In celebration of my birthday, I'm uploading the first chapters of some new stories...which I really shouldn't be doing, but they distracted me from the other stories so they're what I focused on. Don't worry, the next chapter of TEFOM and M&M are both more than half done, and the next chapters of F/OK and RS are both at about 1/4 ready, so expect something from them soon-ish. Now if you'll excuse me, I have a room full of booze and cake...er, I mean, a room full of friends and family awaiting me. God I love St. Patrick's Day ^_^

If you enjoy the stories, or don't, review or I'll never know how to make them better!

Seeking the Key

Timeline: Third year, first DADA class of the year.

The imposing old wizard in the blue robes and pointed hat with the impressive beard reminded Harry quite a bit of Professor McGonagall the first time he saw him, and that feeling was further reinforced by the commanding glare he was spearing the entire class with. Once the bell to begin class rang, he stood to address the class. "I am Master Yen Cid. I have forgotten more about the ways of magic than most you will ever know or could ever fathom. As my students, I expect absolute respect from you, complete obedience to my commands, rigid discipline in completing the tasks I assign, and unyielding diligence for all things you do.

"For my lessons, your wands are insufficient mediums. I will provide you with more…adequate ones." He had walked around his desk until he was right in front of the class as he spoke. Now he waved his arm and a large barrel full of what appeared to be ornate swords appeared before his desk in a *poof* of smoke and displaced air. He reached into the barrel and drew out a…giant key?

"You will each select a keyblade that suits you. If it won't stay in your hand, then it doesn't suit you. I will present a different assortment of keyblades every class until all of you have bonded with one."

'Bonded?' the entire class thought.

"Until you all have a keyblade, you will only be studying theoretical magic. Hopefully, it will not take long to arm you all. Now, form a line and begin."

Two weeks later:

It was at the end of the second week of classes, the fourth DADA class, that Harry made his decision. If he didn't have a keyblade by the end of the class, then he would stop trying.

By now, most of the students in the school had been anointed with a keyblade. There were a few who had yet to find a match, but the most notable among them was one Harry Potter. He was the only member of his class to still need a keyblade, as well as being the only other Gryffindor who was bladeless.

In the span of the last three classes Harry must have tried using over a hundred keyblades only to watch them disappear from his grasp. He had decided that if he couldn't find a keyblade that worked for him by the end of this class, then he'd just give it up as a lost cause.

An hour and two and a half barrels in, he was pretty much resigned to his fate. Class would be ending soon and there were still ten more keyblades he had to try. Sighing, he grasped the first and pulled it out. It was one of the more elaborate blades, with long spirals of thin metal reaching from an ornate hilt up to a seven pointed starburst in yellow making up the 'teeth'. It stayed in his hand but a moment before it flashed and teleported from his hand into a barrel behind him with a twinkling of sparkles.

Grumbling, he grabbed the next sword. It was fairly short and mostly red with a fire theme. It reminded him of a Chinese rocket he'd seen on television once. In a shower of red sparks it joined it's siblings in the barrel behind him. The next six sword-keys were equally unique and quickly moved from his hand to the reject barrel in their own way.

There were only two keyblades left and Harry studied them carefully as he tried to decide which to try first. They were two of the simplest keyblades he'd seen yet, and other than their coloring they appeared perfectly identical. The first had a stylized square guard done in gold, with a silver shaft extending a medium distance, topped with a four-pronged set of teeth that closely resembled a crown. The second simply swapped the golden guard for silver, and the silver shaft and teeth for gold.

Deciding to just get it over with, Harry grabbed the gold-shafted blade first. It was light in his hand as he hefted it to examine, but soon it joined its fellows in a shower of golden light. Not stopping to focus on it, Harry snapped out his hand and drew forth the final blade. He immediately found the balance of the sword and felt sureness in the grip. It felt right, almost like the first time he'd held his wand, and he knew that this time it would be different…and then the bell rang and the sword vanished in a glitter of silver.

Harry just stared at his hand for a full minute, unmoving. "So, that's how it's going to be." He thought. He picked up his school bag with a sigh and made his way into the throng of leaving students.

"Mr. Potter," Yen Cid called from the front of the class. Harry stopped and turned to the instructor. "Stay a moment." Harry stopped where he was until the room emptied, then approached the teachers desk.

"You wanted to see me, Sir?"

"It seems as though you have gone through all of my keyblades with no luck."

Harry felt his depression settle deeper into his stomach. "So I was right. There really isn't a keyblade for me," he thought. Yen Cid wasn't done however.

"As you are required to have a keyblade for my class, a more…intensive method will need to be applied," The old wizard said in his cryptic manner.

The way he said that quickly put Harry on edge. "Intense method, Sir?"

