13th August 2011 – The Hill of Tara
Harry hadn't ever been to the Irish wizards' city of Tara and so had no idea what to expect when they arrived – and upon arrival, still didn't have the slightest idea what the wizard city actually looked like because they'd been Apparated into some kind of official underground chamber.
Brilliant. Not that he was surprised, exactly, because it was just standard opsec to prevent outsiders from gaining a knowledge advantage of any sort, but he still would have liked to have seen some of Tara. It was the only wizarding city in Britain, and it wasn't even a secret – people visited all the time, if they were wizards.
But the Centenary Ward prevented most travel into and out of the city, so he supposed it wasn't unfair that they had been secreted away in some Irish Court underground chamber. Had they transported some Irish officials to Avalon it would have been directly inside of Caer Tawel. Of course, that was a clear-cut case of the hag calling the vampire Dark, so Harry didn't have a leg to stand on with that particular complaint.
"Wait a minute," said the Irish wizard, disappearing from the small chamber with a loud crack! Just moments later he reappeared, Luna clutching his arm.
"Have a seat, both of you," he said, gesturing towards the two stools set before the tall – too tall – table. The Irish wizard took the single chair facing them, a chair both taller and more comfortable-looking than either of the two stools.
As he sat, Harry noted – with some degree of amusement – that the tables and stools were designed so that anyone, even the tallest wizard (excepting those with giant blood), would be at least a head shorter than the man on the other side of the table. A basic move designed to instil the victim with a sense of powerlessness, and to increase the authority of the wizard on the other side of the table.
Harry of course wasn't bothered at all by the set up since he'd spent the better part of a decade being trained in all sorts of practical things, and he doubted that Luna had ever encountered a situation where she didn't feel confident about herself, so the Irish Court's attempt at psychological manipulation had fallen rather flat.
The Irish wizard hadn't spoken yet, but neither had Harry or Luna: Harry, of course, wasn't about to speak first because that's what the Irish wizard wanted to happen so that he could inflate his sense of superiority and exercise a kind of authority over the situation, and he knew that Luna would indulge him in that.
So an increasingly awkward silence fell upon the small chamber, broken up by nothing other than the slow, measured breathing of all the wizards in the room. There came a point of course, thought Harry absently, where this kind of powerplay simply became ridiculous and farcical, but through sheer stubbornness and innate obstinacy Harry was prepared to let that happen.
He'd spent the better part of three years making sarcastic comments at the Unspeakables, after all, so he knew that he could at least manage to turn the Irish wizard's tactics against him. It might even be a little bit fun.
13th August 2011 – Caer Tawel (Avalon)
Ignoring the feeling of intense pressure and alertness – it was a kind of frenetic, hyperactive need to do something – that came with the particular stimulants she'd been told to use, Hermione upon her return from Newcastle headed directly to Morningstar's office. She'd used a quick tracking charm beforehand so that she didn't waste any of her time heading somewhere the other woman wasn't, and found that she was alone in her office.
Hermione didn't bother to knock. She pushed open the thick oak door and strode into the room. She reached inside her robes and fished out the stack of notes she'd made that morning based on what the retired Unspeakable had told her.
"I got some answers," she said flatly. "I'm not sure you'll like them."
Mornginstar didn't reply, nor did she tell Hermione to take a seat (which Hermione did anyway, because she knew she wouldn't be able to escape yet); she simply flicked through the parchment quickly.
"Looks like you'll have to go see Billy, Granger," she said finally, placing the parchment back down on her desk.
Hermione frowned.
"There's no one else who could help this go faster," continued Morningstar, "even if I do share your … distaste at the prospect."
Hermione didn't bother to say that Billy was a cantankerous old letch, and a host of other things besides, because Morningstar knew that just as well as Hermione did, so it was completely useless to object in that way.
"Will he even consent to help us? From what I remember, and I don't forget a lot, the last time we spoke to him didn't go very well."
That was an understatement, thought Hermione, although it was one she had made on purpose. He'd transfigured Unspeakable Bonchance into a goat, and it had taken three weeks for a team of experts to change him back. He'd leered at Hermione's chest and suggested Luna might like to join him for a bath, and had charmed Neville to speak only in ancient Celtic riddles.
"That's the sticking point, yes," agreed Morningstar. "But short of reading every single historical document, book, or piece of writing extant on the island, Billy is the only person who might have an answer as to… any of this," she said, and then she shrugged. "If he won't help, or if he can't help, then that's what we'll have to do."
