magistera | Poetry challenge fic

Here's my response to

memorycharm's Poetry Month Challenge.

Let the boy try along this bayonet-blade
How cold steel is, and keen with hunger of blood;
Blue with all malice, like a madman’s flash;
And thinly drawn with famishing for flesh.

Title: Untitled
Fandom: HP (of course)
Rating: PG-13 for violent themes
Length: ~1830 words
Summary: Harry knows what he has to do, he just has to learn how to do it. Gen, a little dark and a little odd.

The rat stiffened for a moment, but the light that streaked towards it was hardly more than a glow. Harry's shoulders slumped; another failure. He turned toward his teacher, hands spread helplessly. "I'm never going to be able to do it!"

Snape looked back at him impassively. "Again, Mr. Potter," was all he said.

Sighing, Harry turned back towards the rat and raised his wand. "Avada Kedavra," he incanted. This attempt, if anything, was worse. A pitiful dribble of green sparks came out of his wand, and the rat didn't even look up from where it was gnawing on the wire of its cage. He turned to Snape again. "You see? I can't do it! It's no use trying to teach me," he argued, trying to ignore the whinging tone that was creeping into his voice.

Snape sneered at him. "Don't be ridiculous, Potter. It's not a particularly difficult spell to learn. You have the power to cast it, or the Headmaster would not have assigned you these lessons. You know the words. All that is missing is the intent, and we will stay here until you manage to find it. Again."

Suppressing an angry retort, Harry faced the rat again. He pictured Snape's face in place of the rat, and brandished his wand, perhaps a little more aggressively than he needed to. "Avada Kedavra!" The light streamed out towards the rat, but faded away to nearly nothing before it made contact. The rat stiffened again, and shuddered, but then shook itself and began nosing about the cage, looking for food.

"Better," Snape said from over his shoulder, in a tone that implied that it wasn't very much better. "Again."

Harry sighed and raised his wand.

***

They were ambushed on their way to Grimmauld Place from the Dursleys'. Death Eaters surrounded them as they flew, forcing them into landing. Harry had a second to realize that the Order members had formed a circle around him, protecting him, and then the curses had started to fly. This was no polite, structured duel – this was a battle, through and through. Harry didn't recognize half the spells that were being shouted around him, but he could guess that they were unpleasant by the way Death Eaters and Order members alike dodged and weaved, avoiding the multicolored sparks and flashes that lit up the twilight.

Harry knew he should just stay out of the way, but it rankled in him to stand back and let other people do his fighting for him. When a curse meant for Tonks skimmed just over his head, he'd had enough. Pulling out his wand, he threw himself into the fray, throwing hexes and jinxes at every black robe and white mask he could see.

As the skirmish continued, the protective circle that the Order members had formed around Harry began to deform and then to disappear entirely. Their numbers were fairly well-matched, and the battle began to dissolve into one-on-one duels. Harry found himself facing a Death Eater who laughed at every hex Harry threw his way.

"Is that the best you can do, boy? Hit me with schoolboy jinxes? I wonder why the Dark Lord even bothers with you – you can't possibly be a threat to him," his opponent taunted, and threw another curse his way.

Harry ducked, and felt suddenly desperate to end the duel. He wracked his brain for a hex or a curse that the Death Eater wouldn't be expecting. Coming up blank, he tossed off several spells in a row, trying to buy some time. "Impedimenta! Stupefy! Tarantallegra!" He shouted the incantations rapidly, trying to keep the man off-balance.

His opponent blocked everything he threw, seemingly without effort. "Foolish child," he mocked. "The Dark Lord will be pleased when I bring you before him. You will die screaming – just like your father."

The mention of his father drove Harry from a state of near-panic to incandescent rage. "Don't you dare talk about my father!" he yelled, his voice breaking in fury.

The Death Eater only laughed again, and Harry drew himself up, feeling his anger channel itself through his body, down his arm and out through his wand. "Avada Kedavra!"

It was nothing like the rats. The power poured through him as the spell took hold, emerging from the tip of his wand in a burst of green light. The feeling was intoxicating – for a moment, Harry thought he could do anything. He held the man's life in his hands and felt it gutter out like a candle in a breeze. He heard a cry of triumph escape his lips as the man froze, somehow managing to look shocked despite the blank white mask, and slowly toppled to the ground.

A moment later, Harry was on his knees next to the body, emptying out his stomach. He continued to retch long after he'd brought up everything he'd eaten that day. He was oblivious to the battle that was winding down around him; he only came back to himself with a start when a hand fell on his shoulder. Looking past his wand, which had automatically trained on the hand's owner, he met Lupin's sympathetic eyes. Lupin didn't say anything, just squeezed Harry's shoulder gently. Harry felt a surge of gratitude towards him, but it was quickly overwhelmed by the rising tide of voices in his head, crying murderer, murderer, murderer. Helplessly, Harry bent over and began retching again.

