I Destroy


He stretched slowly in the plush armchair, the air around him still vibrating with the crack of the Apparition. The home in which he had lived for so long seemed abruptly stifling as his stiff fingers loosened the collar of his robe slightly, his throat swallowing painfully at his rasping breath. On legs that were rigid with infirmity he stood, hand clasped around an elegant cane that served less for mere aesthetics than he would have liked. Nicholas Flamel was old, but then again he had been old for quite some time. What he hadn’t been before was about to die.

“Has Albus left all ready, dear?” his wife called from the kitchen beyond, her voice still as light as it had been when they first met. She appeared in the doorway, a small smile wrinkling the corners of her lips, her slender fingers long since crippled tying an apron round her back. “He didn’t have time to say goodbye?”

“The man rarely does,” Nicholas smiled wanly in reply, stepping carefully forward, his slippered foot brushing the floor as it moved. “Such is the way with the important.”

“Tosh,” Perenelle dismissed. “Importance is no excuse for a lack of manners.” It was all he could do to nod. “Still, no doubt we will be seeing him again.”

“One day,” he commented quietly as his wife simply snorted, her feet dragging on the soft carpet as she disappeared back down the cluttered hallway. He continued forward on unsteady legs towards the large desk that dominated one corner of the room, the dark wood standing boldly against the ashen colour of the wall. His fingers brushed the splintered surface carefully, almost reverentially as he lowered himself into the cushioned seat. He knew the line of every grain, the feel of every blemish in the wood of what had been the place of his work for almost a century. Drawing his wand he tapped it three times on the handle of the single drawer, muttering under his breath. The surface shimmered and rippled before he grasped the handle and pulled.

It was the work of a lifetime. It was the work of several lifetimes, and yet it was still incomplete. But, as Albus had promised, he would have enough time to set his affairs in order. It was laughable though, because there could never be enough time. He still had too much to atone for before he could face the next unknown with anything beyond the fear that clenched in his gut.

He was finally going to die, and he was far from ready.

March 1348

The Black Plague struck Wizarding Britain as hard and fast as it did any other part of the forsaken Country and with just as much devastation and uncompromising destruction. The dank streets stood bare and empty, shrouded with the stench of death. Bodies left to rot and decay where they fell, as the ground festered with the knowledge of what it held and overflowed with. The soft breeze carried with it the occasionally cloying, overwhelming scent of flowers, sweet and sickly and too close to death themselves so that the stomach roiled as it swept past.

‘Ring a ring o’ roses. A pocket full of posies.’

All around him words echoed on high, drifting from victim to victim on the pale whispers of their last breath. The softly muttered charms that dulled the final pain were all anyone had to offer to ease the anguish and distress of an entire culture. And on the edge of it all he could still hear the muted mirth of the fanaticism, remnants from when the plague had first struck as the Priests had pointed the finger of Holy righteousness at World of the non-magical and scorned them in their final moments for being too weak, too powerless, too tainted to do anything to prevent it. They had laughed down at the peasants from their towers and heralded the beginning of a new era, a pure era.

The Magical World had fallen prey within days.

He had been one of them; one who had watched and laughed at the Muggles and their smells, their bleeding and their silly little rhymes that they believed could somehow save them. And then he found his own rhymes, hidden behind incantations as he hid himself behind the lifetime belief that the pure, the powerful and the worthy would be saved.

But still the illness spread. No village was safe and no Church was sacred. Wizards and Muggles or Lords and Bishops stood as equals in the face of it. The cross hung eerily on the doors of all, glowing faintly in the failing dusk of the evening. And as the population dwindled so did his beliefs, worn away by the horrors and the agony that lined every street so that only the smoothest of pebbles remained to hold back the tide. Nicholas had seen the final moments of too many. The time when the potions that had stemmed the inevitable gave out and death surged forward to claim in an instant. He had seen it, breathed it and smelled it enough to know he did not want it for himself. He would not wish such a fate on anyone, Magic or Muggle.

‘Atishoo! Atishoo! We all fall down.’

It had quickly become the very purpose that saw him through each day, his refusal to succumb as he scoured the Magical Archives and searched the knowledge of his ancestors long since banished and forgotten. Books heavy with dust and grime that had settled into the very grain of the parchment, fading and crackling it so that each page sounded with the echoes of a furious resentment every time it was moved. The parchment swam before him, tantalising and taunting in vengeance for the neglect they had suffered for so long, their letters and symbols seeming to hover just on the edge of his understanding. It was with shaking hands and watering eyes that he reassured them and spoke to them, calming their aged grudges and soothing their hurts at being so long abandoned. And in return they offered him all that they contained, all that they knew. In return they gave him a cure, two words to end the suffering.

