Man's Greatest Treasure
Disclaimer: Nothing is mine; everything is J K Rowling's. Still.
AN: I have grown bored of copy and pasting the AN in at the top and it gets in the way of anyone reading, so it's gone. However, don't panic, it's waiting for you all at the bottom instead!
Enjoy this cheerful, foreshadowing-free, fluffy chapter!
Man's Greatest Treasure
The sunset hovered beyond green fields and the swaying fronds of the willow tree. He stood on white pebbles and watched the light play across the heavens with a small smile.
The ground changed beneath his feet. White pebbles shifted to staring skulls below his heels. Harry struggled over them toward the sunset, but sank further in with each step until he was submerged to the neck in cold bone.
"You won't make it." Fleur crouched on the roots of the tree. The azure silk of her dress stretched across her knees, her blue eyes unreadable behind a veil of silver hair and a gleaming, sapphire-studded tiara perched upon her head. "You don't just get to waltz off after your wishes, mon Cœur. There's a price to be paid. A pound of flesh."
Harry struggled, but only sank further. "I'm too heavy."
Fleur stared down at him. "A pound of flesh…"
He slipped his wand from his sleeve and stared at the slim length of ebony, his stomach knotting and churning. "A pound of flesh," he whispered. "Can't you pull me out?"
She shook her head, the red light flashing upon the silver tiara and its gemstones. "I can't reach you." Fleur looked back toward the sunset. "We're missing it, mon Cœur."
I can't lose it.
Harry steeled himself and brought his wand down like a blade. A bright green flash seared his eyes and his hand hung from his arm, half-severed. "Sacrifices have to be made," he muttered. Harry cut again.
It dropped into the skulls and he rose a little higher.
"It's not enough," Fleur murmured. "Hurry, mon Cœur."
He swallowed hard and raised his wand to his shoulder. The rest of his arm tumbled away. He clawed his way up until the skulls were only waist high.
"More," she whispered. " More. We're losing the light."
Harry's stomach swirled like a storm, then clenched into a thick, hot, sick knot. "Whatever it takes, mon Rêve." He cast away his wand and clawed the flesh from his ribs a fistful at a time, ripping bones free and tossing hot, red, organs away after them.
"Just a little more, mon Cœur," Fleur murmured. "We're almost there."
He curled his fingers round his heart; it throbbed in his hand. "Even this?" A fierce unease seized him. "I think I might need this."
She extended her hand. "Hurry, Harry. The sunset's disappearing."
He closed his eyes, tore it out, and cast it away, then hauled himself out of the skulls and stumbled up onto the bank. A sliver of red lingered over the curve of the horizon. Fleur sat upon the branch in a dress of midnight blue silk, swinging her legs as the light faded.
"I made it," he said.
"Made it?" She twisted about and stared down at him with cold, pitchblack eyes; her fingers curled "round the silver and sapphire circlet shining upon her brow. "You didn't make it. There's nothing of you
left."
Harry jolted awake and stared at the ceiling of the chamber. The golden hourglass swung back and forth over his sternum. I don't think using the time-turner a lot is a good idea from now on. These dreams seem to come when I use it. He grimaced and pulled the slim gold chain over his head. Awful things happen to wizards who mess with time.
He ran a finger along the thread-thin pink line on his forearm and rolled out of bed, transfiguring it back into a stone serpent. It'll be gone by tomorrow at this rate. Harry rummaged through his pockets for a scrap of parchment. His fingers met warm, smooth metal.
"The circlet…" Harry pulled it out and balanced it on its palm.
Silver gleamed as bright as moonlight, the sapphires shone like sunlight off the soft waves of a summer sea. He ran a fingertip along the gentle curve; smiling as it grew warmer and released a quiet chitter.
Such a strange thing.
It drew his touch like a sore tooth drew the tip of his tongue. Thick, sticky pine-sap smeared one sapphire and he wrinkled his nose, heading up toward Myrtle's Bathroom.
Harry weighed it in his hand, then slid it back into his pocket. A shame it's too girly to wear. He ran his fingers along it. Maybe I should give it to Fleur once it's clean. She doesn't wear much jewelry, though.
The circlet twittered in his pocket and the metal flared warm under his fingertips.
"You like that, huh," Harry murmured. "Of course, she might take you apart to see how you work, which would be a shame."
He strode into the girl's bathroom and swept the water-covered floor clean with his wand, grabbing a few damp paper towels and scrubbing the pine sap off the sapphires. The entrance to the chamber slid shut as he stuffed the paper towels in the bin and polished the circlet clean on his robes.
"Open," he whispered.
The diadem chittered and turned hot in his pocket.
"Yeah, I can make odd noises, too." He stroked the edge of his thumb across the sapphire. "Only people would think that you're cute and that I'm some kind of budding mass-murderer, which isn't exactly
fair."
Although, I have killed a few people now… He paused on the last step and spun the circlet in his fingers. But they were pretty awful people and it wasn't like I had much choice.
Harry drifted into the study, bouncing the tiara on his palms.
