Hi, guys. Another delay, I know, and a somewhat shorter chapter than usual. Shortest in a little while, actually. Part of it is trying to focus on an original project, part of it is that London got hit by what is, by British standards, a significant heatwave and I've been arranging to go on holiday down to the South of France, around Provence, then actually going there. As a result, I've been in temperatures consistently between 30/86 and 37/98.6 Celsius/Fahrenheit for the last month. I don't function well much beyond 25/77 unless there's shade and a consistent breeze. Shade, I've had. Breeze, not so much.

That plus holiday mode meant that my brain went on standby, with most remaining focus being on worldbuilding my original project, and the chapter was being stubborn. As a partial consequence, it doesn't have half as much action as I was planning, but I decided to shift that over to the next chapter – two shorter, harder hitting chapters, rather than one big and unwieldy one. As a result, it might be a little short and disjointed, plus a bit quiet, largely thanks to how I was feeling when writing it. It's also a little bit influenced by me recently replaying Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess, which is both very good and really astonishingly creepy in places (at least one of the major cutscenes would not have been out of place in a horror film). Hence the faintly eerie vibe to this next bit.

Speaking of chapter structure, holidays aside, I'm experimenting with a few 'mini-arcs' leading up to the Second Task, modelled on Chaos Reigns in terms of length and pacing. They're composed of this one, and another side-story called Unfinished Business dealing with Carol and Peter, which I have plotted and partially written. There's also the lesson with Sunniva which as you may guess is more than your average lesson, and may or may not go after the Second Task. I'm still not sure, because it can fit in either. Why am I letting myself get side-tracked? Answer: I'm not. This one leads, thematically, directly into the Second Task and further sows the seeds for the big bang at the end of that arc and of this book as a whole.

Anyhow, Harry continues his recovery and is, for once, not the one to get into trouble (shocking, I know), while we drop in on the other Harry for an extended period. Part of it, I'll admit, was a little Rule of Cool thing that I've been plotting in one shape or form for a while. Part of it, however, is discussing what Strange did, reactions to it, and what impact it'll have. Not too navel-gazing, I hope, just adding a bit of nuance to his increasingly frequent 'do it or else' behaviour. Oh, and we see Sirius, which is fun, and he'll actually have something to do. Plus, someone else for the first time in about… thirty chapters? My, he's been offscreen for a while.

SilverLion80: Monica is… an interesting case. She's on SHIELD's radar, and it may or may not be the reason that you think. Unfinished Business will show why.

Lucifer666: If you want pure action, arrowing to a simple, violent conclusion, I am afraid that you are reading the wrong story (and I'm a little surprised you've stuck it out this long, to be honest). I have at least two and a half books to go before Harry and Thanos face off in their final showdown – though we will be seeing Thanos sooner rather than later.

In my opinion, there are good times and bad times to have someone knock on your door. It varies based on who the knocker is, but even still, some times are always going to be better than others.

The fire was in, the dog was curled up at my feet, while I was lounging on my sofa with a novel and a beer, one of Mac's finest, and my girlfriend was a pleasantly warm weight curled up beside me with a beer and book of her own. Unlike mine, hers was a book of magic and it was floating in front of her, pages turning with an idle flick of a finger – when you're that good at magic, you can use it for more or less whatever you like.

All in all, it had the makings of a quiet, pleasant evening, especially in contrast to the cold sleet outside, and therefore really, really not a good time.

After the first series of firm raps on the door, I glanced down at Wanda. "My vote is we pretend we're out."

"What if it's urgent?" she asked, eyebrow raised.

"They'd have called," I said, more in hope than expectation.

The knocking on the door repeated itself, louder and more insistent. Wanda raised an eyebrow, and sat up. I met her gaze for a moment, then got up, sighed, and stalked over to the door, yanking it open. When I saw who was there, I blinked several times. "Captain Luccio?"

"Warden Dresden," she said dryly. It was the only dry thing about her, I realised with a brief twinge of guilt. While most of the Wardens weren't on my Christmas card list even after I'd been drafted last Halloween, and I'd have happily let them get soaked, there were a few exceptions. Anastasia Luccio, Captain of the Wardens, was one of them, partly because she didn't treat me like a ticking time-bomb and showed an unusual awareness of the fact that we were now living in the 21st century as opposed to, say, the 12th. "May I come in?"

I winced and stepped aside, letting her in without providing a verbal invitation, in case she wasn't who or what she appeared to be. Since she passed through easily enough, that seemed to be that.

"Can I get you a beer, or something?" I asked. "I've got coffee, tea…"

Her gaze darted to my beer and her eyes lit up just a little. Mac's ale has that effect on people.

"A beer, if I may, thank you," she said.

Even tired people, I realised, as I took her cloak and went to get a bottle. Not just tired, in fact, but exhausted. Drained, even. She looked like she hadn't slept for a good couple of days now. That worried me.

Luccio was tough as nails. The best part of two centuries of service in the Wardens, facing down some of the worst magical nasties this world and several others around it had to offer, had left her worn, but only in the same way that well-maintained armour is. It had also left her with the kind of resilience and strength of will that, when combined with a rare degree of reasonableness, I could respect. Anything that left her like this – hell, anything that left her dropping in on me at this time of night – did not bode well.

While I couldn't claim to know her well, the last time I'd seen her this tired, it was after the Red Court had unleashed hell on the White Council in an attack that had very nearly destroyed us, requiring the aid of the Avengers and Doctor Strange himself. That had made the resultant mess with insanely ambitious (and just plain insane) necromancers all the more enjoyable.