Yen Cid grinned in a small, but kind of creepy, way. "A keyblade reflects one's own heart, and is unique to every individual. Just as twin wands are a rarity, so too are twin keyblades. Even the same blade in different hands can have different forms. I suspect you had a difficult time selecting your wand as well?" At Harry's nod he continued, "As I thought. Come to my office after dinner and we shall begin the process of finding the key of your own heart."

Harry stood outside Yen Cid's office not long after dinner. Despite himself, he was nervous about how this meeting would go. Yes, he wanted a keyblade of his very own, but he couldn't shake the memory of his private encounters with his last two defense teachers. His friends hadn't been much help in allaying his nerves. Though Ron agreed with him about being cautious, Hermione steadfastly refused to believe that yet another of their DADA teachers was a bad egg. He'd left somewhere in the middle of the conversation, when it turned into an argument about Crookshanks and Scabbers.

Pulling his Gryffindor courage together, he cast aside his doubts and knocked on the large oak door. The call to enter came quickly and he opened the door. He took a moment to take in the room. It had been painted yellow and filled with a large ornate desk, several shelves of books, and an assortment of magical knick-knacks of an unidentifiable nature (picture his office in the Mysterious Tower, minus the star and moon windows). Yen Cid himself was seated in a very high-backed chair behind the desk. Harry took a seat in the empty chair on the near side of the desk.

There was a tight silence as Harry watched Yen Cid sign a few papers, then send them away with a wave of his hand. His desk cleared, the old wizard turned his full attention to Harry. He studied him carefully for a moment, then asked, "Do you have any questions before we begin?"

Harry was silent for another moment before looking up at the aged teacher. "Am I the last student without a keyblade?" he asked.

Yen Cid nodded slowly. "Yes. The last of the other students yet to be matched with a keyblade found theirs earlier today. Had they not, they would have joined us tonight."

Harry wilted at that revelation. He really was always the one who stood out. He never could be 'just Harry.' He sighed and then pulled himself together. It's not like he wasn't used to this kind of thing already and hadn't been expecting it. He returned the professor's strong stare with a determined one of his own. "What do I have to do to get my keyblade?"

Yen Cid nodded at the boys resolve. "Under normal circumstances, a keyblade selects its wielder through one of two methods. The first and most common is through the Inheritance ritual, where a keyblade wielder passes on the right to wield the blade to a chosen successor. The second, much less common and equally more dangerous method is for the chosen to be tested in trials within their own heart to unlock the keyblade of their heart. This method is known as the Dive to the Heart, and is how we will be attempting to unlock your potential." He paused to let Harry absorb that information before continuing. "During the ritual, you will enter into yourself and face the darkness within your heart. If you succeed, you will claim your keyblade. But I must warn you: The Dive to the Heart will test you in ways you have never been tested before. If you should falter within it, you may never return to the waking world."

Harry gulped. Yen Cid gave the boy a moment to collect himself and rebuild his resolve.

"Are you ready?" Harry nodded. Yen Cid clapped his hands in an expansive gesture, and with a flash Harry knew no more.

Yen Cid stared grimly at the young boy seemingly asleep in the chair before him. The old wizard levitated him from his chair onto an ottoman in the corner of the room, then sat back to wait.

Harry opened his eyes to find himself standing in a black void. Even as he began to wonder where he was, the darkness beneath him erupted in a storm of white feathers that seemed to be made of light. They revealed a giant stained-glass mural that featured him sleeping in his school robes. Before he could take a closer look, a toneless voice spoke from the nothingness, its words echoing forever into the darkness. "Power sleeps within you...If you give it form...It will give you strength," it said. "Choose well."

As the voice spoke, three balls of light appeared in front of Harry. When the light faded, it revealed three pedestals placed a little bit apart, each bearing a small placard and supporting a weapon. On the left was a wizards staff like Harry had seen in story books when he was a child, long and topped with a blue eagles-head totem. In the middle was a sword of remarkable make, with an obviously polished blade and keen edge attached to a gold handle and a guard inlaid with a red stone. The last pedestal on the right held a small black heater shield with a red and gold griffin engraved on it. Harry approached the sword first and read the placard beneath it. "The power of the warrior. Invincible courage. A sword of terrible destruction," he read. The other placards said something similar: for the shield, "The power of the guardian. Kindness to aid friends. A shield to repel all," and for the staff, "The power of the mystic. Inner strength. A staff of wonder and ruin."

He thought carefully about what the placards had said, and made his choice. He reached forward and grabbed the weapon which resonated most closely with his desires...the shield. "You have chosen the path of the Guardian. You raise your shield in the face of the darkness. But do not forget that sometimes you must fight to protect that which you cherish," the voice said as Harry strapped the shield to his right arm.

