"In solitude, the mind gains strength and learns to lean upon itself." ~ Laurence Sterne
The Den
When Daphne stepped out of the veil, she was taken aback by the dramatic change in sight and sound. Loud thumping music and a deep bass blew away her senses for a minute and it took her a few seconds to take stock of her surroundings.
The flashing lights made it hard to see much and a mass of dancing bodies crowded her eyes.
"This way!" Draco shouted in her ears, leading her away from the dance floor towards another door that was lit green.
The moment they crossed the threshold of the door, the noise died down and changed to milder jazz and the environment more conducive for conversation.
Daphne took in the royal decor, blood-red recliners interspaced around golden round tables; a gleaming white bar counter with bronze high chairs; satin black curtains covering the walls and windows.
It all felt extremely luxurious.
Her eyes searched the floor above which seemed to be cloaked with a spell. She couldn't make anything out but the blur of bodies moving around. Nor could she see any stairs leading up.
"Okay," Draco muttered. "You hang around, spend some money and gather whatever info you want and try not to become vampire fodder. I'm gonna find some pockets to pick in the club." 'And snort some lines' he added in his mind with a chuckle.
Daphne gave him a look and Draco just shrugged with a grin and disappeared through the veil. She rolled her eyes and decided to head to the bar. She felt the need for a drink.
She glanced around as she walked, observing the conversing crowd wondering which were human and which vampire, but she couldn't make out. They were all well dressed, men and women alike, looking to be in the prime of health and full of wealth.
She took a seat at the bar and a stunning slender woman dressed in skin-tight leather pants coupled with a loosely tucked in white shirt walked over to her. She had black hair cropped neatly till her shoulders with a fringe kissing the eyelids of her dark eyes.
Her full lips, shaded dark with red made Daphne's heart skip a beat and she instinctively knew she was facing a vampire. Her beauty was unnatural.
"The name's Valerie. What's your poison?" She had a musical Italian accent.
Gorgeous. Daphne thought and after a moment, in which the vampire knew the human was gathering her wits, "Wine," Daphne replied breathily.
"Only the best for a pretty one like you," Valarie replied with a grin, revealing a sharp canine.
A few hundred yards away, Harry strolled down the pathway. The sand hardened by constant movement. He pulled a joint and lit it with the tip of his finger, took a deep drag and exhaled with a content sigh. "Potent," he muttered, feeling a wave of relaxation penetrate the cloud within his mind in a few seconds.
A building lit with faint lanterns came into sight with a wooden signboard that read 'The Den' swaying gently in the light breeze.
It was the magic that was bursting out of the building that caught Harry's attention. Layers of protection wards covered the building, and all with a simple core… which was to Trap. He could also sense the same magic he felt when he woke up in the streets.
Harry began to feel excited. It was going to be his first encounter with vampires. He tossed aside the spliff, drew up his hood and entered the Den.
Daphne was enjoying her wine. She was tapping her toes to the tune of the light music and was on her second glass, feeling a high build-up in her like a slow tide. She was content in observing the activities of the vampires and humans of the bar for the moment, learning all that she could before deciding to quiz Valerie about Bellatrix and Harry.
She observed Valerie converse softly with another vampire near the back door leading to the kitchen she imagined when, from the corner of her eye, she noticed a figure, wearing a black cloak with the hood drawn up, take a seat at the other end of the bar. Her sixth sense was warning her someone dangerous had entered the pub.
It seemed Valerie and the other vampire had noticed too because they stopped talking and turned their gaze on the stranger. Daphne noticed their expression turn to incredulous for a brief second and then masked under the glamour of subtle seduction.
Harry was impressed. The runes of the wards were beautifully drawn. He had never seen such finesse before and it surprised him that calligraphy might matter to increase the power of a rune.
On top of the impressive rune structures which were meant to trap a visitor, there were subtle runes carved into the furniture to relax the occupants of the room, to let their guard down.
He spotted the gleaming white bar counter as soon as he walked in and took a moment to appreciate the interiors, particularly the blood-red recliners. They stood out on the mahogany wooden floor. The music too, was gentle, soothing, vibrating with orange.
He took a seat at the far corner of the bar counter and grinned, his face hidden by the hood. 'So this is the vampire's Den,' he mused in his mind. 'I have to admit it has a great Vibe. I feel rejuvenated."
