Disclaimer: I don't own Harry Potter or Dragon Age.


"Owain's room is near here," Wynne said. "I hope he is alright."

Climbing the stairs to the second floor, they came upon a large open space, as if for a warehouse or storage room. And standing at the doorway was an amazingly calm man with what looked like the Chantry's starburst pattern tattooed in the middle of his forehead.

"Please refrain from going into the stockroom," he said softly. "It is a mess and I have not been able to get it into a state fit to be seen. I was trying to tidy up but there is little that I can do."

"Owain, you should have fled with the others," Wynne told him.

"I tried to leave when things got quiet," he replied. "That was when I encountered the barrier. Finding no other way out, I returned here to my work. The stockroom is my responsibility."

"If you had said something, I would have opened the door for you," Wynne chided him gently.

"Why is he like this?" Sirius asked. "He's far too calm for being in the middle of all this chaos- monsters, bloodshed-"

"Owain is one of the tranquil," Wynne answered. "The tranquil do not have emotions."

"What?" Sirius yelped. "What the bloody hell does that mean?"

"Those mages who are unable to control their magic or who are too vulnerable to spirit possession are separated from the Fade, and thus become tranquil," Wynne explained. "They are no longer able to cast spells, but they are safe, and they also become peaceful."

"Tranquil- what an awful fucking euphemism," Harry spat, then looked at Leliana with a raised eyebrow. "Are you still going to tell me that these mages aren't slaves?"

"I would prefer not to die," Owain stated in the same flat voice. "I would prefer it if the Tower returned to the way it was. Perhaps Niall will succeed and save us all."

"What did Niall do?" Wynne asked.

"He came here with several other mages and took the Litany of Adralla."

"But that protects against mind domination," Wynne interjected. "Is blood magic at work here? Niall was at the meeting that was going on before this nightmare began. He should know more of what is going on. Blood magic- I was afraid of this."

"We have no time to waste then," Leliana said.

"I wish you luck," Owain added.

The group headed for the next room through an archway, and Sirius turned to Wynne. "Will he be alright back there?"

"As long as nothing gets past us," she sighed.

Harry made his animated stone statue come to a stop and motioned for everyone to get behind him. "I see more mages."

Unfortunately, they saw him as well, and one of them cast a Flame Blast at him. Sirius was just as quick though, and he was still prepared to defend Harry- the shield charm negated the enemy's magic. Harry retaliated with a volley of stunners, dropping all three of the mages.

"Why would they attack us?"

"They could be blood mages," Wynne replied. "If they are a part of this madness, it could explain why they are here and not under attack."

"Or maybe they panicked," Sirius suggested. He motioned to the bookshelves and tables nearby. "This does seem to be some sort of study, so maybe they found a safe place to hide and just reacted without thinking when they heard us coming."

"I've seen worse reactions, when people get into a fight or flight situation," Harry agreed.

"What shall we do with them?" Morrigan asked. "If they are an enemy, 'twould be unwise to leave them to possibly attack us again."

"But we should not kill them if they are innocent," Leliana argued.

"No one is innocent," Morrigan snorted. Harry couldn't keep himself from chuckling.

"They could be useful allies," Sirius replied. "Assuming they aren't truly out to kill us. That is why we came here after all- looking for help to stop the Blight- and we'll likely need every mage we can get."

"True," Harry nodded. "Why don't you all check the next room? I'll wake one of them and find out."

"Are you sure?" Wynne asked.

"Yeah, I've got this. Just be careful."

"You too, Harry," Sirius said.

He waited for the others to get out of sight. Once they had, Harry didn't bother to wake up the mages. Instead, he transfigured them all into marbles and slipped them into one of his pockets. He didn't have time for interrogations right now, but he didn't want to get into a huge conversation with Wynne just yet either. Knowing that she was a mage who had lived in the Circle for decades, there were too many questions she would ask about his magic and he was not willing to trust her just yet- especially not if she agreed with the idea that mages should be confined to this place.

