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.