The Timeless Trees dungeon adventure begins! This is the last set-up chapter before I start throwing lasers and giant knives at the children again, I promise~
Content warning for the Dursleys' mistreatment of Harry being magnified a bit. I just feel like they'd be especially douchey around the anniversary of Harry's parents' death—although maybe not Aunt Petunia quite as much—because it would definitely be a sore spot for Harry. They seem like people who enjoy finding and employing multiple low-effort ways of causing Harry misery, like locking him up and ignoring his existence for a while or encouraging Dudley to snatch food from his plate during meals.
Harry paced restlessly around his dorm. It was one of his least favorite days of the year, rivaled only by Dudley's birthday and, up until recently, Christmas. He hated Halloween, and it wasn't because he didn't like the festivities or the grand feast Hogwarts always provided. It was just that he'd spent most of his life thinking his parents had died in a drunken car crash on this day. He knew logically that they'd died in a heroic sacrifice to save him, yet the rotten seed of doubt planted by his still-living relatives couldn't be uprooted by a couple of years of knowing better. The Dursleys—the petty arseholes—had made sure to give him extra reminders during the last week of every October, just to make sure he felt extra miserable about his parents' so-called "pathetic" deaths. No matter how much he reminded himself of the truth, his emotions remained a maelstrom of disappointment toward his heritage, self-loathing, and a simmering sense of bitter resentment toward the Dursleys. Focusing on feeling betrayed by his lying relatives only dampened the other feelings somewhat.
He felt the urge to do anything to get away from his angry thoughts. More than that, he'd already tried; after morning classes, he'd gone out to the grounds near Hagrid's cabin to do sword practice (more like angry hacking at wood) until his other selves had gone to fetch him, complaining he was giving them a headache with his prolonged distance. After that, he'd written a couple paragraphs of an Astronomy essay on lunar phases, lost a few games of chess against Ron, eaten a Chocolate Frog he'd found at the bottom of his trunk, and learned a charm to neaten handwriting from Yellow's library-loaned book of study spells. Now it was 3 o'clock in the afternoon and he was still burning with energy.
The other Harrys were feeling no less agitated, though Blue and Yellow were better at controlling it. Red had gone off to play dodgeball with Octoroks and was due back soon, according to the dull throb in Harry's temples. Blue was reading a book, as usual. He had reclined on his bed a couple of hours before and gotten himself lost in Hermione's Muggle Studies text. Yellow was curled up next to him with the Moon Pearl he'd gotten from Shadow Harry sitting in his lap. He'd been staring at it for a good while, blinking every few minutes or so. Harry didn't know whether he was actually seeing anything in it or just hypnotized by the color.
"I'm going out to the forest," he finally declared. "I need to do something, and the Deku Princess still needs my help. It's been long enough since we last had detention that we should be alright." He went to his trunk to fetch his cloak. "You coming?"
Yellow looked up from the Moon Pearl and rubbed his dry eyes. "Shouldn't we plan things out?" he asked. "We can't just go into a scary Hylian place and fix it on our own."
"Why not? The other people who used the Four Sword did." Harry yanked out his cloak with more force than was needed and threw it around his shoulders.
"Yeah, but they were…Medieval? They grew up having to fight things with swords, I mean." Yellow stood up from Blue's bed with the pearl in his arms. "We should ask around our group and see who can come with us. It's safer that way."
Safety was the last thing on Harry's mind at the moment. He was more concerned with using up the agitated energy sizzling under his skin before it ignited his temper. "Fine, we'll get Ron and Hermione to come with us. Maybe the twins."
"The twins are busy figuring out the magical chemistry of Keese. When I asked why, they said something about making potion-based bombs before running off with Transfigured nets," Blue said. He sat up and marked his page before setting the textbook aside. "Yellow's right, Green. As inexperienced as we are, it's dangerous for us to go adventuring on a whim."
"You're all picking up sword skills from me as I get better, aren't you? And we got through our first temple just fine, even though we didn't plan anything out."
"This is the third temple, though, not the first. If it's more than difficult than the second, a good plan—or at least a decent group system—is more necessary than ever. You can't give this another week?"
