Ok, Ok, this will not be Ed/Roy and shall remain as Ed/Win. sigh Well, just to let you randomly know, I'm writing this part right after I finished the last one, so let's just see how long it takes me to finish it this time. And, not like anyone cares, but my friend just got fired from her job cuz some really hypercritical co-workers ratted her out for cursing. In the back room!! So none of the customers even heard her!! Now tell me that's perfectly fine. I don't think it is. But now she has to try to find another job near her house because she can't drive yet. Ok, now I'm done with my rant. I'll get on with the fic now.

Last chapter: the unconscious Ed is left behind under several concealing charms. The trio faces and defeats a banshee. They find out what spells have been cast on the cups that are not horcruxs. Ron is found wearing Disney socks. That part isn't important, I just wanted to say it.

IMPORTANT NOTE!!: If you didn't read the first A/N, you probably should. Also, there is a scene in here that CAN be interpreted as Harry/Sirius, but it's NOT!!! It's just Harry's feelings for the closest thing to a father he ever had, NOT SOMETHING ELSE!! Ok. That's all for this part.

Special Editor's Note: NinjaSquirls, hanjuuluver's amazing, brilliant, awesome, talented, and above all lazy editor, would like to apologize for the extreme lateness of this chapter, as she has had it sitting in her e-mail, waiting to be edited, for almost a month now, and has been completely pathetic and totally ignored it. In her defense, NinjaSquirls would like to point out that finals suck and are evil, especially where calculus is concerned. She would also like it to be acknowledged that this chapter was unusually (NinjaSquirls just lost the game) low on horrible, terrifying errors of spelling and grammar, although she does want to ask hanjuuluver why she can spell "corporeal," but not "that." Hanjuuluver also spelled Sirius' name incorrectly every single time. That is all.

Chapter 20: Yurusareru Nara (1)

The trio had gone through a total of seven rooms so far. Time seemed to stop inside the house, for none of the clocks were working, and each one of the windows had been bewitched to show various scenes that couldn't be real due to the location of the house. None of them knew how long they had been searching, and even if they did have a watch, it wouldn't have mattered. They had each had enough encounters with false horcruxs that by this point the only thing any of them were aware of, aside from their own names and occasionally the fact that they were with two other friends, was that they needed to find the horcrux and get out of the mansion. This was easier said than done. They had now successfully covered one whole floor of the immense building. They still had an additional two floors, and they were all quickly approaching their breaking point.

It hadn't taken them long to realize any injuries sustained during these visions would not only occur in the dream, but to their corporeal selves as well. This meant that if they were killed in their dream, they would actually die. Thankfully, they still had control of their magic in this world, as well as the meager alchemic abilities they had amassed under Ed's guidance. Both of these came in handy more than once, and though all of them had at least five or six scrapes and bruises, it wasn't anything serious. At this point, it wasn't their physical health that was deterring them. It was their mental stability. They had witnessed everything from the deaths of loved ones and the near deaths of themselves, to memories of playing in a park or spending late nights doing homework back in their Hogwarts common room. All these they had pushed aside, either by themselves or with the aid of friends.

With hundreds of vivid dreams playing in the background of their thoughts, always threatening to overwhelm them, the trio decided by a silent consensus that it was time for a short break. Their legs were quickly growing as weary as their minds, and Harry found himself wondering how much longer they could go on like this.

"You guys ok?" he asked in concern.

"Just about as good as you are, mate," Ron said, voice lacking his usual enthusiasm.

"We'll be fine. How many more rooms do you think there are?" Hermione asked through her daze, only vaguely registering that she had said anything at all.

"I don't know. Maybe twelve?"

"How much longer do you think we can hold up?" Ron asked.

"I don't know," Harry replied honestly, "but we have to keep trying. It's got to be here somewhere. If only there was a way to know WHERE!" He screamed in anger as he punched his hand into the cold, stone ground he was currently sitting on.

"We'll just have to deal with what we have and work with it. Come on, let's go. We won't get anywhere if we just stay here resting." Hermione said bluntly to get her companions going again and keep them from dwelling on the doubts they all held.

----------listening to German angst music really helps ones writing!----- I don't even know German!-------------

How much more time passed could not be told, but at last, both Hermione and Ron had reached their limits. Harry was not much better off, but at least he could still think clearly most of the time. His two friends were having more and more difficulty with staying conscious, and would drift off for long periods of time. It had reached a point where they simply couldn't help anymore.

Hermione slowly broke out of her most recent trance, which had lasted much longer than the others had – even after throwing several things at his friend, Harry couldn't get her to come out of it.

"HERMIONE! YOU'RE OK!" Harry said, grateful that she was alright.

"What about Ron?" Hermione asked.

"That last cup seemed to really break him. He's still out of it."

"We'll have to wait. How much further do we have to go?"

"This is the last hall. There's not many more options left to us."

