They found Pandora seated on the rock, a small carpetbag resting on the ground beside the rock. "You're here with not a moment to spare," she said to Marcia as she slid off the rock. She nodded her head in greeting to Harry, who threw his arms around her in a big hug. Pandora looked startled for a moment before she smiled and melted into the hug, placing her own arms around his shoulders and brushing her cheek against his. "And hello to you, my little one," she said softly.

Harry drew away from her. "I thought you said you couldn't come home."

"Not by my own powers," Pandora replied, "which are none. However, this wild card here can go anywhere and take anyone with her. Cousin Quigley sent her to me; it took him long enough." Pandora bent over and grabbed the carpetbag; she tucked it under her arm and looked at Marcia, waiting. "We must leave, now. Riddle and Voldemort are crossing paths at this very moment, and it's tearing apart the fabric of the universe." She smiled at Harry. "You, my little one, will have to return the same way you left." She dropped the carpetbag and firmly placed both hands upon his chest. "Have a safe trip," she said gently as she pushed Harry backwards. Harry felt his balance give, the ground shift beneath his feet, and then he was falling backwards through a dark hole and Pandora was becoming smaller and smaller. Marcia cheerfully waved him goodbye, and then he were gone.

"Shall we go?" Marcia asked Pandora as the old woman picked up her carpetbag.

"Lend me your arm," Pandora said as her free hand reached out to Marcia. "Harry misplaced my cane and my leg is too weak for me to walk without its support."

Marcia stepped forward and, much to her dismay, discovered she was just the right height for Pandora to lean an elbow on her head. She reached up and grabbed Pandora's upper arm. "Why don't we do this, instead?" Marcia asked. She pulled Pandora with her as she Jumped. "James said he'd meet up with us, 'cause it's been a while since he last saw you."

Pandora looked startled at Marcia, her face white with shock. "James doesn't exist though, even in Time."

Marcia skidded to a stop. "Neither do I."

"But you are the exception to the rule that James isn't."

Marcia started at Pandora for a long moment, and then flung an arm out to point in some random direction. "Then what the hell was it that I ran into?"

-----------------------------------

Cousin Quigley pried Severus' fingers free from where they desperately clutched the stand of reality, and dragged him backwards. Severus stumbled and fell, landing heavily against Cousin Quigley's knees. "Still too human to touch the fabric," Cousin Quigley muttered to himself. He watched James struggling to keep things tied together, a losing battle since the great tapestry was unraveling more quickly than he could move his hands to tie and his legs to get to individual places. Already, in several placed, the tapestry had unraveled beyond his reach.

"Ah hah!" a voice said behind Cousin Quigley. "I finally found you!"

"You're just in time," Cousin Quigley said as he whipped around. "You need to help James keep the tapestry from unraveling."

The Bloody Baron froze. "What?" he asked finally. "I know nothing of how to wave a tapestry." And then, as an after-thought as he realized who he was going to be working with, "That's James?"

"Once balance is restored, the tapestry will weave its own self back into what it should be. The more it unravels though, the more things become released and reality becomes more unstable. The dead walk, the future plays, and Harry Wanders without guidance."

"Oh." The Bloody Baron watched James scramble about, grabbing handful after handful and tying them together in knots and bows. The Bloody Baron drifted into the air and floated over to where the areas of the tapestry had unraveled itself beyond James' reach. He grabbed a handful and tied them securely with a complicated sailor's knot that involved several twists, shakes, and loops. And he did it in two and a half seconds.

Cousin Quigley turned back to Severus and shook him on the shoulder. "Severus. Severus. Snap out of it."

"There's so much!" Severus bowed his head and wept. "How can one not get lost in it? There's so much! Everything within everything, even the littlest things . . . ?"

"Don't bother wrapping your mind around the concept of infinity. It's beyond human comprehension, whether you be dead or alive," Cousin Quigley said gruffly. He pulled at Severus' arms. "Stand. You need to help us maintain as much as balance as we can."

"How can you not drown it in all?"

"By refusing to acknowledge it." With a grunt, Cousin Quigley pulled Severus to his feet. "Imagine what it must be like to touch that when you're alive, when you have all your senses as sharp as they are meant to be."

"Too much." Severus wavered on his feet and rubbed his eyes. "Too much."

"You must help." Cousin Quigley took Severus' hand and guided it to one of the strands. "Focus upon the here and now, and there will be no room for anything else." Severus watched his own hand, marveling at how so many cells, miniature worlds unto their own, could make up such a complex organism. "That's right," Cousin Quigley said, "focus upon yourself." And to think, it obeyed the electric signals that his brain generated, through minerals and chemicals and polarity. It seemed ridiculous to him, but somehow it managed to work.

Cousin Quigley gentled tangled Severus' hand into the strands of reality; there was a small jolt that ran through Severus as he became hyperaware of his surroundings, how his surroundings and the concept of reality bore down upon him. He could feel his heart pumping, could feel all four valves in his heart open and close. He was aware of every contraction and relaxation of every fiber in his being. And deep in this organism that he was, he felt an awareness wrapped around every cell. He was supposed to be dead, but this was a solid body, or at least the concept of a solid body, and his soul was imbedded in it. He could feel it. As he gradually buried himself in the awareness, the concept of infinity slipped away, and holding the strands no longer affected him as it once did. He was still acutely aware of the reality, but only by the immense love that was infused in each reality. He could no longer differentiate between the little atoms and the great galaxies, but only that a single love held it all together and gave meaning to every insignificant thing that was or was not.