Harry had met too many people who had grown complacent with their lot in life, even among witches and wizards.

He quickly cast a spell to scan the staves the three mages had been carrying and chose the strongest of them for himself, shrinking the other two and putting them into his mokeskin pouch. Turning back to the warrior statue, Harry refreshed his animation charm and sent it along the hallway, hurrying to catch up with the others.

A moment later, he found them, battling a group of monsters made up of not only more of those abominations but also what appeared to be some sort of undead. They were almost reminiscent of Inferi. Harry set aside his curiosity and banished two of the creatures away from his allies. His arrival turned the fight into a route, and their foes were soon all slain.

"Is everyone alright?"

"Only a few bumps and scratches," Wynne huffed. "Nothing I can't cure if you'll give me a moment."

"Good." Harry caught his breath and went back out into the hall.

The group made good progress from there, coming across a few more monsters, but nothing they couldn't handle with ease. The curving circular hallway eventually came to an end, and Harry realized they must have gone all the way around the second floor of the Tower. There was a closed door to the right as well as a set of stairs leading up on his left.

"This is Irving's office. I half-expected to find him here, but... I suppose that was too much to hope for," Wynne said as she looked inside the room on the right. "He must be somewhere higher, perhaps still trying to fix whatever has caused all of this."

"Then we should hurry on," Sirius said.

"Indeed," Leliana agreed.

When they came out onto the third floor, they found themselves in a large, open room.

"'Tis strange that we have not encountered more resistance," Morrigan said. "Where are all the mages? Are they all dead?"

"There were others here earlier," Wynne whispered sadly. "Everyone is either gone... or dead. I fear the worst."

Taking the door on the left, they came upon another large room, this one with scattered benches overturned and a few more of the Inferi-like animated corpses that immediately attacked them. With plenty of open space, the group quickly took them all down. Incendios from Harry and Sirius were able to dispatch the undead just as easily as similar cursed things from their home world.

After that, they plowed through two more rooms of enemies, more abominations, undead, and the firey rage demons. But the door after that led to a new type of enemy- possessed templars that screamed out their fury and immediately attacked.

Thankfully, the doorway was small enough that Harry could have his animated statue block the templars from all massing upon them, and the others all fired spells or arrows as best they could over the stone guardian's shoulders.

"Ugh! I'm going to have nightmares after this," Leliana groaned as one of the templars completely ignored the arrow that pierced one of its eyes and blindly continued to fight.

While using her more debilitating spells to leave one of the possessed foes enfeebled and floundering on the floor, Morrigan pondered, ""Tis most intriguing. Corruption not unlike the darkspawn's; perhaps they are related?"'

"Ask questions later, keep killing now," Sirius yelled, felling another of the possessed warriors with a cutting curse that took off his head.

One of the enraged templars smashed the stone head off the statue, but Harry merely used that as an opportunity to fire one last spell over the exposed shoulders, a blasting curse that punched through the final enemy.

"This cannot continue," Wynne gasped. "We must put an end to this madness."

"Agreed," Harry nodded as he summoned the largest broken chunk of stone that had once been his animated companion's head to his free hand. "Let's keep moving."

"What are you going to do with that?" Sirius asked.

"Did you ever take Ancient Runes?"

"Yeah, a long time ago," Sirius chuckled. "You'll have to forgive me if I don't remember everything."

Harry grinned and cast a spell, using his wand to slowly carve into the stone he held in his left hand. "I didn't study it originally, but later on I spent a lot of time catching up and I found it really interesting. You know how, for the most part anyway, runes are used to create long lasting effects with things like ward stones and whatnot? Or as part of the enchantments on magical items?"

"Oh yeah," Sirius grinned. "I used several of them on that old bike of mine. Why do you ask?"

"One of the things I learned much later on was how to use them to power shorter-lived magical effects," Harry replied. "Normally, that goes against the point, but with the right runes, you can do the opposite of what most wizards would consider the normal effects. For example, instead of protection from fires, you merely switch a couple of runes-" he held up the stone he was still carving and pointed to one of them in particular, "and then you can have something that instead ignites much more easily."

