Harry's soul felt heavy, and he fought not to fall into a hopeless spiral.
London was on fire.
The sea of desolation stretched as far as he could see in every direction, even from the height that he and Hermione flew.
Buildings lay scattered and smashed like an angry child had thrown them in a tantrum. Fires burned out of control through the shattered city. The river was clogged with debris and wreckage, the bridges collapsed and the black water flooding through the surrounding streets as it tried to find a path downstream through the ruins.
The streets ran red with a tide of blood.
He felt the scattered shards of divine Dark as more monsters roamed the streets, looking for flesh to fill the ever-hungry void in their souls. Countless screams drifted on the sweltering breeze as the fires burned.
Harry didn't need the Eye of Fjolnir to see the endless ocean of dying souls filled with terror and pain.
Millions of mundane souls entering the Dark.
Above it all floated the horrific form of his Nemesis. His pale body looked tiny in the night sky; the air choked with black clouds of death. In addition to the huge, pale, skeletal Wings sprouting from Voldemort's back, great tendrils and pillars of hungry Dark the size of buildings emerged and continued to ravage the city below. His bone-white body hung amid the cursed limbs of Dark like a massive spider in his deadly web.
He could feel the horror in Hermione's soul as she also tried to resist being caught in a downward spiral of despair.
Can you cast a Patronus right now?
She shook her head.
Let's go back to Luna and Neville, and then we'll… we'll stop him, Hermione. We have to. There's no one else.
She nodded and he felt her soul harden.
They flew back to the roof of the abandoned and half demolished building where they had left their friends.
Neville looked grim but determined. His face was carved from granite as he stared out over the plain of destruction.
Luna just looked sad.
Harry landed next to them. "Can either of you cast a Patronus?"
Luna shook her head. Neville nodded.
"Send a message to Fudge, tell him to get ahold of whoever is left in the mundane government and keep the nukes from falling for as long as possible."
Neville glanced at him.
"I… alright, Harry. What's a nuke?"
A manic giggle slipped out of Harry's lips before he could stop himself.
Purebloods. Jeez.
"Too much to explain. I don't care if Fudge doesn't know what they are either. Just make him tell anyone in the mundane government that will listen to stall the nukes for as long as they can."
Neville nodded and closed his eyes to concentrate. Harry turned back to the terrible vision of his Nemesis in the smoke clouded sky.
He could do this. He had to. One last fight, here in the open sky, for the fate of the world. He would end his Enemy, and salvage what was left from the ashes.
He reached out and squeezed Hermione's hand, both of them trying to dredge up what hope they had left and sharing it between their battered souls.
A silver bear shot past them and disappeared into the distance.
"Are you ready?"
Neville and Luna stepped up beside him and Hermione as they looked out over the blood-soaked city. With the Eye, he could feel the tangled knot of anger and sadness and determination and despair within their souls.
Harry glanced at Neville. "The world should be a place where everyone's dreams are heard, no matter the strength of their voice."
He looked at his Angel. "Everyone deserves to be loved, no matter how lightly they tread upon the world."
He let his love and hope flood through the ever-present bond with his Queen, his Love.
"Until we can fix the cracks in the world, we must be the voice of those who are silent."
He let his power flow forth and felt his friends follow suit, the might of their awakened magic swelling like a beacon in the night.
"We will burn away the rot!"
Harry, Hermione, and Luna took to the sky while Neville vaulted high and gracefully along the ruined rooftops.
"The Kingdom will never fall!"
The Dark Lord looked down at them from on high and smiled.
…
Harry had already forgotten that he could apparate until Neville disappeared mid-leap and appeared directly behind Voldemort's head, his raised fist alight with crackling lightning.
Voldemort's mad smile never wavered as his wing twitched and Neville was thrown across the sky and into the remains of a ruined skyscraper.
Harry gritted his teeth forced the full strength of his power through his arms like a sledgehammer, a great blast of emerald magic wider than a city block exploding towards his Nemesis.
Voldemort curled his skeletal, ivory wings around himself and cloaked himself in Dark even as the verdant fire broke against him.
Harry felt Hermione's soul sing with power as ice-blue light filled the air and she froze the air in a wide area around the Dark Lord, the oxygen and nitrogen in the air condensing and freezing into solids and leaving only a vacuum behind. The surrounding air was pulled into the resulting space with the crushing force of the void, slamming the spikes of frozen atmosphere into their Enemy with impossible force, but…
Voldemort just laughed. The empty Dark had no hold on him, and the hammer blows of air glanced off his divine body.
Luna floated behind them as they fought, her shining eyes focused and overflowing with white light. Divine magic poured through the cracks in her soul as her wings spread wide, her face more serious than Harry had ever seen.
