Yes Minister, we are safe, for the time being. Grindelwald was in no shape to follow. I have taken steps to secure our coastline. By the time he is well, Britain will be unavailable to him.

-Albus Dumbledore, 1945

Chapter Two

"It would seem, Harry, that we have places to be." Dumbledore watched the snake Patronus as it faded, until nothing more than a wisp remained, and it rose slowly toward the ceiling. Knees cracking, he stood. "I trust that you will not object too strenuously to missing Aurora's lesson this evening?"

Harry rose to his feet, his hand moving toward his wand. "You're taking me with you?"

"Indeed," Dumbledore said. He drew a cloak of midnight blue, covered with shimmering stars, from a rack against the wall and threw it over his shoulders. "One can learn only so much in a controlled environment. Experience is the best way forward, I think."

"Yeah," Harry said, nodding. He swallowed, and rubbed his hands against his robes, drying his palms. He'd been working for years to get to this point, but now that he was here, he wasn't sure how to feel. "Yeah, I suppose I'm ready."

"You are ready, Harry," Dumbledore said. He looked Harry in the eye and placed a hand on his shoulder. The Headmaster smiled. "You have earned my trust many times over."

Dumbledore gestured to the door, and it sprang open. "Let us be off."

Harry nodded. Dumbledore started walking, with Harry falling in step behind him as they crossed the threshold. They descended the spiral staircase leading away from the Headmaster's office in silence. The stone gargoyle at the bottom rumbled closed as they passed. Without looking back, Dumbledore pointed his wand at the stone guardian, and it glowed blue for a moment, locking into place. They continued forward.

"I was not much older than you are now when Nicolas first allowed me to accompany him," Dumbledore said as they made their way down the hallway, Harry walking at his side. The stone corridor had no windows, only flickering torches on the walls to light the way forward. Shadows flitted across the stone floor as the men moved. "I was quite petrified, naturally."

Harry snorted. "I find that hard to believe."

"Hmm. Perhaps a bit of an overstatement. But it was a rather nerve-racking experience." Dumbledore paused. "I am sure Nicolas would delight in telling you the tale. It is one of his favorites."

Neither said anything for a long moment as they turned into another corridor, heading for the stairs. Finally, Harry sighed. "You're going to make me ask, aren't you?"

Dumbledore looked straight ahead, the corners of his mouth upturned.

"You really get a kick out of this, don't you?" Harry laughed. "Okay, I'll bite. What happened?"

Dumbledore looked straight ahead as they reached the Grand Staircase and began their descent, unable to contain his smile now. "There was once a time when it was quite fashionable for European wizards to tour the Orient on their graduation. Then the Boxer Rebellion began, and a Chinese warlock took to decapitating British wizards on holiday. The Ministry wanted nothing to do with it, so Nicolas took it upon himself to resolve the problem."

"What did you do?" Harry asked.

"We portkeyed to the Forbidden City and cast out our net. It took us weeks, but we eventually tracked him to a fishing village in Manchuria, just north of Korea. The locals were ... reluctant to assist us. One particularly charming Muggle woman attacked me with a filleting knife." They reached the bottom of the Grand Staircase, and stepped into the entryway. "We found him by chance, while we were trying to persuade a vendor to give us directions."

The low din of conversation and clatter of silverware greeted them as they entered the Great Hall. Harry's eyes scanned the house tables. Perhaps half the seats were empty, as students had begun trickling out with dinner nearing its end. He looked at the Gryffindor table. His gaze fell on a girl with dirty blonde hair and hazel eyes. She looked at him, frowning, tapping her fingers against the table.

"Oh, bugger," Harry muttered. He shrugged, doing his best to look apologetic.

"You did tell Miss Chenault you would be dining in my office this evening, I trust." Dumbledore said.

"Well, not in so many words." Harry ran a hand through his hair. He sighed. "I'm going to be in trouble when we get back, aren't I?"

Dumbledore laughed. "That seems a safe prediction, yes."

