Silence rang in the throne room after Jareth's pronouncement.
Harry felt like he'd swallowed a brick. His throat was rough and prickling and something heavy and awful was sitting in his stomach. Outside the storm of Jareth's temper was still waiting, clouds dark and threatening though the thunder had died off.
Harry looked to Sarah again. She was no longer staring at the sleeve of her dress, instead she was looking out the window to the storm clouds, her face blank. Harry pressed his lips together, "Mom?"
Jareth looked to his wife. The silence in the room seemed to practically echo as they waited to see what she would say.
Finally she blew out a long breath and sat back in her throne, "I agree with your father honey, I'm sorry. It's just too dangerous. We can't send an eleven year old child against this kind of evil."
"I'm not -" Harry started hotly.
"You are." Jareth interrupted him. "You are a child. You are smart and capable and I trust you implicitly. But you are still a child. You should not be facing off against your parents' murderer!" A faint far off rumble of thunder punctuated this sentence.
Harry swallowed back the lump that was growing in his throat. Crying would not help him prove that he was an adult. Maybe the truth would. "I'm terrified of facing him." Harry admitted. "I don't want to go anywhere near him. But I want to go back to Hogwarts. I want to learn how to use the magic that my parents gave me. I want to help make sure that Voldemort will pay for his crimes. I want to know what Dumbledore is up to and make sure that he can never come after me. And I want to repair the reputation of my subjects in the world Above."
Jareth stood, and went to the window. "I am considering calling them all back." Harry was shocked, and turned to Sarah, who had closed her eyes and was resting her forehead on one hand. "Based on what we have learned about this world in the last few months I no longer feel comfortable with my people being subjected to these ... wizards."
The way Jareth said 'wizards' was disgusted, and Harry felt the casual insult of it like a slap. He swallowed again, "Dad, I'm a wizard. We're not all like," he waved a hand to Dumbledore and Quirrell's mirrors, "that. In fact, I have friends up there! Theo and Neville and even Professor Snape! I don't want to never see them again!"
"Not never." Sarah said, sitting up, "Not never Harry. We're not putting you in jail. Are we Jareth?" She asked, pointedly. Harry was suddenly sure that they'd had this conversation before, and that this had been the sticking point.
He leaned forward, bracing his elbows on his knees, and planting his face in his hands. He could use that, somehow. But he was exhausted. Right now all he wanted to do was collapse into his bed, close his eyes, and fall unconscious until all of these problems dealt with themselves.
"Of course not." Jareth answered Sarah. "You can continue to live the same life you did before this summer. Help me with runners and the goblin villages. I'll teach you goblin magic and mirror magic. You can continue to practice whatever you've learned so far of wizard magic. But you will stay in my realm. Where it's safe."
Sarah sighed softly, "Darling, you know that no place is perfectly safe. It is safer here, obviously, but don't act like that's a guarantee."
Harry realized that Sarah wasn't totally sold on the idea of keeping him home. If he did want to go back to Hogwarts (did he really?) she was the one he had a better chance of convincing. Jareth didn't acknowledge her statement, and Harry decided to turn the conversation on its head until he had a chance to figure out what he really wanted. "What's that room?" He asked, pointing to the mirror that showed the large room filled with shelves of dusty glass balls.
Jareth turned from the window to see what he was pointing at. "A room in the Ministry. It's the prophecy chamber. The wizards know only the very first level of glass magic, and they use it to store the memories of prophecies. I was trying to find out what information the ministry had on your guardianship, but found this instead. I can feel something there that concerns you."
Harry raised his eyebrows, and stood. "We should go view whatever it is."
Jareth made a small sound of annoyance, but Sarah was already nodding. All three of them knew of the power of prophecy. If Jareth's decision to keep Harry Below threatened the magic of a prophecy, fate would respond violently. Whenever people moved to avoid a prophecy their actions would only serve to fulfill it. If there was a prophecy regarding Harry they needed to know about it before anything was decided for certain.
"What time is it?" Sarah asked, glancing at her bare wrist. "I haven't seen a wizard walk past in quite a while."
"It's just after 11." Jareth said, with his instinctual knowledge of the passage of time. He moved to the mirror and placed his hand on it, concentrating, "I don't sense and wizards in the room."
Harry bit back a yawn and Sarah looked at him with concern, "We can do this tomorrow if you'd like to sleep."
He shook his head empathetically. Although he was exhausted, he wanted to know all he could before heading off to sleep.
The three of them stepped forward and through the mirror, Jareth shuddered slightly as he left his world and stepped into Above, where his powers were severely limited. Typically he maintained his owl form Above, Harry figured he was staying as he was to prove some kind of point.
The hall was even larger than it had looked in the mirror. Shelves stretched for what seemed like miles in both directions. Sarah hummed thoughtfully, "Well, come on feet." And started off towards the only wall they could see. Harry and Jareth followed behind her, Jareth's forehead creased slightly with the effort it took to maintain his human shape in a realm he had not been invited into.