Cousin Quigley released Severus' hand and stepped away. Severus basked in the love that reached out to him and, slowly, but quickly gaining momentum as he became used to the feel and the movement, began to braid strand with strand, giving them a base and a steadiness, however temporary that it may be.

-----------------------------------

It occurred to Harry that no one could currently see him. He could feel the impression of standing on uncut grass and the solid earth beneath it as it curved into a hill. At the foot of the hill, rapidly approaching one another with tidal waves of power flowing around them, were Voldemort and Riddle. The power, one neon green and the other a sickly-looking, poisoned and tainted green, wrapped around their respectful owners like protective owners and circled about like wolves searching for a weakness. The air was charged with an electrical current that made Harry's hair stand on end and little blue sparks bounce off his nose.

Harry stood behind Harry2 and Draco, both seated in the long grass and well-disguised by the blending of their surroundings with the caramel and brown tones of their clothes. Harry didn't know how his companions managed to change clothes, but had a nagging feeling some transfiguration was involved. Neither seemed to notice or feel Harry; he had a suspicion that he was somehow Wandering in his own reality.

Harry2, chewing on a blade of grass, grinned and pointed. "Riddle and Voldemort are going head-on. Bets on who will win?"

Draco shivered as the ground beneath them shook. "My money is on the one who hasn't bumped noses with the boy who lived and came away scathed because of it. Something that has never been broken or scared is generally stronger."

"Ah, but something that is broken can be made stronger so it won't be broken a second time."

Draco shook his head. "Nah. Nothing broken is ever quite the same as strong as it once was. There is always the impression that it was weak once and it can be weak again. Why do you think Voldemort was always trying to kill you? Because you happen to represent that weakness."

Harry2's eyes widened in mock-surprise. "And here I thought it was because I'm a third-class demonling!"

"Third class? That's pretty bad."

"No. That's good. Demons are classed according to their power, with first-class demons having god-like powers and being just second to the Lord of Chaos. Mom says she's met some, but I don't know anyone that powerful. Unless it's Aunt Patches, but there's something odd about her and not because she's a demon. And fifth-class demons can be beaten by humans who have the strength, skill, and experience. Except those kinds of humans aren't common."

"So you sit in the middle?"

Harry2 shrugged. "Suits me fine. I'm strong enough that others won't bother me, but weak enough that I'm not considered a threat by second and first-class demons. See, the power that those two have, that's a lot of power. It's equal to a third-class demon, I think. I know I'd have a serious problem if Voldemort ever unleashed his full strength against me, and the only reason why I managed to get away so far is 'cause he always underestimates me. So I'm going to join the fight when it's time for my dragon."

Harry glanced at Harry2's arm. The dragon's red eyes were flared open, and Harry2's sleeve material was singed brown and smoking. The ground beneath them trembled again. Harry thought he saw a blurring and splitting of the landscape, and the scene seemed to twist and distort itself as if being seen through warped metal or shattered glass. Time stopped for a moment and there was a sudden, rushing feeling of vertigo. He rubbed his eyes beneath his glasses and both the feeling and distortion of vision disappeared. The rubbing caused little afterimages of color that darted in his vision though. At least, that was what Harry thought and hoped those fleeting, shapeless blobs of blue and black were.

The two figures stopped moving, and stood apart by a hundred yards. They seemed to measure each other up over the distance, and the power lay over the ground, boiling like a rolling fog as the tendrils reached upward and faded, twisting and calm, but still alive. Again, there was a splitting of images, and Harry rubbed his eyes again in annoyance. "What a time to get philosophical," Harry muttered in reference to Harry2 and Draco's conversation.

"Ganging up, are we?" Draco asked Harry2.

Harry2 snorted. "All is fair in love and war," he said. "Voldemort's just lucky I don't have a cricket to aim at the general vicinity he stands in."

"A cricket? What's the cricket going to do? Chirp him to death?"

"Blow him up. And probably a good chunk of the Scottish countryside as well."

Draco's eyebrows shot up to the once-white hair band that kept the hair out of his face. "A little bug can do that?"

"It's a gun."

Draco cocked his head to the side and looked intrigued as he rubbed an ear. "A Muggle invention, eh?"

"Muggles are very good with inventing various ways in which to blow each other up."

Harry squinted into the distance. He could not see Dumbledore or Francis around, but he knew they had to be near. Was that a pack of dogs he saw, streaking and flowing over the countryside like liquid? And what was the gigantic horned thing following closely behind on a horse?

Harry suddenly realized that, just maybe, it wasn't such a good idea to be around when Voldemort and Riddle fought. Colors in his vision melted away, until everything was stone gray of varying shades and lines. To have two of the same people, whose abilities was firstly time, to clash together in a small area was going to rip the fabric of reality--it was a chilling feeling that settled in the pit of his stomach when Harry realized this. "Maybe you two should leave," Harry said as he felt a tug around his waist.

The lines that represented Harry2 turned about and said, "But, Harry, the party's just beginning!"

At that moment, power between the two figures erupted upward like a sprouting geyser. The powers clashed, sparks flew and swirled, and pain flared in Harry's agony just as he slipped backwards.

