Part Two – Should Have Been – By Mykki

Reading Time:
17 Minutes

Part Two

The second his blood hit the ward stone, deep in the earth, it buckled and heaved, magic rippling visually across the world, echoing through the Aether pricklingly under his skin in a threat and warning so real, it was almost more alarming how much of a promise it felt like as he grabbed Draco’s arm, healing the slice on his palm with a whisper of power, and pulled his lover close, wrapping him in a cocoon of his magic.

“What the fuck, Harry?” Draco hissed, eyes gleaming black as he looked at him, “What’s going on?”

Swallowing, Harry shook his head, peering around at the men on the team, none of them looking at him, but at the temple entrance, fear etched onto their faces, and pressed his own against Draco’s hair, whispering hoarsely, “I don’t know, Dragon, but stay close, please?” 

In response, Draco slid his hand down, linking his with Harry’s, and looked towards the shield that had sprung up around the temple, fully separating the team from those left outside, appearing almost hazy and translucent. Then he looked to the ten men with them, who seemed to forget they were there as they stepped forward as one and disappeared into the dark cavern that represented the door. “I wish Medea had told you more…” Draco whispered, voice thick with fear, “we’re one short of the number thirteen, Harry.”

“I wish she had too,” Harry whispered, feeling goosebumps erupt under the heavy dragon-hide jacket, and squeezed his lover’s hand; for all Draco’s joking with Ragnok about the idea of ritual time travel, they’d never truly considered it a viable path forward, no matter how much they might have wanted to change certain aspects of the outcome of the war. Even if they’d used the worst criminals in the world — ones who deserved death — they weren’t willing to stain their magic by sacrificing thirteen people to achieve a possibility. It had been debated that his status as Master of Death would make such a ritual successful, but that minor factor wasn’t a guarantee, and Harry wasn’t willing to risk losing Draco for anything. 

“Has she said anything?” Draco asked, voice still hoarse, but at least he wasn’t whispering, the appearance at least that they had been left behind.

“Not since we arrived,” Harry admitted roughly, adjusting his jacket so he had clear access to the dueling blades, “but you also know I’m just a temporary repository, though what she actually means to accomplish inside the tomb was so vague as to be annoying. If it hadn’t been for the dreams, we wouldn’t even be here.”

“I know.” The sigh was long and drawn out, the resignation plain on his face as Draco straightened, copying Harry in adjusting his jacket, before sliding their hands together and linking them again, “Just as I know I love you, but if you get yourself killed, I’m going to learn necromancy just to kill you again, understand?”

Huffing a disbelieving laugh, Harry shook his head. “I’m not always rushing off into danger.”

“Your history would disagree,” Draco snorted, actually genuinely snorted, and waved at the darkened cavern, “and considering we’re trapped with only one way forward, I’m disinclined to agree with that statement, considering we’re walking in blind to anything we can expect.”

Frowning, Harry looked at the cavern, then back at the rapidly distorted shield, and sighed, “Fair enough, though hopefully whatever relationship I have with the creator of the tomb offers some protection for both of us, cause I won’t lose you, Draco.”

Expression softening, Draco’s lip ticked up in a half smile, “So you’ve said, and I believe you, darling.” Leaning forward, Draco brushed a kiss that felt reverent and adoring along his cheek, “I refuse to lose you too, you know, I feel the loss of what we could have been just as keenly as you.”

“If Dumbledore had lived, I would have happily sacrificed his twisted little soul,” Harry muttered, returning the kiss with a sigh. “his actions regarding my life were what destroyed the matrix.” he paused and looked at the temple, the green vibrant vines rapidly expanding, circling around the columns, giving the appearance of welcome as the buds opened into full bloom.

Pulling a gleaming mythril staff from his dimensional store, Draco tightened his hand and nodded towards the door, “Together?”

