Harry Potter and the Forests of Valbonë
Chapter Thirty Four

Now that the tower loomed over him, Harry thought it might be a church of some kind. Twelve years of experience told him that people, neither magical nor muggle, constructed something so enormous for no reason. They built them to make a point; sometimes to display power and sometimes piety. And Harry didn't think the building was opulent or formidable enough to be the former.

"It's a mosque, I think," supplied Sternley, as though he knew what Harry was thinking.

Maybe he did.

Harry nodded, he'd never seen a mosque before. But if he'd been asked to imagine one, based on what little he knew, this could well have been what he imagined.

"It's very impressive," he remarked and crept closer to the large, peaked door.

"It's a little odd," replied the hat.

"That's no way to talk. Religion is important to some people."

"I meant, that this place should contain a basilisk. It's not exactly where I'd hide one."

"Perhapsthey have no intention of hiding it," said Harry. "I mean, Slytherin had a game plan. But I can't imagine your normal dark wizard is creepy enough to breed one while planning a thousand years into the future. Or at least I hope not."

"So you think they deliberately put it where there'd be a lot of muggles?"

"Stands to reason, doesn't it?" replied Harry. "Especially if it's not on their own doorstep. How would the Albanian Ministry ever know who did it?"

Sternley didn't answer him and it took Harry a moment to figure out why. He'd crept in through the front door of the mosque and into a long, narrow atrium. At the far end of the room was the most disgusting thing Harry had ever seen.

Around thirty goblins and twenty oiks lay in an enormous puddle, and every single one of them were in pieces. Gore coated the floor in a thick carpet and blood was splashed up the walls in high, arterial arcs. Whatever else you might say about Bagdud, he'd been truthful about this.

The weapons of the goblins lay abandoned and unused. Harry could tell that they'd gone at each other with fists and fangs. Punching, ripping and tearing until there was nothing left of each other but this sordid mess.

It took everything Harry possessed not to vomit where he stood.

But he managed to pull himself together long enough to take a staggering step in the direction of the nightmarish sight. It was all he needed. After that one step, the next came easier and the one after that. Eventually he was moving swiftly, albeit a little mechanically, through the middle of the carnage.

"Be careful," whispered Sternley. "You don't know what caused this."

Annoyance shot straight through Harry like a thunderbolt. Did Sternley think he was a moron?

"I'm not an idiot," he snapped.

"I didn't say you were. Just be careful."

Harry's eye twitched.

"You implied it," growled Harry. "I'm not thick enough to walk straight into something like this and not be wary of it."

He looked down at his feet as the first shoe came in contact some dried blood on the tiled floor. It was dark and didn't look real. It wasn't much like blood at all. Not really. Perhaps goblin blood was different to human blood. But the smell—

He looked around, disgusted and wondered what it was that could drive the goblins to act like this.

Though, the more he thought about it, was there much difference between this and what he'd seen outside in the rest of Bajram? Only that it was goblins killing goblins, rather than goblins killing people. Would he have killed them himself now? Now that he'd see what they were capable of?

Probably.

Probably?

Definitely.

But it wouldn't have been like this. Harry would have dragged it out, would have torn them into little pieces while they stilled breathed. Would have laughed as he did it. Would have danced in their blood, rolled in it and—

"Harry, relax," said Sternley.

Harry realised his hands were squeezing the hilt of the blade he couldn't even remember drawing. Annoyance shot through him again. Who was Sternley to tell him to relax, anyway? It wasn't hats lying in the streets of Bajram, murdered and burned. Wasn't him who'd caused it. He ought to snatch that stupid, sanctimonious hat off his head and cut him to shreds.

Ought to?

He would, damn it!

Harry began to lift a hand.

'Be still,' commanded the voice inside his head. The one that wasn't Sternley.

Harry paused, was aware of Sternley saying something to him, but didn't know what. He was aware that he ground to a halt in the midst of the hall's carnage. He was aware of blood, still wet, seeping through his ruined shoe and coating the bottom of his feet with gore.

'Why are you angry?' asked the voice.

'Because he's so infuriating, because he constantly thinks he knows better, because he treats me like an idiot.'

'And those are reasons worth destroying him for?'

'Yes,' replied Harry at once , but then faltered. 'No.'

So why was he so angry? Why had he drawn the sword? Why was he ready to destroy Sternley? Was he going mad?

'It's an enchantment," said the voice.

'How do I beat it?'

'Clear your mind.'

Anger surged through Harry again. 'Clear your mind'. What sort of advice was that? Harry wanted to tell the voice where to shove his clear mind.

'That's the enchantment speaking,' said the voice. 'Clear your mind.'

Anger washed over Harry, followed by an intense concentration, followed by more, harrowing anger. Harry's face screwed up from the strain of all the competing emotions in his head.

'If you're too weak to beat this,' said the voice calmly. 'You'll be lost to the madness. You'll tear Sternley apart and then yourself. You've been stronger than this in the past. Are you going to be weak now?'

Harry growled. He'd show that voice. He hadn't ever been weak. He wouldn't be weak. He wasn't ever going to be weak again.

With his anger and his concentration working together now, in unison, Harry focused more intently than he'd ever had before. He urged every inch of his mind to push every extraneous little bit of thought and emotion out of his brain. Crushing anything that popped into his head with intense ruthlessness.

The world around him seemed to grow darker, the room narrowing in his vision until it was nothing more than a pinprick of light. Until there was nobody in the world but Harry. The plastered walls began to smudge and it was an invisible hand was squeezing the world, manipulating the very fabric of the reality.

But none of this bothered Harry. He stood, calm and relaxed, his eyelids heavy and his heartbeat stilled to a murmur.

'Clear your mind.'