"Where did you find that!? " Salazar hissed. "It was lost! "
"Lost?" Harry stroked the shining, silver curve. "Well it's found now. I think I quite like it."
"It's Rowena's diadem!" Salazar ripped the serpent from around his neck and tossed it away into the background of his painting. His wand sprayed silver sparks to the edges of his frame. "Her foolish daughter stole it and fled. A young man went out to rescue her, but neither returned."
"I found it in the Room of Requirement," Harry said. "Not sure how it ended up there. Umbridge pinched it and I nearly left it in the
Forbidden Forest, but it's kind of beautiful."
Salazar stared at the silver diadem. "Rowena and Godric made that. Rowena loved it. She used to put it on little Helena when she was just a child and watch her totter around with it on her head." He sighed. "Helena always loved that diadem, but Rowena was better with magic than motherhood."
And so she took it and ran away. Harry grimaced; it was Privet drive that flickered through his thoughts, Aunt Petunia's cold indifference. And I bet she never came back.
"How does it work?" he asked.
"You wear it," Salazar muttered. "It's a tiara, what were you expecting?"
"I thought it might have a phrase to activate it."
"Keep it," Salazar said. "Like all the best pieces of Godric and Rowena's work, it's art. They based it on the sorting hat Godric made, only Rowena made sure it's less… eccentric. "
"I'm going to use it." Harry grinned and stared into the shining sapphire. "I want to use it."
It must be amazing. He placed it on his head. Warmth seeped into his scalp and a soft chitter drifted to his ear.
"Wit beyond measure is man's greatest treasure," a soft, smooth, high, male voice murmured. "Such a neat little saying, but we know it isn't true, don't we, Harry?" Red eyes gleamed in the back of Harry's mind. "We know there's only power," Voldemort hissed.
Harry tore the tiara from his head and kicked it away; it skittered across the floor, screeching and screaming like metal nails down glass.
"What are you doing?! " Salazar snapped. "That's Rowena's diadem! " "It has Voldemort's voice. It whispers back." Harry swallowed and slid his wand from his sleeve. "Like the diary wrote back."
"A horcrux," Salazar breathed. "Tom made a horcrux of Rowena's Diadem…" Black fury burnt in his green eyes. "I told him how precious it was to her and he defiled it."
"I can't rip the soul fragment out." Harry met Salazar's glare. "It can't be done."
"Destroy it," he spat.
Harry conjured a long, thin piece of metal and flicked the tiara out onto the bridge with it. I'm not here to be used. Not by Dumbledore. Not by Voldemort. Not by anyone. He buried the diadem in a stream of red fiendfyre as thick as his arm and forced the heat higher until the circlet screamed.
"Is it destroyed?" Salazar asked.
Harry dispelled the flames and nudged the blackened, cracked circlet with his toe. A thick, ink-black wisp of smoke belched forth from the cracks and dissipated with a faint whisper. "It's destroyed."
"Good," Salazar snapped. "That diadem was as precious to Rowena as my locket was to me, it would've torn her heart to see it used so. Few things we deem precious survive," he murmured. "That's why blood is important, little else of you lasts long after your death but your bloodline."
"I don't know of any others who claim to be descended from your friends," Harry said.
"I feared it would be so even before we died," Salazar said. "Godric was too set on saving other people to ever do something so selfish as follow his own heart, Rowena had only one daughter, and it seems my only two descendants are trying their best to kill each other. Soon there will be nothing left of us but a divided school, Godric's scruffy hat, that ridiculous sword, and two forgotten, empty rooms."
"What about Helga?" Harry asked.
"She had family," Salazar said. "A big one, once, but if you don't know of them, I suspect they no longer exist. Perhaps some of her work survives, the plants she created, the potions, spells, or even that useless cup." He chuckled. "She convinced Rowena to spend hours helping her enchant a cup to absorb the properties of her phoenix's tears, only to forget that phoenix tears don't actually do anything if you drink them. Only Helga could have made such a mistake." Salazar chortled and his serpent bobbed its head. "Or Godric, but he would have chosen the perfect substance, then accidentally
enchanted the cup to spew it out the bottom onto your lap when you tried to drink from it."
"What mistakes would you and Rowena have made?" Harry asked, smiling at the founder's cheer.
"Rowena would have lost the thing." Salazar snorted, then the humour faded from his face. "I, well, if it was really important to me, I would've probably ended up sacrificing it for something I couldn't manage to do in the end."
"But you could've done it if you'd had more time."
"Maybe." Salazar pointed his wand at Harry. "Don't repeat my mistakes. Some things are out of reach."
"I just want Fleur," Harry whispered. "That's all. I can endure without anything else. I have before. But not her. I need her."
Salazar blinked and a faint shimmer rippled across his canvas. "I know, Tom."
Harry snorted. "You are going senile. I'm Harry. Tom was the other one."
Salazar blinked, then frowned and retrieved his snake. "You should go, Harry. You came here to go get the Prophecy, not to listen to me reminisce about our flaws, many though they were."
"They make you seem human," Harry murmured. "Without them you'd be just as distant and unreachable as the other names that've outlived the faces they were once associated with."
