Disclaimer: And tell ol’ Bert, I’ve seen all his movies…

A/N: Well, after polishing and editing this chapter came in at 20,000 words. Now you see why I had to split it with the last. The whole darn thing would’ve been close to 30,000 words long in one hit. Way too much would’ve happened to keep track of. I managed to trim 4,000 excess words from this chapter in the end – it’s a respectable 16,000 and change long.

Phew, it took an effort to write, but overall I was happy with it. Thanks to everyone who has reviewed (and who plans to review). Let’s see if we can breach 1,000 of them either this chapter of the next.

All the best, enjoy,

Joe

*~*~*~*

Harry Potter and the Wastelands of Time

Chapter 19 – One Po’ Boy, Extra Mayo

Time to roll the dice.

~Mat Cauthon

*~*~*~*

The years will testify one thing…

I was a persistent bastard. 

*~*~*~*

“So now you’ve seen it – what do you say, Arnair?”

“Honestly, I’m astounded.”

Grouped in the front living room of our villa, the gentle fire casting flickering shadows across the walls, I absently stroked Hedwig’s neck feathers, staring at nothing but the future. Fleur sat next to me on the sofa, on my right. Tonks was on the left. Their presence was comforting – a small grace.

“You’ll help me,” I said. It wasn’t a question.

Across the room, seated next to Grace, Jason Arnair inclined his head. “Help you gain Atlantis to prevent a demonic madman named Lord Voldemort from destroying the world? To help stop a war between forces that defy all understanding of science and reason? Sure, I’ll help.”

I grinned. We weren’t going to stop a war – we were going to start one. And finish one, I suppose. “Thank you” I looked to Grace. “Thank you both.”

Hedwig hooted softly, a sound of whispered agreement. Smart bird, always has been. The letter Fleur had sent in Rome to her family should have made it into Dumbledore’s hands by now. I wondered if he believed what she had written, or did he think I had assassinated Thomas Laurent? Saturnia had killed the French politician, of that I was certain. But how to lay blame on a millennia-old demigoddess?

I had alibis, but Dumbledore would have figured out the Time-Turner I’d pinched from beneath the Magnus Fontis, he always did. I couldn’t rely on the old man’s trust, but what other choice did I have? Damn it all – things weren’t spiralling out of control. They already had. I had to assume that, save for Fleur and Tonks, I had no magical allies I could rely on. And Tonks was a touch sketchy, too.

“What are you staring at, Harry?”

I blinked and fell out of my swirling thoughts. Tonks had spoken. I’d been staring at nothing but the cabinet on the far wall. “Is that a liquor cabinet?” I asked the room. “How did that slip by me?”

Hedwig fluttered over onto Fleur’s knee as I stood up. I exhaled a long breath as the exertion pulled at my stitches – it was time to change those bandages – and stepped across the dimly lit room. Sure enough, the cabinet was locked. Without really thinking about it, I snapped my fingers and the door clicked open. Inside I found renewed hope that everything would be okay.

“Macallan’s Single Malt Scotch Whisky… eighty years old.” I cradled the bottle to my chest, wiping some of the dust away. “Ladies, and Jason, a toast!”

The cabinet held a set of crystal whiskey glasses and I set them out on the coffee table between the two sofas. “None for you, Hedwig, you’re flying in the morning.” I’d send Dumbledore a direct letter, begging for assistance. The consequences could go hang themselves.

“Aren’t you a little young for this stuff?” Grace asked as I passed her a glass of amber liquid.

I grinned. “You’re never too young to die, Grace.” Heh, I knew that better than most. “Come on now, we’ve got to acknowledge the commitment we’ve just made – to ourselves, to Atlantis!”

Fleur shrugged and accepted a glass. Tonks looked like she had something to say, but decided against it. Maybe she really was on my side. Or maybe a little underage drinking was nothing compared to the other crimes I was guilty and/or accused of.

“There’s magic in what we are,” I said, holding my glass before me against the flames of the fire. The three ladies and Arnair joined me, looking a touch confused. “Real magic, folks, none of the flashing lights and broken Latin stuff we do every damn day. What we are is very rare.”

We were the fire against the indifference to the threat of Voldemort. We were not a force of good, we were a force of necessity. I’d ended the world time and time again out of necessity. I shook my head and thought of what to say next – something meaningful that would inspire courage in my few precious companions. But there was nothing, and suddenly the very idea of it seemed absurd.

“Here’s to magic,” I said, raising my glass. I paused and then tossed the scotch back with a practiced flick, wincing as it burned down my throat. The others took small sips, savouring the taste.

“May it make sense with time,” Jason added, inclining his glass towards me. He looked away. “It will get better with time…”

I had to remind myself that everything the man had known and understood about the world had been turned on its head today. It was easy to forget that this was his first time through this mess, first time for everyone… save me.

“No,” I said. “No, no. Just liquor. Time’s no good, Jason.”

Time’s a bitch.

Time’s a headache and a sword through the heart.

But then time wounds all heels, doesn’t it, John? And in the end it will settle all of our accounts with merciless efficiency. Now there’s a dark, certain thought in a world where nothing is certain save uncertainty. Was I really that miserable?

Maybe I’m just insane – the lesser of two certainties. Oh well…

“Wonder what else they have on tap here…” I muttered, and turned back to the cabinet.

*~*~*~*

Just calm the fuck down.

I’ve got this.

*~*~*~*

As was to be expected, the next morning I woke early with a killer hangover. The headache was the same – relentless, pounding, unforgiving – but the sore eyes and groggy limbs were a new kind of torture. It was just dawn when I awoke, and I crawled down through the quiet villa to the kitchen with the stale taste of old booze in my mouth.

The liquor cabinet had held a few other bottles.

I held my head under the tap in the kitchen and began to sort through my thoughts of the day to come. It was 06:34 and fifty seconds and today Arnair would have to get to work on the Gates. I had to write a letter to Dumbledore – I couldn’t risk actually going to see the old man, although it would be quicker. I was needed here, and in my current condition I wasn’t certain I could take him in a fight. I needed the edge Atlantis would give me to be sure of that.

It was already a warm morning as I stepped outside for some fresh air. The rest of the house was still asleep, but Hedwig appeared from above as I sat on the stone steps overlooking the lake. The wind whistled through the trees and the waves lapped gently at the shore. It all felt peaceful, and it was.

“I need you to take an important letter to Professor Dumbledore later on today,” I said, stroking her plumage. “But he can’t get it too soon. Sorry to send you away again, Hedwig, but it really is important.” I thought about the future. I thought about Atlantis. “I’m going somewhere you can’t follow. Go stay with Hermione for the summer, okay, she’ll be good to you.”

Hedwig nudged my cheek with her head and hooted softly. She understood. My stomach rumbled. I had an urge for a big fried breakfast to soak up some of the previous evening’s alcohol. I’d skipped dinner last night, too, in favour of a swift and sure sleep in whisky’s warm embrace. I was famished.

“Good girl – now go have a nap. Come back when it’s dark.”

Tonks was awake and making coffee when I went back inside and into the kitchen. She looked great in the morning – dishevelled, her hair askew and a blur of crimson red and electric blue. She wasn’t wearing her robes, just a shirt, shorts and a pair of baggy socks.

“Do you sleep in those fancy suits?” she asked me as I limped over to the magically cooled trunk we were using as an impromptu refrigerator.

I straightened my collar and smirked. “If I don’t look the part, then how am I supposed to act the part?” I started pulling breakfast out of the trunk – there were eggs, some Italian bread, bacon, chicken breast, tomato… I had an idea. Was there garlic? Ah, a single clove.

“The part?” Tonks spooned in a healthy tablespoon of sugar into her coffee and sat stirring it idly, staring at me from behind her multicoloured fringe.

I deposited my ingredients on the marble countertop and began to sort the meat from the greens from the bread rolls. “I’m not much of a cook, Tonks, but I can make one helluva filling sandwich. You hungry?” She shrugged. “Sure you are. Want to give me a hand? Poach some eggs after I grill the chicken?”

Tonks smiled – an uncertain certainty this early in our game. “You know, despite the danger, Harry, I’m glad you’re not cooped up in Privet Drive. It’s a real dreary place.”

“Tell me about it.” I lit the stove, ignited the grill, and oiled a frying pan. “Chicken will take the longest. I’m glad you’re here and not in Privet Drive, too.”

“Really? I’ve been a bit of a killjoy to all your antics – someone has to be.”

“Yet you haven’t tried to stop me yet.” I paused. “Except for taking the Time Turner and that bottle of whisky from me, you haven’t stopped me. You trust me, which is worth more than all the gold in Gringotts... to me.”

“You are supposed to be our Chosen One, Harry, and I get the feeling a lot of what you’re doing is to stop You-Know—”

“Voldemort.”

“Yes, him.”

“It is – everything I do is to stop him.” Worlds will unravel otherwise – again and again.

Tonks helped me make breakfast that morning. Italian herbs on the bread rolls added a touch of local flavour to the whole ordeal, and I wrapped the chicken breasts in crispy bacon, sliced tomato, diced onion, relish sauce, and topped off with a poached egg. There was no mayonnaise, unfortunately, but the smell of good honest food wafting through the villa brought the others to join us before it could all get cold.

We had sandwiches for breakfast, and they were good.

Afterwards, I wasted no time in taking Arnair and Grace back up to the Atlantis cavern. Today was the day it all began – or perhaps ended – the end of the beginning. I parted with the two conflicting halves of the Voynich Manuscript and the Atlantean cube I’d now stolen from Miguel Blue, and wished him the best of luck.

He wouldn’t need it.