Abhadda Kedhabhra, let the thing be destroyed.

He knew immediately what he had to do, as he took the spell to those who could use it best. His boots skidded on the thin mud that coated the stones, flowing slowly beneath his feet as the rain fell. Nicholas all but charged into the Church courtyard, the tiny garden of God himself, as he shouted his discovery, wand clenched in white knuckles. He must have looked the picture of madness, robes whipping in the brisk wind, hair lifting from his thin features. He told the Priest of his discovery and offered his assistance and all he had learnt if it would help them to save the lives of the innocent. But framed in the shadows of a storm it was no wonder the Priests and Wizards said what they did. Nicholas appeared a messenger from Satan himself.

They rejected him and discarded the spell, the Church heralding it as blasphemy, the utterance of which was punishable by death of the worst kind. For it was spoken in the very tongue of the Lords only son, and as His creations they were not worthy to use such sacred words, they would not be caught attempting too. God was all-powerful and all knowing, and not above testing his believers and questioning their devotion to him, questioning that they knew their place. Salvation would be granted to those who were worthy of it. It was not something for them to take for themselves. To falter now would guarantee entrance to Hell.

And as the carts moved slowly down the streets to bear the dead to their final rest, as the stench hung in the humid air it seemed that Hell was getting closer and closer every day.

Nicholas used the spell only once, in momentary doubt and indefensible weakness. Cold fingers reached out to tease and tempt the woman he loved into the unforgiving hands of Death, yet she had committed no sin. Still the Lord saw fit to claim and punish her. For that his beliefs wavered in a moment of failing, as Nicholas doubted this could truly be the work of a God worth worshipping, were there any God at all. So he saved that one life out of thousands and took comfort in a moment of true peace.

He paid for it though. Paid for it dearly.

The Plague did not falter and the dead increased daily. If Nicholas had believed there was nothing worse to suffer then he was to be proved wrong. Society crumbled around him as the Priests looked to Heaven and asked, begged to know what they had done to deserve being punished so. Had they not suffered enough, had they not proven their devotion? But Nicholas knew. He knew as he lay in the arms of his wife; he knew as he touched the pale skin of her arm, as he brushed the hair from her gentle face. Nicholas had failed and surrendered and now the World was being punished for his weakness, one he could not confess for fear of losing that to which he had gone to such lengths to protect. He had turned his back on his God, doubted His very existence, and he had been wrong. God was showing him that now. For Nicholas salvation was never to be found.

And all hope of forgiveness slipped inevitably through his fingers as the unimaginable gripped the Wizarding World. The questions of the Church warped slowly into the same accusations and angry condemnations Nicholas himself had fallen prey to. Declarations of hatred and betrayal sped towards a God who had left his people to suffer needlessly, a God who had seen their unwavering devotion and yet left them to wallow in a pit of filth and misery. Across the nation Wizards turned their backs on the Almighty, abandoned all they had believed and all they hoped thus condemning themselves. They failed the final test as Nicholas had done so himself, failed the test Nicholas had forced them to take. Spurred by the sense they had been cheated Wizards left the Muggles behind to create their own World, and as they did so the hope of absolution became more and more out of reach. For every man who abandoned his faith Nicholas was to blame. Their sins would deliver them into the arms of the Devil himself, but compared to him they would be blessed.

It was no longer as simple as not wanting to die. Now he had reason to fear it.

August 1403

He could still smell it sometimes, clinging to his hands and robes as he worked. Death was creeping up on him, lurking in the shadows as his body grew weary, lingering in anticipation of the day it would have the strength to overpower him. But, for the moment, it merely watched and waited, studying with unblinking eyes and unwavering focus. And Nicholas dreaded it, had seen the pain of death as all dignity was stripped from a man. He had seen the depths to which a man could sink in his final moments, and the prospect chilled his brittle bones. He had been spared the horrors of the Black Plague, but was now falling to a disease of his own. Old Age. Time itself was trying to claim him, dragging him slowly closer to the judgement he was not ready to face.

