The Master of Death

To The Forgotten Places

The train slowly ground to a halt by the edge of the forest. White snow covered everything in sight, but that did not hinder the train. It ran perfectly fine atop it, freezing the snow into tracks of ice beneath its weight.

"We're here, sir," His companion said. "Are you sure this is where we're supposed to be, though? There's no signal here."

Harry smiled at it.

"Of course there isn't," He said. "This is before the first ritual to contact us was made. There are no signals prior to that point in time, so we will operate under the assumption that the ritual wasn't created yet at this point in time. And who would create it besides us? What can you tell me about this time?"

"We're…" His fellow traveler squinted his eyes, as if staring at something. "In the early Mesolithic period, I believe. The Middle Stone Age, prior to recorded human history on this world. As you asked, we're in the area that will one day be called the British Isles. Are you certain this Queen Mab will be here?"

"No," Harry admitted freely. "But she was supposed to be at our next stop—and this is our next stop. She didn't tell me where this party would be held and I really don't have much to go on in finding it."

"…Um…" His other companion looked uncertain. "…Then why here, sir?"

He shrugged.

"The world is a large place, my friend, and finding someone in it is hard if you don't know where to look—picking out places at random isn't going to get us anywhere, especially if we try searching the Nevernever, too. If nothing else, I know that Shakespeare mentioned a Queen Mab in one of his plays and I know that the name Mab is an Irish, Gaelic, and Welsh name, so we'll try in this area first. And since I don't know where in the British Isles a Faerie Queen might live, we'll start with the place I consider most magical. If I can't track her down like that, then I have other ways of finding people."

"Okay, sir," His companions agreed. "I'm sure you'll be successful."

"Thank you," Harry said. "I'll place some wards around the train to keep anyone from noticing it, just in case."

The doors hissed open and Harry moved to the doorway, inhaling deeply. The chilled air of the younger Earth was as fresh as it could be, the forests and the fields still untouched by the hands of man.

…He couldn't say it was unpleasant, but he still preferred the cities, where he could see men and women bustling through their daily lives. Where people laughed and argued and smiled and enjoyed the comforts of their lives. He liked places that were full of people and the things they had created many times more than quiet, seemingly empty forests.

But then, most of the time he'd spent in the wilderness involved someone or something trying to kill him—and perhaps the same would be true of this one, before he was done. So maybe that had something to do with it, too.

He hesitated at the doorway, turning back as he remembered something.

"I'm sorry," He said. "I forgot to ask because of everything that has been happening, but that doesn't excuse my rudeness. I'm Harry Potter. May I ask your names?"

"Ah!" The one that had stayed beside him during the trip voice, his eyes widening. "I'm afraid I forgot as well, sir. It's a pleasure to met you, I'm—"

What followed consisted of thirty-seven syllables and consisted of several sounds he was not certain a human voice box could make. Writing it would have involved a large number of accent marks and hyphens and would have been annoying besides. His brother gave a similarly strange name.

Harry kept smiling and nodded once. He could speak mermish, so it was hard get to him with things that would be hard for normal people to pronounce; he'd won a bet with Hermione that had involved the chemical name of titin.

Even so, he had to ask.

"Is it okay if I come up with nicknames for you? I don't mean to offend you, but casual conversation will be a little bit difficult with those names."

"Yes, sir," The driver said. "It certainly is. Mother allowed our uncle to name us because of some sort of deal, I'm afraid, and he has a very unique sense of humor which revolves around not being funny."

"I know people like that," Harry said sympathetically. "I'll be back before long, if everything goes well."

With a nod farewell, he stepped off the train and down into the snow and moved to the edge of the forest.

In his world, this would have been the Forbidden Forest. That area beyond the train would have been where Hogwarts stood, given thousands of years. This place would have been one of the most magical places in the world.

But that was just his world. There was nothing to say this forest was anything but normal, here. Nothing even implied that anything but normal animals lurked within it.

