Disclaimer: A key, a lock, an unfound door…

A/N: Thanks for reading and reviewing the last chapter, folks. I shall delay you here not a moment longer – big revelations in this chapter. Longer than the last few, as well. All to the good.

Cheers.


Harry Potter and the Heartlands of Time

Chapter Eight – Hail To The King, Baby

I am a powerful demonic force!
I am the harbinger of your doom!
And the forces of darkness will applaud me
as I stride through the Gates of Hell – carrying your head on a pike!

~Murray

"Abra," I intoned, "mother-fuckin' kadabra!"

The words were unnecessary, as with all good magic. But they added a certain ambience to the moment. A certain diffusion to the tension. My undulating shield, struck through with a web of delayed time magic, began to fade.

I felt it dying, and so did Voldemort. There was no cataclysmic shift, no shattering of ancient wards or of power undone. Just a slow fade to nothing, as if the whole sordid mess had been gripped with an accelerated case of mass entropy.

With no shield to hold it back, the Irish Sea began to pour into the lower half the city, which was a mile out into the water. It had already flooded, somewhat, during Atlantis' arrival.

"Ah," I said. "Let's put a stop to that."

I directed my wand out along the verges of Atlantis, smoothing around the border of the ocean to where the city began. Magic as vast as the city itself was second nature to me after all this time. I raised a smaller shield, a simple pane of energy, against the floodwaters, to protect the city.

"What d'you think a place on the water would go for?" I asked Voldemort.

The Dark Lord gazed at me with something akin to raw, seething hatred, and raised his wand against me. "Harry Potter, you—"

"Say," I cocked my ear toward the city, "can you hear that?"

Screams rose from the long lost city of Atlantis.

Thousands of people, wizards and witches, and no doubt Muggles, had been trapped inside a single second in time after being dragged across ten millennia. Upset probably didn't quite convey how they felt about that, if they understood it at all.

Voldemort flicked his wand and took to the sky, flying on his wisps of dark shadow into and between the mighty skyscrapers. He was heading for the centre tower, the Seat of Power, all-a'glower.

I hesitated. What would I find in this city? A council of Lords, of which I considered myself the Highest and Last – but alive and well. Wizards of unknown power, thrown through time, into a world they couldn't possibly grasp. Would-be allies? Or would they see us as primitive? Lacking?

I didn't know. And it did not matter. For the sake of this world, my time, I had not only unleashed the city against the modern planet, but unleashed a demon against the city. Voldemort ran unchecked.

"Ha!" I cried, pushing up from the beach with my knees, and took flight after the Dark Lord. I really needed some shoes—and my goddamn Captain's hat back.


This world isn't meant to be okay.


Atlantis didn't seem to fit. No, that wasn't quite right.

Half the city had materialised in the Irish Sea. The rest had crushed Blackpool, down past South Shore, and most of the M55 Motorway. Crushed wasn't quite the right word either. It had appeared where Blackpool used to be. Absorbed the space.

Cutting through metal, concrete, earth and stone alike, the city had emerged on its original foundations. Which was why it was still standing, I suppose. Apart from the ocean on its doorstep, which was held back by my mini-shields, for the most part, Atlantis could have been built here, for all the damage the ten thousand year journey through time had done to it.

I flew toward the centre tower, stretching a good mile above the earth. Of Voldemort there was no sign. I had assumed he was heading this way, but I couldn't spot him on the horizon. Already inside?

Below me, the streets were a lot less panicky than I had been expecting. Travelling through time would throw anyone off their kilter—well, not me—but your average Joe, and if anything, there was order to the chaos below. The city was ablaze here and there, which accounted for the screams, urgent screams, not of fear.

Huh.

The great heart of the city rose up before me like a spike piercing the sky. A dark building, wreathed in mythril, aglow with a thousand tiny blue spheres of light. I headed up to the roof, to the very plateau that Voldemort and I had used to access another dimension – the realm of the Fae and Forget.

