Disclaimer: I do not own any part of Harry Potter, Labyrinth or anything else you recognise.

A/N: Thank you so much for the reviews! I didn't think anyone was going to like this. Apologies if this chapter feels rushed or there are many errors. If I went through the proof reading another time then you would have had to wait until tomorrow. So it was either or really. Still no sign of a beta. Anyone interested?

- Some dates were wrong - have changed them now -

Chapter Three

"As the pain sweeps through
Makes no sense for you.
Every thrill has gone
Wasn't too much fun at all."

22nd May, 2005 – The Best Guest Room, Jareth's Castle.

With a sharp cry, Jareth staggered back from the bed, cradling his hand close to his chest as if burned. He was breathing heavily and every muscle in his body ached. He stumbled, spots appearing before his eyes, and would have ended up on the floor had someone not caught him.

"Your Majesty! You're awake!" Declared a relieved voice, slightly muffled as it was coming from behind him. He glanced around to try and find the owner of that voice, and saw it was one of his servants, Micha. She snapped her fingers and a comfortable chair appeared, and with her help he gratefully sat down.

"Awake you say, Micha? How long have I been out? I seem to recall touching Harry and then blackness." Jareth asked, his voice slow and weary. He let his senses expand and felt he had almost exhausted himself magically. It was coming back to him now.

He had gone into a trance when he had connected with Harry. His mind was almost detached from the physical world and for a moment, they had been one being, one heart. There was a lot of damage done to the wizard's body, and he had been much nearer to death than Griphook's healers had surmised.

Perhaps he had not been taking care of himself, or his melancholy had exacerbated his condition? Or maybe it was a combination of both? Jareth felt sure he would never know. But oh! How he wished he had not felt the absolute despair that this young man was harbouring in his soul. The Goblin King understood what it was to be alone. He should have had his mate, but he didn't. But he had his people, his kingdom to love and watch over.

This boy had started with nothing and everything that he had gained in life, had later been taken away from him. Even the very essence of what he was, had been stripped from his unwilling body. Jareth had enemies to be sure, but he never known betrayal of this magnitude.

He looked over at Harry, wondering if the release of his magic and the healing he himself had performed would show on the young man's face. Running his eyes over Harry's form, he started in surprise.

The man was hardly recognisable! In fact, he rather looked like…NO! He gasped aloud, half rising from his chair in shock.

It couldn't be, could it?

It seemed that the release of the binding placed on him by the wizards had broken the tethers on more than just his magic.

31st March, 2001 – Mind Healer Whistler's Office, St. Mungo's.

"Everyone has a part to play Harry. You must play yours, you would be letting everyone down if didn't, can't you see that?" There was a pause while he waited for a response, before sighing and continuing his worthless tirade. Harry ignored him, and concentrated on blocking the insipid man's voice out of his head.

They were trying to reprogram him, to behave like their perfect model saviour. Be who they wanted him to be, and he would get his magic back, that was the deal.

They wanted to break him down and build him up again, the way they wanted him to be. And he wasn't going to let them. Or at least, he was going to do his damned best to make sure it didn't work. What this therapist didn't realise and what most of the wizarding, well actually all of the wizarding world didn't know, was that Occlumency was not a magical skill.

Legilimency was, or is, but Occlumency is not. Muggles were not aware of it, because in this modern, technological world, there are so many other things that did their thinking for them, and in the magical world even, that they lost part of themselves to the larger culture.

People trust that experts know what's good for them. If a friend tells you they think you're depressed and need to get some help, you might scoff and ignore them. But if a doctor does, then you listen. It's perfectly natural thing to do – they're a doctor, they've been trained to understand your needs and problems.

Advertisements, television programmes, newspaper articles, magazines, books, films, the internet – all have their own message, all trying to influence how you think, how you feel, what you say, how you live your life. One forgets one's own personal power. To just be you. Not one of a crowd, a group or a number.

This crossed over into all walks of life, muggle or magical. And that was why muggles and most wizards could not truly master Occlumency and understand its true power or even it's real meaning. Even Snape hadn't really got it down pat – for he only saw it as a means to protect his mind from intrusions. But it was so much more than that, and yet, absurdly simple.

It is merely the knowledge of one's own mind, and the strength of it once you have awoken it.

And Harry had done just that. When he stopped listening to all the scorn and abuse from Snape, when he shut out all the sickeningly saccharine tripe from Dumbledore, when he forgot his so-called friends, family, when he pushed everyone out, he found him.

Himself.

Harry.

