Title: What Cost?

Summary: Dr. Parnassus muses over the cost of saving the world.

Disclaimer: I own nothing.

Authors Note: I'd like to do a Harry Potter/Dr. Parnassus crossover. But I'm not too sure.

Was it easy to see through anyone's soul or mind?

Was it easy to see their faults, angers and shames?

Was it easy to give them a choice, and to watch them choose the bad one?

The answer was simple…

No.

But the solution was simpler.

He had never been good with drinks, it never agreed with him, and that was perhaps the best solution to any problem he had.

He drank away every other person's thoughts.

He drank them until he forgot them.

But still… in the dead of night when the house was trolling down the black watered streets, he would feel them pulling at his head.

He no longer remembered any dreams that he had, no; they were all a conglomeration of everyone else's dreams.

The good, the bad, and the worst dreams imaginable.

All contained in his mind, like a vessel for a million writers, artists, dreamers, and druggos in the world.

Each day, each new face, each new mind another layer was added.

To make a deal with the devil is never a good choice.

To make sure that the world continued to imagine…

But to make sure that the story that made the world revolve, the story that made people continue, the story that kept his hopes alive… the story that would continue forever.

Yes, perhaps a deal with the devil would be fine.

But at what cost…

What cost?