I’d seen Arnair’s mind work again and again, faster than I could blink he solved problems, calculated probabilities… the man was made for this work. All he had to do was scribe the key runes as they appeared and as they reset within the manuscript. With enough of it recorded, I’d be able to break the sequence. More than once Arnair had stumbled upon the sequence by himself – he was that good.

“So those obsidian pillars are some sort of magical gateway, Harry?” he asked, as I was about to disappear back down to the villa. A lot of supplies needed to be gathered for the… expedition.

“As best as I can explain it, yeah.” I didn’t look down into the cavern behind me, I knew what I’d find. “The man who constructed them sealed Atlantis away forever. It was meant to stay that way. But he was realistic enough to assume it wouldn’t. Voldemort, through repeated mutilations of his soul, found a way.”

“And if you don’t follow… Voldemort?”

I grinned, wishing I had another breakfast sandwich. They were good. “He’ll unleash the demonic forces of Hell that destroyed the Old World and pushed humanity back ten-thousand years, and send us right on over the brink of extinction.”

Arnair paled. He heard the dread conviction in my voice. “Oh.”

“Yeah.” I slapped the young professor on the back. “But not to worry, eh, we’ve got about three days in this world to get to Atlantis. That’s your job, mate. After that… well, time… time, is different in Atlantis. Stretched…”

“What do you mean?” Grace asked, her eyes wide and fascinated.

I looked to Arnair’s research assistant. She was very young and very pretty. It would be best to send her home, really, save her the pain… but something made me hesitate. Some instinct, a gut-feeling. Everything had changed this time round – perhaps I needed a fresh face on the team.

I shook my head. For now, she would stay. “Just that we’ve got a long few months ahead of us in Atlantis.” Maybe even the best part of a year, should things go my way – and they would. There was always the slim hope I could stop Voldemort while we were both in Atlantis. Slim, slim hope…

“Time will fly,” I said. “For us, but not for the rest of the world. We’ll be gone months and we’ll be back before September 1st, just a little over four weeks from now.” I paused. “You see, streeeetched…”  

*~*~*~*

I shrugged into my jacket, twirling a white rose between my fingers, and I could smell something… something familiar.

I was dressed in cheap leather and smelt like death.

Heh… viva la guilty!

*~*~*~*

A day later, I watched Hedwig fly off into the sky, swooping low over the lake with a parchment scroll clutched between her talons, before ascending on high over the snow-capped peaks in the distance.

She carried my letter to Dumbledore.

My request for aid that I didn’t deserve, from an old man I had betrayed.

That it was only a slight betrayal, a brief lie, was perhaps worse than outright rebellion. I had played on his affection for me, and his conviction that I was equal to the task of fulfilling a prophecy we both despised. Even after all the years and all the lives, I hadn’t yet found myself equal to that task.

Voldemort was deadly – he was powerful, merciless, and incomparably intelligent. I was all of those things, too. Yet I had a weakness that was also a strength, a flaw that could shake the world – I cared for people. I demanded the protection of innocence, as Voldemort raped it. Needless to say, my role was a whole lot harder.

There was so much more to lose.

I turned from the balcony of our villa, overlooking that deep and secretive lake, and stepped back inside. It was a warm day, and warmer still inside the villa. I felt like a Coke and a smoke.

The hallway was lined with the travelling trunks Fleur and I had purchased in New York, and they were all stocked and ready to go. We’d cleaned out the markets over in the Muggle town across the lake. Some of them held perishables, and were chilled, but the majority of them held shelf-stable stuff that would keep for months if not years. A few of the trunks off to the side held other gear – also purchased in New York – including but not limited to broomsticks and vials upon vials of different potions.

I had Atlantis down to a fine art when things went my way, and I knew exactly what was needed. Still, things were different this time. I’d erred on the side of caution and doubled the amount of food I usually brought along. The magically-expanded trunks had no problem containing it all. There was nothing where we were going – and one couldn’t survive long on conjured biscuits and tea.

“It’s done,” I told Tonks upon entering the living room.

Tonks had shrugged out of her Auror robes and was polishing her wand on the glass coffee table. She looked up and grinned – an almost cheeky grin. “It’s the right thing to do, Harry. Dumbledore will help.”

I wasn’t so sure. It was fifty-fifty, really. More than once, lives and lives ago, after I’d abused his trust and before I’d gained the independence I had now, the foreknowledge, he’d had me suffocated within Order Headquarters. I didn’t want to have to fight him – it wasn’t a fight either of us could win.

“We’ve got two days before the shit hits the fan, Tonks.” I sat down next to her, close enough to nudge her leg with my own. “Maybe just a day and a half, depending on the antics of our demigod friend.”

“Chronos,” she said. “Surely he’s just a wizard, Harry, not anything more…”

I clicked my tongue against the roof of my mouth. “Voldemort is just a wizard, and yet there’s more to him than meets the eye. Chronos’ magic can be defeated, but I burned him alive with fiendfyre and a day later we’re eating ice cream in Rome…” I shook my head. “He’s something more than meets the eye.”

“What ‘more’ is there?”

That I didn’t know, but it involved Time. Real Time, not the paltry seconds and minutes we mark on the faces of our clocks. I had the strangest feeling that I’d been here before – déjà vu, can ya dig it? – but of course I have, only it was more than that. The Infernal Clock in the heart of Atlantis was calling out to me across the vast, impenetrable void that separated worlds – a void Voldemort and I could penetrate. The Infernal Clock was calling, shouting – it was singing a song that would end the world.

More than I can handle, Tonks, I almost said, but what kind of hero would I be then? What kind of leader? What manner of ‘Chosen One’? Never mind the latter, prophecy be damned, I was Harry fucking Potter, and the forces of time danced around my head – I wouldn’t be pulled along their vague strings of bitter prophecy.

No, I was here because I chose to be here – prophecy had nothing to do with it.

“You ever listen to The Beatles, Tonks?” I asked. “Sure you did, growing up in the Muggle world… Those four boys ruled the world, that’s what she said.”

“What are you talking about?”

“When you're drowning, you don't say 'I would be incredibly pleased if someone would have the foresight to notice me drowning and come and help me,' you just scream.” Saturnia had been screaming at me, back in Rome, of that I was sure. Screaming what? “John Lennon said that, 1970.”

“What has that got to do with the price of—?”

Screaming for help? Sure, why not? We were all doing the same. “Nothing,” I said, and gave Tonks’ shoulder a squeeze. “Thanks for pushing me towards Dumbledore. It was the right thing to do.”

“You’d be stupid not to want the greatest wizard in the world on your side, Harry.”

Yes, I would be. I was on no one’s side but my own, and that was a side that wanted the world to survive the coming inferno. Despite how many times I’d watched it succumb to the chaotic flames of the apocalypse, I still wanted that fabled happy ending.

But with Fleur or with Tonks at my side? I was thinking too far ahead there.

“You okay, Harry?” Tonks put her wand aside and put her hand against my forehead. “You look tired.”

“Bit of a headache,” I said – understatement of the year. “Not to worry.”

“I’m your guardian – and your friend – I worry.”

“You’re coming with me to Altantis, right?”

Tonks appraised me from behind a pair of eyes that shone blue then green then incandescent purple. She was a gorgeous creature, touched by magic, and capable of so much. “You’ve found something up in that cave, Harry… if it leads to the Lost City then you won’t be able to tear me away.”

I grinned. “Adventure it is, then.”

“Why’d you think I became an Auror? Or joined the Order?”

“To protect handsome Chosen Ones like me?”

“No, for the sheer thrill of it.” Tonks beamed, her hair shading with the burnished ringlets of auburn amusement. “For the rush, Harry, and because if someone wants to hurt handsome Chosen Ones, then I get to stick my wand in his face and blast him across a room.”

This is why I loved Tonks. She wasn’t burdened by the oppressive weight of what lay before us. Maybe she was a touch ignorant, but even then, she’d do the job with a bubblegum pink smile. Not to say the pressure or the fatigue never got to her, but she never let it beat her down into the ground.

“There’ll be plenty of chances for that. Atlantis is held by the Death Eaters.”

“So you say, and I wonder how you know.” Tonks looked through my fringe at the vivid scar marking me as equal to a madman. “Can he see your mind, too?”

“No, not yet.”

Tonks searched for something to say, something to negate the monstrous link to a soul-torn Dark Lord. “Good,” she eventually said. “Good then.”

I left Tonks to finish cleaning her wand and made my way into the kitchen for that Coke I’d craved earlier. It was addictive stuff, no doubts there, but you only live once… With Arnair and Grace up in the cavern, the villa was a quiet place. I knew Fleur to be about, so I set off to find her. She could only be upstairs, maybe in her room. I took her a Coke – she had only just discovered the Muggle drink, and was infatuated with it.

Bright summer sunlight filtered in through the skylight overhead in the hallway upstairs. “Fleur?”

“In here, ‘Arry.”

I followed her voice down the hall and into the room she was using. The door was ajar, and the subtle scent of strawberries and rainfall drew me in and left me wanting to sit down and sigh. I was a long way past regret in my life (lives), but I still couldn’t help but want at these simple moments of perdition.

Fleur was seated in the window box that looked out over the lake and mountains. The sun caught her just right, lounging as she was in a strapless dress of white silk that stopped just short of her knees. A golden halo of energy seemed to cling to her form, to follow her curves from her bare feet up to her avian-like face.

My heart skipped a few beats. I felt a familiar surge of longing – of raw desire. She wasn’t just gorgeous, she was bloody hot.

“You are staring, ‘Arry.” Fleur had been reading a thin book and she closed it into her lap as I blinked and stepped across the room.

“Sorry – breathtaking view up here, is all.”

