A/N: Here we go, folks. First of all, thanks to the awesome reviewers of the last chapter (anyone who reviewed) but a special thanks to Litany of Hate, Sam the Sham, Estarcand all the folks that left some real good constructive criticism. Worth more to me than all the gold in Atlantis, that. So cheers.

I’ve also noticed that a lot of you punks are reading this story then heading on over all la-de-da to read my other stories, The Hero Trilogy, and not really finding what you’ve come to expect in my writing here. Heh, well, without making any excuses, those three stories of the Hero Trilogy, totalling some 1,000,000 words, were written by a fifteen-nearly-sixteen year old kid six years ago. He was young and stupid back then, barely knew how to string a sentence together, but the story was, for the most part, solid. It was those stories that gave me the meagre skill I’ve managed to scrape together to produce the one you’re reading now – Wastelands of Time. So give a tip of the hat to my other stories if you must, but this story is what it’s all about now.

Okay, here we go then – a thanks goes out, as always, to the crowd over at darklordpotter, who – without fail – let me know if I’m about to screw up. T’is always a precarious balancing act... over the rampant pit of despair and sodomy that is DLP.

Harry Potter and the Wastelands of Time

Chapter 21 – The Time Traveller’s Memory

Heard ten thousand whispering and nobody listening.Heard one person starve, I heard many people laughing.Heard the song of a poet who died in the gutter.

~Bob Dylan

*~*~*~*

Blood, sweat and tears marred my scarred and ruined face.

Victory or defeat has become relative – has almost ceased to matter. Whether I win or lose is no longer the question. If I fail then I failed whilst setting the world ablaze, and if I win...

If I should win, and one day grow old in truth, and if for just one brief lifetime I should live and die and stay dead, then the walls of reality will not crumble and it will be like waking from a dream of fiery roses to find one clutched in my hand, untarnished and pure, the thorns drawing blood across my palm...

The walls may hold, the glass may no longer fly, but what happens next?

Aye, but what happens next?

*~*~*~*

“So let me get this straight,” Tonks said, choosing her words carefully. “Your plan to stop Voldemort seizing the power of Atlantis and unleashing a demonic hoard upon the world is to... let him... seize the power of Atlantis and unleash a demonic hoard upon the world.”

I nodded. “The devil’s in the details, but yeah, that’s the plan.”

Tonks looked to Fleur, to Jason, to Grace as if she’d missed something. “Well, I vote for a new plan.”

“No.” I shook my head. “This is a good plan.”

“Perhaps not, ‘Arry,” Fleur suggested, resting a gentle hand on my shoulder.

We were all below deck on the Atlantean battleship. The battle with the frasks had left me woozy from the fight and all the blood I’d lost. Tonks had patched me up, sealed all the cuts, yet I was fixing for a few blood-replenishing potions and perhaps something to put me to sleep for a few years. It had been a long, long day.

Sitting shirtless on a dusty cot in what would’ve been the captain’s quarters, I gazed out of the shattered windows of the cruiser, out over the dry dock to the barren ocean beyond the mighty slipway. It was a stark and lifeless world outside this ship, under a blurred twilit sky. Thin lamps of faded blue light had ignited in our presence, but the light was as old as the rest of this world…

“At least those stitches have held after all that,” Grace said, pointing to the half-healed stab wound in my side.

Another week or so and they could come out. I would still make Saturnia bleed for the pain she had caused there. Tricksy demon bitch. That is, if I ever saw her again…

“Aye,” I said, and turned back to Tonks. “My plan still stands, Tonks. In order for us to get home Voldemort has to take Atlantis – not all of it, just enough – and awaken the Bone-Men so this whole place blurs with our world… before that happens, we’re going to amass a helluva lot of power of our own here.”

“You’ve got this all planned out, have you?”

“Given lifetimes, I don’t think I could come up with anything better.” And wasn’t that the fucking truth. “This will work because it has to.”

Tonks ran her hands back through her bubblegum-pink hair, her eyes flashed with frustration, and her fringe darkened to jade. “You’re playing with my – with our – trust a lot, Harry, you know that, don’t you?” She shook her gorgeous head. “There’s stuff you’re not telling us.”

I had to struggle not to roll my eyes. Of course there was. More than you could ever understand, ladies and gentlemen, more than the better-left-forgotten will ever let you understand. So just let it lie, let it lie and let it die, boss, can ya dig it, because all the Coca-Cola and bourbon in the world can’t make a dent in this headache.

This sumabitch headache.

I didn’t say that. Didn’t say any of that… Instead I looked down at my bare chest, at the new lines of thin white scar tissue that crisscrossed my body. They were barely visible against my pale skin, but the frasks had left their mark, sure and true. Even magic couldn’t erase the wounds of anti-magic entirely. That’s what the frasks were, after all, resistant.

“I’m playing this whole adventure as best I can, Tonks.” The truth, but as rotten as a lie. Worse than a lie, perhaps. “I warned you all about this before you came with me. Told you all that it had to happen certain ways, that you had to trust me.” I turned to the shimmering curtain of platinum-blonde hair standing at my shoulder. “Fleur, you trust me, don’t you?”

Fleur’s smile was a touch weary. “You’ve earned a leetle trust, ‘Arry, yes, but our trust should also earn us a few answers…”

I sighed – a wretched, tired thing – and raised my hands in defeat. “I’ve had visions of Atlantis for weeks, through this damned scar on my forehead. I’m the bloody Chosen One fated to either die or defeat Lord fucking Voldemort, yippee-de-da, there’s your answers. Anything else is just the devil and his details, okay.”

I was on my feet now, dizzy and drained. I’d gone too far today, done too much… the fatigue and the blood loss were only half of it. The world was heavy here, heavy, and it weighed on what was left of my soul like a fucking anvil—

I swayed forward and Fleur and Tonks caught me, both under an arm, and lowered me back down onto the cot. The world was still spinning, still hammering a goddamned spike through my skull, and I was going to throw up, of that I was quite sure.

I moaned, gripped by the nausea, sure that this old warship was swaying back and forth on the high seas under the pull of a tropical hurricane. This was all happening far too easily, far too effortlessly—

—“He said his name is Harry. Harry Potter.”—

Oh and here came memory. Was it a happy memory screaming and laughing through the maelstrom of time-ruined thought in my head? Was it fuck.

—“He was brought in two days ago. Multiple fractures to his spine, both legs broken in seven different locations. His right arm had to be amputated at the shoulder, the left is set due to a severe compound fracture and third-degree burns. There’s massive internal trauma, but somehow he’s still with us… he’s talking.”—

Happy memories are few and far between, folks, because they leave no real impression. The Patronus Charm is testament enough to that. One of the hardest charms in the New World, and why is that…? The wand movements are easy, even unnecessary, and there’s no real power required. It’s hard because so few people can separate true happiness from reality, from the better-left-forgotten, and the raw, pure moments from the pain.

Because happiness is just a feeling, almost not felt at all, whereas pain is real, pain is constant, pain is nightmare. Pain is time… and a clock on the face of hell. Fleur’s face hovered over mine, Tonks at her left. They were beautiful even behind eyes that swam with tears I’d never shed, even from within a mind as broken and torn as mine. I was losing consciousness and memory was rising, memory as terrible as the future, that came from the future… can ya say maybe yes and maybe no…

“Can you hear me, Harry?”