"Captain Luccio," Wanda said, shooting me a worried look as she drew out a chair for Luccio. She'd seen exactly what I had. "Please, take a seat."

"Thank you, Lady Maximoff," Luccio said, sitting down with a sigh, and then letting out a more pleasant one as she took the beer that I offered her, before smiling as Mouse, my oversized dog/undersized mammoth, ambled over and nuzzled at her hand. "And thank you, Warden."

"So," I said, after letting her take a gulp. "What brings you to Chicago, Captain? I'm, uh, guessing that this isn't a social call."

She chuffed a laugh. "No, it is not," she said. "Why am I here? In two words: Doctor Strange."

The sense of foreboding I had increased, sharply. Strange tended to be a harbinger of trouble, either because he was warning of it, or because he was causing it. Sometimes, it was both. In quiet periods, he was apparently rarely seen for decades on end. When things got busy, however, he popped up more and more, which in turn explained his near constant presence over the last year or so. He also didn't like the White Council very much. While this was something I could sympathise with, in this context, it meant trouble.

"What has he done?" Wanda asked, even warier than I was. After all, she knew what Strange was capable of far better than I did.

"Left the Council in uproar," Luccio said frankly. "You recall Wizard Peabody?"

"Uh…" I said intelligently, trying to recall anything more than a vague familiarity.

"He is the secretary to the Senior Council, isn't he?" Wanda said.

"And head of many of the Council's daily operations," Luccio said. "Or he was, before Doctor Strange cut his head off in front of the Senior Council."

I choked on my beer. "He what?!"

"He executed Peabody," Luccio said bluntly.

"Why?" Wanda sked.

"On the grounds that he was a mole, a traitor who had been leaking information to our enemies, including information that led to the death of Simon Pietrovich. He also implanted mental programming into the minds of a significant number of younger Wizards, including Wardens, while subtly manipulating the thoughts of the Senior Council through certain enchanted inks. The tests so far have proved that Strange was correct."

I stared. This was… well, frankly, it was huge. There had been suspicions of a traitor within the White Council for years, ever since the death of Pietrovich – a Senior Council member and the White Council's vampire expert – at Archangel, along with a significant number of other wizards.

"What else did he do?" Wanda asked. When I glanced at her, she added, "Stephen would have known about Peabody for some time. He acted now for a reason."

"The Senior Council believes that he wanted leverage," Luccio said. "To put them in his debt. My belief is that he wanted to leave them shocked, reeling, which he could exploit to force their obedience to his next commands." She sighed. "The commands in question… to take the opportunity to expand our membership; to use modern technology and the resources of weaker talents to find and train Wizard-level talents, to train those weaker talents to do more than just survive, to grow. As he put it: 'education, education, education'. Truthfully, I have no problem with these ideas. On a purely practical level, the quicker that young Wizards are found and taught about the Laws, then the fewer Warlocks we have to deal with."

"Then what do you have a problem with, Captain Luccio?" Wanda asked.

"The manner of delivery," Luccio said frankly. "Strange was very clear that he would make the Council change – not that he would break it to his will, but, nevertheless, he would make it change. He declined to say how. And the Senior Council… the Senior Council is afraid."

"My heart bleeds," I said, and Luccio shot me a hard look.

"This is important, Warden Dresden," she said sharply. "Strange frightens the Council. Truthfully, he always has done. From most, such a threat would be dismissed or felt manageable. But from Strange, it carries weight like few others. His recent obliteration of the Red Court has demonstrated that his powers are in no way diminished following his abdication as Sorcerer Supreme, and that if anything, he has only become that much more ruthless."

"They don't fear what he wants them to do, or even what he's going to make them do," Wanda concluded. "But how he's going to make them do it."

"Just so," Luccio said, nodding. "Though I will admit that some of them fear his ultimatum as well. The White Council has stood for centuries, its methods tried and tested. They are not perfect, but they work."

"They worked," Wanda said evenly, emphasising the past tense. "And even that is debatable. Besides, we are not in the world of centuries, decades, or even years ago."

"That is true," Luccio admitted. "But some fear that Strange means to either dismantle the Council in all but name by reshaping it to his own ends, or to bring it down entirely and replace it with a body of his own design."

"That's a bit of a leap," I began, before stopping. I'd seen Strange in action, and I knew better than most what he was capable of. I grimaced. Much as I hated to admit it, the Council's fears might be justified. "Okay, maybe it isn't."

"Stephen's attitude tends to be one of 'if it isn't broken, don't fix it'," Wanda said. "And I don't think he sees the White Council as broken."

"Does he hold the same view of the White Council's status quo?" Luccio asked frankly.

Wanda frowned. "Probably not," she admitted. "But the Council does need to change, Captain Luccio. I have encountered far too many Warlocks over the years who could have been shown a better way, and far too many that I only caught just in time. If I hadn't, and then passed them on to those who could help…" She shook her head. "There were far too many I missed, even then, and I will miss all the more now, given that I am occupied by my new position." She sat back. "I don't approve of Stephen's fear-based approach to diplomacy," she said. "I don't think it will end well, in the long term, because it will have consequences, the same way that the Avengers' more… spectacular displays of power have done. I say that not because it's a new tactic, as such – my own experience proves that. Rather, it's one he's been resorting to more and more in this last year or two, and more and more blatantly."

"Yes," Luccio said. "That was something else I had noticed. I was wondering if you could explain why."

