CHAPTER FOUR
MEMORY LANE
O
As he expected, Poticand scoffed initially.
"You think that you can take on our hundred duelists," said Poticand, "and then take on ten of our elite—eight of whom have beaten those hundred duelists?"
"I need to try something," said Albus. "Unlike you, I'm not content waiting for the enemy to come to us. Fancy fighting a thousand duelists at once?"
"But you also need to have been an active and productive citizen of the Empire for at least a year," said Poticand. "We don't let just anyone walk into the Empire and take control of the police force."
"What makes you a citizen?" said Albus. "Simply entering the Empire and being judged by Cordot to be allowed to stay?"
Poticand nodded.
"But that did happen over a year ago," said Albus. "I was here over a year ago when I first stumbled in here."
"Active and productive citizen, Albus—"
"Who judges that?" asked Albus. "Because I'd like to present the argument that I had an invaluable hand in expunging the Sandbloods from the Hourglass Empire."
Poticand raised an eyebrow, visibly shifting from derisive incredulity to plain disbelief.
"If you insist," said Poticand, trying to smirk but failing. "We can begin at dawn. The rules are simple: no killing, and no permanent injury. No spells cast or potions used before the match—we'll check you for any magical enhancements before we begin. And the first spell of the duel belongs to you, so the duel begins when you cast your first spell. Anything else goes."
"Enjoy your last night as police chief," said Albus.
As he turned and walked with Aidan and Alec back to their residence, he had the sudden thought that in the past twenty-four hours… he had been acting and speaking a lot like Desulgon.
He ran a hand over the eyelid of his changed eye. Was this what happened when you meddled too far with magic? Did you simply start to become like a Desulgon or a Wilcox—mechanically moving forward, emotionlessly manipulating events to get what you needed to happen?
A voice in the back of his head told him that this wasn't the time to worry about that, but he was starting to distrust that voice more and more.
O
Albus looked back at his friends as he stepped into the arena. Aidan's face clearly said "Are you sure about this?" and "Be careful." Alec's face clearly said "Knock some skulls around!" and "They've got nothing on you!"
"First spell of the duel is yours," said Poticand from a seat up high above the stadium, which made her look like a Roman emperor overseeing a colosseum. "They will attack once you've cast your first spell, so choose it wisely. And once you lose, the item belongs to me. Begin whenever you please."
Albus leveled his wand. There was no reason to delay now. He had a plan and he was going to enact it.
Entrain, he thought.
The spell had no visible effect, and there was no indication he'd even cast one. The hundred duelists who stood before him were glancing at each other through the corners of their eyes, waiting for something else to happen.
A low ringing filled his ears, growing higher-pitched, as Albus imagined the earth splitting open, picturing as vividly as possible the eruption of the ground underneath all of his opponents' feet, and then the ringing grew to a roar and they realized he had already cast his spell—
"End!" roared Albus as dozens of Stunners and other spells began whipping through the air towards him.
He started throwing on defenses against the spells rushing his way, but most of them were avoided when the ground collapsed under his feet and he descended several yards before landing on the one piece of stable ground left in the arena. Like a Muggle disaster movie, the ground rocked and billowed and exploded under everyone's feet, and the earthquake was throwing duelists into the air like ragdolls. Albus fired off Stunner after Stunner, picking them one-by-one out of the air—
But a few duelists had stabilized their footing, and they were reviving the fallen duelists, quickly dropping Albus's progress from halfway there back down to barely begun—
"They can't do that!" shouted Alec, outraged.
"You heard me explain every rule," said Poticand. "I never said they couldn't revive their partners…"
"But if he can't kill them, then there's no way to keep them down!" protested Aidan.
"I found a way," said Poticand with a shrug. "That's why I'm Chief of Police, dears. To be the Chief of Police, you've got to be able to find ways to subdue without killing. You think the criminals are going to follow your 'rules' and stay down once they're Stunned? Remember that your friend is actually aiming for the biggest responsibility in the Empire. Yes, they can revive each other, and he should have thought of that earlier if he wanted to have any chance. He rushed into this headlong and it's his own fault if he loses."
Albus kept trying to pick them off, but there were far too many of them, and they were reviving their fallen friends as fast as he was felling them. The ground continued to roil, but most of them had finally stabilized their part of the ground—
"Vitiatia Rennervend!" cried Albus, and a pulse streamed out of his wand. A bright blue light flashed from every wand in the stadium—he'd used the Vitiation Charm, a spell which acted to disable one specific spell at a time from opponents' repertoires. And he'd chosen to disable Rennervend—the spell being used to bring back their Stunned teammates.
Alec cheered as Albus began his efforts anew, but the hundred duelists had now spread themselves out and were attacking from all directions. Albus raised his wand high, and decided to take a page from Alec's book.
Agerluscio! he thought, and now that he'd taken the time to cast a spell, his defenses were down, and a dozen more Stunners raced towards him, as well as other spells rocking the arena and attacking the very ground he was standing on. Salimotor! he thought next, and he bounced high into the air as his first charm filled the arena with tall grass. Duro!