“Forever,” Harry agreed, pulling his own staff — a shade of black so intense it felt like looking into the void. Shifting so Draco was behind him, he squeezed his hand and, with a deep breath, paced forward. He wasn’t afraid, though he had an unrelenting feeling that their entire lives were about to change, and while it didn’t bother him pre-say, he was adamant that nothing would happen to Draco, even if it meant sacrificing his own life to keep his lover safe.

The first step inside the door, the floor lit up, spiraling in a coil of magic as it spread through the runes carved into the stone. It swarmed up the wall and along the ceiling, highlighting the rapidly expanding hall that stretched before them, leaving them standing there, taking stock of the only way forward, and the knowledge that the team that had entered before them wasn’t visible at all.

“So this isn’t creepy as fuck,” Draco muttered, glancing around, leaning forward as he peered at the runes on the walls, and then huffed in frustration, “and look at that, it’s not in any language I know…” he glared at Harry in growing exasperation, “still think you can say you don’t go rushing off into danger?”

Rolling his eyes, Harry looked away, glanced at the runes, felt the first faint hints of unease slide down his spine, and fought the instinctive urge to tense up. He didn’t know what they all meant, but he recognized most of them and didn’t want to admit it.

Unfortunately, his lover was very observant; he caught Harry’s arm, turning him to look at him. “You know them?”

“No,” Harry muttered, shaking his head, earning an annoyed frown, and, admittedly, stiffly, “I recognized them, but I genuinely don’t know what they mean.”

“You recognized them?” Draco frowned, glancing at the walls and the runes carved there. “Medea?”

“Not exactly,” Harry hedged, waving a hand towards the walls. “It looks like a butchered form of Egyptian or Sanskrit, as it’s not quite Hieroglyphs, but nor is it the accepted format for the latter.” He shifted his weight from foot to foot, “and I’m sure Medea could and would have spoken it, Draco, as it’s a form of ancient Greek, specifically known as Mycenaean, but it’s also considered the language of the Gods.”

Draco’s eyes widened, his head jerking to the walls, and he took a step forward, turning in a slow circle, utter fascination spreading across his face, “How do you-” He stopped, cutting himself off as he turned to stare at Harry in a horrified understanding, “It’s instinctive, your understanding, right?”

Nodding, Harry swallowed, “I passed it off as an innate ability, but it’s how I got my mastery in Runic Magic at the ISM, even though I never took it at Hogwarts.”

“It could be argued that it is innate,” Draco allowed, chewing his lip. “Is it because of the Hallows?”

Sighing heavily, Harry nodded, then held out his hands, willing the runes to the surface, watching the blood runes erupt over his skin, matching what was on the wall, and watched Draco reach out with a hesitant hand, fingers ghosting over the runes, “I apologize for hiding them, but I couldn’t even begin to explain that they appeared during my Mastery test, when I didn’t want to accept that they were permanent. My teacher agreed to a secrecy vow, as he didn’t want to be blamed or accused of carving them, given the nature of what and who I am.” 

“Wow,” Draco breathed out, a breathlessness to his voice Harry understood, “Are they everywhere? Did it hurt?” 

Harry laughed suddenly, feeling foolish for hiding them from Draco. “No, for once against all odds, and all the weird shit that happens to me, it didn’t hurt.” He paused and waited until Draco dragged his eyes from the runes on the back of his hands and raised an eyebrow. “And they’re everywhere; though I can control if they’re surfaced, unless I’m doing ritual magic.”

Draco swallowed hard and closed his eyes, almost pouting when he spoke. “Put them away, or we aren’t making it far down this hall, Harry.”

Grinning, Harry backed Draco against the wall, nuzzling his neck. “Are you sure that’s what you want, love?”

“You evil bastard,” Draco laughed hoarsely, “Of course not, but we’re kind of in the middle of a potential life-or-death situation, not exactly the time to get some cock.”

“I don’t know, maybe if they’re willing to listen, they’ll let us do a sex ritual instead of a death one?” Harry asked hopefully.

