Chapter Forty-Two of 'His Darkest Devotion'- Shifts

[lomonaaeren]

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Chapter Forty-Two—Shifts

The fire of the blue phoenix woke Albus from a secure but uneasy sleep. He sat up and blinked at the brilliant bird, and then nearly vomited when he registered that its flames were shifting back and forth, crossing each other and creating shadowy, transparent shapes in the air.

“Our enemies are that near?” he whispered.

The phoenix opened its beak and sang a powerful, throbbing chord that made Albus feel as if his heart was about to jump out of his chest. Then it stabbed its beak towards Albus and uttered a commanding sound.

“I haven’t grasped hold of Gellert yet,” Albus whispered.

The phoenix shook its tail. Flames spiraled out from it, racing around each other, and Albus watched as they melted into clear blue-and-gold shadows. He smiled. If the phoenix was near changing color, then it meant that he didn’t need Gellert. Reality was changing around them, shifting back and forth. Which version dominated would depend on which party won the ensuing battle.

Gellert wasn’t with him, but if Albus could win, then it wouldn’t matter. And he would win. The phoenix would be with him.

Albus stood up and offered his shoulder, unsure if the regal bird would decide to sit on such a simple perch or not. Luckily, the phoenix seemed to have chosen convenience over maintaining its dignity. It landed and gave him a gentle peck just under his right ear. Albus nodded.

He understood. He had understood nothing before, it seemed, but now the shining vision of reality opened and spread before him. He could understand even the reasons for the phoenix’s instructions that had remained obscure before.

“Let us go,” Albus whispered. “Let us prevent them from rising as Dark Lords. In fact, let us prevent them from rising at all.”

The phoenix seized a strand of hair in its beak and gently tugged on it. Albus smiled. He understood the directions pouring into his mind, and he left the dimensional refuge he had been sheltering in for the last time.

The reality where he was the hero and Riddle and Harry the Dark Lords would come to pass. He would defeat them and never need to hide again.

*

“Harry?”

Tom had sensed the sudden change in the bond. Harry had been sitting beside him during a routine if boring talk with Madam Moonwell, and Harry’s side of it had shuddered and filled with darkness like creeping tar. Now, as Tom stared, he saw Harry grip his temples with both hands and shudder physically.

Darling? Tom called through the bond. Madam Moonwell was already watching them with eyes that were curious enough. Tom didn’t want to betray any more of their business in front of her if he could help it.

I’m—something’s changing, Tom—

A moment later, the change hit Tom. He could see everything in sparkling clarity that at the same time was infused with darkness, like looking at it through a pane of black crystal. He knew that he and Harry had the right to do whatever they wanted with their magic, as the most powerful soulmated pair to exist in Britain in centuries. He could see Harry standing at his side, supporting whatever he wanted to do. He could see them destroying the Muggles, enslaving the Muggleborns—

Wait. That is not Harry!

The conviction snatched him from back from a vision that was becoming thicker and more real in front of him, a vision where Harry agreed with him and ran at his side and there had never been a shadow of difference between them. Tom shook his head rapidly. Of course there had been differences between them. And those differences were ones that he wanted. Being matched with a soulmate who always agreed with him and would roll over for him without a word would have been boring.

And they hadn’t always been together, either. Harry’s parents had kept them apart for too long. Tom clung to that annoyance, and the shadow that had been swooping down on them hesitated.

Tom almost thought he could see that shadow from the corner of his eye, and that it had wings.

A flash of brilliance erupted in the air above them, and for a moment, Tom nearly shielded Madam Moonwell, thinking it had been caused by their joined magic, which might be hostile to her. But instead, it manifested as Fawkes, who flew down towards them, singing. He landed on Tom’s desk and stared at him.

The vision poured into Tom’s head. The shadow tore and fell apart into stinking rags, and he saw Albus striding through the new countryside, alone except for the blazing blue phoenix sitting on his shoulder.

Shit. Whatever clash is happening between Fawkes and this other phoenix, I think it’s happening now.

Tom dragged himself to his feet and reached out for Harry. Harry’s eyes were clear again, but frightened. Tom nodded to him. It can’t have been easy to feel as if someone was changing your morals for you.

Harry drew in a ragged breath. No. Or that I would ever agree with you just because you said something, you great git. You’re my partner, not my master.

