Disclaimer: Harry Potter ain't mine.

A/N: Well here we go again - another longish chapter, sneaking in at 11,500 words. Hope you like it. So far I've had an awesome response to this story so I'm trying to keep the quality high, the plot interesting. This chapter pretty much finishes the opening segment I envisioned for Wastelands of Time, so thing will pick up from now on.

Peace,

joe

*~*~*~*

Harry Potter and the Wastelands of Time

Chapter 7 - Places I've Never Been

Teach us…

To give and not count the cost;

To fight and not heed the wounds;

To toil and not to seek for rest…

--St Ignatius Loyola

“So let it out and let it in… Hey Jude, begin…” I mumbled, my thoughts running a mile a minute under the silvery folds of my faithful old Invisibility Cloak. I tapped a steady beat to The Beatles with my hand against the side of my briefcase.

“Be silent now, Harry,” Dumbledore whispered. “One does not simply stroll unaccounted for into the Magnus Fontis.”

I caught myself humming the tune under my breath and bit my lip, falling back into the cool archaic corridor deep beneath the Pantheon and well beyond the simple chambers and halls of the International Confederation of Wizards and International Federation of Warlocks.

Dumbledore led the way, although from my jumbled memories I thought I could've picked the route myself. I needed the old Headmaster, however, as there were several security features unique to the Great Library, the Fountain of History, that only an honest-to-god true-blue member of the Confederation/Federation could bypass.

Sure I could've blasted my way in - given my new future magical knowledge a workout - but that would've alerted every Auror in the Northern Hemisphere that the headquarters of the greatest governing body in the world was under attack. Not my best move, once upon a time. This job required a little finesse, a little subtlety - basically, I had to keep it in my pants.

And with any luck, when all was said and done, only Dumbledore's trust in me would be left broken and bleeding. Believe me - small price to pay.

We travelled down.

At first the corridors were well-lit, dry and even carpeted. Works of art, wizarding portraits, appeared above vases containing bunches of flowers alongside filing cabinets and general office paraphernalia, and there were other wizards and witches, going about Merlin knew what this far beneath the ground. After about ten minutes and several sets of spiralling staircases, the corridors became colder, and the walls were bare save for the irregular ever-burning torch hanging in dull and rusty brackets.

Yeah, it was a little creepy, and I did my best to keep my footfalls soft and avoid the echoing clap-clap-clap that Dumbledore's boots made on the damp stone. Rivulets of ground-water dripped in through cracks in the ceiling, having worn through the stone over the millennia. The corridor curved downwards and out of sight, and I recalled that it was about a billion miles long.

Dumbledore glanced at me more than once, looking right at me through the Invisibility Cloak. I've never known for sure if he could see through the material, but I erred on the side of caution and assumed he could. I gave him a thumbs-up every five minutes or so. He carried his staff from the Warlock meeting before him, and guided the way with a pale blue light from the crystal embedded in its crown as the torches on the walls failed completely. We were plunged into complete and utter darkness two miles below the surface of the earth.

And we weren't even halfway there.

Of the two of us, I was supposedly the young and fit one, yet I was having trouble keeping up with Dumbledore. I needed to get into shape, but I'd be damned if I was giving up smoking. I mean I know yesterday was technically the first time I'd ever smoked a cigarette, but I'd brought the addiction across time itself. I consider that an achievement.

And hell, I was allowed a few guilty pleasures, wasn't I? I was saving the world, after all… Yeah, I know, addicts justify it anyway they can. And my saving the world wasn't that great, but this time was different… it had to be - too many things were fucking with me left, right and centre.

“And any time you feel the pain… Hey Jude, refrain…”

“Harry, silence please,” Dumbledore whispered, his brow knotting into a severe frown. “We are both risking far too much should you be caught down here.”

Fucking Beatles.

Fucking Saturnia, whatever the hell you are, old woman.

*~*~*~*

Sometimes there are not many paths to take - most times, for me, there has been only one.

And I'm no saint.

The choices I've made and will continue to make end lives, spawn misery and chaos, yet they also save lives… prevent destruction and hold true to the path that had to be taken!

Life is far too precious to let it slip into the perils of unknown worlds… yet who will remember that before the end? Voldemort? Myself? No… even if we did we wouldn't let it matter.

Otherwise, none of this would be any fun!

Ha-fuckity-ha-ha-ha…

*~*~*~*

Dumbledore and I came to the first barrier (the first of seven - seven is a magical number, after all, aye, Voldemort?) that protected the Magnus Fontis from unauthorised use. The corridor we had followed for the last half an hour down through the bowels of the earth and almost all the way to China, abruptly ended in a wall of blank granite stone.

A dead end, or so it would seem.

Dumbledore glanced in my general direction and the look on his face made it clear that if I so much as uttered a word he would become less grandfatherly and much more cranky. I never met my grandfather, yet I imagine James Potter's father could not have had a brow as severe as Albus Dumbledore's. In all my long years, of gods and madmen, I've never seen a man of such power be so humble and kind.

Power was supposed to corrupt. I think Dumbledore was as close to the exception that proved the rule as anyone has ever come.

Sure, he could be a manipulative bastard, but his heart was forever and always in the right place - and if he'd taken a chance more than once, and let me risk my own life, so what? If he'd perhaps allowed events to run their course, and hardened me through the various challenges I'd come up against at Hogwarts, could I really blame him, knowing the Prophecy?

Is there an answer to that? Maybe yes, maybe no… Life is hard, deal with it, the only easy place you'll find is the grave. In another life, I used to cry - on my own, away from those who would see weakness - when Dumbledore was killed. These days… well, these days, these days, right? I'm old now, old enough to be truly tired. And no longer sane enough to cry.

I fucking hate this game.

And I was young, Merlin damn it all, young enough for all that mattered.

“Nostrum én alá forsé - verisestrum!” Dumbledore intoned, the hilt of is staff poised against the solid barrier before us. It shimmered and faded away, revealing a further dark and dank corridor - the path to the second barrier of the Magnum Fontis.

We hurried along, and a cool shiver rushed down my spine as in the darkness behind us the first barrier resealed itself. The oppressive and heavy weight of anti-Apparation wards felt sluggish and heavy on my shoulders. The wards were the first line of defence to keep people out, not in. I thought I could break through them, if necessary, yet I didn't feel like shattering a corridor with over two miles of rock and earth resting just overhead.

The second and third barriers were much the same as the first - thrumming with power enough to withstand a nuclear blast, and requiring both a wizard's staff and an incantation in some lost, archaic language. The doors parted swiftly under Dumbledore's authority.

The fourth and fifth barriers, again resembling nothing but the dead end of a long and ultimately pointless dark corridor, required something a little more. The barriers were not smooth stone, but rough and bumpy, covered in sharp angles of twisted rock that looked cold and merciless. Dumbledore raised his hand and pricked his finger on one of the broken angles of rock - a drop of his blood shone in the darkness, ignited by the magic in the stone.

