I think it's fair to say that I owe everyone here an apology for not updating in about two years, and leaving you all with a cliffhanger at that. I have no other excuse other than the fact that I'm no longer a huge fan of Maximum Ride. However, I've started to see this fic as a sort of testament to how my writing style grew and changed over the course of the two years I was actively writing this story, and I felt obligated to finish it: both for that reason and simply to give this thing an ending.
Fair warning: this chapter is dark. Readers take caution.
Alright, I think that's everything. So, without further ado, I present.
The final chapter of Not the Same, Never Again. Enjoy.
Hermione
The School is not the right place to go if you want a happy ending.
Maximum has told me this. To be quite honest, despite my attempt to remain optimistic, I believe her. God and Angel only know what happened to Harry within those walls. The latter has been forthcoming, but when I look into her eyes, and when I notice the tremors the move through her small form, I feel as though she has not told us everything. I know that Harry will be changed. Tortured and mangled beyond our wildest nightmares. The syrupy-sweet dreams, where grains of happiness stuck between my teeth like sugar—where Harry held me and I held him and we told each other of our long-secret loves—those could happen perhaps in the confines of my imagination. But in reality, with blinding knives and broken wings, there could only be suffering.
I know this. I considered standing away from the rescue group, like I was supposed to. Running away from the house, away from this life. I could leave this world of magic and go be a writer, a scientist, a lawyer. I wouldn't have to pull together the remains of my best friend. I could be happy, in some small, meaningless way. But if I did that, I would never know. And I was addicted to knowledge. And perhaps part of Harry's savior complex had rubbed off on me. I felt that if I wasn't there, if I didn't do something, the outcome would be even more terrible.
And so, just before they apparate, I leap forward and grab on to Max's arm. Next to me, Ron does the exact same thing.
We are immediately lectured upon arrival, of course. Told that the plan is more important than our desire to save our friend. Mrs. Weasley steps forward to drag us straight back home.
"He is my brother," Ron says in a furious whisper. "And if it were Fred, or George, or even bloody Percy in that building, you can be damn well sure I'd be charging straight in there. So why should Harry be any different?"
His mother might have brought us away, even still. But at this point, the guards spot us, and we are soon running for our lives into The School. Protegos are being thrown up left right and center. Offensive spells hit the guards in their chests and they fall to the ground, unmoving but breathing.
Between my spell-casting and my mediocre gymnastics skills, I manage to crouch behind an overturned armored vehicle. Soon, I am joined by Ron and Sirius. We wait for an opening in the flurry of bullets, blood, and spells. Lupin goes down with a shriek, clutching at his leg. Sirius twitches next to me, clearly wanting to run to his friend's side. He settles back with a sigh of relief when Tonks drops down next to Lupin, murmuring healing spells over his leg as Dumbledore shields the two.
Iggy and Max join us behind the vehicle. We peer out into the blinding floodlights, looking at the door. As if on cue, it opens, more guards running out to join the fray. This time, there are a few wizards in the bunch.
We sprint for the door, casting Stupefies and Protegos left and right, while Max and Iggy kick and punch their way through quite the impressive hoard of soldiers. One of the guards manages to catch a hold of my hair, ripping out a huge chunk of it before I knock him back with a body-bind curse.
"They'll start sending the Erasers out soon," Max says, drawing up next to me with a whirling kick. "We've got to get inside now."
I nod, acknowledging her worry, and begin to cast spells even faster, speaking as quickly as I can without slurring together the syllables.
We make it, scratch-covered, Ron slightly singed. Standing in the cold, metallic entrance hall of The School, I can hear screams echoing off the building's walls.
"The screams. They're constant," Max says quietly, almost involuntarily. I squeeze her shoulder, gently. She grew up here. I haven't really thought about that before, more focused on Harry than anything. But God, what must that have been like?
We run through the halls, gunfire intermixed with the screams, an orchestra that I could have gone my entire life without hearing. We dash through the first cage-lined hallway, opening door after door with Alohomoras. This is far too easy, I think as I help a tall, gangly man out of his prison. His eyes have been gouged out, his hand shakes on my arm, and I turn away so I don't vomit. This is what happened to Harry.
"Rose?" he asks, voice cracking.
"No. I'm sorry. I'm sorry." I pull his thin fingers off my arm and keep running, leaving him standing in the hallway, confused and frightened, chaos raging around him. They could re-capture him easily, and I wish I could help him. But there are dozens more subjects in this hallway, and I can't help them all. Harry is the goal.
Another experiment—a small, shivering girl—grabs his hand and begins to lead him to the exit. I really hope they make it out.
"Alohomora, Alohomora, Alohomora..."
We reach the end of the hallway, and I run straight into a tall, thin woman with short black hair. She catches me by the arms and shoves me back, gazing at me contemplatively. Her eyes are a mixture of rage and curiosity. I think I know who this woman is. A glance at her nametag confirms it. Doctor Striker.
