Roses Black

He was pondering the revelations of that morning, still, an hour after the nice little chat with Dumbledore and Draco. Could the Catenatus de Rosa Furvus really be that...overwhelming? It was so mind boggling to think that the 'link' was a palpable force, one not to be reckoned with. A link, so strong, so palpable, that you could literally touch it when it was it's strongest. A bond so improbable that it had taken hours to explain. A curse so evil that it could kill them both. A gift, like that of a resplendent spring morning - The kind of morning where everything dawned afresh and anew. Where the flowers shone with morning dew and the spikes of verdant grass sparkled under the light touch of the sun.

What really took the biscuit was the whole aspect of friendship. It was such a foreign concept, this bond with Draco Malfoy of all people. After all, devils didn't walk arm-in-arm in hell saying, 'Ah you´re my friend, how I love you,' did they?

He supposed the only good thing about the whole gift, curse - whatever- was that it wouldn't manifest itself until Dumbledore chose the appropriate time. He should have known that the old man wouldn't let up on him.

Then, like the sharp, cold gusts of wind on an excruciatingly frigid winter night - The kind of night when the stars shine brighter because they know that their far away warmth teases the lowly mortals down on earth - a spasm of pain erupted between his shoulder blades. He dropped to his knees and pressed the smooth palms of his hands onto the lake's shore, the jagged rocks enjoying the way that they could pierce his skin without effort. He broke into a cold sweat, the drops of salty perspiration dripping to the ground, mingling with his red life. Wave upon wave of grueling pain burst forth from his back; he cried out in agony, a torture on par with the Cruciatus being thrust upon him. The blood on the ground pooled and ran into the lake, a steady stream of life. It weaved a swirling pattern of red and blue hues, intermingling and spreading, changing everything that it touched. Like a web of deceit and mistrust, the swirling maze spread, its red fingers reaching, touching, changing, contaminating.

All the while he knew that this was a new beginning, the Catenatus de Rosa furvus had been set in motion.

The anguish finally stopped after what seemed like years (cliché! I hate clichés) and Harry, breathing like he had run a Muggle marathon, slumped to the ground, the red of his blood staining the unforgiving, grey earth. He was enfolded within an encasement of darkness; leather and power; smooth, black, and free. Only Harry Potter would hurt whilst receiving his wings, he thought bitterly, slumped on the ground, the dull ache in his back beginning to numb. His black shirt, torn and falling off, covered in his own blood.

*

Not so far away, maybe a few moments earlier, under the cooling shade of a large oak, Draco Malfoy was having a similar experience. He bit his lip against the burning fire that he felt between his shoulders. It was like a volcano, erupting and burning with a fire that laughed at you and swallowed you whole. He felt his teeth pierce the soft skin of his lower lip, and the blood dripped onto the lush, green grass. Surely someone had twisted his bones, doing with them what they would? Surely fate had decided that she wanted to have a field day? The agony, the mind numbing agony. He screamed, a sound that could be heard to the ends of the earth. This pain was worse then anything he had ever gone through. He began to cough, wracking his body, and he retched.

The pain died, slowly, leaving a dull ache in its all changing wake. The lush, beautiful grass all around him had been yanked up -like a raging hippogriff had been stampeding through the lawns- all except that tuft where his blood had fallen, darkening the spikes of summertime sedge. He ignored the mess that he had made, and slumped back against the tree. The cause of all this pain wrapped around him, pitch black wings, leathery and powerful. Covered in dripping liquid, blood.

He wasn't exactly sure how much time had passed, but a scream, louder then his own, flooded his ears, and he ran in the general direction of the sound. His eyes were wide in surprise, for he found it easy to move with the wings; fluid, smooth: as if he had been missing them his entire life. The Slytherin in him asked him why, exactly, are you running? Draco almost laughed why was he running?

When he arrived at the lake, the subject of concern, well maybe not Draco's concern, was slumped on its shore. Blood pooled under his hands, pitch, black wings folded around him, a tear, one single, crimson tinted tear, forming in his eyes and falling to the earth. Harry truly looked like a fallen angel. His stare, from what Draco could see, was vacant and filled with pain, a pain that could fill a Dementor with remorse, a deep, searing pain that would never truly leave. Draco knew, in that moment, that it wasn't just because of the wings that Harry Potter looked as if his soul had been sucked out. His black shirt was wet with a substance that looked suspiciously like the ruby of blood. Draco realised that Harry had gone through the exact same thing, thick wings drenched with blood, the darkness consuming the ruby colour. The blonde wondered why he didn't have the same look of lost hope and detached pain.

