Disclaimer: All hail the king of ice cream!

A/N: Well, here we go – over 600 reviews now, folks, thank you all very much for that. Here’s hoping for a few more with this chappie. As you may begin to see, things are advancing a little faster now. Atlantis, that mythical bastard, is on the horizon. And then the story can really begin.

All the best, team,

Joe

*~*~*~*

Harry Potter and the Wastelands of Time

Chapter 15 – I’ll Write You a Tragedy

Part Six – The Murderer

So when he’d finished speakin’, he turned back towards the window,
Crushed out his cigarette and faded off to sleep.
And somewhere in the darkness, The Gambler, he broke even.
But in his final words I found an ace that I could keep.

~~Kenny Rogers

*~*~*~*

It didn’t turn out okay at all.

And yet the world keeps turning, the universe grows ever colder… All the wondrous majesty of creation is blind to the sad plight of our humanity. The goddamn infernal machines fall silent.

It didn’t turn out okay at all.

It was never supposed to.

*~*~*~*

FRENCH PRESIDENT LAURENT ASSASSINATED.
BOY WHO LIVED ON THE RUN.

Special Correspondent Ian Lyterman

PARIS. THREE P.M. The French Esplanade welcomes the
return of their magical leader from recent trade talks
in the east with the oriental shamans. President Thomas
Laurent, 62, pictured here just moments before his death,
shakes hands with representatives of the Indonesian
People’s Republic of Magic. Surrounded by Aurors and
personal hit-wizards, a contingent of the finest magical
law enforcement in France, the leader of the nation for
the past seven years, smiled for the public and for the
camera.

A heartbeat later and a flash of green light, as frigid
and as sheer as ice, Thomas Laurent falls to the floor,
a shuddering wave of disbelief forcing an abject
silence upon the crowds. The silence was abruptly
broken and the tragedy compounded by the
fierce and merciless laughter of a raven-haired
young man many might recognise as Harry James
Potter, the Boy Who Lived.

Local reporter Gill Dronas, on scene as the crisis
unfolded, told the National Quill that she had
witnessed the young assailant fire the Killing
Curse that ended Thomas Laurent’s life.

“I couldn’t believe it at first, that it was happening
at all,” Ms Dronas said. “Harry Potter, or someone
who looked very much like him, appeared out of
nowhere, and was gone a moment later. He must
have apparated, but that’s impossible within the
Esplanade.”

Other witnesses claim the dark-haired figure
pictured below moments after Laurent’s assassination
was Harry Potter, marked by his infamous scar.

Further rumours are abound that Harry Potter
resisted arrest and eluded Aurors late last night,
at the home of wizarding representative, Ambassador
Delacour. Inan attempt to locate Potter, the British
Ministry….

Cont. p2.

Holding the wizarding newspaper in one hand, a beer in the other, I read through the article again, watching the photograph move – watching Thomas Laurent fall and a figure that looked very much like me laugh at the scene before fading away. Even the wand in the shot resembled my phoenix and holly stick.

Damn.

Damn it all.

Someone was playing the game to win. Someone wanted me discredited in this world, and to fall in another…

I had to assume it was Chronos and Saturnia, my newest enemies. The goblins had never done this before, Voldemort would want the world to know it was him, if he did it, and Miguel Blue (who was still to become an enemy) had no reason to distrust me just yet. He hadn’t even met me when this went down.

My hotel room was bleak, the sky outside above the bustling metropolis of New York was bruised with heavy storm clouds. An unexpected storm at the height of summer, threatening rain and worse. Whatever the cause for the weather, it mirrored my mood perfectly. I was depressed, dreary, and set to burst with furious resolve at any moment.

The skin on my arms and my face was sore, almost red-raw to the touch. The residual damage of my battle with Chronos that morning. I was burnt, sun-scorched, and no remedy could heal the skin early. The fire that had done this had no measure, and I was useless at healing spells anyway.

If only Fleur could have done… but no, that wasn’t worth thinking about. Poor Fleur.

Lives and lifetimes had been lost and spent, gone into thinking about what could’a, should’a, would’a been – if I could do things differently. Nothing ever changed, only the manner in which we all died.

In fire.

In blood and screaming fire.

Always at the whim of one madman or another.

And those thoughts left nothing. Less than nothing. What did I always find at World’s End, on the plains of Oblivica beyond the Wastelands of Time? What was left to save now, after seeing it all end so many times before? My headache was relentless. What was left save regret and the bitter certainty that there would be no better tomorrow.

Not this side of hell.

At least I still had the cube. That was an encouraging thought. I could still breach Atlantis. But every hour seemed to weigh on my shoulders, making it that much harder. Death was no escape, not for me, which left only that bitter certainty, that terrible resolve to keep going.

“Good beer,” I mumbled, and drained the bottle, standing and thinking – thinking and standing. In a sudden move I flung the beer bottle across the room. It shattered against the far wall, cracking the pane of glass in the wall clock.

Trying to stop time, Harry?

No, no. Trying to kill Time, once and for all.

Time isn’t real, I told myself. In a voice that sounded faintly like Dumbledore, of all people.

Time was real enough. Damn it all. I had to keep smiling, to keep fighting. Because there was no one else, no one else who had any idea of what was to come, what had already come. Atlantis was rising.

The Old World was spilling over the border into the New. At the head of the chaos stood Voldemort, my greatest enemy – my greatest challenge.

In the days to come there would be change, and I’d have to go on alone – no companions, no Fleur, no Tonks – and do the dark things that had to be done. Was I setting myself up for failure? Probably.

