Thank you to everyone who reviewed! You are all awesome!

So here we are at Chapter 8 of Part 2. There's actually some things happening here, so let's not waste time with notes.

Onward to the story!

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The small town they went to was old and dirty, and the area they headed was filled with old empty buildings that were slowly falling apart; creaking and groaning warningly as they grew ever closer to collapse. Wool's orphanage was a tall, thin building with broken windows, peeling brown paint, and rotting plants dying around its' perimeter. It seemed to loom over them like Severus during potion class, and Harry eyed it distastefully as they passed, a shiver passing down his spine. He and Dumbledore moved on, not bothering to enter the old building; for which Harry was thankful.

They moved slowly down an old trail. The orphanage was on a cliff, and down the trail was the beach. Harry felt better, near the water, and the smell of the salt air was a balm on his soul and his stomach; easing away the nausea that had begun gathering there. The very idea of what a horcrux was, what it did, and that they were here to retrieve one, made everything he was revolt against the thought. To split one's very soul. To be so corrupted as to blacken the very being of yourself in the quest for more power; in the quest for something as idiotic as immortality, was completely insane. Damning yourself to a half-life of existence (less than that even) ...It was just something Harry could not wrap his head around. He would sooner put his wand to his head and utter the killing curse than he would allow himself to even consider creating such a monstrosity.

And Dumbledore believed Voldemort had set out to create six of them.

Harry shivered.

"It is a bit chilly, isn't it my boy?" Dumbledore smiled down at him as they walked, heading in the direction of the cliffs, where the headmaster believed the cave Voldemort had tortured those children was located. Harry wasn't sure how the old man had come to the conclusion that Voldemort would hide one of his hellish creations there of all places, but it was as good a place to begin looking as any.

"Yea." He didn't need to tell the man that his shaking was from the train of his thought rather than the weather. He wasn't sure how the old man could possibly be so calm and composed now, with the knowledge he held. They kept going, and found a creeping selection of rocks against the cliffside, jagged and flat alike, and visible only because the tide was down. The cliffs themselves towered over their heads and cast shadows that combined with the small fog teasing their ankles to make Harry feel like he was in an old horror movie. Dumbledore moved along them carefully, trying his best to avoid the more unstable or pointed stones, Harry behind him.

Sure enough, they soon came upon the entrance to the cave, and walked in beneath the bits of plants that grew and hung from its' ceiling; all dark and rotting like the dying village above them. It was dark inside, but Harry's eyes could see the full of it. There was nothing there. It was empty, nothing there but dark stone and sand; or it looked that way. His skin itched with the touch of magic, and he knew there was something there, even if he could not see it. He sniffed subtly, careful that the headmaster did not notice the motion, and nearly retched, taking an automatic step backwards.

The room stank of death, like the corpses of half eaten animals he sometimes came upon in the forest. It was like rotting meat mixed with fermenting fruit; as though something had been left to foul and rot and then had sugar poured upon it to try and mask it without success. He took another step back and tried to steel himself, wishing they could leave, but already knowing that Dumbledore had been correct, and thus they could not.

The old man raised his wand, and light filled the cave. It revealed a seemingly empty cavern to the old man, as Harry had already seen, and he wondered if the headmaster could smell what his sensitive nose was picking up or if it was outside the realm of human senses. Either he could, or he felt the magic, because he began waving his wand about and occasionally adding words that Harry thought might be Greek, since it sounded a bit different than Latin spells. Finally a jumble of broken sounds from the old man had the cave lighting up.

A blue shimmer lay in front of them, like a mist, and with a few more spells from the headmaster, and a small blood sacrifice, it fell, and the back end of the cave was suddenly gone. Harry looked, and realized the cave went much farther back. It was dark enough ahead that even he could not see more than a few meters farther than the false end of the cave had appeared to be. Dumbledore raised his wand, lit again, though with a vibrant red glow rather than the blue or green Harry's own Lumos spells usually were, and they went onwards; Harry with wary reluctance and a feeling of duty.

Eventually, the ground ended, and they came upon old wood that was scarred and uneven. It was a dock of sorts, running the length of the cave floor, and beyond that was nothing but black water. It seemed to stretch endlessly into the darkness, as though it were infinite. The smell of death was stronger here, and the only other thing Harry would see was an island far off from them in what might have been the center of the malevolent lake. A dull green light pulsed from something in the middle of it, and it was only that which allowed Harry to see the thing at all.

