A Time to Renew I

Disclaimer: This story takes place in the Harry Potter universe, with characters from that universe. All rights over the universe and the characters therein are owned by J. . This work is an otherwise original piece of fiction, with no claim or expectation of gaining advantage, financial or any other, from the use of the copyrighted material.

One.

Harry couldn't move his head. And it hurt. A lot. Harry didn't think he could open his eyes. It seemed dark at any rate, and now he thought about it, Harry didn't even know if his eyes were open or not. Harry started to check his extremities. His hands weren't tied together and seemed to move OK. His legs seemed sore though; his left leg had some pins and needles when he rolled on to his back. But his head was thumping, and the back of his neck was also feeling tender.

Harry decided to just lay still for a while. Yes, that was a good idea, he thought.

Soon Harry realised that there was no noise, other than his own breathing and the beating of his heart. It was a disturbing realisation and a deeply uncomfortable feeling.

"Keep it together Harry", he said out loud, maybe just to hear something else. Harry reached up his left hand and felt his face. All the usual features were there, with no wet feeling of blood or anything like that. Harry ran his fingers through his hair and rubbed his eyes. No glasses.

"Oh well, don't need them if there is no light here anyway", he mumbled, and slowly sat up. Sitting up turned out to be a bad idea, and Harry carefully allowed himself to lay back down where he started.

Harry started feeling around with his hands on both sides, and found nothing but the harsh carpet. He raised a little on to his elbows and pushed himself backwards a little. Reaching behind himself he felt around again. Still nothing. Harry repeated his backward shuffle twice more until his out-stretched hand touched a wall. Encouraged by this minor victory, Harry shuffled and rolled until he could sit up against the wall.

Harry rested. It seemed a great exertion his little voyage across the carpet and he felt as mentally tired and he was physically tired. After some time when Harry's breathing returned to normal and his head cleared a little, he explored the wall to his left carefully. There was some kind of seam or edge, then another material that was very smooth and colder than the rest of the wall.

For no good reason, Harry croaked out the word "help", and the smooth material hummed under his hand and started to glow very slightly blue. A voice seemed to boom in his head "Ah, so you're awake. I'll finish here and be right down." By the dim glow Harry could make out that he was touching a mirror, and there were others around a large room that he couldn't quite see the other end of. In the middle of the room was a large cylinder that Harry could not make out any details on. Harry blinked twice, and slipped off into an uneasy unconsciousness.

Two.

Even with his eyes closed, Harry could tell it was light now. He didn't want to open his eyes because the light would hurt, yet he desperately wanted to know where he was. He could feel that he had slumped down the wall but was still against it. Harry braced against the floor and sat back up then shielding his face with his hand, slowly opened his eyes. As his eyes adjusted he made out a fuzzy looking person-sized object, which was focusing more as the seconds passed. Without his glasses he couldn't make out the figure perfectly, but he recognised Lucius Malfoy instantly when he spoke.

"Good afternoon, Potter, so nice you could come and visit." Lucius sounded almost polite. He appeared to be sitting on a chair, something that Harry had not noticed before or perhaps it had been brought in while Harry was out of it.

"Honestly, I don't remember being invited," Harry said slowly, then coughed as his throat felt very dry. "I don't even know where I am. And I'm thirsty."

"I am forgetting my responsibilities as a host, aren't I? Please forgive my oversight and allow me to remedy this situation immediately."

Lucius Malfoy strode away from Harry to a fuzzy distance, and spoke softly to someone or something that Harry could not see, then returned to his chair and sat down again. He simply sat there unmoving, waiting Harry presumed, and said nothing. Harry could feel the silence and it made him even more uncomfortable. Questions were swirling in his mind but he could not organise his thoughts sufficiently to ask even one of them, and so Harry also just sat, slumped against the wall.

As Harry waited for the something that must happen, he looked around the room to the limits of his near-sighted range. He was in a room whose walls seemed to be entirely covered in mirrors. Harry could not tell if these were ordinary mirrors or affected by magic, but given his earlier encounter with the mirror on his left side, at least some of them must be magical. Some of these could be two-way mirrors but Harry had no way of knowing who had the matching mirrors. Harry now thought the large cylinder in the centre of the room was a single large stone or rock, but he couldn't see above the edge to see if there was anything in it, or on it.

Harry now heard footsteps and two people entered the room from the far side, both carrying trays in their hands. The first placed their tray near where Lucius was sitting and transformed it into a table which now had a large teapot on it, along with cups and saucers, several jugs and some plates. The servant - Harry thought it was a servant - moved toward Harry and held out Harry's glasses to him. Harry reached up and took them, putting them carefully in to place, and blinked everything into focus. The second servant, now looking very much like an ordinary butler, transformed his tray into a chair and placed another jug onto the table. OK, they weren't completely ordinary then. The butlers helped Harry up and into the spare seat, then withdrew quietly from the room.

Lucius now spoke again. "Tea or iced water?"

"What?" Harry asked after a few seconds, still feeling disoriented and confused.

"Would you like to drink some tea, or some iced water?" Lucius inquired patiently.

"Oh sorry, just water," Harry mumbled. "Thanks," he added.

