The Morlock Underground.

Harry wrinkled his nose at the stench as he went down deeper and deeper into the caverns, and as he went down he took out his torch when the light from the entranceway from the sphinx died out and it became more necessary to use. The caves were both naturally formed and expanded, Harry could see the supports as he went down, holding the ceiling of the roof in a frame of metal to hold up the rocks, Harry walked into one or two of the chambers, and saw the size was to provide more space for whatever the creatures were. Harry thought about the skeleton he'd seen, the similarity to human physiology was uncanny, but it was like meeting a gorila or another form of ape evolded to become more and more human. Harry hadn't journeyed back into the past to witness humanity's own evolution, but he was sure there was something similar. It was just hard for him to believe that humanity would one day start to deevolve back into ape like creatures, but the fact it had been left in a cave opening was shocking enough, but they were clearly intelligent, Harry could see evidence of their intelligence as he journeyed further into the network under the ground; the remains of expanded caverns held up in a frame to stop cave ins, but were the creatures aware of what their own machines did, or did they simply inherit them? Harry wasn't sure. Harry wondered what sort of disaster would force humanity to start to dwell inside the caverns of the earth, but it made sense they did. The caves and caverns, and the bottom of the ocean provided great protection from disasters, and it wasn't hard to adapt to both environments in order to survive. It was only bad that the caves had to stink, the dank stench going through his nostrils, but the caves weren't moist at all; some sort of process had removed the water from the rocks, but Harry knew that even the tiniest moisture could provide water in massive quantities, no this was a different smell that made him recoil because it was so strong. The rock walls were covered in soot from the fire, and there was a stink of smoke. The residual smell of burnt flesh and a musky scent, which reminded Harry of a zoo or a farm went up his nostrils. After seeing those fangs and claws, fangs and claws that reminded Harry of the pictures of wild apes, Harry was taking no chances. Weasponless as he was, Harry was prepared for anything in these dank tunnels. They weren't as wet as he'd thought, and judging from how human the skeleton had appeared, Harry was willing to bet the creature he'd seen was a descendent of humanity. On his way down, Harry came across massive machines that had been destroyed in the fire. Finally, Harry arrived at a massive cavern that had two levels that lead downwards. The machines here had been burnt to rubble, and the walls of rock were sooty. As Harry explored the chamber, he found a smaller chamber with the remnants of thin drapes, but he could see what was inside the chamber.

Skeltons.

Bones.

Skulls.

There were human looking skeletons and bones littered inside the chamber, and there was even a hand in a bowl. Some of the bones looked like they'd been torn from the bodies. Harry took a breath as his mind thought about what he was seeing, and his mind turned back to the other skeletons, the one in the entrance of the sphinx, the fangs...Harry knew that wild animals, chimpanzees sprang to mind used hunting techniques and teamwork to slaughter monkeys and cornering them, then they would either take them down to the ground to be ripped apart and eaten, but the bones here looked like the flesh had simply been magicked off, not gnawed, and there weren't even traces of blood on any of the bones. They'd simply been left here. The fate of another group of humans. Harry examined the skeletons more closely. They looked human, but each one of them were smaller and more...childlike? Or young adult? Harry wasn't sure which, but the bones did look human

Harry swallowed, one answer coming to his mind, but since he didn't know anything about this future he couldn't make an assumption based on so little evidence. Harry walked inside the chamber, and examined some of the bones, and saw they'd been gnawed in some places, and the bones ripped clean from their bodies had in fact been sawn off, not ripped.

