Disclaimer: And all of our friends, boss.

A/N: Good news, everyone! I've finished my darn univeristy nonsense for the year, so I'm going to be writing like a mofo. Working on this, another HP fic, and my original stuff which should be out early next year so you can buy it and I can make 30c of each and every one of you! Huzzah! Seriously though, I'm going to be playing the updating game more frequently. You'll see. Now here's a nice 5,000 words to get the ball rolling.

Read and review!

-JOE


Harry Potter and the Heartlands of Time

Chapter Ten – Into the Rain

I was locked up in a crazy place.
They found me on the streets, begging for grace.
I don't remember, but they say I lost my mind…

~Kadison

"You bend the control column back—this blue crystal here—and the ship ascends. The reverse, you descend. Get it?" I stood behind Hermione as she piloted the ship, and placed my good human hand over hers. "These things were designed to be as simple to operate as possible. It almost responds to thought."

"Yes, I get it. This is quite amazing. Is that Rome in the distance?"

"It sure is. We're going to fly right on by and into France."

"What's in France?"

"Fleur Delacour."

We rocketed through the sapphire sky, well beyond the speed of sound, and yet left no crash in our wake. The wind barely tussled our hair. The enchantments on this pristine battleship were extraordinary. In the past, I'd only ever been able to get the damn thing to fly after repairing it in the ten-thousand-year-old junkyards—and even that had been hit and miss.

Hermione and I flew into yesterday, chasing the night before. The most simplest, purest form of time travel—that of one second at a time—across international date lines.

"You're going to ask Fleur to come with us?" Hermione pondered that for a moment. "Why?"

Mother of my child. Safer around me now, given the way the world was heading. "I like having her around. We get on well together."

"Isn't that a bit… selfish?"

"The only reason you are alive, Hermione Granger—the only reason anyone is alive—is because of the 'selfish' choices I've made." I didn't say it with anger, or even petulance. Just stating a fact.

If I'd earned the regret of a millennium of failed chances, then I'd also earned the reason I'd done it in the first place. To save the world from fire.

"Can we go pick up Ron? And Neville? What about Luna, and Ginny? They were all brilliant in the Department of Mysteries…"

"Yes, yes they were." That was a fond memory of long ago, of a time before Time. "Ron and Neville, perhaps. There's a lot to discuss. Luna and Ginny… it never ends well for them, this early in the final play. Throw in the uncertainty of Atlantis and its mad king—they'll be safer at Hogwarts, for now."

Hermione nodded. "The mad king of Atlantis? I thought that was you."

"Ha. It is. Was. I am. Old Atlantis. Eh… His name's Astaroth—you know, like the myth—and he's their king. Their Minister, if you will, but with a whole range of broad and sweeping powers. They are all in my debt, whether they want to admit it or not."

"How so?"

I shook my head. That was a story too convoluted and complex to make any kind of sense. Did I play into their hands or they into mine? We complemented each other, was perhaps the nicest way of putting it. Chicken and egg bullshit, boss. "They've got bigger problems than me though. Atlantis is dying."

"Dying?"

"Dying. Ten thousand years ago the world was a different place, Hermione. There were fonts and streams of magic coursing across and through the planet like rivers. Seams of untapped raw power—magic made real, made liquid fire. Atlantis was built on those fonts."

"Now they're gone."

"Now they're gone." I nodded. "The city may fall, I guess—or Astaroth may be able to save it. It doesn't really matter. We've still tens of thousands of new wizards and witches running around, using ancient forgotten magic. Powerful magic. Hermione, apart from Voldemort, myself and maybe Dumbledore… no modern magical person could hold a flame to what the Atlanteans are capable of."

Hermione frowned. "So you're going to… stop them?"

"If they get in my way."


Waiting for the longest time now. In the beginning, the choices were so broad. So terrifyingly huge.

To die.

To travel back. To see the world in a grain of sand.

Now those choices are done. I can feel it. The last throw of the dice is on the horizon. Death is final this time, for all save me.


Fleur wasn't home.

Which was worrying, but only mildly so. There were no signs of a struggle, all the wards were intact, and if she were in danger I'm sure I would already know about it. Still, I'd be calling back soon—just to make sure.

Back in the air, I let Hermione fly. Circumstances could arise where I'd be needed as a wand on the deck, fighting off Death Eaters, Aurors and angry Atlanteans. Best if someone else could steer this darn ship.