The Vault was silent – the runes coursing up and down its obsidian length dull and lifeless. The city would be losing power, I reasoned. It was no longer built over rivers of raw magic. Interesting.

There were two wizards guarding the entrance down into the tower. They held mighty twisted staffs with glowing red crystals embedded in the wood. I could smell the ocean on the air as I clenched my wand and strolled between them like I owned the damn place. They didn't try and stop me. One even gave me a small bow.

Again… huh.

I had spent years in this tower at one point, one life, searching for hidden magic and long lost secrets. It was the home of the Atlantean government, I had discerned, and they held court in a large central chamber overlooking the entire city. I headed that way.

Where was Voldemort? I rubbed at my scar. It was burning, but not as if the Dark Lord were close. Did he have other plans? I shuddered to think about that. Here I was about to play ambassador with wizards ten thousand years dead…

I past more and more wizards and witches, robed in old Atlantean garb, as I moved through the mythril corridors and along stairwells, following tracks of fading runes. None of them tried to stop me.

"Hi there," I said. "Beautiful day outside. Yes. Hello. Hey. Of all the cities…"

Half-concealed whispers in a language utterly foreign, and not heard in over a hundred centuries, followed in my wake. I felt… expected. Yeah, expected was about right.

And worrying. I rounded a corner and all at once:

The Chamber of the High Lords of Atlantis.

I felt as if trumpets should have announced my arrival, as scantily clad elven women serenaded me. As it was, the massive mythril doors were wide open, and I found the High Lords in session, arrayed on a semi-circular stone pedestal fifteen-feet above the wide, rune-strewn floor.

It reminded me of Courtroom fuckin' Ten, below the Ministry in London.

I couldn't get over how little dust there was – how whole and undamaged the city was.

My steps echoed in absolute silence as I entered the massive hall. It was bigger than it had any right to be, inside the monumental tower. Magically expanded. The vaulted ceiling was so high, and enchanted to reflect the sky above – like the Great Hall. A great window of clear glass looked out over Atlantis, its skyscrapers and busy streets.

I let out a low whistle that echoed back and forth along the cathedral-like chamber. Thirteen stony faces gazed down at me from their distinct pedestals. Behind me, seating rose back away from the door in levels. There were thousands, tens of thousands, of people gazing down at me. I was on display for half of Atlantis to see.

"Good morning," I said. The floor beneath me was aglow with runes. I stood on a circular platform, raised a foot above the floor. Obviously meant for a speaker, as my voice was amplified to every far-flung corner of the massive hall. "I just flew in from out of town, and boy, are my arms… tired."

In the very centre of the thirteen High Lords stood an old man – and yes, he did have a flowing silvery beard, wise, weary eyes, and the most intricately designed staff I had ever seen. Crystals, mythril, wrapped within the gnarled oak. It looked heavy.

I could smell magic on the air – the taste of something ancient, of something important and powerful.

The old man radiated power, an air of strength I found honestly surprising. He slowly brought his hands together, a single clap echoing into nothing. And then again.

He clapped a third time and genuine laughter burst from his mouth. He clapped harder, faster – a round of applause. The other High Lords followed, and then the thousands of people disappearing up above the chamber at my back.

"It wasn't that funny," I muttered, unable to prevent a grin as I stood at the heart of the applause. "Thank you, yes. About time someone gave me a pat on the back for doing this job."

After long minutes the applause faded away, and the old man with the awesome staff raised his hands for silence. The Chamber regained its quiet, ominous void-like atmosphere.

"Harry Potter," the old man said. "You are made welcome to Atlantis."

He spoke to me in perfect, fluent English. Which should not have been possible.

Fuck, something was up.


Gravy, baby.


"You know me?"

"Aye," the old man said. "I am High Lord Astaroth, Supreme-Infernal and King of Atlantis. It is through the dedication and diligence of this council that you stand before us undefeated – Harry Potter, our greatest accomplishment, the First and Last Warrior of Time."

"Okay, sure." I glanced up and around, at the thousands of eyes staring at me. A trickle of unease shivered down my spine. "You're going to have to explain this for me, chief. I'm not keeping up."