***

Ron cornered him in the bedroom they shared at Grimmauld Place. "I heard you killed one of them," he said excitedly. "Wish I'd been there."

Harry punched him. Staring into Ron's flummoxed eyes, he said clearly, "Don't you ever say that," and left the room. On his way downstairs, he passed Lupin and Snape, talking in low tones. Lupin smiled at him sadly. Snape just sneered.

***

The second time was hardly better. The Death Eaters attacked Hogsmeade while the town was filled with students eager to blow off the stench of a few months' hard studying. Harry found himself backed into an alleyway with Ron and Hermione, defending a group of third- and fourth-years with everything they had. Hermione was spitting spells Harry had never even heard of, her wand constantly flickering in complex, unfamiliar movements. Ron and Harry kept up as best they could, throwing curse after curse into the teeth of the advancing Death Eaters.

A few of their spells managed to get through, reducing the number of attackers they had to deal with, but they were driven inexorably back into the alley, step after grudging step until Harry realized that they had run out of room to retreat. The Death Eaters obviously realized that they had nowhere left to run to, because they drew up before the trio, raising their wands in unison. Harry knew in a flash what he had to do. Stepping forward, suppressing the voice that was screaming at him to stop, he lifted his hand and cast the Killing Curse.

A few sparks shot out of his wand, but nothing else happened. He heard a mocking laugh from behind one of the impassive white masks, and then the Death Eaters stepped forward again, moving as one to close in on the retreating students. Panic washed through Harry, and he extended his wand before him and spoke the incantation again and again. Every time, his magic refused to obey him, refused to reach out as it had before and strip the lives from his attackers. Ron and Hermione shrank before the Death Eaters' advance, still casting spells at the faceless figures but with less conviction every time.

It wasn't until one of the Death Eaters had his wand pressed into Ron's throat that Harry found that feeling of invincible power again. The words almost seemed irrelevant as the green light streamed out of his wand and into the body of his enemy. For a few immeasurable moments Harry was flying on the incredible sensation that came with reaching into someone and yanking out their very life. Laughing, he cast the Killing Curse again, and again, while Ron and Hermione watched in shock.

He made it back to Hogwarts and into a toilet before the vomiting started.

***

He wasn't there when Ron killed Bellatrix. The attack on the Burrow was unexpected, but perhaps not wholly so, since Dumbledore had insisted that Harry remain at Hogwarts over the Christmas holidays.

Later, they would marvel over the way it took five Death Eaters to take Charlie down. Later, they would express surprise over the way Percy had suddenly Apparated into the fray to defend his family, and talk about the way he and Ron had faced down the last two attackers together. For now, there was only time for mourning.

Harry found Ron sitting by a window in a corridor off the Great Hall. Hearing him approach, Ron turned around, his face pale in the moonlight. "I know what you mean now, mate," he said in a shaky voice.

Harry opened his mouth to say something sympathetic, but his voice came out cold and distant, even to his own ears. "You should have used Crucio on her first."

He turned and fled down the corridor, carefully not running, before the horror had finished spreading across Ron's face.

***

Everyone was being so careful of him. He heard the hushed conversations that stopped as soon as he walked up; saw the worried looks from his professors and friends. As if he might snap and start raving at the slightest opportunity. He didn't understand why. He wasn't angry anymore. He knew what he had to do, and how to do it. He just wanted to hurry up and get on with it. He wasn't even allowed out of the castle anymore, and he resented it. How was he supposed to kill Voldemort without leaving Hogwarts?

No one seemed to want to meet his eyes these days. Only Snape treated him as if nothing had changed, which was hardly a blessing. Walking in to dinner, he heard the chatter and laughter at the Gryffindor table; heard it stop as he pulled out a chair and sat down. He didn't wait to be let in on the joke; no one seemed to think he wanted to laugh anymore.

Harry watched his friends as they ate, listened to the desultory conversations that finally started up again when he filled his plate and started shoveling food into his mouth. They don't know, he thought. They don't know, but maybe they will.

"Harry," Ron said tentatively, and then cleared his throat. "Er – did you finish that essay for Charms?"

Harry smiled at him, and only half-noticed Ron's slight flinch at his expression. "Yeah." Looking up, he met Snape's eyes. They regarded him impassively for a moment, then turned away. Giving himself a slight shake, he managed to dredge up a more natural grin before turning back to Ron. "Yeah, I did."