He glanced around the room, and now that he was in the presence of vampires, he could make out a distinction between them and humans. There was a distinct absence of green. Instead, the red in them burned with hungry desire. He spotted at least five of them around the room.
He raised his hand to call the bartender. It was a woman, a vampire whose orange radiated brightest. The wave he felt was almost as powerful as that of the succubi but this time he was able to control the urge with relative ease.
She walked over to him and leaned over the table with a sultry smile. "Hello, Stranger," she said with a heavy Italian accent. "Welcome to the Den. What can I serve you?"
Harry's eye was drawn to her cleavage and then rose to meet her dark eyes. "Something to eat," he replied softly.
"Any preferences?" she asked. "We have the best of everything."
"Meat," Harry said after a moment's pause. "Medium rare and cut up into tiny pieces."
"And a drink?"
Harry glanced at the fancy bottles gleaming in the backlit shelves. "Something cold," Harry replied.
"Be right back," she said with a deft drumroll with her knuckles on the counter and retreated towards the backdoor.
Harry chuckled. And then with his body gently vibing with the subtle bass in the house, he looked around the bar from the obscured top to the dimly lit far corners, to the woman at the other end of the bar table.
Daphne watched him interact with Valerie and then glance around the room before his gaze stopped on her and had the subtlest twitch of surprise.
Something deeply familiar started to build up from the bottom of her memories. Her heart froze and her body went cold for a brief moment. 'It couldn't be,' she thought. 'She did the biological math and the size of the hooded figure seemed to logically be a match.'
Quantum seconds ticked past in her mind as they were both noticed looking at each other intently.
She noticed a golden spark in the shadow of the cloak right before his arms rose to pull down the hood.
He was much older than the last she saw him. Messy black hair pushed back in an attempt to be tame resting on his angular face. The eye patch he wore was a shock and seemed to be covering some major damage. A new scar ran across his matured face, so different and yet familiar, making the lightning bolt one seem insignificant. His green eye was as piercing as she remembered. A small smile began to play on his lips and it was the same infuriating grin that annoyed her back when they were in Hogwarts.
Her eye was drawn to the single gloved hand and wondered what story lay behind it and if it was connected to his badass scar.
It was him. She had set out with the goal of finding him and there he was. Nonchalantly examining her, knowing that she had recognised him too.
A smile began to tug her and her heart began to pump harder, triggering a rush of adrenaline, preparing her for the unknown. If he expected her to make the first move, he was mistaken.
She turned away and sipped her wine instead, waiting in anticipation.
Her hair was blonde, tied back elegantly with a hair stick which Harry could discern was her wand, enchanted. She was slim, seeming to be in her late teens with delicate features. Her eyes were blue, sort of cat-like and alert. She was wearing grey pants, a white top ending just above her waist, teasing a bit of skin, over which she wore a black leather jacket zipped up halfway below the swell of her bosom. As he took in her appearance, he noticed her pants had the rune of strength drawn into it and her jacket pockets enchanted with pocket dimensions, full of tools no doubt.
She had an air of confidence and no-nonsense about her and her style complimented her attitude.
He saw the intelligence churning behind those eyes and recognition began to colour her. He was surprised. How could she have known it was him?
Not wanting the first thing she saw to be his mangled eye and missing arm, while she looked like the epitome of class. Harry summoned the void and conjured a black eye patch and from the stump below his elbow created an arm made of wood enchanted to mimic the texture and responses of an organic one, operated by runes linked to the neurons in his mind. He added a black glove to make it seem normal.
He then raised his arms to pull down his hood and a small smile played at the edges of his lips when he saw her eyes widen as her suspicion was confirmed.
But instead of reacting with open surprise or rage, she turned back to the table and sipped on her wine, a grin tugging the corner of her lips.
Harry grinned, the excitement in him growing. 'If she wants to play it that way.'
On the second floor, Valerie navigated around the bewitched men and women who were being played with by her coven in varying degrees of undress and headed straight to the balcony towards Drake, the leader of their coven.
He was leaning on the railing, whiskey in hand and talking to one of the leaders of the Elysium, Alastor Moody.
