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Chapter 25: The Fault In Dreaming

An eerie glow cloaked the land around him as he stared up at the foul blight upon the sky. The wretched skull hung amid a sea of stars like the centrepiece of some great mantle. There was a mocking quality about its lolling tongue, and Harry could not help but feel that its disdain was aimed at him.

The worst part was knowing he deserved it. So often he had dreamt of winning the war, or of defeating Voldemort. They were foolish dreams and he had known so. Battle was better suited for showing off the ugliness of men than for wishful fancies.

Had the past hours been a figment of his sleeping mind, he could have been certain Riddle would make the mistakes he had been counting on. Had he been dreaming, everyone would have fled in time and the bastard would have been forced out into the open.

But it had been no dream, and real life rarely catered to the whims of man.

Forgetting that had been his folly. It was all well and good to plan for likely outcomes based on past experience, but relying on them had been a grave mistake.

Anguish filled his chest like harmful fluid. How many grave mistakes could one man make?

"You might one day wonder whether your pursuit was worth the price you paid in chasing it," Dumbledore had warned him. "Sacrifices make up the heart of conflict. They are a part of all great victories, but that does not make them easy."

That time had come long ago, but the wounds were fresher than a bleeding corpse. How much did he have to lose for a chance at victory? Were his parents, his mentor, his friends, and the joy of living not enough?

Harry threw back his head the way Remus had while in his werewolf form. "Let it end!" he implored the stars. They twinkled benignly down at him but showed no sign that they had heard.

Why do I do this? he asked himself. It would be so easy to give up and let it end. The sorrow doing so would cause might break him, but he could pick up the pieces if given time. This endless torment afforded none of that. It just broke him, again and again, in the most painful ways it could.

A wordless whimper came from close behind him. James, Charlus… Harry's father twitched and shuddered. The signs of torture were apparent, but he was grateful for them. They let him know that James was still alive. Until then he had been unsure. Then there was Charlus, writhing and whimpering like a small child struggling against unpleasant dreams.

Harry felt the cracks inside him fuse and harden.

"It is not your scar that makes you special, nor the prophecy linking you and Voldemort," Dumbledore had told him. "It is the love you feel for those you cherish and your drive to do what is right for the sake of them and all they mean to you."

Harry conjured two masks the colour of his eyes, one on each wounded Potter's chest. "Portus." A soft, blue glow enveloped them, then faded. "Where your treasure is, there will your heart be also." The same blue light flared brighter this time, and then they were gone.

Tom drew in a long breath as his feet touched down on soft carpet. The pain started as a line of heat along his injured shoulder, then flared and spread down his right side.

His frustration was more bearable than the many hurts, so he focused on it instead. How had Potter's winds been so strong? Holding them back had almost exhausted him. It was fortunate the governor had fatigued first because the storms the man had unleashed during both of their encounters were unlike anything he had ever seen.

The closest comparables he could come up with were the stories of old gods commanding power over the wind and sky. The only such tales he put any stock in were those of Taranis, but they were vague and had been distorted over the centuries. More writings had survived about pretenders such as Jupiter and Þunor, but the blasphemies were useless.

Tom turned over the details he could be sure of. One piece of philosophy stuck out — there were those who believed the stories of gods like Taranis derived from ancient sorcerers whose mythic feats had seen them falsely deified. Until that night he had always chalked those assertions up to petty little people trying to elevate themselves, but he forced himself to consider otherwise for the first time.

The existence of certain deities was beyond doubt, but could the sorcerers whom he had called false have wielded unearthly power by the grace of gods? There were too many reports of impossible might during ancient times for him to dismiss the possibility. The sheer number of these accounts was what had led him down his current path in the first place.

But how is a worm like Potter… Then he remembered the ring on the governor's right hand and the way frost had crept along his skin when those winds had been unleashed.

"All of us have one," the man had told him. "The five of us. They were given years ago. I don't know what the others do…"

Could what he had told the faithful fools who followed him really come to pass? Could the barrier between men and gods be breached? Was that how the emperors had gained such vast power?

There was only one way to know for sure.

Tom's right shoulder screamed in protest as he rolled up his left sleeve and pressed a pale forefinger into the soot-black mark burned into his flesh.

Impatience gnawed at him as he paced back and forth. Muhindo had worn a ring not unlike Charlus Potter's, which corroborated the man's story. But the traitor's had been different. Its gifts were great, but not divine. At least not on the surface.

Did that mean not all the rings were made equally? Could he replicate them once they had been acquired? With an army of men possessing godly gifts, no one could oppose him.

Tom shook his head. Eagerness was making a fool of him. No worms would lord that sort of power. He would steal the rings and learn how they blessed their wearers, then he would destroy them. None but him were worthy.

Emerald flames roared up inside the hearth. Emerald flames. Along with the memory of being driven off by them came a prickling unease felt by those who had forgotten an important detail.

Tom considered what he might be missing. They were the strongest shade of conjured fire if the tales were true. It was said Grindelwald could cast such flames, but Tom had never seen their like until that night and had assumed the rumours were nothing more than propaganda.

Atticus Lestrange stepped out of the swirling flames and knelt. "My lord?"

Tom slipped on a casual facade. "Trace all the men who fought for us tonight," he ordered.

Lestrange was looking anywhere but at him. "My lord, you asked for expendable men who could serve as a distraction. They were massacred. There—"

"Crucio."

Lestrange's screams echoed off the vaulted ceilings and rang out through the sitting room. The sound of them was grounding and helped to centre him. When he stole Potter's ring, he would tear the identity of his masked accomplice from the worm's weak mind and kill two birds with a single stone.

