"Hufflepuffs aren't duffers!": You're talking to one of the least Hufflepuff people ever, at least if the online Sorting is to be believed. I could get it to flip pretty easily between Slytherin and Ravenclaw by changing a few answers, and at one point I talked myself and it into Gryffindor, but after several experiments I never saw a Hufflepuff. So yeah, maybe a little biased. :D

Chapter 17
The Temple

Harry walked through the dark common area towards the kitchen. The candles were snuffed out and the lamps were turned down low, appropriate considering how it was currently the middle of the night, but they still gave off enough light for him to make his way to the icebox and pull out a bottle of dark blue kombooj juice. Pouring it into a glass, he returned the bottle and leaned against a nearby counter. "Can't sleep either?" he asked the figure sitting in the dark.

Someone rustled in the chair in the corner. "No," Hermione finally said. "My brain refuses to turn off."

"Mine too."

Silence returned, and he sipped quietly from his glass. He suspected what was keeping Hermione up was the same thing that was keeping him from finding sleep. Despite hours passing, he still could not shake off the concern he felt about Dumbledore and the other wizards having a map and a road to the source of the Transition, assuming that was what the diamond on the map represented.

"I keep thinking about all the things the elders would tell us about our old world," Hermione abruptly added. "All the wonderful things we had that were lost. Skills in alchemy that are gone because we don't have the herbs and reagents here to replace them. Artificers who created great sky-boats but are now missing, leaving us with gaps in our knowledge that cannot be bridged. They would have no hesitation reverting the world back to how it was."

Harry nodded. How often had he heard the inhabitants of Whinging Village, some of whom still insisted on calling it by its old name of Little Whinging, decry their lack of television and automobiles? Things he simply could not remember and had lived essentially his entire life without.

"But then I also think of everyone who has set out and made a life for themselves here. Not just people our age, but those who were adults or teenagers during the Transition. They had the same history as people who complained about the change, but they went out and did something. They made places for themselves in this new world."

"There's an old man in Glasgow," Harry said when it was clear Hermione had no more to say right then. "Runs the apothecary. He's a bit of a cynic, but something he said once stuck with me. He said life was shite on Earth just like it is here. The smell might be different, but it wasn't any better."

Hermione snorted at the crude analogy.

"And there are plenty of people running around who seem to be perfectly happy with their lives now. Whether it's because what they really care about they still have or because they found something here they didn't have there. We've both heard people complain about things used to be better, but have we heard it so much because that many people are saying it or because the small number of people who feel that way just won't shut up while all the rest who are okay with how things turned out are busy with their own lives?"

"I don't know. The Stellis in the Riverlands are a lot like the wizards. They want what's familiar and refuse to step out their front doors to see what new things the world has to offer now. If they are only comparing what they remember with what they think the world is like, or only judging it with the assumption that new things have to be bad, how much can we trust their opinions at all?"

Harry nodded.

The archer shifted in her chair again. "I'm scared," she admitted into the darkness. "If Dumbledore really can do what he thinks he can and reverses the Transition. I can't help but think about what Draco said. I don't think there will be much cause for Hunters if the world turns back. All my skills and knowledge are geared for this world, and I know it's selfish to say that when we just talked about how people can adapt to whatever world they find themselves in, but I can't help but ask myself why. Why do I need to adapt to how the old world was when I fit right in on this one? Why is the old world so much better than the one we have now? Our races had more things, but do these things bring happiness? If they were so important, why is no one trying to learn how to make them again?No one has ever been able to answer any of these questions to my satisfaction."

She sighed quietly. "I'm scared that if they succeed in what they are trying to do, all that's going to happen is that I'll find myself just as lost as they are now. That isn't who I want to be, but isn't it selfish for me to make that decision when I can't know if things will be better or worse?"

"It's not selfish." Pushing himself off the counter, he stumbled his way to a chair close to hers. "We can't know whether things will be better or not. Everything's just too complicated to come to a simple answer. All we can do is make the best decision with what we know and live with the consequences."