Harry walked through the chamber of bones, and when he entered an expanded cavern, he gasped with horror and astonishment. This massive and wide cavern was purely artificial with no obvious sign it was natural, it was like being inside a giant bell, with gunmetal grey metallic walls reaching up and up and curving to meet a globe in the centre of the ceiling. In the centre of the room was a round dais with a lever on the edge, Harry decided to investigate that in a moment when he'd examined the rest. Along the walls were metal benches, mounted on these benches were circular buzz saws, and restraints to hold down the bodies. Feet, arms, torso, chest, head...it was all held down by the bench. Harry examined the nearest one, running a hand on the tight leathery bounds. He saw the fatigue in them, and saw they were old and tough, but incredibly strong. Harry nodded, delighted that whoever had laid here last had tried to fight back, futile as that was in the outcome, but at least they didn't meet their death without trying to escape. Harry examined the metal, he could see the metal was carefully maintained. That made sense. What was the point of holding down a body you were intending to kill when they could escape because of carelessness? The bench was black with blood. Harry swallowed painfully, wondering idly how many unfortunates had laid here and been sawn in half. There were a number of other implements, cleavers and butcher knives, knives resembling broad swords even, and axes with massive heads. Each one of the weapons had blood on them. It was like walking into a slaughter house in the middle ages. Which is what it is, thought Harry in disgust, moving to the dais with the lever and pulled on it. A creaking sound echoed through the room, metal that sounded like it needed lubricating went right through Harry's bones, causing him to grimace. When he saw what was under the hatch cover, he felt sick. The walls were covered in blood and pieces of intestines and other organs. At the bottom, floating in a sea of blood was flesh, organs of various types, and pieces of meat. Some kind of storage area for the food, Harry imagined, then he decided to get away from here. He had no real wish to keep on exploring the sphinx. The smell was enough to put off even a hardened barbarian.

Coming out of the sphinx, and breathing in the fresh clean air Harry felt his stomach settle down. Walking almost unsteadily away from the white building, and heading in a totally different direction with no destination in mind, Harry enjoyed, or started to enjoy the bracing walk through nature. The foliage was thick, and the trees and leaves, the flowers...they looked so different to the plant life in Harry's time. Botany wasn't his field, but he was amazed by the sheer size and diversity of the garden. Fruit laden trees and bushes covered the landscape, and it looked like weeds had been kicked out by evolution. Harry had always found beauty in the overgrown, there was something unnatural about seeing trimmed hedges and neatly arranged flowers and trees. Harry sneered as he recalled only too well the way the people in Little Whinging used to compete with anyone with all sorts of garden rubbish. Harry smelt one or two flowers, enjoying their perfume, but also enjoying their cleansing scent of the way they got rid of the slaughterhouse stink, which still permeated in Harry's nose like a cloud hanging overhead.

Harry walked for a good distance, not sure where in old London he was. He was still in London, only time and time travel had changed the surrounding landscape into something almost unrecognisable. Harry knew that bits of London were still here, under the ground, churned by aeons of tectonic activity. Harry wouldn't be surprised if the underground hell he'd seen was connected, in some parts, to the old tube railways.

Finally Harry came across a small white building in an overgrown patch of land. It wasn't like a house, or even a cottage. Fort was probably the best word to describe it. The walls formed a cube that reached up 10, maybe 20 feet into the air, and the walls looked solid, seamless, like they'd come off on a factory line in one single piece. Harry ran a hand over its surface, and he was stunned when he felt a tingle in his fingers. Harry whipped back his hand in shock, literal. After getting hold of himself, Harry ran his fingers over the surfaceo of the wall again. Again, there was a tingle. The underground habitat had had machines that had cables, so electricity was known still in this time. Someone was here, that was the only explanation.

Harry craned his neck to look upwards, but he could see no sign of life. He knocked on the wall, and all he got for his troubles was a sore hand. " Ow," he hissed in pain, looking up again.

" Hello, can anyone hear me?" He called out, brushing his hand against the wall again. This time it felt like the wall was moving under his hand, Harry watched as the wall flashed with some kind of molecular palm reader built into the wall.

" Molecular?" He mused. In his home time, nanotechnology was being researched in various fields. Tiny robots joining together until they became a structure, that was possible, and it's advantages were numerous. Built atom by atom, a building could be as tall as the builders wanted, and there wouldn't be any threat at all to their lives, but it also had medical and space applications. Ships built with this technology could, in theory, be like they were grown like an embryo. Medical applications of nanotechnology could result in virtual cures for cancer, and genetic engineering could splice DNA into damaged cells. Harry looked at the wall, still flashing, in wonder. Was this place built with tiny robots?

A door opened in the side of the wall, or rather, the wall pulled itself back, peeling like an orange or a banana to reveal the fruit within. Harry stepped inside cautiously; these walls were probably stronger than either wood, metal or concrete. Whoever lived here was probably cautious and paranoid.