And yet just looking at it made the hair on the back of his neck stand up. He didn't sense anything; it wasn't even an instinct. It was just that after over a hundred years of seeing this forest and having had to go into it many, many times…his mind couldn't even consider it to be normal, even if nothing said it wasn't.

But even if it made him wary, he wasn't afraid of it. He ventured into the Forest in his world many times, often alone, and made it through just fine.

So he pulled his cloak tightly around himself and ventured into it, off to look for faeries.

XxXXxX

Even after several minutes of walking, Harry hadn't seen or heard anything, which put him immediately on guard. In a forest like this, there should have been something making noise, whether birds, insects, or any number of animals.

"It's quiet," Harry said softly, smiling slightly in amusement. He didn't get to say cliché lines like these as often as one might think. "Too quiet."

If it was this silent in the middle of an untouched forest, there were really only a few explanations. It could actually be empty of all life, which brought up the question of 'why.' It could be that everything was hiding from something, in which case he had to wonder 'what.' Or, it could have been emptied by someone, meaning he'd have to wonder 'who.'

No matter which, he had to be on his guard.

It occurred to him, however, that if he hadn't picked up anything yet, then it might not be something a normal human's could sense.

He hummed to himself, half hoping the noise would draw something out.

It didn't, so he'd have to do this the hard way.

He looked at the snow feet and held an image in his head, gesturing with his wand. An area about two meters in length began to shift, as if something large and powerful was moving just beneath the surface. A skeleton of frosted ice lifted its way from the snow, rising to all fours, even as the snow began to twist its way up its limbs, forming powdery muscles before a smooth sheet of snow rose to cover it like skin. The snow was broken as course looking hairs began to cover every inch of the animated construct. The creature shook itself, and excess snow fell from its body as it did so, revealing brown and grey fur, born from the snow in the blink of an eye.

Yawned widely, the Silvertip Grizzly Bear turned to give its creator its attention. Fearless of his transfigured beast, Harry moved to its side and lifted himself up onto its back.

"Find me something," Harry said. "Living or dead, it doesn't matter."

The bear shifted beneath him, sneezed once, and began to sniff the ground and the air. Harry knew that if there was anything to be found, this bear would find it. With a sense of smell seven times stronger than a Bloodhound, it could smell a corpse from nearly thirty kilometers away and track down things in the same range.

Plus, it gave him a chance to ride a bear, which was always nice.

Apparently finding something, his bear shifted again before taking off at a reasonable pace into the woods. Its massive weight crunched against the snow in a steady rhythm until Harry silenced them with a Charm. As they moved through the forest, Harry looked around casually, quietly making himself aware of where everything was. He wasn't really looking for anything, trusting his rides nose above his own eyes—it was just an ingrained habit.

And yet, it did accomplish one thing. Even as they continued through the forest, they didn't come across any type of fauna. Even if things were hiding, he had a hard time believing that nothing would have appeared by now.

Without a doubt, something had removed everything from the area. It could be some type of ward that convinced all animal life to avoid the area.

Or it could be that someone exterminated them all.

He had no way of knowing until he found something.

And as the forest gave way to lakeside, he did. He wasn't completely sure what it was that he'd found, but it was definitely something.

A group of unconscious looking animals were being boarded onto a strange ship that looked like a giant sea shell by a quartet of even stranger looking 'men.' One had one leg, one arm, and one eye, and another looked like a man with the head of a goat. The other two, however, could have almost passed for exceptionally tall and handsome men, if ones with strangely colored hair. Not one of them was below seven feet of height and the tallest, the goat headed man, stood at a towering fifteen feet and was muscled like a body builder on steroids and carried a red deer under each arm.

As he came into sight, the four of them turned towards him and his bear, glancing at him in surprise for a moment before frowning in consideration. The Goat man and the one with a single arm and leg turned towards their human like companions and spoke in a language that Harry didn't understand.

Harry couldn't keep himself from frowning slightly. It had been a long time since he hadn't understood what people were saying around him. When the four of them turned back towards him and examined him and his bear, like he was a pet they were considering buying, it did nothing to help his discomfort.

