Chapter 3 - Arc 2

The Lonely Tower

It was an endless trek through brush, bramble and dense woodland. Little life interacted with this region of forest, with its green overgrowth choking the landscape and slowing the progress of any who dared pass through it. Sharp rises and falls in the backcountry terrain, and unseen depressions waiting in the earth like cunning predators made it a treacherous pathway. A single false step could turn an ankle or shatter a number of bones depending on where it was taken.

"Remind me again, why you were the one Remus picked to take me out here?" Harry shouted to his guide. Together they'd just crossed a lazy shallow stream, and Harry paused a moment to dry his clothing with his wand. There was no chance that he would travel with soaking socks and wet squishing feet.

"Because, even with one leg, I know this forest better than anyone," Nico called back. The man was a dozen or so feet ahead of him, and already halfway up the incline of a rising knoll. "And I'm just about the only person Remus can trust not to maul your scrawny arse… which is funny given how we met."

As boisterous as the man could be, Harry was glad for his presence. He made the gruelling journey through the near impassable forest that much more pleasant, and he felt safer with his presence. Had he set out on his own, there wasn't a chance of him finding his way through this labyrinth of green and brown. They'd crisscrossed, doubled back, and circled numerous times in their path, to the point that Harry was helplessly lost. Despite this, Nico continued on without issue, as if he were simply following a map, moving swifter on one leg and a crutch than Harry was on two.

"Who was it that took off your leg again?" For a man who said there was no hard feelings, he certainly brought up the incident more often than not.

Nico laughed. "Watch it, kid. I'm the only hope you have in finding this place."

It was true, and for that Harry held his tongue. "Do you reckon we'll get there soon?" Harry asked instead.

At the base of the hill Nico turned and stopped, before sitting himself down on a jutting stump of a fallen tree. "The forest thins up ahead, and that's as close as I can take you undetected," he grunted as he reached into his pack and pulled out a bundle of hard bread. "We can stop for some lunch, and get there mid-afternoon."

They'd been travelling since the early morning, and the thought of lunch was appealing. He'd spent nearly a week in the Werewolf colony, living with Remus' family. There was a certain normalcy about the way they lived, that appealed to Harry. At times he wondered if that was what life was like for his family, in the short time they had together. One filled with so much love. It was a painful thought, but still, he found himself happy for the life Remus found for himself.

The week had seemingly flown by. Spending hours getting to know Isla, a muggle woman who had long ago been captured and bitten by Greyback, and playing with baby James. That baby is going to be worse than all his names put together. Their lives were simple and peaceful in a strange sort of way.

Leaving them was more difficult than he ever would have imagined, though it was necessary. With each passing day in the cycle of the moon, the initial restraint of the Werewolves was disappearing. What was once side-ways looks of antipathy, soon turned to aggressive snaps and outright hostility. It was never safe there to begin with, Remus told me as much. A low burn pulsed through his forearm from a set of shallow stabs where one man had dug his sharpened nails after Harry took his spot around a fire.

Remus dealt with the aggressor before he could do any worse in retaliation, but lines were drawn after the incident. Harry wouldn't stand being pushed around, and the wolves didn't appreciate having a human in their midst. The camp was tense, and Harry knew his presence was causing Remus undue problems.

The full moon is approaching anyway, Harry thought to himself, while taking the bread from Nico. He didn't feel any bitterness over being forced out. He had a job to do, and staying with Remus would have been impossible in the long run.

Harry used his wand to enlarge the small amount of bread that Isla had passed on to them. It was a handy charm, one Remus taught him days earlier, and something he regularly used to help feed the colony. He tore a smaller chunk off and passed it to Nico, keeping the larger for himself. Merlin knows how long it'll be before I find food again.

Nico took his bread silently, staring all the while at Harry's wand with a frown on his face.

"When was the last time you used magic?" Harry asked gently.

The man across from him jerked to attention, and flushed to match his hair. "It's… been a while. Since I was thirteen. I don't really think about it…" his voice trailed off in a mumble.

"You didn't try to get another wand?"