The Atlantean Cube, a music box of sorts, and the Key to the Past, glittered faintly in the light on the bedside table. My struggle with Chronos for the cube had left more than physical burns on my body. It had left me feeling weak, useless, unable to protect those I cared for…

I’m sorry, Fleur, for doing what I did.

God, I’m sorry. So fucking sorry.

I played the events over again in my mind. I let the morning unfold as it had done, making an appointment to see Jason Arnair, leaving Yale University and heading back into Grove Street Cemetery to apparate away in secret. Chronos gripping my mind… forcing me to see him for what he was… the dead rising… a skeletal hand gripping Fleur’s beautiful ankle…

Then what had happened?

My headache sent the pounding blows of a sledgehammer into my skull, back and forth, never weakening, never ceasing. Then what had happened?

I’d made a mistake.

*~*~*~*

If in doubt, you’ve got to make it sound convincing. The truth, that is.

But to go there is a mistake. As the Infernal Clock winds down to nothing, and the dominant primordial beast arises, you will learn that all can never be silent.

Not in the Halls of Time.

*~*~*~*

My vision was split right down the middle.

Through my left eye, I saw a bright summer’s day.

Through my right, I saw a post-apocalyptic wasteland.

Yet through both eyes I saw a legion of corpses clawing up from under the cold earth. Through both eyes I watched hundreds and hundreds of necromanced rotting bodies surround Fleur and me and the laughing, spluttering demigod – Chronos.

Fucking necromancy. Inferi, the soulless, zombies, Hufflepuffs, the undead – call them what you will – it was a desecration against everything I knew to be true and right. To be just. A raw, primal, instinctual rage, as red-hot as burning coals, descended over my otherwise calm demeanour.

That rage – a rage that had ended the world in blind arrogance more than once, a rage that could annihilate and kill and disrupt the flow of time, a rage as raw as sin – was only intensified by the cries of Fleur Delacour, trying desperately to pull her leg clear of the dirty, flesh-ridden hand that had risen from beneath her feet.

To put that rage bluntly, I wanted to fuck some shit up.

‘What move to make next, Harry James Potter?’ Chronos was still laughing, still miles clear of sanity and heading straight to the heart of crazy town juggling TNT. ‘Surrender the Key, save the girl, yes, yes?’

His voice shuddered through my mind. The hold he had on me, as brutal as legilimency but somehow so much worse, like jagged hooks digging deep furrows across my brain, shook and spun. ‘No.’

Chronos stopped laughing. ‘But you can’t defy me.’

‘Oh?’

‘I’ll kill you both, if you do.’ He sounded honestly perplexed. Sweat stuck his dark brown locks to his all-too-human forehead.

Seen through my right eye, I saw Chronos for the demon he truly was. Sick and disgusting, bulging brown flesh slick with viscous slime. I understood the terror of his form, what I couldn’t understand was his mind. I knew a little about insanity (voice of experience, ya know) but this was different – alien.

I didn’t want to know what he was. I found myself dreading it with a morbid curiosity, like being unable to look away from a hideous train wreck.

I laughed at his affront. “Chronos,” I said aloud for the whole damned world to hear. “Don’t you know who I am? I’m Harry fuckin’ Potter!”

I may not have been able to understand Chronos’ alien mind, but I understood my own all too well. I’d had lifetimes of practice, after all, and the glaciers of burning ice screaming all day every day through my brain could not be restrained for long.

I brought those memories of Before, of lives from long ago, to the forefront of my mind and snapped whatever tenuous link had been binding me to Chronos, to the ground, but not to the Atlantean cube. That I still held with what I supposed was a touch of wandless magic. What else could it have been?

Chronos recoiled as if struck – his hold on my mind broken under the weight of all the unleashed memory. It was too much to hold, even for a ‘god’. The cube spun, lurched towards me, I lunged forward and snatched it out of the air. At the same time, I clicked the fingers of my free hand, bending thought into will, and my wand sprang up from the gravel and into my palm.

“INCENDIOS GRATA!” I cried, shooting a raw blast of magical fire at Chronos. Thick tendrils of super-hot flame erupted across his chest, absorbing his blue overalls and obscuring the man, the demon, from view.

I spun on the spot, towards Fleur, working fast. I was dizzy from the conflicting views in my separate eyes, but the nightmare was fading now, receding across my vision. Chronos’ hold, his magic, was broken. Good.

“INCENDIO!” Fleur had her wand pointed at the rotten arm holding her ankle, having finally overcome her initial shock. The fire her wand produced was hot enough to blast the undead arm away.

But there were plenty more clawing for purchase – for living flesh. And with only two wands between us… The entire cemetery had risen, the air stank of rot and dust, of mud and the deep places of the earth. How could this be happening with the sun shining so brightly overhead?

The end of the world was a quiet place, but to get there the dead had to rise, the oceans had to run red with blood, and Voldemort had to unleash Atlantis and the nightmares of the Old World. This shouldn’t be happening. Chronos, Saturnia, should not be happening. More and more I was feeling out of my depth, scraping through by the skin of my teeth—

Chronos surged forward, murder in his eyes. The smoke cleared around him and I saw my fire had scorched his skin, burnt away his hair. Yet even as Fleur joined me at my side, his flesh began to clear, his hair grow back. Whatever he was, though, he could be hurt. I’d proven that much.

“You’re no more of a god than I,” I said, a despicable scorn coating every one of my words.

“No?” Chronos seemed to give that some consideration. Consideration that was oddly sane. “And are you not a god, Harry James Potter? Yes, yes? You bend Lady Time herself to your will, you die and yet rise from the dead – you choose who lives and who dies – what more, to make a god, hmm?”

