Silver souls, pulsing as one

Notes:

And welcome back readers to the last chapter of the Land of Shadows Arc!

This is where we get to the Artemis Harry connecting, that's right SOB, I come to deliver on my promise to you. I'm glad all of you liked my battle between the Goddesses however.

But after this, we get back to the hunt, but I wonder if any picked up my hints in the last few chapters?

Yes? No?

Whatever, but enough of this mortal prattle, on with the show!

Dún Scáith, Land of Shadows.

The door to the room opens after a short knock, a show of politeness that the Goddess of Dún Scáith would not have bothered with if it wasn't for the Goddess who had given her a good fight, and the child who she felt had potential on the other side. Scáthach enters the room, no longer in the skin-tight catsuit she had worn two days earlier for her battle with Artemis, but in an elegant light purple gown that she had once worn during feasts and holidays in days long past. As Scáthach enters she announces herself and watches the Goddess of the hunt tense as she always did when she entered the room. Good, the prideful Olympian has learned something about fear.

"I am here to change the boy's dressing, I'll be gone when I am done," Scáthach tells Artemis like the last four times she had done it before pulling back the covers, and setting the tray she had brought in with on the side table before getting to work.

Scáthach works quickly, with skilled hands she removes the old bandages and discards them before she takes the new ones, soaked in a healing poultice, and applies them to the now quickly healing wounds. Taking a vial of a slightly glowing silver potion, swirling it to check its consistency before spelling it into Harry's stomach. Normally she would work in silence as Artemis watches her like a hawk, but the Goddess of the Hunt felt like talking finally.

"Why are you helping him?" Artemis asks, her voice soft, almost a whisper as she watches Scáthach work.

Scáthach pauses in her work before she starts to clean up, as she does she speaks, "Because I see potential in him, he landed a mortal wound on an opponent that was equal in power to him, and survived the monsters of the chasms, and because I would be a poor teacher if I let him die after completing my challenges."

"Didn't you throw him down there yourself?" Artemis says, a growl in her voice, Scáthach just nods her head as she finishes up her cleaning.

"He could have died down there!? What would you have done then?" Artemis speaks, her anger leaking into her voice.

To this, all Scáthach does is shrug before saying "Then he would have died and been unworthy to teach. My methods are cruel but they yield the best results." Scáthach says before making her way to the door.

"He's been through enough cruelty in his life." Artemis spits out at the Goddess of Dún Scáith.

"Has he?" Scáthach asks, looking between Artemis and Harry, "and did he learn from it?" When Artemis doesn't answer but looks at the Scáthach with confused eyes, the Goddess of Dún Scáith elaborates, "A lesson can be cruel, yes. But if he learns from it, especially if it's a lesson worth learning, it is well worth the pain of the lesson."

Artemis looks away from the Witch-Queen before saying, "He…did not have the best of childhoods." The hitch of self-blame couldn't be missed.

"I see," Scáthach says in a soft voice, "A human can grow strong or can be broken during their early years, but if they do make it out of years of cruelty without breaking, it will take them years to unlearn the lessons that were forced upon them." Scáthach says in a sad voice that spoke of how many times she had seen it before, "but if he can make it past the demons that hold on to him, he'll be stronger for it, and I have learned that a mothers touch can exercise even the strongest of demons." The Goddess of Dún Scáith says with a knowing look at Artemis.

"I do not think I've been a good mother." The Goddess of the Hunt admits in the same soft voice, "I…said things to him that I had thought as true at the time, I have no clue how to take them back."

"I have learned over the years," Scáthach begins in the same voice she had used to teach so many so long ago, "That words are but wind, it is our actions that speak of our character not our words, mayhaps you can start there." The Goddess of Death says before opening the door, "Think on it Lady Artemis." Before leaving the Goddess of the Hunt alone.

Harry Potter.

As Harry slept, he had dreams of things that he would rather not remember.

"I told you, boy! I told you!" Harry could feel the sting of the belt.

"I can bring them back, such is the power of lord-" Harry could feel the desperation in his heart.

"Up Freak, I said get up!" Harry could feel the hunger crawl in his belly like a thousand thousand worms.

"Speak to me Slytherin, Greatest of the Hogwarts-" Harry could feel the fear overwhelm the joy of the hunt.

"And now my curiosity can be stated." Harry feels a hope that had bloomed, wither and die.

