A/N: If you're a fan of my stories here, check out all my original work - novels, short stories - all available from the usual haunts. Just Google my name: Joe Ducie

Harry Potter and the Heartlands of Time

Chapter 19 – The Temple of Time

"It has been said, 'time heals all wounds.'
I do not agree. The wounds remain.
In time, the mind, protecting its sanity,
covers them with scar tissue and the pain lessens.
But it is never gone."

~Rose Fitzgerald Kennedy

Mini-Batsy flew me in his clawed grip away from the skybridge and my friends, out over the corrupted jungle and the mess of foul creatures swarming like ants across its tortured ground.

I let the beast think it was winning, and then forced a wave of energy down my arms and blasted its skeletal legs from the rest of its husk. A shockwave reverberated across the sky as I spun, almost lazily, high above the world, the shocking dark clouds and forked yellow lightning overhead framing me against the maelstrom.

The image would have made a pretty cool poster or album cover.

Wandless magic was a perilous thing, the majority of magical folk often only capable of cheap tricks—stirring a spoon, floating a pot, lighting a candle. Over the centuries, I'd refined that talent into the equivalent of splitting magical atoms. Well, no, that's not quite right—I don't get expansive explosions, more so just spheres of invisible rippling energy blasting outwards from my form.

A flow of raw magic, as it were, which I use to slow my fall toward the jungle amidst the ruins of a bone creature. I fell fifty feet or so, slowed my fall with another energy blast, which bounced me ten feet back up and so many feet across, before falling again, up and down like a yo-yo. I wanted this competition, Larry's romantic revenge, over swiftly, so I abandoned my friends—they'd be fine against the remaining Mini-Batsy's, and best kept out of what lay ahead.

If I knew them at all, they'd catch up.

So I blasted myself across the sky, a slow curve downward, toward Larry's pyramid and the ice rod of victory. I made it about a quarter of the distance from the skybridge before I hit the black canopy of the jungle, tearing through leaves and branches and coming to a sudden stop, the air pushed from my lungs, against a heavy branch thick with purple vines.

"Oh-ho-ho," I said, dragging in a rough breath in between pained chuckles. "Merry fuckin' Christmas, Harry."

I rolled off the branch and hit the ground about fifteen feet below with a thump. The jungle floor was soft and spongy, covered in poisonous moss, fouled trickling streams, and mushrooms of such size and colour that they could only be toxic. Little hobgoblins and scurrying dark pixies fled from my terrible presence.

I stood and rolled my head about my neck, working out a few kinks. Away in the distance, I heard cheering and roars as my friends battled monsters atop of the skybridge.

Sooner you get that ice rod, sooner they're out of harm's way. Well, it sounded like a good plan on paper.

I licked my index finger and helped it up against a non-existent wind, the air within the jungle as thick as syrup and sticky-humid. My head pounded. My bones ached.

"That-a'way, I reckon," I said, pointing through the trees on my right. I stretched my legs, shook my knees. "Quick run, Harry. Quick, quick run."

I set off through the trees, wandless and alone.

Distinct, distant echoes from the stars., akin to whisky dregs at my favourite bars.

I was only a handful of days sober, a bit longer off the cigarettes, but that one was more a mental game than a physical one. My sixteen-year-old lungs hadn't had the privilege of bellowing enough smoke to fire a forge through them yet, even if I spent most of the day thinking about lighting up a dart.

Such were my thoughts, on booze and cigarettes, as I dashed through the poisoned jungle, unseen creatures, terrible menace, lurking in the shadows and the nest of rotten and pocked leaves overhead.

I was drenched with a hot, sticky sweat—pure sex afterglow—within thirty seconds of landing on the jungle ground. Salty drops ran down my face, made my mess of wild black hair sit flat, greasy, against my head. I punched through a tangle of vines with my magical silver hand, the heavy crash of something large, clawed, snorting and angry, closing in behind me on the left. The ground shook with tree falls, snapping and splintering in its wake.

I made it about another twenty feet, to a courtyard of ancient ruins, littered with broken statues—tall men and women, proud and resplendent, in once-fine marble robes. Guard statues, silent sentinels, wrapped in jungle vine and corruption, littered the courtyard. Massive rusted swords and axes, twice as long as I was tall, rested in dead statue hands.