"It's been almost a month! I'm going out there now and doing something productive." Harry strapped on his sword over his cloak and stalked out of the room. There was a series of scuffles as his brothers hurried to follow.
Harry moved down the stairs with quick, smooth steps and strode into the common room. Ron and Hermione were sharing a couch near the hearth, Ron halfheartedly filling in his dream journal for Divination while Hermione raved about the Hylian staff she was waving around. She'd already told Harry and Ron several times what it did—multiplied the power of Hylian and conventional spells at the cost of tiring the wielder—but she felt the need to continually update them on her hypotheses concerning rates of energy consumption per spell, the effect of intent on expressions of power, and other such magical science-babble.
"I'm going to the forest to find the temple there," Harry cut in. Ron and Hermione immediately looked up, wide-eyed. "Are you coming with me? I'm going whether or not you say 'yes'. I need to get out of here before I get any worse ideas."
Ron stood up. "Let me get my shield." He hurried upstairs.
Hermione seemed a little conflicted. "Are you sure we should just go in? I know it seems silly, that six people might not be enough to get through a temple designed for four, but I don't know…"
Harry shrugged. "If we run into one of the Slytherins in the hall, we can ask them to come along." He was so close to crawling out of his own skin that he could have charged into the Forbidden Forest without even his other selves as backup. "We might not even find a temple, but I just…I need to get away from Halloween, and my parents, and the Dursleys. Is that weird?" He rubbed at his arms. "Do you ever feel like you need to forget you're related to anyone?"
From the expression of distressed concern that crossed Hermione's face before she hitched on a smile, she hadn't. Still, like the friend she was, she said, "I've felt the urge to strangle my Aunt Doris once or twice. She insists the Earth is flat."
Ron came thundering down the stairs with his shield strapped to his back and a flush of excitement in his freckled cheeks. "Ready to go!"
They swept through the halls of Hogwarts at the pace of Harry's impatient strides. He was small, but he'd learned to move quickly from a young age. It also helped that whatever expression he had on his face was unpleasant enough that people edged out of his way as he approached.
The group ran into Red, Malfoy, and Dog in the middle of a Phantom patrol on the second floor. Two Phantoms were treading back and forth along the corridor and the patch of purple closest to the girls' bathroom they were guarding was a hidden pitfall. They'd learned this by watching an upper-year Hufflepuff and her Slytherin friend miss the fact that the tiles weren't glowing, step onto them, and then fall to the next floor down when the trap door beneath them gave way.
Ron winced at the sight and shook his head. "That's just messed up."
Malfoy shrugged carelessly. "Assuming the Great Hall isn't beneath us, they probably haven't broken anything." He hid behind his sleeves with practiced speed when Dog growled disapprovingly and went to lick his face. "Red Potter, are those glasses of yours showing any other traps?"
Red shook his head. "We're clear. Although, which direction are we going in? You didn't say whether you were coming with; you just said we were being stupid."
"You are being stupid," Malfoy affirmed as he edged toward the border of the purple tile they stood on. A gap in the patrol was about to open up. "That doesn't mean I'm not coming with you. I've been in the mood for a distraction lately."
With their group of seven students and one dog together, they divvied themselves into two teams on the trek across the lawn to the Forbidden Forest. Malfoy, Dog, Red, and Harry were in Group 1, while Ron, Hermione, Blue, and Yellow comprised Group 2. They would all stay together until they found a temple, in which case they would enter one team at a time. If the hypothetical forest temple turned out to be like the previous two they'd gotten lost in, they would be sent to different entry rooms anyway, so it was best they protected themselves against unintentional scattering.
Harry led the group with his long, impatient strides. Slaying any Octoroks that got in his way was almost a reflexive act. They hadn't been too difficult to beat before he'd found the sword journal, so after two weeks of practicing the basics of swordsmanship it took hardly any thought to swat the weak monsters aside. He sank into a light, focused trance as he walked and occasionally swung his sword. It was the same state of mind he'd used to get through so many of his daily chores, and it helped calm the jittery feeling in his limbs a little. Walking and walking and hitting and walking…
Ron's voice broke Harry's concentration, causing him to stumble over a clump of grass. "Lose your pet trolls, did you?" the boy asked snidely. Harry sighed and looked over his shoulder. Ron was his best mate, but his penchant for bickering (sharply honed from sparring matches with Hermione and his siblings) was probably his worst flaw.