Tom kissed his forehead, and then turned around, drawing Harry to his side behind the desk. Madam Moonwell was struggling to stand, despite how difficult that was for her with her cane, but she paused and sank back into her seat.

“This doesn’t have to do with me, does it?” she asked, shrewd eyes fixed on Tom.

“No,” Tom said. “I hope that it’ll leave you out entirely. Tell the Wizengamot that I may be—absent for some time.”

“How long?”

“I don’t know.” Tom glanced at Fawkes, who hadn’t stopped the slow, steady flow of his song, singing almost under his breath, but the phoenix gave him no clue. “Harry and I are called by a phoenix to battle against Albus Dumbledore.”

“Does this have anything to do with the ritual that you performed to help my Luna find her soulmate?”

“I don’t see how it could. This is—bigger and stronger and has been going on for centuries, probably, in a clash between these birds.” Again, Fawkes gave no guidance on that front, although he did turn and soar towards the window, wings and voice both in motion. “Please excuse us, Madam Moonwell.”

“Of course, Minister. Good luck, sir. Harry.”

Tom could feel Harry’s strained smile against his side, and then they walked forwards as one and followed Fawkes out the window, Apparating when they were already falling through the air. Tom didn’t know the coordinates, but leaned blindly on the air and trusted the phoenix to be their guide.

*

Albus looked slowly around the forest clearing that the blue phoenix had brought him to. He didn’t recognize it—this wasn’t the Forbidden Forest, and that was the only one he knew with any degree of familiarity—but he could recognize how appropriate it was. A creek ran through the clearing, separating it into two halves that sloped down to steep banks, and water would quench the fire of any future that Riddle and Harry thought they had together. He smiled and deposited the blue phoenix on the branch of a tree nearby, then reached for his wand and drew it. It was an inferior replacement for the Elder Wand, but that couldn’t be helped.

He still had a phoenix on his side, and Riddle and Harry did not.

He looked up as a sharp crack of Apparition echoed through the forest. His enemies appeared on the far side of the clearing, Riddle with his arm curled around Harry’s shoulders. Albus clucked his tongue sharply. “You cannot stand on your own?” he called mockingly. “You need each other?”

Riddle hissed something in Parseltongue, which Albus ignored. The fact remained that he hadn’t refuted Albus’s accusation. And no phoenix accompanied them—

The air lit with red and gold as Fawkes landed on the branch above Riddle and Harry’s heads and let out a long, trilling warble that Albus would once have found heartening. Now, he could only stare at the bird who had once been his companion in disbelief.

“How can you serve a pair of Dark Lords, Fawkes?” Albus whispered. “For all that you turned on me, I thought you had more loyalty to the Light than that.”

“You don’t understand?” Harry asked, sounding genuinely surprised. Albus didn’t bother looking at him, keeping his eyes on Fawkes, but Harry’s words entered his ears anyway. “Phoenixes serve different versions of reality, and strive to bring their own into being. We’re only Dark Lords in the reality that your phoenix wants to set up.”

Albus did glance at him now, and couldn’t keep the pity from his gaze, for all that he felt it might be counterproductive when dealing with Harry. “You believe those old tales about phoenixes being agents of pure, neutral fate instead of light?”

“Yes, we do,” Riddle spoke, drawing Harry closer to his side and lowering his head so that his neck curved over Harry’s like a snake’s. His eyes were a brilliant, burning red. Showing his true nature at last, Albus thought, with something like relief. “And in the version that Fawkes is driving, you will be the Dark Lord.”

Albus laughed. “Impossible. What could I have done to make you think me the Dark Lord?”

“Tried to murder innocents to get to Tom.”

“Tried to murder Harry through that farce of a duel.”

“Corrupted Ron and Hermione and other members of the Order through your fanaticism.”

“Nearly brought down the Wizengamot because of the curse buried in Granger and Weasley’s bond.”

“Deprived Ron and Hermione of their bond because you had them bury that curse in it.”

Riddle’s and Harry’s voices had started to echo uncannily. They were moving forwards together, too, their steps perfectly in time. Albus stared at them, and wondered where the young man had gone, his student, the son of two members of the Order, who would have been horrified to find himself acting like an automaton in the name of the Dark.

“Persecuted me for crimes that were mostly in your head.”

“Refused to act on Tom’s behalf when those fools burned the soul-mark off his chest.”

