Title: Saishū Yume
Author: Remus J. Lupin-Black
Rating: R
Genre: Action/Adventure/Alternate Universe/Romance
Pairing(s): Remus/Sirius, Severus/Harry, Hermione/Ron, Albus/Minerva
Summary: It starts, as a simple kidnapping. It will become an adventure unlike any other as a group of mismatched heroes find themselves drawn into a war for not only their lives, but also their very souls.
Disclaimer: This story is based on characters and situations created and owned by JK Rowling, various publishers including but not limited to Bloomsbury Books, Scholastic Books and Raincoast Books, and Warner Bros., Inc. No money is being made and no copyright or trademark infringement is intended.
Author's Note: I'm sure you appreciate the fact that I've actually worked hard on getting this new chapter done quickly (but not too quickly as that would be annoying and stupid). I could have procrastinated as there are several plot bunnies hopping around the room at the moment, demanding to be written. In other news, according to my plot outline, the last chapter was really only the beginning of a number of cliffhangers. I can only hope that none are as irritatingly annoying as the ending of chapter twenty-nine. In the meantime, thank you Padfoot for betaing as usually.
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Chapter Thirty
Harry
-
Harry gazed intently at the door of his cell, his green eyes narrowed, as he attempted to will it to open. It didn't of course, but the thought was comforting. He couldn't even begin to say how long he had been in this cell, but it had to have been a long time because he was hungry. The others were probably being held elsewhere. He wondered vaguely if his captor would bother feeding them.

"Doubt it," he said aloud, glad for the comfort of his own voice.

Looking up at the ceiling, he wondered where the others were and if they were okay. He was alone and he hated being alone. It was why he had been so eager to help Sirius when he had first met him. Not only had they all promised to help him find his father, but they had been nice. Severus, despite his rather harsh personality, had warmed up to Harry quicker then the summoner could have hoped.

With a curse, Harry slammed a booted foot into the door. He repeated the process several times, each thud against the metal making the task all the more hopeless. With a yell of frustration, he kicked the door one last time. It slid up into the ceiling and Harry's eyes widened in surprise.

Weasley appeared in the doorway a moment later, looking concerned from beneath his helm.

"Are you all right?" Weasley asked as Harry stood up and moved past him into the room beyond.

Remus and Severus were examining four large hourglasses set into the wall on the opposite side from Harry's cell. A long hallway led out into what appeared to be – from a distance – a room filled with stain glass windows.

"Fine," Harry said. "What happened?"

"Apparated out of my cell and managed to open the doors by flipping those," Severus replied, still examining the hourglasses, as he pointed to ten levers along the wall. Turning around, Harry saw that there were eight cells on the curved wall. All of the doors were opened now.

"You know," Harry said, pouting a bit, "I was sort of hoping that I'd kicked the door into submission."

The mage glowered at Harry from across the room.

"Anyways, the others aren't here," he said, "and I'm still trying to figure out these hourglasses."

"Where are they?" Harry asked, glancing at Remus. The prince was standing next to the mage looking harassed, amber eyes narrowed as he attempted to say something. With a frustrated sigh, he collapsed back against the wall.

"Don't worry, Your Majesty," Weasley said comfortingly. The glare the prince sent his way silenced him and Harry huffed.

Severus shrugged.

"I questioned one of the mages. It would seem that in exchange for our safety, Sirius and the others have gone on an errand for Regulus," the mage smirked sadistically.

"What? How?" Weasley demanded, still wounded by Remus' behavior.

"I knocked him out with my staff. He was all ready injured so it was rather easy" Severus replied, "and then stowed him in my cell."

Harry glanced into a few of the cells and spotted the crumpled body of a mage.

"Will he live?" Harry asked worriedly, stepping toward the cell.

"Most likely," the mage said impassively. "Don't heal him, you twit."

Harry scowled.

"I was just going to see if he was breathing," the summoner said moodily, stepping away from the cell.

"Well don't," Severus muttered.

"Oh, so it's illegal to want to heal people?"

"It is when they're the enemy," the mage growled, "and when they're someone that I know and feel the need to hit."

"You knew him!" Weasley shouted.

Remus, stilling leaning against the wall and looking entirely too annoyed with his own inability to articulate anything he was feeling, just glared impotently at the three of them. He contemplated briefly of leaving the room and seeing if he could find a way out of this place, but his magic seemed to be disrupted by his silence.