Someone flashed a light in my eyes and I winced against the shudders that wracked my ruined body. I was in a hospital, of that I was sure, a Muggle hospital, and I was in such a sorry state that not even magic could save me now.

“Just pull the plug,” I said, my voice a harsh croak. “Do us all a favour and send me back.” The someone with the light came into a harsh focus. It was a woman, a young woman, her auburn hair tied back in a bun and a pair of wire-rimmed spectacles hugging her face. For a moment my mind wouldn’t process her face, wouldn’t link reality with what I was seeing… “Hi, mum,” I said.

The woman frowned. “My name is Doctor Lovett, Harry. You’ve been in hospital for two days.”

I blinked and saw the woman behind the glasses, saw her true beauty. Whew… if I had all my arms and legs and a working spine I’d have been all over that. I could quickly dismiss my first impression of this Doctor Lovett as my mother. That would open up a whole case of psychological soup that was best avoided.

“Left me for dead…” I said.

“Pardon me?”

It hurt to blink, damn it, and I tried to wipe my forehead with my right arm. It wasn’t there. It was… gone. I could still feel it. “I should be dead.”

Doctor Lovett clearly thought the same. Whatever was keeping me alive, it wasn’t her medicine or even her good intentions. The machines all around me beeped and beeped and yet I’d still be clinging to life without them.

“You were found at Kings Cross on the morning of September 1st, Harry, just outside the station. Can you tell me what happened? Who did this to you?”

I guess the fresh, oozing cuts and the methodical way the bones had been snapped and torn away didn’t make all this look like an accident. This woman could have no idea of what I’d been through, what I’d done, yet what harm would the truth do? Insane ramblings for the not-so-insane. Not yet, anyway. “It was Lestrange,” I said. “Bellatrix Lestrange. I thought I could take Atlantis alone… I was wrong.”

“What?”

“How did I get here?”

“You were found outside the station—”

“How did I get there?” From another world. “How am I…?”

I began to cough, to cough and splutter. I was wracked with tremendous pain, with fresh tearing and a mouthful of heart’s blood. You certainly pay for what you get in this world, yes sir, both the good and the bad.

“You’re here because I brought you back, Harry Potter. For you to die in Atlantis this late in the game would break the Infernal Clock…”

There was a face leaning in at me over Doctor Lovett’s shoulder. A young man’s face, vaguely handsome and familiar… his eyes sparkled with intelligence, his cheeks coated in rough stubble. His voice was deep and commanding.

“Who are you?”

He was close enough to run his nose through Doctor Lovett’s auburn hair, to brush his cheek against her own, and yet the good doctor didn’t seem to notice him, to even sense he was there.

“I’m your doctor, Harry, you—”

“I’m something you haven’t created yet, Harry Potter. Or rather… I’m a mistake you made, yes, yes. A ghost of futures yet to come.”

“Your name?” I asked.

“Sar—”

“It does not matter. Lives and lives will pass before we meet again – if we meet again – and you’ll only remember this conversation should you come dangerously close to failing, to failing for the last time…”

Whoever this man was I knew he was keeping me alive, keeping me tethered to this ruined chance to set things right. It was time I got back, time for me to catch the Dream back to the start.

“You don’t exist,” I said, trying to blink but unable to do more than draw ragged, shallow breath. “You’re not real.”

The young man smiled – he grinned from fucking ear to ear. “Exactly, Harry Potter, exactly! I figured you weren’t that smart, but you always seem to stumble arse-over-head onto the right path regardless. Yes! Time does not exist and yet it is all that matters… is all that’s relative, can ya dig it? Yes, yes you can. No maybe about it, huh.”

Doctor Lovett was injecting some sort of clear substance into the bag that ran a line down into my wrist, just below the plaster cast. Whatever it was it was supposed to knock me out cold, I was sure, and the look on her face when my eyes kept flicking back and forth was priceless. Doe (a deer) caught in the headlights, my dear.

“No I can’t…”

The man grinned again, and all at once I knew he was insane – that he’d caught insanity like some kind of disease, and whadda’ya reckon, boss, but I think he caught it from me… But there were right kinds of insane, of course there were, and some of them even saved the world.

“The last thing I want to do is hurt you, Harry Potter.” That awful shit-kicking grin. “But it’s still on the list.”

“Do your worst.”

“I will. But first, a word to the wise – you have to let them hurt you, too. All of them: the blonde one, the changing-one, even the graceful one and the oh-so-clever one. Hurt is how you win, pain is how you fight. Can ya dig that, Harry Potter?”

I felt something slipping away, something fading like the twilit sky at the end of a true day. Stars were coming out, folks, the super-fun-happy-hour was about to start, and the drinks were on me, only a buck ninety-five for a pint and crisps. I felt something slipping away, and knew it was my life. “Any other advice, pretty boy?”

The young man winked. “Never, under any circumstances, take a sleeping potion and a laxative at the same time.”

Well, there you go then.

“I guess with sufficient thrust even pigs may fly, you shouldn’t trust me ‘cause I lie, and even Harry Potter may finally die…”

That beeping… that constant beep, beep, beeping… was fading away. Here come the stars, I thought, and it was with relief. The man, or whatever he was, something I HADN’T created yet, swam in and out of sight. I could still hear him, though, still feel him…

“You gotta take life with a grain of salt, Harry Potter, yes, yes… and a slice of lemon… with a shot of Jose Cuervo.”

“Harry, can you still hear me?”

Doctor?

“Breathe, Harry, breathe!”

“This boy’s done all his breathing, ma’am.”

That was true enough.

I awoke with a splitting headache – but then what was new about that? – to find the constant twilit haze outside the shattered galleon windows a little brighter, the air blowing a stale, sweet smell off the barren sea. It was coming up for morning, or what trucked for morning here in Atlantis, and I could taste blood in the back of my mouth.

“Memory’s suck…” I whispered aloud, trying my voice and finding my throat painfully dry. I could hear soft breathing around me.

There was Fleur in a cot next to mine, and beyond her lay Tonks. Jason and Grace were in small canvas cots of their own, and the drag marks in the dust suggested that they’d pulled those up here from within the bowels of the ship, down in the crew quarters. The door had been barricaded against intrusion, as well, with heavy crates. We were safe as houses, here in our little corner of the Old World.

“Chronos…” I said, the dream of memory still fresh in my tortured mind. I had met him before it seemed, and he had saved me to kill me, to let me die, and impart some garbled advice about how much it all had to hurt. “Merlin save me…” I rubbed my stubbly cheeks. You don’t need to tell me how much it hurts…

I found that my feet would support me, which was good, as there was work to do today. Vital work, enough to set the world ablaze – both worlds – but before anything we, I, would need to retrieve our supply trunks from back in the city. There was no other food here, save for what the Death Eaters had up in their dark tower, and that was kind of off-limits.

For now.

Voldemort’s portal back to the real world is there, as well, I thought. But there was no way I could use that without the Dark Lord’s consent. And that was about as likely as… well, as something not very likely. Damn, that was a no-good comparison. I’d think of a better one…

I took a deep breath, forcing my headache to the back of my mind. I was remembering more now, more than I ever had before, and if truth be told I was terrified. Honest-to-god shitting my pants. Memory sucked, of course it did, because memory could linger. And I couldn’t afford any more regret.

