The Letter from a Faerie Lord III

Last Chapter: Harry spends time with Susan, and shares with her the problem he has found himself in. Susan explains what she knows of the Huntan - that they are unloved, and suspect - but also admits that Harry has no other option now he has attracted the attention of a fae. He is gifted a Lumenfaerum, a magical compass that should act as a portal when smashed, and an Aegiscrux. He travels to the human entrance to Larkin, and the Aegiscrux already seems to fail. He is pulled beneath the water of a pool.

For an instant he was floating, submerged. The water was flowing around his skin, soothing; in the distance spun many lights, flickering like distant stars, lonely and awesome to behold-

-and then the water parted, like Moses parting the sea, and he was breathing again, gasping for air he didn't know he didn't have. Distantly, beyond the burning of his lungs, he felt the warm sun on his back; the grass that was tickling his calves. His hair was damp, as were his robes.

With the slow return of his breath, his mind too began to draw together. That place, Harry knew, hadn't been just a vision. Was that the world between worlds, or just fae Apparition?

It didn't matter; he'd caught little more than a glimpse. Instead, he turned his thoughts, and his eyes, to his surroundings. He saw that he was sitting in a clearing, whose encircling trees were broad - thicker he thought than the walls of Halt End. Their bark was lush, as were the shining leaves that seemed to dance upon their arm-like branches. Beyond their reach, the slab-grey sky was gone, replaced by a blue deeper than the clearest water in the deepest sea. Below, the grass too shone, and swayed and danced to the rhythm of the wind. The very air simmered to shimmer, as though thick with ancient power.

He could only be in Fairyland.

"Aha!"

-Harry jumped to his feet, startled.

A small man was standing right in front of him… a man who hadn't been there an instant before. He'd appeared as if from nowhere, as if he'd always been there, but only then had Harry's brain chosen to notice him.

Harry pushed down his worry with a smile; this could only be Cold Tom Blue who, according to the Huntan, expected friendly deference from wizards.

The Lord of Larkin Wood was watching him, so Harry took the opportunity to do the same, beginning with his lack of… blue. His hair was black like an arctic night, his face youthful, round and ruddy-cheeked. Upon his person he wore strangely familiar garments, whose silhouette tugged at his memory.

It took him a long moment to recognise their form, if not their colour, as a ragged periwinkle facsimile of Henry VIII's most famous attire*. Harry recognised them from a poster on the door of his primary school history classroom.

But these were ill-fitting, hanging off his frame at some points, and lumpy with padding at others. For Tom Blue cast a gaunt figure except for his face, with wiry, thin legs and thin arms, thin fingers and thin toes (as he wore no shoes).

Harry had begun to wonder why they called him cold when their eyes finally met, and he saw the name staring back at him. If his hair was the night sky above, then his eyes were the ice below.

"Greetings!" he cried merrily, jumping forth, "I am Tom Blue, tell me not you don't know who!"

Harry watched Tom askance. The tales told of Deuli - of lesser gods, of wise and wily beings of incomprehensible power, not a strange little man with rags for robes. Perhaps, he judged, this wasn't such a death trap after all… and at least he spoke in more modern English than he wrote. "I am Harry Potter," he replied. "You wrote me a letter, sir."

Tom Blue's smile was white and bright, and his mouth was large and full. "Harry Potter? A child of many names, I think. Cold Tom Blue has had many too, old and new. Would you like to wander through my wild wood? Just 'till the moon sits in heaven above. Then might I deliver my boon, I should."

Harry looked again towards the trees. Their trunks forked like arches, leading to thick canopies of startling green, through which dappled points of star-bright light. He needed to let himself be led... "I will walk with you, sir."

Tom Blue jumped with delight. "Very well, very well, let us frolick through path and trail and dell!"

The faerie lord strolled away, and Harry followed, easily keeping pace with Tom Blue's narrow stride. He must've been no taller than Harry himself, and was in no hurry. They made an even pace.

Beyond the ring of trees a quilt of verdant meadows lay, whose borders were composed of lush thick hedgerows. Between them the flowers of the fae grew, and sang, and danced happily in the winds.

Harry looked upon them in wonder; they were all the colours of the rainbow - and more. Wilder than a kaleidoscope they seemed almost to spin, impossibly chaotic, impossibly vibrant. No man had planted them with order; red rose bloomed beside elegant bluebell, which stood by majestic foxglove, and so on and so forth until he couldn't name the flowers he saw. Some appeared like none he had ever seen, or was like to see again. Aunt Petunia would've had a heart attack, he thought distantly.

Or worse; for it was said that anyone who plucked a flower from the meadows of the fae would perish on the spot; and they also said that a wizard's greatest fear was dying in Fairyland, for there, it was also said, the deadman's soul would stay.

Shivering, Harry returned to himself; he saw that Tom Blue's back was turned, and quickly slipped his hand into his pocket. His wand and the Lumenfaerum were still safe; he could feel the cross against his chest. He breathed a sigh of relief, and followed.