Jareth studied the balls as they walked, and announced, after a few minutes, that they should all make an effort not to touch any of the prophecies, as there was powerful wizard magic on them. They were a bit more careful to stick to the center of the aisles as they continued walking after that announcement.
They made it to the wall, which, luckily enough, turned out to be the front of the hall. They followed it to a door, and in front of the door was a podium which held a large book. Sarah flipped it open only to find it blank. She frowned. Jareth came forward to poke at it, and Harry did the same on the other side.
"Some kind of wizard searching spell." Jareth decided after a moment. His voice was a bit tense with stress. Sarah looked at him with concern but seemed to decide that it wasn't her problem if Jareth was bound and determined to act like an idiot.
Harry dug his wand out of his pocket and tapped the front of the book, remembering the special dictionary that Madame Pince had shown him, "Prophecies concerning Harry Potter, Goblin Prince."
The book shivered, and then flipped open. A few pages fluttered by before it stopped. Golden letters began to appear on the newly revealed page, the first was C. P. T. to R. J. T. Goblin Prince Row 12 the second was S. P. T. to A. P. W. B. D. Dark Lord and (?) Harry Potter Row 97.
They set off to row 12 immediately after wiping their search from the book. Then split up to go down either side of it, looking for the glass bulb that was labeled with Harry's title. Jareth found it, and immediately created his own crystal, his face twitching only slightly with the effort. He tapped the two glass bulbs together to copy the prophecy, without touching the original himself, and they set off again to row 97.
Usually there would have been conversation between the three of them on a walk like this. Or a song, at the very least. But the tension of the argument that was still unresolved hung between the three of them like a cloud (luckily not literally, as Jareth seemingly had his temper under control). Plus, Harry thought, it was probably better if they weren't too loud while in a ministry room that they were not supposed to be in. Sarah found this ball, and pointed at it so Jareth could float up to it and click another crystal against it to create another copy.
Finished, Sarah pulled a mirror from her pocket, and they all passed through back to the throne room.
Without Jareth's temper to power it, the thunderstorm they'd left had died off. Now there was only the moon and a bright canopy of stars visible through the window. Jareth waved a hand to relight the torches on the walls, brightening the room considerably as he took his seat, pulling the two crystals from midair as he did so. He placed them on a small table he pulled forth in front of his chair, and tapped the first one decisively.
The hazy image of an old woman wearing very old fashioned clothing appeared above the crystal. Her voice was smooth and melodic, and she spoke the prophecy with a kind of casual ease.
"In the year of the Golden Rooster, an orphan wizard child will be sent to the Goblin realm.
No one will come for him, and the Goblins will adopt him as their own, the Goblin Prince.
A child of two worlds the Prince will be faced with many challenges.
If he lives fast he will succeed.
He will hold his wand in one hand and the power of glass in the other.
He will save his people from the lies that bind them.
He will save the wizards from the dark that threatens.
If he lives slow he will fail.
He will lose his wand in the Dark, and the glass will shatter.
His people will be bound to serve harsh masters.
The wizards will fall to the dark."
The silence that fell after this prophecy nearly rang. Jareth hesitated only slightly before tapping the second crystal.
"The one with the power to vanquish the Dark Lord approaches… born to those who have thrice defied him … born as the seventh month dies … and the Dark Lord will mark him as his equal, but he will have power the Dark Lord knows not … and either must die at the hands of the other for neither can live while the other survives … the one with the power to vanquish the Dark Lord will be born as the seventh month dies."
All three of them stared as the second woman slipped back into her crystal. Harry opened his mouth with no idea what to say, and closed it after a minute.
Sarah finally stood, "I don't know about the two of you, but I have a headache. Bed I think. We can think about this and discuss it over the next two weeks. No decisions need to be made until it is actually time for Harry to go back."
Jareth grumbled something under his breath, but did as Sarah said, heading off to their rooms. Harry followed after them, turning over the words of the prophecies as he got ready for bed. It felt like a riddle. He loved riddles.
Once he collapsed into his bed however, he pushed the prophecies aside and began trying to answer the question that he'd been turning over since Jareth had first brought up the issue. Did he really even want to go back to Hogwarts?
Oooooo
The next morning Harry didn't have any answers, not about Hogwarts, nor the prophecies. He did have a pounding headache. When Theo came into the room to head down to breakfast he gave him a concerned look.
Harry pinched his nose, "Morning. How'd you sleep?"
Theo raised his eyebrows, "Better than you apparently. You look like crap."
Harry had to laugh, "Thanks. I'm fine. It's just a headache. You mind sticking to the castle this morning?"
Theo nodded, "Sure. We can get started on our homework."