Harry mouthed an apology as he and Dumbledore walked across the Hall, to the double doors at the front. The girl's eyes narrowed, and she stood, backing away from the table and making her way toward the exit.

The doors sprang open as Dumbledore approached. A gust of cold air ruffled Harry's hair as they stepped onto the grounds. He pulled his cloak more tightly around himself, and drew his wand to cast a warming charm. His breath hung visibly in the air. The sun sat low in the sky, the horizon glowing orange. "The Chinese warlock, did you duel him?"

"Not as such," Dumbledore said. "When we found him, he was returning from the opium den, and could hardly stand. He took off three of his own fingers trying to cast with the wrong end of his wand."

Harry laughed, and they continued forward in silence. The lane cut through the Hogwarts' grounds, stretching near the Black Lake, crossing a brook with a stone bridge. It ended at a pair of wrought-iron gates, opening to the road leading to Hogsmeade.

"Have you ever been to Dover, Harry?" Dumbledore asked when they reached the gates. Harry shook his head. "No matter. I will take you."

Harry took the Headmaster's arm, and they spun, disappearing with a crack.

They reappeared on a beach. Harry stumbled as he landed, his foot falling on a rock. Waving his arms, he steadied himself, avoiding a fall into the sand. Ahead of him stood Dover's white cliffs, shining in the last rays of the setting sun, standing in stark contrast to the darkened Channel below. The water was perfectly, impossibly still, and the beach was silent.

Harry didn't know if it had once been possible to see Calais from Dover, but he certainly couldn't see it now. The Veil here was further out than at Portpatrick, perhaps a mile from the coast. But its oppressive blackness loomed just as large.

"Albus!" A man called out. He stood tall, with dark hair, wearing finely cut robes. The first hint of wrinkles had begun to form over his handsome features. A dozen wizards stood behind him, wearing crimson robes and grave expressions. "How good of you to join us."

"Tom." The men shook hands quickly. "I would never miss a chance at enjoying your company."

"And Mister Potter." The man faced Harry. "I'd wondered when Albus might decide to bring you along. Hopefully we won't have to deal with anything too exciting tonight."

"Minister Riddle," Harry said. He shook the Minister's hand. The man had an unpleasantly tight grip. "Always a pleasure, sir."

"What is the situation, precisely?" Dumbledore asked.

"Our devices have indicated an alarmingly high amount of magic on the other side of the Channel," Minister Riddle said. "Of course, with Grindelwald, we can never be sure exactly what he's planning, but something here is certainly amiss."

"Indeed," Dumbledore said.

Suddenly, Harry could hear the swish of the tide. The water in front of them trickled forward, released from its chains. Something in the distance, behind the wall, roared. The sea swirled, a cyclone of force pushing the water outward. Harry shivered as the spray hit him. He lifted the top of his robes, wiping his glasses.

The sea sunk in the middle, and the roar became deafening. Pressed down toward the Channel's floor, the water rose to the sides, suspended in the air. It formed a path, perhaps a hundred meters wide, stretching back at least as far as the curtain shrouding the island.

"Showy bastard," Harry muttered.

A grey mass emerged from the darkness. It took up nearly the entire width of the pass and seemed to spread, as it moved quickly toward the coast.

The Ministry wizards fanned out along the shoreline, their wands trained on the stream of grey that poured out of the black. Dumbledore stepped forward, waving his wand at the parted sea. Riddle joined the Headmaster at the front, and Harry drew his own wand.

As the grey mass grew nearer, Harry could see spaces in it. It was not one entity, but a legion. Hundreds, perhaps thousands, of individuals moved as one, toward the shore. Harry sniffed, and nearly gagged. Over the smell of the salt water hung the pervasive stench of decay. These weren't people, he realized, but corpses-the Inferi, flesh and bone brought back to life. Their skin stretched tight over their bloated bodies, chunks of rotting flesh falling from their bones as they moved.

