Chapter Nineteen of 'Jonquils and Lightning'- A Shining World

Oct 14, 2018 20:04



Chapter Eighteen.

Title: Jonquils and Lightning (19/19)
Disclaimer: J. K. Rowling and associates own these characters. I am writing this story for fun and not profit.
Pairing: Harry Potter/Tom Riddle, a few one-sided het pairings and canon het pairings
Content Notes: Angst, blood, dubious consent, dimension travel, OC’s
Rating: R
Summary: Harry Potter found peace after the war in another world where a large number of Potters live. He makes his living as an animal healer in Godric’s Hollow, surrounded by family and away from all wars. But his peace shatters with the arrival of a Tom Riddle from another dimension, who seeks a Potter who can be his foretold weapon in his own war.
Author’s Notes: At the moment, I can’t say how long this story will be.

Thank you again for all the reviews! This is the end of Jonquils and Lightning, but it will have a sequel, most likely to be called Lightning and War.

Chapter Nineteen-A Shining World

Harry was aware of the distant battle that sounded behind him, but he couldn’t stop the transfer of magic now. The shining figure that knelt in front of him, which would unite with the portal to Tom’s world, was taking more and more of it.

And the more flowed away, the lighter Harry felt. The freer.

There are some things where I can’t help being different from other people, but if I get to choose? Then yeah, I choose to be normal.

He could almost see features wavering into existence on the being’s face now. A nose and mouth like Harry’s, the eyes a brilliant blue like Ron’s. It was similar to the figure that had formed when Harry gave up part of his magic to stabilize the portal back to his first world, but then the mouth and nose had been Hermione’s, and the eyes had been Harry’s own.

The figure reached out with a golden hand, rounded at the tips as if it was wearing mittens, and Harry smiled and flicked his fingers. More magic, this time shaped as if it was a row of shark teeth, sped across the air between them.

Take it. I never wanted it. I would have given it all for a life with my parents, a life without Voldemort.

Let him have just enough to still cast some spells and keep up with Tom, and he would-

Something crashed into him, knocking him away from the still-forming figure. Harry got his hands beneath him in seconds and stopped the roll. He came up snarling, honestly frightened by the sounds that were ripping from his throat. The figure in front of him wavered and vanished, and the magic twirled up, filling the sky like the Northern Lights. Some of it continued to settle around the portal, though.

Harry had no idea what would happen if the transfer of magic was interrupted. The portal to Tom’s world might snap shut. It might gap open wider and spill dangerous things out of a rip into the dimensions between the worlds. It might suck Tom back into it.

Of all of those, Harry knew which outcome he would hate most.

He reached his feet and saw, in a quick glance, that Tom and Dumbledore were dueling. The air between them was filled with crackling fire and light and snakes made out of both. Tom seemed to be holding his own for the moment, which was the only reason Harry felt free to turn to face the hooded figure in front of him.

It chuckled. “I believe that your young man thinks I’m your cousin, based on the way he was glaring at me.” Hands rose and drew the hood back, and eyes filled with hate glared at Harry.

Harry clenched his hands. “I could have told him that Jonquil would never do anything like this to me. But some of my other cousins might have, Calliope.”

His cousin shook her head, her eyes fastened on him. “You have no idea how much I hate you,” she said softly. “And then Albus came and told me more about you. How you’re going to go to his world with this Gaunt person and start another war. Or maybe you’re trying to stop Albus.” She shrugged. “It doesn’t matter that much to me. What matters to me is that you stand here and my son does not.”

“I’m not responsible for his death,” Harry snarled. He was speaking more harshly than he meant to, but all his nerves were jangling. She shouldn’t have interrupted the transfer of magic to the portal. The aura that clung to it right now shimmered and spat at him. He wasn’t sure when it would break.

“But you come here and you bear his name, and you’re accepted by the family in a way that I’ve never been. Not since he died.”

Harry didn’t have time to debate the nuances of her grief with her. Tom was fighting Dumbledore. He might be dying, and Harry was standing here and chatting with his hateful cousin. He launched a blow at her, a flick of his magic, that took her off her feet and knocked her out, and then turned and ran towards the duel.

Dumbledore had cast a spell that arched like a silver lattice over Tom, pressing him further and further down on his knees. Harry lashed out and watched as his magic tore open the back of Dumbledore’s robe, stinging like a whip against his spine.

I shouldn’t still have that much magic left. The transfer should have-

But the thought got lost as the silver lattice dissolved and Dumbledore spun around. His face creased in shock for a second, and then he bowed his head.

“You are fully allied with Mr. Gaunt, then,” he whispered. “I hoped it was otherwise. I hoped I might persuade you of what a mistake this is.”

“You can do that if you step back and leave him alone,” Harry said grimly. He could hear the steady crackle of the magic from the portal, and he could feel the curving reel of it around his head. He would probably have to stop the duel soon to go back to the ritual. He honestly didn’t know what having it interrupted would do. As far as he knew, this had only been done once before in history, when he’d stabilized the portal back to his own first world.