Fleur was mindful of the dead, of the inferi, slowly shambling towards us. Yet still she heard Chronos’ words, and sent me a very curious glance. And why not? The bastard was telling her, however obscurely, all my terrible secrets.

“Undo the necromancy, leave us alone, and we both walk away, Chronos.” My sight had returned to normal. My mind was my own, as much as it could be…

All traces of the insanity had left Chronos’ face, his tone. He seemed regretful, sad… even tired. “The cube.”

I shoved the Key to the Past back into my briefcase at my feet, keeping my wand trained on the supposed god. “I need it – I think you know why.”

“Aye.” He nodded. “I will kill her then, Harry James Potter, as promised.”

I stepped in front of Fleur. Her breathing was heavy, her hair ruffled, her scent washed over me as it always did. Strawberries and rainfall. It was refreshing. “I will have to stop you. And I now know you can bleed, whatever it is you are.” The zombies were getting mighty close.

“And you will not find me easy prey,” Fleur said, brandishing her wand behind me.

I grinned. Fiercely proud of her. “You see, it’s far too early in the day, in the summer, for this. Chronos, what do you and Saturnia want from me?”

Chronos paused, staring straight at me, and then raised his hand before him. All at once every inferi, every stumbling corpse, stopped moving. We were surrounded by a silent, weary-looking army of the dead. The various stages of decomposition, the missing limbs and ragged clothes, made for an ugly audience. But it was an audience that wasn’t about to rip us apart now – not yet, at least.

The ‘god’ before me sighed. “Time…” he said. “We want the Old World to rise from the ashes of the New. We want you to die and stay dead. We want the hands of the Infernal Clock to move only ever forward. What we want, Harry James Potter, is to know what you are!”

I snorted. “Me?” There was a pause, a pause where anything could happen – and was about to. “Me… Well, I’m kind of a big deal! Sil-othrinum!”

White-hot fire burst to life at the tip of my wand, a needle of super-heated flame – the same I had used to carve the Atlantean runes into beer bottles last night – and I fell to one knee, plunging fire into the gravel at my feet. It only took two seconds, if that, as I cut through the stone like butter – swift and sure slashes.

I’d drawn a rune. And not just any rune. One full of jagged edges and malevolence.

I leapt back as my cuts in the gravel road began to shine, to glow with blue light. A tremendous wave of heat erupted from within the rune, and Chronos began to scream. He recognised the magic. With a wave of his hand he unleashed the inferi. The undead army surged towards me and Fleur.

“Chronos,” I called above the demigod’s screams and the cracking of a thousand dusty bones, “meet the Old World, meet the rune Az-reth.” I laughed, I laughed so fucking hard as I grabbed Fleur and pulled her tight against me. “Stay close,” I whispered. “Stay low…”

I pulled her over to the grass, away from the road, and shielded her body with my own as a light – and a heat – strong enough to eclipse the sun exploded in front of Chronos and his army of the dead. The light was blinding, the eruption deafening…

I had unleashed Fiendfyre.

True Fiendfyre. None of that watered down crap that was all the magical world could manage these days… Old school magic was the trick. Old school Dark magic.

“Aquamenti!” I said, and a deluge of water flowed from the tip of my wand, drenching Fleur and me from head to toe. “Keep doing that!” I screamed into Fleur’s ear, waiting for her nod before turning back to the chaos I had just unleashed.

Fiendfyre was dark magic, no question there, and it took sheer resolve and terrible intent to control it once it was unleashed. If I let this magic run unchecked, then it would obliterate everything for miles – including the thousands of people across the road, at Yale. I could feel the magic even now, as it built up to erupt, straining to break free of my intent.

“Not a chance…” I whispered, as creatures of living fire began to appear.

From the rune a torrent of flame, a thick column of heat, reached for the sky. The flame took shape, bulging and growling. The cemetery became starved of oxygen as the Fyre split into three screeching phoenixes.

Almost graceful in their elegance, the Fiendfyre took flight, tearing through the air on the wings of my intent. Two of the three giant, flaming phoenixes, feathers of burning golden flame trailing in their wake, I sent to spin around us, eating into the ranks of the undead.

It was chaos.

Mere anarchy loosed upon the world.

“CHRONOS!” I roared, raising both my arms as Fleur drenched us again in cool water, battering away the heat. Already it began to evaporate. I could feel my skin crisping. It felt good though, clean – just burning away the sin. “Stop me if you’ve heard this one…”

The third phoenix, hovering in the air just before me, between me and the furious demigod, the collector of Time’s debts, Chronos the dick, waited with barely constrained rage. My rage. It wanted to attack, to burn and feed on much needed fuel.

I’d done this – so why deny the fyre what it wanted?

“One dark night two men were walking home and decided to take a shortcut through the cemetery. You know, just for laughs… ha-ha-ha!” I spun my wand in swift circles, the two phoenixes sweeping through the waves of zombies gaining speed, absorbing energy from the grass and the trees and the flesh and the bone.

“Stop this!” Chronos demanded.

I unleashed the third phoenix, feeling the burn now as Fleur splashed us again with a deluge of cool water. It flew with purpose, blackening the gravel road and turning the dust to ash. A thick column of super-heated energy, blazing with all the fury of time. It descended upon Chronos as a creature rising from the depths of a very dark hell.

It hit a purple shield, a disc of vibrating energy, and once again I was locked in contest against this man in the sombrero, forcing my will against his. Why wasn’t I afraid? Why was it so hard to be afraid anymore?