A massive white sphere of divine protection appeared around Voldemort, this time keeping his power in instead of keeping hostile magic out.
The Dark Lord's smile dropped for the first time as the enormous tendrils of hungry Dark were severed, his spiderweb collapsing as the limbs of death that previously spanned the whole city faded away in the face of Luna's divine shield.
Voldemort's eyes glowed with promises of crimson death.
"You think that your petty shards of the Divine will contain me? ME?"
He raised his hands and his wings flared. Great torrents of Dark tinged with blood-red power exploded from the Dark Lord and collided with the unbreakable Light of Luna's shield.
His Angel's scream pierced the night as the cracks in her fractured soul were forced even wider.
The sphere of divine protection shattered like glass.
Luna's wings winked out of existence, and she fell from the sky.
No!
"ANGEL!" Harry yelled, diving after her while she plummeted towards the ruined earth.
His enhanced body exploded in agony as a cannon blast of ravenous Dark hit him in the back, driving him straight through the ruins of a skyscraper and out the other side as the building collapsed behind him.
Through the pain, the Eye could see Luna's broken soul. He threw his body through the rain of concrete and caught her, just as they both bounced and tumbled across the scorched ground.
Harry flexed his power and healed his Angel even as he stopped them from being crushed by the falling debris.
He couldn't do anything to heal her broken soul.
He looked up just in time to see Hermione also get knocked from the sky by a terrible eruption of divine Dark the size of a building.
The hopelessness started to creep back in.
He was forced into action as another great tendril of ravenous power rocketed towards him and Luna. He scooped her up and shot away just in time, the living Dark carving a massive ravine through the ruined streets.
Even as he ran from the deadly pursuit of the living darkness, another limb of Voldemort's divine web exploded from his Enemy's back and homed unerringly on Harry's position.
Too much.
He landed and dropped Luna's body behind him as he turned to face the onslaught.
Harry called forth his power and the air grew heavy and hot with his potential. He threw his arms forward and an almighty torrent of emerald light sheered through the Dark, the massive flood of death parting around him and Luna as he held his Nemesis' divine power at bay by inches.
He gritted his teeth and planted his feet in the cracked concrete. He could still feel Hermione and Neville's shining souls, hopefully they could take the opportunity to attack while Voldemort was focused on ending him.
Unfortunately, he was right.
Pinned down beneath the ocean of Dark, he saw Hermione in a similar position, hanging high in the cloudy sky with her ice-blue power thundering around her in a hurricane while she fended off an endless onslaught of the Dark Lord's power.
Harry felt the rage in Neville's soul as he went on the offensive.
Neville was an unstoppable storm of death, fighting the Dark Lord's avatar directly where he flew above the ruined city. Even with the Eye, Harry couldn't keep track of him. He was apparating multiple times per second, echoing cracks reverberating endlessly as he beat Voldemort's body to a pulp.
He appeared on one side and snapped their Enemy's forearm over his leg like a twig. Before Voldemort could react, he was already gone, appearing on one massive wing and stomping downwards, breaking the bone at the top of its arc.
While still fighting the rest of them with his Dark power, Voldemort cursed and spun to try and avoid Neville's vicious attacks.
Harry's hope was just starting to return when Voldemort roared in frustration.
The Dark abated and he could move again.
But he was too slow. Too far away.
The next time Neville appeared, he had Voldemort's full attention. He appeared behind one of Voldemort's wrists, twisting and breaking it before apparating again and-
Voldemort moved far faster than should have been possible.
Even as Neville appeared behind the Dark Lord, Voldemort spun in a tight circle. His great wings snapped forward, the massive boney spikes along the edges closing like an enormous jaw of jagged teeth.
Harry felt the cruel rows of spikes pierce Neville's body from head to toe.
With a horrible ripping, tearing scream, the Dark Lord's wings flared and tore his friend to bloody pieces.
Harry felt Neville's brilliant soul slip into the Dark.
Harry was numb.
He barely had any pain left to feel. Barely any tears left to shed even while Hermione screamed in grief and anguish.
He heard Luna stir behind him and looked back at the collapsed form of his Angel.
He was surprised to find her wide, ethereal eyes open and looking up at him, brimming with tears.
"It's time, Harry Potter."
The words sunk into his numb despair, and it took him a moment to focus on her.
"It's time to stare into the Abyss and refuse to avert your gaze when it stares back."
Harry knelt in front of her and the world around them began to fade.
"Look into my soul, Death Walker, and seal the cracks from within."
His pain, his despair, his anguish faded as he stared into the glorious wrongness of the Light leaking from his Angel's fractured soul.