"Wasn't expecting this. I thought you would head straight to the subject you were trying to rescue."
I freeze.
"Oh come now. You really think I wouldn't suspect Angel Ride of deceit?" Max freezes beside me, staring Striker down.
"What have you done?" she demands.
"As soon as she sent that transmission, she was good as Eraser food. You can head to their compound if you want to find her...there might still be some hair left..."
Max screeches in rage and leaps at the woman, abandoning any attempts at magic or finesse in favor of racking her fingernails across her face. The woman kicks her in the stomach and shoves her into me, before leaping forward and lifting Max's chin with the tip of her wand.
"Don't. Move." Max glares at me, her hands twitching at her sides. But she knows that a wand can be just as deadly as a gun, and fortunately, she does as she is told.
Ron, Iggy, and Sirius have stopped unlocking cages, realizing what is going on. Murder is flickering in Sirius's eyes, and Ron looks more than capable of committing an Unforgiveable.
"Drop your wands," Striker orders. They obey, angrily. "Good. Follow me."
Striker shifts her wand to rest against the back of Max's head. She leads us through a latticework of halls and doors. The screams ring on, but they are accompanied by the rattling of bars. The prisoners have heard the commotion and have started throwing themselves against their cages. A hand reaches out and grabs my ankle as I pass a cage and I lock eyes with a tiny girl covered in burns. Her nails have been turned into claws, and as Striker pulls me away, they leave bloody gashes on my ankle.
We reach an unmarked door, and Striker pauses. She looks back at us, a smile stretching across her thin lips.
"Now," she says "you will see why we did what we did to your friend. You will see it was all worth it." She looks practically fanatic. Max winces as the wand digs harder against her skull. "Go on, open the door."
Max turns the doorknob and we file into the darkened laboratory. We are silent, hardly daring to breath. Striker reaches out her free hand and flicks on the light.
I scream.
The walls are splattered with blood, and knives and pliers are scattered across every available surface. Machines blink and beep, wires connecting them to a mangled, unmoving body. I knew it was bad. Angel told us as much, but God, he doesn't even look like a person anymore. I can only identify him as Harry by the fact that there's no one else it could be.
The wings hang limp, nearly featherless, bones broken and twisted in such a way that they just look like flaps of skin. His arms are pinned to the table, burned, shattered. The majority of the wires feed into him here, fluids pumping through the tubing and into his mutilated skin. I am sure this is the only thing keeping him alive. There is no hair on his head, no eyes in his face, no fingernails, hardly any skin. His middle has been torn open. I can see his heart beating, fluttering against his rib cage as his lungs draw in breath after shuddering breath. Bile rises in my throat, and I wish that I had never grabbed on to Max's arm. It doesn't matter that I'm here. I might as well have stayed back at Hogwarts. There's nothing I can do. There is no way we can lead him out of here like this. If we tried to get him upright, his intestines would just spill out onto the floor.
Iggy has recoiled at the scent of the blood and Sirius is looking down at his godson like he's a piece of parchment foretelling the end of the world.
"He's not in any pain that we're aware of," said Striker smoothly. She leads us closer to Harry, and runs her free hand across his face. He doesn't even twitch. "He doesn't respond to anything but the machine input. We didn't show Angel the worst of this. We were aware that should she see this, she would likely tell you not to come. We've only just perfected the machinery, I spent all of last night working on this wire alone." She indicates a thin, gold wire feeding directly into Harry's heart.
"I suppose you're wondering the point of all this. Allow me to demonstrate." She punches some numbers into the computer to her left and it buzzes. The wires glow and Harry's lungs jerk violently as he gasps. And then he starts to speak.
"Hello?" His voice is high-pitched, frightened. "Hello? Where am I?"
"Are you Elaine Moore?"
"Y-Yes. Where am I? Why can't I see anything?"
"You'll be allowed to return to the afterlife in a movement. We just have a few questions to ask you. It was understood that two years ago, on October 15th, you were murdered."
"Yes."
"Are you aware that your murderer has not been caught?"
"Yes, I am. Why are you mocking me?"
"We aren't mocking you, just try to calm down." Striker's voice is oddly soothing. "We want to bring your murderer to justice. Do you know who they were?"
"Y-yeah. My ex-boyfriend. Marcus Tailor. He didn't like that I was happy without him so he snuck into my apartment and shot me."
"Thank you that was all we needed," says Striker, jotting the name down. "You may go now." She punches another string of numbers into her computer and Harry—of perhaps Elaine—sighs in relief, as her spirit leaves his body.
