Chapter Two – The Horizon Storm
Stepping through the doorway from the Druidstone and into the Land of Faerie, sometimes known as the Fae & Forget, the Undying Lands, Threaded Story, and a cacophony of other names equally outlandish, absurd, and terrifying, made Harry's ears pop—a pressure akin to a sudden change in altitude.
He followed the gruff old dog Charlie into the new realm, crossing the threshold from old slabs of Welsh limestone to soft and spongy fragrant grass under an azure twilit sky.
He licked his lips, tasted traces of red wine from another world, and breathed air fresher than any in his life. Harry held his feet as a wave of dizziness—world-sickness vertigo—made his head spin. The foot of his cane sank into the yielding deep green grass and fertile soil. He stumbled forward a step, a gust of alien wind at his back, and heard the door home snap closed behind him—a clap as air rushed into a space no longer occupied by anything physical.
The atmosphere and the dizzy spell—wandless magic—were not the only changes to his senses, just the most obvious. The scent of honey, sweet wildflowers, and fresh spring water—a lush, almost menthol-cool aroma—threatened to overwhelm him. He had the instant and undeniable feeling that before stepping into the Land of Faerie, he had been living in a tinted world, a dull reality. For the first time in his twenty-three years, he was seeing the world without a filter. The brightness dialled to eleven.
His ruined knee—a constant, tangled mess of pain the last few years—hurt a whole lot less. The dizziness passed. Harry glanced over his shoulder to confirm the portal-doorway he had bargained for with the Avarice Josiah was gone. He stood up a little taller.
Charlie barked once, gruff but with a hint of satisfaction, of coming home, and pottered off in the direction of the tall yet narrow waterfall pooling at the base of amber-hewn cliffs about half a mile away. There was no discernible path through the fields of errant wildflowers, yet Harry felt certain, as did Charlie, that the waterfall was the way he wanted to be heading.
"You lead then, old man," he muttered to the dog, not without respect, and with a ring to his voice in that strange nether-place, almost a lyrical lilt not found in the real world.
Harry felt the pain in his knee ebbing with each step he took across the sea of wildflowers, the golden-red, violet-blue, and parchment-white blossoms sighing to either side as he limped on through, crowds parting and closing ranks behind him, masking his trail. Charlie was almost lost beneath the flowery waves, the curl of his undocked tail a periscope above the surface. He seemed to know where he was going.
"Hope your owner doesn't miss you," Harry said, a light breeze ruffling his unkempt hair, sending loose locks floating around his head almost like a halo. Magic permeated the Undying Lands. "Though perhaps he won't even notice you gone, eh?"
Time would be funny over here, despite protections against such funny things. Of all their study, their research done, Harry and Dumbledore knew they could only mitigate the risks at best. Minimise the damage, try and localise the fallout to just those who had decided to mess with matters ought left alone. He'd been told—warned—again by Josiah of the Avarice, Dumbledore's personal demon. The headmaster had wanted to pursue the course into Faerie, home of the Good Folk, and hiding place of Lord Voldemort's' penultimate horcrux, despite reason.
Harry had argued against the means used to access these lush lands, namely at the expense of Dumbledore's health, but needs always seemed to must these dark days…
He shifted the clasp of his cloak around his neck, the hood still damp from the Welsh rain, a heavy weight between his shoulders. Droplets of reality. He wore a double-layered cloak: silvery enchanted material underneath, the under-layer, while the weather-worn outer leather sat as hide against his back—the Cloak of Invisibility masked.
One of the three legendary Deathly Hallows that cloak and, in his final year at Hogwarts, a third of the avarice that had made him the Master of Death.
Too many knew the story, of course, the legend, which had been by nefarious design in the end.
Harry and Dumbledore, in seclusion and collusion, had spread the good word after Harry had—through trial and unfortunate circumstance—won the allegiance of the Elder Wand and claimed the Resurrection Stone. He and Dumbledore had spread word that claiming all three of those fabled hallows granted him an immortality. They had encouraged such a rumour until it was taken as gospel truth.
Back in the harried early days of the war, they had used all they could to deter and delay Voldemort's influence across the wizarding world.