"You were a pillar, lad," High Lord Astaroth said. "A bottle cast on the turbulent seas of time, anchored after a thousand years to the Infernal Clock. We used you to pull this great city across the aeons – to a time when the demonic armies of Hell were vanquished beyond the Fae and Forget." He raised his palm toward me in appellation. "You have done well, and so I name you Time Warrior and Friend of Atlantis. You will be commended."

"Commended," I said. So many questions—English? How? Time… "Done… well. Friend."

"Yes. Your efforts have saved millions of lives—Atlantis survives—and we will rebuild. You must tell us of the world today, of your governments and—"

It made some sort of morbid sense. Time wasn't to be looked at as cause and effect, not a series of linear events… but as a whole, a sphere of ordered chaos—that the wise or the foolish could play with, rearrange, even, or unmake.

"A thousand years. I thought it was my own doing, all me… but you were fucking with me from the start, weren't you? Oh my yes." I couldn't seem to focus anymore. A red haze was bleeding across my vision. "Twenty-two thousand four hundred and eighty seven. That's how many times I had to die." I chuckled. "Now you have made me very, very sad, Astaroth." My laughter died. I looked ahead, at nothing. "You… you really shouldn't have done that."

"What we did, we did for the greater good. For a meaning that far outweighs the suffering of one wizard."

"Keep talking. Just… keep talking. Son of a bitch, I came here to warn you."

"We have something for you. Something you lost."

"Oh?"

Astaroth clapped his staff against the marble column and, from behind his pedestal, stepped an old—very old—woman. She limped toward me, a warm smile on her face and tears in her eyes. It was only a distance of about fifteen feet, but it took her a good two minutes to shuffle to my platform.

In her hands she held a wooden box.

"Harry Potter," she whispered. "Harry Potter."

It was a simple box, inlaid with golden runes. The old woman held it in the air before me. When I made no move to take it, Astaroth waved his staff and the latch clicked open, the lid rose on quiet hinges to reveal—

"…No."

Oh sweet unholy hell—no!

It would be quite impossible to describe the rush of chaotic emotion that flooded my mind in that moment. The sheer terror that came from understanding—from understanding, after so long, why…

Within the box, looking resplendent on a red velvet pillow, was a bloodied and dirtied old hat.

My Captain's hat.


The original and the best.


"Where?" I snatched up my hat. It felt old, worn… lost. "No, I know where. God save me, but I do. Astaroth, you and I are going to have some fucking words later."

I disapparated.

The wards fought me, fought me harder than any old Ministry wards. The strength of them was surprising, and I almost bounced right off and into a million tiny little splinched pieces, but that didn't happen.

I surged through the invisible screens and tangled nets, shattering them in my wake. Once more across the face of the world, dear friends, once more.

Back to Russia.

Back to Mount Narodnaya.

Back to sweet Tessa, and where I had left my awesome hat not even a day ago.

Terrible thoughts came to me now, more than ever before. How had Atlantis gained my hat? More important than how, was when. There was only one real answer to that, and it didn't end happy. A hazy outline of that answer was forming in my mind… I pushed it back.

Action now. Thought and soul-eating regret later.

When I got there, I found the monastery in flaming ruins and a swirling purple time vortex eating away at the mountainside.

I took that in all at once.

Then had to sit down, and take it all in again.

The old castle-like monastery had fallen. Rubble, less than rubble, and great chunks of stone burning with soft, malicious blue fire littered the courtyard. The flames burned across the snowy plateau. Melted ice ran in chaotic rivulets over the edge of a cliff face. Within the ruins, the Healer witches, broken and dead. Cast aside. Women and girls alike.

But what really drew my eye was the vortex of spinning, purple energy cutting through the mountain. It was at least a quarter mile wide – and half as high again. A long, thin window into the void. Within the maelstrom, within the font of magic, spun time itself.