"No, I'm teaching them a lesson. For as long as they insist on wearing those horrid Hylian glasses to 'hunt down ghosts', I refuse to acknowledge them. It's a leadership thing, Weasley; you wouldn't understand," Malfoy sniffed.
"At least I'm not a shallow ponce. Really, glasses?"
"Well, not everyone has a weasel's—sorry, a Weasley's—sense of aesthetics."
Harry sent the blond a sharp glare. "Malfoy."
His flat tone of voice drew a look of mild surprise from the Slytherin. "You look like someone spat in your porridge, Potter," Malfoy noted. Putting up his hands, he said, "I'll have you know that whatever rumors might be going around, I've done nothing to start them."
Though Malfoy was conspicuously hasty to cover his arse, Harry couldn't bring himself to wonder whether the boy was acting too suspiciously. He just wanted to lose himself to his sense of adventure as quickly as possible.
"Just…no getting into arguments, please. If you can. Ron, you too," he said tiredly before turning back around and continuing at a quicker pace toward the Forbidden Forest. They'd just passed Hagrid's hut and were almost at the line of Deku Scrubs.
When they were close enough, Harry sheathed his sword and stepped forward to present himself. Nine green-leafed wooden heads immediately popped up to eye him suspiciously. Harry stood still under their scrutiny, resisting the automatic urge to guard himself from potential projectiles. After a few tense seconds, one of the Deku guardsmen squeaked, "It's safe, Your Highness!" The six soldiers closest to the ends of the row ducked back into their buds, while three remained partially outside to watch Harry and his entourage.
The large blue flower in the middle of the line twitched, and then out hopped the Deku princess, Belle. "You're back!" she cried excitedly, rushing forward. "Does that mean you're able to help us now? You're in no danger of losing your home in the castle?"
"Something like that, yeah," Harry told her. "Has the shadowy bloke shown up here since I talked to you last time? Has he tried to hurt you guys?" He felt a little guilty about leaving all the Scrubs out here while he'd been doing nothing but keeping up with his classes. While it had been a necessary task to keep Snape and his too-dutiful Head of House from giving him detention (or worse, in Snape's case), it still struck him as selfish.
"He appeared a week ago to check on whatever he hid within the temple, but he simply stepped over our buds and walked in," Belle said. Putting a hand under her chin, she remarked, "I heard him muttering to himself, but I didn't catch everything he said. He mentioned Moon Pearls, I think. Don't Hylians use those for magic?"
"They did, a long time ago," Harry agreed. "I don't know what he'd need with one, though." What use did the shadow have for telling the future? He already knew what his master was up to and he could spy on the Harrys whenever he felt like.
"My mother might know, if you can find her," Belle told him. "She has a whole library of books about Hylians. I've only read a few so far." She ducked her head and wrapped her arms around herself. "I hope she's okay. I don't even know if Mother and Father are here or in some other far-away place."
"If they're here, we'll find them," Harry said determinedly. "I'm sorry it took us so long to help, but we'll do as much as we can."
Belle looked up at him with flickers of white shining in her lamp-like yellow eyes before leaping forward and hugging him. Though the top of her head was level with Harry's chin, her arms were long enough to encircle him with plenty of overlap. "Thank you so much! I promise you'll be greatly rewarded for your service to my people." She let go of him and stepped back into her bud. "I wish you and your friends good luck on your quest!" She and her guards vanished into their burrows with the sound of rustling leaves.
Harry led the way into the depths of the Forbidden Forest with trepidation. The trees had changed once they'd passed the wall of invisible vines the Deku Scrubs had been guarding. They were bowed and crooked, with thick clumps of bluish leaves sprouting from dark, purplish branches. Stripes of stony gray traveled up their trunks and along their limbs, as though they'd been partly transformed into marble. A cool, shadowy gloom hung over the sparse grass between their trunks and slithered over the hem of his robes.