"My parents did for years," Nico said, sighing, and tearing a chunk out of his bread rather savagely, "but the Ministry wouldn't allow it. Went straight to Minister Jenkins they did, but she wouldn't budge either. Headmaster Dumbledore argued for me as well, but the Governors didn't listen. He brought textbooks to my house one day, so my parents could tutor me in theory… I think he felt sorry for me. I heard that he passed, I'm sorry, he was a good man."

Harry nodded sadly. "He was. One of the best I knew."

They ate in silence, melancholy hanging heavily in the air, their minds lost to past memories. Streams of broken light broke through the trees, warming them in their golden glow.

"Hufflepuff." Nico said suddenly. "I was a Hufflepuff when I went to Hogwarts. Best years of my life those three were." He spoke calmly, his eyes closed, with a smile on his face. "I was a right little rascal back then, looking for mischief more often than I was learning."

"Sounds a bit like my dad," Harry said, kicking a stone and listening to it rustle through the grass and plop into a hidden stream.

"So I've heard. Slip Remus just a tiny bit of some whiskey and he'll go on for hours about him and the Marauders." Nico burst into a great bought of laughter. "I think I would have fit right in with that lot. My favorite thing to do was tell kids I knew where to find the kitchens, then I'd lead them to those barrels in front of our common room and give them the wrong password. Watching them get soaked in vinegar – eyes all wide and shrieking in surprise – it never got old." Nico's eyes were watering from laughter… though perhaps it was something else entirely. It wasn't his place to ask.

"Did you ever play Quidditch?" The question was much more important to Harry than it should have been. Nothing went together with Hogwarts like Quidditch did. Inn his mind it did, anyway.

"You bet your bloody arse I did!" He roared in delight. "Best Keeper Hufflepuff House has ever seen… at least for the two games I played in third year."

I knew it. Harry couldn't help but feel a shot of satisfaction for seeing it immediately when he'd woken in the tent.

"It's probably the thing I miss most." Nico continued, and finished his last scrap of bread. "Even without my wand, I could still fly when I was stuck at home."

"You don't have any back at the village?"

He shook his head. "They cost too damn much, even the old Shooting Stars. I wasn't able to keep my old Nimbus either… parents died in the war and we lost the house." He shrugged and stood with the help of his crutch. "Time to get moving, I think. Even I can't make my way back through the forest very well in the dark."

The remainder of their journey was quiet, and similar to what it had been like before their break. They slipped down slopes, climbed up ridges, and wound their way deeper and deeper into the heart forest. At one point it had gotten so thick that they could hardly see beyond the trees immediately in front of them, each step cracking undergrowth and snapping the shifting wall of leaves and branches, yet Nico led them onward. After crawling through a narrow pass lined by some of the prickliest bushes Harry had ever encountered, they finally broke free and reached the clearing Nico had mentioned earlier. It was with great relief, as Harry had grown tired with the constant whipping of greenery in his face

The sun was slowly beginning its descent overhead, stretching their shadows, but the sky remained clear and blue. Nico looked unconcerned, fully confident in his ability to get back in time. "Just ahead is where they start to monitor. I'd imagine what you're looking for is only a half-hour further in," he said, and turned to face Harry fully.

They looked each other up and down for a moment, only the gentle whistling of the wind through the trees between them.

"Listen kid, surprisingly, I like you. So whatever it is you're doing, don't get caught and don't die." It was said with a blunt honesty he had come to associate with Nico.

"You wouldn't believe the amount of times I've been told something similar to that," Harry replied with a smirk.

"How's that been working out for you?" Nico said knowingly, though there was a touch of sadness to it.

"I'm not dead yet."

His friend simply shook his head.

"One last thing." Harry turned back to his guide who had spoken. "Don't keep going around taking legs off of innocent handsome men, alright? It's rude." He saluted with that last bit of wisdom, and disappeared silently into the Black Forest, its arms swallowing him in their eerie embrace.

He's always going to hold that over me, isn't he?

There was an odd sort of anticipation that clung to him now that he was alone. Like he was standing on the edge of a cliff, and readying himself to step off. Adrenaline was rushing through his veins, heightening his senses, and making him acutely aware of all that was around him. It was only him standing in the wide clearing, but there was also magic. He could feel it. If he were to guess, he would say it was the same as the magic behind the red haze that stranding him in the forest in the first place.