"Okay, but what-"

"Next, you combine that with a nasty destructive element, like an exploding curse," Harry smiled as he layered just such an enchantment over the rock before turning to Morrigan, who was obviously watching what he was doing as well. He winked at her and kept on smiling despite the glare he received. "And if you want to make things even better, you add one last ingredient to dial up the power."

He wiped the rock along a small cut on his left arm, and the blood seeped into the stone.

Wynne gasped in shock. "You're a blood mage!"

"Not really," Harry shook his head. "At least, not the way you're thinking of. I don't use it to control peoples' minds or summon demons- that's just way too clumbsy and, frankly, dumb. But, I have studied all sorts of magic that relates to blood. It was kind of necessary, due to things that happened when I was young."

"You mean with Voldemort?" Sirius asked.

"And my mum," Harry added with a nod. "But yes, after that night at the graveyard, where stealing my blood was an important part of his nasty little 'rebirthing' ceremony, it seemed really bloody important, you know? Plus, Dumbledore always made this big deal about how Lily Potter's sacrifice saved me when I was a baby and that it had some sort of 'blood protection' element to it, although he never fully explained that, of course. The old man just gave this spiel about how the nobility of a mother's love was a 'power beyond magic' and some other nonsense. Personally, I still think she came up with some sort of ritual magic that no one had heard of before."

"Huh, I never thought of it like that before," Sirius scratched his chin before starting to grin. "It does make a lot more sense than you having some sort of magic forehead that was killing curse proof."

Harry laughed. "Yeah, definitely."

"Back to the point," Morrigan interrupted. "What will that piece of stone that you've been carving on be able to do?"

"I'll show you as soon as we run into another of those rage demon things," Harry answered.

As it turned out, the wait would be short, as there was just such a creature in the next large room they came upon. Harry used a banishing charm to launch the rock at the creature made of flame and when it made contact, the explosion completely obliterated it as well as three abominations that were within ten feet of the blast. The remaining enemies fell that much quicker without the rage demon to lead the attack.

Sirius whistled and grinned. "Not bad, Harry, not bad at all."

"I agree," Morrigan said. "I will be looking forward to learning more from you soon. 'Tis some very interesting uses of magic I have never encountered the like of."

"As soon as we're done here, I'll make time," Harry agreed.

"Good, see that you do."


They moved on and came upon more possessed templars, resulting in another fight. Thankfully, they were once again clustered in a room with only a single doorway that resulted in a bottleneck that made them much easier foes for Harry's group to handle.

On the other hand, there was a tall purple female demon that seemed to be controlling them that was much more dangerous. She looked like the succubus that he'd seen in his dream when he spoke to Hermione in the Fade, but this one was not interested in talking, launching a spell as soon as they had been seen. Even worse, she had no compunction against throwing dangerous area effecting magic into the middle of the templars that were under her command.

That should have made the fight slightly harder to deal with, but the fireball that the demon had thrown actually made things much easier as Harry and Sirius both shouted out 'Protego' on seeing the deadly blast heading towards them. Hence, her entranced muscle were the only ones damaged by her volley of magic. It left the demon exposed to a number of nasty curses and spells that made short work of her.

"What was that?" Sirius asked.

"You mean the babe?" Harry chuckled.

"Yeah. Usually a woman has to get to know me a bit better before she'll start throwing magic at me like that," his godfather grinned.

Harry snorted just as Wynne answered them. "That creature is what's known as a desire demon, for they prey on the desires of mortals to lure in their victims to their doom."

"I can see why some fools would fall for such charms," Morrigan scoffed before arching an eyebrow at Harry. "However, I would think you would be made of sterner stuff."