“Anyway, right in the middle of the cemetery they were startled by a tap-tap-tapping noise coming from the misty shadows.” I urged the fyre onwards, as the other two phoenixes moved outwards in concentric circles, leaving only ash and blackened earth in their wake. “Trembling with fear, they found an old man with a hammer and chisel, chipping away at one of the headstones.”

“You will burn for this, Harry James Potter! I swear it, on the grace of the Infernal Clock it—”

“’Holy shit, mister,’ one of the men said after catching his breath.” I was dripping from head to toe in water again. Fleur was standing so close, her breath as cold on my neck as the heat of the fire was hot on my face. “’You scared us half to death – we thought you were a ghost! What are you doing here so late at night?’”

Chronos fell to his knees. He had no real power, nothing to withstand what I understood of the Old World. Perhaps that’s why he and Saturnia wanted Atlantis, so they could claim the magic there for themselves… and truly become gods. Splinters of white light began to appear in his flimsy purple shield, as my fiery phoenix pecked away at it.

“The old man turned to look at the men. ‘Those fools,’ he grumbled. ‘They misspelled my name!’ Ha-ha! Get it? He’s a zombie. It’s funny ‘cause it’s apt!”

My phoenix engulfed the man-shaped demon across the road and his screams rose higher and burned deeper than any of the flames raging across Grove Street Cemetery.

I called my other two creations into check, making it look easy. I was about ready to pass out. If Chronos wasn’t defeated… I wouldn’t be able to manage a stunning spell. Well, maybe a stunning spell, but certainly nothing on the level that could stop a Bone-Man, or Tweedledum and Tweedledee, the Orc-Mare.

The fyre fought me, screaming in my head to unleash it upon the world and all the flammable flesh over the street at the university. Quite a crowd was gathering through the haze, I could see, no one coming close because of the tremendous heat. With a supreme effort, focusing my dwindling intent, I blinked the Fiendfyre out of existence.

Ash began to fall on the cemetery like snow.

There wasn’t a corpse left standing from Chronos’ army of the dead. There wasn’t a corpse left buried under the earth, either. The Wizarding Congress was going to have a hard time memory-charming this one away. Ah, there’s a thought… Aurors would be on their way.

Still, I had to see…

Fleur followed close as I walked over to what remained of Chronos. For wonder, for wonder, he was still alive – I wasn’t surprised. He was propped up against a stump of charcoal that had, until moments ago, been a very healthy spruce tree.

“That… that wasn’t funny,” Chronos said. His flesh was glowing like coals in the embers of a grill. His eyes were still batshit-insane, however, even as he began to fade.

“No… no I suppose it wasn’t.” A sheepish grin came and went across my face. A grin that never reached my eyes. “Couldn’t think of any jokes to do with fire or stupid hats… sorry. When can I expect to see you again?”

Chronos may have been grinning, too, I couldn’t tell through the blackened husk of his form. Although even that had begun to heal… fresh skin blooming over the burns. Damn. His form was transparent, and I could see one of those razor-sharp tears in the air that had cut me in Diagon Alley nearly a week ago. So he was responsible for whatever they were, as well…

“Impressive fire, yes, yes,” he whispered, and chuckled. “The same fire burns in your eyes, Harry Potter, as you stare at me now. Can you see it, beautiful lady?” The scorched creature cracked his melted neck, gazing at Fleur.

“I…” Fleur looked at me. If the Fiendfyre hadn’t burned our skin bright red, I imagined she would’ve looked quite pale.

“Don’t listen,” I said, as gently as I could.

“See Time’s fire burning in his eyes?” Chronos laughed – but it was a sad laugh. “And what’s behind that fire, I wonder? You gaze at me with flame enough to set the world alight, yet behind the flame, there is nothing.”

My fists were clenched. “Atlantis is mine.” Chronos’ form had almost disappeared entirely, a tear in reality that only I could see marking the spot where he was fading away. “I expected more from you, buddy…”

Those insane eyes, that no doubt saw my own in the same ridiculous way, closed almost regretfully. “We’ve only just begun our true battle… just getting warmed up, yes, yes.” He coughed, his body a mixed fusion of burnt flesh and healthy skin. “We were right to fear you, Harry James Potter,” he said at last.

And then he was gone. I doubt I could have done anything to stop him.

*~*~*~*

I wanted cities in the sky. I wanted kingdoms under the ocean. I wanted to discover new parts of the world on par with sighting the coast of an unknown continent.

I wanted a reckless night of adventure – where the taste of blood in my mouth after a fight or a fall told me that I was still alive.

I wanted to pull away the front of the so-called ‘real world’ and see what was behind the curtain… I found darkness.

And a Clock on the face of Hell.

*~*~*~*

“Good morning, Professor,” I said, taking a seat in Jason Arnair’s office, amidst the stacks of books and bulging filing cabinets. “Thank you for seeing me so promptly.”

A tall man sat opposite me. He was young, although his hairline had receded somewhat, giving him that aged college-professor look. Eyes of pure intelligence regarded me from in front of a mind that I couldn’t begin to understand. I sat opposite a genius, a Muggle man whose memory was so ordered, so perfect, it made mine look like a train wreck… more of a train wreck.

“I expected someone older, Mr. Smith,” Arnair replied, tapping his chin thoughtfully. “Grace had said you were accompanied by an older woman yesterday, when you stopped by…?” There was a hint of a question there.

“I’m here alone today,” I said. Even now I could still smell the smoke on the air, the burning sulphur, and taste the ash of the fire that had gutted Grove Street Cemetery across the way. “I hear there was an accident yesterday morning. Some sort of explosion?”

