DISCLAIMER: I own nothing. Nada. Zip. Well, except for my stuffed dog, Barney. And oh yeah, Lili, I own her too. So beat it!
(A/N) Okay, screw the romance. I cannot write romance. If there is any romance in here, it is pure accident, or temporary insanity. Live with the action/adventure, people. If you really need romance that much, quit hanging around on the Internet and go get yourself a life. Don't make me write one for you.
CHAPTER TEN: THE AIR TEMPLE
It hadn't taken long to find a suitable flying carpet. Hermione had mentioned , rather irritatingly, that they were illegal. Lili had simply grinned, and told her "not in Egypt."With a Grin, Hermione had confessed that she hated the brooms almost as much as Lili did, and bought one for herself.
Lili was depressed. She hadn't meant to hit Draco like that, she had just gotten so angry when she heard him call Hermione that... it was his fault to begin with! If he hadn't called Hermione that, she wouldn't have hit him, and they'd still be friends. It wasn't her fault!
But the words of an old teacher rang in her head. *Yeah, yeah, yeah. Nothing's ever your fault, is it, Lili?*
Damn subconscious, she thought furiously. Why d'you always have to shove the blame right back on me?
For awhile, Harry had succumbed to his worse nature, and watched rather gleefully as Lili and Malfoy refused to even look at each other. After awhile, though, his conscience got a hold of him. He knew the way Lili was, and knew that she would rather die than compromise her pride by apologizing a second time. So, if Malfoy didn't apologize, their friendship would be worth about as much as Barbie dolls to a seven year old boy.
Aw, damn, Harry thought. How is it that I suddenly get the job of helping my worst enemy find a friend? He turned his broom sharply, just missing Hermione's magic carpet, and flew over to Malfoy, who was sulking in the very back of the group.
Draco was absorbed in his thoughts, and didn't notice until Harry almost collided with his broom. "What the hell do you want, Potter?" He snarled.
Harry refused to let Malfoy get to him. "Listen to me. I hate you, and you hate me. That's all there is to it. But Lili doesn't hate you, and she's sorry about hitting you. She's upset that you refuse to talk to her, and personally, I think you're being even more than a bastard than usual. She tried to apologize to you."
"She also tried to break my nose," he said scornfully. "And I don't recall asking you for your view on the whole thing."
"D'you think I care? All I'm saying is to forgive her. She didn't mean to hit you like that, and she's sorry. Talk to her or don't talk to her, it doesn't matter to me, SHE has other friends." And with that, Harry turned his broom and flew away.
"God damn self-righteous Potter," Draco mumbled. "Always thinking he knows what's best for everybody. I'll forgive her when I'm good and ready, screw Potter." And Lili and Draco flew on opposite sides of the group.
They were all on edge now. They had two of the Divine tools (the spear had a nifty trick of shrinking to fit in its bearer's pocket, making its transportation a great deal easier), and they all knew Voldemort would stop at nothing to keep them from getting the bow and shield. Every time they stopped to set up camp, they would first check the area for a mile around for Death Eaters. And even then, several different types of Barrier, Alarm, and Stunning Charms would adorn the perimeter of their camp. After a week, the stress was beginning to get to them.
Draco was having an especially bad time of it. Harry had been right: Lili was the only thing ensuring his acceptance within the group. Now that they were fighting, the others seemed more than ready to leave him behind, only their sense of honor prevented them from abandoning him, and only the thought of revenge on his father kept Draco from leaving on his own.
The distance between the Fire and Air Temples was, thankfully, rather short. It took them less than a week to travel to the mountain on which the Temple was located. The Temple itself was a good deal smaller than both the Fire and Earth Temples. While the first two had been about the size of apartment complexes, the Air Temple was the size of a three-story Victorian house. The building was unusual, too. It had no walls, and was merely a roof situated on top of marble pillars, allowing the wind to whip through freely. Harry smiled, the Temple felt comforting to him.
They landed gently among the plants outside the Temple, and rolled their brooms up in the carpets before making their way to the pillars that made the walls of the Temple. The five teenagers stepped through the pillars, and instantly, all but Harry grabbed their throats and gasped, struggling for the air that was suddenly deprived of them.
