Disclaimer: You ever dance with the devil in the pale moonlight? Always wanted to say that to some punk in an alley, wearing my leather and toting a six-shooter.
A/N: A big thanks to the awesome response for the last chapter - glad you liked it, folks, for the most part. A special thanks to those native Frenchman out there who spotted the awful truth, that I do not speak fluent French - in the last chapter, I had in fact used translation software - should be better now if you can actually speak/read French, but no promises!
Got this one out sooner than planned. Awesome.
*~*~*~*
Harry Potter and the Wastelands of Time
Chapter 5 - Remind Me What I Could Have Been
Fate is not an eagle, it creeps like a rat.
--Bowen
The Canal du Midi is the oldest working canal in the world, and was built just over three hundred years ago in the south of France, running for over two hundred kilometres through some of the oldest regions of the country. A beautiful and tranquil waterway, the Canal connects the Atlantic Ocean to the Mediterranean Sea.
Whether travelling by barge or narrow boat, walking or cycling along its length, the Canal stretches through some of the richest and most beautiful parts of the country. On average about ten metres wide and two metres deep, the Canal du Midi displaces some seven million cubic metres of earth and rock, and a complicated system of feeder canals and reservoirs keep it flowing the year round.
Fleur and I were enjoying lunch under the warm summer sun, drifting along the Canal du Midi past old vineyards and gentle rolling hills on a canal boat named the Rose Blanche, the White Rose. Idyllic, distant mountains dominated the horizon, and long sweeping valleys crept between them, full of apple trees and crops of honeydew melon.
In the end it was Fleur that had Apparated us across the English Channel and over the border into France. I was a little out of practice when it came to Apparation, especially side-along travel, and my fifteen (nearly sixteen) year old body had never done such a thing at all. I'd need some practice on my own to bring my magic up to speed - and that always hurt like all hell, because although I knew how to do it, my body was in no fit shape to perform. That first time was going to be a killer.
“I did not expect today, 'Arry,” Fleur said, pulling my eyes away from the countryside. We sat at a table for two on the sixty-foot canal boat, a few other couples and tourist families sat nearby, though none close enough to overhear our conversation.
“Well, we can never know the future, can we?” I replied.
There had been no hiccups getting into the country. The International Apparation Terminal that scooped up all travellers arriving internationally, whether they wanted to be scooped up or not, as wards set up around the border redirected all Apparaters there, had even issued me with a two-month travel visa into the country.
My documents from Gringotts, Muggle documents, were of the highest, fraudulent quality, and the Ring of Concealment I wore on my left hand had masked my magical signature enough that I didn't register as Harry Potter, British magical citizen, but as an Ethan Rafe, of whom no record previously existed, as Ethan Rafe had never been overseas in his life. And if Ethan looked a little young for the eighteen his birth certificate said, well his magical signature checked out, so stamp him on through.
Fleur had been born and raised in France, and as such bypassed most of the security checks - save the one on her own magical signature, which only served to verify her as Miss Fleur Isabelle Delacour regardless. As I had known she would, she didn't raise an eyebrow as Harry Potter so easily entered the country illegally. It had been that sort of morning, after all.
“You are a mystery to me, 'Arry, ever since I first met you before ze fireplace after ze Tournament was drawn.”
“I thought that you, Krum, and Cedric all looked the part of a Champion that night, standing in the glow of the fire,” I said. “Things were different back then.”
Memories of Then and Now, of Before and After, danced through my head. I had a bit of a headache. Nothing too fierce, yet constant, and beating a steady throb just between my eyes. I was beginning to wonder if having every particle and atom in my body accelerated beyond the speed of light, my soul torn from my older self and merged into my younger self eight years in the past or sooner, might be doing some lasting damage…
“You were ze Champion in the end though, no,” Fleur said, idly turning a piece of string pasta in green parsley sauce around her silver fork. “After what 'appened in zat graveyard.”
I took a sip of crisp white wine from my thin crystal glass, savouring the taste. I hadn't eaten in days, really, and had died twice in those days. And where I'd come from in the future such luxuries as white wine, and food in general, had been scarce - read nonexistent. So much so that the bodies lying in the mass graves around the major cities didn't even have enough meat on them to please the vultures and the carrion eaters. Slim pickins'
Merlin damn it all, there were dark days ahead, and never enough time to prepare.
“You heard about all that then?” I said, meaning the nightmare of Voldemort's rebirth.
“Oui… it is fast becoming a legendary tale, 'Arry, after your Ministry finally accepted ze return of You Know Who a few weeks ago. A boy, only fourteen, duels a wizard that inspires such fear - it is a story of hope.”
