Archive of Our Own

Ascension of Blood - Blood and Bone Saga
Chapter 6
The Uncertainty, Of Death
………………………..

The air was filled with the cry of an incantation, blind spots of light fogged her clarity after a flash of green blinded her; and then, nothing.

No impact. No pain. No scream lost to the void. Just the absence of anything and the presence of nothing.

Pansy drifted, hollow and untethered from herself. A weight pressing against her; a tidal push, ebb and flow within waves as she floated a scene of nothing. Her memory called to this moment, having lived it before.

“But that’s not right!” she thought aloud. The concept of thought itself may have well been lost to her as her mind whirled tiredly, drunkenly so.

Time rippled around her, she didn’t know what time looked like, so it was a mute observation, but she felt it all the same. Felt its cruelty and torment as it passed. The uneven waves of this place, the tidal forces made her sick.

Pansy moaned tiredly. “Let me go!”

She continued on, flickers and swirls of other colours now, reds and golds. Fireworks of light that she could barely see through the heavy-lidded visions against the nothing.

She was so tired now, so ready to fall.

But a stirring within gave life to deeply personal sensations that these flares of colour gave off. Something primal, hidden away within her core.

The images of a boy, of red hair, of a gift of something very important to her. They were all feelings she could cling to and live within, in this moment. But she felt too impossibly tired to even think on them any longer. It wasn’t enough against the dying of what felt like…

She broke the lethargy, just a little.

“I don’t remember this place… he did! Ron described it to me, after he…”

A memory most foul, came to her. His dying breath, her shuddering cries. Exponential cruelty.

“I can’t be here… if I’m here then I’m…”

Pansy tried to turn, to fight against the rhythmic swell of nothing.

“No, Death!” she cried out.

“I’m not dead! I can’t be dead!”

Her screams echoed out as she drew on everything she could, to break the torpor of this nightmare. Something was slipping now; it made her frantic. It felt like a bed, a final place to lay her head in this resting place of nothing.

She was slipping.

“Death! You come here to me right now, show yourself!”

Her cries became sobs, the weight was crushing, she was going. She thought on the deity, her untimely spiriting away with her as she pleased. She thought of the nightmares she’d been shown. It drew on her senses, and she heard it now. Howls of some distant nightmare, thousands of snapping jaws and murderous claws were coming.

“Death please! You can’t fucking leave me, snatching me off when it suits you… Well, it fucking suits me now!”

“Please!”

Dreamless dark consumed her as her eyes closed.

………………………..

There was a clunk, with which Ron’s head snapped down to the sight of a hostile presence of a plate glaring up at him, an agent of his maternal wrath. The plate: consisting of a breakfast most pitiful, lingered sadly in mocking. Its single sausage, with charred markings curled like a question mark of judgment. An undercooked mushroom wobbling on one side, flanked by a single rasher of burnt bacon, and what might have been twelve baked beans. And the egg? Seemed to be sitting this one out.

Gulping. Ron looked up in time to see his mother’s look of disdain as she dropped the offering to him.

“Thanks mum.”

His voice betrayed nothing. His face, everything. His eyes caught the second glance she gave him, a look that may as well have accused him of personally starting this war.

“She’ll come round mate.” Sirius murmured, already halfway through a heavily buttered triangle of toast. His plate, by contrast, was overflowing, eggs golden and cloud-soft, bacon stacked like treasure, and enough beans aplenty, complete with private battalion of sausages.

Ron’s jaw twitched as he hissed. “She’s blaming me for being there, after everything that happened.”

Sirius pointed his knife between their plates, “What gave that away, my lovely, formed yolk fit for a saviour… or your, invisible one.”

“To be fair, love… you did insert yourself into a certainty of war,” Sirius’s sad smile, all but gone. Nothing was ever so serious to the man.

“You took me!” Ron hissed.

“I liberated you.”

“You Side-Alonged me!”

“Romantic, wasn’t it?”

From opposite them, smiling ear to ear came the snorts of amusement from the eagerly listening jackals. Ron gave Bill and Charlie filthy looks.

Ron gave a strangled scoff. “And now she’s treating you like you’re the Second Coming… while I get six beans and regret.”

Sirius gave a contented sigh, speared a mushroom. “Heroism agrees with me.”

“I saved Dad.”

“And yet here we are. Me with breakfast piled high and you with a passive-aggressive mushroom.”

Ron looked at the rubber offence in question. “She thinks you saved him.”

“I know she does. Because I did!”

“Yes, but not how she thinks. She’s wrong.”

“Debatable. From her perspective, she was sobbing on the floor, and I came back, blood in my teeth, a charming smile on my face and an arm around her husband. It's very hard to hate someone bringing bacon and salvation.”

“You weren’t even supposed to be there though!”

Sirius glanced at him, a twinkle in his eye was enough to point out the obvious.

“Oh, I fucking hate you!” Ron moaned. He spotted yet more smirks from his brothers.

“Yes love… eat your bean.”

More sniggering.

Arthur spoke up, “Good read for you in the Prophet today, Sirius.” He held his paper up for them to see the front page. “You went on a murderous rampage in Bibury apparently. At least that’s the spin they’re going with.”

“Look at that,” Sirius smiled in awe, “they almost got it right for once.” He raised his mug to Arthur who shook his head with a chuckle, going back to chatting on the other side of the table.

Ron’s fork scraped loudly. “This is so wrong.”

“I know, shite picture of me, could have used a better one,” Scratching his stubbly beard.

“No, I mean this… It’s not right,” Ron complained.

Sirius chewed serenely. “So’s serving beans with only so few pieces of toast, but here we are.”

They sat in silence for a beat. Then Sirius added, with a lowered voice, “She did glare at me, actually.”

Ron glanced sideways. “She did?”

“Oh yes. Didn’t pass the salt.”

“…the salt?”

Sirius nodded gravely, like it was a war wound. “Froze mid-reach. Wouldn’t budge. That’s a cold shoulder in condiment form.”

“You’re such a… We’ll see how long you’re her new favourite, when she hears just how I got to Bibury won’t we.”

Before either could retort, the kitchen door swung open. Molly bustled back in, beaming as she leaned down to her eldest two, topping up their tea.

Ron nearly choked on a bean as Sirius leaned in, voice a breath.