If there was one thing I knew, it was time. I could smell it, taste it. A swirling river of time unleashed, devouring rock and earth and air and life—

"She said you'd figure it out," Chronos said, taking a seat next to me on the wet, cold ground. He was weeping – tears as real as the sky and the clouds, as the burning corpses scattered around me, cut tracks down his stubbled cheeks. "I hoped you wouldn't, that you'd have… more time. Heh, but time is the last thing you need, Harry James Potter, yes, yes? You have had a thousand years to prepare yourself for what is now to come."

"Tessa…" I said. "Did you do this?"

Chronos sighed. He brushed flecks of burning ash from his fine suit. "Yes, I suppose I did. In part. But then in part, so did you, Harry Potter. We are both of us puppets, pulling one another's strings. Dancing to the same old tune, the first chords of which were plucked here—now—and ten thousand years ago. In old Atlantis."

"What is that?" I asked, waving at the rolling, rippling vortex of raw time. "Who opened it? You?"

Chronos cast a glance at me from the corner of his eye. He placed his hand on my shoulder. "Tessa did it, you old man. Tessa as she stands today."

"Bullshit. She's a Muggle. Not a drop of magic in the kid."

"Come now – you've been alive long enough to know that nothing is certain, nothing is forever. Moreover, you've been alive long enough to have figured most of this out. It's why you're crushing that hat in your mythril fist."

I blinked and looked down at the oh so awesome, the hum-diddy-hum-dum, the make-mine-a-scotch-and-Coke-and-hold-the-Coke… Captain's hat. It was old now, as if it had seen some times. How had Astaroth, the Atlanteans, gifted it to me? They were time-locked a second after arriving in the present day. Before that, they all died ten thousand years ago… and I had left the hat in this very monastery not a day past.

Chronos was right. I did know the answer. And it was awful.

"I refuse to accept this," I said, gaining my feet. I was still dressed in a half-assed transfigured pair of jeans and a black polo. Time Warrior, I did not look. Nevertheless, I drew my wand. "I'll go back – I'll use the Time Turner, or something, and force that unwieldy ass-bitch to rewrite history."

"Did you just call Time an unwieldy ass-bitch?"

I ignored him. "If Voldemort can break the laws of magic, tear his soul asunder and side step into realms of forgotten power… then I can have this. I can undo this."

"Even if you could, you undo the last thousand years. Your work, your efforts. The very reason the world still turns at all. Atlantis falls, and Harry Potter dies a scared, young man at the hands of a blind Dark Lord."

"Fuck you. No, seriously, fuck you." I grasped Chronos's shoulder and squeezed—

"No." Chronos pushed me back – pushed me away and snarled. "Harry, what you have never learned is that it was never enough to just be against what Voldemort stands for. You have to stand for something better. Or else it gets this out of hand! The world gone mad again and again and AGAIN!" He took a deep breath. "Until you learn that, well—sad song stuck on repeat, baby."

"You did this—you did nothing to stop it. You and Saturnia, wherever that whore is, are responsible. Tessa would still be alive—"

"She's gone, Harry." Chronos opened his clenched fist. A single white petal, as hard as diamond, fell from his lacerated palm. A petal of the Infernal Clock. One of the few he had removed from Fleur, saving her life, if I had to guess. "I used the petals to open a door back to Atlantis, as it was, ten thousand years ago. I sent Tessa through… with that very hat you hold now."

See it now, lad? I could hear Astaroth's aged, powerful voice. A bottle cast on the turbulent seas of time, anchored after a thousand years to the Infernal Clock. We used you to pull this great city across the aeons – to a time when the demonic armies of Hell were vanquished beyond the Fae and Forget. Anchored through a hat? And the petal in my heart, no doubt…

That did not matter. I'd survive.

Tessa had been sent back into a war of impossible forces—alone and injured, with naught but a fool's cap.

"Then I'll follow her." I stepped forward to do just that, ready to swan dive into the vortex. "Damn this world."

