I HEAR, I SEE, I COME
…
"Your do-over?" Harry asked.
"Yes, that's right. In fifteen minutes, less now, a Great One will come into this world, and it will give me the chance which I so desperately need. A chance to start over." Henry Tonks answered him.
Harry looked down at the writhing Goetic on the floor all around his throne, out of which he had so far not managed to escape. He had an idea about the Great One which would come into this world.
More pieces were falling into place, in Harry's mind.
"Why did you frame me?" Harry asked, because he was sure now it was this man who had done it.
"For Kingsley and his lot in '99 or your dear relatives this year?" Henry Tonks asked him so casually, he might have been asking if Harry took sugar, milk or both with his tea.
Harry schooled his expression. "Both."
"It was nothing personal, you understand." Henry started. "You made things difficult by being hard to find, is all."
"Oh?" Harry prompted.
"Yes. I needed you for the ceremony. After You-Know-Who's last fall, I had, of course, come back into the fold of Wizarding Britain. My master was defeated, and I had to resume my former identity." Henry recounted. "I suppose you'd want to know who I was during the Wars, do you not?"
"I already know. Rodolphus Lestrange." Harry glared at the man. He had been there, with his wife, Bellatrix, in that horrible cellar in Yorkshire.
Henry's eyebrows shot up. "Quite right! Now, after the Dark Lord's defeat, and after I left the losing side, the first job I ever got as Henry Tonks was as a secretary, for the Wizangamot. A lowly job, but quite gainful to me. I penned memos, and the like. And also, the important bit, I scheduled trials. Now, all I needed was access to this room, which as an employee of the Ministry I could acquire. And I needed access to you, Harry. That part was not so easy." Henry said.
Harry's struggles appeared to be in vain. The chair would not give. No matter what he did, he was stuck to it. His only hope now, as he saw it, was to keep Henry Tonks giving his evil-villain-monologue long enough that he might miss or muddle some part of this ceremony.
"You, Harry Potter, were not an easy person to find back then. I sensed that the former members of the Order of the Phoenix might know your whereabouts. But that lot have always been prone to secrecy. I could find no clue, no indication, on where on earth you might be hiding after your glorious defeat of the Dark Lord."
"So you killed a room full of people to find out?" Harry shot at him.
"No, of course not. I killed a room full of people, wearing your face, so that the aurors would find out. And they did, did they not? They dragged you to Azkaban, and kept you nice and safe in a cell, until I was ready for you. My job being what it was, it was easy enough to schedule your trial for the very next day after my ceremony. It is custom, you see, to bring a prisoner back from Azkaban and place them in holding cells in the Ministry, the night before their trial. And my plan had been so thorough, so well thought out, that it had gone off without a hitch." Henry Tonks clicked his tongue, as he finished.
"But it didn't. Otherwise, we wouldn't be here, would we?"
"No, right you are. My plans had not worked out in '99. So we are trying again, today." Henry conceded.
"Why didn't it work?" Harry asked.
"Well, because I had not fully opened the gates." Henry replied. "You see, this ceremony is very exacting. Everything has to be just right. And I had, foolishly, gotten a few details wrong. So, even though I could see, through the floor, that which I longed to summon, I could not bring it over fully into our world."
"Why are you trying to summon it? What do you want from it?" Harry asked.
"Like I said, a do-over." Henry replied.
"You're going to bring back Voldemort?" Harry guessed.
Henry Tonks' eyebrows shot up, and then he gave a great laugh. "No! Oh, of course not! Good heavens, that man turned out to be an absolute lunatic! Why would I want to bring him back?" Henry Tonks chuckled more to himself.
"So, why?" Harry asked again.
"To re-do my life, Harry." Tonks answered simply. Seeing Harry's blank stare prompted further explanation from the old man.
