I OWN NOTHING

spells

Parseltongue

thoughts

Harry instinctively tightened his shields but after a minute relaxed. His new defense method kept his mind from being found by his attackers. With his mind safe, he turned his attention to his magic.

Luxurating in the feel of having full access to his magic for the first time since arriving in Alegasia. He instantly felt rejuvenated his magic, rushing through his body like an old friend coming home. Feeling the ache in his weary muscles starts to disappear for the first time in weeks. He turned his attention to the gem he had his hand on he examined it closer. Looking at the gem, He said.

"You beauty you, you're coming with me." Taking his hand off the gem, he opened his bag and slowly slid the gem into it. Looking at the room, he braced himself and cast the summoning charm. The gems in the room came flying at him used to the phenomenon. Now he stood to the side and held the bag out, watching as the gems flew into the bag one by one.

Once the room was empty, he left with a skip in his step and in a good mood. Putting the door back in the correct position and casting the spell to repair the hinges in the ancient language, he watched as the cuts in the hinges seemingly flowed back together, leaving them completely fixed. Continuing down the corridor, his mood only improved when he opened the next door to see a library.

Repeating the process, he held up the bag and summoned all the books in the room, which quickly emptied its contents. His mood improved again when he noticed that the spell came easier than it had before. His smile fell a bit when he noticed that while his core was refilling at the rate he was used to back on Earth most of his magic was immediately used just to keep his body running and him moving.

Opening the next room, he saw a pond and mirrors all over the room. "I wonder what I look like now. I haven't been able to see myself since Teirm." Walking up to the closest mirror, he took a long look at his reflection. His first thought apon seeing his reflection was that he was just as skinny now as he was after a summer with the Dursleys. His reflection showed that his hair was a dark, almost ebony black, reaching down to his shoulders, looking as greasy as his old potions professor.

"Ugh, I look like Snape with this greasy hair." He thought. Looking to his face and eyes, he saw that he now had a short, scraggly beard just as greasy as his hair. His high cheekbones were prominent, with his cheeks sunken giving him a guant look. His eyes almost seemed to shimmer with power now that his core was fully available to him. Just as his old eyes were emerald green, his new ones were the color of amethysts.

His face was caked in dirt looking at his arms and legs they were very skinny too skinny to have the strength he was using during his activities. "That explains where all my magic is going." He thought to himself. he was able to see his bones and joints standing out in the limbs. When he raised his borrowed shirt his could easily count his ribs. When he turned to look at his back, he saw the individual vertebrae in his spine.

"That's going to take forever to fix." He grunted, annoyed. Dropping his shirt He turned around and walked out the door. He was going to walk away when he got an idea. Opening the door again, he called Jierda, shattering the mirror on the ceiling and sending the shards into the others. The recoil of the spell almost knocked him off his feet with his full core unlocked his spells had gotten a boost. By the time it had settled down, all the mirrors were either shattered or cracked and falling apart. With a satisfied sigh, he closed the door and approached the next room. "Feels good to be back." He thought heading to the next room.

When he opened the next door, the inside was equally useless but infinitely more revolting. "A torture chamber." He thought in disgust. Looking inside the room, he saw the torturer drawing a knife down a mans back. Malthinae, He snarled the spell hit the torturer freezing him in place with the knife raised in the air. Harry approached the victim to see blank eyes. He sighed as he closed them. "May you find peace in the next life." He said solemnly.

Turning to the frozen torturer he cast Thrysta stopping the torturers heart watching passively as the dead body fell to the floor. Looking around the room, he saw another door he approached it, hoping it was better than this room. "I was wrong so wrong." He thought after opening the door and seeing three people in cages, hanging in the air being eaten by massive maggot like things.

As he watched two of the maggots jumped up and dived into the shoulder and thigh of a screaming woman strapped onto a table. Before he could help the woman another worm jumped into her ear she stopped moving immediately. Looking at the others they were either already dead or beyond help. Raising his hand he shouted Boetk istalrí a bolt of flame raced from his hand setting everything ablaze.

