Disclaimer: Everything belongs to J.K. Rowling

River of Time

Chapter 1

Fog hung like a curse about the ancient oaks when Harry Potter left the path at the edge of the Forbidden Forest. He took to the dark, ignoring the white tendrils that crept up the thick trunks and strangled them.

The fog clung to him, too, as he broke through the tree line and took the last steps into a clearing. He smiled at the person waiting for him.

"Good to see you, Headmaster."

Albus Dumbledore raised an eyebrow. "I am not a member of the faculty anymore, Harry; you might as well call me Albus." He sat on an uprooted tree, legs crossed at the ankles, hands folded in his lap. Harry was almost jealous how the man made even that position look graceful. But Albus Dumbledore, he was sure, could walk on all fours and somehow wisdom would come pouring out of his hands and feet.

Harry waved his words away. "Hogwarts remembers her children. No matter what the Ministry says, you'll always belong to her."

Albus chuckled. "Ah, those were my words, I believe."

"Just so. There's not a stone in that castle that would forget you. Umbridge can cry herself hoarse, Albus; it will change nothing."

"Maybe Headmaster is better after all, my boy. You look as if you're tasting something extraordinarily spicy when you say my name."

"Just remembering the last time I used it. I was breathing fire the whole night."

Mirth danced in Albus' eyes. "A regrettable accident, I am sure." He rose from the trunk, robes the color of a star-speckled night sky swishing through the fog. "Well, let us not waste more of this wonderful moonlight. Do you have everything you need?"

Harry patted down his robes. "Socks, underwear, a pair of trousers—"

"I see my departure has not left you in bad spirits, my boy. I was afraid Dolores would leave you in a sour mood."

"Oh she does," Harry said as they left the clearing and took a path deeper into the forest, the shrubbery growing thicker around them. "But Fred and George got a good handle on that one. No need to involve myself. They'll send her to the crazy house before long."

Moonlight filtered through the canopy, and from afar came the clapping of hooves as the centaurs rode through the forest. The path wound past a small lake and then rose steeply and the muddy ground gave way under Harry's boots as they dug in on the way up. They stopped on a small promontory that overlooked a river down below, where the trees leaned on each other like drunken friends and the moon found its brother in the water. In the distance lay Hogwarts, a black giant at this time of night.

A flock of birds flew past, silver-feathered and silent. Wind cut at them from east, carrying the sound of chimes with it, and Harry pulled his cloak tighter. "The chime's a new addition."

"Fabulous craftsmanship, yes. Its creator was a truly gifted haggler, I admit, but ultimately I prevailed."

Albus sounded proud and Harry shrugged. Whatever keeps you happy at that age.

They went along a ridge and Harry looked into the crowns of the trees directly across, where an owl stared back and hooted. Then the path widened again and they stopped before the entrance to a cave, a set of delicate chimes turning.

Inside the cave it was damp, but on the ceiling glowed crystals of green and blue and, if he looked closely, also small red ones that stared at him like evil eyes from the darkness. It smelled of earth and they reached the last part of the cave shortly, down below where a large runic stone stood crooked on the floor.

"This'll hurt again, won't it?"

"I'm sorry to say but my latest fracas with the Ministry gave me little time to work on my technique. But you will manage, I am sure. Let yourself flow into the colors - they will accommodate you if you're gentle enough."

Harry shot the runic stone a glare. "You're a right bastard, aren't you?" he said, kicking at the base of the stone.

Albus' look, laden with something akin to grandfatherly disapproval, was almost worth kicking the stone again. Or litter around it. "Your appreciation for the higher arts of magic has lessened considerably, my boy. As has your vocabulary. Quite worrisome, I must say."

"I'd start appreciating the arts more if they weren't making me feel like a giant shat me out."

"If only Dolores could hear you . . ."

Albus stood before the stone and his wand danced to a tune in his mind that must've been the playing of an orchestra. He always looked as though he commanded the forces of magic like a conductor would the violins and flutes, the harps and the drums, the cymbals and the trumpets. All instruments save the horns, because horns had to be shredded to dust, nothing more. But that was another story.

Then Albus' wand pointed at him and Harry was thrown into a stream of colors, none of which wanted anything to do with him. He tried to let himself flow into them, gently, but the powers of magic lining this highway avoided him like a leper.

Just like before, as damn always, the stream of color found him to be an indigestible ingredient in the primordial soup of power it sipped every day. He screamed into the colors. His skin began to tear. There was a high-pitched whine in his ear, as if his existence insulted magic itself in some fundamental way. Then the stream spat him out and his face hit the ground with force. Next to him Albus exited the same horrible place of mixing colors, carried on soft clouds until his feet touched the grassy floor.