Drake was a tall dark vampire sharply dressed in a white suit with a hat to top it off. He had been the leader of their coven for over three hundred years until misfortune had befallen them leading them to be caught in a trap by the British Department of Mysteries to getting locked up and pumped for information.
He saw Valerie coming towards him and smiled. "I see him too Val," he said, his voice deep and brimming with wicked intent.
Valerie glanced at Moody who was expressionless and wondered why he was here.
"Alastor is here to invite us to a summit," Drake explained. "They have a proposal for us but are unwilling to leave the safety of their sanctum."
"And you expect us to leave ours?" Valerie asked with an arched eyebrow.
"We have what you want," Alastor said gruffly. "However, the power required to safely navigate through it requires more skilled hands and we want to offer you the chance to join hands with us. Tom invites you to discuss terms under our roof if you ever want to leave this accursed land."
Valerie glanced down towards the bar at the hooded figure and then at Drake. They sensed the immense power radiating from the figure. His blood would give them the boost they needed to break down the wards of the Elysium and storm the place.
She chuckled. "My dear Alastor, you underestimate us. It would be in your best interest to give us free access, without your posse, else you face certain destruction."
Moody followed her gaze to the bar, sparing a glance towards Daphne and his upgraded magical eye lingered on the hooded figure before widening in shock as he saw an arm being conjured with a skill that was beyond anything he had ever seen.
The hood was dropped and he felt light-headed. It wasn't hard to make out that lightning bolt scar eclipsed by the bigger one on the right. It was Harry fucking Potter.
"You recognise him, Alastor?" Drake asked suspiciously.
Alastor turned towards Drake, his expression rippling into unreadable.
"Not him. Just her," he said with a nod towards Daphne. "She's one of ours so she's off-limits."
Drake frowned. The woman was strong but nowhere near what he was feeling from the man. Alastor was deflecting but the fact that he hadn't laid claim intrigued him a lot. He turned towards Valerie and spoke through their blood bond.
'Intoxicate him subtly,' he said and turned back to Alastor.
Valerie turned and left. She was feeling giddy with the thought of drinking that man's blood.
"Coming back to our topic of discussion," Drake continued. "We agree to your terms."
Alastor was surprised. Drake had changed tune remarkably fast and the only thing that had changed was the shocking presence of The Disaster. The most wanted wizard in the post-apocalyptic world. He had to get out of here and report to Tom. "We'll send you a courier."
They nodded to each other to conclude their meeting.
Alastor swiftly moved towards the stair leading back to the club. Everything had changed and the time for the high council to accelerate their plans had come.
Back in the Cave, Hermione, Tom and Flitwick were busy drawing runes on parchment and organising them into structures that would allow them to access the stream without risk of disintegration.
Tom had conjured a massive table for them to work on while they worked on deciphering the runes that Tom was revealing in the stream that had blown her mind when she first saw what it could do.
It was best described as a river made purely of white light flecked with gold that was zipping around the river like subatomic particles, moving at an incredible speed through the cave and disappearing into the darkness beyond the walls. Small white threads kept leaking out of the river and seeped into the rocky bed around, presumably making their way to the surface for what purpose no one knew.
Tom theorised this was the heart of the curse above and they had been experimenting by throwing animate and inanimate objects into the river.
Hermione had tossed a loose rock into the stream and watching in disbelief as it hung immobile and began to vibrate before breaking into thin ribbons that reformed into runes before disintegrating.
Tom then took the arm of a dead goblin from a nearby stockpile of dead goblins and tossed it in. Hermione watched in shock as runes began to form around the arm and time began to unravel as a goblin grew out of the arm. She watched in further disbelief as the goblin's eye opened and it awoke, confused.
It saw them and rage began to express itself moments before it instantly disintegrated into nothingness.
"What the fuck!" she exclaimed.
Tom grinned. "This river leads somewhere and I believe if we can understand how to safely navigate through it, we can reach the source of this curse and reverse everything that has happened.
Hermione's heart began to beat faster.
"Clearly it has the power to control time and space," he continued. "It has demonstrated the ability to reverse death, albeit we haven't figured out if it's an illusion or real."
Hope began to rise in her against her will.
Tom raised his wand and whispered a spell.
Silver light began to string out of his wand and wrap around the river revealing the runes that made up the river and disappeared when the spell ended.
