Chapter 5 » Intimation of Depravity

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They had reached Orkney Gorge not much later, to Harry's relief. It was tiny; just forty or fifty buildings, though some were large, set into a fenced compound. Harry guessed this was to do with what Tom had said earlier - no-one had been separated; the criminals and 'baddies' were still among them here.

The village was, as he had also mentioned, set on a cliff. As they approached the entrance in the tall fence, one of the two guards who stood there detached himself from his companion and strode over. This man, Harry noted interestedly, was dead - but he certainly didn't look it. He appeared to be completely alive, even seeming to breathe. But then, so did Tom.

"Mr Riddle," he grunted, though his eyes were fixed on Harry. "And you?"

Harry hesitated. "Harry Potter," he said finally, noting a strange symbol on each of the man's armoured shoulders.

Now he looked at Riddle, who nodded. "We're just passing through, Graham. We'll only be here a couple of days, if that." He smiled reassuringly. "We'll be no trouble. Naoze can vouch for Harry."

The guard flinched at this name, and backed off slightly. "Forget it," he barked, obviously only too happy to let them in. Harry guessed it wasn't a common occurrence for people to invoke the god's name.

"Don't worry about him," Tom muttered to Harry as they passed through the now opening gate. "He's a bit full of himself, what with his recent promotion. He hasn't seemed to realise that he's one of just four guards in the entire village, and few pass by here anyway."

"How many?"

"Perhaps a few every month or so," Tom shrugged. "The village itself only has a population of about a hundred or so, anyway. I've only been here a few times, and I was still warned about Graham's arrogance."

Harry looked around at the wooden buildings. They seemed quite sturdy and well-built. Most appeared to be houses, though there were some shops and a few large buildings that appeared to be halls or public-buildings. "Why are there shops? I mean, no-one needs to eat, do they?"

Tom snorted. "Put enough intelligent people together, and pretty soon you'll have trading and a currency system worked out. It's just human nature to find some way to be better than others - and money's a perfect way. No-one can die here, but they can still get hurt, and there are a few creatures out there that can rip apart someone's soul and destroy it utterly. The shops sell some weapons, travelling gear, clothes, entertainment... all sorts of things."

He patted his pocket. "I have some money; we'll need to get a room for the night."

"I didn't know the dead slept," Harry joked. Tom gave him an annoyed look.

"Sleep isn't just for the body. It's for the mind, to sort out what happened in the day, to compartmentalise everything. The mind is part of the soul, so of course we need to sleep."

Harry nodded. "I have some Oxtamed; you could just use that."

"Save it for if you need it," Tom suggested as they made their way to one of the larger buildings, which Harry guessed was some kind of hotel. "We're not going to get information about Syneeta today, anyway. She only arrived here at the same time as you, and even a daemon can't cause that much trouble that this little place would hear about it so soon. Let's just get an early nights sleep."

With that, they entered the noisy, crowded inn, shoving past one man in bewilderingly Victorian clothes, and another in modern jeans and a jacket. Tom motioned over the bar to the owner and haggled for a pair of rooms as Harry gazed about in rapt amazement. It was a nice place to visit, he mused - but not somewhere he'd want to live the rest of his afterlife.

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At the same time - eight o'clock in the evening, in England - Hermione Granger completed the twenty-seventh chapter of her book on eighteenth century Charms, and yawned loudly. She hadn't slept at all the previous night, tossing and turning. She knew that if she fell asleep, the dreams would come back.

In her waking hours, it was just stupid; she knew Ginny's death had not been her fault, she knew that no-one blamed her, she knew that feeling guilty would not bring Ginny back - and she didn't feel guilty, not really.

But at night, in her nightmares, suddenly she was back there. It wasn't that she couldn't block Ginny from the curse - she saw it in her sleep, though she hadn't in real life - it was that she didn't. She could move, as much as she liked, and in her nightmares she simply chose not to save her.

She knew that her parents had talked seriously, once or twice in hushed conversation, about sending her to a counsellor. She didn't want that - had barely escaped being sent to a medi-wizard - and so she threw herself into studies and her worries about Harry, knowing that with time, the memory would fade and the pain dull.

