Chapter 11
Carriage

Harry reclined in his cozy chair, feet propped on the table of the Hufflepuff common room, flipping through the pages of the Book and perusing forbidden lore. Ron had persuaded Hermione into a game of wizards' chess, and they sat across the table, wearing expressions of concentration and frustration respectively.

"Maybe you and You-Know-Who ended up in different worlds," suggested Ron, his knight brutalizing one of Hermione's pawns. "I mean, there are more than just two worlds, right? There's gotta be."

"Indeed," said Harry distantly, skimming through passage after passage of the Author's detailed accounts of experiments carried out in worlds not his own. Harry had specific questions, but without the convenience of any glossary, index or table of contents, he was forced to progress page by page in his search for answers.

The Author had fashioned an enchanted mirror that could replay a person's worst memories, and had imprisoned people within it. Then the Author would record how long it would take before a prisoner broke, not just mentally but spiritually; their souls would literally fragment apart from the stress. Muggle, Muggle-born, pure-blood, half-blood, male, female, young, old—all sorts were victimized in the pursuit of experimentation and its sibling, discovery.

Elsewhere, the Author described the manner in which he could transfer the consciousness of a human into the body of an animal. This differed from transfiguration in that the person's body remained in a vegetative state while the mind could do nothing but scream, fully aware but trapped within the body of the creature.

Also explored were theories on bodily resurrection, theories which were investigated by experimentation. Harry read with morbid and disturbed fascination as the Author described the murder and attempted resurrection of kidnapped victims, some of whose souls the Author had encaged beforehand and some he had not. Those whose souls were yet bound to the world were returned to a brand-new body, whereas those whose souls had passed on were unable to return at all, lost forever to the mortal plane.

It was all quite gruesome and twisted, but other entries were horrifying in other ways. Some pages were dedicated to the women the Author had met—read: slept with. Sprinkled throughout the Book were all sorts of sketches, paintings and unusual representations, many of them flattering, some of them not, and in all of them the Author's sexist objectification was made apparent.

Harry often felt nauseated experiencing, even secondhand, what was recorded in the Book. Indeed, the only innocence the device possessed, if it possessed any at all, were in the benign spells and potion recipes.

And it never seemed to run out of pages. Whenever Harry would try to open the Book from the back end, the pages would part to reveal discussions and schemes he'd already read, rather like he were opening the Book from the middle instead. Even the last page was followed by another and another until somehow Harry ended up in the middle again.

Hermione cried out in agonized frustration as yet another of her pieces was taken and thrown off the board. "I don't understand this game! How can you have a plan for every move I make? It's madness!"

Ron only grinned. "What about you, Harry? Having more luck than Hermione, I hope."

Harry set the Book aside, pressing a palm to his eyes and feeling only mildly unsettled upon this reading. He gestured with his hands as he searched for words. "So, like, there's this… tree of worlds. Or something."

Hermione leveled a disbelieving stare at him over her graveyard of chess pieces. "A world tree, Harry? Really?"

"Not a literal tree, Hermione," complained Harry. "It's… I'm not going to be any good at explaining this, but… the Author describes it something like this:

"All the worlds are part of this one shared metaphorical tree, and each branch of the tree corresponds to a unique world. Typically, these worlds are unconnected and isolated from one another, but with a certain spell—the Otherworldly Ordinance—you could pull two branches together and travel between them."

"That wasn't in the theory I spent hours reading," groused Hermione.

Indeed, it hadn't been. The original theory had concerned travel between just two worlds; later expositions in the Book explored the joining together of many more, and for this newer theory, a newer analogy had been required. Harry told Hermione as much, and she wasn't entirely satisfied by it.

"But You-Know-Who did the spell first," said Ron. "So why did we go through all that rubbish in the first place if you could've just followed him over?"

"Because the spell not only links two worlds together but also the person," explained Hermione. "Harry wouldn't have been able to cross the boundary unless he'd done the ritual himself."

Ron's eyes widened. "That potion! The one that knocked you out!"

"Exactly," said Harry, nodding vigorously and sitting straighter in his chair.

"So there's only two worlds You-Know-Who could be in," deduced Ron. "This one or that one."

"Most likely," said Harry.

Hermione broke in for Harry then, happy to let the chess match lie forgotten. "No, not likely, Harry."

"Oi, what now?" moaned Ron.

"Isn't it obvious?" said Hermione. "The Author had been going to other worlds for who knows how long. He must've bound dozens of worlds together. Voldemort could be in any of them!"

It amused Harry to hear Hermione talk about alternate worlds as if she hadn't spent literal months trying to persuade him of their nonexistence.

"Yes and no, Hermione," said Harry.

Her eyes narrowed in curiosity, unaccustomed to being corrected. "How so?"

Harry waved the Book about and tossed it onto the table. "The Author theorizes the bond that links the worlds to a World Traveler will—"

"Shut up, mate," said Ron, laughing. "That's a terrible pun."

"I didn't come up with it! It was the Author's—!"

"Boys," prompted Hermione, "focus."

"It's a bad pun and you know it," insisted Ron.

"What does the Author theorize, Harry?"

"The Author theorizes that the bond linking the worlds to a"—Harry's lips twitched—"World Traveler dissolves upon the traveler's death, causing the worlds to disconnect once more. And the Author is ancient, he's been dead awhile. So when—"

Ron finished for him, eyes dawning with comprehension. "So when You-Know-Who did his version of the spell, he was making a connection that wasn't there before! So it is just the two worlds."