"Can I tell you something dangerous, Hermione?" I asked, leaning against the control column and watching her concentrate on the horizon. The navigation was easy—we were heading northwest toward Hogwarts, over the English Channel—but she was certain I was lost.

She tsked. "Oh what now, Harry Potter?"

I opened and closed my mythril hand a few times, searching for the right words. Simple was usually best. Keep it simple, stupid. "Fleur is pregnant, and I'm the father."

The ship plummeted a good half a mile before Hermione recovered. We almost went into a nosedive. I snorted laughter.

"That—that is…" Hermione Granger—lost for words. She was pale, shaking.

"Complicated?" I offered.

"At the very least! Sweet Merlin, Harry, how did that happen?"

I blinked. "The usual way."

"Yes, I'm sure." A faint blush rose in her cheeks. "What I meant was, how could you let that happen?"

I didn't say anything.

Hermione sighed. "I didn't mean it's a bad thing—it isn't, really—but do you think it responsible bringing a child into—well—into your life?"

"Of course not. It's the most stupid, dangerously reckless thing I've ever done. The kid is doomed. But it's Fleur's choice, you know. Her body. It was an accident. We were both bruised and battered in another dimension, and it just… happened."

"You didn't think to use protection?"

I shook my head. "There's been a lot of 'the usual way' over the centuries for me, Hermione. Never once has it resulted in a pregnancy. I thought all the time travel exposure had sterilised me, to be honest. Certain things follow you through time and death, you know. I'm addicted to cigarettes, even though I never smoked before waking up at Privet Drive in this life."

Hermione frowned at the horizon. "So you think this means more than just a mistake?"

I shrugged. "Experience has taught me that when something changes, it's always for a reason. Usually a bad one, with claws and glowing red eyes. Still, I'm not sure."

"What do you think it means?"

"That this is my last life. No more time travel for me. That perhaps Fate is throwing me a lifeline. You know, something to live for… I don't think I believe that, actually. That the child might be important, somehow. I think it could mean anything. Hell, it was conceived in a forgotten realm of mutated magic and its mother was pierced by pieces of Time itself. Anything doesn't even begin to cover it…"

"You're going to be a father," Hermione said. She couldn't keep the smile off her face. "I'd say you're too young, but…"

"I'm too old."

"Yeah."

"Yep."

"You idiot."

Before we reached Hogwarts—indeed, as soon as we cleared the sea and were approaching London—I took the controls and steered the ship west off toward Glastonbury, and the Tor.

The Tor was a holy hill rising stark above the fields of England. It was a place of unknown magical properties, a line of core magical strength stretching back through the Middle Ages. It brought clarity to those who visited, provided thresholds to those in need.

It smelt of lush spring meadows and filled the heart with a sense of resounding purpose.

It was the gate to Avalon.

It was where Merlin had made his last stand against the Bone-Men, and perished in the fires of infernal chaos.

"And it's where Road's Fire is buried, Hermione. The guidebook to the network of portals scattered across the planet. We're going in, and we're going in hard. You with me?"

Hermione squeezed my bicep and offered me a smile that looked out of place on her young face. You could almost believe she had spent the last thousand years watching me fall. "Always."

"Then take the wheel, sweet thing. Land us over there—next to St. Michael's Tower."


I know I'm not alright… because this damn bread is stale!


I led Hermione to the base of the Tor, alongside some half-buried ruins built by the Romans the best part of two thousand years ago, and didn't waste any time.

Reminiscent of the black obsidian pillars that had marked the gateway to another dimension, and Lost Atlantis, under Italy, I walked with Hermione under a dark arch in the ruins and took her hand.

"Watch this," I whispered, and started tapping my wand against the faint lines etched into the stone, invocating under me breath.

Hermione watched in silence, concentrating on my wand movements and my muttered incantations. In short order, as it had done a hundred times before in a hundred different lives, electric-blue runes flared to life for the first time in centuries.

It started to rain.

Backwards.

A shower of water droplets fell upwards—rose upwards—from the earth. A light shower at first, but then stronger. Hermione and I were soaked in a matter of seconds.

The drops became heavier, and swept our feet out from under us. We fell up into the sky. There was a blinding flash of pure cerulean light—

I stood on a pedestal next to Hermione. It was dark and there was a smell of thick, acrid copper on the air. Like blood, a mouthful of pennies, or raw magic sweeping us below the earth…

Hermione gasped. "Merlin, what was that?"

We were dry, as was the way of portal travel.