"Look at me, Harry Potter. I am old. And what have I done with my life? I have schemed and plotted, and yet, nothing I have done has worked out. I took the place of one of the most respected sons of the most noble lines in all of Wizarding Britain. I, a simple muggle-born, managed to make allegiance with the Dark Lord, the most powerful wizard that ever lived. I married a pureblood witch, that was beautiful as well as strong, magically unmatchable. And yet? As Rudolphus Lestrange, the noble scion of the Lestrange house, I served 14 years in Azkaban after the Dark Lord's first defeat. The money in the Lestrange coffers were of now help to me, then. The Dark Lord, as you so well know, was soundly defeated. Twice. By a mere child! Who could have thought it? Who could have planned such an outcome? And my wife…" Henry chuckled bitterly.
"My wife, as it turned out, was insane. More in love with cruelty and the Dark Lord than she could ever be with me. Which was a shame. I was always fond of her."
Harry reeled from this information. How anyone could ever love Bellatrix Lestrange was simply beyond his understanding.
"So, you see, Harry, despite making clever and well-judged decisions, I have come out on the complete bottom, time and time again. And this time, I would like, very much, to come out on top. So when the Great One steps forth, out of the gateway which I shall open for her, I will ask for only one thing. A chance to start again. A do-over." Henry rubbed his aging hands together. "Perhaps I will choose the very first day I came to Hogwarts. Yes. I believe that will be the ticket. And this time, I will ask the Sorting Hat to put me in Gryffindor, or Ravenclaw perhaps. I will live my life knowing that Dumbledore and you, Harry, will eventually triumph. Perhaps I might be in the Order of the Phoenix? Perhaps I will be your mentor, in this new world? Or, more likely, I might just leave the country altogether until the mess with the Dark Lord sorts itself out. Yes, I will live a very different life indeed…"
Harry's eyes darted from the old man, who confessed his crimes in a measured and calm tone, like he was lecturing Harry on the History of Magic, to the floor, where the diagrams were now swirling in a lurching, sickening way.
"But it didn't work last time!" Harry tried again to distract the old man.
"No, it didn't. So I got help." Henry answered. He too, was observing his own handiwork on the floor.
"What kind of help?" Harry was hoping to keep the old man's attention to himself. Maybe he would forget something, maybe he would say the wrong thing, and interrupt the ceremony. It was, as Tonks had said himself, very exacting.
"Oh, help from some fine Muggle occultists." Henry answered. "You see, it's not just wizards that like to play with the dark things that slumber beneath shadows. Muggles, also, have made their studies and forays into the world of the Goetia. Indeed, it was in a muggle's house that the Dark Lord first found the grimoires which I have used extensively. Now, the Dark Lord, he had no interest in the subject, whatsoever. He was an ego-maniac. He could not admit that anything in the Universe rivaled his power. A fool, is what he was. But, he made the grimoires available to me, when I petitioned him to examine the writings."
"But they didn't work?"
"No, not the first time. Like I said, I got help. I made copies of my grimoires. And I spread them through the muggle world like a plague. Oh, you should have seen how excited the muggle occultists were to even glimpse my grimoires! It took them time, yes. But they worked it out, eventually. They worked it out, Harry, not me. But, I shall take the credit. For of course, the muggles could never hope to have the Master of Death present at the ceremony, could they?" Henry said, and shot Harry a tender smile.
"I murdered you dear muggle relatives, hoping that the aurors would get off their backsides and finally find you! But, you are very hard to find, as we have established. Do you know, I almost called this whole thing off? My last chance, my Hail Mary, if you will, was young Ted Lupin. I am a very practiced Legilimens, and I saw that for some reason, Ted thought you were communicating with him! Sending him birthday presents? I had to see if it was true. I had to take the final risk, to draw you out. And here you are! Harry, I have laid out the pieces very carefully this time. And this time it must, it must work."
Harry swallowed past a dry throat. "What about them?" Harry asked, motioning to the young security guard, and the unconscious Laura Baskey to his left and right.
"They are fairly unimportant. Dozens of people could have filled either of those chairs. But, yes, they will be consumed as well. The Great One will be here in a few minutes."
Consumed?
Harry opened his mouth to ask another question.
