augury, but that lone body, strewn in the arms of a monster.
"Dyre!"
o.O.o
Screams. Dyre heard screams.
Somewhere, in the deep back of his mind, he knew that meant something. But it was so far away.
Something. He was here. (Where was here?) There was a reason. (No, it was meant to be.) There was... something.
His thoughts fled from him when he tried to pick them. It was frustrating, but he wasn't sure why.
This wasn't where he was supposed to be.
He frowned. Yes, he was supposed to be here. This was were he was meant to be. It was Fate. His skuld.
The word came like a call. Something fluttered, wings of something he might almost barely remember. He waited, straining his hands to let it land.
Finally, it did, and he remembered.
Draco.
The ritual.
He knew where he was, though he wasn't sure if it had a name or a place. He knew he was in Voldemort's arms. He knew who was screaming.
He couldn't leave. Not yet.
Soon, even this consciousness would be too much. He was going to lose much more, and he would have to bear it.
He understood so little of the prophecy that anointed him, so very little, but he believed. He believed in the duplicity of the Norns, the love of the Maiden. He believed that things were never as simple as a tyrant and a hero. He clung to the whispery walls of his cage and listened to the cries behind the darkness, fading in and out.
He'd done harder things. He'd watched Yrsa disappear and know they would never again meet. He'd let Draco comfort him and made the choice to stay with him. He'd walked right into Voldemort's arms, knowing what he would find. He could wait. He could wait in his cage and believe that the end was only as cruel as the beginning.
o.O.o
This was the place. He could feel it. Magic filled this clearing like a tumor. It was everywhere around them, coaxing his little eaters along the game.
Yes, ripe was the word.
He had only to think it, and his subjects felt him. They fell back, leaving the enemy tense and exhausted.
When he had all of their attention, he stood his little doll up. Harry obeyed boneless, perfect, leaning against him like a soft hand. Blood dribbled down his face, vivisecting his vivid cheekbones. The energy of the ritual had left cruel edges of burnt skin around his scalp and around his eyes, flesh-eaten kohl.
"Tom."
Yes, he knew that voice. He knew Dumbledore would step forward first, always the leader, always the one everyone looked up to. He was going see him broken. He was going to break him. And he was going to relish it. Even the thought brought richness up the back of his throat.
"Do you like it?" he asked, resting his fingers along Harry's neck. And the boy's head tilted, exposing more of that wondrous vulnerability. He breathed it in.
"Tom," Dumbledore said, his voice so gentle Voldemort almost snapped and killed him with a spell. "Give him to me."
He extended his hand. Disgust surged. He would never touch this man unless it was a touch full of pain. He followed the hand up to the wizard's face and found something that made him smile. He tucked his doll closer.
"You think he's dead."
Dumbledore's hand lowered. Watching the old man's eyes, he opened his mouth and tasted Harry's ear. His tiny teeth poked through the skin like butter, filling his tongue with metal. And slowly, he chewed, shearing the flesh into sheds.
His Harry twitched. It was a tiny moan, like in slumber. His eyes tightened only briefly then loosened, falling back whether into whatever world he had descended into.
"Dyre!" the stupid Malfoy brat screamed, trying to run for him. His father grabbed him and sheltered him.
"Give him back!" Lily Potter demanded, blazing with all the triumph of motherhood.
Voldemort wanted to carved out her eyes. Then, her tongue. He'd like to see the way she looked then, gurgling and scratching herself.
"He is mine," he hissed.
His lips came away wet, and he delighted in the looks on their faces, seeing their precious child's blood smeared on his mouth. His new, shiny tongue darted out and licked it up.
Dumbledore quelled his troops before they did something stupid. He turned his gaze back on his former students and what he must see. There was still so much regret in the way the fool looked at him.
"Return him to us, Tom. He's served his purpose for you."
Voldemort blinked. Then, he laughed, throwing back his head. They were so stupid. These were his opponents? He didn't know whether he should be impressed in Harry's reticence or disappointed in their intelligence.
"You have no idea what he is, do you?"
"What is he, Tom?" Dumbledore said gently.
Did he think he could talk to him, Voldemort wondered. That this was some misunderstanding. That they could ever get the illusion of their little boy back.
"Tom," he hummed.