Dumbledore began muttering spells again and poking around near the ends of the dock, and Harry waited. The old man knew what he was doing, and it would be best for the teen to leave him to it. He waved a hand around over the water, and then suddenly he seemed to grab onto something, and made a noise of triumph; though there was nothing there.

"Here, my boy, give me a hand. That's it, just touch where my hand is, you'll feel it." It was incredibly disconcerting for Harry to feel chipped wood beneath his fingers when he couldn't see it. He helped Dumbledore pull on the invisible thing, and the water beneath them shifted. When the unseen structure hit the dock with the thunk of wood on wood, it was as though it flitted into existence, and Harry found his hand was on the bow of a small rowboat with a single double-sided paddle. He waited while Dumbledore cast a few more spells on the thing to attest to safety. "The only charm appears to be one that makes it possible for only one wizard of age to enter at a time."

"So only one of us can go across?" The headmaster chuckled.

"If you were older, yes. But only one of us IS of age. It should hold us both." With that, the man stepped carefully into it, and Harry let the old man use his shoulder for support with which to do so. He followed after him warily, and when the boat held with the first step and nothing happened, Harry settled in and grasped the oar. It seemed whatever spells were on the boat didn't recognize his emancipation as him being of age. "Oh! Thank you, my boy." He nodded in reply, and began to row towards the island. It was more difficult than he had thought. The physical strain didn't bother him much, but it seemed like the boat constantly fought him over the direction. A chuckle from the headmaster at his plight told him it was his own trouble and inexperience with the oar rather than any spell. They were nearly halfway there when Harry hesitated. He was almost positive he had seen something in the water move.

He eyed the black water as they went on, and when a flash of white came near the surface and vanished back in he stopped rowing altogether. Dumbledore said nothing, just sat and watched him with his hands folded genially on his lap. The headmaster likely already knew what was in the water. The teen waited, watching, and then a face appeared near the boat and dipped in again and he jerked backwards from the water with a start, causing the boat to rock a bit.

"There's corpses!" The headmaster nodded, face grave.

"Inferi, my boy. I suspect they will leave us be so long as we do not disturb the water ourselves." Harry nodded, feeling ill, and began rowing again. Inferi were like zombies weren't they? Only bound to some master; whoever had created them. How many were in there? How many people had Voldemort killed just for this? A dozen? Three dozen? A hundred? Had he used them during the first war? An army of dead? Harry stopped rowing when the front of the boat hit the rock of the tiny island, the little thing more like one large slab of rock than a land mass, and Dumbledore conjured a rope to tie the boat to one of the jutting stones near the edge.

They both clambered out, and Harry set his eyes upon the thing which gave off green light. It was a stand, of sorts, like a column, in the very center of the bit of land, with a black basin set atop it. The basin was filled with a deep red liquid that looked almost like blood, but was too dark a shade to be such. Harry's stomach made uncomfortable flops when he looked at it, though it didn't make him feel ill in the way the knowledge of the Horcruxes and the Inferi did. Watching Dumbledore cast unknown spells seemed to have become a new hobby of his, and he shifted from foot to foot as the man did so.

It took him longer than before this time around, and Harry waited patiently, the hairs on the back of his neck standing on end as he looked out at the water. Occasionally he would see it move in odd ways, or white forms move beneath the surface. He watched them carefully, becoming steadily more uncomfortable at being in this place, and it took him a moment to realize the headmaster had stopped casting spells. The old man's wand was down at his side now, and there was a very severe expression on his face as he gazed at the stone basin with its' odd not-blood liquid.

"Headmaster?" The old man shook himself and looked at Harry.

"I believe the horcrux is located within the basin, at the bottom, however, it appears the only manner with which to remove the potion and reach it, is by drinking." Harry paled.

"There's no other way?" The headmaster shook his head.

"There is not."

"Is it poison?" Harry looked at the foul liquid.

"Of a sort. It does not kill, but I believe it causes painful hallucinations and burning in the eyes. The effect would only be temporary, however." Harry eyed the potion with something that wasn't quite fear, and moved towards it. A firm hand on his shoulder made him stop. "No, my boy. I would not ask or allow such a thing of you." Dumbledore came up to the basin, and stared at the liquid. "It is best if I be the one to drink. I imagine, however, that the visions will eventually make me wish to stop. You must convince me to continue, no matter what. Even if I should beg you to let me stop, do not. I must drink every drop if we are to obtain the horcrux." Harry's innards did flips inside him, and mixed themselves gleefully with a nasty pit of dread. The teen nodded, not liking a bit of this, but still understanding the necessity.

