Adult-FanFiction.org : Harry Potter

Mercy	By : pip Category: Harry Potter AU/AR > General Views: 2811 -:- Recommendations : 0 -:- Currently Reading : 0
Disclaimer: I do not own the world of Harry Potter, nor do I make any money from this fanfiction.

Chapter List
- 1-Mercy
- 1
Disclaimer: I do not own the world of Harry Potter, nor do I make any money from this fanfiction.
Author's Note: This is strange, desolate and somewhat sad. You have been warned.

Most of the spires still stood, but the building was falling into ruin. He supposed it must have aged alongside him, for too many years to count. Perhaps there was something beyond the ornate gates of the place, or maybe not. Visitors were few and far between, when once they had been plenty, back in days when there had been smiles and company and children. The children were all gone now.
Tattered long black robes snagged on chunks of fallen masonry. How had this place fallen so far in the space of a lifetime? It didn’t seem possible. Buildings should last a lifetime at least. They were the same idle thoughts as always. They didn’t matter. He pushed them to one side as he poked through the rubble with his staff, looking for anything of interest.
The daylight began to fade quietly as he prodded at the ground, so that when he looked up from his fruitless search it blushed as if embarrassed to have been caught creeping up on him. Another long night stretched out ahead. When was the last time there had been any company here? Probably when he was cleaner, tidier. One hand went thoughtfully to his long, grey beard. He couldn’t remember it not being there.
Isolation made one forget those things; they ceased to be of any importance. Even when it snowed it was never cold, but he considered making a fire for the first time in many years. It was the accepted thing to do at night. The last sticks of furniture had been burnt so long ago he could barely remember, and nothing woody grew here. No creeping green had come to cover the fallen stones. Stone is all that was really left. That, and the books. Something in him rebelled at the idea of burning books, plentiful as they were. He’d long ago forgotten how to read, but he cared for the books – kept them chained up – as if he were the last librarian on earth. Perhaps, after all, he was.
Still, he shied away from the gates, hesitant to have his fears confirmed about the outside world, Far better to cling to the hope that a great civilisation carried on out there without him than find it was all gone. The idea of an endless world as deserted and empty as the place he was now made him want to shiver. Where else to look for wood then?
There was a door. He knew exactly where it was, but for the life of him he couldn’t think why he hadn’t ventured through it before now. Something about it was wrong, felt forbidden. He stared blankly at a sign on the door, black lettering on brass. STAFF ONLY. Once he had known what it said and he was sure it had stopped him. Now he didn’t know the words and it no longer mattered. Prepared for anything, he opened the door and stepped through gingerly, unsure of what to expect on the other side. Anything, however forbidden, was better than the gates.
To his surprise, through the door was a kind of street. A narrow alley confronted him, as deserted as the larger halls where he usually wandered. Carefully he looked around before moving. Here and there, in the corner of his eye, there was movement, but he had long ago learned not to trust that. His brain was always playing tricks on him.
“Ravenclaw!” shouted a voice, and the old man jumped, startled, then relaxed. He hadn’t even realised he’d brought the hat with him. Reaching up, he swept it from his head. It was the only thing that talked any more, and if he wasn’t careful, he would forget how to form words too. Well, all except for the four that the hat seemed to shout out randomly. Once, he was sure it had been more reliable, more chatty, and it had spoken its words whenever it was put on, but now it seemed, like him, to have become tired. Too tired to really care.
Slowly, leaning on his stick, hat in hand, he ventured down the darkened artificial street, peering into the tiny glass panes of the windows, too full of dust to be anything but opaque. Choosing one at random, he opened a door and a little bell jangled above his head, muted by dust and spider husks. There was barely enough light to see by away from the brilliant but sickly orange of sunset. At one end of the room there was a long dusty counter and the walls for as far as he could see were lined with box laden shelves. Row after row of them, and despite himself, he was curious to see what they contained.
Reaching out to the nearest, he pulled it from its place, and inadvertently started a small avalanche of slim boxes. Regardless of the disorder that had suddenly befallen the shop, he opened the box in his hand and found a tiny strip of polished wood. It was more slender at one end, and he tilted his head, trying to understand what it was. Somewhere in the back of his mind it seemed important, like something he had forgotten. Sincerely, he wished he could read the sign above the counter. How could he have forgotten how to read when he took such wonderful care of the books? It didn’t make sense really.
Still, a more practical part of him realised what the small stick could be used for, and if every box in here contained such a thing then he would not have to worry for some time to come. Quickly he opened a couple more at random, pleased to see that he was right. Soon, arms laden with boxes, he made his way back through the door and into the large hall that he thought of now as his home.
Although there was a large open fireplace at the far end of the crumbling hall he had long ago stopped using it. After all, there was only himself and he didn’t wake much keeping warm. A small fire would be more than adequate.
Funny that he was certain the small sticks weren’t supposed to be firewood, but they were so perfect it seemed impossible that they could be anything else. He found himself making up stories for the shop he had found as he tossed the bits of wood one by one onto a small fire in the centre of the hall. The cardboard boxes burnt just as well as the wood, and when the sticks were exhausted, he burnt those too.
Eventually, looking up from his bed set next to the dying fire, he attempted to count the stars. The original ceiling was once covered with a mural of the night sky, but that was long since gone, replaced by the real thing, a myriad twinkling lights. Sleep didn’t come, and by the first grey light of dawn he had reached a count of several thousands.