"What would you do if it was your decision?" she asked.

He shook his head. "I have some of the same doubts you do. All I know is that I'm worried about how obsessed the wizards are about this, just like the people where I grew up. You're right, they made their minds up as soon as they were in Gaia and haven't looked back. I can't see them wrestling with the possibilities like we are. If they are that blind to all that's good here, I don't know if I trust them to make a good decision for the whole world, but that's exactly what they'd be doing."

"Then what are we going to do?"

"…I don't know."

For the third time in as many days, the four Adventurers found themselves in the headmaster's office. This time it was not just him and them, however. Seven people were waiting in the room when they arrived. Next to Dumbledore himself was a blonde woman with impressively thick glasses and to her other side a tall young man with red hair pulled back into a ponytail. On Dumbledore's other side was yet another woman with black hair and a stern expression that was a perfect match to her austere pointed black hat. Continue down that line was a giant with a thick black beard who looked like like he definitely had Osgul somewhere in his bloodline followed another half-human, though this exceedingly short man must have been part Kobold. The last was once again a human with long blond hair who looked too similar by half to Draco to be anyone but the father who disowned him shortly after they arrived in the castle. When the door opened up, they all looked over obviously surprised at the interruption and who was behind it.

"Draco, my boy. I did not expect to see you and your friends again so soon." He raised a bushy white eyebrow. "Is there a reason you are here? As you can see, I am rather busy at the moment."

"That's why we're here," Harry said, stepping to the forefront. "If you're about to go to whatever that diamond is on the map, we want to head out with you."

"Why would you want to come with us?" Dumbledore asked, suspicion taking root in his eyes.

His suspicion was probably well founded, but Harry had an excuse ready. "We're Adventurers," he said simply. "We go where the action is, and the source of the Transition? It would be hard to find a better adventure than that."

Draco's father scoffed. "So you expect us to bring along four children for the simple reason that you want to see something? This is not a vacation or a tour, boy. This is a task for grown wizards."

"We expect you to bring us along because you need us," Draco shot back, and a glance behind him showed Harry that the Sorcerer was not looking at his father but instead rubbing a bit of dirt out of the crease of one hand. He looked the very picture of nonchalance. "The Towers where we found that map only opened to the Spires' Marks. If this place is the same way, you'd get there only to find yourselves trapped with no way to move forward."

"He's not wrong," the woman – witch? – with the spectacles said, looking up from the map to Dumbledore. "If the Towers all behaved that way, then this place doing the same is a possibility. A likelihood, even. It would be worthwhile for one of them to accompany us."

"If one of us goes, we all go," Dudley said without hesitation.

The old man stroked his beard. "Then it seems we have little choice but to allow you to accompany us. This is rather convenient in some ways, I suppose, as I would need to ask you for one of those jars of magic. We need it to create a portkey to take us to our destination."

"As long as I still get paid for it," Draco muttered loud enough for everyone in the room to hear it. His comment earned other scoff from his father as well as the redhead, but Harry looked back to catch his eye. Sure enough, Draco looked worried, and somehow Harry doubted it had anything to do with dimma.

Dumbledore led the entire group to another room just off his office and down a second staircase to a different part of the castle. That answered Harry's question about whether a headmaster could be trapped in his own office. The room that was eventually revealed was rather small, giving it a cramped feeling when all eleven of them were assembled inside. Unlike the grey of the rest of the castle, the walls here were a solid black and faintly reflective, making it all the creepier. "Draco, open one of the large jars, if you would."

Just open it? If he remembered correctly, Draco had said that opening the jars would let the mana within simply spill out and make it useless. Unless that was the reason this room looked the way it did, to contain the mana that would pour out.