Dumbledore said no more, and instead kneeled himself carefully before the basin. The man seemed to gather up his senses, and breathed in deeply, before tilting the basin and taking his first gulp of the liquid. He drank three or four mouthfuls before his hands began to shake, and Harry came to help him hold up the bowl.

He began crying soon thereafter, and pulling away to cry out. Sometimes he begged the pain to stop, other times he cried out apologies or names. He spoke of Harry, and Tom, and even Severus. He cried out for Grindelwald, and two others. Arianna and Aberforth. Harry did not know who they were, but he called for them as though they were dead and he wished them alive. He began sobbing, and calling out for water, and Harry hardened his heart and told him the drink would ease his thirst.

Finally, the last of it was gone, and the old man curled himself into a sobbing mess of misery on the ground, looking like a bearded child, and causing chains of guilt and sympathy to twist in merciless cyclones inside Harry's heart. He turned away from the man, knowing he could do very little, and looked within the basin. He had seen it empty, and there had been nothing there then. Now, a locket sat innocently within. He eyed it.

It was a gold thing, rectangular with a twisting 'S' on the front, hanging upon a thin delicate chain. Harry had thought he would feel evil, but he felt nothing from it. It was as though it were not magic at all. He reached out and touched it hesitantly. The barest licks of a charm curled at the tips of his fingers, and he frowned. Was this really a horcrux? Or simply some treasure Voldemort had locked away? He thought to slip it into the pocket of his robes, but instead hid it within one of the gauntlets of his armor. The other held his wand, as they were meant to do, but who was to say that was all they could hold?

With the maybe-horcrux tucked safely away, he turned his attention back upon the headmaster. The old man was unconscious, his face covered tears and snot, and Harry jerked over to him with a spike of alarm. The old man was still breathing, thankfully, and his heartbeat strong inside his chest, but his lips and mouth were painfully dry, and Harry remembered his calls for water.

Apparently, the potion also caused dehydration. He pulled out his wand and cast a small spell to make water. Nothing happened, and he frowned and did it again. Still no water appeared. He had never before struggled with this particular spell, and he attempted it one more time, watching his wand closely. This time he saw how the liquid spurted from the tip, only to vanish almost immediately. He lowered his wand with a grimace. There must be some spell or other that kept people from summoning water inside the cave. He cast about for a solution, and his gaze fell on the black depths.

He swallowed. That water was tainted by death; by the corpses hidden within. He was loath to go near it, or even consider bringing any to his headmaster for fear that it would cause only more harm. But there was no other water, and no way to retrieve any. The only other water nearby was of the sea, which would not be drinken. Wait! He perked up. One of the survival spells they had learned purified sea water. He could do that. He need only get the old man into the boat and sail back across. If he could get him to the beach, he could get him water, and do his best to make Dumbledore well enough to wake.

He needed the headmaster conscious. He had no portkey or the like, and he had yet to learn apparition. That was something Hogwarts didn't teach until seventh year, since you needed to be of a certain age, and he would not even be present then. Without the old man, he had no way of returning to the school.

He nodded to himself, and did his best to gather the old man up in his arms as best he could. He was plenty strong enough to carry the other, but the headmaster was much taller than he was, and between his height and his beard he was very awkward to attempt to carry. He managed to sort of pick the other up, and move him to the boat. He stumbled as he gathered him in, and the headmaster fell into the boat, while his feet splashed against the water.

It was the worst thing he could have done.

A cold white hand latched around his ankle, he pulled from it but the grip was strong and hard like a vice. the hand was followed by the moving body of a woman. She had been pretty in life, with a fair complexion and dark hair, but now she was the stuff of horror movies; her grey skin rotting away from her flesh, her hair limp and wet with balding patches, and her eyes white and clouded with the lack of life. He pulled himself forcibly from her grip, and his stomach churned as the skin of her hand tore away from the festering muscle beneath it.

More followed her, rising up from the water and reaching for him. True fear filled his body then, and he began casting spells at them.

"Bombarda! Defodio! Reducto! Incendio!" The first three had little effect, but the last, producing a trail of flames, was incredibly effective. While the blasting and shredding-like curses only tore into them; leaving them broken but still in motion, as they were dead and felt no pain, the flames burned them and had those untouched jerking back from it. Harry didn't know if it was the heat or the light that pushed them away, but he cast it again, holding the spell as best he could.