Snorting a laugh against Harry’s cheek, Draco shook his head. “You really think a ritual is waiting for us at the end?”

“If they wanted to kill us, they could have done that outside, or, you know, shoot a spell down the straight hallway,” Harry pointed out, “but we already know that the tomb has been waiting for me, hell, the way it was described, Cleopatra built it for me, for all that she’s entombed here somewhere.” 

Draco pulled back, meeting harry’s eyes with a frown, “We’re not going to have to fight your ancestors that’s supposed to be long dead, are we?”

“To what end?” Harry questioned, “They’d be cursing their own line if they attacked me, and it seems like a bit too much effort getting me here, just to try and kill me.”

“You’re right,” Draco agreed after a minute and frowned, pushing Harry back, “Fuck, I hate when you’re right, fine, sex ritual would be acceptable, even if I don’t like the idea of half those bastards seeing either of us naked.”

Stepping back, Harry frowned, “I don’t want any of them seeing you naked, Dragon.”

“But I look good naked,” Draco protested with a small smirk that turned into a full grin when Harry growled, scales erupting over his skin, and mockingly shook his head, “possessive bastard.”

Flushing, Harry huffed out a breath, but accepted the hand Draco offered and let himself be pulled down the hall, glancing at the wall as they walked, his unease growing as the runes gave way to rudimentary images that slowly transformed into full details of his life on one side, and what could only be the life and fall of Avalon on the other. 

-Break-

The two remnants trailed silently behind the two young men, one a mutual descendant of both of them, and Arthur wasn’t ashamed to say that he fascinated him and mourned his loss in his family line. It didn’t matter whether the ritual would work or whether the new Heir would be there; it wasn’t this young man, Hadrian, known to the world as Harry Potter, who would sit on his throne. It was almost enough to make him curse fate, though he sometimes felt like he had, and his punishment had been an internal damnation of watching the world move on.

He couldn’t say how long they had walked, not having paid much attention – a habit of a lifetime he couldn’t be bothered to correct now – when Emyrs nudged his arm, only moments before he felt the familiar pull of his sword snap into existence with a clap of thunder, landing in Harry’s hand, the expression on his face promising retribution. It was enough to make him shiver with dread, startled at the thought that his descendant was more powerful than both he and Emyrs combined. “Do I want to know?”

Emyrs glanced at him, eyes flicking to the wall, before shrugging, “It could have been any number of reasons — our life and failures, his life laid bare before his lover; it could even be the realization that what we’ve been traversing isn’t a hallway at all, but the Petitioner’s Path.” 

Arthur blinked, looking from Emyrs to the wall, shying away from seeing his conceit play out for them, and towards the two young men, seemingly watching the moving images as they walked, “I thought you said this was happening, the ritual would rewrite his bloodline, why is he walking the petitioners’ path?”

Emyrs opened his mouth, closed it, opened it again, and whispered, “I don’t know.”

Frowning, Arthur looked at the walls and the recounting of his letting Mordred walk away, knowing that one event had become the point of Avalon’s fall: “Who’s Medea?”

Emyrs glanced his way with a little wrinkle between his brows, voice wavering slightly, “I was a child when I met, and the only impression I had was my mother’s reaction, and she was genuinely terrified of her. When I reencountered her, it was through Bedivere, but I couldn’t have told you anything more.”

Arthur almost groaned at the response, clinical, precise, without an ounce of detail; it felt so much like being “advised” that it was infuriating. “I wonder if it’s a good thing none of my original counsel will be around to advise the young king, because I honestly forgot how absolutely awful and infuriating any of you were at,” he narrowed his eyes, pointing a finger at his oldest friend, “don’t look at me like that, you know exactly what I mean.”