His own uniqueness, his fears, his beliefs, his dreams. His loves and hates, his experiences and the way they had shaped who he really was. For the first time in his life, no matter how unhappy he was, he didn't want to go back and change things, because if he did, he would lose the person he was now. And though he was in pain, mired in sorrow for his friend's abandonment, he had still fallen in love with his own soul.

And there was no way in Hell he was going to let this bastard or anyone else take that away!

So he had to be careful, immerse himself in his own consciousness so that his subconscious and waking mind flowed seamlessly together. If he didn't, there was a chance this man would be able to speak to his subconscious mind and begin to change it - the same way a muggle hypnotist might.

Frankly, the whole thing was extremely tiring – blocking the man out whilst trying to appear normal.

Harry could only hope he got better with practice, because he didn't see the Ministry and everyone else giving up any time soon, and he didn't think that even if he agreed to give up his magic permanently that they would leave him alone. No, they wanted him to be theirs, theirs to control.

Sometimes he woke up in the middle of the night in a cold sweat, the fear and the horror of what evil still existed in the world, cloaked in the appearance of kindness, and respectability. After all, patterning your life around other's opinions is nothing more than slavery.

24th May, 2005 – The Sunniest Parlour, King Dellandario and Queen Enaberia's Palace.

"Mother?" Questioned the young woman sitting by the window as she heard her mother's quick intake of breath. She turned to see what was happening and worried at the sight of her mother's pale face. "Mother?" She repeated questioningly. Queen Enaberia seemed to shake herself from her state of shock and looked to her daughter.

"Daughter, I…" She paused to gather herself and thrust the parchment she was holding towards the other woman, all the while turning a crystal sphere over and over in her hands. Princess Caredessi looked down at the parchment and frowned. It was from Jareth, the Goblin King.

She smiled faintly as she thought of him. She had always liked Jareth, for there was a time when she had been promised as his bride. She did not know him very well, but everything she did know she had admired. But it was not to be. She had gone through her maturity and found her True Mate. He was one of her father's elite guards, and every Avariel knows that one cannot fight the call of one's True Mate.

So she had been married to her love, Elalaeryn, many years now. And as for Jareth, well he had been betrothed to her younger brother, Elessar. But that was also not to be. For Elessar had been stolen! Stolen by some greedy mortal! They had tried to find him, Oh! How they had tried. But it was in vain.

He had been gone for nearly two hundred Earth years.

Her Mother and Father did not have the heart to have any more children once Elessar had been taken from them, and the Kingdom had mourned along with them. Her only other sibling was also a brother, Talemario. And he was the oldest, the Crown Prince. So he could not be the one to marry the Goblin King and cement the alliance that had always existed between his lands, and their home: Faenya-Dail.

To make matters worse, another Seer had predicted that Jareth could only marry one of King Dellandario's children or the entire Underground may suffer. Caredessi silently believed that Seer's should just keep their mouths shut, instead of worrying the whole population unnecessarily.

What would be, would be. There was no truer text.

But the Seer had spoken, and the Wise Ones of all the races had met to make a plan. What they had decided was that Elessar had to be found, and brought back, but that he had been in the mortal realm for some time now and would need to be led, lest he fail to believe in the existence of the Underground.

So a book was created. A book which would be an instrument of Destiny. It would lead Elessar back to his home, and back to his family. It was an innocuous looking thing, this book. And it was called, 'The Labyrinth'.

They could only hope that somehow, someway, Elessar would find it and come home. It was a small hope, but short of tearing the mortal realm apart twig by twig, they didn't have any other. They didn't even know who had taken him, so they had no place to begin a conventional search.

But now, here was Jareth, with surprising news. An Avariel was in his care, and one who had not been an Avariel when he arrived. So very strange. He advised them to look into the sphere to see more. Could this be their Elessar? Come home at last? Or was that too much to hope for?

22nd May, 2005 – The Best Guest Room, Jareth's Castle.

A whimper from the bed drew the attention of the goblin that the King had left to watch over Harry Potter. He had wanted to be there himself, but as well as healing and regaining his own strength, he had matters of state to attend to.

Having been out for an entire day, the people with petitions had started to line up a bit, and he needed to sort them out before had time to worry about the winged elf who had taken the place of the wizard he had brought into his castle.

And that was the most shocking thing of all.

Gone was the emaciated body, the slowly decaying shell which held the bruised and broken heart of the young man. In its place was a full-blooded Avariel, with wings the colour of a thunderstorm, and hair like a streak of lightening. It still had some of the black in it though, and his eyes were still the same emerald green...and still just as jarring. But his entire physiology had changed. And what's more, he was healthy.