The fire quickly spread through the room setting everything ablaze far faster then a normal fire should have been able to. He slammed the door shut wishing the prisoners a swift journey to the next life. He cast some wards to prevent the fire from escaping the chamber. He left the torture chamber and opened the next door. There he finally found what he was looking for maps.

He approached the desk in the middle of the room to see a giant map of Alegasia. With a black figure over the word Urû-baen "Finally." he thought to himself. Summoning a smaller map of Alegasia. Three maps came flying into his hand, stuffing them in the bag he exited the room. Continuing onward, the rest of the rooms in the corridor were empty. He sighed. "Figures now to get out of here." Looking left and right "Shit I'm lost." He thought.

Just when he was going to pick a direction, he heard someone calling out to him.

"Hey you! Turning, he saw a guard approaching him. "Where do you think you're going?" Harry scratched the back of his head, thinking fast, he said.

"Sorry, it's my first day, and I'm a little lost." Harry explained.

The guard grunted.

"Lost and wearing hand-me-down armor." He sighed. "At least those are close to the right size. Come with me." Harry had no choice but to follow the guard to not arose suspicion.

"Gareth," the guard introduced himself.

"Harrison." Harry replied, walking with the guard. They traveled through the corridors, taking lefts and rights at seemingly random intervals. "I never would have found my way out of here." Harry thought to himself, sweating lightly.

"What's wrong?" Gareth asked.

"Nothing," Harry replied, "I'm just not used to the armor yet."

Gareth laughed lightly. "Yeah, that takes a while to get used to."

Approaching a door that was a shining expanse of gold. Embossed across the doors was a life-sized oak tree, the leaves of which formed an arching canopy that joined with the roots below to inscribe a great circle about the trunk. Sprouting from either side of the trunk's midsection were two thick bundles of branches, which divided the space within the circle into quarters. In the top-left quarter was a carving of an army of spear-bearing elves marching through a thick forest.

In the top-right quarter were humans building castles and forging swords. In the bottom left, Urgals—Kull, mostly—burning down a village and killing the inhabitants. In the bottom right, dwarves mining caves filled with gems and veins of ore. Amid the roots and branches of the oak, Harry spotted werecats and the Ra'zac, as well as a few small strange-looking creatures. Coiled in the very center of the bole of the tree was a dragon that held the end of its tail in its mouth, as if biting itself.

Gareth opened the door and entered the room. Following him, Harry found himself in a throne room. The cavernous hall had high, narrow windows and a gallery. Tall oak-and-bronze doors, the throne was located at the opposite end of the long carpeted hall. The throne had a imposing appearance, asymmetrical and surrounded by swords protruding from the ground, the steps being decorated with twisted steel. It looked as if Galbatorix had taken the swords of his defeated enemies and had them melted in to a throne for himself.

"Here is where I'm stationed today," Gareth said. Approaching the guard in the room, Gareth called, "Hey Cairn, can you let Tonrac know I've got his new recruit in the throne room?"

"Yeah, I'll get right on it." Cairn said, rolling his eyes while turning to Harry he asked.

"What happened to you recruit? Did you get lost?"

"Yeah, I did." Harry replied. "It's like a maze in here."

"Yeah, it takes a few trips around to find everything." Cairn said. He turned back to Gareth and said. "I'll tell Tonrac where you are." Walking to the door he opened it and left the room.

"Stand over there." Gareth said, pointing to the left side of the entrance door. While walking to the right. Taking his place at the left Harry wondered how long he could stay there before he was found out. They stood there in silence for a few minutes before an alarm began to sound.

"What's that?" Harry asked.

"I don't know." Gareth replied.

Turning back to the door, he was just in time to see Carin running back in shouting. "The prisoner escaped, and we found two guards knocked out and his cell empty!"