“Rise and shine,” I said, glancing between my companions. Fleur and Tonks looked beautiful in the half-light. Innocent, almost, and entirely capable of destroying me. Even Grace, who I knew little about, was strangely alluring in the light. Jason looked tired and was frowning in his sleep. I imagined I did the same.

It was a new day, here in Atlantis, and the city awaited… what memories would see us through before all was said and done on this, my final time, trying to make it all matter?

About as likely as Dumbledore leaning over and saying ‘Gee, Harry, that Fleur Delacour chick really gives me a woody’.

Damn. I shuddered.

Harsh but true, that one.

*~*~*~*

And the taste is… fleeting.

*~*~*~*

I set to work in earnest that first real day in Atlantis. This time would count for all, and that meant I had to make it matter – make the effort matter - more so than any other life. There was also a kind of cruel manipulation in keeping busy, and we were going to be busy, as it left little time for questions about how I knew what I was doing… for the most part.

If this is to be the last time, I thought, then the truth will out in the end… it has to. That thought made me sick to my stomach.

Alone, shirtless, I walked back through the city in fine shoes and scuffed trouser pants, heading back up the street and the hill that led to the conical-shaped building where we’d abandoned the supply trunks. It had been close outrunning the frasks. I left Fleur, Tonks, Jason and Grace asleep in their cots, mindful that they would only slow me down, and hoped to get back before they awoke. It was a seven mile roundtrip.

Sharp claws had torn my shirt to pieces, and my trousers were in a state, as well. I needed a change of clothes, a hot meal, a shower. All that was the primary objective today. Setting up the base of operations upon the mighty warship. Getting a few of its rough comforts up and running. Everything else would spiral out from there.

I walked with one hand gripping my wand almost casually at my side. That was my left, the one missing a few fingers, as in my right I gripped the shaft of my battleaxe, leaning the flat of the blade against my bare shoulder. I’d cleaned off the congealed syrupy blood, and in the half-light overhead the mythril blade shone azure promise.

The trip back through the outskirts of the city was uneventful. I waded back through our hurried tracks, through the knee-high dust in parts, and in the shadows of the larger skyscrapers looming toward the city centre. Especially the largest of all those dark towers, with the eternally glowing sphere of energy atop, glaring down at the world. Voldemort’s tower.

“Voldemort’s lair,” I mumbled.

Why was I here? Was it some burning desire to save the world? Even at this point, the desire was still there, but why did I let it take me so far off the edge of the map? Dumbledore would know – Dumbledore did know – that’s why he let me go it alone. Because sometimes you learn by seeing, sometimes you learn by doing. Other times you learn by diving head first into the fire and hoping to all hell it just tickles.

But fire burns. Even dumb kids like me know that. It’s just what it does.

I retrieved the trunks from the dusty abandoned building – put on a clean pair of clothes - and levitated them behind me on the way back through the city. It was still deathly quiet, eerily so, but that felt natural, yes sir, that felt wild.

I walked back through the well-worn tracks we’d all made on our mad dash yesterday, keeping a wary eye on the jagged claw marks tearing through the dust and stone beneath my feet. Frasks were a threat, to be sure, but there were other threats in Atlantis. Older threats… that would disagree fiercely with being woken up by a dumb kid wielding a stick and an axe.

Half the threats were only vaguely remembered – like a shadow cast across the face of the sun, if that makes any sense.

I returned to the docks and the hollow shipyards through the hole the frasks had torn in the rusty steel door. I was once again awed at the size of the place, like five quidditch stadiums stacked end-on-end, a lot bigger on the inside than it looked on the out. The silvery-white Atlantean battleship looked good, solid, from this distance, but it needed a lot of work.

With a bit of elbow grease and a touch of starlight, I could even make the bloody thing fly again. Although it was perhaps more effort than I wanted to put in, especially at this point in the war. It was still kind of the pre-game.

With the trunks deposited back on the decking of the warship, I set about cleaning up the blood and heavy chunks of pallid flesh that had, until very recently, been magic-thirsty frasks. A few swipes with the old wand sent most of the crap over the side of the ship, and some superheated jets of steam took care of the rest.

I took a break and an apple from one of the trunks after that, wondering where to start next. The others would be awake soon, if they weren’t already, and there was work to be done, oh yes, plenty of work…

To say the ship was in a state of disrepair was an understatement. It was going to take weeks to get it into shape. Fortunately, or unfortunately depending on how you looked at it, we had weeks. Weeks in which to keep busy, to stay alive, to unlock the stagnant mysteries of the Lost City.

“Wards and runes,” I said, thinking out loud. “Next should come wards and runes.” Protection against the night.

It was funny and… and terrifying… how the memories came back almost as soon as I needed them. Some were there straight away, others I didn’t know I knew until I knew them, if you follow me, but a lot of it was like riding a broom – you never forgot how, you just forgot when.

With my wand tip ablaze with a narrow blue flame I carved and scorched old Atlantean runes into the decking and masts all over the shape. Small runes, no bigger than a galleon, but plenty of them. On their own the runes were negligible, almost pointless, but together they formed a network of formidable protection.

There was a library here in Atlantis, a library that put the one beneath Rome to shame. It was there I had learnt these runes, this spellwork, so many lifetimes ago. I’d visit that library again in a few days, maybe a week. I needed to burn it to the ground before Voldemort happened upon its unimaginable power. That was power only I would wield – power to die for. As I said, it’s funny how the memories come back… but it is also desperately terrifying.

“You are here, ‘Arry,” Fleur said, emerging up the steps onto the lower decking of the ship. She looked a touch dishevelled for a night on the cot, but still a picture of untouchable elegance.

“Good morning, Fleur. I’m just setting up some wards to keep things like those frasks away. Turning this whole ship practically invisible to non-human eyes.”

“Sounds… like impressive magic, oui?” Fleur ran her hand over one of the smoky ruins carved into the mizzenmast.

“It’s necessary magic.” I shrugged. “I went and got the trunks.”

“By yourself?”

I nodded. “Safer that way – for all of us. Last night with the frasks was just… unlucky.”

“How do you know what they’re called, ‘Arry? How do you know so much?”

“My scar—”

“Does not account for everything, non.”

I ran my maimed hand back through my hair. It was knotted and greasy. Next step was setting up the bathroom and shower facilities. “I was thinking pancakes for breakfast. Yes?”

Fleur tsked. “No – far too heavy – and do not change ze subject.”

I took a moment to reply, to remain calm and reasonable through my headache. I wanted to kiss Fleur and shut her up. I wanted to tell her everything and nothing. And I wanted to kiss her. The truth will out in the end, I was beginning to believe, because I couldn’t afford secrecy and redemption, probably deserved neither, and oh I wanted to kiss Fleur. Hell, it was technically eight o’clock in the morning and I wanted a beer. I was cool like that.

“Allow me a few secrets for now, would you,” I eventually said. “Trust me that it’s in everyone’s best interests.”

“What iz ‘Arry Potter afraid of?” Fleur said, folding her arms over her chest and hugging herself close. “Monsters? Dark wizards? Mad quests for ancient cities? Non… he fears telling ze truth to a girl who owes him her life, to a girl who ‘as grown to care for him very much.”

