'Hey, Gellert. Wake up.'

Gellert rolled over beneath the covers, swatting his hand in the direction of the annoying voice. The intruder swore, then ripped off Gellert's blankets. He hissed, recoiling against the headboard and blinking blearily at the shadowy figure that was poking his head through the hangings of the bed.

'Whassit?' He groaned, scrabbling for the trailing edge of the blankets in a feeble attempt to stay warm.

'Alice is meeting with Dumortier to train today.' Berg hissed. Immediately, Gellert was wide awake.

'Where?' He demanded, already pulling on his clothes.

'Through the portal. You should be able to catch her if you hurry.'

He tugged on his boots and grabbed his wand, tucking it firmly into the holster and casting a wandless sticking charm on it so that it couldn't be summoned.

'Are you coming?' He asked, noticing that Berg was already warmly dressed.

'Yes.' The boy said, looking determined. 'I've been thinking; if I share this memory with my mother, perhaps she can still stop this.'

Gellert eyes him, then nodded and the two boys snuck out of the dark dormitory and along the torchlit corridor. It was still very early morning, so early that even the older years who usually started the weekend with a swim were still asleep. The sky was still deep blue, but a faint hint of lilac and orange traced the mountains and suggested the sun would soon rise.

They slipped down the corridor to the stables, ghosting like shadow through the pools of light cast by the flickering torches. They pressed themselves up against the doorway as hooves clopped out of the stables, waiting with baited breath as the double doors at the end of the stable grated open. For several long seconds Gellert barely drew breath, nervous that she'd hear him despite how illogical he knew it would be to hear breathing across the massive stable of beasts.

There was no sound of the door shutting behind her, but the uneven clatter of hooves and talons stopped abruptly. The two boys peered cautiously around the doorway into the pitch black stalls. The door hung ajar at the far and, swirls of snow glinting in the first golden rays of sunlight.

'We should both ride your Kelpie. We'll be too easy to spot if we fly.' Berg whispered. Gellert nodded and went to appease his mount whilst Berg fetched the harness. They didn't bother with the saddle, as that would take too long and Alice already had a head start. Instead, both boys clambered up across the damp, slimy back, wincing as their clothes were immediately soaked through.

They had to take the long route, thundering along beneath the shadow of the trees in hot pursuit of the silvery speck that was Alice's Hippogriff in the sky. The snow drove at them horizontally, burning their skin and freezing into an icy trim on their cloaks. Gellert's hands felt solid around the rein and every plunge of Kelpie's head felt like it would snap his fingers. The only consolation was that Alice certainly had it worse, and she was flying slowly as a result. They arrived before her with enough time to settle Kelpie beneath the cover of the trees that surrounded the portal and cast their best warming charms to keep him comfortable. They warmed themselves with a hasty jog to the clearing and arrived just in time to see Alice disappear through the portal.

'Have you ever been through without a mount?' Berg asked nervously. The portal was lashing up snow with it's spectral wind, creating a miniature storm.

'I've heard its horrible.' Gellert agreed. He had never been through alone, but his mother had threatened it before and he had quickly capitulated to... whatever her demand had been at the time.

'We need to go quickly, before it shuts.' Berg pointed out and the two boys crept closer to the swirling grey portal.

'Wands ready. She might be waiting for us at the other end.' Both boys palmed their wands, gripping them with white knuckles that would have had their duelling teacher jinxing them with blisters.

'On three?'

'Three.'

'Two.'

'One.' Both boys stepped forwards into the grey. Gellert was blown to his hands and knees, one of Berg's appendages slammed into his face and his cry of pain was whipped away by the wind. He groped sideways, his hand closing around what felt like Berg's wrist. He crawled forwards, agonisingly slowly, painfully aware that the seconds that it was safe to stay in a portal were currently streaming away. It was an awkward, stumbling movement as they shuffled forwards blindly on hand and knee, clutching each other's wrists.

Then the wind died suddenly, honey sunlight streamed down on them, melting the rime ice on their hoods and bathing their hands in warmth. Berg dragged him sideways into a thorny shrub before he'd even acclimatised to the sudden brightness.

