By the Divining Light

By: enembee

Fandom: harry potter

Summary: Book 1. Follow Harry and Dumbledore as they descend into the depths of Old Magic seeking power and redemption in equal measure. En route they encounter ancient enchantments, a heliopath and an evil that could burn the world.

Status: Completed

Fic type: Books/Harry Potter

Pairings/Main char.: Harry P., Albus D.

Published: 2009-07-09

Last updated: 2010-01-23

Words count: 24,970

Chapters count: 6

Converted using www.FF2EBOOK.com
Date: 2020-07-11

1. Fire and Blood

BY THE DIVINING LIGHT

By enembee

Summary:Follow Harry and Dumbledore as they descend into the depths of Old Magic seeking power and redemption in equal measure. En route they encounter ancient enchantments, a heliopath and a darkness that could consume the world.
A/N: This is my first and only AN, so pay attention. This is highly AU, though less AU than Skitterleap, so if you hated that, you might well like this. This encompasses everything that The Skitterleap isn't. Slow, character driven and less focused on the action. Let me pre-face this by saying that there's a whole bunch of changes from canon, they're not all apparent immediately and they're not always explained immediately. They are all explained eventually however. Lastly, this entire novelette works as an extended prologue to Conlaodh's Song, which can be found in my profile.

Chapter One: Fire and Blood

Emperor, your sword won't help you now
Sceptre and crown are worthless here
I've taken you by the hand
For you must come to my dance

They say that all men are equal in the eyes of death. That it topples the mightiest King and the lowliest serf with the same enthusiasm. Death cannot be bought, cannot be reasoned with, cannot be frightened, cannot be escaped. They say that no matter how far you run, how hard you try; death will find you and claim you. Well, 'they' may say that, but I intend to be the one to prove it.

A circle of salt trapped them within; the spirits beyond the circle howled their frustrations to the sliver of moonlight high above, the very floor shaking with their rage. Calmly, ignoring the storm, he drew the knife down, opening the vein and allowing blood to spill onto the floor in a cascade to the iron below. The fluid was as black as oil in the pale light, the slightest reflection from the candle light marking its progress as it slid through the rivulets below, forming a circle within a circle. Dumbledore stepped forward out of the darkness and examined the goat in its final moments of life. It kicked weakly twice and was still, a terrible beginning to a terrible adventure.

He stroked his beard contemplatively and walked in a small circle around the iron trapdoor, examining the blood's progress through the grooves. After a moment of deliberation he beckoned his companion forward and Harry Potter, still wiping blood from the knife in his hand upon a pure white cloth, stepped forward into the flickering light cast by the single candle.

The boy's eyes glittered as he stared down at the blood beneath his feet, Dumbledore couldn't help but feel a slight pang of sadness as he looked into a face far older than his time. Harry's face was covered in tiny pocks and scars; his mouth twisted into something horrific by a vast scar that ran from his cheek to chin. Dumbledore found himself marvelling how much alike Harry and James were by appearance, despite the fact that he'd cut the unruly hair painfully short, they even had the same hazel eyes, something which, combined with his awkward silence, seemed to make the boy appear persistently introspective and thoughtful.

They both felt the blood circle close around them, the arcane magic sealing them within. Their salt circle gave way and the spirits rushed forward in excitement, almost salivating in expectation, but the blood magic kept them at bay. They howled again.

"Wand away Harry," said Dumbledore absently. Harry had already done so. "Here we leave the realm of logic, reason and certainty and enter the Old World. Our magic will do little good for us in the plane below."

The blood now seeped into a triangle at the centre of the circle and then into a line that broke both the circle and the triangle in half. Dumbledore swallowed hard and then looked into the eyes of Harry Potter, his fifteen year old protégé.

"You have your equipment?" Harry nodded silently. "In that case, let us progress."

He reached down to the blood below him and carefully immersed the tip of his index finger in the warm crimson liquid. Slowly he withdrew it and allowed seven drops of blood to fall to the iron. As each drop fell, the shaking of the floor grew progressively intense, until the seventh drop fell and the entire iron plate they stood upon shifted down an inch, allowing a bright blue light to escape, illuminating the entire cavern.

For the first time since descending, they could see the far walls of stone and the impaled, shredded corpses that were pinned there by vast spears of bone. Flesh preserved by the ancient, dirty magic that lingered in the cave, their faces were twisted into expressions of abject horror, their limbs stiff in rigour, held out to protect them from their killers.

Dumbledore's lips tightened into something akin to disgust. He reached down and gently nudged the iron plate below them, causing it to slide downward, supporting their weight as they descended through a hole carved through solid stone. The spirits chased them down; hissing, spiting and screaming as they did.

Harry felt the magic building in his very body and swallowed harshly. There was something desperately foreign about this magic, not particularly dark, but invasive nonetheless. As it twisted and seeped inside him, he couldn't help but feel like he'd never be clean again. The rock around them became jet black without warning. Little streams and cracks of molten rock shone through the stone, penetrating the darkness with a veracious glow, as though the earth itself wished to swallow them whole.

Abruptly the spirits stopped racing down after them, as though they had reached a point at which they would go no further, at almost exactly the same moment the disc they rode began to spin. So they travelled the last leg in silence, back to back, as the rock around them spun faster and faster. The air around them began to rush past them as they plummeted, Dumbledore's long hair and beard fluttering alongside Harry's loose robes.

The magic continued to creep through their skin, their very souls saturated with unfamiliar energy that made Harry want to break down in tears and tear his being to shreds. Suddenly they emerged into an open cavern with dizzying speed and it was all they could do to not be thrown from the platform by the forces now exerted on them. Harry reached instinctively for his wand before remembering his headmaster's warning, so instead he pulled a cotton thread from deep within his pocket.

The thread was nothing more than a black strand of fibre, with three knots at one end but Harry clung to it as though it was a lifeline. He gently tied a knot that lined up with the others, four neat knots in a row and suddenly the air that buffeted him subsided, the forces that threatened to drag him from the disc no longer had quite as much power and the disc began to slow. Dumbledore nodded his satisfaction and stepped to the edge of the disc; Harry followed and stood beside him.

The disc lost all momentum and floated steadily to the ground, touching down with a hiss as the consecrated iron bit into the magic saturated sand below. Harry stepped forward off the plate, but Dumbledore's hand snaked out and grasped him around the lower arm, holding him still. For a moment, all was still. Dumbledore allowed a shaky breath to escape his lips and he too stepped off the plate, which flew skywards, with the air of a bird escaping a cage.

"Where do we go from here, sir?" asked Harry, adjusting his twisted robes around his thin frame.

"The only route still available to us," replied Dumbledore, with some flicker of his usual witty poise, the sparkle in his eye returning, if only a moment before falling back to a grim gaze. "Forward, I think."

Dumbledore lifted his arm before him and conjured bright green flames in the palm of his hand. It gave everything an intense green glow that reminded Harry of the killing curse. Cautiously, the two paced forward, each step carefully deliberated. Because Dumbledore's arcane fire only permeated the dark for ten feet around them before being swallowed hungrily by the dark, it was impossible for them to know how much further they were to walk, or even if they were travelling in the correct direction.

They'd walked perhaps fifty paces when a breeze whipped up around them. Harry stopped deadly still and strained his ears to listen. Caught in the wind were the whispers of some ancient, long dead language, it swept around them like an airborne poison. Harry took a step backwards, but Dumbledore stopped him with a raised hand.

"It is vital, Harry, that you stay with me. Do not move a muscle," he said quietly, trying to prevent his words from being captured by the primeval magic.

Then, from nowhere, a small orange light sprang to life and shivered gently. It took Harry a moment to identify it as a flame, as soon as he did; a second light sprang to life, immediately followed by a third. Dumbledore turned his head to Harry, his eyes alight with a tinge of fear that crushed Harry's own spirits.

"Occlumency, Harry, do not feed it with your thought and imagination!" he cried against the wind, which was quickly building up into a gale and roared around them, the whispering echoing all around them through the cavern.

Harry immediately closed his mind to the intrusion he now recognised. The snares that had infiltrated his consciousness hissed as he forced them out, but it became apparent all too quickly that their action had not been nearly quick enough. They were now facing a wall of hundreds of flames that floated ten feet out of reach. Then as one, the flames began to move, circling the pair anti-clockwise, picking up pace as they moved, accelerating until they were a blur.

Dumbledore dropped to one knee and with a finger still tainted slightly with blood, drew a square in the sand under their feet. Harry stepped into it instantly, looking worried. Together they drew a cross through the box, splitting the square into four further squares, then drew a circle around the square. Almost instantly after they completed the crude mandala the fire swept inward toward them. Dumbledore and Harry turned, back to back once more, one foot in each square. Dumbledore began to whisper a brief mantra under his breath.

"Om mani padme hum," whispered Dumbledore, his eyes closed and his fingers steepled.

The fire hit the crude protective barrier with the sound like a thunderclap which rocked the entire cavern. The sand beneath their feet shifted slightly, blurring the protective shape in the ground and Harry hastened to repair it, before it could be shook loose all together. Dumbledore persisted with his chant as his obscure magic fought to repel the monstrous evil that assaulted them.

After several moments of intense struggle, one which Harry was not all together certain Dumbledore could win, the fire retreated, coalescing into one central location becoming a vast burning creature. It stood at twenty feet tall on human legs with cloven feet which met, at the stomach, the upper-chest and head of the most monstrous looking bear Harry had ever laid eyes upon. He recognised it at once; a heliopath. It reached into the air with a monstrous paw of fire ready to bring it down and swat the existence out of the pair of wizards, but Harry, quicker than he had ever moved in his life, drew the thread from his pocket and with trembling fingers tied a knot in the end, just as the heliopath swung its monstrous arm down at them.

The claws stopped with a crack twelve inches above Dumbledore's tall frame. Sweat was beginning to trickle down the elderly wizard's face as he continued his chant. The fire spirit struggled for a moment against the bind that Harry had placed upon it then threw its head back and roared a primeval roar so malicious and vicious that it rent Harry to his very core, physically staggering him. He felt a compulsion to flee in terror, to climb the walls of the cavern and be free from such a vile, malevolent creature.

He took a deep breath to steady himself however, knowing that if he broke the circle he'd be dead before he'd walked ten paces. Slowly and gingerly he tied the thread in a slightly more complex knot, twisting the thread gently so as not to break the binds already placed upon it; this magic was old and powerful but it was only as strong as the thread Harry held in his hands. As he began to tighten the knot the creature began to scream again and Harry pulled the knot tightly closed, ridding the creature of its ability to screech.

Harry thought for a moment, trying to think of how best to deal with this nether creature, trying to remember the lessons that Dumbledore had drilled into him for the last year, it wasn't as easy when confronted with the beast in question. He felt the headmaster begin to shake from effort and Harry realised he'd have to take action before the circle broke and the fire spirit obliterated them where they stood.

Slowly and deliberately, he raised his eyes to meet that of the heliopath. Though the physical form of the spirit scorched the air around it with its nether-fire, its eyes were cold, soulless and intimidating sentient. As Harry stared, the demon stared back, devouring him with his eyes. Slowly and cautiously Harry allowed the probing tendrils entry to his mind and softly they slipped into his consciousness. Had Harry not been so aware of his own mind, he would never have noticed as the alien presence brushed through his mind with excruciating gentleness, with fingers of consciousness that slipped through his thoughts with what could have been described as tenderness.

Harry allowed a fraction of a second to steel himself before he struck out with all he could at the foreign presence in his mind. The tendrils recoiled and Harry felt, rather than heard the roar of pain that the creature gave. It instantly and instinctively fought back, gone were the gentle probes and instead the fire spirit threw an image to the forefront of Harry's brain.

"Not Harry, not Harry, please not Harry!"

"Move aside you stupid girl!"

"Just kill her Snape!"

"Not Harry, please no, take me, kill me instead-"

"Get out of the way Severus!"

Harry watched transfixed as Bellatrix Black threw Snape aside, as she raised her wand to kill his mother. For a moment his will collapsed, he felt the spirit's malevolent glee as he succumbed to its trap, but he didn't care, all he wanted was to see his mother in her final few seconds. Just as he was about to lose himself to the heliopath, Dumbledore snaked his arm backwards and seized Harry by the wrist. This sudden grounding in the present, in the reality of the situation gave Harry the sudden spur of willpower he need to throw the memory aside and he struck out at the fire spirit's unprotected mind once more.

Once again it roared in pain and used a second, stronger image to captivate Harry, trying to force him to release the binds he'd inflicted.

Neville was standing feet away from the Triwizard Cup, which stood gleaming behind him.

"Take it, then," Harry panted, the sphinx claws had torn right through his stomach, blood was soaking his clothes, despite his best efforts to stem the bleeding. "Go on, take it, you're there."

"You take it, you helped me every step of the way," replied Neville petulantly. "I'd have died against the dragons if it weren't for you."

"That's not how it works," coughed Harry and rose unsteadily, one arm clamped to his stomach, the other holding fast on the hedge to stop himself from tipping over. "You beat me Neville. Take the cup and let's get out of here."

Neville looked for a moment as though Harry had convinced him, he turned to the cup and stared at it longingly, Harry knew that this is what Neville had been waiting for his entire life. He reached out a hand cautiously and then stopped and turned to Harry again.

"Both of us," he said, looking suddenly resolute. "If we both tie for it, it's still a Hogwarts victory, we can split the fame and glory."

Harry considered this for a moment and then nodded and smiled. He stepped forward and reached out at the same time Neville did, as their hands clasped around the handles, the unmistakeable feeling of a portkey jerked around his navel. He had only a moment to look into Neville's terrified face, eyes wide, lightning-bolt scar red with irritation-

"NO!" roared Harry and flung the memory aside, once again he struck out into the depths of the heliopath's mind and once again, it used the only weapon it had against him.

"Lily, it's them! Take Harry and run, I'll hold them off!" shouted James Potter and rushed forward, wandless, to prevent the Death Eater's entry to their house. The first Death Eater casually raised his wand and cursed James Potter, whose eyes bulged from their sockets and burst messily, a second curse had him collapse to the floor and cough out his lungs, a third and final split his stomach open and eviscerated him, spreading his intestines across the room like a garish Christmas decoration. The lead Death Eater removed his mask and the pale, sallow face of Severus Snape leant in close to watch his most hated enemy suffer the final seconds of his-

"LIAR!" screamed Harry, his voice angry and hard and he found himself once more returned to reality. He felt Dumbledore fading behind him, but now Harry had his leverage, he'd all but won the confrontation. "Liar," he repeated quietly, still staring the fire spirit in the eyes, he could have sworn he saw it flinch slightly. "That's not what happened, that's not a memory."