"Unless Harry's casting of the spell linked up a third world," suggested Hermione.

"No, wait!" said Harry, reaching for the Book. "I read something about that in here somewhere… Where did I…?" He flipped through the pages for several tense moments before giving up. "I dunno where it was, it's impossible to find anything in this damn thing, but I remember reading early on that joining more than just two worlds together required extra steps that we didn't take."

Hermione frowned at him. " 'Early on'? Why didn't I know about this, Harry?"

Harry shifted in his chair. "Oh, er," he said slowly, "because I didn't tell you?"

She crossed her arms. "What else have you been hiding from me?"

"Nothing! It's just that you were so up my arse about the whole other-worlds thing that I didn't want to mention it!"

"Oh." Her arms fell away. "Alright then. I'm… sorry for being... on your case about it. Especially since I was wrong."

He shrugged. "It's fine, Hermione, really."

Ron looked between them impatiently. "So… we're at a consensus? Two worlds?"

Hermione sighed. "If we assume Harry and Voldemort are the only ones to cast the Otherworldly Ordinance since the last time this world was bound with another… then, yes, two worlds. For now, anyway."

"And Voldemort has no reason to skip off to a third," added Harry.

Ron gave Harry a one-shouldered shrug. "Then I guess it's just bad luck you haven't run into ol' snake face, Harry."

"He's laying low," insisted Harry, "plotting something. I know it."

"Well," said Ron with a chuckle, "we'll keep an eye out on this side. If he shows his fangs round these parts, you'll be the first to know."

After that, they moved on to more trivial things. They even managed a few jokes while Harry cooked them dinner: If Snape could steal Firewhisky straight from the bottle, Harry wondered if his friends could actually sit and have a meal with him. As it happened, though Ron and Hermione couldn't manipulate anything as delicate as spoons, forks or knives, they could lift bowls of soup to their mouths. It was a crazy notion, feeding ghosts, but Harry was thankful for the relatively normal social experience.

"So, Harry," said Ron in that cheeky tone the others knew meant something eye-roll worthy was sure to follow, "how'd that date go last night, eh?"

Hermione looked up from her soup bowl. "Harry, you didn't tell me you had a date! Seriously, Harry, it's like I don't know my best friend anymore."

Harry raised his hands. "It's not like that!"

"Is it that Penny girl?"

"You remember that wandmaker I told you about?" He had told Hermione about his lead on Snorkacks, but nothing, of course, about the sexual energy that existed between Olivia and he.

Hermione nodded. "So did you learn anything about Crumple-Horned Snorkacks?"

Harry grinned. "Two words—Dartmoor."

"That's one word, Harry."

"Whatever. I learned loads about them, Olivia even recommended me a book when I left this morning—"

"This morning!"

Harry sputtered, a heat instantly climbing up his face. "I, er…"

Ron was grinning like an idiot and shooting Harry a not-so-furtive thumbs-up as Hermione glared.

"Harry Potter," she said sternly, "you were supposed to get information from her, not take her to bed—!"

"She took me, really."

"That isn't the point! You barely know this woman!"

"Hermione," interjected Ron, "surely you don't think Harry should be working all the time, do you?"

"Not all the time, but—"

"So wouldn't you say Harry is entitled to a little fun now and again?"

"Well, sure, except—"

"And Harry got the information we needed, didn't you, Harry?"

Harry tapped his blazing forehead. "Uh, it's a little fuzzy, but it's in here."

Ron spread his hands like a judge convinced of a defendant's innocence. "You see? Harry got the job done—er, so to speak. You wouldn't fault him for seeking a little human connection, would you?"

Hermione glared at Ron, arms crossed, pink faced and nostrils flaring. "Since when did you become so reasonable, Ronald Weasley?"

Ron winked.

"Well," huffed Hermione, "I don't approve. But… I suppose I'm happy for you anyway, Harry."

Harry squeaked in reply, wishing in that moment that he were in literally any other world.

Monday morning found Harry being let into the potions shop by a quiet Penny.

"Good morning," he said casually as he started his new routine. He'd gotten in the habit of putting on his assistant robes at the Three Broomsticks before coming into work.

"Hello," said Penny curtly. She immediately went to work without the usual "How are you doing?" or "Have a good weekend?"

Harry wouldn't have said she was a morning person, but rather an all-day person, so her silence was especially out of place. He took a moment to look her over: Her nails were painted an eye-catching vermilion today rather than her typical Hufflepuff yellow, but otherwise she looked no different than any other day.

"Is everything alright, Penny?" he asked. "You seem a bit…" Harry wasn't sure which word to use, so he left it at that.

Penny smiled at him with her usual buoyancy. "I'm fine, Harry, thank you for asking. I'm just a bit tired."

Harry accepted her explanation. He knew tired. Tired and he were old, old friends. He told her as much, and she laughed.

Harry noted the fresh cupcakes in a box on the counter. "No wonder you're so tired," he said jovially, "when you wake up so early to bake these delicious treats every day!"

"No, you can't have one, Harry," she said robotically. "They're for customers."