"Unlike most of Stephen's doings, I think that this one has a relatively simple explanation," Wanda said. "Firstly, he is running out of time, and therefore patience. He feels that he no longer has the time to cajole and persuade, or even subtly manipulate, so instead he has to force people into line." She shrugged. "Though in this case, it may just be that he decided the Council wouldn't act unless forced to, by fear of him."

She looked pensive. "And secondly, though he has gone to great lengths to conceal it, Stephen is still human. He has limits, the same as anyone else, and he's been hitting those limits recently, with cataclysm after cataclysm forcing him to scramble to even the world's keel. That scrambling has taken a toll." Her lips thinned, doubtless remembering what had happened to her godson at the hands of the Red Room, precisely because Strange's foresight had had a blindspot. "A toll," she repeated. "On him, and on others." She looked up at Luccio. "That toll, that strain, and those limits have caused him to resort to more blunt and brutal tactics."

Luccio nodded slowly. "The White Council is a body that does not intervene, as a rule," she said. "Some of it is to save our strength for when we must act. Some of it is for self-restraint. Perhaps we do too little. But what I fear is Strange shaping us in his image, into a body that does too much. What I fear is not what he would have us do now, it is what he would have us do next." She looked up at Wanda, then at me. "You are right. The world has changed, and the Council must change with it. But that must not come at the cost of who we are, who we are meant to be."

"Who are we meant to be?" I put in. The conversation thus far had gone rather over my head, but I was damned if I wasn't going to at least try and make a pertinent contribution. "I mean, from what you've said, Strange doesn't agree with what the Council thinks it's meant to be. Maybe he knows better than us what that is."

"What makes you say that?" Luccio asked. She sounded more curious than defensive, which I took as a positive sign.

"Strange was around when the Council as we know it was formed," I said. "Hell, he was probably around when the original was formed. He's the one who knew the original Merlin."

"He was," Wanda said. "Still is, actually."

Both Luccio's head and mine snapped around to stare at her. "Still is?" I echoed in disbelief.

"Oh yes," Wanda said casually. "Merlin Emrys, the Last of the Dragon-Lords, Court Sorcerer of Camelot, and right hand of Arthur Pendragon, is still around. Thriving, actually, last time I checked. Don't believe the pictures – he only looks that old when he wants to."

Both of us gaped at her. Well, I gaped. Luccio just looked stunned.

"Really?" I asked, surreptiously pinching myself. Yep, not dreaming.

"Really," Wanda said, a little bit amused, having seen the pinch. "I haven't seen him in a while, but he's around all right. Usually, he confines himself to Britain, though he's done a bit of travelling over the years. He sees his job as being a keeper of the boundaries – monitoring ley lines, smoothing disruptions, strengthening the walls between worlds. That sort of thing."

"He could teach us so much," Luccio said faintly. She looked like she was in shock. I couldn't really blame her. "Do so much."

"He could," Wanda said. "That, I think, is part of why he doesn't."

"He could have helped in the War, though," I said, an edge of anger in my voice.

"Probably," Wanda said. "But if he had acted… Harry, you have no idea of how powerful he is. Stephen may be the more skilled and the more experienced, but in terms of power? Even he pales in comparison. As for me, even on my best days, I'm barely in touching distance. Merlin's raw strength is comparable to Loki's, easily, and that is before one accounts for his connection to the magic of the Earth itself. Other Wizards wield magic; Merlin controls it."

I gulped. And there was me thinking that I'd heard of enough scarily powerful people over the last year or so.

"If he acted on behalf of the White Council, he would have forced the Red Court to resort to even more desperate measures than they already had," Wanda said. "Perhaps drawing the Camazotz into the fight." She looked at me very seriously. "You've seen what battles between gods can be like. Such a clash of powers would be like the Queens of Faerie going to war, but on Earth, not some secluded battlefield in the spirit world. If you think that my godson's little fight in the Nevernever was bad, this would be worse – the Battle of London all over again."

I grimaced. I'd been on the battlefield when Summer and Winter had gone to war, and during the Battle of London, and I'd been caught by the backlash of Harry Thorson's little bit of psychic warfare too. None of them was an experience I'd care to repeat.

"Dio," Luccio murmured. "With the world in the state it is in… that could tear it apart."

Wanda nodded slowly. "One thing," she said. "One very painful thing, that I have learned is that the more power you have, the more careful you have to be when using it. The likes of myself and Merlin, if we cut loose, could do irreparable damage. Such duels have shaped the very geography of the world." She smiled faintly, at me, then Luccio. "Besides, I suspect that he did more during the War with the vampires than you might think. Stephen's habits of acting from the shadows and slinking around behind the scenes were learned from a master."

Luccio had been sitting back and digesting this. Now, she looked up at Wanda. "Would he have any influence on Strange?" she asked.

"If anyone holds any sway over Stephen, it is Merlin," Wanda said after a long moment. "But I am not sure if he would speak in the Council's favour. And I am not sure that Stephen would listen."

Luccio nodded. "That is a risk," she admitted. "However, from what you say, he is best placed to mediate between the Council and Strange. He is respected by both, and he can reassure the Council, while also, perhaps, ameliorating Strange's anger towards us. If he does not… I do not say this lightly, but Strange and the Council could be on a collision course. The mere prospect of his intervention would ease the fears of many."

"I'll reach out to him," Wanda promised.

Luccio smiled slightly. "Thank you," she said, then turned to me. "Warden Dresden, before I forget – we have to discuss your sword."

"We do?" I asked warily, crossing my legs. Wanda let out what sounded like a muffled giggle. That was expected. Luccio burst out laughing, which wasn't. It was a warm, earthy laugh, a laugh that had seen a thing or two, and done quite a few things more, one that invited both embarrassment and ease.