Fleur smiled, catching the not-so-subtle compliment in my words. She accepted the Coke with a word of thanks and twisted the screw-cap off, releasing that satisfying hiss of bubbles.

“The first sip is always the best, the fizziest.” Fleur moved over so I could sit down next to her in the window seat. I took the seat, enjoying the sun and the shape of her legs. “Good book?”

“Hard to tell,” she said. “I found it on ze shelf over there. Eet is in English, which I do not read as well as I speak.”

I glanced down at the cover of the book, at the title. The Gunslinger, by Stephen King. A Muggle book – there was a grizzled man on the cover who looked a little like an old western cowboy. Behind the man was a tower of black stone, rising up beyond the cover to some unknown and distant height.

“What’s it about?”

“I am not so sure, but so far ze protagonist ‘as killed over five dozen people, and I’m only on ze second chapter. He uses Muggle weapons, and seems to be chasing someone across a desert on some sort of quest.”

“Sounds brutal.”

Fleur shrugged. “Reading helps finetune my English.” She waved her hand back and forth and took a sip of her drink. “A leetle anyway.”

“You might want to pack some books for Atlantis, then, to pass the time.”

Fleur laughed. “I think, perhaps, there will be more interesting things to be doing than reading. Non?”

I couldn’t argue with that. “There’ll be a Dark Lord, a slew of dark wizards, and his demon entourage standing in our way, too. Are you ready for that?”

No one could be ready for that. It would take the heat of the moment, and the urge to fight back, to even begin to comprehend the danger of what we were walking into. I’d explained it as best I could, to both Fleur and Tonks, and they still decided to come with me. Of course they did. I offered adventure and inspired such cruel, bitter loyalty.

“You will protect me, ‘Arry, from goblins, and dark wizards, and demons, and whatever else ‘appens to try and kill us.” Her eyes flashed. “And if you don’t, then I will protect myself.”

There was fire in her words, true fire – and that was why I loved Fleur, just as I loved Tonks. Two more certain uncertainties in a world I had broken time and time again.

“You kissed me,” I said, changing the subject rather abruptly.

“Oui. And you kissed me back.”

“May I kiss you again?”

Fleur leaned in so close that our noses almost touched. “Non,” she said, her breath warm against my face. Then she pressed her lips against mine softly, just for a heartbeat.

I sighed, enjoying her secret smile and affection. “Please do that again...”

She pulled away – all grace and elegance and stolen promise. “Maybe later, ‘Arry Potter…”

Before I could say anything in reply, a hurried shout echoed throughout the house. ‘HARRY!”

Oh God damn Fate’s perfect, perfect timing.

It was Grace – her voice panicked but not terrified. Still, even panic was cause for concern. Had some of my enemies come early? Was Chronos perhaps in one of his moods? Had something happened to Arnair? I hated not knowing what was going to happen next. I was almost as blind to the future as everyone else. Almost.

All of this flashed through my mind in those brief moments between seconds. My body was already jumping into action, pelting full speed out of Fleur’s room, across the hall and sliding down the marble banister on the stairs. Fleur was hot on my heels.

Grace stood in the doorway. She seemed to be in one piece. Her hair was a bit askew, wind-blown, as if she’d been running, and her eyes held the same panic her voice had.

“What’s the matter?” I said, stepping forward. I noted that at some point between here and upstairs my wand had made it into my hand.

Grace eyed the holly stick warily, breathing heavily. She had been running. “It just appeared,” she gasped. “We weren’t even touching anything.” I had no clue what she was babbling about. “Jason’s still up there with it—”

POP!

I Apparated through the key in my wards, wasting no time on making my way up to the cavern. Whatever ‘it’ was with Arnair, if it hadn’t already gutted him and left, was going to burn.

I reappeared just at the mouth of the cavern and darted into the darkness, wand at the ready. I leapt down the steps into the main cathedral-like space, the thousands and thousands of runes on the rotund walls lighting the way. Atlantis, the shining spires and flying galleons, looked on at my passage with remarkable gallant indifference.

Almost at once I saw the nature of the threat, and it gave me pause.

Arnair was fine, standing off to one side with his chin resting on his thumb. I could see his mind working furiously behind the wire-framed glasses he wore, much like my own. He dared not approach the thing that had made an appearance in the centre of the plateau that held the mighty, massive obsidian gates to Atlantis.

“It just appeared out of nowhere?” I asked the professor as we drew level. Off to the side, a few of the supply trunks had already been brought up for the trip across, and to keep Arnair and Grace well-nourished while they worked up here. I saw dozens of notebooks open and scrawled with runes. The Voynich Manuscript, both halves, rested at ease on top of one of the trunks.

“As if by magic,” the man said, a small attempt at humour. Humour was good – it meant he hadn’t lost his considerable mind.

A pedestal of clear green marble, shaped like a pyramid and a clear six feet across had appeared in the centre of the plateau. It was clear-cut rock, smelling of cool earth and possessed of an inert strength.

“And you’re okay?”

Arnair chuckled. “Despite my perpetual state of confusion and terror, yes. What is that?”

I stepped across to the pedestal. There was something sticking out of the top of the pyramid. Something familiar. As I drew closer I saw letters burnt into the marble – words that shone with fiery promise:

Who so Pulleth Out this Sword of this Stone and Anvil, is Rightwise King Born of England.

“Oh… he’s just taking the piss now,” I said.

It was the sword shaped like the ornate hand of an old clock. A weapon Chronos had offered to me once before, and which I had cast aside. He’d led me to believe it was a weapon forged of Time itself, capable of killing the Orc-Mare when they robbed me of my magic. A weapon against the impossible.

“You didn’t touch it, did you?”

“I’m not as stupid as I look,” Arnair said.

“Right. Sorry.”

I was sorely tempted to touch it. The handle of gilded silver metal was calling out to me, whispering in my mind. There was no preamble, no second-guessing myself. The blade wanted me to pull it free – and in so doing I’d be dancing to Chronos’ tune. Or would I? His double nature was impossible to predict or even understand… was this meant to aid me or harm me?

Chances are it was probably to do both – praise be to symmetrical duality and all of that crap.

I muttered a few diagnostic spells and knelt down on one knee. With my wand tip alight like an arc welder I scorched some runes into the stone, testing the pedestal for any residual magic or hidden traps. It all came up clean, which didn’t tell me much, really.

“Okay…”

Would I need the sword in days to come? Was a man whose very nature made him my enemy setting me up for a fall? The blade seemed to be nothing more than metal – it tested as such, but what if I touched it? Would I lose a hand, an arm? Would it kill me?

“How are the runes coming along?” I asked Arnair, distracting myself from this latest problem. “Making any progress?”

“I think so,” he replied, tapping his chin and staring between me and the sword. “The cube reacts to the manuscript, turning the gibberish into a steady flow – you were right, it is a code of some sort. A base pattern keeps repeating over and over, and then every one hundredth time it skips a beat and the pattern changes. The whole cycle takes about ninety minutes.”

I nodded. “That’s the code. You need to keep track of it, it’ll keep changing. You’ve not seen it all yet.”

“If you say so…”

“I do.” Well, that only left the sword. “It may be cool to be king…”

I decided to err on the side of recklessness. I stepped forward and gripped the silver hilt of the blade. I tensed, expecting to be struck down by gods or demons or worse, but felt nothing but a sense of mounting relief. The sword slid from the stone like a knife through butter.

I’d expected it to be heavy, but it was light – really light. Despite that, even in the dull light of the cavern I could see that the double edge of the blade was razor-sharp. A good thwack with this thing would see anyone off. The metal was cool and… calm – ready. I took a step back from the pedestal and the entire pyramid block crumbled into dust.

“So now I have a sword.” I raised an eyebrow and grinned at Arnair. “Let’s put it out of sight for now.”

I buried it in the bottom of one of the trunks containing our travel supplies, buried it under cans of soup and other staples. I didn’t know if I’d need the blade, or if it would even do as promised, but why not add another weapon to my arsenal? When – not if – when it came back to bite me in the ass, perhaps Chronos would finally see that he couldn’t push me around.

They would all see, ‘fore I was done.

*~*~*~*

The Infernal Clock demands that you scream – and that you scream good and loud.

It is good to remember that Time is deaf to your pleas for mercy. Were it not so, then all would be meaningless.

*~*~*~*

The attack came on the fifth day – as planned and as promised.

With the sun having risen a few hours ago, the five of us had had our last breakfast at the villa – for better or for worse – and packed up the remainder of our belongings, which I then apparated up to the cavern.

Jason, Grace, Fleur, and Tonks were already up there. I was back at the villa on my own, waiting for the inevitable. The obsidian pillars were already opening – the Gates to Atlantis were cracking. Arnair, with a final push, had cracked the code last night, and as I’d expected he’d begun to anticipate the pattern. His mind was astounding. He was a Muggle who could predict runic magic. There was perhaps more magic in that than in this whole sordid affair.

Either way, the gate was opening. It would still take a few hours and the rest of the starlight, but the pillars of cool black rock would give way all too soon. I just had to hold out until then – and toss the final key, my Ring of Concealment, into the gaping maw that would arise. Then we were gravy, baby.

“Hey Jude…” I mumbled, sitting on the balcony out front of the villa, looking down for the last time over the expansive lake. I was strumming on an old guitar I’d found in the master bedroom. It was missing a string, completely out of tune, and I had no idea how to play the thing. But I strummed nonetheless – there was timid peace in absurdity, always had been. “Remember to let her into your heart… then you can start… do-du-du-du… Hey Jude, begin…”

I sighed and just idly pulled at the strings, basking in the light of another perfect summer’s day. I enjoyed the sky while I could – in a few hours there would be no more clear blue sky, not where I was going. It had been a long few weeks to this point.