Harry2 squinted his eyes and grunted as the scar on his forehead flared red. Other flashes of color burst wherever bare skin was. Draco reached a hand out to him and opened his mouth to inquire after Harry2's health, but his arm passed through Harry2. Draco stared in surprise as Harry2 yelped and was abruptly yanked into the ground by an unforeseen force. Draco stared at the ground for a moment, and then sat backwards with a thump. "Just how am I supposed to react to that?" he asked no one in particular.

With no answer forthcoming, Draco pulled a sword from out of the confines of his robes and slowly made his way down the hill and around Voldemort. Above his head, a rolling, convoluted ball of sickly green power twisted and pulsed from an inner light. A mist of baby-blue floated closely beside it. The two powers rotated around each other like revolving moons before plunging through the fabric of the Universe, leaving a gaping hole of Chance behind.

In the distance, a hound's baling cry rose over the countryside.

-----------------------------------

In the tunnel of crackling energies, Marcia skidded to a halt, nearly pulling Pandora off-balance. She shivered. "I feel like someone sealed my doom," she muttered with a twitching eyebrow as Pandora pressed her hand to her chest and gasped for air. Marcia looked at her. "Do you need some rest?" she asked politely.

Pandora leaned against the wall. "Just--just for a moment," she said as her other hand absently dropped down and rubbed her left leg, which ached terribly. "I'm too old for this."

"Hmm." Marcia rolled her eyes as she looked around the tunnel. Again, she shivered and rubbed her upper arms through their sleeves. "I feel like something is coming."

"You ought to," Pandora said sternly, "since you were the one who released the Wild Hunt and weakened the bonds throughout the Universe."

Marcia barely paid Pandora any attention. "T'was Ron's fault," she said automatically. After a moment, she grabbed Pandora's hand and tugged. "Come on," she said, hurrying down the hall. Pandora stumbled after her, more dragging the left leg than walking on it. Through the cavern they ran, and a dark figure was barreling after them. Marcia skidded to a halt and pressed herself to the side of the tunnel just as Harry2 barged past. "Harry?"

Harry2 glanced over his shoulder. "Might not want to head that way, Mom!" he yelled. "Something dark this way comes!"

Marcia squinted after him. "Is he sprouting bad poetry again?" she wondered. Pandora suddenly gripped her upper arm.

"Something dark this way does come," Pandora said as horror flashed across her face.

"Hmm?" Marcia tilted her head and looked down the length of the tunnel. Nothing so much different than from the last time she came through. It was still made up of various energies, still a parting through matter, a full space of nothing enclosed between realities that led to the center of the Universe, and the flooding of deadly Chaos that would soon overwhelm her and Pandora . . . Uhoh!

Marcia grabbed Pandora's arm and pulled her along as they Jumped through the walls of energy. "That wasn't there the last time!" Marcia said through gritted teeth. "I wanna know what's going on!"

"Raw potential is fighting with Destiny, and Chance is going to win, but for the fact chance is the most unpredictable element," Pandora replied just before they crashed into a large, unraveling Tapestry.

-----------------------------------

Harry was running through flashes of scenes, past realities and through time and space. What did that single scene of a little girl with large brown eyes and bouncy almond-brown curls, grasping a cocker spaniel pup by the scruff of its neck mean? She stood in the middle of a room on a hard-wood floor of black chestnut, her pert little mouth trembling as tears welled up in her eyes. Each detail was etched into his mind, burned into his cortex with no reason for being seen.

Why did he see a woman, her red-blond hair pulled half-back and bent over a keyboard, a black-haired gerbil with a crooked tail perched on her shoulder, typing fiercely as she watched a computer screen?

What was the purpose of the smooth-as-glass lake of black water resting at the foot of fire-scoured mountains, where once healthy forests were now black, dead, and ashes? Scene after scene, each one confusing, each one just a fraction of a single scene of a single person or single creature's life, mixed in the whole of the Universe. But this was what he was trying to save, wasn't it?

Harry felt something solid beneath his feet as he ran, compelled by some unforeseen and unknown force, but his eyes only told him he ran on fog, mist or air, pending upon what sort of scene he ran through. There was a sense of urgency from the compulsion to run and run, because something was chasing him. A malevolent spirit forced Harry on, and he could not escape the feeling that if he did not run, he was never going to see the end of his flight.

He stumbled as a jolt ran through his body. He was suddenly in a train corridor and the people milling about did not see him. He looked down at his body as an uncomprehending elderly man in a fedora walked through him. Harry was not transparent, but his hands were so small. He looked at the child who stood beside a window, and realized that he had shrunk. A quick look back at his hands--no, he had not shrunk; he was eleven years old again. The feeling of compulsion was gone and he was no longer running through fleeting, random scenes that, on a whole, made no sense to him.

Confused, Harry slowly walked through the train, glancing at people. How strange it was from the scenes he had run through. They were fleeting, mortal, fragile and now gone forever. Here, the scene was blurry and the people's faces were smooth and featureless. Details he could have understand slipped from his vision and from his understanding like water through parted fingers. Disconcerted, Harry walked down the aisle of the train, wincing every time he stepped through a person or a person stepped through him. He glanced from face to face, but the details ran together or slipped away.

