A/N: Hope everyone had a good holiday. Sorry for my long absence, but you should know the story IS finished, I just need to polish up the last few chapters. And here, just for you, is another chapter (sorry about the cliffhanger.)

Chapter 19
"I'm a firestarter, twisted firestarter."
Prodigy - Firestarter

At first everything fuzzed out, seemed to lose its form and definition, but only for that immediate instant. In the next second reality snapped back into crystal clear mayhem.

"Sirius!" the scream came in stereo, one from Draco's left side and the other from his right, and as he looked on, the staticy form of Sirius Black faded out to nothing.

Nothing.

Remus crumbled to the ground. The spit and fire he'd been full of completely seeped away as his blank face stared at the empty spot on the floor that Sirius had just occupied. His only action was the minute murmur of his lips, the repetitive movement that Draco eventually read as "Sirius."

It was another tableau of loss; one Draco had become intimately familiar with.

They had to get out. He didn't know what to do about the loss of the staff, but he knew these passages and walls would leach the heat and life out of them if they stayed.

He looked to Harry, then to Remus. "Come on, we're leaving." Both men turned their heads to face him, looking completely lost and unsure. Fine. Let them fall into a crevice of despair, let them leave him to solve this. Fine.

"Come on. Get off your arses. We Are LEAVING!"

Both men continued to stare at him, apparently unmoved by Draco's exclamation. Finally, Remus rose to his feet and took a step towards him. Draco took that as a positive sign.

He reached for Harry, snatched his wrist and pulled his unresisting body towards him. Then he reached for Remus, who pliantly let himself be hauled forward as well. And so, with the two men in tow like misbehaving school boys, Draco turned from the moonlit room and bone-white arch to search for an escape from purgatory.

Right now he had to watch out for them, had to protect them. They were buried under tonnes of dirt and stone, their minds bent and taut, ready to snap under anymore pressure, from just one more shock. Even as they followed him blindly, he still clung onto the fact that they were there, behind him, every step of the way. It was easier to think of them stressed and blank with trauma than to imagine the alternative, because he didn't want to think what it would mean if they weren't there with him at all.

Stalking down the hallways—as always smooth and nondescript—he immediately ran across a T in the tunnels that he didn't recognize. He realised with resigned horror that he was lost. Fine. He looked down the left passage then down the right, blue globes lining both ceilings, their soft glow lighting the passageways. Nothing different. Nothing to separate the two. So, he turned right.

And then the next right and the next and he continued on, climbing up and down stairs, walking down hallways, always going right.

This is so fucked up. What the hell am I supposed to do? Right. Why do these two worthless sods get to take a happy little mental vacation and I'm stuck here in fucked up Wonder Land hoping to avoid demon birds, evil sticks of wood and being forced to humour the twisted sense of amusement of one definitely mentally imbalanced Dark wizard. Long hallway. Right. Why me. What did I do wrong? God, are you listening? Do you even exist? While I'm not saying you don't… It's just that, I've no proof. Stairs down. Right. Give me some proof. I'm sure you can pull something out of your omnipotent sleeve and Apparate us out of this mess. Break the little staff for us. Long tunnel of nothing. Stairs up. Right. Cure Hermione. Be the hero here, God. Save the Day! I promise to pay you homage every day, even build you a grand temple if you can just get us Right out Right of Right here!

"Wait," Harry finally said, coming out of his self-induced daze.

Hallelujah!

"There's something." Harry turned back toward a door Draco had just dragged them past.

"What?" Draco asked, slightly frantic with the endless repetition of his surroundings, not to mention his recent talk with God and the fact that he had resorted to begging. Begging of all things!

Harry shook his head and then rubbed his face down with the palms of his hands. His eyes gained some focus and Draco relaxed. "Let's go in here," Harry said, this time more confident, more himself.

Remus sniffed the air and said, "They're in there."

"Who," Draco asked, growing annoyed. He'd add 'develop super sensitive senses' to his to-do list once he returned home.