“So eager for honesty? Then let’s ask what she thinks about you nearly splitting the Golden Couple? Or perhaps the nightly hospital wing fondles with your girl? …”

“…Come to think of it… “

“…Charlie’s little nurse friend got caught with her hand in your cookie jar, didn’t she? … Oh yes, then there’s your little cuddle crusade with the Light girl you hopped into bed with.”

He gave a pause that lasted exactly long enough for Ron’s jaw to drop,

“Casanova!”

No quicker than a heartbeat, Sirius’s voice rang out, louder, radiant. “MOLLY! That apron is stunning, where did you find that embroidery pattern? Honestly, makes the whole kitchen brighter!”

She beamed.

Ron stared at him, speechless.

Sirius sipped his tea, eyes twinkling.

“Back to your bean, dear.”

Sirius sat back up, giving her another gleaming wink as she bustled over. She lovingly topped up his tea and slipped another sausage onto his plate with delicate tongs.

“Thank you, Molly,” Sirius said, charm dialled to eleven.

She beamed. Then turned to Ron, barely glanced at his plate, and muttered, “The least you can do is eat what you’re given after what you put me through.”

The air stiffened. Arthur lowered his paper from where he’d been talking with Hestia. Kingsley raised an eyebrow. Dedalus looked mildly afraid.

Sirius, completely unfazed, cleared his throat gently. “Molly, don’t fuss. This is more than enough.”

“Oh, Sirius, I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to sour your morning,” she cooed.

“As if you could,” he replied, and took another bite of toast.

“Oh Sirius…” Ron mocked, eyes rolling.

Ron stared at the man’s plate, then at the space where his egg should have been. He wanted to laugh. Or scream. Or stuff Sirius’s bloody toast in his heroic face.

“You’re enjoying this,” he whispered.

“I’m eating,” Sirius replied.

“You’re basking. I’ve never seen a dog look like such a fat cat.”

“Semantics.”

“Dickhead!”

Sirius sipped his tea, eyes sparkling. “But a Dickhead with a full English on his plate.”

He made to take another sip, stopping with a seemingly satisfied look on his face. He leaned back in.

“You may be the hero for the Order, love, but you’re the Dickhead of the kitchen round here.”

This brought a round of laughter from the boys that neither tried to hide.

Time ticked on as it often did. Only for Ron at least, it seemed to pause.

Everyone else continued to eat and talk. Ron was only vaguely aware of Sirius still sending him the odd quip. But something was off, a shift in the unconscious equilibrium of his mind.

Ron suddenly felt alone in the room, with only this feeling and a sickening that it summoned, dread like. Something felt very wrong! All his mind could do was worry.

“Merlin, you look fit to start bawling your eyes out!” Charlie grinned from across the table, “she’ll come round soon enough lad.”

But Bill’s face grew hard, seeing a disturbance in his brother. He elbowed Charlie with concern.

Charlie’s confusion fleeting, he understood the worry that surrounded anything to do with Ron.

Sirius glanced at him mid-toast, missing it all for a change. “You go stiff because of me or the bean?”

Ron blinked. “...Dunno… Just, felt weird.”

Sirius tilted his head, eyeing him with vague curiosity. Ron’s voice was distant, disconnected.

Sirius’s eyes met the others.

Ron felt nothing as his mind mulled over what felt like an itch from another plane. It wasn’t sharp, but pressing, a smothering fog that he couldn’t get a hold on. It wasn’t danger. It wasn’t anything so sensible.

It was absence.
Or... no. Not absence.
It was an echo, but, of a memory not of his own.

A sound from nowhere, that he shouldn’t even know or understand, was now gone… Unable to be heard, from a memory he hadn’t made, but somehow, personal to him.

An acidity hit the back of his throat. Strange, there was no sound or vision, and yet he could taste the, wrongness, in the air.

A voice.
Crying. Screaming.

Sirius caught on immediately. The way Ron’s shoulders went still. The muscles in his jaw ticked. Something about him... sank, even though he seemed so rigid.

Charlie looked over, frowning lightly. “Oi. You alright?”

Ron didn’t answer. Not at first. He blinked, gaze unfocused.

Sirius turned fully to Ron now. Not flippantly. Not with a joke half-cocked. Just... quietly. His brow furrowed.

He leaned in, no smirk to cushion his tone.

“Ron?”

Ron swallowed. His throat dry.

“I…” He paused, tongue clumsy in his mouth. “I just remembered something.”

Charlie arched a brow. “Is it happening again… Are you going to keel over on us and disappear to some… other place?” The words feeling hardly real as he spoke them.

Ron forced a breath out of his nose. “No, just… I didn’t sleep great last night. That’s all.”

Sirius didn’t move, but the air around him tensed.

“Sleep!” Charlie cried out, “you’re putting the shits up us because you couldn’t sleep!”

“Shut up, lad!” Bill hissed, elbowing him in his ribs again. His concern didn’t wane so easily.

Ignoring them, Sirius leaned closer. “Bad dream?”

Ron didn’t look at him. “I didn’t think I’d had one.”

He wasn’t lying. But something about that didn’t sit right.

“I just… I woke up in a cold sweat. Thought it was the heat. Thought it was nothing.” He shrugged, vaguely uncomfortable now. “But now... it feels like I heard something.”
Charlie and Bill exchanged a glance.

“Heard something?”

“Yeah. I…” He stilled as he fully returned to the moment, realising now they were all staring at him.

“Go on.” Bill encouraged.

“I heard… nothing! But, I should hear something.”

“Which is?”

“I don’t know, I’ve never heard it before.”

Charlie looked between them. “That settles it, I’m calling Jess…”

Pulling the same face as Charlie, Bill was woke from his bewilderment as he rolled his eyes. “Sit down,” he told Charlie. “There’s no way you’re using this to get your end away, dickhead.”

Sirius speaking up, put a halt to any retorts from Charlie.

“Ron, were you hearing silence?”

More confused looks, but Ron jumped on the question as it resonated with him.

“Yes! It’s like, whatever I should have heard, I could clearly hear, the nothing… that’s now in its place. Does that make sense?”

“No!” Charlie said flatly. “Absolutely not you fucking Barmpot! That’s got to be the most mental thing you’ve ever said, and you’re like… really weird aren’t you.”

The snort of laughter that escaped Ron’s lips, warmed him. A feeling that invoked the memory of eating chocolate after the Dementor attack on Harry, washed over him. Somehow, his brother’s taking the mick made it all the easier.

“How did you know?” Ron asked, turning back to Sirius.