He glanced down at his doll. Harry's breath pulsed gently, fragile. He touched his doll's face, seeing the spark of innocence that had transformed him into what he was now oh so long ago, presented to him by a Fate.
Strange, but the last time he'd held this boy was when he was a infant wasn't it? If it had not been a fever dream. And he'd been just as helpless, just as much his though he hadn't yet known it.
"Tom is lost, Professor. He was lost and he died." He looked up, freeing himself from the memory. "I'm sorry. Did you love him?"
He smiled.
Redwyrm released a hysterical laugh, doubling over. Dumbledore's stare remained steady, fixed on Voldemort. Voldemort gave a small, elegant chuckle in response.
"No, of course not. He scared you a bit, didn't he?" After all these years, he was still as bitter as he was proud, that a eleven-year-old boy could frighten Britain's greatest wizard. "I should thank you for that. Though I didn't understand it at the time. You were a marvelous teacher, Dumbledore."
Dumbledore flinched.
"You know," Voldemort said, feeling talkative. "It's strange." He traced the pulse sleeping in Dyre's neck. "It was my fate to find him, to make him mine. His to come to me. All the secrets of the world."
He laughed.
"He's just a boy. I could have killed him whenever I wanted. I made him. All those years..." His fingers tightened. "All that planning, killing that little brat to make this curse, to get this goddamn eye." He curled his nails around Harry's eye. "To get all this power. And he's still nothing but a child."
Voldemort released his magic. It burst into needles, burrowing into the scars on his back. Harry's eyes opened, no more alive than a bolt of electricity funneled through a carcass. Gaping, the boy raised his hands, touching Voldemort's arms and shoulders. He arched, caught in the momentum of the pain and magic.
No more human now than a spell.
o.O.o
He could feel it, inside his cage. The final moment when he could chose to save the world or end it.
Fenrir and Alecto skirted the battle, a man bouncing bond on the werewolf's shoulder.
The altar rose, whether from a spell or because the earth just knew, he didn't know. He crawled atop it, exposed his back to the sky. Was this how the world was made? The sky bowed over her hard-tender earth, preparing to be broken to birth the stars. This must have been the pressure. It swelled and rioted within.
His hands gripped the corners of the altar and pushed himself up. The power churned so great he wasn't sure he could bear more.
Could he bear having such power? Could the world bear him? Or would he sink into madness?
He braced himself. Faces, memories surfaced in his mind. A girl returned to her Tower, trapped and lonely. A Maiden with hair of white, weaving and weaving and weaving, smiling when he sat in her lap and read to her of creatures of a world she could never touch. A boy, waiting for him.
Yes, a voice hissed inside him like baked coals. He was prepared to be broken. He would be torn apart over the world so it could bloom. He could take the blow. He could take the fire and spare the world its burning.
Tears came. Thinking on the times he would lose. His selfish, arrogant, darling prince. It would be a long time before he touched that hand again.
You could still-
No.
The killing curse was wild, spiraling out of air alone from Voldemort's hand. It cracked in a wide, thick streak, as if sentient and wanting to be released. It struck with a bolt of thunder, smashing into Karkaroff's chest and flinging him backwards. He didn't even have time to scream.
The brand, the exposed whorl that made him brother to wicked beasts. The last of the key that Voldemort needed to control the world's under-things. The magic spiraled out of Karkaroff in invisible bonds, coalescing and winding like a snake to ensnare Voldemort.
The pressure spiraled, and for a moment, Dyre could breathe. He looked up from his knees. Draco stared back, begging. And he knew it was a mistake. He'd made the wrong choice, and there was no time to fix it.
The guillotine fell, and the apology on his lips was washed away. Everything was washed away.
Dyre screamed.
o.O.o
You will know pain, the old crone says.
o.O.o
His body twisted. He screamed.
There was nothing but the pain. His voice beggared itself. It wrought sounds unimagined except for those deep, dark places housing punished gods. It whored itself and spilled.
He broke. Diving to catch at something, anything. No release. No release. Something inside him crumpled and then tore, and his scream found the damned kingdom, laughing and whimpering with jagged edges like broken teeth.
He moved onto his back and there was almost pleasure in the way the magic split around him like a great mouth to swallow him whole. It came forward and he arched. Blind. Deaf. Senseless except for eternity.