"Meyers, Braithwaite and Burns. I'm certain."

Inwardly delighted his friends had snapped out it, Draco still huffed and rolled his eyes. "Oh, so now you return to the land of the living, whistling Dixie like nothing's amiss. Typical."

"Whistling Dixie?" Harry asked, looking over at Remus, who only shrugged.

Draco snorted as he turned to the door and searched for curses. The door pulsed with magic, practically groaned under the weight of it. But they weren't all curses or warding spells. Intricately imbedded in the molecular bonding of the doorway were containment magics such as he'd never sensed before. There had to be something big behind this door. Bigger than the arch. Bigger than the staff. Bigger than…

"This is the way out," Harry said flatly.

"We can't leave," Remus blurted. Then, "There's the staff." Honestly, Draco had his own theory as to what Remus really didn't want to leave behind, but decided against calling the man on his lame excuse.

Harry finally seemed to have shaken himself fully awake; his features sharpening from the slack-jawed-yokel look to that of astute Auror once again. "You're right. We can't leave yet, but we can figure out how to escape this sick farce and bust this door open."

All three men were in agreement.

And after a few minutes of analyzing the complex matrix of spells within the door, they each realised this was not a spell they could break. At least, not in the amount of time they had available to them. Dizzy, Draco could only impotently caress the wall of spells with his own harmless investigation, his breath emerging as soft pants under the strain. He looked to the other two men and saw the same exhaustion forcing lines around their eyes and a hunched posture to their shoulders.

"I hate to be the one to point out the obvious," Draco said, "But this is not working."

Harry kicked at the door. Remus' wand hand dropped to his side and then he glanced down one length of the hallway and then the next. The soft blue glow above them highlighted them all in a ghastly wash. Draco hated to think about what it was doing to his complexion. Idly, he ran his fingers through his hair and then immediately stopped when he noticed Harry watching him. Harry gave a tired smile and he returned it. Happy that, though he wanted out of his impossible wizard space, he was stuck there with Harry.

"Well, we have to get through somehow. Our friends are on the other side."

"I've an idea," Remus said. He stepped towards the door and laid his palms across the smooth, wooden surface, his wand pressed against it under one hand. Slowly, the man leaned forward and rested his forehead against the door. Draco watched as nothing happened. Finally, he thought he could hear something. He took a step closer to Remus and bent forward to listen closely. Soft murmurs. He could hear soft murmurs and Draco was amused to discover Remus was sweet-talking the door.

"Come on, give up your secrets, tell me your secrets, you know you want someone to talk to, someone to confide in, someone to share this with…" Remus continued his tender whispers to the door and the magic beyond it. He recognized this magic, this kind of spellwork that held a remnant of some intelligence to it, and inadvertently that kind of sentient portion of a spell always gave in to the right kind of coercion.

Just like the map.

"You're a smart little spell, aren't you? Intricate, delicate, so extraordinary…"

"Yes, I am."

Shocked at the rumbling, yet quiet words, Remus still chuckled at the unassuming arrogance. He knew this kind of magic. Understood it. Sorrow brushed his already aching heart as he remembered creating the map with Sirius, James and Peter. Sirius, gone again. All of the hard work, all of the exploration and study and experimentation they'd done. The map was the final brush stroke to the masterpiece of their friendship. First it was their discovery of his lycanthropy. Then they had become animagi. And finally, the map. It should have cemented them together, tighter than any bond, and Remus had thought that it had. How had it gone so wrong?

"I've never seen any spell so strong or so clever. Nothing is your equal. I would find peace and enjoyment in studying how you were created for the rest of my days." And in a way, Remus meant it.

"How could something like that satisfy you? You, who are living? You who can move about and experience the act of existing? You are awfully silly."

Remus chuckled. "True. Perhaps you are correct. Since I don't have a lifetime to study you, could you possibly tell me how to pass by you? We would really like to leave this place and get on with experiencing our existence."

"I am here to guard, to not let those pass who do not have the key."

"Where can we find the key?"