The shortest man, a guy with black hair and eyes that were grey in both the iris and the sclera, said something back and the goat man put down his deer, slowly rubbing his hands together. He cracked his knuckles and then his neck and Harry raised an eyebrow.

He supposed that if this was the Mesolithic period, it wasn't a cliché yet, but he still silently labeled the man as the Muscle.

The Goat said something him that Harry didn't understand, approaching.

Harry looked at him flatly, tapping his bear with his wand. The Bear lifted itself onto its hind legs, letting Harry slide off its back. Its musculature shifted, becoming more humanoid, even as it began to grow, swelling to match the goat in size, and then to surpass it, baring its teeth at the goat as Harry slipped out from behind its leg and raised an eyebrow.

"Are you certain that's wise?" He asked, even knowing they wouldn't understand him.

The Goat looked uncertain, but the grey eyed man just laughed and said something Harry assumed to be insulting, because the Goat's face twisted in ugly, goat rage.

It drew back its fist, readying it to punch at the bear's face in a sharp jab, but Harry had already seen it coming and had ordered his creation to respond.

A moment before it could throw its punch, the Bear's fist connected with the Goat's face.

Not waiting around for someone to realize that he was the one in charge, Harry immediately took to the air. The strange creature that somehow managed to move agilely on one leg immediately moved to join his companion against the Bear.

The other two, however, never took their eyes off of Harry. In fact, they were conversing enthusiastically about him…or at least he thought so. They were speaking as they pointed at him and watched what he did.

Harry paused for a moment, reevaluating the situation. All the animals were unconscious, but otherwise seemed largely unharmed. And the two giants were trying to restrain his bear, rather than kill it.

Why would they go through all that trouble, though, instead of just hunting them for food?

Because they weren't after food, of course—or not just food, at least. They wanted them for other reasons; livestock, maybe, though that wouldn't explain why they had captured the beavers, mice, voles, rabbits, or most of the animals they captured, really. No, that didn't hold up.

Pets, maybe? He didn't think most people kept deer and wildcats as pets, but he'd seen weirder things.

But unless there was a really high demand for pets, he couldn't see a need for all of these animals.

None of the explanations he could think of made sense with this many different species of animals, especially if it somehow required that all of them be alive.

And also…where they eyeing him like he was livestock?

Harry frowned down at the pair of man-like giants.

He could sit up here all day, but that wouldn't answer his questions. Of course, trying to talk to people who only spoke a language he didn't understand probably wouldn't get him very far either.

On the other hand, they were boarding those animals onto that ship, so it stood to reason that they were going to take them somewhere. Probably even somewhere he could get answers.

He could work with that.

He glanced towards his bear, still standing tall under his Human-Shape Charm. Against two opponents, it was having some trouble; the two giants were even stronger than their sizes implied, it seemed.

No matter.

He flicked his wand towards his creation, drawing on a spell he'd learned when he'd been preparing for the First Task, all those years ago. Under the effects of the Pepper Breath Charm, the bear exhaled a burst of fire, making his opponents stumble back in sudden, unexpected pain.

In the seconds their pain bought him, Harry continued his work on the bear. Its claws lengthened and sharpened, becoming something more akin to wicked blades then natural growths, even as plates of glimmering armor formed around its body.

Roaring once, it leapt at the goat man in a sudden fury, lashing at its opponent's sides in an apparently uncontrolled assault—and yet none of its blows struck either of them anywhere that might be lethal. It drew its claws across their arms and chests, leaving painful cuts, but they were nothing but surface wounds, meant to drive back and intimidate.

The two larger giants drew back several steps after a few such wounds, wary, but the transfigured bear merely pressed forward, causing them to give ground and slowly but surely pushing them back towards the ship where they would hopefully cut their losses and try to make their escape.

And then a blob of some green substance flew through the air and impacted with the Bear's face. In the course of several seconds, it completely dissolved its snout and had devoured the flesh from the rest of its head.