“Yes,” Grace Connor said. The young graduate student sat to my left, all brunette curls and blue eyes. “An unfortunate incident at the cemetery across the street. The fire brigade thinks it may have been arson.”

“Really?” I admired her small, secret smile. I’d met this woman before, in other lives, but she’d never been more than a passing interest. I was more interested this time. “Professor Arnair.” I turned my attention back to the man I had come to see. “You recently gave a talk on Old World Mythology.”

“I did, yes.” His tone was polite, but I think he thought it clear that I was wasting his time. “Focusing on the mythical lost city of Atlantis, and proposing a factual basis to support evidence that it did in fact, a very long time ago, exist.”

I nodded, and reached down to unbuckle my tarnished, slightly burnt, briefcase. From within I removed the Atlantean Cube and placed it carefully on the desk between Arnair and myself. “Ta-da…”

I watched the professor’s eyes take in the cube, widening as he recognised the runes from whatever obscure texts he had studied across the years, no doubt matching them to the Voynich Manuscript – which also rested in my briefcase, but he didn’t know that…

“What is this?” he asked. “Where did you find it?”

“This,” I said, leaning forward in my chair. “Is one of the few relics that remain of the Lost City of Atlantis, Professor.”

“What?” He looked up sharply, searching my face. “Impossible. It exists? Where?”

“That’s why I’ve come to you,” I said, and that was the truth. “I represent a… group of individuals that are funding an expedition to breach and recover the remains of Atlantis, before a rival faction can claim the history there for themselves.”

“Really?” Arnair was far from sold, although a glimmer of interest flared behind his wire-framed glasses. “And why do you need me?”

“You’re one of the world’s foremost experts on the Old World.” Right after me, Voldemort, the goblins, Dumbledore, and probably Saturnia and Chronos. “And we have certain texts that need deciphering, certain strings of ancient code that make little sense… I need your very clever mind, Jason.”

“Well, if that’s true, then I’ll need to see expedition plans, talk about the funding and the rights of the find, speak to whoever is in charge—”

“All in good time,” I said, and perhaps there was a hint of a threatening edge to the way I said that. Both Jason and Grace sat up a little straighter in their chairs. “You have to understand there is a certain element of danger associated with what we are doing. The less you know – for now – the safer you and I, and Miss Connor here, will be.”

Jason Arnair had, more than once, been my friend across many of my other lives. He was the only way to successfully breach Atlantis in enough time to thwart Voldemort of most of the city’s vast powerbase.

“And yet all you offer in the way of proof, Mr. Smith, is this cube?” Arnair shook his head. “The runes and etchings marking the casing are indeed of Old World origin, but they could have been carefully manufactured. My research has led me to believe that Atlantis was the capital city of a great nation nearly ten thousand years ago, and that these people not only mastered navigation of the seas millennia before the Egyptians built the pyramids, but managed feats of rudimentary flight.” Arnair chuckled. “What have you to say to that?”

I shrugged. He was right – way off base in the details, but he was right. Atlantis had been that and more. It had been the first superpower, and still kind of was… I reached down into my briefcase.

“I think I’ve perked your interest, Professor Arnair, so I’ve said all I’m going to say.” There was another way into Atlantis, after all, a darker way, if this man decided not to help me. He would though, his curiosity always got the better of him. It had killed him more than once. Killed me. Killed everyone. “Do you know where Latium is?”

He nodded. “In Italy – although Latium is the ancient name for the area around Tivoli. Latin was born there, one of the core language databases. Why do you ask?”

“Can I borrow that pen? Thanks.” I wrote a quick note on a piece of paper from the pile in front of me. It was some student’s research paper from the looks of things. “This is where I need you to be, one week from now, in Italy.” From my briefcase I had removed fifty-thousand dollars in American currency. “This is fifty-thousand dollars,” I said, “in American currency. For a plane ticket, accommodation, travel expenses, and a fair amount left over for your services.”

Arnair stared at the money and then back up at me. “You think Atlantis… is in Latium?”

I nodded. “Something like that… I’m asking for one day of your time, Professor. I think you believe that this cube is a relic of Atlantis, and after next week you can have it for study, if you wish, but I need you to be in Italy on this day, to help decipher those codes I was talking about.”

He was tempted, I could see, he always was. So was the woman, Grace, if I could tell anything by the gleam in her eye. She really was quite attractive, but I had to keep my mind on the job…

“This is all very strange… and far from proper,” Arnair said. “Is this a black-market expedition? Because I’ll tell you now, I’ll not help rape a possible archaeological site of this significance.”

I stood up to leave – I picked up the cube and left the money in its place. “Then I’ll hopefully see you in one week, to make sure that doesn’t happen. As you can see,” I waved the cube around before dropping it back into the briefcase, “we’ve found something, who knows what else is to be found?” I paused for a moment, already thinking about my next move. “It was a pleasure to meet you. Goodbye.”

*~*~*~*

You’ve said you wanted revenge… yet you fear regret. Because regrets are forever.

Perhaps what you want is not so much revenge, as justice.

That’s a bad idea. People will die. It’s always a mess.

*~*~*~*

Fresh rainfall and strawberries.

As close as I could come to describing the scent in the flick of her hair, the scent of the light perspiration on her skin… Fleur Delacour.

Fresh rainfall and strawberries.

I was alone in my hotel room, having just returned from my meeting with Jason Arnair, and already making the plan to depart from New York. A new copy of the National Quill rested on the bedside table, and I was still front page news worldwide. Rumour had it I was in Italy, France, had been sighted in Dover, and had gone into hiding in the U.S.