The inside of the building, compound, fortress, whatever you wanted to call it, was built like a manor house. Wooden floors and ancient looking drapes covered in weird runes and astronomical symbols adorned some of the walls that were transparent. How was that possible? Harry could see when he'd been outside there'd been no sign of windows or panels, so how did the person or persons living here see outside? Some kind of property built into the walls that made them transparent on one side, like a holographic wall?

There were other objects in the room which were kept inside cases made of glass; there was a broomstick, but it wasn't the sort of broomstick you picked up in a hardware store or a supermarket, this broomstick was sleeker, the wood was carved in an artistic rather than a working style. There were even footrests, like on a bike or a horse. There was a blank wall with nothing in front of it, no portraits, no books and no drapes.

There were books lining one of the walls, and Harry went over there and read the titles, " Herbology for beginners, Nasty curses to use against your enemies, Transfiguration for beginners, Arithmancy, sounds like arithmetic to me," Harry commented, reading off the titles in growing surprise at such unusual topics. He took one of the books off the shelves, running his index finger down the paper surface of the book, feeling its slipperiness.

Thinking the book had been printed in a century that had been more recent, Harry opened it up and found the printing date, where he found another shock. The book had been printed in the year 2002. Then Harry remembered, that war with the wizards. Could these be wizarding books? When he opened the book and read, he became more and more convinced. There were words like incantations, wand, spell, etc. This was a wizard book.

" The last wizards in the world," a wheezy voice said from behind him.

Harry swung round, angry that he'd let someone creep up behind him in a strange place. The speaker was a small, wizened old man using a cane. He was dressed in ancient robes of a faded dark blue, but they could've been purple in tone. His head was bald with only wispy white tuffs for hair, and he had a long beard.

" What do you mean, the last wizards?" Harry asked.

The old man looked at him in bewilderment. His eyes were a glassy blue, almost like he was wearing contact lenses that had somehow fogged up and become more and more opaque over the years.

" What do you mean, the last wizards?" The old man echoed, gesturing towards himself and at Harry. " You, me, us. We're wizards."

Harry shook his head, then he remembered the powers he'd possessed for years. His ability to levitate objects, his power of persuasion...could he be a wizard? What did that mean for his family, the family he never knew? What about the Dursleys, had they fucking well known about his heritage and denied him that?

Harry changed the subject, " How did you survive?"

Not the best question, but Harry couldn't think of anything else to say. Fortunately the old man didn't seem offended. He simply shrugged, and hobbling painfully over to a chair. Sitting down with a sigh, the old man gestured to another chair closest to Harry. " Well sit down."

Harry sat down.

The old wizard regarded his younger guest. How had another wizard survived the centuries alone? The majority of Humanity had exacuated the earth centuries ago, leaving only a small fraction when the resources of the planet became increasingly exhausted, finally losing the strength to support a race that took and took. The old man was surprised another had survived alongside the Morlocks and the Eloi. The old man grimaced as he thought about how Humanity had regressed; the Eloi into childlike beings, both in body and mind, bred and kept like cattle, fed drugs to keep them docile by the Morlocks so then they wouldn't question them.

The Morlocks, the savage ape like barbarians, a dead end living in the underground after the last global wars. The wizard had watched, safe and secure in his compound as the two races splintered, one living underground and the other on the surface, becoming less and less human.

" I will tell you how I survived, after you tell me how you survived," the wizard spoke at last, looking at Harry thoughtfully. Harry pushed some hair out of his eyes, thinking of the best way of answering that one. He could tell the wizard that he'd survived thanks to time travel, and that he'd side stepped oblivion that way, or he could bluff. If he did that then the wizard might see the bluff, saying that the place Harry had lived in was long since gone.

The problem with time travel was that when you reemerged in the same place but in different eras was the place had a different name. How was he supposed to know how much of Earth had survived? For all he knew, what he'd known as Africa or China was submerged.

Harry was about to respond to the wizard when he saw the look on the other's face. The wizard was staring at him in astonishment. " What?" Harry asked cautiously, ready to defend himself if the need arose.

" You're Harry Potter."

Harry jumped to his feet, no longer caring about being the consumate guest. " How do you know that?"

