FicWad

Chapter 33 - In a Cave by the Seashore

Harry walked down a narrow path that curved around a gentle, grassy slope. Ahead he saw a low-walled, stone bridge over a clear brook.

He looked down and was surprised to see a small adder wrapped around his forearm. Apparently that was the only thing he was wearing.

Nudity didn't bother Harry anymore, but he didn't want anyone he encountered on the road to be uncomfortable.

"A nice, summer weight robe might be nice." He said to no one in particular.

To his left a glowing cloud of what looked like swarming gnats settled on the grass in the outline of a silk robe, like a kimono.

It was emerald green, his favorite color and shade.

Shrugging, he pulled on the robe and belted it loosely, leaving his chest bare to the warm sun. The adder squeezed his arm.

"Nagini?"

"Yesss."

"How do you feel?"

"Warm."

"There are tall grassesss by the road here; I'll bet there will be mice."

"Later, perhapsss, now I'm /warm/."

As Harry neared the stone bridge he saw two familiar looking people.

"Dad? Mum?"

He ran to the bridge and into the open arms of his parents. The parents he'd loved forever but barely knew.

James Potter gathered his son into a fierce hug and said, "We're so proud of you, son."

"Mum?"

"I'm the part of your mum that stayed behind to keep your dad out of trouble."

"Um, aren't you also Astarte?"

She looked at her husband and said, "Didn't I tell you he was clever, that's from my side of the family don't cha' know."

"Hey, I've been watching too, y'know."

"So, you've both been watching me, all the time? What about when I'm, um. . ."

"Rutting like a stoat with two or three women at a time?"

"Um, yeah."

"It's a bit hard to explain,"Lily said, "the short answer is yes, but watching you having relations with your wives just doesn't have any affect us, it's like a program running on the telly, in the background. When you do something exceptional, like releasing the tortured spirit of this gentle creature," she touched Nagini, who had just stuck her head out of his sleeve, "or give us our beautiful grandchildren, that we are drawn to watch you."

"Of course, it doesn't hurt that your birds are so easy on the eyes."

Lily popped him on the back of the head, "Prat! I'm trying to make our son feel less self-conscious here. And its /brides/, not birds! I'll not have you maligning our daughters-in-law like that."

"It's alright, Mum. Dad, Astarte has pretty well cured me of any inhibitions I might have had by now. Feel free to watch."

He looked around, "Where are we?"

"These are the Elysian Fields. The place all souls pass through on the way to their next great adventure."

"And I'm here because?"

"Nagini was the Dark Lord's familiar, albeit an unwilling one. His last bit of soul was tethered to her. When you used that curse, the same one that killed your father and me, on Nagini, it severed the last link to Riddle's fragmented essence. Your little friend here shared all that was left of Voldemort's viable soul. His magic reached out and took back the last remaining soul piece, without which he can't function. The soul piece he'd accidentally left in you, Harry."

"So . . . I'm no longer aHorcrux?"

"Told you he was clever."

"And Nagini?"

"You used the /Avada Kedavra/on her in the way it was originally intended."

"I'm sorry?"

"That spell was invented by Merlin himself as a way to painlessly ease a loved one's passing. When it's performed with love and compassion, as yours was, it is the kindest act of all."

"So Nagini?"

"Will be right here when you come back this way, son."

Saying this Lily reached out to let the small adder crawl onto her arm where she coiled around to form a living bracelet.

"I don't suppose you can give me any hints on how to defeat Riddle?"

"Ask us anything." James offered.

"Is he mortal?"

"Yes."

"If he dies, will he stay dead?"

"His current body and spirit, yes."

"His current body?" Harry asked, frustrated, then he remembered something Bella had asked him.

"What if we weren't the first "originals,"what if there are others?"

"So the current Tom Riddle is ahomunculus?"

"That's my boy." James said, placing a patronizing hand on Lily's shoulder.

"Oh yeah, because wizards are known to be so /logical/," she huffed, "need I remind you that you couldn't begin to "connect the dots" unless they were numbered."

As much as Harry enjoyed listening to his parents kvetch, he had to know, "Can you tell me where his original is?"

"There is a cave by the seashore . . ."

Lily described the location and the dangers surrounding the cavern that contained young Riddle's original self.