Lunch came and went that day, but the suspicion that something was the matter with Penny crept up on him again. They ate lunch together as they usually did, but it was without their usual chitchat, and all morning she'd kept to herself in the backroom, leaving Harry to man the register. Her responses were friendly enough but curt, and never once did she initiate conversation with him except to ask him to do this or that. Harry might've described Penny as cold, but he wasn't sure she was capable of it. Perhaps distant was the proper word.

It wasn't until long after they'd discarded their lunch wrappers that she approached him.

"Sorry I've been so rude today, Harry." Her expression was sincere. "I… suppose I'm just not feeling myself today."

Harry tittered. "I didn't want to say anything… Maybe a Pepper-Up Potion?"

"No, I'm not sick." She pinched her lip, lost in thought.

"How about after the shop closes, I brew us up some Euphoria and we can giggle like schoolchildren for an hour?" he said, winning a tiny smile for his jest.

"Thanks, Harry, but I think a good night's rest is what I need."

Harry had a thought, and he wondered if he was brave enough to suggest it. "If you want, you can go home. I can finish up here. There's only, what, two hours until close?"

"You're sweet, Harry, but no, I can finish today." She sighed quite blusteringly, as if she were flushing something other than air from her system. She smiled again, more widely than before, but it seemed rather stiff to him. "Look at me being so blue! I should be asking you about your weekend. How was your date Friday?"

Harry glanced away. It had been good, great, bloody marvelous, but he wasn't going to tell Penny that. "It was okay," he said. "We had soup."

Penny lifted a single blond eyebrow. "Soup?"

"Tomato."

"Oh… That's nice… Um, are you seeing her again?" Her trademark cheer seemed somehow frozen on her face.

"Oh, erm…"

In truth, he hadn't thought a second date had been in the cards for Olivia and him. He'd been under the impression that Friday night had been a one-time thing. Harry had certainly enjoyed himself, and Olivia had been bubbly as ever the next morning; she'd even scrambled his eggs. And before he'd left, she'd given him one last searing kiss, slapped his arse and whispered, "I guess you filled that opening after all, eh, love?"

"I don't think so," he said at length, more than a tad flustered by the memories. He didn't think he'd ever be able to think of Olivia again without reliving the novel experiences of that night. Even now, he had to divert his inappropriate thoughts before they got him into trouble.

"Oh, that's too bad," remarked Penny airily, straightening up some ingredient kits on one of the counters. "How long were you two together?"

"She was my first," he said absently, seeing Olivia's bedroom instead of the shop. "Er, first date. I mean, I've had dates before, but last Friday was our first date. And last date, I expect." He could have facepalmed.

"You sure work fast," she said with levity, still fidgeting with the kits. "Barely a month since waking up with no memories and already you get yourself a girlfriend." She laughed, but it sounded flat.

"Er, she's not my girlfriend," said Harry slowly, as if this was somehow an important distinction. "It was just dinner and a few drinks."

"R-right," agreed Penny hastily, turning to face him but looking at his robes. "I didn't mean anything by it."

They stared awkwardly at one another.

"I think I left a cauldron on!" said Penny, hurrying into the backroom.

Harry kicked himself. He wasn't certain he knew what had happened there, but he knew it must've been his fault. Why, why, why had he mucked that up? He knew why: He'd been thinking of Olivia and gotten distracted. Blasted Olivia and her, her… everything! Unbidden, he saw Olivia cooking breakfast in her underwear, a hand on one hip, face turned sideways as she winked at him. He remembered a bit of grease had splattered her, and she'd sworn loudly, leaving that strip of bacon to cook longer than the rest out of revenge.

The jingling of the bell interrupted his thoughts, startling him out of his trance. He berated himself for being so distractable.

He spent five minutes helping a customer choose between a Draft of Peace and a Calming Draft, successfully selling another cupcake in the process. As he peered through the glass countertop to the delectable cakes, an idea sparked within him. He opened the till, dropped a couple coins in and seized the cake that looked the sweetest, a vanilla one with white icing and pink hundreds and thousands. "Penny?" he called, squeezing his way into the backroom. He found her at the cauldrons, all of them cold, her back to him.

She span around as he approached, stuffing her hands into her pockets. "Hmm?"

He suddenly wasn't sure what to say. Should he apologize? Yes, he should. But what for? He wagered he might've made her uncomfortable—he'd surely made himself uncomfortable—but how to say it? Communication had never come easily to him, not when it pertained to feelings. Usually, he just kept things in until they exploded out of him. He refused to explode at Penny. But what to say?…

Lost for words, Harry merely presented the cupcake to her. "I hoped it might cheer you up."

She considered it a moment before accepting it with a small, uncertain smile.

"I paid for it," he rushed to assure her. "Don't think I've been sneaking cakes under the table or anything."

Her smile turned genuine, her eyes still on the cupcake, as if she were afraid her gaze might break him. "Harry," she began, her tone contemplative, "I bought these a while ago"—she dipped a hand into her pocket and retrieved two slips of paper—"and I'd meant to take someone else, but they couldn't make it." She looked him in the eye. "And I was wondering if you wanted to come with me?"

Curious, Harry took one of the slips and read it. It was a ticket—a ticket to the one hundred thirtieth Quidditch World Cup match later this month!

His heart felt like it might burst from overstuffing. Agape, he floundered for another wordless moment.