The lies had worked, to an extent, and driven the Dark Lord into hiding… Well, he thought, not into hiding, but into careful consideration. Harry smiled with grim humour. Still, the lie within the legend had given them time to hunt the pieces of Tom Riddle's soul across Britain and, now, as needs must, worlds.
Harry's knee scarcely pained him as he left the rolling field of wildflowers behind, marking the edge of the riverbank. A deceptively smooth surface of crystal-clear glacial water, flowing quick below the shallows if the flat river-smooth stones tumbling along the bed were any indication. Charlie sniffed at the water's edge, dipped his nose, slurped a drink.
The Jack Russell's paws left little prints in the damp soil, scattered with fallen petals. Harry's boots and the foot of his cane left a similar story in the earth. Together, Charlie and Harry headed upstream toward the waterfall, about a quarter mile away now, as the crow flies.
Though it had not escaped Harry's notice that no such crows were flying—the sky, however inviting and spilt with burnished orange paint, a perpetual twilight, held not a single bird. The edge of the imposing wood, a daunting forest on the river's far bank, which arched away toward the amber-certain cliffs, held shadows and little else.
More mindful than unnerved, Harry ponded the Land of Faerie.
From within the folds of his doubled-cloak, pressed against his right side, he swung his simple leather satchel, worn and patched and spell-damaged, across his belly and undid the clasp. He reached into its depths, far bigger on the inside, and retrieved a silver pocket watch of unique magnificence.
He held the fine timepiece, procured from the vaults within the Department of Mysteries by one Draco Malfoy—a favour owed, a favour paid—mythril inlaid white gold along the clock face, with delicate diamond hands. The time had been magically accurate to the space between milliseconds in stormy Wales, ticking forward as time is wont to do.
The second hand moved backwards now.
Here in faerie country, Harry had begun to lose minutes. He grunted and slipped the watch back into his satchel alongside all manner of clever and useful trinkets, certain weapons, and desperate supplies.
A school of rainbow fish the size of Scottish loch salmon swam effortlessly against the current. Charlie barked once at the fish, a flash of his youth as Harry watched the dog contemplate jumping into the water after a colourful salmon-ish fish. He reached down and quickly grabbed the dog's collar as Charlie jerked forwards—then caught himself. He turned his deep brown eyes up to Harry's and nodded once, as if to say thanks. Harry let him go and they continued their slow amble along the river.
Though time was flowing backwards, it seemed, Harry felt in no particular rush. He felt calm, home, and knew faerie magic was already at work against him. He reached into his satchel again and closed his hand around a thin bar of pure iron. As if casting aside an unseen cloak, the warm sense of calm—a glamour of faux-trust—dissipated. He hadn't sensed any malice in the enchantment, but enchantment it had been. Wild, untamed, and as predictable as summer rain.
The iron would not make him any friends here in the faerie realms, but then he wasn't here to make friends. Likely the opposite, if the horcrux had had time to exert its poisoned influence and attract a few followers.
A spray of droplets from the waterfall, carried on the wind, a cool mist against his face, accompanied the dull roar of the falls. A broken horseshoe of slippery rocks encircled the pool at the base of the amber cliffs. Cliffs close enough now for Harry to see that, while semi-translucent, good solid granite rested underneath the amber. Harry imagined a great dollop of runny golden honey coating the cliffs, hardened and set over an age. The water, fed from distant glacial sources above, had cut a fine grove in the shell.
A woman, naked and beautiful, sat on the edge of the rocks, dipping her feet in the water. Harry glimpsed pale skin, almost rose-white, and a curtain of sparkling blue hair across her shoulders. He blinked and she changed, glancing over one delicate shoulder at him, and now wearing a face he knew well.
The fae-creature, for only fae she could be, sprang to her feet and grinned at him broadly. She danced across the slippery rocks, almost seeming to float, and pulled up short a few feet from Harry still wearing the wide grin and nothing else.
Charlie set up watch at Harry's side, sitting on guard.
"Hello," she said, that strange lilt to her voice—like distant chimes—Harry had heard in his own. "I was set to watch for you."
"By whom?" Harry asked politely. "Very few knew I'd be coming this way."
She rolled her eyes, not unkindly, and heaved a sigh that made her breasts rise and fall quite distractingly. Harry kept his eyes on hers, the misty droplets from the waterfall settling on his glasses.