"You are many things, but a fool, Harry?" Chronos chuckled. He didn't try to hold me back. He didn't need to. "Well, yes, a fool—but not now. Look how unstable it is, how lost. You could end up a million years ago, or a million from now. Given your luck, you'll appear in the dead space before the Earth even formed. Just dust and starlight and one time-fucked old man. There's no following Tessa. This was meant to happen. The laws of time, laws you cannot fight, made it happen."

"But she matters. She matters to me." Whining now. I was better than this – I had to be.

"And she lives, Harry. She lives right now. Today. You know that. Follow this path to where it leads. The answer is there."

And the hell of it was, the answer was there. Again, I could taste it. Smell it. The terrible, terrible truth (was there any other kind of truth, may it damn ya well?) like a well-aimed kick to the balls.

There was no hiding from it. No rest or quarter for the wicked.

"Saturnia," I said. The name sounded like a sigh. I suddenly felt every one of my thousand years, like a noose pulled tight around my neck. "Tessa… is Saturnia."

Chronos smacked me in the jaw. "Harry Potter," he said. "At long last. Chicka-chow! What terrible power could Hell have if those trapped here could not dream of heaven, hmm?"

I fell to my knees, spat out a tooth, and laughed until I cried.

And then I just cried.


If I were a man of principle, this would all seem a touch unfair.


Fate.

Providence.

An overabundance of free will (Tessa, I'm sorry) disguised as prophecy.

I can't escape any of those bitches… no matter how long I live or how many miles I run. The quick and the slick, boss, but this too shall pass.

"Dry your eyes, princess," I whispered. Why was I kneeling in the dirt and ruin on this day of destiny? I found my feet once more.

I was alone atop Mount Narodnaya. Chronos had vanished, the time vortex had snapped shut, and the day was bleeding towards early twilight. Just me and the corpses of the lady Healers to watch the sun set. Always the innocent to pay the price for everyone else's ambition.

There was stink of old magic and blood on the air. The wind whistled through the not-so-distant mountain peaks. The melted snow had hardened into dark ice.

Tonight, Atlantis was set free. The implications of that were almost too amazing to fathom.

"Not as amazing as you, Tess…"

The Urals looked barren and lifeless. Cragged plateaus and sheer cliff faces disappearing over the horizon. I could have been the only old man left alive on the face of this good earth, but there was a whole world of trouble out there. Troubled times and troubled minds, battles for independence to be won…

As best as I understood it, Tessa was Saturnia.

Tessa, my sweet Tessa. A girl I had loved for a few short years two or three thousand lives ago. One loses count, after so long. She had been used against me – by Chronos, by the Atlanteans. My own doing, really. Chronos was right about that.

"The Infernal petal… would have given her my memories." Just like it did Fleur. Only Chronos had given her the petal, not taken it away. Ten thousand years and a spike of the Infernal Clock? Is that how Tessa would become Saturnia? There had to be more to it. Fleur had remained herself, mostly.

The jagged, angry scar in my side twinged. The kiss Saturnia had given me at the same time as that scar felt strangely familiar now. Like love-long-ago. Or regret. Mostly regret.

Sly son of a gun.

It made sense. It made too much sense after all this time. Why does everything I touch turn to angry dust?

For all that mattered, I had killed Tessa myself. By loving, by making her a target for the forces aligned against me… I had killed her. She lived, yes, as a powerful demigoddess forged through trial and circumstance ten millennia ago. But that wasn't Tessa. Not my Tess.

My Tessa had been innocent and ignorant of magic.

"Fuck," I said. "Fuck-fuckity-fuck-fuck-fuck." There was no way to fix this. I could alter time but never reality. Fight fate but never destiny.

The last thousand years had been just a warm up for these final days. Tessa begets Saturnia. Chronos begets… I shook my head. Cause and effect could go take a flying fu—

I was wracked with vicious coughs. Kneeling over, I spat up some more blood and had to hold a hand to my glasses to keep them steady. All this bitter reflection, withered hindsight, was getting me nowhere. I felt angry.

