Theatre of Abyss
Time Unknown. Hogwarts Great Hall.
The lives holding on to the glories of the past are trapped in time to suffer the consequences of living . They are in a a cage designed to hold on to rationality.
Having had no communication with the outside world that had now been destroyed was a terrifying thought to experience in their current state of existence.
Hogwarts had fallen.
What had always been a bastion for hope was now a shelter for a race afraid to confront the unknown.
"We don't know the whole story yet but our understanding is that London may have been destroyed by the dark lord."
An assembly had been called and only ten students had showed up.
"What does that mean?!"
"It means reduced to rubble moron."
"Where's Potter!"
"Does he know how to get the fuck out of here?!"
"Silence!" thundered Snape. He was sick being trapped as well, but keeping the students safe was his responsibility. It was what Dumbledore expected of him and he was not going to fail the old man who had given him a second chance at life.
A boom silenced them all and the entire castle quaked with tremendous force.
"What in Merlin's name?!" gasped Draco Malfoy.
Draco couldn't remember the last time he had a good day. His white blonde hair was uncombed and he wore his robes like a boy who just didn't care anymore. He had lost everything. His power, his family, the status his blood once held. Everything was gone.
A piercing sound began to scream through the air and McGonagall gasped in horror. That sound meant only one thing.
"The foundations!" she shouted in horror. "They've been damaged!"
"Everyone out of the castle!" Professor Flitwick squeaked in alarm. The half goblin - half human former duellist champion had never thought the day would come. They day he had to even consider that their beloved home was facing the possibility of being destroyed! The shock that thought brought about in him made him feel terrified by the thing that was capable of such an impossible feat.
The planned inquisition of the students had turned into a state of heightened alarm. All the fear they had been holding in and controlling had been bursting at the seams ever since Bellatrix and Harry had come.
Now the foundations of Hogwarts were hit and could quite possibly come crashing down? They couldn't take it anymore. The constantly suppressed urge to run began to seep through the cracks of their resolve.
Hogwarts quaked and groaned like steel screaming against rock.
From the Astronomy tower, flying on brooms, Hermione and her companions flew towards them. Hermione was sitting behind Cedric and clutching him around his waist for fear of falling off.
Hitomi landed beside Snape. McGonagall, Pomfrey and Sprout began shepherding the younger and more dependant students towards the grounds by the lake where there was no risk of being crushed by falling debris.
"How could he break the cage," Hermione said in shock and wonder.
All of them were familiar with the stories that revolved around Harry Potter in Hogwarts. He was termed a psychopath. A sociopath. A Dark Lord. A murderer. A special needs boy. The Boy who lived to Kill.
"There!" gasped Flitwick. He couldn't believe Harry had broken the cage. He had thought the rune structure unbreakable!
From the bend of the castle between the lake and the hidden cliff behind the castle, came Harry. His hair was grey with soot and dust. Robes still crumpled and repaired by Pomfrey.
Hermione and Vector immediately began to converse in urgent whispers about what possible runic structures they could use effectively in the shortest time while Flitwick, Snape and Hitomi moved forward to create distance between the students and Harry. They knew what had to be done. There was no choice now. They had talked about this after capturing Harry.
Snape saw Lily's eyes before anything else and his heart clenched. What had her son become? A monster they were willing to kill? Could they kill him?
Seeing him without looking like he was knocking on death's door made him take in more details than before.
Harry was taller, he realized. Thinner but… not weak. In fact his body movements were fluid… confident…. His hair was longer too. It now ran wild and brushed against the back of his nape. What made him take pause was the vibrant youth reflected in his face. If he didn't know who Harry was, he would have filed it as another teenager going through their rebellious phase. It was always in there eyes. The mad desire to upend structure. How he hated teenagers!
Harry walked with measured length and didn't bother about the wands pointed at him. Instead he was taking in the sight of the magic that had lit up the sky and horizons.
Everything had changed.
Magic… A dimension beyond human understanding… He reached out with the Void and saw runes shimmer into life… awaiting his words and yet… there was something behind the veil. Something unseen and unheard.
"It's strange," Harry muttered.
The colours were brighter too. He was seeing a depth to them he hadn't noticed before. It was almost like he was looking through the window of an enclosed room in an ocean of mystery.
