Lelouch's Divine Comedy

Prologue

Harry Potter wandered around Magnolia Crescent with nothing better to do. The sun scorched his exposed skin and his face burned red. Despite slowly setting, the sun spent it's last minutes igniting the earth with a vicious vengeance. From across the road his eyes spotted Dudley's little gang, sniggering like little children about something. Night was dawning, and they were parting ways. He watched Dudley light a cigarette.

Dudley Dursley, once a whale, now resembled a bear. He was still massive, but in a more aggressive way. The Boxing Club had done him a world of good. Harry sighed. He was sure that an event that had a positive effect on his cousin would have an inverse effect on him. Even from a distance Harry smelt the oppressive tainted essence of the cigarette. His gang, thugs of the retarded kind - also seemed to dislike the smoke, and waved and ran off.

Dudley nodded at them, and turned around, and their eyes met. His face contorted with disgust.

"You."

"Hello Duddykins," Dudley threw his cigarette onto the ground and stomped on it vigorously. Harry's eyes were drawn to the chain hanging around the larger boy's neck.

"You aren't allowed to leave."

Harry turned his head a bit.

"And?"

"And I'll tell dad."

"A healthy, growing boy doesn't run to his father for every little thing, does he?" Harry did his best impression of Uncle Vernon. He wasn't sure why he was trying to piss his cousin off, but he found some sort of shameful entertainment in it.

"You might not be afraid of me, but you're afraid of him." Harry grimaced. Dudley wasn't particularly wrong. For some reason, despite having come face to face with dragons, dark lords and basilisks, Harry always felt frightened when he would hear his Uncle approaching.

"Maybe, but - even if Vernon isn't afraid of me, he's afraid of them." Dudley shivered, no doubt remembering the wacky family that had come to retrieve Harry in the previous summer holidays. Maybe the Dursley's didn't find him, their weak nephew intimidating, but they were terrified of the society behind him.

"Feeling awfully brave today?" Dudley's voice was condescending, which surprised Harry a tad. He didn't think the boy had enough courage to threaten him, especially when they both knew what lay in Harry's pocket. Harry said nothing.

"Not so brave at night are you?" Harry raised a brow and gave Dudley a lame stare.

"It seems nobody told you that this is night. See when it gets dark like this -"

"I mean when you're in bed!" Harry didn't follow.

"What am I? Afraid of the pillows?" He muttered, loud enough for Dudley to hear. Dudley gave him an ugly grin.

"I heard you last night, moaning in bed," the implications of this for a boy Harry's age definitely had nothing to do with being brave, but he let that part go unsaid. Harry had suffered very few of those particular dreams, although, he mused, 'suffered' wasn't exactly the right word for it.

"What do you mean?" Despite himself, Harry felt a bit apprehensive. It had gotten dark and he wanted nothing more than to leave.

"'No, not Nannully! Don't die Shirley!' Whose Shirley? Got yourself a freak girlfriend?"

Harry looked at him with a brow raised. Shirley? Nannully? Who were they? Before he could ask Dudley about it, or call him out on his bluff, an odd cold ran through his chest, sending shivers down his spine. The street lights went out, shrouding them in darkness.

"Oi, w-what are you doing?" Dudley had gone pale, frightened by the darkness, and Harry wondered what was going on, until he saw two strange shadows in the sky. His blood ran cold. His heart felt as if doused in ice cold water.

Impossible - It can't - they can't be here.

He turned to Dudley. It seemed that Dudley had followed Harry's gaze and had laid eyes on the most terrifying things he had seen in his short, sheltered life, if his purple face and shaking legs where anything to go by.

"Dudley," he bit the inside of his cheek as the creeping cold got closer, and he knew he didn't have much time, he needed Dudley as far as possible, "Dudley - run. Now!" he hissed.

Dudley didn't need to be told twice. As the huge retreating form of his cousin booked it down the alleyway and disappeared across the turn, Harry sighed and turned back. Floating towards him as ethereal scepters commanding fear and suffering were two dementors. They were close, very close, and as they wandered closer, their black cloaks ragged and torn and their bony arms reaching out, Harry pulled his wand out.

The words were on the tip of his tongue, but the dementors had halted, and the one that was closer lifted the hood off its face, and the sound died in Harry's mouth.

"Expecto…..Expecto," Harry mumbled, as an unseen force tugged on his face and he felt the bones of the beast click as they drew closer, until the cold - so cold - hand of the dementor moved across Harry's cheek as if caressing it. Harry's mind stopped working and he dropped his wand, his legs giving way under the pressure.