I shrugged - maybe yes and maybe no to hope - before topping off my wine glass with the bottle from the silver ice bucket on the edge of the table. I hovered over Fleur's glass until she gave me a nod.
“Of the hopeless maybe,” I said. “And call him Voldemort, it's just a name.”
“Voldemort,” she said after moment, a visible shiver running through her entire body. “It is a terrible name, no, for a terrible man.”
“He's more monster than man - there's very little human left, Fleur, in the Dark Lord.”
“Well, here's to hoping that I will never 'ave to see for myself.” She raised the glass to her lips and took a long sip of wine.
“Oh Merlin willing,” I replied, finding a smile. “This is a lovely spot, by the way. From the sooty air of London to a tranquil canal in the south of France - it has been a good day.”
“Except for ze attempt on my life,” Fleur said, pushing her plate to one side and sitting up straight in her chair, the perfect picture of elegance and etiquette. “I'm glad you were there to save ze day.”
I was kind of slouching in my chair, with one elbow resting on the table. Not so much elegance as sloth, especially in my old shirt and jeans. Fleur looked stunning in her floral blouse and dark skirt, complete with knee-high boots of white leather. I definitely didn't look the part of the hero, or much of anything really. Way too scruffy to be seen with a girl as beautiful as Fleur, yet she did not seem to care.
There was so much more to her than met the eye.
“The day wouldn't have been half as bright without you in it, Fleur, I'm glad I was there, too,” I said, because it seemed like the right thing to say. I'd been here before, on this canal, eating this pasta and drinking this wine - how many times? I don't know, at least one too many. Damn it all.
“Yet you seem troubled and distant. Most men cannot tear zere eyes away from me, 'Arry, yet you are only 'alf-here, I theenk. You see what I mean when I say you are a mystery. What iz 'Arry Potter thinking right now?”
Her accent was peaking through the cultured English. I guess she was half-annoyed, half-amused with me. After all I hadn't even bothered to explain much of what had been said and done at Gringotts that morning, nor made any mention of Atlantis or how I had known the laws and lore of an ancient goblin nation that had been hidden for over three thousand years.
What could I tell her? The truth? More often than not people want to hear honest lies over a dark truth. I had no memories of ever sharing my time-travelling secret with Fleur, with anyone, and I suppose there was good reason to that…
And I was ignoring her a little, though trying hard not too. I was keeping an eye out for demons with pointy swords, and trying to make sense of the thousands of misplaced memories in my head that were aching like a sore tooth. It was 12:32 and fifty four seconds, according to my cheap wristwatch, yet Time was an hour ahead here in France. 13:33, then - I didn't get the feeling that we were approaching any moment of particular importance, as we floated down this old and weary canal.
“I'm just thinking about where to go from here,” I said. “And that I look far too worn and scruffy to be sitting here with you.”
Fleur gave me a dazzling smile - warm in that cold, indifferent way she could turn her head, and stunning in that cruel way she could make my heart race. “Oui, you are scruffy, 'Arry, especially your 'air, but it is cute.”
“Cute?” I said, running a hand back through my unruly hair. “See, this is why I need you to come shopping with me this afternoon - if I'm going to fight Dark Lords and Death Eaters, then I need to pull off angry and intimidating, brooding and wise. I need to look older and scarier. You know, wizardly.”
“Yet you are cute, 'Arry, and I'm not sure I want to help destroy that,” Fleur said, laughing and taking a sip of her wine. “Looking as young and scruffy as you do adds to ze mystery, no. Surely this iz not a boy that defies Dark wizards, but a cute Quidditch player not five minutes off his broom.”
I grinned, and tried to recall the last time I'd played a game of Quidditch. Last year? My real last year, my fifth-year at Hogwarts. Had I played Quidditch? I think Umbridge put a stop to it, didn't she? I certainly hadn't played it in those last unrealised years of the future - too much ash and fire in the sky. When was it? I honestly couldn't remember - and my headache felt all the worse for trying.
“So being a young, scruffy mess is something that works for you French girls then?”
Fleur laughed. “But of course, 'Arry. Older men can be controlling sometimes, in my experience, and assume far too much.”
Oh, just what were we talking about now? I think I was flirting a little, damn my eager teenage hormones, whereas Fleur was just playing. I was enjoying myself, either way.
“Tell me about it,” I said, thinking of Albus Dumbledore and his good intentions. Merlin keep the old man safe, but damn it all, this war was a young man's game now. Fleur quirked an eyebrow at me. “Er… I'll be sixteen in just over a fortnight, you know.” Plus however many years spent time-travelling between Then and Now…
“Ah, I am just over two years older than you - any plans for your sixteenth?”
“Well… no. I don't get out much back home, especially during the summer. Too risky, according to Dumbledore and his Order.”