Severus nodded, tapping one of the hourglasses and watching the sand fall into the lower half.

"Briefly," he muttered. "He's one of Regulus' lackeys. Nothing to concern ourselves over."

"That doesn't matter. If you know him, we may be able to question him as to what Regulus is up to," Weasley said and he moved toward the cell. Severus moved quickly, his staff striking the knight across the chest, effectively stopping him in his tracks.

"If you must know, he is the mage that we met while in Gryffindor," the mage explained coolly. "He is all ready injured and not by me. I would suggest that we leave him. If Regulus knew that we had helped him, he would likely cause more damage to him."

"Then we take him with us," Weasley said sternly.

"You want us to take a black mage who is loyal to the man that has tried, with great success to destroy not one, but four kingdoms?" Remus, shaking his head, walked down the hall into the next room.

"Uh guys," Harry said quietly.

"We keep him as a prisoner," Weasley insisted.

"Guys."

"I will not be in charge of that mage's welfare," Severus snapped.

"Severus."

"Then I will!" the knight had raised his voice now and Severus' black eyes narrowed.

"Severus," Harry was starting to lose his patience with the both of them and he contemplated going after Remus by himself, but that didn't seem like a good idea.

"I'm in charge," Severus growled.

"Hardly. I hold a higher rank than you," Weasley said crossly.

"You seem to have forgotten that I'm one of the Slytherin royal family and it is my kingdom that has offered assistance to not only Gryffindor and Ravenclaw, but Hufflepuff and the Burrow as well."

Harry took a breath and raising his fingers to his lips, whistling sharply. Weasley and Severus jumped, and then glowered at him.

"What?" Severus growled.

"Remus," Harry said simply.

"That's His Majesty to you," Weasley corrected, interrupting Harry before he could say more. Harry sighed.

"Fine," he said lowly. "His Majesty seems to have wandered off by himself," he pointed down the hallway that Remus had taken to get away from the two bickering parties.

"What!"

-

He was standing on a walkway between two statues. The area on both sides of the walkway was filled with nothing but air. The statue on his left was on a demon, its body twisted and the stone black with age. The statue on the right was of an angel, opalescent stone shimmering in the sunlight filtering through the stain glass windows on the ceiling. This place was beautiful.

"Remus!" the prince turned as Harry came dashing from the hallway out onto the balcony, skidding to a stop on the dark red carpet and gazing at the two statues in awe. Remus tilted his head, hoping he was getting his confusion at Harry's behavior across.

"Your Majesty, you don't know what sort of dangers this place might contain," Weasley said, his armor clanking loudly in the oppressive silence of the palace.

Remus nodded.

"This place is reminiscent of the Library in Ravenclaw," Severus said, gazing at the ceiling. "Similar design, but its glass, not crystal."

"Is that what that place was made out of?" Harry asked, still staring at the demon statue, it's menacing red eyes – rubies set into the black stone – staring right back.

"Yes, like the sword of Gryffindor Castle, the Ravenclaw Library, which is also the palace, is made of crystal," the mage replied. "Crystal is believed to be the holder of all life."

"What?"

"Elven myth," Severus continued, glancing at Weasley. "They believe that life originate with the Crystal. I'm not certain of the details, perhaps Weasley would have more information."

"The elves of the Burrow have never believed the rubbish about crystals starting life. It is one of the reasons that we were once so cut off from our Hufflepuff cousins."

"Of course," Severus breathed.

"Well!" Harry moved quickly, grabbing Remus' arm and pulling him toward the other end of the balcony. "Come on! We can't rely on Sirius now!"

"I have never relied on Sirius," Severus growled, following after them.

Remus fought back a smile at Harry's sudden enthusiasm as he stuck his tongue out at the mage. Weasley came at the back of the party, drawing his sword from its scabbard and glancing carefully around, looking for enemies.

"We have to work together until Sirius gets back! We'll stick together and find our own way out of here!" Harry said stubbornly, still pulling Remus along.

As they passed through the archway into the next room, Remus gasped. The room was a library twice the size of the main room in the Great Library of Ravenclaw. He gently pulled himself from Harry's grasp and moved to the center of the room as the others spread out, looking for a way out.

"I can't read these," Harry said, pulling down a tome. "Is it Elvish or something?"