The man shrugged. “Not sure, it’s a dog thing. I sense more than we normally do. Sometimes you can sense what isn’t there, rather than just… what is.”

“They’re right though, to worry. You’re sure this isn’t like last time? When you slipped back into that mini coma?”

Ron opened his mouth to speak when an almighty screech came shrilly within earshot from the upstairs ground floor. The knocking at the front door setting off Sirius mother.

Sirius’s eyes didn’t leave Ron’s as he bored into him searchingly. Feeling that Ron wanted the moment to pass, he said nothing more. Not until he reached out and gently placed two fingers at Ron’s wrist; like he was pretending to check for a pulse, but in reality, was grounding him with a silent ‘I’m here.’

Ron didn’t pull away. He stared at him with equally hard eyes. Same direction. Same feeling.
He didn’t say her name. He didn’t need to.
Sirius understood.

Sirius let the silence stand for just long enough before drawing back with a cough and a rustle, the mask sliding back over.

“Right,” he said, plucking up his toast again. “No more mystery beans for you, then.”

“Cheers,” Ron muttered, already knowing the bickering would resume. All the more grateful for it.

Sirius smirked sideways. “Though, between you and me. If it was a vision, at least have the decency to say it came with mood lighting and an ominous voiceover from a distant deity. You’re just being lazy otherwise.”

Bill snorted. “We’ll get him a crystal ball and a fog machine next birthday.”

“Maybe a pamphlet,” Charlie added. “’So, You Think You’ve Had a Premonition’.”

Ron gave them all equal hand gestures.

But his smile, couldn’t remain.

The wailing of a bitter old woman, shrill and uncensored found its way into the room from upstairs. Sirius rolled his eyes, muttering some curse at the mere sound of his mother.

Arthur folded his paper and went to answer the door.

“No closer to getting rid of her yet?” Ron asked.

“Almost everything but the killing curse apparently,” Bill answered in amusement.

“Don’t tempt me.” Sirius’s eyes glazed a little, as though the idea of blasting his mother’s portrait with the curse was a frequent daydream, just out of reach.

Ron’s head twitched, his ears picking up a low thudding. “It’s Mad-Eye,” he announced. “There’s someone else with him... two someone’s.”

Charlie snorted. “Merlin, he really is doing premonitions,” he muttered. “Right little boy scout aren’t you. Mad-Eye turning you into a bloody crime-sensing Labrador now, is he?”

Bill snorted into his tea.

Ron gave him a simple unimpressed look.

“You won’t want to know that one of them is Jess then?”

Charlie was already half out of his chair, hand running through his hair like he’d been caught half dressed.

“Really?”

“No, moron!” Ron smirked back.

Bill spat tea across Charlie’s shirt with violent precision, laughing so hard he wheezed.

Before Charlie could launch into a rant, the door swung open with a crash.

Mad-Eye stomped in, his magical eye spinning from every person to every darkened corner. Two figures followed behind him. One with sunlight platinum hair and winter-sharp eyes, the other cloaked in measured elegance and a name as dark as her dress.

Harrier Light and Evelyn Black.

Sirius dropped his toast at the sight of his cousin, finding his feet with a measured amount of the irrepressible manners of his youth.

“Evelyn!”

“Sirius.” She smiled with sparkling eyes.

He welcomed her with open arms. She accepted in a way that betrayed that they’d once been strangers at all. They seemed to deviate any need to learn how to be family.

Ron too got to his own feet, meeting Harrier as she entered. But Molly had gotten over stopping dead in her tracks by the stove. Brushing coldly past her son.

“Harrier!” Her voice lifted an octave, welcoming folding over surprise.

Harrier’s smile spread gently. “Mrs Weasley.”

“Molly, dear. I shan’t tell you a third time.”

Harrier’s eyes travelled behind Mrs Weasley where she found Ron, who was cutting the air at his neck and shaking his head. She had to bite her lip as she smiled, taking his hint to not argue the fact.

“Thank you… Molly.”

“I’m so relieved you’re ok. When I heard you were involved in what happened at Bibury… I don’t dare think about how it could have gone.”

“I had good company,” she said, nodding toward Ron.

Now she saw a genuine fear hit his eyes as he shook his head again. Her smile went crooked; her head tilted in confusion.

Molly stilled. “I’m not sure good company is how I’d phrase it,” she bristled.

The disdain growing on the woman’s face told Harrier everything she’d seemingly missed.

“Molly. If it wasn’t for Ron, I’d be dead.”

It worked only in softening her features as she heard this, but her resilience remained.

“I appreciate that dear and believe me, I’m just so grateful that you are alright.” Her face hardened again. “But there’s a difference in you getting caught out on your own doorstep, and my idiot son willingly jumping into that kind of… hellfire.”

“Oh, for fuck’s sake!”

Time paused for a moment as something of reality seemed to shatter. There was a clang as fork met plate, Charlie’s fingers no longer able to maintain grip. More tea was spat from Bill, finding its mark on his brother again. Their faces matching. Kingsley’s wide eyes found Arthur, who had sat back down, but now had chosen to hide his head behind his copy of the Prophet.

Time and reality synced back in step with a unity of movement as all eyes found Ron, the source of this cataclysm.

Too shocked for normal speech, Molly only managed a boiling kettle like hiss.

“I beg your… how dare…” She faltered, “Arthur!” She didn’t wait for him to re-emerge. She rounded on her son, no hint of fear at his sheer size that towered over her.

Ron remained planted under her gaze, Mors Manus venting not only his frustrations, but its own through defiant old bones. His eyes remained hard, not with rage but a need to be heard.

No one else dared speak. Bill had ten years on Ron, Charlie nearly eight. In all that time they’d never seen any of their tribe come close to this with their mother.

“I’ve taken enough of this, Mum.”

Molly froze. The kettle of anger she’d kept simmering threatened to boil over.

“Just who do you think you’re talking to like that?” she snapped. “Especially after you nearly died… after those monsters left you disfigured! I watched my baby torn apart and I could do nothing… And then you go and pull a bloody stunt like that!”

Ron flinched, because that pain stabbed. But something of levity came over him as her words bit. In duality, Ron realised what it was that was making her act like this now, but also that he was lacking the emotions he should be feeling in this moment.

“I know you’re angry. I get it. I was angry too. Waking up, half-blind… missing pieces. But you don’t get to make me feel like I’m still broken just because you’re scared.”