“You have no idea of the havoc he would cause. I must stop him.”

“What did you do with Jonquil?”

Dumbledore blinked. “Calliope mentioned that she has a cousin by that name. What about her?”

Harry nodded shortly. So it seemed unlikely that Jonquil had ever spoken to Dumbledore or Calliope about her intentions. Calliope spent days alone at a time with her husband, so she might not have heard about the note from Dorea, either.

Which meant Jonquil was probably beyond the portal. And that made it more necessary than ever to stabilize it.

“I’m ready to fight beside you, Harry.”

Tom stepped up beside him. Dumbledore’s eyes fixed on him and hardened. He hates him more than he can ever hate me. Maybe just because I’m not from his world in the beginning, or no counterpart of mine lives there.

“You do not understand the man you are trying to save,” Dumbledore said. “You do not understand what you are doing with your own magic if you make this portal permanent. Mr. Potter, I am only trying to save your life, as well.”

“I made my choices.” Harry gritted his teeth as he felt a powerful tug from inside his soul. His magic was trying to get away from him and rejoin the sheets of it streaming towards the portal. “Come on, then, Albus.”

They had to win the duel quickly. Harry raised his hands and let the blue flames that he’d summoned yesterday glow around them. At his side, Tom laughed and raised his wand.

*

Even with two of them, it wasn’t easy.

Then again, Tom had never thought it would be. Albus had earned his position as Minister partially because of his popularity, but also because of his power. And he poured that power over them, curses that would have wrenched their bones apart if they landed, and others that would have pounded their muscles to molecules, and illusions that were aimed to turn them against each other and ensnare their senses with hatred and fear.

But Harry was there, and he cleaved through the spells like a swung axe. And Tom was there, and willing to use the Dark Arts and the snake magic that Harry didn’t know or perhaps didn’t want to use.

They drove Albus back, the darkness full of booming blue light and deflected magic. Albus tried to aim his wand between them once and blow up the ground, but Harry had lifted a shield before he finished the incantation, and Tom aimed a curse that didn’t hamstring Albus but came close.

There was so much shock in Albus’s face that Tom wanted to laugh as they fought. Had Albus expected them to lie down and roll over and let him do whatever he wanted? They were together. They were the Light and Dark united the way that Albus had done, but only secretly, and within himself, and all the while convincing himself that it wasn’t really Dark if it was done for the greater good.

The duel ended as it must done, with Albus down, Stunned, and bleeding. Harry traced his wand in a circle, his face set and grim.

“Cavea somnii,” he murmured.

` The air around Albus solidified and shimmered, and then became a curved-looking blue box. Tom lowered his wand and turned to stare at Harry. He thought he knew what the Latin meant-“dream cage”-but he didn’t know the effect of the spell.

“Well?” he asked, when the cage fully formed and nothing pounded on the inside of it trying to get out.

Harry sighed and brushed back his hair from his forehead. Sweat ran like blood past the scar that was the mark of the other Tom’s possession. Tom found himself wishing that he could erase it. “It’ll keep him asleep for at least a month. It’s like a spell version of the Draught of Living Death. It-”

And then he screamed, and crumpled over, and Tom saw the link writhing like a tapeworm between him and the portal. He grabbed Harry around the waist and dragged him towards the gate. He did pause once on the way to stare at the woman lying on the grass.

“Not Jonquil?”

“No. My cousin Calliope, who was bitter about losing a son with the same name as me-”

Harry’s voice trailed off into another scream. Tom clenched his teeth. Knowing Harry’s past, he could only imagine the depth of the pain that it would take to make him scream that way. He kept dragging Harry, not wanting to use a Levitation Charm so near so much magic of unknown potential. He dropped Harry roughly in front of the portal and swallowed an apology, his eyes fixed on Harry as he raised his wand in a shaking hand.

“I need to complete the transfer,” Harry croaked. “Tom, get out of the way.”

“There must be some way I can help-something I can do-”

Harry shook his head, and more sweat made its way down his forehead. “I’ve already left this too long. The portal might try to suck you through and snap shut if you’re too close. Move!”

Tom stumbled back several steps before he thought about it. Harry had the commanding voice down pat, when he wanted to use it. Tom had the feeling that that wasn’t very often.

Harry ground his hands in the dirt and managed to stand. He was facing the portal head-on, and his mouth was open like an angry, roaring lion’s. His hair billowed around him, too, like a lion’s mane, as he lifted his hands.

The words that came out of his mouth weren’t in English, or Parseltongue, or Latin. The most Tom could say for them that was that they weren’t the wordless screams of before. He swallowed his anxiety and went to work raising wards behind them. No one else was going to interrupt Harry.

As much as he wished this transfer didn’t have to happen.

*

Harry could feel the anxious coiling in his stomach, the rising and rushing of his magic. This time, he had to do it right, he thought, or it was entirely possible that he would have nothing left from trying to contain the burning by the time he was done.