Harry stared at his friends in horror, his mind racing. The Temples themselves were turning out to be more dangerous than the Death Eaters that were undoubtedly following them. Out of pure instinct, he reached out and touched Hermione's neck, concentrating on air, on her breathing normally again. After a moment, the blue tinge to her skin lessened, and she drew a rattling breath as she sank to the ground. He knelt beside her to see if she was all right, but she looked at him with panic filled eyes, and gestured to the others, gasping out "Help them," before she erupted into a fit of coughing.
Harry moved from one of his friends to the next, quickly. Lili had, like Hermione, managed to keep her head. She was standing straight and still, not moving, simply conserving her air, and she was much less blue in the face than Ron or Draco.
Draco had been the last to be healed, and, due to his flailing around, was on the verge of unconsciousness when he began breathing again. He was on the floor, coughing and gasping, the blue tinge to his face not entirely gone. Lili kneeled down next to him, putting one hand on his shoulder, murmuring something softly and comfortingly. After a moment, he began to breathe normally again, and she stood, holding out a hand to help him to his feet.
For one short moment they smiled at each other, each face showing friendship, happiness, and something else that no one could quite name.
Then they remembered they were fighting, and Draco's eyes became hard and cold again, and Lili dropped his hand like it was a hot coal. Draco glared at his former friend, and she glared right back.
Harry shook his head and ignored the two. He concentrated on the wall in front of them, the wall that went around the inside of the entire Temple, creating a large marble box. As he circled it, he noticed something very important: there was no door.
"So we came all this freaking way to get to this freaking Temple and there's no freaking door? This whole thing is a giant load of horse crap, lousy goddamn..." Lili trailed off into quiet obscenities that made Ron look impressed and Hermione wince, although she didn't dare say anything to Lili, not with the mood she was in.
Harry had been inspecting the wall, and now pointed to its only flaw. "There's a hole in the stone, and of course, runes are scratched around it. It says 'Only the body of the Air shall enter here.'" He grinned, and continued. "And for once, I don't need you people to try and figure it out for me. I have to change into a puff of wind and slip through the hole. So, give me a moment to figure out how to do this, and I think I'll be seeing you all later." Harry straightened up to his full height, closed his eyes, and seemed to dissolve. A second later, Lili heard a little Harry-voice inside her head. **Interesting...**
Her mental self laughed. **You have the ability to change into air, and all you can say is 'interesting?'** Harry's mind-self laughed back, and disappeared through the hole in the Temple wall.
Once on the other side of the wall, he changed back into himself. As he tried to mentally speak to Lili, he got no answer. He knew she would never ignore him like that, and he figured the wall must somehow be blocking his telepathy. Well, okay. He was on his own. He'd done it before.
On the other side of the wall, the uneasy silence between Lili and Draco was growing by the second. Ron and Hermione seemed to have made an unspoken agreement not to get involved, and, at the moment, were having a heated argument over the importance of making up homework they missed when they got back (Lili and Draco both silently sided with Ron, if they were saving the world, they shouldn't have to write essays on goblin rebellions and the hundred-and-one uses for strawberry leaves in Cheerfulness potions.)
It was a good fifteen minutes of that uncomfortable silence before Harry reappeared. Naturally, the bow and arrows could not fit through that tiny hole, so it came as a bit of a shock to the others when instead of a puff of wind materializing into Harry, a section of the marble wall suddenly dissolved into dust and blew away. Standing on the other side, smiling, was Harry. Ron came up and patted him on the back. "Good job, mate. Those things are nice, too."
They really were. The bow was a composite longbow, built with an incurve, so that when you unstrung it, it retained its shape. The grip was bound in white dragon leather, much like the hilt on the Earth Sword. The string was an exceptionally long unicorn tail hair, unbreakable. The bow was sturdy, serviceable, and beautiful. But the arrows were really a work of art.
The feathers on the back were straight and fine, a beautiful yellow-gold color. The head was not metal, as is common now, but stone, sharp. Set in the wood around the arrowhead were tiny yellow stones, not shiny, polished gems, like in the Fire Spear, but opaque, matte stones. Around them was set silver wire inlay, traveling down the shaft of the arrows in a pattern matching the one traveling the bow in the same silver wire, only without the stones. They were beautiful. And very obviously deadly. Lili decided she liked them.
Hermione had taken on a businesslike manner, and, after a few moments of admiring the bow and arrows, had demanded they leave. Ron privately speculated that it was "that time of the month," although he had the decency not to say it out loud, and Lili suspected Hermione was simply impatient to find her magical weapon. Whatever the reason, though, Hermione chose not to share it.
