Guess what? I had this one done within my two-day limit. But guess what else? Fanfiction is currently not working for me—it won't upload this document. So as soon as it allows me to update, I will (I think it's safe to assume that if you're reading this, it's already happened). I know, it sounds like a fabricated excuse, but I swear it's not.

Disclaimer: it's not mine.

Chapter 28

The Fifth Horcrux

Harry was beginning to wonder what he could possibly hope to accomplish in just one week at Durmstrang. Two days of constant observation, nighttime explorations, and discreet questions had revealed absolutely nothing about any object that might be a Horcrux, any mysterious rooms in which a Horcrux might be hidden, or any strange actions by those who might know where the Horcrux was.

However, despite his growing apprehension, he could not help but be enthralled by Durmstrang School. It was not separated by house as Hogwarts was, nor was it divided by age. Instead, each person belonged to one of ten groups comprised of others of the same ability level. Progression through the school was not determined by how many years a student had been there, but by how fast he excelled. It took some fifteen years to graduate, and others managed it in five. There was a sort of final exam required to pass into the next group, and one could stay in the same group for three or more years if he couldn't get the hang of one particular exam.

Harry had been at the breakfast table on the first morning of his visit, perched on a bench between Viktor and Polikoff, Viktor's best friend. Halfway through a plate of odd-looking but delicious sort of mush that was called granka, Viktor paused as though remembering something. He reached into his bag and handed Harry what looked like a wriggling slug; Harry drew back, repulsed.

"Put it in your ear," Viktor urged. "It is a translator; it will enable you to hear conversations in English, so that you can understand what people say while you're here. Compliments of Professor Holinskii."

Harry took it apprehensively, holding on to its brown, squirming body. "It won't damage my ear?"

Viktor shook his head. Harry sighed, held it up to his ear, and gasped; there was an unpleasant sucking sensation, and then he felt it no more. And Viktor was talking again.

"I'm talking in Russian now. Can you understand me?"

Harry nodded, surprised. It sounded like Viktor spoke in English, with a British accent, moreover. He sounded a lot clearer than he had while Harry was actually listening to him speak English.

He had been welcomed enthusiastically by most of the school. Harry trailed Viktor unquestioned through his classes, picking up bits of information and storing them for future use.

Harry didn't learn much of anything new except in Viktor's Dark Arts class. The first day he came, they were beginning a new concept.

"The Greeks were not far off when they attributed magical properties to their four elements. Can anyone tell me what those elements were?"

A few people muttered the answer.

"Earth, air, fire and water, that's right."

Professor Dmitri Askhov was tall, thin, and graying, but he had a vitality about him that belied any signs of his age. Harry was wary of trusting anyone, especially in a school renowned for teaching the Dark Arts, but he found he liked this man. He reminded him of Lupin: quiet, calm, shrewd, and wise, but more powerful than he let on. Ironic, he smiled to himself, I like him, and yet I teach my students to fight the very things he teaches his to do.

"The elements do not have magical properties, but they do have magic stored in them. Everything does. Some more than others, but all the same, it does. Muggles, even, have magic, but not enough to control and use consciously.

"This is important because sometimes you will find that your own reserve of magic is not enough. You will find that you are not powerful enough for a spell, that you need more of it. If you are concentrated, if you know what you are doing, you can draw the magic out of your surroundings. You can use it yourself, channel it where you want it to go."

Harry, enthralled, leaned forward slightly.

"Manmade things have very little magic in them. You will not find a hundredth of the magic required to even the simplest spell in something that has been fashioned by a human. Nature, however, is rich in it, especially the four Greek elements. Where air is present—everywhere, I hope, that you might be—you can draw on its power to aid your own. Does anyone know what kind of spells would most likely require this?"

"The Unforgivable Curses?" someone ventured.

"Yes, very good. Anything else? Mr. Potter, perhaps you know?"

Harry sat up a little straighter. "The Evanescent Spells."

"Indeed. Unless you are very magically deficient, these are the only spells for which you should need to draw upon your surroundings."

He taught them how to do it next. Harry found himself, along with the rest of the class, working hard to find magic in the air around him. "Let yourself feel it," Askhov had said. "It's like your Inner Sanctum, except it's harder to feel because it's not yours, it's not inside you."