In its undisturbed yet chaotic state he could almost hear the sound it was trying to make.
Evolve.
Harry wondered if he was hearing it right.
The desert had stripped apart his personality; left him a desperate survivor until he found a reason to live beyond surviving.
It started with the desire for human contact and the desert gave him Rita Skeeter. Rita gifted him her head to make him understand that magic had a consciousness that was far greater than him. The Source, it was called by those who believed. The idea that Harry had chosen to dwell deep in while ignoring the world around him.
Rita showed him the way home, out of the mind bending reality of the desert, and here Harry found the strong foundations of his life before the creation of the desert.
He felt like he was at the center of time. He could see his past clearly and his future cloudy.
It seemed like his every step needed careful thought and contemplation.
To that end, the first thing he wanted was his wand and diary; his possessions. He wanted to write. He needed to assemble his thoughts to form a path forward.
This was an important cross road.
"Harry!"
The voice prompted a scowl on Harry and he turned to his professors and school mates. Why did they always bother me? Harry thought with an annoyed sigh.
"What?" he snapped. He hadn't forgotten that cheap trick. The urge to summon waves of fire and watch with pleasure as they burned and screamed roiled in the void. He wanted to see them wither away against the soul breaking storms of his desert.
His anger boiled and he took a deep calming breath. He didn't want to lose control. Not after having fought so hard to find it.
"What?" he repeated with a soft hiss of controlled irritation.
"What did you do?" Flitwick asked with a tremble of anger at the fate that had fallen on his precious home. "Where's Bellatrix?"
Hitomi made a move to draw her sword with a cold look in her eyes but Snape put a hand up to stop her and took another step towards Harry.
"Potter," he said softly, ignoring the Japanese girls glare. "Just answer me this. How do we find Professor Dumbledore?"
Harry's eyes slid to the tight grip they had on their wands. He glanced at the runes forming around Hermione and Vector and scoffed. It looked like they were initiating an attack spell. They were trying to ask magic to manipulate the earth to trap him but their will was too weak. Their connection to the source almost non existent.
It was a fact to Harry that they could not stop him. He could see what they were capable of and he was curious to see what will they would do. Would they fight knowing there was no hope to win? As always the first instinct to react with violence rose within him when faced conflict. But this time he could control it. Convert it into something else. Something that held more meaning and therein lay the conundrum. He had known anger and rage all his life. And it had been exhausted in the desert.
Harry was finding it difficult to identify what remained.
He knew he had a purpose. A quest to serve the will of magic and contribute to its evolution.
But what was this he was feeling? A rising tide of emotion that was causing strange thoughts to take root and then flight. He couldn't identify it. It felt like he had to grasp on to something. He had to form an attachment to something real. It was important.
"Sit," he said, pointing to the ground with measured calm. Maybe if they calmed down he could figure out what he had to do.
"Sit?" burst out Draco; who had been edging towards the trio while ignoring McGonagall's hissed fury demanding him to come back. "What the fuck do you mean sit! This isn't a fucking play! The castle's about to fall!" To prove his point, the astronomy tower began to crumble, unable to stand tall over the failing foundations. Draco was beyond reason now. All he wanted to do was point his wand at the monster and murder him on the spot! But his fear of Harry was deep rooted and prevented him from going through with it.
Harry saw the colours of fear swirl through Draco's red chaotic and felt amused, however, too his own surprise, he found himself thinking about fixing the castle before it completely collapsed. He didn't want to break his attachment to it.
Maybe I should fix it, he thought. Maybe it holds an answer. Harry thought.
He closed his eyes and reached out with the Void.
The source of the castle's magic was deeply rooted in the Earth. His destructive magic had torn the threads holding the castle tall. He immersed his mind into the core of the magic and let out a tiny gasp. Even in its shredded state, the magic wanted to protect. That was it core. The desire to protect everyone within its walls.
The purity of the magic hit Harry deep and he didn't hear Draco's scream of frustration.
He compared it to his own dream of seeing the world cleaned with one true instinct dominant.
Harry realised he could not let the castle be destroyed. It was important. It had to stand tall and firm while the world changed around them. He didn't fully understand why, but he knew it was what magic wanted.
To the wonder of the others, they suddenly witnessed an incredible sight of falling debris reverse direction and snappily reform into its original state in a matter of seconds.