"I had one of them show up in my dream that night at your mother's cottage," Harry said with a laugh. "I was busy talking to an old friend though, so I had to ask 'Desire' to leave. She didn't take it well, but Hermione always was a taskmaster, so she wouldn't let me waste time with a succubus."

"Succubus?" Leliana asked.

"It's what we called them where Sirius and I came from," Harry replied. "I never thought I'd see one in real life."

"You know, I kind of liked the purple skin," Sirius smirked. "But I don't think I could ever be with a woman that much taller than me."

"Did you know that Hagrid's mum was a giant?" Harry asked.

"I did actually," Sirius barked out a laugh. "Unfortunately, his dad died too young before Hagrid could ask him any really uncomfortable questions. Can you imagine? Talk about an 'Engorgio' charm, eh?"

"Personally, I wouldn't risk it," Harry chuckled.

"If the two of you are quite finished," Wynne interjected as she motioned further down the hall. "I believe we have more work to do."

"If you insist," Sirius said. Smiling at Harry, he asked, "Does she remind you of McGonagall?"

"Minerva was much more strict when I was still a student," he answered. "But I think she mellowed a fair amount later on."

"Maybe it's just having an older woman get on my case about needing to be more serious."

"You can't be anymore Sirius than you are," Harry grinned.

"Bloody right," he laughed. Leliana tried to stifle a giggle while the two witches were frowning at them, standing near a larger door leading off to the left, the inside of the tower. Sirius caught up and winked at the redhead. "Let me check that before we open it."

Shifting into Padfoot briefly to give it a smell, Sirius then reappeared and said, "I think there's something living beyond this, but I also got a whiff of more undead."

"Everyone get ready then, and I'll have my stone friend do the honors," Harry announced as the statue trundled into place. With one last look to make sure the others were prepared, the door was then flung wide open.

Sure enough, there were several undead that shuffled towards them, as well as one slightly larger abomination with a hunched back that looked like a mass of cancerous tumors. Harry aimed for what looked like the biggest threat and sent an exploding curse at the hideous once-human thing. It shrieked loudly as part of its shoulder and hump burst; he might have gagged if Harry hadn't seen dozens of worse things over the years, but to his right, Leliana looked a little green and he couldn't really blame her. She stayed focused though and shot an arrow through the thing's throat.

Morrigan, Wynne, and Sirius had been dealing with the undead, using an interesting variety of spells to do so: a corrosive poison that caused one of them to explode, a conjured chunk of rock that knocked another off its feet, and the trusty Incendio charm which turned the last of the Inferi-like things to ash.

With the path cleared, Harry's stone statue marched up to the abomination and impaled the monster on its sword.

"That was nasty business," Sirius muttered.

"Moriah, are you alright?" Wynne asked as she pushed past the rest of the group. Now that the enemies were out of the way, Harry noticed there were three mages standing in the center of the room.

"Thank you," Moriah answered, once again in that flat, emotionless tone. "That was an uncomfortable experience."

"I'm glad you're safe, my dear," Wynne fussed over the young tranquil woman. "If you and the others would be so kind, the path is cleared for you to make your way to the lower floors. You'll find Owain at the stockroom, and you should all be safe there until we have finished clearing the rest of the Tower."

"As you wish."

The three tranquil walked out through the door Harry's group had come through. On the other hand, Sirius was scowling at the stairs leading up to the fourth floor which were surrounded by heaps of blood and flesh. "Something vile happened here."

"We haven't seen the worst yet," Leliana agreed.

"How many more floors are there?" Harry asked.

"One more like this, and then the harrowing chamber at the top," Wynne answered.

He sighed in response. "Onwards then."


"It's too quiet," Leliana said. "If the worst lies at the top of the Tower, we should expect to find more enemies, not fewer."

"I agree," Wynne nodded.

"As long as we all stay on guard, we should be okay," Sirius said.

"I'm glad someone is feeling confident," Leliana grinned at him.

"The last really big nasty fight I was in was against a bunch of evil wizards, and on top of that, we had to rescue a bunch of teenagers that had gotten in over their heads," Sirius chuckled. "At least this time, I don't have my crazy bitch of a cousin trying to kill me or Harry."