A long few weeks, indeed. A small, young part of me was excited and nervous about the coming expedition into the Old World, into Atlantis. A larger, older part was simply numb and tired – wanting it all to be over. It would be all too easy to spiral into regret, but where was the fun in that? And what use would I be then?

“Harry James Potter.”

“Hey, Chronos,” I said, slipping out of my thoughts. “Saturnia not with you?”

Chronos, looking no older than my good self, took a seat on the balcony next to me. I wondered what he truly was, what manner of ancient magical being I had attracted. A demigod, perhaps, but my magic was stronger, smarter…

“Saturnia is playing a game of her own devising, Harry Potter, yes, yes.” Chronos chuckled. “She is beautiful and deadly and all manner of trouble – rather like you and Miss Fleur Delacour.”

Couldn’t argue with that. “Why do you want Atlantis?” I asked.

“Power.”

That was too simple, too poor a motive. “I don’t believe you.”

“Trust is not something that can stand the test of time, is it?” Chronos sighed and took the guitar from me. He began to play, softly but surely, making fine music with only five frayed strings. “Not much can stand that test – you least of all, Harry Potter.”

“Cute trick with the sword, by the way. We’re nothing without a sense of humour, hmm.”

Chronos grinned, looking out over the lake as I had done. “You need it, you really do.”

“I don’t know why I’m not blasting you apart right now,” I said, looking down at my hands. “I can’t seem to care…”

“There’s that test of time again. How can you care about what has already been lost so many times?” Giving the guitar up, Chronos let it fall over the edge of the balcony. It hit the limestone courtyard below, splitting down the middle. “Everything to chaos, Harry Potter, even your relentless soul and defiance.”

I felt that old familiar pall of unimaginable darkness, of bitter defeat so final that time would not fix it – not ever. “Leave me be, mate,” I said. “Just walk away.”

“I can’t do that – could you?”

I shook my head. “Of course not. All my many and varied enemies are here then?”

“You’ve got about three minutes before a joint force of Italian and French Aurors storm this villa, Harry Potter. The grushtva – the goblins, as you call them – are tracking the Aurors to you. They bring mercenaries and bounty hunters with them.”

“And you? What of your interference?”

Chronos shrugged. “You’ve opened the way, Harry James Potter. All bets are off. It was truly a pleasure to know you – my Orc-Mare will attack and scatter the field. They thirst for your heart’s flesh.”

I met his eyes, my face blank. “You know, if you helped me, we could take on the Dark Lord Voldemort together and perhaps stop the world from ending – delay that universal chaos you say is inevitable.” I took a breath. “As allies we could win the coming war, and I could stop the grinding on the Infernal Clock.”

For a long moment Chronos stared at me – and his emotions betrayed him. He looked all at once terrified, horrified, desperately hopeful, and painfully angry. “For all you know of time, Harry,” he whispered, using just my first name – he almost seemed human. “For all you know of time, you are still an ignorant child. You cannot change what has already happened.”

“Yes,” I said. “Yes, I can.”

“Why so sure?” The bitterness in his voice tried and failed to wither my resolve.

“Because this time is different. You’ve made it so.”

Chronos’ ire vanished and he chuckled. “Same old mistakes in brand new ways, Harry Potter. Don’t you ever forget that.”

And then he was gone. No pop, no drifting or fading away. Just gone in the space between one heartbeat and the next.

So the attack came on the fifth day – as planned and as promised. It came over the splintered remains of an old guitar and the last of my good intentions.

The Aurors appeared on the edge of the lake, on the edge of the anti-apparation wards. First six, then another wave of six, then another, and then another. Twenty-four through the front door, dressed in their dark battle robes. I could almost see the spells and wards running through their clothing, turning the cloth into reinforced armour. There’d be more heading around the back way, of that I was sure.

It was Battle Tactics 101, and just plain old common sense. I’d have to keep the fight down here for now, so Tonks and Fleur had a chance up at the cavern. Also, I’d have to be careful not to kill any of these hopeless bastards. That would turn Dumbledore against me forever, and make me the very thing I fought and raged so hard against.

The forthcoming teams of six spread out, covering the approach. They spotted me straight away, as I stood on the balcony ledge with my hands folded behind my back. I clutched my wand, watching the pieces take position…

“Good day, ladies and gentlemen,” I said, as the teams fanned out across the courtyard. Twenty four wand points levelled against my head and my heart. “How may I help you?”

“Harry James Potter?” an older woman said at the head of the first team. Her hair was short, clipped and greying, her features sharp and toned –her English accented Italian.

“Yes, that’s me.”

“I am Auror Maxine Moredount, Italian Ministry of Magical Law Enforcement. You will come with us,” she said.

“No, I won’t.”

The Aurors visibly tensed. I saw a few cold masks slip into place, ready to take down a young and arrogant teen wizard.

“You are aware of your ‘wanted’ status?” the woman, Moredount, asked. “You are wanted on charges of international assassination, of Thomas Laurent. You also need to explain how and when you bypassed several international border checkpoints, and divulge the location of Miss Fleur Delacour.”

The wind was blowing in fresh off the lake, the sun was high overhead. It was a beautiful day, summer at its best. I missed the towering spires and the ancient stone of Hogwarts. I missed my friends, my younger friends – Ron, Hermione – who were all still innocent in all of this.

I cut to the damn chase. “Auror Moredount, I refute the majority of those charges, and suggest you add excessive use of underage magic to the list, as well as profiting from the proceeds of crime,” thanks a lot Miguel Blue, “and I’m pretty sure I burnt down a hotel on the Italian coast, in Tivoli, although that may have been a demigoddess named Saturnia.”

“You—”

I waved her away. “Yes, I know I’m surrounded. Yes, I know you are all very highly trained.” I paused and my flippant tone took a deadly serious turn. “However, I am much better trained. I’ve been doing this a lot longer than you. Please believe me when I say it will be in your best interests to simply walk away today. There are events in motion you cannot begin to fathom.” I barely fathomed them.

I could see the woman actually contemplate my words – for all of about two seconds – I was certainly a high profile target, after all. Who knew what I was really capable of? She was going to risk it, that’s what Aurors did.

“This is your last chance to surrender of your own accord, Mr. Potter.”

“This is your last chance to walk away with everyone alive,” I replied. “There are demons on the way, lady, demons with big shiny swords.” And goblins, and bounty hunters. “No? Very well then. But before you start throwing curses around, please know one thing.”

I held up my hand – a professor about to educate the class on something very basic. I let the moment stretch on as the Aurors all began to take steps towards me, Moredount at the head of the pack.

“Ladies and gentlemen,” I said. “You are standing in one of the most complex and haphazardly put together ward platforms in the whole wide world. As soon as you entered the courtyard you triggered about two dozen different defensive networks I have in place around this humble villa.” I laughed aloud. “These are very… aggressive defensive measures, some of them not seen in a very long age, and do not take kindly to anything that endangers my wellbeing.” That was fair warning. “So with that in mind –

please, someone, throw a spell at me and watch the magic fly!”

“Stupefy!”

An old favourite – weak and ineffective against anyone with a lick of magical talent. I stood grinning, rocking on the balls of my feet, as the jet of thin red light flew towards me from the tip of Moredount’s wand. It covered the distance between us in two seconds flat, a blow not aimed to kill, which was something…

I caught the spell at the last, most dramatic, moment.

My left hand was raised before me, palm outwards, and the stream of stunning magic floated half a scant inch above my skin, turning on invisible strings and spinning into a sphere of contained energy. I turned my hand to face the sky and the ball of energy turned with it, looking almost like condensed liquid fire in the morning light.

“A stunning spell doesn’t really endanger my life,” I said into the silence that followed my display of the impossible. “And is rather insulting, really, considering the charges you’ve laid against me.” I clenched my hand into a fist, snuffing out the light of the stunning spell. Sparks of magical energy ricocheted through the minute gaps between my fingers. “They don’t teach spell catching in Auror school, do they?”

I laughed and for the first time brandished my wand, the old holly and phoenix feather with all its dents and scars. I hadn’t had a damn clue I could ‘catch’ that spell until I’d gone and done it. My mind was racing, my headache pounding. Could I hear the bitter laughter of past lives in the back of my head? I thought so.

Dumbledore couldn’t catch spells. I was coming into my own more and more every day, every minute – magic I’d torched worlds for was all there, sliding into place and forced by the urges of necessity.

“Impressive, Potter.” Moredount sneered. “Let’s see you do it again. Kellie, Rawks, Mathin – on my mark.” The four separate Auror teams of six readied themselves. I was an easy target, after all. “Voliox!”

Half a dozen verbal and non-verbal spells were cast towards me, the noise and the silence a screen to confuse me. I didn’t need to know what the other spells were, because I’d heard Moredount’s – an incapacitation curse, designed to temporarily paralyse. It was enough to trigger my wards.

Pools of green light, ringed with electric blue spheres, rose from within the courtyard itself. Five, ten, fifteen… twenty-two of them. In the space between seconds my wards activated, and the pools of light shot skyward, shot towards me in order to intercept the half dozen spells.

The light took shape in mid-air. The blue spheres rippled through the transparent green mist and took form – human form. Seven feet tall and faceless, the constructs of light and energy slammed themselves into the streams of spellwork shooting towards me and absorbed the blows, one by one.

Again, I hadn’t been sure the wards would work until they did. This was all new to me, to a part of me anyway. A part big enough to doubt.

Twenty-two ghostly constructs of magical energy hovered between me and the regiment of Aurors. They were semi-transparent, thin but fast, and their presence made the air thrum with energy – with real magic unleashed. I was protected by a battalion of my own, one that would die before it let harm come to me.