"What?!" Gareth asked in disbelief with wide eyes. "We need to capture him."

"I know the guards are combing the castle looking for him. They need you to head the search party for the west wing." Cairn said.

"Ok, but what about Harrison?" Gareth asked. The two turned to look at Harry.

"I'll be fine." Harry assured Gareth. "Just go, it sounds important." He said while simultaneously using a very weak mental probe on both of them. They both slowly nodded.

"Very well, stay here." Gareth said. While running out the door with Cairn. Harry stood there for a few minutes, waiting for them to get further away. Then he shut the door and sighed.

"Finally, I thought I was going to be here all day." Looking around around the room, Harry said "Heh, let's see what you got in here, Galby."

Walking around the throne room, he sent out his magic pulse looking for any hidden secrets. He felt a ping from the pulse echoing back to him moving closer to where he felt the ping he sent the pulse out again. He felt the ping closer then before. Once more, he sent the pulse to reveal a hidden door. A quick scan of the door showed that it was heavily warded far more than any of the other doors he had found.

As he went through the spells to check the wards, he asked himself. "Why am I doing this? Galbys never warded the bottom on any of the others. Why would this one be any different." As he crouched to scan the bottom of the door, he noticed that the floor in front of it was caving in it looked like something had spent a lot of time laying on it, something big. "Whatever this thing is, it's bigger than the basilisk was in the in the chamber. I really don't want to meet whatever lives here." He thought."Thats wierd there's no bottom. it's like the door doesn't swing out or in." He thought to himself.

Standing back up and looking for hinges only to find nothing. He stepped back stumped. "How do I open this thing? The wards will let who I assume is old galby himself know if the door is forced opened, or damaged in anyway. The other wards make the door indestructible and hidden from all who seek it. The only reason I found it was because I wasn't looking for it specifically. Not to mention the wards hiding it from sight. It looks like the last ward is one that prevents anyone except Galby from opening it." Harry sighed. "Pity there must be something valuable in there." turning to leave then he stopped and looked back. "I wonder?" he thought.

Before scanning the wards again. "Huh." Casting some wards around him to protect him from what he was about to do, he cast. Thrysta Stenr. The walls around the door were surrounded by a soft light and began to rumble slightly. Harry tensed up, expecting the wards to activate, but the room remained silent. The wards hadn't tripped. Sighing, he said, "Glad I was right." He watched as the wall continued to shake as they compressed. When the shaking started to get out of control and rattle the floor, he stopped the spell.

"Alright, now for the hard part." He thought. Stepping back, he judged the distance from the door. Once he was satisfied, he cast Deloi moi watching as the floor in front of him collapsed into a six by five half circle. Slowly, he guided the spell tunneling under the door and the wards. Approaching the door, he noticed that it was starting to shake. He immediately re-adjusted the ditch so that it would catch both both sides of the door holding it in the same spot. Keeping the wards from activating. Once he could partly see the room he finished the ditch three feet into the room.

He scanned the wards breathing a sigh of relief as his hunch was proven correct. Since the door was not destroyed the wards had no reason to activate. Taking his own wards down he slipped into the ditch and slowly crawled into the room.

Inside, he saw a small ten by ten room it was dark and seemed to contain only two pedestals. Unable to see he cast Istalrí Malthinae creating a floating ball of fire allowing him to see. Looking around the room it was empty aside from the pedestals in the rear part of the room. Atop the left pedestal was an emerald green stone with white veins running over it on the right was a sapphire blue stone also with white veins running over it. Stepping forward, he reached to pick up the blue stone. When he stopped remembering when Dumbledore picked up a stone he found in a hidden location.

He did not want that to happen to him. Stepping back, he started scanning the pedestal and stone. He found wards on both he scanned the green stone and pedestal to find the samething. "Glad I checked. These things have some nasty wards on them." He sighed, stepping back he scanned the stones one last time. "These look familiar." he thought to himself. "I think I've seen something like these before." He lost his train of thought when he detected a presence behind him.