Hermione could hear the unsaid piece: "But we don't really have the time for it."
"September isn't very far away," she agreed. "If Billy knows the words to say that's excellent," she continued, "but what if he doesn't? The idea of sacrifice isn't one I enjoy, I must admit."
"Yes… it's a very vague definition, isn't it?" agreed Morningstar, glancing down at the stack of parchment on her desk. "The Welsh were the worst for it, of course; to them, a sacrifice can mean burning all your grain, giving up the ability to say or think a certain word… to a life. The sidhe were even worse: it could literally be a sacrifice of anything."
"I rather like the ability to see the colour blue," said Hermione carefully, "but if that were what they took, I don't think I'd mind."
"You're going to get a broad agreement from me on that one, Granger. I shouldn't mind to lose the ability to compose limericks ad hoc, but then what if they should take iambic pentameter? The trouble is it could be anything they take… your memories of childhood, your capacity for fondness, your ability to turn left… So you understand at least why we need to see Billy? Perhaps he can offer something a bit more concrete."
"No, I do," said Hermione. "I just don't like it. He's more dangerous than he seems."
"You won't find any argument from me on that one."
"Shall I go today?"
Morningstar considered it.
"That depends on Potter," she said at last. "He'll have to accompany you; he's the only one Billy hasn't jinxed, cursed or magicked in some way."
"Are they still not back?"
"I believe they've gone on to Tara," replied the older woman smugly. "We knew there was a wizard portrait hanging in the Muggle leader's office," she said carefully, "so when Potter and Lovegood failed to return promptly – the whole affair shouldn't have taken that long, even with Potter leading it – we sent someone on to check. The Irish wizards have made contact after we informed their Muggles of the goings-on. Fancy that!"
"Fancy that indeed," said Hermione. "Is there anything else I need to do, or can I go sit quietly with my eyes closed for an hour or so?"
Sometimes, when the stimulants made it so you couldn't sleep (which was their explicit purpose, after all) that was the next best thing.
"I don't suppose that would be a problem," said Morningstar, "but do be prepared to move on once Potter returns. Billy's hard to find, even somewhere like Avalon."
13th August 2011 – Tara
"Out with it then," said the Irish wizard – who still hadn't told them his name – eventually, breaking the overly long silence that had occupied the room. "You obviously have a message intended for the Irish Court."
Harry nodded at him.
"We do, actually, although we weren't expecting to make contact until tomorrow, at least…"
"Yes, well – your little stunt with the Muggles forced the issue a bit, didn't it?" said the Irish Court official glumly.
"I am Luna Lovegood," said Luna cheerily, "and obviously, that is Harry Potter. We didn't catch your name."
"Agent O'Malley," said O'Malley curtly. "Our nations are at war," he said.
"We're not affiliated with the British Ministry," replied Harry easily. "In fact, we're working to tear it down. That's what we want to talk with you about."
"The Centenary Ward will not breached. The wizards of Tara are safe; the Dark Lord shall shatter his forces against it to no success, I assure you."
Harry shrugged.
"I doubt that – if anyone can breach that ward it's him," he said, "but that's not the point anyway, is it?"
"The people outside of the ward – a not insignificant proportion of the Irish wizarding population, not to mention anything of the millions of Muggles – aren't so fortunate," said Luna. "We have a solid plan to combat the Dark Lord's forces, but we require assistance."
"So we'd like to speak with someone capable of making promises for the Court," finished Harry.
O'Malley leaned back in his chair.
"I am such a person."
"Well," said Harry, deciding that he should be blunt about it, "what we need is wizards. There are under fifty Unspeakables, and some of them can't fight. We've got what's left of the resistance, and we're confident we can stir up domestic support… but what we really need, Agent O'Malley, is what you Irish have in abundance: qualified wizards."
"You ask us to not only defend ourselves," said O'Malley slowly, "but to liberate your nation."
"To help liberate our nation," corrected Luna. "It is a sensible decision. You-Know-Who can't be stopped unless we all work together." She pulled a thick dossier seemingly from nowhere and pushed it across the too-tall table towards O'Malley. "This is the information we have for the Court."
O'Malley flicked through it idly, not showing too much interest. The whole charade was really going a bit far, Harry thought, since clearly the Irish would be actively interested in neutralising Voldemort's threat. Or perhaps they really weren't, since they believed the wizards of Tara would endure. Just how did the Centenary Ward function?
