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Chapter 32: The Crossroads of Twilight
Lightning flailed through a sea of storm clouds roiling on the edges of a twilight sky. Far below his mountain perch, a glowing ocean of artificial light flooded the crowded streets of Hogsmeade. The metropolis stretched farther than the eye could see, yet every inch of space was ruthlessly contested for. So many people…
The Elder Wand shuddered in his grasp, flaring so it felt as though he was wrestling with an open flame. It had returned to its natural shade and the golden streaks he had grown so accustomed to these past months had faded into archaic carvings.
"Do it." The whisper came, softer than a summer sky and sweeter than a winter sun.
No. His hand began shaking. I can't.
"Do it." It was closer to a hiss this time, the rasp of soft wind through slim branches.
Harry looked down on those packed streets, where people stared and pointed at the ridge he stood on. All those people…
"What do they matter?" A hand the colour of bleached bone clasped him on the shoulder. "War is war, is it not?" The mantra echoed in his skull. It was fainter each time he heard it, like a call careening through an empty cavern.
"I can't!" Tears were in his eyes — whether wrought by the twisting guilt inside his stomach or the searing pain of the wand against his palm, there was no telling.
"Lesser men," Voldemort growled in his ear. "You must not concern yourself with them." Harry's knees trembled. Some part of him knew the city and all who dwelt within must burn if he was to win. "You have to win." The barest hint of laughter turned the Dark Lord's words mocking. "No one can stop me if you lose."
Harry held the Elder Wand aloft as Trelawney's prophecy resounded through him.
"Either must die at the hand of the other for neither can live while the other survives."
The city erupted into emerald flames. There must have been untold millions screaming far below him. None of their cries registered. All that he could hear was high, cold laughter.
Just a dream, he told himself while shivering beneath his sweat-soaked sheets. Just another fucking dream…
There was a sinking feeling in the pit of his stomach, and then the memories came back to him; a control tower collapsing into emerald fire, hateful winds shredding through machine and man alike, the way the moonlight had been tinged green when rendered through a haze of smoke.
The first sob started in his chest, snagged halfway up his throat, then wrenched free of him. The second came, and then the third. Soon they had seized his entire body and had him shaking head to toe.
Somewhere around the twentieth, he decided there was no way he could repeat last night's performance. The guilt of it would shatter him, never mind that war was war or that burrowing into Riddle's ranks was the clearest path to victory.
Voldemort's words from his most recent dream resurfaced.
"You have to win. No one can stop me if you lose."
It was true. Everything he did had to keep that fact in mind. Dumbledore himself had said so.
"Either must die at the hand of the other for neither can live while the other survives."
So then why did the prophecy sound so hollow when he replayed it in his mind? What was he to do if his one fail proof anchor no longer kept him grounded?
"Dark times lie ahead of us and there will be a time when we must choose between what is easy and what is right," Dumbledore had warned the students after Cedric's death.
For the first time since that grim day, he wondered whether what he had done was right. How many people had died down in that ruined base?
That morning's Daily Prophet made things even worse. The riots were getting out of hand. A team of aurors had been murdered and their reinforcements routed. Meanwhile, a fire whose source was unidentified had caused untold damage in the heart of Paris. Though the investigation was ongoing, any wizard with a working brain cell could see that magic was responsible.
The article consumed him all throughout Alchemy that morning. What was next, if aurors were dying and the bedlam had spread past Britain's borders? How much more blood would soon be on his hands?
Belby's lecture washed right over him. Nothing could hold his interest. The sort of spiral he had learned to recognize had started. Soon he would be drowning in his own thoughts if it continued.
The loud chime signifying the end of class sent the students scampering. Harry was halfway to the classroom door when he came up short.
"Do you have a question, Mister Kalloway?" Professor Belby asked from behind his desk.
"How much time do you have?" Belby had never been his biggest fan and this was outside the scope of what he had been teaching. "I'm not sure the answer will be short or simple."
Belby snorted. "Most answers worth hearing aren't."
"I was told not long ago that silver was magically corrosive, and earlier this year we talked about how gold might deflect spells. What about the other alchemical metals? They must be special too." If one side of a global conflict had sought to utilize the metals, then perhaps he could find a use for them. Asking at all was good for him. It made him feel as if he was doing something.
"I've always thought that we should teach about the metals. They're simpler than the other jargon I have to drill into your heads." Belby pursed his lips. "The higher-ups worry some people might get the wrong ideas. A lot of experiments using those seven metals have gone very, very wrong."
Harry bit down on his annoyance. "So you won't tell me?"
"I will, but only because I think you've surpassed anything that I'm supposed to teach you and because I think you might try finding out the hard way if I don't." Belby's stare sharpened. It was a good stare, the sort that made you feel as though an unseen blade was pressed against your throat. "I trust I don't have to tell you not to go playing around with any of these metals?"
"Of course not, Professor," Harry said in the most earnest tone that he could muster. "I understand."