"The master has the key."

"Where is the master?"

"Waiting for you."

Oh… "Where is the master?" he asked again.

There was a long pause this time and Remus feared that he might have made the door unhappy. He lifted his left hand and began stroking the door, reminding it of his presence.

"Why do you wish to leave? Why don't you stay here and continue speaking with me?"

"I have friends, people I care for, who need me."

"My master needs me."

"We must leave. We mean nothing to your master. Just tell us where he is and we will get the key from him and leave you and your master alone."

"My master awaits in the core. There you will find the key. Then you may leave."

"Where is the core?"

"Behind you…"

Remus sprang from the door and turned his head so fast he pinched a nerve in his neck.

There was a door. And it hadn't been there before.

And it was completely devoid of magic.

"Hey, where'd that come from?" Harry asked, the shock obvious in the high whinge of his voice.

"That's the way. That is where we have to go."

Draco quirked an eyebrow, his own silent, curious remark. "And how do you know this?" he asked.

Remus shrugged. "The door." His posture and tone suggested it was entirely normal for someone to talk to a door and entice it to reveal its hidden secrets.

With a shake of his head, Draco chuckled. "Fine. I won't ask. Let's just do this thing."

Remus turned back to the exit and ran his hand down it one more time. "Thank you," he said quietly, and then he turned and tried the handle to the core.

It turned. Easily. No shock, no jinx or hex. It was just a door and the three men filed in, worried at how trouble-free it seemed.

This section was a contradiction in austerity. While the other had been a series of featureless tunnels, sickeningly reminiscent of a giant hamster habitat, they now stood in a large bay, with high windows that streamed warm rays of the day on them. Was the light from the outside? From Mexico? How long had they been down there? Even as Remus walked through the door, he knew they had left the magical space of the underground stronghold. This was new, not 'real', not 'outside', but yet another fold of reality entirely separate.

The walls were covered in shiny sheet metal with black rivets holding the large sheets together. The gray floor was concrete, boasting deep gouges and chips as well as long crevices that held what looked like centuries worth of dust. The room was perhaps a hundred yards long and in the center sat a rickety desk with one folding chair and a pile of cardboard boxes surrounding it on the floor.

Sitting in the battered chair was a man.

The table was so far away that Remus couldn't get a good view of him, but he was hoping that this was the infamous Herr Kogelmann. He hoped that he would surrender quietly, they would pack up all of the Dark and evil objects lying about, they would go home, and finally rest. Was that too much to ask?

Harry cleared his throat, a low noise that seemed to rumble from the base of his chest. Remus glanced over at him and saw a shared look between the two younger men. Then Harry looked over his shoulder at Remus, who nodded his own readiness. They stepped forward.

With Harry in the lead, the three men walked towards the man at the core.

Within the high-ceilinged room, their footsteps reverberated off the walls and bounced back, unhindered by any obstacles. Remus looked up and eyed the windows, though filthy they still let in the precious light of day and through those beams of light he watched as dust motes drifted in the still air. Sometimes the motes would sparkle a different colour, a blue or a flash of red. As they finally approached the seated man, he stood and smiled at them, slightly leaning forward with the palms of his hands flat against the metal surface of the table.

Remus examined his face as they drew closer; he noticed it wasn't so much a smile as a leer. He had a distinct feeling of uneasiness at the wicked amusement in the man's eyes. This man was a sadist; Remus knew this to the marrow in his bones.

"Kogelmann?" The name was spat out of Harry's mouth like he'd just taken a drink of something foul and it burned at this tongue like acid. This was the Dark Artefact peddler; this was the man who turned Auror against Auror, who carelessly caused the deaths of people for profit.

The man's grin broadened and he leaned even farther forward, tilting from his hips. He wore a military style jacket with no insignias and plain brass buttons lining the front; all buttoned tight like a living nutcracker. His red pants, loose around his thighs but stuffed into knee high leather boots, only enhanced the effect.

There was tarnish on his brass and a gold tooth that caught the light.

