I looked again, the only true, living person left amongst those who had journeyed at my request to this place, to the chaos of my making in the name of my king.
“Yes, sire. I believe it is.”
7/7
#hbp112 #ollyfic
“Look, see how perfect it is,” he smiled down at me, his joy manifest in the red reflection of his yellowing eyes. “Do you not think so?”
6/7
#hbp112 #ollyfic
The crossroad was laden with the shrieks of those who I’d damned, and the piteous cries of my king’s servants who dragged themselves towards us with forms that they could barely call themselves human.
5/?
#hbp112 #ollyfic
A snake like hand wrapped around my wrist, however, and I was dragged bodily to the edge.
I wanted to scream. Before me lay a massacre, alive with writhing bodies, in the throes of death or the pain of tormented pleasure I could not tell you.
4/?
#hbp112 #ollyfic
“Perhaps you should come closer then, to see what it is your hard work has wrought,” he said and gestured in such a way which told me there was no choice in the matter.
I stepped forward, not wishing to see beyond the crest of the hill on which we stood.
3/?
#hbp112 #ollyfic
He laughed; his gaze fixated on the sight before us. It was a laugh I did not like, hard in places where it should have lilted over the soul, and sharp as glass smashed under the bare feet of a repentant.
2/?
#hbp112 #ollyfic
“When was the last time you saw anything as magnificent at this?”
I eyed him with what I out loud I would have called concern but inwardly knew was something much more akin to fear.
“I don’t think I’ve ever seen anything like it, sire,” I said.
1/?
#hbp112 #ollyfic
I nodded, not wanting to acknowledge the part she’d left out before crossing the entrance; if we ever did.
9/9
#hbp114 #ollyfic
The jar spat out the last of its essence leaving my words the only thing hanging in the air.
She chuckled.
“Time and a place, Harry,” she said. “Let’s talk about it when we get back up, okay?”
8/9
#hbp114 #ollyfic
We waited in awkward silence as the newly prepared runes spread out around us and the strange noises of the caves ebbed into the background.
“Would formally taking a position as my research partner be so bad?” I blurted out.
7/?
#hbp114 #ollyfic
“Oh damn,” she said, as I appeared beside her at the secondary cave entrance, “did I hurt your feelings that bad? Or are you having a sulk for some sensible reason?”
I cracked open a protection jar and placed it on the ground between up.
6/?
#hbp114 #ollyfic
My own pack was in the store where we’d left them the night before and I trudged after her, keeping in the glowing lines of runes and trying not to think of the tormenting I was going to get when we headed back up to the surface.
5/?
#hbp114 #ollyfic
“Come on, we’ve got work to do. Ancient ritual sites don’t find themselves,” she called back along the tunnel.
I pushed myself to my feet, dusting dirt and the few unlucky flakes of snow that had followed down from my legs.
4/?
#hbp114 #ollyfic
I stayed where I was, knelt & shivering from the cold which was starting to seep up my legs.
The ground was icy cold here, the depth of the shaft making little difference to the artic climate we found ourselves in. My embarrassment was keeping my face warm at the very least.
3/?
#hbp114 #ollyfic
“You’re an idiot, you know that, right?” she said. I watched her walk away, picking up her gear bag as she went. “There’s a time and a place, Harry, and this ain’t either of those things. This. Is a mine shaft. Christ.”
2/?
#hbp114 #ollyfic
“Really? Really?! Here? You’re doing this here?” she shook her head and glared at me.
The forced brightness of the floodlights made the whole thing feel even more unnatural as I stared up at her from the floor.
1/?
#hbp114 #ollyfic
You know me, dear sister, better than I know myself in many ways, and yet I worry this will prove to confuse you as it did me, for all the answer I had was:
“There is more than all you know, I will give it to you the moment you ask.”
7/7
#hbp115 #ollyfic
“You bastard,” he spat, quite literally. “Is this all there is? All it was? Huh? Answer me!”
I fear the well of my own wisdom ran dry at that moment. I had so many answers for him, and yet the anger facing me drained them all away.
6/7
#hbp115 #ollyfic
He merely scowled, panting from the exertion of his screams. The rage rolling off of him, I have to say, was more eye opening than any of the experiments the men in this place have ever carried out. I think he felt it too.
5/?
#hbp115 #ollyfic
They had not counted for the fact he also knew this, hence the glass, though he held in the desire to throw it longer than I would have given him credit for.
“Do you feel better?” I said.
4/?
#hbp115 #ollyfic
My "hosts" had given him into my company for a spell. Realising their brutish methods were not working on his mind as they had on others, they had felt perhaps that my hands may knead from him what they desired, since it was by those same hands he had found himself into theirs.
3/?
#hbp115 #ollyfic
The usual reaction is that of the lobotomised; babbled ravings, tearful praying, or even silent, horrified surrender, instead a crystal whiskey tumbler shattered by my head. I fear, dear sister, he may not have missed on purpose, but it was hard to tell through his rage.
2/?
#hbp115 #ollyfic
He threw his glass at me today. I knew eventually he would break, those I interact with always do at some point. It is an unfortunate epiphænomenon of spending too much time in the presence of the body I am currently, an uncomfortably, calling my own, but the glass was new.
1/?
#hbp115 #ollyfic
Alexei's heart was hammering behind me. I could feel it jumping against my back, matching my own as a figure glided out into the room, trialling burning smoke in its wake.
7/7
#hbp100 #ollyfic
With presence of forethought I assumed must be taught in his line of work, Alexei's grip tightened on my hand & he dragged me into the corner.
I didn't see the door until it opened. It might as well have not existed until it did, spawning into reality at the moment of its need.
6/?
#hbp100 #ollyfic
I was about to apologise profusely when a creak sounded in the room.
I looked at our feet, searching for a loose board, we may have trodden on before it came again, just to our left.
5/?
#hbp100 #ollyfic
"How can that be?"
I reached out to touch the line of smoke burnt into the floor before Alexei snatched my hand back. He glared at me in such a way as I have not had since my school days.
"I'm not sending you back to Miss Stokely in a coffin, okay!?" he hissed.
4/?
#hbp100 #ollyfic
They had me moving as silently as mouse late for church with all the fear of said creature too.
I joined Alexei in his crouch and stared at the floor.
"Do you see it?" he said
I followed his gaze and had to put my hand to my mouth to stop my gasp.
3/?
#hbp100 #ollyfic