The demon rose backwards and away from Harry, but a slight twist of the thread brought it crashing to its knees, roaring in pain. Harry locked eyes with the creature again. The lie had brought him insight to the creature's imagination, to its sentience and mind and Harry followed these scant threads of information all the way back to the creature's core. He took a deep breath and gazed into the eyes of the beast; he smirked viciously and buried his way into its mind. Taking no chances, Harry brutalised everything he found, tearing cruelly through everything sentient until he found what he was looking for.

He released the heliopath from his thrall and smirked even wider.

"Hello Conlaodh," said Harry, his eyes alight with victory.

Conlaodh reacted instantly and instinctively. The old magics lend the name a terrible power to the wielder and the fire spirit exploded into a thousand tiny flames and hurled itself against Dumbledore's protective enchantment in fury. Harry watched for a moment, as if bemused and then spat bitterly on the ground.

"Stop that Conlaodh," he said, simply and softly. The heliopath stopped at once, Harry could feel the raw hatred emanating from it. Harry twisted his entire thread into a knot and spoke again. "By your name and your essence, Conlaodh, I bind you. By your name and your essence, I bind you twice. Conlaodh, by your name and essence I bind you thrice. May you be bound until the knots of this thread come undone by mortal hand."

With that, Harry tied the thread tightly together and the fire spirit vanished. Behind him, Harry felt Dumbledore sag to the ground, the effort of keeping the shield together finally over coming him. Taking care not to damage the thread, Harry turned and gave his mentor a worried look but Dumbledore smiled happily back up at him.

"That was excellent Harry," he said proudly and his eyes twinkled once more. "Though in future, if you would be so kind, expend less energy shouting and more binding the spirit."

Harry blushed slightly and Dumbledore patted his arm fondly and moved to sit in the dust, his arms and legs folded, allowing his mind to resume its normal function. Harry slipped his free hand inside his pocket and removed a curious artefact of his own design.

It was a cube, divided into smaller cubes by two grooves that ran around the box, the pattern forming a three dimensional earth square. Two precise twists of the box opened it and Harry gingerly placed the bound Heliopath within it. He closed it again with two similar twists and placed the box back inside a deep pocket within his robe. With this small ritual accomplished, Dumbledore rose again and beckoned Harry to follow him, the green fire leaping back to his palm. They started in a different direction to the one they'd been travelling before.

"Where are we going, sir?" asked Harry and Dumbledore gave him a small smile.

"Whilst you were busy screaming at your new friend, I was using the extraordinary properties of his nether-fire to divine our next direction."

"What extraordinary powers of divination?" asked Harry, curiously. Dumbledore exchanged imparted a knowing look to him.

"Heliopath fire happens to be very, very bright," said the headmaster, his face alight with mischief. Harry could do nothing other than shake his head.

Eventually and rather sooner than Harry expected, a vast rock wall appeared out of the gloom. At first, Harry could only wonder why Dumbledore had decided to walk to a solid rock wall, but as they approached, he spotted a small niche in the surface of the rock, that was perhaps a foot tall by six inches wide.

Dumbledore crouched to examine it and Harry turned his back upon him, careful to watch for intruders. After a few moments Dumbledore rose and turned to Harry.

"Your knife if you would," he said simply and Harry unsheathed the knife and handed it to the headmaster. For a moment Harry thought Dumbledore might cut his own hand, but instead he produced a rat from his pocket and neatly bisected it.

"Very sorry little fellow," said the headmaster, mournfully. "But it's all for a greater cause."

With that said, the headmaster flicked the rat's blood against the crack and they both marvelled as it imperceptibly grew, first to a height large enough to accommodate even the Headmaster's tall frame and then even larger until even Hagrid could have passed through without difficulty. They both poked their heads into the hole and Dumbledore once again raised the handful of fire. Stretching out from them, leading down into the darkness were a dozen pinpricks of light that shone from the darkness like stars.

"Ah," said Dumbledore. "Now this rather complicates matters somewhat."

"What are they?" asked Harry, feelingly slightly bewitched by the enticing lights, he shook his head before he could step out.

"These are a complicated bit of enchantment," said Dumbledore softly. "Known as star stairs; we step down to a solid step and then we are presented with a challenge. If we pass the challenge we continue to the next stair where we begin the process again."

"And if we fail?"

"We have a sudden drop and find ourselves plummeting towards Earth from space," replied the headmaster succinctly.

"So what do we do?"

"Well we could turn around and walk away," mused Dumbledore, his eyes once again alight with the thrill of the chase.

"Or?" asked Harry, already knowing the answer.

"Or we could step out into the night and pursue that flighty temptress, adventure."

2. The Star Stairs

BY THE DIVINING LIGHT
Chapter 2: The Star Stairs

Harry stared at the enchantment before them, a great feeling of misgiving settling firmly into his stomach. He looked up to find Dumbledore regarding him with a calculating gaze.

"Harry, things shall get much darker the deeper we penetrate into the depths of this world, horrors for which the heliopath we just encountered was merely a gatekeeper," said Dumbledore his voice steady, though Harry could sense the reservations in his tone. "Wizards scores of years your senior have fled from challenges lesser than those that you have faced already. I do believe nobody would think any less of you if you wished to withdraw to the surface."

"I would," countered Harry, simply. Dumbledore nodded and then looked to the enchantment before them. "This is, as you said, just our leg of a journey that we truly cannot hope to understand. This is my test. I will not shy away in the face off death."

"To that, I would take my hat off to you Harry, were I wearing one," said Dumbledore, a proud smile crossing his features again as he examined the stoic boy before him. "In that case, Harry, I shall elaborate a little on the tests that stand before you."

He stepped forward, extinguishing the fire held in his hand and then held it out over the star stairs, his eyebrows knit in concentration. After a moment he withdrew his fingers sharply, as though burned and then glanced down at Harry.

"Old magic comes in threes," said Dumbledore, thoughtfully. "Whatever we encounter on the first step, will be of the same nature as the challenge we shall encounter on the fourth, seventh and tenth. On the fifth, eighth and eleventh-"

"We'll get the same as on the second. I get the idea," cut in Harry. Dumbledore nodded and continued to peer into the darkness. "What are the challenges going to be?"

"It is difficult to say," replied Dumbledore frankly. "It is safe to assume that you will not be expected to engage a dragon in mortal combat, but be ready for anything."

Harry laughed at the joke, his eyes lighting up for a moment before they fell heavy again, his mind focused on the task at hand. He gently removed a leather string from his pocket and wrapped between finger and thumb on his left hand. After hours and hours of careful practice, he'd learned to tie a simple knot with one hand in under a second, provided he gripped it in exactly the right place. What it had in speed, it sacrificed in the strength of the bind. It was a crutch, something to allow Harry just enough time to prepare a more powerful spell.

With his old magic at the ready, Harry stepped forward to the edge of the stairs. Dumbledore joined him.

"It would be beneficial for us to walk single file," he said. "Then if the stair below one of us gives way, we won't both suffer the same fate."

"Don't trust me to complete my challenges, sir?" asked Harry slyly.

"Hardly," said Dumbledore, amused. "I just don't particularly wish to be responsible for the demise of the greatest wizard of his generation."

"You flatter me," said Harry sarcastically.

"It wasn't flattery," said Dumbledore quietly. "It was veracity."

Harry looked up at Dumbledore who smiled back kindly.

"And Harry," said the headmaster, as though in afterthought. "These challenges require you to be true to yourself."

And then he stepped forward before Harry could stop him.

There was a brief moment where Harry's heart lodged in his throat and he was sure Dumbledore was going to just drop straight down. But surely enough the headmaster's foot came to rest a foot below the platform he'd just stepped on, appearing to stand in mid-air.

"Ah," said Dumbledore, turning to Harry. "Was that instantaneous for you?"

"Yes, what happened?" asked Harry.

"I believe I passed," replied Dumbledore.

"What happened?" demanded Harry impatiently, but Dumbledore shook his head with a sad look on his face.

"I worry that imparting the first test to you may influence the result." Harry scoffed but Dumbledore suddenly looked severe. "It is essential that we do not discuss the challenges we face. It may trigger the enchantment's wrath."

"If you will be patient a moment longer, Harry," said Dumbledore and stepped forward again, coming to rest of a solid step. His face became worried and pale and he turned to speak to Harry, but then thought better of it.

Harry leaned out over the edge, staring down into the nothingness that he was supposed to just jump down to. A slight sliver of doubt pushed its way forward in his mind, but he gritted his teeth and stepped forward.

A dragon's tail swooped out of the darkness and Harry flung himself to the side to avoid it. The horns on the end of the tail crashed to the rocks below and flicked to the side, forcing Harry to dive to left again, landing painfully on one arm, his wand jutted into his side. He rose and pushed a powerful kinetic shield above him; it radiated heat against his face and almost blinded him with its radiant orange glow.

The dragon brought its tail down once more and it struck the shield heavily. For a split second Harry was sure it was going to give, but with a crack like a bolt of lightning and the hiss of a bug zapper, the dragon withdrew its tail with a screech of agony. The crowd roared in triumph.

"Harry Potter of Hogwarts actually blocks a full assault from the tail of the Horntail!" yelled a voice that Harry recognised from somewhere. His mind felt hazy, as though he were in a dream. "What a stunning piece of magic!"

Harry glanced around him in confusion and was struck with a terrible sense of déjà vu. All around him on three sides was a crowd of cheering teenagers, behind him was the Hogwart's castle and before him, a Hungarian Horntail. Why was he here? What had he been doing moments before? The dragon belched flames at him and Harry instinctively diverted them with a flick of his wand, scattering them high into the air. The crowd went wild again.

"Merlin!" yelled the voice again in astonishment. "He actually blocked dragonfire! Albus Dumbledore, eat your heart out!"

Harry spun to the side as the dragon tried to crush him with its tail again and saw a familiar face behind the Horntail; Albus Dumbledore.

Instantly remembering why he was here, Harry collected his thoughts and blocked another jet of fire, teasing more roars of pleasure from the crowd. He was back in the triwizard tournament, or a memory of it, at least. But unlike reliving them in a pensieve or when they were being used against him in legilimency, Harry had control over events. Was he just supposed to beat the dragon?

Harry lifted his wand and roared "Avada Kedavra!" Suddenly, his legs began to slip through the floor as though they it were made of jelly. His vision drained of colour and he was hearing everything as though it was through a thick sheet of glass. Dumbledore's words flashed through his mind.

Be true to yourself.

Cursing himself, Harry pointed his wand at his feet and shouted "Salirius!"

The bounding charm allowed Harry to kick away from the floor and fly into the air, the colour restored to his vision and the sounds suddenly deafened him again. The dragon had clearly not been affected by his killing curse, because it just blinked at him.

"A tickling curse?" roared the voice of Ludo Bagman, half outraged and half amused. "Get serious Mister Potter, no more showboating!"

Harry landed softly on the ground twelve feet to where he had previously been standing and offered a little bow in the direction of the Judge's podium. He knew now what to do, he hadn't killed the dragon in reality as it would have been unnecessarily cruel. However, a dragon in his mind couldn't feel, so he'd opted to kill it as an easy way out but it wasn't being true to his nature. Harry mentally kicked himself for so elemental a mistake and casually ducked another raking blow from the tail.

He leapt into the air again, narrowly avoiding the dragon's voracious bite, his bounding charm carrying him up as though he was affected by a fraction of Earth's gravity. He spun forward into a neat somersault and half-twist to avoid the added burst of fire that the dragon followed him with and blocked another swing from the dragon's tail.

The dragon withdrew warily, glaring at Harry with unmistakeable intentions, but it had clearly decided that Harry was not going to as easy a kill as he'd first appeared. Ludo Bagman's commentary rent the air again. "He's actually got the Horntail backing away from him, Ladies and Gentlemen! Astounding stuff!"

Harry took a moment to focus his wand movements and quickly slashed out two figures of eight in the air. A half second later he leapt forward, along with two carbon copies of himself that ran in differing directions. The two illusions he'd produced were perfect, they would look, smell, sound and move exactly like him. One he directed to run directly at the nest, knowing it would get the attention of the dragon first. He instead opted for a slower route that wouldn't get him obliterated.

He couldn't help but admire the graceful way the dragon moved, now that it wasn't trying to kill him. Each sweep of the tail was perfectly aimed and counterbalanced, even as it thrashed the tail about trying to kill his illusion, it didn't lose footing or even graze the eggs behind it. Harry tossed a disillusionment charm over his head and hissed under his breath as the horntail came dangerously close to clobbering his illusion. The crowd echoed his displeasure.

"Oooh, that was a close one!" cried Ludo Bagman, sounding as though he was clearly thoroughly enjoying himself. "If that's you Mr. Potter, watch out!"

Wasting no more time, Harry darted forward. He slipped easily around the dragon's hind legs, his disillusionment disguising him well enough to get close to the eggs. He turned sharply however at a scream and saw the dragon rearing and fluttering over his illusion, horned tail whipping out at its side and a jet of fire closing in on the illusion. Both Madame Maxime and Barty Crouch at the judges table leapt forward and hurled shields into the arena to protect the illusion, thinking it was actually Harry. It would be this event that would leave the scores of the first task so wildly disputed and Harry open to claims of preferential treatment.

He seized the egg, tucked it under his cloak and fled away from the nest. The illusion of Harry had been completely demolished by the dragon; no illusion could have survived direct contact with dragonfire. People in the crowd screamed as the smoke cleared and the trainers rushed out into the paddock to restrain the dragon. Dumbledore however, looked Harry right in the eyes, as though he could see straight through the disillusionment charm, smiled a small smile and gently clapped his hands in appreciation.

Giving an extra few seconds to heighten the suspense and playing to his inner showmanship, Harry leapt onto the largest rock in the enclosure. With a double flick of his wand that removed the charm and conjured a crack and a puff of smoke, Harry revealed himself and lifted the egg above his head. There was a moment of confused silence where everyone turned to see the newest spectacle.

Harry, now smiling broadly, took a small bow and the crowd went ballistic.

He felt himself fall a split second before his vision returned and he spun, reaching out for the platform his feet had just left. His left hand closed upon the ledge, supporting him momentarily. Luckily he'd managed to keep a grip on his leather string but it was useless to him at the moment as it was trapped between his hand and the rock. Dumbledore reached out to grab him, but Harry waved him off.