And the grass solidified, trapping ninety-four of the hundred duelists inside.
Albus landed on the solid grass tips, and ducked and weaved and dueled his heart out, with a greater performance than he'd ever mustered in his life; he dove between two duelists, distorting their vision so that they both aimed slightly awry, and their spells struck each other. He cast a spell to turn one of the duelists one hundred and eighty degrees, and his spell struck someone who was emerging from the grass. He iced the arena and froze another duelist's arm to his leg, and Stunned him, immediately sending a consecutive Stunner to strike the duelist standing behind him. Soon he was standing alone on top of the solid grass, and he started running along the top, Stunning duelists as he saw them underneath him. Several times, people broke free, or sent spells flying at him as he ran over their heads, but slow and steady won him the race, as soon every single one of the hundred duelists was Stunned.
"When they write the history books down here," boasted Alec, "remember to include the fact that this was my strategy that won Albus the match!"
"You got this last challenge, Albus," said Aidan. "I've never seen anyone duel better than you did just then!"
Albus looked up; Poticand had disappeared from her lofty perch. She reappeared with nine other duelists, who caused the grass to recede and then shooed away the failed hundred. They spread out in a long line against the edge of the stadium, and raised their wands in practiced formation.
"Nothing else needs to be said," stated Poticand. "Again, begin when you please."
Albus breathed in deeply, and focused himself. He had a strategy for this one, too. Disorient with Pulse Charms first. Spells with multiple jets, and spells that careened everywhere, so they wouldn't know whom he was targeting. Telescoping his spells together so that they wavered wildly and unpredictably. They were incredibly skilled and highly trained duelists—the only thing they might not be prepared for was if he was incredibly unpredictable. And the best way to do that was with spells whose jets or effects were as random as possible.
Circumpulso! Emitus Frantus Itero! Circumpulso! Duodramocula Itero! Circumpulso!
If the ten duelists didn't expect a barrage of spells so quickly, they didn't show it. Several of them accurately understood his first spell and used the Ring Shield Charm to accurately protect against the Pulse Charm, but the others were struck off-balance. Albus's frantically whirring spells, followed by a second Pulse Charm, four jets of the Seeing-Double Jinx, and another Pulse Charm, succeeded in disorienting three of the ten, and three subsequent Stunners flew their way. Two of them were defended by the other duelists, but one of them was struck in the nose and keeled over backwards.
One down. Nine to go. But this time, they were now casting spells.
They were setting up defenses and solidifying their ground like professional duelists, and Albus had taken on one duelist like this before, but never nine.
Entrain! he thought, knowing now was not the time to cast doubts. He imagined roaring fires springing up inside of the protective domes they were creating—End!
The fires sprang to life—not incredibly powerful, considering that he had given hardly any time for the spells to charge—but they had enough of an effect, and the duelists leapt away from their protective guards—two of them directly into Stunners. Albus quickly cast the Vitiation Charm again to prevent them from reviving, and used the opportunity to Stun one of them who was about to do the reviving.
The six remaining duelists, their defenses abandoned, switched tactics, and all began a ceaseless barrage on him. He jumped out of the way of the first round of spells, then dented a large hole on the ground to hide. But the hole started to close back up on him, and he leapt away, only to find himself leaping into sludge that encased his feet, and he knew that these were duelists who were far beyond just firing Stunners.
He froze and re-melted the sludge to break free, but they had taken advantage of his predicament and now there were twelve Stunners flying at him, but they were fired in all directions so that anywhere he leaped, he would still be struck—
Protego! Fianto Duri!
His Shield Charm stopped most of the Stunners—two of them broke through and shattered his Shield Charm, and he had to contort to avoid them, and then Poticand's favorite spell—the giant hand—smashed him face-down into the ground from above, and suddenly the entire dueling arena was covered in mist, but the glowing red hand was still pressing down on him, giving away his position.
"STUPEFACTO!" came six strong voices.
In desperation, Albus let loose his last trick—Funnulus! Corrigoro!
Albus's last two spells took effect right before one of the Stunners struck him. His first spell caused all six of the Stunners to redirect themselves directly at him. Then, his second spell took the effect of whatever spell hit him, and caused it to happen to the people who cast those spells. So when he caused all six Stunners to hit him in the back, all six casters of those spells suddenly found themselves Stunned as well. The battlefield cleared of its mist, and not one duelist was left standing.
One of the earlier duelists from the hundred-duelist battle ran forward and revived the others, having recovered from Albus's earlier Vitiation Charm. Alec revived Albus from the stands, and Albus worked as hard as he could to stand up, extremely sore from having been hit by so many Stunners. He could barely move, in fact. This would take more than a while to wear off.
"And a tie, of course," said Poticand calmly, "goes to the defenders. Sorry, Albus, but no luck today." She walked up to him slowly. "I'd like the item now, please."