Riau's original guardians. I imagined their spirits still haunted the deeper caverns beneath the jungle, wailing and lamenting their less than fair fate. A thousand years of my fucking with time probably hadn't done them any favours. I felt less than welcome on this island, less than I usually did.

A rain of trees and debris from the jungle fell in shrapnel and anger around me. I paused in the heart of the statue courtyard—there was no more running from the infernal engine powering along my back trail. I turned and faced whatever monstrosity wanted a piece of my sweet, supple body.

A massive behemoth of a creature, like a bear grown to the size of a high-ceilinged studio apartment, possibly something on the upper east side converted from an old wool factory, with a communal gym and pool in the basement that I'd probably never use, but located close to a subway station for an easy commute. The Behemoth, covered in rippling purple muscle, twin horns spiralling out from its forehead and down under its jaw, where the horns framed a shaggy beard knotted and tangled with blood and bone. The beard hair—fur, mane, whatever—pulsed with sickly purple light.

"Hey, there," I said, panting through the heat. My heart thumped in my chest.

A paw the size of a minivan slammed the earth in front of me, sent me stumbling back a step. "RAAAAAAA?" The beast roared, almost in question.

"No, raaa," I muttered. I clapped my hands together, the stab wound in my shoulder from Mini-Batsy's attack protesting the movement, and the beast leapt to devour me.

A rusted broadsword, heavy and discarded long ago, flew up from the jungle floor. I hurled it like a spear with my magic, hurled it right into the beast's massive grey-green orb of an eye.

I dived to the side as the beast fell on top of me, its roar turned to a sharp yelp of pain, but not before I thrust the broadsword through the eye and into that precious brain meat—good eatin'—in its massive skull.

The beast was dead before it hit the ground.

"Harry two," I said, keeping score, and kicked the beast's mighty head with my boot. It was certainly dead. I collected a scruffy coil of its glowing purple beard-mane, stuffing the rope-like mess into a pocket.

I set off once more at a steady jog, breathing hard, bleeding harder, on top of the world.

When this is all over, there's an awesome tuna restaurant just south of San Sebastian. It's about two hours from being caught to being grilled over coals and put on a plate. Nicest fish in the world.

The wandless magic was taking it out of me. Without a focus, the magic sapped a much greater toll in my physical strength and energy. It felt like I'd had to lift that broadsword myself, and with the seeping shoulder wound—of which I could do very little to heal without my wand—I was spent as the pyramid, Larry's ice rod shining at its summit, came into view a quarter mile more through the trees.

Jog on, I jogged, jogging along.

And then all I had to do was defeat the genus loci, the spirit that stood outside of space and time and considered my exploits nothing more than passing amusement. I had a trick or two up my sleeve there, enough to give the old bastard a run for his kingdom.

What were you thinking? I thought, slowing my jog to a more subtle, stealthy saunter as I approached the pyramid. Larry probably had a thousand pairs of eyes on me, but it paid to be careful—sometimes.

"You weren't thinking," I gasped, trying to get my breathing under control. "You're still in reset mode."

That was true.

I'd been living and dying the same loop of time for so long that I forgot, often, that this was the last roll of the dice. I was mortal again, painfully so, and already falling to pieces. Scars and wounds and fatigue, and taking enormous risks like challenging Larry. But I needed that horcrux, and without Larry's help I would never find it in this mess of a place. I'd die looking, probably of old age. That would be Larry's style. I was stubborn enough to play that game, but again, no more resets.

A swarm of honest to god flying skulls attacked me on the approach to the pyramid.

The skulls, mostly peeled of flesh and visceral chunks, screamed as they fell from the trees atop of me, yellowed teeth biting and gnawing. I was surprised, which didn't happen often, so one of the skull bastards—its empty eye sockets shining with dull, crimson light like dying embers—bit the tip off my left ear.

I dealt with the skulls much as I'd dealt with Mini-Batsy—an explosion of energy, a blast of heat and shock, that echoed across the jungle and sent the skulls hurling through the air in all directions like cannonballs.

"Fuck. Off." I reached up and felt the tip of my ear—or, rather, the jagged stump. The skull had chomped it away in one ragged pull. Blood, hot and thick, flowed down the side of my head. And it stung like a motherfucker.