They ambled across the sea floor, moving more quickly than Harry would have thought possible. As those at the front neared the shore, more continued to pour from the darkness. They were identical, Harry realized, every one of them. Or, at least they had been, before decomposition had set in. They were all young girls, perhaps fifteen years old, with strawberry blonde hair and blue eyes.

He looked to Dumbledore. The Headmaster held his wand loosely at his side, his eyes wide. His blue eyes, which looked awfully similar to-

Harry looked back at the swarm of Inferi, growing ever nearer. "Oh, fuck!"

Harry stepped in front of Dumbledore, between the Headmaster and the Inferi swarm, his wand already moving. He cast forth a curtain of flames, hot enough to singe the hair on his arms. With a look to his right, he saw the Minister doing the same. Harry expected the creatures to turn back at the sight of the fire, but they continued marching forward. The horde ambled into the flames.

The acrid stench of burning flesh assaulted Harry's nostrils. The Inferi emerged from the flames, blackened, but still moving just as quickly. Harry took an involuntary step backward as they grew nearer. That shouldn't have happened. There was only one rule, one constant when fighting Inferi: fire destroyed them.

His wand arm fell to his side. Unsure what to do next, he looked to Riddle. The Minister's wand was a blur, emitting a rainbow of curses. It seemed he was targeting one inferius at a time. Harry's eyes followed Riddle's curses down range, where an inferius was cut cleanly in half at the waist, the two parts twitching as they hit the ground. Even before the curses landed, the Minister had moved on to his next target.

The Aurors had adopted the same strategy, albeit without Riddle's deadly precision. But for every one that fell, another two stepped forward. Harry decided to follow the Minister's lead.

Sweat poured from Harry's brow as he took down dozens of them, one at a time. With a piercing hex between the eyes, an inferius fell backward, unmoving. Harry cleaved the head from another. Yet another exploded in a shower of gore.

Almost as if it sensed a threat, one inferius rushed ahead of the group, right towards Harry and Dumbledore. A purple ribbon of light erupted from Harry's wand, striking the inferius in the abdomen. The creature ambled forward as the bottom half of its stomach fell open, grey intestines sliding out and dangling to the ground. Stumbling as its foot became caught on its entrails, it pitched forward, landing face-first on the rocky ground. Harry cringed, feeling the bile rise up in his throat. He didn't know whether to laugh or vomit.

In that instant, something changed.

The grey swarm glowed, for just a moment, then faded. An inferius pointed a rotting finger at him. Maybe it was nothing, but Harry doubted it.

A sharp pain in his leg proved him right. He fell to the sand, the leg buckling beneath him. It was gashed, nearly to the bone, and blood poured from the wound. The inferius had cursed him, he realized. It shouldn't have been possible.

He felt an electricity in the air, then, and he looked back. Dumbledore held his wand aloft. The Headmaster's eyes burned, pools of cerulean fire dancing in the night. It was a look of fury and lost restraint-a look that Harry had never seen on his mentor's face, and it chilled him to the bone.

There was a roar as the sea shifted again. Dumbledore twirled his wand, and the two walls of water rose even higher, towering above them now. As the Headmaster dropped his arm to his side, everything went silent.

For a moment, the Channel was still. Harry's eyes widened as the water fell, instantaneously, as if the floor had dropped away beneath it. The two walls converged, smashing together with a clap that left Harry's ears ringing. The water shifted as it moved, morphing and hardening. Before their eyes, it changed from a dark blue to grey. Stone. The ground beneath them quaked as tons upon tons of slate crashed into the horde.

Just like that, it was over. They had won.

Harry let out a breath he'd been holding, smiling at Dumbledore's display of magic. The Headmaster was simply unbelievable. If even he hadn't been able to best Grindelwald... Shifting so he could better see his leg, Harry grimaced.

With a crack, another Auror apparated in behind them. He ran forward.

"Minister, Chief Warlock." The man bowed, speaking quickly. "Grindelwald breached our the Veil."

"It was just a diversion, then," Riddle said, his fists clenched. "Where is he?"

"The North Country," the Auror said. "A village called Little Hangleton."