Disclaimer: Decidí hacer éste en español, porque nadie lee éstes y tengo un exámen final en mi clase de Español 4 AP este semana. ¡Qué lástima, ¿no? J.K. Rowling es la autora de los libros de Harry Potter, y yo no soy el autor porque ella me robó dos años antes y llevó mi idea...Más, espero que vosotros os disfrutéis mi cuenta, y revistad. (I think that's the vosotros command for review...anyway, review.)

Also, I'm hoping at least somebody noticed, but the basic idea for Atlantis in this story comes from the kingdom of Zeal in the Super Nintendo RPG Chrono Trigger. The last video game in this story, though, I promise.

- - - -

Unto Dust Shalt Thou Return

Chapter Two – Distorted Reality

He was in a cave that was completely and utterly filled with darkness. The sound of a harsh wind blowing through it reached his ears, but there was no entrance, no way for the wind to get in, that he could see. In fact, he could see nothing—all around him was darkness, surrounding everything, seeping throughout the very walls of the place and seeping within him as well...

Wait a minute.

Slowly, painfully, Harry came back to consciousness. Briefly he pondered if he would really prefer unconsciousness, with everything that had happened to him and his friends, but decided against it—the world had to have a hero.

The first thing he was aware of was a severe cold, the same cold he had awoken to after Voldemort's mysterious taunt and the spell he must have done, whatever it was. But somehow the cold didn't seem so bad—his eyes, which before could hardly bear to open, seemed somehow less painful. In fact, he figured that opening them would be a good idea...

The wind smacked him directly in the face, taking his breath away with its sheer force. Snow was falling everywhere and all around him in swirls of white, obscuring the world in front of him with its luminescent blanket. But something was different.

And then, as Harry finally completely snapped back to reality, he realized what it was. He wasn't lying on the ground, as he would have expected.

He was being levitated.

Before the shock of this finding could completely set in, Harry rolled himself over in a sudden motion, and suddenly was in the snow. The cold increased, tearing at the numbness that covered his body like some kind of protective coat. Tasting the frozen mush beneath him, he spat out a mouthful of it and spun around again to face his foe. It had to be Voldemort—who else would have found him in such a remote wilderness?

And yet it wasn't. In Voldemort's place was a bearded man wearing robes that were incredibly odd even by wizarding standards. It seemed that his robes were made up of at least three separate articles of clothing, and each was a different color. His eyes were screwed up in concentration and exasperation, but his face was a pleasant one, although slightly worn. He seemed to be about fifty years old, and had permanent wrinkles around his mouth that showed his good humor.

Harry's eyes continued to scan the man, who seemed to be waiting with an incredible amount of patience. And that was when he had another shock. The man was not carrying a wand.

Instead, his entire body seemed to be glowing with magic, magic seeping into and out of him and surrounding himself and Harry with a slight glow. A slight bluish glow was visible around the outer edges of an invisible bubble that seemed to be surrounding Harry and the man. But before Harry could observe any more, the man's laughter-worn face turned to Harry, a slight smile forming upon it.

"And who might you be?" asked the man gently, with no air of suspicion in his voice. Harry imagined for a moment what Mad-Eye Moody would think of the man's trusting attitude—naïve, he would say, and incredibly foolish. For a moment Harry longed for even the old Auror commander, with his worn face and missing eye and leg, warning Harry to keep constant vigilance.

Harry felt himself fading again, and expected to be berated by the man, who would certainly have to exhaust much more of his strange brand of magic to levitate Harry as opposed to having him walk by his side. But the man didn't seem to mind—on the contrary, he simply raised a hand, and the last thing Harry was aware of before returning to the void was his body being lifted yet again into the air, and motion beginning to take over his body.

- - - -

The next time Harry awoke, he felt not the cold harsh snow he was expecting, but a soft layer of blankets surrounding him. He must have been lying in a bed—had the man rescued him? Harry felt much stronger than he had the previous two times he awoke—so strong, in fact, that he thought it was time for a chat with his mysterious savior.

But when he opened his eyes, there was no sign of the man. He was in a building built of solid marble, with strange designs on the walls and floor. It looked like nothing that Harry had ever seen before—who the hell were these people, since there was obviously more than one, and most importantly where was he?