Draco stood over the boy who was staring at his hands, tiny cuts flecking over the entire surface of the otherwise smooth palms. Too smooth. Harry didn't have lines on his palms. No fingerprints, just smooth, pale hands. Draco looked at his own hands, neither did he. That´s a new development. Draco had always remembered having fingerprints.

"Who are we?" he heard Harry's voice, strong but distant. Draco briefly wondered if Harry had suffered head trauma.

The Slytherin, fighting his urge to run away from Harry at that very moment said, impatiently, "Harry Potter, that's you, and I'm Draco Malfoy. The charming villain who terrorises you daily with sick jokes and witty repartee." Draco registered Harry's mirthless laugh, the boy's ebony wings flinging back and almost knocking him off of his feet. Harry looked like one of those paintings that you see on old 16^th century cathedral ceilings. Not that Draco had ever been in an old 16^th century cathedral, let alone looked at its ceiling, he just assumed that Harry fit the description that he'd heard the Muggle-borns depict. Except Harry wasn't chubby, he didn't have horns and he wasn't naked. Nope, definitely not naked. I would've noticed something like that. Though, Harry's shirt was falling off because of the tears in the cloth that the wings had caused. Close enough, Draco reasoned.

"Malfoy, I know our names, how could I forget you," Harry said this sarcastically, "I mean, who are we? What is our identity? Better yet, what are we?"

"Whoa, Potter, you're getting a little bit too philosophical for me, we're still us just... a different, not all human us!" Draco said cheerfully.

"Malfoy, you sound like a cheerleader."

Draco didn't know what a cheerleader was, but he assumed that it was some Muggle beast that preyed on little children, "It's the pain, Potter, always makes me a tad delirious. You know, mind numbing, skin tearing, walks in the park and all that." He commented dryly, his annoyance at Harry subsiding under the sight in front of him. Draco was almost at the point of laughing. Harry's shirt had all but fallen off, and the black haired boy made a face. Draco, who thought that Harry was going through more pain, asked, "Can't take your pain like a man, Potter?"

Harry glared at Draco (The-Boy-Who-Could-Give-No-Compliment), then the tattered remains of his shirt and fumed, "That was my favourite shirt!" Draco could only laugh. It sounded like something Draco himself would say.

Their aftermath humour was cut short as the high pitched scream of a little child zinged through the air. They both looked at each other, the moment killed like at least one person in every play that William Shakespeare had ever written.

Seconds later you could find them running to the town of Hogsmeade, as fast as their aching bodies could carry them.

"We'll-pant pant- never-gasp- make it in-pant-time." Harry quipped. But he was alone in his run; he turned back to see Draco, pausing, looking like he had just figured out the spell that would block the Killing Curse.

"Malfoy, would you stop standing there and do something?" Draco looked over to Harry, thinking that the black haired boy still had shards of his old heroism, he smiled at the boy who wore no shirt and looked distinctly ruffled. Draco realised, with a slight reluctance, that he had also been running.

Harry, who was looking at him with narrowed eyes, had long deposited his glasses somewhere. The red stains on his exposed, pale skin stood out vividly. Draco noticed that his own shirt had stayed in place, more or less. Ha, beat that, Potter, he thought smugly.

"Potter, we are idiots." Draco heard Harry mumble something along the lines of, 'speak for your self.' "What do you have on your back?" Draco asked hurriedly. Harry looked like he had been smashed in the face with a ton of bricks.

"Stupid!" Draco watched as the black haired Gryffindor tested out the raven wings extruding from his lean back.

"That about sums it up." But Harry hadn't heard him. He had taken flight, and Draco was astounded. The creature that flew in the sky was paramount, graceful and free. An angel that had risen from the bowls of the earth. Draco wondered, as he took flight, if that was what he would look like.

*

He laughed cruelly as Lillian stared up at him with wide eyes, She either doesn't care or it hasn't sunk in. By now, the entire crowd had turned to look at them. The harsh whispers in the faceless crowd made his ears buzz and tingle. The little girl finally screamed. Ah, sweet, melodious horror! He thought as he bent down and picked up the girl in his arms. She stopped screaming and began to tremble, shaking and shuddering in his black sheathed arms. The look of despair on her pale face was unforgettable, like she was going to her death, and an early one at that. He smirked, pearly, white fangs glittering under the noonday sun. He took the small neck in his hand, and gently bit into the tender, lightly tanned flesh.

The zest of blood washed over his long parched tongue and his insignia blazed red. All vampires had one, so that they could go out into the sun. The rich, coppery flavour slithered down his throat imparting upon him, on a garnet-encrusted platter, the erotic sensation of living. Life in death, the irony of it all. The girl was almost dead when he laid her on the cobbled street, gently brushing the wisps of brown hair from her face; the child had gone very pale under her tan.