The Ministry and Congress that controlled the press didn’t know where I was, but that didn’t mean Dumbledore didn’t – or the goblins. Certainly, Saturnia and Chronos knew where to find me... those bitches were tracking me using the blood she’d taken… what was to stop them leading my enemies straight to my door?

Nothing. Except more and more I was beginning to think they wanted me on the run, closing in on Atlantis far more quickly than I usually do… but why? Because they did not know how to find it – I did.

Some things remained sacred, it seemed. Only just.

My bed was covered with the contents of my briefcase. I was taking stock. There were stacks of cash in varying currency, my two special manuscripts recently liberated from Nepal and Yale respectively, my Invisibility Cloak, the two bottles of shiny starlight, the Atlantean Cube, and that was about it… The briefcase itself was on its last legs. It had taken the same beatings I had this last week.

I was shirtless, bare-chested save for the sparkling Time-Turner dangling around my neck, having removed the bandages from my side and allowing the stitches room to breathe. The skin was enflamed red, but there were no signs of infection. A crust of blood made the stab wound look like nothing more than a scratch, but it still stung like a motherfu—

Knock! Knock!

I stepped lightly across the carpet and opened the door, already knowing who it would be.

Strawberries and rainfall, as fresh as they come.

“’Arry,” Fleur said, her platinum hair at odds with her sunburnt skin. We’d both taken the heat from the Fiendfyre remarkably well. “Eet iz done.”

“Come in,” I said. It was good to see her. We’d been apart for the best part of a day, ever since yesterday afternoon upon our return from Grove Street Cemetery. We’d had an argument, and I’d asked a favour. “Did you have enough galleons?

“Oui, yes. More than enough.” Miguel Blue’s gold, the crime lord’s two thousand galleons, had been put to good use.

After Chronos’ attack, Fleur had been enraged, furious, that I had done something as foolish as to use Fiendfyre. It had been a mistake – more than overkill. I knew that. At the time, I knew that, but I wanted the immortal bastard to get the message – I was no easy game.

Fleur had been furious and more than a little afraid. I had gone from telling her about Voldemort’s use of dark magic over dinner, to employing the use of some of my own the next morning. Coupled with what she understood of my connection with the Dark Lord, and I must look, more often than not, quite insane. On par with that murdering psycho, Tom Marvolo Riddle.

Perhaps I was. Who could tell? Was it insane to try and save the world time and time again? Save it with such destructive fire? What else could I do?

“When will it all be delivered?” I asked, as Fleur frowned at my bare chest – at the wound, and at the mess all over my bed.

“Zis afternoon, before three. I paid extra to ensure zat.”

“Good work.” I nodded. That meant I could get to work on the portkeys back to Italy. This time we wanted to stay below the radar. For the most part that could be done, but an illegal international portkey would attract attention in and around our destination. Couldn’t be helped.

“What iz zat?” Fleur asked, pointing at the soft glow emanating from my sealed beer bottles.

I grinned. “Something hotter than that fyre yesterday.” Fleur wasn’t amused. I cleared my throat. “That’s starlight, Fleur. Pure starlight. We’ll be making some more tonight, so I can show you how it’s done, if you like.”

“Starlight... very well.”

The silence that followed was deafening. I wanted to say so many things. I wanted to kiss the woman before me, throw her down on the bed amongst the fragile and explosive bottles of energetic starlight. But most of all I wanted her forgiveness, her understanding… not that my actions could be understood. Even I knew Fiendfyre was an insane choice.

Oh well.

“Did you speak to ze Muggle professor?”

I fell out of my thoughts, caught myself staring at Fleur, and looked away. “Oui, Fleur.” I sighed. “I’ll understand if you want to head home tonight, instead of going on to Atlantis.”

Fleur sat herself down carefully on the edge of my bed. Her legs, wrapped in black stockings, were all curves and angles that I struggled hard not to stare at. She seemed to taste my words before responding. “Did you ‘ave to be so reckless, ‘Arry?” she eventually asked. “You ‘ave used such magic, such dark magic, before, non?”

I nodded. “Only ever in self-defence.” Well, that was a lie… a pre-emptive attack or two had kept me alive long enough to die in the past. Hell, I’d used the Cruciatus Curse on Bellatrix Lestrange in a fit of blind anger.

A single tear fell from the corner of Fleur’s perfect eye and I found myself hating what I had done, even as a part of me enjoyed the heat of the flame and the sheer raw power I was capable of. I wonder if that’s what Voldemort felt when he unleashed his strength? No doubt it was.

“I want to see Atlantis, ‘Arry. I want to see it with you.” She stopped and took a deep breath, wiping away the tear gently. “But at what cost, hmm? Is eet worth the danger, or should I be going home? Do you want me here with you, questioning your every move? I understand that you ‘ave enemies, and zat they are very, very dangerous, but the way you fight… eet iz insane!”

“I—”

“You destroyed zat cemetery,” Fleur continued, working herself up to pissed off. “And what did zat man, Chronos, what did he mean when he said you ‘ad already died? Zat you live again? How did he use magic without a wand? Who is he, zis man that ‘as threatened my life twice now?”

I didn’t know where to begin, what to answer first, and what to carefully deflect attention away from. How much longer could I keep my true self concealed, when creatures of uncertain mortality blabbed my terrible secrets for the whole world to hear? Damn it all, was I going to have to come clean? Maybe yes… but then again… maybe no.