"Yeah, Bellatrix was a nasty piece of work." Harry tapped the statue on its head and watched as it started to march down the hall. "From everything I learned over the years, I swear she must have killed and tortured more people than even old Tom himself. She was damn near as hard to kill, too."

A moment later they heard voices coming from a nearby room.

"... and I helped with supper!"

"Well it is delicious. Thank you, my dear." That was a man's voice, but the one that answered him was clearly not human.

"Isn't this wonderful, husband? Isn't our life perfect?"

Harry sighed when he saw that the second voice was coming from another succubus- no, 'desire demon' he reminded himself. She sounded even creepier than the one he had spoken to in the Fade; her melodic voice was blended with much deeper tones, as if she were three or four different speakers.

"Yes, it is all perfect," a clearly bewitched templar agreed.

"Everything is just as you wanted, my knight. Our love and our family is more than you hoped for," the demon told him.

"Do you hear something, love?" he asked.

"It is nothing my darling. Just the door. I will get it," the demon answered. "The children have finished supper. Tuck them into bed while I see who it is."

"Don't be long," the templar said merrily, his voice sounding slightly inebriated. "The children will want to kiss you goodnight."

"Now this is really fucking messed up," Sirius whispered.

Leliana nodded next to him. "I'm not sure if I should be more horrified, disgusted, or depressed. He seems truly happy that way."

"Illusions can't bring you true happiness," Harry muttered. "Not even if they leave you out of your mind."

"You sound as if you have experience," Morrigan added, to which Harry merely sighed.

"I will be but a moment my pet." The desire demon turned to address the group, looking at them as interlopers. "You are intruding upon a loving, intimate moment, and I dislike interruptions."

"There is nothing loving or intimate about this, demon!" Wynne spat.

"I have given him what he always wanted. Where is the harm in that?"

"You have trapped him in a lie," Leliana said.

"All emotion is intangible," the demon replied. "You cannot see it, cannot grasp it."

"But it is caused by real events, real people," Wynne argued. "What you have done to him is abhorrent."

"I saw his loneliness and longing for a family that loved him," the demon said.

Leliana interrupted. "This thing is feeding off his innermost desires and taking away his will. This is unholy."

"He has gone through life empty and resentful. I have given him something more," the demon replied, stroking one hand down the templar's face and causing him to smile. "I want nothing from you. All I ask is that you leave us alone."

"You cannot expect this to last. The Circle will not remain in chaos for too long," Harry pointed out.

"What becomes of us is not your concern."

"We cannot let this stand," Leliana argued.

Harry turned and saw both Wynne and Sirius agreeing with her, although Morrigan was as aloof as he expected her to be. 'Majority rules,' he thought to himself. "Expulso!"

His aim was true and the curse put a hole through the demon's chest, spraying dark blue blood up over the templar's face.

"No! My love!" The templar screamed and charged the group.

"Shit," Harry muttered. They had moved too far into the room, so the templar was able to flank around the statue and he was barreling right down on the murderer of his supposed wife. Leliana fired low, aiming at the less armored legs of the templar, and she succeeded in slowing his charge.

Morrigan pointed her staff and unleashed a cone of freezing cold that hindered the templar even more, although he was still trying to attack them. Harry had hoped that killing the demon might have broken the enchantment, but apparently he was not that lucky. He waved his wand and the statue delivered a killing blow.

"It's a shame that he was too far gone to save," Wynne said.

Morrigan snorted. "Apparently you can get your desire and still suffer horribly. 'Tis truly a lesson for all who consider marriage."

"Now, wait just a second," Harry interjected. "That's just some of Flemeth's garbage you're spouting. I know you've never been married. In fact, I'm probably the only one here who ever has been. You shouldn't be so quick to judge something that you have no experience of. In my case, marriage was wonderful, and I wouldn't have traded a day of it for anything in the world."