He had been foolishly misguided and naive in his youth. He had seen natural death as a gradual fading, in the same way that a candle flickers and burns. The light remains as bright and the wick burns with the same passion even as the wax streams away. He had been wrong. The flare of life dimmed with each passing year, spluttered and fought as his body withered around him. He had seen the same weakness before, had seen the same symptoms and the same helplessness in every victim the plague had claimed. And it seemed now that the only difference between the two was time. The Black Death had killed almost instantly, the suffering of its dead condensed into a short time that made it all the more prominent. But all age did was spread it out, muting the symptoms with every passing moment. You didn’t suffer as much, but you suffered for longer. Age itself was a disease, an illness no less deadly than any other. There was no dignity to be found in any death, and certainly not for him. He had used the words of God, and for that his pain would be tenfold.

He thought he had found it though, his redemption. He believed he could have it all with the Philosopher’s Stone. It had promised him immortality, assured him that the day of judgement need never arrive. But he was old, old enough to know the difference between eternal life and eternal youth. Old enough to recognise the horrors of one against the overwhelming allure of the other. The Stone did not have the power to cure him of old age. It simply had the power to preserve him as he stood; weak and dying of the final sickness that eventually claimed all. It did not reverse the aging process, but merely stalled and slowed it. And as the days passed he became desperate for an alternative, something that would rid his body of this debilitation completely.

The spell rose unbidden in his memory as a faint whisper of soft syllables that called to him and refused to be ignored. He was damned and could be damned no more, they murmured with a seductive beckoning. So it was with reluctant horror that he returned to the books, which welcomed him with gentle rustling as he poured over them with stiff fingers and failing sight. They supported him when he fell weary, and they comforted his aching bones as before him spread a world of ancient language. The spell fell apart in all its glory so he could see it all crafted out in each syllable, he could feel its power as it hung in the air, glittering softly. And he found its form in a thousand different languages, from the Chaldean abbada ke dabra to the Arabic Abra Kadabra, and in each of them their lived the same tiny node, the smallest flicker of semblance that made them all one and the same.

Let the thing be destroyed.

And it had been destroyed. Disease had been flung from the human body ruthlessly. And if it could destroy one disease, then why could it not be used to destroy this one too. Why could it not destroy the very thing that threatened to take everything he held dear before it killed him and delivered him into unmerciful hands? Why could it not be the very cure to the disease of old age that he longed for? It had restored a person from the brink of death, from the crumbling edge of the very same precipice that he himself looked out over. It had rebalanced the forces of the soul, fed the very essence of life so that the negative energy of sickness diminished and was lost. It had done it once, and it could do it again.

Slowly it was rebuilt from the same node, from the same tiny green spark that hovered at the core of the spell as he fed it power. Power not just to destroy the thing, but to destroy all things, all the things that made him old and feeble and slowly withered him away; all the things that crippled and pained him. And the words formed with the energies as he manipulated them, churning endlessly as they sought what they required to fulfil his bidding. Mimicking the languages of old, learning from those from which it grew until it had a purpose of its own.

Avada Kedavra.

I destroy as I speak.

He cast it on a small rat with which he had shared his rooms for many years, so it seemed as old and infirm as him itself. He raised his wand and focused his mind and his intention: to destroy every last thing that aged a man; that hobbled him and mocked him and slowly devoured him. And the words rang loud and clear in the small room, filling it with a bright green light, deep as the grass and the trees outside, as the spell leapt from the end of his wand.

The rat died. Peacefully, immediately, undeniably and unforgivably.

He poured over his notes for nights, examining frantically, hoping for a mistake, however insignificant that could have led to the grotesque result. Paper rustled against the splintered grain of the ancient wood as his quill hovered between trembling fingers that scoured page after page of scrawling words and blotched diagrams. In the end though they meant absolutely nothing. A mere manifestation of his conceited desire to believe he had the answer; to believe he had cheated death itself.

The fault had been his, he realised with horrified dawning; as he had achieved exactly what he had intended, to destroy everything that made a man old…including time itself. And what was a person without time? How could his life be measured without it? He had attempted to remove all traces of something without which I man could never hope to live. He had, for all purposes, intended to kill. The incantation itself was insignificant compared to the sheer power behind the force of his desire. A force so strong it had blinded him; had turned his desire into a devastating obsession.

He locked it away, bound it tightly beneath impenetrable wards and charms, each layered on the one before, drawing strength from it until it was encased and protected more tightly than all the gold in Gringotts.