By now, people had started running and screaming as if hell was on their very heels. In some cases, where the vampires had revealed themselves, such a saying could be true. The mix of 30 vampires, 50 Deatheaters, and 6 Basilisks was enough to make Lucius Malfoy smile and laugh insanely. Then, they arrived.

His master, Voldemort, and the Dark Lord's mistress, Nox, stood surveying the carnage, hand in hand!? What had the world come to? Evil Over Lords showing compassion! Simply monstrous. Voldemort was smiling cruelly and Nox was licking her lips of the blood that she had just partaken.

"Master," Lucius intoned, as he bent down to the ground, glaring at the silver buckled boots. He then stood and took Nox's hand in his and kissed the joint where finger and palm meet. Her skin had changed to a glowing olive of the blood that she had stolen, and her tail was hidden under the folds of her robe. She looked almost human, save the yellow eyes and the orange hair. The carnage that swirled around them made her demonic beauty glaringly obvious. Her long, evergreen, satiny robe swayed in the breeze, and she looked frozen in time, cold and detached. "Nox." He finished.

"Lucius, for once you have done something slightly competent, though I don't see why you had to make a production out of it." Voldemort was praising and berating him at the same time like only Tom Riddle could do. Lucius almost rolled his eyes. Nox must have caught the movement, for she smirked indulgently and dropped Voldemort's hand.

"My Lord, I must take my leave of you now, to, take care of the charge." She said silkily, nodding her head towards the direction of the forbidden forest. The Dark Lord nodded and raised one eyebrow.

"Indeed? I shall await your company in later hours, Nox. But I never expected you to be that...daring. " The Dark Lord said with a chuckle. Lucius thought that it looked as if someone had smashed Voldemort's face in with a very large rock.

"You'd be surprised at what I am." Nox retorted with a fanged grin, disappearing into thin air. Lucius almost cringed. They were flirting.

"I assume that you are enjoying the gift that the Lady has bestowed upon you?" Voldemort demanded, turning to Lucius and daring him to say that he hated vampirism.

Lucius was about to reply when two large shadows fell over the wreckage, spots of disgusting hope for the beautiful carnage.

*

Harry had never felt anything so wonderful in all of his life, flying under his own power, though his back was very sore, and blood was flaking everywhere-red rose petals lost forever on the wind. The red liquid had turned to a brown crackle over all of his back and hands, and it was painful at times. But the freedom and fulfilment of flying was something that he would never really tire of. Draco, who was flying beside him, had a look of concentration on his pale features, the light swimming around his frame, an angel risen, a curse forgotten.

Harry wondered, as he concentrated himself on getting to Hogsmeade, if his change in personality had really gone that deep. He was beginning to feel a deep resentment of Dumbledore. The one who had caused all of his recent pain. Even though it was foretold a millennium or two before hand. The silver wizard had brought him to the Dursleys, under the pretence of protection. Protection my arse! He knew that he shouldn't be so...Slytherin about it, but Harry wasn't willing to let this grudge die. Or many other grudges, if he really thought about it. Some of the things that they had done to him were downright vile. He thought back to the beginning of that summer and shuddered. Some things were just too hard to forget.

Pushing those thoughts to the back of his mind, he literally felt Draco tense 10 feet away from him. As a reaction, Harry tensed as well. He had been looking ahead the entire time, so he almost missed the destruction of Hogsmeade.

Their shadows, like hulking demons on the ground, spread over a vast expanse, and those who looked up, couldn't see their featureless faces. His scar, searing with the fire of one hundred explosions, told him that Mr. Riddle was alive and well, not to mention very close.

*

The wholesale killing of the population of Hogsmeade was moving along quite nicely. It was a pity that Nox had to miss it. Nox had been around since his first reign of terror, hiding in the shadows, digging her black talons into the Sodalicium

The massacre was in full swing. Voldemort could tell that there was well over 100 denizens of Hogsmeade dead or dying. The Dark Lord should have known that it could not last. That Potter boy ruins all of my fun! The Dark Lord fought the overwhelming want to cross his arms over his chest and throw a wobbly.

The two had landed, damn them, and Voldemort was surprised to see Lucius Malfoy's son standing next to the thorn in his side. Draco was looking about; his dark wings raised high, brown cracklings all over his neck and shirt. Both of them stood out in the wreckage like demons of death and horror. The air, choked with the sound, smell, and taste of murder, wrapped around them like the forest does a wolf. Immersing them in its dark and tangible glory. Then, like the wolves, they ran, tearing Vampires away from those who still had blood in them, ripping Deatheaters away from their charges, binding them and restricting their curses. His beautiful Basilisks had all been slaughtered. Potter and Malfoy picked them off slowly, grabbing the wands of incapacitated Deatheaters. The two used any curse that they could remember, and even some that they didn't. The Basilisks fell, slowly, bleeding, limp, dead. Mark free or bloody piles of ash and scales.