While he was thinking, Draco was acting, and soon the Sorcerer summoned a jar nearly as large as his own chest and filled with what Harry could only compare to liquid starlight. It was also far lighter than it looked if the ease with which Draco held it was any indication. "Here goes nothing," Draco said, and grabbing the metal lid he gave it a sharp twist and tug.

The mana contained within the jar might have been a white liquid, but what rushed out was a cloud of bright green with streaks of blue and yellow scattered throughout. The mist surrounded them like a multicolored mist, and Harry's heart started racing as he felt his own magic swell and begin to move faster within him. He did not know what all this concentrated mana was doing, but he was getting worried that it was nothing good for his health.

Dumbledore, on the other hand, showed none of the concern Harry felt. Instead he raised both hands in the air, one holding a wand and the other empty. These hands started moving in circles, and as he did so the mist left the air around them and gathered into a thick cloud above their heads. "Hagrid, did you bring the rope?" he asked, only the tiniest bit of the strain present in his voice.

The giant man pulled a thick rope out of his pocket, and once it was on the ground Dumbledore slowly lowered his arms to guide the cloud of magic down to and into the robe. The hand with the wand stopped making circles and instead went into an elaborate dance. "Portus," he muttered, the nonsense word apparently meaning more to him than it did to Harry. At that command, the rope flashed a bright blue a single time and writhed like a snake for a few seconds before returning to normal.

"Did you need to use that much power for one portkey?" Draco asked, staring at the rope with wide eyes.

Dumbledore sighed. "Perhaps not. However, I remember how much power creating the warp stones required, and they are naught but specialized and permanent portkeys. It is easier to use all the magic you released and waste it than try to portion it out, especially with as finicky of a working as creating a portkey in this world is.

"Besides," he continued with a small smile, "if all goes well, the waste soon will not matter."

Harry and Hermione shared a look. His words did nothing to soothe their fears.

"Minerva, I leave the castle in your care until we return." The dark-haired witch gave him a nod, and he turned his gaze to the rest of the group. "Everyone else, grab on. We have places to be."

"Just to warn you," Draco muttered to them, "this is going to feel almost exactly like the warp stone did. Be ready."

The same warp stone that brought them to the castle in the first place? The torture device that spun them around and around until Harry wanted to be sick all over everything? He shot Draco a panicked look.

"Three. Two. One. Here we go."

Dumbledore tapped his wand on the rope, and the world fell apart around them.

The trip from Diagon Village to Hogwarts took a few seconds. This was much longer and all the worse for it. By the minute mark, Harry really did throw up, his vomit scattering into the whirl of wind and color. By three minutes, all that was coming up was bile. Only after five minutes did everything begin to slow down, and Harry collapsed onto the ground. It took several deep breaths and at least ten seconds of just not moving before his stomach calmed in its rebellion. Finally he gasped, "What happens if you throw up riding that thing?"

"I must admit that I don't know for sure," Dumbledore said with an irritating level of cheer. Harry cracked open one eye to glare at him. "My suspicion, however, is that your breakfast is now spread across the countryside."

"I hate him," Harry muttered to himself. Rolling over, he pushed himself to his feet and looked around. "What is this place?"

If the dark blue water crashing against the rocky shore was any indication, they were on some island in the middle of the sea. Above and all around them sat angry grey storm clouds, slowly turning around and around the tiny spit of land they found themselves on. Their actual landing spot was a small outcrop of the island itself. Right before them stood a square gate made of red wood, and beyond that was a flight of stairs leading to a tall pyramid-like building with corners that curved upwards towards the sky.

"It appears to be a Japanese temple," Dumbledore told them, looking in the same direction Harry had. "Strange that this curse would originate in Japan, not to mention that it could spread as far as Britain. If they had not toyed around with the ley lines, it would not have spread far beyond that country's borders."

The stairs guided them directly to a set of wooden doors set in the white walls of the temple. This would be the first test, Harry thought. It was here where, if their Marks were needed at all, they would be required. Dumbledore placed both hands on the double doors, no doubt thinking the same thing.