"Why yes, Mr. Potter. And what can I do for you?" He finally stood up straight with a cocksure attitude that annoyed the hell out of Remus. His hand itched to reach out and slap that look off his face. A growl tried to slip past his throat and he swallowed it down.

Kogelmann reached for his pocket and all three men had their wands aimed right for his chest. "I wouldn't do that if I were you," Draco said in his most condescending voice. It brought back memories that Remus would rather not revisit, but also made him realise how happy he was to have Draco on his side. "Wiggle the wrong way and I'm afraid we might just see it as a threat. You wouldn't want the clean up crew to have to identify you by the magical stain you will leave on the walls, would you?"

"I am just getting the key. It's what you wanted now, wasn't it?" the man said, his voice far too amused, far too sure.

"Fine, but go slow," Harry said, urging him on with a flick of his wand. "But you do anything, anything at all, and I will toast you." Kogelmann's cocky grin faltered slightly as his eyes darted over to Harry, running him up and down, sizing him up.

Slowly, he reached into the pocket near his right hip and pulled out a yellow ball. He held it out by the tips of his fingers and turned it around so the three men could see a black smiley face printed on the side.

"That's the key?" Harry said, confused.

Kogelmann tilted his head in affirmation and tossed the ball right at Remus; it was instinct that caused him to reach out and grab it. The crooked smile that Kogelmann didn't even try to hide caused Remus to drop the ball immediately. It hit the floor with a 'pong' and harmlessly bounced away. "What the hell was that?" Remus demanded.

"Just checking your reaction speed. That was rather quick, Mr. Werewolf. I'm impressed and utterly sure I could not escape from you if you ever tried to use your wits or performed any strategic planning." God, this man must have been in the equivalent of Slytherin, Remus mused.

"So, that wasn't the key?" Harry said, still staring at the man. Remus was the only one who watched the little ball roll away until it finally came to a halt, smiley face partially visible at the angle it came to rest. With concern, he looked down at his hand as a tingling seemed to smolder along his skin, but when it slowly faded away, he pushed it from his mind.

"Oh, no… that was the key. A key, really," the man said nodding. "There are a few ways to get out of the Labyrinth, and that little ball is just one way that might work for you. Though, it might not." He shrugged casually.

"Fucking bastard, quit playing games with us!" Harry walked forward, stomped forward, and thrust the point of his wand into the man's throat. Remus was delighted to see fear finally fleck those wicked eyes.

And the fear grew as Harry began chanting and a robin's egg blue began to emanate from Harry's wand and fog over the man's body.

"Wha…What?" the man stuttered. "What the hell?!"

Draco took a step to the side and flanked the man and Remus stepped closer to his front. Now he was surrounded and the full realisation of his situation seemed to have finally sunk in.

The tingle came back and Remus shook his hand until it faded, never taking his eyes off of the man; the man who stood there, looking from one of his captors to the next, his eyes darting and searching, a frown on his face. In all intents and purposes he looked worried, nervous, trapped…

But there was something wrong.

There was a soft buzzing that Remus' hearing caught and his whole arm began to tingle. He took a step back, away from the blue fog and his friends to assess what was wrong. The hairs on the back of his neck rose, a sense of worry, of unease, settling in his nerves. What was wrong?

"Harry," Remus said in a low voice, his worry colouring the one word. "Harry, something's…"

BOOM!

A torrent of Dark magic thrust at Remus and he was slammed back, flying through the air, finally landing hard on the concrete floor, his head snapping back and smacking against the cold ground.

Then another BOOM! and the ground rattled around him as he groaned, his eyes watering against the agony spiking behind his eyes.

BOOM!

"Draco!" he heard Harry yell at the top of his lungs. "Remus!" He sounded strong and upright, unlike Remus who could only warble through the blood in his mouth pooling from the bite in his tongue. Blood. The sweet taste of blood.

Then a piercing scream ripped through the booming and rumbling that had the building rocking in its foundation. It was high and full of pain. Remus had no idea where it might be coming from and couldn't focus on it at all through his own dulled senses.