He glanced over his shoulder. At the far end, colors bled together and faded into a stone gray. Like water running down a hill, the stone-gray slowly seeped into his surroundings, leaking into people and rendering them immobile. What had once been humans were now stone statues of faceless, human-shaped creatures. Harry looked to the front and stepped through one of the stone statues that stood before him. There was a brief shiver that ran down the length of his spine, and he stopped suddenly.

There was an island of color in one of the seats; a thin-faced woman with shoulder-length light brown hair looked at Harry with wide eyes. He could see her features and see her chest move as she took a deep breath in surprise. She didn't seem to notice the surroundings as he did, but he knew, as he looked into her eyes, that she could see him. With a hitch of his breath, urgency exploded in Harry's mind and he whipped around to flee. He ran through the stone statue, and suddenly the train was gone, and he was once more running through emptiness with rectangular-shaped fleeting pictures that whirled past him, dancing and turning and revolving like spinning doors. No longer did they leave such an impression on Harry, their details stark and clear as the high noon sun in a cloudless sky, but he knew them and remembered them still. On he continued to run, compelled forward by a sense of urgency, a sense of danger, and something more.

And behind him on the train, JK Rowling was fiercely thinking of the fully-fleshed character with the lightening-shaped scar.

-----------------------------------

Draco kept his head low as he crawled/weaved across the countryside, his trek through the long grass like a zig-zagging snake. He kept his sword tucked beneath one arm, the blade turned down and one hand firmly gripping the pommel. He stopped now and then to kneel upright to look at Voldemort and Riddle. Neither had moved, but the powers that surrounded them had twisted and woven themselves from rolling clouds into lightening bolts that shot sideways. The range of the lightening bolts were small, but gradually getting longer. Draco had no idea what would happen if he were struck by one of the stray bolts, but he was carefully trying to work his way outside the range, but still within a good reach for an attack.

There was no place in this fight for him. He had tried grabbing his wand, but the moment his hand touched the pommel, the wand had burst into sparks that burned and blistered his skin when the two came into contact. Magic, no matter how powerful the two wizards or witches who faced off together, should not do this to surrounding persons. As far as Draco knew, Grindlewald and Dumbledore, when they had fought, had leveled the countryside, but he had never heard of their power clashing and tearing through reality, and it was common opinion that Dumbledore, even in his great age, had been strong enough to intimidate Voldemort even at the height of the Dark Lord's power. That had to account for something.

Still, Draco wasn't going to discount the fact that the two persons fighting were, for all intents and purposes, the same. And given the circumstances of how everything he and his companions had done so far--jumping through realities, meeting counterpart after counterpart after counterpart, seeing the future and knowing the past--were exceptions to the vague rules of wizarding magic, he supposed he shouldn't be surprised with how volatile were Voldemort and Riddle together.

And if he could just figure out where that blasted yipping, howling, barking, and baling was coming from, he'd feel a little more at ease. Draco not was a particularly great fan of dogs. He always found them to be boorish brutes with a great lot of fur, tail, teeth, and tongue. As such, he did his best to avoid such creatures. But the baying hounds he heard were random and unusual. Sometimes they sounded close, almost as if they were on top of him, and other times they sounded so faint that he might have imagined it. But somehow, dogs were present, and Draco visibly searched the countryside for them and saw neither hide nor hair.

He made his way down the hill and over the countryside to a hollow he and Harry2 and noticed earlier. It dipped lower than the rest of the countryside and seemed to curve inward, like a small cave. Just as he was within slithering reach of the hollow, hail the size of his clenched fists began to drop out of the clear sky. With an indignant yelp, Draco scrambled for the hollow. He slipped off the edge and fell six feet onto his back. A hand reached out from the dark of the hollow and pulled him in.

"Hullo," Francis said amiably. "Where's Harry? I last saw him with you."

Draco stared at Francis for a moment as he reoriented himself to his darker surroundings. "Why are you wearing that?" Draco asked finally, reaching out to poke the World War II-isque helmet that was covered Francis' head, the chinstrap firmly in place. Francis' goggles were pulled over his thick glasses, magnifying his eyes to give him Trelawney-like buggy eyes.

Francis fidgeted with his goggles and chinstrap. "A body can get a concussion if he wandered out into that hail," he said finally as a fierce gust of wind blew aforementioned hail into their hollow, irregardless of the fact that he must have been wearing the helmet before the hail had begun to fall.

Draco pressed his back against the wall beside Francis until the wind subsided. He relaxed slightly. "Harry just disappeared into the ground. Er, the fire Harry. Dunno what happened to him though, or if I should be worried. I am, worried that is, except I don't know what I can do about it." He collapsed his hands together to think, but winced as one of the blisters popped. "Grabbing my wand gives me blisters." He lifted his hands and looked critically at the skin along the back. In the places where the sparks had struck him were painful blood-filled blisters the size of a galleon, except the one he had accidently popped; oily-looking blood oozed down the back of his hand.

Francis nodded his head as he dug a some-what clean handkerchief from his pocket. He held it out to Draco, who took it and pressed it against the back of his hand. The wind blew again, and a hailstone bounced off his helmet with a loud clang. Francis' expression or posture never changed; it was as if he barely registered his surroundings at all. There was a blankness of his face and an emptiness in his eyes, his self drawn so far back from reality that he was merely a puppet reacting to his rapidly-changing environment.

"Is it just those two, or is power supposed to react like that?" Draco asked with a vague wave toward the direction of where he was sure Voldemort and Riddle stood. He could not see them because of the rise of land before his line of vision.