"That sounded wise, like something I would say," Salazar said.
"Wisdom can be found in the strangest of places," Harry retorted.
"That definitely sounds like me. Now go, go and find out what's so
important about this prophecy that both Dumbledore and Voldemort
will sacrifice lives for it."
"I will." Harry kicked the marred circlet into the pool and watched it sink into the dark water.
It will remain lost. He disillusioned himself and pictured the fireplace in Borgin and Burke's. The floo network here will do. I doubt they'll run to the aurors to complain about a break in, knowing who their customers are.
He appeared before the fire with a soft snap, then took a pinch of powder from the open top of a human skull. "Number Twelve Grimmauld Place," he whispered, tossing the powder into the fire.
The flames flared green. He stepped in, inhaled a lungful of smoke, and collapsed onto a cold, hard, stone floor.
"I hate floo travel." He dragged himself to his feet and dusted off his robes.
Tattered wallpaper, rotting plaster, and crumbling mortar hung from bare, rough stone. Grime caked the corners and crannies. A leaning tower of soup tins and a collection of dirty mugs occupied the sink. He drifted out of the kitchen and into a narrow hall. Scratched, scraped, and rotting hardwood floorboards creaked beneath his feet and the thick must of mildew reached his nose.
"Lovely place, this." Harry glanced about. "Who'd want to live here?"
Thick, velvet curtains flew open on his left. Harry flicked his wand into his hand and twisted "round. A detailed, life-size painting stared at him. She had the same chin, nose, eyes, and ears as Sirius.
"You're not my blood-traitor son." Her face twisted out of its expression of ugly disdain into something that would've been beautiful, had age not marred it.
I should incinerate you. Harry spun his wand in his hand. You've seen me. But it might be hard to explain that you're missing.
"You look like you come from a good family." The woman sniffed. "Good bone-structure and nice-eyes. What's a proper pure-blood doing among the half-breeds and traitors my son consorts with?"
Maybe I don't have to burn you, then. He slipped his wand back into his sleeve. It doesn't seem like you're keen to talk to Dumbledore's lot.
"I'm Harry. I'm afraid I don't have the pleasure of knowing your name?"
"Walburga Black." She smiled and her face shed several decades. "Do you have a family name?"
Sirius's mother. So not a Dumbledore supporter. Quite the opposite.
"Slytherin," he said.
"An honour." Walburga Black dipped her head. "I assume you aren't here to join my son's little group of muggle-lovers."
"No," Harry said. "I have very different aims."
"Do you follow the Dark Lord?" Walburga Black enquired. "My Regulus followed him, he was a proper pure-blood scion."
"No. The Dark Lord has been unmasked. His real name is Tom Riddle, a muggle-raised, half-blooded wizard who doesn't even believe in blood purity."
"He lied," Walburga Black whispered. "But my Regulus died for him."
"So did many others," Harry said. "So will many more."
Walburga Black stared down into the bottom of her frame. "Then why are you here? You didn't come to rip apart the last shreds of a longdead woman's world."
"I came to meet with Sirius."
"So you are one of the blood-traitors." She sniffed. "Your noble ancestor would be ashamed."
"No he wouldn't." Harry let his tone harden. "Neither he nor I not care about blood purity. There's only power, and the intent with which it's wielded."
"All powerful wizards are pure-bloods," Walburga Black replied. "Just look at my family. My sons, even the disappointment, are powerful wizards, Cissy, Bella, and the other one are all powerful witches, even her half-blood girl is."
"Tell that to your Dark Lord. He's just a half-blood, too, remember."
"I serve no half-blooded imposter," she hissed. "That liar stole my Regulus from me and brought half a hundred old families and bloodlines to an end. He is no lord of mine."
"He's a distant relative, as I'm sure you've realized." Harry swallowed a sour taste. "But he's no friend of mine."
"And what about you? You never actually said. I assumed you're pure-blooded if you truly carry the Slytherin name, but I made the same mistake with the Dark Lord."
"I'm not sure," Harry said. "I don't know the exact boundaries, but I don't particularly care, either. I'm stronger than most my age or older, pure-blooded or not."
"Very likely a pure-blood by my estimation." Walburga folded her arms. "You have the feel of a pure-blood and the looks of one, too. I
can't imagine you'd be anything else. Not if you're using that name." "I don't use that name except in particular company," Harry replied.
"Understandable." Walburga scowled. "There're many muggle-lovers who'd like nothing more than to condemn us for being more than they are. We are not born equal, magic is in the blood, and our blood is the oldest and purest of them all."
"You're not going to convince me to adopt the pure-blood agenda. I judge each individual on their own merit and make fewer mistakes because of it."
"A pity." She sniffed. "I'd hoped you might knock some sense into my son before he completely ruins this family by selling us out to blood-traitors."
"If your family comes to ruin it will be the work of Voldemort and Dumbledore," Harry muttered.
"It will be the work of my eldest son," she hissed. "He is the last scion of the Most Noble and Ancient House of Black, he needs to find himself a suitable wife and an heir. Regulus would be married by now."