The grey-eyed man snorted and said something to the two thug-like giants, which Harry guess to be another insult of some sort. He'd apparently decided the bear was more trouble than it was worth, but had turned his eyes to look up at Harry with a strange, discomforting gleam in his eyes.

He looked at the remains of his bear, a bit put-out.

"I was beginning to get attached to that bear," He said, more to himself then to anyone else. "I was going to give it wings and turn it strange colors just because; if my grand-daughters were here, they would have loved."

He sighed as he Apparated down to the ground, dodging the…actually, he wasn't sure what the other human-like giant had thrown at him. Some strange looking multicolored ball.

"Oh, well," He said, sweeping his wand in a wide arc. Immediately, the unconscious animals, placed haphazardly on the ground, began to stir, waking. "I am a Gryffindor…"

He twisted his wand once with deliberate slowness, and as one the larger animals began to change.

"…So I suppose this is more fitting anyway, huh?"

Shaking themselves from the last remnants of their slumber, the pride of lions rose to their feet—and growled as they laid eyes on their captors.

Harry tilted his head slightly, looking at the two leaders. He kept his wand up, ready to attack or Apperate as needed.

"I think maybe you should leave, Gentlemen," He said, knowing they probably just thought he was speaking gibberish.

The taller of the two leaders growled and moved to step forward, his hands starting to glow a sickly green. The lion nearest him began to swell in size, but rather then look afraid, he lifted his hand towards it without even looking and Harry had a feeling he knew where the acid that had killed his bear had come from.

But the other leader just laughed. Harry pursued his lips and looked at him intently, knowing from experience that people that could be that relaxed while surrounded by things that could kill them were one of two things; dangerously insane or insanely dangerous.

The other giant hesitated in blowing off his lion's face, but didn't lower his hand. Instead, the giant slowly turned his body and took a few steps back so that he could look at Harry, the lion, and his fellow giant at the same time. Harry mentally filed him away as being quick to anger, but not stupid. The two strange looking giants he kept under Thugs, though.

The grey-eyed giant said something to his partner, mirth in his voice. The other giant straightened immediately, his expression shocked and outraged, rambling of a quick stream of upset words, only to fall silent as the short giant said something in a dangerously calm voice. Sure now that he was the leader, Harry continued to watch the smallest giant warily, tensing as the man lifted a hand.

And then blinked in surprise when the giant just waved, smiled at him slightly, and said something that made Harry wish he knew the language they were speaking. With the other three, he could at least tell roughly what they were feeling when the talked or reacted to the grey-eyed man's words, be it anger, fear, or wariness, but their leader just kept that calm, amused expression he'd had since he'd started watching Harry.

Was he being threatened, insulted, praised, or what? He couldn't tell at all and he didn't like it.

He was in the middle of contemplating whether or not he should risk using Legilimancy on something that may well have had a mind very different from that of a human's when the man turned around and walked back into his ship, quickly followed by the others, though they kept a wary eye on the lions. The doors of the ship closed and after a long, silent moment, it suddenly jerked into motion, detaching from the shore.

He slowly exhaled, nodding to himself. It appeared that wouldn't be necessary quite yet.

He waited for several seconds, not sure if they were watching him or not, before undoing his transfigurations, returning the animals to their normal state.

"Go on now," He said, hardly paying them attention except to make sure none of them attacked him as he quickly moved to the edge of the water, where the boat had rested moments before. He gestured at them as several watched him wary, trying to decide what to do, and ordered them sharply. "Go back to doing…whatever you normally do."

He crouched by the shore, narrowing his eyes at the retreating boat. Without a doubt, it wasn't just moving away from the edge of the lake.

It was sinking into the water.

Where ever it was going was underneath the surface.

"Interesting." He mused, rising and striding forward into the water. He moved his wand to tap it against his forehead as he walked, slowly dragging it down his nose to his chin, all the way down the length of his throat, before pulling it down the front of his clothes like it was a zipper. His glasses turned into a large pair of goggles, while his clothes turned into a wetsuit that covered everything below the gills that had formed on his neck. He transfigured his shoes into flippers, spelled his wand, cloak, and hair to be waterproof, and slid beneath the waves to follow the ship.