Voldemort watched as they tied up one of his newest recruits, with ropes that looked painfully tight. All the while, it seemed to be going in slow motion, the screams of those who were dying falling on deaf ears, the yells of Potter and Malfoy making even less of a sound. The haze of the battle went on forever, and Voldemort lifted up one arm and, like a thirsty man grasping at a drop of water, he tried to strangle both boys, one fair, one dark, from yards and yards away. They went on tearing and tying, trying to save whom they could.

*

Harry almost felt the Dark Lord laughing at him from many miles away. Oh, sure, they had won the battle. Total count of people still living: 6. The number of deception and imitators. Harry had felt Voldemort's disappearance, the pain in his scar dissipating, leaving only the trace vestiges of pain from earlier that afternoon. It was five o clock now, he had woken up at seven, spoken with Dumbledore at eight, ran into Luscinia at eight thirty, and then at nine o clock he had gone into Dumbledore's office with Draco Malfoy.

"Well boys, I must say, your wings are quite impressive, though I imagined them to be feathers." Dumbledore seemed to wrinkle his nose at this, as if he thought differently then the former statement. Harry narrowed his eyes.

"How many people are dead, Professor?"

If the silver haired Headmaster was surprised at this question, he didn't show it, and simply said, "Seventy Five killed by the Basilisks, Fifty killed by the Vampires, Seventy three killed by the Deatheaters, and 2 that are unaccounted for. In total, two-hundred dead, six living." Both boys noticed the apathetic expression on his face and had the same thought at once, he doesn't care. Draco spoke up before Harry, though not to ask about the look on Professor I'm-actually-evil-and-there's-nothing-you-can-do-about-it-nyah-nyah-nyah.

"Well, with a ratio like that, who needs pessimism?" Draco commented dryly, one silver brow raised at Dumbledore, his wings wrapped around him snugly. They had both found it very difficult to get through the door with their wings but had finally wrapped the black wings around themselves like leather cloaks. Harry wished very hard, at that moment, that he didn't have wings. Then, he felt very naked.

He could see his pale, lean chest, as apposed to the dark coloured wings, and his back was very cold. So, apparently that was how you got rid of them. He wondered if it worked the other way, but decided to try that later.

Dumbledore was at a loss for words and Draco was staring at him like he had grown an extra arm. "Just think about not having them, Malfoy, it worked for me." A second later the blonde sat there in the remains of his tattered, bloody shirt, shock written, momentarily, upon his features.

"Cor, I feel nude."

Harry snorted, "Nude? Malfoy, this isn't the sixteenth century, you can say naked, bare, exposed, either one works."

"Ever hear of decency, Potter?"

Harry shook his head slowly with a look of confusion on his face, "What is this, 'decency'?"

Harry watched, with some satisfaction, as Dumbledore's face contorted into a look of surprise and bemusement. Draco's eyebrows had raised, almost disappearing into his hair. Harry could almost see what Malfoy was thinking, Since when is Harry Potter that sarcastic in front of Dumbledore?

*

The two had been released from the shop of oddities, otherwise known as Dumbledore's office, sometime around 7:00. Harry, with the key to a flat by the west tower, and Draco with a key to a flat by the east. It was either to get them as far apart from each other as was possible, or to let absence make the heart grow fonder. Draco just thought that Dumbledore thought that Harry was turning into a Slytherin too fast for his liking.

Indeed, Harry had spent the rest of their little 'office' session with Dumbledore making wry jokes and snorting more then Draco had. The Headmaster was not happy. Or at least that was what Draco was thinking when a stony faced Dumbledore had ushered them out of his office, a key in each of their hands. The wing development was surprising, and entertaining. Though at first it had hurt to fly, and he didn't even want to think about acquiring said wings.

Luscinia had disappeared, not that he cared anyway. The Vampire had started to wear on him (yes, in one day!), just from the meeting that morning. Why should he care? Luscinia Blackwing was just another puzzle that he didn't want to take the time to solve. It was just then that there was a knocking on his door.

Grumbling about evil people who interrupted his thoughts, he walked to the door very slowly, just to make the person on the other side wait. He wasn't expecting Dumbledore, and he certainly wasn't expecting his cousin, Cassandra Moon to be standing behind him. Black robes swirling about her form, fine, brown hair glinting in the setting sun. Her grey eyes glared at him and Dumbledore, coldly.

A white mask hung from her neck.

*

In a place far away, surrounded by blackness and poison roses, the entity called Fate laughed the chains in her hand extending to the two boys, gripping them and daring them to fight. Daring them to be anything but tools. And dare they would.