"Not that kind of sword," she said, voice thick with amusement. "It is traditional for all Wardens to receive an enchanted sword, one of my own making. I have had… something of a backlog, with recent recruits. Many of them are younger, less experienced Wizards, those who lack your experience in handling and breaking enchantments. Accordingly, they have more need of my swords. There has also been a lot of reorganisation recently."

"Oh," I said, blinking owlishly. "I, uh, to be honest I hadn't really thought about it."

"Thereby demonstrating that I was correct to assume that you were among those who could wait," Luccio said dryly. "Perhaps because of that, Doctor Strange chose that visit to leave another little surprise on his way out."

"What kind of surprise?" Wanda asked suspiciously. I seconded her suspicion. Strange sometimes had a very, well, strange, sense of humour.

"Five tons of Vibranium," Luccio said bluntly. "And another ton of Mithril. I am almost certain that he got it from the new mountain in Hogwarts, though I presume he either did so legally or discreetly, since we haven't had any complaints from Peter Wisdom." She paused. "Or rather, we haven't had any complaints from Peter Wisdom about that." Her tone turned dry. "He also saw fit to leave us an assistant, a dwarf-smith from Nidavaellir who said something about owing Strange a favour and has since proceeded to drink his way through the Council's cellars, along with contact details for the King of Wakanda's younger sister, and plans for something circular labelled an 'Astria Porta' with a scribbled note saying 'for later. Ask Jane Foster'."

I shot a look at Wanda who had buried her head in her hands, before looking up with a sigh. "Of course he did," she said. "You intend to use it?"

"I do," Luccio said. "Eoffren, as he calls himself, has been quite informative."

"So… I'm getting a Vibranium sword?" I asked, after a moment.

"Likely a Vibranium cored blade, with some mithril worked into the alloy," Luccio said, tone professionally speculative. "Steel as well, maybe, depending on how well Vibanium takes an edge."

"Well, that would be… something," I said. "But Captain, I'm not really that great a swordsman."

"Not all the Wardens are," Luccio said, before adding dryly. "And I am aware that these days, society has been known to frown on carrying large blades in public." She tilted her head. "Though I have heard that you rather effectively wielded a construct blade of your own creation against the necromancer, Gravemoss, at the Battle of London."

"If by 'construct blade' you mean 'lightsabre'," Wanda murmured, and I flushed. She smirked, then looked thoughtful.

"A sword-stick could work," I said. "I mean, I've already got one; it's my Earth-magic focus, and it's relatively easily concealed."

"Perhaps," Luccio said thoughtfully. "But you favour a staff and a blasting rod as your primary foci, do you not? Adding a sword-stick to the selection might be rather unwieldy, as well as potentially suspicious."

I grimaced. "Good point," I admitted. If I had a staff, people might wonder why I needed a stick, even if it was just seen as a weird fashion thing. And my sword-stick tends to rattle a little if it hits the ground hard enough. I paused as an idea struck me. A ridiculous idea, one that couldn't possibly work. But maybe…

"Harry?" Wanda asked.

"Brainwave," I explained, before turning to Luccio and drawing my blasting rod, holding it out. "Captain, how would the spells on a Warden's sword interact with the kind on my blasting rod?"

Luccio blinked, took the rod, then frowned thoughtfully as she examined it. "I presume that the enchantments are primarily to channel energy?"

"Mostly fire," I confirmed.

"The enchantments on a Warden's blade are primarily a focus for water magic," Luccio said, turning the rod over and over in her hands, examining it with more than the usual selection of senses. "Specifically, entropy magic, in the form of a disruption spell designed to unravel spells, enchantments, and magically created matter. They would need to be modified, as would the spells on the rod…" She paused, then nodded decisively. "I could do this, though I would need your help."

"Mine?" I asked, startled.

Luccio arched an eyebrow. "The rod is enchanted by you, Warden," she reminded me. "With spells of your own creation." She looked down at it, a hint of surprise in there. "Surprisingly sophisticated ones, considering your age and that your training was not focused on artificing."

I couldn't stop a slight blush at the praise. While I'd started young and had pretty intensive training, most of it had been in magic suitable for combat or thaumaturgy – which had its own applications in combat, of which tracking was probably the most wholesome. Ebenezar's job thereafter had mostly been in terms of getting back on the right moral track, the 'why' of magic more than the 'how' – and when we had touched on the 'how', it had mostly been down to the very nuts and bolts of magic.

Once I'd gone out on my own, I'd had an excellent tutor in Bob when it came to creating magical foci, among other things, and teaching Bruce and learning from Wanda had helped refine my spellwork a great deal. But my education in that area was scattered at best, and Luccio was a master.

"He has a gift," Wanda said, with a small, warm smile. "The trick is getting him to realise it."

"I can well believe it," Luccio said. "Though that would leave a problem of range." She shot me a thoughtful look. "Warden, to my knowledge you have used a staff for your entire career. You also have an unusual degree of combat experience, given your age. Am I right in assuming that you have learned to use your staff as a weapon?"

"Some," I said. "One of my friends is a martial arts expert, and she's been training me when we have time."

Luccio nodded. "Perhaps a baton sized rod, a 'hilt', and a socket attachment to the top of your staff," she suggested. "Meaning that you could use it separately or as part of a whole, depending on your opponent, while avoiding the risk of getting too close."