Another flash to his right alerted Harry to the appearance of a red door trimmed in gold. He walked up to hesitantly, cautiously adjusting his grip on his new weapon. The door slowly opened on its own accord, but whatever was beyond the threshold was obscured by a painfully bright light. Harry put his left hand in front of his face to block some of the light. Squinting his eyes, he could just barely see something behind the light. He carefully stepped through the doorway, the doors closing silently behind him.

Once Harry left, the door and pedestals faded, revealing the glass floor in its entirety. On one side, as Harry had seen, was an image of himself in his school robes, resting. The background was a lakeside view of Hogwarts. Opposite the image of Harry was a smaller depiction of a red eyed white snake on a black tile, from which black tendrils spread like cracks across the floor.

Harry came through the door onto another mosaic platform that was just as unoccupied as the first, except that the mural was of the Hogwarts quidditch pitch instead of him. Harry wondered what he should do now when the door suddenly vanished. He spun in surprise and frantically looked over the spot where the door was. Just as he was accepting that the door really was gone, he froze as a dark chill crept up his spine. He slowly turned back around and could only watch as his next challenge rose from the floor.

A small black puddle had formed in the center of the platform and was slowly spreading, but not outward. The puddle was spreading up from the floor. It was like watching a drop of ink fall off a quill, but in the completely wrong direction. The puddle soon formed into a squat, almost ant-like black creature with clawed hands and feet, large yellow eyes set in a large head, and with two jagged antennae hanging off of hits head. Its eyes quickly found Harry and it immediately lunged at him. He tried putting up a defense with the shield on his left arm, but his footing was so horrible that the creature easily knocked him over. Harry landed right on the edge of the platform with the creature perched on the shield. Though winded by the fall, when the creature reached its clawed hands out to attack Harry, he reacted in the only way he could and flung it away from him, right off the side of the platform.

He sat up, panting from the adrenaline and surprise, but didn't have time to collect himself before two more monsters appeared. The battle that followed was pathetic. Harry ran, jumped, rolled, and dodged every way that he could, constantly cursing himself for choosing the almost-useless shield over the more practical sword or even the staff. Still, he somehow managed to maneuver the two monsters so that their lunges eventually sent them over the edge.

Gasping and sweating, he collapsed on the mural to catch his breath. The cool glass helped soothe his burning muscles and quiet his racing heart and nerves. Once he had recovered enough to start wondering what exactly he had just fought, he noticed a shower of light that condensed to reveal a new door, this time blue with bronze trim. With a groan he got back up and made his way towards the door, instinctively knowing that the only way out was to go forwards. Unseen behind him, a web of black veins began stretching across the mosaic from a lone pitch black tile in the corner.

Deep in the Algerian wilderness, in a distant corner of a dark forest where night clung to the branches even in the daylight, a shadow stirred. This would have been nothing particularly interesting, probably just a rat scurrying through the shade or a bird circling from above...except that neither of those animals had been seen in that corner of the woods in half a year. No, this was something far worse than that. Ironically though, it wasn't nearly as bad as what it would find in those dark woods.

From the shadow of a thick elm bow the darkness started oozing upwards. It slowly formed into a vaguely ant-like creature that seemed to be made of pure darkness with needle-sharp claws on its hands and feet, long jagged antennae on its head, and large, bright yellow eyes on its otherwise featureless face. The creature was the lowest and simplest form of Heartless, a Shadow. It had no greater ambition or drive than to seek out the lights in the hearts of others and take them for itself.

The Shadow peered curiously around the lifeless little clearing that had drawn its attention. What you ask drew it to this place that so reminded it of its home in the Realm of Darkness? It had sensed a heart, a small heart, but a heart none-the-less. It couldn't pass up such a prime opportunity.

The Shadow melted back into the ground and skittered from shadow to shadow between the trees in search of its prey. It wasn't long before the Shadow found its target, though the form it took gave the Shadow pause. The creature the Shadow had stumbled upon was unlike anything it had ever seen. At first glance it was a four-foot long, black-patterned snake, but all of that changed once you got to the head. The normal flat narrow head had been enlarged and then squashed into a round shape closer to that of a human's head, forcing the snout and jaws back while lifting the eyes. The scales were still smooth and black, the tongue was still forked, and there was still no nose. The Shadow took in all of this and then dismissed it. In the end, this creature had a heart, and the Shadow wanted it.

Without hesitation, the Shadow pounced from the darkness. The last thing the snake saw with its slit red eyes was the yellow eyes of the shadow before he knew no more...in this life, anyway.

I don't really know where I'm going with this. I have some ideas for later, but getting there is going to be a pain. Maybe I'll come up with something later.

Nothing is so inspiring as a good review.