Disclaimer: Bought a ticket – destination nowhere.

A/N: Da-dum-da-dum-da-dum… Ladies and gentlemen, thank you for the many and varied reviews of the last chapter. I hope you enjoy this one. I certainly did – heh, heh. Many thanks to the clowns over at darklordpotter for more advice and abuse than I know what to do with. Read on!

*~*~*~*

Harry Potter and the Wastelands of Time

Chapter 24 – Between Pleasure and Pain

He said, "It is new, indeed, for I made it last night in a dream of strange cities; and dreams are older than brooding Tyre, or the contemplative Sphinx, or garden-girdled Babylon."

~Lovecraft

*~*~*~*

“I discovered a place down there, Professor, a realm of magic beyond anything I could ever understand.”

Dumbledore rested his chin on his hands, his long beard obscuring his old fingers. “Did this place have a name?”

I took a deep breath and let it out slowly. “The Atlanteans called it the Fae and Forget. They breached it some ten thousand years ago by accident. Pushed magic too far and the walls of reality crumbled… they unleashed an army of demonic bone-men that wiped civilisation from the face of the earth.”

“And you helped Voldemort access this same world, this realm of the Fae and Forget?”

“It’s the only way I can stop him from gaining all the power of Atlantis, on the border between both our worlds, and return here to the real world.” I threw up my hands in hopeless defeat. “Because his soul is so ruined he can come and go as he pleases and doesn’t have to pay the price I did.”

“A price?”

My laughter was hollow and ravenous as it echoed around Dumbledore’s office. The previous headmasters, all awake and staring at me in their frames, shied away from the sound, as laughter turned to desperate sobs. I had not cried in so long.

“God save me, Dumbledore, I had to give up death.”

*~*~*~*

I am forced to live.

Again and again until I get it right. I have been forced to live.

But I’m only human, despite all I’ve done, and mortality is a natural part of life. To take that away, to die into eight years ago and remain alive, is an abuse against my humanity as abhorrent as creating a Horcrux – or seven Horcruxes. And the past – the future – has finally caught up with me.

This life counts for all because if I screw up this time, this last chance, then I’ll never be able to die. I’ll have become an immortal monster caught in an agonising cycle of constant life – and I’ll have dragged the whole world, Time itself, screaming into the abyss with me.

My crimes are many. My sins are beyond count. When you get right down to the bare bones of the situation, dissecting the morality of the choices made, I am no better than Lord Voldemort. If the world knew what I’d done wrong for the right reasons, I’d be crucified.

Dark Lord Potter, they would call me, and I would have bought and paid for that name a thousand times over in their blood.

*~*~*~*

“What have you done, Harry?”

“What did you ask me to do, Tonks?” I looked around the room, at all the familiar faces packed into the Great Hall. Outside, the world was on fire, the wards were crumbling. It was only a matter of time before the demonic armies of the Dark Lord broke through. “What do you all ask me to do? EVERY DAMN TIME?”

“Harry—”

“NO!” I cast my wand aside, never wanting to see it again, knowing I would be Waking Up with it soon. “SAVE THE WORLD, HARRY! ONLY YOU CAN STOP HIM! YOU’RE THE FUCKING CHOSEN ONE! ANY OF THIS RINGING A BELL?”

Their silence only angered me further. Damn this world and damn me for a fool.

*~*~*~*

“Did you make Bella scream for her failure?”

Voldemort waved his wand and released the invisible bonds that nailed me to the blood- and dust-caked floor. “In trying to break you, Harry, I set her an impossible task. I do not know how, but you have changed greatly since we met in the Ministry over the shards of prophecy.”

I dragged myself back against the wall, under the slit of a window looking out at Atlantis. Raw agony surged through my limbs as I worked them for the first time in hours that may have been days. There was no way I could stand, not just yet. I rested my head back against the wall and bared my bloody teeth in a grin.

“You still made her scream though?”

“Failure, however expected, is unacceptable.”

That made me chuckle. “Very good.” I frowned. “Well, good enough until I kill her, I suppose.”

“Why should I not kill you now, Harry?” Voldemort drew his wand between my eyes.

“Could I get a glass of water or something?” My voice was a hoarse whisper. Blood was all I could taste. I had enough feeling in my arm to rub the top of my freshly shaven head. It was a small matter growing it back. I’d keep it shaven for now – part of the new badass image I was trying to sell the Dark Lord. “Also, killing me accomplishes nothing.”

“I beg to differ. However, you say you are willing to open the Vault of Forget – I do not believe you can – but still, I find it near-impossible that you are in Atlantis at all.” Voldemort reached into his robes and produced a small metal box that sat heavy in the palm of his pale hand. “Let us see if we can work together, Harry.”

“Yes, let us.”

“This box is locked beyond my understanding. It is marked with three ancient runes that are older than anything seen in the Wizarding World.” Voldemort was trying to remain indifferent, but I could hear the frustration grinding just beneath the surface. “For a glass of water, Harry, and your life, can you open this box?”

I eyed the mythril container and nodded. “Show me the runes.” Voldemort held the box before me. I made no move to take it. The runes were simple enough, Atlantean of course, and nothing more than a child’s lock. “With your wand tap far left, far right and then the centre rune, and whisper the incantation: ‘Jyrinex!’”

Voldemort hesitated, searching for any lie in my face. There was none. He tapped the runes in order and whispered the old Atlantean word, shaking it clear of dust for the first time in ten thousand years. The box clicked in his hand.

Soft, gentle music flowed from within. Simple notes, chimes and chords creating a sound last heard before the first time the world ended – so very long ago. I found it strangely comforting. Something normal in a world of horrors.

“It’s a music box,” I said.

Voldemort peered inside and found nothing, which was a lot less than what he had been expecting. Nonetheless, I had proven myself to him – for all the good it would do us both in the end. He tossed the box aside, useless. It clattered into the far corner of the cell.

“I think we understand each other,” I said. Then a foreign thought occurred to me. “Have you ever run into a man calling himself Chronos?”

“I have not.”

“How about a woman named Saturnia?”

“Names of old gods, Harry, of a time when wizards and muggles alike believed in the absurd.”

“Yeah.”

Voldemort turned and left my cell without another word. I had given him more than enough to think about, to consider. He would agree to my plan, in part, as he always did, only to betray me at the crux and force a duel that would shatter Atlantis into dust. More dust.

The iron door slammed closed behind him. A little more light seemed to flicker in through the window with the Dark Lord gone. “Hey,” I called through the metal. “We had a deal, man, we had a deal!”

