Fire in the Sky

People called him a Yogi. Some called him a Sage, on the path of enlightenment. He had no concept of I. He existed as a part of the universe. It was the universe that guided him. He didn't have a name, nor a purpose. He was one part of a universal consciousness existing, in this moment of time, in the form of a human being. Meeting with the boy missing his heart was simply the will of the universe. Activating his heart was the decision of the universe. His spiritual vision had willed the boy to be presented with a choice. What purpose it served… he didn't know nor needed to know.

"Please take this offering from us guru-ji." A farmer was prostate before him. Offering food and money. "Please take our offering and bless our crops."

He didn't smile. He looked into the farmers hopeful eyes and placed his hand on his head. Then he gently took the bag and continued his journey on the search for enlightenment, leaving behind a young man ecstatic at being blessed or so he believed.

Feet crunched on dried twigs, leaves and pebbles and continued to move forward, on a path unknown. Such was the life of a Sage.

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Thoughts that were disjointed. Emotions that confused him. All of it disappeared the moment the monster attacked with a terrifying roar.

Survival instincts were drilled into his core. And those instincts told him to duck and roll aside.

The werewolf's claws missed him by inches and it went crashing into the tree behind him, splintering the bark.

The Void screamed. His heart was pounding. Fear had made itself known.

The wolf turned around to attack once more. Drool dripping down yellow teeth and eyes burning like desert noon.

It lunged again and Harry apparated.

He reappeared some distance away where he could hear the wolf faintly hear the wolf howling in anger at losing its prey. Harry fell to his knees panting.

"What is happening?" he moaned. Whatever the man had done to him and had made him a complete mess. His mind was missing its sharpness. His magic missing finesse. Harry clutched his head and screamed. "What is happening?!"

Screaming wasn't the best thing to do when escaping from a werewolf. The realisation came when he heard the beast pounding its paws against the earth, its sounds getting louder.

"I have to run," he whispered, eyes wide with panic. "I should apparate."

Should you?

"Should I?"

His heart was beating so hard that he could hear the pounding in his ear.

Why are you afraid?

"I don't know," he said helplessly. "There's too much confusion."

Suddenly he yearned to go back to the desert. Where everything was simple.

Why was it simple?

"I don't know."

Yes you do.

"I don't!"

Come on. Think. That man made you whole. Things are complicated now. But you can make it simple. Think! The monster is getting close.

"Because I was away. I was with magic."

So what's changed?

Harry's eyes widened in realisation. "Is this what other people feel like?"

Makes the mind messy doesn't it?

A familiar emotion made itself known to Harry. "That man," he said with a low growl. Anger began to make itself known. It oddly began to calm him down.

If you remain this way. You can finally know love. Have friends. Grow up normal. Isn't that amazing?

Harry had never felt the need to be like others. However with his emotions all over the place, he, for the first time, felt the desire to have friends. To be normal. Like the other children in the school. Harry felt the yearning he felt the first time the man touched his heart. The need to be loved and to love.

Another realisation suddenly struck him.

"The void."

What Void? There is no Void.

"Yes there is!"

Magic swirled around him chaotically sending leaves flying through the woods. The ground began to shake, signalling the impending arrival of the wolf.

His subconscious laughed. The void is just magic fool. You are whole now. Think like a normal person.

Harry's eyes danced wildly in their sockets. This was too confusing. He was arguing with himself. His self was splitting at the seams.

"The Void is real!" Harry screamed. The Void had helped him when he was dying. When he was beaten. The Void showed him the desert. The Void taught him the wondrous nature of magic. The Void had always been there with him. Did having a heart mean the void would disappear?!

All the heart had done was confuse the hell out of him.

Harry reached out to the Void. "Fuck the heart," he hissed. Why had it taken him so long to realise it utter futility of having a heart. "I'm going to kill the wolf and rip out its heart to prove it doesn't exist!"

At the exact same time, Albus Dumbledore was staring out his window trying to understand the Trelawney's prophecy. He had no doubt it referred to Harry and he feared for the boy. Why hadn't Remus found him yet? Where was he?

He stared at the rising full moon and realised Remus was without wolfsbane. "I hope you're safe Remus."

Dumbledore stared over the forbidden forest, sinking deeper into his thoughts. When he noticed Fawkes flying circles around the Acromantula den. He smiled. The phoenix may be temperamental and dealt out favours and deals like candy but he was a friend. A good friend with intelligence no one could understand.

Fawkes dove into the trees and suddenly rose into the sky, something trapped in his talons, looking like a majestic ball of fire streaking across the sky.

Dumbledore gasped. Fire in the sky! Harry! Remus! Full moon! "Fawkes!" Dumbledore shouted. He had to find Remus. Even if it meant trading his life.

Across continents a boy screamed in rage and let loose a torrent of destructive magic into the forest. Trees were ripped apart and the ground cracked under the stress of his rage.

He was on his feet now, his chest was heaving, eyes wild. He just wanted to kill. Killing would make the heart go away. He believed that. The monster was going to be his means to do it.

An ear shattering howl ripped through the air and the wolf bounded towards its prey.