“Been so sure that you knew best that you allowed people to spend years on the run who might have been pardoned or spent a short time in prison and emerged again by now.”

Riddle’s voice was a low growl, and Albus knew very well it wasn’t his imagination that Harry’s sounded so much like it, or that his eyes had picked up Riddle’s red glow. Albus swallowed heavily. He had dreamed of this ending with Riddle dead and Harry free from the poisoned soul-bond between them, apologetic and redeemed, getting to live the rest of his life with his parents. He would probably die soon of grief, but at least he would have seen the truth before then.

How could things have gone so wrong?

His phoenix warbled behind him, and Albus relaxed as a reminder filled his mind with effervescent clarity. “There is a prophecy. You are Dark Lords, and I am saving the world, no matter that I must break a few eggs to do so.”

“That prophecy,” Harry said, and smiled.

“Only comes true if your version of reality triumphs,” Riddle said, and smiled.

“There’s no reason—”

“To assume that it will.”

Albus stared at them, and wondered what they’d been reading, or if perhaps Fawkes had influenced their minds somehow. “Unlike some other forms of Divination that are more uncertain,” he said slowly, “prophecies always come true. Perhaps unexpectedly, but they do. That is the way it is.”

Riddle shook his head and clasped Harry’s hand with his. “Only if your version triumphs,” he repeated. “If ours does, then your prophecy was never made at all, or it is false. Or it applies to you, as the Dark Lord.”

“There are lines in that prophecy that could never apply to me!”

Harry shrugged as if it didn’t matter. “Prophecies always come true,” he echoed, with a mocking smile. “Perhaps unexpectedly, but they do. That’s the way it is.”

Albus shook his head and drew his wand. Riddle pulled Harry closer to his side and shut his eyes at the same moment as Harry shut his. The air around them began to thrum with shining, poison-green magic.

Albus glanced back at the blue phoenix, who bobbed its head and sang a comforting note. Good. It would stay here. Albus disregarded the legend that sprang to mind about how phoenixes were so powerful that their direct action might unravel the fabric of the world.

Better that it should unravel than that a pair of immortal Dark Lords should reign over Britain.

*

Harry felt the pressure sliding and shifting on his mind. It was nothing like the overwhelming surge of lust and greed that he had felt a few minutes ago, but it was still obvious what the blue phoenix was doing: targeting everything it could, including the philosophical divisions between him and Tom, to try and destroy them.

Harry’s hand found Tom’s, and their minds found each other. Their emotional bond flowed like crystal water in the midst of the slime around them, and Harry said, Are we going to use our wands?

It wouldn’t avail against a phoenix. Use our pooled magic.

Harry nodded. He didn’t know how they were going to destroy the phoenix when they were immortal, except by forcing the new reality into being—and that could only be done by destroying the phoenix. But he trusted Tom, and they raised their magic in front of them, a towering, invisible wave that crashed over Dumbledore’s head.

Dumbledore cried out and staggered. But blue flame surrounded him a second later, and he was back on his feet, giving both of them a condescending smile and speaking words that Harry didn’t bother to listen to.

We should still do it this way?

Yes, Tom said, even as Fawkes’s song filtered into Harry’s awareness and filled him with courage and strength of purpose. This is the way that we need to do it. I’m sure that nothing we can do with our wands will really help.

Harry nodded, and they turned to face Dumbledore, moving together, so deeply bonded that it was their mind, their magic, that sent the next pulse of magic, not both.

*

Lily looked up, shivering as the walls of the flat melted around her into dark wood.

She was—they were in a house. Of course they were in a house, Lily thought as she stood up, hands reaching out to touch the walls. She and James. Albus had given them a house that was like their original cottage but not the same, since he couldn’t guarantee that Riddle wouldn’t have placed malevolent spells on their first home. They spent every day and night watching over Harry, who was suicidal and would probably die before the year was out, but she and James also took turns speaking to him softly and trying to make him understand why Riddle had needed to die.

Why had she been thinking about a flat?

Shivering again, Lily turned and walked to the far end of the table, where James was sitting and staring into the next room. Harry lay on a bed there, his face turned away from them, his arms wrapped around his head, and—

The world flickered and changed.

Lily collapsed back against the wall of what was very definitely their flat, the flat that Tom Riddle and not Dumbledore had given them, breathing hard. She stared with wide eyes at James, who had come in from the drawing room with a book in his hand.