I felt Voldemort pause in the corridor beyond my prison. A moment later a thin glass of cool water appeared on the floor of my cell.

I relished every drop as if it were my last.

*~*~*~*

This won’t take much longer.

This is not the end – nor is it the beginning. I’ve no idea what the end is and I’ve long since forgotten what the beginning looked like.

*~*~*~*

I was left in my cell for some days after Voldemort had me open the music box. Every few hours a glass of water would appear, as well as a bowl of bread and soup. The Dark Lord was keeping me alive for the time being – as he always did.

Left on my own, with naught but memory and soup to keep me company, I drifted in and out of past and future lives. I saw things that were not there, heard whispers that existed only in my mind (and, I suppose, damned alternate realities), and thought of Fleur and Tonks, Jason and Grace.

My companions were alive and well, of that I could be sure. The wards and runes surrounding the battleship would keep all save Voldemort away, and the Dark Lord was not about to venture from his tower until he had cracked the Vault of Forget. Or until I had cracked it for him.

I missed Fleur, most of all, missed her scent and her touch. This life I had chosen her, out of them all, to be with. Some lives I choose Tonks, other lives I choose both – most lives I choose neither. No one. Not this time, however, as this was the last time. The note I had left Fleur would explain enough for them to stay well away. If all went to plan, and I had no reason (save perhaps Chronos and Saturnia) to think it wouldn’t, then I’d be seeing her again soon.

More than two loves across the long years, Harry, a voice whispered deep within the chaotic maelstrom of memory. More than two women damned for being close to you.

“They’re not damned,” I whispered, staring up out of the window at the constant twilight beyond. The unchanging sky was enough to drive anyone mad. “I died, too, so they can all live again… another chance.”

Is that a mercy, you think? To die and live again? None remember it save you, Harry, each time you die, but you are tearing the souls of billions from the void and forcing reality to reset. Can’t you hear the souls of the dead screaming at you to stop?

“I can’t stop.” To live, to die, to buy the beers… What was her name? “To stop is to be defeated. I will never be defeated.”

Inhuman fortitude, impossible strength in the face of insurmountable odds and a helluva persistent headache. It always gets worse and worse, does it not?

“Chances waiting to be taken,” I said. The sky was darkening, which was impossible, so I guess I was either falling asleep or passing out. One and the same in my current fucked up condition. “She was Australian. Cute. What was her name?” It was on the tip of my tongue.

Not Fleur. Not Tonks.

Black hair with a streak of soft blonde. Large, kind eyes and a sharp nose. She was only tiny, five feet and change, but beautiful. She never wore make-up, but she didn’t need it… Her face was captivating. Plain and friendly – more than enough to inspire desire.

“Her name?” I asked the voice that was only the madness in my mind. Batshit-insane and feelin’ fine, that was me. SO BE IT!  “She was a muggle and she loved me.”

Tessa.

“Tessa,” I whispered. Darkness descended. “Oh yeah…”

I met her after running away.

I fled Britain with nothing save my wand, a change of clothes, and a backpack stuffed with currency and fake ID’s courtesy of the goblins.

I had decided to sit this life out, to let Voldemort have his way with Atlantis and end the world. I had eight years before that would happen, at best – two or three at least. None of them would be able to find me – I could disappear into the Muggle world.

The mild headache that had refused to relent in the few days since I Woke Up at the Dursleys’ was concerning but not overly so… I had stuck around long enough to stop Fleur being murdered out the front of Gringotts and then Apparated across international borders as fast and as far as I could.

I watched the sun rise from atop the Sydney Harbour Bridge.

I had lunch on the coast overlooking the Great Barrier Reef.

I caught a train that night across the heart of the Australian outback, cutting straight overland towards the distant west coast – some three-thousand kilometres away. Two-thousand or so miles in real money, boss.

I discovered that Australia is a lot of trackless, arid sand – somewhat uninhabitable for the most part. I did not think on the war I had left behind, the nightmare waiting to be unleashed. I thought of the hot girl in the next cabin over, travelling back to Perth with her family. I thought of a medium-rare steak and two fingers of $500 scotch.

It was better not to think of the world on fire. Of the sky being swallowed by demons. That was all to come soon enough. For now, the world was my playground.

Perth was warm and sunny, despite it technically being winter in the southern hemisphere. I rented a shack near the beach, built back over the sand dunes. I could throw a stone and hit the sparkling silver water of the Indian Ocean. I spent long days down at the beach, soaking up the sun and turning my back on the world.

I made friends.

There was Eddie and Matt, surfers the pair, just eighteen and looking to go work in the snowfields over east for the next few months. Their girlfriends, Claire and Suzie, who liked my accent. We got drunk together, and any night would find at least two of the four sleeping in the hammocks out the back of my beach shack.

Time passed. Winter rolled into summer and I heard nothing of war, fought nothing but the flies on the BBQ, and drank myself stupid every night – with company or without. During the day, I wandered up and down the coast, visiting the shopping centre now and again for supplies – supplies and books.

I read a lot.

I devoured books of any genre (favouring the fantasy section, of all things). It was interesting to read about muggles interpreting far away and distant worlds of magic, while the real magical world was setting up to implode in on itself in the next few years. My favourite bookshop was also a café that served really good banana bread and chocolate milkshakes – with whipped cream, of course.

It was there I met Tessa.

Booknest in Cottesloe, near Fremantle, a short walk down the coast from my shack. She was young, seventeen, a year older than me and a year younger than my passport said I was.

There’s no such thing as love at first sight.

But there is love of an idea at first sight.

And I fell in love with the idea of Tessa hard and fast – the ways of inevitability are often as kind as they are cruel, and telling the difference is never fair.

Black hair with a streak of soft blonde. Large, kind eyes and a sharp nose. She was only tiny, five feet and change, but beautiful. She never wore make-up, but she didn’t need it… Her face was captivating. Plain and friendly – more than enough to inspire desire.

Tessa worked at the bookshop behind the counter every other day of the week. The rate at which I read and the amount of books I bought got me a 20% discount whenever she was working. I started coming in when she was there because she liked to talk to me, even sat with me and had a coffee if the place wasn’t busy (Wednesday afternoons and Friday evenings became the time I visited once I figured this out).

I loved her company. I loved her stories. She wanted to be a writer, but was realistic enough to know that the market was small and the chances few, so she was planning on pursuing another passion, as well – Environmental Science in the new year at university – majoring in Geology.