" Your scar," the wizard gaped. " A lightning bolt shaped scar. You're the Boy who lived, the defeater of the Dark Lord." Suddenly the wizard got a hold of himself, and he pulled out from under his robe a worn out stick Harry knew was a wand. Harry tensed, expecting the wizard to try something asinine. He needn't have worried, the wizard pointed the wand at the bookshelf. " Accio World Magical History book," the wizard croaked.

At once a book came floating over to the old man. It moved slowly, and Harry got the impression the slowness was due to the age of the man who cast the spell, and the age of the wand. Maybe wizards weren't susceptible to the ravages of old age as the legends about them said. The wizard opened the book slowly, and rifled through it muttering and murmuring as he did. After what seemed like an age, the wizard cried out in triumph, and showed Harry a page.

Harry took the book, and started to read.

It was compulsive reading, and Harry could see at once that most of the section was dedicated to him, even things he hadn't even done. Harry had to stop himself from throwing the book across the room. Harry found out that his parents were in fact alive, in his time, and they and their former headmaster had concocted a plan with which to deal with the Dark Lord known as Lord Voldemort. Harry snorted at the name, flight from death, moron. Harry read up on Lord Voldemort first, and found that the fool had had a childhood as bad as his was, in fact Harry noticed how similar it was, too similar. Recalling how the headmaster had made a plan to deal with Voldemort, Harry did some checking, and found that Albus Dumbledore, the wizard headmaster had taught both his parents, and Lord Voldemort, only both parties had been separated by decades.

What had Dumbledore been up to? Harry asked himself, reading further. He hadn't noticed that he'd sat down on the chair, and ignored the wizard. Focusing on the plan made by his parents, Harry felt rage swoop right through him. They'd survived that night, and they went into hiding, abandoning him to his fate, or abuse with the Dursleys. Apparently, they'd left with the knowledge of what they were doing. The plan was basic; the boy who lived thing was part of a fake prophecy to bring Lord Voldemort in as bait, with him as the bait that is, and they would either capture or kill Voldemort. Unfortunately the plan went wrong when the dark lord exploded, his spirit ripped from his body. Then Harry was carted off to the Dursleys, the plan hadn't changed, it had simply been altered with Harry providing the bait still.

The more Harry read about the magical history, his history, which was incredibly weird, the more he realised that if the magical world thought him this important then why hadn't he made contact with them? Maybe, he realised, he had. He did have a time machine, and he had access to other time travel machines. What if he de aged himself in his own future at an unknown date, and gone back in time and played the part of a wizard?

Harry saw from the book that he wasn't seen until he was 14 years old, but if you had access to genetic technology, or time travel, then you were virtually ageless. Harry could travel for years, and he could still de age himself. Apparently he would take part in something called the tri-wizard tournament, fighting against dragons, merpeople, and sphinxes. Apparently Voldemort returned in that year, returning to powers, and he, Harry, had managed to prove it. Harry, in the future year, skipped that part, he would arrive at that point anyway. The most interesting thing about the text was that although it didn't chronicle Harry's life, it did mention the existence of time travel in use, but the details were vague.

In fact Harry skipped a large majority of the text. If he didn't then he would be found consulting it, even though he was apathetic to a world that seemed so degenerate and stagnant. The news his parents had abandoned him made him angry, but Harry didn't read what happened to them, again because he didn't want his future to be dictated by a book in the possession of an old hasbeen.

Harry decided that the book had told him enough, so he sent it back to the wizard, who caught the hovering book with astonishment. " Wandless magic?" He said in awe. " How did you master it?"

Harry had questions of his own. " No, you answer my own questions. Earth is an empty world, with two subspecies of humans, one is cannibalistic, and the other one seems to me to be like cattle. How is it your the only person from the past to survive all these aeons? Even if wizards are reputed to be immortal, which I find hard to believe, then you would've needed help."

The old wizard got up unsteadily, and went towards the blank wall, and pressed his hand against it. " After all these centuries," he croaked, " I managed to get the hang of non magical technology."

The door slid back, revealing a large space where it seemed a mini laboratory had been built. Dominating the space was a massive booth that could contain a body with a control panel nearby.

" A cloning machine," the wizard said.

Harry looked deep into the wizards eyes.