From the wimba tree they'd attacked me from, I collected a thin branch about a metre in length and snapped it in half, keeping the shorter end, which splintered in a jagged stump.

I traipsed out of the jungle—beaten, tired, and bleeding, swatting at the shrubs with my tree branch from the skull tree. I hated humid weather. Fucking hated it. Larry was at the base of the pyramid, leaning casually against a dull stone obelisk, and laughing.

"Yeah, yeah," I said, and began to twine the behemoth beard hair around the length of my wooden stick. "Skulls, really?"

"I'd forgotten about those—they belonged to an expedition of Spaniards who thought to steal my treasure."

"Like I'm doing?"

Larry tilted his hand back and forth in the air. Despite the heat and the cloying stickiness, he still looked immaculate in his fine suit—as if he wasn't really there, and I suppose he wasn't. Larry was a manifestation of this island, it's protector and spirit. He was, in a very real sense, the island itself.

"I'm enjoying this, Harry."

"Eh? Sorry, can you repeat that, I'm having trouble hearing." I was being surly, sarcastic, and bitter. I took a deep breath and got a hold on my temper.

Up close and personal, the pyramid in the heart of the jungle was transparent—made of some sort of milky-clear crystal. Gold inlaid the steps toward the summit, about a climb of three hundred feet. At the top, glinting and tempting, sat the ice rod on a raised dais of obsidian stone.

Larry folded his arms over his chest and followed my gaze. "Looks fairly straight forward, doesn't it? Straight up the steps, win the rod, save the day."

I tied the behemoth hair in a knot around the jagged end of my stick and pointed the branch at Larry.

He raised a single eyebrow and looked offended. "Come now, really?"

I shrugged. Worth a shot. "Avada Kedavra!"

Focus, Harry. It's always about focus.

To my immense surprise, the wand hacked together from the tree and the behemoth hair actually worked. I'd constructed it on the fly, remembering my rough wand lore, that it all came back to intent, desire, and the right ingredients. The tree with the flying skull bastards was technically, loosely, the same as a nice elm with bowtruckles. The magic would have seeped into the wood over time.

And the behemoth hair, the raw focus, was inherently magically.

Wrap the two together, alongside some focused intent, and what do you get?

Green curse light flooded from the end of the wand-branch in wild spurts, a river of death surged in waves across the space between me and Larry. The spurts, initially a torrent, became sporadic, messy, spouts and echoes of curse light.

The killing curse load passed right through the genus loci and slammed into the hard crystal of the pyramid, gouging a chunk of the material away and leaving cold scorch marks in the stone.

"I'm sorry," I said. "I swear this doesn't usually happen. Probably more foreplay next time, eh."

Larry brushed at his suit, as if the emerald curse light had wrinkled the fine fabric and not passed through him as if were immortal and not really there. "My, my, you really wanted me to die then, didn't you? Isn't that how that curse works?"

"That's what this is all about, isn't it?" I said. My new 'wand' was on fire. I shook it back and forth in the air to shake away the flickering flames, the curling smoke. It'd be good for two, maybe three, more heavy spells.

Larry smirked and gestured to the crystal-gold steps leading up the steep pyramid. "I'm not going to stop you, Harry."

"That doesn't sound right. What's the catch?"

"Sack up and find out, Time Warrior."

I hated that title.

Keeping my wand aloft, half-trained on Larry as he disappeared, clapped out of reality, I approached the base of the pyramid. There was no entrance, and apart from my killing curse mark the crystal was unblemished, scarcely touched by the rampant, remnant jungle surrounding the structure.

I sensed, in that way that felt true, I was approaching something sacred. Perhaps the one truly good thing on this whole island.

Which, if anything, put me further on edge. Anything that could survive here good and decent had to be of such an immense power as to dwarf anything I could put up against it. Larry, I thought, are you setting me up here? He was, I was certain of it, and wasn't that worrisome. Wasn't that just wizard. Did he actually touch the pyramid? Could he?

"Ah, hell," I said, pinching my torn ear shut to stem the blood loss. It stung something fierce. I stepped up onto the first step of the pyramid and the world didn't end, I didn't erupt in a column of arrogant green flame, and I imagine life beyond Riau was still unfair, the universe ever indifferent.