Really, really angry. Apocalyptically angry. And yet, it was a quiet anger. A much deserved anger. At long last, my life finally felt like it was coming to a close.

Atlantis would pay for what it had done.

Voldemort, whatever he was up to, would find me renewed by this latest blow.

I picked up my old Captain's hat and placed it firmly atop of my magnificent head.

Time to go see my tailor.


You know what you are, Harry?

You are fear in the eye of the Devil.


"Hey Jude, don't make it bad… take a sad song and MAKE IT BETTER!"

The sizeable double doors of the Chamber of High Lords were barred against me upon my return to the Lost and Found City. An intricate system of locks and magically enhanced wards—

A flick of my wand and the doors slammed back against the huge mythril walls. I strolled into the impossibly large chamber, enchanted sky overhead, thirteen High Lord pedestals arrayed before me—and the government of Atlantis in session.

"Na-na-na-nanananaaaa! Na-na-na-naaa—HEY JUDE!" The buttons on my latest suit were fine metal studs. They gleamed in the mythril-drenched light. Behind me, the auditorium seating wasn't nearly as full as it had been a few hours ago. Hundreds, not thousands.

After a thousand years, I knew how to make an entrance.

The High Lords fell silent at my approach. Aides floating on tiny silver platforms, fifteen feet above the floor, surrounded them. Rolls of parchment fluttered through the air. I could smell ink and dense, thick magic. It tasted like sea salt.

"Forgive me for intruding, Astaroth," I said, interrupting their old Atlantean speech, "but I have come for the city. You will turn command of Atlantis and all its fancy resources, military or otherwise, over to me."

The Supreme-Infernal (whatever in the seven hells that was…) and King of Atlantis regarded me with steepled fingers disappearing into his bushy beard, just below his chin. He made a small sound in the back of his throat – not a growl, more as if he were swallowing something unpleasant.

"Harry Potter, there is much we must discu—"

"No. No discussing. No reasoning or barter, no negotiation or arbitration. You will surrender. This city is mine by right—by life and blood and a thousand years spent defending it from an insane Dark Lord. Give it to me or I will take it."

I brandished my wand, cutting a line of flame down through the air to punctuate my words.

The other High Lords (and High Ladies) looked to Astaroth. The old wizard rose from his podium and spread his arms wide, as if to beseech me. His intricate staff shone with a faint white light.

"Harry, you are upset. I understand, I do. Atlantis is your home now—you need not take it by force." His smile faded. "Nor could you. Your stick is a pitiful excuse for a wizard's staff. Weak, brittle, and small."

"And the wand ain't much to write home about either. Heh. Dick joke." Size didn't matter anyway. Quality, not quantity. I flashed the King of Atlantis a winning smile. "Astaroth, you are face to face with the man who sold the world. Be very careful."

"Threats, now? Hmph. I must ask you to depart, Time Warrior—"

"Stop calling me that. I call me that, and even I know it sounds pretty lame." I sighed. "Now your crown, if you please. Or I will have to take it from you with this here fightin' stick."

"We owe you a great debt, Harry Potter." Astaroth levitated down toward me from on high—he could fly then… that was some high level stuff—and placed his hand on my shoulder. "You may have the finest rooms in this tower. Gold, mythril, and the respect and admiration of the powerful and influential. Do not pursue a course of folly. Do not cast aside all that you could become."

"Tessa taught you to speak English, didn't she? Or did you monsters pull it from her mind when she awoke here scared and alone ten thousand years ago? Had she seen the Wastelands of Time, Astaroth? Did the Infernal Clock take her sanity and twist her heart into something demonic? Oh I think it did. Yes, yes indeed. Saturnia was born in these hallowed, shiny halls, wasn't she…?"

Astaroth's face paled and he crossed his staff against his chest. "Do not mention her name, you fool! To draw her attention, even after all the millennia, is unwise. She will have faded from the world by now, yes. But words can cast power on the forgotten."

That made me blink—surprise and shock warred across my face. "You think so, do you? Damn. You're not wise, you're not powerful. No, no. You're as much a fool as Scrimgeour, as Fudge. Perhaps even as much a fool as me."