“I don’t understand half of what he said.” I guess I was going with a lie, for now. “And I don’t know who, or what, he is. But he’s not human, Fleur.” That felt like the truth. I hoped to god he wasn’t human. Humans could do some terrible things. “He’s the bad guy, and we’re the good guys. And fire’s fire, Fleur, there’s no putting it in simple terms of light and dark.”

“You managed to say a lot and say absolutely nothing at ze same time.” Fleur held my gaze and then gave me a sad smile. “What iz so terrible that you cannot tell even me, ‘Arry Potter? We ‘ave been through a lot together in ze last few days.”

And right then I did want to tell Fleur everything. Tell her everything and scare her away, because if she thought the last few days, the few scant skirmishes we had been in, was a lot then she was in for a helluva surprise if she stuck with me. We had yet to battle Death Eaters and Voldemort, commanding the skeletal armies of the Old World. Such nightmare was yet to come…

Such awful nightmare.

But I wanted her with me. As selfish as it was, I wanted her around. I needed the company, to keep me honest and to remind me why I do the things I do.

“Fleur, I…” I’m a time-traveller, from the future – from dozens of futures – and I sold my godforsaken soul for a slice of immortality in order to stop the end of the world. Only it isn’t working anymore, and every time I travel back I only make things worse. What’s terrible this time is that I don’t have another chance. Having my ragged soul and body exploded and propelled back through time at the speed of light multiple times has finally taken its toll. I can barely see straight through the headache and the torrents of fiery memories burning through my mind… “I’m going to have to ask you to trust me, for now, with a promise that you’ll find some answers at Atlantis, not before.”

Fleur nodded, clearly expecting no less from me. “Eet all comes back to Atlantis, doesn’t eet, ‘Arry?”

I blinked. Did it? “Well, it has to. Can’t let Voldemort get a hold on such power.”

“What power?”

“Lost magic, for the most part.” I shrugged, and sat down next to Fleur on my bed, close enough to embrace her. I dared not. “A few artefacts that could do some damage. I don’t really know, just what I’ve managed to gleam through research and my…” I tapped my forehead. “…connection.”

The silence was more comfortable this time. I got the feeling Fleur had forgiven me for destroying the cemetery yesterday. Or decided to give me the benefit of the doubt on the whole insanity thing. Either way…

“How is your side?” she asked.

“Better,” I said, holding a hand over my stitches. “Healing slowly but surely, the Muggle way.”

“I still cannot believe you stitched yourself together in my bathroom. I was nearly sick.” Her eyes said she found it more amusing now, than anything else.

I smiled. “I’ve always gotta do things that hard way, huh.”

“Oui, but you can be forgiven some stupidity.”

“Oh, stupidity is it, now? Miss Delacour, your words betray your intentions.”

Fleur smiled too, and shuffled a pace closer to me on the edge of the bed. “And what do you know of my intentions, ‘Arry Potter?” she asked softly.

Oh and that sent my heart racing. I felt for sure that Fleur would see it trying to beat its way out of my bare chest. “Stupid of you to ask,” I replied, tilting my head to one side. Was this one of those moments without time? It was beginning to feel so…

Fleur’s smile turned gentle, secret. “Stupid?” she whispered. “Well, for some stupid reason I find myself caring what you think, ‘Arry…”

I didn’t know what to say, not to that. I felt my age, like a nervous fifteen year old teenager who knew little of women and even less of seduction – one and the same most of the time. What could I say? Should I just damn the consequences and lean forward to kiss—

Fleur stood up. The moment had passed. She gazed down at me, as if reading my mind, and placed one careful hand on my shoulder. Her touch was like ice and fire, electric and powerful. “Eet is always stupid to hesitate, ‘Arry,” she said.

And I guess I could make what I wanted out of that. Words laced with delicate meaning. Fleur closed my door gently behind herself, disappearing off to her own room and leaving me with my racing thoughts.

Damn it all.

Stupid to hesitate. Yes, yes it was. But then I was only fifteen, barely old enough to shave… a week away from sixteen. Then again, Fleur only had two years on me, why did I hesitate?

“Because I’m an idiot,” I said, shaking my head clear of Fleur. Easier said than done. “Need to make the damn portkeys…”

There was something to do. Portkeys to Italy, to Latium, coming right up.

*~*~*~*

Time will not wait. No matter how hard you hold on.

It will escape you.

*~*~*~*

Before leaving I made sure to pack the replenished stock in the mini-bar into the chest that had, until recently, been home to two thousand galleons. I needed to jump in the shower and redo my bandages, but first things first… I opened the window and lit the last of Dudley’s smokes.

It had been long days since my last cigarette, and the craving for wizarding cigars was nearly as strong as my desire for Fleur. Well, no, no it wasn’t. But I needed a drag on something, being the messed up angst-ridden hesitant idiot that I was.

To avoid any chance of being recognised, I’d sent Fleur to the wizarding district in New York that morning with a shopping list. She’d spent most of the galleons I’d weaselled out of Miguel Blue, and the packages were due to be delivered any minute now. It was all supplies that would be needed for the journey into Atlantis, where the water was poison and anything edible was more than likely to eat you right back…

A beautiful place. Dangerous, yes, but not without its charm. I finished the last of my cigarette and headed into the shower.

Voldemort rested heavily on my mind as I stood before the mirror in the bathroom, hair still dripping from the shower, and began to swab my stitches with some of the alcohol-based disinfectant in the room’s first-aid kit.

It would not be too long before he and I would come face to face – had I learned enough this time to make a difference and kill the son of a bitch? Not entirely, not with his horcruxes still out there… I knew where they all were, and as soon as I’d wrested Atlantis from his control I’d be going hunting, but for now I just had to stay alive…

And stay one step ahead of all my enemies, old and new. I suppose I could add the French Ministry to that list, if my innocence in the assassination of their leader couldn’t be proven. I was doing myself no favours by running all over the world. Oh well.