Down a long path Tom Blue led Harry, where the singing meadows sang abreast. Their voices he did not understand, but their song was beautiful. It brought to flower in Harry an unfamiliar sensation, something beyond even the sublimity felt when viewing Hogwarts from afar, or the vista from her tall towers. Ahead, Cold Tom Blue strolled and pranced, naming and talking to the flowers in his sing-song rhyme.

At first the road seemed straight, and clear, but unforeseen meadows soon blocked their path, forcing them to twist and turn. And Harry's mind was twisting too, warping in hazy confusion; for the path, in his eyes, appeared yet unbending, even as it turned. He could do nothing except let himself be led in this hazy land of dreams.

Eventually the flower-song was fading, and the ground grew craggy. Trees lined the advancing hills; bushes ringed their trunks like green-leafed skirts. Was this Larkin Wood? He'd thought the human wood and the faerie wood would be the same, but Tom Blue must've led him a mile at least already…

Just then there was rustling in the nearby rushes, and giggling. Half a dozen little creatures burst forth, flying on slender glimmering wings. They were human-like, he saw, with long ears. Pixies, of a sort. Not the ugly, unpleasant things he'd seen illustrated in Creatures of Land, Earth, and Sky, but pixies who smiled and laughed and looked like tiny people.

Harry felt an uneasy stirring in his chest. He recalled something in his long conversation with Susan, something about seelie and unseelie fae - good and evil fae, really, and their hatred of one another… Weren't these pixies seelie, and weren't Deuli unseelie?

"Aha!" Tom Blue cried, derailing his suspicions before they could truly form. He spread his thin arms in welcome. "Little friends, gay friends, see you not the son of man before you? Greet him, love him, dance with him - I command, or I'm not Cold Tom Blue!"

Harry blinked; and before he could open his eyes once more, the pixies had flown forth, and were spinning around him playfully. One bopped him gayly on the nose, while others circled him at speed, leaving shimmering silver trails in their wake. Harry's head was spinning too, and he fought to control himself. The unravelling of his senses only awoke them fully to what seemed to be happening; the Aegiscrux was insufficient, or Tom was too powerful, for his mind had been in a haze before he'd even passed into Fairyland. He eyed the pixies suspiciously; they were only Tom Blue's latest trick, he was sure..

He wanted to close his eyes then, to ignore the ethereal glow of their fantastical flights, but he couldn't do that either. Cold Tom Blue could not be offended; he had to continue to think Harry would be deferent, would be pliable, just as wizards had been before his long sleep. He felt a pixie tickling him behind his ear, and Harry restrained the urge to draw his wand; what might've seemed good fun two minutes before now appeared as a subtle, veiled danger.

Eventually the pixies slowed, then stopped. He could hear their tiny chests rising and falling, their breath coming out in little puffs, like the breathing of mice. Their tiny bodies were exhausted.

"What a show, my little friends!" said Tom Blue. "But we must be off, wh-"

-And his rhyming was finally interrupted by laughter; his own, as he looked Harry up and down. Following his gaze, Harry looked himself over. Nothing seemed amiss, but, whatever it was, Tom Blue seemed to find it very funny… That was, until he saw the glimmer of gold on his tunic. Then he saw it all. His clothes were covered in a fine layer of pixie dust; so much so that he'd glitter in the sun like a golden disco-ball.

The pixies giggled their high laughter again, bowed as one, then scattered to the winds - leaving Harry looking very silly. Now embarrassed, he struggled even to muster his previous fear, for there was still no obvious peril. He frowned down at his likely ruined clothes.

"Ne're mind, ne're mind!" Tom Blue eventually crowed. "It is the nature of their kind! Come, come and see what man rarely sees, come and see the world behind!"

So Harry followed Tom Blue once more, now no little warier - and a great deal golder. He only hoped it wasn't in his hair. Either way, the trees grew thicker, and the air thicker with them. Harry could almost feel the magic in the place, a sensation almost like he was walking through water. More than that, it was as though he was connected to that water, and that it was all connected to him; through it he could feel the leaning of the trees, the swaying of the branches, all from the ripples through that invisible was like one vast… presence, soothing, calming, nature in purest form.

But what, Harry wondered darkly, lurked beneath?

Ahead the wood ceased suddenly. In fact, the ground had ceased. Cold Tom Blue had led him to the edge of a cliff, whence a grand vista formed. Twin rivers, their waters pure as crystal, snaked out beneath them, meandering through singing flower-meadow, ancient wood, and rolling hill. There was no sign of city, town or hamlet; no hint even of mankind. It was beautiful, like a painting of an old master long passed.

Harry's keen eyes did pick some movement, though - something in the sky. A single bird was circling, very far away. No, he realised; his breath caught in his lungs, and his eyes widened like saucers. The shape was wrong, all wrong - it had the wrong sort of wings, and a vast, thick tail…

It was a dragon, and he must've underestimated just how far distant it was.

