The Promised One

A/N: This is something I've had rattling around for a long time, and finally decided to just post it. This is the full extent to which I have written it. Updates will probably be few and far between. No, I will not email you to notify you it has been updated. If you want to keep track of it, bookmark it.



The dementors were flocking in, closer and closer, sucking the happiness from him at an alarming rate. Sirius Black, his recently found godfather lay at his feet twitching. He had only escaped the cursed creatures a few months ago and was still terribly vulnerable to them. He would be no help. It was all up to him, he was the one who had to make sure that they survived... with their souls intact.

They were flocking down like a murder of crows, just as dangerous and chilling without the hoarse cawing of the birds. Only the crackling of hoarfrost and the flapping of their ragged cloaks penetrated the anticipatory silence of the forest around them. They were a Dark tornado, swirling down to first contact, with him at the eye of the storm. The guards of Azkaban had found them.

Lips blue and blood sluggish, he tried to draw up the happiest memory he could... he first found out he was a wizard. A faint haze of of silvery smoke. The first time he flew on a broom. A slightly thicker cloud. Never having to go back to... They were on him before he could attempt the spell again.

A black cloak twisted around his neck and arms, skeletal fingers clawed at his jaw and shoulders, before the creature lowered its hood and sucked in a rattling breath. It was horrid, the stench of the grave rolled out of the dementor's gaping hole of a mouth, choking him with the certain knowledge of his impending death.

It lowered its mouth to his own, and he prepared himself to receive the terrible Kiss that would steal his soul from him. There was so much he missed out on as a child. The love of his parents, the chance to remember them without these awful creatures' “aid”, the possibility to have three square meals a day... There was so much he still wanted to do. See the man who betrayed his parents dead, kill his personal megalomaniac stalker, win the Quidditch Cup, have sex...

Then its mouth was on his and its teeth were cutting into his lips and mouth, holding him to it. He could feel a wrenching, pulling, strain inside of himself. The fact of his undeniable demise fully dawned on him, and he accepted it. He went limp in the creature's arms and simply acknowledged the deathly kiss. He let go completely and stopped trying to hold onto his soul. He let the creature take it.

It pulled back and a misty violet haze escaped his mouth, travelling into the other's. He was looking at his soul as it left him. He was awed by its beauty. His last thought was that he regretted dying before Voldemort.

He drew back from the child in his arms. It had given him its soul... willingly! Perhaps he was the one, the Promised One who would lead them out of the Dark Abyss and into their true power. The child must not die, not if he could stop it, not if there was even a chance that it could be the Promised One.

He bent his head again and locked his mouth to the child, pushing its soul back into the body. He wished he could have kept it. It had tasted so good, clean and pure, full of suffering and pain, and bleeding power everywhere. It wasn't very often that a soul had that particular combination of flavours. In giving it back to the child, some of his own knowledge, gathered over millennia, trailed along like an after thought. He tried to pull back, for no mortal should have that power, have that knowledge. It was too late. Three thousand years of hoarded knowledge slipped into the child with its soul.

Harry Potter's eyes snapped open as he sucked in a shuddering breath. It escaped in a sigh of misty vapour, frost edging his pale and bloody lips. “Azul'ghana, I know you.” He spoke in the High Cant of the Necromancer, giving voice to the creature's true name. The dementor nearly dropped the child in surprise, but instead pulled it closer to his body. The child was still limp in his arms, a relaxed lassitude suffusing its limbs. It was without doubt, this human child was the Promised One.

The creature hesitated, but bent his head again. He clutched the limp child close, trying to steal the flickering warmth he could vaguely feel. It had been so long since he had felt anything but the filth of the souls he was commanded to consume, and this child in his arms was the key. He lowered his mouth to it again, and gently licked the blood away, tasting the lingering traces of power and frost. The others surrounding him touched down and began to move towards the other flickering soul.

The child suddenly stiffened in his arms, power and anger radiating from him like light from the sun. “You will not touch him.” It was a command from on High, the words of a vengeful god that must be obeyed at all costs. They shrunk back from the ex-convict in terror. “You shall each have a taste of me in return.” Fear cannot be the only way a god rules. They slowly approached, fear still affecting them. They gathered around to lick and suck and eventually break his skin to lap at the liquid warmth underneath.

It didn't particularly bother Harry, this blood-letting. His was too numb for it to hurt, and he was giving them a precious gift, allowing them to feel for the first time in centuries. A little blood was worth that. But only a little. “Enough.”

The misty figures withdrew from him to form a circle, only Azul'ghana remaining to embrace him. Harry weakly lifted a hand to caress the scabbed and cadaverous face that blindly peered down at him. “There will come a time of light and laughter and decadence, but for now we must all remain in mist and shadow. They promised you me, and now I promise you the ending of our Quest. It will take time, but it will be soon.” Harry's eyes closed and he slumped into the dark creature's arms, murmuring in a tongue long forgotten. It would take time for the child to assimilate the knowledge it had taken. It would take time for the child to gather the power necessary to utilise the information. Ut they were patient. With the finale so close, they could wait a little longer.

The oldest of dementors clutched the frail boy closer, ordering his brothers away but for one, the brother he had in life. The other shade took the insensate Sirius into his arms and the two of them made their way to the potential feast of pain and fear hidden behind stone walls. The doors were open as if in invitation to them, one they gladly accepted. They lightly fed on the emotions ahead of them, chilling the souls and frosting the air. A female child was frantically communicating with an elder at the head of the room, the elder they were looking for. They glided between the rows of children and gently lay their burdens at the feet of Albus Dumbledore: Sirius Black, escaped and nearly insensate convict, and Harry Potter, apparently Kissed soulless. The two shades swiftly retreated.

Tears dripped down Dumbledore's face. The marks around Harry's mouth were unmistakeable. The poor boy had been Kissed. “Staff and students, a great tragedy has taken place. The guards of Azkaban have Kissed one of our students. Harry Potter is gone.” Shock raced through the students, followed by despair for many. Until a sound cut through the noise of the Great Hall.

A single inhaled breath rattled through Harry's throat, silencing them all. “Probably not the best choice for a first kiss.” Then he promptly passed out again.

“I retract my earlier statement.” Dumbledore sat down hard on his chair and started to laugh. “Boy-Who-Lived my left buttock. That child has the damndest luck,” he muttered to himself.


I have no idea where to go from here. Suggestions?