"We would not be opposed to such an association, I think," he said finally. "The details would require discussion and negotiation with the leader of the Unspeakbles, of course."
"Of course!" said Luna. "And, also of course, provisions must be made for the protection of the outlying settlements, and for the Muggles, or else we shall just be doing the Dark Lord's work for him."
Harry fought back a laugh. The Irish wizards had no intention of protecting anything other than Tara, at least not properly – but it was an ironclad condition of any arrangement with the Unspeakables, and more than that it was a moral imperative which the Unspeakables wouldn't hesitate to push upon the Court.
"Yes, of course," agreed O'Malley, frowning. "There must be something else you want. What is it?"
"Supplies. We want – no, need – access to a more diverse stock of wands, broomsticks, all sorts of things really," said Harry, perhaps a bit unhelpfully. "I don't know what they all are."
"There should be a list of things in the dossier," offered Luna, "but some of the details are still negotiable."
"How exactly do you intend to fight him? Why haven't you managed it in the last decade? For that matter, Potter, it is a well-known fact that you're dead."
Fair play to the man for not bringing it up sooner, thought Harry.
"Well, I'm not, obviously. I was… there were reasons we couldn't act, then; not that we didn't want to, that we literally couldn't. There was some ancient magic. It's complicated."
"But we spent the time planning instead, and training, and devising a method which should ensure a lasting peace," said Luna. "So that's what we're trying to do now that we can."
"So are you willing to help us, Agent O'Malley? Because the Dark Lord and Lady will overwhelm Ireland, and when they're done here, it's likely they'll move to enslave the Muggles. You should know better than we do the state of things on the Continent," said Harry.
O'Malley turned rather green at that, so Harry thought he'd scored a point there. Britain was now exporting its 'little problem' abroad; it would be a matter of time before similar revolutions occurred all across Europe, and the whole world would be poorer for it.
"Yes, yes, all right. The Minister shall meet with your leader as soon as it can be arranged," he said.
13th August 2011 – Hermione Granger's Office (Caer Tawel)
Although Hermione had intended merely to sit quietly in a state of almost-relaxation for several hours to – well, to stop the incessant, frenetic buzzing in her head – she had been unable to do so, and had instead started to furiously scribble a possible corollary, a correction of sorts, to the proof suggesting a maximum limit on the number of times one could fold wizardspace.
It was all wrong, of course, but she needed to do something with the energy – the dead energy, really – provided by the stimulant potions. Perhaps all wrong was a bit unfair, she decided, gazing down at her table.
The large – she had specified that she needed a large desk, and a large table in addition – table was covered in parchment containing arithmantic formulae, a theoretical working, and her scattered notes on the theory of the whole thing. There was something there, something useful; she just didn't know what it was or why, yet.
The work she had been doing – if she could even call it work, since it was mostly a distraction from herself – had no pressing real-world use, so it could be argued that it constituted a waste of her precious time. She didn't think so, personally – she had nothing to do at present save the tasks given to her, so what she did during her free time was her own concern. And the implications of an additional layer of wizardspace were fascinating, even if she struggled to even conceptualise the theoretical arrangement of such a shape.
Deciding to quit while she was ahead, at least for today, Hermione waved her wand absently and the parchments gathered themselves up, soaring neatly and quickly into their allotted place in her filing system. Another stack of parchment lazily floated over to the table and presented itself to her, followed quickly by an inkpot and quill.
She sat down (after a chair helpfully scooted over towards her) and wrote, in large script, '41 days to' at the top of the parchment, and then began to write a list.
They had forty-one days to figure out how to active a door to the Otherworld, an ethereal plane sealed away centuries ago, and filled with all sorts of magical things the world had forgotten. Forty-one days in which to discover either the ancient words, or the manner of sacrifice required for entry.
Forty-one days to further the prophecy of the Lioness, the prophecy which she had been moulded to fulfil. Forty-one days until, if everything went to plan, Hermione Granger would be 'tempered at the Altar of Queens' or she would die.
And that was ignoring all the other things they had planned to do in that time, too. She added them to her list. In the end, she'd come up with what she thought was the meat of the thing, and contained every important milestone which needed to be reached (that she knew of, of course) in the next forty-one days.