"That makes sense," I admitted. It did, too. I was much more comfortable with up close and personal brawling than most wizards, even than a fair few Wardens, and had both strength and a long reach to work with. However, while a lot of the things I got into fights with tended to be surprised by my willingness to scrap up close, surprise only lasted so long when dealing with supernatural reflexes, supernatural strength, claws, and fangs. A little reach was sometimes preferable. "I've turned my staff into a spear before," I added, remembering Halloween. "Sort of."

"Then a spearhead it shall be," Luccio said firmly. "When will you be free to work on it?"

I thought for a moment. Lessons with Wanda aside, I didn't have any immediate commitments, but that depended on how long it would take to forge this… lightsabre.

"How long will it take?" I asked.

"A week, at least, though I won't need you present for all of it," Luccio said. "Mostly, I will only need you for the enchantment stage, though if you wish to learn, you can spend longer. In any case, I will first need to get used to working with Mithril and Vibranium. So, perhaps… three days, in two months' time?" She shrugged. "The date is not set in stone. With the war over, our schedules are not empty, but they are considerably clearer."

I ran through my mental calendar and found it more or less empty at the moment, before turning to Wanda, who looked thoughtful, then nodded.

"I don't foresee any great commitments for either of us around then," she said. "My godson's next most likely mess will be in February, and things should be quiet thereafter."

I was getting a lightsabre. Okay, so it was technically a focus like my blasting rod, with a few extras, but even still. The very thought boggled the mind, and I couldn't stop a smile blossoming on my face. I was getting a lightsabre.

OoOoO

As it so happened, Harry Thorson was quite as cheerful as his namesake. He had been in the Forbidden Forest before, on a number of occasions, but mostly he'd stuck relatively close to the edges. Not so much out of fear of getting lost – if all else failed, he could fly up to get his bearings. Rather, it was because he was aware that while the centaurs tolerated his presence on the grounds that a) he was preferable to most of their neighbours, and b) some of those neighbours, the giant spiders, sensibly avoided him, that tolerance only went up to a point.

While this wouldn't exactly stop him if decided to go wandering deeper into the Forest, when he wandered in there it was in search of relative solitude, not to pick a fight with some of the more aggressive centaurs. Granted, there had been a few occasions when he wouldn't have minded the chance to make clear that certain centaurs could take a long walk off a short pier, even relishing the opportunity to remind them what they were dealing with. It bothered him a little, but he had to admit that part of him enjoyed the opportunity to demonstrate that challenging him to a dominance struggle was a Very Bad Idea. In any case, most of those so inclined (Bane) had come to the somewhat sulky realisation that trying to push him led to being pushed back all the harder, and that if he was left alone, then he would leave them alone in turn.

In any case, while he had come to know the forest reasonably well, up to maybe quarter of a mile in, he had rarely ranged further.

Sirius, on the other hand, had spent seven years learning the ins and outs of the Forest, and with his fellow Marauders, including Harry's own father, ranging deeper into it than anyone else had in centuries. Now, with mist curling around them with every breath as snow and frost crunched beneath their feet, he told Harry some of the some strange and remarkable things they'd discovered in the process.

Labyrinths of trees and stone that could only be exited by retracing one's steps with great care; clearings that were larger on the inside than the outside; bones and fragments of armour gathered around hillocks and brooding circles of standing stones, interwoven with thick heather; ruins of ancient temples that only appeared on certain nights at certain times; and hollows, places surrounded by thick, gnarled trees and bushes where mist gathered even on the hottest summer nights and the shadows were just that little bit deeper and darker than they should be.

"We found a lot in here," Sirius said. "Unicorns, Hippogryffs, Thestrals –"

"Thestrals?"

"Winged horses," Sirius explained. "Not like the Abraxans that the lot from Beaubatons brought, though. They're about normal size for horses, for starters. Other than that, they're skinny, weird, and their wings are more like bats than birds. You can also only see them if you've seen someone die, so it took us quite a while to work out what we were smelling. Friendly enough, though."

"Huh," Harry muttered to himself. "I think I've seen them once or twice."

Sirius shot him a brief, pitying glance, then nodded. "I wouldn't be surprised. They usually live quite deep inside the forest, but they come towards the edges from time to time – they're used to people, mostly because Hagrid looks after them and every year, they pull the carriages that take everyone but the First Years up to the castle."

"One way or another, I've never actually taken that ride," Harry observed.

"Really?"

"In Second Year, Dobby the House Elf sealed the entrance at King's Cross to try and prevent me from getting to Hogwarts to protect me, in third year I had a bad Dementor encounter, and this year…" Harry smiled wryly. "Well. I was a little delayed."

"Not the best run of luck," Sirius remarked, matching Harry's wry tone, before glancing around the Forest. "We ran into plenty of other things, too. Probably a few things we shouldn't have, if I'm honest."

"Like what?" Harry asked, curious.

Sirius paused.

"If it's the giant spiders, I've been there and done that."

Sirius snorted. "No, not them," he said. "Or rather, yes, them, but not what I was thinking about."

Harry listened, attentive and fascinated, as Sirius sketched out stories of encounters with all kinds of creatures.

There were Lindworms; pale, wingless water-dragons with a venomous bite, dim and distant cousins of the Elder Wyrm, but still dangerous – some were little more than oversized eels, but others were large enough to swallow a full grown stag in two bites and territorial enough to challenge a full-grown werewolf if it ventured near their dark pool or damp cave.

There were Fae, in all conceivable forms.