From within the unnatural darkness that had fallen over the forest, the pale shape of a large structure slowly appeared in the distance. First, it was only visible as a set of wide, shallow steps. As the group approached, thick columns could be seen rising from the steps, and then a heavy, rectangular stone roof. The temple reminded Harry of ancient Greek ruins, but it was brand-new and polished like it had been stolen from a time when it had just been finished. In the dark forest, it stood out like a pearly white ghost.
He put on the Lenses of Truth to better survey the building. The entrance was a small open doorway hidden in a recess that put it fully in shadow. Around the doorway, mounted to the face of the temple, were three large brass plates that each depicted a raised relief of a heavy-lidded eye. They were simplistic and bulbous, not like Vaati's more ornate symbol, but the way they shone gave them an eerie lifelike quality. In front of the temple, on either side of the grand stairway, was an odd metal statue that resembled a child's drawing of an octopus perched on top of a pedestal. Each statue had a glowing yellow eye that seemed to survey the area as the helmeted head of the octopus portion slowly revolved above its tentacle-like power conduits.
Harry banished the glasses, frowning at the statues. While he didn't have the clearest memory of everything Hylian, he got an ominous feeling from those things. They were alive in some way, and definitely watching. The eyes on the temple probably were, too, for good measure. According to his gut, letting any of them spot him would be a bad idea.
Ron walked past Harry and peered at the temple ahead of them with consideration. "D'you reckon we can go right in?" He gestured toward the distant building, whose entrance seemed to be completely unguarded but for the statues and a barrier of trees on either side. "There isn't a locked door to open and I'm not seeing any monsters about. There aren't even Octoroks."
"I'm pretty sure those statues are monsters," Harry said. "They definitely aren't just for decoration." The fact that there was a wide, flat field between them and the temple was also concerning. Lots of eyes, combined with a complete lack of cover to hide behind? Even without his ability to sense traps, Harry's mental alarm bells would have been set ringing.
"I don't like that big open area," Hermione said, biting on her lower lip. "It seems like it's artificially clear for a reason."
Malfoy rolled his eyes and folded his arms. "Do Muggles regularly plant thickets in front of their places of worship? It seems perfectly reasonable to me that a temple would have a clearing in front of it." He stepped out to the edge of the tree line and peered around. "It's just grass—strange gray grass, but only grass."
"It could be a minefield, maybe, or there might be pitfalls full of spikes," Blue mused. Malfoy frowned in confusion at the word "minefield" and paled at the sound of "pitfall", letting Dog pull him a step back. Blue crouched down and started looking for something, saying, "We should test this." He swept his hands across the ground until he came across a fist-sized rock. Prying it out of the dirt, he hefted it in his hand. "Maybe this'll tell us why someone decided to put a field here." He stepped up next to Malfoy, cocked his arm back, and then pitched the rock overhead at the temple.
The rock didn't fly far. With a rustle, it smacked into something unseen a few feet into the open area. It bounced off and rolled back toward Blue's feet.
Everyone frowned perplexedly at the rock, and then at the nothing it had run into. Harry looked at Red, who shrugged. "The glasses aren't showing anything," he said, fiddling with them. "Whoever hid this thing was good, I guess."
"That sounded like a bush," Hermione remarked, creeping forward. She held her Hylian staff out and poked at the air. After a few tries, she found something solid. "See? That sounds like moving leaves." She moved forward another couple of steps, waving the staff as she explored the dimensions of the invisible wall. "There's an opening here," she reported with a broad swing of her arm. "It's nice and wide, too. I think it might be a hedge maze."
"A hedge maze?" Malfoy repeated, sounding affronted. "We went through a bat-infested dungeon and a temple made of corpses, and now the next is protected by a measly hedge maze? Will the last temple be a Sunday stroll defended by tulips?"
Red crinkled his nose. "I sure hope not, 'cause that sounds boring." He approached the invisible entrance with his sword at the ready. "I bet there's some kind of trick in here, just to make it exciting. It's got to, right?" With that, he strode in—
And blinked out of existence.