“Not Slytherin,” he said, playing his part, waiting for the hat’s reply as he contemplated another day of useless wandering.
“Not Slytherin, eh? Are you sure?” A little smile. It might be a well-trodden path and a predictable conversation, but at least it was an exchange of words.

This was new. He stopped to pick it up and turned it over again and again in his hand. On his forays through the ruins he’d never come across anything like it. There was a picture on the front of the tiny metal box of a couple. Seeing them so close, he felt a sudden hollow ache for company. Whatever was originally inside had been taken out long ago. There were words again, but they hardly seemed to matter. A picture was worth a thousand of them, even if you could read. It was such a human thing, so obvious, companionship, and a memory, long ago forgotten, reasserted itself, bringing with it an intense feeling of lost hope and desolation.
Once, there had been a bird, such a fantastic thing…
It screeched and flew close by him, showing off its gaudy plumage. The chase was on. As far as amusement went, well, it passed the time. It was either this or another full day spent picking through fallen rubble. In a shocking display of agility that didn’t suit his age, he bounded from stone to stone, sweeping the wide-brimmed and pointed hat from his head.
For hours it teased him, and when he finally trapped it under the hat he wasn’t sure exactly what to do next. It was important to him, but he had forgotten why. At the very least, he couldn’t remember the last time he had eaten. Logically, it stood to reason that he must be hungry.
“Feathers?” announced the hat, sounding quite put out. “Is this a trick question?”
“Be quiet, hat,” he said, readying himself before whipping the hat away and grabbing the bird with his free hand. A long forgotten word came to him and was upon his lips before he could stop it. “Fawkes.” The bird blinked, somewhat mechanically.
For a second or two he held it close to his face, looking deep into its eyes, wishing he wasn’t so desperate. It blinked again, and there could be no doubt. Only a machine. He was alone. A part of him had always suspected as much; perhaps that is why he’d wanted to capture it, to make certain. How heartily he wished he had not bothered now.
One last time, he looked at the bird, and as if it could sense his despair it was crying. A single tear landed on the back of his thumb, and he didn’t understand.
That night, he put the bird on the fire. It seemed like the right place for it. He wasn’t sure what he was expecting. It wasn’t a phoenix, so it didn’t rise again. It just died, leaving behind a gleaming metal skeleton that bothered him until he buried it somewhere.

When the hat was dismantled, he studied it, searching for the thing that made it seem to live, and then it lived no longer. The cruel torture of being forgotten in a world that had perished was over for the hat. He wondered if it even knew, or if that specific torture was one reserved only for him. He couldn’t remember, but he thought he had served them well.

Undressed, he searched his skin for it. Must be somewhere. The hat had a weak spot. Behind that had been its inner workings, and a glowing centre which he could only assume was life. He’d extinguished it in the hat. Quite simple really.
Every inch of his skin seemed perfect, and he searched himself in vain, even using one of the great mirrors to study the expanse of his back. Although it was coloured in, there was no weakness. Absently, lost in the riddle, he caressed his beard, and it seemed after all entirely logical.
When he had cut it all away, there it was, the confirmation of his nature and the access to his own soul. Oblivion called, and he wondered if it would be any different from the eternal searching and wandering that he did on a daily basis. At least, he reasoned, faultless, it must be quieter and involve less effort. There was nothing here that needed him, and nothing that he needed. The visitors he was created for were all gone. He hadn’t seen one for so long. The ruins. Longer than a lifetime had passed, surely. Much longer than a lifetime, or even twenty, there would be no more visitors. He didn’t know how many centuries had passed but logic suggested he had already waited far too long. If anyone ever came here again, it would be on a quest of discovery, not a pilgrimage.
A few simple disconnections and his brain at last fell silent, releasing him into nothingness as his hands fell still at the sides of his face, jaw wide open in an endless gaping scream. Even for a machine, it was a mercy.

Author's Note: Thank you for reading – comments welcomed and loved.
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Mercy