"Now, Harry, it is almost time. I must concentrate. But I have one more thing to say to you: I am sorry about Yorkshire." Henry Tonks said, and looked right into Harry's eyes. Harry snarled, and fought against his restraints. He's sorry?! He's bloody sorry? Like he lost my favorite jumper that I loaned him? Like he did anything short of torturing me into insanity? Like he's not about to feed me to a demon for a time-travel favor?
"If I could have intervened, I would have, believe me. But I had to play a role, with Bellatrix. I hope you understand. In this new world, in my do-over world, I will be sure to make it up to you." Henry nodded at him, like his words meant anything to Harry who was now in the throes of a full-on panic. Henry Tonks strode away then, and took his place within a triangle, which, unlike the rest of the floor, was still. The stones all around Henry whirled, twisted, and waved. Harry thought it looked like they were on a mad ocean made of flagstone.
Then the sound.
Scrabbing, itching, chafing against his very mind. The sound was coming from beneath the floor.
And it was growing louder. With a dawning horror, Harry realized that the noises were awfully familiar.
"She comes…" Henry Tonks murmured.
Harry tried shooting more questions at Tonks, anything to throw the old man off his game.
"What about the muggle occultists? What about Ted? How did you find him?"
All was in vain. Henry Tonks stood in his triangle, and raised his arms. He did not even look again in Harry's direction.
Suddenly, the temperature in the room dropped sharply. Harry's breath steamed in front of his face. There was a loud ringing in his ears, and he saw the flame of red hair, splattered with blood. Harry thought this cold might be an effect of the ceremony, but he was wrong. Around the chamber, they came in orderly lines. In a few moments, dementors filled the entire periphery of the chamber. They looked like an audience, backs against the walls, rotting hoods turned towards the center where Henry Tonks stood in a triangle in front of Harry and the three thrones.
"Your servants gather!" Henry Tonks suddenly shouted. "Hear us! See us!"
Harry stared at the floor in terror and wonder. It had gone transparent. He could see the outlines of where the stones had been, and he could see the Goetic diagrams that were glowing like neon now, but beneath was a starless abyss. He did not know how he could tell that this black nothingness beneath the floor was endless. But yet he knew. His eyes, which were not made to comprehend such things, burned looking into the waste of time and space. It was eternity, and endlessness. Unboundedness. His struggles suddenly stopped, as he gazed into that vast ocean of nothing. What could it possibly matter to struggle?
Then, the voice.
It did not speak in English, but the terrible understanding of its words crawled deep inside Harry's cochleas and there, vibrated against his brain. He could not understand the words, but he knew them, like one knew that the deep, dark edges of the ocean held danger.
I HEAR.
I SEE.
I COME.
The words reverberated against Harry's skull with agony. He cried out instinctually, but found he did not actually care about the pain. He found that he did not, in the moment, care about much. All was calm inside him. Looking into the vast, black wastes, even for a second's glimpse, had stilled all of Harry's thoughts; frozen them over.
Henry Tonks, who was probably in the know about this strange effect, was studiously looking at the ceiling, avoiding the endlessness beneath the floor.
HAS THE PRICE BEEN BROUGHT FORTH?
Harry gasped. The voice was close now, just beneath them. He looked down and saw that something was coming for them out of the eternal blackness. Swimming in their direction. Whatever the creature was, it was so large, Harry could not see one end, or the other. It was like a planet, which had suddenly appeared in very close orbit, and obliterated everything else.
It was coming even closer.
"The price has been brought forth! The Jack, the innocent, the one who has not shed a drop of blood! Brought forth!"
Then, after Henry's words, the thing started to come up from the floor.
Harry did not know how he understood it, but he knew that the thing was tiny compared to the immense Great One that had swam through oceans of time to meet them here. The thing was like the smallest hair on the Great One's back, a tiny protrusion from the whole; a manifestation on the earthly plane of only the smallest facet of the entirety.
Bones jutted in impossible angles, and conjoined in geometric paradoxes. Feathers that were not feathers, but that is as close as Harry's pained mind could understand them, covered the thing. The creature was bird-like, but also, as different from a bird as a space ship was from a bicycle. The bird-thing was definitely familiar to Harry. Had he not seen shadowed glimpses of it, when he was at his lowest?