"Pad'foo, Pad'foo!" Harry feels something draped around him, warm as a hug from someone almost forgotten.

"Mummy loves you, Harry." Harry feels a warm hand pressed against his cheek, but sees the wetness of her cheeks.

Harry sees a pair of eyes, as dark and endless as the shadows he had wandered in, he sees black lips bend in a smirk and cold arms cradle him.

Harry feels himself jerk awake, his body protests this as he struggles with the heavy blankets in a bed far too soft, he needs to get up and start his chores, he needs to get up and run before monsters get him, he needs to, he needs-

"Harry, stop, you're safe Harry, you're safe. It was just a bad dream." Harry hears a voice say, unable to see without his glass. But callous hands softly push him back down onto the bed, "shh, Harry. You're still healing, you're safe now, nothing will hurt you, just sleep."

And with that, Harry falls back into dreams of a stag, doe, wolf, and hound under an endless full moon.

Dún Scáith

The door to the room opens once again, and the Goddess of Dún Scáith walks in with a new set of bandages and another round of potions, humming a tune from when she was just a young girl, she stops at the sight of her conscious guests frowning face.

"How is he?" Scáthach asks as she sets down the tray on the bedside table.

"He's been having nightmares," Artemis says, "Talking, begging really." She confesses.

Scáthach says nothing as she pulls back the covers and gets to work changing the bandages, it isn't until she is halfway done that she does speak. "The little ones normally have night terrors of the past, being in the Land of Shadows makes it worse." She says.

"You said something about him being here is bad before, is this what you meant?" Artemis asks.

"Yes and no, the Land of Shadows is a land of the dead and death. Surely you've felt it, we are as close to Terminus as one can get without dying." Scáthach informs Artemis, and the Goddess of Sudden Death nods, it was like being in her uncle's domain.

Seeing the other Goddess nodding, Scáthach continues, "A mortal in this realm without divine protection would not last more than an hour before the shadows consume them. But the boy is a Demigod and it is much harder for this to happen to him, but it doesn't mean he's immune to it." Scáthach applies the last of the bandages before pulling out the vial of the same potion as before and spelling into Harry's stomach, "The potion I've been giving also slows it down as well, but still, the boy had bled in the Land of Shadows, so the Land of Shadows have bled into him, it marks him with The End, and the domain will do what's in its nature to do, it will try and end him." Scáthach tells Artemis, and the Goddess of the Hunt sucks in a sharp breath of worry.

"The nightmares, in this case, are a good thing, however." The Witch-Queen supplies

"How are they good? They torment the boy." Artemis says with a hissing voice.

"Because they are reminding him that he is alive. Mortal life is pain, Lady Artemis, and death but a blissful sleep." Scáthach says before gathering the old bandages and leaving her guests alone.

Harry Potter.

"Harry? Harry!?" A familiar voice calls to him, "Harry Potter!?" Hermione says, and Harry's head jerks to look at her, his eyes leaving the page in his book that had ink running down the letters like blood.

"What is it, Hermione?" Harry asks confused as they sit in his Primary school library, why was he here?

"Weren't you listening?" Hermione huffs at his jumping attention span, she was used to it by now, "Parents day is starting soon, if we don't head out now, we're gonna be late, Ron already left." She says as Harry looks into the empty sockets of her eyes. Oh, that was right! Harry would get to see his Parents today! Harry and Hermione quickly pack away their bleeding books made from pale skin and spider legs with their too many blinking eyes that watch them as they read them.

They run through the halls made of moving stone and screaming faces and meet up with Ron, who was hanging from the ceiling with the rest of his family by their own insides, they wave at him cheerfully as he passes, and he waves back. Hermione sees her parents at the end of the hall and runs to them, telling them how much she had missed them, but the doll store mannequins merely stand there until she hugs the male one, which comes to life, the place where its face should be, splits open and bends over crushing Hermione's skull as it bites into her and eating her brains in an act the resembles a father kissing his daughters head.

Harry goes to the door on the left-hand side of the third-floor corridor, throws it up, and sees them. His mom and dad, Lily Potter kneels down and opens her arms, beckoning him closer as his father stands there with a proud smile on his face.

"Harry!" His mother calls, "oh Harry, how I've missed you. Come here, come to mummy." Her smile is the softest thing he's ever seen.