"Are you freaking kidding me?" barked Alec. "You're telling me you think that's a victory on your part, when Albus faces a hundred and ten of the best duelists around and ties them?!"
"Yes, and it's part of the rules," said Poticand, shrugging. "I didn't make them up. If this was a tie, then you and I are evidently evenly matched for the position of Chief—"
"Not if he tied against you and the nine others!" argued Aidan.
"I beat the ten duelists including my predecessor," said Poticand. "As I was saying, if we are evenly matched, then the best course of action for the Empire is not to rearrange the command structure, and to simply keep it as is. Better luck next time—except that you may only take this challenge once, so this was your last time."
"If we're 'evenly matched,'" hissed Albus through gritted teeth, "then you admit that I'm worthy of the Chiefdom?"
Poticand raised an eyebrow.
"I'm keeping the item, then," said Albus. "Better luck next time."
Poticand raised a hand with her index finger and pinky bent, and suddenly a hundred and nine wands were aiming towards Albus.
"You're giving it here," said Poticand. "Give me the item, Albus. I am still the Chief of Police. That was the deal."
"Where in the law does it say that you are the only one allowed to possess this?" said Albus, searching for some way to stall or some loophole he could exploit.
"Only the Chief of Police is allowed to even know of its existence—"
"You were the one who told us everything we know about it!" exclaimed Albus.
"Then give it here and I will wipe it from your memories," said Poticand.
"As Chief of Police," said Albus, "you have to follow the law. With all these witnesses here watching us, I want you to go find the law that states that you are allowed to take this from me, and show me the law. Where is it written? You can't just steal my property because you want it, because you think I shouldn't have it. Guess what? The creator of the Hourglass Empire thought I should have this. Unless you're telling me you have more authority than him? I thought Cordot's final judgment was the last step of becoming Chief of Police, not Poticand's final judgment."
And as he mentioned Cordot's name, as if he'd summoned the man by talking about him, Cordot's statue boomed into view, his crashing footsteps echoing through the Empire. His gigantic metallic head blotted out the dawning sun as he crashed right through the wall of the stadium and took a stand directly between Albus and Poticand, clenching his hands into fists.
Poticand's eye twitched, and slowly, very slowly, she lowered her hand. The wands all around Albus lowered as well.
"Thank you," mumbled Albus to Cordot, although he really wished Poticand would have been able to see reason on her own.
"Albus Potter?"
The incredulous cry came from one of the townspeople looking into the stadium, wondering what all of the ruckus was about. Albus looked around, and was shocked to see Ephron Rhuavone, former Professor of Muggle Studies at Hogwarts, standing in the crowd. The citizens of the Hourglass Empire all started murmuring with each other, fascinated over his appearance there.
"Prof—Professor Rhuavone?" said Albus, blinking.
"Ah, well, not anymore," said Rhuavone. "You can, ah, just call me Ephron. Albus, my boy—I'm so surprised but pleased to see you here!" He stepped forward, with a young woman following closely behind him, clutching his hand.
"Who's that?" asked Alec, grinning.
Aidan bumped Alec with his elbow and put a finger to his lips.
"This is Jenna Joyce," said Rhuavone. "She was going to take my job, but then she left for the same reasons I left—it seemed too risky to be Muggle Studies professor at a time like this. She and I decided to come to the Hourglass Empire together, worried about our pro-Muggle leanings. We'd read the lore about this place, both Muggle and magical, and we were able to find it. But none of that is important right now—Albus, I have a message from your father! He heard I was leaving, suspected to where I was going, and gave me a message to give to you if I saw you here!"
Albus looked around. Poticand and most of her elite ten had disappeared, probably not imagining that threatening Albus Potter would look great in the headlines now that the citizens were waking up and investigating the situation.
Rhuavone tossed Albus a letter, sending it flying through the air. Albus caught it with his own wand, and Aidan stepped forward.
"Hold up," he said, scanning the letter with his wand. "I think it's safe…"
"It's from your father," said Rhuavone, wrinkling his brow. "I don't imagine he'd have cursed it."
"Sorry," said Aidan. "At this point, we're just used to assuming that people aren't who they say they are. In both name and personality."
Albus tore open the letter and scanned it quickly.
Only those who are blood-related to the author of this letter may read the message that follows this paragraph. Please deliver this to Albus Potter if you find him.
Albus,
I sincerely hope this letter reaches you—that you indeed are down in the Empire. It should be the safest place for you. I want you to stay down there until the war is won. Understand?
The family is safe. The extended family is safe. Aidan's and Alec's families are as well. Lucas is back in America and Kayla is injured but okay. Don't worry about anyone from back home… yet. Things are direr than ever, but also more hopeful than ever on certain fronts. You've discovered the true identity of our enemy. And we are closing in on a complete cure for the Marionette's Medicine—we are very, very close.
I can't express enough how much I need you to stay where you are. Disguise yourself and blend in down in the Empire. As long as you keep a low profile, no one should find you there.
"Whoops," muttered Albus.