Harry groped around with his mind, trying to sense it on his skin, but it would not come.

OoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoOo

During dinner on Thursday, Harry excused himself to go to the bathroom. Within the unfamiliar corridors of this castle, it was not long before he found himself lost.

"Crud," he said, turning around and trying to get a hold of his bearings. He had no idea where he was. He glanced out a nearby window—he seemed to be on the second floor, but beyond that, he could not tell. The scenery was beautiful during the day, but at night, with nothing but pitch black all around he couldn't tell even which direction he was facing.

He wandered throughout the halls, looking at tapestries, half-searching for a bathroom. He didn't have to go that badly, and he enjoyed the solitude while everyone was at dinner.

He was standing in front of a particularly fantastic one—an intricate embroidery of the castle itself—when he felt a strange, half-familiar feel. It was like a warm breeze, but that didn't make sense because he was wrapped in a fur coat and he was in Northern Russia—where in the world would a warm breeze come from? Then he realized that it was not a physical sensation, and with that came the odd feeling that he had felt it before.

Then Professor Askhov's words came to his mind. It's like your Inner Sanctum, except that it's harder to feel because it's not yours…

And then Harry knew what it was. It felt exactly like the sensation that he got when finding and calling upon his reserve of magic, except it was on the outside. It was the magic of the air.

He held very still for several long minutes, absorbing it, feeling it, getting to know the feeling well enough that he could find it again if he wanted it to. Then he tried to let it recede like he let his Inner Sanctum do, but it would not. It remained there with him, almost inside him.

Curious, he walked twenty paces down the hall. The feeling disappeared. Back in front of the tapestry, it returned.

Why do I feel it here?

He leaned closer to the tapestry, and it got stronger. The air is heavy with magic…

Slowly, wonderingly, with no idea what he would find, Harry drew back the heavy piece of cloth.

There was nothing but cold, unblemished stone. But Harry could feel the magic pulsing in the air, radiating from that one spot, and he knew it was not the rock surface it pretended to be.

Everything has magic…

The stone, Harry thought. Maybe I can do something with its magic.

He laid his palm against the cool surface and ran it along the bumps and cracks, waiting for the same sensation he felt from the air.

"You have to talk to it," Askhov had said. "Understand it, go inside it. Treat it like an equal. Then it will open itself to you."

I want to talk to you, Harry thought, concentrating on the stone. Talk to me. He tried to feel himself inside its black, solid body.

And then, with a gentle tingling in his hand, he felt the stone respond.

Without warning, his fingertips began to dissolve, and he felt his body, his thoughts, his very essence, being pulled into the rock. And suddenly, with a momentary, very disconcerting feeling of being in lots of places all at once, he found himself on the other side.

It was dark, so pitch black that he was sure his eyes would never adjust. He felt for his wand, but realized with a jolt that he had left it in his bag at the dinner table. Calming himself—funny, he thought, that I feel so insecure without a narrow, flimsy stick of wood—he called upon his Inner Sanctum. With the familiar rush of pleasure and peace, he watched his hand begin to glow with a soft yellow light.

He found himself in a narrow cavern, one that wound of into the distance, sloping slowly downward. Harry debated for only a moment before proceeding cautiously. Maybe this is where the Horcrux is…

The tunnel went on for what seemed like ever. Once or twice, Harry thought he heard the ghosts of footsteps behind him, and he stopped, holding his breath and waiting. There was never any noise while he was silent.

The tunnel was old; that much was obvious. Water dripped down the slick stone sides, and small stalactites clung to the ceiling, rimmed at the base by a greenish-blackish moss. Harry shuddered more than once, wishing he had more than his fur cloak to keep him warm, even though it should have been perfectly adequate.

At long last, he came to a thick oak door. He reached out to push it open, but it swung forward on its hinges without any contact from him. With a gulp resounding of fear and curiosity, he stepped forward.

This cavern was softly lit, though not by any detectable source. It was circular, with a high, domed ceiling and pillars on the edges. In the center stood a massive round table, with thirteen high-backed wooden chairs spaced around it. Harry found himself wishing Ron and Hermione were with him because for the first time in a long time, he felt utterly alone.