Clearly, more than his wizard magic had been blocked at some time, and his natural magic had been interfered with in some way, though the King didn't know how as yet. All he knew was that it seemed overjoyed to be released and was overacting at the moment. Being in the room with him was somewhat akin to being dazzled by a thousand suns.

He was starting to understand what people meant when they spoke of a 'force of nature'. Mortals didn't know the half of it. That was exactly what Harry was. Though he had suspicions that Harry was not the name he was born with. He didn't think any of the Avariel had ever even heard the name before.

But that still didn't tell him just who this young man, well, young elf actually was. Or whom he belonged to. Did he have family? Was anyone missing him?

Those kind of thoughts were what drove him to send a message to Faenya-Dail. Hopefully his long time friends Dellandario and Enaberia would be able to shed some light on the matter. Probably a lot more than that in fact, since he rather reminded Jareth of his former fiancé, Caredessi. And, if that was the case, then this little morsel was his.

More than that, he had been his since the day he was born.

☼

Harry gradually forced his eyes open, wondering why he was so fuzzy and out of it. He seemed to be rather hazy about a few things in fact. Like where the hell was he? What day was it even? The last thing he remembered was the river...and the book…the book! The Goblin King…

"Jareth?" He said, and it was a question. A timid voice answered him.

"Lisha is just getting him sir!" Squeaked someone from the other side of the room, and then Harry heard the door opened and hurriedly closed. With nothing better to do, he tried to stretch, finding every single limb ached like the devil. He felt like he'd been through the washing machine and then wrung out to dry. Not exactly a pleasant sensation.

As he moved, he noticed the rather large appendages he had definitely not had before he went to sleep, and he was ashamed to admit he screamed like a girl. Though, he would deny it if questioned later...

☼

"AAAARRRRGGHHHH! WINGS!? I HAVE FUCKING WINGS?! JAAAARREEETTTH!"

The Goblin King looked up from the letter he had received from one of his emissaries in the Dwarven Kingdom, and smiled at the sheer horror in the voice of his visitor. It always was best to let people discover things like this for themselves, as it made sure that you weren't in the firing line for their initial reaction. Chuckling to himself he laid aside his correspondence and conjured a sphere to show him Harry's room.

The young man did look rather distraught, though that did seem to fade a little every time he twitched his new limbs. When he began running his hands over the feathers, Jareth shifted uncomfortably in his chair. For some reason best known to his incomprehensible psyche, he didn't want anyone to touch those wings but him. Not even the owner of said wings.

"How...unnerving." He confessed silently to himself. Well, there was nothing for it. The rage appeared to have died down somewhat, though he did not kid himself that it might be born anew when he went to speak to the lad. However, the longer he left it, he felt sure the worse it would be.

"A coward turns away, but a brave man's choice is danger." He muttered as he made his way to the guest rooms, banishing the sphere as he walked along the corridor. Stopping outside the right door, he paused to take a deep breath, and then knocked. Not bothering to wait for an affirmative answer, he let himself in and stopped to admire the sight of his maybe mate, the vista much more appealing now that he was awake and kneeling on the bed.

"Greetings, Mr Potter." He murmured, and Harry's head shot round to face him, disbelief evident in his expression.

"How do you know who I am? Wait, don't tell me! You're the Goblin King. Of course you would know. Well, would you mind explaining these?" He demanded, jerking a thumb over his shoulder to indicate his feathered friends.

"I would love to explain, Harry, if I understood, but it is to my deepest regret that I do not. I have suspicions, but nothing, how do you say? Ah, concrete. Yes, nothing concrete. Never fear however, I have sent for those I believe may be your kin, so you shall have your answers soon. In the meantime, may I?" Jareth gestured to his wings, and it took Harry a moment to understand what he was asking, so distracted was he, by the mention of kin.

Kin? That meant family, right? So, did he have family left? He tramped down on that thought, it would not do him any good to get his hopes up, just to have them dashed like they always were. What had Jareth asked him? Something about his wings?

When he finally realised what the other man meant, he just nodded dumbly and watched with a cautious frown, not really sure of what said other man intended to do. He was both alarmed and intrigued by the feral smile lit the fae's face as soon as he had given his consent.

He could not suppress the shiver of pleasure that swept up his back when the first touch slid across his wings. The feathers were so soft, he knew, for he had only felt them himself but moments before. But it hadn't felt like this when it was his own hands on them. Now, as the Goblin King placed another hand on him, and ran it up and across his whole span, he felt like he wanted to melt into a puddle.

He could not stop himself from letting out a long contented moan, and was slightly miffed when Jareth laughed softly.