With a sudden burst of strength that Harry didn't even know that he had in him, Harry rolled out of his bed and directly onto the floor. Immediately pain began to overtake every part of his body, as though it was simply waiting for him to attempt to move so it could return. The next second, he heard footsteps rushing in to the room where Harry and his bed were, and he was again twisting in midair, finally coming to rest on his feet and directly facing the man who had levitated him out of the wilderness.

But the man didn't speak. Instead he simply stared at him, and Harry felt a sort of foreign presence in his mind, although nothing like it had felt when Snape or Voldemort invaded it. Instead, it was comforting, and barely lasted an instant before retreating and returning back to the man, who Harry was beginning to revere more and more with every sighting of him.

"So, Harry Potter, we seem to have a celebrity on our hands." The man's tone of voice was not taunting, as was Snape's whenever he mentioned Harry's fame, nor was it too genial, but simply matter-of-fact, as though talking about the weather.

"Who are you?" asked Harry, rather rudely, he later realized, but he didn't care. Something very strange was going on here, and he had just lost everyone he cared about in a single battle. There seemed to be nothing that mattered to him anymore.

"That is easy, Harry. My name is Eric Orwell, although you may call me simply Eric, as I can see that you are used to referring to adults by their last names. In answer to your next unspoken question, yes, I did read your mind. In my world it is nothing special, but you seem to be sufficiently surprised by it."

If Harry had been shocked by the man's ability to read minds, he was even more shocked by his first true statement. "You—your world?" he stammered, suddenly finding himself in a situation where he had absolutely no control and hating it. Where had Voldemort put him? One instant he was triumphing over the greatest Dark Lord known to wizardkind, finally avenging his parents and Sirius and now Ron, Hermione, Ginny, and the countless others who had died in the battle, and the next Voldemort had completely thrown him for a loop and abandoned him here, in this strange place...

"Yes, my world," answered Eric, seeming not the slightest bit fazed by the statement. "You see, Harry, there are many parallel universes that exist in addition to your own."

Harry didn't know what to say or do in response to this statement, so he simply fell backwards into a sitting position on his bed. Eric continued in the same objective yet light voice.

"Think of it this way, Harry. Imagine that you are making a decision—I am sorry to bring this from your mind, but bear with me—imagine your decision to take the cup with Cedric Diggory, may he rest in peace. You see, there were truly many different possibilities that could have occurred—you could have convinced him to take the cup, you could have taken it alone, you could have taken it at the same time—every single other possibility that you didn't decide to do yourself caused a split, a split in the very fabrics of magic itself, and for every possibility that was not chosen, another world was formed."

Harry continued to stare blankly at the man. Somehow he must have sensed that Harry didn't understand his explanation, because he quickly changed tracks.

"Okay, then imagine this—you are flipping a coin—they do not exist in our world, but I believe I understand the concept. When the coin lands, there are only two possibilities, heads or tails, correct?"

Again Harry did nothing but stare at the man, but he seemed to take it as a yes this time and continued.

"You see, suppose that in your world—suppose that the coin lands heads. But in another world the coin landed tails, and a split was created. It is, in reality, much more complex than that—the changes occur on every possible level, and first they occurred in the very building blocks of matter itself—I believe you would call it DNA and RNA, amino acids and lipids, in the very atoms themselves—every single time that there is a situation with more than one possibility, another world is formed for every possibility that did not occur. There are truly an infinite amount of worlds, or at least too many to count, because of the great number of splits that must have occurred throughout time."

Harry's head was spinning. Voldemort had sent him to another universe? Parallel universes, to him, seemed just as foreign as magic would seem to a Muggle.

"You have it, Harry," came the sudden voice of Eric, breaking into Harry's thoughts. "Just give yourself time to accept it—soon you will fully understand."

"So when did your world split off from mine?" asked Harry, his sorrow briefly replaced by curiosity. "What happened to make you so powerful—in my world we need wands to do magic, although I suppose you already know that."

Eric laughed, a deep, hearty laugh that was inescapably contagious. "That I did, Harry," he said after a brief pause, "although I will stop reading your mind if you don't wish me to."

"Please don't," said Harry, images of Ginny and the green light swimming unwillingly to the surface of his thoughts. Eric seemed to understand—in fact, he must have, having read Harry's thoughts—and he nodded.