I started reading up on all things environmental.

I even contemplated writing a book myself – another thing Tessa and I could talk about (and one of the few things I did not have to lie about) – a book about an orphan boy who goes to wizard school, battles a Sinister Lord and a giant snake, saves his godfather from Soul-Eaters, takes part in a magical tournament… and so on.

The girl at the bookshop with the kind eyes laughed at the absurdity of my imagination.

Tessa wanted to write about people. Normal, everyday people and the way they shaped the world for each other. The way people lived (and died), hurt and loved. She wanted to write fiction that may as well have been reality. To pen a novel that examined the mundane in such a stark clarity that it would leave even the most emotionally dead reader weeping for humanity.

“The kind of people with tired eyes,” she told me one afternoon. “I’ll write about people with tired eyes. Like yours, Harry.”

“I’m up all night reading,” I said. Or drinking away things I didn’t think about anymore… my scar twinged.

“No, not tired eyes,” she said, brushing her hair back behind her ear. “Tired eyes.”

I got it. Sure I did. Eyes that knew how fragile the world really was – because they had seen it come crashing down. The look of the broken (the good), the damned (the bad), and the ugly (the ugly).

“Would you like to come to this thing with me Tuesday night, Harry?”

Yes. “Yes.”

Tessa laughed. “You don’t even know what it is yet.”

“If you’re there it won’t be bad.”

A part of me missed the war – a bigger part of me loved this life of carefree fun and respectful abandonment. The thing about my memories, though, is that they never fade. I felt guilty a lot of the time, as I let the world slip away towards an inevitable wasteland of fire and ash.

I was immortal, so what did it matter? I could do this forever.

Tessa took me to a poetry reading at the bookshop after it closed on Tuesday night.

Local writers of all ages were there, and it was her first night offering a piece of her own to the lonely microphone on the tiny stage erected in front of New Fiction and Bestsellers. I think she wanted a familiar face in the crowd, because her gaze kept returning for me, looking for something.

Her poem was fantastic – and sad, very sad. The Scarred Stranger. A short prose about nobody in particular, and how the world could break the best of us for the better, because it’s supposed to work that way. It was about loving an idea, about loving someone not because of who they reminded you of, but in spite of who they reminded you of. The poem was about me, and she had sized me up, taken a measure of me, better than folk that had known me for six years.

I kissed Tessa that night in between Horror and True Crime. I was guilty of both, after all…

Matt, Eddie, Suzie and Claire loved Tessa (not as I did, but then I was biased to the nth degree). Tessa loved the idea of the beach shack – and we spent hours together there, strolling out down the beach to Fremantle, wining and dining.

Of course we had sex.

We had sex a lot.

I had succeeded in pushing most of my terrible memories aside – fed them into the warm fires in the back of my mind that whispered strange things in the cold, early hours of the morning (can ya dig it, Harry – maybe yes, maybe no – strawberries and rainfall – hahahahaha…HA!) and that I ignored with the idea of Tessa and her company.

Young and in love created a fire between us that radiated heat enough to blaze for miles. I met her friends, her family… I could almost fool myself into believing this life.

But, of course, I got Tessa killed in the end.

The curtain fell, the darkness ascended, long live the guilty!

Voldemort found us after three years. He had returned from Atlantis at the forefront of a demonic army, infused with the strength of ten thousand years of festering hate. He followed the link in my scar.

To settle old scores.

I fought him. As I always do. We duelled across the city and I did not hold back – unleashing whirlwinds of tempestuous fire, blasting curses and hexes that crumbled skyscrapers and whipped the mighty ocean into a frenzy of boiling agony. The Dark Lord shrugged it all off laughing.

As always, fighting Voldemort was like staring into the heart of the sun – heat, madness, chaos – and it blinded me to all else. Tessa was caught somewhere in the crossfire (probably my own doing) and Voldemort—

“Harry.”

—cut my head off in the crackling sand, fused to glass beneath the weight of our spells, and I died enough to—

“Wake, Potter.”

—love the idea of Tessa all over again.

I opened my eyes, cleared my throat, and managed to get my back against the wall of the cell in the highest tower of Atlantis. Voldemort stood in the doorway, a cloud of darkness suffocating his presence, visible only to me and those roaring fires that whispered all across my mind.

“Her name was Tessa,” I said. She would be alive today, alive and better off without me. I missed her in that moment, as if it were only yesterday we made love in the hammock overlooking the sea. I snorted. That had been awkward work.

“It is time, Harry, to prove your worth.”

“Truth is, the good times are worth this.” I laughed. “It wasn’t all bad, all those other times, Voldemort. I could almost forgive you that… Tessa would forgive you – she was kind like that, in the eyes – but I haven’t the mercy.” I met his eyes. “You’ll learn that soon enough.”

“You are babbling nonsense.” Voldemort turned into the hallway, leaving the door ajar.

Bellatrix and Alecto Carrow swept into the room, wands pointed at my heart, and jerked me to my feet.

“Walk,” Bella spat. Her eyes were hollowed, with great black rings circling them. She twitched and grimaced in every step. After-effects of Cruciatus exposure. Not something that bothered me.

I grinned. “I thought of another one while you were gone,” I said. “Cracked bimbo.”

She jabbed her wand into my kidney, mumbling and scowling.

I whistled a merry tune out into the hallway, falling into step next to the fucking Dark Lord. I was wandless, unarmed and dazed from fatigue, hunger and torture, but I felt in charge. Everything was going according to plan, what little plan I had, and time was on my side for this.

“Time’s my bitch!” I laughed. The dry, coarse sound echoed down the empty, dusty corridors like the breath of a skeletal corpse.

Voldemort kept a wary eye on my every move.

*~*~*~*

Voldemort and I became two of the most powerful creatures alive for one reason – one simple, awful reason.

We were both convinced beyond any cause and sanity that we were right.

*~*~*~*

Spiral staircases of once vibrant marble led us up through the heart of the tower. Rooms and dark hallways fled in all directions. Most were locked and shone faintly with residual magic ten millenniums old, but we headed up past them all – up to the roof.

Through the crystal ceiling overhead I could glimpse the base of the Vault and the ethereal white light that shone from within the very stone. It was this light we had all first glimpsed upon breaking through to Atlantis, at the very top of this, the highest point in the city. Oh what a terrible day it would be.

