Veteran of the Psychic Wars

Veteran of the Psychic Wars

Blue Öyster Cult

Dedicated to Rockychick.

You see me now, a veteran
Of a thousand psychic wars
I've been living on the edge so long
Where the winds of limbo roar

He was tired, so tired. He hadn't slept in a week, his vision was blurred, his hands were trembling so badly he didn't think they'd ever stop. He lifted his foot, moved it forward. He was on a high windswept plain, under a grey sky. The wind had long ago sucked all the moisture from his mouth. Another step. How long since Neville had fallen? Days and hours bled together. He kept walking.

The sky was lowering over him, threatening, always threatening with rain that never came. His lips were so dry. There might be trees in the distance. He squinted, but his eyes were so strained that those smudges on the horizon might be silhouettes of the last of the white-masked figures, come to finish him off.

Harry would welcome it.

And I'm young enough to look at
And far too old to see
All the scars are on the inside
I'm not sure that there's anything left of me

"You're pushing yourself too hard." It was his godfather's growly voice. He didn't turn his head. He could imagine the way Sirius would look, his long hair tangled by the breeze, his eyes shadowed, a three-day growth of whiskers on his face.

"I'm alive," he whispered. It was a husk of a sound. It was all he could manage.

"Not for long, if you keep this up. What would you do if you happened onto a Death Eater right now?"

Harry's laughter was sharp and bitter, and he jumped when it came out of his mouth. "I still know how to do the Killing Curse."

He blinked and looked where Sirius should be. There was only a memory.

Don't let these shakes go on
It's time we had a break from it
It's time we had some leave
We've been living in the flames
We've been eating out our brains
Oh, please don't let these shakes go on

He wasn't going to stop walking. He might fall over mid-step, his heart might quit beating, his brain might implode, but he would not stop walking. They were going to somewhere important. He couldn't remember the name, but he knew there were big rocks. A circle. Hermione had said it was important.

He blinked and thought it odd that his face was wet. Had the clouds decided to rain? Turning his face up, he narrowed his eyes against the strange non-glare. There was no moisture coming from that merciless dome.

Another speck of water hit his face. He touched his face, wonderingly. It was coming from his eyes. Wet diamonds. Tears. Yes, he was crying--for Hermione? He lowered his head and trudged on.

He couldn't remember a time before when he had cried. There was so much gone from his life that it seemed a waste of energy to be sorry for each individual loss.

You ask me why I'm weary
Why I can't speak to you
You blame me for my silence
Say it's time I changed and grew

A blond man had tried to kill him once. He remembered that. Not a man, really, he supposed. They were of an age, and Harry was only...was he nineteen? or was he twenty? His eyelids drooped. Pale eyes flashed at him, passion-filled eyes, a mouth that sneered with hatred or love. Harry forced his own eyes open again. The world had taken on a strange, rose-coloured hue. He shook his head slightly and walked on.

"Admit it, Potter, you're a total loss. You've no idea where you are, where you're going, or what you're meant to be doing if you ever get there."

"Sod...off...Malfoy," he gasped. He could hear the other man behind him, but he didn't stop moving. The ground squelched with each step they took. He couldn't remember it raining. He patted a hand down his clothing and it was dry. When he looked down, the liquid squelching up around his feet was red.

"You can't hold Him off forever. You know it's only a matter of time before your body collapses and forces you to sleep. Once you do that, you're His."

Harry couldn't tell if that was triumph or anger in Malfoy's drawling voice. He wasn't sure he cared. "I've managed this far."

"Don't be a fool, Potter!" Malfoy snapped. Then he gave an exclamation of surprise, and there was silence.

Harry stopped walking. He stared ahead of him for a moment, the desire to look warring with the fear of what he would see. At last he turned, slowly, stiffly. There was nothing there. Looking backwards, he saw a single set of footsteps sunk into the ground, filling slowly with blood.

But the war's still going on, dear
And there's no end that I know
And I can't say if we're ever
I can't say if we're ever gonna be free

He turned back the way he'd been going. Sirius gone, Hermione stripped away, now even Malfoy was gone. His hands hung slack at his side. His eyes were glazed, but he could see in shades of light and dark, and he knew somehow that his face was turned the proper direction. He moved his foot slightly, went still. It was so hard to make himself move. He could just lie down.

"You can't have them all," he whispered as he finally took another step forward. "There are too many for you to take. You'll never understand why I hold them all."

His words were met with silence, save for the sound of the wind soughing across the ground. His shoulders slumped. He strove with an enemy he could never see. Voldemort hadn't shown himself for two years. Not even to Snape. The pale man claimed to have seen him. Harry exhaled slowly. Pale eyes flashed at him, passion-filled eyes, a mouth that sneered with hatred or love--Harry frowned. Who was the pale man?

He lifted his heavy, shaking hands, and ground his palms against his eyeballs. He'd forgotten another of them, hadn't he?