"Harry, you'll have to go on without us."

"NO! I'm not going to leave you here! Who knows what might happen to you?"

"Harry, what might happen to us if we keep this up? I don't know how much longer I can take this. All I know now is that there's no way I can handle contact with one more of those false horcruxs. I hardly even know how much longer I'll be able to stay conscious. We'll be fine. Just leave us here and go on. You can come back for us afterwards," Hermione pressed, trying to support herself with her scratched and bruised arms, wincing slightly at the pain that shot through them, but doing her best to hide it. "Ron, Ron get up."

She shook Ron gently, coercing the boy to slowly wake up from his fevered nightmare.

"Ron, we need to stay here. Harry's the only one who can keep going at this point. Tell him. He won't listen to me."

"She's got a point mate," Ron said from his position on the carpeted floor of the trophy room they had just finished searching. "It's getting to be really hard just to stand up, and it's hard to defeat an enemy that you can't even touch. It's getting even harder to stay alive in these dreams. You really do need to go on without us. We'll be fine. Long as there aren't any spiders," Ron added in a weak attempt to lighten the atmosphere.

Harry looked incredulously at his two best friends for a moment before sighing in defeat.

"Alright. Conceal each other and I'll be back for you as soon as I can."

"Got it," Ron said with a mock salute as he proceeded in casting protection charms on Hermione and she did the same with him.

Harry was now officially on his own. It wasn't like he wasn't used to this by now. After so many battles that were just him against the Dark Lord, he had to be used to this sort of thing. Not only that, but hadn't he been the one who had wanted the two to stay behind since he started his quest to kill the man, no the thing, that had killed his parents? This was something he had to do, and something that he had to do himself.

He quickly braced himself, turned around and walked out of the room, leaving his friends behind once again. He did not turn around. He couldn't. It might just be what broke his resolve to go through with this. In all truth, he wasn't holding up much better than they were. The only difference between them and him was he had more drive, and fewer options. They, at least, could always back out. This was his destiny, and he had to face it head on.

Harry's POV:

I walk down the empty hallway, which for some reason seems even more desolate than it did before. If the horcrux is anywhere, and it had better be for all the hell it's giving me, it'll probably be in the last room. That means the room at the end of the hall. It has to be there. I walk towards the maple-wood door and lean into it, letting my weight push it open. I don't think my arms would have enough strength for that. As the heavy wood falls away, I catch myself from falling and stagger into the room, memories of my most recent visions swimming in my head, not the least of which includes a re-visit of that night when Voldemort was revived from my blood. Yet another reason he's my responsibility. I lift my head up and look directly at what I can only assume to be the REAL horcrux. I don't know what will happen when I try to take it, but there's no backing out now. This was marked as my fate from the day I was branded by that bastard. I know I've been told a thousand times that there is no such thing as fate or destiny, but I just can't make myself believe that. I know that that's what Dumbledore said, and I know I would throw my life away right now if it could bring him back, but it can't. Despite the fact that I trust in almost everything he ever told me, he wasn't infallible, and so I just can't make myself believe that this could possibly pass out of my hands. Besides, I've come too far to back out now. I continue to walk towards the horcrux. My determination to see this through and the end of this round coming so close to the end gives me strength I didn't think I still had.

I reach out to it, my fingers brush against the cold metal. Then…

Normal POV:

Harry found himself in a room so gilded with gold that it seemed to sparkle and shine with a light of its own. The high vaulted ceiling that loomed above him was supported by elegant golden pillars. The radiant beauty of the place seemed otherworldly, ant it very well may have been. Even the circular symbol that seemed to have been drawn on the tiled floor added a certain mysterious intrigue to the room. Only two things kept him from exploring the radiant building.

First, the black arms that attached themselves and kept him from moving; and the dark figure that now stood before him with the face of a man he didn't think he would ever see again outside of his tormenting dreams.

"Sirius? Is… Is that you?" he asked the man with long, scraggily black hair and sunken-in jet-black eyes, hardly daring to hope.

"Yes. It's me, Harry."

The very words Harry wanted to hear most. So why did those words make his mending heart shatter? Why did they give him these pangs of guilt and grief? Why?

"Why does it sound like you don't want to see me?" Harry asked aloud.

"Why? Why not!? Was it not you who caused me to leave my house to save you? Was it not you who caused me to put myself in danger to save you, O 'Boy-Who-Lived?' O 'Chosen One?' Was it not you who was the one who allowed me to be pushed through that wretched arch? Are you not the one who has been the source of all my anguish for all these years?"

"But… Sirius…" Harry's voice came out only as a harsh whisper. He didn't even hear himself saying it. His mind was far too busy recognizing that his godfather had just confirmed all he had thought—no, all he had known was his fault. All he did was cause pain to those he cared most about.