Closing his eyes to regain his composure, Harry walked up to the table.

It had curious carvings all over the top, sprawled out over the circle that must have been twenty feet in diameter. They were surrounded by a huge pentagon, like equal lines that connected the five points of a star, which rested at the very edge of the table. Harry fingered the designs briefly, then walked around the table in a circle. There was no other exit, and this room seemed to be the end of this passageway.

"What is this place?" he whispered aloud.

"It is the original meeting place of the founders of our school."

Harry's heart shot into his throat and he whirled around to confront the voice. He held his magic at the ready, a spell already at the tip of his tongue, but there was no one there.

The voice laughed. "I see you're not as composed as you thought you were."

The voice was right; Harry was most definitely not. During all his years in the wizarding world, he had never encountered something like this. What was worse, if this was what he thought it was—namely, Voldemort's hiding place for a Horcrux—the voice was probably not on his side. He looked wildly around for its source, but nothing presented itself.

"Who are you?" he demanded.

The voice laughed again, a cold, malevolent laugh. "I might ask the same of you."

Harry threw caution to the winds. "I have come to retrieve what it is you guard."

"I guard nothing."

"Liar."

"You dare to impugn my honor?" the voice said mockingly.

"Why else would you be down here?"

"What makes you think I'm 'down here?' As far as you can tell, I don't even exist."

"You exist, alright. You have a voice, do you not? Perhaps it's disembodied, but still you exist."

"You're a smart boy."

"Then you know you cannot fool me with lies that you guard nothing. So either tell me how to get it or let me alone so I can think a moment."

"How about I tell you." The voice sounded amused. "You have to defeat me."

"You?" Harry scoffed, knowing he sounded about a million times more confident than he felt. "I hardly think you'd be hard to beat, seeing as you don't even have a body."

"I don't have a body, do I?" the voice said scathingly. As he spoke, something materialized in the air in front of Harry. He took a step back in fear and shock.

In a moment, a small boy stood before him. He knew better than to actually believe the guise, but that's the form this being chose to take.

The boy seized him up. "You don't look like much," it told him. "Look like you could be seduced by a stupid, pretty woman."

With that, the boy turned into just that: a pretty young woman in a tight dress with a very low neckline and no sleeves.

"Sorry," Harry said, "I'm not interested. Now you can hand over that thing I mentioned or I'm going to blow you into oblivion."

The woman laughed. "You don't have the power to do that."

Harry had been wracking his brains for what this entity might be, and he had finally landed on what he thought it was. It was a demon, a being from some other world that someone—probably Voldemort had called to his service. Demons were impish, traitorous, and dangerous, but they were confined to strict rules. They couldn't violate the will of whoever had called them to earth, nor could they emerge from their pentacles without their master's permission. Harry glanced around the room, and noticed for the first time that a ring of tiles formed a five-sided pentagram, and there were intricate symbols on the tiles. Harry was inside its territory, and he had to get out.

There was the pentacle on the table, carved into the wood. With one swift movement, he leapt towards the table, heaved himself up onto it, and rolled into the pentagram. Demon law said that the lines of a pentacle could not be crossed even if the it was inside the demon's. Indeed, the pretty young woman looked livid and quickly changed shape into a minotaur with smoke spiraling out of its nose. Harry knew by this that he was safe. For now.

But there was no getting out. The Minotaur stood between him and the only door, and besides, he hadn't yet found the Horcrux.

"A battle of strength, wizard," the Minotaur spat.

Harry laughed derisively. "When you can pick any shape you want? I don't think so."

"Your magical abilities must far exceed mine."

"Who are you?"

The Minotaur looked smug. "As if I would tell you."

Having the name, the true name of a demon would give the person with that knowledge the power to control it. Harry remembered all this from his third year.

"They're dangerous, yes, and they will do their master's bidding," Lupin had said. "However, if the master leaves any loopholes, the demon will find a way to worm out of what he has to do. He serves only himself whenever possible. If you ever find yourself in the company of a demon, use this to your advantage."

Hermione had made a list of famous demons and made Harry and Ron memorize them insisting it would come in useful. Harry was now very thankful that he had an overachieving friend like Hermione.