Reaching into his mokeskin pouch, his fingers brushed across a wooden box. It was the one Dumbledore passed on to him before his death. The temptation to open it had long been present, but he wanted to wait until he was someplace secure. Instead, he pulled out his invisibility cloak. Only the unknown lay ahead of him, and the cloak was his best defense.

Each step came with a worry. What are they protecting? What if they found him? What was he to do when he got there? The only certainties he held, were the importance of the mission ahead of him, and that he was looking for a black fortress.

Sneaking through the forest under his cloak, reminded him of when he had done the same in his fourth year. Following Hagrid and Maxime on their queer idea of a date. He likely would have been lost in hysterics had he not been so incredibly nervous. They'd found dragons that night, equally beautiful and horrible fire-breathing lizards. Was he to find something as terrifying this time around? That trip helped save his life, and he could only wish that this one would so as well.

Making his way around an obstruction of fallen trees, that looked remarkably like a family of sleeping giants, Harry was brought up short by the sound of voices. They were muffled, but enough to still him. Eventually he saw them, green-robed, and emerging from a broken treeline. They were young – a man and a woman – and walked cautiously with their wands out.

"Are you sure this is necessary?" Harry could finally make out, as the man spoke. He had an accent he'd never heard before, his words leaving his mouth with a romantic lilt that better belonged to a song.

"They reported catching sight of two figures approaching some time ago," the woman responded. Her accent was French, like… Harry shook his head clear. "It is proper procedure," she sounded tired, but remained alert.

Safe underneath his cloak, the two passed by. The man was well built and fairly short, though dark and handsome as well, while the woman was only a touch taller with a severe looking face and tightly pulled red hair. His blood was thundering against his skull, peaking with anxiety over their close proximity to his hidden position.

"We already talked to the man, he said he came wandering alone." Despite being the only two in such a large area, the man was encroaching the woman's space. "A cripple, I wonder how that happened," he scoffed.

"Likely in some fight," she said, taking a step away from her partner and consequently closer to Harry, "which is why we shouldn't trust him. They said there were two."

She muttered a spell underneath her breath, and Harry's heart nearly stopped. A light blue pulse came out the end of her wand, and like a ripple on a lake it slowly extended outwards. It passed through Harry, and he gripped his wand in anticipation. Five heartbeats of silence passed. Then ten. Fifteen. The woman held still, her ear turned keenly toward her wand. She waited, and waited, and… nothing.

Harry nearly dropped in relief.

"We keep searching, I still think someone else is here," she said, her eyes passed right over Harry as she roved the area. The man sighed, and Harry caught his fingers fidgeting with a small blue stone pinned just underneath the collar of his uniform. The woman had one as well.

Both of them had moved a fair distance away from Harry before he dared take a step. If they were searching for him, others would be as well.

Some time had passed before he reached the treeline the pair emerged from earlier. The sun was gradually setting, stealing light from the dying day, and throwing purples, pinks, oranges, and reds across the sky. I need to get there before it's dark. The light of a fire or from the tip of his wand would surely give away his presence in the night.

Picking up his pace, he carried himself up a slope and to the top of a growing ridge, where he stopped and stared in awe. There, just beyond the tree tops, was a black stone tower extending up into the heavens, a grasping hand trying to touch the clouds. Sprinting downhill, being sure to keep a tight grip around his cloak, he broke through the trees and fully took in the sight in front of him. The fortress stretched as far as he could see, built with sharp edges and bulky blocks that made it formidable in every aspect. It rose out of the ground like the shell of some earthen monster, pulsing with a power that seemed to give it life.

Keeping watch for any other guards, Harry approached its main gate where a long stone path pierced through the forest. What is this place? A shiver snaked its way down his spine.

Blues and violets and a deep dark green danced in front of his eyes, a shimmering glow that reflected the sunset off of inky black stone like colored glass. Above the entrance stood a large stone arch. Carved into it was an inscription, but it had been defaced to the point that he could easier read the graffiti then the original text. A smaller sign stood next to it, simply saying 'International Confederation of Wizards – Authorized Personnel of the I.C.W. Only.'

Stepping beyond, Harry felt a wave of magic run over him. But again, nothing happened.