"That's right, Merlin," I said. "His design. His portal. It's the only one in the world that works without Road's Fire—because it only leads here. We're under the Tor. Way, way under..."

Hermione blinked against the light I drew from the tip of my wand. It swept outwards in a wide radius, cutting across old stonework and polished marble floors. We were in a vast, cathedral-like space, of which there was no visible end. It was so vast, so huge, that the light died before it reached anywhere of consequence.

Our voices echoed into the blackness, vibrating on air that hadn't seen daylight in forever and a day—and likely never would see it again.

"You never do things by half, do you?" Hermione whispered. "How 'under' are we?"

"Best guess?"

"Hmm."

"Ten miles."

Hermione took a deep breath and shuddered. She glanced up into the darkness overhead. "Is this Avalon?"

"Yes."

"Why's it so far down? In all the books it was always surrounding the Tor. A great city, like London."

I nodded, took Hermione's hand in my mythril construct, and stepped off our pedestal and onto the dusty marble floors. "It used to be on the surface. It used to be alive and vibrant and full of the best intentions… then men, wizards, messed where they ought not to have messed. They unleashed a vanguard of the Bone-Men army I destroyed over London. Merlin…"

I sighed.

"Yes? Merlin what?"

"Merlin fought and died at the Gates of Avalon, sealing the army inside, and using his considerable magical talent, sunk the city below the earth—this far below the earth—and let it die."

Hermione took a moment to absorb that. All around us there was nothing but dust and stone. "That never made it into the history books," she said finally.

"No, it certainly didn't. Merlin made the best of a bad situation, Hermione. He made a choice—kill one city and save the nation, possibly the world. He died for that choice. I guess whoever was left to write his story felt fire and mass-slaughter too unkind an epitaph for the man."

"You don't agree?"

"We make our choices and should be held accountable for them—I certainly have been."


Do you remember the words to this one? Something about livin' for love, not for tears—

"Madmen, the lot of us."


I never strayed from the main thoroughfare through the remains of Avalon. Every so often the path veered away to the left and right, around vast pillars of intricate stonework splattered with scorched ash and old stains that may have been blood.

There were no skeletons, no remains… but the place stank of death-unseen.

"At least when it comes to being remembered… it won't be for all the times I've failed. No one can remember that, save me, and who'll believe me anyway?"

"I believe you—so does Ron, and Dumbledore, too." Hermione stood close, her own wand casting a pale light within the cone of my own.

"You believe me, yes, because you know me. Knew me. You have faith that I'm honest. That I, at least, believe all I told you." I sighed. "And I thank you for that faith, I really do. There have been times when the truth has turned you against me. I'm never certain which way that coin will land."

"Shouldn't it fall the same way, if you tell us the same way?"

I chuckled. "You're looking at time too simply. Or, better, you're looking at yourself too simply. I could probably, with some degree of success, predict an action you will take given prior conditions being met… but predict your thoughts, Hermione? Your heart and your soul?" I shook my head. "Easier to waste a thousand years."

"That's…" Hermione bit her lip.

"Reassuring?"

"Yes. Sorry, but it is. I thought you said you couldn't read thoughts?"

"I can't, but I feel the same way. Despite it all, I'm reassured by the things I can't know. It keeps life real for me, you see. Sometimes I forget it has to matter."

The avenues and walkways of the enormous cavern were deathly quiet. There was nothing. No sound, no drip of water or scurrying of tiny insects. We were the only light, the only noise, in this entire world. That stench of forgotten, invisible death hung like a pall over the dark city.

"Can you feel the weight of this place, Hermione? Not just the ten miles of earth over our heads, but the history. The rise and fall of something that once made a difference in the world." I shook my head. "There are dozens of places like this, scattered across the planet. Probably hundreds—graves of pure folly."

"Harry…"

"You could spend a thousand years searching and not uncover even the smallest fraction of the secrets buried in the depths of this planet. Made by men and wizards, and things before men and wizards." I swept my wand in a wide arc over a delicate mosaic, depicting dragons soaring beneath vast storm clouds. "That's a good thing, I think."

After about ten more minutes of walking in the dark, along streets buried centuries ago, we came to a storefront of no particular consequence. The glass in the windows was warped and coloured, melted in the frame. It was through the disfigured frame that we entered, casting our light over a dilapidated bookshop.

The shelves had long since collapsed, the books—most of them—dust and less than dust. The magical texts, however, were still in workable order. I saw Hermione's eyes light up at one of the old potions book lying under the remains of a wooden table.