Then he pushed his hands to the sides, and the doors slid open.

Spherical lamps ignited, casting the hallway beyond in a warm glow. Between the lamps stood identical statures of a humanoid figure with a lizard's or a dragon's head, curved swords held upright in their right hands. The hall ran straight for several hundred feet before abruptly turning to the left.

"This is it?" Draco's father sneered as the group made their way down the hall. "A temple with a bunch of statues. This is what you were so afraid of, Dumbledore?"

"No one would tie their curse into a location and thereafter leave it undefended. There is some means of protection. We simply have not seen it yet."

"Or this 'protection' is only in your mind." The blond stopped in his tracks, and the rest of the party did as well. "I see no reason why we should not demolish this building with blasting curses and sift through the remains. Or burn the whole thing down. It would be faster than searching it by hand."

Dumbledore sighed. "We do not know where the curse is bound."

"And it won't matter if we destroy everything!" the man snapped back, his pale face flushed with anger.

A pair of black eyes opened on the statue standing behind him.

"Behind you!" Draco screamed.

Draco's father started to turn, but it was too late. The living statue raised its sword and brought it down a single time. The wizard's body fell to the ground, his hair spreading out when his severed head rolled to a stop. The other wizards stumbled backwards away from the sudden act of violence, and even Harry had to admit to being surprised, though it did not stop him from grabbing his sword by reflex.

Looking at them, the statue stepped off the small pedestal on which it stood.

Jets of colored light flashed from the wizards' wands. Apparently they had recovered enough to fight back against something clearly coming to kill them all. Harry had no way to tell exactly what the magic did, but one thing was obvious: they were all meant to hurt this thing. The spells slammed home, but none of them so much as rocked it back on its heels. They just splashed against the stone hide without leaving a mark. Raising its sword again, the statue parried the next three and flicked the fourth back into their midst. The reflected spell hit the short man, the half-Kobold, and he dropped like a stone.

A roar rivaling any produced by an angry bear came from the giant, and he rushed the dragon-man. His fist slammed into its head, and that did what all their magic spells had not. The dragon-man stumbled back a step as the giant shook his hand out, but a step was all that punch had earned. Turning its head back towards the giant, it lashed out with its own left hand and struck the giant across the face, staggering him enough that he barely dodged the sword that was swung right after.

"Another one!" Hermione shouted.

Harry whipped around to see that further down, a second statue had come to life and was staring at them. It opened its mouth and screamed.

Dudley yelled back and charged.

Harry screamed, "Dudley! No!"

The Knight skidded to a stop just in front of the statue and swung his war hammer. It was going to miss; Harry could already see it. It was several inches too short—

The long handle of the hammer knocked the sword to the side, and Dudley jabbed it at the statue's head as though it was the point of a sword. The heavy hammer collided with stone, but that too was not the goal of Dudley's attack. Instead he hooked one end of the hammer around the back of the statue's head and pulled, ruining the statue's balance and throwing it into the wall where it knocked over another statue. That one, thankfully, did not awaken like the others.

"Run!" Dudley shouted, taking several steps back from the dragon-man that was already climbing back to its feet. "Run run run!"

"Move it, old man!" Draco said as he sprinted ahead past Dudley. Harry and Hermione were right on his heels, and as soon as Dumbledore passed by him Dudley quit watching the statue and started running just as hard as he could. Around the corner the turned, finding yet another hallway that curved to the left at the end. "Are we supposed to run through the entire building like this?!"

"It would make sense!" Dumbledore called back, surprisingly spry for a man who had to be in his eighties. "If it is all one long hallway, that is plenty of time for statues to leap out and surprise us!"

"You mean like the ones already chasing us?!" Dudley demanded. Harry chanced a glance backwards and immediately piled on extra speed. Not one but four statues were behind them, and a fifth had been stepping off a pedestal to join the pursuit. That first one had proven that it was immune to wizard magic and could take way more physical damage than they could dish out before it crushed them, and Harry was not holding out hope that Gaian magic could eliminate them with a single blow.