For a moment they both just lay, panting.

'That was horrendous.' Berg moaned quietly. Gellert managed a moan in agreement.

'Where's Alice?' He muttered, rolling over and tangling himself further into the vines as he tried to take a look. 'Where are we?'

They had emerged into a completely different environment to the one they had left.The bush they had dived into was the only patch of green in sight, and even that was a dull green, caked with pale sand. The ground was hard stone, which swept up into towering mesas that cast deep, dramatic shadows. The portal that they had come through looked half finished and the pillars looked like they were naturally formed. More worryingly, he couldn't see a single barrow built around it for protection. He nudged Berg and pointed that out, but Berg was looking with some horror at the runes carved into the stones.

'This is a new portal.' Berg brushed at the stone with the edge of his cloak, pointing at the runes as if there was something obvious about them that pointed this out.

'New as in... unregistered?' Gellert peered down the canyon-like path. Alice must have flown out of the area - the path looked completely impassable.

'New as in, newly built.' Gellert peered at the runes more closely. Berg was right, the carvings were sharp and clear, unlike the worn and almost illegible ones of the stones at home. 'But they've fudged it. See here, there's no identity clause.'

'Identity clause?' He had studied the stones at home with Hermione, but never learned the technical terms for anything.

'It's what lets the portal open to other portals. It's like the portal is an owl, you're the parcel and the portal identity lets the owl know where it is and where to go.' Berg explained, still tracing runes.

'So they've figured out a way to work it without, what's the big deal?' Gellert demanded, beginning to feel somewhat uneasy.

'Well, without the identity, I think there's a fair chance that portals won't even register that they've been connected.' The Tunninger heir explained.

'And if the portal doesn't register a successful connection, it won't awaken the wraiths in the barrows...' Gellert trailed off. A powerful piece of grey magic, barrow wraiths were supposedly the spirits of witches and wizards who had allowed themselves to be sacrificed in a ritual to allow them to defend a location beyond their deaths. The intricacies were lost to time, but he knew that every being that passed through a ring of barrows was assessed by the spirits within in accordance with the values of the family whose magic fuelled them. He didn't actually know what happened to those who failed the test but he'd heard rumours and whatever it was, it was bad enough that many families didn't bother with anything else on top. Of course, if this portal could get through without awakening the wrights at all, then hundreds of families around the world would be incredibly vulnerable.

'We've got to warn the coven.' Berg hissed, then paused. 'Has your mother taught you how to open one of these yet?'

Worry settled in Gellert's gut. He hadn't been taught, nor, he guessed, had Berg. They were stuck until Alice came back.

Instead of sitting in the open area of the portal where anyone arriving could see them, they decided that they would try and climb up the weather-worn side of the canyon to get a better view of the area they were in.

Gellert had never climbed before and he was secretly relieved that it was Berg who suggested they cast a cushioning charm at the bottom of the cliff. He complied as the better caster of the two and began to climb with fervour. There was a nice ridge at head height, and he could curl his fingers over and a rock which was easy to perch on top of. He quickly spotted another handhold and reached for it, deciding that perhaps this was easy.

Thirty seconds later his left leg was jiggling disconcertingly in a precarious foothold and he was spread like a starfish across the hot rock as he stretched for the only potential hold in his very limited line of sight. His cheek was pressed against the wall, so he couldn't look to his other side but he'd heard Berg's terrified yelp only moments before and had been frozen for a moment before a half sob of relief let him know that the other boy was okay and his cushioning charm had held.

His fingers brushed the distant hold, but he couldn't get a good grip on it. He returned his hand to the awkward knobble next to his gut, debating whether he should just jump for it. Out of the corner of his eye he could see Berg on the ground, peering up at him. The boy waved his hands but was clearly reluctant to shout up. Then, Berg touched his finger to the palm of his other hand, several times. Gellert would have shaken his head if he didn't think such a movement would throw him off the wall. Instead, he cautiously turned his head to the right to search for a better hold.