"We need to decipher the runes enough to create a vessel we can use to travel through the river," Flitwick said.
Hermione closed her eyes and shook her head clear.
"Well what are we waiting for?" she said with a broad smile.
Oblivious to the wheels he had set in motion, Harry got up from his seat and took the seat next to her.
The sounds of The Den faded away and Harry became very aware of her presence next to him. "It's been a while hasn't it."
Her breath paused for a moment and then she swivelled towards him and suppressed the urge to grab his neck and strangle him. "It's been a while?" she mocked sarcastically. "You've gone and made a good mess of everything haven't you?"
Harry laughed. "I suppose that's accurate."
Daphne picked her glass and emptied the contents in one shot. "What happened to your face?" she asked. "Karma?"
"Ran into a Dragon."
"Nice. Pity, it didn't take your head as well."
"There wasn't any lack of trying."
The backdoor opened and Valerie came through with a minced meat platter in one hand and a glass made out of intricately cut crystal with golden liquid sloshing inside in the other.
"On the house," she said with a wink and placed it in front of him.
"And I need another," Daphne said, raising her empty glass.
Valerie smiled. "Coming right up."
"You seem more sound of mind than the last time I saw you."
"I am."
Harry took a sip of the drink and sighed in pleasure when he felt a smooth warmth rise from the back of his throat and engulf his mind.
Daphne eyed him top to bottom, appreciating the sturdy tree he had become. He was as handsome as ever in spite of the impressive scars on him.
Valerie returned with the bottle and refilled her glass.
"What are you doing here Harry?"
"Following clues," he replied cryptically.
Daphne rolled her eyes. She remembered how annoyingly one-sided their conversations used to be and an ember of anger was sparked in her. "Clues leading to what exactly?"
"The road to Atlantis."
"Atlantis? The lost continent?"
"Yep."
"Are you going to explain further without me prompting or are you going to continue speaking in monosyllables?" Daphne sniped. "You do realise I'm waiting for an explanation for why you did what you did right?"
Daphne sighed with self-disappointment in her mind. She had told herself to keep the anger away. But seeing his face, feeling the bubble of emotions long buried, she couldn't hold it in.
Harry looked at her, assessing the changes in her aura. Most people felt anger, rage, resentment, fear towards him. He saw it in their soul. But in Daphne, all he saw was betrayal bubbling to the surface.
He felt emotion in him that felt suspiciously like guilt. Why did he feel guilty?
Daphne saw a flicker of emotion ripple across his face and suddenly the mood shifted from confrontational to … something else.
"An explanation for what I did…" Harry pondered deeply. He had never really spoken about it in depth with another person. He had always kept his own counsel. But after the Badlands, with his green vibrantly active, he suddenly felt at ease with Daphne for company to tell his story.
"I was just surviving," he said. "Everything else… it's just a product of my rage… Now, I'm as much a prisoner as the rest of you… looking for a way out."
It was Daphne's turn to look deeply into his eye. She then turned to her glass and gulped the contents again and signalled to Valerie for a refill. Harry raised his glass to her and did the same. He had a feeling he was going to need a lot more.
"You seem saner than before."
Harry chuckled and bit into the pork cubes. "The desert," he said softly. "It makes you confront your inner self and evolve. I guess you could say I've evolved. I've always been sane."
Daphne scoffed. "Please Harry. If there was an exhibit for the insane, you'd have been the main exhibit."
Harry laughed. "Perhaps," he mused.
"So tell me, what happened to you after the trial?" Daphne asked.
Valerie returned with fresh glasses, winked at Harry with a knowing expression and left.
Harry took a generous sip of his drink, swirled it in his mouth, savouring the chilled flavour, feeling the burn push his thoughts into overdrive.
"So much," he said, breathing out softly. He paused for a minute and the memory of the dementors came to the fore being the catalyst for everything.
"I never intended on creating this curse. "I remember now, the drama of the trail, so many schemes vying for power. All I ever wanted was ... to follow my own path I guess. Instead of the one, everyone else wanted to lay down for me."
Daphne was rapture with attention.
"Everything was fine until the dementors appeared and began to feed on the memory of Voldemort attacking my home… and I ... felt what I felt then. That coupled with the would-be puppet masters around me, trying to control me… I tapped into an ancient form of energy and my rage did the rest.
