Chapter 27
"Dichotomy of Nature"
~
##Hermione##
She reads the mind of all the people passing by, wishing she had their lives. Any one of them, a little less tortured than her own existence. Just a bit.
And every bit was meaningful, when each step hurts and when each step brings you closer to the source of pain. That destiny, that can't be created.
The hurt necessarily, inevitable, most of all unstoppable.
For her there was terror that lurked in the corner of the room, her own shadow, a creature.
Nothing left that was hers, only hers. She barely belonged to herself. Thoughts were that refuge.
And she could have theirs. Their many ugly thoughts, the dreadful ones, the dreams of power and chaos.
Any day now she'd crack at one of them.
Death wasn't luxurious, the dark not mysterious. It was stark and plain, the blood spilled stank, its colour monochrome in comparison to the scent.
They all thought these thoughts, some wanted them. They thought.
If they knew truth they wouldn't. They'd run, flee from her, for her very presence was these things in micro.
Waiting to become, was her job. The hated fate that awaited for the day her face would change. Deep to a snarl, a grasp, the dutiful servant of the secretly desired yet despised in human nature.
All she could do was watch.
~~
Has it always been feeling as if
This world is done
Nothing more to do
Nothing left
All is over
Notes fading away
Into deafness
Into dumbness
I cannot say
It's the way I sense it
Nothing in the right place
Nothing with grace anymore
Colour drained
Grey and more gray
A scale of deceit
Of loving lost in memories
From when life was different
I cannot say
What point it changed at
Or how this came about
Only that today is dark
And I am totally, utterly at the mercy of death himself
Because I'm dead inside
Waiting only for the body to follow me
To my filling grave
Shallowly laid
In dirt and earth
Tainted in some idea of
What could be
If only I wasn't Me
~
+++++
##Harry##
Ron, the ginger leader of the regiment, forced the man down to his knees infront of the group. Sneering at him but smiling never the less for what he represented.
Snape followed behind, geared up in the blue phosphoresce of his magical shield, which unlike the others had not worn off.
He gruffly pulled him forward, the man scuffling fast to catch up and reduce the pain upon his shoulders.
Severus commanded Harry's attention instantly.
"Thought you might like to know." The sallow adult calmly spoke, with only a hint of the voice making the sound of the bitter coolness inherent to the character.
Ron rushed forward eagerly explaining what they'd found.
Like he was clinging onto the hope the rogue devotee provided them with.
That Hermione would be nearer for what he could tell them.
"This one came back with us. He was in the Paris headquarters, where malfoy used to spy might I add." He leered towards the man virtually hidden from view, seated beyond Harry's figure.
Once again the pallid professor joined the stream of conversation, imparting an important detail Ron had neglected to mention.
"He identified it as the current headquarters."
Snape stopped speaking momentarily. Taking his time to divulge the information.
"He told us about Hermione after a dose of veritaseum. It may interest you what he said"
Ron interrupted once more, this time hushly telling of the strangeness they'd encountered.
"They were all dead scared when we got there. He was shaking." Ron pointed a thumb over his shoulder to the black robed boy, who could not have been any more than eighteen.
Snape belittled the behaviour of the lad smiling maliciously at him, albeit sceptically at the affair. Particularly what he was about to confess.
"He claimed their goddess has escaped"
Harry looked at him in disbelief.
*What did this mean?*
Snape laughed at the surprise on his former students face, obviously scorning it. He would have thought potter would have more sense than that.
He sarcastically replied to Harry's dismay "What? Do you really think he is right? He is very certainly telling the truth,…as he believes it to be. But reality is very different Mr. Potter."
+++++
##Draco##
Behind the shadow of Harry, a face paled at the mention.
Draco stood up, staring abysmally at Snape's sardonic face.
None of them knew.
How could they? He asked himself.
He was the only one who could set the matter straight. The only hope of settling the future into one where maybe they had a chance.
So he spoke up, countering Snape's remark directly. Unafraid of what he might say in return. This wasn't school anymore after all and the consequences nowadays were far higher.
He started of, his voice wavering unnaturally with uneasiness.
"Well actually…."
+++++
##Hermione##
I can see through his eyes. My "fathers" eyes.