Some were unfriendly, to put it mildly: trolls; a little shorter than their mortal counterparts, but stronger, smarter, and more vicious; malks, large, intelligent, and deceptively strong cat-like creatures that were full of distilled cruelty, but cowardly when faced with open strength (apparently a particularly quick one had almost caught and eaten Pettigrew – "and it'd have saved us all a lot of trouble if it had succeeded"); and the Cù-sìth – a huge hound the size of a small horse, always in packs, always eager for a hunt, with a bark that inspired an almost paralysing terror.

Others were kinder. Gruffs, for instance – a name that made Harry perform a significant double-take before being informed that yes, yet another group of fairytale creatures was real. Their eldest member, a diminutive figure who walked with a limp and a staff was nevertheless apparently seriously powerful, and had taken a liking to Lily. This had caused another double-take, albeit a smaller one, leading to another explanation.

"Your mum didn't exactly approve when she found out about our exploring the Forest," Sirius explained. "While we never exactly told her that we all went out there on full moons, she was more than smart enough to figure it out. While the evidence of no one being mauled and eaten over the previous years probably helped her decide to keep quiet, I think it was mostly for Remus' sake. Besides, by that point, she was a bit more lax about rules and such, and curious about the Forest, so she joined us a couple of times."

"When you met this… gruff," Harry said, hesitating a little over the last word, not quite believing what he was hearing even when it came from his own mouth.

As anyone observing would have noted, it was the only thing he hesitated over. Where even Sirius, long familiar with the Forest and dark places in general, had chosen to light up his wand, Harry was still comfortable without any light beyond that little which nature provided, treading smoothly and surely through what for anyone else would have been pitch-darkness. Well. Anyone human, anyway. He hadn't realised this yet. This was perhaps for the best.

"We met several of them, actually," Sirius said. "I never understood exactly what they were up to – Remus thinks it was about some old faerie circle or something like that – but they were around. Surprisingly friendly blokes, for all that they looked like oversized goats, and the second oldest could probably have ripped a mountain troll in half." He paused. "Actually, if the story's anything like reality, that was probably his job." He shook his head. "Anyway, the oldest of them took a particular liking to Lily."

"He wanted to take her away to Faerie?" Harry asked, eyebrow raised.

"Surprisingly, no," Sirius said. "He just said something about her having a touch of summer in her."

"That sounds like a bad pick-up line."

Sirius burst out laughing. "It does, doesn't it?" he said. "He might have just been getting a sense of, well, the fact that your mum was a dab hand at fire magic. Or, maybe, he saw a bit more. What she'd become."

"You think he did?" Harry asked.

"He also said something about your dad having a smell of storms about him," Sirius said. "And considering what's happened since, I don't think he was just being lyrical."

Harry frowned thoughtfully. "Interesting," he murmured.

"We also ran into a few of the Sidhe," Sirius said.

"I'm sure that was interesting," Harry said.

Sirius let out a sour bark of laughter. "Interesting's just the way to put it," he said. "We saw them about three times, and that was about two times too many."

Harry nodded. His experience with the Sidhe, the lords and ladies of Faerie, was decidedly limited and for the most part had been positive: the Summer Lady, who also happened to be called Lily, had been kind, helpful, and extraordinarily attractive in both the physical and personal senses. There had been a sort of comforting warmth about her, beyond the literal, like a warm spring day or a hearth fire in winter. However, through his education, stories from others, and encounters with other creatures from Faerie, Harry was well aware that this was more the exception than the rule.

"But it was worth it," Sirius finished. "It was all worth it." While Asgardian medical care, a decent diet, and the slow, steady recuperative capacity possessed by all practitioners of a certain power level had undone much of the physical damage from over a decade in Azkaban, some scars still lingered, even if most of them were figurative rather than literal – a gauntness, here and there, a shadow over his joy. Yet as he turned to Harry and smiled, sincerely delighted to be sharing his experiences with his godson, to introduce him to something he loved, to help. And for one shining moment, all those scars vanished.

When Harry told Carol about this, some time later, she smiled, though this smile was a little sad. "Like godfather, like godson, I guess," she said, leaving Harry content. There were, after all, far worse people to be compared to. Neither of them discussed the implications about Harry himself, however. Some things were unnecessary, and thus went unspoken.

"Now," Sirius said. "If I have it correctly, the place I'm looking for right now is right about…" He brushed aside some dead branches, which Harry ducked under as he followed, to the edge of a valley. "… here."

Harry's jaw dropped. The valley was huge, as broad as a dozen Quidditch stadia, at least a hundred feet deep, and entirely bare of trees. Instead, it was full of frosted grass and snow that shimmered under the light of the stars and an almost full moon, whistling and swaying over so slightly in the wind, striking a sharp contrast to the pitch-dark mountains looming in the background, and the distant lights of Hogwarts and the White Tower. It was almost circular, and surprisingly smooth, in a way that strongly suggested to him that the words 'blast radius' had been involved in its description at some point.

A perfectly smooth stone path wound through it as if sculpted, leading up to the heart of the valley. There, there was an outcrop, almost an island, jutting proudly from the earth like the head of a spear. Originally it had probably been no more than the height of a reasonably sized hill compared to the land around it, but now, the depth of the valley made it seem comparatively huge. Upon that outcrop was a building that could as easily have been a fortress or a palace, made of an eerie, swirling mixture of blueish-grey stone and shimmering bronze, and crowned with a thick mist.

Something about the way that the light reflected off it, leaving a ghostly glow, left Harry with a very strong feeling that whatever it was, this place was not by any means normal. Nevertheless, while some of his instincts were shrieking warnings, he couldn't help but be entranced. He took a step forward… and found his shoulder caught in an iron grip. He could have shaken it off in a moment, and did, but by that point, it had achieved its desired effect. The mesmerising effect was gone, the unease was a good deal more than just a hint, and Harry turned to Sirius with some foreboding. His godfather was glaring up at the fortress, his wand out, ready for trouble.