Harry knew no more.

(Divine Comedy)

"You are utterly pathetic."

The boy didn't think so, but the voice did sound very convincing.

His eyes shot open, and he found himself in a plane of white nothingness. There was a woman looking down at him, sprawled on the floor. There was a floor, the boy felt around again to get a sensible understanding of up and down, left and right.

The boy's eyes hadn't been able to leave the girl's and it felt like an eternity was passing him by as he stared at her, mystified. The girl had ivory skin, and long, green hair. Her eyes sparkled gold, and she wore a white straightjacket that looked rather uncomfortable, and not something one would wear by choice. He realized with some mute curiosity that he was naked, and as soon as he did so, the thought manifested itself into an elegant white robe that he wrapped around himself.

"Uh…" the boy didn't know what he should do now, and was about to introduce himself - what was his name again? He swore it was something important, but it seemed out of reach to his grasping mind right now. Never mind, all in due time.

"Hmph!" The girl pouted and turned away. It looked positively adorable, but the boy was more worried about his current set of circumstances. He was sure he had been doing something important just a moment ago, but what? While he was wondering about this, he looked about. There was no sound, there was no smell. Everything felt pure.

"Er, excuse me, but where are we?" The whole setting was eerily familiar, but the boy didn't know how or why.

"How should I know?" The boy winced at the edge in the girl's voice and lifted both his arms up in surrender. He looked at the pillars of white marble around them and spotted the tracks in the troughs of the platform. He turned his head thoughtfully.

"King's Cross Station?" Indeed, that was what the boy was reminded of. The girl hummed, it was a pretty sound. What was King's Cross Station again?

"Perhaps, is that what this is?" The boy nodded. Now he turned to the girl, who was looking at him with a strange gleam in her eyes and a grim smile on her face.

"Um, if you don't mind me asking, er - who are you?" The girl winced at his question, and the boy worried that he'd said something wrong. The girl now turned to look at him, longingly, as if she thought he would fade away in a second.

"I wonder. Why don't you tell me?" The girl had a pained expression on her face, but it softened into something the boy couldn't describe. Before he could apologize, the girl closed the distance between them, and wrapped her arms around him. The warmth was pleasant. The boy squirmed uncomfortably and his face burned. Her head rested on his chest, and the boy didn't know what to do. He calmed his breath.

"I can't remember anything," he admitted. The girl hummed considerately into his chest, and then proceeded to poke it.

"Well then, would you like to make a deal?" The boy shook at the playful tone of the girl's voice.

"A deal? Wha-"

"A contract. I'll help you remember, in exchange for something," she said. The words passed through the boy's head. Remember. Remember. He had to remember. The girl sounded playful, but he could swear there was something else in her voice. Was it hope?

"S-something?" The girl smiled up at him. It was a devilish little thing. He couldn't help feel a bit excited.

"Yes. If I return your memories, you must help me, and soon."

He gulped.

"Er, what kind of -"

"I loathe to admit it," she said in a voice that ordered him to shut up and let her do her dramatic talking, "But I find myself in need of rescuing."

The boy's chest rose with pride. Well, of course! He had performed acts of bravery before, such as...such as...indeed...he had...The girl sighed dramatically.

"If only there was a prince to come and save me!" she smashed her foot on the boy's, and his eyebrow twitched. With what the girl had told him, it was a deal of mutual benefit. He nodded.

"I accept."

The girl smiled brightly up at him, and leaned forward, on her tiptoes, until her chin rested on his shoulder. Her breath was hot against his neck and he shivered in delight. The girl spoke three words into his ears, three words that would change the course of history forever.

"Wake up, Lelouch."

The boy knew pain.

.

.

.

There was darkness.

There was pain. There was a prince. There was pain. There was a promise. There was pain. There was a revolution. There was death. There was a requiem. There was a wish.

Lelouch Vi Britannia woke up.

The girl was looking up at him still, as if searching for signs - for anything. He wrapped his arms around her. He could feel her shiver.

"I'm back, Cecile."

The girl allowed herself to cry into his chest, yet couldn't stop smiling.

(Divine Comedy)

AN: So this fic has been laying around in my docs for a long time. It was one of my earlier, more ambitious ideas, but I gave up on it because I couldn't understand how I would explain everything. These were the days where I didn't write an outline for anything. I figured out a viable story at last, so I thought I might share it.

Thanks for reading, I hope you enjoyed it.