“You know I 'ave done some work for Professor Dumbledore and ze Order,” she replied. “Protecting you is a great priority to them. Yet I assume that you 'ave decided to be more independent, no? Ze Goblins most certainly think so.”
“Ha, the goblins are going to wish they cut my head off this morning all too soon,” I said, running my finger down through the cool, wet chill that had settled on my wine glass.
*~*~*~*
Be prepared to die.
If you want to live, and if you want to make a difference - God help you if you do, God help you if you can - then be prepared to die.
And be prepared to drag the screaming innocence of humanity down into hell with you. Mercy be done - maybe yes, maybe no.
And no matter how hard it gets, how fucking impossible, always - always - tell yourself that you can do it, that you'll make it. Even if you know the taste of that bullshit well, you never admit defeat.
I can think of no better advice than that.
Save run and hide, and try not to fall asleep, less the nightmares of the waking world happen upon you and, with a grumbling stomach, show you what it means to be a 'hero' and how so few moments matter at your last.
Was I prepared to die?
Maybe yes, maybe no - but you know the answer, don't you? Of course I wasn't, and that is why I force Time to my own dark ends, time and time again.
*~*~*~*
Fleur and I departed from the canal boat at the port of Carcassonne, a fortified castle-town home to some fifty thousand people built up and around an elongated hill many centuries ago. An impressive sight, Carcassonne was Fleur's hometown, and her family owned a large manor house on the outskirts of the Cité, pretty much in the French countryside. I had vague memories of being there before, a life or two ago. My first few days back were always pretty much the same.
And it was hard to forget the finest remains of medieval fortifications in all of Europe.
I walked up to the town with Fleur at my side, my bag with the Invisibility Cloak and a half-pack of smokes slung over my shoulder, and my briefcase with the Muggle currency and false documents swinging idly in my left hand. The Ring of Concealment shone dully in the pale afternoon light on my finger.
“That was nice - I have not been on ze Canal du Midi since I was a girl with my father,” Fleur said, looking great in the light, her hair trailing out behind her in the breeze.
“The food was good,” I said, patting my full stomach. “Nice, light, and I want some more of that apple pie.”
“Ah, it waz all pastry and sugar, 'Arry. I should not 'ave 'ad the piece I did.”
“We'll have to go again sometime…”
“Peut-être que oui, peut-être que non…” Maybe yes, maybe no. “You were distracted most of ze ride, 'Arry. Thinking of long lost riches, no?” She paused. “Of Atlantis, only fairytales exist, I think.”
I gave her a tired and careworn smile that looked too old on my young and cute face. “I've been led to believe its more than myth and legend, but we'll see. The summer holidays are still young, after all.”
“You really mean to go on zis expedition of yours?”
“Better than sitting at home dwelling on things I can't change.” People I can't bring back. “If I do find it, I promise to bring you back all kinds of treasure.”
Fleur laughed, light and clear and delighted. “Well zen, perhaps we will ride the Canal on our own private boat, no.”
“I wouldn't say no to that.”
For the next hour or two Fleur gave me a guided tour of the fortified Cité of Carcassonne. We walked down the old narrow and winding cobblestone streets and past buildings made of brick and marble, coated in creeping vines and dashed with early afternoon sunlight. The air was fresh and the people friendly, and we stopped more than once at half a dozen sweet shops and Muggle specialty stores. All there for the tourists, of which I suppose I was one.
More than one man and even a few women paused as Fleur walked by, or laughed at something I had said, admiring her undeniable beauty. It had been an eventful day so far, spanning hundreds of miles, and the younger part of me, the boy who was only fifteen, marvelled at the fact that only a few short hours ago I had been gutted like a fish, only to awake an hour early in time… Was this really my life now?
I never had enough time, and yet I could hardly consider this afternoon time wasted. And the way I saw it, the universe owed me a pleasant afternoon after all the dying it put me through. At the very least, time with Fleur was a break from- but no, that began to sound too much like a pitiful excuse… I was better than that.
I bought a few new pieces of clothing chosen by Fleur, nothing too much at this point as I didn't want to be weighed down carrying shopping bags of fine clothes, yet she took me into the pricy Muggle shops and I purchased two pairs of jeans, a few shirts, all paid for with the francs in my briefcase that I had acquired at Gringotts that morning.
There was no sign of the magical world in Carcassonne, and I could not recall if the city had a Diagon Alley equivalent or if it all belonged to the Muggles, yet that didn't matter, as Fleur knew the way around like the back of her hand. This was the town of her childhood.
In a quiet store at the higher end of the town, which smelled of new leather and shoe polish, Fleur made me stand to be fitted for a dark Muggle suit and shiny black shoes. The stitching on the inside pocket read Armani, and the price tag was in the thousands of dollars, American. Extravagant, of that there was no doubt, yet Fleur insisted.