It certainly wasn't as though these were useless time-wasters anyway; NEWTs would arrive in just two years, far harder than the OWLs were, and she needed to study as much as possible. And Harry... well, he was another matter. His letters had grown friendlier recently, more like the old Harry, but he was still far from the innocent boy she had lectured on the train. He wouldn't return, and she didn't want him to - that little boy wouldn't survive the things that he had faced, she knew.

Hermione yawned again, and slid the bookmark home. Her father was away for several days, a dentistry conference on EU regulations in Lisbon, and her mother was sobbing over a tear-jerking film downstairs.

She glanced again at the Daily Prophet, which lay on her desk. She'd spotted the short mention in the side-columns, about the absence of the daemon, and knew perfectly well that Harry had found it too. Perhaps tomorrow, or the day after, the Daily Prophet wouldn't even find it newsworthy, and there would be no mention at all until the next time they found a body. Or part of one, at least.

She would be sixteen in less than a month, and she was worrying about daemonic attacks and the mental degradation of a friend through death and violence as regular as - well, as school terms. What was wrong with this world?

Sighing, Hermione finally found the strength to shut the books. Perhaps she should go back to Dreamless Sleep potions. She didn't want to use it too much, in case she got addicted, but it would be quite safe to use now and then - and she needed some sleep, after all.

She wondered how Harry was.

He had probably had a better day than her.

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Dumbledore was marking papers when the call came. The fire suddenly flared up, Fudge's face appearing in the flames, pale and panicked.

"Albus! It's an emergency!"

Leaving the papers for a moment, the headmaster glanced over to the head. "Of what sort, may I ask?"

"A big sort. Resistance business," blustered the Minister, "and bloody important Resistance business at that."

Dumbledore immediately left his task and rose. "What appears to be the problem?"

Fudge looked grim now. "Potter. He went to Diagon Alley early, as you know - and now he's disappeared."

At the side of the room, Fawkes looked over curiously and trilled. Dumbledore's fist clenched at this blow. "How?"

"He was in The Leaky Cauldron one minute, there was a crash from upstairs, and by the time Tom got up there he was gone. Just vanished. There was blackened candle wax on the floor, and a broken mirror; he must have been trying some kind of ritual. We have no idea how - we didn't sense any magic being used!"

The old man rubbed his head, thinking as quickly as he could. "Can you find out what spell was done? Did he disappear on purpose?"

"Maybe," Fudge said, back to worrying. "But his broomstick was there - the Magecraft - and his owl. We've checked them over, but they must have been too far out of range of the spell. He didn't leave anything else, but... well, leaving those behind could have been an accident, or an attempt to mislead us; or the spell could have gone wrong. There's no magical residue anywhere - we have a team scouring the room, and we can't figure out what he did."

"More questions for when he gets back then," Dumbledore smiled lightly. "as well as finding out exactly what happened at the end of last year. Don't worry; I'm sure he's alive and well, wherever he is. He won't have disappeared deliberately if it meant leaving those items behind, so it must have been an accident."

"He could still be dead, old boy!" hissed the Minister, eyes narrowing. The flames flickered dangerously. "Did you think of that? He could be incinerated! He could be at the bottom of the ocean! He could be stuck in the deepest, darkest jungle in Brazil, or on the damned Moon for all we know!"

Dumbledore waved a hand gently. "Really, you're being quite silly. It is my personal belief that Harry will survive at least until his first confrontation with the Dark -"

"Then they could have killed him!" the other man blustered furiously. "This could be one of their plots! Or worse, they could have stolen his power and then disposed of him. I think we should begin the growth of a reserve Subject, just in case. If Harry does return, we can eliminate it - if not, we'll be prepared for the future."

The headmaster shook his head wordlessly, and glanced back to his papers. He looked back up. "No. Certainly not. Harry is, I'm sure, alive -"

"That's only your personal belief," Fudge reminded him. "No evidence, no justification; I can't simply take your word for it, and neither can Lord Abyssay."