"Didn't you also say that you had two wives?" Morrigan scoffed.

"Yes, and they were two of the most amazing people I've ever known," Harry replied.

"Alright, let's get back to work," Sirius interrupted. "The two of you can argue among yourselves later. We still need to clear this floor and get to the top of this tower."

"Fine," Morrigan said, turning away and heading back out into the hallway.

"She seems to be a most disagreeable sort," Wynne added.

"That's one way of putting it," Leliana nodded.

Sirius chuckled. "Harry's not the type to back down from a challenge."

"I've had plenty of experience in dealing with argumentative women," Harry shrugged. "And I sympathize with her, so I'm hopeful that things will get better."

He stopped himself from mentioning how Morrigan had been raised- Flemeth was incredibly cynical and cold hearted, not to mention incredibly powerful and manipulative. Harry didn't want to go broadcasting those sorts of things, especially not to people that Morrigan didn't like or trust. Besides, he really did sympathize with her- his own childhood had been miserable, and in his teen years he'd had to deal with an incredibly powerful yet manipulative mentor figure of his own.

That brought up all sorts of thoughts and memories that he didn't have the time for- not when his group was in enemy territory and getting ever closer to whatever demons and dark wizards that were behind the nightmare they'd been wading through for the last few hours.

They regrouped in the hall and eventually found their way to a large door leading into the center of the Tower. Pushing their way inside, they came across a tall creature that looked like one of the abominations that had been twisted into an even more disgusting parody of a human being. Its flesh appeared to have been torn and melted then reshaped into something out of a nightmare- skin was stretched over bones that wrapped around its face, covering the mouth and leaving only one blood red eye to glare at them.

"Oh, look. Visitors," it drawled out in a tired voice. "I'd entertain you, but... too much effort would be involved."

"That is one ugly bugger," Sirius muttered.

"You must all be so weary after such a long journey up this Tower," the demon said. Harry felt some strange form of magic emanating from the creature as it continued to speak. "Wouldn't you like to just... lay down and forget about all this? Leave it all behind? Take a chance to... rest."

"I'll not listen to your lies, demon," Leliana replied, even as she swayed on her feet. "You have no... power over me..."

"I could use a nap," Sirius yawned as he struggled to keep standing. "Now that you mention it."

"Resist. You must resist, else we are all lost," Wynne said, although she too fell to her knees.

Harry turned to look at his companions, his own muscles feeling sluggish, and he saw that they were all in the process of succumbing to some sort of powerful sleep enchantment.

"This is ridiculous. You cannot expect me to rest on a floor sticky with blood," Morrigan scoffed. Harry rushed over to catch her as she stumbled, but her eyes were now closed. He could feel whatever sort of magic this creature was using pressing against his mind, and only the Occlumency he had learned so long ago from Daphne kept him from joining the others in the cursed slumber.

"Why do you fight?" the demon asked. "You deserve a rest. The world will go on without you."

"Dammit," Harry hissed as the creature continued its assault. What felt like a tsunami slammed up against his consciousness. But Harry always had been one truly stubborn bastard- he narrowed his eyes and raised up his left hand in defiance. "Go back to hell, you fucking monster.

"Confringo!"

As his spell struck true and an explosion of gore rained down upon him, Harry's head throbbed in pain and his eyes reluctantly closed.


Author's Note: I've had a couple of people question the witch trials of the Harry Potter world, but when Harry talks about seeing people trying to burn a young witch at the stake, he's not talking about things that happened in medieval times. He's had first hand experience at seeing all sorts of awful things happen after the fall of the statute of secrecy as well as World War 3. Earth was a nightmare by the time he walked through the veil. Figured I should make that clear now.

I think the writer's block is behind me as I've started work on the next chapter already, so hopefully I'll be more productive. Assuming I can wrap myself up in a blanket when I sit down at the keyboard anyway (it's unusually cold & icy where I live). Hope you're all staying safe & healthy. Till next time!