We rose in silence, none of us spoke, least of all the Dark Lord. Through the crystal overhead I could glimpse blurred footsteps moving about on the roof plateau – more Death Eaters. I counted at least three pairs of boots. So at least five Death Eaters, Voldemort, and my good self all wandless and alone.

But not defeated. Never defeated.

I was confident in my strategy; in the way the hands on the clock of time would play out the next hour. Anything less than confidence would see me in a grave of endless life. And balls to that.

Still, I felt unnerved as we climbed a black granite staircase, gazing down into a drop of several hundred feet on either side. Feeling unnerved was not part of the plan, yet I had learnt to trust my instincts over the long, long years. Something wasn’t right. Something was off. And that meant something was different.

Which was so unlikely that it may as well have been impossible. My head was thumping, the beat of the fiery headache a mock of arrogant laughter, following my every step.

The Dark Lord Voldemort and Harry Potter ascended the sinister tower, I thought as we stepped out into the twilit air atop the crystal rooftop, and lo, behold, they were not alone. A familiar yet unexpected figure stood before the cragged and ruined outer gates of the Vault of Forget.

I missed a step, my eyes narrowed…

“What… is that sadistic son of a bitch doing here?”

It was Chronos, Lord of All Evil!

No, no it wasn’t.

Fenrir Greyback bared his teeth and snarled.

“Fenrir is here to ensure your cooperation, Harry.” Voldemort ran his fingers down the length of his wand, idly discussing the matter. “His unique talents should make finding your companions a simple task.”

Between the pointed brown teeth and the shaggy, greying hair, Fenrir Greyback looked more homeless than dangerous. Yet he was more than human – and less, so much less – and I did not doubt his tracking abilities. This was something I had not accounted for… this was something…

New.

“Clever,” I said, staring without blinking into the werewolves’ eyes. “Unexpected and clever.” I let out a deep breath and turned to Voldemort. “My wand, if you please.”

Voldemort paused, as if he had misheard me. “I think not, Harry.”

I had underestimated Voldemort in the past – more than once – and he had made the same mistake against me. But this – bringing Fenrir Greyback across the void into Atlantis, this was not something I could have anticipated. The wards surrounding the Shipyards and my battleship in particular did not mask scent. If he got close enough… managed to follow our trail back through the stagnant, still air…

“Yes, my wand,” I said, holding out my hand. I didn’t know for sure who the other Death Eaters were, standing to the side of Greyback, as they were masked. One of them would be Thorfinn Rowle, most likely, and maybe Amycus Carrow. “I’m going to kill something then open this damn Vault.” Heh… heh. “Not necessarily in that order.”

Built overlooking the entire city (or perhaps grown from the thought of such a terrible idea), the Vault of Forget was a twisted gateway of obsidian stone and broken rock. A locked portal that shone with a bright clear light that was all at once pale and useless and then blinding and hot. An impossible light in an impossible doorway, bent at all impossible angles and made from impossible stone.

I understood why it appealed to Voldemort, why the very secrets of time and space and all the magic of a lost, mighty civilisation could appeal. Oh but how I wish it had never existed.

“You will tell me how to unlock it, Harry,” Voldemort said.

I snorted. “It don’t work like that, sunshine. Needs to be quick, clever, or we’ll all die. Surely you recognise some of these ward patterns.” I gestured to the intricate and archaic runes marring the finish of the ragged gateway. “You may not be able to decipher the runes themselves, but their order, their fashion… do you see the madness in the gate, Voldemort?” I laughed. “Of course you do – you were never an idiot – and that’s why you haven’t tried to force the lock yourself.”

“I am not giving you a wand,” the Dark Lord said.

“Then we can stay up here until Judgement Day!” I growled, throwing up my hands. I began to pace back and forth in front of the gate, half a dozen wands trailing my every move. I glared hate at Fenrir Greyback, thinking how best to end his life. “Which actually isn’t that fucking far off. Because no effort on your part can force me, Tom Riddle, not a damn thing – send your pet dog after my companions, see if it breaks me.” I chuckled. “I’ve lost them all so many damn times that it makes no fucking difference!”

Was I bluffing? Did it even matter?

“Give me my wand, Tom,” I said. “Tom, give me the wand. The wand, Tom, the wand, gimme the wand, Tom, the wand, Tom, gimme the wand—”

“Crucio!”

I groaned and fell to one knee atop of the mighty city of Atlantis, before the Vault of Forget and under the twilit sky, surrounded by none save enemies of the worst sort. I groaned and started to laugh.

“You ugly snake-faced son of a bitch!”

“Crucio!” Voldemort drove the curse home. Oh he meant it, he meant it really, really well.

For as much as it hurt, I embraced the pain, drove it to anger – into the fiery irredeemable Memories – and let it wash away. Magic could be a terrible thing, always a terrible thing, but with enough raw will… garnered over lifetimes of hurt… it could be bested.

I was almost insane enough to believe that for unbreakable truth, yet it was just a theory that broke down in the infinite.

“You need to give me my wand,” I said. The Death Eaters all stopped jeering at my pain when I shrugged off the Cruciatus as if it were nothing. Bella didn’t even crack a grin. She scowled at me, petulant and beaten. She wanted to eat my heart, of that I could be sure. “Voldemort, for Merlin’s sake, I’m surrounded.” I grinned. A trickle of blood ran down my chin – I’d bitten my tongue. “How much damage could I possibly do?”

Voldemort regarded me with cold indifference. He stood without moving, as still as a statue. He snarled, flicked his tongue over his lips, and sunk his free hand deep into his robes. “You do not want to test my patience in this matter, Harry.” The Dark Lord produced a familiar stick of holly. “Remember you are alone here, surrounded on all sides. There is no one here to die in your place, Potter – do not cross me, do not point your wand at anything except that gateway.”

I nodded agreement. Still, Voldemort did not trust me an inch. He approached me and waved his wand. I felt a blanket of harsh magic settle over me and my left arm was drawn up behind my back, bound in place as if someone were twisting it to the point of breaking.

Before he handed me back my wand, Voldemort said, “A thought and I can rip your arm from its socket.”

I took a deep breath and accepted my wand. The Death Eaters stirred, keeping me in their sights. I offered what I thought was a friendly enough grin, baring a lot of teeth, and kept an eye on Fenrir Greyback, noting where he was standing… how far from the edge of the tower and a drop of the best part of a mile.

“Let’s open up this vault then,” I said. “Although I don’t think it leads anywhere happy…”

“No more, Harry Potter.” Voldemort had stepped back away from me. “Do as I command.”

