A Wizard Shall Fall

Disclaimer: I own nothing but my own plotline and characters. And probably not even all of them.

Harry Potter is property in part and whole by the lovely J.K. Rowling, NBCUniversal, and/or Warner Brothers and Warner Brothers Entertainment.

The Inheritance Cycle is property in part and whole by Christopher Paolini, Paolini LLC, and/or Alfred A. Knopf

The Dresden Files is property in part and whole by Jim Butcher, ROC Book, Dable Brothers, and/or Dynamite Entertainment

All recognizable characters and references are properties of their respective owners.


Plot: When the dementors surround him, Harry cries out to anyone who will listen… But will the entity that hears him be worse than the dementors themselves? Smart!Powerful!Political!Grey!OP!Harry; Helpful!Snape; Controlling!Dumbledore; Harry Potter with elements from Dresden Files, not a complete crossover. Some elements in referenced to Inheritance Cycle.


A/N1: So this is my first real posting on this site. Read my Author's Bio page for more details, but I welcome any and all feedback! English is not my native language, so let me know if I didn't catch a mistake. I'm also looking for a Beta reader, if anyone is interested!

A/N2: I have this series planned for at least 5 books, each with an unknown amount of chapters (probably 20-40 each, but we'll see). If you have anything you want to see added in, let me know! No pairing is final, and none are set in stone


Dedication: This series is dedicated to DZ2 and Sinyk, both of whom have written some truly fantastic stories that helped me through some less-than-happy times, and gave a lot of inspirations to this series. Also to my wonderful fiancé who has put up with my nonsense for 5 years now… and our wonderful dog. See if you can find him in [almost] every chapter!

Book 1: The Orbs of Fae
Chapter 2: Finding the First Firsts

Previously: "Who are you?" Harry demanded, suddenly upset that anyone would try to call him their child when his parents were well and truly dead.

"Oh, I'm hurt" came the reply, as cloying sweet and sarcastically fake as the first response. "How could you not know me? After all, you summoned me to your aid, did you not?"

"Who are you? I can't see you!" Harry cried out, quickly losing his patience with the mysterious and taunting voice.

"A pity, then, that you called to me. SILENCE child!" The voice cried, as Harry tried to interrupt. The voice was suddenly everywhere at once, an overwhelming presence that Harry could not so much as hear but rather feel.

"I cannot name myself to you, my summoner." "But I didn't-" Harry began to protest, only to get cut off, again. "ENOUGH with this insolence, foolish boy. You obviously have no idea with whom you speak. Seek now, in this world in between, the firsts. They shall guide you, as they are bound to do by their own working."

"But I don't understand," Harry protested. "Who are you? Who are the firsts? Why can't I move? Where am I? What happened? Where's Sirius?" The questions came pouring out of Harry as he was struck with the reality of the situation. If he would have thought about it, he would have felt a peculiar kinship with a certain bushy-haired friend of his.

"You are where you are. You can no more see in my presence than address me in my court. I leave thee now, fated child, and restore unto you your lost senses. Go now, and find truth". The voice spoke softly this time, leaving a faint echo behind it, and Harry had a fleeting impression of the last drifts of snow fluttering to the ground after a blizzard.

Suddenly, much to Harry's surprise, the darkness cleared to reveal a cloudless twilight and his strength returned at once. He found himself alone, in a perfectly round wooded glade. Behind him, Harry saw only a circle of yew trees, with boulders interspersed betwixt them. The only way forward was a paved path, directly to what Harry assumed was the North, judging by the near-perfect alignment of moss on every tree. The path, perfectly smooth and made of a single sheet of polished granite, ended at the base of the northernmost tree, almost as if it continued beyond. The tree stood in the middle of the path, as if it was a sentinel, silent and sure, standing watch in the mysterious twilight over the glade.

Come to think of it, Harry noticed, every tree looks the exact same. Every. Single. One. Curious, Harry approached the tree on the path. As he put his hand to the lower branches, he thought that he could feel an energy of sort coming from the bark. It reminded him of a time his cousin Dudley had pushed him towards a transformer when they were younger, in one of their 'Harry Hunting' games. That's strange, Harry thought. Trees shouldn't be electrified, and yet… Gathering his courage, which had been bolstered by the sheer incredibility of his situation, Harry pushed on the branch, reaching out to the energy and feeling the power thrum beneath his fingers.