"Come on, son." James Potter says standing tall in the room, "it's time to go home." And he smiles a roguish smile.

Harry starts to run to them, opening his arms to be swept up by his mother, but it feels like he's running through sludge, he's slow, slower than normal.

"You're actually pretty fast kiddo," the lioness says, "almost as fast as me." The proud smile on her face as her cat ears twitch.

Harry stops running, there was something wrong here. His parents couldn't be here because they're, (CAR CRASH!? A CAR CRASH KILL LILY AND JAMES POTTER!?) Because they were, (BEFORE THEY WENT AND GOT THEMSELVES BLOWN UP!) Because they were dead.

No sooner than when Harry realized it, he watched his mother stand back up and lean against his father who wraps his arm around her. Harry was eleven again standing in the abandoned classroom looking into a mirror with his parents smiling at him.

"It does not do to dwell on dreams, and forget how to live, Harry." Says the old man in strange clothes with a twinkle in his eye as he too looks into it only to see a smiling little blonde girl in Hogwarts robes.

A new figure looms behind his parents, tall and imposing, Harry can't tell who it is, all he sees beyond the choking shadows are pale, pale, pale as a corpus skin and fathomless black eyes looking back. But as he feels his Uncle grabs his shoulder to lock him in his cupboard, Harry Potter wakes up.

Dún Scáith

Harry wakes with a gasp from his nightmares, he tries to sit up but his body protests this, and he groans, and no sooner than he does hands are there, pushing him back down into the bed.

"Don't Harry, you're still healing." A voice says, "lay back down, I'll put you back to sleep." The voice is gentle but firm.

"No," Harry chokes out, his voice horse from not being used, "No more sleep, please." He begs in a weak voice as he forces his eyes open looking at the blurry figure.

The figure pauses, before nodding, "Alright, no more sleep. Just promise me you'll stay in bed, okay?" The voice asks, and Harry nods, "Good, here let me get you some water." And before Harry knows it he has a cup pushed to his lips and is gulping down water, the cool liquid soothing his dry throat.

"Thank you," Harry said after he was done.

"It's fine," the voice grows quiet but Harry can feel the weight on his bed, he reaches over to the bedside table to get his glasses but doesn't find them, "Huh? Where are my-"

"Oh, one second." The voice says before Harry sees the blur bring her hands together and pulls them apart before leaning over him and slipping something onto his face, it comes slowly, like an old television station coming into focus through all the static. But as he blinks it all away and watches the face of Artemis come into view.

At first, Harry was confused, what was Artemis doing here? Then he was mortified, he didn't want her to see him like this, then he was angry, he didn't want to see her at all. But things beat into Harry taking over and before he could stop himself a thank you leaves his mouth before he quickly turns his head away from Artemis. Harry and Artemis sit in silence, neither speaking but thoughts of one another run rampant through each of their minds, and before long each tries to break the silence with words, each looking back at the other.

"How are you fe-"

"Where are w-"

Both stop talking before quickly looking away from each other, both feeling awkward for interrupting the other. Before long they each try again.

"I'm sorr-"

"Sorry fo-"

Both once again stop talking as soon as they realize they interrupted the other and fall back into awkward silence. Harry sighs and shuffles in the too-soft bed, and groans as he begins to sit up.

Artemis jumps as soon as Harry starts to move, moving quickly, hands flying towards him, "No, Harry you ne-" but stops as Harry flinches away from her, fear flashes through his eyes, She pulls her hands back and hops off the bed. "I'm sorry," Artemis says softly.

"I-I just want to sit up, am-am I allowed to do that?" Harry asks, watching Artemis' mouth open and close a few times before she just nods looking away, Harry struggles a bit but gets to a sitting position, leaning against the headrest and looking around the room, it was bare other than the bed, a nightstand, and dresser.

"Where are we?" Harry asks as he looks back down at the light blue blankets covering him.

"A fortress called Dún Scáith, in the Land of Shadows." Artemis supplies, before, slowly and carefully, sits back down on the bed. She looks at Harry's confused face before asking "How much do you remember?"

Harry narrows his eyes, trying to recall what he could, "Me and Atalanta were doing a chase game at the end of training, and we came across two Acromantula near the student path in the forest…" Harry trails off, remembering the kills, him falling down the hole, and then…"The Gate!" Harry shouts, "We found a weird gate! And I got bit by this big shadow dog thing and it dragged me through, and then I met-" but Harry is cut off as a new voice enters the conversation.