“Lily.” James swallowed and looked around. “Where’s Harry?”

“He’s with Tom,” Lily whispered, forcing herself to use the bastard’s first name just because something in the center of her head insisted so strongly that he was Riddle and she had to think of him that way and they had to work as hard as they could to convince Harry that he had lost nothing. “Remember?”

James put a hand to his head. “What was that bit about us living in a house Albus gave us and not—not knowing if Harry would live because Riddle was dead? Was that a dream?”

Lily felt shamefully glad knowing that she wasn’t the only one to have experienced that. She wrapped her arms around James’s shoulders and drew him against her, filling the bond with as much calm as she could.

“I think something larger than us is happening,” she whispered. “We have to keep our minds as concentrated and calm as possible, or we stand a chance of going mad.”

Alarm punched the bond, and James pulled back to stare at her. “What?”

“I think—I think this is the kind of battle that phoenixes fight,” Lily said, and a moment later, didn’t know why she had said that. Of course it had been the kind of battle that phoenixes fought. Albus had told her all about the battle after he had fought it. He had spared Harry, which meant he had done all that could be asked of him. And he had killed Riddle before the bastard could attain immortality or push his twisted desire for it onto Harry, which meant their son would die free.

Lily turned to the other room, where their son would be lying, and decided to see if she could speak to him quietly one more time about how none of this had been his fault, including the mark that he’d been born with, and if he could only see that he’d had the emotional bond for such a short time—

The room where her son was not lying.

Lily slumped into James’s arms, and began to weep, as the battle raged on and the memory of the battle Albus had fought and told her about, and the death of Harry’s soulmate, grew within her again.

*

“Hey, Sirius. Are you going to sleep out here all night instead of coming to bed?”

Sirius turned his head and smiled at Remus, who was frowning at him from the doorway of their bedroom, for all that his tone was gently teasing. He levered himself to his feet, shaking his head. “Just thinking.”

“No, wondering if tearing Severus Snape limb from limb was a good thing or not,” Remus said, folding his arms.

“Well, I mean. I did it, and you know me. I’m not one for regret.”

Remus rolled his eyes. “You had over twenty years of regret, Padfoot, during which you could have sought me out and didn’t. Come on, now.”

“Can I say that I’m sorry about that, again?” Sirius leaned closer and wound his arms about Remus’s waist, leaning his bearded cheek against Remus’s smooth one. “A special kind of saying sorry?”

Remus’s eyes shone a warm brown, and he opened his mouth—

Only to fade in Sirius’s arms. Sirius staggered back and looked around wildly.

The light around him spoke of late afternoon, not evening. He knew that he hadn’t been brooding about Snape’s death because he hadn’t killed Snape. No one had found him yet, despite Riddle’s people searching with what Sirius thought was honest, determined effort.

Sirius shivered. Was he going mad?

Well, wait, it didn’t matter if he was, he told himself. Remus was waiting in the next room, and would make it all better.

*

Neville stared down at the railing of the ship and said in a numb voice, “I’m never going to forgive you.”

“You will eventually.” His mother’s voice was soft, but there was iron underneath it. Alice Longbottom had always been like that, Neville remembered. He had overheard his grandmother saying it once when she didn’t think Neville was around. Determined to marry her soulmate despite the disapproval of everyone, including her parents (because the Longbottoms were so much richer), her grandfather (who didn’t like Augusta Longbottom), and Augusta (because she thought the nice girl Frank had been dating before that was the superior choice).

“You went against everyone to marry your soulmate, how can you deny me mine?” Neville cried out, and spun around. His mother was looking at him with the same mask-like expression on her features that she had had ever since she’d put him under the Imperius and forced him onto the ship when his soulmate came knocking at the gates of Longbottom House. Neville didn’t even know who it was because he hadn’t been able to meet her.

And now his mother had him under a spell that wasn’t the Imperius but was like it, except for the body, not the mind, so he couldn’t even Apparate off this stupid ship.

“Your soulmate’s family is dangerous,” his mother snapped, folding her arms. “It could get you dragged into politics. We want you alive, and that matters more than your happiness.”

“If someone had tried to deny you your soulmate, what would you have done?”

“That’s different. Frank’s family wasn’t dangerous.”