There was a long moment of silence as Francis slowly glanced toward the opening of the hollow, and then back to Draco. "That is the result of two different realities coming face-to-face," Francis replied lightly. "It's sort of like two trains on the same track heading opposite directions. Because of the various characteristics of two powerful beings fighting one another . . ." Francis' voice trailed off for a second, and then he shrugged, a mild expression still on his face. "Well, we never said it was going to be pretty." Another hailstone bounced off his helmet with another loud clang.

"Any suggestion for what we should do?" Draco asked as he clutched his sword close to his breast. "We can't use magic against Riddle or Voldemort, and while I'll admit I tend to be a tad, er, frisky with death, I'm not stupid enough to charge 'em with my sword."

Francis smiled and held up a finger. "I propose we wait until one of them dies, and then attack the one left standing if it's Voldemort."

Draco studied Francis' face with a suspicious frown. "You seem to be awfully mild about this entire event."

Francis' brow creased in thought as his head tilted forward and he touched his chin against his chest. There was a flash of light through his eyes, and then it was gone and his eyes were empty once more. He looked up at Draco with a good-natured grin. "I can't find it in myself to be anything but mild. I don't feel panicky, lost, depressed, or excited. I'm just sort of warm and fuzzy. I suppose I should be worried about that, as well, and about Harry, but I don't feel it. I can't." His features shifted. For a moment, as Draco started at him, there was an elongation of the neck and a narrowing of the face as the nose shifted forward into a beak-like shape. Draco rubbed his eyes and squinted. Francis' features were human; nothing had changed except he was now looking at Draco with a smatter of puzzlement.

Draco mentally ran through what he was feeling. He felt excitement over the fight, anger directed to both Voldemort and Riddle, fear for both Harrys, and puzzlement over Francis' emotions-and that odd shifting. It couldn't have been his imagination anymore than the dogs could be. He didn't think his feelings were different from how he would feel any other time. "Do you suppose the magic is affecting you?" Draco asked cautiously.

Francis shrugged and craned his neck to see over the rise of land. "I feel like I'm in my egg again, safe and content. I would propose it is a side affect of being swallowed by a phoenix. On the other hand, I speculate it's also a response of finally! No more Jumping or traveling or worrying about the outcome. The moment is here and now at hand, and whatever the outcome, this will be all over. Harry and I can finally move on with our lives, not worrying about if the past will cause inference again." He smiled, full of relief and relaxation. "It's at hand," he said softly. He unconsciously tightened his hands into fists as his eyes glimmered. "And we can move on."

Draco studied Francis for a moment, and then looked away. He slumped over his sword. "Yeah; all move on," he said with the hint of a bitter question in his voice.

In the distance, hounds bayed as if they had caught their scent.

-----------------------------------

Harry2 had never considered it was possible for him to be in someone else's mind; it wasn't so much as he did not understand the images that flew past him in a dizzy circle of someone constantly obsessing over a single thought or memory, turning it over and over to look at different angles, and feeling the frustration, anger, depression, sorrow, and something that bordered closely on insanity--no, it was the fact that he understood with a frightful clarity of what whose mind he existed in, and the entire background behind the thought.

Sirius Black fell through a curtain. The frantic image was played over and over, like a broken recorder that played until it reached a hitch, which forced it back to the start. Harry2 watched and pondered silently. The thick violet of sorrow hung like a shroud in the mind, covering the memory with purple shadows. Somehow, it felt like a puzzle piece that did not fit into the great, grand scheme of things.

One thing was certain, and that was this Harry Potter needed Sirius Black more than any other Harry Potter Harry2 had come across (well; as far as he knew, at least, considering how little he knew of the other Harry Potters beyond their love lives and sexual preferences). And whenever he thought of how this Harry needed Sirius, Harry2 recalled a Sirius in need of Harry. He would have to ask Marcia how well Sirius the Egg was doing when she left. Between this Harry's sorrow and that Sirius' misery, the two were of a kind and just right for one another.

And with that decided, now all Harry2 had to do was find some way to get out of this reality. He had tried to leave earlier, but the shielding around the mind was too strong for him to break through without causing psychological damage to both of them. Since that was something he would prefer avoiding, he needed Harry Potter to lower the shielding and let him slip through. (Of course, that demanded the question of how he even managed to arrive in the mind in the first place, and Harry2 had no idea.)

He poked the memory. It blipped out of existence as awareness rushed forward and surrounded Harry2. A mind, sharp with anger and suspicion, poised on the edge of slamming its strength against him.

Woooe. Hold on now. I'm you.

There was a long pause, and then, cautiously, Come again?

I know this sounds highly improvable, but I'm you from an entirely different reality.

The curiousness melted away and the anger and suspicion, honed into the form of a sharp knife, hurled at him.

Yipe! Harry2 threw out his own memory of fighting Fawkes as Severus and Harry gawked at him from below. The suspicion paused in mid-jerk, hovering once more on the edge as the mind puzzled over this. It flowed backwards like a wary snake pulling away from the attack and looking once more at the target. Harry2 pushed another memory forward; this one of Marcia, Harry, and Harry2 all seated in the kitchen, eating pizza and discussing realities. The mind drew back even further as the suspicion became tinged with puzzlement. Harry2 gave him the memory of Tom Riddle, laying prone on the hospital bed, hair almost a pure silver. This last one the other Harry puzzled over, turning it sideways and upside down. But when Harry2 handed over the memory of Sirius constantly clinging to Harry, the other one latched hungrily upon it, sorrow and wistfulness clutching desperately for this single glimpse of someone who was dear and precious.