"Wait—" said Harry suddenly, clarity seeming to return fully to his mind for the first time since the battle. "No—parallel universes? Yeah, right. Bloody Death Eater!" shouted Harry, reaching for his wand, which lay on his bedside table. "What am I doing? Why do I believe you so easily? You must be using some kind of spell—"

"Please, Harry—there is something I must do to help you understand," said Eric, and before Harry's fingers even reached the tip of his wand the world around him shimmered and disappeared. Somehow, inexplicably, Harry knew where he was—Eric was reciprocating what he had done to Harry, although not allowing Harry complete access, and allowing Harry to read his mind.

And in a flash, Harry understood, and he fell backwards onto the surface of his bed with the knowledge. He knew all about Eric's race—the Magi. They were the prevalent race in this world, and they could all do the strange brand of magic that Eric could—none of the Magi used a wand, or even needed one. Yet they were a peaceful people—their world was free of war, and there were hardly even crimes committed, and those were petty crimes like theft, after which the criminal would inevitably break down and return the stolen object, and all was forgiven. The Magi lived in cities high above the earth—Harry would never have believed it had he not been allowed into Eric's mind, but he was currently floating on a continent high above the snowy landscape below. The Magi traveled to the Underworld—as they called it—only occasionally, and Eric had only gone there because his people had sensed a disturbance in magic—which it seemed was what the windows cut through.

Harry learned about the parallel universes as though he had been taught about them since he could walk—as indeed the people of Eric's race had been. Eric's race knew of the other worlds, but had no interest in traveling there themselves, although others from many different worlds had traveled to Eric's. He had even seen people from Harry's world before—other wizards who wandered through one of the windows that were the gateways between worlds until twenty years ago, when they were all closed by angels, which were actually beings made of pure magic—and none of this seemed strange to Harry, but instead familiar, as if he had known it his entire life but not been aware of it.

And then Harry was finally thrown out of Eric's mind, and landed back in his own body on his own bed, significantly calmer, although still incredibly shocked at what was happening to him.

"Holy—bloody hell," whispered Harry, as soon as he had regained control of his vocal faculties.

"Yes, the experience is always unfamiliar to newcomers to our world," said Eric in his matter-of-fact tone. Harry's jaw shot open yet again as the new knowledge settled into his mind. These Magi were most likely more powerful than Harry and Voldemort put together and yet they remained peaceful. They seemed to know beings from all worlds, yet didn't leave their own. It seemed as though their entire existence was contradictory.

"And—what is this place called?" asked Harry weakly, who had given up long ago trying to completely understand what was happening.

"Khiare," said Eric. "Khiare, Atlantis."

"A—Atlantis?" stammered Harry again. At Eric's nod, he repeated his earlier statement. "Bloody hell."

"Atlantis is but a legend in your world," said Eric. It was not a question, but rather a statement of knowledge. "I suppose that something about the way in which our world split off from yours allowed your so-called 'Lost Continent' to remain intact and well in this world."

And suddenly Harry felt a feeling akin to being splashed in the face by a bucket of cold water. He was in a parallel universe, sent there by none other than Lord Voldemort, his friends dead, talking to a strange man of a different race on a floating continent named Atlantis...

"Shh. Calm down, Harry," came a voice from somewhere near him, although he couldn't place it. He was breaking out in a cold sweat, and every bone in his body seemed to be rejecting what he had been told.

And then suddenly there was a bright red glow from the man standing next to him, and an amazingly pure warmth spread throughout his entire body, covering him and relaxing him slowly. The shock and sorrow slowly seeped out of his body, and Harry realized with a sudden jolt that it must be some sort of relaxation spell, and Eric must have used it on him before...but it didn't matter. The place he was in was so warm, and the man was so nice...

"That's right, Harry," came the same voice, and out of his panic Harry finally realized it had been Eric who was speaking to him, and he was sweating profusely. "Many otherworlders have the same problems you do when traveling to other worlds, I assure you. And please do not be suspicious of the spell that I just performed—it is simply to calm you down so that you do not hurt yourself or others. There is potential for great magic locked deep within you and the others of your kind, but it is activated solely by emotion, and I would hate for this room to become damaged," said the Magi with a hint of humor in his voice, and Harry knew again that he could trust him.

"So—" asked Harry, once his newfound calm had set in, "so—your race are so powerful. You could easily help us defeat Voldemort, and if you were to do it it would only be to promote peace. And yet you don't, you don't even want to go to other worlds. Please, sir, Eric, come and help us—"

"I'm afraid I can't do that, Harry," said Eric, "although many other wizards have asked me the same. Our people have realized that true peace can only occur in the absence of prejudice and hate, and to fight against this Lord Voldemort would require us to hate him, something that would be immensely dangerous."