Emyrs signed, dropping his gaze to the floor, “I honestly don’t know much, Arthur. I was almost 450 years old, and with the ritual damage I suffered closing the temple, I’m not sure I would have recognized my own mother. I just knew he felt familiar, but couldn’t have told you why.”

“And I’m not talking about back then, because obviously it didn’t matter then,” Arthur snapped. “I’m talking about now, when you don’t have those issues.”

Silent for a few minutes, Emyrs finally let out a slow breath. “When I met her as a child, I remember her looking at me with silver eyes that sparkled with age and undisguised power. I was the most unnerving and singular event of my life, and even centuries later, I’ve never encountered that feeling of inferiority as I did in that moment. I knew I was being weighed and judged against an invisible and unknowing standard, and it left me feeling wanting. She had absolutely no fear of a single person or thing inside my mother’s court, and even Isis, my mother’s familiar, and an immortal basilisk avoided her.”

“Did she say anything to you?” Arthur asked curiously, chewing on his lower lip.

“I…” Emyrs trailed off and stopped walking, looking back the way they came and then towards the two men in front of them and closed his eyes voice barely a whisper, “breaking faith with the mother, thinking they know better then the ones that came before will earn an eternal life of servitude, yet when two find themselves on the petitioners path, walking behind death’s hand, and fate’s favourite it will be your choices of service that will earn you forgiveness in the mother’s heart.” He looked at Arthur when the other man said nothing, and shrugged uncomfortably, “it should be noted she said it in Parseltongue, and while it might have been a dialect that wasn’t Egyptian, it had the weight of truth. Something I’ve only encountered in two other speakers who could also force the truth. My son, Salazar, and Harry.”

Arthur groaned and ran a hand down his face. “And let me guess, you don’t know what that means.”

“Beyond the fact that it’s happening, no, I have no idea what service we could possibly choose that would earn the mother’s forgiveness.” Emyrs agreed simply, but then added cautiously, “I remember my mother biting her lip, and nodding once, jerky like she understood, and bent over a parchment I never saw again.”

Muttering under his breath, Arthur rubbed at his face and started walking. His irritation with Emyr’s back was startlingly strong, and he hated it just as much as he loved him. 

“I’m sorry,” Emyrs said softly beside him, “and I know it doesn’t mean much when it was my choices and actions that led us and kept us trapped here, but I can’t say I regret it, because even if you’d grown to resent me, it still meant I got more time with you and it’s all I ever wanted.”

“Emrys-“ 

The older wizard shook his head, tugging on Arthur’s hand to stop him, and turned him to look at him, “No, just let me—I fell in love with you the day I met you, Arthur, and there were so many times I wanted to say it, but fear, duty and revenge kept me quiet. I knew what you were supposed to be, and I wouldn’t allow myself to destroy that for you.”

“I keep quiet too,” Arthur whispered, voice soft and filled with a sad longing, “and now after everything, I wonder if any of it was worth it.”

Emrys shifted, pointing down the hall, voice turning hard, “Our legacy walks the hall, a man dedicated and true, a greater man than either of us will ever be. We made mistakes and have regrets aplenty, but in those choices, he has the ability to ensure the vision we had flourishes.”

“He does,” Arthur agreed, then waved his hand between them, “But what about us? We’ve spent over a millennium trapped in this ritual of watching, yet we’ve never actually talked about what’s important.”

Closing his eyes, Emrys shifted back, missing the heartbreak that spread across Arthur’s face. “And know is the time?”

“You’re a bastard, you know that, right?” Arthur snapped, pulling from the lax hold on his arm, “You wait until the last possible moment to offer a confession, then run from it, because you’re still a coward. We’re dead, Emrys, trapped in the ruins of a dream, believing that what you did will fix our mistakes. Yet in the last hour we’ve walked, you still don’t see it; hell, you were warned this would happen as a boy, and you still refuse to accept it. Nothing you do will change the outcome, because it was already foreseen; you aren’t any greater than those who came before, and you’re definitely not better than those who came after. You are, as you’ve always been, a man with a powerful and awe-inspiring gift, but one who lost sight of the fact that a gift from the mother can be taken back or used to punish, and that’s just what she did.”