"Don't touch me," said Harry, far more calmly than he felt. "I've got it under control and I don't want you falling too." With a considerable amount of effort Harry put his other hand on the edge and using his feet to lever himself up, climbed onto the edge of the platform where he sat for a moment, trying to catch his breath and steady his body whilst adrenaline coursed through his veins. Eventually he levelled his eyes to meet Dumbledore's who was as white as a statue.

"I failed," said Harry softly. Dumbledore shook his head.

"No. You survived; this is a powerful enchantment, you'd have fallen if you'd failed."

"So I half failed?" asked Harry in bemusement, Dumbledore smiled and a little of the colour returned to his face.

"It would appear, as usual, that you are once again the exception to the rule, Harry."

Harry smiled back and stood up, dusting off his robes. He looked at the distance between he and Dumbledore. "Should I jump it?"

"I think that would be advisable," replied Dumbledore. "I shall endeavour to prevent you from falling any further."

Harry waited for a moment for Dumbledore to move to the next step, when it became apparent that he wasn't going to, he steeled his resolve once more and took a running jump to the same stair that Dumbledore was on.

He crashed headfirst into a wall, with a blow that rightly should have broken his nose. He fell flat on his back his head spinning. He rose, checking his nose with one hand to ensure its integrity and then looked around him.

He was in a long, thin room. The wall he'd jumped into was covered in Roman numerals, the opposite wall held a door which appeared to be the only way out of the room. The other two longer walls sloped inwards to form both the walls and the roof. The floor between he and the door was broken up into a grid of large square tiles which were labelled I, II and III.

Harry paced up and down before the first line of three tiles pensively, trying to recall the arithmetical properties of the numbers up to three. One was aggression, two controlled emotion and three symbolized creativity. But what did those numbers imply? One and three were the square root of two and eleven; twenty two and thirty three were all master numbers. But none of this seemed particularly relevant; there was no noticeable pattern in the tiles either. With a sigh, he turned to the wall of numbers behind him, they read in a triangle from the top of the top of the wall to the bottom with one line left purposely blank.

He stared at the numbers for a long time trying to make some sense of them and even tried reading them back but to no avail. Harry was tempted for a moment to just jump on a random tile to see what happened. To make things easier on him, Harry picked up a small pebble and used it to scratch in the blank line with all of the numbers in sequence and then translated them to the numerals he was more used to functioning with.

'1 – 11 – 21 – 1211 – 111221 – 312211 -?- 113213211'

Nothing seemed to leap out at him, frustrating and wearying Harry. Although he appreciated and was adept at logic puzzles, number puzzles always vexed him; he hadn't even been good at muggle maths. But this wasn't something he could skive behind the rubbish bins, he had to beat this, to save Neville. After a deep, calming breath Harry decided to start talking to himself in order to try and ease his way into a more conducive frame of mind.

"Dumbledore said stay true to myself, but staying true to myself in this situation would be giving up and that's not an option. Unless that's the point of the task? To just run straight into the tiles and hope for the best. I suppose that can always be my last option. No, common sense, that's what I need. What was it Neville said? 'An awful lot of the brightest wizards haven't an ounce of common sense'. Sounds like something Hermione would say. Common sense would dictate that if I've got to stay true to myself, so do these enchantments. They don't care about ability, it's all about integrity! It would be stupid for these challenges to be impossible, it's challenging my ethic. That means it's got to be a logic there's an awful lot of ones for it to be a-"

Then in the moment after Harry deliberated giving up, the entire puzzle unfolded in his own brain and he could have kicked himself for not seeing it sooner.

"Merlin be dammned! You're not numbers at all! You're words! One! One one! Two ones! One Two, One one!" he roared in joy and punched his fist into the air in celebration. Then took another deep breath and allowed the solution to come together in his head. "One one, one two, two ones," he whispered. "Three ones, two twos, one one." He smiled broadly as he deduced the missing eight numbers. "One three, one one, two twos, two ones!"

He stepped over to the tiles on the floor, reciting the numbers like a mantra in his head. 'One three, one one, two twos, two ones.'

With a confidence that he'd never before had when dealing with numbers, Harry stepped onto the first tile marked I and put his weight upon it. Nothing happened. He stepped forward onto the tile before him marked I and as he put his weight upon it, the tiles behind him fell away to reveal the nothingness below. Harry gulped, still reciting his mantra and stepped onto the 'I' before him and was relieved that it held under his weight.

He stepped through the door way at the end of the room and found himself standing next to Dumbledore, the headmaster's arm gripping Harry's arm tightly. The headmaster gave him a proud smile and patted him on the shoulder.

"Excellent," he said proudly and looked down at the next stair. "Are you ready to continue?" Harry nodded.

"I'll go first this time," said Harry firmly and held up a hand to Dumbledore's protest. "It's my turn."

Without allowing any time for Dumbledore to prevent him, Harry stepped down to the next stair.

He found himself immersed in darkness. As his other senses began to become less confused by the sudden transposition, he slowly came to realise that he was laying in bed. He reached out instinctively and his fingers closed around his wand.

"Lumos," he whispered and his surroundings were instantly illuminated. He found himself in a rather odd position. He appeared to be in his bed in Gryffindor tower, but his body seemed to have shrunk; his fingers were no longer elongated and calloused from hours of magical experimentation, there was no longer the dull omnipresent ache of sphinx claws emanating from his belly and as he reached up to touch his face, there was no curse scar stretching across his face. Just as he was marvelling at this astounding revelation, he heard raised voices somewhere nearby.

He crept from between the sheets and stilling his lumos, peeked his head out of the curtains around his bed. As he had guessed, he was in his dormitory at school. Quietly but amazingly sprightly, he leapt from his bed and tiptoed across the floor, the balls of his feet and toes stinging on the freezing stone floor. He paused at the top of the stairs, listening to the voices below.

"Neville, you heard what McGonagall and Snape said, you'll be expelled!" said an exasperated Hermione Granger.

"EXPELLED?" roared Neville, his fingers clenched so tightly that his knuckles were white. There were shades of lavender rising to his cheeks. Harry could have warned them that this was serious, a matter over which Neville would never stand down, but he was too busy remembering this evening and discussing the possibilities in his mind. "Don't you understand? Don't you see? If Voldemort returns, what does it matter if I'm expelled? My mum and dad died to protect the world, to protect me from him. If you think I'm going to dishonour their memories by ignoring the sacrifices they gave to get me here by just ignoring this, you're both fools."

This seemed to cow both Hermione and Ron and after a few muttered apologies, all four of them left the common room together. Harry sat for a while, pondering his predicament. In reality, this is where the memory ended, the Harry-that-was, being the self indulgent prick that he had, considered Neville to have made the whole thing up and Hermione and Ron as gullible and returned to bed. Was Harry supposed to be true to that Harry or the Harry he was now?

After a moment of deliberation, Harry followed, if only to see how far he could push the enchantment. He'd never seen what had occurred below, but had heard accounts from the headmaster and Neville, would that be enough for the enchantment to create the scenario in his head?

He passed, bear footed through the halls of Hogwarts, remembering the way perfectly. He too, of course, had visited Fluffy. Partly out of a sense of duty to Hagrid, when he was abducted by the ministry for attempting to raise a dragon in his house and partly from his own curiosity. So it was of no shock to him when he opened the third floor door to face a massive three headed dog.

Instantly, Harry began to hum, which very gently eased the dog to the floor, its eyelids closing further with each note. He paused at the open trapdoor for a moment then stepped forward, dropping through into the darkness below.

He landed abruptly upon the next stair star and wavered for a little while on the edge, trying to regain his balance. He turned to Dumbledore and gave him a sad smile that was mirrored on the headmaster's face. Dumbledore nodded him on and Harry stepped down to the stair below, half expecting what came next.

The basilisk lay dead upon the floor, the sword of Gryffindor buried to the hilt in the roof of it's mouth. Neville lay on the floor, looking up into the wand point of a pale, older boy whom Harry recognised as the young Tom Marvolo Riddle. Dumbledore's phoenix, Fawkes, lay between them in a small pile of ash. Riddle kicked it viciously to the side as he stepped over Neville.

"You're going to die, Longbottom; I'm going to tear your heart out and feed it to you," he said viciously, leaning over him, his pale eyes colder than Harry could ever remember them being as Voldemort. Harry stepped over, neither boy seeming to notice him.

"Are you?" asked Harry quietly and both of them jumped and turned to face him. Riddle straightened up and stared between Harry and the wand held lazily in his fingers. His face became a smirk and he glanced back at Neville.

"I stand corrected Longbottom; he sent you an old hat, a song bird and a squib," he laughed shrilly, his eyes alight with something that couldn't quite be described as delight, it was very slightly darker than that. Neville looked Harry in the eyes, a wide expression of surprise and fear in his eyes.

"Run Harry!" he cried, "You don't understand!"

Harry ignored him and stepped forward, wand still tipped delicately between his fingers. They felt slightly longer now, more gamely, there was a spring in his step, he felt alive and powerful. Riddle raised his wand and casually tossed an eviscerating curse at Harry, which he blocked with a flourish.

"Tom Marvolo Riddle," tutted Harry in mock disappointment. "All these years I've waited to meet you and you open with that sloppy piece of wandwork? Five points from Slytherin, I should think."

Riddle's eyes narrowed and he turned to face Harry fully now, his nose turned slightly skyward, he looked so much like Draco Malfoy that Harry felt like thumping him.

"Harry, it's Voldemort!" shouted Neville again, Harry ignored him once more.

"Oh he knows," said Riddle softly, his eyes finally blossoming into comprehension, a slight smirk spreading across his features. "How long have you been waiting for this Potter? How long have you been hiding yourself from these worms?"

"Long enough," replied Harry stonily. In reality he'd revealed far too much at this point, spoken at too great a length, subconsciously emulating Voldemort's compulsion to be verbose. Neville just stared on confused, he couldn't understand where the shy, retiring, magically weak Harry Potter had disappeared to.

"Very clever, Harry Potter, I should have chosen you instead."

"Woulda, shoulda, coulda."

"I suppose we duel now, Harry Potter," said Tom Riddle and without waiting for a reply leapt into action, throwing a curse at Harry even as he took a duelling stance. Harry casually batted it away, as he did the next four curses that Tom Riddle flung at him. The first time he'd done this, Harry had been all but outmatched and the duel had involved far more defensive posturing from him than his pure skill allowed this time. Voldemort at seventeen had all of his considerable magical talent at his disposal, as well as years on Harry in experience. This time however, Harry had all of his talent as well as years of training with Dumbledore. It had clearly paid off, the duel that had taken everything from Harry to survive, giving Neville long enough to piece the diary with a basilisk fang, was now a cakewalk.

Tom Riddle hissed in frustration as another curse failed to connect with Harry as he danced away. Harry let a smirk settle on his lips as the young Voldemort came at him again, a pair of curses hissing through the chamber. Harry's firewhip struck them both out of the air as if they were nothing more than balls of paper. Frustration showed on Riddle's face and he stepped forward, throwing a killing curse at Harry. For a moment Harry stood stock still, looking as though he was stunned by the spell, Riddle's lips curled in victory for a moment, before the curse hit a block of granite.

"Any time now, Neville!" cried Harry and Riddle turned to see Neville raising the fang high above the diary, he raised his wand to curse him but Harry intercepted, forcing his wand hand down. Riddle twisted in Harry's arm lock to look him in the face, his eyes glowed red for a moment.

"See you in hell Potter!" he spat, Harry laughed in his face.

"You first."

Once again Harry returned abruptly to reality and paused for a moment, savouring the memory. That had been the beginning of Harry and Neville's friendship; together they had returned to McGonagall's office and the real world in a silence neither of them knew how to break. Once inside and pressed to their victory however, the whole truth had come out. No longer could Harry hide his ability and Dumbledore had regarded him with calculating eyes for a moment, before breaking into a wide smile and accepting him readily, surprising Harry beyond description. Indeed, he was honoured to the same standard as Neville himself. Harry could still almost hear the headmaster's end of term speech after over two years.

"There are some people who shatter all expectations," he'd said, having raised his hands for silence. "They step beyond the world of normal people and become heroes, I am talking of course, about Neville Longbottom who this term acquitted himself against a foe that might have destroyed a lesser wizard. For his indisputable heroism, I award Gryffindor two hundred points." Once again he had to motion for silence. "Then, there are those upon even the heroes must depend on, I speak of Harry Potter, who saved not one, but two lives, by duelling the darkest wizard in a century to a standstill. For this incredible feat of magical ability and heroism, I award Gryffindor a further two hundred points!"

It was that really that had begun it for Harry; Dumbledore had insisted on his apprenticeship, remarking that Harry had wandwork and ability far beyond any wizard of his age he'd ever seen. He'd become a hero to three quarters of the school, in the same way Neville Longbottom already was and he replaced the comatose Ronald Weasley in Neville's trio of friends. He'd gone from quiet squib quidditch star, to a hero over night.

Dumbledore must have read something from Harry's silence for he spoke softly. "Harry?"

"I'm fine," said Harry, attempting to push the thoughts away. "These tasks get under your skin slightly."

"I should imagine that was the purpose of such an enchantment," replied Dumbledore and stepped down behind Harry. Harry heard, rather than saw the headmaster as he coughed slightly and readjusted his robes. Harry stepped forward again.

He adjusted to the new environment far faster this time and rose to his feet from the sand that was below him. He looked around, interested in what challenge faced him this time. He found himself in a cylindrically shaped room that stretched for miles above him. The only flaw in the one circular wall was a door about thirty feet above him. Harry looked at it for a moment and then reached into his pocket and withdrew his wand.

"Salirius!" he said, pointing to his boots and leapt toward the door. His jump was no where near high enough however and he completely failed to find any purchase on the smooth wall and slid straight back down. A metal disc appeared in the air above him, perhaps five foot or so above the top of the door. It spanned the room's entire footprint, sealing off the way above. Harry examined it again waiting for something else to happen, but nothing did.

Raising his wand again, Harry tried to transfigure the sand beneath him into a ladder; his form and wandwork was flawless but the material was far too fluid and changeable to be easily manipulated and all he achieved was a vaguely ladder shaped pattern in the dust before it collapsed back into sand.

Harry looked skyward again as the disc moved, lowering a foot, making an awful screeching noise as it did so. Harry frowned. He raised his wand again and cast a spell that fired a metal pin at high velocity, it was generally used by stone masons or rock climbers, but Harry hoped that he could form a ladder from them and climb that. The metal projectile, however, merely bounced off the rock at a crazy angle and Harry fell to the floor to avoid the spinning metal pin. The disc in the sky lowered another foot and Harry felt a flash of temper.

