The darkness had closed in by the time he woke up.
He tried to remember where he was, where he had been, why and how. Questions flitted through his brain, meaningless whispers echoing through the empty halls of his faded and tattered mind.
He tried to sit up.
Something struck him on his forehead, hard and unyielding. He could not see. He tried to breathe, but the air was stale and dry, bone dry. He gradually became aware of the hard surfaces that were touching him, encompassing him from all sides. He couldn't believe it, couldn't believe that he was back in his cupboard, because the wood was smooth metal now and whatever they said (freak, freak) and argued and called him names (should've died, should've died in the crash, good-for-nothing) they wouldn't keep him in a cage, no they wouldn't… but steel, smooth cold steel was all he could touch, and however he tried there was no lock or key or door and he tried and tried but it wouldn't give -
Panic set in.
***
The man and the woman sit on the table, holding hands. They smile at each other, brave smiles, little smiles, fleeting smiles. Telling each other of hope in words that went unsaid. Smiling eyes that smiled too little these days.
The mirror mounted on the wall mists. They do not observe, unafraid, confident.
Shadows skitter on the glass surface. Shadows that swirl and swirl, coalesce into a shape.
Red eyes glint in the mist. Eyes that burn.
The mirror cracks.
They notice.
Finally. Too late.
Except for one.
The man dies on the porch, the green lifting him and taking him.
The white figure strides forward, two more following behind. They take the stairs.
***
He gasped, but the air was hot and it choked his lungs. There was no space in the cage, no room to move. He still tried, wiggling his arms and trying to force open the box. It would not give.
The breaths were coming fast now, faster as he gasped with effort. The muscles strained, sweat beading his body. The metal would not yield.
Hard, hard and dead and smooth.
He would die here, he realized suddenly. He would die here, with no air or food or water. His relatives must've put him here, in a box closed from all sides, airtight. So they wouldn't have to kill him themselves. So they wouldn't have to watch as he went blue and black and started to rot.
Cowards.
Blood began to run from the cut on his forehead.
***
The woman pleads, begs. Begs for her son's life.
A promise is a promise, and words are power enough. Words, the means to meaning and feeling, and the feeling is weighed down even as green takes the mother away.
Her screams hang heavy on the air, her power. The three do not notice.
The baby cries, cries. Cries as its mother lies dead and unseeing on the floor. Cries unknowing that he would not see her again.
The curse shatters the air, a stench of burning hatred that gleams as fiery a green as Death's own wings.
And two powers battle, death and love, hatred and sacrifice. The room shatters under their power. The green Death uncoils, coils again. The white figure screams.
***
It was funny.
He'd become quite used to the scoldings, over the years. The beatings. They were all that he had known. He had understood the truth - the truth that there were two kinds of people.
People like Dudley and Uncle Vernon, who were big and red-faced and liked to hurt.
And people like Polkiss and Aunt Petunia, who watched and sometimes joined in the fun.
For those like him, why, Uncle Vernon had said it for him, hadn't he? They weren't people at all.
They didn't count.
They had never counted.
He always had hoped, though. Hoped for a little… just a little… he didn't know what to call it. He didn't want toys and video games, like Dudley did. He didn't want to laze about and leave the breakfast to Aunt Petunia.
He wasn't very clear what he wanted, really. But he knew it wouldn't have cost them much.
Bastards.
They had never wanted him. Never.
He was a fool to hope. There was nothing to hope for.
Not for him.
The panic wasn't there anymore, he realized suddenly. He was cold, the sweat on his body freezing into icicles.
He wasn't going to die here.
Not so easily.
He pushed.
The steel was hard and dead. It would not give.
Neither would he.
There was a peculiar smell in the air, he thought. He sniffed, and thought blood. It was familiar to him, the familiar smell that always came after uncle Vernon had come home drunk and angry, or Dudley had been feeling particularly vicious.
Air burned through his lungs, choking him. His hands and feet were numb in the cold. He pushed.
The steel buckled.
Disbelieving, he pushed again, his hands mapping out the bend in the metal. It gave away further.