They pulled away from him and the boat, and he climbed in beside the headmaster. He was forced to hold his wand in the one hand, and handle the double oar in the other. His rowing was even more sloppy and slow-going than before. He sweat with the power it took to keep the spell going, and then it died out. Immediately the Inferi rushed and clawed at the boat, and Harry cast the spell again, twisting the lick of flames towards them like a whip, and making them back off again.

This pattern continued. Harry would cast, and they would move back. He would row a little farther towards the dock and then the spell would die out and they would rush the boat. Then he would cast again, and the process started all over. The spell took more and more effort to cast each time; draining him in a way no other spells had recently. It was not so high-level a charm that it should leave him sweating and shaking more and more as they went, and he could not understand why it was.

He stumbled badly and fell to his knees when he made it to the dock and climbed out, and only just managed to keep this spell up and drag the headmaster out of the dingy thing at the same time. He pulled the old man awkwardly onto a shoulder, like a sack, and his feet and beard still dragged across the ground. His legs hurt somehow, as though having difficulty holding he and Dumbledore up, and he wobbled as he moved back from the dock. The spell went out, and white hands began latching onto the wood, working to pull the bodies they were attached to up. He made to cast the spell again, and panicked when it failed.

The flames licked from the tip of his wand then sputtered out, and he cursed and stumbled back from the advancing corpses. He carried the old man, tripping and wobbling all the way, to the entrance of the cave. All the way he heard the cold splat of water on stone with every step the many Inferi made after them. He dare not look back and check their numbers or how close they were, knowing such an action may well be his undoing, and instead did all he could to stay on his feet and make it out of that dreadful cave.

He nearly dropped Dumbledore once, and came close to falling into the churning sea when they finally hit the entrance; Harry's movements sluggish. He had only been able to walk quickly, running being beyond him at this point with that strange exhaustion settling in his limbs even as it became harder and harder to breathe. He felt he was drowning as he pulled the headmaster from the cave and stumbled drunkenly over the stones.

He tripped when his shoes touched sand, and the old man fell out of his grip and tumbled into the beach. He lay there panting, his body shaking with exertion. Why had the spell been so hard? How had it done this to him? Was there some manner of spell or curse on the cave that caused such a thing to anyone who dare use a spell effective against the walking corpses?

His vision went dark around the edges, and he heard the sound of the inferi shuffling along the stones outside the cave even as his consciousness fled him.

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It seemed that every time Harry fled the waking world in any manner aside from sleep, then he would find himself waking up to the sounds and smells of the hospital ward. He opened his eyes to the white ceiling, and just lay there. He felt tired. Very very tired. It was worse than after a workout with Dudley or even one of Moody's lessons. There was no soreness in his limbs, at least, though he felt a dull throb in one shoulder. It was the only pain, the rest simply a feeling of intense lethargy.

So he just lay there, eyes on the white roof above him. He could smell the soap used to clean the bed sheets, and the taste of the many medical potions the old healer used drifted faintly on the air. There was faint snores not too far away, marking at least one other occupant in the room, and he could just barely hear the scratching of a quill on parchment from the direction of Madame Pomfrey's office. Likely her door was open, and it was only that and the quiet of the rest of the room that allowed him to hear the sound.

There was no confusion, as often happened when he first awoke here. His eyes opened with the full knowledge of everything that had occurred up until his loss of consciousness. He remembered the little rotting town, the abandoned orphanage, the cave, and the Inferi. Merlin, the Inferi! He closed his eyes with a shudder. He had not dare try and count their numbers then, but looking back now he knew there had been many of them, nearly a Hogwart's house's worth. All dead and rotting and stinking of their own filth and demise. The pale limbs covered in grey flesh barely held to the muscle, and those cloudy white eyes that, looking back, had been unnatural, not simply dead.

He felt bile rise up his throat, and he forced it down and breathed in deeply. He didn't want to empty his stomach now. He had no idea what sort of potions the healer had no doubt put into his system, nor how quickly they worked. There may well be something in his system working to heal his body and throwing it up would only hinder the process. The sound of the curtain made him jump, and he looked to find Pomfrey pulling it all the way shut around him. He hadn't even noticed her come over.

"How are you feeling, dear?"

"Tired, weak... My shoulder hurts." She nodded, and moved over, pulling down his shirt to show him. There was no mark in the armor, but when she pulled it aside it revealed a large purple bruise. When had that happened? His confusion must have shown.