And I have to confess I do like the way a pair of dark trousers, a silk grey shirt open at the collar, and a suit jacket complete with round silver buttons looked on me. So did Fleur, and I think she appreciated just how much of that 'cuteness' I shed standing on that stool before a set of three mirrors, as the French tailor tightened my shoelaces. I may have been dressed for a black-tie dinner, but damn it all, I'd look good duelling Voldemort in this, and my wand fit snugly in the inner-breast pocket.
I think I'd bought a few suits like this the last few times I'd tried to stop the world from ending, and even a pair of dark sunglasses to replace the thin wire-framed glasses I wore, but that was something to think about in the next few weeks, if I bothered at all. The memories were still spinning and tumbling around my head, caught in the cyclone of time-travel.
“Are you sure about this?” I asked Fleur, who stood to my right as I straightened the cufflinks on my shirt. The tailor had left us to discuss the suit alone, seeing as how it cost somewhere in the region of a hundred billion galleons.
“Muggle fashion is centuries ahead of ze wizarding world, 'Arry,” Fleur replied. “You look fantastiqué - all you need now is a silk overcoat down past your knees, and not only 'as ze cute been replaced with 'andsome, but ze boy is more of a man, no.”
Now, I like to think of myself as a bit of a badass.
I've been forged through enough chaos and destruction to have been tempered unbreakable by the fires of war. I've magic in my arsenal that could tear down cities, reduce forests to ash, mountains to rubble, and - if I feel like going out in a blaze of glory - I can channel enough power through my body to melt a continent…
Armies and monsters, madmen and demons, all had fallen under my strength. I had loved and lost women before, I had memories of such - just memories, and fuzzy ones at that, as if they belonged to someone else - yet when Fleur called me handsome I blushed as red as a Weasley and felt a nervous giggle rising in my throat that belonged to a schoolgirl.
I coughed, and Fleur's reflection in the mirror gave me a subtle smile, noting the blush. “Guess I'll take it then,” I said, and Fleur nodded, she had expected no less. Damn it all, women and their manipulative beauty included.
I ended up buying the overcoat Fleur had suggested as well, and with my new purchases in hand, she and I began to walk out of the Cité, talking much about nothing and avoiding the awkward subjects that I could give no real answers to - like Atlantis, and the goblins, and how much different I seemed since last we met at the end of my fourth-year - until we came to the limits of the fortified castle-town, and Fleur side-along Apparated me to her family home built in one of the many meadows surrounding Carcassonne and the Canal du Midi.
Side-along Apparation is uncomfortable, and it tended to make my ears pop, as the sensation of being stretched thin enough to squeeze through a keyhole overtook me. I think that's kind of what happens, when it comes to Apparation - and maybe even time-travel - but Apparation was travel through space, not time, and a lot more common. Either way, being pulled through a point in space about as wide as my little finger left me feeling all tingly and squashed, and I dropped half my shopping on arrival.
We hadn't travelled far, only half a dozen miles or so from Carcassonne.
I stood upon a dusty garden path, just inside the wards that surrounded the Delacours' property, wards that had recognised Fleur and allowed her to pass, plus guest. All around me were statues and garden ornaments, rose bushes and tall ancient trees swaying gently in the breeze, growing behind a low hedge that ran alongside the path up to the house itself.
It was an old manor house, and had that much loved and well-worn look of being lived in for generations. Green climbing vines claimed the outer walls, bursting with small purple flowers in full bloom, and of the three storeys all but the ground floor had five windows with old white shutters opened wide to fill the house with light.
“I could grow old here,” I said quietly, speaking a stray thought aloud.
Fleur glanced at me, having overheard, and offered me a small enigmatic smile as she helped me collect the shopping bags I'd dropped a moment ago.
“I'd ask you in for a drink, 'Arry, yet I think you have to be going, no?” Fleur said, as we reached the large mahogany front door. She could read me too well - most women could.
“Places to be,” I said, trying not to sigh. I shifted all of the shopping bags to one hand, my new clothes and shoes. The fancy suit hung in a zip-up dust cover from a coat hanger latched under the strap of my old school bag, dangling down my back. “There's no place like home.”
And before she could get away, I embraced Fleur with my one free arm. A quick hug in which I was overcome with strawberries and fresh rainfall - from her golden hair, mostly - and her cheek pressed against mine. I felt one of her hands settle on my back, under the bag, and she relaxed into the embrace.
I held her longer than friendship usually allowed, but I was still the first one of us to pull away.
“I will be home for a week or so, I think, until I decide what to do with myself” she said. “Perhaps you can drop in for a visit - say Thursday afternoon for tea, 'Arry, if you are not busy saving ze wizarding world.”