"Why, the Avarice Josiah, of course," she said. "One mortal, he promised, and here you are all mortally and overdressed." She tsked and glanced down at Charlie. "Good doggy."
Charlie considered, then barked an agreement that he was, in fact, a good doggy.
"Why are you wearing that face?" Harry asked—again, politely, though a flint of something cold sparked within his eyes.
"That is two questions, Harry, so be mindful of the third." The fae laughed. Trickling, Harry thought. Trick-ling. "The third will be free, but the fourth will bind you to my will, if you're not mindful." She shrugged one shoulder. "What face do you see?"
"Someone cruelly dear to me," Harry said. "You're wearing the face of an old friend. Hermione Granger."
"Am I?" She took his hand and walked them around the edge of the rock pool, behind the waterfall, where a set of amber steps had been hewn into the cliff face. The steps, as steps often do, led upward. "That's your doing, not mine. I am a reflection, Harry, of your thoughts in the here and now."
Harry grunted. He tested his knee as the Hermione-Fae danced up the first few steps, little Charlie hopping the steps in her wake and licking at her ankles. The dog seemed to trust her. A small twinge was all he felt from the scarred lump of tissue and ruined cartilage. So be it. Harry took the steps slowly, beams of twilight breaking through the fall of water to light their way.
"I left Josiah behind not half an hour ago," Harry said. "Time must be different, indeed, if he managed to send word ahead."
"Hmm… the Avarice are a surly lot. To answer your second question," the Hermione-Fae said, "most everyone you meet here will wear the face of someone you've lost."
"That is a great many people," Harry said.
"Yes," she agreed.
Halfway up the amber cliffs and the steps emerged from behind the waterfall on a small plateau overlooking the forest and fields of wildflowers. Here he found a simple wooden table, sun-faded, atop of which rested a silver decanter with a curved, intricate handle shaped like a question mark. The Hermione-Fae poured herself a mug of something white, steam rising in lazy curls from the liquid. She held the mug between her hands and inhaled deeply.
"Millas," the Hermione-Fae said. "Would you like some?"
The scent was delicious, but Harry knew the stories of accepting food from faeries. "No, thank—" He grinned and caught himself. To say 'thank you' to a faerie, to offer thanks, in faerie speak, meant to imply a favour was owed. "I'm afraid I must decline."
Legends and stories conflicted, but the thread of eating faerie food or drinking faerie wine ran through all the tales. He didn't doubt the honeyed liqueur would be delicious, perhaps to the point of ensuring no human food would ever sate him again—both mentally and physically. Madness then death.
The Hermione-Fae winked in an as-you-will way and sipped her drink. 'Shall we continue to the summit? The climb should only take a few more minutes. There is quite a view up the top, of the Faerie Kingdoms."
Harry was doing his best not to overly admire the view here, both of the surrounding landscape and the very naked fairy wearing his friend's face. "I wonder about the Fair Folk," he said, being mindful of his third question.
The Hermione-Fae gave him another look that suggested she knew exactly what game he was playing, and so be it for now. Time didn't matter anymore, anyway. She reached down to pat Charlie on the head and scratch behind his ears, which set his tail to wagging, and Harry's eyes to some interesting gymnastics.
"The Fair Folk…" she mused. "Such a quaintly mortal name. Are we fair to you, Harry? Am I?"
"You are."
"We were here long before you, we shall be here long after." The Hermione-Fae set off up the steps again, her bushy brown hair blowing wither-and-tither about her head. "When the Almighty ordered the gates of heaven shut during the Great Revolt, those still in heaven remained angels, those in hell became demons, and those of us caught between…" She grinned, her eyes flashed pure sea-grass green, lacking all white, then softened. "Does your leg pain you less?"
"Here, yes," Harry said. They had climbed a great deal above the river and the forest now, approaching the summit of the amber cliffs. The steps began to wind back and forth narrowly, almost in snug switchbacks. "Not a gift, if gift it be, I accept, though."
The Hermione-Fae laughed again, a sound which echoed across the valley. Charlie barked and listened to the echo with one wiry old ear cocked. "No gift has been given. The wellness of the Undying Lands is for all to enjoy."