I shrugged. “On your head be it.”

An intricate system of pass codes and runic magical learning was required to turn this damn gate into a portal beyond this world, beyond all worlds, and into the realm of the Fae and Forget. I was a deft hand at opening the way, even knew my way down through the bowels of the world-beyond-the world, yet I still felt a moment of trepidation as I began the dark work of unleashing a demonic army that had razed the real world to the ground (to ash and less than ash, oh I could dig it, yes I could) more times than I could remember.

It would take several hours – and at the end, it would still need a vial of starlight to give it that extra push. I had no starlight, not on me, but there should be plenty back on my ship, if Fleur had followed her instructions in the letter…

Once I started it was impossible to stop – the backlash would annihilate, at the very least, most of the city in a two-mile radius. In the olden days and the bright and golden years of Atlantis, before it fell, a team of no less than two dozen highly trained Elder Wizards (men and women of Dumbledore’s calibre) would spend days just preparing to breach this Vault.

I was doing it all on my own, racing between runes and ward schemes before they could activate, channelling magic down and into the alien stone as fast as I could think. It was made no easier by the agony in my left arm, stretched up behind my back.

“You know,” I said, directing my wand in quick slashes, carving glowing Atlantean runes out of the very air in a rainbow of colour, “this isn’t as easy as it looks. Bet you’re wondering where I learnt this, aren’t you, Voldemort?”

“There is a lot I have begun to wonder about you, Harry.” He paused, standing just on the edge of my peripheral vision. “You are clearly more intelligent than I gave you credit for – yet an accounting of that intelligence must tell you that I am going to kill you.”

I nodded. A band of sweat had broken out across my forehead. The stone in the arched gateway was starting to get hot. Some of the runes had come to life and were swirling across the cragged rock – drawn faces screaming across an abyss. The air between the two pillars of curved stone had begun to shimmer, form a heat haze. A way was opening ever so carefully.

“You haven’t yet,” I said. “You’re hesitant – because of the prophecy, because I’m here at all in Atlantis.” I laughed. “You don’t know what will happen if you kill me.”

“I will kill him, my lord,” Bellatrix said. I felt her step forward to do just that, but Voldemort waved her away.

“Allow me to cut out his tongue,” Greyback said, gnashing his yellowed fangs together.

“I’ll get to you in a minute,” I said, never taking my eyes off the glowing runes. They were moving faster now, faster and faster. I was anticipating most of them on memory alone, as it came to me. If asked five minutes ago I could not have determined any pattern in this madness, but it was all there – the trial and error of countless lifetimes. I’d been here before.

You can’t change the weather, I thought.

Voldemort was suddenly right next to me, leaning in close. He stared into my eyes, flashing with the hot, electric colours of my magic as I poured it into the gateway. I did not look at him, trusted that I would live at least a few more minutes… The Dark Lord watched every move I made, every flick of the wand. He was learning – and learning well.

“Blink and you’ll miss it,” I said. I was breathing heavier now. The fatigue of days in that cell, the run of mindless torture, the lack of food and water, and the fucking Dark Lord breathing down my neck had begun to take its toll. “Get out of my face, Tom, or I’ll skip a beat and this entire tower will come crashing down.”

Minutes rolled into an hour, and then another hour. Voldemort remained motionless at my side, saying nothing, as the stone began to harden, to smooth out, and the runes flowed faster and faster. The Death Eaters had grown restless, wandering about and around the crystal rooftop. Yet they kept their wands on me, waiting for the inevitable betrayal.

I had long since lost feeling in my left arm. It was drawn so tight against my back that the circulation was stifled – it had burnt, at first, and then grown cold, and now it was numb. Whether it snapped in its socket or Voldemort released his hold did not matter – that arm was going to be in agony for days when I made my move.

What of Greyback? I wondered. The heat from the vault was hot enough to burn now. It felt as if my eyebrows were smouldering as I added more runes into the maelstrom, buckling the vault’s defence system, breaching the gap between worlds. All these decrepit ancient magical devices lying around everywhere… could get a guy killed. Did Chronos have a hand in bringing him here? Did Saturnia? Voldemort has never brought him before – but then, what else had changed?

I could never underestimate the Dark Lord. Not and expect to survive. Perhaps something as little as my baring my teeth in a vicious grin had reminded him of Greyback, of his tracking abilities… It didn’t matter. None of it mattered, in the long run, yet I kept trying so goddamn hard anyway.

All of a sudden my weave of runes and magic was complete. The gate thrummed with stored energy, requiring only a single drop of starlight to breach the seal. I tied off my spellwork and delayed the final requirement of starlight for twenty-four hours. The gate would stay active for that long and then either erupt or melt a hole down through the tower and the city unless I provided the final ingredient.

“Well then,” I said, keeping an eye on the gate to make it look like I was still working. “Here we go.”

I spun on the spot and brought my wand slashing down in a fierce, blurred arc through the air. A blast of magical force rippled outwards from me, knocking Voldemort and his Death Eaters back and I lunged forward in the confusion straight towards Fenrir Greyback.

I had taken three steps before my arm shattered in its shoulder joint, stars of white-hot pain exploded before my eyes, and I fell to my knees. As quick as thought, Voldemort had broken my arm. Motherfucker…

“Avada Kedavra!”

I’d left my back exposed to the Dark Lord, who had of course recovered first from my energy outburst. I rolled to my right, landing on my wand arm, and then across the crystal floor, spinning my wand and muttering mostly silent incantations. Swirling blue shields surrounded me, able to block all but the emerald curse of death.

I mastered the pain in my arm, kept rolling and gained my feet as curses impacted against the misty defences surrounding me, absorbing the spells and spinning faster. I paid none of the Death Eaters any mind, even ignored the Dark Lord, and threw myself at Fenrir Greyback.

The flesh-eating werewolf had seen me coming, his fangs bared in a vicious smile, and as I slammed into his chest – fresh agony shooting down my arm – Greyback lunged almost faster than I could follow and sank his teeth into the soft tissue between my shoulder and neck. Curses flared all around us, Voldemort was screaming at his followers to kill me, and my blood seeped between the teeth of a killer.

“Fuck. You.” I growled. The cloudy twilit sky blurred as I spun on the spot, dragging Greyback with me towards the edge of the tower. It was a long way down, a drop that would kill anyone.

Without hesitating, I hurled myself, still grappling with Greyback, over the edge and into the cool, still air above the city of Atlantis.