Harry sighed.

"You can't have them all."

You see me now a veteran
Of a thousand psychic wars
My energy is spent at last
And my armor is destroyed

"Do you not see, Harry? Love. Love is the power that the Dark Lord knows not." It was an old man's voice, wheezy and gently demagogic.

"Do you think I didn't understand that?" Harry shouted. His voice was ragged, his breathing more ragged still. "I understood that even when I didn't know I did!" He turned his face up to the sky. "Damn you!"

The sky didn't answer.

Harry continued walking. The figures ahead of him were closer now. They weren't approaching him, were they? The idea of walking stones almost made him want to snigger. Then he remembered that the shapes were probably his enemies coming to kill him. He sniggered.

Harry buried his face in his hands. He kept walking, because he had to keep walking. But his shoulders were shaking as badly as his hands now, and though he was laughing, he could feel coldness streaming down his cheeks. How long had he been awake now? Six days? Two weeks? A year? He was a hundred years old.

"God!" he cried, laughing weakly, sobbing. He dropped his hands to his sides.

He kept walking.

I have used up all my weapons
And I'm helpless and bereaved
Wounds are all I'm made of
Did I hear you say that this is victory?

His scar was a blazing jewel in the crown of pain that was his being. The physical pain could be ignored, but the fire burning through his brain was the wound that would kill him.

He thought there was a red-haired man waiting for him somewhere, a red-haired man with a red-haired sister. He thought the man would have one arm around his sister's shoulders. He wondered if the red-haired man would be looking for a bushy-haired girl who was no longer coming.

One by one, Voldemort had taken them. He remembered, indistinctly, that these people had existed. He knew about them. He couldn't envision them, couldn't call up any emotions associated with them.

From the corner of his eye, he thought he saw the flicker of a raven-dark wing of hair. He turned his head, and nothing was there. "You can't have them all," he whispered.

"He doesn't want them all," said a soft voice. It called up memories of flickering firelight, murmured endearments, stolen moments. He tasted butterbeer and sugar quills. He licked his dry lips with a dry tongue.

In the instant that he looked up, his eyes met warm brown eyes, eyes that saw into his soul, eyes that melted him. Then his own eyes teared up, and he blinked. The vision was gone. For a moment, the voice lingered in the air.

"He only wants the ones who love you."

Don't let these shakes go on
It's time we had a break from it
Send me to the rear
Where the tides of madness swell

His chest clenched. "You can't have them all." He said it again, though it had made no difference in the past. At least he thought it had made no difference in the past.

This time, when he spoke the words, there came a blinding pain. It was a pain that shot through the air, making the atmosphere squeeze in around him until he thought his body would pop. He closed his eyes and pushed his teeth together and swallowed a scream. The world went away.

It was dark. He blinked, but nothing changed. The sun had never set before. He felt his face move in a frown. He was still walking. He wondered how long he had been walking. The terrain had risen around him. He was walking up an incline, though he didn't realize it until he stumbled, and the ground was closer than he'd imagined. He caught himself on his hands, his rear end sticking awkwardly up into the air as he pushed himself back to a standing position.

He paused, leaned forward slightly. He could smell the wind. He took a step.

He moved onward, hands outstretched, feet shuffling now rather than walking. The sky was lightening around him. He could hear whispers around him, could feel breaths on the back of his neck, could feel the fluttering touch of things around him. He moved onward. The incline was quite steep now.

He staggered another step. His chest was heaving suddenly, his breathing harsh and ragged. He could feel his heart pounding. His entire body was suddenly awake.

He was among the dark shapes. They seemed to be moving, but he was unsure...it could be just the film over his eyes. He turned his head slowly to the right and to the left. He could feel presences ghosting about him, but he knew better than to seek them out. Every time he looked they only vanished. He didn't want that to happen again. It was better to feel them around him, even if he couldn't see them.

A hoarse voice was saying his name. It was a tired voice, one that had been abused, but one that had also been adored. For some reason the sound of that voice made him think of tea and chocolate.

He ignored it. It wasn't real. It was never real. He shook his head. Perhaps this voice would leave him alone.

"He's alive. Barely."

There was murmuring. He had stopped moving. He only realized it now. He stared ahead of him, wondering why there was suddenly so much light--white light, hazy light, with formless darknesses in it.

"I don't know what's kept him going." That was a darker voice, more acerbic. It was close to hand.

"How did he do it?" The hoarse voice again, awestruck and aching.

There was silence. Then the acerbic voice spoke again. "However he managed it, the Dark Lord--" It broke off. There came a sharp, startled laughter. "Voldemort! Voldemort is gone."

Harry shivered slightly and closed his eyes. He was tired, so tired.

And been sliding into hell
Oh, please don't let these shakes go on
Don't let these shakes go on
Don't let these shakes go on