Stay safe and hidden and I'll come get you when the war is won. If I don't make it, someone else will. But the important thing to know is that whatever happens, we WILL win this war. The good guys always do.
-Dad
By the time Albus looked up from the letter, the police had ushered most of the citizenry away from the arena, and even Ephron and his girlfriend were being escorted back, looking over their shoulders at Albus.
Albus looked around, but Poticand still wasn't returning to demand the kill switch back again.
"What does the kill switch really do?" asked Albus to Cordot's statue, which looked down at him with a kind smile. "It can't actually be the switch that blows up the entire Empire. You wouldn't have made something like that and kept it around… would you have?"
Cordot turned away again, and began stepping thunderously off, back to his usual position at the entrance to the Empire.
"Of course he won't answer," said Alec. "They can never make it easy on us, can they?"
"I can't imagine that's what it really does," said Albus. "Why would something so horrible feel so pleasant in my hands?"
"The end always feels somehow pleasant," said Aidan. "Like slipping into a long-needed nap."
Albus shrugged.
"Have you ever fallen asleep at the end of a very long day?" said Aidan. "It feels like… heaven."
"Well, there's no going to sleep yet," said Albus. "We've made our presence known in the Empire. I'm not sure how much longer we can stay here."
"So what do we do?" asked Alec.
"We figure out if there's anything we can do to help up on the surface," said Albus, crinkling his father's letter in his hand. "Then we go up there and do it."
O
"The Seer, he said, 'Where shadows cross, the d-darkness grows. The p-power of the sun shall burn away the shadows. The hostage, coveted by both, shall be the downfall of both. The third shall seek the third, and three shall fall. When the sun rises on the night of the clashing shadows, both shall b-burn away. When the sun sets on the burning day, the fire shall flicker out.' And that's where it, er, ended."
"Who is the hostage?" muttered Albus, watching the events before him take place exactly as they had two years ago. "Or, what is the hostage?"
"That's where it ended?" said Harry, turning around. The meerkat Patronus faded. "That didn't even have a viable reference to any persons or dates."
"The burning day," said Aunt Hermione pensively. "Could that mean a phoenix?"
"But there are no more domesticated phoenixes left in the world," said Harry. "Not after Damien Tashra was killed."
In the background, Albus watched himself twitch. He knew what came next in this memory and he didn't care to stay. This was his mind back when it had been compromised by Herpo the Foul. He concentrated back on the present day and he sailed out of the Pensieve, catching his fall and landing on his feet. He'd been in and out of the Pensieve so often today that he'd become quite skilled at sticking the landing.
Where was Herpo the Foul, anyway? Had Wilcox taken care of him silently? It seemed all too possible, given how obsessed Wilcox was over control of everything and how much of a wild card Herpo could prove to be. But something told Albus that if Herpo had survived for thousands of years and had still come back, then he probably wasn't going to fade away so easily this time. It was never that easy.
Albus sighed and ran his fingers through his hair, trying to conjure up another memory that might help. He looked over at Aidan, who was reading, and Alec, who was practicing hitting moving targets with spells. Both of them looked over when they saw he'd returned and was looking at them.
"Anything?" asked Aidan.
"No," said Albus. "Not yet. Nothing helpful. Just more questions."
"Any we could help with?"
"I just watched someone talk about a prophecy again," said Albus. "Talking about 'the hostage' and 'the burning day.'"
"Burning day, like a phoenix?" asked Alec.
"That's the only thing we could think of, too, but it still wasn't very helpful," said Albus. "I don't know how phoenixes relate to this."
"Maybe we need a phoenix," said Alec. "Hey, I'm all for it if we decide to head up to Mount Solaeris and get a phoenix for ourselves."
"With that kind of mindset you won't," said Aidan. "When you scale the Solaerial Summit, you earn a phoenix's trust; you don't 'get' a phoenix as a pet."
"But apparently everyone involved in this 'burning day' is going to end up dead," said Albus. "Something about the downfall of both, and how when the sun rises on the night of clashing shadows, both shall burn away, and when the sun sets on the burning day, the fire shall flicker out."
"Odd," said Aidan, Summoning a quill and notepad. "I'll write it down."
"Add it to the map," suggested Alec.
Aidan nodded. When he'd finished writing his notes, he duplicated the page and sent it flying over to the wall that they'd dedicated to notes. There were pieces of information that they knew, written on paper, plastered in various groupings with different color markings on the corners of each note denoting to what other pieces of information they were connected. Aidan sent it soaring down, marked it purple for prophecy and black for unknown cause or origin. There was a lot of black on the wall.
Albus turned back to the Pensieve. He wondered what memories he hadn't looked at yet, and one bubbled up to the surface of his brain easily: the Mirror of Erised. That incident was still largely unexplained, and he had a feeling Wilcox might have had something to do with that, too—positioning the Mirror of Erised in the castle specifically to attract Albus to his death, maybe… Had he been the one to cast the Devoctrices on the Mirror of Erised, specifically for the purpose of trapping Albus?
