Author's Note: This was previously published and is being moved to where it belongs in an actual poetry collection instead of randomly stuck somewhere. Originally written for the QLFC Daily Prophet competition with the prompts relationships and fire. I love playing with the dark/light and good/evil tropes, so what better way to kick off a poem about grey wizards than with the Grey Kings, Gellert Grindelwald and Albus Dumbledore? This whole collection will feature wizards who aren't necessarily Dark or Light. Like most people, they fall somewhere in the shades of grey. Next chapter: the Black brothers, Regulus and Sirius.
Form: Prose poetry
Falling Angels
I. Death
Everything I do...
Pops of electricity seared the night, spider webs of blue and white fire that ensnared two souls; such is the birth of every romance. Affection clawed its way into their hearts, leaving scars that never heal.
Love always had her asking price, bartering for a moment in the flames. It burned—white-hot pain as two hearts grafted together. Consumed by fire, they danced like marionettes in the hands of Love—golden curls, auburn hair, matching eyes lit with passion. The flutters of their hearts formed an ensemble, throbbing into the night until the darkness shuddered.
Every romance ends with Death; every lover earns his wings.
...is for the greater good.
.
II. Gellert Grindelwald
Everything I do...
White wings wearing grime like a dark suit. Change had been waved like a white flag—surrender yourself, save the others. Resistors were restrained by the same chains that shackled him. Death approached only as a last resort.
Fiendfyre had shattered the night, a whirlwind of passion that charred their souls. Their hearts conversed in a tempest of spells, a bitter argument no one else could hear. Like Atlas, he suffered, a willing martyr—for the good of the people, for the good of love, for good...
Falling left him bruised and broken; such was the burden of sacrifice.
Locked in the darkness, the flicker of light in his soul warred with the blackness.
...is for the greater good.
.
III. Albus Dumbledore
Everything I do...
Black feathers trailed like a funeral procession, each footfall burned in the sands of time as he marched with Hellfire in his step. The white wizard with black wings and Death as a doppelganger. He rose, like a phoenix, out of fiendfyre, the hero the world waited for—their savior.
Regret adorned his head like a wreath of thorns—piercing, tearing, bleeding. Like a plague-bearer, those around him vanished beyond the veil—screaming, crying, fading into non-existence. They slipped through his grasp, one by one, lives surrendered for his sake, for the Light, for the best of intentions...
The red stain of Death will not wash clean from unrepented hands.
.
IV. Death
Rattling bones pervade the night, a harbinger as Death approaches. It's echoed in the death-rattle of lungs nearing their decay. No one escapes the cold shudder; greater wizards have tried and failed.
The thestrals prance anxiously, hooves thundering, ground trembling. The chariot behind them, forged from bones, clinks and clatters with memories of the dead. In time, Death stands before each man, veiled in a cloak of shadows.
Before he claims them, he demands an answer.
One question.
"Do you fear me?"
"No." (I regret nothing.)
"Yes." (I regret everything).