"I'm still a bit confused, if you're here, then how

can Astarte be in the physical world."

"I was Astarte made flesh, but her spirit is immortal, it is her goddess form that is with you in the corporeal world."

"So Mother, Daughter and Spirit, our own Trinity?"

Lily kissed her son and said,"Oh, and remember, you are separated from her direct blood-line by seventy six generations so, when she visits you in your dreams, feel free to do whatever comes to mind, trust me, she won't mind. In fact, she tells me she's getting abit frustrated by your, how did she put it, "inhuman and unconscionable restraint"."

"Okay, Mum, I won't tease our Goddess in the future."

Harry sighed, "I suppose I have to go back now?"

Lily laughed the same laugh that Harry had heard from Astarte, and said, "Son of mine, you could stay here ahundred years, skip through the grass, talk to passers by and no time at all will have passed in the physical world."

James added, "And by the same token, if you live to be three hundred, and then come back to us, it will be, to us, as if no time has passed. These fields are timeless in the sense that time really has no meaning here."

Harry made himself comfortable on the stone wall and stroked Nagini's head, "Tell my how you two met."

The family spent the next week, Elysian time, catching up. Harry was loath to leave, but knew he'd have to sooner or later. Later would be harder so he hugged both his parents and placed a tender kiss on the top of Nagini's head saying, "I'm ready now."

He wasn't at all surprised to open his eyes and find himself in the Hospital wing at Hogwarts in his old bed.

Poppy sat in an uncomfortable looking wooden chair furiously working two sets of knitting needles, one in her hands and another that hovered in the air before her mimicking her every move.

"Poppy?" he managed to croak out.

Lady Megan was already at his bedside, helping him sit up.

"How long?" he asked his witch, feeling like someone had poured sand down his throat.

"Three days," his young Witch replied, "Poppy has been frantic."

The school matron let out abreath and said "Take over," to the knitting needles in her fingers, then walked away from them as they continued to knit unattended.

Stepping up to the bedside she took his hand and said, "Harry James Potter, I pledge my life, my magic, all that I am or will ever be to the house of Potter, so mote it be."

"Water?" he managed to rasp out.

Lady Megan tipped a small beaker of refreshing liquid into Harry's welcoming mouth - it tasted of warm honey and lemon.

Clearing his throat he said,"Poppy Brigid Pomfrey, I accept your oath and ask you, Witch and first healer of the Coven of the Four Houses, will you consent to take my name, share my future, my fortune and my follies for as long as we walk upon this Earth?"

The nurse leaned forward to kiss Harry tenderly, "With all my heart, milord, I will."

A pulsing, violet sphere engulfed the kissing couple, and when it faded a simple gold ring shone on the third finger of Poppy's left hand.

Harry leaned back from his newest brides soft lips and whispered, "Expecto Patronum."

A massive, glowing, white-gold stag appeared in the center of the room. He hadn't touched either of his wands.

"Please have Minerva join us as soon as possible."

The stag nodded and clopped off to the Deputy Headmistress's office.

Poppy smiled and said, "I think Icould do one of those right about now."

"Give it a go."

Happy thoughts, happy thoughts, oh yes, "Expecto Patronum!"

Silvery mist poured out of her wand's tip, which slowly coalesced into the form of a flaming, winged serpent.

Minerva entered the infirmary and marveled at the patronus.

"I've never seen one with that form before, is it yours, Megan?"

Megan, equally awestruck by the powerful apparition pointed timidly to the school nurse.

"Poppy?"

The nurse, shocked as anyone in the room, nodded.

Minerva was one of three mages in the castle who could cast the diagnostic Heizeman Latency spell. And did so.

"Poppy, you are nine-five on the latency scale."

"No, there must be a mistake; all medical mages are measured annually. I've been a consistent three-four for twenty-one years, one full mark above squib."

Megan interrupted, "Lady Minerva, Lady Poppy, all of Harry's Witches test at ten-aught, plus or minus point-five.

"Lady Hermione and Lady Luna test at ten-five or ten-six, depending on the time of month."

"I've read about this," Minerva said, "in any female organization, all the witches will average out so that none are more powerful than their most dominant, which is to say the most powerful witch. Usually that means a dampening of power; this is the first time I've ever heard of coven sisters strengthening each other."