"If only he wasn't dead," Harry muttered. "Where is Sirius?"
"I don't suppose you know any eligible girls from good families?" Walburga asked.
"Not off the top of my head." Harry laughed. "I don't think Sirius will be keen, though."
"Kreacher," Walburga shrieked.
Harry flinched. A loud crack echoed through the hall and a hunched, withered house elf appeared next to Harry. Kreacher stared up at him with narrowed, washed-out, pale blue eyes.
"Mistress called Kreacher." Kreacher bowed so low before the painting his nose brushed the floor.
"This is… Harry," Walburga folded her arms. "He is from a very respectable family, you will treat him as he deserves, not like the other blood traitors my shameful son has brought into my home. Find the family records, search for any other possible male heirs of the Most Noble and Ancient House of Black, my son cannot be trusted to take his duties to the family seriously. He never has had any love for us."
Kreacher grinned. "Yes mistress."
"Until next time." The curtains swept closed.
Kreacher peered at Harry and wrung his hands. "From a respectable family Mistress says, but Kreacher knows only nasty traitor Master's friends can come to Mistress's house. Blood traitors, filthy creatures, and mud-bloods all of them. But Mistress gave Kreacher orders and Kreacher will follow them."
"Shut up, Kreacher, you've got a decade of cleaning to catch up with." Sirius appeared at the other end of the hall. "He's a miserable little house elf, malicious as the day I left this place and a whole lot less sane than I remember."
"Yes, Master." Kreacher shuffled away. "Nasty blood-traitor master, abandoning Mistress Black and Master Regulus," he muttered.
Sirius shot a hot glare after the elf skulking up the stairs. "I hate that elf. I hated him before I left this awful, miserable, blood-stained place, and I hate him even more now mother's portrait has driven him mad."
"I spoke with your mother." Harry grinned. "She seemed nice."
"I didn't hear any screeching?"
"She seemed convinced I was a pure-blood and tried to ask me about eligible girls for you to marry and produce a male heir with."
Sirius's face contorted. "Oh now she wants me to consort with witches. If she'd had her way, I would've been married to my cousin, Bella." He shuddered. "That's why I ran away, you know. Bella's not been right since she had an accident as a little girl. Mother wanted me to marry and look after her, keep everything neatly in the family, and in return, Regulus would've been heir and done all the things I hated, but I would've rather slept on the streets than get dragged into that."
"So you left?"
Sirius grimaced. "Sounds bad, doesn't it." He sighed. "I ran away from here. I ran away from James. I ran away from Azkaban. Now, I'm stuck here, back where I started, and I can't even run away this time."
Harry stared at him. "I told your mother's picture Voldemort's a half-blood. She seemed quite upset about that."
"She would be. She sent Regulus off to die for him." Sirius's frown darkened. "After Bella's accident, they never let up on us for a second. Andi left the family the first moment she could. Cissy… She just gave in. I left. Regulus had a kind heart, he never had a chance." "So have you really been stuck in here all this time on your own?" Harry asked.
"This isn't even the worst bit." Sirius chuckled. "Follow me, we haven't cleaned the top floor yet, I'll show you what the whole place was like when I came back."
Harry drifted up the stairs after him.
Sirius picked his way round a few dubious, dark stains. "I'm not always on my own, though. During the school holidays, some of the Order members come to stay here. This is the headquarters, after all, my father had the whole place warded as extensively as possible and after Dumbledore cast the Fidelius Charm, it became all but impossible for anyone to come here without invitation. Still, you've no idea how much I've been looking forward to getting out of here."
The scoured walls and floors gave way to rot, mildew, damp, mould, and dark, stained, smeared, dust-coated wall-hangings.
"Beautiful, isn't it?" Sirius quipped.
"The whole place was like this?" Harry swallowed a flare of anger. "And Dumbledore just left you here?"
"Until this summer," Sirius replied. "I didn't really notice after Azkaban and living on the run, but Molly wasn't having any of it and started everyone on cleaning the moment she arrived. Ron, Hermione, and the other Weasleys helped a bit at Christmas, but the top floor has the library, my father's study, and the attic. Nobody wants to use any of them, so I've had Kreacher start cleaning them."
"He doesn't seem to have got very far."
"I know." Sirius shrugged. "I was hoping there would be doxies, another boggart, or something that would finish him off, but sadly, the horrible wretch lingers on to irritate me."
A loud rattle came from the room at the end of the corridor.
"That's probably him now," Sirius muttered. "He's likely trying to save everything he can find that belonged to my family before doing any actual cleaning. I'd better go and stop him before he manages to hide anything away again. He had a whole stash of treasures, you know. It took Hermione and Ron a whole day to get rid of his little hoard."
Sirius pushed the door open, the metal lock tearing straight through the rotted wooden frame.
Harry's parents stood on the other side of the desk, their arms folded across their chests, their faces twisted in anger. They leant away from each other as if they were joined at the hip.
"You failed us," James hissed. "You left our Harry and threw yourself in prison. Now you hide in here. You should be out fighting! We fought, Remus is fighting, even Peter fought for someone. You're a coward Black, a pitiful, terrified coward. You sicken us."
