They had apparated from the house, Harry explaining that she had removed the trace wards as soon as they were installed and that apparating was a skill she considered necessary as soon as she had heard about its existence. She did not explain how, as an eleven year old girl, she had managed this nor did she consider it to be a grand feat of magic. It made Tom wonder if she wasn't truly correct about the nature of magical girls being more magically talented than their peers; in Harry's case at the very least this seemed to be true. From there they had begun stalking the streets of London, slowly but surely making their way to the east end, to the ghetto where Harry stated that witches liked to gather.

"They feed on things like despair, illness, and anger so you find them in places like this or else hospitals. Sometimes they show up normal places too, but if you want to start looking then these are good places to start."

As they walked through the streets the prostitutes and homeless men leered at her and at Tom, he walked close behind glaring at those who attempted to approach, but Harry seemed to take no notice of them as she walked forward staring instead at the glowing red light in her hand. She walked as if she belonged in this world of wretched beings.

They walked for quite some time, regardless of dark alleyways and missing streetlamps and Tom couldn't help but think that even the orphanage had been less decrepit than these places. This was where the true street rats lived, a place Tom had never ventured in his youth, and her ease with the place was causing him some discomfort.

He didn't like the idea that his daughter, that word still so foreign and strange on his tongue, was so comfortable in places like these.

He had said nothing during this time she had seemed so distant and very focused, this was Harry at work, not the Harry in the house or even the Harry in public and she was not to be touched. He knew that air, he'd worn it so very often himself, and there had seemed nothing worth saying anyway.

Eventually they stopped before a dark alleyway, the sounds of a woman sobbing inside a nearby building, of the thuds of fists and the loud grunts of a male voice. She did not turn to look at the sound of violence though, instead she stared straight ahead into the dark. He stared as well, at first there were only shadows, but then it flickered. It seemed as if reality warped in on itself until the shadow was more than simply shadow, there were lights dancing inside it, fuzzy edges that lent it a sense of unreality of wrongness he couldn't quite express.

It reminded him of the diary, of that terrible emptiness, and himself trapped screaming soundlessly inside it.

"It's a labyrinth." She said quietly, answering his unvoiced question and began with a brilliant flash of light, of colors dancing and red butterflies fluttering in the air she transformed into that other self she had been in the Chamber of Secrets, the magical girl.

Broadsword in her right hand she stalked towards the entrance without hesitation, he grabbed at the white cloak and held her back, his eyes still locked on the hole in reality, "Harry…"

She turned back and smiled at him, prying his hand away from her with soft pale hands enclosed in golden gloves, "It's okay, Tom, this is what I do."

With that, still holding onto his hand, she walked them both into the darkness leaving London far behind.


It was not a place, it was a thought, it was delirium and madness. A true labyrinth is not a labyrinth at all, there is no maze, there is no center, there is no turning left until you exit there is only the shifting of time and space until you are stretched thin beyond your sense of being. Labyrinth as he had understood it was not the true word, it had been watered down by his people, misrepresented until it contained only petty beasts like minotaurs. Plato's shadows on the cave wall had never seemed more relevant or apt.

Labyrinths and labyrinths, she had said, witches and witches.

In the dark shifting tunnel, light bursting in and out of existence, their shadows stretched and curved and their images warped and cartooned, his Virgil in white led him further down into the cold inferno. There is no simple leaving, she said, once you are in you will never get out, to leave you must find the center you must find the witch.

And always he found himself thinking of the notebook, of himself trapped in that hell of his own making again, where there had only been himself and his own sanity dripping down the white walls.

"Tom." He heard distantly, green eyes staring back at him, somehow impossibly still bright and real inside this fake world, "Tom, come on."

She held his hand, squeezed it in one of hers, and lead them onwards, "It's okay," She said not saying why he should be reassured, "Don't worry, we're almost there."

And then suddenly, the walls rushing towards them at an alarming pace, they were. Suddenly there it was whatever it was. It had no true form, even Tom could see that, rather it was this shifting mass that stared out with no eyes.

"What is that thing?"

She didn't answer, instead she let go on his head, left him to reel backwards and simply stare at it with an open mouth. She was dancing beyond him, that white star in the abyss, and it was chasing after her. Swords appeared out of nothingness and were flung into the beast causing it to let loose a great cry.

His eyes drifted from it to the floor of the cavern and he found two girls, dressed in bright colored dresses, with frills and bows seeming so terribly out of place and yet more in place than Tom in his borrowed muggle clothing could ever be. They held onto each other, these plain, and yet somehow glittering girls with terror in their eyes and abandoned weapons by their sides.

Soon enough the neck of the thing was off, it collapsed, and with it the world began to flicker until they were once more in an alley way and Harry was standing placing a smoke filled pendent into her pocket.

She didn't turn to Tom then but rather to the two girls still shaking and clutching each other on the ground, "You girls are going to get yourselves killed."

Suddenly they were all in normal clothing, Harry looking so plainly out of place in her green sweater and frayed shorts, and the other two looking as if they had just walked home from school.