He continued his way into an open courtyard that served as a junction for four other paths. In the center stood a magical fountain, tiered like a wedding cake, depicting some sort of magical utopian society. At the top sat a strange symbol he had seen somewhere before, a circle within a triangle with a line through the middle. Two wizards and two witches stood proudly at the corners, their wands raised high in the air and shooting out water. This is all better suited to a palace, he thought to himself.

"Do you know if they found anything?" Harry heard a voice over the splashing water.

"Nothing. Seems like the Werewolf was telling the truth and only came on his own. Annabelle made sure to check well past the boundaries, Andres was complaining about it when he got back."

From a tunnel on the right, two wizards came walking up the path in the green robes he'd come to associate with the ICW.

"Andres complains about everything. He still trying to get into her pants?" One asked with a deep laugh.

"When is he not?" The other chuckled. "I don't know if I should be telling you this… but Annabelle's lost it with him. Stopped doing rounds inside together weeks ago."

The other was clearly shocked by this, but grossly interested in the gossip all the same. "The higher-ups don't know?"

"Keeping it from them apparently. She's desperate for a clean record, anything on there can stop her from rising high."

"Bloody woman's terrifying." They both moved to a guard's post in front of a set of great iron gates that led deeper into the fortress. "Let her do what she wants, as long as it doesn't affect us."

Darkness was encroaching fast at this point, and it didn't seem likely that the guards would move anytime soon. In fact, it looked as if they were settling in for a long shift. Even if he managed to slip by, there was still the magically locked gate he didn't know how to pass.

Dumbledore's memory was all he had. East, I need to head East. The path to the right, where the men had just come from, was the closest he could get.

The tunnel was dark, lined only with torches, twisting deep underground into a subterranean maze. Smaller tunnels and doorways branched off the main path, and Harry found himself wondering how someone could possibly navigate their way through the castle. There was far too much to keep track of, planned as if it was purposefully meant to trick those who wandered its halls.

His Point-Me spell was his guide, grounding him with a sense of direction, and serving as a reference for the path that lay ahead. Climbing up and down staircases, and crossing bridges over dark forbidding waters, he was led further and further east.

Eventually he exited a postern gate, that left him outside the perimeter wall. With his wand out, he followed the inky stone, that blended with the now settled darkness. Only the faint light of a crescent moon overhead lit his path.

He travelled for what felt an eternity. A chill from a nightly breeze battled with the warming charm he'd applied on himself. There was little to do but keep walking.

A dark splotch could be seen just ahead of him, and a jolt of excitement shot through his system. It grew in size as he approached, the shape shifting into the definitive figure of a man. It was a statue. The details of his features were shadowed in the night, but still he could tell that whoever was immortalized in the art was young and proud. Surprisingly, it remained mostly untouched compared to other statues he'd seen that were severely vandalized or broken to pieces.

Pointedly, he stepped behind the statue and towards the towering walls. His hand brushed the surface, finding it to be smooth like glass as his fingers glided across the seamless stone.

It was rough, jagged, and a stark contrast to all that surrounded it. He knew he'd found it. The outline of the phoenix.

"Live and love," he whispered, instinctively knowing what to say. From beneath his touch, the brick disappeared, and out of thin air a doorway formed before his eyes.

The staircase inside was steep and winding, the air dank, and the walls glistening with droplets of condensation sticking to its exterior. It truly was the point of no return. As the bricks reformed behind him, closing the passage, all sound left the room. Only his shallow breaths and the scuffing of shoes on stone accompanied him.

Each step took him higher, though how far he wasn't sure – magic could be funny like that.

For a moment, the grim darkness and the close-packed space reminded him of the cupboard he'd slept in long ago. And for those few heartbeats, he felt a sudden and frightening vulnerability; one he hadn't felt in years, and swore to forget.

His mind and body were no longer working in tandem. His body wanting to continue its climb, while his head protested against it. Part of him wanted to fulfill his mission, the other wished to run away back to Remus' camp, and the rest was content with standing where he was.

Is the castle doing this to me?

If it was, it was the strangest enchantment he'd ever come across. But surely, it must have been the cause. There was something stirring in the air, foreign to the emptiness he'd felt before. It weighed on him like lead, prodding at his fears and insecurities like a child with a stick. It was incredible, in a dangerous sort of way.