The three words hung on the breeze, as literal and physical as the fingers on his hand. Three words of blue dust that floated from the ceiling and suffused Harry, bathing him in understanding. In that instant, everything became clear; Sternley, the Sword, the Anglia, the Lynx, the basilisk, the disembodied voice, Ksheta, the Eagle and Valbonë. He understood all the mysteries that had been dancing around him for so long. Understood it all, his place in the world — but it was momentary, fleeting and elapsed as soon as it came.

The knowledge fell from him like a tonne of bricks, leaving him empty. Like someone had drained the life out of him. The loss was almost physical and he staggered for a moment. Even the memory of the truth he'd possessed began to ebb away. He couldn't even recall how it'd been to possess it and maintained only a vague awareness that he'd ever had it at all.

"Harry?" asked Sternley, sounding confused and worried.

Harry once again annoyance surge up inside him, a homicidal wave of anger that wanted him to destroy everything around him. But it was different this time, now he felt the magic working. Instead of experiencing the emotion, it was like a headache, invasive, unpleasant, but surmountable.

He pushed the feelings aside.

"There's an enchantment here, a strong one, it's what made the goblins do this," he hissed from between gritted teeth.

"You're resisting it? How?"

"I almost didn't. By clearing my mind."

"By clearing your—" began Sternley, but then the hat fell silent and thoughtful.

Harry picked his way around the death on the floor, stumbled through the door at the other end of the atrium. The enchantment passed and let out a breath he hadn't known he was holding. He slumped to his knees, body trembling, the aroma of blood still heavy in his mouth and nose.

He knelt for a while and took deep gulps of air.

"Harry, what made you clear your mind?"

Harry noticed something else in his head, a little like the pushing, invasive enchantment, but softer, more subtle. He cleared his mind as best he could and it disappeared.

"I dunno, natural reaction," he said. "I could feel it inside my head so I just pulled everything else out, gave it nothing to work on."

Harry knew Sternley was scrutinising his words from atop his head. He wondered why he was lying to the hat, was it just because Sternley had reacted in such an angry manner when he'd mentioned it before? Or could it have been what he'd been told last year? 'Even in the wizarding world, hearing voices isn't a good sign.'

Harry pushed the thoughts away; he wasn't mad. Something was going on, that was all. Sooner or later he'd find someone who'd help him with it. Dumbledore would know.

Except that Sternley had the best advice short of Dumbledore. Perhaps might even know more about it than Dumbledore did. So why didn't he say anything?

"I see," replied the hat, his confused tone undermining his point. "Well, good job for figuring it out. You did the right thing."

Harry nodded, his gut still wracked with turmoil. Half heartedly he pushed this away too, then clambered to his feet and looked about him.

The room he was in was small and, at least to Harry's untrained eye, looked more like the inside of a swimming pool changing room than a place of worship. The floor and walls were clad with tiles, on one side of the room were racks and racks of shelves, upon which sat a half dozen pair of shoes. On the other wall were what appeared to be long grill covered troughs, with taps above and chairs before them.

Even though the mosque was as silent as the grave, Harry lingered, an awkward feeling in his stomach. As though he were intruding on something personal and secret. He looked back to where he'd walked blood on the tiles and shuddered. It appeared that he was required, by the traditions of the place, to remove his shoes before progressing. Somehow it seemed a travesty to walk blood through a place of worship, yet he didn't dare surrender them.

The idea of fighting a basilisk bare-footed was just ridiculous.

In the end, he settled for removing his shoes and socks and washing them in water from one of the taps. Disgusting, blood-stained mess dribbled into the porcelain beneath the grills before gurgling out of sight down the plug hole. Harry pulled them back on, they were cold and wet, but much cleaner. He wondered if he were being foolish, if he weren't overreacting. There wasn't anyone here to see him. There wasn't any escaping the massacred goblins in the atrium either.

But somehow it had seemed an important thing to observe it. Or at least make an effort.

"Do wizards have a religion?" he asked Sternley, his curiosity bubbling over before he could stop it.

The hat was taken off guard by this abrupt question.

"Uh, only the usual ones, I suppose," he said, sounding a little confused. Harry thought he might have interrupted Sternley's train of thought. "Normally only the muggleborns, too. Wizards don't set much stock in that sort of thing. I suppose when you grow up with miracles commonplace it doesn't really seem relevant."

Harry considered this and nodded. It made sense, he supposed.

He pushed a little further on into the mosque, moving from this room into another long corridor. He noted with interest that one wall was broken at regular intervals by wide arches that all led into the same enormous, carpeted room. Harry stuck his head through the first arch he came to and peered around in interest. He supposed this was where the local community would congregate. He thought he recalled, possibly from Primary School, that they would pray five times a day.

The thick, plain carpet on the ground certainly looked comfortable enough to do a lot of kneeling. But the room, despite being enormous, was empty, with nowhere to hide an enormous snake. Nonetheless, Harry was very twitchy, having already fought a basilisk and not relishing having to do so again.

"Well, well, well" came a familiar voice from over his shoulder.

His reaction was immediate and violent; Harry spun on his heel, sword poised for a strike that would take the speaker through the throat. A strike that he never made.

Because the sight of the person who stood behind him stunned him so much that he couldn't move a muscle.

"Hello, Harry Potter," said the sixteen year old Tom Riddle. "It's good to see you again."

Harry shook his head in disbelief.

"You're can't be real," he said. "I destroyed the diary. You were only a memory."

"A good hypothesis," admitted Tom, walking closer to Harry, his dark eyes glittering. "Except, I can touch you now."

And with that, he prodded the point of Harry's blade with his index finger.

Then both of them watched, one in fascination and the other in horror, as blood trickled from his fingertip.