"Ættgar," Tom Blue said, frowning - for once. "A fool of a knucker, as your ancestors might name him. He was always a little dim; after all, what has He-Who-We-Shall-Not-Name need of a dragon In his flock?"

Harry squinted at the distant sight, slightly alarmed. Did Tom Blue mean Voldemort? He'd never heard of the Dark Lord wielding a dragon, or naming one an ally. He'd read through most of the sections in A Modern History of Magical Britain that pertained to Voldemort. A book lent to him, he thought guilty, by Gabriel. He recalled no mention of a dragon. It was something to inquire about when he got out of this place.

Harry glanced warily at the faerie lord, and added just to himself: if I get out of this place. If. He listened to Cold Tom Blue call the cardinal directions, naming the winds that blew thence; each answered his call in turn. The north blew a particularly strong gust. "And over there," he pointed, "is Harken Fell, and yonder is Sighing Light, by Merry Dell. All my faerie friends and foes, though rare we come to blows!"

Harry couldn't see anything in the directions Tom Blue had pointed, but nodded along kindly; now his mind was his own again, anxiety was creeping upon him, and he was beginning to realise that he was walking next to a living nuclear bomb - of a kind. The fae was pleasant enough now, it was true, but at any moment…

He was a little reluctant, then, to take Tom Blue's hand when bade. But he smothered his caution and, without allowing himself a moment to think (which would allow him a moment to think why he shouldn't), Harry reached out.

The offered hand was warm, and bony… And then the faerie lord stepped off the edge of the cliff.

And floated.

Harry gawped.

Then his astonishment was broken by a realisation of something even greater; he was floating too! Though it was not the first time he'd flown, this was another matter entirely! There was no broomstick to anchor him, nothing - nothing but the breeze beneath his feet and the sky above. Harry couldn't help himself; he burst out laughing, grinning, and Tom grinned back.

The sight froze the expression on Harry's face, and the glee left him like the passing of a winter sun. Still, it was an amazing experience. He did not know where to place his gaze as Tom Blue lowered them down the cliff face, heading straight for a gaily painted rowing boat floating on the river. They touched down on its timber deck with extraordinary gentility.

Harry sat, knowing already that they were heading down the river. Was Larkin truly so far? If so, what was the purpose of the journey? Couldn't Tom Blue have just pulled him in somewhere closer to the brugh? Was this all an elaborate scheme to have him lower his guard? But then again, why bother? Cold Tom Blue was a deuli; in the realm of the fae he was akin to a god. He didn't need Harry's acquiescence to do anything at all.

Or maybe he was overestimating the faerie lord, because it was not five seconds since he thought that then Tom Blue began to argue with the boat. He was speaking in some strange, shrill faerie-tongue, which sounded like a language a goat might speak - if goats could speak - and gesticulating rather angrily with his thin, long finger at the stern.

Unsurprisingly, the boat wasn't arguing back. Not in a way Harry could detect anyway, and it remained stubbornly immobile, resisting the currents beneath its hull. Tom Blue soon went silent, shaking his head and tapping his foot.

"Aha!"

Then he went straight back to arguing; this time his gestures were less angry than they were violent, and the strange language shriller. Whatever the faerie lord was threatening, it must've worked, because the boat shuddered and finally let the currents take it.

"Sorry for that," Tom Blue said. "She takes some persuading-" he leant over conspiratorially, "-she has the mind of a gnat."

Harry nodded, pretending to understand. Who would bother to imbue a rowboat with a mind?

Knowing he would receive no straight answer - about anything really, not just the boat - Harry sat back and waited. Cold Tom Blue would lead the conversation where he wanted… Except he didn't. Tom Blue drew silent too, and both watched the river bank pass by.

There were, as he had seen from atop the cliff, many more meadows of flowers, whose songs were all unique in their own strange way. Some sang with eerie tones that stirred unease in Harry's heart, while others summoned within him a great joy, an impossible dancing joy, that kind he had never felt before. The kind he knew not to be true.

But more than flowers made their homes on the riverbank of the fae. Little creatures splashed in the reeds. Unfamiliar creatures, with tiny humanoid bodies but very long legs. They wore spiralling mossy dresses, and watched him with large, green eyes set upon narrow, large heads. He'd never seen their like before, and he suspected he never would again.

The creatures watched them pass in mutual silence. Their eyes conveyed an indecipherable emotion, something deep, buried behind a strange melancholy weight. Was that fear? Loathing? Rage? Sadness? Harry could not tell; their faces were set as stone, and their features - regardless - too foreign to interpret.

His mind turned then to the silence, which he suddenly recognised as strange. Where were the birds and the insects, the hedgehogs and the rabbits? Absence of sound became a quick imposition once he realised he'd heard no sound of fauna since he left the wood. The long-legged creatures, being beings, didn't count. Harry spent the rest of the journey searching for something - anything, really. A crow, a blackbird, a rabbit - even a pigeon would do.

Nothing was to be found.