"The headmaster said you were bitten by something. He wouldn't tell me what, but he said he had managed to get it away and kill it before you came to any further harm. If not for this armor of yours, such an injury would have likely been very bloody, and resulted in a nasty wound and a scar rather than just a bruise. As it was, I'm more concerned about the state of magical exhaustion you were brought to me in. You nearly emptied your core." So one of the Inferi had tried to take a bite out of him after he lost consciousness? Apparently the headmaster had awoken in time to save him. He would owe him for that, except that he felt his coming along in the first place and nearly being eaten should more than make up for it. But...

"Magical exhaustion?" She nodded.

"Yes. You must have used some very high level spells against whatever it was that attacked you. What on earth were you doing outside the castle with the headmaster anyways?" He ignored her question.

"I wasn't though. Using any higher spells. The only thing I used was Incendio. I kept casting it, over and over..." She frowned.

"That spell wouldn't do this. Your core should be developed enough to prevent it. Hmm..." She looked down in thought, a hand to her chin. Her lips moved as though she were muttering, though no real sounds escaped her. Suddenly, her eyes lit up, and she looked at him. "This animagus form of yours, what manner of creature is it?" He gathered himself defensively and she waved a hand, "I'm not asking what it is, just what kind of thing it is. The nature. Is it a burrowing animal, a flyer, that sort of thing."

"It... I'm an aquatic creature, ma'am." She nodded.

"Ah. That might explain it then. Have you reacted badly to fire before now?" He thought of the many fireplaces in the castle, and would have shook his head in the negative when he recalled the time at the Ministry.

"I haven't been bothered by the fireplaces, but last year..." Her face darkened as she understood what he was talking about. "One of the spells cast at me was a fire kind of spell, and the instincts sort of... I got scared and really angry all at once. It was..." Pomfrey nodded.

"Fire and water were never meant to mix. If your connection to water is particularly strong, as it would be if your form was that of a magical creature," She eyed the place on his forehead she knew his horns were located, hidden by the glamour. "then it's likely you cannot cast spells in the nature of fire without great difficulty. Something greater than the spell you did use will likely always be beyond you, and I would avoid trying. You have a very large and strong magical core for your age, and you can take more than a number of adults in the way of strain on it. But if you manage to empty your core, you will still die, Harry." He swallowed, and nodded. "I'm going to write you a note. You'll show it to all of your teachers for me, so they know to not make you learn any spells which create or manipulate flames. We don't want this happening again."

"Yes ma'am." She smiled gently at him.

"On the brighter side, I imagine that such spells which manipulate water and the like should come rather easily to you. It's not all bad, dear." He nodded solemnly.

"Yes ma'am." Somehow, he didn't feel much better about that.

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Harry met with Dumbledore right after that, and had been glad to see the old man in good health. Unaware of the armor Harry wore, the headmaster had looked in his cloak while he was unconscious, and, finding nothing of interest, had assumed the trip had been a bust, and the cave simply a trap of Voldemort's creation. The locket was still locked away in Harry's left gauntlet, and, on a whim, he chose not to tell the man about it.

There was something strange about the necklace, and Harry very much doubted that it was really a horcrux. With no knowledge of what it might actually be, he was loath to hand it over. The magic he felt from it was faint, but it could well still be an important artifact of some sort. If it was, Harry didn't want the headmaster to have it. It was a petty sort of play on his part, but it was already too late to go back and give it up to the old man without revealing his initial trickery. He may have forgiven the headmaster to a point, but he still didn't trust him.

Dumbledore had revealed much to him during their last few meetings, but the wizard still kept things close to the vest, and there was much he had yet to share with Harry. The teen wasn't aware of what those secrets might be, but the thought of them there kept him from confiding in Dumbledore about anything. Between the old man's own secrets, and the ones that Harry had begun to gather up himself, a rift had started forming and growing between them; a gap that could not be bridged so easily.

Thus Harry now sat in the Keeper's tower, looking the locket over very carefully, and occasionally poking at it with his wand.

"Quid es?" The simple charm had the little locket glowing a dull red. It was meant only to check the type of magic surrounding the thing, and the red marked it as a transfiguration, likely a permanent one. So the locket was a transfigured object then. There didn't look to be any other magic on it. It was just a plain locket. "Huh." Harry set down his wand and worked his thumb claw into the pieces of the locket to open it. Why would Voldemort bother with a mundane object? One he had perhaps created, but why? A folded bit or parchment fluttered out once he had wedged the thing open, and Harry hesitated before opening it up, and reading.