If they stopped running, they were dead.

Hallway. Hallway. Hallway, hallway, hallway! It was a constant sprint with the sound of feet growing steadily louder behind them, and the longer this hallway ran the more worried Harry became. The living statues were just that, statues. They did not feel pain or fatigue. The same could not be said about the Adventurers and the wizard trying to flee.

The turned another corner, and this time the hallway did not continue on. A door stood a short distance in front of them, plain wood the same red as the square arch they had walked under to step onto the island proper. Draco flung the door open, and Harry waved for Dumbledore and Dudley to get inside before he slammed the door shut. The horde of statues turned the corner just as the door fully closed.

"I hope that keeps them out," he panted, fully aware that if the door was really just wood, it would not. "Any other way out of here?"

Silence was his only answer.

Fearing the worst, he slowly turned around and found himself staring at the same thing that had so captivated the others. The room they found themselves in was enormous, easily taking up the entire space of the temple, and floating in the air filling that space were what had to be two dozen or more gigantic rings all looped through each other with impossible precision. He could not tell if they were glass or stone or metal because all of them shone with an inner glow, each in a different color but together displaying all the colors of the rainbow. Strange symbols drifted over their surface, giving them an arcane and forbidding appearance.

"This… is the thing that caused the Transition?" Draco asked in a tiny voice.

Dumbledore nodded slowly. "I do believe it is." He stepped closer to the massive structure and stared up at it.

"How in the world does he plan on destroying this?"

Hermione's soft question was answered as the rings moved. They slowly descended, and the closer they got to the group the smaller they became. The rings turned, stopping next to and sometimes almost within each other, until they had merged into a single flat disc no bigger than a dinner plate. It hung in the air, almost asking to be taken.

As if accepting its invitation, Dumbledore reached out for it.

"Wait."

Harry's demand stopped Dumbledore in his tracks, and the old man turned back to look at him. The suspicion that had glimmered in his eye before in the office was back in full force. "What is it, my boy?"

"I… Are we sure this is a good idea?" Dumbledore frowned in confusion, and Harry continued, "Breaking this thing, it isn't something we can undo. We have to be sure this is the right decision."

"You don't think it is?"

"I don't know!" He threw his hands up in the air. "Look, I'll admit it. I don't remember much about Earth. I grew up here, on Gaia. I know that you want to go back to how things were, but I know there are good things in this world too. How sure are we that things are going to be better if we do this? I can't answer that question, and neither can you. Not if you spent all your time in the castle. Neither of us can make that call, not when the fate of the world hangs in the balance."

"We can, and we shall," Dumbledore said in a firm voice. "There is nothing true this dream world can offer that can justify staying our hand."

"What do you mean, dream world?" Hermione asked.

"Exactly what I said, my girl. This world we are trapped in? It is not real. It is an illusion, a fantasy. A fake that covers and masks the truth. That is all it ever was and ever will be." He shook his head. "Dreams can be beautiful and tempting, but it does not do to dwell in dreams and forget to live.

"We have dreamed overlong as it is, and it is time for us to wake at last."

A… dream? That was what Dumbledore thought Gaia was. Not a real place, a real world, but some kind of fantasy? A fantasy the whole world and five different races somehow came up with at the same time?

Harry could not believe that, but it answered the question that had circled in his mind all night and all day. Almost without conscious thought, he drew his rapier.

"What are you doing, Harry?"

"What I have to. I can't let you destroy this world. Not when you refuse to consider the consequences of your actions. Step away from the disc."

The old man frowned, the light coming from the lamps along the walls and the disc behind him giving his face a sinister cast. "Are you really going to fight me, all to protect a dream?"

