Chapter Text
CHAPTER ONE
He has seen the decades melt into an obscure century he cannot remember, passing through as if only a ghost for a lifetime he has not lived. The sky is melting from blue into orange, dusk slanting through the sky that has never seen so big , so daunting in a way he can't think about.
There is cigarette smoke curling around the air and the memories of a 40s smoky alleyway his throat. The streets are crowded with tired eyes and heavy souls, fear residing in the hollow bones of those who have seen too much of this world, seeking their redemption in the big sky that watches them. (People are scared, and maybe a lot of changed but maybe not enough).
There is a girl glowing softly in the early evening sunlight, shimmering with a glow of incandescent brilliance. She looks young, a flannel shirt tied around her waist and her hair falling in gentle waves, glancing behind as if to check that he is still following. She casts no shadow onto the cracking pavements. Perhaps she is not there after all.
His eyes are dark and focused and she is smiling like she has all the time in the world in the spectral light, young and slight with an elegant neck thats beauty is only marred by the grotesque scar that runs across it. As if testingly, she laughs and the gentle sound reverberates through the distance between them.
He slips under a bulky arm with a sleeve of tattoos and darts out of the throng of people cramping the pavements. Quickly, the girl slips into an alleyway and he bites down his bitterness at the whole game of cat and mouse, smoothing down his hair and following her in the alleyway.
"I know who you are," she starts, and her voice is soft and mellow and it reminds him of hot summer nights of pomegranate and sultry laughs. She looks older now, maybe a few years older than him perhaps, but she is still far too young for death.
He nods. "I know," he says, and she narrows her silver eyes at his extended hand. "I'm sorry for this."
She doesn't take his hand, and he isn't really surprised. There are those who can accept their deaths and those who can not. (Most people are in the latter; it doesn't surprise him she is one of them).
"No you're not."
He's not sure what to say to that.
It is almost dark now, with the last shards of sunset skimming the building tops, painting them both in the ichor of golden hour. Her t-shirt is stained with dark splodges, colourless in her death but sinking into her skin the way it does his heart.
"Don't shoot the messenger," he bites, but drops his hand knowing that she won't give in so easily.
(There is a trash can to his left and a boarded up window to his right. There is a chain link fence at the other end. One exit. He doesn't want to be here after dark).
Fingers entwined, he notices, knuckles even whiter. "We need your help."
"Excuse me?"
She steps forward, surged by a sudden burst of confidence. Cat-like, her eyes, long and narrowed and piercing even in their transparency. "We won the war the first time, but I guess not well enough."
He steps back at her approach, uncomfortable with the proximity. "Wizards," he figures. "You're a witch."
"Was a witch, you mean," she snaps bitterly. "Now I'm dead, throat slit to disguise the fact that you can't commit suicide without anything to die by."
He frowns, words caught on his tongue.
He remembers the wizards and the witches of the underworld, the way they muttered and screamed of a man with glowing and snakes and this death that is creeping around the pavements. (But there is no time to dwell on their pasts, not when the only judgement they will face is their own).
The ghost drags her scrutinizing gaze up and down his face, "we have a lot to discuss, follow me, puer angelis die ."
"What if I don't want to help you, phasma ."
She spins on her heels and continues down the alleyways. "I know you cannot resist a test- think of this as one."
The sky is big and overwhelming, a dark haze of fading colour behind the silhouette of London. (There is a trash can to his left and another to his right. The chain link fence is very rusty upon further inspection, probably easier to break. He doesn't want to be here after dark).
He swallows down his pride and follows the ghost. "Father doesn't like to wait," he lies easily. She doesn't pause.
"This won't take long."
(You can take a dead man to water, but you can't him drink)
-
"I'm sorry, I don't understand? You want me to go to school ?" He crosses his arms over his chest and frowns. It's dark now, and there is an itching in his bones that makes him want to run.
She laughs, and it sounds like music played late at night in mid-july, pomegranates and wine swept away into thick hot air you can hold in your hands.
They are stood by the chain link fence, and there is a cat watching them with sky green eyes glinting in the moonlight. There is a boarded up window to his left. Two exit routes. "I know this is hard but God, people are dying, kid. I don't know how much that means to you- does it mean anything to you, death?"
"Who do you take me for, larua ? I am not my father."