And then, having had his fun, he charmed his flippers to do all the actually work for him, and speed up his pursuit.

He didn't see any windows, which may or may not have meant there actually weren't any there, but he stayed a few meters behind the ship just in case. He scanned the bottom of the lake, trying to figure out where they were going, but he didn't see anything…

Until a gate to the Nevernever began to open at the bottom of the ship.

Eyes widening, he willed his flippers to move faster, closing the distance to cling to the side of the ship as it passed through the gateway.

Looking around quickly, he found that he was still underwater, but obviously much, much deeper down. It was too far beneath the surface to see the light, and he tightened his grip around his wand, ready to cast a spell to counter the water pressure, only to find there wasn't any.

Instead he cast a spell to allow him to see in the dark and just as quickly wished he hadn't. There were things shifting in the depths, twisted, ugly looking things. They looked like twisted versions of normal creatures, but not just fish. There was some kind of featherless agonizing bird-fish hybrid swimming a short distance away and a warped deer and some kind of furless wrinkled cat thing.

They were all hideous and Harry couldn't help but think he knew what they were gathering animals for.

Luckily, they all avoided the ship and he appeared to be safe so long as he clung to it. Even so, he drew his cloak around himself protectively, hiding himself from sight, casting a sticking charm to hold himself in place. Then, not seeing anything else to do, he quietly sat there on the side of the ship, waiting for something to happen as piteous creatures swam all around him.

Fifteen minutes later, just as he was getting bored, the ship began to stop. Waiting several beats, he cancelled his Sticking Charm and peaked around the edge of the boat, only to see someone coming towards him. Ducking back around the ship, he readied his wand in case he'd been noticed—but the man, another giant, though one with two fish tails instead of legs didn't even look at him. He glanced around the ship, probably to make sure they weren't being followed, and continued his circuit around the boat.

He heard two people speaking out of sight and they began to move again. Only then did he see what the holdup had been about, as they passed through some kind of gate. Minutes later, after they'd left the gate far behind, he figured it was safe, and began to crawl up the side of the ship to see where they were.

It wasn't what he had been expecting.

There was a field of towers beneath the sea. Towers made of what looked like gold and silver and glass, all manner of beautiful things, carefully put together in a way that somehow looked like it had grown into existence naturally. Something lit up the city, sending light gleaming across a thousand polished surfaces. The ship swam through the city among dozens or hundreds of other crafts of various sizes, heading towards one of the larger buildings at the center of the beautiful place.

He glanced around, mentally noting places that seemed big and important, before deciding to start where these hunters were heading, wanting to know what they did with their prey. As they parked beside a building that was largely silver and someone opened the doors to welcome his 'drivers' back, he detached from the ship and swam inside before the doors closed. Surprisingly, inside it was quite dry, with the water staying outside even when the doors were open.

Casting a spell to dry himself and remove the water he'd left on the floor, as well as turn his flippers back into shoes and removing his gills, he quickly hurried through the tower, finding an empty room and ducking into it.

Well, Harry thought, I'm here. Time to start investigating.

He tapped his wand to his wetsuit and did what he'd been waiting to do since he'd first created it.

He pulled down the zipper he'd created, slid out of it, and revealed his crisp white tuxedo.

"I'm just getting started and I already feel like James Bond," He smiled. "So far, so good."

Making sure his invisibility cloak covered him completely, he vanished the wetsuit and snuck back into the hall.

For a magical silver tower under the sea, it was…unremarkable. The hallway was a normal hallway, without any decorations of any kind. The walls were smooth and flat, without any windows of any kind. The ceiling was high, but everyone that lived there was a giant, so it made sense. He tried another door and found that it was unlocked, too.