“Ah, no promises…” I replied, and damn it all, I couldn't promise. It was all too likely I'd be off saving the world - or trying to, at least. I wasn't very good at it, when it came right down to crunch time, but if at first you don't succeed...
*~*~*~*
Make a deal with the Devil to tear your mortal soul from your body and blast it eight years into the past, to the summer where everything has to change if there is any hope of preventing the carnage.
Dare the path never taken, realise that the end is only ever a new beginning…
If at first you don't succeed… walk away, no sense in being a damned fool about it.
*~*~*~*
“You are not going looking for trouble, are you, 'Arry?” Fleur asked, under that warm afternoon sun. Her tone was light, yet her eyes were worried.
“I never have to go looking,” I replied, rakish smile firmly in place.
“No, I suppose not.” Fleur hesitated, and then leaned down to kiss me on the cheek. Her lips lingered a heartbeat longer than a simple goodbye, and her breath was warm in my ear. “Thank you again, for your heroism this morning, 'Arry. Take care of yourself, and come visit me soon!”
We said our final goodbyes and Fleur let herself into her big vine-covered home. I got a glimpse of polished hardwood floors and a crystal chandelier hanging from a high ceiling, before she gave me a final smile from within the doorway, and closed the door on creaky old hinges, taking all the strawberries and rainfall with her.
I stood there for a moment under the eaves of the house, thinking happy thoughts about today. Things were always pleasant, back at the start, yet I had the feeling - call it intuition, future-memory - that a lot of things were about to head downhill from here. A pessimistic attitude, maybe, but when you've seen the world go to hell in a handcart as many times as I have, it gets awfully hard to remain optimistic.
I took a stroll down the garden path and over the boundary of Fleur's property before attempting to Apparate. I felt the gentle pull of the minor wards protecting the home as I crossed their border, leaving the garden behind and stepping onto a country road that could take me all the way back to Carcassonne.
I had another destination in mind.
Now there are some things in life that, once learnt, you can never forget - no matter how many times you relive the same eight years trying to avert Armageddon - things like riding a broom, or speaking Italian and French. And magic - I knew the ins and outs of Apparation, I knew how to squeeze myself through that thin little keyhole in space.
I'd already Apparated twice today, piggybacking on Fleur's magic, and it had given me a feel for it again. Enough that I thought I could do it with little hassle - although I had a feeling it was going to hurt, being so out of practice as I was in my fifteen year old body.
I took a deep breath, steadied my shopping bags and that badass suit over my shoulder, and muttered, “Destination… determination… deliberation.” The three D's of Apparation.
I felt a tingling in my toes and then, standing in the middle of the road like an idiot, I disappeared from the French countryside without making a sound.
When Fleur and I had Apparated into France we had been redirected to the International Apparation Terminal in Paris, and for the most part Fleur and I, Mr Ethan Rafe, had entered the country legally. Italy had the same wards and charms set up to net incoming international travellers as France did, yet without Fleur I could… fly below the radar, so to speak. I just had to be careful not to set off the wards in place that would alert the Italian Ministry to an illegal border crossing.
It wasn't easy, yet I knew what I was doing, having spent many, many years, scouring the globe covertly for ancient magics and long, lost cities… I'd picked up a few tricks in my time, and the sheer distance I was attempting to Apparate would also work in my favour.
Most people, most magical folk, can manage somewhere in the region of two hundred miles when Apparating - and that's all good and well, yet even on an off day I could manage closer to a thousand miles. Dumbledore could probably do about five hundred, whereas Voldemort would be closer to me again. I'm not sure, to tell you the truth, of the true extent of Voldemort's magical ability. I've never survived long enough in a fight to the death against him to find out.
Anyways, I was attempting to Apparate from the south of France and into Italy, near to Rome - a distance beyond ninety-nine percent of the general population. My atoms and particles were stretched thin enough to cover such a distance, squeezing through cracks in space and magic, to pass almost undetected through the country's border patrol wards.
Yet I wasn't taking any chances. The goblins, once they realised I wasn't in Australia, would track the documents they had given me through the International Apparation Terminal in Paris, and discover that Ethan Rafe had been given a two-month pass into the country. There could be no record of me leaving, if I was to have any chance of proceeding unhindered.
Having disappeared without making a sound was part of the trick - almost always there's a popping sound as air rushes into the vacuum left in the wake of Apparation - I had disappeared silently, because I was still there. I don't really understand the mechanics of it, but I guess you could say I half-Apparated from France, right up to Italy's border, and waited for a lull in the wards - timing it just right - before slipping through into the country undetected.