Now, thought Harry2 to himself, far from the prying mind of the other Harry, just how do I get out of this mess?

-----------------------------------

The floor shuddered. Pandora threw her arms around Marcia's shoulders and leaned heavily against her until the shuddering-like earthquakes passed. James and Severus both hardly appeared to be affected by it. Their attention was solely upon tying the unraveling strands of reality. Marcia had tried to poke at one strand earlier, just to see what it did, and nearly lost her hand when the Bloody Baron took an unprecedented swipe at her with his sword. She now stood about in her undershirt because she and Pandora had to her overshirt to staunch the bleeding and then bind the deep gash that lay across her wrist

Cousin Quigley appeared almost immediately after the earthquake. "Don't touch," he told Marcia in a cold voice that broached no argument. "You do not exist, and that's hardly stabilizing without your wreaking havoc directly upon the Universe's structure."

"Mmm." Marcia glared at him from behind her glasses as she squeezed a handful of her shirt and blood dripped from it onto the floor with a soft pitter-patter. Cousin Quigley blanched before turning slightly green. "Nice if I'd actually been warned." She bunched her other hand into a fist and rubbed it down the length of her arm from elbow crook to wrist. Cousin Quigley watched her for a moment. "Why do you do that?" he asked finally.

Marcia turned her back to Cousin Quigley in disgust and slipped under Pandora's hold. "The muscles are severed and they rolled backwards like a rubber band. Gotta keep them straight if I want to heal." She muttered several expletives under her voice concerning the Bloody Baron, his sexual tastes, and his parentage, and then wandered off to watch James weaving a pattern with his strands.

Pandora reached out and grabbed Cousin Quigley's selves. She leaned against him for support. "I would much rather she was kept in a whole piece," Pandora said just loud enough for the Bloody Baron, who floated near by, "if she hasn't the strength, then I can't get back to Francis and Harry."

Cousin Quigley patted Pandora's hand with the awkward habit of someone trying to be a comfort that they were unsure of being. "You're not needed there just yet."

"The Wild Hunt has nearly found its way to their reality, though."

"Nearly, yes, but it has not yet quite arrived. We still have time." An expression of stubbornness set Cousin Quigley's face, an expression as foreign to him as a corporeal James bounding to and fro along the bottom of the tapestry.

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The path that Harry walked on looked like a stony pathway carved from a mountainside. It wound around and around the barren peak, reaching upward into dizzying heights obscured by charcoal-gray clouds. He clung to it, crawling on his hands and knees. Blasts of wind buffeted him against the side of the peak and threatened to rip him free of the path and into the great blackness far below. Minute after minute passed. Hour after hour. Time? What was this thing called time that people talked about? He had no concept of it. An hour could be a minute. A minute could be a day. A day could be a second. A second could be a year.

With each blast of wind that pounded him against the rocky interface, with each gust that nearly swept him from his precarious perch, Harry felt something wear away from him. Whether it was strength or magic or memory, Harry could feel himself slowly being torn apart. Some vicious force in the wind snatched the pieces of him away, but all he could do was crawl upward on the path. He looked at his hands, knew they were hands, saw that his fingernails were ripped away and his skin torn and bloody, but he didn't understand how they belonged to him. With a sense of desperation and the feeling that time (whatever that was; all he knew was that he didn't have any) was slipping away for the nameless faces that urged him onward.

Blood dripped in his vision, blurring it and smeared against his glasses, but he hardly noticed. He barely felt the change when it came, the shifting of flesh and anatomy, and he was no longer Harry Potter the Boy Who Lived, but instead was the Girl Who Struggled. Her hands looked smaller than usual, and the weight of her chest was countered only by the heavy weight on her shoulders. If someone had said Harry carried the weight of the world on his shoulders, then certainly Harry would have to agree--aside from the weight of the world on his shoulders, but there was also the weight of two moons on his chest to contend with.

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The barking and howling was closer. Draco's eyes were busy, surveying what surroundings he could see. He clutched his sword close to himself, his body as tense and coiled as a twisted rubber band that threatened to break from being stretched too tightly. He did not notice Francis beside him, who gasped desperately for air and wiped away the sweat that dripped down his face. Several times, Francis took his goggles and glasses off to wipe pools of moisture from them. Neither of them noticed the shifting bones in Francis' hands and face, the wavering between hair and feathers.

Beyond their line of vision, colors coiled around Tom Riddle and Voldemort as their powers clashed and fought to overwhelm the other. One single line of color wrapped around Voldemort in the form of a chain, disappearing into his spinal cord like a machine's power cord or attachment, a tie to something that extended beyond him. It was his lifeline, and the other end of it was buried into Harry Potter's skull, directly where the scar in his forehead was. Harry struggled against it as power drained from it to Voldemort, struggled up the rocky pathway that led to hope and freedom, fingers bloody, the female form back once more. Where male Harry could not succeed, female Harry could.

This was why the Universe planted the idea of Harry being a woman in Francis' mind.