Something close to fear buried itself in Astaroth's eyes. "She lives? The demon-goddess? After all this time…"

"There's a war coming, Astaroth. A war to end all wars—you fled from one hell straight into another. There's a greater demon out there, in the night, who will turn you and all you love to dust before allowing a power such as Atlantis to rise."

And as if that was his cue, a sickening darkness stepped sideways out of nothing. The enchanted ceiling overhead died, and the hundreds of people throughout the hall gasped—groaned—as the weight of raw dark magic descended against the chamber.

"The city is mine," Voldemort said softly. He formed the third point of a triangle between Astaroth and myself.

"High Lord Astaroth." I laughed, gesturing to the smoke and shadows. "Allow me to introduce the Dark Lord Voldemort. He's a bit of an asshat."

"Phantoms!" Astaroth barked.

What happened next impressed even me. A dozen men and women appeared. Simply appeared around myself and Voldemort. There was no apparation, no invisibility cloaks or disillusionment charms. They appeared holding curved scimitars inscribed with glowing runes.

Phantoms—the Atlantean equivalent of Aurors, unless I missed my guess. They looked a helluva lot more dangerous than your average Auror. Their black garb made me think of silent assassins.

I raised my wand.

"If you fight, Harry, you will lose." Astaroth turned to Voldemort. "And you, Voldemort—" he had trouble getting his tongue around the word. He pronounced it Veldermart. "—are not welcome here. I command you to depart."

"You," Voldemort said, looking down his nose at the king, "command nothing." He flicked his wand and a wave of force strong enough to shatter the old man where he stood shot through the air—

Astaroth raised his staff and the force was absorbed into nothing. I could feel the heat and the friction of the magics combined. It dissipated into bright light. The Phantoms took this attack against their king poorly.

Curse light flowed along the length and around the curved blades of their swords. They moved in close at the same time, all twelve of them, against Voldemort.

The Dark Lord stood his ground and moved with a speed even I would struggle to match. His wand cut a bloody path through the air, striking curses as fast as thought. Sparks and spheres of devastating potential flickered into existence all around Voldemort, and he set the deadly magic to work.

Four of the Phantoms were caught by his speed—and simply exploded into clouds of red mist. The rest pummelled Voldemort with their swords and spellwork. The less-than-human son of a bitch absorbed the magic. The curses, as they never did, had no effect. His robes were torn by the blades and thick, dark light burst from a dozen slashes along his pale skin.

Voldemort laughed and disapparated.

I dived back and away from the heart of the storm—I knew what was coming.

Screams.

Heat.

That old familiar tang of magic turned to chaos.

Death on the air.

The High Lords were shouting and descending from their pillars, staffs aloft and protective magics swirling about them. The hundreds of people in the auditorium seating turned and fled.

Demonic flame, as black as night, burst from the spheres of light Voldemort had left in his wake. Hideous, mangled creatures formed in the not-light, the absence of light—and turned to rip and tear anything they could sink their burning teeth in to.

I cut my wand down, muttering under my breath, to dispel the horrific constructs, and was promptly attacked by three of the Phantom guards.

They turned against me, shooting beams of unknown magic along their blades. I raised a shield and spun on the spot, disapparating through the broken ward schemes and reappearing twenty feet away.

I found myself back to back with Voldemort, deflecting curses and streams of vicious light across the vast hall.

By simple default, we were protecting one another against an onslaught of unfathomable strength. The sheer absurdity of that would have been funny if it wasn't so ridiculous.

I tried deflecting one of the curses over my head and into the Dark Lord, but it left my side exposed. A sizzling bolt of crimson energy caught me low, blasted a burning hole in my suit and knocked me sideways. Hot blood oozed down my side, chased by splinters of pain.

A tip of my hat to whoever fired that.

Voldemort's burning dark magic constructs were decimating the rank and guard of the Phantoms. Unable to dispel them, the Phantoms drew back around the High Lords and extended a purple undulating shield that sparked against the demonic fire.