41 days to
Open a door to the Otherworld
Discover the nature of sacrifice / find the ancient words
Altar of Queens
Destroy the 'new communities'
Secure every British muggleborn
Convince the Irish Court to fight
Break the Death Eaters
Find Horcruxes
Destroy Horcruxes
Inspire revolution
Almost as an afterthought she scribbled over the back of the list her rationale, and some explanatory notes. Satisfied that she had done something (even if it was nothing at all save getting it all ordered in her mind), Hermione sat back in her chair.
It didn't seem insurmountable, but then, she hadn't exactly broken each part down into its constituent pieces. Merely locating Billy this afternoon could potentially take several days, since although Avalon was not so large as Britain proper, it wasn't exactly a poky rock in the middle of the Irish Sea either, and Billy had no fixed abode, merely places he enjoyed to visit.
Convincing him to help them would be a task in and of itself, and that was assuming he even knew what they wanted. Was there even a price for the information?
The destruction of the breeding camps could be difficult to execute in reality, although in theory they had a solid approach. They were simply outnumbered, which was an obvious consequence of what the Unspeakables had done in delaying the true war a whole decade. If the Irish Court wouldn't fight, and if they couldn't inspire enough of a resistance for it to matter… then the prophecies wouldn't matter, because there would be no challenging Voldemort or Valmira, not with the Ministry behind them.
The people of Britain were the true wardstone of the plan, not Harry. She frowned. No, that wasn't quite true, she thought – in addition to Harry. Without the rejection of the Ministry by the people nothing could really change, and the Ministry existed as a vehicle for the domination of its people, now more than ever before.
What was that annoying buzzing sound? It couldn't just be the sound of her thoughts in her head; it was coming from her pockets.
"Well aren't we stupid today!" she muttered, reaching inside her robes to bring out the Unspeakable coin. She was being pinged.
She frowned, seeing that Harry was back, which meant they would have to go out in search of Billy. She took another long look at her notes, then sighed. She left her office quickly and used the coin to direct her towards Harry, who met her in the corridor.
"Secured the Irish wizards," said Harry, grinning. "How'd your thing go?"
"About as well as can be expected, I suppose," she said. "We know the information we need exists, and that what we want to do is at least possible, so there is that." It wasn't much, but it was something, and something was always better than nothing.
"So – Billy," said Harry. "Any leads on where he's hiding?"
"I thought we might check Llyn Alarch, first of all," she replied. "He's usually there. If he isn't…"
"Gets a bit harder," finished Harry. "Well, it's not bad weather for a hike."
"I'd rather we found him at the lake," she grumbled. "Let me get my boots and things and we'll go."
Llyn Alarch (Avalon)
"Well," Harry said, looking around the deserted lake, "I guess he's not here."
Llyn Alarch was the island's largest permanent lake, a feature Harry thought was perhaps somewhat magical in nature, since it was fed by no rivers and rainwater couldn't account for all of it, and it usually housed a population of endangered magical creatures akin to selkies. There were no settlements near to the lake, and so it occupied one of the many spaces of true wilderness present on Avalon.
It had been home to the Elyrch, the swan people, for thousands of years before Avalon had been sealed away, and they maintained it would be home to them for thousands of years after that, too. They, and their frequent guest Billy, were nowhere to be seen, and the hauntingly beautiful lake was quiet and still.
"No, I don't suppose he is. And he's taken the Elyrch with him, too," said Hermione.
Harry nodded along to her. He'd been hoping that, if Billy weren't around, the Elyrch would be so they could ask where he'd gone, but they'd received no such luck. Still, it was a nice day, they'd packed food, so he wasn't too put out by the whole thing.
"Where d'you reckon he'd go from here?"
"I assume the Elyrch are with him," said Hermione, "so I suppose it's also a question of where they would want to go, isn't it?"
"At least they left their chairs and things," said Harry, flopping down onto a strange sofa-like growth protruding out of the ground.
"When your chairs are literally plants and fungi you can't exactly take them with you when you leave," muttered Hermione, setting herself down on an oversized, but otherwise quite pleasant and not at all fungal-feeling, toadstool stool.
Hermione pulled out her map of the island – such that one was possible, given that the island seemed to modify itself every so often – and studied the marked rivers carefully.
"I think they'll stick to the rivers, but avoid places where people live."
"They won't go near the dragons, either," said Harry. "Seren may have mentioned the Elyrch don't like going near the dragon reserve."