“Ward constructs,” I called into the silence once again. “Not even Hogwarts has these, ladies and gentlemen.” My voice took on an edge of raw command. “This is your one and only chance to surrender, to leave now without a fuss. You cannot hope to capture or defeat me… I am Harry Potter!”

The last I roared into the courtyard below, magic amplifying my voice so it echoed and screamed out into the valley and across the lake.

The Aurors attacked in earnest, and my ward constructs took the blows of all the magic as I turned and dashed down the steps. Twenty-four Aurors casting twenty-four spells again and again after me as I turned and ran made the air as hot as an oven in a matter of seconds.

My fine leather shoes hit the courtyard at a dash, ward constructs dancing around me, enclosing me in a net of magic. I was spinning my wand around and around in my hand, the tip glowing a fierce crimson red and playing against the limestone. The world was awash with a rainbow of varying magical colour.

“Nevas-nevo-nevus!” I pointed my wand towards the sky. “Stupefy!”

Weak and ineffective, I know, but not how I used it. One solid beam of energy exploded out of the tip of my wand, travelling faster than the eye could follow. It shot into the air on the intent of my first incantation – a stunning spell amplified with magic not seen for centuries. As it cleared the constructs my spell split into a dozen smaller beams of energy, all a part of the whole that was, and rained down upon the courtyard.

Aurors dived out of the way. Some took the attack on their robes and were rocked backwards by the sheer power of my assault. In the confusion, I shot around the side of the villa, my constructs forming a collective barrier as my pursuers… pursued.

From the villa I turned east into the thick forest that surrounded the house on all sides save the front. I caught sight of at least ten more Aurors sneaking around the back of the house. They took one look at me fleeing, surrounded by magical bodyguards, and unleashed their wands against me.

I dashed under the eaves of the forest, out of direct sunlight, as curses and hexes tore into the ground, tossing up dirt and moss, tore into trees, stripping bark, and tore into my constructs, which were absorbing all the magic they could before they expired. There was a lifespan to these things, and maintaining their presence was a drain on my abilities, but they’d already saved me a hundred times over.

Still, I watched the first two blink out of existence as the strain of the spell barrage overloaded their relatively simple design. The remaining twenty constructs didn’t notice and nor did they care for the loss of two of their number. They simply filled the gap left in the defences, and continued to accept the damage without wavering.

I was heading into the forest to even the numbers a little bit, to split the Aurors down the middle, and to eventually make my way up to the cavern – after I’d dealt with my pursuers.

I wasn’t aiming to kill, not at all. These men and women were innocent, for the most part, and simply misguided. Just doing their jobs for all the wrong reasons. They were good Aurors, and would be needed in the war that was to come. No, I wasn’t aiming to kill.

Goblins won’t be far behind… I thought. Probably already here somewhere, waiting their chance.

My ward platform prevented Apparation for the best part of a mile in any direction from the villa. But the Aurors were physically fit, and I was out of my time and not at my best. The spells continued to track me, to dissolve against my constructs. I glanced over my shoulder as I ran, and saw the Aurors keeping steady, powering curse after curse into my ethereal bodyguards.

Have to account for Chronos and the Orc-Mare, too. He’d promised as much. Things were going to get very interesting.

I darted through the trees, sunlight filtering in around me through a thick canopy overhead. The forest smelt fresh, alive – vibrant with life and magic. I set it on fire.

“Incendios Grata!”

A torrent of superheated flame burst from my wand and the dry summer wood went up in smoke. The flames would spread quickly, creating a dense smokescreen and raging inferno that would split the Aurors further. And if it didn’t, then the rest of my wards would.

“Incendios Grata! Incendios Grata! Incendios Grata!” Burn, baby, burn!

They’d had enough time to follow me from the villa. I clicked my fingers, muttered a ward key, and two hundred metres behind me the villa exploded in a wave of raw disintegrating magic. I felt the shockwave even at my extended distance, threatening to pick me up and throw me down, but I kept my feet. There would be more fire now.

The uneven forest floor slowed my progress through the wood, yet it also provided a shade of extra cover from the increasingly inventive spells being cast my way. From the shouts and screams I could hear in my wake, the Aurors had cast aside the notion of simple stunning spells and incapacitation jinxes, and were out for my blood.

Good. Excellent, in fact.

A quarter mile into the forest I turned to make something of a stand. The heat from the fires I’d started was already stifling. Magic fire was so much more potent, hungrier, than your average flame. Great swirls and clouds of grey smoke billowed between the trees, obscuring the Aurors from one another – and my good self.

I stood on a small rise, my back to a strong evergreen, and began to twirl my wand in vigorous, almost desperate, movements.

“He’s over there!”

“Look there – through the trees!”

“His ward guardians—”

I’d been spotted, of course. Aurors advanced through the smoke with deadly intent, running right on my heels to bring me down.

I muttered spellwork under my breath as my wand tip began to glow bright silver. The air about me began to shake with potential. With a cry I fell to one knee and buried the tip of my wand in the dirt – it cut through the ground with ease.

I slashed a rune as quick as I could – back, around, up, and across through the heart. It was a key rune, a lesser rune of the Master Order, and it was the missing link in the network all around me.

As I completed the rune the gouge in the earth pooled with pure silver light, and the trees all around me responded. Runes I’d carved into the bark earlier in the week came to life, flared to life. The trees began to groan… and sway.

And then uproot themselves to do battle with the Aurors.

Cool special effects, I thought, as a few dozen Whomping Willows on speed advanced on the Auror brigade. Thick branches swatted the Aurors aside like pesky ants – not strong enough to do any real damage, but more than enough to knock the wind out of them. Roots buried for centuries tore up out of the cold earth, sending great clods of dirt and woody shrapnel hurtling through the air.

The forest came alive in my defence. Well… a few dozen trees did, anyway.

Whilst holding off an entire battalion of experienced Aurors all on my own was singularly impressive, I had no doubt that reinforcements would be on the way – and there was still the unaccounted for true enemies Chronos had promised me. Goblins and worse.

I wasn’t foolish enough to become overconfident, however brazen and carefree I may appear.

So I turned and ran while I had the time, my ward constructs spinning ever faster around me, disappearing deeper into the forest to plan my next move.

*~*~*~*

How could I ever make this life bearable?

Just whisper words of wisdom and let it be, right, fellas?

*~*~*~*

What remained of the morning wore away into early afternoon with considerable haste. I stopped running to catch my breath behind a broad evergreen so far untouched by my many fires.

I was weary and out of breath, suffering from a few cuts and bruises and a bit of minor spell damage. The fire had really taken hold in the forest now, burning through the old wood in a fury. I had succeeded in splitting the Aurors into more manageable chunks.

My ward constructs were all but gone. Two pale and barely held together wraithlike forms glided around me. A few more spells and they’d be done in. The Aurors were getting increasingly desperate, but reinforcements had arrived from Rome at some point. I’d been attacking small groups of them all day now, disarming them and destroying their wands – forcing them from the field.

A few I’d been forced to incapacitate, but so far I’d claimed no lives. Which meant I was winning, even if I couldn’t seem to shake the battalions of French and Italian forces. There had also been no hint of goblins or bounty hunters, nor any sign of the Orc-Mare, which was giving me hope that perhaps we’d be spared that nonsense today.

“He went this way,” a young, female voice said – not more than fifteen feet away.

“Are you sure? All this damn forest looks the same…” A man, young, as well.

“He’s heading up the mountain, has been all day.” That made three.

“Come on, he can’t keep this up much longer.”

“Wanna bet?” I asked, stepping out from behind my tree, wand at the ready. “Wow, you’re a pretty one…”

The female Auror scowled and brandished her wand, as did her male counterparts. They spread out to flank me. My constructs couldn’t defend from three separate angles – they hovered at the ready just in front and to either side.

Leaves and dry twigs crunched underfoot as the Aurors stepped around me. I moved with them, drawing circles in the small clearing we found ourselves in. I had an annoying, no doubt frustrating, grin on my face.

“Depulso!” the young woman cried, sending a banishment hex my way –she thought to smash me against the tree at my back. Her sharp raptor-gaze betrayed her anger and the spell slammed into one of my constructs with all the force of a sledgehammer.

The construct took the blow and shattered – sparks flew in all directions, hot and sure.

I liked her style – brutal and effective. Her blue eyes and brunette ringlets reminded me of Tonks when she wasn’t playing around with her special abilities. Still, she was trying very hard to best me.

I responded with a blasting curse. “Confringo!” Not at the woman, but at the ground at her feet. The earth exploded in a surge of soil and stone, sending her reeling back.

Her two associates entered the fray at the same time as I cast my curse. Two twin jets of sickly purple light shot through the air toward me, barely ten feet away – bone-breaking hexes from the look of them.

My final construct leapt on top of one and exploded in a shower of silvery-blue sparks. I pulled a shield into existence, bulging at the centre for the second, and the purple stream ricocheted back upon its caster. He dived out of the way, already casting at me again.

I battled the two of them for a few seconds, enjoying the rush and laughing at the spells they tossed towards me. I caught one of the Aurors in a body-bind and he fell rigid to the forest floor. The other knew the odds were against him but he persevered – gotta admire that fightin’ spirit.

“Tantactus!” A bolt of lightning burst from my wand, slammed right through the Auror’s hastily cast shield, and sent a few thousand volts of electricity jolting through his system. His wand flew from his hand and he clenched his teeth together, falling to his knees from the distress.

I followed up with a stunning spell before the shock stopped his heart and turned—

The ground at my feet exploded and I was hurled back through the air, spinning once and still laughing, before powering into a mighty sturdy tree. The air fled my lungs and I gasped for breath. Something tore at my side, my stitches. Damn. I was tearing those damn things daily. At this rate the stab wound would never heal. My shoulder popped, too, against the tree – pain ripped through my body – it was dislocated at best, broken at worse.