"Can I…?"

"Take it if you want it. It'll only lie there until the end of time, otherwise."

Hermione scooped up the book and slipped it under her arm. A waterfall of dust fell from the tome. "Are we nearly there?"

"We're here," I said, and smashed the frail glass in one of the display cases with my mythril hand. "Ta-da!" I held up a small grimoire of black leather, golden-leaf pages, shaped like a crescent moon.

"That's it?" Hermione's shoulders slumped. "Surely not. That's Road's Fire?"

I brushed some dust from the cover and slipped the tiny book into my inner jacket pocket. "Back in the day, it wasn't an uncommon volume. Only the very rich could afford it, however. Just because no copies survived Avalon's destruction on the surface, doesn't make it anything special down here. Were you expecting more, Miss Granger?"

"I thought… I didn't know what to think. That there would be a challenge, perhaps. A riddle to solve, or something."

"You're disappointed?"

"Well, kind of, yes."

"Heh." I put an arm around Hermione's shoulders and kissed her forehead—her hair smelled of peaches—and led her back outside. "This place is a silent graveyard. A monument to Time. Best left undisturbed. But don't worry—there'll be plenty of magic to come. You always enjoy solving the traps and snares hiding the Stone of Dreams."

Hermione shrugged out of my grip and wrapped her arms around herself, gazing at the remains of Avalon with a fresh perspective—perhaps seeing the voiceless ghosts roaming the ancient halls—and her eyes fell solemn.

"Let's go see our friends, Harry," she whispered. "This place is awful."


Makin' meaning, boss. One step at a time.


Back in the air, I set the battleship into cruise mode (or whatever) and headed north. Our next destination wasn't set in stone, so I took a seat on the lower deck and patted the space next to me for Hermione.

She sat down, crossing her legs at the ankle and tapping her feet anxiously. "I can't believe I was just ten miles below the earth in a lost, ancient city."

"Beats Charms or Potions class, doesn't it?"

"Well, I wouldn't go that far."

I chuckled. "Time never changes some things. I'm glad you snuck aboard, Hermione."

We flew through a bank of low-lying clouds. Cool drops of precipitation alighted on our clothes and settled in Hermione's bushy hair.

"Do you ever just want to stop running, Harry?"

"I'm sitting on my ass—"

"No, don't do that. You know what I mean." She gestured to the ship, to the sky and clouds shooting by on either side, and the blazing sun overhead. The whistle of the wind. "This, all of this. Every day—running, fighting, doing something incredibly amazing and probably reckless. It's a bit much, isn't it?"

I knew what she was on about—of course I did—but after so many years and so many crimes, to stop and look back would kill me surer than the Dark Lord. Hell, Voldemort would be kinder. "A little too epic, huh?"

"Call it what you will. The running from battle to battle and losing bits of yourself along the way." She patted my shiny mythril hand. "How can you stand it?"

"I do what I must," I said, not with any sort of anger or even perplexed, polite simplicity. "There is no one else, Hermione. No one is coming to save us from the end of the world. I have to do it, as best I can, or die trying."

"You did die trying."

"Once or twice, yeah." I laughed. "If at first you don't succeed…"

"Send your soul eight years back in time and try again?"

I made a gun with my thumb and forefinger and pulled the trigger with a wink. "Bullseye. Only now we find ourselves with only one more loaded chamber. One more shot to fire, and if we miss… if I miss…"

The consequences were not something to bear thinking about it, and yet, it was all I could think about. Every minute of the day. Like that one girl you can't have, but love anyway—a longing ache—and then bury beneath wild cherry blossoms under an Australian sun.

Or whatever.

"To fail this time means death for all, and for me, an existence of agonising time-travel as I'm ground down to dust upon the rusted gears of the Infernal Clock." I rubbed my chest over my heart. "Perhaps I deserve that, after so long."

Or perhaps I deserved a way out. A way to undo the time magic and live this one last life as everybody else did. On the invisible timer with the unknowable countdown. There was something reassuring about that. Something… kinder than immortality.

"No, no you don't."

"No? I'm not so sure."

We fell into an uncomfortable silence. I picked at a loose thread in my tattered and frayed suit pants, ignoring the dried blood on my shirt and the missing buttons. I needed a new three-piece, once again. Or maybe some better protective charms on the material.

"Are we heading to Hogwarts?"