It was startling to see tears fill Emrys’s eyes, and as the older man swallowed, Arthur felt a surge of regret over his loss of temper, though it vanished when Emrys whispered, “I-I don’t understand…”

“Of course you don’t,” Arthur muttered bitterly, swearing under his breath as he stepped forward, backing Emrys against the wall. “How do you think we might have broken faith with the Mother, Emrys?”

Rapidly shaking his head, Emrys swallowed, brushing a hand over his face to wipe away the evidence of his tears. “I don’t know.”

“Liar,” Arthur whispered, leaning forward, breath mingling together as the older man stiffened and then relaxed, eyes opening as Arthur’s weight pinned him to the wall, “We both turned from the gift she offered, but still decided that our heartbreak and greed meant more, so in order to stay together forever, we doomed the matrix that bound soulmates when the protocol failed to activate.”

“You-you-” Emyrs’s eyes fluttered shut, hundreds of emotions flashing across his face before they hardened into a resolve so breathtaking that Arthur’s gasp was muffled when Emyrs pressed their lips together.

Magic lit the air around them, felt more than seen, as the kiss, chaste at first, quickly turned heated in a way none had ever affected him before, when the ground beneath their feet buckled, throwing them apart. Arthur slammed into the wall opposite Ermys, catching sight of the two men tumbling to the ground. A silent shimmering shield of raw power sprang to life around the pair, even as they scrambled to their feet, bodies tensing, weapons shimmering into view. 

Looking to Emrys, he found the older man shaking his head, which made him bite back the question of whether he knew what was happening, and he focused on the two men in front of them. It took a few minutes to realize they were hissing, and he cursed the fact that he couldn’t understand, though he blinked again. “Have they been speaking this entire time?”

Sighing, Emrys straightened and pushed off the wall, brushing off his robes even as he offered his hand, “I assume so, but giving up the ability, there was no point in drawing attention to that as I can’t tell you what’s being said.”

Arthur nodded in understanding, looking to the two men again even as they moved forward, focused on the end of the hall and ignoring the murals on the walls. “They’re changing.”

“Their ancestry is changing,” Emrys replied, falling into step beside him, “it won’t be an overt difference, but it can’t be helped.”

It didn’t make Arthur feel any better, and he swallowed his retort, glancing at the man beside him. “I didn’t say it earlier, but I loved you, and I still do too.”

Emrys swallowed almost convulsively, squeezing his hand. “I love you too.”

Between one blink and the next, images on the wall flashed by in a disorienting cascade of colors, and it took a moment to realize the arc at the end of the hall was half the distance it had been, though the speed at which Harry and Draco moved hadn’t changed. Another step, the cascade repeated, followed by a swell of light that burned the eyes as it erupted between the two men, rippling down the hall, through the walls, and crawling up the ceiling. Its power took his breath away, leaving him gasping as he stared at Emrys, who was speechless beside him. “What–?”

“They formed a soulbond,” Emrys sputtered beside him, face rapidly losing all color, “the matrix.”

Arthur never got a chance to ask, as the arc appeared in front of the two men, and without a word of discussion, they moved as one, Harry then Draco entering, and then screaming erupted in the silence, causing them both to burst forward, horror and fear sliding down his spine as he could only watch as the basilisk reared back from the falling body of the blond, Escalabir embedded in her head as she slumped to the ground, magic flashing around the room in an ever-growing circle that pulled at his clothing, and rustled his hair in a way that hadn’t happened since he’d died. 

Clutching at Emrys’s hand, the last thing Arthur was aware of was hearing Harry screaming for Fawkes, and then, blissfully, heartbreakingly, and regretfully, Arthur Pendragon, the one and last King of Avalon, knew nothing more.

***