Blood magic. Great.

He then proceeded to offer his staff and a string of nonsense words, and barriers four and five dissolved before our eyes, parting the way. Heavy curved stone slammed shut and back into place almost as soon as Dumbledore had stepped through - I had to be quick to make sure I wasn't left behind, or crushed within a barrier of jagged rock.

“Nearly there now,” Dumbledore whispered, apparently speaking to himself, because there was no one else here, was there? Of course not.

Down this far the air was stale, ill-used, and tasted as if it had been swept through dusty, ancient parchment. Still far below, there was a power calling to me - I could feel it in the pit of my stomach, a subtle string of fear creeping through my bowels, telling me perhaps that it would be best to turn back, to abandon the madness and live out the few short years left as best I could…

Lot of trouble went into protecting a silly old library, didn't it? Makes you wonder just what books might be down in the Magnus Fontis… or what might have been hidden in the long millenniums past.

“The Sixth Barrier,” Dumbledore said, again to himself. “A test of resolve - of will.”

I remained dutifully silent as we approached the end of the dark corridor. The faint pale light from Dumbledore's staff seemed insignificant against the burning runes of fire blazing against the wall that was the barrier in our path. As we approached, the flames roared and absorbed the stone entirely - a curtain of dry and hot fiery death barred the way.

I knew what needed to be done, and Dumbledore did not hesitate - thrusting his shrivelled and blackened hand into the flame. All at once the red-hot flames turned a shade of the coolest electric-blue, and the old Headmaster shivered as a rush of raw power flew through him. I caught the backlash, taking a step back as the curtain of flames parted.

“Quickly now,” Dumbledore said, musing to himself. I hurried on through between the fires alongside the Headmaster before his iron resolve could waver and bring the curtain crashing back down. When we were through, Dumbledore withdrew his hand and the flames reverted to hard stone.

The corridor we stood in now - the last corridor, the last barrier to the Magnus Fontis only a handful of minutes away - didn't play any games. It was illuminated brightly against the dark in the depths of the earth. Runes of ancient and strange design - near-Atlantean, if only the scholars of years past had but known - shone neon-green and -blue, casting a sickly pall over the widening pathway.

I guess if you make it this far, past six varying barriers, then the overseers of the Great Library dispensed with the secrecy and camouflage. The runes floated across the wall like leaves on water, working some archaic and unknown magic of a different era.

I could feel the lost years of time stretching back century upon century - History herself stored her memories here, and it was blinding, deafening - a storm in a teacup… Damn it all, I was far too sensitive to time. And my head pounded furiously behind my eyes, that damned headache I'd had for over a day solid now.

And there were colours spiralling through my mind - a kaleidoscope of red and blue phasing back and forth, surging like the tide. My head throbbed in beat with the surges. Ah hell, what was going on now?

It was hard to believe that far overhead the modern city of Rome was approaching lunch time. I had the strangest perception, beyond any real means of explanation, that reality had shifted up into fifth gear, that nothing was as it had been, was as it should be. And that I was nothing, absolutely nothing, as insignificant as ash and dust in the spinning clouds of rising, burning chaos.

Fucking time-travel. I think I may have fried more than one or two brain cells travelling back twice within the space of an hour. Fucking demons.

I don't recall much of following Dumbledore down the brightly lit corridor, across slabs of white marble floating suspended on clear water, water as blue as the noon sky, but before long I stood just behind him as the corridor widened into a small, rotund room of old stone.

“The only way back is forward now,” Dumbledore said, and his words seemed to carry an air of prophecy.

There was nothing of interest in this circular room at the end of a very long corridor with many, many inconvenient barriers, save the large blocks of stone that, for the first time, looked very clearly like a barrier set into the far wall. Twin bronze statues of tall wizards in flowing robes, beards bushy and imperious, held a single hand forward, palms facing out, denying entrance to all.

Dumbledore strode forward and planted his staff hard against the floor between the two statues. He inclined his head a fraction of an inch and began muttering incantations and old lore under his breath. Smoke rose from the tip of his staff, leaking from the pale blue crystal embedded there, and floated on invisible currents over to the two statues, settling over their eyes and obscuring their cold, metal view.

All at once the dozens of runes and symbols moving across the walls ceased to do so. A pregnant pause, and then the runes rushed at the Seventh Barrier resting in between the two identical statures, flowing into the stone faster and faster until the walls were bare and the solid granite boulder shone with a blinding white light.

Cool special effects, I thought - and the explosions were yet to come.

The light shining from within the Seventh Barrier faded, revealing the first few steps of a marble staircase that descended into darkness. A marble staircase that had existed for over three millennia, give or take a century. Once again, I was about to set foot into history, and for the first time.

“Now, Harry,” Dumbledore said, his voice strangely solemn. “Quickly now, before the Guardians See you.”

Dumbledore's magical smoke still obscured the eyes of the twin statues, yet it was fading fast.

Together he and I stepped into darkness, breaching the top stairs, and believe me when I say that I was readying for a fight. The Magnus Fontis is a library - the Great Library - the greatest on the planet and only a handful of magical folk have access to it, yet none of them understood just what they were privileged to see, what they were unwittingly tasked to keep hidden.

It was nothing noble, nothing awe-inspiring or wonderful. The Magnus Fontis was a library, no doubts there, but it was also a prison. It kept in chains of hard diamond a creature of the old world, of a kind that had brought Atlantis to its knees.

To my knowledge - and my knowledge is of times gone by and times to come, of futures uncertain and hopeless - what festered in the heart of the Valde Claustrum of the Library did not belong to this world.

My hazy memories were full of fire - fire and bone. Why did I feel as if I were entering the Mines of Moria with Gandalf the Grey at my side?

*~*~*~*

You think it's almost over, but it's only on the rise… Isn't that always the way?

Remind me, if you will, exactly what we're fighting for?

And I remember you - a story that was over before it could begin, are you not? My name is Harry, Harry Potter. Perhaps you've heard of me. I'm the man whose deeds put angels and demons alike to shame…

Only time can defeat time and its all too heavy burdens.

Time is always a paradox - t'is the nature of the Beast.

And that Beast, his name is Legion.

And he is many.

*~*~*~*

The Magnus Fontis stank of damp and rotten parchment, of centuries of inevitable paper decay, and of dewy grass in the early morning. I missed the scent of green apples and white roses, of strawberries and fresh rainfall. And there was a further stink, hanging just below the rot and the damp, of something… wrong.

Of something that had festered.

You never really get used to coming face to face with monsters that belong only to nightmares, that cloak themselves in shadow and malice. But you can come to use that fear against the sonofabitch monster that's out to eat your spleen. Fear isn't a weakness - it's a defence, and getting your head around that is half the battle. The other half is an explosive cocktail of sarcasm and a charming, winning attitude.