She didn't know quite how to explain that. She wasn't adopted, She knew she wasn't. and the cult had never said she had to be.
It was intervention. Her soul divinely made. But not made into a nicety.
Being the daughter of a god wasn't all it was cracked up to be.
He wanted the power badly. She felt it from within. A hate creeping into her, for her.
Willing her to cease control. He wanted one thing singly. For her to rule over the world in suffering. As him.
He was worse than Voldemort ever was. He was never made with intentions of doing good even remotely. He was the god of evil basically. Not knowing evil except for his pleasure, at least knowing no other than it for that means.
And she knew this all because she could be him. look out on the world like he did.
Look once and everything is fine, slightly brutal as humans are. Look twice and its no revelation as to what he is.
There is burnt landscape, chaos in the air. The fear of reality. Murder, rape, hate .The smell of rancid burning flesh, of blood running free, the rank decrepit earth that he wants.
And she knows it. Abhors it. Loathes herself for ending up his instrument.
Adeodatus died the loyal servant. Slaughtered in the temple.
And Khaeod loved every minute of it.
Living it through her.
Her only surveilling from above, horrified at being an overseer to it all. Powerless.
For the night.
She vowed he would never have her again.
She turned away into the darkness of the alley, away from the people and the strength that empowered the spirit possessing her depths.
Gone from the emotions that fuelled Him and drained her.
+++++
##Cassandra##
A raven clawed the skull, perched over the sight. Watching intently the crystalline eyes, of the figure examining the wasteland afore.
The flurry of the woman rushing past. Anxious to escape.
The blood dripping into rivers.
Pooling on the floor languidly.
Screams of a terrified fear.
The eyes dart, the woman scatters away.
Snitches of scenes.
A golden sword.
Pictures tainted black as she fly's beyond their reach.
He's after her.
It never changed.
His black and white view. Colourless, dull, an emotionless horror. He only wanted her. The man who she knew was not a man, He was undescribable. Not made for the words she used, nor any she could learn.
The screams, fleeing by foot, the girl as she is ever eager to get away. He would not leave his grasp, for he held her in his hand metaphorically. Every way she saw that he appeared. Miraculously He emerged in every corner.
The mind rushed in panic. She couldn't get away, they couldn't get away.
One last strangled shriek as He lashed out at them, pain engulfing her heart.
Reality twirling down back to normality.
She clasped up from the bathroom floor in fright.
Cassandra's thoughts merged with those of the stranger in her dreams. She rasped at the panic and automatically her arm rose to attend the cuts to her arteries that were nonexistent on her body.
The dreams had started again.
Of the woman she did not know, nor knew who she was.
That could not escape her nightmare; that only Cassy could awake from.
She felt the all too real alarm in the woman; she'd known it like this for ages.
They'd stopped for a while back, now they started off more ghastly than previously.
She felt almost guilty at not being able to help as the woman pleaded mentally for aid.
But in the dream there was no room for reason. Cassy could do nothing but experience it.
Sensing the pain, as only half that that ripped the woman's soul. And she endured badly for it, despite that the dreams forego-ed most of it.
She'd always thought of the figure as more of a girl though. She wasn't sure why, it was as if that was what she was inside. Being forced to grow up faster than was possible, never left to naturally develop. Lost as it was in a hellish territory.
She splashed the water up to her face, attempting to wake up and hoping she could forget it maybe soon. But her tears fell without directly in shock at the horrors seen. She never felt it all lightly. As she brought up the towel to dry her face from the cold water she noticed a kindly woman in her 30's standing watching her.
The woman moved to beside her, hand supporting her on the back.
"You want to talk about it?"
+++++
##Harry##
He'd stormed out of the room. Oblivious to or ignoring Draco's advice.
He didn't believe it. She wouldn't do anything.
Hermione wasn't like that.
She was strong. Even if it were true she'd battle it out.
Draco'd shouted out as he'd left, accusing him of overlooking the pragmatics. Said he was looking to the past, to what he wanted.
That wasn't true.
He did want her to be fine but he wasn't being unrealistic.
He was going to find her.
He knew there were only a few places she could hide, places he knew he'd find.
+++++
##Cassandra##
She'd taken the woman up on her offer.
Spilling out all the troubled details of her gift and her dreams.