In sheer shock Greyback let me go, his bloody mouth opened wide in an ‘O’ of surprise before he started screaming, clawing for his wand. I spun in the air, curses roaring past on all sides up into the sky, and locked eyes with Voldemort

Before gravity took over and I began to fall to an inevitable death, I laughed and raised my middle finger directly at the Dark Lord’s face, keeping a firm grasp on my wand, hollering like a madman.

His expression was priceless – a burst of pure pain tore through my scar. The last jet of green curse light rocketed across the crystal rooftop straight from Voldemort’s wand and missed me by the skin of my teeth. I dropped out of sight alongside a demented werewolf.

I fell fast.

Very fast.

Almost as fast as Greyback, who screamed all the way down.

The blackened stone of Voldemort’s tower was a blur, the entire city of Atlantis spun all around me as I toppled through the air. The ground was coming up fast, the wind howled in my ears and whipped my torn suit pants around me. I felt bloody and beaten and all out of options.

Memories soared through my mind, desperately searching for something, anything… I was going to die. What the hell could I do? No Apparating in Atlantis, no portkeys or any—

My wand was already acting of its own accord.

I cut a vicious swipe in the air, an oval motion full of purpose, and felt a surge of magic ascend all around me. Invisible magic, powerful magic. At the same time, I could feel a memory rising form the murky depths of time, a terrifying memory… born under a stormy sky…

I was still falling but not as fast. The air was slowing around me. I managed to stop spinning and was jerked up and down before I lost the momentum and began to plummet again. Greyback’s screams were still ringing in my ears, yet he had fallen far away now.

“Dear Merlin, what is that?”

I glanced at the rippling storm clouds, fat and bruised, threatening to burst. Thunder rumbled, lightning forked. Something dark and terrible descended from on high, like smoke on the wind, flying on nothing but air.

A snake-like face, a horrible anger and tragic soul… Lord Voldemort flew on the winds without the aid of a broom, screaming his victory at the forefront of an army of demonic bone.

“Huh,” I said. “I didn’t know he could fly.”

The memory snapped into place and I laughed. I made that same vicious swipe through the air, silently cast the right words to make myself aerodynamic (giving a big ‘Fuck you!’ to the laws of physics at the same time) and suddenly I was airborne!

But I was damned if I knew how to control my newfound ability. More memories flooded my mind, of Voldemort and I duelling across the sky, trading curses under a storm of demons. I had figured out his trick, to fly like smoke on the wind, but I could scarcely remember it now.

The dusty, barren streets of Atlantis came up fast. I surged forward through the air, alight and flying for just a moment, enough to wash off a lot of speed from my idiotic fall from on high, then lost the knack and slammed home. The empty city welcomed me back with a punch in the face.

I hit the ground hard, very hard, and saw black—

Tessa swung her legs up into my lap and I rubbed my hand up and down her soft feet, tickling her toes. She giggled and swatted my arm.

“You look tired, honey,” she said. “More tired than usual.”

My scar was on fire, burning across the long nights. Voldemort was literally razing hell back home. It would soon spill over into the Muggle world. This perfect little slice of normality I had stolen for myself down here in Australia would soon come to an end. Tessa, and her beautiful ticklish toes, would soon come to an end…

It was enough to make me cry, but I had not cried in so many years.

“Do you ever wonder,” I asked, “what you would do with your life if you had a second chance? Like, if you could go back to when you were younger, but remember everything about your life up to this point, what would you do different, Tess?”

Tessa thought about it, biting her bottom lip and furrowing her brow. She looked real cute when she thought about things. “Yeah, I suppose, but not a lot – it’s not ever going to be possible.”

I nodded. “You could fix any regrets you might have,” I said. “You know, do things differently.”

Tessa shrugged. “Perhaps, but if you remember it already, then don’t you still have to live with the regret anyway? Even if you fix it the second time around, you still remember it.”

The tears were there, just behind my eyes, but they were not to be shed. Not ever. “Let’s go to bed,” I said, half-forcing the smile on my face. “I don’t want to regret ever missing a night with you under the covers.”

Tessa’s hands roamed down to the buckle on my jeans, roamed over the hardness beneath them. “It’s too hot in the house – let’s go down to the beach under the stars.”

I had to smile. “Yes, ma’am.”

—and tasted the rotten dust of a crumbled civilisation. The whole world was spinning and pounding through my head. I had hit the ground hard, landing on my broken arm, hard enough to shatter every bone over again, and hard enough to knock the wind out of me.

I coughed up some blood and rolled over in the dust. I was almost buried in the stuff, amongst the ruins of Atlantis. Through blurred eyes I could glimpse the bright glowing point of Voldemort’s tower, a heavy mile or two up and away. I would have to return there soon and finish what I had started. But for now, I had to get moving. I scraped up my wand, wincing a little, and set off.

The Shipyards were a good hour away in my current beaten and broken condition.

*~*~*~*

Despair will steal your soul in the end, Harry. You know why?

Because God damned it and the Devil don’t want it – not as broken as it is.

*~*~*~*

Despite my days in the cell, the mind and body rape, and my little tumble off the very tippy-top of Voldemort’s tower, I felt pretty good as I strode on the gangway and onto the deck of my battleship. The bite that bastard Greyback had given me was still bleeding, but it wasn’t as bad as I initially thought. Would probably leave a scar, though.

The dry dock overlooking the barren sea was deserted, no sign of anyone or anything, yet I was sure my companions – beautiful Fleur and sweet Tonks, Jason and Grace – were below deck. I caught a whiff of something cooking that wasn’t cold soup and my stomach growled.

The corridor below deck was well lit as I made my way into the galley and to the food simmering on the stove. It was a stew, of sorts, or a curry. Didn’t matter which. There was still no sign of my friends and allies, but I could hear them rustling about a deck below in their respective quarters. I scooped a bowl of the curry-stew, it looked cooked enough, and grabbed half a loaf of bread. There wouldn’t be much of that left now… soon enough we would be down to canned goods.

It was scoldingly hot, but good – oh so good. I cradled my ruined left arm, missing fingers and all (yeah yeah!), against my chest and devoured the meal before me. I didn’t care if I threw it all back up – I needed to eat something.

I could almost feel the warm strength flooding my system. It was the first honestly good feeling in what may have been up to a week. It had been hard to judge time in that cell. But I had survived, which was all that mattered. All that ever matters in this game.

“Harry!”

“Hey, Jason.” I glanced up from my bowl. “And Grace. You doing okay?”