To the Dark Lord - I know I will be dead long before you read this, but I want you to know that it was I who discovered your secret. I have stolen the real Horcrux and intend to destroy it as soon as I can. I face death in the hope that when you meet your match, you will be mortal once more. - R.A.B.

Ah. So it seemed that the locket was not of Voldemort's creation then. The nature of the letter suggested that there had been a horcrux, and that the writer was likely no longer living. To have learned what Voldemort had created, and to have gotten close enough to learn about it, suggested a spy, or, as Dumbledore had honestly expected to find a horcrux in the cave, that perhaps the writer had been a death eater gone rogue.

It fit. Being that there were a number of Voldemort's followers who had simply been roped into things, there were likely to have been a few back in the day who would have been looking for an excuse to betray him, and a way to get away with it. This person had known they would die, and had apparently been disgusted enough with what the Dark Lord had created that he was willing to face death for its' destruction. Harry imagined, that if he had ever been foolish enough to join the Dark Lord, only to discover this, he would have done the same.

The question now was whether or not the traitor had succeeded. If they had, and the original horcrux was gone, then there was no trouble. But if they had died before being able to do so, then the evil artifact was still out there somewhere, though likely hidden away. Thus it would need to be found, and destroyed. Assuming the person had transfigured something to look as close to original as possible, then the locket could be used to recognize the real thing.

Harry sighed. The first step to determine if the traitor had succeeded, or not (and if not, where they had hidden the genuine article), was to figure out who this R.A.B. was. He would need to talk to Severus about that. He had yet to tell the man about Voldemort's horcruxes, and he needed to do so. Maybe he could kill two birds with one stone, and the potion master would recognize the initials, if that's what they were. It was worth a shot, at least. For now he tucked the locket and letter back into his gauntlet for safe keeping, and put his wand away. He stood from the desk and stretched, his tail waving lazily behind him, and decided he was overdue for a visit to the lake.

He had come to spending most of his visits there with Moonscale and her husband, the leader of the Black Lakes' merpeople, Bloodsea. He had learned several things about the beings, though the bit that interested him most was their names. Every merperson was given a name at birth, but their name changed as they grew, based upon their actions and personality. Moonscale was called such for her predisposition towards being nocturnal, and swimming near the surface of the lake to look up at the moon. Her minor obsession with the great orb since her childhood had led to her name. Bloodsea had earned his own title before Harry had even been born, when the merpeople had tried to return to the sea. There had been a minor war with another tribe over territory, and though they had eventually lost and been forced move back to the lake, Bloodsea had killed a great number of the others in battle, and thus gained his current moniker.

Harry supposed it explained the number of crisscrossing scars along the merman's tail. He walked through the tunnels in silence, a smile on his face and his tail just barely touching the ground as he moved. Suddenly he paused, and looked down at his tail.

He had felt something. But he wasn't sure what it was. He waited, and the feeling came again. It was like a tremor in the ground. There was movement beneath the stone, maybe a level or more down, and where the pads on his feet were too thick for him to feel it through them, his tail was far more sensitive. It came again, more, and he went down to his knees and put an ear to the ground.

The muffled sounds of words reached his ears and he pulled away. It was Wednesday today. He had only woken up the day before, and the nurse had ordered that he have the week off from his classes to give his magic time to recuperate. It was near lunchtime now, so perhaps the sounds were of students on the fifth floor (the tunnels beginning a floor below the tower) heading off to their meals. He looked back at his tail. He usually walked with it a bit above the ground, because of the sensitivity, but he hadn't realized it was sensitive enough to feel vibrations.

He hummed to himself and moved on. Something like that could come in handy if he were kneeling or standing someplace; hiding or the like. He would know if anyone was coming. His tail offered him a much better sense of balance, but he had counted it off, on the whole, as a burden, because of how easy it would be to disable him completely by attacking his tail. George had accidentally stepped on it once, and that was nearly as bad as being kicked in the balls (a nasty experience he had felt only once at the feet of Piers Polkiss, and which had led to his running away when they came after him from that point on). Neither were experiences he was eager to repeat.

He now understood exactly why that one grey cat of Mrs. Figg's had bit him when he had tugged its' tail as a child.

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"You have grown, little guardian." Harry smiled. This was a usual greeting from Moonscale. Harry's height, while not that important, was something that tended to bother him. He had gotten taller since the previous year, and was growing still, but he was still shorter than most of the others in his year, bar some of the girls. When the merwoman had realized how much his small stature bothered him, she took to greeting him this way in an effort to make him feel better about it.