Harry didn't hear the gasps of wonder and awe from the bunch near the lake. It made him feel good to feel the castle's magic heal and radiate strength again.
He opened his eyes with a soft sigh and grinned. To the other's it looked like a mock and an insult. Where they ran hopelessly, he restored order with naught but a blink of his eyes.
"Does this mean you're going to be reasonable?" Snape asked through a controlled breath of readiness.
Hitomi, on the other hand, lost patience. She knew a demon when she saw one and was firm in her belief that he needed to be killed. If the others were thinking he could be reasoned with they were sorely mistaken!
She drew her sword and summoned her will to battle. The monster was distracted. Now was the time to strike!
Lightening surged in the sky and Harry felt a sharp form of magic rising in the girl. It was that magic that had piqued his curiosity when he first saw her and was impressed to see it out in the open. The runes were screaming their desire to cut and destroy him.
Hitomi slashed her sword at him and the magic was refined through the focal of the tip of her wand.
Harry wrapped the Void around her magic and broke her spell with intent to crush.
Hitomi gasped as her spell fall apart. A recoil rushed through her sword and she stumbled back as a powerful will to dominate slammed into the core of her mind.
"Fuck!" Snape shouted and drew his wand back. "escuro oscura!"
A dark ooze fell out of Snape's wand and began to form into dead trees that cracked out of the ground rapidly towards Harry.
At its core, Harry saw death.
The Void got excited.
Flitwick twirled his wand with unreadable speed and conjured a dragon made of wind. It rushed out of his wand like tornado falling from a darkening sky. Harry could tell it was stronger than it looked and more dangerous than the approaching death forest.
Red roots burst out of the ground and Harry noticed Hermione and the other professor were done with the initiation of the rune structure. They were trying to pull him underground and bury him alive.
It was as Harry stood there, getting dragged underground, surrounded by death trees, with a dragon made of wind inbound from the sky, bored at their attempts to kill him, he realised the strangeness of the situation.
He was offering them a chance to survive in-spite of them standing in his way and trying to kill him. He wouldn't even have contemplated that thought one sunrise ago. He would have lashed out with the void and decorated their carcass.
But now…. He found himself contemplating their survival instead of his own.
Why? He wondered.
Why do I want them to live? What reason was there to let them live?
A memory of his uncle Vernon flashed.
It used to be him fallen on the ground far in the past. What he saw in them was a representation of what he wanted to crush out of the world. One sunrise ago, the sight of that, would have made him crush them under his rage, and now he was hesitating.
Hitomi summoned another bolt of lightening and in unison with Flitwick, charged the dragons fangs with a hateful intent to make Harry bleed.
Harry didn't want to fight. He wanted to think.
He was dragged down to his waist and the dragon sank his fangs into his visible torso.
The trees bent with their tips pointed at him and all their darkness was unleashed on him.
May be I should sneak out of here.
Nostalgia of his life at Hogwarts hit him hard. He realised he used to enjoy it. Being invisible and free to do whatever he liked.
Life was sucked out of the ground as Snape's curse bounced around the Void protecting Harry.
The howl of violence died down and disbelief reigned supreme.
The Void helped him out of the ground and he dusted his robes with a frown.
"Are you done?" he asked with disappointment.
"Monster," Hitomi spat.
The venom in her voice startled him.
He looked into her colours and soul. There was an obsession with revenge and justice in her so intense that Harry found himself feeling a new emotion. He saw a part of himself in her. The green began to pulse strong and he felt a heat around his heart.
Was he feeling sympathy?
"What is happening to me?" he whispered in wonder.
Suddenly he felt a malicious intent from the tree line his thoughts sharpened. He sensed a threat. Something was coming.
"Legiliemens."
Snape took a shot and suddenly he was inside Harry mind without resistance pulling at the memories of the trial.
Harry was taken by surprise and a silent cry left his lungs as he felt a sharp pain between his eyes and felt his violet getting pierced by an intrusive magic.
He closed his eyes and forced the magic out with a rise of anger. When he opened them, he saw Bellatrix. She was grinning at him after stabbing Hitomi in the back.
Her eyes were filled with fire and glee as she pried the sword out of the dead girl's grasp and sensually ran her fingers on the blade.
"NO!"