"Goodbye, Harry Potter."
He fell into the divine Other within her.
…
Harry stood, although he had no legs.
He peered into the surrounding Dark, yet he had no eyes.
The endless night was both empty and very, very crowded.
"Death Walker. Mark Bearer. He of the Forfeited Soul."
Infinite eyes of all shapes and colors opened in the sea of Dark.
"We have waited, ever since Pandora opened the box."
His mind and soul were empty beneath the gaze of something beautiful and horrifying, familiar and Other.
"We have enjoyed your struggle."
Harry found himself standing on the palm of a massive hand with infinite fingers, surrounded by infinite eyes.
"We have enjoyed your pain."
An altar stood before him. A cruel and brutal ritual dagger hung in the air.
"We hunger for more."
The soul on the altar was terrifyingly familiar.
"Choose, Mark Bearer. The World, or your Pain."
He would know Hermione's soul anywhere.
"One little soul, for your Wings."
He walked towards the altar with ponderous steps, heavy upon the world.
"Leave your humanity behind and Fly."
He reached up and grasped the ritual knife.
"One soul enters the Dark. The other returns Ascended. Earn your Wings, Death Walker."
Harry stared down at his Queen's soul, the dagger cruel and vicious in his hand.
A small smile formed on his lips.
The weight on his soul lifted.
He allowed himself a moment to breathe and bask in the beauty of his Love's soul.
He prepared to violate his policy one last time.
Never sacrifice the Queen to save a Knight.
He separated his soul from the cloak and felt the gaze of Death upon him for the first time in years.
He plunged the ritual knife into his own heart.
He greeted Death like an old friend, and went with him gladly.
…
Hermione was doing her best not to panic.
She couldn't feel her Knight's soul anymore.
She landed next to Luna just in time to see Harry's body collapse like a puppet with its strings cut even as the divine cracks in Luna's soul closed.
Hermione choked and stumbled as she felt her power change, felt the touch of something great and Other. She felt infinite Eyes regard her from the Dark. She felt her mind, body and soul join and bond into a singularity of self as she transcended humanity. She was no longer part of the reality she existed within. She was more. She was Other. Her magic bloomed with an endless torrent of brilliant divine Light and enormous feathered wings of gold erupted from her back.
She fell to one knee on the ruined concrete. Her body felt both glorious and wrong, too strong and too deep within the fabric of the world and too much.
"Luna, what's happening? What has he done?"
Tears ran down Luna's face. "The bird of Hermes has eaten his own wings so that you may Fly."
No!
He wouldn't…
He promised…
She stumbled over to her beloved Knight, his beautiful soul nowhere to be seen.
"He'll come back. He always comes back."
Luna just stared at her with sad acceptance.
"I've always known that someone I love would enter the Dark as a sacrifice for another's Wings. I just didn't know if it would be him…"
No.
"…or you."
No no no no no no….
Her heart broke as she ran her hands frantically over his empty face.
"He has to come back…"
Luna's voice was soft. "I can't See anymore; I'm sorry. Hermione."
Her divine soul couldn't shatter, but it felt like it should.
Nothing should be allowed to hurt this much.
Heaving and unstoppable sobs wracked her immortal frame and her wings quivered and curled around them with despair.
How dare he walk away, into the Dark.
How dare he leave her all alone.
How DARE he give her Wings when he knew he would never fly with her again!
She felt the next lethal blast of Dark coming for her, and she considered allowing it to take her away. Considered letting it deliver her to her wayward Walker.
They still had dreams to achieve.
She was still the Queen, even if her Knight was lost.
She raised one great wing of gilded power and let the Dark slide around her and her Angel.
Shining tears dropped from her glowing golden eyes onto the face of her dead Knight.
Her best friend.
She pressed her lips to those of her Love even as the warmth fled from them.
Deep within her, her heart died with him.
Her divine soul was hollow as she stood over his corpse.
The Blade of the Castle came to her, and she gripped its familiar handle. She tried not to think about the first time she had taken up her sword, the last time her Knight's soul had been lost.
With a powerful downstroke, she took to the sky once again. Glorious Wings of divine light unfurled behind her as she let her newfound godly power, paid for in the blood of her love, sing a thunderous melody within the soul of the world.
We are…
No.
She was singular, forevermore.
Their souls would never dance in harmony again. He had left her alone atop the Pinnacle of Heaven
Alone.
She screamed as the dead and shattered remains of her heart stabbed her once again, raking her soul over an endless sea of knives. The world shuddered and cracked in the face of her divine anguish.
I. am. Sovereign!
She turned her unending agony into a spear of indomitable power and struck her Enemy from the sky.
…