"So you will?" she says, silver eyes lazy with satisfaction and the sky spilling it's blood all over the floor.
"I could never resist an adventure."
He wonders if this can be an opportunity for reinvention, of himself, like he has done for the past two years, tried on different personalities and tried to find one that fits. He's sixteen and has the world at his fingertips, lived through the decades as nothing more than a phantom in the shadows.
The girls smiles, "go to the Leaky Cauldron, I'm sure Tom would let you send a letter for free in exchange for a sad story and maybe a little work. You will find a few books in your room to help you and who knows, you may even carve a place into our world, haedus ."
(You can lead a dead man to water but-)
-
He reaches for her hand she takes it, trembling underneath his fingers as she casts her eyes to the sky that prickles with stars, streaks of silver through her hair. (She glimmers eerily through the darkness).
He speaks with soft words in a language so dead it rests beneath his feet, his own hollow bones decaying with the ancient darkness seeping through the ground. (She listens but does not hear. There are tires screeching in the distance).
The moon has a heavy gaze of a celestial judgement and the stars hold the secrets he buries in his grave. Standing in the warm August nights with a ghost not really there at all, passing through the decades without living another lifetime, and she trembles in his fingers, her shining brilliance dulling with each passing second. Her eyes are on the sky and his on her crumbling skin. She casts no shadow onto the pavement.
(Perhaps she is not here after all).
"I'm sorry about this,” he tries.
She smiles, even though her eyes are tired and empty and her cheeks are sunken with age. “No you're not.”
(Her bones are falling apart).
-x-
He walks the streets alone, the darkness falling thick and heavy around him, footsteps silent and breath clouding. Eyes roaming the sky, the constellations of stars, and he tugs his beanie from his hair and stuffs it in his pocket. (He didn't want to be here after dark)!
He walks the streets alone and slinks into the darkness, melting into the shadows that curl around his feet. His eyelids weigh heavy, burning each time he blinks as his lips crack in the cold air.
Illuminated by the orange streetlights, he pushes his palms onto his forehead and breathes through the bitterness in his throat. He treads through the empty streets with doubt in his footsteps. (He didn't want to be here after dark)!
Eyes narrow, scrutinizing, the glow of the streetlights rest on a building tucked away from the rest, paint peeling and windows steamed. He swallows the anxiety in his throat, clenches his doubt in his fists. (It's almost as if it isn't here at all).
His hand hovers over the worn handle.
(He didn't want to be here after dark)!
-
Tom regards him with a kind of offhand curiosity. “What can I get you?” He asks, voice gruff and low as Nico steps up to the bar, pulling down his black hood and letting the lights fan over his face.
He grimaces. “I was wondering, actually,” he says, and he notices Tom glancing down to the silver ring glinting on his middle finger, averting his eyes when Nico taps it on the bar. (There is nothing he is worth other than silver and the holy blood that runs through his veins, staining his destiny and ichor and red), “if I can send a letter, Mr. ”
Tom shows his teeth in an awkward smile. “Sure I- that'll be...I'll have to check.”
Nico frowns, bottom lip worried between his teeth. “ Oh, ” he breathes, “Do you know anywhere that's hiring around here? I, erm, just moved from America and I- I don't have any money.”
Shifting from foot to foot, Nico looks up through a curtain of hair and meets Tom's dark eyes. “Well,” he starts. “I suppose you could do some things for me- nothing- just a bit of cleaning here and there maybe if you…”
“Oh, thank you!” Nico smiles and stands up straight.
“Where are your parents, boy- don't want them worrying, do we?”
Nico scuffs his feet on the dirty floor. “Oh, erm, they died a while back, so my aunt was homeschooling me. She became too ill to care for me any longer, so she helped to England and...” (He is nothing but silver and blood, a liar with golden blood and wealth in his veins).
Tom’s eyes burn onto his neck, and he hears him shuffle awkwardly. “Tell you what, don’t worry about the letter, I'll get it covered. Go to the top floor, there’s some owls and parchment and quills. Come see me afterwards for work, but just be...careful- some of them are a bit-”
“Thank you!” Nico curls his lips into a smile. He turns away, and the floorboards creak underneath his weight when he walks away. (He is worth nothing other than-)
-
The owls are afraid of the death that lingers around him, clinging to his skin and dark eyes. (It's the danger that makes others anxious when he buries his resentment in his bones, leaking out from the scars that tear his skin apart). He smells of death; they can smell it too!