I think I've said that time-travel requires an instinctive grasp of time itself, and an understanding of the moments between one second and the next where the magic can happen… Well, I have that understanding.
To my knowledge, there is no one but me who could perform this kind of Apparation. It isn't instantaneous travel, and that's the trick. It's more like digging a hole under the fence and sneaking in the back door.
I appeared in Tivoli, an ancient Italian town about thirty kilometres from Rome in the Italian Peninsula, and promptly fell to my knees, stifling a scream and scattering my shopping bags as every bone in my body protested to such… vicious first-time Apparation.
“Fuck…” I groaned, none too eloquently, as harsh lances of cool pain shot through my joints, froze in my blood, and battered away inside my skull. That bloody headache was killing me.
After about half a minute spent twitching in pain, I rose to my feet and, before anything else, reached over my shoulder for the pack of cigarettes in the side pouch of my backpack. The silver Zippo I'd 'borrowed' from Dudley was in my pocket, and I took a deep drag on the smoke with a sigh. I'd been smoking for about five years, back in the future - when you're starving, and supplies are at their lowest, a stomach full of smoke was better than nothing. It took the edge off, and the addiction was always worth it.
I stood on a lookout built just above the famous Falls of Tivoli - twin waterfalls of the Aniene River cascading over the sheer cliff face below me for over three hundred and fifty feet. A fine mist rose from the swash at the bottom of the falls, and watery drops from the shower clung to my hair and face. It was cool and refreshing.
Third country in as many hours, I thought, walking up to the waist-high limestone wall and looking down over the edge of the waterfall to the distant river below, which wound away out of sight through the town itself.
Tivoli is nestled in a region of Italy known as Lazio. Some thousands of years ago, around about the second millennium B.C., this land had been known by another name - Latium.
And Latium had been home to the original Latin people. I took a deep breath, savouring the fresh air. This was an amazing place. The very origins of magical learning had been born along the clear rolling hills, and across the distant mountains cradling endless valleys of cloud and hiding the ancient, lost secrets of Latium.
Below me and behind me stands most of the hill town, built much the same as Carcassonne. Yet whereas Carcassonne is a monument to medieval times, Tivoli is a monument to ancient Rome. Temples from that era survive within the town, as do the old aqueducts. The history and the architecture of the town is among the most impressive in the world to survive from the age of antiquity. I could feel the timelessness of this place, of this land, stretching back across the long lost years…
I was uniquely sensitive to it, after all.
Across the Aniene River I could see the port of Tivoli, the fishing boats that ran the river east away from the massive waterfalls, and beyond that the old paper mills that produced some of the finest paper in the world. I'd gotten to know my history, it seemed, as half of these details were coming to me as I swept my eyes over the landscape for what might as well have been the first time.
“Quite an impressive view, is it not?” said a voice to my left.
I turned and glanced at a man standing way too close for comfort.
Dressed in dark robes, his hair cut short and a tuft of facial hair curling around his chin, his sharp eyes, cool and green, regarded me impassively. His eyes gave him away - they were dead. He was standing on one of the shopping bags I'd dropped upon my painful arrival.
I had only one memory of the man - but then, it wasn't a man, was it? This thing must think I'm a fucking idiot…
“Oh I've been waiting for you,” I said, drawing my wand from the back pocket of my jeans.
I took a wary step back as the man turned to face me, the hilt of his long sword - a sword that had ended my life that morning - hanging from his waist. He drew it with the same careful ease of which I held my wand.
“Harry Potter, a Warrior of Time,” he said, inclining his head a fraction of an inch. Those dead eyes, void of even a speck of life, never blinked or left my own. “That Time is up…”
Behind me roared the Falls of Tivoli, and the only way off this flat stone lookout on the edge of the Aniene River, a curving path down into town, was blocked by a human-looking creature baring a sword of dark steel.
And oh look, he had a friend. Across the courtyard, only a dozen feet away, stood a second man, who looked identical to the first - right down to the four feet of twisted blade clenched in his fist.
“Do you want to talk about this, boys?” I said, backing up against the limestone safety wall at the cliff's edge.
“Your betrayal will no longer stand, Potter,” the first man said, levelling his sword at my heart.
Betrayal? What the fu-
My shiny new scar, made of a wound that had followed me through time itself, began to itch across my heart. And then it began to burn, painfully so. Just what the hell was I dealing with?
“You know what will happen should you kill me,” I said, holding my wand steady and ready, locked and loaded. “It'll just reset the clock.”
Both men grinned and advanced upon me, and their identical grins were wide enough to tear away the face masks they wore. Their human façade stretched and ripped around their mouths, revealing not teeth but two rows of vicious grey fangs coated in a slimy yellow puss that oozed from their gums.