But the magic seemed just as pleased to go where Harry was directing it to go. In seconds, the shining figure was kneeling in front of him again. Harry reached out and clasped hands with it this time. Less chance that things would fuck up when he was holding the “person” he was supposed to transfer the magic to.

Immediately the glowing being acquired features again, but this time, they were Tom’s. Harry smiled and let it happen. The important thing was to feed it the magic, and to will what he wanted to happen into existence.

Looking at Tom’s face even made it easier to will it to happen, now that Harry thought about it. I want you to stay open. I want you to stabilize, so that I can be with Tom for always.

The air seemed to ring in response, as if someone had struck a bronze gong-the same shimmering tone Harry had heard once before. The curling streamers in the air dashed down and wreathed themselves into being around the gate, and then sank into it. Harry watched roots delve into the earth. He couldn’t restrain a gasp of relief. Yes, he remembered the same thing happening when he made the portal to his first world permanent.

The magic was doing what it was supposed to do.

Harry crossed his arms as even more power welled up from inside his chest and painted the sky around him the colors of deep space, darkness pockmarked with silver and blue and golden flecks. He flicked his fingers, and the lights expanded, taking over the darkness. Harry stared into them and fed them the last of his power that he had to give.

For a moment, it felt as if sticky strings were clinging to his chest, pulling all of his magic out so that he would become a Squib. Harry tossed his head back and imposed his will-the thing that had made it possible for him to imagine stabilizing the portal in the first place, the thing that let him resist the Imperius Curse.

No. This is mine. You cannot have it.

A loud whine sounded in his ears, the forces that twisted through the time and space between dimensions demanding more from him. Harry shook his head, and slammed his will down.

I desired to be normal. I will be normal.

The titanic forces reared up against him, and Harry dismissed them.

No.

The tide of desire hit him, desire thick with something simpler than words, the begging and pulling-

No.

The desires slid away, accompanied by frustrated screams, and the fires around the edges of the portal seethed outwards once, a furious reflection of the magic he had fed them. Harry raised his eyebrows and continued standing upright. The light died, and then what was left was a simple doorway in the air, opening into darkness.

Or as simple as a doorway in the air can be, Harry thought, and then slumped to his knees and bowed his head.

*

Tom stared in awe. He knew now why no one else had discovered this method of holding a portal open. It took enormous magic, yes, but it took a stronger force of will not to be pulled apart by the giving of that magic.

Tom did not know himself if he could have resisted it, even though it might have been possible to harvest the necessary magic from a blood sacrifice. He moved up beside Harry, his hand running down his shoulder.

Harry turned his head with a weary sigh and leaned his cheek against Tom’s knuckles. Tom controlled the impulse to curl up around him and shield him from any possible repercussions.

“The portal is going to stay open now,” Harry said, and yawned. “It’ll still be there when we come back from finding Jonquil.”

Tom stiffened at the reminder that he and Harry were not going to his world for the first time together because Harry wanted to help him fight his war, or even to visit. No, they had to go and find his stubborn cousin.

“I thought she was the one standing beside Dumbledore,” he admitted with a sigh, looking over at the unconscious woman who was apparently Calliope, a fact he still couldn’t believe.

Harry shook his head. “Jonquil would have showed her face from the beginning and wouldn’t have hurt me in the first place,” he said simply. “Calliope had enough sense to be ashamed of herself. Just not enough sense to stop.” He sighed. “Come on, Tom. We need to go home and rest. I thought we might be able to go through right away, but we’re both too tired from the duel. And we have to tell Dorea and the others about Calliope, and decide what to do about Dumbledore.”

Tom nodded in silence. When Harry began to struggle back to his feet, Tom pulled him up. Harry leaned against him, and sighed.

“Are you-you’re not a Squib,” Tom said.

Harry laughed and shook his head. “No. I think I’m probably back to a normal level now. I can definitely still do magic. Probably not extremely powerful magic and wandless curses anymore.” He smiled at Tom, his expression radiant. “I have what I wanted.”

That quieted Tom’s guilt about the way that Harry had had to give up his magic, about the way that he would end up visiting Tom’s world. He tucked his hand under Harry’s elbow, and together they walked back towards Godric’s Hollow. Tom Levitated Calliope behind him.

Harry glanced over his shoulder more than once. Tom tilted his head. “I’m sorry that I did destroy your peace when I came here.”

Harry drew in a shivering breath. “No. I think-it’s probably time to face up to the fact that I was constructing this dream of the perfect family, much more than I ever realized. Calliope hated me based on something that happened long before either of us came here. Jonquil was restless and yearning to leave long before either of us came here. She was never happy at Hogwarts, either, Dorea told me. This was a necessary wake-up call.”

Tom nodded. And then, unfortunate circumstances and all, he had to speak. He couldn’t keep silent any longer. “Tomorrow we go through the portal to my world after all.”

Harry gave him a smile as warm as a lion’s fur. “Tomorrow.”

The End.

Chapter One of Lightning and War.

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