He was forgetting. He tried to find a face, but it was washed away, impossible to hold in the deluge. Even when his throat tore and the screams became gurgles, horrible mutilations of whispers. When his legs and arms no longer had the strength to flail and twitched like broken wings. When his single eye dulled and the pain still continued.
Let me die.
There was nothing anymore, and even "anymore" became a delusion. Nothing. No worlds. No things. Pain. Pain. Pain.
My Dyre. I love you. My Dyre.
The pain stopped and did not stop. It was there, a part of him. It came in the lunge of a looming shadow rather than blister a thousand suns.
Silence came, soft in the hard ridges of his subconscious. And he knew he'd been destroyed. That was no such thing as a "he" left to destroy.
o.O.o
You will know helplessness, the virgin says.
o.O.o
Dyre stood. The Morsmordre swam languid in the flesh of his back.
Voldemort's fingers curved in his hair. Harry was beautiful, bleeding, his eyes so very dull. Voldemort felt the tautness in him, humming like a harp. He was bowed around his power, and Voldemort had only to release him.
He leaned a lipless mouth into his ear. "Break them," he said.
He waited for Voldemort's fingers to finish the curl they had started in his dark locks. With no sign of intelligence, he turned and entered the battlefield.
o.O.o
Threads broke in front of him. They snatched at each other like oroboros, opening and gnawing and snapping again in brilliant lapses of gold. They were different paths he could take, but he touched only the first.
It pulled him into the fight. The threads snagged, rubbing against one another in a friction of heat. He stepped passed it, leaping into another. He entered a fold between the moment when the strings broke apart, fibers clinging with static, and swam on a current of light.
His body disintegrated. He felt the popping sounds of sand placing muscle, particle replacing skin, as part of his mass drifted away from him. Perhaps the marrow in his shins, perhaps the skin off his right lung, perhaps the molar in the back of his mouth.
The threads separated and dumped him across the pitch. He stepped through another and this time lost a great chunk of meat off his finger. Then, he stood before Dumbledore.
The old wizard was keeping the Carrows at bay with a cat o' nine tails, oiled in fire. The whips hissed and cracked, breaking their shields so they were forced to lob shots passed the fire, hoping to strike him on luck.
Silent, he slipped into their guard, invisible for only a second while light became matter once more. He tasted metal when he breathed. He watched the weave and again took the first set down at his feet.
He moved. There was no hesitation as he followed the strokes of Dumbledore's whip. Ribbons of heat seared his face. Dumbledore blinked, disbelieving, and faltered. Dyre rushed forward, watching the path shift like a river. He touched Dumbledore's arm and snapped it.
The man gave a cry of surprise. Dyre knocked his elbow in his throat, taking his voice.
The fire lash failed.
Break them, his master had said. Dyre reached into the magician's core, finding the live, flushing vines. He tore them out.
Dumbledore tried to scream even passed the aching bruise in his throat. Dyre brought forth the shining mess of his magic, squirming like a squid leaking golden sap. He let it fall to the ground and the light slowly died. Not even a corpse remained.
The pitch had fallen silent, watching the greatest wizard of their time castrated. Dumbledore sobbed, burying his face in his knees.
Slowly, laughter came. It drifted ahead, fell, and filled the pitch like poison gas. Voldemort rocked back on his heels and laughed.
Sirius screamed and renewed his vigor, blasting spells through his opponents, but they all knew. This was the death throes of a downed beast.
They were done.
o.O.o
And you will know betrayal, the mother says.
o.O.o
Yrsa threw the weaving. The work splintered, rips running through the fabric. The threads unraveled. She remained standing woodenly, her breath hitching uncomfortably.
Gently, a fair hand righted the weave. It picked up the stools, separating the threads and setting them aside.
"It's not fair!" Yrsa said, tears sliding over her face.
"He chose this path."
"It's not fair!" she shouted again, her cheeks red.
It was silent a moment, the only sound Yrsa's frustrated sobs.
"It is only a moment. They all just seem to last forever."
"I don't want it to end like this."
The hands took her own, easily loosening them. They guided her back to the weave.
"Then change it," the voice said, smiling softly.
Yrsa sniffled and nodded. Her fingers glided over the threads, plucking out the frayed ends and separating the bonds that had been mixed. She undid fifty years of work, snapped the wood over the last strand, and started again.
o.O.o
And you will die.
Alone.