As Fawkes returned to sleep, the old man tapped his fingers on the desk. "I suppose you are correct. Is anyone else aware of Harry's disappearance?"

"Us, Tom of The Leaky Cauldron, my secretary - she received the letter - and some high-ranking members of the Resistance. Lord Abyssay is being informed right now."

"Make sure your secretary and Tom keep this quiet - erase their memories if necessary." He fixed his eyes somewhere above the head. "And if Lord Abyssay agrees to it, prepare a new Subject."

Fudge nodded his approval, and departed.

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As the morning broke - or at least the morning of the Eighth Sanctum of Elysium - Harry's eyes snapped open. It was still reasonably dark in his little room but he was wide awake, so he grabbed his wand from under his pillow and muttered a light spell.

That done, he enlarged his trunk (he doubted the Ministry would be able to sense his magic anymore) and pulled out some clothes to wear for the day. He sighed as he looked through all the compartments; large they may be, but he was rapidly running out of room. He would have to have them made deeper when he got back home.

The shower was quite primitive - no plumbing after all - but refreshingly cold, and quiet enough that it didn't wake anyone. When he was back in his room, he pulled on his Defence-robes and the heavy black cloak, and the dragonhide boots. He wasn't going feel safe here until he knew a little more about it.

He considered his weapons for a moment, and decided on leaving out the throwing-knives until he was more experienced with them. The wand and its holster was worn so it hung firmly by his left hand side, and he shortened the strap on the daggers sheathe so it could be wrapped tightly around his right leg, hidden.

Tucking his Y'Laagrondd pendant below his Defence-robes, he brought out the laptop and switched it on. The Techno-Chat, he discovered, didn't work; or so said the error message, at least - he couldn't connect to the Internet, either. It appeared even Techno-Magic couldn't break through Realms.

The Learnings section worked perfectly though; Harry slipped the rod into the back and performed a quick search for Elysium. There was little information - a brief explanation of the Sanctums (the Tenth wasn't mentioned), some information about Naoze and Aisiivou, and finally a statement that there was no way to leave Elysium without passing through the Ninth Gate.

There was no mention of any living person entering before Harry.

He glanced at his watch, noticing that it had stopped, so he removed it and left it in his trunk before shrinking it again. The Muggle one that he had bought was still working, but was obviously working to the wrong time - probably the time back in England. There still looked to be a few hours until everyone awoke, so he downloaded some information on how to use throwing-knives instead; it would apparently take plenty of practice.

Two and a half hours later, there was a knock at his door. It was Tom, impatient to leave, which Harry was only too happy to comply with. They trooped downstairs, having already paid the night before, and left the building to see the street as bustling as before.

"Keep an ear out for anyone mentioning a daemon," Tom muttered. Harry rolled his eyes.

"I'm not stupid, you know."

"You're sixteen," sniffed Tom, making way for a woman carrying an armload of eggs. "I think that's good enough."

Harry glared at him. "So, what? We're just going to wander around the village until we hear something? I mean, I'm all for sightseeing, but I'd like to get out of here sometime this decade."

"We're going to the guardhouse first," sighed Tom, "It may be out of the way, but the village is still connected to the guards' network. There's lines of almost instant communication, so if Syneeta's been spotted in any of the towns or villages, we'll be able to find out."

"And if we don't?"

"Then we'll either have to stick around a little longer, or head to the next village. If we head for a big town, there'll be people coming and going all the time as well, so we might get information firsthand."

"And if we still don't...?" Harry enquired.

"By that time, I suppose we'll be pretty certain she isn't in this Sanctum. We'll head over into the Seventh, and start there." He glanced around. "Each of the guards' communication networks can only transfer information through the Sanctum we're in. They have messengers to go through the Gates if something affects more than one Sanctum."

Harry groaned. "So we're going to have to look through five Sanctums to find her?"

"I doubt it," Tom shrugged. "We might just find her in this one, or the next - and we'll probably find out where she is if she pops up in another Sanctum, so we'll head straight there." He grinned smugly. "Hah! There's the Guardhouse, see? Anywhere you see that sign, it's something to do with the guards."