"Do, aaahhh, do you think…I'm f-funny then J-Jareth?" He managed to get out between gasps as the feeling grew more intense.

"No my dear, I do not. I just, could not help myself I suppose." Seeing what his ministrations were doing and deciding that, as satisfying as it was and would be to let this reach its natural conclusion, at lot more was potentially at stake here. He took a step back and let his hands drop from the elf's wings, ignoring the belligerent press of his mating instincts that screamed at him to get right back to what he had been doing.

That in itself was reason to believe that this young man was his missing Elessar. But how could that be? Since he had been born and raised as a wizard. Griphook had told him he could produce documentary and photographic evidence to support this, and the fact that this man/elf/wizard, whatever, was a mere twenty four earth years old. And Elessar had been missing for two hundred earth years.

"W-Why did you stop, don't you, um, don't you like them, or, um, me?" Harry asked in a quiet voice, not really understanding why he was asking such a question. It wasn't like him to be so brazen, yet every part of him was screaming to get closer to this person. He had felt the first spark of attraction when he had opened his eyes to see Jareth for the first time. Now it had only grown stronger and his body wanted this man, and damned well wanted him now!

"Don't think that, don't think that at all! Though I hardly know you, I want you very much, very much indeed. But I believe we should talk, the least of which would be about your transformation, and the most important thing would be, why did you call for me to take you away?" Jareth knew some of this from Griphook, but even his Gringotts subjects did not know all that was going on with this young man.

Having joined with him briefly during the healing Jareth believed he understood already much of what Harry might have to say, but that didn't make listening to it any less important.

☼

Harry paused, fighting down his arousal so that he could think clearly. Why did he call for the Goblin King to take him away? His life wasn't great by any stretch of the imagination, but he had had his work. And he loved helping animals, right?

He admitted that he did love his work, but it wasn't enough anymore. He wanted a life! A life filled with love and family, warm welcoming smiles and hot summer nights. Real feelings, not just this empty, pain filled void. And he had given up, he realised, given up on ever finding it in his own world. So the idea that some mysterious creature could take him away from all this, to a world where the wizards had no control over him, was just too tempting.

"I was trying to escape." He confessed, and Jareth nodded slowly.

"I thought as much. Harry, I must confess, I probably know more about you than you might be comfortable with. It is strange however, since I would not normally care for the feelings or trust of those I bring to my Labyrinth, but you are not one of them. You are special." When Harry looked confused, Jareth moved closer and sat next to him on the bed.

"I'm not special Jareth…" The newly-born elf protested, not able to meet the fae's eyes. The Goblin King, placed a gentle hand on Harry's cheek and turned his head round to face him.

"But you are special Harry. When you first arrived here, you were ill. Your body was giving up, and you were slowly dying. One of my subjects begged me to heal you, and I did. He didn't really need to beg me, I wanted to do it already, myself. I'm afraid that the healing required us to join briefly, and so I have shared many of your experiences. As such, I understand what has been happening to you. What the last seven or eight years have been like. So I know, Harry." His eyes showed an ageless wisdom, the playfulness momentarily forgotten.

"I wasn't asking you to take me away." He murmured, his gaze still locked with the King's.

"You were calling for me to rescue you." Jareth said, and it wasn't a question.

"Yes." Harry agreed, his voice choked with emotion.

Not able to suppress his instincts this time, Jareth gave in, and pressed his lips to the oh-so soft ones in front of him. Harry too, was caught up in the moment, and silently wondered how anything could ever feel so right, so natural.

His wings fluttered and moved to surround both of them, cocooning them in soft warmth. It matched the way both men were feeling and they exchanged slow, languid kisses. Neither was sure who moved first, but before either realised it, they fell back on the bed, their bodies entwined, all cares forgotten for the moment.

Harry pushed the King away for the moment, his foggy mind wanting to try and puzzle out what was happening, chafing at the delay posed by this temptation. But his heart, well, his heart was a different matter.

It didn't know what it wanted per se, but it did know it was enjoying this very much, and that worrying about what was happening and what had already happened to him was something best left for later. Later, when he didn't have this tempting creature poised above him.

Not his wisest decision perhaps, but look what playing it safe for the last seven years had got him? Nothing, that was what! And despite realising that he was moving too fast, too soon, every instinct in his newly awakened body was clamouring to be devoured by this delectable fellow, and really, who could blame him?

Seeing the thoughts flow across the young elf's face, Jareth smiled with satisfaction when he saw the surrender to pleasure in his eyes. They definitely needed more talking, but he felt justified in giving Harry what he really deserved. And right then, he felt a proper greeting was in order.