Lucius Malfoy poured a tall glass about three-quarters full of water from a large decanter and placed it on the table in front of Harry. He poured himself a cup of tea, dropping a thin slice of lemon into the cup, and started to hum quietly to himself.

Harry was thirsty but just stared dumbly at the glass. His eyes started darting around the room, then back to Lucius Malfoy, then back to the glass. Lucius sipped his tea, replacing the cup, and asked "Please, drink, I thought you were thirsty." Harry continued to simply sit like a shop window dummy, saying nothing and unmoving.

"Please, drink your water," Lucius encouraged. "Here, I'll take the first sip, just to prove there is nothing untoward in it." He reached across the table and made a flourish of taking the glass to his lips, slurping loudly and swallowing. Taking a napkin, a very fine cloth napkin with initials embroidered in the corner, he wiped the lip of the glass and placed it back in front of Harry. Lucius returned to his tea, and stared off away from Harry to some other point in space.

Harry slowly reached out to the glass on the table. It was cold. There was already some moisture condensed on the surface so Harry was careful to pick up the glass slowly. He took a large gulp of the water, which his mouth rejected causing him to spit some back into his own lap before he could swallow it. The water was so cold his throat felt like it was burning. He took a couple of deep breaths before sucking up a few ice cubes, placing the glass back on the table and letting the ice melt in his mouth.

"Oh dear, was the water too cold, or unpleasant?" Lucius quickly asked with apparent concern. Harry could only make a muffled noise with his mouth full of ice, and shake his head.

"Well try drinking it slower next time, and beware of a brain freeze," Lucius suggested, then turning to the plates on the table said "Would you like a biscuit?"

Harry was staring at Lucius Malfoy now, staring hard and starting to shake slightly. Lucius was looking over the plate of biscuits, picking one out and nibbling at a corner. Again he was humming quietly, and looking casually away from Harry, sipping his tea. Harry continued staring, and started gritting his teeth. This made no sense at all. What was going on? Why was Lucius Malfoy drinking tea with him? Why is he eating a biscuit?

Harry spat the remainder of the ice cubes on to the floor and yelled as loud as his throat would allow "Where am I and what the hell is going on?"

Three.

Lucius Malfoy turned his head slowly toward Harry now and had a slight smile on his face. "Oh, so we are awake now, are we?"

"Oh come on, you bloody kidnapped me, and I'm stuck here in I don't know where, waiting for something to happen or someone to tell me what is going on!" Harry's brain felt empty now. He couldn't think of anything coherent to say or ask, and his mouth just opened and closed without any more words coming out. Harry puffed ineffectually, and then pushed back into his chair.

Lucius carefully placed his teacup back in its saucer, sat back in his chair and knotted his fingers in front of his mouth. He paused for a little bit seeming to gather his thoughts.

"Harry, can I call you Harry? Mr. Potter? In any case, I would like to welcome you to Malfoy Manor. As my guest, of course. Do you like the room? Nice isn't it? This is a basement below the manor that my father Abraxas had installed as a psychomanteum." Lucius stood up and motioned with his arms around the walls.

"I'm not really into all that catoptromancy, looking into the future with mirrors. It is such an imprecise science, and the future is so difficult to understand clearly. I had it modified for two-way mirrors rather than those scrying types, and this is a first-class room for communicating with a wide range of people. You found mine in fact just a few hours ago." Lucius smiled at Harry, which did not make Harry feel any better or less confused. "Might have been a little awkward if you started chatting with the Dark Lord, you think?" Lucius made a mock laughing face, and continued beaming at Harry in a most uncomfortable way.

Harry picked up his glass and threw it at Lucius Malfoy. Lucius moved his head slightly to the right and the glass flew past his shoulder to the other side of the room and smashed against some brickwork. Lucius sighed.

"I can see you are a little … upset … and I can understand that you probably do not understand fully why you are here yet," Lucius started lecturing.

"You can say that again," Harry grumbled through gritted teeth.

"Let me start by saying that 'kidnapping' is an emotional word and too harsh for the intentions of having you visit the Manor at this time."

"How am I a visitor?" Harry blurted out. "A visitor comes and goes as they please, and are not knocked out and taken to somewhere else they never wanted to go!"

"I do not recall physically hitting you or anything," Lucius mused as he walked toward the large stone at the centre of the room. "You are not really a prisoner though, more of a special house guest, but I don't want you wandering around at this time." Lucius' words trailed off, and he was staring into space now with no expression on his face.

Harry stood up, steadying himself on the edge of the table. "Why am I here?"

Lucius said nothing for some time but just before Harry repeated his question Lucius held up his hand.

"We share an age-old alliance, you and I," whispered Lucius, still staring into nothing. "Not our trivial mortal families but our Houses of Hogwarts. For over a millennium we shared this secret when the other Houses reneged on their responsibility. For a thousand years both Slytherin and Gryffindor did the necessary work behind the scenes to continue our way of life. We kept alive the ancient practices and rituals of riftomancy. Now is the time to renew, and our Houses must come together again."

There was a short but very intense silence between them.

Harry crept closer to where Lucius Malfoy was standing, statue-like.

"Or what?"

"Or," Lucius said turning slowly to face Harry, "the end of magic as we know it."