Exhaustion rests heavy on his spine, tired from shitty nights and running, too afraid of what his father has given him to embrace it like he knows he knows he should. (His destiny is stained in ichor and blood).
(He is a son of Hades and a son of Hades shouldn't be afraid of the dark)!
The owls are afraid and he can feel their amber eyes on him when he writes his letter with elegant script, wide and wary as if expecting him to curl his dirty dirty hands around their throats.
He meets their stares with dark dark eyes. (His fate is sealed with blood).
The letter is simple and built on his tragic past and dark ink. The owls are afraid and it takes awhile for him to attach it to the leg of the largest own that seems the least afraid, with black feathers flecked with gold.
It's eyes are like wildfire- dangerous and untameable, raging fires and smouldering embers that fade into black coal and thick smoke. It is dangerous and uncontrollable and it meets his state with burning eyes he wants to capture with paint. (It's eyes are dark and red and his blood is tainted with divinity).
“Thanks,” he says as it disappears into the dark sky, fingers threading through his hair and he descends down the stairs to the pub.
The air is damp, sticking to his skin like the jacket does his arms. He passes old doors and creaking floorboards, and he absentmindedly swipes his finger over the dust that has settled on the banister. Tom's waiting for him when he reaches the bar.
“You done?” He asks, and Nico can imagine his gravelly voice scratching the back of his throat the way it scratches his skin. He knows to keep his mouth shut.
“Yeah.”
“'Been thinking,” Tom says, and Nico bites down on his tongue until he tastes blood. “In exchange for a bit 'a cleaning here and there and a few odd jobs, I'll let you stay in a spare room 'til Hogwarts starts.”
Nico raises his eyebrows in genuine surprise, all too prepared to sleep underneath of bench or break into an empty house. He rests his hands on the counter and notices Tom's daring eyes on his ring, and he slides it forward a little more, almost challenging him to try.
There is a glint in Nico's dark eyes of bright, artificial lights like a hospital when the outside world is dark, the strange melancholy of knowing there is both life and death lingering in the air.
“That's great! Thank you.”
The moment is gone. Tom’s eyes are back to his face and his own are dark and endless.
(There is nothing he is worth other than silver and the holy blood that runs through his veins, staining his destiny and ichor and red).
-
He is a stranger here, roaming the dark streets alone, trying to ignore the unease that prickles his neck, lit only by the soft orange of the streetlights. His hands are in his pockets and eyes ahead. (He didn't want to be here after dark)!
A woman with platinum hair walks with a boy of the same shining hair, shoulders back and help with purpose. Even with the distance he can hear them speaking with strong, posh Englsih accents as it rings through his ears.
“-and then I said, ‘It's a shame, isn't it, about the money you owe’, and her poor face was as red as her hair.” She laughs and it scrapes down his bones, cold and metallic through her perfectly glossed lips.
“Very exciting, mother,” the boy says, disinterested, although Nico figures his mother's cares more about hearing herself speak that having others listening.
Nico quickens his steps until he is only a few metres behind her, almost entirely sunken in shadows. Spilling from her snakeskin handbag, a little purse of golden coins gleams in the light. (She shouldn't be here after dark)!
He has nimble fingers, slender and quick, and she won't notice if he's fast enough. Stretches his fingers and reaches to her bag, oblivious to everything except her own polished voice and platinum hair.
She has rings on her fingers worth more himself. She won't notice a thing.
He takes his chance, and his fingers curl around her purse and pulls gently, holding his breath. Bag cold against his fingers, he runs, footsteps echoing through the streets.
(She shouldn't have been here after dark)!
-
When he steps into the Leaky Cauldron, there is adrenaline coursing through his blood, though his face remains as placid as ever. Tom's waiting, a letter held between his thick fingers. He takes a seat by the bar.
“This is for you, I think,” Tom says.
Nico takes the letter from his fingers and his fingertips brush over the wax seal on the back, scarlet and authentic.
“What makes you say that?” He mutters under his breath, staring down at his name written in perfect, cursive golden letters on the front, a small smile dancing on his lips.
“Thank you, sir,” he says, and his finger breaks the scarlet wax seal.