"Thank you. How are things?" She smiled at him, the barest hints of sharp teeth being revealed with the expression.

"Things are well. We are preparing for the summer."

"The summer?"

"Yes. We are leaving then. Back to the sea." His heart panged.

"For how long?" Her eyes grew sad and she ran scaled fingers through his hair.

"I do not know, young one. We must leave to protect the hatchlings. The eggs will break in spring, and we need to take our children where they will be safe from those above. Perhaps it will be only a year or two, perhaps it shall be ten. I do not know." Harry twisted his fingers together.

"Where will you go? Where in the ocean?" She sighed.

"That is for my egg-partner to decide. We must find a place that others do not yet call their own. He says we will try to make our nest as near here as we can, but if others call the close seas home, then we may have to go far. He has sent scouts through the under-river to check the nearest waters, but I am uncertain if they have yet returned." Harry nodded. The thought that they might go so far he could not find them hurt. He did not want to lose his friends. "I am sorry, little guardian."

"It's alright. I understand. You need to think of the kids first." He tried to hide the sadness from his voice, but the song-tongue was greatly influenced by emotions, and it showed. Moonscale frowned, and he grimaced. He did not like to upset others or make them worry. Then she looked thoughtful, and grasped his hand.

"Come." She pulled him through the waters, and he let her, confused. She led him to the little building he knew at her home, and brought him down into the under-room he had woken up in that day they fed him the pearl grass. It was just the same as then, with its' seaweed filled alcoves and shell containers lining the walls. She left him near the tunnel entryway and went to one of them, opening and shifting around inside it. He waited, watching her, and she finally made a noise of triumph.

She didn't come back to him yet, but closed the shell and went over to another one, something clenched in her fist. The slight tinkling of glass or the like met his ears as she shuffled through it,

and then she closed it. Her back was to him as she fidgeted with whatever was in her hands. She brought it near her mouth, and made a musical sound that was like a soft whistle. He cocked his head to the side and watched. Whatever she held glowed with soft green light and then faded. Only then did she turn to him.

She swam to him, and settled the thing around his neck. He looked down. It was black twine with a shell at the end. The shell was a small conch with a spiderweb of gently glowing green markings on it. Even as he watched, the glow faded until it was gone, leaving only faint green lines in the otherwise white shell. He met the merwoman's eyes with confusion.

"What is this?"

"It is so you can hear the sea, and keep it and us close to your heart. You need only call to me through it, and so long as you are in water, I can find you." Harry looked at the little miniature conch, and wrapped a hand around it. It was small enough that it would just barely fit over his ear, and he could close his hand around it and hide it from sight. He swallowed, and looked back up at Moonscale.

"I... Thank you." She smiled, her sharp teeth looking as feral to him as they had the first time he had seen them, but seeming beautiful now rather than dangerous.

"You are welcome, little guardian. You are most welcome."

And Harry didn't feel so bad anymore.

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The next night the teen found himself in the forest at night for the first time since the previous school year. He had avoided the woods and all they held; not ready to face Firenze again, and be forced to hear the centaur's words. There was something very disconcerting about having someone tell you something you didn't like, not believing them, and then learning they were right. The being had once said he would need to find his own place in the war, and that it would not be with Dumbledore. At the time, he had yet to be disillusioned with the headmaster, and his loyalty to the old man had made him unbelieving.

Now he was starting to understand what the creature had meant, and he had been afraid to come into the forest until now; afraid of whatever else Firenze might tell him. But the end of the school year was only a couple months away now, and it was time to face the being, and the knowledge he held. So Harry waited in the clearing from before, and stared at the sky.

It was so beautiful. All the stars and planets that looked like starts from here. It was as though someone had taken a fistful of gems and shattered them, and then scattered the sparkling dust across the sky. Some shone, some twinkled, and all were breathtaking. He did not need to be any good as Astronomy to see the wonder in this.

He didn't move or look away when he felt the ground shift, or heard the crunch of grass beneath hooves. He just waited, and the large form of the centaur came and settled beside him. He looked up at the being to find it was not Firenze, as he had believed.

He studied the unknown centaur, and the other watched and did the same to him. He was dark haired where Firenze was light, and bearded where Firenze was shaven. His eyes were dark and wild, and his coat was black with speckles of grey. His countenance was rougher than the other centaur's, more wild-looking, with a broader nose and a stronger jaw. His face was blank though hard, another marked difference from Firenze's typical calm and soft expression. Harry recognized him as the centaur that got angry at Firenze in first year; or rather he looked similar to that one.