He'd been to the Ireland-Bulgaria match in his world, but he'd been fourteen, and it had been Ron who'd invited him, and they were best mates. Penny, however, was a new friend, his coworker, technically his boss, of whom he'd grown surprisingly fond in so short a time. Harry couldn't entirely quantify it, but this situation was decidedly different than when Ron had invited him all those years ago. Messier. Was it because he was an adult now? Or because he and Penny barely knew each other but nonetheless she was offering him an extra ticket that would've easily cost him a month's salary? Harry was quite touched by the offer and fabulously flattered.

"P-Penny… are you sure?"

Her fingers had found one another and were flexing furiously. "Like I said, I'd originally planned on going with someone else, but since they couldn't make it, I thought, 'Who else do I know who loves Quidditch as much as I do?' And it's just, I mean, I figured…" She laughed impatiently. "Well, say something, Harry!"

Harry had long since begun to grin. "I'd love to go, Penny! Thank you so much!"

Penny smiled, and this time, truly, she looked like her usual, happy self.

That night, as Harry readied himself for bed, the remnants of a smile surviving on his face, he contemplated the coming match. It wasn't until the final days of August, but he could hardly contain his excitement.

The Quidditch World Cup match had entirely evaded his mind when he'd considered upcoming events from the ninety-four-ninety-five school year of his past—which was quite a contradicting thought. Harry had thought only of September onwards, had utterly forgotten the preceding summer, and now that he considered it…

"It's going to be brilliant," he said whispered, as if speaking loudly might cause Penny to rescind her offer.

As he pulled back the covers of his bed, his mind produced an image of Penny, a look of haughty vanity marring her face, snatching the ticket out of his hands. This ticket is for my boyfriend. Sorry not sorry! Bye! said the caricature in an annoyingly high American accent that had no business coming out of Penny's mouth.

Harry snorted at the absurdity as he lay down and fluffed his pillow.

He drifted toward sleep, his mind wandering with thoughts of Quidditch, of colossal stands, of infinite peddlers peddling infinite goods, and of bonfires and after-match celebrations. Then he was startled awake by a sobering, joy-killing recollection: Death Eaters.

Harry leaned against the roadside fence, raising a dirt-smeared hand to wipe at his sweaty brow, and surveyed his work. He'd turned the yard inside out, spilled its guts and piled them into mounds from the drive to the threshold. The place looked like a minefield.

The Gaunt shack in this world had been burnt by delinquents decades ago. The walls had turned to ash and the disintegrated floor had been filled in with dirt and debris, though the stone foundation remained. Harry had been unable to locate the Gaunt ring or its golden box anywhere. After digging up the inside, he'd turned to the outside, making a mess of the yard. The property wasn't large, but it had been choked with weeds and shrubbery that Harry had been forced to clear away.

He undid the cap on a water bottle he'd bought from a Muggle convenience store down the road and took a long draft.

After the cave by the sea had turned up empty, Harry had hoped for better luck regarding the ring. Alas, he was rather certain by this point that the ring was not hidden here. What if Lady Voldemort had returned to collect it? Had she deigned to wear it instead of hide it? That would make it trickier to get at. What if she knew of the ring's secret identity as the Resurrection Stone?

Harry was too hot and tired to feel a chill at the possibility that Lady Voldemort was collecting the Deathly Hallows. Who knew where the Elder Wand and Invisibility Cloak were in this world? It was entirely possible she had already assembled them. Harry wondered if his prior mastery of them in his world would carry over to this one.

Not for the first time, Harry was struck with the notion to keep a ledger of questions to which he had no answers.

He drained the water bottle and crumpled it, tossing it into the backpack he'd brought with him. He decided he was done with the Gaunt shack and packed his things to leave.

The diadem he was still trying for, and with the locket and ring MIA, that left two: Hufflepuff's cup and Tom Riddle's diary.

Of the former, Harry knew it to be beyond his ability to obtain. He refused to even consider another Gringotts heist. He didn't have the tools for it: not Bellatrix's wand, not Polyjuice Potion, no Invisibility Cloak, and no allies.

And he couldn't Imperiuse a goblin this time round either. If he did, he would be forced to kill them afterward, he knew. Otherwise, Harry only had two options: One, release the goblin from the curse and go to, well, not Azkaban, but some wizarding prison for casting an Unforgiveable; or two, keep the goblin under his control indefinitely. Harry liked none of those options.

Then there were the bank's defenses to consider. The Thief's Downfall was a major obstacle, never mind any safeguards this Gringotts had that were alien to Harry's memory. And how was Harry to escape the lower levels? He'd need a broomstick or flying carpet, both equally conspicuous, much less a fucking dragon.

Of course, this was assuming the cup was in Gringotts at all; the locket and ring hadn't been where Harry had expected to find them, so perhaps he should expect the cup to also not be where it should.

That left the diary.

Harry was willing to give the diary a try like he had the locket and the ring, and like he was still trying for the diadem. It was the last one he could reasonably investigate, so he felt honor bound to try.

With his current leads on Horcruxes up in smoke, Harry wandered back to the Three Broomsticks late that evening with the intent to collapse on his bed and sleep until noon. Yet when he entered his little room at the top of the inn, it was to find an owl pecking at his lonely window.

Harry hastened to admit the bird, and when he did, not one, but two owls flew in. The birds, one an imperial black with white markings that gave it an angry scowl, and the other a cute barn owl, did a circle around his cramped room before alighting on the bedposts. When Harry relieved them of their letters, the black one, ever the professional, immediately took flight and swooped through the window, so Harry opened its letter first, finding familiar, loopy handwriting that he hadn't seen in years.