There was power in women, for theirs was to ability in life to give life, in a way no man could. But man is also responsible for giving life, for life was created only when the forces of man and woman met, to create a child. And in Harry was both forces, granting Harry the ability to bestow the life that he had been doomed to never have from the very beginning the Universe made him in the very first reality to counter the poison that was Voldemort.

All other chains of color that buried themselves within his spinal cord were ghostly forms, less substantial but all existing on similar grounds. Behind him, the shades of Harry Potter in his many forms and different counterparts, stood behind him, heads bowed in subjection and the chains attached to their foreheads black with disease. One odd figure stood apart, distant from the others because of the duo-nature represented by the dark outline of Harry Potter and his twisting shadow of brilliant white flames. The chain was attached to his forehead as it was with others, but this chain glowed white-hot, the links already misshapen from the heat and beginning to stretch and melt.

Tom Riddle clutched at his own power line, a single cord of baby blue that was buried in his chest and wrapped around his heart. It was tied to the hearts of Harry Potter, now a woman, and Harry Potter the fire demon. He fed power through the lines to them, and the lines were strengthened as the baby blue wrapped itself around it as a protective layering. Another line was growing from his heart and slithering across the surface. A bolt of tainted magic from Voldemort at the line caused Riddle to reel back in pain. The due-shadow of Harry winced and nearly collapsed, but Harry the woman relentlessly continued her crawling without pause, stubbornly ignoring her environment. The line reared up and struck at Voldemort's heart. He winced and his hand shook with a convulsion.

One chain cracked, glowed baby blue, and then broke free. Another line from Riddle's heart struck at Voldemort's. Another chain broke free. Power and life behind the chains began to unravel and disappear. The lines from Riddle to Voldemort bled through his chest cavity to the other side. They leapt over and snatched at the chains, feeding life and support. Riddle felt a little more of his own power and life bleed away.

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Harry2 grabbed onto Harry as the moody adolescent swayed on his feet. A foreign cunning entered Harry's mind, clawing and tearing like a rabid beast struggling to free itself from a trap. It caught scent of Harry2, and howled as it tore after him, reaping damage unto the mind. There was a sour, rotten taste from the cunning, a prevailing sickness that needed to be cut away and burned. The cunning rose upward, twisting and shaping itself into a king cobra snake. Its hood opened wide and the fangs dripped with poison as it considered Harry2.

Harry2 hissed as he crouched down and arched his back like an angry cat, allowing his fire, that small pit of warmth in the pit of his stomach and the recesses of his mind, burst forth in a raging inferno. Heat waves danced off his skin and the blood that ran through his arteries and veins was hot enough to melt lava. His hair began to rise upward, and color flickered through it before it transformed into waving flames. Flowing from the pit of his stomach the power came to his call, runes appearing and glowing on his skin. The lightening-shaped scar on his forehead turned white while the runes became a gleaming red. "Stay back," he hissed at the cunning-snake. "Stay back."

The snake chuckled. "Whatever you may be," Voldemort's voice said, "do you think you can do anything?"

Harry2 smiled viciously, a smile that would have made the hair on the back of Marcia's neck rise on end and make her dive for the fission bomb shelter. He pulled back his power, feeling it fight against his force, bucking against his hold and yanking at the leash. "And you can stop me?" he asked softly, dangerously.

The snake laughed as it lifted higher in the air. "I have your blood, now. You can no longer be the death of me!"

Harry2 shrank down a little more, drawing back himself. "Oh?" His voice was almost too soft to hear as he released the first shield on the Black Dragon. It glowed as its form twisted on the back of his arm. It peeled itself from his skin, rising upward like the cunning-snake did. Harry2 looked up as a curtain of baby blue settled around them, shielding the other Harry. "Ah." He smiled once more at the cunning-snake, and then unleashed a firestorm upon the cunning-snake as the Black Dragon slammed into the link Voldemort and Harry shared, snapping it in half before burning Voldemort from the inside-out.

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Another chain snapped, and another link formed between Tom Riddle and the Universe's original Harry Potter in another reality.

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Francis gasped for breath as Draco scrambled out of the hollow and nearly ran headlong into the Wild Hunt as it finally burst through the curtain between realities. Instantly, he whipped about on his heel and hurried off into the distance. The Wild Hunt shrieked in triumph and gave chase.

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Harry stood finally at the pinnacle, clinging desperately to the little point at the very top while the winds tore her clothes to shreds. She had long lost her glasses, and her skin was burned raw from the wind. She stared into the great black abyss that stretched out below her for infinity upon infinity, the great realm that was the Universe and all that existed within it. The path was gone. This was where she was meant to be, where she was wanted. Harry pushed herself up, and managed to stand and stare into the face of the Universe before wind smashed into her back and hurled her off the pinnacle. Into the darkness she plummeted, falling at a speed beyond measure. Lines of life and hope snatched at her, and she gave birth to a new chance for survival. With the chance to survive, it finally had the strength to exist without clinging to the one Tom Marvelo Riddle who would not leech it for its potential. With each ability to exist, the lines faded away and Riddle's own existence became strengthened as he recovered that little piece of himself.

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Pandora's Box, its lid open as baby-blue power flowed from it, shattered as it exploded from the inside and Pandora Potter's own magic was finally free, rising upward to capture and protect her loved ones. Over the shattered pieces, the ghost of Oliver Potter hovered. "Free," he said. "The family curse has come around full-circle." Little Jonathon appeared beside him and buried his face in his father's trousered leg.