"That's up to you." I stood up, wincing at the pain in my back, and coughed into the clear skies. I could still taste blood in the back of my throat. The cough was getting worse—and painful.

"I think we should have Madam Pomfrey give you a potion for that, before anything else."

I waved away Hermione's concern. A creeping suspicion—call it intuition after all the centuries of bullshit—told me that traditional medicine wouldn't work on this particular ailment. Although it was just a cough, it had lingered… I knew the feeling well—as well as the scar on my forehead.

Death, or something like it.

Still, I've never been one to shy away from a fight. Perhaps I'd try the potions, or seek aid in Atlantis—if what remained of my pride would allow such a thing. Or my temper. Visions of flame and burning skyscrapers made me feel giddy. A part of me, and not a small part, wanted to raze Atlantis to the ground—ignite the city—for what Astaroth had done to me, and Tessa.

We would have our reckoning on that, before I died.

"Hogwarts it is, then. Although we should be heading to Norway, for the Stone of Dreams. Perhaps Ron and Neville can accompany us there. I know of a nice restaurant along the coast, hidden amongst the fjords, that does the best apple pie in the world. Literally, the world. I've tried everywhere."

Hermione smiled at me, and it was hard to see anything but sadness there. "Sounds nice, Harry."

"Yes, yes, it does."


All the plans that we made… taken away.


"This will be our home now, for as long as you want to stay with me."

With the sun to our back, Hermione piloted the ship east across an azure sky. There was no land beneath us, just a cool dark ocean. We were chasing that elusive horizon once again.

Neville rubbed his cheeks, looking a little seasick as we traversed the world below. "Just us, Harry? Me, you, Hermione and Ron?"

Ron patted Neville on the back. He looked cheerful—excited. "Better than Potions or Charms class, isn't it?"

I grinned. "Exactly."

Dumbledore had not tried to stop Hermione and I absconding with two more of his students. I think the old man was willing to let me rise and fall on the grace of my own choices. To let the consequences fall as they may… The headmaster was deferring to the voice of experience—and if there was one thing I had, it was experience.

"Below deck are living quarters, kitchens, showers, a war room… It's bigger on the inside, in case you were wondering. Room for a crew of thirty, and we're just four for now."

"For now, Harry?" Neville asked.

"That's Captain Harry, Longbottom." I snorted. "But yeah. I expect a few more crew—Tonks, a man named Jason, perhaps Fleur Delacour. We'll see."

"Harry—" Ron began.

"Captain—"

"Sod off, mate. Harry, where we headed now?"

"After the Stone of Dreams. Once we have that, things are going to get really interesting. But first pie, gentlemen—and Hermione—first pie."

In good spirits, my three friends laughed and admired the mighty Atlantean battleship together. A brand new relic, stolen from another era. After we had the Stone, we would need to spend some time outfitting the ship—supplies, such as scotch and an array of finely tailored suits, and make plans for the rest of the items on my agenda. Relics, artefacts, and other minor details… like the Dark Lord's Horcruxes.

I rubbed my scar and rested my mythril hand upon the crystal control column, the sky overhead a burnt orange blurring into velvet blue, as Hermione took back command, shoving me gently aside. There was a long way to go—miles, boss—before I was done.

But done I would be.

"Harry, do these cannons work?" Ron asked from the lower deck.

It was good being around friends. Over a thousand years and I still forgot that sometimes. It was good, and honest, and beat back the memories better than I ever could alone. For the first time in a long time I smiled and meant it. I smiled and it wasn't because of the jagged hooks of insanity shredding apart my mind.

Then I thought of Tessa, of what was lost and what could still be lost, and my smile faded. Not to despair—never to despair—and I wrapped an arm across Hermione's shoulders. The work was hard, the hours long, and the pay low… but so long as I remembered to breathe every now and again. Well, then it was easy.

"Stick your head in one and find out, Ron!"

Keep it simple, stupid.


A/N: Top stuff? Leave me a review and I'll now for sure. Let's also think of a name for Harry's shiny new battleship. We had the Reminiscence for the last one, but that got blowed up. Funny is good, symbolic better, or a hybrid of something in between. Cheers.

As I said, more updates soon-and word on the street is I've a new story waiting in the wings, one not so bound by my raging love of epicness. You'll see!

Joe's Fic Recommendation: Hmm... let's see. How's about some of this: Anything by the author 'enembee'. Seriously, search for him and devour his work. T'is good.

-Joe out.