Harry was stunned. What? Why did she come back? How had she moved so fast? Why did she kill Hitomi?
The children began to cry and despair and shock played havoc in the adults.
Holding the sword reverently Bellatrix whispered, "Everything began with this. It's appropriate I end it with this."
Harry's eyes widened in alarm. This was dangerous! He could feel the vast space around him compress with the intent to kill. It felt like countless blades pressing against him, screaming and scratching against the void with malice.
"Black!" screamed Flitwick and turned his wand on her with unspeakable rage in his goblin eyes.
Bellatrix turned the face of the blade and Flitwick collapsed in a heap of blood. Magic had cut him into an unrecognisable pulp. He was dead.
"Run," shouted McGonagall in despair. There was no more hope. Madness had overrun the world and had finally taken Hogwarts. "Run! Everyone run!" No one disagreed with her. There was no reason here. Only death awaiting.
Harry felt something strange when focused on the dead bodies of the fallen. Their lives taken away in the span of an eye blink. He had taken life too, but seeing it in third person was something unique.
This is the first time I'm seeing a murder, Harry realised.
He felt a cold rush of thrill. He felt the addictive call of the act deemed unforgivable by society. A society which he had razed with the sands of hell.
"You're smiling," giggled Bellatrix.
Harry eyes rose to meet deeply expressive purple eyes that desired the need to commit the unspeakable. A magic that could cut deep into the soul of its victims without mercy and ripe with malice. And now, that magic, that intent, was made stronger by the blade in her hand.
There was a sudden silence in the grounds. Even Snape had chosen to leave. He knew when it was time to run. Harry found himself to be least bothered by their flight and tragic loss of life and instead was attracted to the stolen blade.
"What is that sword?" Harry asked.
Bellatrix ignored him and chuckled. "Merlin's cunt that was hilarious!" she exulted pointing at Flitwick. "He was torn apart just like that!"
It was pitiable, Harry agreed. The power Bellatrix was exuding was beyond his sight. A slow excitement began to grow in him. Was she going to attack him? Was she strong enough to make him bleed?
His attention, however, remained held by the sword. He could tell it amplified the magic of the user. In Hitomi's hands they were a caution sign at best, it didn't merit a second glance. In Bellatrix's it warned him to seriously defend if attacked and made him look deeper into the magic of the sword.
The script of the magic, however, was too deep. Harry was unable to see or understand.
"Now, Harry Potter," Bellatrix breathed. She took a stance with the blade held loose and ready. "Are you ready to show me your magic? I can't wait to taste it!"
"You are certainly interesting," Harry said with a grin. The confusion in his mind about being back at Hogwarts cleared. He was remembering a feeling he had thought long lost. A feeling that defined the thought of those worthy of magic. The desire to find wizards who would match the calibre of the void.
Bellatrix's eyes lit up. "Show me," she whispered eagerly.
"But sadly the stage isn't quite right."
Bellatrix frowned in confusion and then gasped in outrage.
"Sorry," Harry said with a chuckle.
He opened the void, reached out to the chaotic magic swirling in the sky and twisted the runes of the labyrinth around Bellatrix like a spider weaving a web of steel.
"No!" screamed Bellatrix but it was useless.
She slashed her sword in fury and disappeared into a distortion.
Harry closed his eyes and breathed in deeply. Voices and images rushed through his mind as he connected with the chaos in the sky. The distortions of his curse. His mind shook under the force of an uncertain will. He couldn't disconnect.
He had to find something to replace him or else he felt like he would be buried by the power in the sky.
With a grit of his teeth he found the forest and her magic gladly latched on.
The source let go of him and fell to his knees with a gasp. That had been unexpected.
He looked to the forest to see the result of his quick escape.
Unexpectedly and relieving… there was finally silence and the forest… was transforming.
Harry was enthralled by the power that had been absorbed by the forest. Power that he had found overwhelming to hold on to for more than a few seconds.
The magic grew heavy and the trees began to thicken.
Hogwarts latched on as well and the strings of magic shielding the castle grew thicker and darker.
Something was happening and Harry realised it would be wise to take shelter within the castle walls.
The wind began to take pace as he hurried to the great entrance and stepped foot into his first home.
The doors shut and suddenly, in the silence of the dark stone walls and long corridors, Harry felt he was home.
Had he really missed it that much?