His own dulled senses.

That was it. He couldn't smell a thing. It was all an act!

"BASTARD!!" That was Harry and then he heard a different scream fill the air and the first scream faded out, overwhelmed by the other sounds. Remus had to get up. He had to help.

Remus rolled over to his side and then pushed himself up onto hands and knees, trying to remain steady as the quake continued to send shock waves through the concrete, causing it to strain and buckle underneath him. He lifted his hand to the back of his head and it came away moist and sticky. He sniffed at the red smear and was no longer shocked to discover the smell was dulled; barely noticeable even to his own senses, but that tiny whiff he got with his nose was enough to cause something within him to stir. He steeled his will and forced the unthinkable away.

"No!" he heard Kogelmann scream, followed by, "You will pay!" as Harry cursed scream after scream out of the man.

The undulating ground finally stilled and Remus got unsteadily to his feet, a wave of dizziness caused him to sway and he held his hands away from his body for balance. He looked around; the table and chair was a pile of twisted metal and the remains of cardboard boxes floated through the air like fluff.

He saw Harry standing over Kogelmann and Draco lying off to the side, clutching at his forearm. He took one tentative step, and once his stomach stopped rolling about, took another and after what seemed like an eternity swimming through treacle, he stood next to Harry over the cowering Kogelmann. This time he could smell the fear, the desperation… the shock. Though it was still all muted, stifled as if his nose were packed with cotton.

"You fucking bastard," Harry said, his voice low and edgy, the words pressed through a clenched jaw and a less than stable grip on his self-control. Remus' eyes darted to Harry at his tone. "They're all gone now. How do you like that, you bastard? FUCKER! They are gone! I've destroyed every last artefact in this fucking hellhole. HOW DO YOU LIKE THAT?!" Remus watched as spittle from Harry's fury rained down upon the cowering man's face.

Remus looked around and spotted odd objects lying about. He guessed they must have been stowed in the boxes. There was no sign of the smiling ball. Then he saw Draco on the ground watching Harry, still gripping his arm with a look suggesting the last gram of 'what the fuck' had been pressed right out of him.

"Tell me! Tell me everything. Tell me about who you're working for. Tell me about your operation. I might not SPLATTER you over the floor if you tell me!" Harry twitched his wand and Kogelmann screamed again.

"I can't tell you that," the man yelled, panicked. "I'll tell you where all my merchandise is. I'll hand it all over… just stop!" Harry flicked his wand again and the man fell to the floor, writhing. Remus had seen the Cruciatus Curse cast on people before, but this was not that spell. This was something else, perhaps even more insidious. He looked over at Harry and saw something mad, something crazed in his eyes, his lips lifted in a snarl baring his teeth. Remus automatically felt defensive, felt like he had to prove something to this man.

What was going on? He shook the feeling off and turned to Draco as Harry continued to torture and interrogate the Dark Artefact peddler.

"If I speak, I'm dead. You're all dead. Don't you get it?! You can't let him have it!"

"Are you okay?" Remus asked Draco quietly as Harry railed at Kogelmann. Draco looked with over at him with frantic eyes and nodded as Remus squatted down beside him.

"Who? Let who have what? SPEAK!"

"Yeah… What's fucking going on? It was like a succession bomb of curses went off and then," Draco looked down at his arm, "my Mark… where my Mark was… i-it burned. Like it'd never burned before." He looked terribly sad. "And then Harry, something's wrong with him. Something is wrong with Harry." Draco looked up at Remus like he hoped the man had some answer and some way to fix the world's inherent woes.

"You can not let that mad man have the Staff of Quetzalcoatl. You're all idiots and I won't die with you!"

That got both Draco and Remus' attention.

"What do you know about that," Harry demanded. He gripped Kogelmann's jacket and shook him. Remus watched as the man's head flailed about with sickening fragility. "Tell us what the fuck you know!"

