Nothing is mine.
Super short, I'm afraid, but still an important one!
Yik, whatever you got, I want some, brother xD (I actually do not share much ideology with many of the characters in this, thankfully for me, but I do appreciate the sentiment all the same - and hey, maybe to those who wait, come good things...)
Onerioi
Ravens cawed and flapped amidst the brown and orange leaves of the treeline; their distant clamour and dark feathers hung beyond the frozen silence of the fading flowers in the grass fields.
The quiet niggled at him, gnawing at his heart like slugs chewing away at the dark green leaves of Petunia's hosters.
'Gone again,' he whispered.
Fleur's wedding ring swung upon the willow, clinking against the tiny vial of phoenix tears.
'But not really gone.' Harry watched it sway back and forth, glinting in the sun. 'Just missing…'
A faint stab of yearning pierced him.
Where is Fleur?
The storm stirred, bubbling up in his breast, a thrashing thicket of sharp hot thorns.
Fleur said she wouldn't be gone long.
A faint breeze rippled through the distant trees; the silence of the far away sway of branches pressed down upon Harry, closing in around him like the walls of the cupboard beneath the stairs in the night.
Has Fleur just… disappeared? He took a long deep breath in through his nose. Don't fret. Fleur will come back. As always.
'But so will this feeling,' Harry whispered, wrestling with the storm winds swirling in his chest. 'It always does, as soon as Fleur's away…'
Something's missing. Harry felt it hanging at the eye of the storm, a wordless weight at the tip of his tongue, a quiet soft hollow at the centre of his heart. Something important. Fleur.
'Maybe it is getting worse,' he told the black silk fluttering before the Mirror of Erised. 'Maybe that's how forever without them and the sunset was guaranteed.'
But I still love them. And I can't have escaped before I truly gave up.
Harry pressed his fingertips into his ribs, pushing until little pangs of pain flared through his breast and his arm shook. 'Did it even work? I don't remember giving up, yet here I am...'
Maybe because Grindelwald will ruin it all. Maybe knowing that is how, but that's not certain, that's not giving up. The amber-masked figure rose from his thoughts, bright as the dawn, but fierce and hot and as full of hungry whispers as crimson Fiendfyre. He will try, though. They always try. And he'll have to be stopped. Somehow.
Harry crushed the spectre of fear down into the dark empty place below his heart and scattered the storm. 'But it doesn't matter.' He turned away from the willow and lowered himself onto the cool white pebbles, tugging off his boots and dropping them into the pensieve. 'If that's the price. That's the price. I just have to keep my promises.'
And either Fleur is right and we deserved it after all, or the two of them will get their sunset and I will have sacrificed mine. Harry slid his wand from his sleeve and balanced it across one finger. No waiting. No wishing. No hoping. Just what I promised Gabby.
'And what I promised you, baby bird…' He extended his left arm, summoning the black silk from the Mirror of Erised. 'No crucible. No secrets. No hurting.'
Katie beamed back from beneath the glass, squishing the petals of a red rose in her small fist and wiggling her toes into the white stones. The slim crescent of the sun framed her silver curls, a golden halo about her smiling face as she dropped the flower between her feet and reached out with both hands.
Harry's heart melted. 'Look at you,' he whispered. 'I'll see you soon, little chick. I promise.'
A huge pout crept onto Katie's face; her bright green eyes darkened to pine and tiny goosebumps rose along her arms.
Harry smiled, a hot lump swelling in his throat. 'You don't want to wait? You're just like your beautiful maman, so impatient.'
Little tufts of white slid through her skin and her irises flashed pitch black.
'Now you look just like your maman when she's cross with me.' A short laugh burst past the lump and he stood up, walking across the cool white stones and pressing his hand to the cold glass. 'You won't be sleeping on the other side of the mirror for long. Gabby's magic won't last forever.'
It can't. She didn't have forever to give.
Katie let the rose petals fall from her fist, shaking the last stubborn couple off, and tottered forward over the white pebbles. She placed her small hand on the other side of the glass and beamed, all the dark draining from her eyes and the white tufts sliding back beneath her skin.
Harry stared at where the tips of her little fingers poked up through the gaps between his; the scream of the storm caught in his throat, snarled in the razor sharp claws of desperate yearning.
He choked it down and smiled back through their fingers. 'Je t'aime, petit ange.'
The slim crescent of sun shone over her head in the mirror, casting the clouds behind her gold and orange and pink, and she pressed her other hand against the glass.
'When you come back,' he whispered, 'everything you could ever wish for will be waiting for you.'
I'll make sure of it.
Harry tucked his wand back into his sleeve and rested his right hand over her left, swallowing the thick hot knot of emotion in his throat. No more Grindelwald. No more crucible. No more Grindelwalds at all. He sucked in a deep shaky breath and swept the black silk back over the mirror, stepping back. No taking all those dreams away.
Inspiration struck like a flash of lightning through the midnight sky.
'No taking dreams away at all.' Harry closed his eyes; Roxie's desperate hope and the still feather hung among his thoughts with orange tiles, red roses, and Grindelwald's soft, sad words; all caged behind neat-trimmed rows of privet hedge, despairing wishes bottled in the small still quiet dark of the cupboard beneath the stairs. 'If it's us or them, then I'll make sure there is no them. But not by wiping them all away. By giving them what they really wish for.'
All those people out there dying for despair or fighting for hope in a war that will never end. Harry conjured a bright rose between the fingers of his left hand. When, if they must die, they should be dying for something important. Like I nearly did for Fleur.
Fierce certainty seized him as he stared at the crimson flower and its smooth green stem. 'I'll give you all the dream that's missing. Something important that will never just disappear.' Harry pulled the red petals off and watched them tumble through his fingers, sliding down the warped silver surface of the pensieve. 'No more little boys desperately wishing in the dark and waking up no more real than before. No more little girls tearing themselves apart to stop it hurting. No more dying for despair. A better way, like Dumbledore said: the only way Grindelwald can be stopped now my horcrux is gone...'
And it won't fix everything, everyone will still have their own dreams, but the crucible of colliding worlds will be gone; it will be better than before. A world Gabby would've been happy in. A world you and your maman will be able to enjoy the sunset in. So even if the sacrifice is still to come, I know it wasn't for nothing.
Harry tossed the green stem of the rose into the river; it bobbed over the little ripples, sailing downstream and out of sight behind the willow fronds.
It will have to be greater even than the magicks of Kart Hadasht. But if you can reshape a country, you can change a world. He swallowed the memory of the screaming red storm. Every spell. Every sacrifice. Everyone who dies fighting for the Statute. Everyone who dies fighting to escape it. Anyone who dies hoping to leave a better world behind. They will all feed it. Like I fed it. Until there's nothing left.
Behind closed eyes, he saw it wash across the world; a wave of warm summer sun spilling over the horizon, trailing clear blue skies like a cape of sapphire silk.
'And the best part, baby bird,' Harry murmured into the black silk hanging before the Mirror of Erised with a small smile, 'is your maman won't set fire to me, because there are no risks. I just have to design it and cast it.' A small smile crept onto his lips. 'It only needs a way to draw on those unaware of the ritual and all their different magicks.'
Wherever you are, Roxie, you're going to get everything you wished for after all. A fierce flash of pride seized Harry. Everyone like us will.
AN: The self promo bit! You know this bit by now, but if you don't, it's all on my profile!