"I think it's more a question of all the Coven Witches being able to draw from the same well, as it were. Another manifestation of sympathetic magic."

"Yeah, and I've noticed that we all have our "monthlies" at the same time." Megan groused.

Minerva pulled Poppy by the elbow to her private office, "Poppy, don't you realize what this means?"

The nurse smiled, "Oh yes, I plan to take the Rejuvenation Curse, but I have one or two things to attend to first."

"What is that?" Minnie asked.

Poppy wandlessly, wordlessly summoned her knitting. Holding up one pink booty she said, "Amphia and,"holding the other "Zethia."

Minerva pulled her into a tight embrace, "I'm so happy for you, when did you know?"

"Just this morning, I've been on pins and needles waiting for Harry to recover enough to tell him, he just woke up and summoned you straight away."

The two Coven Witches returned to Harry's bedside and listened intently to the revelations from beyond the grave.

"So someone, we don't know who, preserved Tom Riddle's body more than fifty years ago?"

"Oh, we know who," Harry turned to the small portrait of Armando Dippet, "don't we, sir?"

The wizard who had been headmaster before Dumbledore sighed and nodded.

"Let me try to explain.

"Tom Riddle was in Fifth Year and wanted to do a project for his Charms OWL. His advisor was Cyrus Smythe, the Charms professor who preceded Filius Flitwick.

"He'd done a great deal of research and proposed the formation of a homunculus. He'd already produced the required materials; transfigured eggs, fertilized with his own sperm and ready to place in a host mother, a jackal.

"I was uncomfortable with the ritual, which bordered on dark, but Smythe was so enthusiastic in his support that I let them go on with it."

The old Headmaster slumped in his painted chair, "The last I'd heard, the homunculus hadn't formed and the experiment was abandoned."

"But?" Harry prompted.

"But after everything had been dismantled, I couldn't help noticing that young Riddle had become, cold, aloof. He'd come a long way since his first year, he had friends, enjoyed the company of his fellows, but afterward? He wasn't the same outgoing, gregarious boy he'd grown into before the experiment. And where he'd made friends in all four houses before, he began shunning all those save for a few sycophantic Slytherins."

"Tom Riddle never did become Lord Voldemort," Harry said, "All this time we've been fighting a homunculus, aFrankenstein's experiment gone terribly wrong."

)O(

Harry stood on the bluff above the cave, his broomstick in his hand. Astarte stood sure-footed as a mountain goat on his shoulder. Padma and Su stood with him, while Viper Squadron looked on, disappointment evident in all their faces.

"We've been briefed on this. We've got to keep a low profile for as long as we can, once we're through the door and in the inner chamber you can all come in, single file.

"Be prepared to burn anything that moves, the inferi are already dead and won't feel the flames, but will avoid them anyway.

"It's going to be the stuff of nightmares in there, if any of you want to back out, no one will think less of you."

Every Coven Witch crossed her arms and scowled at the thought of abandoning Harry at this juncture.

"Remember, always remember, Ilove you." He caressed Astarte's shoulder with his finger and said, "/All/of you."

"I don't suppose I can get you to stay with my /Vipera/, Goddess?"

She smiled, pointed to herself and said,"Immortal, remember?"

Turning to Padma and Su he said,"Mount up, let's fly."

With Harry at the point the trio did a perfect arrow-head formation loop and disappeared into the mouth of the cave.

"That water looks freezing."Padma observed.

"Yeah, and apparently Riddle's clone didn't think to use a broom, he swam into the cave."

"Wanker." Su snickered.

"No argument from me," Harry agreed, "who in their right mind would want to jump into that?"

They touched down on the wide ledge, well above the tide-line and shrunk their brooms.

Harry stretched his senses and soon "felt" the entrance. Pulling the stopper on the first of two small, blood-filled vials he sprinkled the wall, which opened up to the inner cave. Although "cave" was a poor description. Subterranean cathedral was more like it, with a domed ceiling, high above a lagoon that glowed with an eerie luminescence.

They followed another wide ledge, past an invisible chain, to another door.

Blood wouldn't work on this door; Harry had to produce the other sample that Padma had been only too glad to help him collect.

Sprinkling the wall with his hour-old ejaculate was just too funny for words.