He had maybe four more attempts before there was no way he could fit through the door above and he assumed at that point the task was considered failed. So Harry sat and thought for a moment. If he couldn't jump or climb up, couldn't charm himself to do so, couldn't transfigure a ladder, couldn't conjure something to act as a ladder, perhaps he could conjure something to propel himself into the air. He was certainly under no illusion he could conjure a fully working jetpack, but perhaps a strong gust of wind?

The gust of wind he conjured threw him thirty feet into the air and he scrabbled for the bottom of the door but he was still at least ten feet too low. He bounced off the wall with a sickening crunch that he imagined may have rivalled one of his worse quidditch injuries, if this were not all in his head. As it was, he fell to his feet upon the sand as sprightly as a cat. He watched the roof lower another foot but didn't really mind, he'd been struck by a thought; surely if this was just his mind, he could will himself up to the door?

He stood for a long moment, willing himself to be propelled effortlessly through the air, after a few seconds he opened his eyes and found himself exactly where he'd been standing before. A soft laugh escaped his lips and he looked skyward, but even the magically lowering roof seemed to consider that a pitiful attempt and made no movement.

No, decided Harry, he'd been on the right track with the gust of wind, propulsion seemed his best bet, but he hadn't considered the puzzle laterally enough. There must be a reason for all this sand to be laying around, it could have just been a stone floor, perhaps there was something buried under it.

Deciding to forego spells in order to not attract the derision of the enchanted disc above, Harry dug into the sand with his hands, but it didn't seem to matter how deep he went, there just seemed to be more sand. When he reached three feet down, Harry gave up the struggle of preventing the sand from falling back in the hole and climbed out.

He couldn't help but notice, before it all evened out again, that the sand he'd dug out of the hole had piled up against the wall to a height of two feet. He looked up at the disc and snorted.

"You can't possibly be serious?" he asked the disc. It remained silent. "That would take forever. Even with-"

Once again, Harry realised he had overlooked the obvious. He instantly remembered the spell he'd used in the second task, the pillar of earth that had simply risen from the lake bed and plopped through the surface at Harry's command. He'd felt bad, Neville had chosen to use gillyweed at Harry's suggestion after trying for weeks to perfect a passable transfiguration and failing. But Harry had wanted to prove himself during the tournament and through winning, prove that he wasn't just Neville's lackey.

"Aguamenti!" incanted Harry, pouring water onto the sand below in order to cement it slightly better together. The disc above him lowered another foot. "Terraortus!" he said sharply and after a momentary shaking of the sand around him, the ground began to rise under food, carrying him to the level of the doorway. He made a neat jump from his column of sand through the door frame.

He shook his feet experimentally, ensuring that the sand he'd just felt between his toes had not followed him into the realm of reality. He turned to watch Dumbledore make the next step and allowed his mind to wander to the very nature of the tasks.

The first stair of every three is about challenging your identity, thought Harry. The second, challenged not your abilities, but your ability to perceive and accept your own strengths and weaknesses. Each time it was not until Harry admitted his own limitations and accepted his abilities that he could pass. The third? Harry had his suspicions and if they were correct, he had a pretty firm idea of what came next.

"You don't understand!" roared Sirius Black as Harry stood over him. His wand trembling as he levelled it at the throat of his parent's betrayer. "I'm your godfather Harry! I didn't betray your parents, it was Peter Pettigrew!"

Harry's decision wavered slightly as did his wand. "What?" he asked Sirius in a raspy voice.

"Peter Pettigrew betrayed your parents, he was their secret keeper!"

"YOU KILLED HIM!" roared Harry.

"Yes," confessed Black. "But not because he'd cornered me as they said, but out of revenge for your parent's deaths! You have to understand Harry, we switched, Peter and I, we never thought he'd be the one they'd suspect, we never thought he'd be the spy!"

"Don't trust him Harry," came a second voice, that made him turn. Remus Lupin stood in the door, covering the two of them with a wand. His eyes were frantic and panicked, but the Defence Against the Dark Arts teacher stood strong. "Whatever you do, don't trust that man, don't make the same mistake your parents did."

"Harry!" roared Black, his voice shrill. "He's not even a man Harry, he's a werewolf!"

Abruptly, Harry, who'd been screeching in his head for what felt like hours, fighting to regain control of what he was seeing snapped back into the driver's seat and found himself in control of his younger body once more. He levelled the wand at Black instantly, ready to incant the syllables he'd need to snuff out his life once and for all and shuddered to a stop.

This was all in his head, he reasoned, this wouldn't change anything that had already happened. What satisfaction would his death bring now? It would only betray himself, everything he and Dumbledore had fought for, all of the base human behaviour he'd stood against, the revenge, the bloodshed, the needlessness of it all.

So Harry, as he had in reality, took the only course of action available to him, knowing that he'd have to relive this night at least once more. This time outside his dreams. He lowered his wand slightly. He turned slightly to Lupin and gave him a sad smile. "I'm sorry," he said silently and then flung a bind at Sirius Black.

Black rose fluidly and seized Harry by the wrist, forcing the spell away. He pulled Harry's arm back sharply and twisted his wand from his hand and cast him aside. Lupin's curse was parried by the Dark Lord's right hand and his killing curse struck the werewolf before he could even flinch. The last of his father's true friends stood in the doorway for a moment, silhouetted by the light behind and fell backwards.

Harry seized Hermione's wand from her lifeless hand and spun, taking a duelling position. Black laughed and fell into one similar.

"Going to fight me are you Harry?" asked Black, glee in his smile and relish in his eyes.

"No," said Harry bluntly. "I'm going to wipe the floor with you."

Black leapt forward, Harry's wand flashing down in his hand. Harry blocked the curse offhandedly and turned inside the older wizard's guard. His curse threw Black through a wall of the shrieking shack and crashing to the floor in the opposite room. Harry leapt through, a second curse on his lips, Black was waiting for him.

The crazed pureblood bashed Harry's curse away with a double handed block, that tipped him from his feet. Harry kicked him in the face as he fell, his toe striking the wizard just under the chin and Black collapsed to the floor unconscious.

Harry fell through his kick back onto the star stairs and stood there for a moment, shaking with anger before he took a steadying gasp of air. He could feel a twitch in his throat and coughed it away before it could develop. He'd lost two people that night, the last link to his father and a good friend.

Lupin had been a good man through and through, just as Harry had estimated him. He had given his life, cursed as it was to the defence of those weaker than himself and had died doing what he taught; defending against the dark arts. His death served as a constant reminder to Harry that no matter how quick you were, how prepared, you walked a perilously dangerous line when fighting the dark arts.

Hermione on the other hand was a tragedy. The girl who'd been praised by so many as the smartest of her generation, snuffed out like a match in her fourteenth year upon the earth. Harry, Neville, McGonagall, Dumbledore and strangely enough, Snape had attended her funeral, they'd been the only magical people there.

For someone who'd loved magic so much, she'd had a really appalling time of it at Hogwarts, what with Voldemort and the loss of Ron Weasley in first year, spending her entire second year as a statue and her death at the end of third year, Harry was surprised that her parents held no grudge when they'd introduced themselves.

Harry sighed and stepped forward again, not even bothering to contemplate what came next.

He almost fell in surprise as his foot merely touched the next stair, completely unopposed. He turned to Dumbledore, convinced that this was some sort of test in itself, Dumbledore just stepped down and looked blankly at him for a moment.

"Are you alright, Harry?" he asked after a moment.

"Tell me something I couldn't possibly know or have subconsciously deducted," demanded Harry, warily.

"That would be rather pointless," said Dumbledore, rationally. "You can hardly compare an answer of which you have no knowledge to itself. For instance I could say 'I have a fondness for yellow and pink polka dot underwear.' This would hardly do you much good considering you have no idea if this is true or something I've just invented to confuse you."

"Or something I've invented to confuse me," replied Harry.

"Ah," said Dumbledore. "You are wondering, of course, if this is a challenge in itself, as you have just experienced a step with no challenge?" Harry nodded. "Whilst it is of course possible that this is merely a test, I do believe that the enchantment has opted not to challenge you on this matter any longer." Harry looked at him strangely. "If it further reassures you, Harry, I think, therefore I am." Dumbledore's eyes twinkled at him.

"Why wouldn't it challenge me?" asked Harry.

"Well, it might be because, like I, the enchantment is becoming old and senile and tends to forget things," replied Dumbledore, his own joke pulling a smile onto his lips. "Or, it had decided that you have well acquitted yourself on previous tasks of this nature and has nothing more to challenge. I myself have not been tasked on my second second stair."

Harry nodded, accepting the explanation and stepped forward. He landed on the next stair down, again without challenge.

"I could get used to this," muttered Harry to himself, knowing he was wishing hell upon himself. He stepped forward once more.

3. The Dark Lord's Return

BY THE DIVINING LIGHT
Chapter Three: The Dark Lord's Return

Harry awoke slowly, his eyes painful and his head pulsating in agony every time his heart beat. A sinking feeling crept into the pit of his stomach as he surveyed the scene before him, an odd experience as he was currently suspended upside down.

Voldemort stood over the prone form of Neville Longbottom, his newly resurrected body terrible to behold. Sirius Black crouched beside a spitting cauldron, clutching his stump of an arm furiously whilst it bled. The Death Eaters stood in a circle around the four of them.

Harry twisted against the ropes that bound him, knowing that he was bound fast to a vast statue of an angel but couldn't fight the compulsion to destroy the creature that stood before him. Voldemort brushed Neville's chin with his wand and the boy who lived pulled his face away, as though he'd been burned by the touch.

"Your mother's sacrifice bought you fourteen years Neville," said Voldemort, his voice dripping with satisfaction, his eyes wide with expectation. "But you should have known that the clock was ticking away, counting down the seconds to my return. You should have fled, Neville Longbottom, you should have run as far as your legs could carry you."

Neville lifted his chin in the air and replied with something impossibly brave. Stupid, brave Neville. Voldemort chuckled, but it fooled nobody, anger poured off him in waves. He raised his wand as though to strike him down, then suddenly whirled and directed his wand upon Black, who cowered, trying to protect his head with his one good arm. A flick of Voldemort's wand replaced Black's missing hand with a monstrous hand of silver, the fingers of which ended in curved talons and glittered menacingly in the moonlight.

He turned upon his Death Eaters, who all looked as though they were fighting the urge to flee.

"All of you are here tonight for one thing alone; to witness the death of the one you dared to suppose defeated me! To see as he dies, cowering in the mud like the worm that he is! To understand that nobody alive; not Neville Longbottom, not Albus Dumbledore can defy me!"

He turned to Neville and threw his wand to the ground. Neville rose quickly and cast a disarming spell at Voldemort. The Dark Lord neatly deflected it and laughed.

"Come now Neville, Dumbledore has taught you to duel, has he not? First we bow-" Voldemort made an elaborate sweeping blow and Neville stepped forward and cursed him. For a moment it looked as though it would connect.

"And then we duel!" cried Voldemort as he sidestepped the curse and blew Neville off his feet and across the graveyard where he fell at the bottom of Harry's statue.

Neville stood again, blood running down over his face and took another forceful blow to the jaw that dropped him to one knee. Again he rose, his face angry, his knuckles white, his wand held in a death grip. The Death Eater's began to laugh. Voldemort flung aside Neville's curse and struck him again, he crashed into Harry and fell to the floor beneath the statue, unconscious.

A second spell from Voldemort's wand bound Neville in thick black ropes. The Dark Lord aimed his wand with a nasty smirk and began the incantation that would end Neville. Harry knew it was now that he must intercede.

"I wouldn't do that," he said quietly and much to the surprise of everyone except Harry, Voldemort paused and looked at him curiously. Then his eyes lit up in excitement.

"Welcome to the party at last, Mr. Potter," said Voldemort, hissing gently. There was no sign of madness in his eyes as Harry stared into them, only the cold intellect of a sociopath. "You've arrived just in time to watch your friend die, Harry. But don't worry, you won't be far behind him."

"That's funny, I was just thinking the same thing about you," replied Harry softly, his eyes glittering malevolently. Voldemort stared at him for a moment and then gave a derisive laugh, in that moment, Harry caught a glimpse of the man's mind through his eyes.

"Idle threats? If that's what you want to think Tom," replied Harry and stared intently at him. "Go ahead, kill him then."

Voldemort faltered, he looked slowly between Harry and Neville, the Death Eaters exchanged glances around him and whispered. Voldemort turned upon them, hissing angrily, sparks roaring from the end of his wand. He rounded upon Harry again, his eyes blazing angrily.

"Your words will not save your little friend!" he roared, staring at Harry, who shrugged, even though he was upside down.

"I don't think they will, no. But if you pay heed to them, you might both live to see the dawn," said Harry quietly. He ensured there was no trace of threat in his voice, only the cold truth shining through. Voldemort again laughed.

"You're a fool, boy," he said coldly.

"No, you're the fool," snapped Harry. "You're missing a salient fact and you remember what happened last time you cursed him and you hadn't all the facts? If you curse him, Tom Riddle, he'll die, yes, but he'll take you with him."

Voldemort once again paused, mid-curse and stared at Harry. Then, seeing the logic in his words, raised his wand to Harry.

"I've heard of you, Harry Potter. Oh yes," he said softly. He turned on his heel to face Black. "Tell me of the boy, Padfoot."

"He is Dumbledore's apprentice, milord," grovelled Black piteously. "He is said to be the greatest wizard of his generation, greater even than Longbottom."

"Fool!" Voldemort lashed out with his wand and Black whimpered and fell silent. "Have I not just proven that Longbottom is an amateur wizard?" He rounded upon Lucius Malfoy who seemed to shrink away before him.

"You!" cried Voldemort. "What do you know of the boy?"

"He's a talented wizard of slight intellect, milord. The mongrel Black gives him too much credit, my son Draco for instance-"

Harry's laugh echoed long and loud around the graveyard. He spat on the floor.

"Your Draco? Draco Malfoy isn't worth the genetic material he's comprised of! Did Narcissa tell you which of the help sired your son yet, Lucius, or is she still claiming he's yours?" chuckled Harry, swinging slightly now.

"Shut your mouth half-" began Lucius Malfoy but Harry cut him off by laughing even louder.

"I can see a familial resemblance though, Lucius! You're both bloated self important windbags with very little magical talent! I did enjoy watching you getting your arse served to you on a plate by a house elf. I would have suggested he was the one shagging your wife, but I think your son might have a little more in the way of ability if he was!"