Two predators faced each other. Both wanting to rip the other to shreds.

He felt a thrill of excitement burn his blood when the wolf lunged for his neck. He slapped his hands together and the air literally exploded. The wolf cried out and felt itself pushed aside by magic!

Harry remembered the time he fought the troll. He remember the joy of the void destructively flowing out of him.

The wolf scrabbled to its feet and growled at Harry. This time it stood its ground. The prey was fighting back. It was strong.

Harry however did not stop. He wanted to stop feeling. Killing would do that. He lashed out with the Void. His green eyes followed as the void turned lethally sharp and black and sped at the wolf.

Werewolves were magical creatures. And the wolf sensed death before him and reacted with the desperation of a cornered beast. It let the magic pierce it's shoulder and howled in pain but pushed forward with the strength of its hind legs to rip the prey turned predator.

It was no use.

Harry swatted the wolf away with murderous intent and another spear of magic tore into its gut before it could get away.

The wolf was being torn apart.

It was whimpering now. It could barely stand. Harry walked towards the beast with measured steps. Each ringing the doorbell of death for the werewolf. Magic was alive around him. His mind was clear with a single purpose at the forefront. He had to kill. He had to destroy the beast to restore his mind.

"Die," Harry whispered. He raised his hand and directed the void to wrap around wolf. He dragged it towards him and contorted it into position where its heart was at eye level.

The wolf struggled. It was bleeding. There were holes in its body. Spittle was flying as it howled and struggled with desperation. A werewolf, one of the most feared magical beings brought to a state of sheep against monster.

Harry opened the face of his palm. He was going to rip out its heart and that would be the end of the horror of having a heart.

A fire burst into existence close to him and even though he was distracted. He didn't let go of the wolf.

Dumbledore, arriving in the flash of phoenix fire, took in the scene and felt terrified for the first time in a long time.

"Harry! NO!"

Harry grinned. And slammed the face of his palm into furry chest of his father's best friend.

His decision was made.

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Seventh April Nineteen Ninety Three.

Trapped in the mind-set of a society, a community. My mind, my thoughts, my senses…they're all forced through tinted filters. My thoughts being forced to twist into something society would accept. When I was alone, without the influence of that society. My mind began to expand; like a spring without tension. I began to see, to feel and sense the unfurling of a different kind of knowledge. All those lines, the shapes, the damages, all becoming clear. I began to understand the shape I was really meant to be, which way I wanted to bend… and when the effects begin to wear off, when my freedom of movement began to constrict. I hated it. I want to be free. I don't want to be caged. I want the world to experience my freedom.

To me; freedom is survival. There's nothing like the struggle for life. Reading about it and living it are vast chasms apart.

What the sage in the forest did to me changed me. He made me feel something I never understood. Now I do understand. And I know. That feeling leads to weakness. It leads to domestication. It leads to people forgetting what the world's true nature is. Now my dreams are filled with images of the world buried in sand. People struggling to survive. The weak dying and the strong, surviving. A world without rules, without limits on imagination. A place where magic is might!

I say this in my mind and stare with calm eyes from behind steel bars.

"Why did you do it Harry? Why?"

Albus Dumbledore. The man sounded broken. Apparently the sight of watching a beast's heart ripped out of its chest was too horrifying for him.

Harry laughed.

"I did it because I felt love." The shroud of the man who did it flashed in Harry's mind. "I didn't like it at all."

Salvation…. Destruction….

The words echoed in Dumbledore's head. Harry had had a choice presented to him. And he chose the worst option.

"What happened to you, Harry?" he whispered.

Trapped in the dungeons of Hogwarts, Harry had to wonder for a moment. Was it all a dream? What if he was in a coma somewhere and was imagining all this as a method to cope? Everything that had happened to him seemed surreal. A week of imprisonment had him doubting his own existence.

He shrugged.

"Do you know what you did?"

Harry shrugged again. The morals and opinions of others didn't matter. They would only try and change him. Turn him into another idiotic citizen. What the man in the forest had done to him had not gone. He still felt it. Emotions. Desires. The emptiness of the Void was gone. There was more in it now.

"Harry," Dumbledore sighed. It had been a week since Remus's heart was ripped out by Harry. He had stunned Harry, overwhelming the power of his magic with his own and brought him to Hogwarts in secret. He kept him in the secret dungeons and ensured he was comfortable, had some nice books, food, a restroom and light provided; all behind bars of steel. "Please show me there's good in you." If Harry had sociopathic tendencies before he disappeared. A full blown psychopath was sitting before him now.

"I'm different. Does that make me bad?" Harry's voice was soft as always.

"You're not different. You're just confused. You're a boy Harry. You're twelve years old!"

Harry grinned. "So?"

There was a moment of silence between the two. Unknown to Harry; his mind was an open book to Dumbledore. The man didn't need to delve into the boys mind to know what he was thinking.

"So be it," Dumbledore said, his voice full of regret.

Harry looked at those blue eyes curiously, wondering what was going to happen.

He felt magic build and his eyes widened in alarm as he summoned to void to block the attack.

He was too slow.

"Obliviate!"