Weasley crossed the room, taking the book from Harry's hand and gazing intently at the script on the leather cover.

"No," he said softly. "It's nothing that I've ever seen before."

By this time, Severus had pulled down a heavy book bound in red leather and was scanning the first few pages absently. He glanced over at Harry and Weasley puzzling over the book.

"It could be a magical language. Let me see," he said quietly. "This book is in the human language. It's the Legend of the Heroes."

"Heroes?" Harry asked as he handed the book to the mage, who examined it with interest as Weasley took the red bound book he had been cradling.

"It is," the knight breathed. "It's fairly accurate."

"I've never seen this language before," Severus said, staring at the black bound book in wonder. "I'll take it with us. Perhaps someone at the Great Library might know. There are many scholars there. Studying constantly from the ancient texts. They may know something."

Harry nodded as the mage tucked the black book into his potions bag. He turned away and saw the Remus was standing on the other side of the room, examining a candelabrum on the wall. It was the only one in the room. With a grin, Harry crossed the room.

"Find anything interest?" he asked.

The prince nodded, pointing to a small inscription beneath the candelabra. Harry gazed at it.

The stair will open only when the fire is lit.

"Severus!" The mage looked up from his examination of the red book that Weasley was still carrying, scowling.

"What?" he asked.

"Can you light this?" Harry pointed to the candelabra.

Severus scowled, leaving Weasley with the book and striding quickly across the room. With a wave of his hand, the air crackled and the wicks on the candles lit up spectacularly. The air seemed to shift for a moment, as if the very magic in the castle were changed with the simple lighting. There was a soft slide of wood on wood and a small section of the library's shelving disappeared, revealing another room.

"Cool," Harry said with a laugh as he stepped into the next room and looked around the dimly lit area. There was only one window here and the sunlight seemed reluctant to shine through it, giving the room a dusty feeling. It was obviously not used often.

"The inscription said the stair," Severus said, walking into the room with Remus and Weasley. "Where are the stairs?"

Remus pointed. On the other end of the room, a staircase, made of glowing red energy led upward, spiraling lazily to the next level. Harry easily cross the room and walked up a few of the steps.

"It's magic," he breathed, kneeling down suddenly and touching the steps, eyes fluttering closed. There was a soft sound, like the slid of silk, and white spread across the steps from Harry's fingertips, turning the area into a swirl of red and white.

"Fascinating," Severus breathed, moving toward the steps.

"Try it," Harry said, green eyes widening. "It's only strengthening the steps."

"The black magic may unbalance it," Severus said, though he did wish to try this experiment.

"White and black magic make red magic. Try it. Shame we haven't got Hagrid here. He's a blue mage, isn't he? I bet his blue magic would do something interesting," Harry said, glancing back at Remus and Weasley. "Remus, see if your summoning magic will do something."

The white mage leapt off of the stairs back onto the floor as Severus touched the swirling red and white. Black leapt from his fingers and the red and white suddenly stopped, and it shifted suddenly back to red.

"See," Harry said enthusiastically. "You balanced it out."

"Magic shouldn't be able to have such a physical manifestation," the mage said logically, pouring a bit more of his magic into the step and starting another imbalance as red and black swirled together. Harry reached out and touched the step, putting a bit more of his own magic into it. Balanced return and the two mages looked at each other for a moment before smiling.

Remus moved forward cautiously, not sure if he trusted this staircase.

"It seems quite safe. My magic has been drained any by that," Severus explained. "It fact, I would say that the magic in this stairway has actually given back twice as much as I gave it."

The prince nodded, concentrating on his summoning magic. He felt Leviathan's spirit at the edge of his mind and he gingerly touching the step. Cerulean energy swirled up the steps, away from him, and he felt energy running back into his body, revitalizing him. Harry put one foot onto the first step, and then his whole weight, testing to see if it was stable.

"Still works," he said with a grin. "Come on, let's go."

"I don't trust it," Weasley said darkly.

"It's the only way we can get up there," Severus said, following Harry up the staircase, Remus right behind him.

The knight watched the cerulean and red energy swirl for a moment before he swallowed, taking the steps one at a time, expecting the magic to stop working and send him plunging to the ground below as it curved up toward the ceiling and the second level.

"You ought to trust magic a bit more," Severus said sternly, glowering at the knight as he finally appeared, jumping over the last few steps onto the stone floor.