Lucius looked furiously upon Harry, who grinned back. Voldemort looked on with something akin to amusement. Harry rounded his venomous tongue upon him.

"Don't know what you're laughing at, Riddle. You're as halfblooded as I am and as stupid as he is; you've the worst of both worlds!"

Voldemort snarled, stalked forward and raised his wand, touching it gently against Harry's throat. "Speak again, little Harry and I'll take your tongue."

"Ugly too," said Harry, mischief creeping into his eyes. Voldemort raised his wand and then thought better of it. He stared at Harry, a calculating look in his eyes.

"What has Dumbledore told you, boy?" he demanded. "What do you know?"

"I know nothing," said Harry coldly. "But I suspect a great deal. Like how I suspect that this body represents a fraction of your soul. Correct? How I suspect that you were planning on further fragmenting it when you went to kill Neville on Halloween. How I suspect that a fraction of your soul was transferred to Neville on the night of his parent's murders. How I suspect that this is how you were able to use a ritual that had long been thought impossible to resurrect yourself a new body. How I suspect that you used his blood in the potion, my godfather's flesh and your father's bone. Like how I suspect that the blood which flows through your veins ties Neville Longbottom's life to yours, how I suspect that curse you wish to strike him with will kill not just him, but both of you, owing to the dual connection you now both share. You are a great wizard, Tom Riddle, by all accounts. But you are woefully ignorant of matters of the soul. You are a shadow of a man, Tom. You make the same mistakes time and time again. You are a fool."

Harry took a deep breath after releasing that long diatribe and the sound of him panting slightly was the only sound that broke the silence of the graveyard for a long time. Even Voldemort appeared stunned. Then his lips curved into a smile.

"If what you suspect is true Mr. Potter, there's nothing that stops me from harming him, just killing him. Correct?"

Harry nodded, casually. In reality, he'd realised the huge mistake he'd made and babbled something incoherent, it wouldn't change what happened at this point. Voldemort stepped forward and stuck Neville with a curse that made him writhe and scream uncontrollably. Harry knew it wasn't the cruciatus; huge purple welts began to cover his body and as he screamed blood bubbled from his mouth. Voldemort turned to Black.

"Take care of our esteemed guest, won't you Padfoot?"

His godfather rose from the floor and stepped over, wearing a smile that was all teeth. Harry twisted gently in his ropes. As Sirius Black drew closer, Harry twisted one final time and then spat in his face.

"Cummon' then you mangy, scum sucking piece of shit!" he roared and immediately twisted in the opposite direction. Black lashed out in anger with his new clawed hand. Fortunately for Harry, he missed completely and severed the ropes to Harry's side, as well as a large amount of the statue, allowing him to swing free.

Black moved to eviscerate him but Harry stepped forward and delivered the most powerful blow he could to the man's stomach, winding him. Knowing he had no chance against the much larger man in a hand to hand fight, Harry twisted Black's wand from his hand and blew him across the graveyard. Voldemort's disarming spell was upon him before he had any chance to defend himself. Harry dropped to avoid the Dark Lord's killing curse.

When he rose again, he had a lump of stone in his hand, which he tossed at Voldemort in a calculated arc. The stone took the bone breaking curse designed for him and gave Harry the precious moments he needed to scoop up Neville's wand and meet the next curse head on. He gave the wand a sharp jab forward and then twisted it upward and away, reducing the eviscerating curse to nothing but a pale yellow mist.

Voldemort faltered for a moment and Harry flung a barrage of curses at the Dark Lord, all of which he blocked with unerring speed and precision. Harry deflected his counter attack with a curved shield and it blew the statue behind him to pieces. A flick of Harry's wand banished the vast lumps of stone at the Dark Lord, a second set them alight. Voldemort disappeared behind a wall of small meteorites for a moment before they came together in a cloud of dust. The Death Eaters began to move forward but then faltered, reluctant to attack Harry after seeing him so casually best Voldemort.

"Accio wand," said Harry and summoned his own wand back to him from Black's pocket. After a moment he raised Neville's wand in the direction of the cloud of dust.

"Avada Kedavra!" screamed Voldemort, from behind his smokescreen.

"Rictusempra," countered Harry, purely for the effect of making him seem casual. In reality, Harry had countered with the same curse Voldemort had used.

This time, when Priori Incantatem took a hold, Harry closed his eyes and allowed the phoenix song to fill his mind. More than anything else than being away from Hogwarts, Harry missed Fawkes' ability to calm him with a single note.

Don't break the connection the song whispered in his ear, its noise all consuming, omnipresent, omnipotent. Harry basked in it. Don't break the connection.

"DO NOTHING!" came Voldemort's angry cry.

When he opened his eyes again he was three feet off the floor and the thick golden thread was connecting the two wands. Harry, with the aid of experience, focused all of his considerable intent on forcing the large beads of light back to the tip of Voldemort's wand.

They moved much quicker this time, almost touching the tip of his wand before he had any chance to react. Harry felt a smirk creep across his face as the beads approached Voldemort's wand. At almost exactly the same moment, the beads reversed their direction and Voldemort narrowed his eyes in concentration. Harry redoubled his efforts but the beads began to slide ever so slowly toward Harry. As they began to reach the halfway point, Harry began to panic. He had no idea what was going on. In reality, Harry had forced the beads home, if Voldemort won this duel of wands, would he fail the task.

Harry swallowed as the beads drew closer and closed his eyes, allowing the phoenix song to focus his attempts and control the flow of magic. He felt, rather than saw, the beads slow and then stop at the centre of the glowing thread of magic. He opened his eyes wide, his entire being buzzing with the highs and lows of phoenix song and looked Voldemort in the eyes. Voldemort looked back curiously at him but there was fear there, Harry could see it.

"I'm going to end you," said Harry, slowly and deliberately, not allowing his control over the magic to slip an iota. Voldemort's eyes widened in shock, just for a moment and he slammed the beads home.

The wand held in Voldemort's grip issued a painful scream and something blue and shadowy popped from the end; Padfoot's hand. It screamed again and an old man came out; Frank Bryce. He circled the combatants once and then turned to Harry, his face hard. What happened next almost made Harry drop his wand in terror.

"Harry Potter," he said, but it was not the voice of Frank Bryce that Harry remembered, this voice was high and feminine and sounded like cold steel; it was not a human voice. "It lies in the darkness, Harry Potter, it is cloaked in shadow and smoke, it lurks and waits for you in the darkness of the everwell. Kill it. Kill it and strike its remains from this mortal plain. KILL IT HARRY POTTER!"

Then as abruptly as the voice had erupted from his mouth, it was gone and Frank Bryce's voice said, "You fight him boy. Don't let go."

There was another scream and Bertha Jorkins appeared too, her eyes bright as she looked upon him.

"You're a hero Harry," she said, Harry could see she meant what she said. "You can beat him, hold on."

Another scream and Harry's throat closed up as the figure of Alice Longbottom tumbled from the wand. She floated over and looked at him piteously.

"Save my boy Harry," she begged and Harry nodded his head.

"I will," he promised, knowing she couldn't possibly understand the lengths he'd go to. "I will."

Frank Longbottom joined them and stood on his other side. "Your parents would be so proud Harry,"

Harry bowed his head and tried to swallow.

"When you break the connection, we'll linger only for minutes, but we can give you time. Get to the cup."

"I know," said Harry, his entire shaking now, from the force of the wand.

"Good boy, Harry," said Frank and then he glanced at Voldemort. "Do it now, Harry. Run!"

Harry broke the connection and spun on the spot, seizing Neville's arm he held out his wand and yelled "Accio Triwizard Cup!"

He knew it would take slightly too long, he turned and flicked out his wand to deflect the curse from Sirius Black, who leapt forward, his claw raised. The slash of Harry's wand cut him in half and the look of shock became permanently etched onto his godfather's face. The illusion shattered as the cup hit him on the back.

He staggered momentarily on the stair, his mind spinning. Frank Bryce's cryptic demand at the forefront of a cacophony of confusing thoughts. He turned to Dumbledore, who was still two steps behind him.

"What is the everwell?"

Dumbledore looked curiously at him.

"'It lies in the darkness, it is cloaked in shadow and smoke, it lurks and waits for you in the darkness of the everwell. Kill it.'" repeated Harry.

"I must confess I am as perplexed as you are," replied Dumbledore.

Harry looked forward and for the first time could see the end of the stairs. Dumbledore's faint light just illuminated a cliff that appeared in the tunnel around them, serving only to remind them of the nauseating drop that faced him if they failed. Upon the cliff, there was a small stake, burried into the sand and the stone beneath, a silvery thread wrapped around it.

"Is that it?" asked Harry.

"Yes," said Dumbledore. "That, I believe, is the star stair enchantment."

"It looks simple," remarked Harry.

"Deceptively so. I think it would be for the best if you continued now, Harry."

Harry took another step, with no challenge and a second. Then, not daring to imagine what came next, stepped to the platform below.

The darkness he found himself in was unlike any he'd previously found himself in. Darkness, knew Harry, only terrified the Human race for the secrets it held, the monsters it concealed. This darkness though, it wasn't the shadows that Harry knew, it wasn't the blue moonlight darkness of the Hogwart's grounds, it wasn't the darkness of a room, weakly illuminated by the starlight through a window, it wasn't even the pitch blackness of a dungeon.

It was a blackness that hung oppressive over him, that clung to his skin, that writhed around him. It was malicious, repugnant and concious. Harry held up a hand and conjured the same pale green fire that Dumbledore had before. The darkness retreated, revealing the nothingness below him. It did not withdraw as normal darkness would but instead skittered away, forming a perfect sphere around him, beyond which the light stopped, as though it couldn't permeate the dark.

Harry bit his lip nervously. He feared this darkness, this nothingness, it was tainted and evil. It smelled of death. He reached out with his burning hand and the darkness leapt away with an audible hiss. He stepped forward and heard it close in behind him. He turned again and it leapt back, only to fill in behind him once more. He took another step forward and it scattered before him to reveal a wall. It curved, carved perfectly from rock, one sheer plane. It reminded him of the tower he'd been in for an earlier task.

He spun at a sound behind him and out of the darkness and into the sphere of light stepped Voldemort, the darkness clinging to him like tendrils of smoke, before falling back as he passed beyond their reach. Harry extinguished the flames, ready to fight, but the darkness rushed forward, an evil sound as it did and Harry immediately re-ignited the flame, the tendrils of shadow hissing their displeasure. The darkness was more of a threat here than Voldemort.

The Dark Lord smiled widely and looked at him calmly, ignoring the darkness that moved behind him, skulking like a wolf, biding its time. When Voldemort opened his mouth, Harry realised that it wasn't the Dark Lord at all. A forked, blackened tongue slipped over a mouthful of large, curved, razor sharp teeth, caressing them gently. When it spoke, his voice was a choking, malevolent gurgle, as though it had been long unused. It felt out of place in contrast to Voldemort's usually articulate speech.

"You give a boy an apple," it sang softly, still smiling broadly. "He chases you in a coracle all the way down, down, down the hole to the Elfhame. But there's no coming back Harry Potter, there's no coming back."

It leant in close, Harry could taste the putrid breath in his own mouth. It came horribly close to his ear and Harry had to resist the temptation to strike out at it. It whispered again, directly into his ear, it's forked tongue slipping over the side of his face as it flicked about.

"What you seek lies in the darkness, Harry Potter. You seek it out, you seek it out and release me upon the world. I wish to taste mortal flesh once more."

Then it looked him in the eyes; they were dark and endless. Harry could see the darkness within the creature, the death that it wished him and the penetrating intelligence like a razor's edge deep inside. For a moment, the eyes trapped him, in with the darkness.

Harry had never been conscious before that he'd had a soul, he knew he had one of course, but in that moment, he felt it inside him. He felt it shrink away from the darkness in the creature, the darkness that burned his soul, his very existence.

Harry collapsed to his hands and knees on the last star stair, gasping for breath. Dumbledore teetered on the edge of his step for a moment, unsure if he should step forward to help him. Harry fell forward onto the blessed ground, rolled over and lay on his back for a long time, still feeling the burn on his soul as clearly as he would have felt a burn on his face.

Dumbledore stepped down upon the last step and then toward Harry. He kneeled next to him and extinguished the flames from his hand. They were engulfed in a pitch blackness that regardless, seemed very bright to Harry. Dumbledore laid a cold hand on Harry's face and this small gesture brought Harry's soul surging up again, bouncing back from the damage that had been done to it.

Harry lay in the dark for a long time, his eyes staring blankly. Then abruptly, spoke to Dumbledore. "We shouldn't be doing this?"

"Oh?" asked Dumbledore placidly. "This morning you were quite sure."

"This morning I hadn't seen what lurks in the dark below."

"And what did you see?"

"Voldemort."

"Voldemort has already beaten us here?" asked Dumbledore, his eyes wide with surprise.

"No, it wasn't Voldemort. It just assumed his shape. It was something darker and older than Voldemort. Evil in a way that no human ever could be, more evil than Voldemort who acts with logic and reason. This, it's something primordial and driven by something we can't comprehend. If we release it, we risk it devouring the world."

"Yet, what choice to we have but to go on?"

"There has to be something else that can work!" said Harry, his voice rising slightly.

"Yet you know there is not. Even the Elixir of Life could not save Neville. What we seek is his only chance, slim as it is."

Harry sighed and nodded. Eventually he rose and he and Dumbledore both lit handfuls of green fire to illuminate the area around them. They were in a fairly wide corridor that appeared to be perfectly hewn out of the rock. It stretched on before them for further than either of them could see. They continued onward, warily. Harry's leather string still wrapped firmly in his fingers and Dumbledore's fingers twitching, ready to spring into action.

"You give a boy an apple," sang Harry softly as they walked. "He chases you in a coracle all the way down, down, down the hole to the Elfhame. But there's no coming back. No, there's no coming back."

"Pardon, Harry?"

"That's what it said. Do you know what it means?"

"It's the story of Conle. He took a magical apple from a creature of the Elfhame, where we are headed now, and a month later, stole him away in a glass coracle."

"Why?"

"Probably to eat him," replied Dumbledore succinctly.

"Charming."

"Quite. Although it does give us a few interesting ideas to mull over."

"Like what?"

"Well, if it were to be believed, it would imply that it was the creature from the tale and the creature you encountered are one and the same. Also implying that what we are descending into is what was formerly known as Elfhame, realm of the elves, the Plain of Delight, etcetera."