Dear Mister Crossley,

I am pleased to announce that you have been hired for the post of flight instructor at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry. Term starts on Thursday, 1 September. Please meet me at the Hog's Head Inn in Hogsmeade this Saturday at one o'clock in the afternoon to discuss your responsibilities as flight instructor and to answer any questions you may have.

Hoping you are well,
Albus Dumbledore
Headmaster

Harry reread the letter to make sure he hadn't misunderstood before pumping a triumphant fist in the air. He'd gotten the job! Now he could spend the next year at the best place in all the worlds, flying regularly, eating all he wanted, surrounded by the familiar hustle and bustle of Hogwarts and all its quirks—with easy access to the Room of Requirement, the Hogwarts library, and a Dumbledore, from whom he still needed to acquire some phoenix flint.

Then a thought came to him: What about Penny's Potions? On one hand, teaching at Hogwarts had been a sort of fantasy to him and not all that feasible, and therefore Penny's Potions had been the safer, far likelier alternative, and anyway he'd needed money for things at the time—still did, in fact, tons of it. Yet Harry hadn't expected to enjoy his time at Penny's shop as much as he had, and the thought of swapping one job for another didn't sit well with him, not when he hadn't even worked there a month, and especially not when the swapped job was at Penny's. Her beaming face floated in his mind's eye and made him plenty guilty at the mere thought of quitting.

The barn owl hooted impatiently, arresting Harry's scattered thoughts. He turned his attention to the second letter. It was a small sheet of paper, not parchment, folded into thirds with his name written on it, a heart in place of the a. His heartrate quickening, Harry unfolded it.

Heard there was a shagging competition last weekend and you entered me. How did I do?

—Olivia

Harry's eyes bulged, his heart hammered. He hadn't been expecting this either. Was Olivia just looking to inflate her ego, or was this simply an attempt to see him again? In that moment, Harry couldn't decide which letter he was more excited about. He searched around for a quill and ink, but all he had was a pen he'd picked up from somewhere in London. He snatched it from his bedside and held it above the letter, poised and ready.

But what should he write? After several minutes of thought—and a fair few restless hoots from the deliverer—Harry put pen to paper.

You came first…, he wrote, knowing she'd appreciate the wordplay. Feeling bold, he added, Interested in a rematch?

Fearing he'd add too much if he sat there much longer, he quickly signed his name, refolded the paper and handed it over to the owl. "Return to sender," he told it eagerly.

The response came just as Harry was tucking himself into bed.

Absolutely! How does after work tomorrow sound?

Harry was nearly hyperventilating as he penned his reply. It's a date. Let me know when you get off, and I'll get you off again. Was he being too cocky? He didn't think so.

The next morning, she replied, Maybe we could go downtown and eat out. :)

So Harry met Olivia after work, but they didn't go into the city; they went straight back to her place and left another trail of clothing in their wake, but this time they only made it as far as the sofa, where Olivia guided Harry down new and heretofore unexplored avenues of adulthood. They ordered a pizza for dinner, and the pimply delivery boy nearly fainted when Olivia answered the door in just her pants. Poor kid couldn't have been older than seventeen.

"Oops," said a blushing Olivia after she'd closed the door. "I forgot the tip!"

Harry guffawed. "You gave him a tip, alright!"

Olivia giggled like a schoolgirl and twirled her hair. "You think so?"

Then they feasted while the pizza lay forgotten on the counter.

Harry pulled his cloak tighter about himself, ensuring as little of him was visible as possible. It was no invisibility cloak, but the dark fabric was as good as during a dark and moonless night. He brought his purchased telescope to his eye, careful not to fall from the oak in which he was perched.

There was no activity at Malfoy Manor, hadn't been for a couple of hours, not since the previous window went dark around midnight. Only one remained aglow, one of the bedrooms.

The Weasleys were normal, as far as Harry could tell. Two parents, seven children, all possessing the same names Harry had known in his time. That is, except for Charlie's middle name, which Harry had noticed was different when he'd spied a Quidditch award in Hogwarts' trophy room during another of his failed clandestine attempts to access the Room of Requirement.

Arthur Weasley, Harry had learned, still worked for the Ministry, but not for the Department of Magical Law Enforcement's Misuse of Muggle Artefacts division; rather, Mr. Weasley worked with the Department of Magical Transportation, providing witches and wizards with their Apparition licenses. He would've been the person with whom Harry interfaced with had he, Harry, needed to get his own license, but as he was a stowaway in this world, he was able to slip through the cracks of the law and Apparate however and whenever he liked.

And Mrs. Weasley, as it happened, operated a mail-order knitwear service for Muggles out of her home. Harry had no clue as to the success of the business, but it made him smile nonetheless.

All this to say that Tom Riddle's diary had not, to the best of Harry's knowledge, wreaked havoc upon the Weasley family. And if Harry assumed, for the time being, that this meant the Malfoys still possessed the diary, well, then to Malfoy Manor he would go.

Harry made another pass across the manor via telescope, checking the entrance, the front gate and each window for movement.

All was quiet.

