I would’ve liked to include the resolution too—but there simply wasn’t room for that and the phoenix. I decided the plot could better survive the surgery of one than the other.
So I’ve got an alternate version that includes the important parts of both endings. Feel free to use or modify it if you like it.
The boy stood there on the rooftop, his own eyes locked with two points of fire. The stars might have had time to shift in their constellations while he stood there, agonizing over the decision...
...that wouldn’t...
...change.
The boy’s eyes flickered once to the stars above; and then he looked at the phoenix.
“No. Not yet,” the boy said in a voice hardly audible. “I can do better. I can end death itself, not just Azkaban, if you give me the chance. If I can’t stop death, if more have to die while I wait for the right time, then I will. But not yet. I still think I can win this without loss, and I won’t...can’t!...throw away that chance at a big victory later for a small one tonight.”
Without word, without sound, a sphere of fire surrounded the bird’s form, crackling and blazing with white and crimson veins as though it meant to consume that which lay within; and when the fire dispersed into grey smoke, no phoenix remained.
There was silence on the top of the Ravenclaw tower. The boy gradually lowered his hands from his ears, pausing only to wipe at his wet cheeks.
I figured it was for plot reasons. And upon rereading, it does make more sense—for some reason, I thought it was Fawkes that was coming, not another phoenix. My original reading was that Fawkes was somehow going to spitefully reject a chance to destroy Azkaban because Harry had missed his chance, which seemed absurd—knowing that Harry was giving up his chance at a phoenix of his own, and not his mission, annoys me much less. I’m still not sure if I like the new 85 more than the old, but it’s closer now.
Also, I’m probably being optimistic about how easy the writing of it would be, but my first impression is that it should be possible to make a version of it where Harry’s resolution is the rejection.
I would’ve liked to include the resolution too—but there simply wasn’t room for that and the phoenix. I decided the plot could better survive the surgery of one than the other.
So I’ve got an alternate version that includes the important parts of both endings. Feel free to use or modify it if you like it.
The boy stood there on the rooftop, his own eyes locked with two points of fire. The stars might have had time to shift in their constellations while he stood there, agonizing over the decision...
...that wouldn’t...
...change.
The boy’s eyes flickered once to the stars above; and then he looked at the phoenix.
“No. Not yet,” the boy said in a voice hardly audible. “I can do better. I can end death itself, not just Azkaban, if you give me the chance. If I can’t stop death, if more have to die while I wait for the right time, then I will. But not yet. I still think I can win this without loss, and I won’t...can’t!...throw away that chance at a big victory later for a small one tonight.”
Without word, without sound, a sphere of fire surrounded the bird’s form, crackling and blazing with white and crimson veins as though it meant to consume that which lay within; and when the fire dispersed into grey smoke, no phoenix remained.
There was silence on the top of the Ravenclaw tower. The boy gradually lowered his hands from his ears, pausing only to wipe at his wet cheeks.
I figured it was for plot reasons. And upon rereading, it does make more sense—for some reason, I thought it was Fawkes that was coming, not another phoenix. My original reading was that Fawkes was somehow going to spitefully reject a chance to destroy Azkaban because Harry had missed his chance, which seemed absurd—knowing that Harry was giving up his chance at a phoenix of his own, and not his mission, annoys me much less. I’m still not sure if I like the new 85 more than the old, but it’s closer now.
Also, I’m probably being optimistic about how easy the writing of it would be, but my first impression is that it should be possible to make a version of it where Harry’s resolution is the rejection.