The bird-thing crawled towards the young man passed out on Harry's left.
I HEAR.
I SEE.
I COME.
I DEIGN TO CLAIM HIM.
The horrible voice was right there. Harry wrenched his eyes from the floor. He needed to thaw his thoughts. He needed to care. He stared instead at the unconscious security guard to his left. The guard did not move, or stir.
"The Queen, the guilty, the one who has your dark knowledge! Brought forth!" Tonk's voice sounded again.
With a great flap of its un-wings, the bird-thing flew over Harry's head and landed in front of Laura Baskey. The woman stirred, and Harry prayed for her sake, that she did not wake up to this.
I HEAR.
I SEE.
I COME.
I DEIGN TO CLAIM HER.
"The final offering to you, oh Great One! The King who is hallowed! Thrice blest by death he is! He holds death's favors hostage, and wears death's own artifice! Brought forth!"
That would be me, thought Harry, Master of Death. Fat load of fucking good it's done me.
The bird creature landed in front of him. It's goat pupil eyes bored into Harry's.
show me
The thing whispered to him.
show me death's favors
The cloak flashed through Harry's mind. It was still there, laying on the floor of the death chamber, where Harry had discarded it. Henry Tonks had not been stupid enough to pick it up. It was still Harry's.
The stone, which Harry had not given up, was still his own. It lay in the pocket of his coat.
The bird creature nodded. Harry saw an unholy hunger shining in its eyes.
and the last? do you have the last?
The wand. It was now held by Ted Lupin, but where was its allegiance? Who owned it?
Harry was fairly sure that it was still his. But the thoughts that flashed in his mind, drawn out by this creature, surprised even him.
He saw the shred of an island where he had landed with Snape, after Harry had rescued the man from Azkaban.
Harry saw how he had transfigured the old Potions Professor back into a human. He saw it now with stark clarity. Snape had fought him. He had tackled him. They had wrestled, and Harry, afraid of hurting the old and frail Professor, had pulled his punches. And, after the fight, who had come away with the wand?
He saw Snape standing in front of him, holding the Elder Wand. He understood now why the wand had bucked and disobeyed him. It had chosen a new master! Harry was no longer the master of the Death Stick! And that meant…
you are not death's own, you are not the king i seek
The thing whispered to him for the final time, and then it turned quickly, on Henry Tonks.
I HEAR.
I SEE.
I COME.
I DO NOT DEIGN TO CLAIM A FALSE KING.
"What? NO! He is the true king! He is the Master of Death!" Henry Tonks exclaimed, and Harry saw that the old man was now frightened.
I DO NOT DEIGN TO CLAIM A FALSE KING!
I DO DEIGN TO CLAIM THE ONE WHO SPEAKS, THE ONE WHO CALLS, THE ONE WHO HAS BROUGHT FORTH A FALSE PRICE!
"No! No, that can't be right! It can't," Henry Tonks stumbled, as the bird creature began to approach him, "I am in the triangle of Solomon! I am protected! Begone!"
A sound issued from the bird-creature and Harry thought it might have been a poor mimicry of a laugh.
The creature spread its terrible wings and in a second, it landed on Tonks's chest. The wings wound around the old man like an embrace.
Harry heard one more gasp of terror from the old man, and then the creature started to melt, down into the floor, taking Henry Tonks with it.
It was over in a second.
The floor had resumed being stone. The diagrams were mute, and stationary.
Only a rumpled mess of gray robes remained where Henry Tonks once stood.
Once the shock had worn off, and the hall fell quiet, Harry started thinking. He knew who was responsible for this, and for the murders in '99. He could give reasons for why, and how those murders were committed. He looked at the empty robes, where once stood the man that was his only hope of exoneration and Harry thought of Peter Pettigrew, disappearing. Somehow, he doubted the Ministry was going to believe him.
How history did repeat itself.
He stood on two shaking legs and surveyed the room. He needed to help Laura and the young guard. Then, he needed to get hell out of the Ministry.
Harry was just about to move towards Laura when he noticed, out of the corner of his eye, that the dementors that have kept their places in a circle, now started to move.
They came for him.