"One criminal convicted, one spirit happily looking down from heaven and realizing she's been avenged, and a two parents knowing that the man who killed their daughter is behind bars. Replicate this over and over again, dozens of happy results. Just think of what it could do for your war! You could get Death Eaters put away for good, you could interrogate long-dead supporters of He Who Must Not Be Named! I am on your side, that's why I let you find us here. Look—he's the only one that could work. He has a natural connection to the other world, perhaps because of the prophecy, perhaps because of the killing curse that touched his skin. Either way, just think of all the lives that could be bettered. And all you have to give up is one child." She rests her hand on his forehead again. "I had to do it." Her voice is quieter, almost pleading. "No one else would."
"We were training him," says Sirius coldly. "We were teaching him how to channel the spirits! You didn't have to do this!"
"You were moving at a snail's pace. He would have been dead before you achieved the levels of efficiency we have."
"He's dead already." Max finally manages to speak. "That isn't him anymore. You've destroyed him. Sacrifice a person for a cause and give them a quick death, that's a philosophy many would agree with, sure. But how much suffering did he have to go through before you turned him into your machine?" She practically spits the last word. "Angel told us you kept giving him his sanity back. Why would you do that? Why the hell did you torture him for three months?"
"We had to test how he would react to different stimuli, as well as continually pushing him to, and pulling him back from the brink of death. This was the only way. I don't want to kill any of you. I would rather you help me. I would like the Order of the Phoenix on my side. But if you fail to see the beauty at work in my design, if you refuse to see the good it can do just because of what you call morality, then I'm afraid I can't let you leave this room."
Striker clicked her fingers and the door swung open. Ten Erasers, huge, hulking, and hungry swept into the laboratory.
"Do not meet the same fate as your sister, Maximum. I know you can convince them to help me."
"Are you sure he's not in pain?" Max said. Her voice was almost a whisper.
"All the tests we've done have indicated that he's essentially asleep."
Something about that claim wasn't sitting right with me. Maybe it was the way Harry's mouth was gaping open, or the way his lungs were moving a bit too fast. Call it intuition, call it a hunch.
But I can sense that he is in pain.
I move towards the computers, noticing how Striker was keeping all of her attention on Max and Harry. One of the Erasers growls, moving to intercept me. But it's too late. My eyes had already scanned the strings of code and commands feeding into my friend and they had alit upon one particular phrase.
VOCAL DAMPENER OFF/[ON]
My fingers fly across the keyboard as the wolf lunges at me, completing the command just as it sinks its teeth into my shoulder.
VOCAL DAMPENER [OFF]/ON
Screams fill the room. Harry's voice is a mixture of sobs and pain and laughter, creating a noise so horrific that even Striker flinches away from him. They continue to pour from his throat unceasingly. It was eerie, how such agony could pour from his throat when he couldn't move an inch. One of the tubes feeding into him must have some kind of paralytic. Either that or he's just in too much pain to so much as flinch.
With the wolf's teeth still in my shoulder, and with my eyes upon the mutilated form of Harry, who is screaming his heart out to a ceiling he can't even see, my stomach finally betrays me. There is vomit all over the floor and I am dizzy and Striker is talking and talking. She won't shut up and Harry is still screaming so loudly that she has to shout to be heard over him.
"Okay fine! Fine! I lied. We couldn't find an anesthetic that was compatible with the machinery but I swear to you we are working on it. And everything I said before applies! Think of how many people could be saved, how many deaths could be solved. Think about how quickly we could win this war, and any future wars. This stuff will keep him alive as long as he's needed. He's a hero, a martyr. Do you want all of this to be in vain?"
"It'll keep him alive forever?" Max asks.
"Yes!"
She looks at me, and I at her. She nods, short and almost imperceptible. But I know we are thinking the same thing and I know what I have to do now. With a burst of adrenaline, I shove against the Eraser behind me with all my might. Not expecting me to fight back, he stumbles, and that is all I need to topple him entirely. The delicate computer equipment was not designed to bear the weight of a genetically modified wolf-man, and it shatters into a million pieces.
Striker screeches in rage. Sirius sobs, covering his mouth with a hand. His shoulders are shaking. Ron rushes forward to the bedside of our best friend. Harry is thrashing about. Whatever I broke must have controlled the paralytics, among other things. The heart monitors beep wildly, and Harry's screams have become an unbroken, keening sound. For a wild moment, I think he sounds like a dying star.
Ron clutches his hand as his heart and his lungs kick into overdrive. Even now, even after everything, his body is fighting to stay alive. I struggle up from the pile of injured Eraser, twisted metal, and broken glass. I cross the room slowly, almost solemnly. It doesn't feel right to run, and I know I will get to him in time.
Iggy, Max, and Sirius join me and, as Harry heaves his last breath, I picture how this moment should have gone. Harry old and wrinkled and surrounded by flower vases, in a soft, warm bed. He should have been able to see the sky as he died.
The incessant beep of a flatline replaces Harry's screams. It is a far sweeter sound.
THE END