It was only a short while before the boat began to slow, stopping before a long row of drooping willows, their branches blowing like golden hair. Harry turned back… and saw nothing. Just the crystalline river, whose surface danced like ten-thousand diamonds in the evening sun. But where was the cliff? There was no way the boat could've taken them beyond the horizon, was there? It couldn't have just vanished, like a distant heat-haze; unless the boat ride had tricked him, and they'd travelled further than he thought.

Harry's hand dipped toward his pocket.

"Come," cried Tom Blue; Harry's startled jump rocked the boat, and he steadied himself on the gunwale. "Come, let us dance, let us feast! Let us listen to the song of bird and beast!"

The faerie lord bounded through the trees, ancient and child-like all at once. Harry followed him, nearly tripping on a snarl of tangled roots. But the tree-line wasn't thick, and soon he came upon a glade, dominated by a great grass-covered mound of earth.

Around it Cold Tom Blue was dancing an unearthly, twisting dance, leaping and crying all the while; "Lark-in, Lark-in!" he sang. "Swift of foot, sunpine in the night, come to me from dell - from fell, from brook - from crook!"

Tom whirled faster and faster, dizzyingly so it seemed, his periwinkle rags fluttering behind him. And with his quickening came a growing, an impossible, creeping might that stretched across the glade and pushed. Its will bore down on the brugh - and on Harry too. A horrible sensation overtook him; it was as though a vast presence was watching, crawling across every inch of his skin, finding every flaw, inspecting every failure. It was as though it was peering into his soul as an amoral child plays with a captured mouse.

And then came the physical sensations to match the metaphysical. A stirring in the trees, a shudder in the underbrush, everywhere around them, surrounding Harry and the dancing fae lord. He felt the hairs on the neck of his neck prick. Something, he knew, was coming.

Red embers burned in the darkness. Wait, darkness? Darkness must've crept up on him somehow, when he wasn't looking… It was impossible, how could he not notice?

But it was, and he had worse to worry about. The things came stalking, slowly, methodically, parting the underbrush with mangled, over-large hands. Brambles broke under their feet, and he heard each crack like a Muggle gunshot. They were drawing in - drawing him in, and soon he'd be forced towards Tom Blue's brugh.

Then, once the erklings had all stepped inside the glade, they stopped. Each was short and hunched, and each watched, their red eyes unblinking, lidless, as their master danced around his ancient mound.

A spike of dread, far worse than any anxiety he'd yet felt in Fairyland, pierced his heart. Harry slipped his hand into his pocket.

His veins froze, and the dread turned to terror in one terrible moment. The Lumenfaerum, his way out, was gone. Gone. Gone.

The word repeated in his hand like a deathly mantra.

Gone.

Gone.

Gone.

Those who die in Fairyland, he remembered Godric saying, remain in Fairyland.

He swallowed his rising terror, gripping, white-knuckled, his wand which remained. He'd beaten an erkling once before… or so he told himself. How was the compass gone? Had it fallen from his pocket, somewhere on the journey? Or had Tom Blue take it? His eyes shifted once more to the dancing fae; did Tom Blue know?

The fae lord's grinning, red-cheeked face stopped before him. He gestured to the erklings as though they were old friends. "Your boon, young master. Lead my children as you must;; it is the only way to prevent disaster!"

Harry's heart was thundering in his chest. Lead? "What do you mean, lead?"

Tom Blue gave a tired twirl, then said; "These isles are in danger. Sun and sea; earth and sky. All will fall if you do not try."

Harry searched his trembling mind for when he had last sight of the compass. When did he last reach into his pocket? An image came to mind; just before they got on the boat - so it was with him when they were travelling down the river…

Which meant, he thought miserably, the Lumenfaerum was probably in the rowing boat. How could he get back to it? For Tom Blue wasn't Quirrell; there would be no fortunate weakness to exploit. Harry grit his teeth; stalling was all he could do, so stall he did. "You want me to become an erlkling, like… them?"

Tom Blue looked shocked at the idea. "Nay! They are peasants, men without magic. Turning you to them would be oh so tragic! Elf-prince I would name you, with skin as strong as oaken bark, as ageless of the spirits of the Tor, just listen to me, hark!

"Heed not the hunters' lies; they see not the spirits' sighs. A baser world they would create - no pixie, no doxy, nor thestral - all would share the wolfvern fate. Without they we are doomed, doomed to linger in a world of shattered hate!"

Hunters? Merlin and Morgana… he knew. He'd knew about the Huntan all along. Tom Blue had only been playing with him, surely? But then again, he thought frantically, why make an appeal to… whatever danger he thinks is coming? And how would magical creatures aid its defeat?

It was all very frustrating. "Stop speaking in riddles," he said. "And tell me about this threat. Why do I need to lead these erklings?"

"Old things are stirring," answered Cold Tom Blue, now a little more subdued, "tis' why I woke. Might be half a century 'till they're primed, but when they are - all the lands they'll choke. Smother, indeed, cover merry forest in dark nights and dark days, like the effluence of daemons' souls, like unearthly smoke."