"I trust magic, I just don't trust it beneath my feet," Weasley said, getting to his feet.

Come on," Harry said, moving across the empty room, similar to the one they had just been in and moving into the next room. It was a balcony along the ceiling of the library. One side lined with books while a railing kept them from falling to the ground far below. Harry dashed across the balcony to the small door at the other end. Pulling it open, he smirked.

"You've got to see this," he called back to them.

The room was small, barely large enough to allow them all room to move comfortably. A window along the left side looked out into a huge space, sunlight filtering down through the open hatch at the top. There was an airship docked in this room, it's massive body, colored a deep purple and streaked with silver, glimmering in the sunlight. Remus' eyes widened; this was the airship that had been above Gryffindor.

"Well, let's see if we can get in there," Harry said, pointing to a door on the other side of the room. The others nodded and followed.

-

Hagrid cradled the unconscious Sirius in his arms as a black mage led them to a lift.

"This will take you directly to Regulus' rooms," he said.

Ginevra nodded. She had been given the title of leader since they had gotten the stone from the desert fortress. Her leather armor was caked with dried blood and she had streaks of it in her hair from tucking the loose strands behind her ears. Thankfully, Narcissa had volunteered a spare bandana to use as a tourniquet. It had done the job of slowing the blood flow until they could get Harry to heal the wound.

The lift doors closed and it rose into upward.

"I hope we are in time," Ginevra said softly.

Hagrid nodded in agreement and Narcissa, her blonde-white hair hanging loosely now that she was without a bandana, could only gaze at Sirius for a moment before turning away to look at the wall.

"You really are quick," Regulus said as the lift doors opened and Ginevra led them into the next room.

"Where are the others?" she demanded.

"Impatient aren't we?" Regulus asked, smirking as he stood at the center of the room, arms crossed. "Where is the stone?"

"He's dying," Narcissa growled, stepping forward and grabbing the front of Regulus' robes, jerking him forward half a step. "Where are they?"

"You've gotten blood on my robes," Regulus said.

The bounty hunter cried out in pain as a bolt of lightning slid across her skid. She stumbled back, clutching her hand to her chest.

"Now, give me the stone. I have no qualms with letting him die."

-

The door opened with ease under Severus' touch. They entered just as Regulus made his demands. Harry, standing behind Weasley, had to jump back as the door slammed shut before him, leaving him in the outer chamber. With a curse, he hit the door, but it didn't open.

"Damn it," he turned around as a black mage, cradling a bandaged arm and a gash on the side of his head, stumbled into the room. "You're awfully smart to have figured out how to get up here."

Harry gaped.

"Father?"

-

"Shame, I was hoping to kill you all once I had the stone," Regulus said as Hagrid and Weasley lowered Sirius to the floor and Remus knelt beside him. "I'll just make due with the boy."

Severus turned around as he realized that Harry wasn't in the room with them.

"Harry," he gasped, moving back toward the door just as Regulus summoned the stone from Sirius' bag, slung over Narcissa's shoulder. The bounty hunter glowered at him as he caught the red stone.

"I do hope we'll meet again," Regulus said with a smile, and then he Apparated.

"Bastard," Severus growled, moving back toward the door. "He has Harry."

"First things first," Narcissa snapped. "Remus, heal him."

The prince, his hands over the gaping wound, nodded, his eyes sliding shut in concentration. A few seconds passed and nothing happened. Ginevra sighed. Remus' magic was being disrupted by his silence. Then, a pulse of white light and the wound on the thief's side closed under Remus' fingers.

"You're not hurt," Remus opened his eyes, exhaustion setting in, and saw that Sirius was the one speaking to him. "Regulus lied?"

The prince nodded, smiling faintly. He'd done it. He'd cast Curaja.

"Oh," Sirius took a deep breath. "So, I'm alive."

"Yes," Weasley replied, "and Regulus has Harry. We have to go after him in the ship."

"An ship cannot hope to keep up with an airship," Ginevra said hopelessly.

Severus moved forward suddenly, catching Remus before he collapsed onto Sirius, who was still struggling to sit up. He cradled the unconscious prince and glared at the thief.

"We need to save Harry."

-
Author's Note: I'm not big on the ending, but…it works. I guess.

Next Chapter: The group must follow Regulus and save Harry.