"Free," the little boy echoed. Anne reached out and hugged both husband and son close to herself.

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James stopped in mid-tangle. He slowly stepped back from the great tapestry. Slowly, its strands began to weave themselves together once more, as stability and life flooded through the Universe. He smiled over his shoulder at Pandora. "I'm free," he said to her. "Free. Tell Harry I love him." And then he was gone without another word.

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Over and over, like an endless cycle of change, the lives of Harry Potter, sentenced to death by the Universe so it, too, could survive, were given back the chance to exist. They broke free of Voldemort, clung and sapped Time from Riddle, and then received their own Chance from the man/woman Harry.

She plummeted faster and faster with no one to catch her.

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Pandora gasped as her magic came rushing back. Only a droplet had existed after the attack upon Voldemort, and even that was gone after her Jump. Like a scarred, empty vessel, there had always been the morose and longing for that which was gone. It came rushing forth to fill her, power spilling over at the edges and touching everything in that area, like a mother's love that soothed and comforted.

Cousin Quigley sighed as peace filled him for the first time since his son was born.

Marcia stopped in mid-stride and stared at her hand, where the muscles and tendons had been healed and a pink scar was now all that existed of the Bloody Baron's attack on her.

Severus Snape sagged against the threads of the Universe and wept once more.

The Bloody Baron stopped moving and stared off into the distance without focusing on his surroundings as a happier time came to him, of the rise and fall of waves beneath his wooden deck, the salt in the air, and the tangible sweetness of freedom.

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Francis dug his fingers into the dirt as he leaned forward and dry-wretched again at the nauseous feeling that threatened to overwhelm him.

A hand burst out of the ground and caressed his face. He seized it desperately at it, clinging to the fingers as the shock of pain ran through him, his bones twisting. He fought the feeling away as he tried to grasp onto the familiar skin and her scent. "P-Pandora," he gasped, accidentally twisting the fingers in his pain. Another hand rose from the ground and touched his lips, and then reached around to grasp his shoulders, pulling him down into the tunnel of baby-blue.

"Fly," said Pandora, ghostly lips brushing the shell of his ear. "Fly, my Francis, be free, and catch the little one."

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Harry heard the piercing, heart-wrenching, musical call of a phoenix. She opened her eyes against her free-fall and felt something brush her outstretched hands. A golden head crested with amber feathers and a neck of the same shades of color neck appeared under her view. Her fingers touched soft feathers, and a holt of understanding shot through her mind. She reached outward and wrapped her arms around the neck of the gigantic phoenix of gold and amber. She buried her face in the soft feathers as Francis pulled out of the free-fall and flapped through a tunnel of baby blue.

"We're safe now," Harry babbled, her voice melting from its high pitch into the alto tones of being male. There was a subtle shift in size and weight, and Harry was once more male whose purpose was complete as he and Francis flew onward to home.

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The final chain snapped free of Voldemort, the one that was tied to him and him alone. The chain whipped around, entangling itself with the cord that was attached to Riddle's heart. The cord and chain tangled together, becoming one great rope that led from his heart to Harry Potter's heart.

With the final link to life gone, Voldemort screamed in pain from the abrupt loss of Chance and a deep chasm opened up beneath him. Shadowy Darker Forces that Be shot upward from the burning fires of the middle of the earth and snatched him, their hands plucking wildly at piece after piece and piece that Voldemort had carefully reconstructed of himself. He screamed in fury as the Beings took back what they had given, and then fled back into the middle of the earth. The chasm closed, and the skeleton of Voldemort stood before Riddle. It took a step forward, a hand reaching desperately out to this Other him, and little by little, his skeleton crumbled into the dust it should have been fourteen years ago.

Riddle stared at the dust, but even that disappeared as a sudden blast of wind swept it all away. In some sense, it was the final irony. Nothing that was Voldemort existed anymore. A man that had worked for immortality couldn't have been punished any more than to know nothing was left.

Riddle collapsed on the ground. Everything was done. The Universe was saved, Harry lived, and Francis and Pandora were, in essence, reunited. Despite all that, he couldn't help but feel there was a missing piece to this completed puzzle. Ah, whatever. He was too tired to care. With that thought, he closed his eyes and dreamt of flying a phoenix through a great long tunnel.

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Draco scrambled as the hounds of the Wild Hunt yipped at his heels. "Why me?" he yelled at the sky. "I'm one of the good guys!"

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author's notes: Confusing? Random? Jumpy? Of course! This was the final battle; the war has been won and everyone has served their purpose (well, almost, Marcia has to little more to do, as well as Cousin Quigley and Pandora). This is the second to last chapter. In other words, the next chapter will the closing chapter, and then I will be finished with Pandora's Box (aside from the usual post-finished editing that the story will undergo as a closing sequence for me as a writer).
It took me some time to finish this chapter; mostly because some of these scenes had to be handled very delicately. At the moment, this chapter will undergo some revision in the future pertaining to the language I used. I'm not sure if its conveying the powerful scenery that I want to be conveying. In the meantime, let's see how many of you appreciate JK Rowling making a guest appearance--as well as my little sister, my best friend's dog, myself, my home after 2003 fire season, and my pet gerbil, Liamort (loosely named for Voldemort).