"WHO ARE YOU?" cried a voice in his head. Oh great, Harry thought, more bloody voices in my bloody head. "I BLEED NOT." Note to self, psychic trees don't have a sense of sarcasm.

"WHO ARE YOU?" the voice in the tree repeated.

"H-h-harry" said the boy wizard, his voice faltering as he tried to rationalize that he was, in face, talking to a sentient tree in the middle of an unknown land.

"WHEREFORE GO THOU IN THESE SACRED HALLS?"
"Ach!" cried Harry, startled by the volume of the voice. "Tone it down a bit, eh? I can hear my mind just bloody fine."

"I SPEAK AS I AM"

"Fine, if you want me deaf by the end of this, so be it" replied Harry, quickly getting frustrated at his newly-found headache. Drawing himself to full height, all five feet, two inches of it, Harry decided that the quickest way to deal with the tree was to respond in kind, echoing the mysterious voice from before. "I seek answers from the firsts."

The tree began to reply as soon as Harry had finished the last sound of "firsts". "H-A-A-ARRY, SEEKER OF THE ANCIENTS. PASS THROUGH THESE SACRED HALLS",

"It's Harry, just Harry!" Harry insisted, determined that he wouldn't stutter again.

"SO BE IT" said the tree, with a note of finality that sent shivers running down Harry's spine. As the tree finished talking, it shimmered and shook, causing Harry to take a quick step back. The tree seemed to turn in on itself, rotating both halves inward until it formed an arch, revealing the way beyond. Sure enough, as Harry had suspected, the path continued behind the old tree. Surrounding the path on both sides was an arch of yew, the ancient branches of thousands upon thousands of identical trees forming an almost-solid archway around him.

Harry turned around one last time, and seeing that there was only one way forward, began to stride forward, down the path. As he crossed the barrier where the sentient tree stood, Harry idly picked at the splinters of his old want still in his hand. Picking at the splinters for something to do, rather than a conscious act, Harry did not notice that he had pulled a splinter deep enough to draw blood. As he crossed the boundary where the tree once stood, a drop of crimson blood fell to the smooth stone pavement, hitting the ground and letting out an almighty hiss.

Startled, Harry spun around as he sucked on the wound, trying to prevent more blood from falling. Seeing nothing like the snake he imagined he would find, Harry began to turn back around when he noticed, shining on the path where his blood had fallen, was a perfectly round sphere of yew. Squatting, Harry reached out to the sphere, feeling the same energy from it as he did from the trees around him. Is it worth it? He wondered, briefly considering leaving the orb there. Eh, sod the consequences. If nothing else, at least I'll have something to throw if I need it. With that, Harry grabbed onto the orb. As soon as his fingers touched the smooth surface, he felt his headache, which had been growing consistently worse, suddenly abate.

Feeling much better, having finally found something on this thrice-damned night that helped him (or at least, wasn't obviously trying to hurt him, suck out his soul, confuse him, deafen him, or otherwise mess with his psyche), Harry continued northward on the path. Eventually, having no idea for how long he continued to walk, Harry saw a sign that he was actually moving somewhere. Up ahead was another glade, surrounded by yew, with a single, massive pine tree in the middle. The pine was shrouded in a pale moonlight, a beam of iridescence that descended from an unseen moon through a singular, round gap in the canopy above. At the end of the shaft of light, Harry saw a single pine cone, closed and alone, hanging on the end of a branch just out of reach.

As he approached, Harry felt the yew sphere grow cold in his pocket. Taking it out, mostly to avoid uncomfortable shrinkage from the cold, Harry felt the ball of wood start to shake and jolt towards the pine cone. As the the two came near each other, both began to glow an eerie blue, reminding Harry of the sky after a lightning strike. Instinctively, he reached up to brush the hair off of his similar scar. As soon as his fingers brushed over the always-tender skin that served as a reminder of that fateful night, the two glowing objects flew towards each other, meeting with a flash of light and a bang so tremendous it threw Harry across the courtyard, back onto the granite path.