"No, he isn't." Dudley stepped forward, and Harry turned to stare at him in betray. That betrayal was washed away when he saw that Dudley was not looking at him at all. He was watching Dumbledore, and he swung his hammer and grabbed just below the head with his other hand. Footsteps on Harry's other side turned out to be Draco also stepping up, his cane held firmly in the middle of its length in preparation to be used as a wand. Behind him came the now-familiar creak of Hermione's bow being drawn.

"We are."

"I see." Dumbledore drew his wand from his sleeve. "I do not wish to fight, but you leave me no other choice."

The old man slashed his wand like a sword, and the party scattered, Draco and Harry running to the left while Dudley and Hermione went right. The slash turned out not to be an attack, however. The polished wooden floor was covered by a thin layer of smooth ice. It would keep them away, give him space to work. It was the exact strategy a Sorcerer would employ, which meant a wizard might have similar weaknesses.

"Draco, how close are wizards and Sorcerers when it comes to fighting?"

"Depends on the wizard."

Dumbledore flicked his wand at the ground, and for a moment Harry thought he might be undoing his own defense. Then a thin wave of sand rushed out from his feet, collecting into ten or so individual trails. When they reached the end of the ice, the trails jumped out of the ground in the form of wolves formed from sand and stone with more sand floating around them. They snarled, showing off their long fangs, and leapt into the fray.

"Volt!" Harry shouted, dropping his sword to point a finger at the nearest sand dog. If adventuring had taught him anything, it was that creatures of rock and stone had a tendency not to like lightning magic. The creature hit the ground spasming for a moment, then started climbing to its feet as the next one ran past. "Volt! Volt!"

"Megavolt!" Several bolts of lightning flew from Draco's staff, each one skewering a sand dog and collapsing them into dust. Which would have been more useful were Dumbledore not tossing another pack their way already. "I can hit them hard. I just need you to keep them off me."

Which meant he needed to wade into the middle of the monsters and fight them with blade rather than spell. Harry rolled his shoulders and held his blade horizontally. In all honesty, close up was where he preferred to fight, and now that he had proof lightning was effective, there was no reason not to leverage that information. "Spear of heaven," he muttered, trailing his hand along the rapier's blade, "seek the beast's heart. Megavolt."

Lightning coursed along the blade, and to his surprise the blade itself also glowed a bright yellow. His eyes widened. Whether it was the magic in this place, the incantation, his desperation, or some combination of all three, he did not now, but finally, finally, he had managed the next stage of his Fencer abilities.

A sand dog rushed at him, and he gave it a quick swipe. The conjured monster froze in place, the lightning magic not only hurting it but paralyzing it as well. A smirk spread across his face before his sword stabbed another. "I do believe I can keep them off you."

He rushed forwards, his blade stabbing each sand dog as soon as it came in arm's reach. Whirling around as he was so he could renew the status effect on the dogs as it wore off, he also had a good view of Dudley and Hermione. The Knight had likewise waded into the fray, his hammer coming down to smash the sand dogs' heads in. Hermione, on the other hand, was sending arrow after arrow into the group to pick off any that Dudley did not break on the spot.

Something swung through the air with the sound of a whip, and Harry had to jump back to keep from getting hit by a string of fire. He grit his teeth. Fighting this guy was even worse than fighting the Conjurer in the mines. At least he had the decency to throw out only two pets at a time and took time between his bigger attacks. This really was like fighting a Sorcerer and a Conjurer at the same time.

"Megaflare!"

Draco's spell landed in the middle of the ice and exploded, sending a wave of heat washing over Harry and only lightly singing the nearest of the sand dogs. If Harry were not in the middle of fending them off, he would have shot the Sorcerer a glare for his pitiful aim. Normally he was much better than that!

"Inflammum mundus."

Harry remembered that spell, the same one Draco had used to eliminate the rats in the sewers beneath Whinging Village. He abandoned his attacks and ran, Dudley doing the same on the other side of the room. The last embers from Draco's attack flared up into a tornado of flame that reached towards the ceiling and expanded outwards, consuming the sand dogs and the ice and Dumbledore himself. A glance over showed that Draco was gritting his teeth as he waved his wand, struggling either to keep it going or to keep it contained.