Fleur’s beauty lent her great confidence. Confidence enough to challenge me, and the harmful insanity she had to see playing behind my eyes. In her stance I saw that she would relent – for now – and trust me as I had come to earn, but she wanted answers. Well… by hook or by crook, she wouldn’t get them until I was ready, if I was ever ready.

“You… care for me?”

Fleur smiled softly. “Oui, ‘Arry. Of course I do.”

Damn it all, but I felt a warm stupid blush rising in my cheeks. “…Why?”

“Because you are doing ze right thing... at great personal cost.”

I sat down on one of the trunks and after a moment Fleur joined me. Her presence was wonderful, strawberries and fresh rainfall, and she did not hesitate to hold my hand – the left one, the one missing a few fingers, crisscrossed with horrid scar tissue. I stared down at my hand in hers, at something so ugly in something so perfect.

“I care for you, too,” I said, and almost felt like I was going to cry. I was tired enough, oh yes, so tired. But I hadn’t shed a tear in lifetimes… not in pain, or grief, or anger… not in love. I did not cry when the world ended, and I did not cry now. “I care for you very, very much, Fleur Delacour. So please forgive me my secrets for now…”

*~*~*~*

I stroked my chin, rubbing the fuzzy stubble that belonged to a kid I hadn’t been in such a long time. When I spoke, my voice was calm, careful... “Unfortunately, I must decline your offer.”

Voldemort nodded once, almost respectfully. “Very well.”

*~*~*~*

“Okay… so, here’s how it lays out.” I paused for effect. “We are at war, ladies and gentlemen.”

It was surprising spacious in the galley of the warship. In its time, the ship would have been crewed by three dozen people – soldiers – and could be away for months at a time, sailing a world a lot bigger than the one we had left behind. It hadn’t just sailed the oceans or the skies, either, it had sailed through realms of forgotten magic. The realms of Fáe and Forget – a place I had once been to, once died in, once made a deal with the devil in…

Anyway, the galley was the food preparation area for the ancient Atlanteans, complete with a long table and bench bolted to the planks beneath our feet. It was, of course, bigger on the inside than out – just like the Shipyards itself – a nifty bit of special-relativistic magic. In fact, the entire ship was dotted with spots of expanded space. The crew quarters were large enough to sleep forty, the officers’ and captain’s cabins were spacious enough for all of us to live in relative comfort.

“War,” Jason said, pushing his glasses up the bridge of his nose. He frowned at the word. “You’ve explained this, Harry. A wizarding war against Voldemort.”

“And the Death Eaters,” Grace chimed in, blushing when my gaze settled on her. It was clear that I unnerved her.

I could have that effect, I suppose – hard to notice these things when chopping up demons with a ten-thousand year old axe.

“Right,” I said. “And as of right now, you’ve all been drafted – pressed into service, if you will – in that war.”

“I beg your pardon?” Jason said, still frowning.

Tonks sat back on the bench, picking at the plate of food before her with a shiny silver fork. The galley had been fully stocked with cookware, utensils and such. “I’m actually already enlisted, Harry, you know. Auror and all that tosh.”

“You hear about the organisation Hermione kind of tricked me into last year? Got Dumbledore thrown out of Hogwarts?”

Tonks grinned. “Dumbledore’s Army.”

“Aye, that’s the one. Well, it’s a lot better than the Auror corps, so how about you come work for us?”

Tonks snorted laughter, her hair shimmering through viridian-sky, electric-blue, sunburst-yellow… Jason watched her with amazement in his eyes. “You’ve got a better gig than the Ministry, huh?”

I shrugged. “I won’t lie, it’ll be a lot more dangerous than Auror work. We’ll be facing Voldemort head on.” Time to sweeten the deal. “But Dumbledore’s Army has a really, really good amenities room. Milk in the fridge and magazines only three months old on the table.”

“I might be out of a job anyway by the time we get back, Harry. I was on leave for a few days to find you for the Order. When I don’t show up Monday morning at the Ministry they’re going to think I ran afoul of a few Death Eaters.”

“It’s settled then. Starting rate is a hundred thousand galleons a month and any treasure you care to plunder.”

“We are a pirate ship then, ‘Arry?” Fleur asked, smirking from behind a can of Coca-Cola. She was well and truly addicted to the stuff now.

“You don’t have a hundred thousand galleons, though. If what you told me about the goblins wanting your head is true, then they would’ve made your accounts disappear.”

“Zis is true.”

I smiled a clever little smile and rested my chin on my hand. “In a few days I’ll have enough galleons to fight a thousand wars, Tonks. A thousand thousand wars.”

“All good and well, I’m sure,” Jason said, seated next to Grace across the table. “But getting back to this ‘pressed into service’ business, Harry. Are you serious?”

“I’m always serious, Jase, you should know that by now.”

“I came here to study Atlantis.”

“And so you shall,” I assured him. “But if one of those cannons up on deck is pointed between Voldemort’s glowing crimson snake eyes, I expect you to fire the bloody thing.”

“You think you can get those working?” Grace asked. “Harry, they’re thousands of years old!”

“Bit of starlight and spellwork, this old ship will be sailing again in no time…”

Jason pointed out the obvious. “The ocean here dried up a long time ago.”

“Also, zere are no stars, ‘Arry. Just zis constant twilight.”

“What is starlight but light anyway?” I asked. “This stuff won’t be as potent as the mix we had back in Italy, because the light here is… weak is a good word… but it will do the job for now.”

“Weak?” Jason asked.

I nodded. “Weak. Because time is messed up. And light is time.”

Tonks and Fleur looked perplexed, but Jason and Grace were nodding. A light year was not a measure of time but a measure of distance, and yet all we saw was a measure of light – of time. Seconds only became minutes because light pierced the inevitable veil of darkness… yet here light was failing, the world had ended – Atlantis was in her death throes.

“Next order of business, we need to christen this ship something cool…” I said. “Any suggestions? Her Majesty’s Ship…?

“Gryffindor?” Tonks suggested, with a wry grin.

“God no,” I replied. “No, no, no – far too obvious.” I tapped my chin. “HMS Kickass!”

“Non,” Fleur said. “I will not sail in zat.”

“But we are gonna kick so much ass,” I pleaded my case. “Seriously.”

“Non.”

“The lady has spoken…” I glanced around the cabin for inspiration and came up with nada and zilch. “Okay, ship name is on hold for now, I guess. Let’s clean this place up instead.”

And so past our first glorious day in the millennia-old Lost City, straddling the border between one world and the next, the Found City of Atlantis. Fleur, Tonks and I mucked-out the dust and the debris from within the battleship, casting cleaning charms and scrubbing spells. Notable magic, to be sure, as Jason and Grace watched with mouths agape at the streams of energy that cleansed the old ship.

In the last few days they had seen battles, they had seen Demon’s Light, they had breathed the air of another world, yet magic was still as foreign to them as saving the world was to me… Ha-ha, I can laugh at my own misfortune!

Below deck near the stern of the ship were the officer’s quarters, five rooms of relative size and comfort – one of which I had claimed the previous evening, which we had all slept in – and I was going from room to room now, airing them out, and attempting to spell the basic shower and toilet facilities. In the bowels of the ship was an empty water tank that a few Aguamenti charms filled.