That didn't sound good. But then again, he didn't want to become some disfigured parody of an 'elf' (or whatever To Blue considered an elf) either. At least, he thought with distant, wry humour, he didn't seem to be suggesting Harry be turned into a house elf. The thought sparked just the hint of a smile on his lips. "Sorry," he joked. "I'm still not sure about being made of bark."

Tom Blue's face fell suddenly. He seemed to take the jest with the utmost seriousness. "Pity," he said, for once not rhyming at all.

Harry felt something crash into the back of his head. His vision swam; he saw grass, just grass, and then nothing.

...

...

Torchlight quivered behind his eyes, flickering in and out and in and out. Like the lights on a Muggle ambulance, bright and dark - bright and dark. Harry groaned. The back of his head was throbbing.

One of the erklings must've sneaked up on him. Did it have a club? It felt like a sledgehammer. He forced his eyes open, then winced.

The light was a torch ensconced in a dingy stone wall. It held a curious shape, Harry dimly noticed; not the dressed stone of Hogwarts, nor even piled rubble… the wall had been carved, rough-hewn, from the living rock. Harry started.

He was in a brugh. Cold Tom Blue's brugh. Now very awake, adrenaline coursing through his veins, he peered around the room. It was a cell - that much was obvious. Bronze bars restrained him. He was laying on a stone bed lined with a thin straw mattress.

Harry heaved himself up, feeling nauseous as he did. The lonely light did not reach far past his cell. Darkness obscured his sight beyond his measly cage. A deep, swallowing darkness; the sort of darkness that had a solidity of its own, that was more than mere absence of light. Who knew what waited there, in the dark places of Fairyland?

Yet one object was perfectly clear; his wand, floating temptingly just beyond the bars. Harry flung his hand forth… and met empty air. The wand had, at the last moment, darted away. Harry scowled. It could only be Tom Blue's idea of a joke.

At least, he thought, they hadn't been able to take the cross. He could feel its weight comfortably around his neck. With that smallest of reassurances, Harry slunk back down to his mattress. There was nothing else to do but wait.

And what a terrible thought that was. Time passes slower in the land of the fae, but no one knew how slowly. What if Tom Blue just forgot about him, or lost interest in whatever purpose he mentioned and returned to his slumber? If he did manage to escape, what year might it be when he arrived in Britain?

Harry closed his eyes and swallowed a sob. What had he done? Merlin, why had he allowed himself to be led by the Huntan? If they had released the information he'd told them, what would even happen? There would be questions, true, but what else? Damage to the reputation of 'the Boy-Who-Lived'?

He scoffed to himself, feeling very stupid. Just as Tom Blue had led him here too. One party, then another, bouncing him around like a quaffle. There could be no more of it, Harry decided. He couldn't let himself be led anymore.

If there was anymore to be. But then again, Cold Tom Blue spoke as though he needed him. "Old things are stirring," Harry whispered to himself, recalling the fae's words. His voice felt scratchy in his throat. What else had he said? "Half a century… all lands they'll choke… like daemon's souls, like unearthly smoke…"

Harry's head felt like it was filled with poisonous smoke. He winced. How hard had the erkling hit him? Maybe they weren't so interested in keeping him alive after all?

Maybe he was just bait for the Hantan… who, apparently, wanted to destroy most of Britain's magical creatures - if the suspect words of Cold Tom Blue were to be believed. Harry had no idea if that was true. They were blood purists, that was true; but believing in the superiority of Purebloods didn't necessarily mean they wanted to commit genocide.

After a little further thought, his head began to clear, and he realised that it was unlikely. Magical creatures, cynical as it was, were useful sources of potion's ingredients. Killing them all would be counterproductive - throwing the baby out with the bathwater, as Uncle Vernon might've said.

A creak broke through his cell's silence, like the breaking of a stick beneath a boot. Harry strained his eyes, watching the black shadow with baited breath. Was this something terrible coming, coming to collect him on Tom Blue's command?

Two red orbs floated in the darkness like hot coals. Harry felt a cold sweat drip from his brow. He recognised those eyes, two points of hell; they were erklings' eyes.

He heard it lumber forward. Its mangled feet must've been awkward on the stone floor (which was, unlike the walls, dressed).

"Harry," he heard a child's voice say, lilting and happy. It pulled on his heart; it sounded like a voice from his dreams, from back when he cried in his cupboard and wished for friends that Dudley couldn't scare away.

The erkling drew closer. Harry saw its twisted body, a chimera of man and willow, emerge from the darkness. The flickering torchlight cast monstrous shadows in its wake.

"Harry," the voice came again.

Where was that coming from?

The erkling stopped before his cell and seemed to regard the bars.

"Harry, it's been so long!"

And Harry's cold sweat turned to a heart-wrenching, vile shock. The kind that violently purged emotion from his body, leaving him open-mouthed and ill. He felt nauseous to the soul; for he saw that the erkling's mouth was moving in time with the child-like calls. It was speaking.

