Degraded, cold, upon the sodden ground

His old right hand lay nerveless, listless, dead,

Unsceptred; and his realmless eyes were clos'd,

While his bow'd head seem'd listening to the Earth,

His ancient mother, for some comfort yet.

~ John Keats "The Fall of Hyperion"

The night held all the delicious science of a dream. They had fought to the last. Let loose of hope, they had screamed and killed and tried to die on the wands of his little eaters, but they knew. And when the last had been carried to the ground, snarling, nipped and bound, they disarmed them. Lined them up beside their fallen comrades, their dishonored general. A few even cried.

A dream. Only one thing made it real.

Harry approached his side. Dots of red colored his face, his own dried blood flaking around his nostrils and mouth.

Voldemort tilted up his beaten face. "Well done, Harry."

His eyes were exposed, yet they held all the useless muster of a corpse. A tool with all the intelligence of a god and none of the souls of men. He'd murdered his father. He'd raped men on the cruel knife of imperio, had them cum in their daughters' wombs and watched all the lovely waste borne of his sickly world. He only barely understood his own madness, didn't care so long as it gave him pleasure.

Harry's face was a thousand times more pleasing than any of the sins he'd reveled. He wondered if this was love. The disease that had torn his mother open on the spear of a muggle's dirty prick. This was the first time he'd ever touched something he didn't want to tear open.

Voldemort slipped Dyre's dirk free and leaned to whisper in his ear.

"Do you love me, Harry?"

Harry opened his mouth. His teeth were stained, and the croak that erupted was barely human. His tongue made no motions of speech. After a moment, he closed his mouth. His teeth were still red when he opened his mouth again, and the voice like came, like an anvil, was not a boy's.

"What will you?" the doll said from that hole.

Voldemort pulled his Harry closer, ignoring the sweet stench of rot drifting from his neck.

"Will you do anything for me?"

"Yes," the apparition said.

Voldemort pressed the dirk against him, letting his fingers linger against his bloodied chest.

"Look Draco Malfoy in the eye and kill him," he said.

Harry took the dagger and turned around.

o.O.o

Draco couldn't believe this was happening. His parents were in chains. His godfather, the ones he called Uncle, his old professors, they were helpless, taken to ground like hunted rats. And Dumbledore was broken.

This couldn't be happening. He tried to shut it out. So hard. But every time, when he had almost closed off the nightmare, there was that one moment when he had to look up again, just to see Dyre. Hoping.

And he felt like he was dying. Over and over, every time the illusion did not fade. He'd let this boy into his body. He'd cradled him and caressed him. And he stood over them, a wraith made of blood. It was the mercilessness in his eyes, the apathy, that played over and over in his mind, a democracy of hell. Rinse and repeat.

A sound and there were boots in front of him. Shivering, Draco looked up. Even with the knife in his grip, it was impossible to fear him. He was far too past that. Part of him knew it, in the back of his mind, that he was going to die. But it was Dyre. And he couldn't think anything past the dumb pain.

He cried.

"Who killed Cock Robin?" Nightlee sang. He danced on his toes. "I, said the Sparrow, with my bow and arrow, I killed Cock Robin." He broke off in a fit of laughter.

Harry descended to a knee and grabbed Draco by the throat.

No one could save him, he thought. And he was almost glad he was too stupid to think of anything else.

"Kill him!" Bellatrix jeered.

"Kill him!"

"Kill him!"

"Kill him!"

Dyre looked into his face. Draco wasn't sure if he imagined its intensity. They were eyes as dead as a raven's. Draco swallowed around the hand, fighting the madness crawling the edges of his consciousness, growing with the strength of the lynch-mob. There voices beat against his skull, instilling a new, nervous terror.

Then, Dyre released him. He slumped back on the ground, striking his chin. It winded him a moment, and he coughed. When he crawled back to his knees, the clearing had gone silent, and Dyre's face was turned, listening to something in the wind.

"What is thissssss?" Voldemort whispered.

Draco curled away, more terrified of the malice in that voice than anything in his life. When Dyre didn't respond, Voldemort came forward. Draco glanced at the boy, wondering how anyone could possibly ignore such blatant violence.

Voldemort raised his wand but hesitated. Calming, he lowered his aim and slid around the boy's side. Gently, he touched his face, turning him back to his gaze. Draco shivered and tried to make himself small.

"Disssobediencssssse?"

Dyre gazed back at him despondently. He opened his mouth.