"It's a disservice saying that gold might deflect a spell. A more complete version of the truth is that gold is magically reflective. It makes enchanting golden artifacts extremely difficult. It is among the reasons golden trinkets are so valuable and why so many have thin layers of golden leaf sprinkled on top for the sake of ostentation."
"It would be easier to place the enchantments first, then add the gold so the magic doesn't get reflected," Harry surmised.
"Correct," his professor said. "Some enchanters claim they can use gold in reverse so that when their enchantments begin to fade away with age, the gold reflects the magic back into the artifact before it has time to dissipate."
Harry licked his lips. "Is it true?"
"Do I look like an enchanter?" Harry snapped his mouth shut and swallowed down a dozen smart remarks. "We've covered silver already, which leaves…"
It took a moment for him to realize Belby was waiting for an answer. "Oh. Copper, mercury, lead, tin, and iron."
"Copper is a magical conductor," Belby explained. "It's why you see so many magical contraptions made out of it. It can amplify the flow of magic if used correctly. If mishandled…"
"Magic is chaotic," Harry finished. "If someone miscalculated how much they would be amplifying, or wasn't careful, it could be deadly."
"It could be more than deadly. Consider, for instance, trying to amplify spells or enchantments that are imbued into an entire building, or a city block."
"The enchantment could overperform," Harry muttered. "Or overload itself and explode, or whatever else."
"The whatever else is the most dangerous component," Belby said. "Predicting how the magic might react is difficult at best."
"What about the others?" Harry asked. His theoretical grounding was not nearly strong enough to try and weaponize copper against Riddle or his allies.
"Tin is copper's counterpart. They often work in unison. Tin can dampen magic and lessen its effects. I should note here, given your question about gold earlier this year, that tin would not serve you as a shield."
Harry turned those words over. "When you say it dampens magic…"
"When enchanters or artificers seek amplification, they'll sometimes coat the copper in a layer of tin. If things do go wrong, the tin will lessen the effects. They might leave the layer or get rid of it depending on how the artifact's performing once it's finished."
The implications piled up inside Harry's mind. "What if someone was wearing something enchanted? What if you got a layer of tin over whatever they were wearing?"
"I don't know how you plan on doing that, given that you cannot conjure alchemical metals."
Not unless you have the Elder Wand. "Just hypothetically, Professor. Would the enchantment fail?"
"Whether it would fail depends on too many variables for me to say. What is the article made out of? What is the enchantment? How much magic does it require? There is no telling."
If he could disrupt the enchantment on Riddle's mask that warped his voice during a crucial moment and in a crowded area… "And the others?"
"Lead functions similarly to tin. Where tin dampens magic, lead absorbs and thereby disrupts its flow. This works best with unchannelled magic or things without physical function. It will not, for instance, disrupt something like a blasting curse. It would crumble before it could absorb anything, but it has been known as a tool the paranoid use against spells like Homenum Revellio."
That was interesting. "How much lead would you need to disrupt that spell?"
Belby's lips twitched. "Enough that the stories of people who have used lead in this way are old and centred around royals whose pockets have no bottoms."
Damn! "And the last two?"
"Iron is the most magically durable of all metals. It's among the most difficult to enchant for that reason. It takes a lot of magic for iron to be impacted. Once it is, it will hold that magic hostage for longer than any other metal. That's a large reason for iron's popularity in architecture among witches and wizards."
It was a neat tidbit. Unhelpful, but neat. "And mercury?"
"Stimulates magic. Large quantities of mercury in the same place can somewhat scramble the surrounding flow. Any enchantments will function just as it always has in most cases, though if the stimulated magic is inherently volatile…"
"It would be like copper gone wrong?"
"In a sense." Belby drummed his fingers against the surface of his desk. "The magic would be no stronger. It would be… restless and all but uncontrollable."
Harry connected pieces in his mind. "I'm guessing scrambling someone's senses with mercury isn't any more feasible than it is with lead?"
"Less so. Mercury is scarcer and therefore more costly. The trade of all alchemical metals is closely controlled by the Order of Merlin and mercury is one they keep a tight hold of."
"Why mercury?" Harry asked. "I understand stimulating magic could be dangerous, but no more so than mishandling copper."
"It is not my job to explain the reasoning behind imperial decisions." Belby's lips thinned and his drumming picked up in pace. "Though I suppose I will make this exception before someone fills your head with lies about old Chinese kings." Old Chinese kings? What the hell was Belby on about?
"You know, of course, of the magical borders set in place following the Conquest?" Harry nodded despite having never heard of them; Belby was not the man to ask those sorts of questions of. "Imagine borders like that being stimulated by an excess of mercury. Imagine if all that magic became wild and unstable."
Harry smothered the impulse to flinch; that had got the point across. "Fair enough."
"Remember what I told you about caution," Belby reminded him. "Now get to your next class. You're already going to be late."
Professor Caine was fond of him, so he took his time pondering all seven of the alchemical metals on the way to transfiguration. The most viable of them was tin, if he could conjure a layer of it over Riddle's mask.
