What's Said, Is Said

Disclaimer: See chapter 1. Reviews are welcomed, flames aren't.

Chapter 35: The Thirteenth Hour

The night was dark and except for the occasional car and the sound of a dog barking, all was quiet on Privet Drive. Two figures stood in the deep shadows beneath a heavily barred second story window.

Tonight was the night. As the time convergence approached the night grew still, as if waiting for the time lines to come full circle.

Inside the house, a group of teens watched a movie down stairs while a solitary figure sat in the heavily barred and locked room upstairs. The adults were gone for the evening.

Soon belligerent voices were heard in the upstairs room.

"I wish you had never come to us, Harry! I wish the goblins had taken you the night you arrived. Too bad, they can't do it right now. Better yet, since you bloody well believe in the freaks, make that I wish they'd do it right now!"

In the shadows only one figure now stood. The circle was now complete.

0o0o0o0

Jareth appeared in a room barely larger than a closet. It held all the cheer and warmth of a graveyard. In the room two teenage boys stood facing each other, with anger staining their faces. The taller of the two, over-weight and pasty-faced, had an ugly sneer plastered on his lips. The second was a gaunt, dark-haired teen whose appearance tore at the Goblin King's heart.

"Well, well," Jareth murmured, taking in the scene before him.

"BLOODY HELL! You're HIM! You're the Goblin King! You really do exist!" bawled the obese teen, his eyes wide in fear.

"I could've told you that, Dudders," snorted the smaller boy with messy black hair and despairing green eyes.

Jareth smiled coldly as he reached up to touch the green-eyed teen's cheek. Waves of loneliness, pain, sorrow and weariness engulfed him. It was almost too much to bear. "Enough. I have come to claim my Treasure."

Dudley smirked, folding his arms in satisfaction, as he watched the scene unfolding before of him. "Then claim the freak. See if I care."

The dark-haired boy flinched, jerking away from Jareth's touch. "Don't touch me!" he hissed.

"Ah Harry. I can do as I please with you. You're mine now," the Goblin King replied calmly.

"Hhh . . . how do you know my name?" Harry blinked in disbelief.

"Why Harry Potter, everyone knows your name. You are quite famous as the Boy-Who-Lived," Jareth purred, one eyebrow arching. "My goblins keep me well informed on the happenings in the Wizarding World."

He paused a moment, seemingly lost in thought, chin cupped in one elegant hand. "I will, of course, have to re-order time. I don't do that for many, but I think you will enjoy your time Underground and you will be free of this." He gestured scornfully at the dingy room around them.

Harry James Potter, the Boy-Who-Lived, thought over what the Goblin King said. Jareth could practically see the wheels turning. He was impressed. The boy wasn't fighting, he seemed to recognize the futility of his predicament, and was actually trying to figure a way around it!

"I will go willingly on one condition, sir," Harry said after a moment's thought. "Will you grant me a wish?"

"As long as it is within my power and," Jareth replied with a regal nod, "it's not to free yourself from me."

"When you take me from here, I wish that you would save my godfather, Sirius Black, from Azkaban. He was sent there for a crime he didn't commit."

Surprise made Jareth's eyebrow arch even higher. "Interesting wish," he said, mulling over the possibilities.

"Very well." Turning to Dudley, he tossed the boy a crystal. "You will not run the Labyrinth to win back your cousin?"

"Hell no! Why would I? We'll be better off without the freak," Dudley sneered as he snatched the crystal. "This holds my dreams, right?"

Jareth smirked as he waved his hand. Pixie dust floated around the room as the Goblin King and Harry slowly faded from sight. "You have thirteen hours to change your mind," came the faint echo of Jareth's voice. Dudley was left alone, holding a crystal in his hand.

"Like I would change my mind, freak!" Dudley snarled, turning to leave.

Downstairs Dudley's gang, along with their dates, were watching the last of the 'Labyrinth.' Dudley hadn't wanted to watch it but was out voted by the female portion of the group. Thankfully, his parents were out for the night and wouldn't be home for another hour or so.

"So did ol' four eyes want to come down?" sneered a rat-faced, pimply teen.

"Nahh, mate," Dudley sneered back. "The freak is busy sulking over the death of his godfather. The ol' man will be home in an hour, Piers."

"Say no more, Big D," Piers said, standing and stretching. "Gotta be up with the chickens tomorrow. The ol' man wants me to help with a shipment that's comin' in at the shop." He sighed over his shoulder as he pulled the movie from the video player. "I'll just be takin' this with me, wouldn't do to have your Da find it now, would it?"

Dudley sniggered.

The obese teen locked up after his friends left, not lifting a finger to clean the mess he and his chums made of the den. The freak always cleaned up. Wait, the freak isn't here anymore. Oh well. Not his problem.

The hall clock started to chime. He looked up as he mentally counted them. There was a pause after 12, then as Dudley started upstairs, a thirteenth chime sounded. Just as the echo of the final chime died, a clap of thunder sounded followed by a brilliant flash of lightning.

Startled, Dudley turned and almost lost his footing. Standing at the bottom of the stairwell was the Goblin King in all his glory.

"Thirteen hours have passed," The Goblin King intoned regally.

"As . . . as if I care," Dudley said, holding up the crystal which he received earlier that evening. "I have my dreams."

