Chapter Twenty-Three: Omnes una manet nox
The swirl of darkness was overpowering, as images crashed in on them all, torn from Harry's mind for them all to see, placed on display as mere reminders of a life had and lost, thrown away for a greater cause than his own purpose…
Gray dominated a smoky sky, a field filled with coffins, a shouted oath, made over the bodies of the dead. Blood spilling, hot and flowing, burning brightly against walls and walks, grass and stone, surface after surface covered with bodies in black robes, torn apart brought down over and over again by the obliterating power of Harry's wrath, life after life torn apart as Harry's rage sent him wild.
Images flashed through his mind, face after face, surprised, helpless in their death, yielding before his power. The dead mounted higher, and they only fueled Harry's flames, their bodies inspiring him onward, each new victory renewing his determination for revenge.
The speed and the swirling mass of the images, the bare presence in each memory, made the feelings of those around him clearer. It made Harry even sicker now, knowing what those about him felt of his actions. From Hermione he could sense shock, disgust, but no hatred, a disappointed understanding as she was confronted with murder after bloody murder.
From Voldemort and Bellatrix, though, Harry could feel unnatural glee, joy at watching his hatred, the suffering and the pain he caused among those he hunted. And it made Harry want to turn aside, to abandon his memories, to not face what he had done. The curses he had made, and used, with terrible affect… he could feel Voldemort and Bellatrix's glee at learning so many new ways to hurt, to inflict, to control and overpower…
It was a very good thing Harry could not throw up in the spirit world, because he would have, then, and perhaps forever.
Finally Harry felt a spike of utter hatred and rage from Hermione as she watched him slaughter the defenseless Draco and Ginny, the torture he had inflicted on them, the mind-rape he had performed on both of them. He could feel even Voldemort's shock that such a thing could even be done.
Then the memory was gone in the swirl, and Harry managed to keep from grinning as Bellatrix experienced his own headlong attack against Durmstrang Castle. Alone. Against forty Death Eaters.
Neither of the Malfoys nor of the Lestranges were among the three who escaped that night.
Finally, six years to the day after the death of Voldemort, one last killing remained in Harry's mind. That of Antonin Dolohov.
The remains of his body lay at Harry's feet, as the emotionless young man wiped a now familiar blade upon the crimson Death Eater cloak that what was left of the thin Death Eater wore. His booted foot struck the crushed in skull with a somewhat sickening crunch. "Eight years ago, in the Department of Mysteries, I should have done this, for what you almost did to the woman I loved." A dark smile crept across his face. "But I've repaid you with interest, you son of a bitch." He lowered his wand and smiled. "Disintegratum." The body dissolved into nothingness, and as seen so many times before, the phoenix rose from the body of the dead, blazing skyward, symbol of Harry's victory.
The colors swirled again, bringing back a familiar location to them all, a place where one had lived, twice, and one had died, twice, and where others had repeated this fate a thousand fold.
The Death Room.
Harry was standing there loosely, clothed in flowing black robes, his messy hair even more unruly than normal, his glasses askew on his drawn and lined face, his green eyes slightly glassy with obvious fatigue. "Mortvi non mordant," he whispered in the gentle breeze, causing the Veil to stir as if something had passed through it, as one last step took Harry directly to face it.
Harry could remember how surprised he had been at the voice which had come out of the archway, speaking to him, and now, it came again. "Clearly, celebrity isn't everything."
The shock was evident when Harry spoke again. "Snape?!"
"I see your powers of observation have grown no greater, Potter. And it is Professor Snape."
Harry glared at the curtain. "I was hoping to speak with someone I wanted to talk to, Severus."
A snort came from beyond the curtain. "Acceptable, I suppose to call me by my first name. You are an adult now, in theory. Amazingly enough, despite your obvious lack of skill, you outlived your parents. As for someone you wanted to talk to, who did you have in mind? Your parents? Sirius? Dead too long. As it is, you barely caught me. Granger, Weasley, Dumbledore? You killed them, Potter. Surely someone over there knows you cannot talk through the Veil to people you have killed."
Harry's shoulders slumped. "Well, I do now. Though I was really hoping to talk to Hermione. I… I miss her."