A flurry of magic from Voldemort had me dodging fire and liquid metal flowing through the air. It was too hot to draw breath, too damn magical to do anything but duck and weave.

"Having fun, Harry?" Voldemort called after me. "AVADA KEDAVRA!"

His old favourite. The heat disappeared under that freezing emerald wave of death. I kept low, diving behind one of the High Lord's abandoned pillars. The curse blew chunks of enforced stone from the column. Plumes of dust clouded the flames, obscuring the Dark Lord.

The Phantoms had not remained on the defensive. More armed wizards were pouring into the chamber through the great entrance doors. Their magic may not have been able to dispel the demonic fire, but the blades themselves, inscribed with runes of power, tore the beasts asunder.

There was true power in those sword-wands.

I grit my teeth, clenched my fist around my wand, and made to rejoin the fight. Voldemort would not chase me in to a corner—I could not allow that. The dust and the smoke obscured a lot of the chamber.

I had lost sight of the Dark Lord.

There were sounds, screams, and curse light streaming across the expanse of the hall. The High Lords were chanting in unison, their staffs directed at Astaroth in the heart of his shield.

I stood up straight and winced as what felt like a good pint of blood drained from my side. The damage looked a lot worse than it felt. I tried to stymie the flow, but the cut was too clean, too deep.

"Fuck it," I said. "You know what, just fuck it. I'm too tired and old for this shit."

Oh wow. There was so much clarity in those words. Why stay and fight another fight? Why bleed and die for Atlantis?

After what these bastards did to me, to Tessa… they deserved Voldemort.

Astaroth met my gaze from behind his impressive shield. I inclined my head, winked, gave him a half-wave with a bloody hand…

And then disapparated away—because fuck them all.


I thought you died alone. A long, long time ago.


Bleeding, dizzy, and in need of yet another new suit, I reappeared in the grand Shipyards of Atlantis. A mile away, the battle still raged up near the top of the tower scraping the sky. I could not care less.

The docks were flooded—deserted—under a good five feet of water from the Irish Sea. Last time I had been here, only a few short weeks ago in another dimension, the docks had been flooded not with water but with dust.

Oh memory. Sweet, bitter memory.

I walked on the surface of the water, Christ-style, disturbing a few seagulls that were bobbing along.

Inside the Shipyards hangar I found a fleet of pristine and untouched battleships. I had crashed my last ship, the Reminiscence, into Hogwarts. There had been no hope of ever claiming another. Until now.

And this was just one of many battle groups dotted about the city.

A rather large and impressive ship floated on nothing but air, tethered to the dock by a mythril anchor. Bigger than the Reminiscence had been, she looked strong and reinforced—ready for battle. She had not had ten thousand years in which to wither away.

"You're a pretty one," I whispered. My silver hand was stained crimson. I limped up the deck, along the gangplank, and gave myself permission to board the brand new shiny battleship.

The control column was immaculate. The crystals aglow with raw potential. I had spent decades figuring out how to fly these magnificent creations, once upon a time, and that was after having to repair them from scratch.

The ship was sensitive enough that it responded to my thoughts. I left bloody smears along the interface. So much for Atlantis, I thought. This was what I really needed. A ship, the heavens, and to be left alone.

Freedom.

To regret, to remember. To love lost memories.

I commandeered the mighty vessel and took to the sky.


A/N: Ugh, this chapter too it out of me. But as promised, inside two weeks. The next may take a touch longer – there is some real life stuff that requires my attention. Gotta see a man about a dog.

How did we like the revelations? Finally an answer after several hundred thousand words of questions! Tessa, sweet Tessa, what have you done?

Love to hear your thoughts in a review. Did it work? Does it make sense?

In other news, you may soon be able to purchase an original novel written by me, Motherfuckin' Joe, hopefully in time for Christmas. If you think this story is good, wait till you see something I've had a chance to polish to perfection. Fingers crossed for that soon!

Ciao,

Joe.