Bloody hell, thought Harry as he borrowed his best friend's tagline. What in Merlin's seven wonders was that? Shaking himself off, and reassuring himself that he wasn't banged up any more than after a Quidditch match (like that's any comfort, Harry reminisced, remembering Flophart the year before), Harry looked towards where the pine tree had stood. Where there was once a towering tree now rested a small wooden pyramid, no larger than Harry's malnourished-ly small hands. The pattern in the wood grain was like nothing Harry had seen before, almost...almost as if the pine cone was made of wood now, Harry mused. But that's impossible. Two separate things can't transform themselves, especially without a wand...right? Harry had a creeping feeling that he was soon to find out what was going on, one way or another.

Continuing onward, as the small blast of automatic transformation had cleared an opening to another section of the preternaturally-smooth granite path, Harry soon came to what he [correctly] assumed was the end of the path. In the middle of the path was an island - an honest-to-goodness, surrounded-by-water, island. The granite surface extended as far as Harry could see, but it all surrounded a veritable lake. In the middle of a lake, sat this island. As he took in the sudden magnificence of the sight, Harry thought that things were finally looking up for him. There was a lighthouse on the island, surrounded by willow trees on the water's edge, clearly visible in the middle of a grassy knoll in the middle of the land mass. What would be even better, Harry thought, is if I had a way to actually get there...maybe then I could actually get a good rest for a while. No sooner had Harry thought of getting across than the pyramid, formerly in his pocket, began to hover in front of him, still glowing that eerie shade of blue. Having some idea of what would happen, having already experienced this glow first hand, Harry braced himself and touched his forehead, in the middle of his scar.

Nothing happened. Startled by the lack of reaction, Harry tried again, pressing hard enough to almost leave a bruise on his own skin. Stymied, Harry sat on the edge of the lake, letting his feet rest in the cool surf. Musing to himself, Harry again fidgeted with one of the few splinters of his former wand that was left in his hand. Slowly, Harry had the beginnings of an idea. I wonder, Harry mused, if the ball was blood, and the pinecone was my scar… Combining the two, Harry pulled the last remaining long splinter from the pad of his thumb, drawing a perfect crimson drop of blood. He held the pyramid, still slowly spinning, in his left hand and pressed his thumb onto his forehead. Rather than a flash transformation, the pyramid began to hover and spin faster and faster. With the pyramid turning so quickly he could not make sense of the motion anymore, Harry looked up towards the island, and gasped. All the willows around the edge of the island had raised out of land, their weeping limbs and crawling roots all intertwined. This ring of willow was beginning to circle counter-clockwise around the island; widdershins, a small voice in his mind helpfully provided.

As the pyramid and the willow ring began to pick up speed, now both rotating in sync, a bridge rose up out of the water. Built of the same seamless granite that Harry had been walking on since he got to, well, wherever he was, Harry continued onward, the pyramid still floating about his left hand. As he crossed the bridge towards the willow ring, the pyramid seemed like it was singing, humming ever higher in pitch until Harry was almost touching the spinning ring of trees. As one, the ring flew upwards, to the height of the lighthouse, clearing a path for the young wizard. Wait a minute, Harry started, where'd the lighthouse go? As soon as he set foot on the island, the bridge behind him - and indeed, all the granite pathways, had vanished, leaving Harry alone and without a path behind him. The only remaining path was up a rickety set of built-in steps on the hillside, leading towards where the lighthouse once stood. Bracing himself for whatever was about to come, Harry strode onward, until he was at the top of the hill.

In a perfect circle, under the still-spinning circle of trees, limbs, and roots, was what Harry remembered to be called a fairy's circle - a perfect circle of pure white mushrooms, about 60 feet across. Cautiously stepping forward, Harry slowly walked towards the circles, the spinning pyramid still over his left hand. What's going on? Harry wondered, curious as to where this stupidly brave attitude of his had came from. Ah well. It's not as if I'm even still alive… am I? For the first time since entering this ethereal world, Harry began to think back to the dementors that had landed him here in the first place. In for a knut, in for galleon, Harry thought, and crossed the ring of mushrooms to the center of the circle. As he stepped into the center, Harry, unsure of what was guiding him, sat cross-legged facing north, with the pyramid spinning above his lap. If he had looked around, he would have noticed that the ring of willows had stopped their gravity-defying spinning, and had touched down again, planting themselves just behind the fungal boundary of the fairy circle - in essence, sealing the circle within another circle, all encircled again by the island's boundaries.