"Was that before or after she offered you a feather for the wand of your firstborn child together?" quipped Hermione, and Harry felt himself going a little red. It had been tempting – the swan maidens had a certain allure, not unlike that of a Veela, to whom they were apparently distant cousins – but in the end he had turned down her offer of a feather and offspring, though not her offer of some other, less permanent (culturally speaking) things.
That would have been rude.
He changed the subject.
"I'll bet it was Billy who suggested they take up somewhere new," said Harry. "The old bastard does have a knack for these things…"
"Don't they like to visit Arthur's Barrow?" suggested Hermione. "We should check there next."
"We'll have to Apparate," he protested feebly. He'd been hoping to check one of the closer places first, just so that they could have walked there in the afternoon sun and it would have been nice. But it did make more sense to check the most probable locations first, even if they were some hundred-odd miles apart, because both of them knew how to Apparate.
"We could walk to Morgana's Tomb from the Barrow, if you like," said Hermione, her tone suggesting that what he liked would have to be what was offered.
"All right," he agreed. "Er, if they aren't there, could we stop a bit anyway and eat some apples? The really nice ones only grow around the Barrow." The apples in question also lost what made them so appealing once taken away from a small area around the Barrow itself, so one could only ever eat them if one took the effort to visit the Barrow.
"That's at least part of why I wanted to go there next," admitted Hermione, standing. "Shall we go?"
The Tomb of Arthur Pendragon (King Arthur's Barrow)
Not unsurprisingly, or at least it was that way to Harry, neither the Elyrch nor Billy were to be found at the small river snaking past the ancient tomb of Arthur, King of the Britons; nor were they to be found in the wild orchard surrounding it, and Harry felt he could say that with certainty because they had lingered quite some time in the orchard eating the apples for which the whole island had been named; and nor were they inside the Barrow itself (Hermione had checked it, reluctantly, whilst Harry promised to find her an ever-elusive golden apple).
"How was the Barrow?" asked Harry innocently, glancing down at the golden apple in his hand. The golden apples were the best of the best, and tasted like nothing Harry could adequately describe. The best description he'd ever heard was when Neville suggested they tasted like good music sounded; or perhaps when Luna had declared the taste of golden apples to be love.
"Bizarre," she replied. "Where's my apple?"
Harry tossed the apple her way.
"It's still entirely too big inside," she continued after a few bites of the apple (Harry was honestly more interested in the apple than in another of Hermione's theories about Arthur), "in a way that's definitely not a wizardspace. I feel almost like the Tylwyth Teg indulged in a cheeky spot of reality warping when they built it."
"So you think Arthur's Barrow could be a door to the Otherworld?" said Harry, extrapolating wildly from what Hermione had said (which was usually how he dealt with anything she said, in an attempt to keep up which sometimes worked and sometimes made him look stupid).
Hermione paused, teeth barely millimetres away from her apple.
"I hadn't thought of it that way," she said slowly and carefully, moving her apple from close to her mouth to somewhere closer to her waist.
"It was probably a stupid thing to say anyway," said Harry. He shrugged.
"No, no, I think it's actually a logical extension of what I thought about. What sort of door, though? Inside it's definitely not a wizardspace, so I think… oh, well, it has to be some kind of fairyspace, I suppose. Does that even make sense?"
Harry shrugged again.
"If wizards have wizardspace why shouldn't fairies have fairyspace? Isn't that what the Otherworld basically is anyway?" Harry dared ask.
"Er, sort of," said Hermione. "It's hard to explain." She frowned. "Maybe it's a static pocket of the Otherworld, a space kept unchanging in a sort of—no, that's just impossible in that manner…"
"We should probably start on towards the Dark and Dreadful Tomb of Dark Lady Morgana," Harry said. "Queen of Avalon and of Magic, May her Reign be Dreadful and Long."
"Her apples aren't as nice as these," said Hermione, a wistful look upon her face. She'd finished her golden apple. "But they'll do, I think."
The Tomb of Queen Morgana the Dark
"It's weird thinking there's nobody actually buried inside this thing," said Harry, staring at the marble and stone monstrosity which rose up and straddled both sides of a slow-moving river. "Like, where did they actually bury her body?"
"I don't think they did," said Hermione.
"What, you're saying Morgana had Horcruxes and faked her own death, or something?" Harry could believe that of her.
"What? No! I'm saying that she probably didn't stay here after the sidhe left," said the woman in a tone which clearly suggested Harry had been smoking something altogether too fragrant to be legal. "That she went with them on their exodus, and was remembered with a grand tomb."