"I'm not sure she would talk to you if she could, Potter," Snape said softly, almost apologetically. "I'm afraid you've lost her. She truly cared for you, but what you did, after you defeated the Dark Lord, the slaughter you perpetrated, no one here feels like they really truly know you any more." Harry got the impression of a smile. "I must say I was impressed. I did not think, after all our lessons, that you had what it would take to defeat the Dark Lord, or to do any of the things you did."
Harry lowered his gaze to stare at the floor. "Lost her? I… I did it for her. It's not fair, nothing is fair, I hate…"
"Potter. Harry." The use of his given name stopped Harry short, and he looked up at the veil again. "You turned into the very thing we were fighting against. You fought the darkness more fiercely and more darkly than the darkness itself fought the light. The purity of your love became pure evil."
"No! I was never evil, I was fighting evil. I had to stop them, before they ruined everything else, before they hurt more people."
Snape's laughter was cold. "Potter, I never thought of self-delusion as one of your strong points. Did Dumbledore ever fight evil with their own tactics? When Dumbledore faced Voldemort, did he ever try to use the Killing Curse? No."
"Damn it, Snape!" Harry interrupted. "You fucking well know that was because of the prophecy."
More laughter. "You really think Dumbledore did not face Voldemort in single combat at least once before the prophecy was made? You're naïve, despite all of the world you have seen. You experienced two years of war, maybe three. The Dark Lord's power had been growing for more than ten years by the time you broke him as a child. You know nothing of the fear that reigned in those times."
Harry blew out the torches with his anger. "Shut up! You know nothing! You don't know how much I loved her! You can't, a piece of scum like you could never have known."
Snape's voice was silent for a moment, then, if it had been cold before, was downright frigid now. "Harry Potter, so like your father, always assuming he knew everything about everyone." Harry was sure if Snape had been physically present he would have spit at him. "You know nothing. Nothing! Did you not always wonder why I hated you so much? Why whenever I looked in your eyes I felt such intense loathing that I felt sick? Not because of your father, you idiot. Because of your mother!"
Harry blinked in astonishment. "What about my mother, Snape?"
"Why did you think Dumbledore trusted me after your parents died? A man who chose love above all other things? Well?"
Harry was not completely clueless. "You loved my mother," he stated after a moment. "And my father got her, and every time you looked at me, you were reminded of losing to my father, your worst enemy, in the one thing that ever truly mattered to you."
The veil fluttered as if a sigh stirred it, and Harry heard Snape breathing out, oddly. "So now you know, Potter, why I did what I did."
Harry smiled slightly. "Well, thank you for what you did do for me."
There was chuckling from beyond the veil. "I suppose now you really are a celebrity, Harry Potter." The voice of Snape grew cool and serious, though not unfriendly. "You have become the most powerful wizard in the world, perhaps ever. The last nine years have proved it. I know you probably don't want advice from me, but there's something you want, I'm sure, something you think right now you cannot have." Harry could have sworn he felt a smile. "Go get it."
"What do you mean?" Silence. "Snape?" More silence. "Snape, don't you do this. Talk to me, damn it. What do you mean?!" Still more silence. Harry glared at the veil across the archway. "Damn you, Snape," he whispered softly. "How, though, do I get Hermione back?"
Well, that was that, Harry realized. There was absolutely no hiding how he felt from Hermione at this point, so it would probably be discussed if they got out of here. The swirl of memories, though, was carrying them out of the Death Room now, and into a helter skelter journey across Europe, then later, across the Atlantic, bouncing from place to place, learning from mystics and wizards and finding out elements of philosophy he had never considered, magic he had not known, ways of manipulation he had never even thought about…
It was about a year later, when he sat in a bar, somewhere in Muggle America. He had not been sure then where he had been, and he still was unsure to this day. Not that it mattered. He knew exactly what had happened there, even as the memory began.
He was sipping his drink, and Harry recalled fondly that it was something called Jack Daniel's that tasted decent, and went down smoothly. Harry recalled Hermione's astonishment at his drinking in the Three Broomsticks, and felt it make sense to her now, her own realization hitting, more dots connecting.
It was rather amazing feeling her mind this way, but, of course, feeling Voldemort and Bellatrix in his mind at the same time ruined the wonderfulness of the experience for him. They had a tendency to ruin all the nice things in his life.
But now was definitely something he did not particularly want Hermione to see. The girl across the shadily lit bar was sitting talking to someone, facing away from him. It was the way the light reflected off the bushy curls that got his attention, drawing his eye to examine her more fully. Familiarity tugged at his heart, as she moved, laughing. Her voice even sounded the same.