Harry was, for better or for worse, too preoccupied to notice all of this. Under the same unknown influence that had sat him down, Harry placed his palms to the earth on either side of him, and began to chant:

Matronae Moirai

Spinner, allotter, finisher

Come forth, ye crones of olde

Come forth

Clotho - Lachesis - Atropos

Come forth

Your beholden beseeches you

Come forth - Come forth - COME FORTH!

At the end of the last syllable, spoken with as much reverence as Harry could muster, a cold wind began to blow, circling leftward around the island. As the winds began to blow, stronger and stronger, until they were howling through the reeds of the willows, smoke began to form, circling around Harry with the flow of the wind. The next Harry new, all was still, and where there was a storm of smoke and wind, now stood three women; one clad in white, one in grey, and one in black - each covered head-to-toe in robes of one pure color.

"Who...who are you?" stuttered Harry, mentally berating himself for stuttering...again.

"WE ARE THOSE YOU SEEK" said the women, all speaking as one. Yeesh, thought Harry, what is it with supernatural things trying to deafen me today?

"We are the Moirai" explained the woman to Harry's right, wearing white a white cloth so pure it could have been made of clouds themselves. "We are the fates, the spinners of life. I am Clotho, who makes the thread."

"I am Atropos," continued the woman to Harry's left, dressed in a cloth so dark Harry thought he was speaking to a shadow. "I cut the thread at the end of all things".

"Wait!" interrupted Harry. "Does that mean you're death?"

"Be calm, child," the dark lady responded. "I am not my daughter; I seek not to end your life this night". Well, that's a relief, Harry thought, pleased that someone had given him a straightforward answer for once.

"And I am Lachesis," said the woman in front of Harry, dressed in a robe that seemed to be perfectly halfway between the colors of her sisters. "I measure the thread, and take measure of a life. From the beginning to the end, I am there, stretching and pulling, prodding and weaving. I make the tapestry of life. I turn each thread into a cord, making it whole with those around it. I am balance. I am the life in darkness, and death in life. I am in all things. All things, except for you, Harry James Potter."

As the Fate in front of him said his name, for Harry finally realised who he had summoned while in the thrall of the strange power, Harry felt every part of his body scream out together, as if those four syllables together were the answer to every question in the universe.

"Yes," continued Lachesis, seeing Harry's visceral reaction to his Name being spoken, "we are in a place where names have power. And yours, young wizard, has more than most."

Feeling as if he had somehow insulted the deities around him, Harry scrambled to a low bow, prostrating himself in front of the Fates. "I beg pardon, your Fateships," Harry stumbled across his words, stringing together sounds almost faster than his brain could process them in an effort to appease the forces of the universe that he found himself caught between. "I mean no disrespect. Let me know how to return my thread and I will, Lady Lachesis. Let me return power. Justpleasedon'tkillme." Harry was speaking so fast by the end of his plea that the last begging request came out all as one word.

Lachesis, surprising Harry, did the one thing he did not expect to his request - she laughed. Pure and light, like the chorus of all the church bells of Rome singing together, the Allotter responded, "Have no fear of death, my dear youngling. It is not your fault that the natural order has been corrupted. Listen well child, and I shall tell you of your place in things.

Calmed by her reassurance that his essence wasn't about to be disintegrated across all known time and space, Harry did the only thing he could thing to - he sat, and listened. What he heard next, would change all of existence - he just didn't know it yet.


A/N3: This chapter ran away from me really fast. The next chapter will be the Fates' explanation of what was actually going on, and it's where our story really begins. I should get it out in the next day or two, work permitting.

As always, please review, favorite, and follow! Shout-out to DarkMantis for being the first follower for this story!

Ta-ta ~BJL13