Harry gave a sudden lurch, and once again the world around him threatened to engulf him. From nearby came the reassuring voice, "Okay, Harry. Go to sleep now. Tomorrow we can talk more."

And Harry didn't need telling twice as he fell into a deep slumber.

- - - -

Harry's sleep was filled with strange dreams, dreams of a battle between him and Voldemort, a strange world where Atlantis was real and a race of extremely powerful wizards built a city in the sky. He supposed when he awoke he would be at Hogwarts, with Ron and Hermione and Ginny trying to wake him up or being worried about him.

"Harry!"

The blackness before his eyes swirled before dissolving entirely. "Okay, Ron, geroff," he managed before opening his eyes and shading his face instinctively with one arm.

But Ron wasn't there; it was Eric. And suddenly the events of the previous day came flowing back into Harry's mind, and he sighed. But for some reason life didn't seem as pointless as the day before—he had a purpose again. Before his friends could truly rest, Voldemort had to die. And Harry was going to make him pay.

"What, Eric?" asked Harry sleepily, and the Magi smiled his trademark grin.

"I have spoken with some others of my race," he said in his matter-of-fact tone. "They have agreed, due to the unusual circumstances of your entrance into this world, to allow you do see the Elder, the one who stands above all others like me."

"Kind of like your leader, then?" asked Harry curiously.

"Exactly," said Eric indulgently, and Harry blanched at being talked to like a ten-year-old, but Eric, who was no longer reading his mind, knew nothing of it. Instead, he simply raised a hand and beckoned to Harry, and Harry climbed out of the bed and followed Eric out of the door of his room for the first time since he arrived.

Harry almost fell into shock again upon entering the hallway that led to his room. The walls were made of what looked like transparent glass, and outside them he could see nothing but a bright blue sky, and something that looked like a garden about four stories beneath him, on a rock outcropping that jutted out into the sky. The strange patterns on the walls and floors grew to full designs and what seemed like murals written in some ancient language—perhaps if Harry had studied Ancient Runes at Hogwarts, he would have recognized them, he pondered as they exited the hallway and entered a much larger room.

The room was enormous. Several other Magi—wearing robes identical to Eric's—went about their business within it. Strange colors were everywhere, in the robes they wore to the designs on the walls to strange plants that Harry found in several corners of the large room.

Eric led Harry through another door, into a much smaller room—smaller than even his bedroom. In it was simply a circular design on the floor, and the walls were extremely plain for the city of Khiare.

But before Harry could open his mouth or even say anything, Eric suddenly grasped his hand and pulled him forward onto the design. A rushing noise filled his ears, although it was not accompanied by any of the pain or squished feelings of Apparition or Portkey travel. Suddenly the room reformed around him—an identical room. But when Eric pulled the door in front of him open, it revealed a completely different set of hallways and rooms, where much fewer amounts of Magi made their ways through the corridors.

"This is the Palace," said Eric, and something about the way he said it made Harry imagine it to have a capital P. Harry was led through a maze of more corridors and rooms, passing something that looked an awful lot like a waterfall and a room filled with the strange-colored plants before entering the largest corridor of all. Designs lined the walls and floor to where they all seemed to blend together and they, instead of the bright colors, became the focus of the hall.

Eric led Harry down the immense hallway, and when they reached the end Harry found a slight pain returning to his legs. Eric raised his hand and knocked twice at the door at the end, then placed his hand in an imprint in the door. A bright flash filled the hallway, and then the door opened, a voice inside saying, "Come in."

The voice seemed incredibly familiar to Harry. But before he could even begin to place it, Eric pulled him into the room, and he found himself in what appeared to be a throne room. But the man sitting on the throne caused Harry to gasp in shock, and move backwards towards the door, muttering, "No...No..."

"What is wrong, Harry?" asked the Elder, and Harry fell to his knees.

"No..."

"Harry, I am the Elder," said the man in a tone as matter-of-fact as Eric's, choosing to ignore Harry's strange reaction to him.

"My name is Albus Dumbledore."

- - - -

-A/N- Please review if you're reading, and thanks for reading! I'll try and get another chapter up soon.