"Hermione?" he breathed out softly, watching the girl move up to the bar. It was not her, even if some portion of his heart insisted that it was. She was so very close in appearance, the same height, the same build, the same soft face framed by her hair, encasing velvety brown eyes. He watched, haunted, as she sat down, a short skirt revealing a generous amount of leg the Harry of the past had never seen on Hermione, and he could feel his breathing speed up slightly.
It's not her, idiot. No matter what Snape said, this wouldn't be what he meant. When the bartender moved over to her and she bit her lower lip as she considered what she wanted to drink. His heart fell through the floor and he turned his gaze away…
So like her. So very much like her. As the barman moved away to prepare whatever it was the young woman had ordered, Harry caught his eye. His glass was still half full, so the man stopped with a questioning look. "What's up?"
"Whatever the young lady wants tonight, it's on me." He dropped one of the Americans' funny one hundred dollar bills on the table. "Keep whatever change there is."
The barkeep smiled. "I've never seen Harmony leave with a guy before, and she's quite the regular. But you're welcome to try, I suppose."
Harry shook his head. "I don't want to leave with her. Just… she reminds me of someone I once knew. That's all." The sadness in his voice apparently conveyed his truthfulness to the man, who nodded.
"As you say. You want anything else, while I'm over here?"
Harry shook his head, then touched his glass. "Just another one when this one's empty."
He watched out of the corner of his eye, gently swirling his drink around, before taking a sip of it, while the barkeep took whatever it was back to the young woman. Harry had no idea what it was, not being at all experienced in that sort of thing. Observation techniques born of six years fighting the Death Eaters on his own let him watch the scene in reflections off the glass adorning the back wall, especially the multiple liquor bottles there.
He saw her try to pay, and then the questioning as the barman refused her payment, the quick glance over at him. A small smile broke across his face when she got up and walked over to him, confusion evident behind a slightly angry façade.
"I suppose you think getting Larry here on your side is going to help you take me to bed, huh?"
Harry slowly turned to face her. This close, she did not look at much like Hermione, her features were a little too soft, not quite as hard as the young witch Harry remembered. He could see her confidence falter slightly at the expression of contempt on his face. "I don't want to take you to bed. I bought you the drinks because the money is meaningless to me, and you remind me of someone I used to know. That's all."
"Someone you used to know, huh? Smooth pickup line there, buddy. You really think I'm gonna fall for that."
Harry's eyes grew darker, the green hardening into chips of icy emerald, his voice growing deadly quiet. "I was just trying to be nice, and remember someone who used to mean a lot to me, some one I loved very much, who is dead now, and you really think I'm trying just to get you to jump in bed with me? What the hell do you take me for?"
Her eyes widened, and she leaned back slightly on the bar stool. "I'm sorry. I didn't know, honestly." The tears welling up in the corner of her eye, the dampening of the chocolate there brought forcefully to the surface more memories of Hermione.
Harry shook his head slowly, clearing them out. "I'm sorry. I shouldn't've blow up at you. You could not have known." He extended his hand. "My name is Harry. Harry Potter."
The complete and utter lack of any form of recognition in her eyes was perhaps the best thing about being in the Muggle world. "Harmony Pearson," she replied, meeting his hand with her own and shaking it.
They talked for hours after that, about everything, and nothing. Harmony was clearly Muggle through and through, so Harry carefully avoided saying anything about the wizarding world, but some truths were hard to disguise, especially with enough alcohol.
Which had flowed very freely thanks to Harry's virtually unlimited funds.
They ate, and laughed, and cried together for hours and hours, the night growing darker, deeper, a gentle rain beginning to fall. Until about two in the morning, thunder rolled across the sky.
"It was a night like tonight," he whispered softly. "I've hated storms ever since."
"How did it happen?"
"There was a gang, a bunch of toughs, that thought they could make the local area pure of outside influence. They were driving out or killing everyone that didn't agree with them. Hermione and I were out one night with some friends, and we got jumped by them." He shook his head slowly, his hair finally brushing aside to reveal his scar. "I was the only one of us to survive."
Harmony reached out gently and traced his scar with one delicate finger. "Is this from that night?"
Harry lied again. "Yes, it is."