"So you are the one who calls my brother from our herd to the world of men." His voice was a deep baritone, and it was loud; like a clap of thunder in silence.

"Firenze is your brother?" The centaur snorted.

"We are all brothers, each of us from the Earth."

"Ah." The centaur watched him, studied him, and Harry felt like a bug beneath a microscope.

"I thought him a fool for troubling himself with the affairs of wizards, such horrid creatures as they are. Yet you are no wizard. Perhaps you were born such, but you are such no longer."

"It was an accident."

"There are no accidents, child. Only fate. Whether that fate has been marked by the passing of the stars, or formed by your own hands, it matters not. You became what you have for a reason." Harry tilted his head, listening.

"Perhaps so that I can be strong enough to kill Voldemort then. Maybe this was what needed to happen for me to be able to." The centaur snorted and sneered.

"You would kill the black snake one way or another. It would have come to pass even without this, though your death may have been a consequence, before." He waved a hand at Harry's arm, presumably his scales. "No. This is for another purpose, for something not yet to come."

"Like what?" The look the centaur gave him was not quite a glare, but it was intense like one.

"I do not know." The being looked up to the stars then. "Or perhaps it is better said that I do not understand. The stars speak that you are to walk beside gods, and yet such a thing... It is not possible."

"Gods?" The teen's brow furrowed, and the wild centaur shook his head.

"I imagine you will not know until it occurs. Such is the nature of the stars. They tell us much, but often we do not understand their meaning until their predictions have already come to pass." Harry nodded, and they watched the sky quietly for a while, Harry's brain churning with questions. He bit his lip.

"What's your name?" The centaur looked from the sky to him, and his expression was not quite as harsh as before.

"I am called Bane."

"Bane... I'm Harry." The centaur nodded. "Is there nothing you can tell me? Nothing I need to know?" Those dark eyes studied him again, for several moments.

"I know only that you will face hardships, and that your life shall be a full one, but only so long as you keep to the path of your choosing, and follow your heart. It is said to many to do such a thing too much, but only because they do not listen. Never allow others to shape your journey, even if it should seem the safer trail to go. Such ways lead only to pain, for you. You are no wizard, and your nature is that of freedom. Freedom to choose. Hold fast to that freedom, and never let it slip from your grasp. There is no better guide for you, than those instincts which you have come to possess." His words were intent, and there seemed so much more he wanted to say. It felt to Harry as though the centaur was trying to tell him more and couldn't or didn't know how to.

The teen took his words in and committed them to memory. The being was not the same centaur he had come to know and trust (albeit grudgingly), but he felt older and wiser, and Harry knew he would never let himself forget what he had been told.

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Well there you have it. Next chapter will be up next week, and then we will have a small recess before Part 3 begins. This just means that rather than a week, it will be two weeks between chapters.

Part 3 rushes into some things, and has a lot going on, and it will be within that part that we will start to see the crossover; if only through the meeting of Harry and Bruce. A bit sooner than you might have thought, no? All the same, Part 4 is where we really move into things; starting with some travelling and then getting into the events of Avengers, with the events of Iron Man 1, Iron Man 2, and Thor being mentioned a bit (I think. We'll see what happens when I type it up, because my fingers tend to put whatever the hell they please on the screen). I'm thinking of moving into the events of Iron Man 3 after the Avengers plot has been completed, and then Thor 2, since the story should still be ongoing then, and I will hopefully be able to see it; if not through the theater, then through my sort-of-father-in-law's propensity towards semi-illegal downloading of movies.

I have a question for you all. I've had a good number of people bug me about parings from the start of this, and so far I had made the decision to keep this pairingless, but I've never really asked any of you for your take on it. Even though I rarely have time to respond to reviews, I do read them, so I have a question for you all.

Do you think there should be a pairing, or not, and why?

I will say, that if I decide to do one, it probably won't come into development until after the events of Avengers, and I'm likely not to do one at all, but I want your take on it. Keep in mind that I'm not asking for your thoughts on any specific pairings, but rather whether or not you think any form of romance would be a good addition to the story or not, and whether a male/male or male/female pairing would be preferable, so don't talk about how this Harry would be good with someone in particular.

Now that I've asked that, I think we're done for now, so I'll see you all next week.

Sincerely,

Mr. Hate