"What's wrong?" he asked warily, readying himself.

"Last time I was here, that place was a ruin," Sirius said grimly. "Half the stones were fallen over. We used to call it the Fallen Fortress, and for good reason. Now look at it: they're all standing, and all that bronze sure as hell wasn't here last time."

Harry looked back at the fortress, looking closer, and shook his head slowly. "It's not new," he said. "It's old." He cocked his head, eyes narrowing. "And there's… something."

"Like what?" Sirius asked.

"I'm not sure," Harry said. " But –"

As he spoke, a huge figure burst out of the trees, not thirty yards away from them, and both Harry and Sirius whirled, one raising a hand full of flame, the other his wand. The light of Harry's flames, however, dimmed slightly when it illuminated Hagrid. It only dimmed slightly, however, because of the look on his face, which could be summed up in one word: frantic.

"'arry!" he said, combining relief and surprise with worry, before blinking in more surprise. "An' Sirius? What're ye doing 'ere?"

"Checking up on my godson and showing him around," Sirius said, before shooting a hard look at the fortress. "Up until I saw that."

Hagrid followed his gaze, his eyes widening. "Oh no. Tha's not good."

Both Harry and Sirius shot him sharp looks. Sirius had spent the best part of seven years in the Forest, and Harry had done his share of exploring, but Hagrid had spent most of seventy years patrolling it. If there was anything in there that he didn't know about, it was not worth knowing and if he was worried, then it was with good reason.

He turned back to them, full of urgency. "'ave either of yer seen Ron or Hermione?" he demanded.

"No," Harry said, after a brief glance at Sirius. "Why –" He stopped, his gaze going distant for a few moments, before he looked up at the hill-fortress with a troubled expression. "Oh. That's why."

OoOoO

Ron had to admit that this had not been one of his better ideas. He had followed Harry into the Forest on an impulse, one he couldn't explain. He hadn't questioned it at the time, or how it had been powerful enough that it had become an overriding need that left him deaf to Hermione's pleas and imprecations for him to just stop and think about what he was doing.

Instead, almost blindly, he'd tried to follow Harry and the man he vaguely recognised as Harry's godfather, Sirius Black, long framed for betraying the Potters and murdering a streetful of muggles. This incident rather stuck in Ron's memory, as it turned out that the real perpetrator had spent the previous decade or so disguised as his rat.

However, the other two were superior woodsmen – or at least, knew the forest better – and even doing his best to follow what he thought was the receding light of Harry's passage at full pelt, Ron hadn't been able to keep up. Once, he would have simply given up and sloped off back to the school. This time, though, he had kept on going, determined to find them and decidedly curious about what they were looking for.

And now, the two of them were lost. It was the two of them, not just Ron, because Hermione had thrown up her hands and followed him in, seething with anger, worry and no little frustration. All of which, to Ron's disgruntlement, she was currently taking out on him.

"Honestly, Ron, what on earth were you thinking?" she demanded. "Heading into the forest, at night – what did you expect?"

"Harry was doing it," Ron snapped back at her. "I just wanted to catch up to him."

"Harry," Hermione said tartly. "Has been in and out of this Forest for most of the year. He can also look after himself better than anyone in the school besides Dumbledore, so long as he's not doing something stupid, he was being guided by someone who apparently spent his entire Hogwarts career sneaking into the Forest, and most importantly, if he gets lost, he can fly."

"Well if it was such a stupid idea, then why did you follow me?" Ron retorted. "I didn't ask you to come."

"You're my friend," Hermione said, then sniffed. "Even if you were being an idiot."

Ron wasn't quite sure whether to feel touched or annoyed, and instead settled for grunting as he looked around. "Where are we, anyway?" he asked. When Hermione shot him a withering look, he rolled his eyes. "I'm not asking for a map, or something like that, and I know that Hogwarts is over that way."

He pointed to the lights of the castle in the distance. Finding out where Hogwarts was related to them had been why they'd climbed this strange mound in the first place, picking their way through an even stranger fortress made of stone the blueish-grey of a winter's sea and shimmering bronze, intertwined with ancient looking trees and vines, full of mist, echoes, and a somehow faintly musical brush of the wind through the ruins.

The stones were smooth as pebbles from a beach, yet also nicked and pockmarked by unknown impacts, and inscribed with strange, swirling designs, some taking the form of animals or people, while others were abstract, and others still took forms that were somewhere between the two. The wood was similarly carved, yet somehow both more angular and more flowing, twining through ancient halls and climbing ruined parapets. The bronze was strangest of all, though; apparently as fresh and unsullied as the moment the smith who'd forged it was done, the moon and starlight it reflected took on a faint greenish-gold glow, shifting and shimmering into shapes, symbols, made of foxfire. And when you looked at it out of the corner of your eye, it hardly seemed to be there at all.

Then, aside from all that, was the thick mist around them, which muted their voices, making them echo strangely, forming almost into other voices, speaking other words. It was, Ron also had to admit, somewhat disturbing. Thrusting this feeling aside, he turned to Hermione and went on.

"What I'm asking is if you've read about anything like this," he continued. "Because, well… it's not normal. And I say that as someone who spends time around Harry."

Hermione's irritation faded, so far as her face was visible in the reflected moonlight, and she took on a look of uncertainty.