July 1943

It was the first time it reached him, the news of the three deaths, the victims found having suffered no apparent harm or injury of any sort. They just died, sitting in their chairs in an obscure parody of a perfect family portrait. His mind immediately threw up the image of the still rat, lying prone on the cold floor with only the notable absence of the rise of its chest to give any indication it was no longer alive.

And they had known what it was, the Aurors who found them. They had seen death of this sort before, although the records of it he managed to acquire were sparse to say the very least. But it was there in neat print, the words that he had kept hidden for so long, which had weighed so heavily on his mind.

Avada Kedavra.

Someone had broken through his protections, and had done it years ago without his ever noticing, replacing his wards with immaculate precision. It was only upon careful checking that he could find evidence of the tampering at all. And now the greatest evil known to a mans soul had been unleashed. His breath faltered, hitching in his chest as the weight of what he had created truly hit him.

As the knowledge that he had to fix it came hand in hand.

Every curse had a counter, every spell a shield that would absorb and block it. This one would be no different; he would not permit it. He had the Philosopher’s Stone and he knew it could stave off death, knew the powers of life that it contained. Surely such a thing could be used to prevent a death so unnatural.

But it wasn’t unnatural, he suddenly realised, his trembling fingers turning the pages of his assumptions. He had been wrong, although there had been no possibility of him seeing it at the time. But medicine had advance significantly, and he now knew the true source of disease and plague. Tiny beings within the body, each a life in its own right that lived off its victim, fed off them in the most basic sense of survival. The original spell had never promoted life, had never enhanced it or saved it, never strengthened it so that disease had no choice but to dwindle. It had taken the life of disease itself. It had been a killer from the very start.

And he had fed it, enhanced it, removed its limitations so that it wasn’t just the smallest flare of life it sought to extinguish, but every flare.

He wouldn’t believe it was final though. He couldn’t. And he had all of eternity to find a cure, to find a protection.

February 1981

“You created it, didn’t you,” the statement startled Nicholas, the cup shaking in his worn fingers, hot, brown liquid threatening to splatter over the rim. Albus merely regarded him softly over the rims of his glasses, with no condemnation showing in his eyes. It should have been there though, as he was condemned and would remain so forevermore.

“Yes,” he couldn’t say much more, and anything he could have said would have been no more than a pathetic excuse. He couldn’t justify creating something so completely foul, and any attempt at explanation would have appeared to be an endeavour at just that.

“Do you know who gave it to him?” There was no doubting whom Dumbledore was referring to. Lord Voldemort, Tom Riddle, he who was alone responsible for ensuring the curse spread across the land in a trail of death, destruction and unimaginable slaughter. It was all Nicholas could do to shake his heavy head.

“There are records of use of the curse before he was even born, but they are obscure. I could not tell you who stole it from me, nor how he achieved it.”

“It does not matter now.”

“I have searched for a cure, for a shield even, some sort of counter.” There was a desperate pleading almost in his admission, the words hovering beseechingly between them. The reply did nothing to ease him though.

“But you have found none.”

Desperation rose in him at the flat comment as Nicholas leant forward in his chair, hands clasped in his lap as he shouted almost challengingly, his voice echoing from the stone fireplace. “The Stone is the key, I am positive.”

“Yet its very existence is but another threat to the World.” Dumbledore seemed unfazed by his outrage and oblivious to his desperation, as Nicholas waited for the demands he had been expecting for too long. He could see the words hovering behind the eyes of his friend; he could see the disappointment that lay with them.

“I will find it.”

“Then perhaps you would appreciate a fresh perspective,” Dumbledore offered, oddly cheerful as he placed his cup back on the table decisively. Nicholas considered for a moment in terse silence, watching warily for the condition, for the trap. He knew too well that burden alone was his should he ever hope to find deliverance, but he had failed for so long. He nodded in defeated agreement. “I have no doubt that together we will find something, and we will find it soon.” There was something still in his voice though, a harsh determination that indicated there was something more important at play here than Nicholas had previously realised.

“When do you need it,” he asked with a shaking voice. Dumbledore looked sad.

“We needed it years ago, but no matter. However the need may have become somewhat more dire. Tell me, old friend, do you believe in prophecies?” The question momentarily caught him, so completely out of context to their discussion. But rarely did Albus look so unguardedly hopefully.

“We all have a destiny we must fulfil,” Dumbledore nodded in silent agreement.