"Oh." Harry had to admit that her version made more sense than his. "It is an impressive tomb."
Just then, he remembered something Rhys had told him once, and moved to look at a specific part of the tomb's exterior (inside was a grand statue of Morgana herself sat upon a throne, but Harry had seen it a number of times already and so wasn't interested in seeing it again). He found what he was looking for at the eastern entrance to the tomb.
"Hermione, look at this," he said, pointing.
"Oh? I can't quite make it out," she said, peering down at the faded marks.
"Tap your wand on it."
The curious woman did so, and the words flashed brighter. It was written in an archaic form of Welsh, but both he and Hermione knew more than enough of that particular dialect to make it out.
I remember what you said, last we spoke, Morgana! We shall speak of it again - M
"Rhys said it was written by Merlin, right at the end of his life. It was meant as a message to Morgana. Merlin disappeared after that, and ever since people have been leaving messages to Morgana inside the tomb."
"That's interesting," said Hermione. "I think it's lovely how little cultural things like this can still surprise you, even after living somewhere for so long, isn't it?"
"But the Elyrch aren't here so we should keep looking?" said Harry jovially. Hermione turned just a bit red at that, so he grinned at her.
"Well, yes. As interesting as this old thing is, we have another old thing to worry about. You know how Billy is! The longer we take in each place the more likely it is he'll lead them back to places we've already checked, and then we'll have to start over again!"
Harry frowned.
"True," he agreed. "The Elyrch love that sort of game, and Billy can predict what we'll do before we do it…" He frowned even deeper. "So that means we won't find him until he wants us to, anyway."
"Not quite," said Hermione. "Billy isn't a Seer, he just… Well."
"Shall we check back at the lake?"
"No," said Hermione suddenly. "We walk back to Arthur's Barrow, then Apparate to the lake. If I'm right, we'll find Billy there."
That caught Harry's interest.
"How do you know?"
"It's something to do with patterns, I think."
"What does that mean?"
"It has to do with retracing the steps of a journey already made, but from the opposite perspective," said Hermione carefully. "We could keep going on and on today, until we'd searched every spot on the island at least once. And then we would check each and every place again, but in the same order as before, and we would still not find him. But if we go back on ourselves, if we relive the journey but from the opposite perspective, we will find him at the end, in the place where we looked at the beginning."
"If you say so," said Harry easily. "It doesn't sound very logical."
"That's because it isn't," said Hermione. "I told you," she said with just a hint of annoyance, "it's something to do with patterns."
"So you think if we walk back to Arthur's Barrow, then Apparate to Llyn Alarch, Billy will be there?"
"Yes," confirmed Hermione.
"But if we checked some other places first, then went to Llyn Alarch, Billy wouldn't be there? Couldn't we just Apparate to Llyn Alarch?"
"Yes, exactly. We couldn't just Apparate, you were right with the first thing. We have to go backwards now the same way that we arrived here. We're lucky we figured it out in only three steps: imagine if we'd covered the whole island!"
"Hang on a minute," he said, because he wanted to pause and understand properly what Hermione had suggested. "If we Apparate from point A to B, then walk from B to C, and then fly on broom from C to D, to find Billy we'd need to fly on broom from D to C, walk from C to B, then Apparate from B to A, and only then we find Billy?" He paused only for confirmation from Hermione. "But any other sequence of events wouldn't result in finding Billy?"
"Actually, it would probably complicate finding Billy immensely. Imagine that we Apparated directly to Llyn Alarch from here. We would then have to include that second visit in our chain, so we would need to Apparate from there to here, then walk, and so on. Imagine we went there, then somewhere else, then somewhere else, and included a dozen modes of transport."
"That is a fucking weird spell," said Harry.
"It's not exactly a spell," said Hermione. "It is magic, though."
"Do we literally have to do the same things, just backwards?"
"No, it's not so literal as that. It's essentially symbolic, it's the going backwards to move forwards and find something somewhere new that's actually somewhere old seen with different eyes. The chain of events creates a metaphysical Celtic knot which completes the flow of magic."
"Oh, that kind of magic," said Harry dismissively. "Why didn't you say so?"
"I did, actually, I said 'It's something to do with patterns, I think'."
"Er, you did, yeah. Sorry," he said. "Shall we go and see if you're right?"