A boggart. Harry pulled out his wand.
His mother's hair darkened, slipping across her face to cover it as his father melted away into her side and they shrunk into the skeletal, cloaked form of a dementor. A cold, creeping chill slid across the room. The dementor tugged back its hood a fraction to bare grey, withered lips and a gaping orifice.
Sirius moaned and yanked at his hair. "I escaped," he whispered. "I'm free, they're gone, they're gone, they're gone. I'm not a coward," he yelled, swinging his fist at the dementor.
Harry pushed him out of the way. He struck the bookshelf and collapsed to the floor, curling up into a shivering ball.
The dementor twisted about, then melted to a slim shadow. "Au revoir," it whispered in Fleur's voice. A ring of burning gold shone upon her left hand. "Au revoir, Harry. I'm afraid perfect wishes just don't come true."
Harry's heart sank down into the dark. No. He clawed it back and clutched for the cold rage; it came with fragmented images. Fleur arm in arm with a shadow, embracing, entwined, ecstatic; its dark hands where only Harry's had been. How dare it. How dare it show me that.
Fiendfyre gushed from his wand tip. Crimson flames swallowed the boggart and the desk. Harry watched it writhe and burn, still shifting. Red eyes gleamed through the bright flames, Fleur's silver hair smouldered and sprang into flame. He stared until it fell still and crumbled to ash, then extinguished the fiendfyre.
Nothing will send me back to how I was. I won't lose her. She promised.
"Is it gone?" Sirius croaked.
"Yes. It showed me something I didn't want to see and is probably very much regretting it." Harry slid his wand back up his sleeve. "Are you ok?"
"I don't like dementors." Sirius uncurled from the floor and opened his eyes. "Or boggarts."
"Me neither." Harry kicked the ashes away. "Let's go, Sirius. We need to get that prophecy."
AN: May also contain foreshadowing and very little fluff!
And… as promised, because I know everyone reads the ANs and definitely don't just skip them. Discord is still a thing. Audiobooks are also still a thing. All the links are on my profile and on discord, including how to support me and read my original works!
The Price of Prophesy
Disclaimer : Nothing is mine; everything is J K Rowling's. Still.
AN: This one's all fluff and no action!
The Price of Prophesy
Flat paving stones stretched up and down the street, spotted with chewing gum and stalked by scabrous, feral pigeons. A lopsided red phone box stood on the pavement behind a row of chipped, marked bollards.
"Cloak?" Harry pulled it out from under his robes.
"Just like old times." Sirius grinned and swept it over the two of them.
"Except this time we're stealing a very valuable magical object for Britain, not McGonagall's fire-whiskey for a party." He chuckled. "This is probably safer. Your mother was a cruelly strict prefect."
Harry snorted. "So, where's the entrance?"
"Expecting a giant building saying "The Ministry of Magic"?"
"No," Harry said. "But more than this."
"It's grander on the inside. They don't want the muggles getting curious."
He stepped towards the phone box, opened the door and gestured for Harry to join him inside. The peeling, red-painted booth stank of weed and worse.
"This is the informal visitors" entrance," Sirius said. "Normally everyone just floos in, but obviously we can't do that without getting caught. The Ministry does monitor the network fairly efficiently." He turned to the phone and poked a hand out from under the cloak to quickly dial a number. "Emmeline will be on her way out by now, so we're within our window of opportunity."
"Welcome to the Ministry of Magic," a female voice stated. "Please state your name and business."
"Sirius Black. And I solemnly swear that I am up to no good."
Harry stared at him.
"It's probably not a real person, the voice is still the same as it was before my stint in Azkaban."
A soft click came from the phone and a badge slid out of the phone's change dispenser. Sirius picked it up and pinned it to the front of his robes with a huge grin on his face.
Sirius Black. Up to no good. Harry laughed. Excellent.
"I always wanted a badge like this. This is the best thing the Ministry has ever given me." He shrugged. "It's the only thing they've given me, actually, it's not like I received a trial."
The phone box lurched. Harry watched the pavement slide up past the window.
I wonder how many times a muggle has dialed the number and ended up down here.
An empty, marble-paved floor greeted them. Golden runes twisted around one another, flowing in ever-changing patterns across the royal blue ceiling.
"This way." Sirius took Harry's elbow and led him along the hall of empty fireplaces past the empty security desk. "We're lucky, whoever's on duty must have snuck off somewhere, or Mundungus might've bribed him to be absent for a convenient moment so he can get in and out unobserved."
They hurried past the desk and the cheerful statues in a fountain who spouted water from the strangest places, then through the golden gates of the Ministry's true entrance.
"In here." Sirius tugged him across to the lift and tapped the down button until the doors opened. " Finally." He stepped in and prodded the number nine button several times, then the doors clanked shut. "Floor thirteen," the same female voice announced.
"It's on the lowest level," Sirius said. "We're inside the wards now, so the only way out without breaking them is by floo, which is monitored, or back the way we came. Breaking those wards is no mean feat."
"So don't get caught or we'll be trapped," Harry murmured.