There was one, and eventually he heaved himself, panting and trembling, over the top of the rock face. Berg, who had somehow arrived before him was conjuring water from the tip of his wand straight into his mouth. Gellert made an unintelligible noise and Berg interpreted by pouring more conjured water down his gasping throat. Coughing and spluttering, Gellert sat up.

His hands were scraped and red, smeared with dark tan mud and dust. His shirt had a tear in where it had snagged on a rock as Berg dragged him over the edge.

Berg started summoning their winter furs from the bottom of the cliff where they'd been abandoned before the climb as Gellert caught his breath and looked around. They were on a large, flat plateau. About a hundred yards away the canyon they'd just climbed out of joined another, and several hundred past that, they joined onto a large valley that was pinpricked with towering rock formations that rose to the same height as the one he stood on now. It was slightly greener up here, with scraggly, sticky shrubs with very little greenery growing among brown rocks a little way back from the edge. Tan hills, built of rocks and mounded with sand soared up behind them and traced a dark line on the far horizon, across the flat birch brown flats and meandering scars of the canyon.

'I think she's over there.' Berg pointed towards their left where the second canyon wound through the pale ground. If they were silent, he thought he could perhaps hear the sound of explosions and shouting from that direction. He nodded and they bundled up their winter clothing in their cloaks with the brown fur facing out. Once they'd sprinkled a bit of sand over them, they could have passed as rocks.

The sun was hotter than Gellert had ever felt and the very air seemed to shimmer around them. The heat seemed to create strange illusions of water in all the slight dips in the ground, which they quickly discovered were often filled with powdery sand that twisted beneath their feet and made walking difficult. He quickly became grateful that the strenuous exercise of traversing Durmstrang's grounds had made him fit, but it certainly hadn't prepared them for the heat. Their frequently cast cooling charms just couldn't keep up and eventually both boys were pink and streaked with sweat.

The sun was just past it's apex when they reached the canyon where they thought Alice was practicing. Both boys dropped to their stomachs and peered cautiously over the lip of the rock.

Alice was not alone.

Twelve people were duelling in the large, flat space below. It looked like an encampment of some sort with tan tents pitched in the shade of the rock walls, conjured chairs surrounding a fire and several beasts picketed to a post driven into the ground.

Alice was duelling short, red haired woman who wore spectacularly clashing crimson duelling robes. Both women's wand's flashed brightly, coloured jets and whooshes of flame flickering faster than Gellert could count each spell. Three wizards maintained a defensive ward around them, two of whom were clearly stronger as one third of the shield was somewhat milky in appearance. It obscured the face of a man whose voice they could hear barking instructions. He was tall and spoke in french, so Gellert couldn't understand a word he spoke. He knew that Berg, on the other hand was fluent in the language, so he could ask for a translation later.

'They've got some kind of beast guarding the entrance to the valley.' Berg nodded his head towards the opening at one end and Gellert realised that the large rock was actually breathing.

'What is it?' He hissed, squinting. It was exactly the same colour as their surroundings and huge, with a strange lump at one end. What was unmistakable however was the dark chain that snaked over the ground and into a massive spike in the ground.

His attention snapped back to the wixen as the duel stopped suddenly. The shield around them fell and they saw the instructor for the first time. He wore long, cream coloured robes of light, breezy fabric that contrasted his dark, pointed beard. He carried a staff of pale, twisted wood with an orb in the top that looked like marble. The sharp crack of the metal tip striking stone reached them even across the distance between them.

The wizard flicked his hand and one of the others quickly hurried over, passing Alice a simple brown staff. For a moment the two squared off, then, quick as a snake the wizard lashed out with his weapon. Alice danced backwards, her spare hand deflecting the wall of fire that mirrored his movement.

The duel paused and Gellert didn't need Berg to translate to know that Alice was being scolded. She said something back, the man swung his staff violently towards her. Desperately she brought her own up, intercepting it with a crack. Lightning sparked, but dissipated harmlessly but the wizard was already flicking the other end - this one with the metal spike - into a violent strike at her legs. Alice cried out, crumpling and the two boys hissed in sympathy.