"I think I am. It's not something he'll be doing on purpose, I don't think…"
So the two of them retraced their steps, stopping only when Harry insisted that they stop and eat some of Morgana's apples, too (the island was festooned with apple orchards, each one producing a unique and locally-restricted kind of apple), and eventually Apparated back to Llyn Alarch, the place they had started several hours before.
Llyn Alarch
Hermione felt rightly vindicated when, upon emerging from the spacetime vortex created by Apparation, she found the ethereal lake populated by agonisingly beautiful swan women, piercingly handsome swan men, and the damnable old goat, Billy.
Old goat wasn't pejorative in this sense, as Billy literally was an old goat(man): the last surviving member of a once proud race known as the geifryddyn, the goatmen. Related to satyrs, in essence if nothing else, the geifryddyn boasted a human torso, strange legs which were neither goat nor human, and heads which resembled neither a goat's nor a human's but still seemed fittingly like what would happen if a human successfully mated with a goat.
It made for a strange sight, at least on first viewing, and Billy himself would do much to sour even the most patient and understanding of people to his entire (extinct) species. Geifryddyn had no Ministry classification, but were some enterprising official to meet Billy, he would be apt to invent a new X rating for the entire species.
"Has the great Harry Potter come seeking a wife?" enquired a stunning young elyrch maiden, naked save for a cloak of shimmering white feathers draped about her shoulders.
"Or perhaps Hermione Granger should like a husband?" offered a similarly nude, painfully handsome, swan man, who had chosen just then to appear at Hermione's side.
"Oh, but that's not fair!" cried a pained voice from the lake shore. Hermione glanced over – one of the elyrch, a tall and elegant specimen to be sure, had transformed from her swan state to protest at the unjustness of her fellow's offer at marriage. "That's not fair Nesta! We should all make an offer, and then he should get to decide which of us he likes the best, if any of us!"
A chorus of voices added their agreement to such a proposition, and before Harry could accept – because she knew just how he got around the Elyrch – Hermione scuppered everyone's plans for married bliss.
"No, thank you, we're not here to marry anyone today!" she said firmly. "I'm sure you'll all very nice, but today we're here to talk with—" she paused, having momentarily forgotten Billy's preferred name, "Gwilim."
Several of the women fainted theatrically, and more than one of the men appeared as if mortally wounded by her proclamation, but they soldiered on regardless and the crowd around them eventually dissipated enough that she could make for Billy.
The ancient – and he was ancient, thought Hermione, having been a man grown in the days of Hogwarts - dynafr reclined upon a plantwork divan eating apples from a bucket at his side. Several Elyrch maidens frolicked around him, seemingly oblivious to Harry and Hermione's intrusion. One of them deposited a bundle of wildflowers into her hair, so perhaps they weren't so oblivious after all.
"If it isn't Perky Tits and – oh, His Majesty," said Billy, which was better than his customary greeting. "I am much shamed by my wicked, wicked tongue, Your Majesty," he said. "May my horns rot and fall off!" he declared.
Hermione avoided looking anywhere beneath his chin (such that it was, because he had a goatman's head after all), since Billy didn't wear clothes and looked rather more like a man than a goat where it mattered and would make lewd proposals if she showed the slightest bit of interest in his equipment.
"May your horns rot and fall off," agreed Harry, taking a seat at a toadstool which had helpfully sprouted for that very purpose. Hermione sat down at her own, a garish orange mushroom which couldn't be at all natural, and turned to face Billy once more.
"You were here when the sidhe left for the Otherworld," she said. "Do you know the ancient words we need to speak to make the portal work again?"
"I know the ancient words," said Billy slowly, and Hermione allowed herself to feel a little hope which was quickly smothered by what came next, "you can say to make any man come ribbons."
"Those aren't the words we were looking for," said Harry. "Try again."
"Oh, well, if His Majesty is asking!" said Billy, making a point of reaching down to scratch at his genitals. "No."
"No, you don't know, or no, you won't try again?" pressed Harry. "Think carefully."
Just then, one of the maidens paused from her frolicking to chastise Billy gently, reminding him to be always kind and gracious. He softened for a moment, at least until she had returned to her frolic, before snorting at the pair of them.
"It doesn't matter at all," said Billy smugly. "When you open the portal, the word don't matter. You have to sacrifice something."
"In every case?" questioned Hermione.
"That's the toll, ain't no way around that."
"But can you help us open the portal?" pushed Hermione.
"I can help open your portal," he said lewdly.