“We know…” the creatures hissed as one. “We desire it.”
Ah, okay.
“So be it then,” I whispered, and tossed my half smoked cigarette aside.
When backed into a corner, I've been known to do stupid things that could get people killed. Thankfully, it was only my life in danger at the moment.
I turned and leapt up onto the wall, and pausing for not one moment I hurled myself over the edge of the cliff and down into the rising mist of the Falls of Tivoli, some four hundred feet above the ground.
I spun in the air whilst I was still level with the lookout and took aim with my wand. I saw surprise in the bulging bloodshot eyes of the monsters trying to kill me, and then lit those eyes up with crimson curse light.
“REDUCTO!” I cried over the crashing of the monumental waterfalls, forcing as much power as I could into the spell.
A thick band of red light issued forth from my wand as I fell out of the monsters' sight, and struck the limestone wall before them. There was a loud bang, followed by an explosion of dust and rock as the wall crumbled under the weight of the curse. Twin howls of rage and surprise echoed across the late afternoon sky.
The monsters joined me in my suicidal jump, as the impact of the curse had taken a bite out of the cliff just beneath their feet, along with the wall. A whole section of earth and rock broke away, becoming a deadly barrage of falling stone.
I spun in the air again, diving through the rising mist and fog from the waterfalls as I picked up speed, shooting head first down the length of the massive water curtain. I was soaked through in a heartbeat, my arms held before me in the dive and my wand aimed straight at the ground still far below.
I muttered low and fast under my breath, gripping my wand hard against the wind shear and twirling it in small circles, casting magic I barely understood. Magic that came from somewhere within the tumbling memories surging like a roiling ocean in my head.
My fall began to slow-no, the air began to rush past me faster and faster, gathering at the base of the waterfall like a massive pillow. I began to laugh, realising what I'd just done - this would be fun if I didn't snap my neck!
I hit the cushion of air at the bottom of my fall and it was like hitting a soft feather mattress. A wide feather mattress pulled taught, with enough spring to bounce me right back up again. And that's what happened. It was like sinking into soft nothingness, nothingness which I hit hard enough to slingshot me back the other way.
The surface of the river, a swash of white foam forever churning before the waterfalls, came up pretty fast, and caught in my air pillow I came close enough to the water's surface to take a drink, yet all at once my downward momentum was caught, I hung suspended for a precious moment, and then the recoil from the air cushion expelled me like a bullet from the barrel of a gun straight back up into the sky, soaring against the falling water.
I was travelling fast, and broke through the cloudy mist and beheld the blue sky above me, littered with falling chunks of rock and debris from the curse I had fired into the cliff face.
Aw, shit.
I got lucky - none of it struck me, yet where were my two ugly friends? And what was that falling away just to my left? Ha-
“Accio sword,” I said, brandishing my wand like a whip towards the falling steel blade. My magic caught it, and the spinning sword came hurtling through the air towards me. I grasped the dark hilt, the handle wrapped in dark leather, in my free left hand, before it cut my head off.
There were two identical shrieks just above me - ah, there we are, Tweedledum and Tweedledee, hovering in the air on thick wings of a near transparent grey membrane, riddled with black veins and ragged holes.
Oh that is not fair, I thought. That is unfair. That is taking un-fucking-fair to a whole new degree. Not only did these nightmares look like corpses left out in the sun too long, but they could fly as well.
Tweedledum, the monster without its sword, shrieked again, loud enough to make my eardrums shake, and the blade in my hand grew furiously hot, and I could feel it pulling against my grip as my palm blistered. It wanted to return to its master.
No chance, I thought, as my upward velocity carried me amongst the stinking, flapping wings of my foes.
Tweedledee flew through the air towards me, battering me with gusts of fetid air from its heavy wings. It swung its sword at my face, and I brought my stolen blade up to guard. The swords met in mid-air and a fountain of silver sparks erupted between us, followed by an explosion of raw energy, forcing us apart.
Tweedledee spiralled away, shrieking in rage as it was thrown under the massive waterfalls. The sheer pressure of so much water slammed the monster down towards the river far below, and out of sight. I was thrown practically into the waiting arms of Tweedledum.
The creature, whatever it was, wrapped its wings around me and trapped the sword between our bodies. Merlin damn it all, but the bloody thing reeked! All of the upward momentum I had left was drained away, and gravity took back over as I grappled with the creature and it fought to reclaim its sword.
About a million jagged fangs lunged and bit at my face, and two orbs as black as the night, narrowed to thin slits, glared nothing but absolute hate at me.
I still had a hold on the sword, it was in my grasp, and I twisted the blade down on pure instinct, snapping my neck back away from those gnashing fangs and hoping against hope that I didn't cut the hand holding my wand off or something else as I turned the blade. I was rewarded with a shriek of pain from Tweedledum, and its wings opened up enough for me to launch myself back and out of its stinking grasp.