Backpedalling, Harry hit the raw, mossy stone at his back. The unforgiving stone was cold, and damp, and only further stoked his fear. He saw the erkling's head drop, as though it were saddened.

"W-what a-are you?"

Harry was too scared to be ashamed of the terror in his voice.

"I'm Daniel!" it said childishly. High and light, yet horrifically timbered, Harry felt another shiver of strange fear sliver through him. Its voice was twisted like the branches of an ancient tree, so that the two limbs echoed each other - one bright and kind, the other low and menacing. Was he looking at his fate, too?

Harry licked his lips. What could he possibly say? He had no idea, so he said what came to mind. "He-hello, Daniel. W-what brings you here?" There was no wit to it, but he had none to give. His brain felt like it'd been beaten to mush.

"I wanted to see my new friend, of course! I've been playing with my friends, but we always, always want more!"

Harry was too befuddled to recognise the horrible implication. In fact, he was too befuddled to feel. It was as though he was looking over his own body from afar, deciding casually what he ought and ought not to say. "Oh," he said flatly. "Do you have many friends?"

Daniel's terrible red eyes lit with child-like glee. "Many!" he replied happily. "So many, more than I ever had before. Don't you remember, Harry, what it was like before?"

Harry blinked slowly. No, he heard himself think… But his own thoughts sounded distant, as though he were trapped far from his own mind. No, that can't be…

But it is, something terrible whispered back, it is. See what meddling has brought you?

"No," Harry's mouth said. "No- no- no."

"No?" the erkling repeated in polite confusion.

Harry had heard that tone before. He'd always been so polite. Always so happy - and lonely. Daniel Lane had gone to Saint Gregory's with him. He was extremely clever, and well-liked in a standoffish sort of way. Everyone thought he'd become a scientist, or a politician, or a businessman.

He dared a glance at the twisted creature before him, more thing than boy, it's eyes burning a bloody scarlet… Yet they were wide, and eager, like a puppy.

Suddenly dizzy, Harry felt himself slip to the ground, his back grinding against the living rock. No… no… no…

If he hadn't gone to Rosier's Trifles, Blue would've never taken an interest in him, and Daniel's… Daniel's transformation never would've happened.

The tears came all at once, and with them a new rush of emotion, and with it a return to his own body. It all hurt. His heart felt like it might tear itself in two. Great swells of guilt threatened to send him hacking vomit on the ground.

"Daniel…" he managed to croak out, "Lane?"

The erkling started, and the youthful jump it gave seemed sickening on its body. "Yep! Here I am. Don't you recognise me?"

Recognise me? Harry briefly examined Daniel's misshapen face, his long nose, his glowing red eyes. No, Harry thought once more, it's too… I hate it… I need to leave. I need to leave. I need to get out of here.

He forced himself, with a monumental effort, to his feet. His limbs felt like they were formed from stone. "Say," he said weakly, as casually as he could manage, "could you pass me my wand?"

The thing that was Daniel tilted its head like an inquisitive dog. "I'm not sure," it said, voice wavering. "What are you going to do with it?"

"Harry tried his best to retain his easygoing tone. "Oh, just - just entertain myself. Make some paint, a few magic tricks. Maybe magic a paper aeroplane with it." Harry swallowed the bile that threatened to overwhelm him in preparation for what he was about to say. "Don't you, d-don't you remember when we used to do that in English, the whole class when Mr. Harway wasn't in the room?"

Even that wasn't quite true; Harry had never allowed himself the joy of making paper aeroplanes. There was no point. Dudley would've ruined them, or told a teacher.

But to Daniel, he didn't think the truth mattered. Daniel was… Daniel was doomed.

"We're going to make paper aeroplanes?" the erkling boy said, excited. His wooden skin allowed no expression on his face, but if he weren't so heavy, Harry was sure he'd be jumping up and down. He definitely hadn't matured since primary school, since… Harry swallowed. "We are," he lied.

"Okay!"

Daniel swiped the wand from the air and held it out through the bars. Harry grasped it victoriously, quick as a snake.

"Stupefy, Stupefy, Stupefy!"

The third spell dropped Daniel, poor, poor Daniel, unconscious.

"I'm sorry," Harry said, feeling uncomfortably guilty. He remembered Daniel Lane fully then, for a brief, terrible moment, as he once was. His eager attempts at football in the schoolyard - he'd always been picked last in PE; the awkward laugh he always did when a teacher complimented his beloved sketches. The way he'd stuck his tongue out when reading a book.

They were memories that would vanish like leaves on an eternal wind.

But the past couldn't distract him. Adrenaline coursed through his veins like fire. He had to get out.

And the bars were just old bronze. They were possibly the least magical thing in Tom Blue's brugh. It took Harry less than a minute to break them, wand in hand.

"Lumos," he cast; and the darkness wavered like thick, curling smoke. As though it fought against his light.