With a sigh, he allowed the firestorm to collapse back on itself.

The far end of the room was less burned than everything else, due in no small part to the fact that Dumbledore was still standing with a translucent shield between him and the eye of the storm. The ice and sand dogs were gone, though, and that was all Harry needed. He sprinted at the old wizard, his sword still sparking with contained electricity, and Dumbledore's eyes widened.

Just like a Sorcerer or a Conjurer, up close was where they were most vulnerable.

Dumbledore moved his shield to block Harry's stabs, but he was not alone. Dudley charged in right behind him and took a swing at Dumbledore's unprotected back, forcing the old man to turn around and deflect the blow before switching back to Harry. Dumbledore's left hand shot forward, a spell coming not from the wand but the hand itself pushing Dudley back several feet, but all that did was give the Knight room to run back in and add the momentum to the strength of his next swing.

An arrow flew from the back of the room and stabbed through Dumbledore's knee, driving him to the ground with a scream.

With the shield falling apart from lack of concentration, Harry stepped forwards and rested the point of his sword against the old man's chest. "That's enough. This is over."

"You plan to kill me, Harry?" Dumbledore asked in a grave tone, teeth clenched from the pain.

"I'd really rather not," he answered honestly. "But I'm not letting you break that disc or the rings or whatever it is. I won't let you destroy this world just because you refuse to believe it's real."

"You would prefer to live your life in a dream?"

He shook his head. "That's where we have to disagree. This world is more real to me than half-forgotten memories of Earth. You might feel the same if you ever opened your eyes and tried to live in the present rather than hold on to the past."

A shudder ran through Dumbledore into the floor, and something trembled in the back of Harry's mind. The wizard narrowed his eyes at Harry. "And I will not allow you to keep us from going home."

"Big words coming from somebody on the ground," Dudley taunted.

The trembling in his head turned into a warning shout, and he barely had time to take a step away before he was flung backwards to the ground. A scream of pain and rage came from Dumbledore, and Harry staggered back to his feet and stared in horror.

Dumbledore's left hand was clutching his right, the wand of dark wood in that hand glowing brightly as though it was metal fresh from the forge. Despite his struggles, he could not force himself to release it as he floated into the air. That hot glow flared, sending what looked to be ghostly fire racing up Dumbledore's arm and over his chest. It encased his entire body, and it must have been agony if the fresh shout was a sign. The glowing wand shifted, widened, and as they watched the point swelled outwards to turn into a skull with its mouth open in a scream.

"That, er, isn't what's supposed to happen when Earth wands change," Draco said, his voice just as scared as Harry felt.

The bright orange robes the wizard wore caught alight and burned away, revealing defined muscles no man his age had any right to have and especially not when he spent his life teaching magic. His hair came alive and started growing, sweeping out across his shoulders and winding under his chin. As it grew, his head started rising into the air as though it were no longer attached to his body.

"What the hell is going on with his neck?!"

"That isn't his neck, Dud," Harry shouted back as he realized what was going on. "His chest is getting longer!"

An arrow and a fireball both flew in from behind him, but they shattered as soon as the hit Dumbledore's skin. The old man's face shifted and deformed, transforming from a human into something like a lion. Two tails of hair cascaded off his shoulders like waterfalls, and the longer the grew the more obvious it became that something was taking shape within the hair. Reaching past his fingertips, they finally stopped only for long black claws to protrude from the ends.

The monster Dumbledore had been transformed into raised all four of its arms, two human and two bestial, and roared.

Now the voice in the back of Harry's head stopped its wordless shout. Instead, it spoke two words. The name for this creature that stood before them and hungered for their death.

Grand Sorcerer.

"Oh, bugger me."

Am I making the video game thing too obvious? :D And next, the final boss. This is gonna be FUN.

Silently Watches out.