After that, I was just a slave to the beauty of the desert. I lost myself and.." Harry chuckled, remembering the madness that had engulfed him. "I became a monster." Memories of the muggle survivors & Rita Skeeter flashed behind his eyes.
"I ended up at Hogwarts," he continued. "I had found a bit of sanity and a bunch of scared teenagers and adults. All desperately waiting for some news explaining the cut off from the outside world."
"Who all were there?" Daphne asked, her voice low, emotionless.
"Pretty much everyone who was left behind," he replied. "Anyway, predictably they put me in a cage with, unfortunately, Bellatrix Black as a cellmate and predictably I broke out and inadvertently broke the foundations of Hogwarts."
Daphne choked on her wine.
"You destroyed Hogwarts?!" she hissed in disbelief.
"I fixed it after," Harry defended. "Stop interrupting."
Daphne scowled and rolled her eyes. Beginning to feel hungry, she leaned forward towards Harry and pulled his plate towards her.
Harry was surprised when she leaned forward and he smelt peaches from her hair. His eyes lingered on her neck at that moment until she pulled back and popped a cube into her mouth.
"Mmm, delicious," she moaned in pleasure. "Ok, go on," she said and gestured with her hands for him to carry on.
Endorphins began to rise in his body and he laughed at her audacity. The music in the background had picked up the pace and the house vibrated with deep bass.
"They attacked me," he said, shaking his head with pity. "I defended and out of nowhere comes Bellatrix. She killed the Japanese girl, stole her sword and tore Flitwick to shreds."
Daphne nodded in agreement, "I heard it from Hermione."
"They shouldn't have left," Harry said. "They would have been safe."
"Hermione said you cast some kind of curse and the forest began to take over the castle like a plague."
"The forest is not a plague," Harry replied with a scoff. "And no, the forest did not take over the castle. It was just ancient magic awakened. Hogwarts was being reborn." Harry paused. "Wait, Hermione's with you?"
"Yea, a lot has happened," she said wistfully. "Anyway, keep going."
Luna flashed before his eyes, the insightful conversations they had, the encounter with the elves. Emotions stirred in him and he wondered how she was doing.
"Let's put a pin in it for now and you tell me your story."
Daphne laughed. "It's not as interesting as yours."
"I'm still curious. Here you are, transformed into this powerful woman. How did it happen?"
Daphne pursed her lips and felt flattered by his compliment.
"Well," she began quietly. "When the shit in the courtroom hit the ceiling, I took aim and Lucius Malfoy and blew his head off his body."
Harry, was in the middle of downing the contents of his glass and he choked in surprise. He closed his eyes, swallowed, put the glass down and wiped his lips with the corner of his sleeve. "Nice," he said with a chuckle.
Daphne rolled her eyes in amusement. Murder was just a morbid joke between them now. "After that there was panic, I found Sirius and a distortion relocated us to the coast. We moped for a while and a lot of hatred was directed at you," she emphasised.
Harry laughed. "Predictable."
"Anyway, the distortion was chaotic at first, and people kept popping around. Sirius and I built a hut close to the sea and survived on fish for a while. It took a while for the shock to wear off and I accepted this new reality. A community was necessary to carry on. Skill was needed to survive. From then on we built and kept building until routine set in. We planned the expansion of the community. We planned how to kill you. We built weapons. We trained to fight. We kept ourselves busy.
Hermione & Snape's arrival with news of your ransacking of Hogwarts was just the trigger I needed to .. just… go ... I can easily say building the Settlement has been my greatest achievement… but it just felt hollow …. I just needed to go someplace that wasn't the Settlement." And that was the simple truth. Everything else was just an excuse.
"I arrived at the Settlement shortly after you left. It's amazing."
"How'd you get there?" Daphne asked in surprise.
"After I left Hogwarts I went into the forest. Deep inside is where I used to practice magic and it's where I first created the … Well, I don't know what to call it. It's kind of a breach between dimensions and it took me…" Harry trailed off, the memory of the Guide and his past was too deeply personal to share. "I walked into it and on the other side was a completely different realm. It was a forest but much thinner and the first thing I encountered was a succubus fucking the life out of some man."