Still, pain I could manage – better than anyone.

As the dust settled I saw my attacker – it was the hot female Auror – recovered quicker than I thought. She had some skills – wasn’t just a pretty face. I liked her more and more. Still, best to end this. I raised my wand against her in the blink of an eye, already casting non-verbal stunning magic.

Imagine my surprise when nothing happened.

My wand may as well have been a useless wooden stick, no different from the refuse and dry chaff lying scattered across the forest floor.

My mind reeled and a moment before terrible realisation dawned, I took a bone-breaking hex in the face, right on the nose, from the Auror. My nose cracked, blood splattered down into my mouth. I jerked back from the pain, onto my back in the dirt.

“Listen to me—”

“Shut up,” the woman hissed, coming down on top of me. She pinned me to the ground with her knees against my shoulders. The pain was excruciating, maddening, but the game had changed. It was about to get a lot more real. “You are – finally – under arrest, Potter. You’re lucky no one’s been killed today.”

“GET OFF!” I roared, squirming under her body. She had no idea, no clue, why my magic hadn’t worked—

The shadow fell from above, from amongst the canopy overhead. A glint of horrific summer’s light shone from the blade that cut the young Auror’s head clean from her body.

There was a brief instant of clear surprise, her mouth opened in a tiny ‘o’ of shock, and then her head toppled forward and smacked me in the face before rolling away. Blood sprayed from the stump of her neck, coating my face and suit. Her strong, athletic body that had been holding me down went useless and limp. I pushed the dead weight aside, sickened and furious.

Tweedledum and Tweedledee, two more of the creatures Chronos had named Orc-Mare, stood grinning just out of reach. One held it’s blade slick with fresh blood. They looked half-human, with stretched fake skin covering leathery decayed demon flesh. The stink washing off the pair was nauseating and made my eyes water.

“Run,” they said as one in a dry, raw croak. “We come for you, Time Warrior.” High-pitched laughter, no saner than my own. “Break the last seal, unleash the last realm of magic one final time and allow Lord Chronos his ultimate victory.”

I wanted to eviscerate these creatures. I wanted to tear them limb from bloody limb. I tried, but my magic was denied to me. They stole my spark, blocked my intent. What power did these creatures have to do that? How dare they step forward to defy me! How dare they kill an innocent woman—

I was already running.

Running away from the monsters and the madness. The forest was heating up again, the fire raging ever closer. Smoke hung thick in the air. I coughed on the acrid, hazy darkness. The true enemies were here, the ones that needed killing. Only I couldn’t do it, not effectively. I needed Fleur and Tonks to help me, to distract the Orc-Mare enough that we could all get some good shots in from a distance.

The Orc-Mare did not give chase, but I was sure they followed just out of sight. My magic was denied to me as I ran hell-for-leather up the mountain. I could hear more Aurors on my heels. They would be enraged by the murder of one of their own. And who else were they chasing out here but Harry Potter, who was already suspected of killing a man? I’d be marked for death now. No more stunning or attempts to incapacitate.

As far as the Aurors were concerned, I’d signed my own death warrant in the blood of one of their own.

Oh well – let them come. It would all play out one way or another in the end.

I dashed through the trees with all the haste I could muster, heading in a direct route now up the slope to Janus’s cavern. My left shoulder was a bolt of constant agony tearing through my body. I was dizzy from the pain in my nose. Still I ran, ran for the Gates of Atlantis and the Lost City beyond.

I made good time despite my injuries. I knew the quickest and most direct way, whilst the Aurors took care in their pursuit, lest I bring the forest to life once more or invoke some other traps against them. They’d been stumbling all over my concealed spellwork all morning, ranging from confundus charms to tickling spells. I liked to remain unpredictable.

I rounded a bend in the trees, which had begun to thin now as I rose towards the cavern, and had to scramble up a field of broken boulders in my path. Shrubs and scraggly trees grew in amongst the rocks, slowing my progress. The last patch was the most difficult, as I had to pull myself up a large slab of granite with just the one good arm. My left swung uselessly at my side, each jarring movement sending a constant reminder of the agony I was suppressing with adrenalin and good intentions.

At the top of the rise, a tiny armoured goblin tried to cleave my skull in two with a battleaxe.

I was so surprised that I burst out laughing, falling back over onto my ass and scrambling away from the mad little creature as he swung his razor-sharp weapon at my shins.

“Vestoclisu!” I used my wand purely on instinct and driven by need. The magic leapt to my defence, exploded from the tip in a blinding flash of crimson-tinged-purple light. It struck the maniacal goblin square in the chest, standing as he was at four-feet nothing, and fused his armour to his flesh.

The little bastard dropped his axe and screamed as the magic-infused armour it wore shrunk and morphed under the strength of my magic, my dark magic. The armour tore apart the goblin. Dark blood, thick and syrupy, exploded from the creases in the metal. Bones snapped, flesh tore…

I stopped laughing.

The Orc-Mare must have retreated enough to loosen the shackles around my power, or I’d outrun them beneath the shielded canopy of the forest, but the goblins had finally caught up with me. There were a dozen of the bastards if there was one swearing and cursing me from the crest of the boulder field. They had wizards with them in full black battle robes. I could feel the magic about to fly.

A shadow past over the sun. I glared up at the sky through the thinning trees and caught sight of the Orc-Mare. One, two… at least half a dozen of the creatures flapping away on decayed and rotten wings. They were only twenty feet overhead. They had caught up with me. My wand failed again.

“Ah shit,” I cursed, scrambling to my feet. This suit was a write-off now, scuffed and torn. I was bleeding all over it, as well. Some of the blood isn’t mine, though, is it? I didn’t want to think about the young woman who had bled for my arrogance.

Aurors began to appear from amongst the trees as I fled, clearing the remaining foliage at a dead run and cutting through the tree line for the cavern. If only I could’ve Apparated, but it would’ve been easier to walk to the moon in my current condition. I was going to lead everyone right to the cavern, right to the heart of my sordid little operation.

Damn it all.

Where was Dumbledore? Where was the Order? Why did no one seem to be on my fucking side?

Powdered rock and granite crunched underfoot as I dashed along the path to the cavern. The trail was easy, a steady incline that wrapped itself up and around the side of the valley I’d been battling in all day. I looked over my shoulder as I ran, sensing pursuit. The Aurors and the goblins were sizing each other up, more than a little confused at running into one another. Still, they followed…

The Orc-Mare remained with me, circling overhead – vultures waiting to feast.

Beyond the mess of Aurors and goblins, of hitwizards and bounty hunters, the forest was ablaze. The Muggle town across the lake, and even the lake itself, was obscured by gouts of bright orange flame and clouds of thick black smoke that rose thousands of feet into the sky. The whole world was burning, or it would, if I didn’t hurry up.

Tonks and Fleur were waiting for me at the mouth of the cavern, waving me on as I limped the last few metres and almost collapsed.

“No more smoking for me,” I gasped, my lungs burning with exertion. The two women recoiled from me, their faces aghast.

I looked down at myself, at my dirty and bloodied suit. I was in a right state. I had no idea how damaged my face looked – it was a miracle I’d kept my glasses in one piece – but from the expressions before me I must have been damn near unrecognisable.

“It’s not all my blood,” I said between desperate pants. “Some of it is… my nose is broken, my shoulder—”

Tonks turned her wand on me. “Wiseleox!”

Before I could tell her that it wouldn’t work, that the creatures circling overhead restricted normal magic, my nose snapped back into place with a click and a flash of pain. She’d healed me – her power was intact – but I could still feel the numbing absence of my own.

“Your magic works,” I said in shock. The ball was back in my court. I thought fast and I thought sure – there was little time. “Get back in the cavern – now!”

I herded the two women back into the darkness of the cavern. As we entered I picked up a chunk of granite and began to carve into the wall, scratching rough runes into the hard stone.

“Harry, what are those creatures?”

I glanced back out into the light of day – the Orc-Mare were screeching and swooping down towards us, hell-bent on getting into the cavern before I blocked the entrance.

“No time,” I said. “Tap your wand against these runes, Tonks. Light them up, and repeat after me.”

“Harry, I—”

“Just do it!” I snapped. “Or we die. Good.” Tonks tapped the runes and they came to life. Old World magic responding to New. “Now, slonox-slavax-sines!”

Tonks repeated the incantation and I pulled her back out of the way as the rock beneath the runes cracked.

With Fleur in the lead, we broke through the entrance to the cavern and entered the main cathedral. The brightly lit mosaic of Atlantis cast fresh light on us as we leapt down the steps. From behind, I heard the stone of the mountain entrance cracking and twisting. All at once it broke – and the entrance caved in, showering all three of us in dust and splinters of stone.

I’d bought us maybe fifteen minutes before one of the forces out there cleared away the debris.

I tripped on the last step and fell face-first into the wide plateau holding the large obsidian gates. My glasses shattered, my lip burst. I lay on the ground tasting dust and running my tongue over my teeth to make sure they were all there. A small, broken chuckle escaped me as I glared at the runes dancing on the distant corpulent walls all around me.

Warm hands tried to lift me up, turn me over. “Are you okay?” Grace Connor asked.

I grunted in pain as she heaved away at my dislocated shoulder. She rolled me onto my back and there I lay, spent for the moment. “Hi, Grace,” I said. She was leaning over me. “I can see right down your blouse.”

The young woman blushed and leaned back, giving me room to breathe.

“Reparo,” I heard Fleur from somewhere above me. Her soft hands gently placed my glasses back onto my face. The blurry figures all around came into stark focus. “You are a mess, ‘Arry.”