“Neither is hers, except for your stupid definition of politics that basically means everyone with some measure of power is dangerous!”

His mother’s face tightened, and she flicked her wand. Neville felt the dull pleasure of the Imperius Curse settle over his mind once more.

“I know it doesn’t feel that way right now,” his mother whispered. “But someday, you’ll thank me for this—”

“Neville? Neville!”

Neville started and turned away from the vision of the ship, of his mother wielding the Unforgivable Curse as if she’d been born to use it, and found himself looking into Luna’s wide blue eyes. He shook as the emotional bond between them flooded back to life, and looked wildly around the pleasant, sunlit room in Luna’s family home where she’d brought him.

“Are you all right? You were—gone. I couldn’t feel you.” Luna reached towards him, her hand shaking. Neville clasped it and drew it to his lips. “It was like you were under that spell that blocked you from recognizing my soul-mark again.”

Neville laughed shakily. “They can’t cast that on us now, not now that we’ve recognized each other.”

“I know, but that was what it felt like. That, or a Heliopath infestation.”

“It was more like a waking nightmare,” Neville said honestly. “I dreamed that I was on a ship and my mother was taking me away from you, except I didn’t know it was you because she put me under the Imperius Curse and smuggled me out of the house before I even saw you at the gates.”

“That’s not true,” Luna said. “You know that’s not true, right?” She drew him towards her for a kiss.

“You know that you’ll thank me someday, Neville, don’t you?”

Neville stared at his mother, and the prodding of the Imperius Curse in the back of his mind made him open his mouth and say, “Yes,” in a wooden voice, even as the real part of him screamed.

*

How can he be so strong when he’s alone? Harry panted in the back of their shared mind, and felt Tom’s magic reach out for him and clasp him, strong as the touch of a hand.

He has a phoenix with him, and the phoenix is beyond strong.

Harry nodded, or sent the mental impression of a nod along the bond—at this point, he couldn’t really tell the difference between mental and physical actions—and then surged back into the battle, with Tom running just behind him.

The shared pool of their magic wasn’t drained yet, wasn’t anywhere near drained, but Harry could feel it being forced inwards. He had no idea what would happen when it was pinned against them or between his body and Tom’s, but he didn’t want to find out. He lunged against Dumbledore again, saw the man’s eyes widen, and then the ground beneath Dumbledore’s feet exploded and he flew sideways.

No time to ask Tom who had done that, to know if it was the result of their magic or something Dumbledore had done that had backfired. He and Tom took a step forwards, following the path of least resistance—

And the blue phoenix landed on the ground in front of Dumbledore, wings spread as it cried out. Harry felt the song fall over his mind like the pleasure-touch of the Imperius Curse, but he had always been able to cut through that, and Tom’s rage was a good sword. The phoenix fluttered into the air, still opposing them, still shedding a blue shield that allowed Dumbledore to recover and stand, but no longer singing.

Fawkes had gone from his branch some time ago. Harry grimaced. He knew the answer to why, before he could even ask the question, because Tom’s mind was there, reaching back to his.

He can’t help us directly with this battle. The blue phoenix is endangering reality by doing this. The sudden changing between different versions of the truth might drive people mad even if it doesn’t prompt any unraveling.

Then why is the phoenix doing it? Harry asked, as they were forced to retreat a step, back towards the enormous oak that marked the edge of the clearing.

It doesn’t seem to care anymore, as long as it wins.

The phoenix abruptly sang once more, and the air around them darkened. Harry found himself smiling grimly. He was glad that it had come to this after all, to a single fight against Albus bloody Dumbledore. He owed the man for keeping his soulmate from him, for poisoning his parents’ and godfather’s minds for so fucking long. He was going to torture him to death, keep him alive for years, maybe—

And he was going to enjoy it.

Harry!

Harry shook his head and catapulted out of the version of reality that the blue phoenix was pushing. He clasped Tom’s hand and glanced at him. Tom nodded slightly, and they reached and drew their wands after all.

Harry felt the world around them shudder and bounce, as if they were standing in the middle of the shifting earth after a quake. He wondered absently how long the world could last with a phoenix putting pressure on it, how good their prospects were if they had to use their wands instead of their pooled magic.

Then again, wands were the better instruments to cast torture curses with.

Harry and Tom smiled at the same time, and raised their wands to oppose the phoenix song.