Anyway, that festering-something-wrong, I could tell in the way that Dumbledore held himself that he could sense it too.

“I'd say it's safe to talk now that no inanimate Guardian statues can hear us,” I said, as the Headmaster and I followed the spiral staircase down into the Library proper. I removed my Invisibility Cloak and shoved it back into the briefcase, being careful not to disturb that expensive little item I'd bought back in the Via Magicka. Didn't want that breaking - oh boy no, not just yet.

“Indeed,” Dumbledore said, surveying me over those half-moon spectacles, his staff held forward against the darkness. “Here we are, Harry. You stand on the precipice of the Fountain of History - I believe the youngest person to have ever done so.”

“Ah, I'm not that young.” I shrugged. “And I fear my new suit is going to get scuffed and stained down here.”

“I must admit, you cut a striking figure - you've had a busy time of it since disappearing yesterday, hmm.”

I grinned, masking it in the shadows dancing across my face from the flickering light. “Not been up to much, Professor. Lunch in France, dinner in Tivoli, breakfast in Rome.”

“Thwarting Death Eater attacks… And all on your own?”

I let the old man see my enigmatic smile this time, as the steps led us down further and further towards the great archives of knowledge. “What happened to your hand, sir?”

“What happened to yours, Harry?”

I was saved from answering, and so was Dumbledore, as we reached the bottom of the wide steps and came to the first level of the Magnus Fontis. As had been the case with the corridor leading to the Seventh Barrier, there were runes shining neon-blue, -green, and -red on the heavy bricks of old stone, yet I no longer suffered from the uncomfortable feeling of being several miles underground in a narrow corridor, as before me now stretched a chamber with a ceiling as high and as vaulted as any great cathedral of the world above the surface.

“Echooo!” I hollered, and my voice echoed up into the far reaches of the Library, reverberating away down the length and breadth of the countless stacks of shelves and dust-ridden archives. “That's cool.”

“Be on your guard, Harry,” Dumbledore said, his voice just a whisper. “The Great Library is as old as the magical world itself - the knowledge of lifetimes can cast a pall of regret… and of despair.”

“Hmm… that's pretty old.” But not that old. Atlantis, Merlin damn it all to hell, is far older. “We have to get to this Valde Claustrum.”

Dumbledore nodded, his gaze once more settling on mine in an unreadable expression that I read perfectly. He suspected me of falsehood. “You say you had a vision through your scar, of Lord Voldemort mentioning a horcrux… Why have I brought you to the Magnus Fontis, Harry?”

Oh, good question. “Because the fate of the world depends upon me?” I offered. “Sorry, that sounded really lame. Lame 'cause its true…”

“What is in the Great Library that you want?”

I stopped pretending.

“A Key to the Past,” I said, letting out a long, slow breath. Dumbledore had seen right through me from the start, as was his way, and had brought me here anyway. And in that way I think the old man loved me - who I was and what I… stood for. I was a bastard for doing what I was going to do. “What do you know of Atlantis, Professor?”

For a long moment he said nothing. “Atlantis is myth and legend, dear boy - a fool's quest for the make-believe.”

“Ah… maybe yes, maybe no - it is certainly a fool's quest, but a few short years ago the entire magical world was the stuff of make-believe to me, sir.”

“Harry, I-”

“What did Merlin say before the Gates of Avalon over six hundred years ago?” I asked, cutting in quickly. Things weren't the way they were before. “Before the fires of chaos and war swept that particular island into the abyss?”

Dumbledore was looking at me in a whole new light. “That is guarded history, Harry, how can you possibly know-?”

Heh, well, I knew because once upon a time I'd spent more than a few years absorbing the knowledge available in the Magnus Fontis. From ancient to recent history, from spellbooks to ward construction and all that's in between. I knew because I'd done my fucking homework. Knowledge can only take you so far, though - the rest is luck and experience.

“Merlin said that 'foul beings of Old Times still lurk in dark, forgotten corners of the world, and Gates still gape to loose, on certain nights, shapes pent in Hell'.” I took a deep breath and let it out slow. “He was talking about Atlantis.”

“That is speculation and nothing more.”

“I can prove it.”

Dumbledore clapped the foot of his staff against the cool marble floor tiles hard, sending a shockwave of sound reverberating outward and upward into the high vaulted ceiling. “You've manipulated me, Harry. How did you know of the word Horcrux?”

I scowled - although I may look it, I was no longer some brooding teenage boy. Even before yesterday, even before the past and future collided in my mind, and my eyes bled, leaving me with one fucking killer of a headache, I had been fighting my own battles for years. I thrust my finger towards Dumbledore, angry and incensed.

”You're one to talk of manipulation,” I said very, very quietly. I had no memory of having this conversation before. Events were spiralling out of my control. Why were things so different this time? “Before I even met you, Professor, you've been steering the course of my life. From Privet Drive to secret snake-filled chambers, from goblets of fire to Grimmauld Place.”

“You know the dangers of the world we live in, Harry, far better than most. Anything I have done has been to keep alive, to keep you strong-”

“I know!” I said, the words strained and hard. My head was absolutely pounding. “I know, sir, and what I'm doing here, today, with knowledge that I shouldn't have, that has you concerned I'm looking to make a Horcrux and perhaps even the field between myself and Voldemort, is for the same reason.” I shook my head. “Only, I'm working on keeping more than just myself alive…” Like the whole godforsaken planet.

His expression truly unreadable, Dumbledore looked away first and gazed out over the stacks and stacks of shelves and storage cabinets illuminated under the glow of soft rune-light. There was knowledge here to make a Horcrux, sure, and magic a helluva lot darker. If there was one thing mankind was good at, it was chronicling the torture of the mind, body, and soul. I could see Dumbledore deciding whether or not to allow me to proceed to the Valde Claustrum, knowing the danger that existed between here and there, written in a million old tomes.

“Haven't I earned the benefit of the doubt, Professor?” I whispered. As I was now, still reeling from the effects of the time-travel, and relatively new to all this memory, he could probably stop me if it came to drawing wands. Mine was burning a hole in my top pocket. “Trust me on this…”

And as if those were the magic words, Dumbledore turned back around to face me. “And you must promise me the same, Harry - we will go on to the Valde Claustrum, for whatever ends you seek to prove the existence of Atlantis - but after that we shall return to England, to the protection of the Order.”

I opened my mouth to protest but caught myself. It didn't really matter, one way or another, I was gonna piss all over Dumbledore's trust in the next hour or so anyways… I nodded slowly, weighing up my options. It would be some long weeks before I returned to the United Kingdom, and when I did it would be in a way no one could expect.

An uneasy silence fell between myself and the Headmaster. I followed him across the wide marble floor, staying just within the sphere of light cast by his staff, and together we descended towards the Valde Claustrum.

