Disclaimer: All rights and characters belong to JKR. No money is made, I just enjoy playing in her sandbox.
A/N: Welcome. This fic will run through year 6 onward. It is the first in a series of five that will go beyond the gangs' time at Hogwarts. The ratings is a precaution for now, but bad language, grisly deaths and mature situations will all crop up later on. Also expect mild to moderate Dumbledore bashing, grey Harry, unusual powers and epic battle scenes. This will be a Harry /Ginny fic from the start.
14th July 1996:
The man moved forward with caution, sliding his feet toe by toe across the slick frozen surface beneath his thick winter boots. Even with the addition of several pairs of socks and a layer of waterproofs and seal skins the cold still reached his frozen soles. Not for the first time the man wondered how he had come to be in this position. He could have chosen a life of comfort and warmth, surrounded by friends and family. A warm hearth, plenty of food, no need to run or hide from the constant danger of being found… but he didn't. The man shut those thoughts out, physically turning his head away from the smiling faces conjured by his own betraying mind.
Inching along the narrow tunnel the man could not see the beauty around him. The light from the large torch he carried set millions of frozen crystals shimmering in the walls and bounced upward of the towering stalagmites he squeezed his slim form between and behind. No. The man noticed nothing and kept his eyes intently on the path ahead. Periodically he would stop and check a rough map drawn on a worn and faded piece of fabric in his pocket. He would knock at the walls and scratch at the floor with the long walking stick he carried. Clearly the man searched for something, but in this barren, frozen wasteland of blank whiteness his task was nearing the impossible.
The man had been trapped in the wilderness for nearly three weeks now, reliant upon the kindness of the few local whale hunters for food and shelter, a people who themselves were bemused and not a little put out about his sudden appearance in their otherwise isolated home. He held no money, had no food or shelter to call his own, and yet he dared not go back without succeeding in his task. He had come into this forsaken place in a desperate attempt to put an end to his freezing misery. The low grating, crunching sounds of the glacier on the mountain high above where multiplied tenfold in the frozen caves below, giving the whole place an eerie, haunted feeling. The man feared the roof would cave in under the immense weight and seal him into this frozen tomb forever.
Moving forward again the man raised his walking stick, poking it toward the wall of ice he had just come up against. Expecting it to resist as the thousand or so walls before had done, the man put his full weight forward and so fell head first into the icy cavern that opened beyond, sliding some 200 feet downward before hitting another wall. Fumbling in the dark he flicked his torch back on, then sat stunned at the bottom of the ice cavern looking backward up smooth surface that he had travelled down, ascertaining in his own mind that there was absolutely no means of climbing back up. The man did not panic, though he did despair. A trickle of slow moving blood made its way across his eyelid, already clotting in the freezing climate. He wiped it away and then turned to take stock of his situation.
The man's despair quickly turned to elation. It seemed that in this most unlikely of places he had finally completed his task. Before the man lay not the wall of ice his concussed mind had first seen but a wall of pure white stone. It appeared as some form of marble, but the man was not interested in the formation of the stone. It was what was carved into the stone that was important. A series of unusual marks, lines and drawings ran across the surface of the stone. The man did not recognise them beyond that they looked similar to those on the map in his pocket. The man dug his arm into an inside pocked of his coat. Pulling out a small but old fashioned looking camera he took several photographs of the wall. He moved around the structure, digging the ice away from the rock formation and checking the sides for any further markings.
Satisfied that there was no more the man proceeded to bash each wall of the small chamber with his stick, though he found no further openings or markings. Gathering himself he looked up and considered the 200 foot drop he had fallen down from the cavern above. It was a cliff face of shear ice and there was little to no chance he would be able to climb back up it in his current form.
The man stood and considered for a moment longer. His master had told him to use strictly no magic in this search. The runes on the wall were incredibly sensitive….. The beast they imprisoned even more so. But the man was beyond any care, he had completed his search and was free to return to warmer climates, food and his own bed. He daren't try to apparate this far below ground but luckily he had another form.
Half a second later there was no man in the chamber, however anybody looking closely might have seen a pink, worm like tail disappearing back up the cliff face.