Unseen by all, Mad-Eye smiled. Something of pride coming over him.

His words had struck at her, making Molly hesitate as he spoke. It was all she could do to stop herself fly off the handle at him. She stepped toward him, face red, eyes brimming.

“I get it now, what I did, what it did to you. I’m sorry for scaring you.” Ron bit his lip, blowing a deep exhale through his nose. A simple apology would be easy, but he couldn’t stay quiet.

“I know what it is to be terrified,” he said, voice shaking now. “You think I don’t know what it’s like to lie awake worrying like you do. I do it every night. Not knowing if Pansy’s alive or dead… panicking when I feel like something’s off with me, like I’ve picked up on her… dying or something…”.

“…Don’t say that!”

“Ron!” Arthur said in gentle warning. He was up now, by Molly’s elbow.

If he were to be honest, he had hidden his face at first, to hide the fact that he’d smirked. Finding the outburst somewhat comical. But now he’d seen where this was going, and he wasn’t sure which was worse. That he felt it needed to be heard, or that it needed to be halted.

“Nothing about my life makes sense mum! … dad!” frustration just began to build in him slightly as he faced off against them both. “I should be terrified of being in deep shit with the pair of you right now. I should be at Hogwarts with Harry and Hermione. No missing bits! No thoughts of other worlds or any of that crap…”

Ron sighed, managing to rein in himself. “Dating a girl should be the least normal thing in my life. It should be my limit on weird, even being with a Slytherin should cap it off. You should be telling me that love at my age is ridiculous, and you’d be right to!”

Molly opened her mouth, but Ron stepped forward, closing the distance between them, not to fight, but to finish.

“But my life is anything but that simple…” He looked between them, “I begged them to kill me up on that hill…”

“… Ron!”

“… Leave it Bill!” Mad-Eye growled in gentle warning as he started to admonish his brother. He knew whatever the path Ron was taking was important in this moment.

“I begged because I was pleading with them to let Pansy go. Even when they did it, all I cared about was knowing she was safe after the big one told me she wasn’t there.”

“Even in death, in another place, the only thing I saw was scene after scene of her… Because for some reason, she matters to me in ways I don’t understand.”

Ron noticed the tears in her eyes now; the sadness reflected in his dads.

“And she matters to you because if it wasn’t for her, I’d have stayed dead… and you let her go…”

Molly’s eyes widened as though she’d been slapped. The silence in the room was cut in two, bringing something that went beyond silence.

“But you didn’t fail me. You didn’t fail her. You just... let what got to her get to you. You loved her like she was yours, you just...”

He hesitated. Swallowed.

“… You love us like fire, Mum, but you guard us like stone. That’s saved us more times than I can count. But you’ve got to learn when to let go.”

“And it seems… especially, with me!” He shrugged in earnest. “Because I’m not that simple at all, my life is that backwards and I just don’t think I can promise that I won’t find myself in another situation like that.”

Molly’s tears fell freely. She looked so impossibly small now, standing before her wounded son like she’d carried every scar herself.

“You’re the exception to every rule I ever wrote,” she whispered, padding to him. “Always were.”

Ron gave a soft, bitter smile. “Maybe. But you helped make me that way.”

Arthur cleared his throat. Quiet. Respectful. Proud.

Bill leaned forward from his chair. “We’re your sons, Mum. Not just your worries.”

Charlie added, voice low, “You didn’t let her go. You just couldn’t see another way to stop her… plus Ron’s a dick!”

Molly hiccupped a laugh as Charlie came over to her.

Bill was up now too, the three encircling her.

“Charlie’s right, he’s weird, but weirder still… I think Ron’s right too. I think he needs you to worry over him the least.”

She looked between them. Then to Ron, who she held at arm’s length looking him over.

“Definitely weird,” she smiled through the tears.

“And definitely in trouble, right?” Ron said smiling back.

“Most definitely!” she nodded.

“We can bind him upstairs if you like mum. Make sure he stays grounded,” Charlie suggested.

Mad-Eye cleared his throat as he looked between the group and Harrier, who was stood with her own tears lining her eyes.

“Actually… about that…”

………………………..

Pansy’s hands trembled as she looked the book over in her hands. She felt a crushing weight against her chest as she stood there. Broken and lost.

There, here, in this place, she understood. The Night Realm of course. Though memory deserted her, she knew it from Ron’s inconceivable tale and not from any experience of her own. She was in the Libraratorium, but it was dark here and she found she didn’t have the same power at her disposal, as Ron had spoken of.

For now, it was dark, and it looked to remain so. Only dim rays of light broke the bleak surroundings.

Using what little light there was, Pansy simply turned a page, opening it. Squinting in a dark she had no memory of entering, at a book she didn’t remember picking up, the world fell away.

The ink bled upward from the page, forming constellations. The paper curled into mist. And the words she’d just read, “I’m not ready to say goodbye,” echoed like a scream.

She was standing now, barefoot on a floor of marble, melded black and bronze. Shelves rose around her like cathedral walls, each stacked with books that pulsed faintly, as though alive.

“You’re early,” said Death, perched atop a ladder that reached into nothing but an endless ceiling. Absurdly, she wore spectacles now, delicately sat on the tip of her nose.

The part of Pansy’s brain that allowed thought, pondered if they were for her benefit, for effect only. Death’s cloak was folded neatly over a giant chair carved from bone and starlight. It sat plumb to an ornately carved desk, lined with trinkets of diamond and apparatus of gold.

Nonsensically, quite preposterously and more so … honestly just…mentally… They were stood in what Pansy somehow knew, was Death’s office.

“I didn’t mean to come,” Pansy whispered in shock, to herself more than in answer.

“No one ever does,” Death replied, descending. “But you turned the page, child. And some pages are invitations.”

“For what?” Pansy said with a scowl. She was rebooting from shock, remembering with anger, why she was here.

“For those who open doors.” Death said, no longer looking away.

Pansy’s mouth opened and closed without words. It stopped as she set her jaw, apoplectic with rage.

“You didn’t come to help me! You let me die!”

“No, that’s not it,” Death shook her head. But she wasn’t looking at Pansy. Instead, she had another book to hand, with another shake she replaced it. Her fingertips continuing to flutter over the spines on show as she furthered her search.

“You left me at the mercy of that bastard, and he…” her voice faltered, “he killed me. I died alone and you could have at least been there with me.”