A pit had been opening in Harry's stomach. The pit had begun as a simple crack in his confidence when he'd failed to open the door to the Room of Requirement—which continued to deny Harry's requests for entrance under the orders of whomever was occupying it. The crack had elongated into a fissure when the cave by the sea and the Gaunt shack had turned up Horcrux-less. And now, after a sleepless weekend spent staring at the Malfoys' front door without so much as a delivery owl, the fissure had collapsed into a sinkhole of frustration, doubt and second-thoughts.

People lived here. Harry knew it by the glass that glowed with light in the evenings; Harry knew it by the smoke that crept from the chimneys; Harry knew it by the loveless sex he'd had the misfortune of spotting in one of the bedroom windows. Harry couldn't be certain which bedroom was Lucious' and which was Narcissa's, but they evidently slept at opposite wings of the mansion.

Harry had yet to spot dear old Draco.

A low gurgling informed Harry, yet again, that he was hungry. He ignored it. One hour more and he'd return to the Three Broomsticks for a half night's sleep before work in the morning. He'd be tired tomorrow, but sleep was a small price to pay for information.

What information he was seeking, exactly, he still wasn't certain. There were enough differences between the worlds to provide Harry with a healthy amount of skepticism; the last thing he wanted was to burst into Malfoy Manor if one or both Voldemorts were using it as a headquarters. Moreover, with the locket not where he had expected to find it, Harry was wary the diary would likewise be absent.

Apparently, uncertainty plus skepticism plus wariness equaled hiding up a tree for a day and a half, running on coffee and Wideye Potions, which he'd bought with his employee discount.

Harry's stomach gurgled again, more insistently, so he reached into an inside pocket of his cloak for whatever remained of the sandwiches he'd brought. They were vegan to avoid the pitfalls of perishable meat on a long outing, which was fine with Harry, who had spent the last decade living a self-sufficient vegan lifestyle. But the bread… He grimaced; the bread had gone soggy.

Harry unwrapped the sandwich and ate to silence his whinging stomach. The spicy mustard did a lot of the heavy lifting.

A faint rattling caught at Harry's ears.

He stilled, glancing furtively as he could at the bottom of the tree. He saw no one.

The rattling grew nearer.

Harry cast his eyes about more urgently, but he didn't spot anything. Was the noise coming from—?

He stood, balancing on his chosen branch and getting a jab in the shoulder from a twig lurking in the dark canopy. He looked into the night sky, straining his eyes, but the tree's foliage blocked too much; he'd picked this spot for its view of the manor, not the sky.

A shriek pierced the night, and the rattling grew louder yet.

Then they landed in the drive, the Thestrals, one after another, six in all, pulling with them a carriage of dark wood that camouflaged well in the darkness. Harry jammed the telescope to his eye, wincing at the bruise he'd surely given himself.

The Thestrals delivered the carriage to the front gate, which remained shut. Then the carriage door opened, and a pair of figures exited. Harry couldn't identify them for their hoods and cloaks, but one was a rather large, broad-shouldered figure, and on the other Harry thought he glimpsed the swell of a bust. They approached the wrought-iron gate, arms forward, and passed through it, unimpeded by the metal.

The figures ambled up the drive to the manor. The woman knocked. The light in the bedroom window blinked out. A minute later, the door opened, and a third individual, hidden from Harry's sight by the open door, welcomed them in.

Harry lowered the telescope, his breathing quickening, mind racing. He wanted to have a look inside that carriage, find a clue as to the visitors' identities. It wasn't a cold night, but inactivity had chilled him, and his muscles were cramped from disuse. More importantly, Harry didn't have the Invisibility Cloak. And he wasn't sure a Disillusionment Charm would suffice with six Thestrals so near to the carriage; one shrill cry of alarm would give him away.

He returned the telescope to his darkening eye and waited.

Five minutes passed before the door opened again, and this time, Harry recognized the third individual as Lucious Malfoy. Malfoy accompanied the other two, who carried between them a heavy trunk. The broad-shouldered man pulled out his wand, aiming at the trunk, but Malfoy seized his arm. The words spoken were far too distant for Harry to catch, but he could recognize a warning when he saw one. The broad figure returned his wand to his cloak and took up the trunk again with his compatriot. They struggled to the carriage, whereupon Malfoy opened the door for them, and the trunk disappeared inside.

From the periphery of Harry's circular telescopic vision, he saw the fluttering of a curtain as an inquisitive face withdrew from a window. Narcissa?

Malfoy was speaking with the visitors. Harry had no experience reading lips, especially in the dark from a distance, but he thought he picked up a sense of urgency from Malfoy's demeanor. And then Malfoy was marching back toward the manor even as the visitors were climbing into the carriage. Harry heard a voice, brief as a word and carried faint on the fainter wind.

The Thestrals shuffled forward.

Harry gritted his teeth. What was in that trunk? He needed to know. If it was related to Voldemort…

The Threstrals were running. They leapt, took to the air—

Harry growled under his breath as he watched the carriage take flight. He hadn't brought a broomstick; he hadn't anticipated the need to fly, and anyway where would he have procured one?

Desperate to keep the carriage in view, he jumped from his branch, softening his fall with a well-timed Cushioning Charm, and dashed out of the tree's shadow, head craned.

The carriage was flying away, its outline barely visible against the night sky.

Harry cursed. He needed to get into that trunk. He glared at the carriage, focusing all his will, and twisted on the spot—

He Disapparated—!