Albus pulled the memory of the Mirror of Erised—it was quite pleasant to get that one out of his head—and dropped it into the Pensieve. He leaned in again and landed in the world of the mirror, which was a world he'd never wanted to revisit… but times had changed.
"A world hidden inside a mirror, an entire world in only one framed pane of shining glass. The Paracosmic Devoctrix. Just like the Hourglass Empire."
"A mirror capable of thinking, and talking, and feeling, and wanting. The Anthropous Devoctrix. Just like the Sorting Hat."
"The Sorting Hat? But… I thought the Sorting Hat was made by the Juxtatic Devoctrix…"
"To summon Gryffindor's Sword, yes. But how can it think, and talk, and feel, and want… moreover, to do so for a thousand years or more?"
"How do you know all this?"
"Because the one who made the mirror knew this. Don't you want to know all of this, too?"
A silence, as Albus watched the gears turning in the head of his fifteen-year-old self. This was one of the most terrifying experiences of his life, though it really said something about his life that something like this wasn't the single most terrifying by far. But he knew he could probably learn from this, too.
"No? Then I guess you won't be needing this list of nineteen known Devoctrices out of the twenty-three total."
"This is all of the Devoctrices known to our creator. And you can know them, too."
Albus narrowed his eyes. Wilcox had known twenty-two when Albus had interrogated him. Had he known nineteen in the beginning of Albus's fifth year? When they said "the Devoctrices known to our creator," were they talking not about the person who made the Mirror of Erised—but the person who made it sentient? Perhaps the Mirror of Erised really had been docile before Wilcox got to it, and cast the Devoctrices on it to lure Albus to his death. Albus needed to watch his interrogation of Wilcox again.
But there was still more to watch here—his past self snatched the list of Devoctrices from the mirror-people, and Albus sprinted to catch up with his younger body as he ran. He peered at the list.
Almost instantly, the list clouded over and was replaced with the mirror's strange language, but he at least caught sight of the first line, which he hadn't been able to fully consciously read when he first experienced this situation.
NAME: AMIVICAL DEVOCTRIX
KNOWN USERS: LILY POTTER, HARRY POTTER
He'd have to go back sometime to this memory and review that particular moment as many times as it took to read everything visible on the list, but for now he continued with the current memory.
Now he was on the run from the mirror-people, and he burst into several different rooms where other people seemed to have been trapped inside the mirror. There was a little boy named Oleg… That may have been important. Was it the boy or the grandmother who was trapped inside the mirror? Or was it both?
Then, he noticed something that definitely piqued his interest—as the world of the mirror began to crumble, there was a dark aura pulsing beyond the holes in the sky-colored dome. It looked like the surface of a pool of violet-black oil, but it was hanging in the sky. And Albus had seen that exact swirl of color before—in the goop that erupted from Wilcox's mouth, right before Desulgon saved Albus and lost his mind. Albus definitely needed to go back to his interrogation of Wilcox.
"The Vortex!" cried some mirror-people, pointing at the void.
"The Vortex," muttered Albus. "Got to be important… That should go on the wall of notes."
He watched himself escape the mirror, and then kept his close eye on the fake James who stole the list of Devoctrices. As the imposter took the list out of Albus's hands, and saw what it was, Albus saw his face contort in shock and rage for a moment—the exact same face Wilcox made when Albus got the jump on him in the spiral staircase right before the interrogation. This fake James had been Wilcox. Wilcox had definitely been involved in planting the Mirror of Erised and luring Albus to it somehow, otherwise he couldn't have been so prepared. And whether he had been the one who made the mirror so evil, or whether he had only brought it in and let things happen, the result was the same—he knew at least nineteen Devoctrices at that point, and at least twenty-two currently. Regardless of the past, he had to act fast now.
"I'm going to listen to Wilcox's plans again," said Albus.
"Again?" said Aidan. "You've watched him talk about his horrible deeds over and over again. How many times is this, fifteen?"
"Twenty-one," said Albus. "Maybe I'll figure out something special next time. Or on the twenty-third time."
"I feel like that's unhealthy," said Aidan. "It's just going to make you angrier. You need to be in full control of yourself while we're in this situation. One emotionally charged mistake and we're done for."
"I'm in control," said Albus. "I just need to hear more. Or the same stuff again until it makes more sense."
He placed his wand tip on the surface of the Pensieve, bringing the memory of Wilcox's disclosure back to the surface, and he leaned down into it again.
He tumbled back into Wilcox's office. His heart started thumping harder in his chest, as it always did when he looked upon Wilcox's face, even in memory.
"I simply know that I have to do all it takes to reconstruct the world for the better. Of course there will be sacrifices, yes… but anything it takes is worth the end result. Your impending death, too, will be all for the best."
"It's called the Shadow's Engine, but it's a mechanical Catalyst fine-tuned to specifically Catalyze the Darkriver Devoctrix. It's powered by magical blood, and we've been collecting it for some time in order to fuel a single killing strike that will wipe the Earth clean of all non-magical persons."