One of the girls seemed to conquer her fear of the beast and flushed at Harry's words and shouted back at her, "We didn't ask for your help, and we didn't need it either. We're magical girls too! Just like you!"

Harry's eyes narrowed and she approached the girl and pushed her back onto the ground with her friend, "I am not like you. Get your act together and don't waste my time because next time I won't be coming to save your asses like some prince charming."

The girls both scrambled to their feet, resentment in each of their eyes as they looked at her, "Like you even care about these people, like you even care what these witches are doing to them, just in it for the grief seeds… You're just a reaper not anyone's knight in shining armor. I never see you killing a familiar!"

The second more timid one tugged on her friend's shoulder, "Come on, Emily, let's just go."

"No," Emily said, "I'm not done yet!"

"Know your limits or else you won't be killing anything, familiar or witch." Harry said, her eyes like ice as she surveyed them, looking all too much like that girl in the Chamber of Secrets. Suddenly she tossed the pendent, the grief seed, at the two girls, "Go home."

The girl threw the grief seed back at Harry's feet, "We don't need your pity."

The girl's eyes flickered to Tom, "Who's that, your boyfriend? Think he's impressed by dates in dark alleyways?"

Harry's eyes narrowed slightly and she moved closer to Tom, stepping in front of him, as if to cut off the other girl's access to him, "Tom's just here to see the sights, that's not really your business, is it?"

"Come on, Emily!" The other girl said pulling now with more desperation on Emliy's arm but Emily was slowly drifting back into that magical girl's costume and Harry was as well.

"I think it was pretty stupid to bring him along for the ride."

Harry didn't say anything, merely drew her sword from the holster on her back, and placed her feet shoulder width apart with the sword brought up before her eyes and facing the girl Emily. Emily, for her own part, brought out a smaller thinner looking blade with a grin that was almost crazed.

Before Tom could blink the other girl was in motion and almost as swiftly it was done.


They sat in the alley after it was all over, the other girl having run off home already her friend's battered body draped over her shoulders, looking at Harry with almost as much fear as she had looked at the witch in the labyrinth. Harry for her own part said nothing, she just stared ahead at the dark wall of the alley, and they listened to the sounds of the urban night.

"What do you think?" She finally asked, distantly, as if it was a stray thought that had escaped through her mouth.

Think, what a foreign concept, thinking was past him at the moment. There was only brick walls and shadows now, "Does that happen often?"

Harry nodded with a sigh her arms wrapping around her knees as she stared glumly ahead not even glancing at Tom, "Well, that is what I do, kill witches."

She said it with as much certainty, no with more certainty, than he had proclaimed that he was Voldemort. It was a flat statement but one that brooked no argument and he couldn't help but wonder how many witches she had slaughtered, she had been nine when Kyubey came to her she said, she was now almost thirteen that was a long time to be hunting the things that went bump in the night.

He felt that he wasn't quite sure he wanted to know, it was evident enough already, she waded in bloodshed as if it was light rain annoying but hardly unreasonable. It was a small wonder she had viewed a basilisk as little more than a pest.

"Those other girls, they were magical girls too?" He asked and again she nodded again looking more fatigued than anything else, turning her head slightly to look him in the eyes with that same worn expression.

"They're new, only been at it for a few months... A city the size of London can really only support a couple of magical girls at a time, I've been here the longest, I guess that makes me a veteran but every once in a while girls like that pop up. Probably were best friends in middle school, I don't know what they wished for but judging by the way they act now they didn't really think it through. Some girls just do it to be a magical girl, to protect the world and fight witches, and the wish is just a bonus… They never last long when they think like that."

"What happens to them?"

She didn't say anything for a bit just continued to look at him before shrugging, "They take on something they can't handle. I've seen girls get eaten by witches, get killed by other magical girls, and sometimes they just disappear like they never existed in the first place."

Again looking at her, half lit in the darkness, he wondered if he wasn't staring at a young Tom Riddle instead. One who looked at others around him and found them to be alien, to be different, and to be altogether disappointing. She continued either ignoring or not noticing his staring, "They get caught up in the duty, the obligation, the morals of it all and get it into their heads that they're protecting people and making the world a better place. It's the ones who think like that, who have friends, who always get themselves killed."

The way she spoke of them it was as if they were already dead and yet Tom couldn't help but notice that she had come to their aid that night and offered advice no matter how cruelly it had been presented. Harry, whatever she might be, was not as heartless as she made herself out to be and he couldn't help but wonder at that.

"It sounds like you're describing Gryffindor." Tom said with a wry grin to which Harry looked at him a little stunned by the observation.

"I guess so…" She said musingly, "You know, I never thought about Gryffindor like that. Bravery is fine, you need it for things like witches and basilisks… I guess you're right though, girls like that would be in Gryffindor."

She shrugged then and stood brushing off her pants and giving a hand to him, "We should probably get going, I'm pretty tired and it's never good to go witch hunting when you're tired."

Author's Note: Because witches are horrifying and Harry's kind of a badass. But anyway thanks to readers and reviewers, you guys are great. Reviews are much appreciated.

Disclaimer: I don't own Harry Potter or Puella Magi Madoka Magica