Knowledge, acquired and stored knowledge, is what makes the world turn, and the human race progress. We record our history, our innovations and discoveries, and the next generation builds on that - from the ability to start a fire to the wheel, from dynamite to the atomic bomb - we go on, and on, with the wealth of history behind us. Dumbledore and I descended through the most accurate archives of preserved knowledge on the planet.

And it still stank of mildew and rotting decay.

At the end of the great cathedral chamber there was another set of steps, carpeted with faded, moth-eaten red velvet that led deeper yet underground, spiralling and spiralling away into darkness. Heh, aren't we all spiralling the same way?

I expected the air to thin and expire at any moment, yet an old ventilation system churned away out of sight - something to do with the runes shining on the walls. As I said, they were old - near-Atlantean script - and an offshoot of a completely different class of magic from that which we use today, with wands and incantations.

“May I ask, Harry,” Dumbledore said, breaking our awkward silence as we descended down to the next level of the Library, “have you shared the words of the prophecy with your friends?”

”No, sir,” I said. And either must die at the hand of the other… Death was nothing, nothing at all. One day I'll kill him - one day I'll be good enough, fast enough, to stop him before he annihilates the whole world just to teach me a lesson.

“You do not have to bare this burden alone, dear boy…”

“With all due respect, Professor, yes I do.”

We came to a chamber much similar to the first, although with a ceiling not quite as high. The first-floor with the cathedral-like harmonics was now above our heads, and there were many more floors like this to go - with dozens of even larger rooms breaking off in different directions - all of them containing archives of old books and scrolls, knowledge and history. Again, the only light came from the neon runes floating across the walls, and that which was created by Dumbledore - it was enough.

“I do not think it likely at all that Miss Granger or Mr Weasley would abandon you, Harry, should they know the extent of the path destiny has set before Tom Riddle and yourself.”

“Ah, well,” I said, running my burnt hand back through my hair. The salve I'd purchased at the apothecary had done wonders for the skin, but it still looked pretty nasty and sore. “It's not so much that - they would stick by me - I just don't want to paint a big target on either of their backs… a bigger target. I'll share the prophecy, sooner or later, when I know I can protect them well enough.”

Dumbledore stroked his long silvery beard with that blackened hand of his, full of a curse that would claim his life within a year. His skeletal fingers barely twitched. “Whatever you hope to find down here, Harry, it does not do to dwell on legend and myth… “

I thought about that as we moved across the room, keeping to the centre of the chamber and passing the long rows of aged wooden shelves on either side.

“Does the name Saturnia mean anything to you, Headmaster?” I asked, steering the conversation away from Atlantis and the immediate future.

“I am not sure I follow, Harry, why do you ask?”

I shook my head, trying to keep my thoughts straight through that mind-numbing headache. I was about ready to crack my head open and let all the pressure pressing my eyes against my skull ooze out. “I get the feeling I've forgotten something, and that something is on the tip of my tongue but I can't quite… see it. Who or what is Saturnia?”

Dumbledore was clearly becoming more and more curious about the changes in me since last we met, way back when I had my temper tantrum and trashed his office. Years ago - a few short weeks - and all the lost time in between. Whole worlds can flare and die in that magical heartbeat between one moment and the next.

“Saturnia in Roman mythology, Harry, was the goddess of Time. She appeared as a woman of unrivalled beauty who was there to settle grave accounts between mortals and archaic deities.”

“Unrivalled beauty?” I said, thinking of the old crone with the yellow teeth I'd met on the docks. One would have to be really, really drunk to consider barking up that tree. “She was a… a debt collector?”

“I suppose, in a way,” Dumbledore mused, shrugging his thin shoulders. “Yet Saturn, Saturnia - and her Greek partner, Cronos - guarded the sanctity of time itself. Again nothing but the makings of myth and legend. Time is a river of fate and mingled destiny that flows forever in one direction, Harry.”

I scowled. Any mention of time always made me twitch. Time was mine. “Time is not a river,” I said, and I'd come to believe that - somewhere, somewhen. “Time is an ocean caught in a storm, Professor.”

To that Dumbledore said nothing.

As we had been doing for pretty much the last hour, Albus Dumbledore and I headed down. I didn't like to think how far below the bright sunny surface world we might be, and how quick we were moving towards something that my throbbing, hazy mind told me was fire and shadow and bone and anger… Sumfin' a'festaring…

It was coming up for eleven o'clock in the morning. 10:57 and thirty-three seconds, if you must know. Time in this dank library was measured in millennia, however, and the soft ticking of the nice watch I'd bought off a hotel clerk in Tivoli seemed far too hurried.

The levels of the Magnus Fontis that looked like any traditional old library, books and everything, lasted another three descents down spiralling sets of steps, all carpeted in that thin red fabric that had waited out the centuries for my arrival.

The dark stone that comprised the walls and the ceiling gave way to a lighter granite, the sooty-grey colour of ash, and marble floors that still held some of their lustre. Those archaic symbols, glowing those painful neon colours, were floating faster and faster on the walls and across the floor, perhaps working overtime to counteract some latent power in the beast we were heading towards. It was a creature of great strength and… deceit, and the long millenniums imprisoned in the Library had only served to hone its wild anger into a fine, furious point.

“The Hall of the Dream Wind…” Dumbledore said, beaming excitedly.

There was more in the greatest library on the planet than just rotting old parchment. Dumbledore and I entered the first chamber made of the new lighter stone, and in our ears the tunes of a thousand forgotten melodies swam for the first time in a long time.

“Nice,” I whispered.

An invisible breeze blew my hair back from my forehead, fresh and cool, and fell in waves over ancient instruments and music boxes of ages gone by. Wind chimes and flutes, old bells and finely strung guitars… The wind pounded on drums, plucked at wooden lutes and whistled through the grooves and gaps of harps and trumpets in wondrous fashion.

All the instruments stretched on across the length and breadth of the chamber, some of them disappearing into darkness in the far corners. It was the largest orchestra in the world, played by a single gust of perpetual wind.

“Music,” Dumbledore said, smiling fondly. “Ah, sweet music - the power in words, Harry, in the naming of things is tremendous. Music is the very soul of magic.”

“Yeah,” I said. It was a big ol' orgasm of sound. “I wanna get lost in the rock'n'roll and drift away, too, but the world needs saving…”

“Too true, dear boy, too true - onward we fair?” He winked at me behind those half-moon spectacles.

“You want me to lead the way?” I asked, genuinely surprised.

“You know the way.” And that wasn't a question.

I thought about it for a moment and then nodded. “Yeah… yeah I kinda do.”

“One day you must tell me how. Every adventure needs an attentive audience, Harry.”

I took a second to reply. Could I ever tell Dumbledore about the time-travel? About the price I had to pay…? Maybe yes, maybe no… maybe I'd have to, should we survive this time. “It's not a nice story,” I said quietly. “It's not a happy adventure.”

“The ones that are worth it… well they never are, dear boy.”