Harry pushed the possibility aside for later consideration and stepped into the transfiguration classroom.
"I am beginning to think I startle you." His heart soared at the sound of Dumbledore's voice. "That is twice you have been late while I was teaching."
Harry could not help but blush like he really was a schoolboy. "I'm sorry, sir." It was like someone had died inside the classroom. Had a pin been dropped, he would have heard it hit the floor. What's… oh, shit. "I'm sorry, Your Highness," he hastened to correct. "I wasn't thinking."
"Sorry?" Dumbledore's eyes were shining. "My dear boy, be anything but sorry. The last thing I want when here is to be reminded of the busy work I'm burdened by." A smile tugged up at the corners of Harry's lips. Liquid heat bubbled behind his itching eyes. I missed you, old man. "Now, take a seat. Class is already in session."
Dumbledore's lesson that day was on the topic of human transfiguration. It was the first of his three lectures that year which seized Harry's attention. His aptitude in that area extended to things like transfiguring his face to look somewhat like his cousin's, yet not much past that. It had not been an essential area of mastery when waging war.
The class wrapped up too quickly for his liking. It was bliss having Dumbledore there. The darker thoughts that often plagued him cowered in the shadowy recesses of his mind and he felt lighter than he had in months.
yet his concerns were not forgotten. Dumbledore's own words which he had considered that morning came back and urged him not to waste this opportunity.
The emperor was smiling when the others filed from the classroom and the two of them were left alone. "This is becoming a ritual of ours whenever I drop in."
"I just wish you could drop in more often," Harry admitted. "It's not like there's anyone better for the job."
"You must cease your flattery before you make an old man blush." Dumbledore removed his half-moon spectacles and cleaned them on the front of his purple robes. "What sort of question do you have for me this time?"
Harry's heart grew hard and heavy. It would have been so easy to stand there and ask about transfiguration or some other piece of magic. It would have made his month.
Yet… "I've heard it said that men should always do what's right instead of what's easy."
"I think it is an admirable way to live one's life," Dumbledore agreed.
Harry hardened himself further, knowing the direction things were about to turn. "How do you know when something stops being right?"
Dumbledore's brows furrowed. "I'm afraid I don't understand the question."
"If you intend well but have to do things you're not proud of, where's the line? When do the actions stop being right when your intent is sound?"
"Ah." The twinkle faded from his mentor's eyes. "That is a difficult question. Every man must walk his own path and every trail is different."
Harry's shoulders sagged. "So there's no answer?"
"None that I can give you." Dumbledore offered him a sad smile. "I'm afraid it's not so simple as running some arithmetic."
"Oh." Heat settled in his cheeks; it felt like such a childish question, now that he had asked it. "I'm sorry for wasting your time, sir. I'll be going."
"If you would allow an old man to impart some advice in lieu of a true answer." Harry froze. "You are not an ordinary wizard." Dumbledore said it as if it was a dirty secret the two of them were hiding. "Men like you and I must bear greater burdens than the common sorcerer. They can sometimes unbalance us and leave us teetering on the edge of a sword point. I have heard this precarious state called the crossroads of twilight — a fork in the road where you must regain your balance and return into the light, or else fall to darker things."
"It is an apt name, yet a misleading one. The fork it presents is not between day and night or light and dark. The paths are more complex than that. The directions and their meanings must be decided by oneself, for it is our choices that define us. All men who bear these sorts of burdens must choose for themselves when things stop being right."
Harry could not help but remember the lone chapter he had read from The Life and Lies of Albus Dumbledore. "Some people would say they never stop being right, so long as the ends are justified."
"And that is their choice to make." Was it his imagination, or had Dumbledore's face twitched? "My advice, Harry, is to decide where that threshold lies for you. It is your life. You must choose which burdens are too heavy for you to bear throughout it."
That night, he dreamt of balancing on a sword point hanging over a cliff's edge hundreds of feet above a dark chasm. He thought for a heartbeat that he had found his balance, then the wind blew and he was falling — flailing in the air as that great, black mass yawned wider and prepared to swallow him.
A bone-white mask and skull-shaped envelope were waiting when he woke.
Breaking the seal, he read the missive over. Emotions roiled when he finished. This would be it; this would be the mission on which he worked with Riddle.
It was going to be the only time, because this was when it stopped being right. There was no further need for self-reflection, nor for the deep questions he had been asking himself all day.
The answer lay in front of him — he had found his threshold.
"It is a curious thing, Harry, but perhaps those who are best suited to power are those who have never sought it."
That was what it came down to — this time, he had the power to at least try and end things. The danger doing so would put him in was irrelevant; not trying would be a misuse of his power and a step down the wrong path.
"And it shall come to pass, in the days when the Dark Hunt rides, when the right hand falters and the left hand strays, that mankind shall come to the Crossroads of Twilight and all that is, all that was, and all that will be shall balance on the point of a sword, while the winds of the Shadow grow."
— Robert Jordan
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