“Whatever will be, will be…” I mumbled, wrapping fresh bandages around my chest.

I couldn’t shake the feeling that everything was spiralling out of my control. But then what else was new.

The packages Fleur had ordered arrived at the hotel shortly before three, and it took four baggage handlers to haul it all up the elevator to my room. I tipped them all a thousand dollars each in American Muggle notes because I’d no longer need the stacks of cash after the next week was up. And I would have spent most of it by then.

Most of the parcels were of magical origins, yet they were harmless enough. There was a crate of enchanted rope, a dozen or so trunks with a touch of spatial expansion on the inside, as well as dragon’s fire crystals for light and heat, spell bound compasses and navigational aids, alongside six or seven sturdy broomsticks and a smaller trunk filled with vital potions. It was a start.

Fleur joined me in packing most of it away into two of the expanded trunks. She had changed into a pair of jeans and a simple turtleneck jumper. Simple clothes and yet on her they were stunning, especially the figure-hugging jeans.

“We will need dragon’s fire in Atlantis, ‘Arry?” Fleur asked, as we carefully placed the volatile crystals in a trunk, making sure they were secured with extra padding.

“Possibly, to keep away the cold,” I said. “Weather’s a little different where we’re going.”

“Really?”

I winked. “Oh you’ll see.” That was everything packed into a stack of manageable trunks. “Ready to go? Portkey in five minutes.”

“Oui, I will just fetch my bag.”

She dashed out of the room and I did a bit of quick spell work to stick the trunks together in four stacks of three. Everything was packed and ready to go. I had my briefcase, my Atlantean trinkets and Ring of Concealment, as well as the contents of the mini-bar all securely in place. That just left the portkeys.

The trunks I could shrink down to a quarter of their size, until they resembled small chests. I firmly attached to the top of each trunk stack one of the five portkeys I’d spent the better part of an hour constructing. The various objects – including a bar of soap, a toothbrush, an ashtray, and a bible – shook and thrummed with power.

They were clever portkeys, and thus required a little extra kick of strength. They were designed to circumvent the border security wards both around America as we left, and in Italy as we arrived. The backlash would alert anyone within fifty miles once we arrived in Italy, but we were travelling to a relatively remote part of old Latium, and arriving unhindered was more important than keeping the noise down.

“You have everything?” I asked Fleur upon her return. In my hand was a fifth portkey, for the pair of us, a wire hanger.

“Oui, yes. Ready when you are, ‘Arry.”

“Okay. Trunks, check. Briefcase, check. Fleur, check. All good to go.”

I whipped out my wand and muttered four quick incantations. The stacks of trunks disappeared with a wisp of magic, jerked out of existence and sent hurtling between two magically bound points in space across the face of the earth, as Fleur and I were about to be.

“Grab on,” I said, offering her half the coat hanger.

“Where iz zis going to leave us?” she asked, slinging her bag over one shoulder and grasping the hanger with her elegant fingers.

“One step closer to the future,” I replied. “God save us from that. One step closer to that charming hero you’ve spent the last few days looking for.”

Fleur tsked. “He better be ‘andsome, at least, for all zis trouble he iz putting me through.”

“No one can be heroic as well as pretty,” I grumbled. “But now and again I can be pretty heroic. Ha…ha.”

Fleur rolled her eyes. “Let’s go, ‘Arry.”

“Yes, ma’am.” I muttered the activation charm and that old familiar tug behind my navel sent Fleur and I hurtling across the planet pretty damn close to light speed, through a tunnel of roaring wind and flashing colour.

Leaves crunched underfoot as we landed amongst the expedition equipment I’d sent ahead a moment ago. Sunlight shone in through the branches of trees all around, filtering into playful beams that danced across a trickling stream nearby. A breeze carrying the warmth of the day’s end wafted into the silent clearing.

I sucked in a deep breath of clear, fresh air – it tasted of the forest, of an ancient strength. “Latium…” I whispered, feeling the tension in my joints and bones leak out of me. Even my headache seemed to ease at a glimpse of the most important magical centre in the modern world.

“Zis iz… quite beautiful, ‘Arry,” Fleur said. She looked stunning in the fading sunlight, at the end of the day, as pure and as innocent as the forest itself. I was nearly overcome with desire.

“Yes, yes it is, sweetheart,” I replied. “I’m glad you’re—”

There was a pop close by, and then, before I could blink, “Stupefy!”

I ducked on pure instinct as a beam of crimson light rocketed over my head and struck Fleur on the shoulder, sending her spinning into the thick carpet of leaves underfoot. She fell softly, calmly, her eyes fluttering closed as if she were simply going to sleep.

My wand was in my hand and my body was reacting before my mind could catch up. I spun on the spot, kicking up a plume of dirt and crackling leaves, zeroing in on our surprise attacker.

Standing on a shallow bed of rocks in the stream about twenty feet away was a woman with a pair of electric-blue eyes and a wave of purple hair, falling in gentle curls to her shoulders. A woman I knew well – knew intimately.

“Harry,” she said. “Merlin, Harry, it is you!”

“Tonks,” I said, almost dropping my wand in surprise. “Um… hi there.”

*~*~*~*

A/N: OMFG!!1! it’s Tonks! Well, at least it’s not as bad as the cliffhanger on the last chappie. Let me know what you think, folks. I’ve already made a start on the next chapter. Everything’s going to change for poor Harry.

Thanks for reading,

Joe