Harry's eyes had that eerie glow to them and his hair began to pick up in the maelstrom of magic that had begun twisting about. Kogelmann's fear seeped out of every one of the man's pores and some inner feral desire perked up within Remus, showing definite interest. It was Moony. This whole time, Moony had been awakening within him. Shite. Remus had always been able to clamp down on the wolf, forcing him into the dark cage until the full moon when the iron bars fell with a clatter; but this time his cursed alter identity wasn't slinking away.

Remus pushed away from Draco, standing briefly only to land on his tail end, and scooted away across the cracked floor. What was happening to him? Moony's time was not now! It wasn't the full moon. Draco stared at Remus, concern evident in his features, but he glanced back at Harry as the magic built, gaining power and intensity each passing second.

Down, be calm, this isn't happening, you're just freaking out because you've been cooped up for so long. He felt a soft prickling across his skin and he saw the hair thicken and grow. What the fuck?

"Guys," he said, his voice shaking and deep. The growl could not be hidden. "Help, please." Panic and fear and hunger raced along his nerves, through his veins.

"Oh fuck! Remus, what's happening?" Draco turned his attention from Harry, shuffling along his knees to the man forced into an unwanted transformation.

Kogelmann began to cackle.

And then the lightening began to strike.

All he knew was that he was pissed. The man, this fucked up Dark wizard, had cursed people and killed people and ruined lives. He'd led Ron on a wild goose chase and made fools of the Aurors. He'd housed the shaft of the Quetzalcoatl Staff in a room full of the most intimate reminders of death and now the man wouldn't tell him everything he knew.

In every Auror, there lies a Dark portion. In some it was just a tiny nugget, in others it threatened to consume their entire soul. It was impossible to remain entirely of the Light when you have to constantly dance with the Dark. That Dark within Harry suddenly coagulated and formed into a tight mass, growing and pulsing and swaying the young man to hurt and maim, to pull the answer out no matter what the consequences. This he would do. He would do this for his friends, for the innocents, for himself.

He would do this because he could.

And then chain lightning began to dance in the multicoloured cloud of magic that had built up above the scene of destruction.

And it struck. First it hit the metal chair, leaving a charred hunk of chrome and steel, then the desk was the next casualty, all melted and twisted from the terrible heat. The look of fear in this fool's eyes tasted sweet and Harry drank it up.

"Tell me," he said through tightly gripped teeth. "Tell me everything." And another bolt struck the ground right next to the man's head, who screamed, clutching into a tight ball as a stain of wetness seeped through the crotch of his pants.

This was power. The power he'd denied himself.

"Harry!"

"Tell me!" Harry looked at the broken man and grabbed what little will that remained and crumbled it in a grip of his own. "I OWN YOU, YOU FUCKING MAGGOT! SPEAK!" And the lighting continued to crash down.

"Fucking shite, Harry! Stop it!"

"Riley!" Kogelmann whimpered. "Ted Riley had me searching for it. For the staff. I found it. I couldn't give it to him because he was… Stop it! Please!" Harry watched as the man twitched. He knew he could just force the man to speak, erode the man's psyche as the staff had done to him, but this was so much more fun. He grinned.

He forced his magic into every barrier and wall within the man's mind and tore them town, thrashing about in the process. The psychic debris began to bury them both.

"Who is Riley working for?" Harry burrowed deeper, heedless of the Swiss cheese effect his fury left behind.

"You don't know?! Fucking get out of my mind! Get out!!" The man screamed again and then Harry was physically knocked over, his body slamming into the ground with the force of a crash of rhinos.

His anger flared and all he saw was red, red tinted sunlight, red tinted steel, a red tinted blond man looking down at him with worry. And then the red poofed away as the blond man kissed him frantically.

"Harry. Stop. Please, stop. Harry…"

"Draco? Draco!" Harry grasped onto Draco, onto his lifeline, onto sanity, constantly saying that name over and over like a chant of stability he so desperately needed.

"Oh Merlin. Oh Fuck. This is so fucked. Harry… Remus, he…" and then a howl split the air.