It was all real slow-going…

It took a bit of tinkering, but as before the memories of doing it all lifetimes ago were right there, on the tip of my brain, just waiting for me to get my shit together. The toilets would usually just drain into the ocean when the ship was at sea, so a quick fix for the lack of ocean involved a recycling vanishing charm in the pipes that dealt with any waste. And that took care of the facilities. A lot of the magic was still in place, even after ten-thousand years, and just needed replenishing. As soon as I turned on the shower a blast of warm steam hit me in the face before the water burst through the remnants of a heating charm. We’d have to replenish the water tank every few days.

Word that the showers and toilets were working spread fast through the ship, and my companions retreated to their individual rooms of choice in order to wash away the grime and sweat of the last few days, since we had left the villa under the warm Italian sun nearly two days ago. It had been almost a non-stop fight to survive since then, especially for me…

I took the chance to head up top alone, out into the cavernous dock, to double-check my ward runes were holding and doing their job. They were. I had to trust the memories in my head, yet in some ways I was still only fifteen-nearly-sixteen, trying desperately hard to reconcile the influx of devastating thought I’d dropped on myself from the future. Futures. All was shipshape, so to speak.

Inside the armoury I brushed the dust off the mythril weapons and scanned the locked chest that was bolted to the far wall. There were runes running the length of it, and as I ran my fingers across the coarse wood they flared to life, even after all this time, in a range of electric-blue, shocking-purple, emerald-green… all flowing across the wood. A combination lock.

“What’s the code? What’s the code?” I wondered aloud. It was there on the tip of my mind, just like so many other thoughts and memories, but I couldn’t pull it out of the haze. I stroked the chest, the runes were warm… Nope, no good.

I knew what was in the chest.

Crystals were in the chest.

Power crystals that slotted into the back of the dozen or so cannons out on the main deck. They’d need charging with starlight after all this time, but the basic design of the crystal allowed for concentrated bursts of weaponized-starlight to be fired up to five miles through clear twilit sky. Yeehaw, indeed, ladies and gentlemen. Light that could cut clean through anything, save rune-wards of similar strength – like the ones I’d placed around this ship.

A lopsided, probably comically-insane, grin spread across my face as I stepped back out onto the main deck and turned to climb the stairs up to the ship’s control column. The memories were sliding into place, and before all was said and done I would be one helluva force to be reckoned with. I had to thank my future selves that much, at least – they knew how to fuck shit up.

On the upper deck there was, as expected, a fine coating of dust and debris from the last idle ten-millennia or so. In the centre of the deck stood the ship’s wheel, gilded in mythril and still shiny after all this time. The rest of the controls were dead, however, lifeless and seemingly silent. Raised control columns with various levers and knobs – it was advanced magical technology, yet it looked like simple clockwork. I could get them going again, of course I could.

Flashes of years spent in the library here in Atlantis burnt across my mind. Years spent learning how this stuff all worked – how to fix it. Once upon a time I’d had designs to activate all the dead technology here in Atlantis and turn it upon Voldemort. It had been a bold plan, a reckless plan. The Dark Lord had anticipated it – his cunning and insight into my mind was matched only by my own into his. In the end, I had failed, because of the Infernal Clock…

“Tick-tock,” I whispered, a hand on the ancient ship’s wheel. It creaked in its joints as I spun it around, but a little bit of spellwork fixed that right up. “Tick-tock, tick-tock…”

I closed my eyes and pictured the Infernal Clock ticking slowly away deep, deep beneath this city. In a few weeks, Voldemort and I would race for that prize, we would rush headlong down into the realms below that even the Atlanteans failed to breach. Realms that had destroyed the world ten-thousand years ago.

Aw hell.

If there were any other way…

But there was not. Nope.

The Infernal Clock, in all its raw, untamed beauty, had to be put into play…

*~*~*~*

If the stakes weren’t this high, then no one would give a damn. Yet who am I to make these choices? Choices that shape the fate of billions, time and time again…

*~*~*~*

For that first week in Atlantis, we did not venture beyond the confines of our ship, which underwent major restoration work in the days following the attack by the frasks.

It was such a static place, Atlantis, and barely any time seemed to pass at all under the constant twilit sky. There was enough work on the ship to keep everyone busy, including Jason and Grace – who took to examining various pieces of dead Atlantean technology in detail, admiring the detail and simplicity in devices that could do miraculous things. He was burning through the parchment and ballpoint pens he’d brought along.

I was in no real hurry, either. I could not be sure of Saturnia and Chronos, whatever they were, but all my other enemies had no way of knowing where I was, or how to reach me beyond the ward-rune curtain I had draped across the battleship. It had been a hectic, violent few weeks since I awoke at Privet Drive with the end of the world on my shoulders, and in that time there had been very little chance to stop and catch my breath.

It couldn’t all be running from one place to the next, dodging spells and solving ancient mysteries.

I relished that week of simple, honest spellwork – fixing the rigging on the ship, cleaning out the mechanical aspects of the ship, getting her ready for launch – if launch became necessary. I had ventured out as far as the dock in order to place a few glass vessels on the ground every night, spelled and scorched with runes designed to catch starlight – raw light energy. It would be used to fuel half the crap we came across here in Atlantis. I had collected quite a lot of the highly explosive substance over the course of the week.

But, once again, there was no rush. Rushing would come later.

A week here was nothing – it wasn’t even a full day back home, back in the real world. At best I’d left Dumbledore behind in that cavern in Italy twelve hours ago. There was plenty of time, time I was now using to recover, to plot my next moves carefully. With Saturnia and Chronos unaccounted for, I had to proceed with care against Voldemort. I didn’t know what those two wanted with Atlantis, but I could hazard a guess it had something to do with the Infernal Clock… and the realms it guarded.

That’s where the true power of the Lost City could be found. Not within it, but beneath it and beyond it.

At breakfast on the seventh day, I emerged clean-shaven and looking almost whole, after a week of eating right and sleeping more than five minutes a day. I joined the others in the ship’s galley, joined them amongst the smell of frying bacon and freshly squeezed juice. We were burning through our fresh supplies, but then they’d just go off if we didn’t.

And there was plenty of soup for when that happened.

“You’re looking well, Harry,” Tonks said, idly spinning her wand around a lock of her pink hair.

I lifted up my shirt and showed off my side. “Just pulled those damn stitches out,” I said. “Check out the cool new scar.”

Fleur winced. “Merde, eet still looks a bit raw.”

I shrugged. “Stings a bit, too, but the skin’s healed. Demon bitch who stabbed me thought she could keep me down – not this boy, no, ma’am.”

“Does this mean you’re up to something today?”

I grinned. “Perceptive, Tonks. Yes, yes it does. I was thinking of strolling through downtown and seeing what there is to see…”

“Monsters and mayhem?” Grace suggested.

“If we’re careful, we can skirt around all the monsters in the shadows. The real monsters are in the big, black tower in the heart of the city, anyway, and that’s easy enough to avoid… for now.”

“What are you expecting to find?” Jason asked.

“Stores of ancient wealth – of knowledge lost to the wastelands of time, my friend. Stuff that’d make even old Merlin walk away very, very slowly, lest he disturb the quiet fury of the Old World.” I chuckled. “There’s wonder here, you know, not just monsters. One means nothing without the other anyway.”

“Wise beyond your years, kid?” Tonks asked, leaning over to scuff up my scruffy hair.

“Ha, something like that, I guess.”

“So when do we leave?” Fleur asked. “Despite ze risk, eet will feel good to get off zis ship.”