“That’s still not right…” Death snapped the book shut with sharp finality. The sound made Pansy jump as she slid it back onto the shelf.

She looked Pansy in the eye now, “… this is the wrong section!” She pushed against the shelves, the ladder wheeled along the rail below, propelling her to the shelf some ten feet to her left.

“Is this a joke to you!” Pansy screamed. “You left me to rot in that stupid bloody Night Realm of yours. You pull me here now, only to ignore me. You carry on like I’m nothing… then make me think I’m more than that… and now…”

Pansy jumped as she looked up, mid rant, Death had vanished. Turning she leaped back, heart in her mouth.

Death loomed behind her. Her face now changed. Her demeanour harrowing. Her aura… unmistakable.

Pansy swallowed, tears biting at her throat.

Death spoke with cold calculation; it chilled the air. But as with all that was strange about Death, her words reached Pansy with a warmth. “You were never in my Realm of Night; you never left your bedroom. You did not die; your mind merely put together too many pieces of the experiences that others have told you about.”

Death paused, taking an uncharacteristic moment to let out a breath she did not need to take to survive.

“No creature can ever or will ever summon me child! That said… you are only one of very few, whom I would not allow to pass alone.”

Pansy swallowed again, eyes growing wide as a question formed, one she was afraid she might get an answer to.

“Why?”

Death closed her eyes, shaking her head solemnly. Pansy knew this was as much of an answer as she was getting. And more of an answer than expected.

After a moment she freed the other questions, stacking in her mind.

“I’m not dead… My bedroom? … but, but I felt so…”

“You felt yourself resting in finality… like on a bed, yes?” Death sighed while Pansy tilted her head in confusion. “Yes, I may not have come to you, but that does not mean I wasn’t watching.”

Pansy nodded, “I guess, I remembered feeling something like laying down to rest, on a bed, yes. Like it was… my final resting place.” She finished the last in embarrassment.

Pansy recalled that same feeling on replay in her mind. ‘Something was slipping now; it made her frantic. It felt like a bed, a final place to lay her head in this resting place of nothing.’

“Well, that will happen when crashing out on your actual bed.” There was amusement in Death’s words, though she refrained from showing it.

“And how I felt? The memories, the flash of green light and knowing I was… going?”

“I believe you’ve some experience with the effects of being drugged. Yes?” Death quirked a brow. “A certain concoction of what I believe you refer to as ‘Draught of Living Death and Dreamless Sleep’.”

Pansy’s mouth fell open. “No!... I can’t have… I didn’t.”

“That, I can agree with you on,” Death said, clearly knowing more. “You did no such thing. As for the who and the why, I cannot say. One of the few puzzles in your life of duality that I am not part of. Though I believe that truth will find you, before you find it.”

“Duality?”

Pansy tried to focus, that word seeming so familiar to her, so important. This meeting, this place, whatever the cause, Pansy found she could not hold a single imperative thought. Something in the now jumbled what seemed most important, what questions burned brightest.

“I’m not dead?” Pansy’s voice a whisper.

“You’re not dead.”

Death’s eyes became hard, piercing as she didn’t look away. Inwardly Pansy began to shrink, until she saw it as the prompt it was meant.

Pansy’s spine stiffened, her shoulders squared and her jaw set. Remembering just who she was, her armour returned.

“So!” She said, force too returning. “Just where in the name of the Gods have you brought me this time then?”

Death nodded, seeing Pansy again. “Not a God… but a Goddess… Come child, there is much I wish to show you.”

Leaving Death’s office, abandoning her grimoires, Pansy was led through the impossible. Rooms, corridors, lengths of spindling shadow meeting glittering golds and starlight.

They passed a set of huge ornate doors, opening without touch for the Goddess. Death waved a hand; not dismissive, but reverent. A gesture of quiet respect for the place that surrounded them.

“This is not the afterlife, Pensèe,” she said. “Nor is it a chamber of judgment or indeed any place for the souls of lives which I govern. It is an interchange of all that must be, because I made it so.”

Her voice echoed softly, as if the walls themselves were listening.

“It is as old as the pages remember and as young as the universe. Time, for me, as well, you know…” Death smiled with meaning, “I know you’re sick of hearing that at this point! But for those who pass through, it is one of the oldest places they will ever know.”

Pansy followed her gaze as she saw they had stepped into the atrium, a vast cathedral of bone and shimmering light. Circular in design, breathtaking in execution. The air shimmered with light, and the floor pulsed faintly beneath her feet, as if it remembered every step that had walked it.

“Many have known its name,” Death said. “In all its many forms. The Marrowvault. The Hemocrypt. The Spinemire. Each name a scar left by those who serve here.”

She paused; letting the silence, that no longer existed in this bustle of life… and death, stretch.

“Then there are those who glimpsed what they should never have seen. Some called it the Gate to Ganzir. Others, Yamaoka. Xibalba. Even the Gates of St Peter.”

Death smirked, her eyes glinting. “All wrong, of course. Especially that last one.”

Pansy swallowed, the weight of the place pressing against her chest.

“People return,” Death said. “They survive what they shouldn’t. And they speak of it, spouting myth, religion, hope, despair. They name what they cannot understand.”

She looked down, tilting her head. “But you have experienced this… ‘A Shade of Niflheimr or, an Arcane?’”

Pansy’s eyes widened as Death imitated the headmaster’s words as if she had been there with them.

Death stepped forward. Her cloak, Pansy hadn’t recalled her retrieving it, trailing stars across the marble from her ten-foot godly frame.

“But here,” she said, “it is known more simply. It is The Reap. And it is one of the most important places I have ever breathed life into, in my endless pursuit of death; my cathedral of consequence, my forge of mercy, my sanctuary of monsters.”

………………………..

The view of London sped past the windows with a dizzying blur that made Harrier feel sick.
They hadn’t been on the Night Bus long, but already she could feel the weight of the morning pressing into her ribs, too tight to breathe.

The contraption was undignified. An unbearable mode of transportation, frowned upon deeply within her circles. Anything made by muggles, however adopted and adapted by her own kind was simply vulgar.

Across from her, Ron sat with one leg pulled up, staring out the frosted glass as if expecting it to whisper back. His fingers gently tracing lines down his prosthetic.

He hadn’t spoken since they boarded. And she hadn’t pressed him.

She caught herself staring too long at the black sheen of his eye, at the way Mors Manus twitched even at rest, under his own fingertips. There was no pain on his face, but it sat in the quiet between them.