"I'm not sure," she said slowly. "Harry's done the most reading about the Forest." At Ron's surprised look, she shrugged. "He said something about expecting the next Task to be there. I don't know if he knows for sure –" Code for 'if Strange has told him'. "– but he thinks it is."

"But?" Ron prompted.

Hermione shot him an exasperated look, then frowned, looking around at the ruined fortress. "This place is old," she said, tracing fingertips over stone and bronze. "Very old. Camelot era, maybe, maybe older – some of these symbols date back to Merlin's time, at least."

Ron blinked. "They're symbols?" he said. "I thought they were just, well… art. Or gibberish."

"That's what most art is, Ron," Hermione said.

"Gibberish?"

Hermione snorted. "Symbols," she said. "It's what we study in Ancient Runes. Well, most of it is about the ancient Germanic scripts; Norse runes, and other, similar runes, that sort of thing. I'm pretty sure that some of them are derived from Asgardian inscriptions, or at least, a few Asgardian runes were used in writing or inscriptions. There's also optional studies in proto-runic languages, where they came from, such as ancient Etruscan, and their use in magic. It's why curse-breakers like your brother, Bill, need to study it: it doesn't teach you a lot of the things they encounter, like enchanted hieroglyphics, but it does provide the theoretical basis for curse-breaker training."

"Okay," Ron said. "But those aren't runes, or hieroglyphics. They don't even look like writing. They look more… I dunno, Celtic."

Hermione shot him an approving look. "That's exactly what they are," she said, before examining the symbols again. "Or proto-Celtic. The Celtic languages didn't have their own written form until about 1700 years ago at the very earliest. Before that, they used Greek or Latin. And not only are we a long, long way from anywhere that would have used one of those languages, this definitely isn't either."

"So, what does it mean?" Ron asked.

"I don't know," Hermione said. "Celtic and proto-Celtic symbols aren't my speciality, by any means. Even still, I should be able to get something out of these, because they are sort of familiar, but they seem… different."

She seemed a little annoyed at herself, as if being unable to translate pre-literate ancient and arcane semi-Celtic symbols into something clear and coherent at the drop of a hat was somehow down to a lack of sufficient effort. Or possibly moral character.

"All I can say for sure is that they're old," she said eventually. "Older than Merlin, maybe quite a lot older, given the amount of bronze involved. Though considering it's definitely magical, that could also mean…" She trailed off, her face turning pale and gaining a greenish cast that may or may not have been related to the way the light reflected on her. After a few moments, Ron realised that this was not a temporary silence.

"Why all the bronze?" he asked. "What could it mean?"

"I'm not sure," Hermione said after a moment, blinking out of her thoughts. "Either it means that it was made by people, in which case they were very powerful to get hold of that much bronze and they did it a very long time ago when it was viable, or…"

"Someone else made it," Ron finished, now nervous in earnest.

"Someone," Hermione said, and Ron could hear her footsteps coming closer. He looked around and suppressed a shiver. "Or something."

"We should get out of here," Ron said firmly.

The breeze picked up and the song of the stones rose with it, drowning any reply. Then, the eerie song faded again, and Ron prepared to repeat his question. Before he did, however, he paused. He couldn't hear Hermione's footsteps. Or her voice.

"Hermione?"

The mist rose.

"Hemione!"

Silence fell.

OoOoO

Perched on an outcrop in the distant foothills, the tall, thin figure known to some as Adam Black smiled. Anyone unfortunate enough to be close to him might, in their last moments, note that between his skeletal figure and somewhat waxy skin it bore a disturbing resemblance to a skull. He flicked his wand and the silver bowl filled with water that had been floating in front of him vanished.

Coming here had been a moderate risk: while not exactly entering the belly of the beast, it was certainly coming in range of its claws. Not only that, unlike his previous visit, he wasn't blending in with hundreds, thousands, of others – if someone had chanced to look his way, he would have had to flee, quickly.

Now, with his moderate risk about to pay off, he was rather less worried about the prospect of discovery. Anyone who might have been looking was about to have their attention directed quite effectively elsewhere. Black and that half-giant oaf thought they knew the secrets of the Forest, but they'd never explored it as he had. He knew what resided within those particular walls better than anyone still living and now that it had the boy's attention… things promised to be very interesting. Probably not lethally interesting, unfortunately. But this was one case where the kill was best taken as a deferred pleasure.

"And all that with but a few drops of blood," he murmured out loud.

He had to admit that he was quite tempted to stay, re-conjure the scrying bowl, and enjoy the show. It would certainly be amusing, and it could even be informative. Unfortunately, though, he had an appointment to keep. It had required both a lot of work by his most loyal (and currently, only) servant and for the paranoid eyes of the man who now called himself Peter Wisdom to be elsewhere. With both now achieved, it would be a waste of a lot of hard work to just sit back and watch the fireworks.

No, he decided. He had done what he had needed to. Data on the result could be collected later, for purposes of both enlightenment and entertainment. If his primary source survived, anyway. If he didn't… well, one or two further plans would have to be altered, but as far he was concerned, it would be a result all by itself.

In the meantime, the Department of Mysteries awaited.

Oh dear. Well, at least now we know where Crouch Junior has been (at the Department of Mysteries. Adam Black is Voldemort's disguise, not Crouch's). But what is Voldemort up to? Why does he want access to the Department of Mysteries? What's he lured Harry into facing? What's going to happen to Ron and Hermione? How many collective bricks is the magically informed world going to excrete when they find out that Harry Dresden has a lightsabre? And when is Nick Fury going to demand one of his own? All (almost) of these questions will be answered in due time. For now, stay safe, stay well, and see you next time.