I clicked my teeth together a few times in thought. This was the best move to make now. So far things had progressed at a faster pace than previous lives. I had to buck the trend here and place myself a few steps ahead. I had to start creating some real chaos, start my campaign against the Dark Lord in earnest…

“Get your running shoes on sweetheart,” I told Fleur. “We leave in an hour.”

An hour later we left, all five of us. I went first out through the docks into the motionless air of Atlantis. Then went Jason and Grace. Tonks and Fleur came last, eyes darting side to side and wands at the ready.

We all carried a weapon from the ship’s armoury – I couldn’t keep referring to it as the ‘ship’, either, she needed a name, a proper name… I couldn’t recall what I’d named her in other lives… - slim rapiers for the ladies, a longer sword for Jason, and my trusty battleaxe slung in a makeshift holster across my back. It was a little awkward carrying it like that, but I wanted to be able to use my wand and hanging it from my side left me in danger of gutting myself with any sudden movements.

Floating next to Jason and Grace was a single trunk, mostly empty, that held, amongst other things, our lunch. I’d be jamming it full of crap to take back to the ship. If I was to captain a pirate ship, and every nerve in my body screamed that I do so, then I guess this would be our first plundering mission.

“Alright, mateys,” I said, as we exited the dock and made our way through the Shipyards. It was quiet, deathly quiet. “If me treasure map is correct,” I tapped my scar, “then ‘X’ marks the spot three nautical miles to the southwest.”

“What are you talking about?” Grace asked, perplexed.

Tonks smirked. “You’re not a pirate, Harry.”

“Yes I am. Now listen close, folks, because it’s not all rainbows and daffodils out here… we’re heading for where I think,” I knew, “the main Atlantean treasury was built. There’ll be a lot of stuff there I don’t want Voldemort to even know exists. Some of it we’re taking with us back to the ship – it’ll take a few trips – the rest I’m going to blow up… I may not be a pirate, but how do you feel about terrorism?” My laughter didn’t seem out of place at all.

“Terrorism, really?” Jason asked.

I shrugged. “Voldemort checks all the terrorist boxes, and from a certain viewpoint so do I. Neither of us belong to any military but our own – he’s declared war against the wizarding world, I’ve declared war against him… I’m going to kill his followers to send a pretty strong message, one of my own ideological devising, and I’m going to do it by blowing shit up so the rest of his forces learn to fear me.”

Jason nodded. “There’s no internationally accepted definition of terrorism, but your actions do fit a number of United Nations resolutions that define certain acts as ‘terrorist’.” The young Muggle professor sighed, stroking the hilt of his sword. “Maybe you’d be better off describing yourself as a freedom fighter, Harry. You may even be one to the people in your world who oppose this Lord Voldemort. From what I understand, you have the moral high-ground in this fight.”

A slight breeze whistled through the city streets as we moved amongst the dust and debris, skirting between overturned and rusted vehicles, passed mounds of sparkling mythril rubble, heading southwest. I was trying to make it look like I didn’t know precisely where I was going.

“I don’t want to exterminate six billion or so non-magical folk, no,” I answered Jason. “And I guess Voldemort’s killing the innocent to prove a point, not me. Alright, if Tonks won’t let me be a pirate, I guess I’ll be a freedom fighter.”

“The Chosen One…” Tonks said, with very little trace of humour in her tone.

And that was because it wasn’t funny. Not at all. We all knew it. I had run that title into the grave more than once. Oh yeah, just shakin’ things up a little, boss, can ya dig it?

It took the best part of an hour to reach our destination. It was only three miles, but we were slowed by the destruction in the city and – more than once – we paused to gaze at something particularly terrifying. Giant bones, all that remained of the fallen carcasses of creatures that defied explanation. The Shambling Bone-Men.

Even after all this time, even though I could subdue the majority of the demon hoard sealed away beneath this city, I still shivered every time I saw another monstrous skeleton…

We crested a rise an hour before what would’ve been noon back home, and it gave us a commanding view of the lower half of the city. Voldemort’s tower, with its eternal light atop, was a few miles away to the east, mixed in amongst the other skyscrapers and joined by sparkling silver bridges stretching from one rooftop to the next. I had to breach that complex before too long. It was the way to the Infernal Clock.

Before that though…

The street we were on curved down and around back towards the coastline and the barren, lifeless seabed beyond. There was the smell of old, stale salt on the air, rolling in off the vacant ocean. It made me think of moist dirt in a fresh grave, of all things. Damn… we were all going to die one day, that much was certain. Die and stay dead.

I welcomed that day with something akin to morbid relief.

The street widened into a large square complete with dead fountains and fallen statues of stony-faced men and women, the Atlanteans, dressed in robes cut fine. Most of them had been desecrated at some point, even torn down, yet it was clear that at some point in the long, distant past, this place had been a garden – a park. Dust lay thick over the earth, over soil so dry it squeaked underfoot.

“There we go,” I said, pointing to a structure just beyond the garden square. “The first ever branch of Gringotts, although it was probably called something else back then…”

I was pointing toward a high-domed building about four hundred feet long and several storeys high. The windows were all smashed and broken, the brickwork looked ragged and slumped, yet there was a certain elegance about the place. A sense of establishment, of order and wealth, amidst the ruin of the whole world.

“The goblins were allies of the Atlanteans all those years ago,” I said. “And, just like today, they administrated the banks and monitored the flow of wealth throughout the nation of Atlantis.”

“They remembered more about zis than wizards did,” Fleur said, no doubt recalling that day in Diagon Alley a few weeks ago, where I’d invoked an ancient, binding contact made between the goblins and wizards right here in Atlantis. The Claw of Ragnorak Unbroken.

“That’s because they survived,” I said. “They retreated underground as the Atlantean war raged on, sealed away all the wealth of the Old World – some of which they still have today, but not much – and hid like cowards as the world devoured itself.”

“Hold on a minute,” Tonks said. “You mean the goblins knew Atlantis existed? That is wasn’t just a myth?”

I nodded. “Last laugh was on them, though. Most of their old gold and such they sealed away beneath this building here… and when the war came to an abrupt end Atlantis was blasted beyond the real world and into this limbo place. And here it’s stayed for a very long time.”

“That’s incredible,” Tonks said, shaking her head. “Why would they keep it a secret?”

“Because they are bound still by Old World magic,” I said. “By treaties with wizard-kind stretching back so far… it would not be in their favour to have those treaties be called into question.”

“But you’re going to do something, aren’t you, Harry?” Tonks looked wary. “You’ve got that look in your eye, the same one you had before unleashing that Demon’s Light back in Italy.”

I tilted my head and rolled my eyes. “That was a fun time, wasn’t it? And yeah, I’ve got a plan, once we get back home.”

“Do we want to know?” Fleur asked.

I shrugged. “Long story short, I’m going to overthrow the wizarding world before Voldemort does.”

Tonks and Fleur exchanged a wry glance. They couldn’t tell if I were serious or not. “Good luck with that,” Tonks said eventually.

It was dark inside the old bank, yet as before torches containing old, flickering light flared to life on the walls – reacting to our very presence. The air was stale inside the bank, and we moved through it carefully, passed overturned desks and ruined counters, decaying chairs and through a sea of dust. Glass crunched underfoot, small weeds – brown, lifeless things – crunched as well.