The next step was a struggle, the one after even more so, but he forced himself onwards. The pressure was enormous, building, and pushing against the strength of his will. Until suddenly it popped. It vanished, and all was as it once had been.

Looking around, he saw that he'd reached the upper landing of the passageway, and cautiously he slipped through the hidden doorway. It opened into a dim corridor, lit be a row of torches on either side, their tendrils silently licking the air. Still wrapped under his cloak, he followed the hall. Just ahead, he spotted a set of metal bars built into the wall, stretching from floor to ceiling.

It was a cell.

Inside, huddled under a paper-thin blanket and lying on a mattress even the Dursley's wouldn't have given him, was a woman. At least he thought it was a woman, despite her looking more like a corpse than anything remotely living. The only indication of her being alive, was the shaking rise and fall of her chest, that threatened to be snuffed out at any moment. Death would be a mercy.

There were more cells. They ran along his right side, three steps separating each. Was this a prison? It must be, he realized. Why did Dumbledore send me to an ICW prison?

More and more prisoners were inside, each as emaciated and sickly and on the brink of death as the first. Some likely were already dead, judging by the putrid stench of rot and decay that overwhelmed his senses. Some were mumbling underneath their breaths, so quiet it was difficult to tell if it was done in madness or in another language. This was no way for anyone to live. The thought of his old cupboard came to mind again.

Is this what Sirius went through in Azkaban?

There were no Dementors patrolling, he'd made sure to check several times by now. But still, the conditions were inhumane. The prisoners were better off dead. If this was anything like Azkaban, then it was no wonder the prisoners went insane. Harry only felt a stronger sense of pride for his godfather. To come back from this – to survive this – it was remakable.

The cells extended on for rows and rows. Each inmate was as comatose as the next. He'd worried that some might have made a commotion and drew attention to their cell, but he was invisible. If they had noticed anything, they would sooner pass it off for madness or the frailty of their minds.

He made it past the cell block, and continued upwards, drawn in that direction. It was as if he could feel the presence of another – stronger and brighter, like a beacon in the dark. The closer he drew, the more powerful it felt.

A sudden soft crack stopped him immediately. Directly in front of him, some dozen feet off, in the space of an open landing, a woman appeared. Annabelle, the red-headed witch he'd encountered earlier in the forest. She stood, gripping the blue stone pinned to her collar and started walking in his direction, completely unaware of his presence.

There was nowhere for him to go. The corridor was too narrow for him to slip past unnoticed, and she would inevitably walk into him. If he turned to leave in the opposite direction, he would likely make a noise and give himself away.

It left him only with one option. There was no time to think, only act.

When she was only steps away, he slipped his wand through the folds of his invisibility cloak and cast a silent stunning spell. The red light flashed brilliantly in the darkness, speeding towards his target, but quicker than he could believe, the spell splashed harmlessly against a shield.

Having lost his advantage, Harry whipped the invisibility cloak off his shoulders, allowing himself to move without its restrictions.

She stood frozen, clearly in shock, staring at him. He could only imagine what the witch was thinking, seeing him suddenly appear right in front of her. In the blink of an eye, instinct kicked in, and Harry found himself shielding against a barrage of spells.

She was formidable. Elegant in form, darting in and out with impactful spells filled both with power and precision, he was hard pressed to keep up. From the end of her wand, a long fiery whip snapped through the air, biting the space where his head had only just been. No second chances, I see how it is. As it came around again, this time aimed at his torso, Harry twisted his body to the side. Using the whip left her vulnerable and he planned on taking that advantage, even if he was to be hurt in the process.

A quick cutting curse left his wand and was directed towards her neck, forcing her to drop the whip to protect herself. It was done barely in time, the shield blocking the most lethal portion of the spell, but she was caught in the shoulder cutting both material and flesh. Harry grit his teeth as the remnants of her flame burnt just under his ribs.

They stood across from each other in a pause, breathing heavily, and gripping their wounds. Her dark eyes assessed him critically, waiting for any hint of movement from him.

Harry was calm, and a smile slowly creeped across his lips, the familiar thrill of battle rushing over him. Perhaps, he might have once been frightened by the woman in front of him, but no longer. He'd faced worse, much worse in recent weeks. There was little this woman could do in comparison to Voldemort. I've fought the devil himself.