Something rose within him then, something in his gut, roaring and writhing, and he was snarling in the darkness, his voice hoarse and raw as it shouted, roared, and that something was twisting within him, twisting him, and his hands and feet were kicking and punching with all he had to give, and then
air
Dirt rained down on him, gravel and muddy dirt that went into his eyes and nose and mouth. He couldn't see, but there was air, and he was free. He pulled himself up, up and over.
The shadowy night welcomed him, a faint breeze running through his hair. He dropped down on his knees in exhaustion.
The white marble slab was in front of him. He squinted at it, looked around. Found the quiet graveyard.
Oh my god -
The air shifted behind him, and he tried to stand, whirling around. Pain lanced through his chest. Burning, sizzling pain that shattered his reason and numbed his body and he was screaming and screaming as something in his gut snarled…
Somebody caught him as he sagged down. Laid him on the ground, gently. A touch jolted a fresh wave of pain in his back, but he could scream no longer. His voice didn't work. He tried to move through the haze of pain, couldn't.
“I'm sorry, boy.”
It was a whisper, but the words were clear to him in the silent night. His vision cleared, slowly. The pain was receding now, leaving him nothing. He couldn't feel his legs anymore. He couldn't feel anything.
If this was death, then… then he wished they got something worse.
The man was black, tall and black and wearing black sunglasses. He tried to speak, couldn't. Something, he saw, was jutting out of his chest; a long and thin wooden stake.
No. No. No. Things like this didn't happen. They didn't.
“I'm sorry, boy.” The man said again. “Maybe you didn't know, right? I'm sorry. I'm sorry. Believe me, this is for your best.”
No it isn't, he wanted to shout. It isn't. I don't want to die. His gut was cold, and silent, and it burned.
I never want to die.
The man bent down, and jerked out the stake in one vicious motion. “I'm sorry,” he swallowed. “You can't imagine how sorry I am, boy. If you were older… you would've known. You would've understood.”
“Don't -” he croaked. “Don't.”
“What?” The man bent down so he could whisper in his ear.
“Don't call me boy.”
And he jerked his hands up, one last effort, and his blood was dry and fire within him, his strength faltering but enough to take the man's throat and squeeze
***
The white wizard flees, his body reduced to a mass of worthless dust, his spirit broken and spent. And yet old magicks, old ties anchor him to the living, and he flees. Flees to take shelter in the darkness. Vows revenge.
A wand clatters to the floor, thirteen inches, yew and phoenix feather. It smokes and smolders. One of the followers picks it up, whimpering, disbelieving. Vanishes within his robes.
The other remains. Sniffs the air, cautious. Something keeps his attention.
He strides forward, to the baby. The baby, crying in earnest. He smiles, and shows his fangs.
Picks the baby up, cutting a little on the smooth neck, the soft and yielding flesh parting beneath the sharp incisor.
Begins to scream.
***
“You bastard,” the man gasped out, choking. “You little bastard!”
He tried to twist the neck, his mind awash with fire. Blood dribbled from the man, from where his nails had scratched and dug deep. The smell pulled him, down and down, and his vision was blurred with red. Blood red.
His tongue flicked out, tasting the smell. It was sort of weird, he thought in a corner of his mind, sort of - like smoke and water and something else he hadn't noticed before -
The man was struggling still, and winning, he could feel, the weight and pressure increasing against his small body. He tried harder, but the man had pulled a hand free at last, and another stake was glinting silver in the starlight. He tried to stop it, but the man was too big. Too strong. And he was weak, weak. His hands were numb from the cold.
The stake came down as he watched, slow, so slow. Down and down and down. The stars twinkled overhead.
He wanted to close his eyes.
Words rang out in the silence, too fast for him to understand, yet the meaning clear somehow. His ears rang as the stake missed its target and drove deep into the earth. The man jerked, twisting away from him to see who it was.
Someone else stood, not ten paces away. The moon and the stars twinkled on his robe. He could make out few features in the darkness, save a long white beard that was tucked into the old man's belt.
He now raised up a stake, wooden. Harry flinched, knowing it was another one who would kill him. He wasn't saved. Not really.
The black man snarled like a cat, and jumped towards the old man with blurring speed.
One word. One gesture with the raised stake.
And then the world itself was fire.