“Truth,” I replied, coughing to clear my throat. I found a smile that felt a little like a grimace. “Onward we fair…”

It was 11:15 and forty-two seconds. Not far to go now. The Valde Claustrum - the Great Cloister - was a proverbial stone's throw away.

The next chamber down was full of amazing glass statues. They depicted men and women, animals and buildings that had been blasted into so much ash through the ravages of time. The light from the runes sparkled through the glass, highlighting the white rose petals speckled through the majority of the statues, tinted with pure gold and studded with diamonds.

It was dazzling, it was beautiful - and it was priceless. I led the way through the statues and took a turn to the left, Dumbledore following in my wake as I swept through my memories of this place. I could remember the way to the Valde Claustrum well enough.

As we approached the heart of the Great Library the huge chambers began to dwindle, becoming smaller and more specific in what they stored. It reminded me of the many rooms in the Department of Mysteries. There were rooms of tiny gold objects that radiated strange strength - deposits of magic - and rooms of books too hazardous to be kept in the general stacks, less the energies surrounding the dark tomes take on some semblance of life…

Dumbledore eyed most of them with a hard frown and a look of deep mistrust.

Moving through a room of eternally-sharp swords, sheathed in dusty leather scabbards and bracketed on the wall, I hesitated and thought about taking one of the blades for myself. Tweedledum and Tweedledee, the two demon-boys, had weapons of their own. I was sure I hadn't seen the last of those two, no matter how well I'd kicked their ass last night.

I weighed up the pros and cons, and how much I'd have to tell Dumbledore, and decided against it. I'd stick to what I knew, for now, which for the main event coming up in about five minutes was magic.

BOOM!

Just before we left the room began to shake and the marble beneath my feet rumbled. A few of the swords bracketed on the walls broke free and fell loose, clattering loudly on the floor. The symbols and runes floating across the walls began to spin and spin, faster than the eye could follow.

BOOM!

Again the whole room trembled, and sparks of raw energy flew from the neon runes.

“Eh… this can't be good, can it?” I said. The vibrations seemed to be rippling outwards from somewhere ahead. I had no memory of this happening before.

Dumbledore looked troubled. “There is a path that leads back to the surface, Harry, in the Valde Claustrum. It is the nearest path out of the Library and back up to the International Confederation. I suggest we hurry - something is amiss in the Magnus Fontis.”

“Alright,” I said, being quite amiable.

I was leaving the Library another way, however - and it was a way the old man couldn't follow. I had not been lying when I said I could prove the existence of Atlantis. Deep within the Valde Claustrum was the first key to solving that particular riddle. And funnily enough, the key was actually a portkey - made over three thousand years ago.

BOOM!

Centuries of dust clinging to the rafters and between the gaps in the stone broke loose and dirtied my expensive suit. Damn… Fleur would be most unimpressed.

“Come quickly, Harry.”

We moved faster through the last few chambers and winding corridors, passed strange ornaments and old hardwood furniture, cabinets of books and scrolls, alongside further medieval weaponry. Those damn runes were making me dizzy, spinning and spinning around the walls, trying to contain and counter whatever was pounding against the very foundations of the Magnus Fontis.

As quickly as it had started it stopped.

The corridor we were in shook a few more times, complete with those thunderous, echoing booms, before all fell silent and the dust settled. Dumbledore looked at me, and I shrugged.

“We're here,” I said, gesturing down to the end of the corridor and the light that spilled out into the wide round chamber beyond. “The Valde Claustrum.”

I had a bad feeling about this. I checked my wand in my top pocket, and the reassuring weight of my briefcase. If all went to plan then… well, there'd be a cool explosion and one dead festering monster.

At the end of the corridor Dumbledore and I stepped out and down into a wide bowl-shaped room that shone faintly blue, the light reflecting off the narrow canals of water that ran in circles at its edge and the base of the walls. This was the heart of the Magnum Fontis, and also the source of the strange glowing runes on ever single wall in the whole damn place.

High up overhead in the conical ceiling, in the centre of the room, was a large sphere of pure white light. Runes and flashing symbols flowed out along the ceiling from this sphere, down the walls and out of sight.

Also in the centre of the room, directly below the shiny rune-sphere, was a small pyramid of blue marble about four feet high that ended in a thin rounded spike, pointed straight towards the brilliant silver-white sphere.

There was a pair of double doors to the left of the entrance that supposedly led back into the tunnels and pathways above. Running like a maze up to the surface, according to Dumbledore. I'd never been that way, so I couldn't be sure. It was how the old man would get out.

Other than that, there was nothing here but an empty room - save for the sphere of magic and the marble pyramid topped with a blunt spike.

And yet I felt watched. I felt… expected.

The Ring of Concealment on my index finger seemed to itch and burn.

“Here you are, Harry,” Dumbledore said, gesturing widely at the pale blue room. “There is nothing here, I'm afraid.”

I took a few steps across the room towards the tiny pyramid. I spun the Ring of Concealment around on my finger with my thumb, thinking half a dozen steps ahead. I'd known it from previous jumps through time, and the goblins had confirmed it, the ring was of Atlantean make. This was the best way I knew of doing what had to be done.

Merlin damn it all… I turned to face Dumbledore, who stood just behind me leaning on his wizened old warlock staff. “Do you know how old the Magnum Fontis is, Professor?”

“Harry, we have to leave… there is power stirring - look at the runes.”

The neon runes… they were bars to a cell, and the strain on them was buckling and twisting that cell. Something was different, couldn't help that, but this still needed to be done.

“It's three thousand or so years old. A long time…” I stared at Dumbledore, and through him, back across time to the age of Atlantis, and the foul armies of hell from the netherworlds that had torn it down. A war that had been quick and sure… and bloodier than any conflict since, save the one that was to come.

I missed Tonks - I missed Fleur. In my throbbing head I cared for them both more than worlds and time and tearing Atlantis from Voldemort's grasp. And yet I was only fifteen… what chance did I have to save the world, let alone get the girl…

“Harry-”

“It was built by the last of an ancient race of magical folk, sir,” I continued, and slipped the Ring of Concealment from my finger and into my palm, clutching it tight. “Built to contain and store the knowledge of a world that had moved on - a dangerous reason, a fucking stupid reason. This place is a prison for more than just books and trinkets.”

“What has happened to you, Harry?” Dumbledore's voice was solemn… solemn and… afraid? No - Dumbledore was never afraid, not even when he was killed… was he?

“The future happened,” I replied. I stood before the pyramid, glaring at the narrow rounded spike embedded in its apex. “This Great Library, Professor, was built to contain the bane of Atlantis - shadow and bone - which in turn was imprisoned here to guard the first piece of the puzzle that could lead a couple of deft adventurers such as ourselves to what remains of the Atlantean nation - its capital city, the Lost City of Atlantis.”