“I’ve held off about fifty Aurors, more than a handful of goblins, and a swath of demon creatures from another world – what have you done with your day?”

“What you asked,” Tonks said. She ran her wand over my body, assessing the damage. “Everything is ready to go. Cracks of silver light have appeared in those two pillars over there… the gates, you said.” Her wand tip was drawn to my shoulder, glowing a soft shade of pink. “Dislocated, Harry.”

“Can you work some of your Auror-skills on it?”

Tonks shrugged. “Bones are not my specialty. I can try but I could do more damage…”

“Not to worry.” I sat up, my head still spinning from the fall, and gained my feet. “I saw this trick in a movie once.’

I stumbled over to the monumental pillars, to the Gates of Atlantis. There were indeed cracks of silver light breaking through the stone. A pool of raw starlight rested in the centre of the gates, almost depleted, runes of varying colour were fading in and out all around it. I’d begun the process last night of opening the way… it needed only one final push.

Hesitating only long enough to steel my resolve, I smashed my dislocated shoulder against the unshakable pillar. I didn’t get it on the first shot, but the pain made the second slam count for all – my shoulder popped back into place. In truth, it was the Muggles who had taught me how to do that. I knew a lot of quick-fix medicine – it was how I’d stitched myself back together after Saturnia’s stab wound.

“You are mad,” Jason Arnair said. “Absolutely insane.”

“Welcome to the jungle.” I grinned. “We got fun’n’games.”

A large echoing boom reverberated through the cavern from above – a blast of dust and rock exploded out from the caved-in entrance.

“What was that?” Arnair took a few hurried steps back, standing behind me next to Grace.

“It gets worse here every day,” I said, humming a few lines of nonsense. “In the jungle where we play.”

“Harry, are you okay?” Tonks asked.

I took a deep breath. “Fine,” I said, and perhaps I lied. “There’s not much time now. Prepare a defence, ladies, we’re about to have company.”

Good grief, but where was Albus Dumbledore?

I went to work on finishing the runes and incantations for the last round of starlight that I’d pour into the gates. Jason had transcribed the rune code perfectly, enough so I could anticipate the correct sequence of lesser and master runes, and at what intervals they needed to be drawn.

There was a trunk open just before the gates. In it lay the last sealed vase of pure starlight. In the sparsely lit cavern, the vase shone with the radiance of the heavens. I felt four pairs of eyes watching me as I worked fast, counting the minutes. More shocks and eruptions from above suggested the forces outside, probably regrouped Aurors, were almost through.

My hands were shaking after the runes were sketched, but at least I had my magic back for the time being. I severed the seal on the starlight and poured the liquid explosive into the groove in the stone. It took on a life of its own as it pooled in the channels – the runes flared to life and the starlight disappeared under the base of the twin pillars.

I tossed aside the vase once it was empty. It rolled across the plateau and dropped over the edge into the darkness of what I was pretty sure was an endless plummet into the earth’s heart. No matter.

A deep rumbling began to emanate from the obsidian pillars. The silver light peaking through the cracks deepened and spread further up towards the break of the arc forty feet overhead.

I took a step back and unscrewed the Atlantean Ring of Concealment from my finger. To all scanners and sensors, I was Harry Potter once again.

That felt good – clean.

“Here we go then,” I said to no one in particular. The cavern shook with the blasting curses being fired into the entrance from above. “I’ll be famous after this…” I tossed the ring into the pool of starlight. Any other metal would have dissolved straight away. This Atlantean silver sunk to the bottom – a final boost for the last push.

“Let me clean you up, ‘Arry,” Fleur said, placing her hand gently on my shoulder.

I shrugged her hand away, shivering in spite of myself. “I’m fine,” I said. My headache was killing me. I didn’t know if the blood I could taste was my own.

Fleur persisted – she always persisted. “I’m standing here worrying about you, ‘Arry. Please…”

And she always worried. Right up until the moment I got her killed. I sighed… and turned away from the gates.

The enemy would be here soon enough.

*~*~*~*

There can be no turning back. It always comes back to a choice between what is right… and what is easy.

Sometimes neither choice is worth making.

Sometimes destiny is not moving towards any purpose… but away from one.

Choice cripples destiny.

*~*~*~*

I looked down at my hand. It was broken, mangled… two of my fingers were missing.

Dazed and weary, I watched the spells and the fire dance back and forth across the vast cavern. Elaborate and inventive beams of magical energy lit the mosaic of Atlantis, casting the walls in alternating shades of destructive chaos and throwing up the mismatched shadows of men, goblins, and worse...

I’d landed with my back against one of the obsidian pillars that marked the entrance to the Lost City. The pillar was shaking – cracking – and white light as pure as silver blazed through the gaps in abundance. Soon, now, soon… the way would open.

“’Arry…”

There was so much noise.

So much noise and madness. I shook my head, trying to clear it all away through my relentless headache. My hand didn’t hurt, which was something, I suppose. Although it was bleeding like a motherfu—

“Merde, ‘Arry, you ‘ave to stand!”

Someone gripped me under my arm and hauled me to my feet. Through the dirt and the grime and the smell of hot coppery magic on the air, I caught a wave of strawberries and rainfall. Blond hair, slick and matted with blood on one side from a nasty gash across her forehead, entered my line of sight.

“Fleur…” I croaked, choking on ash. I coughed to clear my throat as my mind fell back in to place. “Where’s Tonks?”

“With Arnair and Grace, protecting them from ze worst of eet. ‘Arry… your poor hand.”

My wand was still gripped firmly in my undamaged right hand. A small mercy that it was my left that had been maimed. No matter. What was a finger or two over the course of a lifetime? Most of the mangled flesh looked cauterised from the blast wave that had sent me ass-over-head into the pillar, but my finger-stumps were still bleeding.

“No matter,” I said. From the burning in my side I guessed that my stitches must have burst, too. “No matter. We’ve got to move. Stay behind me and stay low.”

The wide plateau that had been covered with gold and treasure five days ago was now a makeshift battlefield with half a dozen warring factions on either unnecessary side, most of them vying for my head.

A group of armoured goblins wielding fiery swords clashed with a unit of French Aurors.

More Aurors were firing spells against four of the Orc-Mare, the creatures I’d named Tweedledum and Tweedledee, and were being slaughtered. Even though their magic seemed to be operational. Why was it just me they neutered?

At the top of the cavern, the Italian forces were battling with the rogue wizards that had come with the goblin bastards. All of the forces combined against me had turned on one another.

Far overhead, more of the Orc-Mare circled, flying on their leathery decayed wings and swooping down with murderous intent, vicious swords in hand.

The only factions missing were Dumbledore’s Order and the Death Eaters. I didn’t expect Death Eaters at this rodeo, but not expecting the worst had bit me hard in the ass more than once. It had ended the world more than once.

And in the middle of it all, broken and bleeding, I stood watching the insanity unfold.

Insanity that had gone on long enough and set this part of the world ablaze – burning through the valley all day to this nexus of forces, to this shit storm of good intentions. It was fucking hilarious that all the people that had come to kill me were killing each other.

Fleur and I ducked behind the glowing pillars and we could feel the presence of the other world straining to break through the barrier that had kept it lost for thousands and thousands of years. It felt like a weight slamming us into the ground, it felt bigger than anything we could imagine – it felt like death, if I’m to be honest.

And I know a little about dying.

BOOM!

Something exploded. Fucked if I knew what, but a rain of shrapnel – stone and tile chips – had us ducking for cover behind the makeshift crates that held the supplies I’d been planning on crossing with into Atlantis. There’d be no time to bring them now, not if the way was opening early and the battle intensified. We were uncomfortably close to the edge of the plateau and the endless chasm that lay beyond.

Tonks was just six-feet away, crouched behind the crates with Jason Arnair and Grace Connor, a grim smile on her face. She had a few cuts and bruises of her own, and paled at the sight of my left hand.

“Hey,” I said. “Everyone’s trying to kill each other, so I reckon we should just sit this part out—”

A familiar and terrifying screech cut through the cavern and one of the Orc-Mare swooped down low from above, a squirming goblin in armour clutched between its talons. It took a swing at me with its sword, eyes shining with sickly yellow light, but missed. The goblin tumbled from its grip and smacked into the stone near the edge of the plateau, ten feet away.

I thought for a moment. “Fuck this.” I wasn’t going to sit this part out. All of these bastards were going to die, and die hard. Someone out there owed me one left hand.

The goblin that had fallen from on high was struggling to stand and shaking itself off. All of the goblins had come dressed for war in shiny platinum armour. They looked like mini-knights of medieval England, ready to defend some tiny castle. All of them were equipped with magical swords that burnt with purple fire. Deadly and insane.

I covered the distance between the goblin and the edge of the plateau, just as the little bastard found its feet, and gave him a firm kick in the ass with the heel of my shoe.

I imagine its face looked quite surprised as it went tumbling over the edge into nothingness.

All the while I was muttering under my breath and my wand had begun to vibrate. Black fire, a fire that absorbed light and warmth, began to flow from the tip until I had a length like a bullwhip, thin and crackling.

“Stay well back,” I growled at my few allies. Jason and Grace looked frightened beyond all reason, and just merely nodded at me. Fleur and Tonks met my eyes with a look of pure disbelief. Here was another lost magic brought back to life.

“Harry… is that Demon’s Light?” Tonks asked.

“Ain’t I just full of surprises.” My broken hand was really beginning to hurt.

Outlawed by every civilised government – much like Fiendfyre – Demon’s Light was a deadly and potent weapon. In many ways, it was worse than Fiendfyre. Fiendfyre could be controlled, at least. Demon’s Light was hell unleashed – dark magic at its finest. A single spark would reduce flesh to dust… and dust to nothing.