"Eftan's departure from your friend group was none of my doing. He was happy to go along with our plans without any mental work, in fact, just like Pierce and Quinn. He cast the Imperius Curse that led to Sylvester's suicide and he's more than happy to kill his parents, which he will be doing tomorrow night as preparation to ensure he's ready to do anything for our cause."
Albus grimaced. Whatever had become of that…? He had disappeared before Eftan was scheduled to have to kill his parents to prove himself. He hadn't been able to check on Eftan since entering the Empire, seeing as all communication was cut off from the surface… Had Eftan had to do it?
He refocused on the memory and prayed that it hadn't come to that for Eftan, but also that Eftan was still safe and not discovered. Wilcox was now talking about Dismiusa.
"Zayn Valon and I combed the forest until we found where her spirit slept. We channeled our energy into her body until she was powerful enough to awaken slightly from her dormant state, enough to create a couple of mulunctapoli. We used these creatures to create the Marionette's Medicine, and allowed them to drain a few wizards in order to transfer their power to Dismiusa and awaken her fully. We subdued her and kept her under the castle, under the effects of Marionette's Medicine, but for some reason or another she eventually began to resist the effects, and broke free of our grip and tried to kill us. Thankfully, you helped destroy her before she revealed too much of why she was attacking us—she wanted to kill me for what I'd done to her, but you thought she was simply referring to Hogwarts teachers in general."
"Exo's death would have given me the sympathy of the public and their support for my 'revenge' against those responsible, but of course I would have been pursuing my own interests had I become Minister for Magic. I'm still working towards the position, but I'm being careful about it. I can't let one person suspect me for what I'm doing or all is lost."
Wilcox went on and on. He talked about he owned the Sandbloods and would wipe them out to be hailed as a hero. Albus began to suspect Wilcox convinced his father to have Albus place the spying device in the Sandblood fortress, so Wilcox could find out more about the Sandbloods so he could control them.
Considering this possibility, he remembered back when they'd discovered that Wilcox's boggart took the form of an angry Harry Potter. How could they have dismissed that so easily?
But hindsight, then again, was 20/20.
"Lacking magic is a disability that drags the human race down. Destroying all Muggles and Squibs will leave a far stronger population as a whole."
"I only know that the Pandoran Catalyst is buried—I've no idea where, or how to surface it. I believe Gallen Ingot found out how to surface it, and did, but seeing as he's most definitely dead, we'll have to either find his sources or learn it ourselves if we want to bring the Pandoran Catalyst back."
What was Wilcox searching for, then? He was searching for the "Natural S." That was gray on their map—research on the "Natural S" had its own color. The most prevalent use of that term belonged to the "Natural Sprites," but they had done much research on the topic and it seemed incredibly unlikely. Sure, Dismiusa had seemed unlikely, but she was the result of a freak accident of a powerful spell. What were the chances that freak accidents had happened to create gods of the land, sea, and sky at the same time? Nothing, of course, was out of the question, but if there were deities roaming the earth and ruling over the three natural elements, it seemed like someone would have noticed. Unlike Dismiusa, they were supposed to have been around forever.
As he checked back in, Wilcox was talking about how he'd hired Greyback to attack his children, and how he was largely unmoved by the fact that Chrianna, Exo's sister, had died in the process. Albus could recite this speech nearly word for word now, with how many times he'd seen it, but it still infuriated him.
"You look sickened. Let me explain myself. The human race is advancing as fast as it has ever advanced, magical and Muggle methods alike. Why is this? Because we have adapted better lifestyles. People live longer, and there is less filth and disease in our homes and our streets. The more filth and disease pervade our society, the less able we are to deal with larger problems, because we are too focused on solving the problems of the weak and feeble because of some misplaced belief that they are worth saving, simply for their stock of one human life apiece. Centuries from now, millennia from now, what do you think the world will look like? Will there still be people crammed into alleys between buildings, begging on the streets of space stations, living with nineteen other families in the same underground bunker because all of the surface bunkers are packed even tighter? What kind of life is being lived by these people? Let me pose you a philosophical dilemma: one over which I have spent many a month pondering myself to achieve my current set of ideals. Is it merciful to destroy these lives before all of their pain is experienced?"
Nothing was worth the deaths of that many people. The world could not be made perfect by wiping out all of the people you didn't like. Maybe Wilcox's perfect world could be made that way, but what gave Wilcox the right to kill seven billion people to make the world that he wanted? He spoke of worldwide benefit but it was clearly only benefitting him and the few bastards sick enough to join him.
Albus waited until the time when Wilcox began to talk about the things that he really didn't want to talk about.
"I've been—traveling around—the world, searching for—extraordinary—powers."