And with that, I shoved the Ring of Concealment down over the tip of the spike jutting up from the pyramid. It was a perfect fit until the spike became wider than the band, and the Key to the prison cell before me clicked into place, and began to turn…

The hallmark on the Ring - the mark of Atlantis, that ancient symbol for eternity - began to shine gold and lines of power flowed up through the body of the pyramid before me, flooding into the ring. A sickly beam of purple light erupted from the Ring and shot towards the far wall - dispelling the mass of runes that reinforced the physical barrier of the jail cell.

The purple light spread across the length and breadth of the far wall - and devoured forty feet of thick stone that had stood in place for over three millennia. As the light faded, a hollow tunnel stood revealed in its wake. Air that had stagnated over the long centuries washed over me and stung my eyes.

“The Valde Claustrum was a padlock, Professor, on the world's most elaborate prison.”

Dumbledore had cast aside his staff and now held his wand firmly in the grip of his good hand, his eyes staring unblinking into the total darkness of the tunnel before us. That sense of being watched, of being expected, had not abated.

“It's okay,” I said, plucking the Ring of Concealment from the pyramid spike and placing it back on my finger. “The creature is imprisoned in chains of diamond and iron-”

BOOM!

“HARRY JAMES POTTER!”

It came roaring out of the dark tunnel on four legs of hard bone that ended in three hook-clawed talons, stained dark brown with the blood of so long ago. At least twenty feet tall, its body made entirely of jointed dark bone, the creature brought with it a cloak of darkest shadow - smoke and clouds of hideous power. Its head was thin and covered in the only flesh that remained on the creature - two fat, grotesque eyes that spun in its skull.

Hmm, well. Okay.

“Harry…” Dumbledore breathed. “Dear Merlin, what have you done?”

I scoured my memories but came up with nothing. This demonic beast, this shape pent in Hell, this foul-ass motherfucker, should have been chained to the godforsaken wall within the chamber beyond the tunnel, a guardian of secrets long forgotten.

Heh, things just keep happening differently… how was this possible?

“Well, when in Rome, Professor…”

*~*~*~*

The past cannot be redeemed.

Baby, I've heard that before…

Whoa… déjà vu!

Is there anyone out there who can hear me? There isn't much time - story of my life, I know - but seriously, we're down to minutes here.

I failed.

I lost.

Everybody lost…

And I lied. I lied because… I liked it - I could pretend, just for a moment, that you haven't died in my arms more times than I can honestly remember through this fucking headache.

I could pretend that I could grow old, that I could die and move on. Aw hell, I lied, honey, and I'm sorry.

But you're too dead to hear that…

*~*~*~*

“Potter.”

Oh…

Shit.

The voice was low and sinuous, as penetrating as it was terrifying.

“Potter…” the creature spat, its voice grating and grating and bouncing around inside my skull.

“That's me,” I said, inclining my head. “A pleasure to meet you.”

The beast stood just in the darkness of the tunnel across the chamber. Thick shadow encased most of its form. I placed my briefcase against the side of the pyramid and undid the clasp, making sure the item I'd purchased at the Via Magicka that morning was well within reach.

The demon snarled. “Time Warrior - the stink of Atlantis mars your very soul. Arrogant enough to free me, and it will be your unmaking.”

Free you? “Oh I don't know about that, ugly,” I said, drawing my wand and flexing my arm. “You see, I'm the best that's ever been - you're toast, mate, burnt toast. I'm simply the best. Set your watch and warrant on it.”

The monster roared - the fetid stink of its breath, even from across the chamber, was nearly enough to knock me out - and charged toward us, the fury and fires of hell itself dancing within the emotionless black orbs of its eyes. It tore up the marble and stone beneath it as it cut the distance, flinging chunks of rock to all sides.

“Professor,” I cried, taking big leaps away from Dumbledore. “Fire - use fire. Lots and lots of fire. INCENDIO!”

A coil of flame as hot and as pure as I could make it whipped out of my wand and sucked up all the oxygen in the air between myself and the rampaging shadow-demon thing. It had a name, a proper name, but I couldn't remember…

It was fast, and its reflexes hadn't been dulled at all from three thousand years spent imprisoned half a dozen miles below the ground. Still, I was fast too, and my jet of super-hot flame took it in the chest, slamming through the clouds of dark shadow that surrounded the beast and penetrating its bony hide.

The flame knocked the demon back, sent it off course and reeling into the wall, buying me a few precious seconds to assess this all too fucked-up situation.

I'd faced this monster before, yet it had always been chained and imprisoned. It didn't have much room to manoeuvrer in the Valde Claustrum. I could be faster and more agile. In order to get the kill-shot in I'd have to work fast-

A thick column of flame rushed past me, the heat incredible and otherworldly. It slammed into the demon just as it rose to its full height and roared challenge and fury down upon me. The fire knocked it back into the wall, creating a plume of shadow and dust, and I followed the column of flame back to its source.

I laughed wildly, rubbing at my forehead with my sore hand. “I think you singed my eyebrows, Professor!” I called over the demon's continued bellows of rage.

Dumbledore did not spare a moment to offer an apology.

I rushed back over to the small pyramid and dug down into my briefcase, shuffling through the folds of the Invisibility Cloak and drawing from the bottom of the case the warm glass sphere that had cost me near three hundred galleons just an hour or two ago. I tucked it carefully under my arm as Dumbledore's stream of fire ran out, and turned back to face the demon.

Scorched and smoking, stinking of charred bone and inhuman fury, I caught it staring right at me. I smiled and winked. “Brought you a little present, ugly!” I shouted, and raised the glass sphere over my head.

Dumbledore gasped. “Harry, is that a-?”

“You're damn right it is!”

Wordlessly - using non-verbal magic I didn't know I knew - I took a hold of the glass sphere with a levitation charm and fired it like a cannonball straight at the demon's head.

“Harry, no, the dragon's fire will-”

The demon snapped its head forward and closed its jaws around the sphere, snarling and growling. Its long fanged teeth crunched and shattered the crystal ball - unleashing the power in its core.

There was a long drawn out second in which I stood with my teeth bared, scowling at the creature of bone and shadow. Then Dumbledore's good hand came down on my shoulder, pulling me back behind the mini-pyramid in an attempt to shield-

BOOM!

The demon's head exploded in a wave of solid blue flame - and a good chunk of the wall and ceiling went with it. Super-hot fire, the kind that burns in the belly of a dragon, blossomed outwards from its mouth in a star of destructive heat.

Searing away most of its bony form and sending splinters of marble, rock and bone, complete in a cloud of dust, shooting across the Valde Claustrum, the demon crumpled - defeated before it could really stretch its legs

Dumbledore and I were crouched down on the safe side of the pyramid in the heart of the chamber, and we were enveloped in the cloud of hot dust. I closed my eyes tight and covered my face with my arm, waiting for it to settle. Flecks of marble and bone stung and drew blood from my exposed skin.