"Now when I call him the "Dark Wanker" I'll know I'm being literal."

The doorway opened up but no one tried to enter. Instead Harry levitated a bleached, white inferi from the subterranean lagoon and floated it into the cave within the cave.

Cutting curses, blasting hexes and at least three AKs later the smoking husk of an inferi stumbled out to fall back into the water.

Harry set a displacement charm on himself, Astarte and his two ladies, then cautiously stepped into the inner cavern.

There was a sarcophagus, exactly the same as the ones that had held his beloved Bella and Cissy. This one would hold a young Tom Riddle.

He slid the lid off the stone coffin and peered inside. The green line of a time-delayed AK split the air where his image was. That was the nature of the displacement charm, curses would be aimed at where he was perceived to be, but wasn't.

"Mobilicorpus!" he intoned and floated the sleeping boy from his tomb.

The sound of water running off ahundred pairs of bare, wet feet slapping the coarse rock of the outer cave let them know that the dead who guarded Voldemort's deadliest secrets had been roused.

"Grab onto Tom, we'll portkey out."

But their emergency portkeys didn't work.

"Keep holding him, I'll phase us out!"

Harry called up the sensation of surfing ambient magic, but all the magic was confined to the water and its rotting horrors.

"Damn!"

Three huge, decomposing forms of indeterminate gender crowded the only entryway to the inner cavern.

"Inflamare!" Su shouted. Lady Su was well known for her skill with fire spells.

Soaked in cold, salt water as they were, the inferi still burst into flames as their room-temperature bodies suddenly shot to nearly a thousand degrees, Celsius.

Harry's wandless banisher, supplemented by the ire of his goddess, drove chunks of flaming corpse into the water, torching other inferi as they shuffled toward the entrance.

"We can't burn them all, Harry, that much fire will use up all our oxygen!"

When you can't win a game, try upsetting the board.

Harry pulled his shrunken broom from within his cloak and returned it to its normal size. Padma and Su did the same. Carefully balancing Tom over his broom-straw and with Astarte's judicious application of a sticking charm he called out, "Mount up!"

"Give me a clear path to the water!"

Su sent a white hot column of flame through the opening, followed by Padma's and Harry's combined banishers.

"Go!"

Harry and his witches streaked to the air above the water.

"Over here you brainless zombies!" Harry called out.

"What's a "zahm-bee"?" Su asked.

Padma shrugged her shoulders.

The inferi sensed their prey was back on or near the water, so they all staggered back into the black briny depths.

"That was too easy, and I don't trust easy, lets see if we can make it to the door and out."

As they flew toward the opening it seemed to get farther and farther away.

"It's not receding, it's closing!" Padma yelled.

Harry pulled the half-full vial of blood from his pocket and banished it toward the opening only to have it shatter at the last second on the stone-tough head of a dead troll rising from the water.

"/Christ/, what is it with this guy and trolls?"

The entrance was nearly completely closed when suddenly the opening filled completely with ice. Super cold ice that appeared to crawl over the limestone around the entrance then onto the rocks where the troll inferi stood. The spreading ice absorbed the troll's feet and moved upward to swallow up the rotting mountain of flesh. The icing didn't stop till the inferi froze solid, a three meter tall troll-cicle.

"Fly high, Ladies, I have a bad feeling about this!"

A chorus of "Bombardia maxima!"and the opening reappeared with explosive force, completely shattering the monumental inferi as if it'd been made of glass.

"Goddamn Fucking /Trolls/!"Pansy shrieked, "C'mon Harry!"

"All roit, Pansy, let's fly!"

Harry and his Ladies blew through the opening at top speed as the Vipera laid down covering fire, banishing, slicing, burning and blasting anything that moved. Pansy was the last to pull back, hoping to blast another "Goddamn stinking turd of atroll!"

)O(

The group stood around the hospital bed where fifteen-year-old Tom Marvolo Riddle, the original, lay in an enchanted sleep.

Astarte sat cross-legged on the brass headboard, "I'll get him out, shouldn't be any trouble getting him to fuck me while I'm in his dreams, but someone will have to, um, stimulate his conscious body."

"I'll do it." Somebody gasped.

Everyone turned to see Ginny Weasley, out of breath having run all the way from the Gryffindor Tower, leaning against the doorframe.