"Realm of the elves?"

"Think not of Dobby and his ilk," replied Dumbledore with a smile that didn't brighten his eyes. "True elves are, well, I believe you just encountered one. They are beings of an old time, before our kind. They do not think as we do and exist only for their own pleasures. I had believed them gone from this world."

"So they're all evil?"

"No, just as there are Voldemorts and Longbottoms in our world, there exist parallels in theirs. What you must remember though, Harry, is that no matter how they may appear, or behave, they act only in their own selfish interests. They know no other way."

"What do they look like?"

"They are not bound to mortal flesh as we are Harry. They can take the appearance of anything or everything, though they cannot take immaterial or inanimate form without being lost forever. Also, you will always know one by it's eyes."

Dumbledore suddenly reached out and seized Harry by the arm. They both stopped, their feet inches from a perfectly straight line of white marble that stretched across the corridor they'd been walking along.

"What is it?" asked Harry.

"Our next challenge," replied Dumbledore.

4. The Everwell

BY THE DIVINING LIGHT
Chapter Four: The Everwell

Dumbledore lifted his fingers and reached out into the darkness, his hand encountered some form of force suspended in midair, spiderwebs of crackling purple magic emanated from where he touched. A small smile reached his eyes and he turned to Harry.

"Let us rest here a moment. I do not feel that this shall be a particularly worrisome obstacle."

Together they sat, a little way away from the line, in the dust. After a moment, Dumbledore removed an object from his robes, an object that Harry was all too familiar to Harry. That still made him hold his breath every time he saw it. That was probably the most powerful magical object created in a century. Held reverently between Dumbledore's spindly fingers was an object of such incredible magical power it terrified him. The small cloth bag was comprised of two sheets of tattered grey material, perhaps four square inches each, sewn neatly together, with a small drawstring stitched into the top.

It wasn't much to look at, though Harry had long realised that the objects most coveted or powerful in the wizarding world were generally not those that looked beautiful. The Diary of Tom Riddle, in which Voldemort had stored his very mortal essence had been little more more than paper and binding. The Resurrection Stone, which he and Dumbledore had last seen in the possession of Voldemort was an object of incredible power, but looked like a pebble one might find on the beach. The Elder Wand; in the possession of his master appeared to be nothing more than a normal wand. Only his own invisibility cloak, expertly stitched and beautiful to behold broke the mould and it was the least coveted of the Hallows, the lesser of the three.

The object in Dumbledore's hands though, was of his own design and making. Though he knew his mentor had a penchant for enchanting magically powerful objects, this small cloth bag belonged to the order of magic that the Hallows were comprised of. Mortal magic, the modern magic Harry had a talent for, could never have survived in this realm. The essence of the arcane magic that permeated the very rock surrounding them was a corrosive force that tore the complex mortal magic to shreds. Knowing this, knowing this was the road that they would travel, Dumbledore had forged the enchantments on this artifact with his mind, bending the oldest of magics to his will with nothing but his pure train of thought. It was an incredible feat.

Dumbledore reached into the cloth bag and pulled a bottle of water from it. It rose from the bag much in the same way one could remove Gryffindor's sword from the sorting hat, bending the fabric of physics in a way that nobody could explain. Dumbledore handed it to Harry, gave him a patient smile as Harry examined it critically and then reached back into the bag and removed a number of items; two ham sandwiches, a bottle of orange pop, two apples, a number of chocolate biscuits and a small, slightly ornate dagger.

He shared this venerable treasure of food with Harry, bar the orange pop, which he knew Harry would never drink and together they ate in silence. The food was absolutely delicious and Harry washed it all down with mouthfuls of the water, which was ice cold.

For this was the power of Dumbledore's bag. Whatever they needed, provided it was not magical itself, would be accessible to them via the bag. Whatever came from the bag was real and not the work of illusions, enchantments or transfiguration. It shattered three of Gamp's five laws of elemental transfiguration.

It terrified Harry to consider that the object that they were descending into this dreadful place to obtain was, at least by Dumbledore's reckoning, infinitely more potent than this bag.

"The deeper you sink into the old magics," he'd told Harry gravely. "The schools of magic become less discrete, until they're barely distinguishable. Magic becomes less the slender and delicate instruments of a watch maker, and more a mallet. Decidedly more potent, but far more blunt as well."

Harry knew that the magic they sought greatly terrified Dumbledore and so it terrified him also.

"You never did tell me why you felt you had to hide your abilities in first year," Dumbledore said suddenly and Harry looked up at him, his eyebrow peaked slightly.

"I thought it was fairly obvious."

"Ah, but so often what we think is obvious is actually a mystery."

"Do you not remember that transfiguration lesson, after Halloween?"

Dumbledore thought for a moment and then smiled.

"Ah yes, when you transfigured your table into a bird and enchanted it to attack poor Professor McGonagall. Originally we wrote it off as accidental magic, considering it now, we overlooked it rather quickly."

"It was two days after Halloween and the first lesson of the day, I overslept and—" Harry trailed off, looking at the floor.

"Ah, I see," replied Dumbledore. A long silence came between them before he spoke again. "Your parents."

"Yeah," said Harry, hastily wiping at his face. Dumbledore seemed very interested in cutting his his apple into very symmetrical pieces. "She'd obviously forgotten, I shouldn't have taken it so badly, but— Then, after seeing the look on everyone's faces, I hid my abilities because it was just going to be another way I was different; Harry Potter, who's got no parents, loads of talent on a broomstick. And everyone assuming I was loaded because my dad was pureblood."

Harry shrugged and took a deep bite of his apple.

"I sometimes forget how young you are, Harry," he said and Harry shrugged again, because he hated people calling him young.

When they had finished their makeshift, but delicious meal they both rose and Dumbledore held the bag forward to Harry, allowing him to delve his hand within.

"You will need the strongest bind you can manage, Harry," he said softly. Harry couldn't help hear the hint of resignation in his voice that always came before a fight.

"You're worried about this barrier?" asked Harry. "Is it strong?"

"No, it's probably the most fragile piece of magic that we've encountered here." Harry felt his face betray the confusion he felt. "It is this which worries me. It is not a barrier to keep us out, but to keep something in."

Harry swallowed, pensively and reached into the bag, removing two thin cotton threads and a small bone bead. Dumbledore nodded his satisfaction and tucked the bag back into the folds of his robes. Then he turned and raised the dagger to the barrier. Harry spent a few seconds knotting the bone bead to the cotton thread with a Hangman's slipknot. The connotations of this knot and the liberal amounts of aggression that Harry focused on the bead would allow him to work his most powerful offensive old magic. The second piece of thread would allow him to bind whatever hid beyond the barrier.

Dumbledore, having checked that Harry was satisfied with the preparations, brought the knife powerfully down toward the barrier. The same purple spiderwebs leapt up to meet it but appeared to tear asunder beneath the edge of the blade. Dumbledore stepped through, green fire held aloft and Harry followed close behind. Harry moved in front of Dumbledore, knot at the ready, allowing the headmaster to repair the tear behind them.

Harry held his breath as he waited for whatever was contained by the boundary, but nothing stirred in the darkness. Dumbledore came to his side.

"Do you feel anything?" asked Harry.

"Nothing."

"I think that worries me more."

They began forward and almost at once there came a sound that was both mundane and of the greatest significance to Harry. It sounded like a snake slithering through the fallen leaves of an early autumn, like the breath of the wind against the boughs of a tree. Harry raised his knot, but Dumbledore stayed his arm.

"It is ignoring us, let it pass," he said quietly. "It will not continue to do so when it realises our passage has not set it free. I should much prefer to be beyond it at that point."

"What is it?"

"I do not know, nor do I wish to find out."

Harry nodded, but kept his fingers tight on the bone bead nonetheless. They walked more quickly onward and they were almost upon a second barrier when a great cry of anger rose from behind them. He instantly spun on the spot and fell to one knee, ready to give Dumbledore the time to break the protections from the inside.

Whatever Harry had been expecting to appear from the dark, what finally emerged was certainly not it. Ragged cloak flapping in a breeze that didn't exist, came a twelve foot tall shadow, head bowed to accommodate the roof of the tunnel, long clawed bony fingers extending down to rake the floor as it took each step. As it stepped forward, Harry felt a shrill of terror fly through him, the like of which he'd not felt since— A dementor, thought Harry. It must be. But it couldn't be; no dementor was twelve feet tall and—

Then he saw it's face and recognised it.

His own features stared back at him, twisted violently over a facial structure that was no longer human. Malevolent red eyes stared back at him, each singing songs of death through Harry's head.

'This is you, I am you, this is what you become.' They told him.

Harry felt another wave of fear flash through him and let a gasp escape his lips. The creature —he— took a step forward, an inhuman smile flashing across his features, revealing the huge shards of bone that rose like battle standards from the inhumanly wide shoulders. Harry swallowed hard and raised his shaking hands to pull the knot tight but found his fingers frozen by the horror of the nightmare before him.

He was just about to run screaming in terror when it came to him like the bolt out of the blue, something in his mind made a connection without any logical thought, as they so often did. He felt a smile slip across his face.

He laughed suddenly, a deep, true laugh and stepped forward, his hands no longer shaking.

"I'm travelling to the very depths of the world and you're the best thing they can throw at me? A boggart!?"

The creature narrowed it's eyes at him and the feelings of terror welled up in his chest again, but Harry was a match for it now.

"Our father, who art in Heaven," he spat in tones that would have made a priest wince.

The prayer had no religious connotations to Harry, but his mother had been catholic all her life, selectively catholic she called it, and it was she that had whispered this prayer to him as a baby. It was this prayer that were her last words to him. These were the words he'd spoken at Neville's bedside two nights ago. These words were the most powerful mental defence he knew. They symbolised everything that Harry had lost, stood to lose. They symbolised everything he knew of love, protection and comfort. For Harry, they were the most powerful words in magic.

"Hallowed be thy name, Thy kingdom come, Thy will be done," he said, the strength in his voice increasing with each word. Then with another derisive laugh, Harry twisted a knot closed around the bone bead.

He had to half close his eyes as the pure might of his curse struck the boggart with all the power and sophistication of a locomotive. It was bright enough to half blind him and loud enough to make his head spin.

The boggart's feet never moved, but it's head and the left side of its body twisted away out of sight, hideously deformed, almost appearing to have been blown completely away. It skittered around on unstable feet for a moment, sounds like footsteps on gravel reached Harry's ears each time it moved its broken body. Harry craned his head around to look at Dumbledore, in order to note his progress. Only the slightest of movements in the corner of his eye warned him and brought his eyes back to his foe.

It twitched and convulsed for a moment, before with a hideous cracking noise drew its broken half body back into position through sheer strength. Harry watched in disgust as the broken bones and pulverised chest righted itself, then stretched. His jaw dropped as it took an unsteady half step toward him. He quickly tied another knot in the thread. A second blast hit it, twisting it's head away and obviously breaking it's neck. It merely snapped it back into place.

Harry stared in shock at it. He realised now that he'd been too quick to laugh it off as a boggart. This was a boggart in the same way a Tyrannosaurus Rex was a chicken. The monstrous creature cracked its jaw back into position and fixed Harry with it's piercing stare.

'Are you quite finished?'

Harry hit it again and then, on principle, added another blast, for good measure. He seized the second thread from his pocket and deftly tied a knot in it. If he couldn't fell the beast through force, he could certainly bind it. The creature screamed so loudly that Harry actually felt his eardrums burst. A loud ringing filled his ears and all sense of balance deserted him.

The next thing Harry knew, he was on his back in the dust staring at a stone ceiling above him. There was a deathly silence around him and he could feel blood drip from his ears, accompanied by a horrible ringing and pounding in his head. After a moment of laying staring at the ceiling, he was aware of a voice.

"Hwwwh!" it said. Of course, it didn't. Harry tried to listen harder.

"Harry," it said. It sounded familiar and old. "Harry," it said again, it was Dumbledore. "Get up Harry!"

Harry sat up and saw the creature bearing down upon him, its movement slightly hampered by the bind Harry had cast upon it. He looked around him for the thread and saw it perhaps four feet before him. This incidentally put it about four feet before the creature as well. Harry pulled the bone bead from his pocket and rose to his feet. Armed with nothing but a piece of string and the bone of a goat, Harry stepped forward to fight a creature not seen on the surface of the earth for hundreds of millions of years.

With deft fingers he cursed the boggart four more times, each blow forcing it back slightly until Harry darted forward and seized his binding thread. The creature came at him with a swiftness that was completely unpredictable. With incredible dexterity, Harry pulled a knot tight in it, constricting the creature's movements, but not stopping it. On it came. Another knot and it slowed again, but it was still coming too fast. Harry had a choice, keep tying knots and risk his own life, or flee and risk both his own life and Dumbledore's.

Harry tied another knot, a vicious expression crossing his features. The creature howled at him again and lifted an enormous skeletal claw with which to eviscerate him. Harry tied another knot, his movements determined. He made to tie another but his finger caught in the loop, snagging the line and costing him the bind. Fear leapt through his stomach once more and time seemed to slow and stop. He felt the rush of wind descend upon him, displacing the hair on his head, tickling the nape of his neck, this was the feeling of his impending death.

A thousand thoughts flashed through his mind until he fixed on one; the ridiculousness of it all. Here he was, at fourteen, about to die in the depths of the earth at the hands of a denizen of a mythological land and the only weapon he had to hand was a tiny piece of thread clutched between his fingers. What a futile waste of life. Then just as acceptance to his fate threatened to overcome him, something else welled up inside him; Neville's face swam into his mind's eye and suddenly Harry knew he had to fight for every second of life, just as Neville was.

He drew the knot closed in the nick of time and the deadly claws stopped inches from his head. He took a deep breath and rose from the ground. The boggart stared back, it's evil eyes glaring into Harry's own. Harry eyed the beast warily, wondering if the bind would hold it and as though by cue, it began to strain against it. Harry realised his own fears were fueling the creature.

Reciting the Lord's Prayer in his mind soothed the fears away and gave Harry the time to complete his bind. He was just contemplating giving it a further bind when Dumbledore called to him.

"Quickly, Harry."

Harry turned and walked back over to his headmaster, who was sweating in profuse concentration, holding a tiny sliver of the confining spell open for Harry to step through. He did quickly and then helped his headmaster through, who closed it behind him. He turned to Harry, an expression of exhaustion lining his aged face.

"Are you alright, sir?"

"I shall be shortly," replied Dumbledore. "I must confess that whilst the mind is willing, the body is not."