“Well that didn't take long,” I said, digging the dust out of my ears and wondering how long it would take for the ringing to disappear. I stood and offered Dumbledore my hand.

“Dragon's Fire, Harry?”

I shrugged. “Had a feeling I'd be needing some…”

The glass sphere that had contained the dragon's fire wasn't overly fragile. Magical folk used them all the time as a source of heat, to warm a home in winter, and keep the water hot. They last ages - years before being depleted. It took a lot to shatter one - like the awesome power in the jaws of a shadow demon - and the release of that much heat energy all at once could be devastating, much like an explosion of gas.

“Can't say it didn't get the job done…”

The dust had settled on what remained of the shadow demon, which amounted to less than a pile of bones. One hooked claw pointed towards me defiantly from under a mass of rock that had been part of the ceiling and far wall. Did not understand who it was fucking with…

“This was reckless, Harry,” Dumbledore said, and no longer was he grandfatherly or kind. There were chips of marble in his beard, and a curtain of dust covered his sweeping robes. He was barely concealing his anger.

“Reckless is as reckless does, sir. I'm alive, you're alive, monster is dead. We can call it a win.”

“You know what it was.”

I nodded. “Merlin was the last to see one of its kind, back in Avalon some six centuries ago. This guy was just a foot soldier compared to the nightmare Merlin defeated. It was creatures like this, and their masters, that annihilated the Atlantean nation. Goblins call them the Scourge. I can't remember what they call themselves…”

“Where does it come from?”

I shrugged my shoulders and let out a deep breath. “Long Ago,” I said. “Can't say for sure… I was told once that they come from the space between worlds, between life and death, through Gates that lead into a void…” I laughed - bitter and beyond my years. “It's easier just to say Hell, really, than the space between worlds.”

I left Dumbledore pondering that, his face grim and strangely determined, and collected my briefcase. The fine leather had been scratched and marred by the dust and debris from the explosion. I shook it clean as best I could and headed for the tunnel that the demon had emerged from all shadowy and evil.

It was dark and stank of things that were best left unmentioned. I raised my wand and muttered a small charm, wondering on the non-verbal casting I'd managed in the heat of the moment. I'd have to practice that, once things calmed down a little… Fleur had invited me back Thursday - might be something to have a look at then.

“Harry,” Dumbledore called to me from the Valde Claustrum.

The tunnel was short and ended in a small round chamber that held the remains of the bonds that had imprisoned the creature so far below the earth for centuries. Chains of diamond and iron, forged in magical fire, could not have been broken by this demon alone. It had to be magic - could only be magic - that had eaten through the chains.

But who had been down here before me?

My future memories were disturbingly silent… I wondered upon Tweedledum and Tweedledee, but this wasn't their style, really. The old woman Saturnia? She was a new factor as well. Who was the asshole that had set the demon upon me?

Damn it all… the demon shouldn't have been freed. Although I'd managed to dispatch it without too much trouble. My expensive suit was dirty though, which pissed me off extremely…

The chamber was dry and there was a small hole in the wall. It was this gap that the demon had been set to guard three millenniums ago. Beyond lay the last and final chamber of the Magnus Fontis, and what I had come here for.

I put my briefcase down on a coil of broken diamond chain. It wasn't a large gap - Dumbledore would be too big to fit - and I had to squat down and pull myself through with my free hand, my wand held before me lighting the way. There was a narrow set of about fifteen steps and once through the hole in the wall there was enough room to stand up. I headed down the steps on my guard, expecting something to go balls-up just around the corner.

There was no fancy marble or stone walls reinforced with magical neon runes down here - this chamber was a natural cave within the earth, small and cramped and dripping dirty water from the ceiling. Stalactites formed over the centuries forced me to duck more than once, and the air was thin and stale.

It was only about forty feet deep as well before the walls narrowed abruptly to a point - a dead end. The pale light from my wand fell on something at the base of the rocky cavern wall.

The small chest embedded into the rock at my feet was what I had come for. It was arguably the most important thing concealed within the depths of the Magnus Fontis. The first clue, for those dumb and brave enough to bother, that led to Atlantis.

I knelt down and lifted the lid off, tossing it aside and shining my wand light down into the shallow chest.

There were two items.

And one of them was not what I was expecting.

A nervous shudder rushed right through me and I looked back over my shoulder, expecting a surprise attack.

There was nothing but darkness and the slow drip-drip-drip of water that would never see daylight.

I removed the item I had been expecting, that had been placed here three thousand years ago by a man who had designed the maze of riddles and traps, of clues and false-trails, that led to the Lost City. On a strong chain of white gold, suspended in a small gyroscope, was a tiny golden hourglass that sparkled in the light.

A Time-Turner.

The last time I'd seen one had been in the Department of Mysteries, running from Death Eaters, and the first and last time I'd used one had been in my third-year, to save Buckbeak and free Sirius. This Time-Turner was a little different to the toys the Ministry kept under strict control. For one thing, it could manipulate time for more than a few hours…

I slipped the chain over my head and tucked the small hourglass down the front of my shirt, hiding the magical time device.

I looked back into the chest in that cold narrow cave and removed the only other thing in there - a scrap of folded parchment. I had been expecting a small silver coin, minted in Atlantis with the ancient symbol of eternity. A coin that in reality was a portkey - my ticket out of this hole six miles below the ground without Dumbledore.

The parchment had been folded in half, and then half again. It felt and looked new - not like it had been gathering dust for millenniums on end. There was a message scrawled upon it in a familiar hand. It read… well, it read:

Dear Harry,

I owe you one portkey.

Love,

Harry

I stood there blinking like an idiot for a second… It was my handwriting. How had it ended up in a chest that hadn't been opened for three thousand years? What the fudgin' hell?

Then I thought about it for a moment, the Time-Turner feeling rather heavy around my neck, and it all made sense.

“Bugger,” I whispered. “Aw, bugger…”

I'd left my briefcase up in the demon's chamber, so I navigated my way back through the dripping cave and up the narrow stone steps. I could still get the portkey, just in a bit of a roundabout way.

“There you are,” Dumbledore said as I emerged from between the gap in the wall. “What did you find down there, Harry?”

I collected my briefcase - I'd need the documents and cash again before too long, as well as my Invisibility Cloak - and dusted off the shoulders of my fine jacket. It was no use - I just smudged the dirt in. “Do you think he can be killed, Professor, if we get all the Horcruxes?”

“How do you know about that, Harry?” Dumbledore shook his head, looking old and fragile as he leaned against his staff. Coils of dark diamond chain littered the floor around us both.

“I made a choice, sir, because there was no one else left to make it.” Oh and didn't that bring a thousand haunting memories to the forefront of my mind?

“After this morning, I feel as if I have never really met you, Harry.”

I blinked and looked at the old man. He looked back at me warily, uncertain and curious. The smell of dragon's fire was still hot on the air, almost sulphuric and acrid. It was about time I got on with the day.