The dark blade shone with a faint red glow, and I saw that I had opened a nasty bleeding wound across Tweedledum's stomach, as once again I began to plummet to an untimely death at the base of the Falls of Tivoli.
Merlin damn it all, was it only fifteen minutes ago that Fleur Delacour had left a lingering kiss on my cheek? That had been pleasant. Time was a relative, fickle thing, and could be all too cruel sometimes - most times.
Down I went again, falling arse first almost folded in half, still gripping my wand and Tweedledum's sword, back into the cloud of rising mist and slamming hard into my cushion of air, which was still in place and coated with running water from the falls.
I sunk into the pillow of springy air a second time, and bounced right back out a second time, with just as much force as before. The air cushion shattered beneath me, having been strained beyond breaking point, and a loud, thunderous clap roared back up into the heavens alongside me as I ended this fight.
I burst through the mist with Tweedledum's sword pointed straight at the sky. And there was Tweedledum itself, hovering directly overhead about twenty feet away, holding its bleeding stomach. I was travelling fast enough that the bastard thing barely had a second's warning before I returned the 'borrowed' sword, sheathing the glowing dark blade in the creature's flabby-grey chest as I shot on by.
My velocity carried me up and passed Tweedledum, and I turned in the air in time to see a flash of that same crimson light that had been glowing from the sword's blade burst from the fatal wound I had given it, a heartbeat before the creature itself erupted in flames of the darkest blue, and an oily black.
The flames consumed Tweedledum in mere moments, leaving nothing but silver sparks of ash that fell swiftly out of sight, lost within the roaring mist of the Falls. Even the sword had been destroyed.
Unimpeded by monsters this time, my velocity carried me right back up to the top of the cliff. I actually overshot the lookout where I had first arrived only about five minutes ago by about twenty feet, and landed hard on the safe side of the limestone wall - what remained of it - soaking wet and aching from playing the part of a cannonball all too well.
I had no time to catch my breath though, as I had no idea what had become of Tweedledee. That fucker had disappeared under the waterfall, and perhaps several hundred thousand litres of water hammering down on its body had been enough to drown it, but I wasn't taking any chances.
“You still out there, buddy?” I whispered, glaring down over the edge of the cliff. “Maybe yes, maybe no, huh...”
I gave myself a quick check for injuries - nothing but a few scrapes and bruises from wrestling with the damn monsters, and a few minor burns on my left hand from the sword that were already blistering painfully. I'd gotten off light, all things considered, and taught a new adversary that I was no easy meat.
I had a feeling I'd be seeing Tweedledee again, however, if not others like it… just a feeling. This was all messed up with Time, somehow. And I was a shining example that death was only ever the beginning when it came to Time.
Ah Merlin damn it all, wasn't Voldemort and his growing armies enough of a threat without adding new pieces to the board?
After about five minutes, I began to relax and collected my scattered belongings from about the lookout. I'd lost a few of the bags containing my new clothes over the edge of the cliff, but my backpack had survived the fall, and my briefcase containing all my cash and documents, as well as my fancy suit, hadn't been lost, thank heavens for small mercies.
They knew you'd be here, Harry, just like they knew you'd be in Diagon Alley - someone knows your first day back almost as well as you do.
My thoughts were divided, and that damned headache was getting worse right between my eyes. I took a few deep breaths to calm myself. I began to think it would be a good idea to vacate the area - as there was more than a good chance that someone had seen my high-diving antics from lower down the hill.
What next though? Did I stick to the plan?
I gave it a moment's thought and decided that yes, I would proceed as planned. Whatever these creatures were, they could be killed, and I was awfully good at killing. Let them try again, if they dared.
It was 06:79 and ninety-nine seconds. Dudley's crappy old wristwatch wasn't waterproof. Great.
A few shopping bags lighter, I walked away from the commanding view of the twin waterfalls, and began the trek down the hill and into the archaic town of Tivoli, my shoes squelching on every step I took.
If memory served, there was a nice little hotel down by the water, the kind with expensive mints on the pillow and fine cigars for sale at the bar. I fancied some more wine, maybe even a six-pack of beer, and a bucket of ice to dunk my blistering hand in.
I felt as if I deserved it. It had been a long old day, after all.
*~*~*~*
A/N: Okay, next chapter in the works. Things aren't even warmed up yet in this story - BIG PLANS! Everything about Carcassonne, the Canal du Midi, and Tivoli is all fact - I didn't make any of it up, save maybe a few liberties with the geography, yet they do all exist as written here.
Thanks for reading, please review,
Joe