One step at a time.

I climbed the pyramid, legs protesting the effort, leaving a trail of blood drop breadcrumbs on the golden steps in my wake. Five minutes got me halfway up the structure, the clouds dropping fat, black raindrops from on high, and put me above the main canopy of the jungle. I looked over my shoulder, and from this vantage could glimpse Larry's temple, the skybridge. Smoke rose from the bridge, but I was too far away to see my friends, if they were still alive.

"Everything a season," I muttered, and continued the trudge up the steps. The air was a little clearer above the trees, something of a relief from the humid sweat below.

Thought this would be a quick snatch and grab, eh, Harry? Shut up, Chronos. When do things go so easily for you? Everything is different this time around, because it's the last toss of the dice. So what are you gonna do about it?

"Stand," I sighed. "Stand and be true."

Damn right, son. Be the last bastard standing, the last defiant soul holding a sword. You're not lost in the wastelands, Harry—you are the wastelands. God help your enemies.

Talking myself up actually helped, and I summited the pyramid drenched in blood and sweat, heart pounding in my chest like the infernal drumbeat of the gods, and beheld Larry's ice rod, resplendent and adorned within a crystal pedestal at the centre of the pyramid's plateau.

"OK," I said, "I'm going to seize that now. Hope no spirits or monsters are lying in wait to spring a trap on me."

Spirits and monsters were lying in wait to spring a trap on me.

Just not the trap I was expecting.

Gripping my behemoth wand, I dashed across the plateau and reached out with my silver hand to grasp the hilt of the ice rod, the gems in the pommel reflecting arcs of wicked yellow lightning. A second before my hand closed around the hilt, the ground fell away beneath me.

It didn't retract, or cave in—one instant there was solid, crystal stone beneath my feet, the next there was nothing, open air.

I fell cursing and bitter into the pyramid, swallowed by the darkness, my voice echoing uselessly against silent prison walls.

Down, down, to Goblin Town.

I landed hard—on a bed of soft feather pillows and blankets. A plume of goose feather exploded around me and settled on my sweaty clothes and bloody face, sticking to the mess.

"Ah, there you are, Harry," said a soft, female voice I recognised from a very long time ago.

A shot of pure fear rushed through me.

I sat up on the bed to behold a large, opulent room, possible the nicest room I'd ever seen. Renaissance paintings hung on the rich mahogany walls, which clad the interior of the pyramid, masked the crystal and the horrid jungle beyond. Golden chandeliers hung from the tiered roofing below stone arches and beautiful stained glass windows.

My friends—Ron, Hermione, Luna, and Neville—sat nearby at a fine dining table, a full tea service, including those awesome little cucumber sandwiches and mini-cupcakes on porcelain towers. They looked nervous (my friends, not the sandwiches), but alive, content. Ron had cupcake cream on his fuzzy teenage moustache.

At the head of the table sat a goddess.

Should have seen that coming.

The goddess held a warm cup of jasmine tea, from the scent in the air, in her hands, and smiled at me gently. She was beautiful—beyond human beautiful, impossible to describe, impossible to paint or draw. Her beauty was ageless (timeless), an attractiveness that sat aside from reality, another glimpse of the infinitely complex machinery ticking away behind the scenes.

Her hair hung in auburn waves, but that changed, shimmered, as quick as blinking. Her skin was finer than the fine porcelain china. She was flawless, perfect, or so it appeared…

Atop her head rested a crown—a diadem—that once belonged to a founder of Hogwarts. A piece of Lord Voldemort's soul.

I narrowed my eyes and swung my legs off the bed. Through the feathers coating my face I stared at my old… friend… and saw the tight lines around her eyes, the way her posture looked casual but, if you were looking for it, closer, close, strained.

"Nice… to see you again," I said. "It's been some—"

"Time," she said and the word rang across the chamber like an accusation.

I swallowed. "Yes."

"You've lost an ear, Harry," Luna said.

"Just half of one, dear," I said absently. "Are you all… OK?"

"We've," Hermione glanced to the impossible creature at the end of the table, "been here waiting for you, since you were snatched at the bridge." She looked distressed. "Can you not heal him? He's bleeding everywhere!"