Jareth laughed, a chilling, humorless sound that made the boy shudder. "So be it! Don't say I didn't warn you."

The crystal shattered in Dudley's hand. Fairy dust rained down on him. "Oi!"

However, the Goblin King and Harry were gone.

0o0o0o0

Harry stood in the shadows outside the house on Privet Drive. It had never been home to him, ever. He looked up at his former bedroom window and shivered. Time had come full circle for him. He had memories of both his lives, here as the boy who had been foisted unceremoniously onto unwilling relatives, and the memories of his time as Garion, beloved adopted son of the Goblin King.

Right now, he was sorting through the memories as he waited in the shadows for his adopted father to return. Harry had no doubt in his mind which life he preferred to live. However, one had to be careful when dealing with the Fae, especially this Fae.

A hand clapped on Harry's shoulder causing the teen to look up into mis-matched eyes. The Fae held up a crystal. "It is time, child. He accepted the deal -- his dreams for you."

Harry licked his lips. "What about my dreams?"

Jareth smiled. "You, my precious thing, are a Bard. The young fool doesn't know what he bartered away. His dreams will come to naught because he is too lazy to pursue them. However, your fate no longer in my hands. I can't keep you, turn you or do anything to cause you harm. A fully trained Bard is the life blood of Magick. It was my honor to free you from the abuse you had endured and set you on your path."

"Then I get to keep both set of memories?" Harry asked hopefully.

Jareth gave a slight bow. "You do, my son."

"I want to go home, Father."

0o0o0o0

In the demolished office of the headmaster of Hogwarts, Albus Dumbledore was busy trying to repair the many trinkets that had been destroyed by Harry's fit of rage. The one trinket he badly needed to repair first was the one that measured the strength of the wards around Harry's aunt's home.

"Albus? Headmaster?" came a voice from the floo.

"Yes, Nymphadora?"

"I think you need to come to Harry's home, sir," came the burning face in the fireplace.

"Oh?" Albus asked, standing.

"The muggle police showed up this morning and arrested the younger of Harry's relatives. Harry isn't in the house. We checked. It's as if Harry never lived there."

"Move aside child, I'm coming through."

The neighborhood of Privet Drive was in turmoil. Never had the residents seen such a disturbing sight. Three police cars and six officers! It had started with one car and two officers, then spiraled out of control when the original car called for back-up!

Now Vernon Dursley was standing on the lawn of number 4, shouting in the face of a uniformed Policewoman while a somewhat battered Dudley Dursley sat, handcuffed and bawling, in the back seat of a cruiser. Albus ignored the arguing pair as he walked unseen into the house.

A thorough search proved Nymphadora correct. There was no sign of Harry ever living here. He looked in every room, including the basement. He found where the Dursley boy slept, the parents room, even a guest room, but nowhere was a room made up for Harry. Upstairs, a small closet like room tucked under the eaves held broken toys and furniture but no sign of Harry. Even the infamous boot closet, that had supposedly served as the boys' room for ten years, held no trace of the boy.

He walked down the stairs and spied the many family photos adorning the walls. The odd thing was, not one of them held a photo of Harry. "Oh child," he lamented. "What went on in this house? What did I subject you to?"

0o0o0o0

Harry walked through the halls of the Castle Beyond the Goblin City. He was home! He just wished Sirius was here with him.

"Garion!"

"Mother!" Harry's face lit with joy as ran to embrace the dark haired, regal woman who held her arms open to him.

After a moment, she drew back slightly, "let me look at you."

The boy who'd left Privet Drive was not the boy that stood glowing with happiness before her. In the time of their brief embrace Harry had changed, from a gaunt, undersized teen to the regal, tall young prince he'd been in the dream vision.

"Was it all really a dream, mother?" Harry's voice hitched slightly.

"No, my son. It was a gift," Jareth said, as his arms went around them.

"But no one remembers . . ." Harry looked up at his father.

"No. Only you, those Underground, and one other will remember."

0o0o0o0

In a dark, dank pit with only a dim light showing from an overhead grate sat a rigid figure.

In the dark silence, the sound of a key rattling in a lock filled the rigid form's ears. The creaking of rusty hinges followed the unlocking of a door. Soft candle light filled the once dim room and cast a warm glow over its occupants.

The figure, alive but still unmoving, laid on the bone covered ground.

"Sirius!"

A quick reviving spell and Harry and Sirius were reunited once more.

"Where, what? Huh?" The confused animagus muttered, looking around. "Where is she? Let me at her!"

"You fell through the Veil Sirius," Harry explained with a shaking voice, "don't you remember?"

"No damn it! Where in Merlin's name are we?"

"We're in a oubliette in the Labyrinth, Uncle Snuffles." The older man gasped as Garion captured him in a fierce hug. "Welcome back, Padfoot. Let's go home."

0o0o0o0

The time line is now full circle. What happens next is anyone's guess. Frau and I talked it over a long time ago. For those that pleaded for us not to kill Sirius, we never planned on it. Think about it.

The Veil was so poorly defined in canon that it left room for a lot of speculation. Like what if the Veil was a one way doorway to Underground? What if that door way was into an oubliette? A place where dreams and lives can be forgotten and unless the person was let out by Jareth's decree, their bones remain there forever.

Until next time. --GF and the Frau