She was a traitor, but that must have hurt.

'Let's crawl around, see if we can get a look at all of them. Mother might be able to identify them from our memories.' Berg suggested and Gellert nodded. The two boys shuffled backwards from the ledge.

'Hermione's never used a staff before.' Gellert muttered in concern once they'd reached a safe distance.

'You can't learn that in a couple of months either.' Berg pointed out. Gellert took a deep, calming breath.

'She's strong, and her wandless magic has always been good. Perhaps it will be over before Alice gets close enough to use the staff.' He suggested, knowing even a he said it that that was optimistic.

They recast their cooling charms quickly and conjured themselves water. Gellert's skin was starting to feel tight across his face and it was uncomfortably warm to touch. He suspected he was sunburned, but the sensation was new and nothing like the pain Hermione had described. Perhaps he still had that to look forwards too?

They circled the depression easily, staying well back from the edges and out of sight. They dropped to their stomachs again and began the crawl forwards.

He felt the magic tinge in his outstretched arm a moment before the wailing split the air. There was a second of shocked silence where Gellert's forgot to breathe, then he was scrambling to his feet and dragging Berg with him. For a moment the two boys dithered, then sprinted towards the hills behind them. Shouts echoed behind them, then an ear splitting crack split the air. Gellert threw up his best wandless shield, stumbling as a powerful spell skittered across it.

'He can apparate!' Berg wheezed in despair.

Gellert skidded to a halt, spinning nearly and slicing across his body with his wand. He cast again and again, then Berg joined him. They fired off everything they could, as quickly as they could. Apparition was a tricky skill and Gellert hoped they could catch the wizard as he recovered. A silver shield flashed, once, twice, a third time, then Berg's blasting curse impacted soundly at the wizard's feet. The cliff-edge that the man stood on collapsed beneath his feet and he dropped with it.

'Good work.' Acknowledged Gellert.

'They've got beasts. We need to keep moving.' The other boy replied quickly and they both took off again. Behind them he could hear people shouting and cursing, but the sound quickly faded beneath the pounding of his boots as the heaving of his breath.

The small green shrubs were spiky and snagged at their clothes but the two boys forged through, tearing their clothes and drawing blood as they scrambled to put more distance between them and the mean in the cave.

'Sticking charms on your hands and feet.' Berg wheezed as they reached the first short, rocky outcrop.

'I knew you were cheating last time.' Gellert wheezed in reply, casting the charms and jumping at the cliff. It was much easier to climb, perhaps a combination of adrenaline and the sticking charms and in a moment he was helping Berg up and over the edge. They first of their pursuers had launched up out of the gully now and winging his way quickly towards them, eating up the ground that they had just covered. Berg snatched urgently at his arm and he turned, taking off up the hill again.

They reached the top just as a bright purple bolt of flame crashed into the sand about half a foot from them. Gellert swore, a word that he'd learned at school and would have had his mother breaking his jaw.

Berg cast several jinxes with impressive accuracy and forced the lead pursuer to dip and dive precariously. The two boys dashed down the slope, scrambling over rocks. Gellert fell, rolling down the hill in a tumble of sand and shale and narrowly missing the curse that melted the rock he'd just tripped over to slag. He cast three more jinxes from his landing spot, then scrambled up as Berg careened past.

'There!' Berg altered course slightly, running towards the closet of another spiderweb of canyons. They continued to fire spells over their shoulders and ran in erratic, zig zagging lines to ty and avoid spellfire. Fortunately it seemed casting from the back of a flying mount was difficult.

They were almost at the canyon when the first of the beast swooped down, clawed hippogriff feet outstretched. Gellert hit the floor, dragging Berg down with him even as a hoof landed solidly in the small of his back, knocking the wind from his lungs. He cried out, casting blindly behind him. A squark of pain suggested he had scored a hit, but he didn't look, allowing Berg to drag him back to his feet to scramble a couple of paces more.

'Canyon... narrow... can't fit.' Berg wheezed as they reached the edge.