"Exactly. We can dispense with the cloak, though. Mundungus will be the only one down here."
Harry folded the cloak back up and stuffed it into his robes as the lift ground to a halt.
"Floor thirteen," the voice said.
"It's just around the corner," Sirius said. "Voldemort's not supposed to be up to anything for a bit, so we should be in the clear there, too."
"How do you know that?"
"Snape." Sirius scowled. "He's Dumbledore's spy within the Death Eaters. Not much gets past him, apparently. He's always been a sneaky, clever sort, but I think he can be trusted…"
The plain, black door at the end of the corridor had been melted back to the hinges by fire fierce enough to scar the floor and ceiling above.
Fiendfyre…
"Not much gets past him…" Harry flicked his wand into his palm. "We have company."
"Apparently he's not as sneaky and clever as I hoped. I'm calling for the rest of the Order." Sirius reached inside his robes and pulled out a battered, bronze phoenix amulet. "Voldemort can't get hold of that prophecy, Harry. We can deal with Dumbledore afterward."
Harry advanced down the corridor a bit, stepping over a dark, crimson smear and the broken halves of a wand. "How long will it be?"
"They'll be coming as soon as they can." Sirius peered into the dark beyond the door. "A few minutes, most likely."
"We should keep going," Harry said. "If they're already inside, then someone has to stop them."
And I need to hear that prophecy, too.
Sirius drew his wand and nodded. He pressed the back of his hand to the frame of the door, then hissed and flinched away. "Still hot. They can't be more than a few minutes ahead of us."
"Let's go." Harry slipped past Sirius into the department.
The corridor continued on beyond the ruined door, a long hallway tiled and paved in gleaming, black slabs that reflected the light of the torches like glass. Harry followed the lights, his footsteps echoing in the cramped space.
Sirius swore and yanked him to a halt. "It's a circle. A loop. It just seems like a straight line. We've been walking around the same ten feet of corridor." His godfather swept his wand at the nearest torch.
The white flames guttered out all along the corridor, plunging them into the dark.
Sirius ran his fingers along the wall. "Let's try this door."
A perfect circle of benches ringed a tall, gleaming mirror.
The Mirror of Erised.
"This isn't it," Harry said. "Let's go."
Sirius pressed his fingertips against the glass of the mirror. "We're all together again. I can see us all together: Remus, James, Lily, me, even Peter." He pressed his forehead against the mirror's surface. "He's not a Death Eater! He never betrayed us."
"Sirius." Harry dragged his godfather back from the mirror. "It's a lie."
"A lie," his godfather murmured, "but I can see them, they're there."
"No. You just want to see them."
"Oh." The lines in Sirius's face sunk deep and the shadow of Azkaban spread over his features. "I thought, I hoped, it might be real."
"It isn't." Harry glanced into the mirror.
His reflection smiled back, one arm around Fleur's waist; she had a small, warm, smile on her face and the sun set behind them in a wash of orange and red.
Perfect. He took a step closer.
A silver-haired girl leapt across to take Fleur's hand, clutching at her arm.
Gabby?
Gabby turned to glance up at him and bright emerald eyes gleamed beneath her silver hair. The bottom dropped out of Harry's stomach and his heart lurched.
Not Gabby. A daughter. Our daughter. Warmth rushed through him and hot tears welled up. He raised a hand to pull the little girl out through the glass and into reality, then sighed and let his arm drop. It's not real. Not yet.
"It only shows you what you want most." Harry tore his gaze away from the girl's vivid green eyes and the little smile she'd inherited from her mother. "Leave it."
He strode out into the darkness and trailed his fingertips along the wall of the corridor, bumping over each line in between the tiles until he touched something warmer.
"Sirius," Harry murmured. "I found another door."
His godfather nodded.
Harry pushed it open. Worn, weathered, ancient stone benches enclosed a simple, single arch of stone upon a raised dais in concentric circles. The gap between the two pillars rippled and shimmered like heat haze.
"What is it?" Sirius whispered.
"I'm not sure."
He drifted past the benches and ran his hand down the left pillar. His fingertips dragged over thousands of tiny runes that stretched back and forth across the stone in a dizzying swirl of patterns. The veil shifted and a soft, low whisper rose from the far side as if a crowd of hundreds murmured beyond it.
This is more complex magic than even the wards on the chamber…
Grindelwald's sigil marked the summit of the arch, etched into the stone just as it'd been into the worn, weathered, faded graves at Godric's Hollow. He traced a fingertip over the cold stone, tracing the faint scratches of countless runes.
"Harry," Sirius hissed. "We need to keep going."
Harry snatched his fingers back and stepped away from the whispering arch. "It was just a few seconds."
"You were standing there for ages."
Harry blinked. "It only felt like moments," he muttered. "I hope the next door is the one we need, this place is far more dangerous than I expected."
"There've been no proper Unspeakables since Grindelwald killed them all years ago, but the most abstract, dangerous, and mysterious aspects of magic are studied here," Sirius muttered. "Shouldn't have ever expected to be able to waltz through to the prophecy."