Beyond the counters was an old mythril security screen – still strong after all this time. It took all of us a few minutes of rummaging amongst the crap behind the desks and such to find a set of keys. Well, I made it take a few minutes, just for pretence, I knew where the keys were the entire time.

With the trunks still floating beside us, tied to Fleur’s wand, we headed down the corridor in weak-light. Dark rooms and adjacent hallways were every few feet, yet I stuck to the path in front of me, and came to a wider chamber containing a single large door of marble, cut from the very wall.

As we approached, old runes flared to life along the gateway entrance. Sharp, jagged slashes overlayed with a pointed fusion of impossibly bright colour,

The door was awaiting a code. And, wonder of wonders, it was there in my head. The work of more than one lifetime to advance into the room beyond this one…

“Just like in Italy,” I said to the others. “Remember all those runes across the mosaic…”

I used my wand to tap the runes in sequence, speaking each one out loud in Old World Atlantean - a step before Latin – the oldest magical language in the history of the planet. And it hadn’t really changed much over the ages.

I tapped the last rune in sequence and the doors groaned on ancient hinges, whined on flows of long-ago magic, and the joined stone slabs split down the middle, the runes faded, and the mighty vault swung open of its own volition. Air rushed into the sealed vault for the first time in ten-thousand years, rushed in so hard and fast that I stumbled forward a few steps, sucked into the vacuum.

I caught myself on the cool edge of the doorframe. This was all terribly exciting. I turned to my companions who watched me with baited breath, then I dropped them a wink and stepped into the darkness beyond the outline of the gateway, disappearing into a vault sealed over ten millennia ago…

Light flared around me as soon as I took the first step. Torches on the walls ignited with that same electric-blue light that permeated the entire city. It was brighter here than it was elsewhere, as this magic had rested undisturbed over all the long years. Frasks and worse had activated other parts of the city just by their presence, draining the spellwork. Here it was still fresh, untouched.

Beyond the door was a long, narrow corridor of smooth marble. We had to duck a little, as even all these years ago this structure had been made for goblin-folk. There was even a cart system that had echoed through the ages into every branch of Gringotts across the wizarding world today.

It was a simple thing here, however, without dragons. A single line of track and a small, white pod that would fit all of us quite comfortably waited just inside the entrance. I hopped into the cart and gestured for the others to do the same.

“All aboard, ladies and gentlemen, next stop fame and fortune.”

“Are you sure it’s safe after all this time?” Grace asked.

I nodded. “It’s goblin-made, which actually counts for something, believe it or not. The magic is still solid after all this time. Don’t worry, trust me, we’ll be fine.”

“Trust you,” Grace said without much inflection, letting out a deep breath. “Trust Harry and we’ll be fine.” She shook her head. “How much of this are you making up as we go along, Mr. Potter?”

“This much,” I said, and slammed my hand down on the control column of the cart. We shot off the mark like a bullet from a gun, zipping through the darkened marble corridor. “Oh we’ll be fine,” I assured my companions.

And we were.

The cart zoomed down the corridor, travelling just shy of about eighty miles an hour, and wound its way down through the multiple levels of the old Atlantean bank. Unlike Gringotts, there were no individual vaults – not in this part of the bank, anyway – as we were heading down into the city treasury. A vast storeroom containing all manner of sparkly pirate treasure.

The three trunks whizzed after us in midair, and the torches on the walls anticipated our arrival and flared to life ahead of us, lighting the way. It didn’t take long, all told, just under two minutes, to descend into the abyss.

The cart-pod came to a stop in a wide chamber that held a security checkpoint which, in yesteryear, would’ve been manned by an armed force of two dozen goblins and a dozen Atlantean wizards. Today it was deserted, quiet, dead… A large spherical door bulged outwards along the far wall, seemingly built into the very marble surrounding it. A ring of torches ignited around this entrance, as familiar runes began to flow across its surface.

I approached the door and started touching runes with my wand, muttering under my breath as I did so. This lock took some time, almost ten minutes to decipher from the torn memories in my head, and the others took a moment’s rest on the trunks as I worked.

“Is this it, Harry?” Tonks asked. “Any further to go?”

I shook my head, tapping the runes faster now. “Nope, this is it. Remember the hundred-thousand galleons a month I promised you?”

“Yeah.”

I took a step back as all the runes glowed bright yellow and vanished. The final door guarding the vault shimmered and disappeared as if it had never been… it simply faded away. Beyond lay a sight most handsome to behold.

“Well, it’s payday.”

“Dear Merlin…” Tonks breathed.

*~*~*~*

Terrible choices have terrible prices… maybe that’s why I’ve hoisted the black flag and chosen the blood-stained path of vengeance.

*~*~*~*

The vault… was fit to burst.

It still sent a rush through me every time I saw it, every time I considered the possibilities.

As the lights came on, it became clear just how wealthy the Old World had been, and how much of that wealth the goblins had seized during the height of the Final War, how much they had sealed away – almost forever.

“Is that… all gold?” Jason asked.

“Every last piece,” I said.

“But there’s… I mean there’s…”

It was one of those spaces that was bigger on the inside than out – a popular trick here in Atlantis – and within, as the lights flared to life along the breadth and depth of the vault before us, within was the treasure of a once-proud nation, of the most advanced nation ever to grace the Earth.

Towering piles of gold forty-feet high disappeared behind on another, rising higher and higher in perfect cones. There were large potato-style sacks overflowing with precious coin, as well, disappearing farther back into the expanded vault than we could see. There were rare stones mixed amongst the gold, and piles of rare stones all on their own. Diamonds, rubies, emeralds… magical stones, shining in the light, reflected in the wide-eyed stares of my companions.

“’Arry, there is more gold here than in all of Gringotts,” Fleur said.

“And then some,” I agreed. “What couldn’t a person buy with this much treasure?”

Jason, ever the clever one, was already doing the math. I could almost hear his mind whirring through all possible outcomes of this much accumulated wealth. “This much gold… it could collapse world economies,” he said.

“Think bigger,” I whispered, yet my words echoed down into the vault, down amongst the cold, cruel stacks of shiny swag and plunder.

Jason licked his lips. “Those diamonds are the size of footballs.” He pointed his shaking hand at the nearest stack of riches. “You could flood the market with this, you could shut down nations… you could buy nations, Harry. Jesus Christ, you just made yourself the richest man in the world!”

I nodded. “But the thing is, there’s so much wealth here that it becomes kind of worthless, doesn’t it?” I let out a low, tired laugh. “That’s why I’m going to blow it all up.”

“Really?” Grace spun to face me. “Really?”

“Yeah – but feel free to take whatever you want – we’ll load up the trunks now, come back for more over the next few days, and dump it all in the enlarged holds back on the ship. I’m taking enough to fight a war… or two… but no more.”

Tonks was staring into the vault, amidst the stacks of gold and gemstones. “What’s that on those pallets? Those look like bricks of silver.”

I followed her gaze. “Ah… well. Now that’s something special, isn’t it? Something that doesn’t exist back home, not for ten-thousand years. Those pallets, several dozen of them, contain quite a few tonnes of raw mythril. Absolutely priceless, the lot of it.”

“You going to blow that up, as well?” Jason asked. He had been stunned into silence for a few minutes.

“No, we’ll be taking all of that with us.”