"I'll take my wand and a few carefully applied charms any day if you're the only alternative," she replied calmly, refusing to rise to the bait. Choice of words was everything around Billy; she should have remembered that.
"Aye, you would at that," said Billy easily. "I don't know," he said honestly. "I did once, or so I think."
"How can you not know?" asked Harry.
"I've forgotten more than you'll ever know, boy!" said Billy, offended for the first time that Hermione had ever seen.
"No, I didn't mean like that," said Harry, "I meant that it's a very important thing to have forgotten. Why didn't you write it down?"
"Weren't no gumping letters when they said it, was there?" said Billy angrily. "I don't know how they got through the last time they used it, but it weren't the same as when they showed me how to work it."
That was an interesting revelation, thought Hermione.
"They forgot how, too," continued Billy. "Them young fairies had to make up new ways of doing everything, near enough."
"What do you mean, young fairies?" she asked.
"Well the old ones was all dead, weren't they?" said Billy, with the air of someone speaking to a adult asking questions about something even a child would know. Hermione supposed he was, really.
"So there are multiple ways of activating the door?" asked Hermione, more for clarification than anything else.
"Fairies don't do nothing the same way twice," he said. She'd noticed something odd that happened when he spoke about things in the far, far past – his syntax changed, and the cadence of his words. It was hard to tell, given that they were speaking half in Welsh and half in English (a more common occurrence than Hermione had ever thought it would be, which was never at one point), but it was there.
"Fell in with a fairy maid once," he continued. "Weren't happy with the standard fare, nor with the more exotic sort of thing… she was always magicking up new ways to fuck. I could teach you a few bit, Perky tits."
"I'm sure Hermione would rather birth a full-grown porcupine," cut in Harry. "I definitely would."
"His Majesty delivers a mortal blow. I am ended by the sharpness of His wit, and the heft of His mighty tongue."
A petite swan maiden paused there to scatter petals over the three of them and, after arranging the petals on Billy's chest to spell out 'PATIENCE', joined her sisters again in their frolicking.
"There is prophecy in the air, thick and damp," said Billy eventually, this time completely serious. "I can feel it. The ancient prophecy, and some others which I feel coiled about His Majesty, there, and you, Perky. For that, and that's the only reason mind you because I still can't stand those reckless Unspeakables, I'll help you to the best of my abilities. I ain't saying I remember the fairy cant, but there's other ways than that."
"That's honestly more than we ever hoped for," said Hermione truthfully. "Thank you."
"It's mostly that I'm shit-scared His Majesty there'll eat my soul if I don't," Billy said. "You can never trust a soul-eater."
"I'm not a soul-eater, Gwilim."
"That's what he says, see Perky Tits, but that's what they all said! Can't have folks go around telling people you eat souls, it's bad for the business."
"I think I would know if Harry ate souls," said Hermione. "You might be thinking of dementors."
"Oh? Maybe it was those. Catches on quick, she does," said Billy to Harry in an overloud whisper. "Should probably start calling her Clever Tits."
He stood, then, and brushed himself of the apple detritus that had accumulating during his time in repose.
"Let's get going, then. Can't wait to see that old nag again."
Billy pulled a wand from nowhere Hermione could see (not that she'd looked hard) and brandished it menacingly. It was definitely illegal for him to carry a wand, but then, to a member the Elyrch did also, and it wasn't as if British Ministry laws actually applied to Avalon. How would one even stop a being using wands if that being could literally create them from some wood and their own body parts?
Well, one couldn't, and the Elyrch were a shining, glorious example of that. Elyrch favoured wands made from their own feathers, or the feather of a parent. The original source of Billy's wand could be long, long dead, or could perhaps be found among his dancing swan maidens.
"You want to come to Caer Tawel?" asked Harry. His surprise echoed her own, Hermione felt.
"You should probably invest in a robe first," said Hermione. "Will you bring your entourage?"
The goatman glanced back at the dancing, supernaturally beautiful and youthful, women and sighed.
"No, no. They'd come, but they'd want to be here, dancing… Just me." He gestured with his wand and a robe appeared from whichever piece of nature served as wardrobe for Billy, and he pulled it on quickly. "Don't see what you folks like about these things," he muttered.
"Mostly it's that our nuts aren't flopping around for the world to see," said Harry. "But then, I usually wear pants under my robes anyway."
"But that's the worst part!" protested Billy. "What's the point in having them if nobody ever sees?"
Hermione didn't bother responding. Instead, she Apparated away.