He knelt down beside Harry and healed the torn skin. "You must be gentle with it, my boy. The River of Time has to be handled carefully or it rejects its travelers. You're too brash with your magic. It needs . . . caressing."

"I don't think I can make love with my magic like that."

"It is all a matter of trying."

". . . it shat me out again."

Albus chortled, his bushy brows quivering. "That it did."

Harry rose to his feet, dusted himself off, and looked about. They stood before a runic stone much like the one in the cave, but overgrown with moss. The sky above them was open and alight with stars. From close by came the sound of waves, and as his eyes adjusted to the darkness, he saw the fringe of the shoreline just beyond the palm trees in his way.

"Tropical, huh?" Harry said. "You know the date?"

"I presume we will have to find that out ourselves, my boy."

"What are we looking for?"

"The Crown of Jezzabel. The ledger was sadly empty concerning more information."

"So we know nothing."

"Astute as always, Harry. Come, let us get a better understanding of this place."

They walked out to the shore and lost their boots and the water played around their feet as they went along the beach. And as the waves swept away their memory in the sand, so too would the Crown of Jezzabel wipe any trace of their visit to this time – if they found it, of course.

In truth, time was fragile as glass. But it was also just as malleable, and if you blew as good as the whores of Dalayne Street – information overheard from Mundungus – then it wouldn't care a lick if you took it for a ride. Albus, no innuendo intended, was as good a blower as they came. It took him little effort to whisk both of them through time and space, to all the places where such runic stones had been put in order to annoy the apprentices of Hogwarts' Headmasters.

Far as Harry knew, this had happened to every young man in his position since Slytherin and Gryffindor chugged too much liquor, creating the first stone and reducing half the freshly built castle to rubble. And ever since they'd done their titles as magical heavy-weights justice, every headmaster that ever taught in Hogwarts went about the world, plonking down these ridiculous stones. Some adept ones even traveling the River of Time to place them before Hogwarts existed.

Harry felt a deep-seated kinship with all those faceless apprentices that came before him; those poor sods who had been made to go through just the same trouble.

Harry and Albus walked the beach until they came to a small village that in the darkness seemed like an outgrowth on the shore. It was old and on the beach lay shadowy frames of boats, like sleeping hounds of the night. No guards were posted anywhere.

"There we are," Albus said. "What now?"

Harry had come to loathe that expectant expression. It meant Albus would defer to him at all times in the coming hours. That had been different as well when they first started this gig. "It's too dark," Harry said. "We'll wait until morning and then ask around. If someone placed a stone here, there's bound to be information about that crown."

So that we can put it on your damn shelves, like all the other shit I had to find for your amusement. That office, with all its mysterious artifacts, was nothing but a glorified torture rack for the headmaster to look at.

"What will we do until sunrise, then?" asked Albus. "I must say, I am partial to a round of cards."

"Sleep."

"Why, have you spotted an inn, my boy? I did not see a light anywhere, but I have often assumed that your eyesight is sharper than you let on."

With the exception of the stars – both in the sky and on Albus' robes – the world was inky black.

Harry ignored the gentle mocking and shot Albus a wolfish grin. "We won't need an inn."

Because if there was one thing all this traveling through the River of Time had accomplished over the years, it was to awaken the competitive side of Harry, who let no opportunity slip by to try and one-up Albus and the venerable wizards he had learned about in legends.

Right next to the edge of the village he waved his wand, transfiguring the sand into bricks and having those stack themselves into the shapely form of a house. Another swish, and from the jungle nearby came palm fronds that thatched the house and gathered in two corners inside as well to make comfortable beds. A tower would have been a nice touch, but on account of being humble, Harry contented himself with turning the color of the bricks into the whitewashed color of the adjacent house, adding a nice doormat with the initials P & D. Harry raised his wand a last time, and a group of saplings shot out of the jungle, shaped themselves evenly, then lashed themselves together into a door.

Ignoring his mentor's pink sleeping kimono, Harry fell into the makeshift bed, grinning into the pillow. Fifth Year plus change from the time travel, and I'm as good an architect as they come. Take that, old man.

Harry expected their neighbors to be curious come morning, perhaps a tad confused and wondering if that house hadn't always belonged to the village. What he got instead, as the first beams of sunlight shone in thick golden bars through the window, was the sight of an empty bed where Albus should have been, and the corpse of a Death Eater right next to it, a pink sleeping kimono draped over its black cloak.

AN: Hope you enjoyed yourself.