"Where's the rest of the Order?"
"Coming," Sirius said. "Don't worry about the prophecy, Dumbledore told us that only you can remove it from the shelf."
They edged along the corridor in the gloom. Their steps echoed through the dark like stones tossed down a well.
"I've found another door," Sirius whispered.
"Let's hope this is the right one," Harry said.
Towering shelves of glowing, swirling white orbs stretched into the distance. Blue flames burnt at every junction, bathing the cathedral of prophecies in ethereal light. A small, dark plaque hung on the wall by the door.
The Hall of Prophecies.
"How do we find the right one?" he asked. "There're thousands."
Sirius inspected the nearest shelf. "They're labelled. These are all this year. We need to go further in. The prophecy had to have been made at least sixteen years ago, that was when Dumbledore said Lily and James needed to go into hiding. We'll start there." He strode off down through the shelves, keeping an eye on the labels.
Harry slipped his wand out of his sleeve and trailed after him. Endless rows of white orbs passed by.
Sirius paused before a shelf and scanned it. "Here. It was made to Dumbledore, he's the only one with so many initials, and it's about you and Voldemort. Grab it. I can't. You can only take it if it's about you."
A fist of ice clamped "round Harry's heart. "Me and Voldemort. Nobody else?"
"Just the two of you."
"If it's about Voldemort and I, then he wouldn't have sent Death Eaters to retrieve it. He would've sent them to clear the way."
"Shit," Sirius muttered.
"Let's get out of here." Harry plucked the small, glowing orb off the shelf and tucked it into his pocket.
They hurried back through the shelves toward the door, then stepped out into the black of the corridor. Brisk footsteps and the click of metal on stone drifted through the gloom.
"Where is this room, Lucius?" A soft giggle echoed through the dark. "I can't see anything."
Sirius froze. Harry dragged him back several steps and pulled him through the nearest door. Hundreds of time-turners hung on the walls and upon an old, blackened table at the room's centre, a bird within a bell jar was born over and over again.
Time-turners. Temptation stabbed at him, then faded. They'll all be warded. I won't be able to take one.
"The next door." Lucius Malfoy's smooth voice slipped through the shadows. "If you hadn't been so distracted by trying to get through the sealed door at the far end, then spent ages messing with the Veil, we'd be done by now."
"Shush." The witch clapped her hands together. "We're not alone." "My Lord?" Lucius called.
Harry shook Sirius back to life. "They're between us and the exit," he whispered. "There's no room to sneak past under the cloak."
"Perhaps the Order has another guard within the Department of Mysteries," Lucius Malfoy suggested. "One that prefers to hide rather than do his duty."
"A wise one." The witch giggled. "Homenum Revelio. Ahead on the left, two of them."
"We'll have to fight." Sirius looked like he might be sick. "I'll go out
first."
He drew his wand and stepped out into the corridor. White flames sprang up in the torches.
Harry glanced around, hoping for another door. Nothing. He eyed the time-turners. I can't leave a whole room of time-turners here, warded or not. Voldemort would be unstoppable.
Fiendfyre swirled from the tip of his wand, coalescing into a smouldering, white-hot basilisk. Harry sent it coiling around the room. The shelves, racks, and tiny, golden hourglasses melted, trickling down the walls. The room shook and shivered, and dust floated down from the ceiling.
Merde. Harry extinguished his fiendfyre. The whole building's enchanted. No more fiendfyre, then.
"Sirius!" Cheerful giggling echoed down the corridor. "It's a reunion! Let's play a game!"
Harry stepped out into the corridor.
"Potter." Lucius Malfoy's voice came from behind the intricate lines carved on a skull-shaped, silver mask. "The Dark Lord will be pleased when we bring him you."
"He's here for the prophecy." The witch cocked her head, sending dark curls tumbling over her purple dress. Her violet irises shone like rings of flame. "Have you hidden it? Is it like hide and seek?"
"You'll never hear it, Bella," Sirius spat. "It's too late."
So that's Bellatrix Lestrange, the witch who tortured Neville's parents into insanity. Harry studied the pale skin of her cheekbones, nose, and jaw. She looks just like Narcissa Malfoy, only with dark hair, purple eyes, and fuller lips.
"Give it to us," Lucius Malfoy snapped. "It belongs to the Dark Lord."
"It belongs to me." Harry raised his wand. "If he wanted it, he should've been faster."
Bellatrix laughed. "It's one thing to win the round, but another to win the game!" Her wand sprang into her hand and bright, yellow curses smashed into the tiles above Harry's head.
"Protego," he murmured, shielding himself and Sirius from the next barrage of curses. "We need to get back to the lift and the atrium."
"We'll have to get "round them somehow," Sirius said. "Stick together, we stand a better chance if we fight them at the same time than if we're separated. Bella's not all that good at playing as part of a team."
"Crucio," Lestrange cried.
A red beam of light splashed against the tiles between them.
"Papilionis." Harry surrounded them with a sphere of butterflies.
"Oooh, pretty!" Bellatrix's laughter drifted through the swirling cloud of dark wings. "Avada kedavra!"