After a while she had to break the silence; mostly for the concern she felt, but she also needed to take her mind off the dizzying ride. She kept her voice soft.

“That thing you said. To Molly. About Pansy.”

Ron didn’t blink, his gaze unshifting. Though his hand curled a little tighter around Mors Manus.

“I wasn’t just venting.”

“I know.”

The pause stretched, intimate in its restraint.

“It’s not just worry. It’s something else. I feel… off. Like something’s wrong with the air.” He rubbed his face in his hand as though tired, looking to her finally. “It’s not even like I’m thinking about her, nothing’s screaming she’s in trouble or anything like that.”

Harrier swallowed, riding between worry and intrigue. “So, what is it like then?”

Ron frowned. “An echo? From somewhere else… I just feel that bit more in tune with… well fuck knows really.”

“You’re both… so impossible, you know!”

Harrier’s conscience weighed heavier on her now, more so as it had since they collided in Bibury. It had been steadily growing. The need to tell him she knew Pansy was stuck there, but just as impossibly, pregnant with his child.

The words sat, acrid on her tongue. Unable to be said.

A festering began inside her stomach as she looked at him, returned to the window as they’d left London now for some of the country B-roads. She bit her lip, a tense feeling taking her. Again, the words just unable to be said.

“Perhaps it’s for the best,” she thought, “it’s not quite my news to give.”

“Did you know?”

Harrier tumbled out of her head. “Sorry?”

Her knuckles whitened where they gripped the seat. Her smile was late, forced. Like she’d missed the cue from him in a scene where she was the ok one.

“That Mad-Eye was going to give me the job of taking you back I mean.”

Harrier was half relieved to have him engage her now, as well as being pulled away from what was eating at her. She turned, getting snugger in the surprisingly comfy couches on board.

“No, earlier than this morning. I was told the order wanted to escort me back, not sure father cared for the idea though.”

“How come?” Ron asked, mirroring her and digging in for the journey.

She looked around.

The action wasn’t lost on Ron. Harrier too knew they were alone, but the act was a primal one, ingrained long ago.

He understood this and despite being more at ease then her, he erected a ward all the same.

“We have a reputation to uphold, or a façade. Depending on how you look at it.”

“And how do your parents look at it right now?”

“They’re scared!” Harrier said flatly but with the weight it deserved.

“Word’s spread through our kind that he’s taken the Ministry, just as Dumbledore said. I think that’s tipped them now…”

“…Not the thirty odd wounded at their door?” Ron snorted.

Harrier smirked. “No, but I think that made father in particular realise things needed revaluating. Then the Ministry business has been more or less, the hammer stroke.”

“So? …”

“So… The Light’s have too many who depend on us. It’s not just us, but the Vale. Twenty families, if we go the wrong route, it impacts them all. It means father isn’t going to align with Dumbledore, he risks too many lives by doing so. That said, he refuses to side with the Dark Lord, he just can’t let that be known either. From what I’ve seen though, they’re readying the place to go dark.”

Ron’s head quirked, he understood. “You can’t use the Fidelius charm on an entire valley,” he scoffed.

“No, but once somewhere’s been made unplottable, like school, it can take on other charms and wards with little effort. The hardest parts been done, in theory.”

“Dumbledore?” Ron asked, Harrier nodded. “He’s still going to help even after your dad turned him down?”

“I was shocked at his scope for… well, goodness. But father hasn’t turned him down. I said he isn’t aligning with him, but I didn’t say he hadn’t agreed to support him. Don’t get me wrong, fathers smart, he knows a lot more about the Dark Lord than me.”

Ron narrowed his eyes in questioning, Harrier sat forwards.

“Father’s very honourable, I meant what I said when I told Dumbledore it wasn’t our way to hand you all in. But if he felt as though this was a done deal, and the Dark Lord is going to win this war. Well, he’d put us on the winning side. For me and mother, for the Vale. It’s beyond preservation, it’s the duty he owes all the families under us.”

“So, he thinks there’s a chance?”

“Maybe. Anyway, the point is there worried. So, I don’t think one of the Order, escorting me back in public is a good idea.”

“And yet here we are.” Ron tilted his head, again in questioning.

“Well, I assumed we were waiting on Dumbledore this morning. Then Prof… Mad-Eye, turned up. I was more shocked just how much he knows father. I mean he brought out his best brandy, and you never see that stuff.”

Ron rolled his eye. “That’s Mad-Eye. I swear he’s got a darker past than most Deatheaters. Knows what he’s doing though.”

“Doesn’t he just.” She smiled back, glad to see them both out of their heads. “So, what would your mother have done if you hadn’t had it out with her. When it came to Mad-Eye saying his piece about you taking me.”

“Tied me up somewhere and left me to sulk.”

“I didn’t think she’d go for it.”

“No, neither did I.” Ron agreed. “I guess she didn’t realise how much she can trust me? Or maybe it’s more that, she understands now that she has to trust me?”

“Glad you’re coming?”

“Are you mad?”

The bus lurched as they stopped again. Harrier’s quizzical brow raised as she saw his face harden.

Turning in her seat she looked behind her, to the front of the bus where his gaze went. Two men, middle aged wizards had stepped on. Turning back, she saw that in the second she’d looked away, his hood was up, his hand hidden under the lining of his cloak. Poised, wand at the ready.

Nothing about them screamed anything untoward and yet he was instantly guarded. What was more, while the sky was overcast, it was still light. What little shadows there were around them, his cloak must have been drawing on, as already her eyes wanted to look beyond him of their own volition.

Shaking her head she focused on him, willing herself to see him.

“Ron, it’s alright.” She urged, noticing how hard and bloodshot his eyes were as he concentrated. “They’re no one.”

She leaned over and placed her hand where she knew his was, under his cloak. Feeling his fingers tight around his wand she breathed shakily.

“Ron!”

His eyes met hers.

“We’re safe!”

He held her gaze for a long moment before his shoulders slumped. He nodded once as his frame reclined, leg lifting back up as he went back to the window.

Ron closed his eyes to the sting welling in the back of his throat. This pain was new. He felt so oddly in control of himself recently, so much more confident. And yet in moments like these, he was being surprised into action via the smallest of things.

Biting down the need to talk with Harrier, over what they’d shared in Bibury, he buried it for the sake of leaving her be. He didn’t want to drag it up again for her. But she was far worse a distraction to him for other reasons that had nothing to do with what they’d gone through together.