Harry didn't want to leave quite yet, though. "Let's camp here for the night," he suggested. "It's almost dark anyway, we might as well just stay here." The others nodded tired agreement, Hermione somewhat grudgingly. But in the end, they spent the night outside the Air Temple before flying off the next morning.
(A/N) Okay, I am really sorry about the note at the top of this chapter. I was in a particularly bad mood at the time I wrote it, and I'm just too lazy to go back and delete it. I promised you all that I would put in what you asked for, and you asked for romance, so I am now required to put in romance. Yay. But, there are limitations: one- there will not be a lot of romance, and two- it will be whatever it turns out to be, H/L, D/L, both, or neither. Lili's decided she's going to have some fun in this story, and unfortunately my muse, Dr. Bojangles, agrees with her. So I really have no choice. And I know these chapters are kind of boring and/or pointless, but wait until I get to the ending. believe it or not, the ending is where it gets good, so to speak. This is not one of my best stories.
Okay, now to thank my reviwers:
Tazy Silverpen: Thanks, I'm glad you think the elements they have fit them, I was beginning to wonder about that.
Rogue 15: Sorry if it feels rushed, when I have writers block, I refuse to let it stop me from writing, but still, it doesn't come out so good, and it does feel a little rushed, I know. That's one of the reasons this chapter took so long, I had a lot of writers block lately.
Selena Silvermoon: Thanks for the support, I'm planning to check out your story, but I haven't had the time quite yet.
rachel
and
Freda Potter: Had the same thing to say for both of you, so I didn't see any point in writing it seperately. Thanks! I am so glad you all like my story, it's not one of my best, but I'll admit it's a hell of a lot better than some of the other stuff I've written.
****IMPORTANT NEWS****
Okay, I have some bad news for you all. I'm leaving for camp in under a week, and it's a three week session. So this is the last chapter for at least three weeks. You can expect chapters eleven, twelve, or whatever else I manage to write during my time at camp up somewhere around August 11th, the day after I get back. Sorry everybody!
And to steal from Ady, one of the authors on my faves list:
Be excellent to each other!
-Moon Warrior
(A/N) Okay, screw the romance. I cannot write romance. If there is any romance in here, it is pure accident, or temporary insanity. Live with the action/adventure, people. If you really need romance that much, quit hanging around on the Internet and go get yourself a life. Don't make me write one for you.
CHAPTER TEN: THE AIR TEMPLE
It hadn't taken long to find a suitable flying carpet. Hermione had mentioned , rather irritatingly, that they were illegal. Lili had simply grinned, and told her "not in Egypt."With a Grin, Hermione had confessed that she hated the brooms almost as much as Lili did, and bought one for herself.
Lili was depressed. She hadn't meant to hit Draco like that, she had just gotten so angry when she heard him call Hermione that... it was his fault to begin with! If he hadn't called Hermione that, she wouldn't have hit him, and they'd still be friends. It wasn't her fault!
But the words of an old teacher rang in her head. *Yeah, yeah, yeah. Nothing's ever your fault, is it, Lili?*
Damn subconscious, she thought furiously. Why d'you always have to shove the blame right back on me?
For awhile, Harry had succumbed to his worse nature, and watched rather gleefully as Lili and Malfoy refused to even look at each other. After awhile, though, his conscience got a hold of him. He knew the way Lili was, and knew that she would rather die than compromise her pride by apologizing a second time. So, if Malfoy didn't apologize, their friendship would be worth about as much as Barbie dolls to a seven year old boy.
Aw, damn, Harry thought. How is it that I suddenly get the job of helping my worst enemy find a friend? He turned his broom sharply, just missing Hermione's magic carpet, and flew over to Malfoy, who was sulking in the very back of the group.
Draco was absorbed in his thoughts, and didn't notice until Harry almost collided with his broom. "What the hell do you want, Potter?" He snarled.
Harry refused to let Malfoy get to him. "Listen to me. I hate you, and you hate me. That's all there is to it. But Lili doesn't hate you, and she's sorry about hitting you. She's upset that you refuse to talk to her, and personally, I think you're being even more than a bastard than usual. She tried to apologize to you."