Harry looked over. Above the door of one of the small wooden buildings was a hanging sign, swinging lightly in the faint breeze. A sword and an arrow crossed over each other to form an 'x' shape, and Harry recognised it as the symbol he had seen on the guards' shoulders.

"So we just ask them whether there's been mass death and destruction?" Harry asked sceptically. "And they tell us?"

"We're trying to rid them of a psychotic, demonic beast, on the orders of the ruler of the entire Realm. I'm sure we can find a way to convince them to give us a moment of their time." Tom pushed the door open, Harry following.

The interior was lit by what appeared to be paraffin lamps, set at well-spaced intervals on crude wooden tables along the walls. Several desks and chairs also furnished the room, several holding up musty stacks of paper, dusty jars of quills and bottles of ink.

There were two guards as well, one of who had been at the gates the previous day. Graham, the obnoxious one, was nowhere in sight. The pair looked up when Tom and Harry entered.

"Good morning, gentlemen!" Riddle beamed, holding his arms out as if accepting adulations from an adoring audience - alliteration being an advanced and amazing art.

The guard from the previous day - about fifty, dressed in a dark tunic rather than his armour, grunted something that could possibly be interpreted as a greeting.

Tom didn't seem to notice. "My young friend and I were wondering - if it wouldn't be too much trouble - if you could tell us of any news that may have reached you this morning? Perhaps news of a bloodthirsty, terror-wreaking beast from the unholy pits of the Tenth Sanctum, risen to freedom and full power, intent on seeking vengeance and strewing havoc in its wake?"

Three pairs of eyes trained on Riddle in the ensuing silence.

"I was told once or twice that my paperwork made interesting reading," he admitted after a moment. "But seriously, any news? Divine quest to be getting on with, don't-cha-know."

The younger guard - about thirty - plucked what appeared to be a modern cigarette from his mouth, and tapped the ash off into a small copper bowl. "Nothing of any interest since last week," he volunteered, still watching Tom as though he were afraid the Wizard would leap forward in his madness and bite him.

Harry grew impatient with the short answers. "Perhaps we could use your communication networks to request information?" he suggested loudly, picking out the most intelligent words he could come up with in the hopes of making them ignore that he was barely sixteen years old. "Or send messengers to the other Sanctums for reports?"

The men glanced at each other. "Only got one messenger," grunted the elder. "Can't use the network without permission from Captain Graham, anyway."

Tom smiled jovially. "Well, send your messenger over to the Seventh Sanctum for any news then," he chirped as he reached into one of the pockets of his robes, "and just go check the networks anyway. Permission from Naoze here, to override any authority to accomplish our goal."

The older guard snatched away the object that Riddle brought out, slipped it out of the cylindrical container and unrolled it. Harry realised it was a scroll - the container was quite attractive, brass with raised patterns of tiny flying birds, and a red silk tassel hanging from the bottom. The scroll itself was thick and cream-coloured; he couldn't see any of the writing that the man was perusing, but it was apparently quite long - they were standing for nearly half a minute while the guard studied it.

"All in order," he finally confessed disappointedly, reluctantly slipping the scroll back into its container and returning it to Tom. He rose, reaching for a quill.

Tom rushed in to save the moment. "Forget the paperwork," he stipulated, "this needs to be done quickly."

Bureaucrat, Harry thought irritably, remembering Minister Fudge. He wondered whether the Minister of Magic was really so self-important, or if that were as much an act as his denial of Voldemort.

As the guard performed the impossible act of hurrying at a leisurely pace over to the interior door to call out someone's name, the younger guard - dressed in his armour - darted over to what appeared to be a Victorian telephone, and started spinning a number in on the dial.

"He's calling the Guard Control Centre of this Sanctum," Tom explained in a hushed voice. "He'll tell the switchboard operator to put out a message to all the guards to contact here if anything unusual turns up - we can't say anything specific, unless we want everyone locking themselves in their houses or having a mass exodus to other Sanctums."