The goddess raised a delicate eyebrow. "Well, Harry, can I not heal you?"

"Don't touch me," I whispered, raw hate and fury laced my words. I shook my head. "I'm sorry, that was… I'm sorry."

The goddess sighed and waved a hand as if to say 'you see, he's quite a dick'.

But then I've good reason for that, don't I?

I took a seat at the table, and a mini-cupcake with a plump cherry atop, and considered my options.

"Have we all been introduced?" I asked.

It has been an age of ages since one so young and so mortal sought the company of one such as me…

"I like your friends, Harry," the goddess said. "They're a reflection on your character." She sipped her tea. "What little character is left."

I know why you are here. You are here for them. For the lost. So many ghosts haunt you, Harry, so many corpses paved your path through my forest…

"The world is burning," I said. And has been for a thousand years.

"I gave you what you needed, Harry. As promised, hero."

"I'm no hero," I said, my voice weak and distant. I was lost in memory from so long ago.

Thrice damn your modesty, Harry. You are the last hero. You echo back and forth across time and the ripples of what you have done – and what you will do – are legend.

"Get out of my head," I snapped. "Please."

"Tea?" the goddess asked, her silk dress flowing over her skin like oil on water.

I accepted a cup of hot tea. Blood dripped from my nose into the pale green water, spoiling the brew. I sipped at it anyway.

You must stop thinking of time as a straight line, as a perspective of cause and effect. Time, for you, Harry, is no longer… forward.

"I tried." And sipped at my tea again to mask the dry rasp, the guilt.

"Yes, you did," she said. And the universe broke you for it.

"Harry," Neville said. "Who is this… lady?"

I sighed. "I never knew you… knew Larry. But I can see the family resemblance, now that I'm here." I turned to my friends. "This is Faeron Al'Nin, another… spirit, much like our host on this island. I met Fae a long, long time ago. I slept with her, sold my soul, you might say, and in exchange she granted me the ability to travel back in time upon the moment of my death."

Fae, the goddess of time, smiled at me over the rim of her cup. "You never called the next morning, Harry."

"There hasn't been a next morning—not in over a thousand years," I said. "That was the point."

I ain't that keen on seeing this through, but I will, by hook or by crook.

"You've been here, in this pyramid, since that night?" I asked, but I knew the answer to that.

"Your request was a little," Fae gestured with one hand, "a little more taxing than even I considered. You did do a lot of dying, Harry. I'd say you got the fairer end of our deal there."

I didn't know where to begin with all that was wrong with that statement, so I left it alone. "You're dying now," I said. "I can see it in your eyes."

"I am weakened," Fae said, "but my kind do not die. My wayward brother, the guardian of this island, has cared for me while you waged your war."

"Why did he never say anything? Why didn't you speak to me before now?"

Fae clicked her tongue against the roof of her mouth. "Oh, come now, you know why. We had a bargain, and my kind will uphold that beyond the heat death of the universe. Sooner the world end in fire—as it so often did under your command—than we break our word. It would… unmake us all."

"I don't… don't feel grateful to you," I said. "I want to, but I don't."

"That's the selfish mortal in you," Fae said. "We can excuse that, but only just."

"Your brother intends to kill me today," I said.

"There are many ways that can be interpreted."

"Something about my head on a skewer, he said."

"He blames you for my… condition." She shrugged one perfect shoulder. "I do not, if that's any small boon."

I finished my tea and bled some more, staining the velvet-backed chair, the pure white doilies. "This was arranged, our meeting. Larry's game, his insistence on the fight. You wanted me here."

"Quite."

"You have an offer?" I made it a question, but it wasn't a question.

"I do."

"A new bargain."

Fae nodded and leaned back in her chair, a goddess on her throne. "How would you like to die, Harry?"

I blinked. Now she had my attention.

A/N: If you're a fan of my stories here, check out all my original work - novels, short stories - all available from the usual haunts. Just Google my name: Joe Ducie.

OK, another update down, stakes raised mildly again, and we'll soon see a return to the war at large, Atlantis, and the countdown toward the end. It'll be a helluva race against time, Time, thyme. -joe