Voldemort would not have left any loopholes, but perhaps if he stumbled upon the name of the demon, he would gain power over him. Harry thought of a sentence that would have no ambiguity about it and would force the demon to do it if he said the right name, and then he mentally went through a list.

Voldemort would choose something dark, something with an evil, cunning reputation. Maybe not something well-known, though, so he might not be on my list. An idea occurred to him.

"Do you know what it is you're guarding?" he asked the Minotaur.

The beast shrugged. "I'm not guarding anything."

"The thing that you're guarding," Harry persisted, "is an object that keeps your master immortal."

The Minotaur didn't flinch, but Harry saw its eyes widen. As long as its master was alive and didn't release him, the demon was bound in service to him.

"An eternity of service," Harry said. "That's what you're facing if this object survives."

"You're lying to me."

"I'm not."

The truth was, Harry was not, and the demon could see it in his eyes.

"You're bound here as long as your master is alive. But I have the power to free you."

"No you don't. Only my master—" he spoke the word derisively—"can."

"Not immediately, no. But if I have this object that you guard, I will kill him altogether, and you will be set free."

"I can't give it to you anyway." The Minotaur bared its teeth in a scowl. "It was specifically forbidden."

"Not if I learn your name," Harry corrected slyly.

The minotaur switched into a boy again, a little Egyptian fellow wearing only a loincloth. He looked at Harry suspiciously. "I think you're lying."

"I'm not. Do you know who your master is?"

"Sure," the boy said nonchalantly, flicking an imaginary speck of dust from his fingernail. "Tall, pasty fellow with black hair."

"I can tell you his name, his true birth name," Harry said slowly. "Then you can wreak your revenge. You'll have all power over him if I tell you. I'll tell you his name and I'll destroy him, in exchange for one thing."

"You want my name." The demon said slowly.

"Yes."

"Look at me," he scowled. "I'm supposed to be eating you alive, and here I am negotiating like a diplomat."

"Is it a deal?"

"I was also forbidden to tell you my name."

"Can you write it?"

A devilish grin spread over his face. Harry took that to mean 'yes.'

"It's a deal, mushworm," the demon said. "Except that I don't believe I can trust you."

"Of course you don't. Is there anything I can do to make you believe you can?"

"Make the Unbreakable Vow."

The breath caught in Harry's throat. "I'd have to come into your pentacle, and we'd need a third person anyway. I'm not stepping out my pentacle, mostly because you'll probably eat me. I can't trust you either, you realize."

The Egyptian boy scratched his chin. "We can't just trust each other?"

"I'll just trust you if you'll just trust me."

"Do you have a parchment and quill?"

"Not yet," he said, "but I can get them."

Harry had learned how to perform this spell just two weeks previously; he waved his hand and thought parchment and quills and they appeared before him. It only worked with trivial things, not with anything like people or money or anything, but it was handy for candles or paper or tablecloths.

Harry ripped the parchment in half and tossed it and one of the quills into the demon's pentacle. "Write your name on it, and I'll summon your paper at the same time you summon mine. I'll write your master's name."

On the paper, Harry scrawled the words Tom Marvolo Riddle. He wadded his paper up. The demon wrote his name, surveyed it a moment, then crumpled it as well. "Alright then, on three. One… two… three."

They tossed the papers into each other's pentacles. Harry picked the parchment up and flattened it out. Amazingly enough, the demon hadn't cheated him. On the faded yellow in black ink was written the name…

Bartimaeus.

Harry cleared his throat. "Bartimaeus," he said loudly, "I command you to relinquish the object you were ordered to guard into my pentacle."

The demon looked physically torn. Harry could see what he wanted to do, but the magic still bound him to Voldemort's command; that he never give up this object.

"You ask me to do something that will injure me badly," the demon said reproachfully.

"Which is worse, this or a lifetime spent on earth, trapped in a physical body?"

With a sudden roar, the demon turned into a whirling ball of wind. Up, up, up it flew, high over Harry's head. The noise was deafening. Harry clapped his hands over his ears and tried to keep his eyes open against the blasting gale.

Then the wind was gone, the sound had ceased, and a small, golden cup clattered to the table at Harry's feet.

A/N: Wow. Ten whole pages. R&R, including you, SkyHighFan. You seem to read every chapter, and yet you never review. I hate that :-D