"Oh my," Daphne chuckled. "Did it turn you on?" she joked.
"A little bit," Harry admitted lightly. "But the illusion was quickly shattered. Succubi are fucking dangerous especially in a tribe."
Daphne rose her eyebrows. "There was a pack? And you managed to get out unscathed?"
"They tried but it wasn't anything I couldn't handle. But what surprised me was Bellatrix being there again."
"Ah, that's where you ran into her after Hogwarts," Daphne said with comprehension. If she had found Bellatrix like she intended to, she would have been pointed to the realm Harry was talking about. "What is this realm?"
"It's called Avalon. An island hidden within reality is how Bellatrix described it. It rests as the entrance to the Badlands."
Daphne frowned. Avalon? The Badlands? What kind of adventure did Harry have?
Harry saw the puzzlement reflect in her eyes and wondered if he should elaborate on the nature of the source. He had never really talked about it with her and he was interested to see her perspective.
His head felt light and his mood buoyant. He was tipsy and reached into his pocket and pulled out a joint. He needed to think.
He lit the tip with the end of his finger and inhaled deeply.
Daphne stared at him with an eyebrow raised. He offered it took her and she took it with an amused roll of her eyes and delicately held it between her lips and pulled the narcotic smoke into her lungs. She held it in for a moment, closed her eyes in pleasure and exhaled from her nose.
Valerie appeared right than with an ashtray, plate refilled and more drinks. Her timing was impeccable. Harry briefly wondered if the service was that good or was there another agenda.
"So Avalon? Badlands? Sounds like mythical stuff. What did you hope to find?"
"My journey," Harry said slowly, gathering his thoughts. "It's always been about finding the source of magic. To understand its true nature and wield it like it's meant to be."
"Merlin's Quest," Daphne murmured, a memory was triggered. "A bedtime story for children." Her mother used to read it to her as a child. It was about Merlin and his quest to find the Goddess Gaea. Avalon was one of the magical continents equal in stature to Atlantis.
Harry had never heard of it.
"My time in Hogwarts as a student was dominated by the idea, the fantasy of finding the source. I just never thought about what I would do after I found it."
"And did you find what you were looking for?"
Harry smiled softly, Lily's touch and words still felt real. A memory that he'd cherish forever. It was the moment he was healed from wounds that had been buried for a lifetime. "Yes, I did."
Daphne nodded and didn't press further. She could see the raw emotion in his eyes. Whatever had happened to him had led to him gaining his sanity. Daphne never imagined she'd be sitting beside him, having a conversation like long lost friends. This was surreal beyond belief.
"That's where you got your scars? In the Badlands?" Daphne asked after the moment had passed.
"Yep, it was truly an alien dimension. I had to fight the black dragon, which was basically a dragon-sized dementor. I barely survived and ended up through Azkaban onto the shore of the Settlement."
'And then London, to this place. To stumble into my path."
"As fate intended?" Harry joked.
Daphne laughed. "With what intent I wonder?" she said waggling her eyebrows cheekily.
"Well we'll just have to find out, won't we?"
Daphne had lost count of her drinks and a bubbling euphoria was engulfing her. Harry was shockingly forthcoming and she was wondered how far his new boundaries lay.
Harry saw the mischievous gleam in her eyes and was immediately wary of what was brewing in that beautiful mind. "Daphne…" he said slowly, voice low with amusement. "What are you thinking?"
"How high are you right now," she asked bluntly.
Harry looked at his empty glass, the plate scrapped clean. He then looked around, the sights and sounds beating with a steady rhythm in his head. He looked at Daphne's aura and the colours just blurred into each other.
Harry grinned.
"High enough to not give a fuck about how high I am."
Daphne giggled. "The perfect amount."
Behind the kitchen door, Valerie chuckled, her fangs out, unable to keep down the thrill of a new bond. She touched the tip of her finger to her fang and let another tiny drop of blood, just enough to be unnoticeable, fall into the glass of whiskey on the counter beside her. She wondered how much it would take to make him hers to command.
Valerie looked through the glass in the door and spied that their drinks were almost done. She grabbed the tray with the glasses and pushed the door open with her back and towards her prey. She could already faintly feel his presence in her mind. The game was on.