Harry considered it, and just nodded. He didn't see any point to telling Theo about what was going on until a final decision was made. And as far as Harry was concerned, no such decision had been made yet, no matter what Jareth said.
After a delicious breakfast cabbage, which Harry had a goblin bring to him while his head continued to pound, they started on their transfiguration essays. They were supposed to be writing an essay on the three different schools of thought on how to focus on a transfiguration. Harry, though skilled in the practical work of transfiguration, struggled a little with the theoretical. He and Theo worked closely together on figuring out what they should talk about in their essay.
After lunch Harry was feeling a bit better, but didn't feel up to heading out into the maze. Instead he decided to show Theo some of the amazing rooms in the castle like the stair chamber, which was made entirely of stairs, the gravity dome, which had no gravity, and the time vault, which held all of the clocks from all the different realms that Jareth had traveled to. Below's giant 13-hour clock hung next to an old grandfather clock from Above. After that was a glittering delicate thing made of impossibly thin tree bark, from the Elf Realm. Next to that was a small clock woven out of grass, with tiny flowers marking the hours instead of numbers from the Fairy Realm.
Harry explained that 'Above' and 'Below' were really nicknames. 'Above' was also called 'The Human Realm' while 'Below' was usually 'The Goblin Realm'. But Jareth didn't like being called the Goblin Realm, since there were obviously more people than just the goblins living here, so he insisted that everyone call his realm 'Below'.
Theo's eyebrows were furrowed in confusion, "So he doesn't like it being called the Goblin Realm, but he's okay with being the Goblin King? And he named you the Goblin Prince!"
Harry rolled his eyes, "Don't go looking at Jareth to make sense. He decides things on a whim, and then changes his mind a decade later. He's … unpredictable."
Theo snorted in agreement, and they continued down the hall. Jareth had visited a lot of realms in his long life, and the hall of clocks seemed to go on forever. Theo's favorite was the elegant seven hour stone clock from the Dwarf Realm. The numbers were elegantly carved from various crystals, while the hands were made of silver and gold, elegantly intertwined. The face was a thin polished marble with flecks of mica and other shining materials.
"They all say different times. And have different numbers on them."
Harry hummed in agreement, "Yeah. Time runs slightly differently in all of the realms." He waved to the Dwarf clock, "They've got a 21 hour day. Instead of, you know, AM and PM, they've got G, S and B for gold, silver, bronze. Gold's the morning, because that's when the sun rises, Silver is the afternoon, when it's brightest, and bronze for the night/evening, when the sun sets and it gets dark. They like minerals in the Dwarf Realm. That's mainly what they do, mine for stuff."
"Cool." Theo said. They started to walk back down the hallway towards the door again. Harry took a moment to glance at the human clock, which was steadily ticking on, while the large hands of the goblin clock shifted back a few minutes. Somewhere Jareth was rolling time back a bit for some reason.
A germ of an idea began to take root in Harry's mind.
Oooooo
After dinner Theo and Harry went back to Harry's rooms to start working on their Potions assignments. They were supposed to be writing up an essay on a potion they hadn't brewed yet. The cure for warts was very similar to the cure for boils, and they both finished the essay quicker than expected.
After their somewhat lazy day neither of them were ready for bed, but they also had no interest in doing more homework. Harry tapped his quill against the potions reference book they'd been using, trying to think of something to do.
"Wanna try this potion?"
Theo looked up from his essay and blinked twice. "We're not supposed to do magic away from Hogwarts."
Harry smiled slightly, "We're not supposed to do magic in the human realm. We're not there."
Theo raised one eyebrow, and considered the offer. "Okay."
Harry grinned, and went to his trunk, digging out his potions kit and cauldron. Without the slightly oppressive air of the potions classroom, mixing a potion was even more fun than usual, and it wasn't long before they had a mixture that was only a few shades off the description in the text. Theo was flushed with accomplishment, but Harry was frowning at the potion, looking back and forth between their result and the text. "You know…" Harry started, "I'm beginning to think that these textbooks aren't very accurate."
Theo looked at him, confused, "What?"
"We did everything exactly like it says!" Harry said, rereading the instructions to confirm, "but it's still not like it should be." He frowned at the textbook, considering each step and its logic.
Theo looked over at the book as well, but couldn't see great over Harry's shoulder, so he went back to bottling the potion they'd made. "Maybe it's just 'cause we're young. I mean, your magical core doesn't fully mature until you're 17, so maybe you can't make a completely perfect potion until then."
Harry frowned, and sighed, putting the potion down. "Well, either way that was fun. I'll bring these down to some of the goblins, they'll like it. I think I'll head to bed now."
Theo nodded, and gathered up his books, heading back to his room, "Okay, good night."