Spinning around, he saw Death standing behind him, looking at the stones with an angry expression.

"Death? He asked in surprise, "What are you doing here."

"Life told me that you were poking around the castle. I was watching you to make sure that you did not destroy anything important. I did not expect you to find this." Death said still with an angry expression that was slowly morphing into a tired one.

"What's wrong?" Harry asked.

"The blue stone was supposed to have been stolen eighty years ago when the varden broke in to steal them back. That the red one was taken means that the changes to the timeline happen far earlier than we originally thought." Death explained. "The fact that Life nor I could see or tell that something had changed that early means that one of the others had something to do with this, and that is not good."

"Others?" Harry asked.

"That's a story for another time, but for now, you have to take the blue stone." Death said.

"Why?" Harry asked, confused. "Don't get me wrong, I was going to take it anyway, but why this specific one?"

"It's for the one chosen to defeat Galbatorix. Without it, he will not succeed." Death said.

"Ok, I'll get it and the other one for good measure." Harry said satisfied for now with deaths answers.

"Very well but hurry you are running out of time the soilders will be coming back soon." Death said as he faded from view.

"All right." Harry said, turning his attention back to the wards surrounding the pedestals and stones.

Looking closer, he saw that the pedestals and stones were warded separately. "Heh to easy." he snorted to himself. While he summoned some of the dust in the room and cast Thrysta stenr to compress it into a rock about the same size as the stones. Then, using a spell he just found in his memory Moí stenr, he changed the rock to look like the blue stone. Setting it on the ground, he then repeated the process for the green stone.

After setting the now replica of the green stone on the ground as well. He started scanning the wards closer, looking for a weakness. The minutes felt like hours as they ticked by before he finally found a small chink in the wards. Lining up both fake stones with their matching real ones. He used magic to soften the stone and carved a rune on a piece of the fake blue he rehardened the stone, then charged the rune with magic. Once the rune was fully charged he said Stenr Reisa levitating it up he gently pushed it against the wards. While carefully watching the wards streching around the fake until they looked like they were going to break.

Then he cast the spell he made to switch the stones switching the blue stones. Harry quickly pulled the blue stone out of the wards and held his breath as the wards fluctuated, almost breaking before settling down in their original spot. Watching as the rune he carved on the fake glow brightly then fade as it ran out of magic.

He sighed in relief, looking at the blue stone. Then he levitated it into his make shift bottomless bag. Once the stone was safely inside his bag, he fell to his knees and started to shake while breathing heavily and sweating. "That took way more magic than the switching spell would have." He said aloud.

Taking a few minutes to catch his breath, he reached into his pouch and grabbed one of the swords inside, intending to use it to knock the green stone from the pedestal damm the consequences. Then he felt a swirling vortex of magic coming from the gem on the sword. "What the?!" He thought in shock. Cautiously reached his senses out to the gem. When he did not find anything malicious in or on the gem, he gently pulled on the energy contained inside.

The magic rushed into him, refilling his reserves and easing his weary limbs. Letting out a sigh of relief, he thought. "Well, now this changes things." Reaching into the bag, he dropped the sword with the empty gem and grabbed another repeating the process to find that his core started to refill with the magic. Delighted, he repeated the process with another two swords. Until his core was finally full for the first time in weeks. Once he was ready, he concentrated on the green stone.

He repeated the process until the new switching spell. Once he had his hands on the stone, he checked his core to find that the switching spell had drained a full quarter of his reserves.

Placing the green stone in the bag with the blue one, he vowed to find some time to fully go through the memories he had obtained. To finish, absording them a fully commit them to his memory. He looked around the room as the wards wavered. Once they settled back into place, he went to the door intending to take his time and carefully crawl under the door back into the throne room. Until he heard the throne room door start to open.