And materialized not on the carriage, but above it, a mere two feet but enough of a fall to make a noise as he landed. But the carriage was ascending; Harry hit the roof at an angle and slipped, falling backward off the vehicle. He threw his hands out and caught himself at the last moment, clinging to the back of the carriage. The coach was hundreds of feet in the air; one misstep, one slip of the hand and a fatal fall awaited him.

The wind was stronger up here, whipping his hair, but Harry easily heard the woman's voice from inside: "What was that? Did we hit something?"

"Came from the roof," said the man. "I'll take a look."

Shit, thought Harry, struggling to pull himself onto the roof and free his wand arm.

The man's head poked out the window in the carriage door. He looked at Harry, eyes bulging with alarm.

Thorfinn Rowle. Death Eater.

"Bloody fuck!" yelped Rowle, who ducked inside to avoid a hex from Harry. "It's him, it's Potter!"

Harry's heart lurched, careening into the pit in his stomach. They knew his name? Knew him by his face?

"What are you waiting for?" cried the woman. "Get out there and deal with him!"

The Thestrals arrived at their preferred altitude, and the carriage leveled out, jolting Harry into the air. He held on for dear life and pulled himself onto the roof of the carriage just as Rowle returned.

Harry aimed his wand at Rowle. "Stupe—!"

Rowle lurched sideways, reaching, grabbing Harry's wrist. Harry kicked him in the face, wrenching his arm free and scooting away, close as he dared to the opposite side of the carriage roof, their starlit arena, his cloak flapping like a flag in the gale.

The Thestrals squawked, jostling the carriage.

Rowle howled, blood streaming between his fingers as he clutched his nose. "You shit!" He stabbed his wand at Harry, who raised his own, nonverbal spells on their lips. The air between them crackled with energy as Rowle's assault collapsed upon Harry's Shield Charm.

Unexpected pain raked Harry's ankle. He hissed, twisting round. Perfectly manicured burgundy nails bit into the flesh exposed by his flapping trousers. The nails' owner sneered up at him from below, the wind tearing at her hood and pulling her chestnut hair into a streaming banner.

Harry glared at the gleefully savage grin of Edwina Crabbe, aunt of Vincent.

"We knew you might drop in for a chat!" she crowed.

A gleaming, white-hot substance spewed from her wand, splashing Harry with wet fire, alighting his cloak in an instant. The flare of light and heat was so sudden that the air roared like a cannon blast. Rowle and Crabbe cowered, tilting perilously far out the carriage windows as they leaned away and shielded their faces. The Thestals cried out, the entire coach dropping several feet in altitude.

Harry cowered, his skin shrieking at the blistering heat. He flailed, almost losing his footing in his haste to discard the garment. Someone was laughing—or was he screaming? At the sake of his fingers, Harry tore against the clasp of the cloak, threw his arms into the wind and let the fabric be stolen away from him. The burning cloak soared like a meteor into the night.

There came next a brief lull in the combat as all three blinked bright spots from their vision. Rowle's next curse missed by several feet. "Blast it, Edwina, I can't see!"

Harry took no pity on him as he dropped prone on the carriage roof—dodging another spell of Crabbe's—and, holding his wand like a knife set for stabbing, jabbed Rowle's anchoring hand. "Shouldn't have flown coach!" said Harry. "Diffindo!"

With a spray of blood, Rowle's fingers separated from his hand, and he plummeted from the flying carriage. Thorfinn Rowle's screams were swiftly lost in the blustering wind.

Harry leapt to his feet, almost losing his balance in the process, but his moment of weakness passed unchallenged as Edwina Crabbe joined him on the roof. She cast away her hooded cloak with an easy spell, the garment falling away like water.

"How do you know me?" demanded Harry, taking a defensive stance.

Crabbe rolled up the sleeves of her jumper. "My lady knew you would come. She warned us you might meddle."

A cold that had nothing to do with the altitude crept down Harry's spine: Lady Voldemort.

Crabbe struck first, silent and deadly as a viper. Harry countered with a Shield Charm and riposted with a nonverbal hex of his own. Back and forth they struck, trading blows like Olympic fencers. Their spells they kept unvoiced, the harder for the other to anticipate and therefore block.

The Shield Charm could block virtually any spell, given the caster was proficient enough, the obvious exceptions being the Unforgivables—those were to be physically avoided or intercepted. But the carriage roof was too small for fancy footwork or evasive maneuvers; if one of them cast such a curse, there was nothing stopping the other from retaliating in kind or tackling the curser off the roof in that split second before instant death. Likewise, if one opponent cast a powered-up Shield Charm strong enough to launch the other backward, there was nothing preventing the launched combatant from counterattacking with the Killing Curse. It was an obvious thing to them, an understanding that was passed unspoken between them, and they adhered to it in a display of honor born of self-preservation rather than fairness.

Hex, shield, counter, shield, attack, block, riposte, shield—

And the cycle continued.

The Thestrals were thoroughly spooked now, jerking left and right in feeble attempts to break free from their hitching. This added turbulence to the fast-paced, close-combat duel raging behind them.

But Harry was a natural-born flyer, taking the rocking and swaying in stride, while Edwina Crabbe began faltering more and more frequently. Harry had her on the defensive now, they both knew it, the desperation growing plainer on her face.

The carriage rocked—

Crabbe stumbled—

Harry saw his chance—!

"Confringo!"

"Avada kedav—!"