"Don't give me that, Harry. I don't want to hear it. Just tell me one thing. What are you going to do now? Are you going to continue with your pointless revenge mission? What difference are you, of all people, going to make?"

This jolted Harry out of his fog. Suddenly, it wasn't just his mistakes Sirius was pointing out, it was the fact he was still making them. Once again, he was endangering the ones he cared about, and what was his excuse? 'They asked to come.' Not only was he risking their lives for his mission, but his mission was pointless! What could he possibly offer that would make him able to accomplish what thousands of others before him failed at? Dumbledore hadn't even managed to stop him. Really, the only thing that even made him special was the fact that his mother had sacrificed herself to save him.

"Well? What's your answer?" Sirius asked him.

Silence.

Sirius sneered in disgust. "If you can't even resolve yourself, how can you ever hope to accomplish something worthwhile? You're useless. Here," Sirius said as he pulled out a dagger from his back belt loop and tossed it across the glittering floor to Harry, who picked it up. "If you end it now, it would fulfill the prophesy, and there's a good chance that you'll manage to keep from being the cause of your friends deaths like you were mine."

Harry stared into the blade, which mirrored his dead looking emerald-green eyes. The eyes of the mother he had caused to die so that he could live his own life.

"It would only hurt for a minute, and then all your pain would be gone." The voice was enticing, for it spoke the truth, but as Harry's hand moved, seemingly of its own, the flash of light reflected in the cool steel seemed to awaken something inside him. His drive was again brought to his mind. The reason he was living through this madness.

"To save them," Harry said with conviction.

"What?" Sirius asked in confusion.

"The reason I'm still alive, the reason I keep fighting is for them. All those people out there who would rather submit to death, pain, and torture than stand up for themselves. If they can't stand up for themselves, then who will? I will not sink so low as to kill all their hopes just to erase my pain. Besides, my life isn't as bad as that. Sure, I've had more than my share of bad things happen to me, but I'm still here, and I've gotten the joy of having friends like Ron and Hermione. I've gotten to do things most kids could only dream of!" Harry examined the dagger once more before sliding it back across the floor to his godfather. "And I got to meet you. Now if you'll excuse me, I have a job to do." And with that, Harry turned around and walked back through the stone gate from which he had just come, not seeing the proud smile that flitted across the other man's face before he faded away, leaving the glittering room behind.

--------

Harry suddenly found himself back in the small, dark room. His right hand was clasped firmly around the golden goblet that was the actual horcrux. At some point he must have collapsed onto his knees, as his position was now a crouched one, his right arm tingling from lack of blood circulation. He stood up, still grasping the cup tightly, and took the cup with him as he staggered back out of the room to gather his friends.

He smiled as he found his friends right where he had left them, and quickly undid all the spells placed on them.

"Are you two OK?" he asked, panting slightly from exertion.

"Yes. A little dazed, but we're alright," Hermione answered as she stood up. "What about you? Are you alright?"

"I'll live," Harry said with a slight smirk. "Come on. We still have to get Ed and get out of here. We can worry about destroying this once we're out of here."

"Got it," Ron said as he picked himself up from off the ground. The trio walked out of the room and turned into the long corridor.

Once they reached the spot they had left Ed, Hermione removed all the spells they had placed on him.

"What the hell is wrong with you three? Leaving me here immobilized for hours? Do you have any idea how bored I was? I've been counting the number of wood planks since I woke up!" Ed ranted the moment the silencing spell was removed.

"Sorry, but it would have been more than a little challenging to levitate you from room to room until you regained consciousness. Besides, how much use could a guy with only one arm be to us?" Harry jibed.

"Puh. Rub it in why don't you? Speaking of which, what did I miss?"

"We'll tell you later. Right now, I'd just like to get out of this place. Do you still refuse to Apparate? Because I can tell you right now, it would be a lot easier than trying to get through the forest again. This way we can land just outside it and avoid the trouble."

"Fine, but don't start thinking I'm going to go along with that from now on, because I'm not. One time thing." Ed retorted.

"Isn't that what you said last time?" Harry asked as he used his free hand to grab hold of the short alchemist before appearing away.

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(1): And if it can be forgiven. This is a line from UNDO, and I'm listening to it now, and thought, hey, why not! So that's why the title is in Japanese. Don't like it? Well than the other name I was going to use was "Visions" so you can call it that too. Happy now?

A/N: Ok, about 80 percent of this was written while I was listening to that angsty-sounding German song, so I blame it on that. Also, I wrote half of this on the day I started it, and the rest of it about two days later! Aren't you proud of me? And not like it matters, but this fic is now over 100 pages long. That's pretty damn awesome. Ed will probably be in the next chapter unless I get another plot bunny that pushes its way between this chapter and the next. Well, let me know what you think of this chappie! Everyone loves a little input and, of course, constructive criticism is always welcomed. As are flames. They make me laugh. Probably because in my case they're usually true! Lol…