The prettiest girls in school were hard to ignore, especially when they were taller than some boys. Harrier was noticeable to his eye, as she always had been. But the sight of her stung, he was used to looking to her rather than at her. Wherever she was, Pansy was usually close by. So, because of this, the simple sight of her rocked his insides and something weightier than the pain of fighting stung him as more thoughts of her returned.

"Do something for me.”

"What?”

"Tell me a lie."

"What?"

"Tell me you love me".

Pansy’s face, only an inch from his, was screwed up tight as she refused to open her eyes. It was as cute as it was confusing to him. But even something as powerful as how much he was attracted to her vanished as he contemplated what she was asking of him.

“How can I do that!... I’ve never even… How would I even know?” A million questions rattled his brain at the absurdity of her, until they vanished.

She pulled him to her, her face buried into his neck, just below his ear... Beautiful death took him as her breath traced his skin.

“I love you,” Pansy breathed.

Harrier saw a single tear fall down his cheek as he continued looking out the window, lost in his head. She had to turn her head. Retreating into her couch she hid her face casually as she could. Inside however she was breaking.

Seeing the pain in his eyes, the same pain she’d been dealing with since the fighting in Bibury scorched her throat with threatening cries. The surge of adrenaline she’d seen in him at the first hint of trouble. The instant paranoia.

The guilt.

The window she chose to focus on was now being lashed with raindrops as they sped through the countryside. Her eyes, sad and suddenly tired felt heavy as she became hypnagogic with the rhythm of passing colours as they blurred past.

To her eye the sight became rhythmic. The passing of the hedgerows; the contrast of the light whites and greys of the sky, the perpetual flickering of greens from the dark of high hedgerows to the light of rolling hills.

Green, white, green, grey, repeat, repeat… repeat.

Acid green light lit her face against the dark of night. Her eyes reflecting the brilliant streak of death as it erupted from her wand. Her voice still ringing in the air.

“Avada Kedavra”

“Harrier!”

She jumped violently. Her hand was to her wand, but Ron’s face was filling her view.

“I said were here, we need to get going.” He stood back up frowning, “are you alright?”

“Fine”, she lied, standing. “Just… nodded off.”

………………………..

Pansy and Death walked the atrium of The Reap.

“Death!” Pansy whispered, her voice laced with scepticism.

Death eyed her with a smirk, lowering her tone to appease the anxiety in the girl’s voice.

“I believe you refer to my many familiars you see before us. You already know of Corvus, his kind being the Arcane’s.”

The twisted frame of a Tall, bony creature with inches long black nails passed them. It bowed its wiry haired head to Death as it did.

Pansy would have guessed, ‘particularly nasty Hag’ if she’d had to. Except this went beyond mere unsightliness. This creature was from the dark and the depths and the nightmares of old. Its visible vertebrae, long and twisting. Spines protruding from its back and limbs as spindly as gnawed roots.

Death swept her hand, indicating the skulking frame that had just passed them.

“A Rannis-Saar, Wraiths of a lost fear, from a time long since passed. Once they filled Virelith, feeding on the energy of lost children.”

Death eyed her as Pansy tilted her head.

“Virelith … It is the name of your world. What I know you have taken to calling Celestia… a foolish name in my opinion.”

But Pansy had stopped listening, staring up at her in disbelief.

“Rannis…Saar? …Annis!? …You’re talking about Black Annis? Of old English mythology.”

Pansy looked back at the creature, its twisting long limbs shaking as it stalked away. It terrified her, what those stories did to her as a child… and to bear witness now…

“You created that! The stories… They were real! They told of a creature that fed on children, they scared the piss out of me when I was little!”

Death rolled her eyes and continued, Pansy skipping every other step to keep up with her godly stride.

“Pensèe, the Rannis-Saar fed on the fear of children. Those children who were lost. They fed like a hound to a scent. I placed them there purposely to frighten… ‘the piss’… out of your young, to save them. Nothing satisfies the Rannis-Saar more than the accomplishment of scaring a child into fleeing home for its life, never to make the same journey twice.”

They paused, their way littered with all manner of strange creatures, going about themselves, only pausing to bow to Death’s giant frame.

“Your people once lived in caves, clinging to the light, out of fear of what lived in the dark. I know you understand this as one who’s blood is pure, your kind have always tried to remember this. For some time after Erabus… departed, the darkness that bites was not able to be contained and it spread. Your world was filled with this consequence and as your world rose through the epoch of time, you were never truly alone.”

Pansy swallowed, a chill in the air causing her skin to gooseflesh. Her thoughts calling back to her’s and Harrier’s words, telling the Gal’s of that very same belief. And it’s ties to their beliefs of sacred Blood and Bone.

“A child taken by such endless dark can never take its place in what lies beyond. They cease to ever have been. The Black Annis, as you came to know them, were a necessary evil that sent children screaming their way home. Terrified, but with a lesson well learnt.”

Pansy paused, as they turned to continue on. Face to face with two more of these creatures now, they chuffed in animalistic eeriness as they bowed heads in passing. The chuffing continued as they walked on, and Pansy recognised it as speech.

Death watched them as they went.

“Hardly a race worth fretting over in reality. A gentleness exists within them that makes them uncommonly loving within their own kind. It’s a trait that made them so effective. The job well done meant the likelihood of an innocent soul saved. Something they strive for is the wellbeing of their own, a feeling easily transferable when faced with the innocence of youth.”

“Do they still remain, in Celest- I mean, Virelith?”

“Some do; it was their home after all. But most were repurposed to a new role within one of the many other realms.”

Unable to quell the interest in them. Pansy watched on. Now trying to see them in another light, she watched the unnatural and disturbing way they moved. But as they walked, they seemed to lean against each other, and something of that felt like a human trait she could understand.

“When I asked Professor Dumbledore… I mean, my headmaster about what I saw, when I saw Ron and Corvus I mean. Like you said… a Shade of Niflheimr or, an Arcane.”

Pansy saw the smile that crept onto Death’s lips.

“Ah… the Shade of Niflheimr, yes, that amused me, hearing that again. I remember when that phrase first reached my ears.”

This all but confirmed to Pansy that Death had somehow been present at that time. Then again, of course she had.

“So, it’s true? Like you said, those who have seen things. This is where the myths and legends came from?”