'Jump.' Gellert advised, just before something slammed into him from behind. His wand slipped out fo his hand, twirling into the shadows below. Talons closed around his waist and he jerked his elbow backwards, catching a hard knee end probably hurting himself more than the beast. Then, as the wings beat and the ground started to draw away, he punched his hand upwards, reaching into his magic and forcing it out.

His flaming fist caught the bird in the throat and it screeched, dropping him. He plummeted, the ground shooting up to meet him. He shot between the narrow, rocky overhang of the canyon, closed his eyes.

And opened them again.

He was lying on an exquisitely soft, slightly spongy rock. Berg was a couple of yards away, his wand pointed at him.

Gellert let his head drop back in relief.

'Good catch. Thanks.' He said.

'We don't have much time. They might not be able to fly down here, but as soon as they land they'll follow us on foot.' Berg was grinning though, as relieved as Gellert that the spell had caught him and Gellert was even more delighted when Berg managed to summon his wand from the ledge it had landed on.

'That way.' Gellert decided, pointing down hill. Berg nodded and they jogged off, diving into the shadows every time a beast soared overhead.

'Here, there's a cave of some sort.' Berg whispered as they ducked out of view once more. They both shuffled deeper into the darkness.

'You don't think there's anything nasty down here, do you?' Gellert whispered nervously when they failed to reach the back of the cave after a couple of steps.

'Nothing nastier than up there.' Berg decided. A faint witchlight flickered to life in his palm and he held it up to reveal a narrow tunnel that looked entirely natural, winding away from them at a slight incline.

'Lets levitate a rock in front of the entrance and hide here until they stop looking.' Gellert decided. They didn't have to do much as there was already a boulder quite close and a little bit of finicky joint spell work had it settled nicely across the entrance, obscuring all but the tiniest sliver of light.

Gellert cast another witchlight, holding it in the palm of his off hand and keeping his wand drawn in the other. Cautiously, the two boys followed the cave system up the hill, half expecting yet more misfortune to befall them.

The incline suddenly became steeper, then the cave widened out slightly. Large stalactites and stalagmites speared the darkness like the teeth of some dreadful beast, but otherwise the cave seemed entirely benign. To be sure, the boys scoured every surface, crack and boulder before choosing a pair of rocks near the sandy wall to settle on.

Within moments Gellert's entire body was aching and he suddenly became aware of the warm trickle of blood running from several injuries.

'You look terrible.' Berg said, peering at his own assortment of injuries.

'So do you.' Gellert replied. His trousers were shredded, but the damage beneath was mostly minor scratches and a couple of bruises that he was sure would be impressive in a couple of days time. His back was another story, it ached fiercely and his head hurt too - he probably hit it in one of his many falls. The nastiest injuries were from where the talons of the beast had pierced his hips when it grabbed him. Two nasty punctures the size of his little finger wept blood on each side, and he was certain from the warmth at the waistline of his underwear that there was a matching one at the back.

Berg seemed to know a healing spell for his bruises as the boy tapped the bad ones with his wand, muttered an incantation and swelling disappeared.

'Don't suppose you could do me?' Gellert grunted.

'Sure, if you can transfigured something into some cloth. I need to mop up this blood.' Berg gestured to a rather nasty gash on his knee. Gellert complied and a moment later he had a couple of tan handkerchiefs instead of a handful of rocks. As Berg tended to his back, Gellert transfigured a slightly larger rock into a stone bowl and filled it with water. The two boys washed as best they could with the cloths, managing to remove the worst of the dirt and blood, then Gellert had to hold still as Berg cleaned the nasty injuries on his hips.

Then, when they had fixed the worst of their problems, the two boys settled back on their rocks.

'We're stuck here.' Berg was the one to voice what they were both thinking. 'Alice has gone home for sure, we'll have missed the portal back to Durmstrang.' Gellert remained silent, wishing they'd told someone where they were going. As it was, they were alone with no food and no healing. He hadn't felt this worried even when he'd been caught by Livius Lucan.