"Men might well have fled," he told Lestrange once the dose of pain had run its course. "If any did, ask whether they saw the governess escape." It was possible she had used her own ring and that he could glean some hint as to its capabilities.

Involuntary tremors wracked Lestrange's body when next he bowed his head. "Yes, my lord."

"Is anyone loyal to you well-placed within the empire's crown kingdoms?" Tom asked.

Lestrange licked his lips. "How well-placed?"

Tom paused, as if considering. "Well enough to observe the governors?"

Lestrange's trembling intensified. "N-no, my lord."

"See that that changes. I want at least three memories showing each of them up close." He needed to be certain that the five most powerful governors all possessed their own rings. "And Atticus, accelerate our plans. We must have the population at the muggles' throats. We must create an opening." Only then would both sides be at their weakest. Only then would a single strike to shatter everything the emperors had so carefully constructed.

Sirius's nails dug into his palms as a spasm writhed across his best friend's face. When he had first arrived, James had looked frailer than Pollux on his worst day. His friend had since regained his colour and the healers had assured him James would make a full recovery, but watching him had not grown any easier.

The shock he had felt upon receiving Aunt Dorea's patronus had still gripped him when he barged into the ward. That stage had been hard in its own way. Neither panic nor disbelief were conducive to coherent thinking, and he had been grappling with both.

"You fucking idiot!" Sirius whispered into the empty silence. The shock had subsided soon after his aunt left with the promise of returning. "I fucking told you! We all did!"

"It's hard, isn't it?"

Sirius jolted. "Grandfather. I wasn't expecting you." The Lord Black had made no sound while entering the room. "How is Aunt Dorea?"

"Shaken, but she'll be all right."

"She was worried about this, wasn't she? James said something about a plan of hers."

His grandfather made a grim gesture toward the room's two beds. "See what good plans are when they don't account for the will of men?"

Sirius made tight fists again. "Fucking idiots!"

"I assume you've guessed what happened?"

"James snuck back." The words were harsh and bitter. "There was a plan to get him out, but he ignored it."

His grandfather's face was like worn stone as he replied, "That's a part of it."

"What's the rest, then?" Sirius's question came out sharper than intended.

There was a beat of silence. "They haven't told you about Lord Potter's injuries?"

"No," Sirius admitted with a glance toward the second bed. It was curtained off and had been since his arrival.

Arcturus strode across the room and gestured for him to come closer. Sirius opened his mouth, then closed it. What had he been about to say?

Nausea assaulted him when the curtain was pulled back. An awful odour reminiscent of both burnt flesh and sulfuric acid wafted from the ruin between Charlus's hip and shoulder. The skin had blackened and solidified until it resembled dark stone marred by long fissures inside which bubbled—

"Potions," his grandfather said as Sirius slapped a hand over his mouth and retched. "They've cleaned them out the best they could, but there's only so much that can be done for wounds like these."

"What…" Sirius rested his left hand against the wall as the room swayed back and forth.

Arcturus slid the curtain closed. "Fiendfyre."

Sirius's next breath caught and his coughing bent him at the waist. "Who the fuck is after them?" he asked once over the worst of it.

"Someone slippery enough to escape our Lord Governor not once, but twice," his grandfather replied grimly.

"But what happened?" Sirius asked, embarrassed by the tremor in his voice. "It doesn't look like he's in any shape to have fought whoever it was off."

"Charlus made the same mistake your friend made." Distaste flashed across the Lord Black's face, but it was gone as fast as blinking. "The plan was to get everyone out and for them to stick together. That might have kept him safe, but he stayed and fought the flames himself."

"So that's what… what caused—"

"Unlikely," his grandfather said. "Our Lord Governor could teach mules lessons in being stubborn, but I don't think even he could have kept on fighting after being burned like that."

"So you think it happened later? When he was fighting whoever the fuck's been after him?"

"That would be my guess," Arcturus said. "Not everything is clear yet, but it seems like the initial Fiendfyre was a distraction. It flushed everyone else out and left Charlus alone to fight whatever madman's after him."

"But he's…" Sirius's words failed him. Charlus Potter could not be bested by anyone short of Dumbledore or Grindelwald. Every Englishman grew up knowing that.

"No man's invincible," his grandfather reminded him. "You of all people should know that. Living proof sits at our table."

Sirius looked down at James and imagined a taller, broader man lying in his place. Had Pollux been broader than James? It was hard to tell just by looking at old pictures. Back then his great-uncle had worn bravado like a second skin.

"That's what you meant, wasn't it?" Sirius asked. "It's hard seeing people you care about try and throw their lives away?"

"There's a reason Father refused to name Pollux as his heir no matter how many people tried convincing him," Arcturus answered without answering. "He was ruthless enough to please the staunchest of us, and clever, but the truth is, most brave men are. The hard part is balancing the two."

"James is like that. One of the cleverest blokes I know, but fucking braindead when it comes to things like this."

"Luckily for all of us, your friend has time to learn."

Sirius looked into his grandfather's face. It was as hard and grim as a medieval stronghold. "What do you mean luckily for all of us? I know he's in the family and all that, but you've never… well, you know."

"Times are changing," his grandfather told him. "There's a storm coming, and I think it might take all of us to weather it."

"Morpheus is not his true name. He is glory and deprecation—sunlight and shadows—the scuttle of a scorpion and the melody of a nightingale. The breath of the sea and the cannonade of a storm. Can you relay birdsong, or the sound of wind, or the scurry of a creature across the sand? For the proper names of netherlings are made up of the life forces defining them. Can you speak these things with your tongue?"

— A.G Howard

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