A single butterfly burst into black smoke.
"Clever little Potter," she sang. "Come play with Bella for a bit!"
Lucius Malfoy sighed. "Bellatrix…"
Harry flicked his wand, transfiguring one of the butterflies into a sharp steel spike and sending it hissing towards Malfoy. Malfoy tore the black tiles from the walls with a flick of his wand and drew them into a dense shield. He transfigured the rest and sent them after the first. Steel spikes smashed into the tiles, spraying shards down the corridor.
Sirius hurled bright orange curses at Bellatrix. She deflected them into the walls, giggling and twirling down the corridor.
"Reducto," Harry murmured, whipping his wand through the motion for the blasting curse, then blending it into the action for the bonesplintering curse, flicking his wrist so fast his fingers blurred.
The tiles disintegrated. Malfoy dived across the corridor behind Bellatrix and his walking cane exploded into splinters, the silver handle skittering away down the floor.
Sirius laughed. "You ok down there, Lucy?"
Bellatrix giggled and unleashed a barrage of bright-coloured spells. They ricocheted off each other, hammering into the tiles and the ceiling, sending dust swirling down the corridor. Harry deflected the few he recognised and twisted away from the rest. The shattered tile fragments sprang to life between them, shifting into a swarm of scorpions. They scuttled down the corridor toward them as Malfoy swept his wand forward.
"Incendio," Sirius spat.
The scorpions vanished beneath a gout of orange flame, burning with a series of cracks and pops. Harry stepped "round Sirius and threw as many spells as he could at Bellatrix. She laughed and returned fire. His spells buried hers. Flashes of bright pink, yellow, and orange burst amidst his hail of white and purple curses. Bellatrix huffed, then swatted his spells back at him.
The first hissed past his ear, scorching deep marks into the floor, and a flash of maroon whispered past his ribs. Harry deflected them away and ducked the spells Bellatrix slipped into the mix.
"Switch!" Sirius transfigured the tiles behind Bellatrix into ropes. "Time out, cousin!"
The ropes seized Bellatrix's limbs, wrapping around her like snakes. A faint shimmer of magic rippled over her and they burnt away into wisps of dark smoke.
"Expulso," Harry hissed.
The explosion tore the floor open beneath Bellatrix and Malfoy, tossing them down the corridor. Harry grabbed Sirius's arm and dragged him past the sprawled pair, twisting to rain bone-splintering curses over his shoulder as they ran towards the lift.
Malfoy snatched his wand up from the floor and ripped every tile off the wall, sending a hail of them flying across the corridor. They hammered into Harry's ribs and white-hot pain burst across his chest. He hauled Sirius through the first doorway and leapt behind the stone benches.
"Lacero," he whispered, sending purple curses tearing through the wall.
A hiss of pain came from the other side and a dishevelled Bellatrix stumbled through the door, one hand pressed to the gash on her thigh. "You ruined my dress!" She let out a little shriek and a faint shimmer of magic washed off her like heat haze. "It was a present!"
Malfoy ducked in through the hole in the wall. Dust coated his long blond hair and robes.
"Avada Kedavra," Bellatrix cried.
A flash of green vanished into the archway behind Harry. He transfigured the bench nearest them into a stone serpent and sent it lunging toward Bellatrix and Malfoy.
" Booooooring! Confringo!" Bellatrix shattered the stone serpent with a wave of her wand.
Stone fragments sprayed across the room. Harry banished them away from himself and Malfoy doubled over with a low grunt. His hand came away crimson.
"You never could play well with others," Sirius taunted. "No wonder Andi left and never looked back."
Bella's eyes lit up with purple flame. "Silly cousin Sirius. I'm going to win our little game, then the Dark Lord will purge all the stupid, useless cattle from our world. The only people left will be the ones that can play with me!"
Sirius swept his wand "round in a wide arc. "Ardens flagella."
A dark, shimmering line of purple fire melted through the ceiling, tiles, and benches like boiling water through snow. Bellatrix ducked and did a little pirouette around the violet fire. The flames seared across Malfoy's left side. His flesh melted like wax and Malfoy screamed, dropping his wand and clutching his face. The stink of burnt meat filled Harry's nostrils and Sirius's spell caught Malfoy in the chest, knocking him back into the ruined wall.
"Such dark magic." Bellatrix giggled, dodging Harry's blasting curses and deflecting Sirius's second stunner away. "I know that spell too! Ardens flagella!"
Bright, vivid pink flames burst from the tip of her wand. Harry hurled himself sideways and Sirius flinched from the heat of the fire as it splashed off the arch like water, covering his face with his arm. The veil shimmered in the corner of his eye and soft whispers rose up like smoke.
"Expelliarmus," Bella cried.
Harry's wand slipped from his fingers. He dived left and rolled to his feet, thrusting out his hand and summoning his wand. It slapped back into his palm.
"Crucio." Bella danced onto the benches and thrust her wand out.
Harry tensed; the red beam sailed past him and hit Sirius square in the chest.
AN: Also some cliff-hanger, because I still enjoy ludicrously melodramatic cliff-hangers!
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