Death slowed, edging closer to Pansy.

“Do you see those large black creatures standing guard? They are the Shagfoe. They take the form of Virelith creatures, equine, cattle, though mostly canine. They walked the barren countrysides…”

“…Looking for wayward travellers to lead into danger... There Gytrash!” Pansy said in awe, recognising the folklaw.

She saw the solid frame of two black dogs standing sentry at a vast and gilded set of doors. Their ears sharp and erect, fur long and as black as Death’s hair, yet even from here she made out the eyes. Red and glowing.

“They are Shagfoe, but you have proved my point. Our worlds bleed from one to another. And what stems to yours is woven into your history. And, the Shagfoe does lead to danger and death, but only sometimes. They are one of my most trusted, and with that comes responsibilities I do not give to others.”

“Oh?”

“Indeed,” Death nodded. “The Gy… the Shagfoe have my eyes, the eyes of Death. They stalk the lonely trails of life for times I need not. You have, I take it, heard the alternate story that they can be, benevolent? Leading some, not into danger, but to safety?”

“I have, yes” Pansy nodded now she remembered the tales.

“This is the judgement of the Shagfoe. If one stumbles upon them and their time grows short, the Shagfoe may assist in quickening their end. In contrast if they were deemed worthy of such a gift, the Shagfoe would protect what they deemed as the innocent or deserving. Guiding them to safety. And whether by legend or lore, the worthy would find their life extended somewhat. Beyond that of their natural span.”

“So, what are they then? I mean when they’re here.” Pansy examined them more, excessive stoicism and focus as they sat guard. One opened its jaws with a brief stretch and Pansy saw glossy black teeth, diamond like in glinting.

“Their purpose outside of Virelith has been varied.” Death again walked them on, slower paced, that drifted the outskirts of where the Shagfoe stood guard, keeping a distance. “They are, at heart, a shapeshifting species of immense strength and intelligence. For that reason, I sent them to many of the other worlds filled with souls under my charge.”

Death eyed Pansy with an odd look, her voice even, without cynicism. “There are many other worlds besides yours; with creatures as intelligent, strange and all too willing to create ideologies of death and afterlife as you. I trust you have worked that out for yourself by now?”

“I…” Pansy paused, realising she had. “Yes, oddly I did.”

“The Shagfoe blend into their worlds as easy as it does your own.” Inclining her hand to the beasts, Death went on, “But the form they revert to the most is that which you see. They came to believe in the strengths and unity of Virelith Wolf kind. So, this is their chosen form, as they choose to live in what you might understand as a pack.”

“Now, as for why they are here that is different. I understand, from my own dealings with your beloved, that in addition to what I have told you myself, Ronald has told you of my line, broken and scattered to the eons.”

Pansy swallowed, a solemn, pitying smile offering in response.

“MmmHmm,” Death hummed. “Well, Erebus, like our children, is gone. With him went his mastery and control of the true darkness that exists in the universe, all universes. It is a battle I could win, but in exchange my duty would suffer numerous losses. That is one of the few things that the universe and I agree on. That it cannot happen! Were my children not spent and lost; I would have the necessary aid to turn the tides. As I don’t…”

“…You have the Shagfoe,” Pansy nodded in understanding. “So, they’re that strong?”

“The hordes of the black void are as relentless as they are dangerous. But placed within the Shagfoe. during my creation of them, was but a single drop of my own blood. Boiling and volatile, heated to a cataclysmic point, brought on by the first loss of one of my children…”

“…Philotes?”

Death nodded and Pansy thought there was a star in her eye, one that reflected a planet going into supernova somewhere beyond just at the very mention.

“I will admit to a fleeting time of deranged grief. And in that grief, I created the Shagfoe. In my mind, I wished for one to be with each of my children, always. A guard with the searing blood of death at its heart… But even my power does not stop some forces. And in the end, Time came for my children.”

Pansy’s heart ached. Her hand drifted to her stomach, protective. She tilted her head, catching the fracture in Death’s voice.

“Time?” She asked, but the word felt wrong, and yet familiar in ways that went beyond the norm. Something buried beneath.

“Timae,” Death said. A name that cut the air between them.

The quiet of the bustle around them shattered!

A great ‘ROAR’ echoed the place into a stilled silence. All creatures halting, turning, all eyes finding Death.

Pansy spun around in searching for the noise. Not finding its origin, it was strange that there was a lack of any seeming chaos within the scene. She saw the Shagfoe though, they stood to an impressive height now. Both black hounds turned in looking at the great doors they guarded. The linings of which began to glow a brilliant blue, as though hinting at what light was beyond, escaping the cracks in the frame.

The roar sounded again, something internal now told her it was an alarm, not a threat. A call for action. She saw proof of this as Death turned, face struck with anger.

Thunder sounded above and Pansy’s eyes were filled by a mist that shrouded Death. She was, in that moment, as she had been. The next, the mist lifted, and she bore her mask of bone, cloak of infinite darkness enveloping her, obsidian sword and scythe in each hand.

She strode off, no thought for Pansy, who remained rooted.

Death stopped. Turning abruptly, looking back to Pansy, their eyes meeting.

Only seconds passed, but Death eventually lifted the visage of her mask, her tools of destruction vanishing from sight. Dropping her shoulders she looked away from Pansy and over to the Shagfoe.

Pansy now saw them both stood, heckles up, teeth… Pansy understood, teeth of obsidian and not some glossy diamond. This was what Death meant, they bore her wrath, her fire and her weapons. Her instruments of death.

The Shagfoe were watching Death closely, almost eagerly waiting on command. Death’s own gaze looked past them, fixed to the door, until she relented. Only a second later and she sighed, giving them both a meaningful nod and it was enough.

Rearing back, they both howled, powerful, ethereal, its sound carried from them like a visual explosion as it travelled. From the other side of the atrium a howl in response shook the air and a thundering of paws broke a line through the crowd.

The numerous Shagfoe met as one, turning to the doors which opened at their call. The crack between the doors widening, filling the place with ever brighter blue light, blinding to Pansy’s eyes. The pack set off at a run, swallowed by light until the doors slowly closed behind them.

Pansy was shocked back into the room as she saw that only seconds later, the frozen crowd became motioned again, carrying on with their business. No hint remaining of the spectacle.

Turning back round, Pansy found Death had fully returned to how she’d been before the startling interruption.

“Questions?” Death said evenly.

………………………..