"Night." Harry said, still studying the potion in his hand. He picked up the cauldron, and brought it into the bathroom, where he stuck it under the faucet to soak. He put the vial of potion on the counter as he scrubbed out the cauldron, and kept looking at the potion, as he thought things over. The idea he'd had earlier took solid root.
The truth was, he was scared to go back. Knowing Voldemort was in his school, knowing that he was possessing Quirrell, made everything much more terrifying. On the other hand, he couldn't deny the connection he felt to that world. The magic he'd been learning up there was so interesting and he felt so at home when he used it. He wanted to be a part of that world.
On the third hand, he felt responsible for Voldemort, especially after hearing those prophecies. He knew, if he left his friends in a school with Voldemort's spirit without a word, he'd feel guilty forever. Maybe he could send a letter or something, but, knowing Dumbledore, nothing would happen.
If only he had a better grasp on his magic. If only he were older.
Struck by a thought Harry dropped the cauldron into the sink, splattering himself with slightly soapy water. He stared blankly at the wall as the idea continued to fully develop.
Abruptly he turned and headed out of his rooms, straight to the throne room where Jareth and Sarah were discussing something. They fell silent when he walked in, turning to look at him.
"I've got an idea." Harry said, beginning to get excited the more he thought of his new idea.
Jareth raised a doubtful eyebrow, but Sarah smiled at him, and Harry took a deep breath. All or nothing, "So the problem you guys have is that I'm too young to deal with the wizard problems." Sarah and Jareth traded a glance, Harry continued, "I don't have enough control over my mirror magic or enough knowledge of the wizard magic to really be effective against all of the difficulties I'd face up there. And, Sarah, you said, that once was older I could go back up there, if I wanted too."
They were both frowning slightly at him now, confused about where he was heading, but Sarah nodded again, "Of course dear, we don't want to trap you down here."
Harry waved a hand to brush that aside, "Right! So here's my idea. We completely divorce Above from Below. The time streams I mean. And then Jareth increases the rate that time passes here. By a lot. Like, two Above years for every day down here. And then, by the time winter break is over Above, I'll be an adult!" Sarah and Jareth were staring at him, but Harry was too excited to be nervous, and continued talking faster, "We can spend the time training. And having fun, of course. We can go to Diagon before separating everything and get all the books I would get over the next seven years at Hogwarts, and I can study those on my own. You can teach me about glass magic and crystals and everything. Maybe we can even get one of the Above goblins to come down here and teach me about everything about what they do, and the history of the wizarding world."
Sarah's eyes were wide with complete surprise. Jareth's face is completely unreadable. Harry hesitated slightly before saying, "It fits that first prophecy too. Living fast. Faster than the wizarding world. Do you get it?"
Sarah shifted slightly, turned to her husband, "Could you even do that? Increase the time rate that much?"
Jareth's eyes were heavy lidded as he thought, and he leaned back in his chair, steepling his fingers together, "It can be done. It can go even faster than that. Could even do seven years in one Above day if you like, in one Above minute. The time streams are only matching so closely now because so many of us are going back and forth, along with all of the mirrors looking across the divide" Jareth explained, with a lazy wave around the room and it's many mirrors. "If we wanted to separate them that much we'd have to sever all those links. All the mirrors and all travel. We would have to stay in this realm for as long as we wanted time to continue to move that fast. No one could leave, and no one could come in."
"No runners." Sarah realized, Jareth shook his head.
"No going up to Diagon to get just one more book." Harry said, shifting anxiously. Jareth shook his head again.
"The realms want to be connected. It'll take power and focus to keep them separate enough to accelerate the time streams, I suspect that once I do it, it will take about a month once back in the regular time stream before the realms will allow me to separate them to that degree again. More time the faster we go."
Harry pressed his lips together, that wasn't exactly what he'd been hoping for, but it could still work. "It'll work. We don't have to return to regular time until you guys agree I'm ready to go back." Jareth was gripping the arm of his chair a bit tightly, and Sarah reached out to place her hand on top of his, "Or who knows, maybe after a few years I'll change my mind and realize I don't actually want to go back. It's the best of both worlds!"
Sarah shifted a bit, "But, once you go back, if you go back, you'll be older. How are you going to hide that from them?"
Harry shrugged, "I'm sure there are ways. Some kind of illusion spell."
"You can lock illusions in a crystal too." Jareth contributed. "So if I agree to this you won't go back until I agree that you're ready?"
Harry immediately second guessed that promise, "Well, not forever. Sarah already promised you weren't going to lock me away down here forever. Let's say - 20. Nine years will be the upper cut off. Once I turn 20 I get to decide myself, even if you say no."
Sarah threaded her fingers through Jareth's, forcing him to release his grip on his throne, "I like this idea." She said, brightly. "Everyone gets what they want."
Jareth hummed, clearly still considering, he stood, "Let me think about this. Go to bed. We'll talk about this tomorrow."
Harry smiled slightly, and did as he was told.