It was slow work, but easy work, once we combined the trunks and magic and set up a neat delivery system for the gold. Each of the trunks was big enough on the inside to hold nearly two-hundred thousand gold coins, each one bearing the ancient symbol for eternity on one side, and a mint date on the other.

A quick bit of magic had the coins flying through the air in thick streams of gold directly into the trunks, filling each one up in about the time it took us to sit back and eat our lunch. The real effort came from heading back an hour through the city to the Shipyards, dumping the mounds of coins in the expanded hold of the ship – which would take an awful lot to fill – and heading back down into the vault.

I went back and forth every time with one other, usually Tonks or Fleur, and Jason and Grace stayed together at the vault for the first day, examining all they wanted, conducting their studies, before they decided to head back to the ship whilst I continued to siphon the gold, jewels, and mythril bricks from within the old bank.

After two days of this, stopping only once to sleep, the hold of the Atlantean battleship was nearly fit to burst with gold coin and stacks of the light mythril bricks. I had more than enough for what I intended back in the real world, more than enough to buy and sell people, Ministries, and fund my own private army.

It was Fleur that came with me on the last trip down to the vault, and on this occasion only one trunk followed us silently through the city. Tonks had stayed behind at the ship to prepare dinner with Jason and Grace, as we were all weary after shifting some several million gold coins.

The pod-cart took us back down into the vault and even after all we had taken, it barely looked as though we’d made a dent in the mass of riches and treasure that remained within the dark, lonely, cavernous space. I kicked open the trunk I’d brought with us and removed the contents carefully, placing half a dozen glowing objects down amongst the piles of gold and jewels.

“You are really going to destroy zis place, ‘Arry?” Fleur asked, eyeing the small vessels of starlight with distrust. She had already seen firsthand the damage raw starlight could cause. It had flung us into this world, after all.

I nodded, checking all the runes were in place on the glass containers holding the pale, softly glowing liquid. This stuff didn’t carry the same kick as the stuff I’d collected back home, but it was still plenty strong… more than strong enough to bury the old bank forever. “Think of me as a cleaner cleaning up the madness left behind by the Old World,” I said.

“Okay…”

“Atlantis is a terrible, terrible place, Fleur. Full of things better left forgotten, better left blown to pieces… but Voldemort is here, he found his way across the abyss, and I have to do all I can to make sure he gets as little advantage as possible from the city, because he is already damn-near unstoppable.”

“You ‘ave to fight a war, oui?”

“Yes, that’s what I gotta do.”

Instead of taking the cart-pod back to the surface we walked up the tunnel, planting another starlight vessel every two-hundred feet or so. I had brought twenty containers of the glowing liquid, almost all I had collected over the last week, and each one was inscribed with runes which connected it to the others. I was laying a network of interconnected bombs, all linked, all awaiting a final joining rune that would detonate the lot.

I was looking forward to blowing something up. A week of rest and recovery was all very well, but it did get rather dull after a while.

With the last of the starlight bombs laid in the lobby of the old bank, Fleur and I retreated to a safe distance half a mile away, back up top of the rise that looked down into the square and out over the dried-up ocean beyond. All of the dark buildings below, dotted here and there with flickering cerulean lights, looked dead and empty.

“Zis city must ‘ave been most beautiful, once upon a time,” Fleur said, as I removed a final piece of shaped glass from the trunk and drew a single, complex rune across its glazed surface. The glass was of the same material I had fashioned the starlight vessels from, and as such was just a piece of the whole – a piece that could create a vital link back to the rest.

“Once upon a time,” I agreed. “The four most dangerous words in the whole wide world. Right after ‘I’ve got an idea…’ and just before ‘No way this could go wrong’.”

“You are sometimes too cynical, ‘Arry.”

I felt confident enough to hold Fleur’s hand, standing alone as we were in this awful wasteland of forever. She squeezed my fingers with genuine affection and I held up the joining rune on the piece of glass before us both. The rune I’d drawn still smoked from the heat of its creation.

“Would you like to do the honours?” I asked.

Fleur seemed taken aback. “You mean… blow up ze bank?”

“All you have to do is tap your wand against the rune and whisper its name… Swy-vrat.”

“I... I don’t know if I should.”

I brushed Fleur’s beautiful hair back behind her shoulders, exposing her neck, and stepped forward to plant a soft kiss on her pale, inviting skin, just over her pulse. The rush of doing such a thing was intoxicating, invigorating… I whispered into her ear, “Fear is good, sweetheart, fear is necessary. But sometimes, especially these times, you’ve just got to close your eyes and hope for the best.”

“’Arry, I…” Her voice trailed away.

“I know, none of this is easy, least of all whatever feelings you and I may share, but Voldemort cannot win, not this time. There’s no going back this time…”

My heart was pounding in my ears, my stomach was in knots. I was so close to whispering the truth, to have it all laid out before me, to bear my soul and watch Fleur flee from me… but either she wasn’t ready to hear the answers, or she heard something in my voice that made her act, because…

Fleur tapped the sheet of glass with her wand and whispered the ancient word that triggered a flash of light so dazzling that we had to turn away.

For a second the twilight sky turned to day, just a second, then a wave of raw heat and energy knocked us back a step. The shockwave from the explosion was deafening, world-shattering, as the sound wave rippled outwards and the old bank, as well as several surrounding buildings, were annihilated in the space of two, desperate seconds.

“Merde, merde, merde…” Fleur swore under her breath over and over again. She rocked back and forth on her heels, unable to believe what she had done.

Great chunks of flaming rubble were thrust high into the sky, trailing white fire and slamming down into the city below, crashing through old buildings and tearing through the mythril shells as if it were tinfoil. Starlight was powerful stuff, alright, and this had only been a few litres of the deadly mix.

“Once upon a time,” I said, my voice lost below the shock and roar of the apocalypse going on down below. We could smell burning stone, scorched ash. The gold and jewels in the vault would have been vaporised. “Once upon a time, I had this idea, an idea to unmake time and save the world…”

Fleur couldn’t hear me, not over the continued explosions from below. She watched wide-eyed, gripping my hand hard enough to cut off the circulation.

“Once upon a time I set the world on fire using my own soul as tinder to keep you all safe, Fleur. And there was no way it could go wrong, of course not.”

I was Harry Potter. This was just another day at work, another day of the better-left-forgotten. A river of flame surged out over the square below, over fallen statues and dry soil – white flame, as hot as the sun. I watched my handiwork devour a small part of this once-great city.

“But everything did go wrong, because I had an idea, once upon a time.” I shook my head. “And now, Fleur, now… I’m damned for it.”

*~*~*~*

A/N: Oh yeah, oh yeah… BAM-BAM-BOOM! I advanced the story nine days in a single chapter. The scene has mostly been set for Atlantis, and it’s time we got down to some thrillin’ and killin’, don’t ya think? Plot is coming together nicely, and although everything may still seem a little murky, I reckon I’m going to pull this off. Review damn it!

My exams are three weeks away, so there will NOT be another update before then. No, no, no… well, I don’t know. After exams, though, I got five months in which to write. Expect the update rate to skyrocket from December onwards…

Also, anyone got any ideas for the name of the ship? I’m supposed to be all creative and shit, but I’m drawing a blank here. HMS Kickass does have a certain ring to it after a few beers, oh yes, but I’m not really feeling it, no, so suggest away, folks.

All the best,

Joe