"She also tried to break my nose," he said scornfully. "And I don't recall asking you for your view on the whole thing."
"D'you think I care? All I'm saying is to forgive her. She didn't mean to hit you like that, and she's sorry. Talk to her or don't talk to her, it doesn't matter to me, SHE has other friends." And with that, Harry turned his broom and flew away.
"God damn self-righteous Potter," Draco mumbled. "Always thinking he knows what's best for everybody. I'll forgive her when I'm good and ready, screw Potter." And Lili and Draco flew on opposite sides of the group.
They were all on edge now. They had two of the Divine tools (the spear had a nifty trick of shrinking to fit in its bearer's pocket, making its transportation a great deal easier), and they all knew Voldemort would stop at nothing to keep them from getting the bow and shield. Every time they stopped to set up camp, they would first check the area for a mile around for Death Eaters. And even then, several different types of Barrier, Alarm, and Stunning Charms would adorn the perimeter of their camp. After a week, the stress was beginning to get to them.
Draco was having an especially bad time of it. Harry had been right: Lili was the only thing ensuring his acceptance within the group. Now that they were fighting, the others seemed more than ready to leave him behind, only their sense of honor prevented them from abandoning him, and only the thought of revenge on his father kept Draco from leaving on his own.
The distance between the Fire and Air Temples was, thankfully, rather short. It took them less than a week to travel to the mountain on which the Temple was located. The Temple itself was a good deal smaller than both the Fire and Earth Temples. While the first two had been about the size of apartment complexes, the Air Temple was the size of a three-story Victorian house. The building was unusual, too. It had no walls, and was merely a roof situated on top of marble pillars, allowing the wind to whip through freely. Harry smiled, the Temple felt comforting to him.
They landed gently among the plants outside the Temple, and rolled their brooms up in the carpets before making their way to the pillars that made the walls of the Temple. The five teenagers stepped through the pillars, and instantly, all but Harry grabbed their throats and gasped, struggling for the air that was suddenly deprived of them.
Harry stared at his friends in horror, his mind racing. The Temples themselves were turning out to be more dangerous than the Death Eaters that were undoubtedly following them. Out of pure instinct, he reached out and touched Hermione's neck, concentrating on air, on her breathing normally again. After a moment, the blue tinge to her skin lessened, and she drew a rattling breath as she sank to the ground. He knelt beside her to see if she was all right, but she looked at him with panic filled eyes, and gestured to the others, gasping out "Help them," before she erupted into a fit of coughing.
Harry moved from one of his friends to the next, quickly. Lili had, like Hermione, managed to keep her head. She was standing straight and still, not moving, simply conserving her air, and she was much less blue in the face than Ron or Draco.
Draco had been the last to be healed, and, due to his flailing around, was on the verge of unconsciousness when he began breathing again. He was on the floor, coughing and gasping, the blue tinge to his face not entirely gone. Lili kneeled down next to him, putting one hand on his shoulder, murmuring something softly and comfortingly. After a moment, he began to breathe normally again, and she stood, holding out a hand to help him to his feet.
For one short moment they smiled at each other, each face showing friendship, happiness, and something else that no one could quite name.
Then they remembered they were fighting, and Draco's eyes became hard and cold again, and Lili dropped his hand like it was a hot coal. Draco glared at his former friend, and she glared right back.
Harry shook his head and ignored the two. He concentrated on the wall in front of them, the wall that went around the inside of the entire Temple, creating a large marble box. As he circled it, he noticed something very important: there was no door.
"So we came all this freaking way to get to this freaking Temple and there's no freaking door? This whole thing is a giant load of horse crap, lousy goddamn..." Lili trailed off into quiet obscenities that made Ron look impressed and Hermione wince, although she didn't dare say anything to Lili, not with the mood she was in.
Harry had been inspecting the wall, and now pointed to its only flaw. "There's a hole in the stone, and of course, runes are scratched around it. It says 'Only the body of the Air shall enter here.'" He grinned, and continued. "And for once, I don't need you people to try and figure it out for me. I have to change into a puff of wind and slip through the hole. So, give me a moment to figure out how to do this, and I think I'll be seeing you all later." Harry straightened up to his full height, closed his eyes, and seemed to dissolve. A second later, Lili heard a little Harry-voice inside her head. **Interesting...**
Her mental self laughed. **You have the ability to change into air, and all you can say is 'interesting?'** Harry's mind-self laughed back, and disappeared through the hole in the Temple wall.