He took a glance into all the different rooms, just in case someone was stupid enough to leave anything incriminating unguarded. Most of the doors were unlocked, though, and held nothing of particular interest. He shifted through what he guessed was a living room, several bedrooms, a large room that's outer wall was completely see through, several rooms that didn't appear to have any specific purpose, and a kitchen. While he was in the kitchen, he shifted through the stores of food. He knew from experience that you could tell a lot about someone by what they ate.

But he didn't find any bags full of blood or human body parts—or not any he immediately recognized as such, at least. There were meats being stored, using the coldness of the ocean depths as a pseudo-refrigerator. But he also found lots of fish, with some fruits and vegetables here and there.

One thing he did notice was that there was a lot of food. Far, far more then would be needed to feed the five Giants, unless they had to eat their own weight every day or something. While possible, he was experienced enough to assume the more troublesome possibility.

If they need this much food, then it was probably because they had a lot of mouths to feed.

Leaving the kitchen, he looked for a way up the tower, finding it in a room that was cut off by a circular column of water that entered through the ceiling and disappeared through the floor, yet not getting anything outside its boundaries wet. Pursing his lips, he chose to just use a Bubblehead Charm and spell his clothes to stay dry this time, before passing through the surface of the water.

And then he paused, looking up and then down. Indeed, the water led both up and down, but where was he more likely to find something?

Probably the basement, he thought, and if not, he could just try one of the upper floors. He didn't have the slightest clue how they turned those animals into those things outside, but it would require a lot of room just to store all of them. He wasn't sure a single floor would be large enough and he'd seen the tower from the outside, so he knew it didn't get any bigger further up. That in mind, he swam down to the basement.

Or rather, the first basement. After he went down a floor, he found that the column went even further down, but he decided to check out the first basement first. Naturally, the door was locked, but a quick spell fixed that and he entered to find…pretty much exactly what he'd expected too. Hundreds of small creatures in bubble-like cages lined the walls from floor to ceiling. Harry noticed that he couldn't see any of the larger animals here, just small creatures like rabbits, birds, and rodents.

In that case, he had a good idea what was on the lower levels.

The animals began to make noise as soon as they saw him and their fear was obvious. Harry was reminded of the animal and magical creature abuse cases he'd sometimes worked, but only the really extreme ones made it to the Aurors or the ones involving really dangerous creatures. Still, he made a note to come back for them after he finished investigating, before leaving the room and travelling further down the tower.

While all the small creatures had fit into one floor, the larger ones had required much more space. The next two floors had been needed to house larger creatures and the truly large animals like horses, deer, and what he thought might have been some kind of tigers had needed at least another two—he didn't know yet, because there were still more basements to examine.

Harry shook his head as he travelled even deeper down. In his world, the Department for the Regulation and Control of Magical Creatures would have had a field day with all the laws broken here, but he honestly wasn't sure what to do. He couldn't really put them in prison without, well, a prison or Justice System to support him, and things were further complicated by the fact that the entire city seemed to, if not support this act, at least tolerate it with full knowledge of it. He'd already decided to save the animals, though he was still working out how to do so, but that wouldn't really stop the main problem—they could just get more animals. He wasn't really sure what to do in this case; he couldn't kill an entire city over this, even if it did disgust him, but he couldn't in good conscious let this continue, either.

He decided to finish investigating before making any decisions and unlocked the door of the sixth basement level, and was again greeted by a series of frightened cries. But this time, they sounded different.

This time they sounded human.

Harry stopped for a moment, blinking twice. Then he marched into the room, frowning severely.

Of course they sounded human; they'd come from humans. The sixth level, like all the others, was full of bubble cages, but each of them held a person. Age and gender didn't seem to make a difference—there were old people and children, men and women. Each was trapped in their own little cage and each trembled in fear.

Taking a deep breath, he tried to go over the situation calmly. This had just upgraded from mass animal abduction and abuse to mass human kidnapping, experimentation, and possibly slavery.

On one hand, that made things even more complicated.

On the other, it made them a lot simpler, too.

As an Auror, the protection of innocent people was his first priority.

Even if it meant going to extreme lengths to do so.