As if sensing his cavalier confidence, the witch was much more defensive – something she was clearly not used to, her stance awkward in her unsettled state. Giving him one last long look, she reached to her collar, only for her eyes to widen in panic. Her hand groped blindly, not finding whatever it was she was looking for. Quickly, her attention darted to a scrap of cloth lying to the side, the one Harry's curse had cut off. Attached to it was the small blue stone.

Harry summoned it to his hand before she had the chance to react. Whatever it was, she clearly wanted it.

Beads of sweat slid down her temple, and she swiped at them angrily with her sleeve. She's worried, he realized, I'm a lot scarier on my own. She raised her wand to her mouth and made to shout, but thinking quickly he cast the Muffliato charm. Her amplified voice called for help, and echoed violently against the cold stone walls. His ears rang ringing painfully, but he knew nobody else had heard.

There was a renewed confidence to her spell casting, forcing Harry back on the defensive but taking care not to overextend herself in her efforts to subdue him. She's stalling for time. Harry laughed out loud. Gradually, he could see the dawning realization that nobody was coming to help her set in. Her movements were hesitant, second guessing every feint and twitch and shift. He was the one in control, the one who always had the upper hand, and now she knew it.

Harry didn't want to kill her – she'd done nothing wrong. It was him who had broken the law in the first place. She was just in the wrong place at the wrong time. However, subduing her without any lasting damage would prove to be difficult.

He had an idea – a trick in truth – and prayed that it would work.

Reaching around his neck with one hand, his fingers opened the mokeskin pouch. With his next spell, he summoned a cluster of Peruvian Darkness Powder that was gifted to him at the beginning of the year by the twins. The black granule shot out like a rocket, colliding with the ceiling and filling the hall with its impermeable darkness. Through the screen, he could hear the French witch curse out loud as she tried numerous spells to counter its affects.

"Post Tenebras Lux."

The reversal spell was his key, clearing his vision, and winning him the duel. There was a flash of red, and unlike last time, it hit true. Slumped to the ground and unconscious, he was left to figure out what to do with the guard.

She'd seen his face. It was a fact he couldn't ignore. And the list of solutions for that problem were short. He wouldn't kill her. He wouldn't become a murderer. He could Obliviate her. He'd seen the spell performed, but never attempted it himself, and to gamble with someone's mind… it was wrong.

Floating her fallen form beside him, and covering it with his invisibility cloak, he was left with taking her wherever he was headed.

Again, he could feel the presence from before draw him in like a moth to a flame. It led him up and up, through dark sloping passages and to a final spiralling staircase that felt like it went on for forever. It was slow going and difficult, trying to navigate the narrow tower without crashing his new hostage into the walls.

He could hear something now, floating across the still air from a point not too far ahead. It was a pleasant tune, folksy and foreign, not something he'd ever heard played on the Wizarding Wireless or leave the drunken lips of patrons of The Three Broomsticks. There were no words, but he thought it was better suited that way.

The top of the staircase led to a short corridor with a single, small cell sitting at its end. His footsteps reverberated loudly within the hollow tower, filling his ears, and the low-light of the flickering torches only added to the eerie feeling that filled the room. The singing was loud and clear, and the presence was overwhelming.

He stood in front of a row red rusted bars, and looked into the locked space. Beneath a small window, sitting on a hard lumpy bed was a man. A prisoner unlike any of the others – awake, and singing, and smiling.

His hair was stringy and blonde, a greasy mess that fell over an aged and horribly wrinkled face. Beneath it all, he might have once been handsome. He was frail, but not sickly like the other prisoners he'd seen. The only feature untouched by the cruel passage of time, were his grey-blue eyes, that seemed to stare right through Harry.

"So that's what I've come to look like over these long years," his voice was soft.

He wasn't sure what caused it, but slowly everything started to fall into place around him. But one thing held him back. Why would Dumbledore send him here of all places? To him?

Surely this can't be –

"Gellert Grindelwald, Mr. Potter, I welcome you to Nurmengard."

AN:

Oh boy. I hope you all enjoyed. Let me know your thoughts on anything and everything... especially after this.