"That'd probably be a good idea," Harry grumbled. He would have said more, but the guard's yelling finally paid off as a gangly, pimply seventeen year old appeared from the stairs beyond the door, dressed in armour that looked just about ready to fall off. He frantically snapped off a strange salute to the older guard that seemed to involve waving his whole body and nearly tripping over his own feet in the attempt.

"Recruit Mobley reporting for duty sir!" he squeaked, nearly hitting himself in the eye with his own hand. Harry winced and desperately tried not to laugh.

The fifty year old ignored the teenager's pathetic attempt at military precision and gave him his orders - to go to the Guard Control Centre of the Seventh Sanctum and tell them to send a messenger of their own if anything unusual had cropped up there - and then to repeat the message in the Sixth Sanctum.

As the adolescent stumbled off as quickly as he could into the cool air outside (Harry wondered how the boy would pass through the Sanctums - did he have some kind of diamond, like Tom had used yesterday?), the younger guard finished the call and replaced the receiver. "It's done," he said, a little more helpful than his elder. "Any information will go straight here."

"Be a while 'fore the recruit gets back," rumbled the grizzled superior. "You'll have a long wait for any news."

"Well, on the chance that there is any, you can either deliver it to us yourselves or pass it on to the staff of The Badger's Sett - we're staying there for awhile." Tom gave another wide smile. "And if the message got lost, or somehow never arrived - well, I'm sure you'd like to explain it to Naoze himself. I hear there's a nice little fortress in the Frost-Lands that needs staffing. Plenty of blizzard-beasts for you to practice your sword-play on, right?"

The man glared pure hatred at Tom.

"Well, that's settled then!" Riddle said happily. "I'll show Harry around for a while - he's new here, y'know. Enjoying it, aren't you?"

"Great natives," muttered Harry, fixing his eyes somewhere on the ceiling before his companion spun him round by the shoulders and pushed him outside.

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"Do you have a talent for making people not like you?" Harry demanded as soon as they were outside. Tom waved it away airily.

"Oh, it's a gift. They just don't appreciate my sparkling personality. Seriously, that git in there was Officer Randall - he's a bit easier to tolerate than Captain Graham, and that's not saying much."

"You've only been here a month!" Harry snapped, trying to hide amusement. "How can you possibly make two mortal enemies in that amount of time? Actually, never mind - I've just witnessed how you do it... was that threat really necessary?"

Tom shrugged, and straightened his robes. "Yes, the threat was necessary. Randall's so used to having nothing to do that when he does get something he won't follow up on it. That should get him moving - the Frost-Lands aren't a pleasant destination for suspended guards. At least Graham, despite being so stuck-up, takes pride in his job and gets it done. Recruits Luke and Mobley are going to turn out just like them, mark my words."

"At least Mobley was good for a laugh," Harry smirked, remembering the spotty lad's clanking, overlarge armour and shrill voice."

Tom sniggered for a second before managing to hide it under a cough. "Yes, but unfortunately he's the one that's going to end up doing his job well. I've seen them all a couple of times before; had to pop into the village now and then for the novelty of talking to people who weren't all-powerful gods - and every time, Randall and Luke have been talking or playing cards. Poor Mobley's stuck as their messenger boy, and Randall doesn't even bother to train him."

He clapped his hands together. "Enough about them - like Randall said, it'll be a while before anything comes through, if it all. So what do you want to do?"

Harry raised an eyebrow. "Do? This is a village of just a hundred people. It's stuck on the edge of a cliff, and barely anyone passes through anyway. We're probably the most exciting things to happen to it in about a century. What is there to do?"

Riddle struggled with this for a moment. "Admittedly, not a lot." he said finally. "So... anything you want to be getting on with?"

Harry thought about this. "I don't suppose you know how to use throwing knives," he said slowly, and was disappointed when Tom shook his head.

"Sorry. I had a few tricks up my sleeves, but the boss' precursor didn't think I should be trained in anything of Muggle fighting beyond the basics. If something slipped out, people might have got suspicious y'know - what with my 'kill all Muggles' thing. Something else, maybe?"