Harry kept his distance from… from the erkling, and paced down the passage. Cold stone surrounded him, stained with strange red moss. He wandered thus for a while, crouched, as silent as the grave.

He made more than one turn, expecting, at any moment, to meet the cold blue eyes of Cold Tom Blue and his false, easy smile.

But he met no one, saw no one. The ancient mound was like a fleeting dream. If he wasn't able to touch it, Harry would've sworn it was. He reached out to the nearest wall, as if to reassure himself.

Then he gasped quietly - which sounded to his ears like a cannon - and withdrew, holding his hand as if stung. The red moss wasn't moss. It had no stubbly, rough texture. It was blood, dried blood.

How many passages had he crept down? How much… How much blood stained Tom Blue's walls? Somehow, somehow he knew; this was what happened to those who accepted Tom Blue's boons.

He had to get out.

The next corner he took at close to a sprint, meeting, finally, light. Specifically moonlight, which filtered through the trees, gentle - and unwelcome. How much time had passed in the human world?

He didn't recognise the clearing into which he emerged. The trees were all wrong, and the ground beneath his feet. Which meant…

"Oh… Merlin."

Fresh fear rose from his stomach. He had no idea how to return to the boat… or if it was still there. He set off towards the treeline with heavy thoughts and a heavier heart.

The trees - ash, he identified, were sinister in the moonlight. Harry shivered and began to walk, the soles of his feet now beginning to protest. No longer did he care if the Huntan were suspect; he'd take You-Know-Who himself saving him if it meant he'd escape from Tom Blue's clutches.

Soon he was lost. Everywhere looked the same. Old growth peered down at him from ancient trunks, who appeared almost to have faces of their own. The pain in his soles had migrated to his legs, cramping his muscles. He trudged on regardless. A cool wind was the only balm to his aches; blowing through wood, it seemed to sway its branches towards him threateningly.

The fear was morphing into panic. Where was the boat? He'd hoped against hope that somehow, some way, he'd pass over some hill or through a hedge, and the river would be waiting for him there. Then he only had to follow it.

But he saw no river, and heard no running water. And time was passing, ever, ever passing, stretching out longer and longer in Britain whence he'd come. Where Hogwarts was, and Susan, and everything he'd come to love.

A snap in the underbrush snapped him from his maudlin thoughts. He dived down to the forest floor and peered into the darkness, extinguishing his lumos as he did. The wood turned so dark then, and frightening, that it took all his will not to cast the spell again, knowing it would doom him.

"Harry?" said a faintly familiar voice.

Harry popped his head up, and saw… Edmund? He too was peering into the underbrush, his blonde hair shining like beaten gold in the moonlight. The sight sent a rush of fathomless relief through his aching legs.

Thank Merlin, he thought, heaving himself to his feet. "Edmund!" he said, scampering over, wincing as his tender feet pounded against the undergrowth. He was too tired to think, too tired to care that Edmund was a blood purist. He wanted to go home.

Edmund glanced up at his approach, grinning with uncharacteristic delight. "Ho, Harry, am I glad to see you!"

His lips twitched, and Harry saw the moment his skin fell off his face. He stared at Harry with wide, red lips, as his raw, exposed muscles writhed and twisted in the open air. Bones snapped and reshaped; Harry could hear the sickening squelch of flesh transforming, the sound threatening to trigger a round of vomiting.

It was the worst thing he'd ever seen - far, far worse than Quirrell.

And at the end of it, Cold Tom Blue stood before him in Edmund's clothes, his eyes as cold and flinty as a glacier. "I thought you had left! That wouldn't do. How else might I make you anew?"

Harry imagined his own face shifting like that, his own bones breaking, becoming something else - all as grinning Cold Tom Blue watched on, humming his silly songs. The cool wind blew once more, but this time it froze Harry's veins to ice. Inevitability stood before him; but still he raised his wand with a shaking hand.

Tom Blue laughed and made a flourishing gesture, as though he were waving to the moon.

Harry stopped shaking, though the ice inside remained, tight and sharp. He stopped doing anything for a long moment of confusion; his body refused to move. Then, slowly, he stepped back, one foot leading the other. Now the ice was crystalising; Harry wanted to scream, but nothing would come out. He had no control of his body, which began to twist and twirl across the forest floor. He was dancing, dancing back, back to Larkin wood.

Ever closer he came; the trees suddenly appeared familiar. The ruined, mangled face of Daniel Lane was set in the centre of his mind as he danced, danced, danced back whence he had come. Your fate, its red eyes seemed to say, join us soon, so we can play! His panic became terror, now a great dragon of ice within his chest, threatening to burst free. Harry wanted to cry… but his enchanted body would not let him. He couldn't even feel Tom Blue's fae-magic to fight against it.

Mid-twirl he caught the outline of a set of trees he knew. The brugh stood just beyond. Trapped within himself, Harry told his soul to scream; to cry; to wail, to do anything. His mind turned to dreams long forgotten; mummy, he thought into the nothingness, please help! Please save me!