"The damned may take only the damned."

Draco understood. Even soaked in despair and fear and shock, he knew. Dyre had rules. Rules Draco only partway believed. It drifted through his mind, surfacing wearily. He could only kill his master.

The grip on Voldemort's wand tightened.

"What good are you then?"

Dyre stared at his master. Then, he took a step forward.

Voldemort's wand was up and between them in an instant. Dyre stopped and something like confusion crossed his face. It was horribly childlike, so out of place amidst the gore. Draco shivered again.

The two stood there, awkwardly together. Finally, Voldemort lowered his wand. The boy touched their chests, cradling his hands around Voldemort's neck in a parody of lovers. Voldemort lowered his head in surprise, and Dyre opened his mouth once more.

Looking down, Voldemort could only see the darkness of it. No tongue, no throat, no teeth. It ached then swallowed him. Voldemort gasped.

Cities burned. He saw them. Muggle cities, littered with debris, houses torn open and belching black plumes. A terrible panic had arrested the city. There were cries and screams, and all the while, the fires continued to feed. Shakily, the world tried to climb to its feet and fell. The women were the loudest. They spoke in wails, lost children, lost lovers, lost homes. And below them was the sound of breaking, as some gathered their spoils. Grave robbers, coming in the dust and ash. Their greatest serenade was of glass, their own calls of victory only ballads to that.

Voldemort had done this. It was not the personal torture he usually favored. This was not a family torn apart. This was millions, and he realized how small he had been. The bodies strewn here, set aside like abandoned toys, were victims of everything, of an everything that he created.

He saw more. He saw the disease he had spread among the towns. He saw people covered in black sores, felt the inside of their bodies pressed tight with tubers, the lot of them aching to burst like a nest of spores. He saw the fear riding on the cloak of death, the madness as neighbors tore each other apart, burned each other alive. He didn't need imperio. They did all themselves. He was merely the catalyst. The god.

The boy released him.

Someone was panting. He almost told them to shut up before he realized it was himself. The curse watched him, waiting.

Voldemort had no hestiance. "Give it to me." He seized the boy's collar. "Give it to me," he demanded. "I want it. Give it to me!"

Harry was calm. Voldemort licked the corner of his mouth, pulling him back by his hair. His fingers curled as if he could rip the power out of his skin.

Draco prayed. He did not know what Dyre had bestowed the Lord in that kiss, but he remembered the taste of Light he'd found between the sheets in his chambers. He'd only felt a hint of the power in the boy and prayed that Dyre would disobey. The craze in Voldemort's eyes, longing in a man better dead.

But of course, Dyre obeyed, and Draco, for the first time in his life, cried for the world.

Harry stepped back from his lord. The ground had been churned and scorched from the battle. It was not hard for him to find a place torn of green, more blackened than most. He banished the little remains of his clothing with a thought and knelt.

He pulsed. Just once. And the earth where he touched was no more, Dark magic making a shallow hollow. Lifeless. With his teeth, he tore the veins out of his wrist. What came was not blood but ichor, putrid and brown. He opened his other wrist and hung them out over the plane. As the liquid congealed and coalesced, he spoke.

"Through the blood of the Prince of Gallows, I call you from the World Beneath."

Something moved in remembrance between Draco's legs. He shut his eyes. He'd felt this power, when Dyre was buried deep inside him. He whimpered and tried to keep silent, clamping his legs together.

"You who are unclean," Harry said and went to smear his wrists on the ground. "You who are godless. Plague."

Draco gasped. With a cry, he fell on his back. He opened his eyes and found his father watching him, not understanding. He couldn't bear the humiliation and turned away.

"Hunger," Harry said. "Rape. Nurtured in me…" He bent his lips to the pool. "The Son of the Hanging King entreats you, my kin," he whispered."Come."

Draco screamed. There was nothing of pain or pleasure. It was the cry of a lost child, forgetting what the light had looked like. Bound, he jerked and clawed like an animal. Suddenly blind, he was tasteless, unable to feel his own tongue. He forgot his father's eyes, such a thing as words. He lifted on the cusp of an edge, begging the madness to retreat. It laughed and crawled up and through.

It was the last thing Draco could feel. He collapsed, fragments of himself returning before he retreated. He remembered enough to try once to open his eyes. Something like a man's fingers pressed down on his lids, and he accepted the last of Dyre's gift to him. He fainted, never to see the nightmare his love had summoned.