Grace took the seat next to me. “Harry, you’re half-naked, covered in blood, and look terrible.”

“Hospitality of the Dark Lord Voldemort,” I said between bites, dunking my bread into the delicious mess. “Leaves something to be desired. Heh.”

“Your arm,” Grace persisted. “It looks bad.”

“Feels worse.”

“Tonks!” Jason called. “Fleur!”

I groaned and rose to my feet and headed over to the trunks stacked against the wall opposite the galley and crew dining area. Blue flame torches flickered to life overhead, lighting the storage area. “Which trunk had all those potions?” I asked myself aloud. “My kingdom for an aspirin…”

“’Arry!”

And that voice was like coming home. I felt her soft hands on my back as she turned me around, caught the scent of those fresh strawberries, and smiled with all the care I had left at Fleur Delacour.

She took one look at me and swore in a very colourful mix of English and French. “Come,” Fleur said. “You must lie down.”

“Merlin, Harry,” Tonks whispered. “What did they do to you?”

My smile turned fierce. “Exactly what I planned. Not to worry, Tonks, we’re winning.”

Was I winning? The line between victory and defeat was a thin one. More than once victory had come at so high of a cost that it may as well have been defeat – and so the world spits my soul back out eight years ago.

Fleur was leading me through the ship toward the individual quarters and I let myself be led. Tonks levitated the medical supply trunk behind us and Jason and Grace stood in careful watch, unsure what use they could be.

“Tell me you’ve been making starlight like I asked in the letter,” I said. My head was spinning from all the motion. “I don’t need much, just a vial, enough to break through—”

“’Arry,” Fleur said, her tone one of strict command, “yes, we ‘ave been, but no more! You must rest, you need healing.”

I didn’t want to argue, so I didn’t. There was still so much to do, however, despite how tired I was, how tired I would yet be. Oh you can’t change the weather, no sir boss, but you could ride out the storm on the cusp of destiny. Like smoke on the wind. Maybe yes and maybe no… Maybe I did not fucking care.

“My arm hurts…” I managed. There was that familiar encroaching darkness falling over everything again. I was breathing hard, but it sounded so very far away.

“We shall fix you,” Fleur promised. She was far away, as well.

I was lowered onto a soft cot and the simple comfort of lying down nearly made me weep. “My head hurts too…” I whispered. And then enough was enough.

Sometimes fighting the darkness is not only futile, but pointless. I let the nightmares descend.

Because they descended whether I was awake or not.

*~*~*~*

It’s a better world with you in it, Harry.

Sincerely yours,

Albus Dumbledore

*~*~*~*

It was near-dark in my cabin quarters when I awoke.

Soft, faint blue light shone from the torch in its bracket on the far wall against the ship’s hull, casting a gentle glow over the room and… its occupants.

“You are awake, ‘Arry.”

I was not alone in the best way – and I was not in my quarters, but Fleur’s, on her bed. Oh my…

“Hello, sweetheart,” I said. She had transfigured her cot into a bed large enough for two. We lay parallel to each other, a gap of only a foot between us, on soft covers. “How long have I…?”

“Just a few hours.” Her hair shone like pale golden fire in the half-light and she stroked my arm with her fingers, lightly scratching with her nails now and again. “We forced you to swallow about ‘alf a dozen different healing potions. How does your arm feel?”

I felt a lot better – a lot better. My left arm was still sore, but no longer broken. The bones had knitted back together neatly. I was clean, as well, and wearing nothing but a pair of dark boxer shorts. Someone had washed me while I was out…

“I scrubbed all ze blood away,” Fleur whispered, reading my mind. “There was so much, ‘Arry…”

Pages torn from the book of hope, honey, I thought. “It’s not all fun and games, you know.”

“I do now,” she said quietly, shuffling in closer. “They shaved your head?”

I nodded. “Look a little strange bald, huh?”

“I liked your messy hair. It made you look mischievous.”

I chuckled, “Oh very well…”, and concentrated hard, reaching for the magic. I’d done this all the time as a kid and in other lives, subtly altering my appearance. A touch of metamorphmagus abilities, yet only for my hair. A tingling shivered over my scalp and a familiar black fringe fell over my eyes. “Better?”

Fleur laughed, delighted. “There’s my, ‘Arry Potter.”

Fleur’s presence was damn-near intoxicating. I didn’t know if I was light-headed from the last agonising few days or from the fact we were lying in bed together. My memories were strangely silent on what I was meant to do next, screwing me over as usual, so I just settled my good hand on Fleur’s hip, atop her tight white blouse.

“Did you fight him?” she asked. “Ze Dark Lord?”

“A little,” I replied. “It’s not over yet.”

“Is eet ever over for ‘Arry Potter?”

I laughed. I also slipped the hand on top of Fleur’s shirt under the fabric. Her skin was warm against my palm. “This time counts for all, Miss Delacour.”

“When are we going home? Zis place… Atlantis. I feel like it is dying all around me, all the time.”

I nodded. “It is.” And in a few days (or months, depending on the flow of time in the realm of the Fae and Forget) I would deliver the deathblow. “And soon, very soon.”

Fleur closed the gap between us and kissed me. Her weight was comfortable as it settled against my side, her leg feather-light as she entwined it with mine.

I kissed her back, pulling her closer against me. The friction between our bodies was something always to be desired, the willingness of that presence, the heat of the moment… I sighed against Fleur’s mouth and we let ourselves wander.

As it was in all moments of either abject terror or sheer pleasure, the festering memories in my head began to stir, lives upon lives worth of the good, the bad, and the ugly (broken and damned, if I may be so kind). I saw Fleur in a thousand different ways across a thousand different worlds. There she was at midnight in a dress as red as blood, waiting for a man who carried Time in his pocket and a god-complex in his head. In a garden wearing a sundress we laughed and drank iced tea. Wasn’t that this life? It didn’t matter.

Moments are meant to bleed. They’re meant to move and shake and shatter… The fragile glass is meant to fly!

I removed Fleur’s blouse, undid the buckle on her jeans and pulled– caught on her flat shoes, she kicked them off – and the raw heat intensified. She was so light, so lithe and beautiful, yet the raw presence of her was enough to weigh me down with desire strong enough to buckle all thought, all time.

And then Fleur was on top of me. I scraped my nails down her back, reaching for her bra strap. The heat was stifling, breathless, always in that damned best way. She was careful of my barely healed body, my arm in particular, but I held no such notions about taking care of myself – we grinded against one another, still separated by thin pieces of black fabric and purple silk where it mattered most.