Atop of the cliffs, Harry sighed—his knee had begun to ache a touch, despite the wellness. If he'd attempted such a climb in the real world, his knee would be cinched in a band of fire tight enough to make him howl. The Hermione-Fae dance-stepped across the amber rock, on her toes, and sprang across to the northern edge. Harry glimpsed tall mountains to the west, snow-peaked. The river disappeared that way, widening into marsh, thinning again, cutting into another forest.
From the northern edge of the cliff, however, he could glimpse an impossible distance into the east. Harry took a deep breath of clear air and exhaled slowly, as the sheer size of the task that lay ahead of him came into sharp focus and terrible relief. He could see for hundreds of miles, long past any natural curvature of the horizon. Kingdoms, towns and cities with impressive silver-white castles, a traffic of airships in sky lanes, a flotilla of white-sailed craft on the network of lakes and rivers, dotted the landscape betwixt forests, mountains, great wetlands, fens, and plains of rolling green grass. Herds of animals, horses, distant and as small as ants, galloped across those plains in throngs several thousand strong.
Farther to the east, something was amiss. The twilight sky broke into towering black clouds of angry thunder and green lightning. Across the entire expanse of the kingdoms, the only blemish on the map was that terrifying storm. Even from this distance, Harry frowned and sensed a… wrongness about the storm. A familiar wrongness. The swirling maelstrom of cloud had to have been a hundred miles across, easily, though the true scale was hard to measure.
"Behold," the Hermione-Fae said, "and be welcome to the Land of Faerie."
Charlie sat down on the cliff's edge with a huff, and that about summed it up for Harry, too. "This is… immense," he managed.
"Hmm," the Hermione-Fae said and took a sip of her millas, of milk and honey, licked the melody from her lips. "What happens next does not have to be violent, you know."
"Yes, I think it does," Harry said. "Or rather, you will force my hand."
"I shall do no such thing. I stand apart."
"Your people then," Harry said, waving her words away. "Semantics."
She sighed. "This is why humans are such a bad idea. You… revel in unseemly shortcuts."
"The Fair Folk could step aside. Just give me what I'm here for, without trick or trial. Don't make my being here a challenge, an adventure, or a story. Just let it be."
The Hermione-Fae shook her head. "It does not work like that. Sooner ask the mortal-moon not to rise, the mortal-sun not to set. Such magicks are possible, but the fallout would be… considerable. Ice or fire, choose your destruction and sewn seeds of chaos—for both our realms."
Harry changed his tactics. "There are a great many more cities here than I thought."
"Since our… conflict… with the mortal realm, and the War Wizard Maerdyn Ambrosius, there has been no ruling queen of the Sidhe—of the Fair Folk. We are no longer ruled under one court by one royal house. We are fractured. And so…" She waved her hand across the landscape, tapping each distant castle with a delicate finger, her nail sharp and red. "Many kingdoms, some at war, some at peace. We have been infighting for centuries, which has given you mortals respite from our wrath." Her lips quirked, a smile suppressed. "No thanks necessary."
"None given," Harry muttered, casting his gaze across the immense view again. His eyes were inevitably drawn back to the castle in the distant east, the one under the thunderstorm. The one out of place. Black stone, it looked like from a distance, but nestled between mountains above a great, blue lake… A sense of something familiar, Harry had thought, not just in feel but in façade. The castle was a dark mirror of a Scottish one he knew well.
Once again, call it intuition, magic, or plain common sense—Harry guessed at the path he was meant to take. Though the walk would be long, the journey hard. He considered the boats, the airships, wondered on the friendless of alien strangers in a land he did not belong.
His fae guide followed his eyes and wrapped her arms around herself, shivering. She took an unconscious step closer to him. "You set yourself a dark path, Harry. Stay here. With me. I could delight you." She looked up at him, eyes mirroring innocent pools, if not for the sly, wicked glint of a predator only half-masked.
"I politely decline such a generous offer," Harry whispered.
She huffed. "Well, if you're set to foolishness. You'll need permission to enter that castle. The Stormy Castle. It is notgoverned by the Sidhe."
Harry considered and then asked his third question. "Whose permission will I need?"
"The headmaster's, of course," the Hermione-Fae said and gave Harry a quick hug, her naked body warm and not in the least unpleasant. She whispered into his ear, "Professor Riddle."