She felt relieved to have told someone the story, it felt like an epic stored up in her head, stressing away at her mind. Boring her down to a mindless state she hated.
"Tell me again what you saw afterwards, like you said about remembering extra bits of it. Maybe one of those is important"
She snuggled closer to her reassuring warmth and began going on about the insignificant sections she now remembered seeing in the confusion of her slumber.
She looked up to the caring woman as she spoke of the nightmare, smiling at the Orderly she'd known for barely an hour or two.
She could almost believe it was her mother comforting her, if not for the eyes. Her mothers were blue, the only thing she really knew of her. Blue, not much like the lavender colour of the young woman's blissly orbs.
+++++
##Harry##
He walked into the alley, treading carefully. Footsteps falling dumb on the cobblestones.
He glanced around at the hushed stone room, off and separated from the entrance near Knockturn. Far enough away from the main parade to be secluded.
He flashed around at a noise, seeing a whip of robe. Running after the sighting he clambered through the fallen woodwork of the abandoned section between the shops.
He caught up with her, coming to a halt at the scene in front. He'd been lucky in one sense; she'd caught her foot over a beam and tripped onto her back.
She lay there peering up at him, fearfully.
He stood confused at her reaction.
He offered his hand forward to help her get up.
His memory flashed back to Hogwarts, the day she'd fell into the lake. Today her face was not angry; instead it was laced with an apprehension.
Still she took his hand, and he strained his muscle to lift her up almost entirely by his own effort.
She did not let go of his hand.
He felt through it a racing pulse. Matched only by his darting hub as he gathered his eyes from her beauty.
Her hair was glorious coloured, he could see in it specks of a gold glimmer now that the cloak had fallen back. And reds intermingled with the brown, facing strands of a darker colour likened to a subtle black. Her eyes too shone out despite the fear in them. All of it harmonizing with the brilliance he felt in her presence.
She was different.
But he saw nothing there that was detrimental.
Why should she be afraid? The order could shelter her from the Khaeodrics.
There was no reason for her trepidation.
He leaned over to take her into a friendly hug, one that he preciously desired to soothe both of them. He'd whisper in her ear comfortingly that it would be ok and then they'd go home, or as home would be for now at the compound temporarily.
##Hermione##
As he leant in her mind dissolved. Restraint lapsed and lust overrode the carefully placed blocks that had lasted decades from the real instruction. The reasons no longer mattered. And she no longer cared in the instant, will submitted to the long denied aspiration. The gap between the two sets of mouths vanished, folding into a sweetness of obedience to the prevailing passions.
And she withdrew after a simple minute. Retreated to see the confusion on his delicate face, poised for pain at her rejection.
She wished it hadn't happened. It hadn't been her. It had been the will of Khaeos forcing her to do, as her true nature required her to do. He was tempting her with what he could give.
And she lashed out at herself scratching at her arms in resentment that he could do that with her. Play little games with her life, what she had left. What she'd had in the first place, or not in this case.
Harry looked back to her bizarre behaviour in bewilderment.
She'd done it again.
Just as if she'd taken them right back to the beginning.
The timing for it, the motives where all wrong but how could she explain to him what it was in her that had made this situation?
She walked up to him, caressing his cheek with her hand and mourning in her eyes the fate she had.
She turned away from him as quickly as she could, walking on steadily advancing away, reading to run if he followed.
She whished around at a further sound, they had a visitor in the clearing.
And she took the opportunity to flee as Harry watched the silent figure standing off from his position. Neither pair paying any attention to their intended target.
And as the last look back on the landscape was taken by Hermione, before she fled completely; she saw watching from the other door a group of figures looking intently to the two estranged family members. At the front of this was Elianne gazing frightfully upon both her parents together.
~
Join me on my parade
I saved a space for you
Tagging along
To the joyless song
Join me on my day
To walk away from all I adored
Join me
It's the last time today;
That you can say you saw me
Join me now or never more
Today I go forth
To a whiter world
Chilled to touch
On to much more than we had
Yet not what I had asked for
Replacing the life I never wanted
With one even more banal
The jewel not qualified
Riches loved but not allowed
Join me if you dare
This life was never fair,
Beware what else is to befall
The Courageous Victor
With no help, no net incase they fall
Sometimes you have to save yourself
~