Harry nodded and after a moment they continued onward.

They had hardly walked for five minutes when they began to notice the long straight cave they'd been following had begun to widen into a larger cavern. As they walked to the centre of the cavern, it burst into an incredible light that made both Dumbledore and Harry cover their eyes, in order to lessen its blinding effect.

When their vision returned, they found themselves at the centre of a vast illuminated domed cavern. From the circumference of the floor, the floor sloped downward to the middle, where a circular hole, thirty feet across, sank into the ground. Dumbledore blocked Harry's movement with his arm and looked around carefully, but Harry was not worried, this is what they'd come for.

"The Everwell," said Harry, pointing.

"So it would appear."

Cautiously, they walked down to the Everwell, Harry was now so close to what they'd come seeking that he was practically salivating at the mouth. Just a few more steps to saving Neville.

"How do we proceed?" asked Harry.

"Downward, I believe," smiled Dumbledore.

"Could you manage to climb a rope down that far?"

"I doubt it."

"Then, am I to go alone?"

"I should hope not."

Harry sighed at his teacher's cryptic avoidance. So rather than pushing it any further, Harry peered over the edge and into the dark depths below. There seemed to be no sight of the bottom, the bright light of the cavern above swallowed by the moody depths of the Everwell. There was a rustling behind him and Harry turned to see Dumbledore prying something ridiculously large from his small cotton bag.

He handed it to Harry, who looked at in total bewilderment.

"Is this a—?"

"Parachute? Yes," interjected Dumbledore, smiling happily at Harry's look of total bewilderment, then he began to remove a second from the small bag. "Incidentally, I think it's time you tested your offensive magic theory. We have no idea what might be down there, or worse still," he paused for a minute, a grave look returning to his eyes. "I think we have a small idea of what might be awaiting us."

Harry nodded and removed once more, from his pocket, the length of thick rope that would allow him to tie a one—handed knot. He wrapped it around his hand for safety and donned his parachute, shrugging it over his shoulders and tightening it close to him. Dumbledore did the same and tucked his beard and long hair into his robes, once he was free falling they would just obstruct his vision.

"Pull the cord to deploy the device," instructed Dumbledore. "And use the middle chest plate to quick release it when you touch the ground. I think we ought to jump from opposite sides of the hole, in order to minimise the chance of our lines tangling. Also, ensure that you clear the sides of the well before jumping."

Harry nodded and jogged around to the other side of the hole. Almost breathless with anticipation. He was only one short drop from saving Neville.

At a signal from Dumbledore, he leapt out into the blackness.

5. The Plain of Delight

BY THE DIVINING LIGHT
Chapter Five: The Plain of Delight

"Harry," she laughed. "Harry stop it!"

But Harry didn't stop, he bundled another handful of snow down the back of her neck and she shrieked again. A blissful sound in the silence of the snow. He'd just bent to pick up another handful when she leapt at him, wrapping her arms around his chest and pulling them both into the snow.

There was a brief wrestling match before he ended up on top of her. He grinned down, their breath shimmering between them, coalescing together. She returned a shy grin as their cold noses touched. Then in a crunch of snow and the rustle of heavy coats they were kissing.

When the kiss broke, he clung to her bottom lip with his teeth, a cheeky smile on his face. She pushed him away, giggling again.

"Stop it, you'll give me chapped lips."

"Oh, so that's what they're calling it these days?" laughed Harry as he watched her face flush a deep red.

With a playful cry of anger, she threw herself at him again. She pushed him back into the snow and straddled his stomach. She looked down at him, the smile still on her lips. As his hazel eyes met hers, something twisted in his stomach. Something glorious. Her brown curls fell around his face as she leant in for another kiss.

This time it was softer, much less urgent and desperate. It was new for both of them; the soft touch of a lover and they revelled in it. When hands strayed, the kiss broke, both unsure how to continue and they stared at each other in silence for a long time, unsure what to say.

Eventually Harry broke the silence with a laugh.

"I'm getting kinda cold here," he said, grinning.

"We should probably move," replied Hermione. But she didn't, instead she lowered her lips to his once more and they brushed momentarily. Then she leant back and giggled.

"What's so funny?" asked Harry and she sighed happily.

"Somehow, Harry Potter, you've twisted my little brain around," she gazed at him fondly. "Harry, I think I-"

Harry hit the bottom of the Everwell and heard his leg snap beneath him. A cry burst from his lips, fuelled partly by broken leg and partly by his broken heart. His thick silken canopy draped around him like a tent. It was strange; he didn't remember opening it. For a long while he lay against the stone, tears leaking from his eyes, his leg throbbing painfully, blood pounding in his ears.

Then regaining his resolve, he rose. He wobbled precariously for a minute, trying to keep his weight on his uninjured leg, wincing each time he had to move it. For a moment he struggled with the silk canopy that had wrapped itself around him, before he cast it off angrily. He took a moment to catch his breath, the world span around him from the nauseating pain that gripped his body. Finally, he looked around, his vision still swimming.

He stood immersed in darkness, barely able to see his own hand a foot in front of his eyes. It was not the same rustling, cloying dark that he'd seen before on the star stairs, but it was still intimidating.

He lifted a trembling hand and worked very hard to still it. A moment later he had conjured a handful of the familiar green fire. The parachute's blue and green hues, though muted, were now visible to one side and Harry could now see that there didn't seem to be any obvious damage done to his leg.

A little way away he saw a vague shape outlined in the darkness.

"Sir?" Harry asked, trying to force his voice to be steady.

"It is I, Harry," returned the headmaster's voice as the figure shifted, though it didn't come any closer. "Are you hurt?"

"Broken leg," said Harry gruffly.

"It shall have to wait until we are free of this place," said the headmaster quietly and Harry frowned. There was something odd about Dumbledore, Harry wondered if he was hurt until a more pressing matter occurred to him.

"Are we alone?" asked Harry, shifting slightly and leaning more on his uninjured leg.

"Quite. You, I take it, saw Hermione Granger?"

"Yes sir," said Harry, a little surprised, it was a keen deduction, even from Dumbledore. "Who did you see?"

The headmaster said nothing, but moved closer, walking stiffly as though unpractised. Harry frowned deeply and stared at the headmaster; Dumbledore wasn't one to ignore an injury, even if he might play it off.

"There's great power here," came Dumbledore's voice again and there was a strange note to the voice. Harry felt the hairs on the back of his neck stick up. The headmaster came closer, walking backward and staring out into the darkness.

"Yes," said Harry, pushing the feelings of concern aside; this was Dumbledore. "What was that memory?"

"There is a curse on this place," murmured Dumbledore and in that second Harry realised immediately that this was not the headmaster. Dumbledore would never have ignored a direct question from him. A sudden thrill of fear leapt through his stomach and he stumbled away, seeking some string in his pockets.

"NAME YOURSELF!" roared Harry. His fingers closed on a piece of string in his pocket. Slowly the headmaster began to turn to face him and Harry felt a deep sense of foreboding, as though he didn't want to see the headmaster's face. When their eyes met, Harry saw the same dark, soulless, empty darkness he'd seen before on the star stairs. The elf.

Harry's fingers worked to quickly tie a knot, seeking to bind it. The creature set itself upon him in an instant and whisked the string from his fingers with a swipe of a clawed hand. It gazed down at him with the expression of a predator. Harry swallowed.

"Child's play," it hissed in an ungodly voice and the fibre of Harry's entire being shuddered. Faster than Harry could react, it lashed out with a clawed hand, flicking him away across the floor.

He crashed face first into the ground and he felt his nose break, blood running freely down his shirt. The pain from his face equalled that in his leg, but he drove himself to continue. Exhausted, he staggered to his feet but the creature was upon him again before he could act. Long skeletal fingers closed around his throat, pinning him.

Their eyes met and Harry felt his very essence shrink away again, burned. For a long time they stared at each other and Harry felt himself trapped by the eyes, unable to tear his gaze away. The elf smiled broadly, a mouthful of razor sharp teeth making a hideous mockery of Dumbledore's face.

"You might know the rules of my world, Harry Potter," it hissed angrily. "But you do not belong to it."

It shook him angrily with such strength that Harry's chin thudded hard into his chest. Even more blood poured on to Harry's shirt. The elf gazed at it hungrily for a moment, then lifted its hand to kill him. As it did Harry, who'd been recapturing his lost handful of flames, thrust his palm forward and the green ball of fire erupted outward, catching the elf and tossing it across the Everwell.

Harry rose wearily and raised his hand again. A rush of thick green flames blossomed forth once more, filling the air with a sickly green light. But with a single wave of the creature's clawed hand, it halted and then faded away.

"Your magic is nothing!" it hissed, gliding toward him; Dumbledore's feet scraping pathetically along the floor. Harry raised his hand again but with a single slash of a finger, it sent him crashing to the floor, jarring his leg painfully. Harry gave a scream of pure agony, then lay still a moment trying to blink the dizziness out of his head.

Hermione's face appeared above him, the same soulless eyes blinking in her face.

"I loved you, Harry," she whispered. "But you let him kill me."

"NO!" roared Harry and thrust his hand forward decisively. A wave of kinetic energy, the most brutal magic he knew, emanated from his finger tips and forced her away. He clambered to his feet, still pushing away. Hermione grinned back at him, exposing razor sharp teeth, but didn't come any closer.

"Better, Harry, but still so far from impressive."

Another flick of her finger and he was on the floor again, blood ran up his nose and he spat it out viciously, trying to rise. She skipped over and pushed him to the ground with a cold finger against his forehead. Harry twisted away in fury, spitting another mouthful of blood at thin air. Neville knelt beside him then a moment later, Ron reached out his hand and grasped him firmly by the arm. The fingers froze him.

"We're cold Harry," said his mother quietly. "As cold as the grave."

Harry broke the bind, spun away and lashed out with the invisible wave of magic again; forcing a little distance between them. Then he lifted fist hand above his head and a spherical shield appeared around him; the transparent red magic would protect him a little while. He crouched in his bubble for a moment and focused his will, trying to block out the pain of his face and leg. Outside, the creature stalked up and down, almost spitting in anger.

"You can't hide in there forever," it hissed. "Soon I'll come inside and get you."

Harry forced his bone back into position with a crack. Hot white pain shot through his body and a scream broke through his clenched teeth. He ran his hands over his leg, a picture of deep concentration on his face. A moment later he felt the bone mend with another sharp stab of pain. He tested the limb gingerly, it was by no means perfect, but it held.

Then he looked up and locked eyes with the creature which looked back in shock. Harry let a small smile grace his lips.

"I hope you took a good long look at Dumbledore's memories," said Harry, softly. "I hope you saw how vindictive I can be, I hope you know how much I'm going to make you hurt."

The creature managed to compose itself and smiled menacingly back. Harry rose through the shield and it popped like a bubble. The elf surged forward but Harry was ready. He casually lifted his hand and it stopped dead in its tracks. For a moment, he saw something akin to fear etched on its face. Harry smiled, relishing in the expression and then slammed the elf violently into the floor with a sickening thud.

It leapt to its feet almost immediately, but reeled slightly and Harry hit it again, ignoring the hot anger in his veins. It wheeled back comically, falling to the floor in a mix of tangled arms and legs. Harry tossed it again, this time smashing it powerfully into a wall. It flopped down into the darkness and disappeared.

Harry became aware of the smell of burning flesh floating through his nostrils. He looked down and hissed when he saw the skin at the tips of his fingers begin to blister and crack. There was no pain though, he supposed that they'd been fried.

"Is that all, Harry?" The creature rose again, still smiling, still empty. It was now wearing Sirius Black and Harry felt another rush of hot anger flow through him. "I'm impressed now though; so much skill that you burn your self out as a focus? Pity that such talent goes to waste with such a pathetic body."

"I'll destroy you, even if it costs me everything," whispered Harry resolutely.

"That's an idle threat," it whispered in amusement. "You only have one thing left to lose and it's so close to the brink. You're broken, Harry Potter. Clean in two. Even if you save your friend, you can't ever replace that hole inside you."

Harry just stared.

"It's okay that you loved her, she was a beautiful woman with a beautiful mind. But she's all gone now." Harry made a move to attack but the elf carried on hurriedly. "But there's a way you can see her again, Harry."

Harry paused, indecision stalling his next attack. He knew that anything it offered was bound to be perverted, but surely listening couldn't hurt?

"Accept death, Harry. You'll be reunited for eternity. Two beautiful minds, floating free, together, forever." Harry swallowed and shook his head. He opened his mouth to speak but the creature made a shushing noise. "I can't lie to you. You know that."

Harry sank to his knees and wrapped his arms around him. The elf came over to him, gentle now, and its fingers stroked his cheek softly. He looked up into Hermione's face; her eyes were closed and the slightest of smiles graced her lips. If he didn't know better, it could have been her.

"I've missed you so much, Harry," she whispered.

"I've missed you too," he said, tears forming in his eyes and he clamped them tightly shut. "I'm so sorry."

"It's okay," she soothed. "You know, I lo-"

"No, I'm sorry," repeated Harry.

The creature opened its eyes and blinked when it saw the opened earth cube on the floor before it. Its eyes met Harry's for a moment and then Harry pulled the last knot from the string that bound the heliopath, a vindictive smile spread wide across his face.

The explosion was huge; a tower of fire burst up into the air, corkscrewing for a moment before raining down upon Harry and the elf like lava. The closest thing Harry had ever experienced to the pure fury of the heliopath was a fiendfyre and even that paled in comparison.

A thousand pinpoints of light flooded into the elf. It stared at Harry for a moment in shock, confusion clearly written across its face. A moment later it was consumed from the inside out. A flash of fire and then a handful of ash fell to the floor.

The tiny balls of fire floated in the air before forming into something vaguely bipedal. Harry lifted his hand in preparation fend the heliopath off, but it made no move to attack him.

Harry looked inside it and felt the same sinking feeling he had felt when looking into the eyes of the elf. There was a moment of understanding between the two of them. The heliopath's sole purpose was to protect the world from the creature it had just destroyed. It no longer saw any threat from Harry.

The teen laughed bitterly where he knelt and rose wearily. The divining light from Conlaodh's illuminated the entire Everwell and he saw now the item he'd come in search of; a tiny wooden cup that rested on a pedestal at the middle of the circle.

"Harry?" came Dumbledore's voice.

Harry spun, his hand outstretched and Conlaodh rose up behind him intimidatingly, showing harmless embers down on Harry's back. The headmaster's blue eyes gazed back at him, concern plainly written on them. Harry knew it was really Dumbledore and dropped his hand. Dumbledore came to kneel by him.