"I was searching for—the—th-the—the power of—of th—Nat—the Natural—Nat-Natural S—"
The gargoyle jumped aside, and the Albus in his memory turned around, taking his eyes off of Wilcox, which was a terrible decision. Albus cringed as he did every time when the glossy sludge billowed from Wilcox's mouth. It was the Chaos Contagion, and it was the exact same color as the abyss that the mirror-people had called "The Vortex." Albus didn't know how the sludge was controlled; presumably, having the Chaos Contagion himself, he could do it if he wanted… But he really, really did not want to.
A tendril from the chaotic cloud soared towards Albus like a frog's tongue. Albus watched as he was lifted helplessly into the air. He watched through one squinting eye; it was still hard to look at the moment where Desulgon lost his mind, but he knew he had to in case that moment contained some clue.
Something clouded over behind Desulgon's eyes as he fell to the ground, writhing and laughing. Switching back and forth between his normal voice and a voice that sounded like a Seer's prophecy, he yelled the words that Albus longed to understand the most:
"See no evil, hear no evil, speak no evil! All three must—touch the soul, that's it—but gladly shall they take upon the duty or not at all—before the twenty-third cycle of the twenty-three days—lest the disease take hold for all time, only to be removed in the heir by erasing the inheritance and destroying the evidence! I got it! I got it, I got it! Ha-ha-ha!"
He Disapparated again.
But this time, Albus's intense focus and keen Seeker eyes finally detected something he'd never seen before: a lightning-quick flash from Desulgon's wand right before he vanished.
"What did you just do?" he whispered.
When he got back out of the Pensieve, he was going to have to go back in and investigate that half-second many more times. There was definitely something deliberate about the spell that Desulgon had cast. Something inside him had shown through the madness for a moment, and he'd made a point to cast that spell before leaving.
Albus was lost in thought so long that he watched the memory longer than usual. The Albus inside the memory charged away, tricked Wilcox into Polyjuicing himself into blind Parker Pullman by using his Toupeepop, darted off again, and ran into Zayn Valon—
And… killed him with a Shatterbolt.
Suddenly, the Pensieve shivered, and new memories began bubbling up around him, memories that he hadn't deposited into the Pensieve. The Lunar Massacre. The escape from the Sandblood headquarters. The confrontation with Siobor.
Without intending, Albus burst back out of the Pensieve and tumbled onto the floor.
"Albus, are you all right?" yelped Aidan. "I told you not to—"
Aidan's voice cut out as Albus began twitching on the floor, writhing in pain and madness. Every person whose death he had caused, directly or indirectly, began rushing back to Albus—Sahil Vivekkamal. Damien Tashra. Valon. All of those werewolves…
Thinking about them was too horrifically painful, and he tried to shove them out of his mind, they were killing him, to think about their deaths. And he felt something else creeping into his mind—a dark force, a presence that felt like the manifestation of that Vortex, the sludge, the miasma, creeping into his consciousness and threatening to overwhelm him immediately—
"Albus!" came Alec's shout from somewhere incredibly far away. "What's going on? Say something! Tell us how we can help you, at least tell us you can hear—AUGH!"
Like he was looking from the nearest star through the tiny lens of a telescope, he saw someone burst into the room—this was not Poticand attacking them again, but it was someone who had been waiting for the right time, and now that Albus was incapacitated, this new assassin was striking. The duel between Aidan and Alec and the invader was brief and incredibly one-sided; they were blasted against the wall, and the wand was turned on Albus.
"AVADA KEDAVRA!" came a shout from several universes away, and Albus watched the Killing Curse sail towards him with nothing in the way—
"No!" he cried, suddenly finding his voice.
He was still watching his body from afar, and he saw his body open its mouth—but instead of the desperate shout, violet-black sludge spilled from his open mouth rather than words. The Killing Curse struck the barrier and deflected off into the wall behind Albus's body, and then the goop raced towards the intruder, reaching out like hands, intending to ensnare him and leave Albus's body to infect this new person—
The newcomer leapt out of the way, clearly now switching his focus from ending Albus's life to preserving his own. He fled through the open door, out of Albus's sight, and the glossy slime pulsed above Albus's head, eager for a new victim, as Aidan lifted himself up from the floor and called to his friend.
"Albus, this has to be the Chaos Contagion!" cried Aidan. "You have to resist it—this is what drove Desulgon insane, and probably so many others! What memories did you see that triggered this? Was this triggered by something? You have to undo it!"
It was triggered by watching the deaths he'd caused…
"Keep your human mind!" pleaded Aidan. "Think about something human… Love! Remorse, Albus, think about remorse! The insanity, the chaos is trying to take your mind—bring it back with everything human about you!"
Albus had been pushing the memory of those deaths out of his head. But that was leaving room for the chaos to enter… He closed his eyes, blocking out all else from his attention, and focused on the pain he had felt over causing all the deaths and destruction that had occurred in his influence. The pain he felt was worse than the Cruciatus Curse, and he wanted to die or lose his mind and end it—but he couldn't die. He couldn't lose his mind. The war wasn't won yet. Maybe after his work was done, he could slip into death's embrace… allow the warmth of chaos to expunge his thoughts along with the pain that he wanted to escape… But not yet.