The roof at Crabbe's feet exploded, unbalancing her. She tipped backward, her curse sailing to the stars, and Harry watched wordlessly as she fell, arms windmilling frantically, over the edge and out of sight.

Harry dropped through the hole in the roof, landing heavily onto a seat within the cabin. There was the trunk, locked and lurking across from him. Harry knew better than to open it now. Who knew what enchantments were bound to it?

The carriage tilted backward, some aspect of its destabilizing flight enchantment blasted away by Harry's curse. The coach was losing altitude. He was running out of time. He reached for the trunk.

The Thestrals shrieked.

Harry's fingers halted an inch from the handle. He sighed. Planting a foot on the seat, Harry boosted himself up and out of the cabin, in the process scraping his belly on the harsh edges of the breach. He crawled up the roof, fighting against the steep angle, to reach the coachman's seat.

The Thestrals flapped their wings in distress. The hitch trapped them in fatal bondage to the carriage, its weight dragging against the backmost beasts, whose weight in turn pulled at those in front. The Thestrals were struggling against gravity, losing altitude faster and faster; at this rate, the carriage would soon drag them into the ground.

"Don't make me regret this…"

Harry aimed where the hitch met the body of the carriage and cast a spell. The hitch broke free. The Thestrals, still joined together by their harnesses but no longer weighed down by the coach, shrieked with freedom even as Harry began to plumet with the carriage.

Momentum carried the carriage in a downward arc. Below, Harry saw rural Wiltshire hurtling toward him with frightening velocity. He had seconds before he became a scattering of red mess.

His fingers gripping with deadly force, Harry returned to the gap in the roof and pulled himself inside like an astronaut. The trunk appeared to levitate in the freefall. Harry seized a handle, braced himself against a seat, Disapparated—

—and appeared in the alleyway outside the Three Broomsticks. Both he and the trunk carried their momentum with them, crashing painfully to the ground in a heap.

"Bloody hell," moaned Harry, checking his limbs for fractures. He found a couple of minor breaks and repaired them with a muttered "Episkey!"

Harry climbed gingerly to his feet, resolving to ask Poppy for a dose of Skele-Gro before work. He hefted the trunk, which was heavier than it looked—it was no wonder it had taken both Rowle and Crabbe to carry it—and entered the inn. The common area was deserted, as expected at two-ish o'clock in the morning. He quietly made his way up the stairs to his little room at the top, trying his damnedest to keep from banging the trunk on each step.

He heaved the trunk onto the bed, which groaned in protest. He pulled a chair up to the bed and collapsed into it, regarding the trunk with a wary eye.

Surely Lady Voldemort had booby-trapped the box. Making the exchange in the dead of night, from Death Eater to Death Eater, transported in a black coach drawn by Thestrals… It was all very clandestine, and aesthetically, it was totally Voldemort's style.

But how to open it?

The trunk was leather-bound and possessed of brass fittings. Two clasps remained fastened and secure, despite the excitement of the past fifteen minutes. There was no lock.

Harry cast a few rudimentary detection spells he knew of, probing the trunk for its defenses and dangers. But to the best of his ability, he found nothing. Which, when considering it was Voldemort he was contending with, didn't prove anything. Voldemort was sneakier than most.

His hands hovered over the clasps.

No. If he were going to do this, he'd at least be smart about it. Well, smarter, at any rate.

He stood across the room and tried magicking the trunk open. It opened immediately upon his command, dumfounding him, so sure it wouldn't have been so simple. The lid rose on its brass, squeak-free hinges, presenting its contents to him.

Cautious as a curious mouse, he crept to the bed, the incantation to the Shield Charm on his lips.

The trunk was empty, save for a single item—a book, solitary and dark—so black it might've been forged of darkness itself.

Harry's breath caught, thinking, for a moment, it was the Book. The Author's Book. But it wasn't. It was another book entirely—a diary.

He reached for it.

It was foolish of him, he would later reflect.

But now, turning the Horcrux over in his hands, feeling its familiar cover—it was smoother than he remembered—Harry felt only heady success. He flipped open its cover—

A scrap of parchment fluttered out.

Harry stooped to grab it. The fragment was small, only two inches wide and half that tall, words written on its front.

Harry's heart filled with dread. He scrabbled at the diary, ripping through its pages. Every page was filled header to footer, margin to margin, with words. The same two words, repeated over and over, ad nauseum, consuming the entire book from front to back.

I know.

Author's Note

We're nearing the end of what I've had written from years ago, and with it, the end of Part II. That means as newer chapters require writing, updates will turn to a more typical weekly or biweekly schedule. So expect updates on weekends going forward. I'll try to keep to the schedule and keep the content flowing, but life has a habit of getting in the way. But rest assured, even if I miss an update—or, knock on wood, an entire month—just know that I'm committed to seeing this story to its conclusion.

This chapter actually contained two scenes written recently. Shout-out to reviewer qwe123 for bringing up a good point and prompting the opening scene. I probably could have included that information about worlds being connected and disconnected sooner, but there's a ton of stuff happening in this story, so I'm happy with where it's at. Plus, it preserves some of the mystery in the early chapters. It's something Harry would have been wondering about more and more anyway as he spends time in the other world—Where is Voldemort? That said, I hope the scene doesn't feel too rushed or expository.

Thanks again for reading! Don't forget to favorite, follow and review if you'd like. I'll see you next week!