His mother did not come. His pleas withered away, and his limbs continued to glide, to dance, dancing ever onwards…

A new sensation drove away his panic, then. Even misery seemed to leave; and the ice dragon shrivelled and died, leaving a vast emptiness in his chest. I'm sorry, he told himself. I'm sorry Mum and Dad. I'm sorry I couldn't make you proud. I'm sorry Alan, and sorry Gabriel. I'm sorry I betrayed you. I'm sorry Susan. I'm sorry I can't be your friend anymore.

Somehow, he managed to close his eyes. The dark was soothing. He wished he could fall in and forget about everything - about the fae, about Tom Blue, about the Dursleys - even Hogwarts. Just forget it all…

A horn sounded in the darkness, deep and proud.

Then another, an answering call, higher and more present. They were like twins, like thunder and lighting, like summer and winter, like good and evil - and all one, and one all, and all at once.

Harry opened his eyes.

He saw that Tom Blue was no longer grinning. "No! No- no!" he cried, staring deeper into the wood. "Tom must save his world, this he knows! No horned man may meddle, no green man can bring Tom Blue low!"

The horns sounded again - closer this time, and Tom let out a scream of rage, of pain, of anguish, and then he was gone. There was no pop of apparition; just as he had appeared, so he vanished.

Harry slumped to the ground, his hands bracing himself against the soft earth. Tired, he thought sluggishly, too tired.

He wanted to go home.

"Home," said a voice, grand and deep.

Harry struggled to stand. Everything hurt. He pointed his wand in defiance; and found he was aiming at a towering man, dressed all in forest green, who wore atop his brow the skin of a great elk. Its antlers must've reached ten feet in the air.

There was an aura of majesty about the man, a glimmer of something greater, and the woods brightened as he drew closer. A weight was settling in, augured by his presence.

"Home is what you seek, Harry Potter?"

Though Harry knew - knew - this man was untouchable, he did not lower his wand. "I-I do," he eventually replied, when he realised it was not a rhetorical question. "Who are you, stranger?"

"I am Herne of the Wood," he answered. "Some name me Herne the Hunter. Is this the thing you seek, this token of my hunters?" He held the Lumenfaerum in the palm of his massive, calloused hand.

Harry took an unconscious step closer, his eyes afixed on the compass. "It is. Where did you find it?"

"Where it was left," Herne rumbled. "But in return for this gift to you, I must burden you in turn. Listen closely, and burn these words into your heart.

"Long do the shadows cry,

Weeping for their light.

"Long do the monsters fight,

To reach from the land of deepening sighs.

"One will be chosen, one of many and more,

He who wakes mountains. Many, and more.

"There were many and more, Harry Potter. It is you who has happened across this burden, and shoulder it you must."

Harry had listened carefully to the words of Herne the Hunter, his head growing heavy all the while. The depth of his voice seemed to pierce his brow, as though it were driving a nail into his head. It hurt; it hurt so awfully, as a sharp agony between his eyes.

"I… I think I understand," Harry said.

And before he knew it, the Lumenfaerum was in the palm of his own, smaller hand, and Herne was gone.

Harry didn't even think. He smashed the glass around its case and ran into the unfolding portal before the Huntan even arrived from the other side - if any still lived. Had Cold Tom Blue been really - literally - wearing Edmund's face?

The next morning, Harry Potter awoke on the floor of number ten, the Leaky Cauldron. The light filtering through the window told him it was afternoon. Diagon's familiar buzz drifted into his room, a lively reminder of the world to which he'd returned. The exhaustion, the pounding in his head, was all gone. He felt like he'd slept an age. All was well.

He patted himself down to remind himself that he was alive, then pondered why he couldn't recall anything after the portal opened. It took him a few moments to realise; the place where he had slept was where the portal had spat him out. He'd fallen unconscious while in transit, then slept the night through on the floor.

There was a cruck in his back, and his thighs ached terribly, but Harry didn't care. He didn't care about Herne's strange poem, either. Because he was alive.

Then he looked to his desk, and saw three books aligned neatly on the polished surface. Muscular Wizardry, read the first, a Guide to Magical Fitness for the Purposes of Duelling.

Harry's grin widened. He was even better than alive. He was going to become…

THE DUELLIST

A/N:

Well… wasn't that a pleasant holiday for Harry? Is Edmund alive? Will the Huntan even win? I can say that neither will come out unscathed, and that Harry will soon enter his second year at Hogwarts… where surely nothing bad could happen, right? Dobby was just being over-enthusiastic!

Have a great day, I hope September is a good month for you all and, as always, some shilling:

If you fancy it, join us on Discord, where this chapter is a chapter ahead on Discord: /mw2vyjM45m (go to the symbol, join a server, then fill in the template with the above character string. Or copy-paste it from my profile, or the description of this story.

On P-atreon this story is two chapters ahead, which is best found on the Discord - or through Google I suppose.

Take Care,

JoustingAlchemy