I never said I was the good guy, not by far, and I’d been pushed too far once again by all these bastards. Chronos would die, before I was through, for bringing this storm upon me. Of that I was certain.

The Demon’s Light strained against my wand, fighting to break free. I could feel it getting ready to turn on me if I didn’t release it, but my will was greater. Coils of black flame circled my ankles like a snake, slowly rising around my body. If I sneezed it would probably kill me.

Ah, hell, I’d been so sure I’d make it to Atlantis without this massacre. Where was Dumbledore? He should have been here. No matter now. Atlantis was aching at the bonds to be released. I was more than happy to speed that process along.

I walked out from behind the crates and into the centre of the plateau, before the shaking and shining Gates of Atlantis, wreathed in black fire and snarling at those who would dare try and stop me. Flecks of blood on my glasses gave the world a shade of crimson haze.

I couldn’t kid myself here, what I was about to do was murder. It was kill or be killed, it was always kill or be killed. This was something else though. Demon’s Light was something else. I was insane, I had to be. But then sanity didn’t win wars – killing the greatest number of people did.

So murder it was then. I could never be the kind of hero people expected me to be. I could only be this – bathed in fire and blood.

“EVERYONE!” I roared into the maelstrom. “ALL YOU BASTARDS OUT TO KILL ME!” No one was really listening, so I cut the bullshit and unleashed the magic. “Please die…”

I screamed and urged the magic on, my wand pointed high at the arched roof of the cavern. The Demon’s Light delighted in my rage and surged forward, aching at the bond and lashing back and forth against my wand.

It struck one of the Orc-Mare and the creature exploded in a gush of rotten flesh and guts. A rain of congealed blood, fried by the Demon’s Light, fell in a steady dark mist as the dreaded fire moved on to the next, seeking out the targets as fast as my eyes could find them and direct the power.

“Harry, you can’t use this!”

The cavern and its occupants were taking note of me now. They all remembered why they were here, who they had come for. Now they needed to flee – flee or die. I was Harry Potter. Time itself fell to her knees before me. I would not be challenged like this! NO!

“’Arry, your eyes…”

My eyes were flooded with the same dark light that rippled from my wand in wave after deadly wave. The emerald green was gone, only the light of another world remained. A demonic world, a world I would breach in mere minutes.

The Demon’s Light was seeking its own targets now, surging amongst the Orc-Mare and reducing their forms to so much sickening refuse… The goblins, those traitorous bastards who would cripple the world in years to come, hoarding their gold and riches, they were next. They were all next.

I was laughing again, a distant sound in my ears… only it wasn’t human laughter, not anymore. It was a horrible sound, a hellish sound, a laugh like hot coals on a sizzling grill, grating my throat raw against sulphuric bedrock. The Demon’s Light was taking me, and I was letting it.

Fleur shook me. I saw her from behind eyes that burnt with deadly intent. The magic was more than me, more than I could take. I felt her slap me, ordering me to stop it before it went too far.

The fire was tearing through the goblins, reducing them to crumpled mounds of shattered armour and steaming flesh. It was no more than they deserved. The rest turned to flee, as did the bounty hunters and Aurors.

Was it more than they deserved?

No. Yes. I didn’t know. The light had me now – the darkness in the light. There was no turning back, no redemption, not this side of hell—

Fleur kissed me.

I felt her lips against mine, harsh and desperate. She was vicious, her tongue pushed against my teeth and she bit my lip. A surge of raw desire rushed through me, raw and human.

I teetered on the brink of succumbing to the Demon’s Light, to the very reason it was outlawed and forgotten. But I couldn’t – Fleur’s frantic kiss sang to me of the sheer humanity in the act, of the lust. It reminded me who I was – and I was not this, I was not this demonic light.

With a cry I wrenched my wand skyward and the Light lashed back away from the fleeing Aurors and the goblins that remained. It slammed into the roof of the cavern, carved into the mosaic and ignited the runic magic that held this place together. Large swaths of stone fell away. A deafening roar engulfed the whole world.

The Demon’s Light fled my eyes but not my wand. It raged against my will, threatening to escape and destroy us all. What had I been thinking? I fell to my knees, pulling Fleur down with me.

I pressed my forehead against hers. “Thank you, Fleur,” I whispered. “Thank you… for stopping me.”

Her smile was grim but sincere. “Someone ‘as to stop you, ‘Arry.”

“I think this life around… only you could.”

I laughed and it was my own – insane but human. Then I screamed as my wand tried to break itself in half. The Demon’s Light demanded I release it. It was still carving a path of destruction through the upper reaches of the immense cavern. I didn’t know if I could extinguish it – a part of me still didn’t want to. But I had that part under control.

I strained my will over the loosed flames and kept it tethered to my wand. But that was all I could do, I couldn’t overcome the fetid light. It had been a long day, and I was tired, so very tired.

Darkness swam at the edge of my vision. I suddenly became aware of how lightheaded I was, how dizzy. Just how much blood had I lost?

I was ready to admit it now – I was in trouble.

There was nothing to be done. I’d tempted fate with magic I barely understood pulled from the dredges of my fractured mind. Perhaps an older Harry Potter could have pulled this off, but I’d been desperate.

I was going to die.

Maybe it wouldn’t be as bad as I thought. I’d have to start the game again – these last few weeks done over. And I’d been so close, too, so close to Atlantis. In the back of my mind I knew dying would kill me – that I couldn’t survive another trip back – but that thought seemed unimportant.

A beam of pure golden flame struck the lashing whip of Demon’s Light and the fierce magic stopped thrashing against my wand.

It went as still as stone… and then faded away into the golden light. My eyes widened as the pressure of the dark magic disappeared. My arm fell to my side, devoid of strength. Tendrils of smoke rose from my wand in my clenched fist.

I followed the beam of golden light that had saved me – saved us all – back to its source. It had been cast from across the entirety of the cavern, from the shattered entrance high up above the plateau, from a wand of impossible strength. An elder strength.

Standing behind that wand, a glint of mischief in his old eyes, was Albus Dumbledore.

*~*~*~*

My name… my name is Potter.

Harry Potter.

Care to shake the hand that shook the world?

*~*~*~*

“Dumbledore…” I gasped.

As my old professor extinguished the Demon’s Light…

The Gates of Atlantis chose that moment to open.

A wash of silver light eclipsed the cavern, followed by the beat of heavy drums. I turned from the stone steps to the gates in time to see electric blue and severe purple bolts of lightning colliding in between the gates, spinning and churning within the still air. The magic began to exert a pull on me, urging me towards the portal that was opening.

Dust and debris that littered the plateau was light enough to be pulled in too early. It disintegrated against the battling magical energies.

A deep crack split the plateau down the middle, and further slabs of heavy stone broke free from the walls and the roof. A few boulders smacked into the walkway, blasting apart in great plumes of dust and shrapnel. The stone beneath my feet was vibrating – it was going to fall into the abyss.

I waited a full three seconds, my heart in my throat, to see a kind and warm grin spread across the old man’s face. Here was here to help me, to aid me. My letter had explained most of this, had explained Atlantis.

Dumbledore wasn’t going to try and stop me. I could’ve wept with relief.

The old man blinked and said nothing. He also did nothing to stop the goblins, and the bounty hunters they had brought with them, from slinking past him and back out of the cavern. Good riddance to a waste of time.

“Be ready,” I said to Fleur, Tonks, Jason and Grace. They were all down here on the plateau, so they were all coming with me. “Levitate as many of the trunks as you can, ladies.”

There came a tremendous boom and I knew, at long last, that the way had opened.

Nothing remained of the obsidian pillars; they had been dissolved into the old magic. In their place was a set of glowing white steps, steps of pure light, and at their summit nothing but a swirling mass of dark mist, impenetrable and vaguely trouble. The way had indeed opened, but wouldn’t hold for long.

“Levitate the trunks into the mist,” I told my companions. I cast the majority of them into the darkness with a sweep of my wand. “Now be ready – this is it.”

“Be careful, Harry,” Albus Dumbledore called from on high. I could barely hear him over the noise of the cavern about to tear itself apart. “Guard your heart and your mind, my dear boy.”

I said nothing. All I could do was incline my head to the man I respected more than I could ever say...

And now, well, after all the long weeks and all the time travel, Atlantis awaited. Here was a chance to be great, a chance once more to change the course of the future. This time I wouldn’t – couldn’t – fail.

So I wanted to be great. I wanted the world to burn on my terms. I was once far too young to know the truth – that it didn’t matter, and never would, but that was then.

And for all that did matter, this was now.

I was ready. I was spent and tired and beat all seven shades of shit, but I was ready.

Long live the guilty - and long live Atlantis.

I took Fleur’s hand in my damaged left, and Tonks’s hand in my right. Jason and Grace stood just behind, both ready to follow us into the abyss. The remaining Aurors attacked just as we ran, and spells rained down upon us even as they fled the cavern. We ran as one, as outlaws in truth now, as friends questing for the last great adventure this side of death…

Desperation… had always driven me to dangerous new heights. To unlawful time-travel and beyond…I had just pierced the veil between one world and the next, and nothing would ever be the same.

Darkness surrounded me, surrounded us all, and it was cold, so very cold, as we blinked out of existence.

*~*~*~*

A/N: One long mo’fo of a chapter, aye. What d’you think, folks? Did Harry get the shit kicked out of him or what? Despite it all, he made it, he’s on his way, but what will Atlantis bring him? How will it be different to what he remembers? Just what does he remember?

Heh, this was a real pain in the ass to write, so tell me what you think in a review – let’s try and break 1,000 of ‘em.

All the best, talk again soon,

Joe