How the day can change in a heartbeat, I remembered thinking. Barely twelve hours ago I was bound and chained to the floor of a bloody cell. Don’t think on that… Now, now I was underneath a French goddess, a touch of veela akin to the Sirens of old, and no force in this or any other world was going to stop us from taking what we wanted from each other…

The beautiful in life.

There was passion in our moves, in our hearts and minds, yet there was no sense of urgency. We were sharing comfort with one another, absolutely nothing less, more so than a need to draw the raw pleasure that inevitably rises from our act.

I don’t remember working the bra strap but suddenly Fleur’s nipple was in my mouth, a hard little pebble, and she was moaning against me, her hair a curtain of that passion hidden within the comfort. Her breasts were perfect, round and soft. I spent a lot of time admiring them.

Fleur pushed me back and kissed my chest, mindful of the fading bruises. She ran her fingers down the scar over my heart, Chronos’ doing, and the crescent stab wound scar in my side, courtesy of Saturnia. It felt as if she were erasing them, undoing the damage. They were all worth one moment of Fleur’s affection.

Did I deserve her affection? Had I earned this moment, these feelings? Maybe yes and maybe no.

“‘Arry… oh…”

We were forged through blood and circumstance, as close as two people could be given the nature of our lives. This was where it led, where it was meant to be.

Time moved quickly, far too quickly, and I was between Fleur’s legs, her feet up behind my shoulders, and kissing her warmth through the violet silk she wore.

I find myself caring what you think…

“Mmm…”

Games like mine all too often have a beginning, middle, and end wrought in bloodshed. Nothing can ever be resolved without it. It is the way of the universe.

And then I was still between her beautiful legs, but on my knees. My boxer shorts were gone and Fleur met my eyes, her face and body shimmering with sweat, and thrust herself forward to meet my length. I let out a long, desperate breath – the weight of the world lifted for just a heartbeat – and slipped inside Fleur Delacour.

All the starlight in Creation threatened to explode in my head – I was warm, hot enough to burn, and the feeling was tight, the pressure surrounding my length all-consuming. Fleur’s lips welcomed me down, her hair spread about the pillow like strands of spun-gold scattered across the clouds, and we kissed hard as we made love.

Hey Jude, don’t make it bad… take a sad song… and make it better – remember, to let her into your heart, then you can start, to make it better…

I had been here before, with Fleur, and I hoped to be here again – many, many times. This was our first time, if you trust that Time only flows one way and that’s the law, set in stone and unbreakable. I prayed to gods that did not exist that this would be our last first time. For what it’s worth, I don’t think it mattered, and that it never would.

I lifted Fleur’s leg up and rested her ankle on my shoulder, getting a better angle as we moved our hips back and forth. I turned and kissed her foot, gently bit her toenails, and held her leg, the entire length of it running up my chest, against me. So deliciously warm… so many feelings… I had ached for this.

We rolled and Fleur was on top again, her loose hair tickling my nose. She moved against me, moaning softly, and I grasped her buttocks, pulling her down harder. She responded with a whimper of pleasure, one hand cupping her own breast, biting her bottom lip. Seeing that almost sent me over the edge.

But I had lifetimes worth of restraint, of patience. I wasn’t about to let this end so quickly. Not when it felt so good and not when I had to disappear again all too soon, back to the Dark Lord’s tower.

‘Arry Potter. Do I look like I need rescuing, hmm?

There were always reasons to break – even hope was a complex enough reason to break. This was one of those moments, lost inside Fleur Delacour, our breathing tightening towards the end, where I wanted to break, wanted to let down my guard and allow the world to rise or fall as it would. Unswayed by the influence of the guilty and the powerful.

Of which you are both, Harry. What was her name again? They die for you, Harry. They all die for you.

I could’ve been on a beach in sunny Australia right now, reading books and sipping a cold, frosty beer. But I wasn’t. I was here, at the forefront of a horrifying war, but it wasn’t all bad… no, sir, not at all. Fleur whispered my name deep in the back of her throat and I bucked with satisfaction.

All good things come to some sort of end, and together Fleur and I were about to reach it, as one – to finish together, a rare almost impossible moment, and all the better for it. We thrust ourselves together, Fleur responding to the change that swept over me, instinctively knowing I was falling over the precipice of mindless oblivion, and eager to help me fall. I loved her for that – I loved her for many reasons.

“Oh… Fleur!”

We descended into pleasure… and into the desperate arms of one another, alone together before the colossal, silent end of entire worlds.

*~*~*~*

Game on.

*~*~*~*

I landed on the crystal plateau to find the Dark Lord alone, staring into the spinning vortex of light and magic that was the Vault of Forget. Crackles of lightning spun off from the rock, scoring the crystal underfoot and a low sound, almost below hearing, buzzed and screamed incessantly.

It was time.

Sensing my presence, Voldemort turned with his wand at the ready. He let out a long, careful breath, beholding me beneath the unchanging sky. “Who taught you how to fly?”

Memory flickered like burning parchment on the wind. Her name was Tessa… I’ll buy the beers… you can’t change the weather… a weak week spent half-asleep… when are we going home?

“You did.” I shook my head clear and held up a single vial of liquid starlight – volatile enough to end the world. “You ready for this?”

“What has happened to you, Harry?” Voldemort asked. He almost sounded afraid.

“Time.” The word echoed down through the city and settled like a death shroud over everything. “Time, Voldemort, always and forever Time.”

A storm was brewing over the horizon. An impossible storm. The end game was about to begin, the realms of the Forgotten awaited, and I stood opposite my nemesis with all the fury left to me.

I sniffed and uncorked the vial. “Time to go.”

*~*~*~*

A/N: Just between you and me, the events in this chapter were long overdue. Thanks once again for reading, folks, please leave a review. New Year’s resolution is to get back to the gym (you, me and how many others? Heh), and to finish this darn story soon. Although a word on resolutions from our friend Mark Twain:

‘Now is the accepted time to make your regular annual good resolutions. Next week you can begin paving hell with them as usual.’  

Ouch. That’s the key to writing, folks – say a lot in as fewer words as possible. A handful more chapters to go, maybe about five or six, with a sequel on the horizon if I pull this one off. Ah, and we’re about to breach 1,500 reviews! 2k is the mark I’m shooting for by the end of the story… nudge, nudge…

Cheers,

Joe