“There are those whose death is inevitable, and those whose death will play an importance greater than they may ever realise in the years to follow. I can only hope it will turn out for the good.” His tea was cold now as he lifted the cup back to his lips, grimacing at the taste that assaulted him at the smallest sip. “And you cannot avoid your own destiny forever,” Dumbledore smiled, reaching out to place a warm hand on Nicholas' own shaking one. “Do not fear it. If you truly believe then you must know everything happens for a reason.”

November 1981

“It will not work,” Dumbledore said softly as the green light flickered out of existence at yet another failed attempt. Nicholas' bones jarred painfully as his hand thumped down on the desk.

“It has to!”

“Surely you must see the proof for yourself. You finally have a survivor.”

“His fluke proves nothing,” a flash of irritation passed across Dumbledore’s usually benign expression, one that Nicholas took a moment of selfish pleasure in.

“You cannot stop death and you cannot prevent it,” the undertone of annoyance remained as Nicholas shook his head in disbelief at Albus' short words. “You can merely offer a different one in replacement.”

“He blocked it!” The glass he had been holding in clenched fingers flew across the room, shattering against the far wall in a rain of flickering splinters. He could feel his heart thumping painfully in his chest.

“His mother gave her own life in recompense for his. No spell or potion can recreate it.” Nicholas waved his hands dismissively, snorting under his breath as Dumbledore continued. “You cannot bottle love.”

“My research has not been in vain,” the pressure in his chest increased, the air in the room pressing in against him as he paced the small space angrily. “All these years have not been wasted to accomplish nothing.”

“They have not, my friend,” Dumbledore placed a hand on his shoulder, halting Nicholas' frantic steps. He swayed at the sudden lack of movement, feeling almost as though he was floating. Feeling as though he was sinking uncontrollably. “They were your price to pay, since you seemed determined to pay one. But rest assured that your debt, as you would see it, has been paid several times over.” Nicholas shook the hand away, the weight an invasive presence that seemed to be holding him down, holding him just below the surface where he couldn’t breathe. “You have nothing left to fear in death.” But he had everything left to fear, more so than ever before. “It is time to give up.”

“No.”

“The Stone must be destroyed,” a request made but with absolutely no element of choice given for the answer. “I will not risk the return of Voldemort.”

“He’s dead, you said it yourself. The curse rebounded, and there is no surviving.”

“But the curse was not intended for him, and I fear it is not as simple as that.”

“I will not have you destroy it when there is no basis for such worry,” Dumbledore looked ready to argue, to demand. He was cut off, Nicholas turning on him angrily before he could be manipulated and twisted, his eyes flashing with determination that would not be swayed. “Show me undeniable proof and I will hand it over willingly. Until then I will not abandon my research.”

June 1992

The Stone had been a risk, and he had refused to see it. Because of his selfishness and his fear he had allowed another life to potentially fall into harm. He had almost condemned the World to a second darkness. And so on the dark and cloudy evening when Dumbledore had arrived he handed it over without hesitation, because he knew what he had known all along.

There had never been a cure, never been any way to counter the deadly creation. It flared too strongly, a merciless hunter bathed in a soft green light that still reminded him of the dawn of spring. It stole without thought and it took without caring. It plundered a person, violated his very soul and then destroyed it simply because it could. It was more than just a spell, more than just a curse. He had given it a life of its own, desires of its own. And if you wanted it enough, if you needed it to succeed enough then it granted your request and then paid for it with a part of yourself, a part of your soul. Paid with something the curse would never give back.

Nicholas knew this, but he had hidden behind his research, hidden behind his justifications, as death loomed ever closer. And with each passing day, as one more person died because of him the fear grew. His hands were dirty, stained with the blood of thousands. His fear of death growing from a fear of pain into an overwhelming fear of the unknown, and one that was not completely unjustified. He knew that the curse had taken something from him, leaving him less than complete. He did not know how he would be judged without it.

So he told himself that the Philosophers Stone was his one hope of redemption, that to spend what seemed an eternity dying of a frailty that would never quite claim him was enough.

‘Enough to set his affairs in order.’

Which was laughable because there could never be enough. There could never be enough for forgiveness and there was certainly not enough time to earn it. He still had too much to atone for before he could face the next unknown with anything beyond the fear that clenched his gut. But he would not risk another moment with his fear. He would not risk another life with his refusal.

And he so faced what he had known along and had refused to see. He faced death, as he knew now that his death itself was the only way in which forgiveness could even begin to be found.