Once on the other side of the wall, he changed back into himself. As he tried to mentally speak to Lili, he got no answer. He knew she would never ignore him like that, and he figured the wall must somehow be blocking his telepathy. Well, okay. He was on his own. He'd done it before.
On the other side of the wall, the uneasy silence between Lili and Draco was growing by the second. Ron and Hermione seemed to have made an unspoken agreement not to get involved, and, at the moment, were having a heated argument over the importance of making up homework they missed when they got back (Lili and Draco both silently sided with Ron, if they were saving the world, they shouldn't have to write essays on goblin rebellions and the hundred-and-one uses for strawberry leaves in Cheerfulness potions.)
It was a good fifteen minutes of that uncomfortable silence before Harry reappeared. Naturally, the bow and arrows could not fit through that tiny hole, so it came as a bit of a shock to the others when instead of a puff of wind materializing into Harry, a section of the marble wall suddenly dissolved into dust and blew away. Standing on the other side, smiling, was Harry. Ron came up and patted him on the back. "Good job, mate. Those things are nice, too."
They really were. The bow was a composite longbow, built with an incurve, so that when you unstrung it, it retained its shape. The grip was bound in white dragon leather, much like the hilt on the Earth Sword. The string was an exceptionally long unicorn tail hair, unbreakable. The bow was sturdy, serviceable, and beautiful. But the arrows were really a work of art.
The feathers on the back were straight and fine, a beautiful yellow-gold color. The head was not metal, as is common now, but stone, sharp. Set in the wood around the arrowhead were tiny yellow stones, not shiny, polished gems, like in the Fire Spear, but opaque, matte stones. Around them was set silver wire inlay, traveling down the shaft of the arrows in a pattern matching the one traveling the bow in the same silver wire, only without the stones. They were beautiful. And very obviously deadly. Lili decided she liked them.
Hermione had taken on a businesslike manner, and, after a few moments of admiring the bow and arrows, had demanded they leave. Ron privately speculated that it was "that time of the month," although he had the decency not to say it out loud, and Lili suspected Hermione was simply impatient to find her magical weapon. Whatever the reason, though, Hermione chose not to share it.
Harry didn't want to leave quite yet, though. "Let's camp here for the night," he suggested. "It's almost dark anyway, we might as well just stay here." The others nodded tired agreement, Hermione somewhat grudgingly. But in the end, they spent the night outside the Air Temple before flying off the next morning.
(A/N) Okay, I am really sorry about the note at the top of this chapter. I was in a particularly bad mood at the time I wrote it, and I'm just too lazy to go back and delete it. I promised you all that I would put in what you asked for, and you asked for romance, so I am now required to put in romance. Yay. But, there are limitations: one- there will not be a lot of romance, and two- it will be whatever it turns out to be, H/L, D/L, both, or neither. Lili's decided she's going to have some fun in this story, and unfortunately my muse, Dr. Bojangles, agrees with her. So I really have no choice. And I know these chapters are kind of boring and/or pointless, but wait until I get to the ending. believe it or not, the ending is where it gets good, so to speak. This is not one of my best stories.
Okay, now to thank my reviwers:
Tazy Silverpen: Thanks, I'm glad you think the elements they have fit them, I was beginning to wonder about that.
Rogue 15: Sorry if it feels rushed, when I have writers block, I refuse to let it stop me from writing, but still, it doesn't come out so good, and it does feel a little rushed, I know. That's one of the reasons this chapter took so long, I had a lot of writers block lately.
Selena Silvermoon: Thanks for the support, I'm planning to check out your story, but I haven't had the time quite yet.
rachel
and
Freda Potter: Had the same thing to say for both of you, so I didn't see any point in writing it seperately. Thanks! I am so glad you all like my story, it's not one of my best, but I'll admit it's a hell of a lot better than some of the other stuff I've written.
****IMPORTANT NEWS****
Okay, I have some bad news for you all. I'm leaving for camp in under a week, and it's a three week session. So this is the last chapter for at least three weeks. You can expect chapters eleven, twelve, or whatever else I manage to write during my time at camp up somewhere around August 11th, the day after I get back. Sorry everybody!
And to steal from Ady, one of the authors on my faves list:
Be excellent to each other!
-Moon Warrior