And he slid slowly back into his mind.
He opened his eyes, not sure what he was expecting to see—darkness, the glossy black goo of the Chaos Contagion—but he only saw his very relieved friends.
"Please don't do that again," said Alec.
"We were attacked?" mumbled Albus numbly, staggering to his feet.
"Whoa there, sit down if you need to," said Aidan.
"I can't sit down," said Albus. "Someone else attacked us. Wilcox must have sent or stationed someone down here, and that person is looking for us and knows where we are. We have to go."
"Go?" said Aidan. "Albus, we're so much less safe up there, and you need to rest and explain to us exactly what—"
"How long before our attacker gets back up to the surface, alerts Wilcox we're down here, and sends hundreds more down here to trap us?" said Albus. "We are backed into a corner down here. If they guard the exit to the Empire we'll be stuck here forever in the best case scenario. We have to go right now."
"Should we bring the map?" asked Alec, jabbing a thumb at the wall. "We can shrink it down and bring it with us—"
"Yes!" blurted Albus. "And the Pensieve—I have to keep looking at my memory of what Professor Desulgon did right before he disappeared—he did something, his wand flashed, he cast some spell—can you two bring the Pensieve with you so I can keep jumping in and out while we're running to the exit of the Empire?"
Aidan nodded; they had gone over how to exit the Empire many times, just in case this exact situation occurred.
"Good," said Albus. "Let's get moving. Pack up everything we need and let's go! We need to get out before anyone else gets in!"
Once they were prepared to leave, Albus nodded to Aidan and Alec and dove back into the Pensieve, to his most recent memory, back in a few seconds before the end. He watched the flash from Professor Desulgon's wand again, but couldn't connect it to what had happened. Several more times he leapt back out of the Pensieve and jumped back in again, as his friends carried the Pensieve with them closer and closer to the exit—and on what felt like the hundredth time, he finally saw what was going on.
He'd turned his attention to the surroundings, being unable to glean the meaning just from watching the wand, and as Professor Desulgon vanished, he saw a matching flash from the wall. A message briefly appeared, carved into the stone:
The Fokii know.
And then, almost as quickly, the message vanished. It was almost as if Professor Desulgon had retained just enough of his mind to know that there was something important he needed to communicate to Albus, and that Albus would probably be watching this memory more than Wilcox, or would be able to find meaning in the statement better than their adversary.
"The Fokii know," whispered Albus, soaring back out of the Pensieve again. "What exactly do the Fokii know…?"
As he landed and stayed this time, running alongside them, Aidan looked back. "Find something now?"
"A message that Professor Desulgon left for me," said Albus. "There was no way I could have seen it in the moment… I think he may have been expecting me to look through my memories."
"What?!" yelped Alec, turning his head and nearly running into a wall; they were down in the tunnels below the Empire, approaching the exit. "That's big news! What did the message say?!"
Albus sighed. "Another mystery, I'm afraid. It said, 'The Fokii know.'"
There was silence as they ran for a while.
"The Fokii know what?" said Alec.
"I think that would be the aforementioned mystery," mused Aidan. "Interesting… That's definitely something to go on the map."
"The Fokii must know something important," said Albus. "What could they possibly know, though?"
"They've been hanging around Hogwarts," said Aidan. "Maybe there's something important they've seen Wilcox doing. Maybe he's doing something in the forest…"
"He attacked Dismiusa in the forest," said Albus. "Something to do with that, maybe? The Fokii were really huge in the Dismiusa ordeal. Maybe they know something about that."
"How the hell are we supposed to find out?" asked Alec. "Go up and ask them? Hope they don't eat us?"
"We use logic," said Aidan. "Let's think about this. This is something important that the Fokii know. Probably connected to Dismiusa."
He waved his wand, and all of the note sheets marked with green flew out of his backpack. The strings were all tangled together, but the strings extended to allow all of the green notes to stretch out. The green denoted notes having to do with Dismiusa.
"And it's something we don't know," continued Aidan, "because why would he have left that note about the Fokii knowing something, if it was something we already knew? That wouldn't have gotten us anywhere."
The notes marked with both black and green drifted forward even farther than the notes with just green.
"And probably connected to Wilcox and the whole Man in the Shadows thing, too," said Aidan. "Probably visibly connected, or we wouldn't have much of a chance of making the connection."
And one note sheet drifted forward the most, marked with yellow—marked with all three colors, for "Dismiusa," "unknown cause or origin," and "Wilcox." The note's message gleamed out at them like a beacon, their purpose in the fight finally unfolding.
How did Dismiusa break free of Wilcox's control if she was under the Marionette's Medicine?
Albus gasped as the words from his most-watched memory drifted back through his head:
"We subdued her and kept her under the castle, under the effects of Marionette's Medicine, but for some reason or another she eventually began to resist the effects, and broke free of our grip and tried to kill us."
"Holy Merlin," he breathed. "The Fokii know the cure for the Marionette's Medicine."