"How much do I look like her?" she asked after a moment of silence, looking at him consideringly, with something akin to pain in her eyes, perhaps empathy.
"What?" Harry was surprised slightly. "A lot. You look a lot like her. You could be her twin."
Harmony bit her lip again, and Harry's head spun once more, from the alcohol, from her resemblance to Hermione, from everything about the night. "I like you, Harry Potter. You're truthful, honest, and kind, and you have been hurt so much." That was when she leaned across and kissed him briefly on the lips. She even smelled like Hermione. "Tonight, call me Hermione," she whispered, before kissing him again. "Let's go back to your hotel room and let Larry close up."
By the time they had made it across the street, they were both soaked to the skin, which speeded even more the removal of clothing that was to come off. Her skin was soft under Harry's fingers, the way he had always imagined. Her body was smooth and warm, and as they writhed together that night, unsleeping for hours amid tangled sheets, Harry managed to forget that Hermione was dead, pretending instead he was with her.
Reality returned in the morning, when he awoke alone, as always. As he read the note Harmony had left him on the hotel stationary, he whispered, "I'm sorry, Hermione. I just miss you so much."
He never returned to that small town as invited by Harmony, and had instead continued his search all over the world. Harmony was the first woman Harry encountered that reminded him of Hermione so strongly, but she was not the last, though she had been the closest to the witch he loved. The voice thought it necessary to show all of them, though, much to Harry's chagrin, and he could feel, slightly, Hermione's discomfort and growing… hatred.
Odd that. Voldemort and Bellatrix were bored by it all, though slightly amused at what these people did because of love. More memories flashed by from his journeys, though, collecting up things as he learned, pieces of information and knowledge, and the rarest potion ingredients in the world. There was no end to the information he seemed to be finding, hidden away in monasteries and other secret, hidden places, atop mountains and in deep forests.
Finally it shifted to the last six months of Harry's life, returned to the house at Grimmauld Place, where a large caldron sat simmering above a set of magical flames. Ingredient after ingredient went into it, disappearing, the colors slowly shifting through every hue and shade of the rainbow. Many of the ingredients went into the potion accompanied by words, spells, linking them together, binding them to the power, melding Harry's magical strength into the concoction beneath them.
The last thing was as Harry added a small measure of powdered horn from a Hungarian Horntail's tail, and he whispered, "Terminus a quo, tempus firma, terminus ad quem, tempus incognitum, tempus sculpsit."
That had not been the last thing in the construction of the potion, but suddenly the four of them returned once more to the gleaming nothingness of the spirit world, sending Harry spinning around very nearly in shock. That had, in fact, been a month before he had taken the potion.
He stared at the three others in surprise, who were wearing equal expressions of shock at the abrupt termination of review of the memories. The voice came to them now. "You would have had to have done that, wouldn't you, Potter?"
Harry nodded, confused slightly, then thought about it harder, and realized just what those words had done when he had eventually quaffed the potion. "I assume you know the price that they demand, correct?" The voice continued. Harry nodded, and somehow, it came to him that his voice was returned.
"I do know the price." Everything made sense now, and he squeezed Hermione's hand slightly, and smiled bright at her. "Then I assume we're done here."
"Indeed we are, Potter. I must apologize to you, Lord Voldemort, for Harry Potter is unable to undergo the Death Exchange for you. Sad really, that one such as you will have to stay here. Perhaps you should remember, vita non est vivere sed valere vita est, Voldemort, and you, Potter, I am glad you remembered, saepe ne utile quidem est scire quid futurum sit."
Harry felt his mind being torn open, nearly, a screaming, blackening pain, that took everything away from him, all his senses and everything about him exploding into utter chaos…
But he heard one thing as whatever reality he was in vanished. Ron's voice. "Good luck with that, mate."
Author's Note: Translation of the chapter title: The same night awaits us all.
Phrases:
vita non est vivere sed valere vita est : Life is more than merely staying alive.
saepe ne utile quidem est scire quid futurum sit : Often it is not even advantageous to know what will be.
Spells:
Disintegratum : Disentegrate
Mortvi non mordant : The dead tell of nothing (roughly translated)
Terminus a quo, tempus firma, terminus ad quem, tempus incognitum, tempus sculpsit :
The end from which, time fixed, the end to which, time unknown, time I sculpt.