Harry whet his lips before plunging himself in the unknown. "Do you know any Shadowmancy, or Blood or Soul magic?"

Tom blinked, then looked around warily. "I think we'd best go somewhere less public," he suggested, and strode off. Harry sped to catch up with him, realising that they were heading for the edge of the precipice. When it came into sight past the buildings - it was easily accessible, for the fence that surrounded the village obviously wasn't needed in a place where a hundred metre drop promised an impossible climb - he noticed it was quite desolate, there being nothing but scrubs of bushes and a lone rabbit which vanished down a hole when it heard the pair.

"Now," Tom said, sitting comfortably on the ground. "What's this about you wanting me to teach you Black Magic?"

Harry followed suit, and fidgeted, a little embarrassed. "Well... Shadowmancy isn't Black Magic, technically. It hasn't really been classified -"

"If it was, it wouldn't be Light Magic," Tom interrupted. Harry scowled.

"Maybe, but... well, it's not as if I'm about to go psycho and kill everyone. I mean, can you see me going and defeating the Dark with a bunch of leg-locker curses?"

The corner of Riddle's mouth twitched. "Point conceded. How did you find out about these, anyway?"

"Restricted section of the library," he shrugged. "Nicked some books."

The man sighed as he brushed some of the dusty earth off his lap. "Do you realise what they even do?"

"Shadowmancy," Harry recited, "is the ability to control shadows or to use them to effect in a spell or ritual."

"Nice memory," said Tom wryly, completely ignorant of the fact that Harry's memory of the spells was thanks to a certain 'rod. "But you're a little off. That's Shadowmancy at its most minor; allow yourself to hide in shadows, travel through interconnected shadows without using a physical body - next thing you know, you're turning into a shadow yourself, creating extensions of your body out of pure darkness."

Harry personally didn't think this sounded utterly terrifying, so he guessed it must be something quite different to actually see it. "I wouldn't go that far," he allowed.

Riddle snorted. "You go one step, you either go all the way, or you turn back. That's why a little bit of knowledge is so scary - you can't turn back from it. It's the ultimate slippery slope. As for Blood Magic, that's even worse. You go from using a drop of animal blood to making some spell function, to making human sacrifices or boiling someone's blood in their body with a thought, because you didn't like how looked at you."

"Don't be daft," Harry scoffed. "There's such a thing as free will, isn't there? And morality?"

Tom waved a finger. "Not to be a cliché, but power corrupts. And at least an Avada Kedavra takes life immediately and painlessly- you can't use it as a torture method - unlike a spell to make someone die from blood loss after it's poured out from every orifice on their body."

Harry felt a little queasy at that one. "Soul Magic?"

"When you've ripped your first soul to shreds as if it never existed, or imprisoned someone's very being inside a statuette for all eternity, awake and aware and very much going insane - then I think you might look back on my teaching you with a little regret."

Harry frowned. "I know some spells and rituals of all three types right now."

Tom looked over, startled.

"I'm sorry," Harry added before the man could say anything, "but I think Dark or Forbidden Magic would be my best shot at killing the Five, and if I don't have someone helping me, then I'm just going to train myself."

Tom was silent for a minute, before he spoke again. "I don't doubt you would. You're very stubborn." He sighed. "I'll teach you some of the milder forms of Shadowmancy, and maybe a little Blood Magic. Let's steer clear of Soul Magic for a while though, okay?"

"Thanks," said Harry honestly, relived that he wouldn't have to learn on his own; not that he probably would have had to anyway, with Levina and Ajax back home.

They spent the next two hours going over the theory of Shadowmancy, its limits and uses, until finally Tom got to his feet. It was near midday now, and his shadow was short.

"Alter my shadow," he demanded of Harry. "Lengthen it, change its shape, darken it, make it disappear altogether. Anything."

Harry rose a little unsteadily and took a deep breath. When he was ready, he looked over his tutor's shadow, memorising the shape and length, and deciding that he would attempt to change its basic shape. It didn't look much like a person at the moment - the sun was nearly overhead and the form was short, squat and misshapen.

"Okay," said Harry, and took the first step on a path that only led down.