"Are you okay, sir?" asked Harry, hoarsely. Dumbledore laughed softly and Harry looked up at him again in confusion.

"It is hardly my welfare that should be the concern at this moment," said Dumbledore again, more softly and then looked around him in amazement. "I hope you are aware that you are extraordinary beyond all measure. You have proven yourself once again, beyond even my wildest dreams. I'm proud of you."

For a moment Harry stared at him quietly, before he buried his head into the man's beard and wept.

A long moment passed and Harry eventually caught his breath. He moved slightly and found to his surprise that the headmaster had, at some point, put his arms around him. Dumbledore released him now and Harry met his sympathetic eyes.

"I loved her," he said softly.

"You did," said Dumbledore and placed a hand on Harry's shoulder, the touch spread warmth through his entire body. "And she loved you."

Harry caught himself before a fresh wave of grief washed over him and gently rose from the floor. Conlaodh rose above them, illuminating everything. Together Harry and Dumbledore walked toward the pedestal, the headmaster supporting much of Harry's weight.

As they stepped on to a ring of stone that surrounded the pedestal, the walls of the Everwell began to glitter like a thousand stars. Then, as though someone had pulled back a curtain, the walls parted to reveal the Plain of Delight.

A vast city unfolded around them and the floor of the Everwell hovered high above the skyline, looking down on the most amazing sight Harry had ever seen.

Every building was constructed entirely of thin blue magic that fluttered like silk in a slight breeze. Tall, spiralling towers climbed to an enchanted sky and beneath them, thousands of buildings enveloped the ground, glittering as the light caught them. The entire city hummed with magic, Harry could feel it rolling over his skin in waves, smell the ozone generated by such power, taste magic in the very air.

He looked excitedly to a stony faced Dumbledore.

"Look!" he exclaimed. "There's so much there. So much magic. So much power!"

"Indeed," said Dumbledore quietly. Harry looked at him in amazement.

"Everything we could ever want is just there," he said. "We could use it to defeat Voldemort."

"No doubt," said Dumbledore, even more quietly.

Harry looked again and smiled. He knew that the object behind him was a mere trinket compared to what waited out there. Why wasn't Dumbledore moving? Why wasn't he excited. He looked back to his mentor who surveyed him grimly.

"You think it isn't real?" asked Harry.

"One would imagine it was," whispered the Headmaster and his eyes never left Harry's.

"Then we should go, we should take it. We would be unstoppable with that much power!"

Harry took a step toward it but looked back to see Dumbledore standing stoically still, still staring at him. A shiver crept up his back.

"What are you waiting for?" he asked impatiently and turned back to the sight before him. He was about to take another step when Dumbledore spoke.

"Harry," he said. Harry looked back, the headmaster still hadn't moved. "Wait a moment."

"What for?"

Impatience flooded through him as he stared at Dumbledore, who still hadn't looked away from him. The old man's eyes contained none of their usual lustre, just something Harry couldn't place; sadness? Disappointment?

"Is this really what you came here for?" asked his mentor, his voice soft, it flowed over Harry.

Harry swallowed and looked back at the city behind him. Suddenly it didn't look as inviting; the twilight blue buildings looked intimidating, dangerous even.

"No," he said but added defensively. "But this is here, isn't it? Why shouldn't we turn it against Voldemort? We'd destroy him easily. We could find something to save Neville there and something to bring back-"

Harry closed his mouth abruptly, knowing he'd revealed his true desire. Dumbledore said nothing, but merely gazed at him through glassy eyes. Harry found himself getting angry.

"If he were here, Voldemort, he wouldn't waste a second in getting his hands on this kind of power!" shouted Harry.

"Voldemort would never have made it here," he replied stonily.

"No and all the better for us," snapped Harry in retaliation.

They stared at each other in silence for a moment before Dumbledore's annoyance gave way to sadness.

"Harry, remember before we came here, I had you stand before the mirror of Erised?" Harry nodded slightly, his throat constricted tightly. "Do you remember what you saw?"

Realisation flooded through Harry and he'd never felt more thick in his entire life. He knew what this was now; the final test of character. The old world had offered him everything he wanted; power, glory, Hermione. He'd been so close to accepting.

Purposefully he took a step back toward the pedestal and the moment he did, the enchantment broke. The city that had stretched out so beautifully around them flickered and then gave way to reality. There was nothing there; Harry knew the magic had long gone, long ago given way to the ravages of time. Once a civilisation had stood here, now all that remained was dust and memories.

"I'm sorry," said Harry, he couldn't bare to face his mentor.

"Older and more experienced wizards you have been felled by temptation," said Dumbledore, there wasn't a trace of anger in his voice, only sympathy. "It is a great testament to your character that you could turn your back on everything you've ever wanted.

Harry looked at him and walked quickly back to the plinth.

On it rested a tiny wooden drinking vessel, barely bigger than an egg cup. Harry couldn't help but smile in amazement.

"All this way, for this?" he asked.

Dumbledore smiled back.

"All this way, for this." he repeated.

Harry looked up at Conlaodh.

"There's nothing more for you here," he said. "But you could come with us if you liked."

There was a moment of indecision from the heliopath, before it abruptly flew at Harry, coalescing in a spiral around his right arm. It was a comforting presence that filled Harry with a desire to stride purposefully into the future. Conlaodh tugged slightly upward and Harry smiled in response.

"I think you'd best hold on, Headmaster," he laughed and offered him his left arm. Dumbledore seized the cup deftly, finding Harry's wrist simultaneously and they both found themselves whisked upward.

The speed at which they travelled was phenomenal. Within moments, they'd reached the top of the Everwell, but Conlaodh wasn't finished there. Along the passage they streamed, Conlaodh's burning light divining the way. They burst through the enchantment holding the boggart at bay like a knife through hot butter.

Harry caught a glimpse of his boggart again, before it was crushed under the locomotive power that was Conlaodh at full steam. It too was burned from the inside out and gone in moments, Harry could only stare at the power that the heliopath so casually exerted.

Onwards they went, the layers of star stair enchantment peeling away to show the bare rock beneath and a moment later, they were in the vast chamber that had housed Conlaodh. They hurtled, as though free-falling, to the roof of the cavern and up the narrow hole that lead to the real world. Eventually they reached he consecrated iron disc, where Conlaodh stopped, he had no power against this.

Harry however flicked his hand and the iron burst away, shattering into dozens of pieces. His fingers stung again as they burned, but they were near the world of wand magic again and he no longer had to worry about injuries that could be fixed in seconds. They tore up into the haunted cavern above and Conlaodh's power flashed out again. A tidal wave of fire engulfed the cavern, tearing the spirits asunder and releasing them from their centuries of torment.

Harry and Dumbledore watched in awe at this last effortless display of power. Then a moment later, their feet touched the ground. Harry looked around them at the empty cave, now illuminated and cleansed by the heliopath.

"That was amazing Conlaodh," he said, blinking.

Conlaodh reached out and touched his mind. Harry understood that this was where his power lay; in the gateways between worlds. From here on out, he would begin to lose strength. Harry nodded and turned to Dumbledore.

"We must find our own way out of this cave," he said, but Dumbledore gave him a little smile.

"I wouldn't worry too much," said the headmaster.

Fawkes appeared upon his shoulder in a flash of fire and peered around in interest. Harry held out his arm, which Dumbledore seized again and this time it was Fawkes who pulled them along effortlessly.

Moments later they were in the fresh air and Harry found himself never more grateful for it. He took in sweet cool mouthfuls of it and revelled in the sweet tang of the breeze and the sunlight on his face.

"I will never take this for granted again," he said aloud and Dumbledore chuckled.

They enjoyed it for a few moments more, before they turned back to the cave from which they had come. Below their feet an entire race of creatures had lived and died for untold millennia, they had known joy their, had families and homes. Now it was a mausoleum, a dark hole full of bones, dust and tragedy.

"We have to close it up," said Harry.

"We do indeed," replied Dumbledore.

They looked at each other for a moment and Harry sighed deeply.

"Wands out?" he asked.

"Wands out," confirmed the headmaster.

Together they pointed their wands into the hole below and with a unified purpose; a blend of old and new magic, collapsed the rock below them.

Conlaodh and Fawkes kept them suspended above the ground as the earth sank into the cave below them until there was nothing more than a rubble filled crater below. The Plain of Delight sank beneath the rock and was gone forever.

Gently they were lowered to the edge of the vast hole and after a moment Dumbledore turned and walked a few paces away. Harry merely stared down into the hole, his heart aching.

Somewhere in that hole, he'd sacrificed everything he wanted to save the world. Every fibre in his being trembled with loss. He'd loved her, truly. But that was behind him now. There was one last stop to make and then only one direction to travel; forward.

Momentarily he felt Conlaodh press comfortingly against his mind and he smiled gratefully. He still had one last place to visit before he could say goodbye. This in his mind, he turned from the crater and rejoined Dumbledore. Together the group, now four in number, walked southward.

"What's so funny?" asked Harry and she sighed happily.

"Somehow, Harry Potter, you've twisted my little brain around," she gazed at him fondly. "Harry, I think I love you."

A wide smile reached Harry's lips and he tipped his head forward to meet her lips again.

"I think I love you too."

6. Epilogue

By the Divining Light
Epilogue

It was the last time he'd ever come here; to the spot beneath the apple tree where the grass whispered secrets and it was always spring. Where the sun always dappled the ground between the branches and the hillside rolled away over the cliffs to the waves below.

It had been a year since he had enchanted this place; frozen it to time and hidden it from the world. Already it was beginning to slip away; lost to the eternal ticking clock. Time would reclaim what was stolen and balance would be restored.

The stone lioness glanced sleepily up at him as he came to kneel at its side. His fingers traced the familiar curves of its body and it purred happily.

"It began today," said Harry softly. His voice was strained and his jet black hair had grown much longer in the weeks since he'd left Ireland. Stubble had begun to grow on his face too, giving him an even more haggard appearance. "Emmeline Vance was attacked but we managed to save her. I guess you don't know who that is, but you'd have liked her. She's almost as smart as you."

His voice trailed away as the wind picked up, shaking the branches of the apple tree enthusiastically. Pinkish blossoms broke free from their moorings and floated down around him, clinging to his hair and clothes. He looked up and saw a storm gathering, the kind that always predicted the end of a British heatwave. He smiled softly, even as eyes prickled.

"I'm still doing it," he said finally, breaking the silence. The lioness looked back at him in disinterest. "You made me promise to protect Neville and I am, I will. He's all I have left of you. You'd be pleased though, we brought Ron back, though it's hard on him, he's three years too young but we're all trying for him. He's taken your loss pretty hard too.

"The Ministry is proving themselves as inept as you always insisted. Fudge refuses to even investigate our claims that he's back but I think everyone knows that Dumbledore and I wouldn't lie and even Rita Skeeter is pushing for an investigation. You'd have probably liked her too, she's got the same vicious tongue as you."

He smiled fondly and gazed out at the channel as the lion rose to its feet and stretched. He wondered idly if when he brought the enchantments down here the Ministry would be able to track them back to him. The fidelius was complicated like that but he assumed Dumbledore would have warned him if it would.

"You'll be pleased to know that there haven't been any attacks against muggles yet," he continued after a time. "It seems Voldemort is wary of forcing the Ministry to retaliate. I don't know if that's a good or a bad thing.

"Neville misses you too. He wanted to come today but Dumbledore said it wasn't a good idea. I have the feeling that he suspected this was something I had to do on my own anyway. He's a good man. Even Snape mentioned you the other day; I think he misses having someone who can actually answer his questions."

Harry was quiet again for a long while, above him the heavens opened and rain began to spit downward. The enchantments on this place kept him dry, but he knew that the time had almost come.

"So, I guess this is goodbye," he said hoarsely. "I hope you're okay, I hope you're happy, I hope you can hear me. I hope you know that I won't forget you, but it's time for me to put this behind me. Neville, Dumbledore, the world; they need someone who can be strong now. I hope I see you soon and I hope you know how much this is breaking my heart."

He lifted his wand upward and with a noise like a thunder crack, broke the enchantments that surrounded the tree. He screwed up his eyes as the rain fell heavy around him; chilling him to the bone. A moment later Conlaodh wrapped himself around Harry, protecting him from the rain that fell heavy around him. The stone lioness lifted its head one last time with a melancholy expression, then slumped to the ground. Together they watched as each drop of rain that fell against the back of the lioness broke the surface of the stone as though it were sand.

"Good bye," he whispered as the lioness dissolved into nothingness, the blossoms of the tree escaped and as he watched Spring dissolve into Autumn around him.

Sometime later when the sweet September rain had stopped falling with such reckless abandon, Harry rose from the grass and walked down the hill. At the base of the slope a small wooden fence separated the verge from a narrow footpath. Here Dumbledore stood and waited, his expression stoic, despite the sympathy obvious in his eyes.

He said nothing as Harry came toward him and vaulted the fence athletically. They stood for a moment and regarded each other, similar thoughts running through their heads, each waiting for the other to speak. It was Harry who broke the silence first.

"What now?" he asked, his voice hard. Dumbledore smiled.

"We shall endeavour to stop Voldemort, of course," he said, as though it would be the easiest thing in the world. "With force, if we must."

"It won't be easy."

"The important things so rarely are," said Dumbledore. The inflection in his voice was a far cry from the man who'd once told Harry that manners were some of the most important things in life. There was something strained in Dumbledore's voice, as though he'd been awake for far too long.

"How many of the old crowd are on board?"

"All of them," said Dumbledore brightly. "Though they are too few; as ever I seek fresh blood."

"Any potential?" asked Harry.

"Oh yes," said Dumbledore. A silence lapsed between them for a while before the headmaster spoke again. "I had hoped that this day would never come, when I would have to send young witches and wizards to fight and die."

Harry knew he was thinking of Dorcas Meadows, of Fabian and Gideon Prewett, of the Longbottoms, of his mother, of Hermione. He was surprised to find that he no longer ached inside as he thought of her, somewhere here at the margins of life his love had died. There was only hardness.

Dumbledore motioned for Harry to walk with him. Harry glanced up once more at the apple tree and then followed Dumbledore along the little rutted path. Today was the first step toward beating Voldemort, one that Harry and Dumbledore must take together.

"What's first?" asked Harry.

"To a little village called Budleigh Babberton, near Topsham," said Dumbledore, his eyes gleaming excitedly. He extended his arm to Harry. "Come Harry, we must once again surrender ourselves to adventure."

The End