“When all is said and done, someone must stop the madness. Don't you agree?”

“Someone is helping you, guiding you - someone who has intimate knowledge of magical history.”

“I work alone - less collateral damage that way.”

“We will discuss this further, Harry, once we have you back home in England.”

“I'm sorry, Professor, but it's my turn now…”

“Harry, you promised. I must insist-” Dumbledore raised his wand against me, and I could see in his eyes what it cost him to do that.

“I'm sorry, sir,” I said, taking a step back and grasping the Time-Turner around my neck. “Whatever happens, just know that I'm always on your side. Always.” I smiled, as carefree as I could manage. “Stay safe, Professor Dumbledore.”

I flicked the tiny hourglass with my finger and sent the sands of time spinning back an hour.

The world dissolved and my headache exploded in a fresh wave of raw pain. I screamed but the howling wind and the blur of colours and shapes rushing past me drowned out my voice. Warm blood trickled into my mouth, coppery and fresh, from my nose.

Suddenly the hard floor was back under my feet, and I fell to my knees as the pounding in my head threatened to knock me out cold. It hurt - oh dear Merlin it hurt - and the blood flowing into my mouth wasn't just from my nose, but from the corners of my eyes as well.

Ah, time-travel, she was a harsh mistress.

A deep growl brought me back to my senses, and I looked up from my position on the ground, as all at once I realised what I'd done. I found my feet and took a few hurried steps back.

I was staring into the lifeless eyes of the demon I'd just killed. Only it wasn't a hundred percent dead anymore. Fuck. Round two so soon? At least the Time-Turner had done its job and taken me back an hour.

The demon was stirring. It was chained to the wall, thank Merlin for small favours, yet the shadow-smoke had begun to form and swirl around the thick heavy bones that made up its hide. Those dead eyes of lifeless black light began to swivel, and the low growl became a snarl as it realised I was here.

“Hey there, big guy,” I said, checking to see that the chains of diamond and iron were firmly in place.

“Time Warrior the creature said, possibly the first words it had spoken in three thousand years. They got into my head and made my eye twitch.

“That's me,” I said. “Harry James Potter, Lord of Time.”

“Release me.”

I felt the wave of compulsion wash over me and sink its claws into my mind. The demon was in my head, convincing me to set it free. I blocked its attempt with the same ease that had allowed me to shake off the Imperius Curse.

“Release me!”

It was more insistent this time and less persuasive. “Um… no.”

Only I must do, I thought. I was an hour in the past - Dumbledore and I would still be navigating our way through the Seven Barriers that guarded the main entrance to the Magnus Fontis - yet somehow when we arrive in the Valde Claustrum and I open the secret passage with the Ring of Concealment, the demon is free.

Flexing the chains as far as it could, the demon leaned forward only a few inches and screamed at me, a wave of that fetid breath threatening to hammer me down into the ground.

“Time has marked you, boy. It stains your very soul. You should not be this side of the Gate, amongst the mortal realms of the living.”

“I'm here for Atlantis, ugly.”

At the mention of the Lost City the creature roared again and threw itself against the thick bands of diamond chain that held it prisoner against the wall in a fury, struggling to reach me. Thick foam gushed from between the demon's fangs. It was drooling in its anger and lust to destroy me.

Had it really only been twenty-four hours since I'd been cruising down an old French canal with Fleur Delacour? Sipping white wine and eating fine pasta?

“You will release me!”

I needed to get past the demon and through the gap in the wall that led down to the chest where I'd found the Time-Turner and the note from myself. It all made sense now. The portkey would still be there, because I'd jumped an hour into the past to give Dumbledore the slip. I'd use the portkey before I arrived in about an hour and killed this bastard, and leave myself a little I.O.U.

Not too confusing… damn time-travel. It hurt like all hell these days, and made my eyes bleed.

There were thick chains blocking the hole in the wall down into the cave, pulled taut across the entrance. The demon's bonds blocked the hole completely. The only way through would be to blast through the chains-

Ah, okay.

Well, I'd finally caught up.

“In about an hour I'm going to kill you, big fella,” I said to the demon. “You've been waiting three thousand years, another sixty or so minutes shouldn't faze you.”

“I will remember your face, Time Warrior, and when I am free you will be hunted. My brethren will return and we will quench our thirst with the blood of humanity-”

“I done told you once, you sonofabitch, I'm the best that's ever been!” I laughed. “Devil Went Down to Georgia - you know it? It's a fucking classic. INCENDIOS GRATA!”

I sent a raw blast of fire-magic at the diamond chains and broke the iron links between them, simultaneously freeing the monster and clearing the path down into the cave.

“FOOL!”

I took a running leap and dived at the gap between the chains, and the demon writhed and snapped the remainder of its weakened bonds, using the broken ends of its chains like a whip to cut me in half.

The fiery-red chains missed me by an inch and I tumbled down through the gap in the wall, landing hard on my shoulder and going head over heels into the wall. I bounced off it none too gently and continued my descent before collapsing in a sore and tired heap at the base of the steps.

“Ow…” I managed, chuckling and groaning. “Ow…” I took a breath, shaking away the pain. “Heh, I'm the asshole that freed the demon. Good luck, Harry.”

Up above the demon roared and sent a single talon searching into the wall, clawing for me. A tremendous boom shook the whole cave, followed by another and another as the demon tried to get at me, pounding against the walls of its cell. Given enough time, it would probably break free. Yet I was on my way to take care of that, as well.

Back down at the end of the cave I opened the chest again and looked inside - there was the Time-Turner and what I'd been hoping to see an hour from now, a small silver coin marked with the symbol for Atlantis. The portkey.

I left the Time-Turner where it was so that Harry an hour from now could come back and free the demon. I reached for the portkey coin. Just before I touched it I pulled my hand back. I thought of a good idea - a funny way to screw with myself. From within my briefcase I withdrew a scrap of parchment and a ballpoint pen, and wrote myself a note.

Dear Harry,

I owe you one portkey.

Love,

Harry

I folded it in half and then half again, and placed it down next to the Time-Turner in the chest. I'd find it soon enough. I levitated the portkey out of the chest so I could put the lid firmly back in place, and then made sure I had all my bits and pieces - briefcase, the Time-Turner around my neck, Ring of Concealment.

Good to go.

Without any further ado I picked up the small silver coin and felt that old familiar tug behind my navel.

Onward I faired.

*~*~*~*

A/N: Well there you have it. Harry's now armed and dangerous with a Time-Turner and off to Merlin knows where on a portkey. The stage has pretty much been set now - so expect the next few chapters to progress the story further than a single day. Also expect to see multiple Harry's kickin' ass all over the place, and all at the same time, and the return of a few familiar faces, and a few new faces.

Thanks again to all the reviewers - what do you reckon to the story now? Good, bad? Still withholding judgement?

All the best, reader,

joe