"Me." Harry looks over to the woman who just walked into the room, she wasn't wearing the armor, veil, or face paint but it was without a doubt the woman he had fought.

"You! You threw me over a cliff!" Harry accuses her, wincing as he lifts his arm to point at her.

"I did!" The woman says cheerfully, before walking over with a tray and placing it down on the nightstand, "and you, climb out. Very impressive by the way, you beat the best record by a day." She says with a smile.

Harry quickly scoots away from the woman before looking between her and Artemis' narrowing eyes, the woman who threw him off a cliff gives Artemis a look before the Goddess of the Hunt sighs and moves from her spot off the bed and switches places with the other woman who pats the spot Harry was scooting away from.

"None of that young man, get back over here I need to change your bandages and give you a potion." The woman says in a stern voice, but Harry still doesn't move, instead, he looks at Artemis, mouth trying to work but no words come out.

"She means no harm, Harry, well anymore," Artemis says with a shrug, "She's been changing your bandages for the last four days."

"She threw. me. Off a cliff!?" Harry yells, "Also, how the hell can you understand me now?" He asks the woman, "What hell was that dog!?" He asks before turning to Artemis, "and what the hell are you doing here?!" All the anxiety gives away to confused anger within Harry, who was demanding answers from one amused-looking and one angry-looking Goddess.

The unknown woman chuckles at Harry's outburst, while Artemis, on the other hand, lets her temper slip as well, "Stop this now boy, you will show respect to where it is do!" The Goddess of the Hunt snaps at Harry, who flinches back, which in turn makes Artemis flinch in the realization of what she did. The Goddess of Dún Scáith however, just laughs.

"I don't see what's funny." Harry grumbles

"Forgive me, it's just amusing." The woman says, "You two are so much alike it's like watching a cat seeing its reflection of itself for the first time. All hisses, spitting and slamming into the mirror as it comprehends its own blunder." Both the boy and the Goddess look away from one another, one in embarrassment and the other in anger, "but to answer your questions boyo, I threw you off the cliff for my own reasons that I will not get into now, but know you are not the first I've done that too, but will probably be the last. As for how I can understand you now, would you like the simple answer or the long complicated metaphysical answer?" The Woman asks Harry as he looks back at her.

"Umm, …the simple one?" Harry says, knowing Hermione wasn't around to break magical jargon down for him.

"It's because she showed up." The woman says as she jerks her thumb towards Artemis, Harry just blinks before a confused look settles over his face as his eyes flick back and forth between the two Goddesses, "The hound that you spoke of was an old student of mine that offered to be the guard dog after his death, while the gate is sealed to anything that belongs here meaning he could not join me after sadly." When the woman says that, emotions dance across her eyes before she blinks them away, "As for what your mother-"

"She's not my mother," Harry says through gritted teeth at those words.

The woman pauses and levels a glare at the boy for speaking out of turn, "As for what your mother is doing here," the woman's glare burns a hole in the boy, daring the boy to speak out of turn again at the word when he doesn't, she continues, "She showed up about a week after you were in the chasm, demanding the return of her son before fighting me to try and save you from me."

Harry didn't know how to feel about that, but then a word she said caught up with him, "wait, a week? How long have I been here?" Harry asks.

"Oh, almost three weeks now." The woman says as Harry pales.

He lets his head fall back against the headrest with a groan, "Wood is gonna kill me, we had semi-finals for Quidditch this week." Harry says as he closes his eyes.

"I'm sure He'll live Boyo, now get over here, I need to change your bandages, you need to drink a potion, and then you'll have a few more hours of rest before you need to leave." The woman orders Harry, he sighs and slowly moves back over to her and flinches as the woman gets to work, if she notices it she says nothing. She works quickly, replacing new with old, before handing him the potion and watching him drink, it felt like cool liquid metal being poured down his throat.

"I'll be back in three hours, I need to prepare the exit for you both." She says before looking to Artemis, "Three hours Lady Artemis, that's all we can do. Hopefully, you thought of your actions while you can still do them here." The look she gives Artemis has meaning, but it is lost to Harry.

"Thank you, Lady Scáthach," Artemis says, and Harry's head pops up to look at the closing door with wide eyes, he knew that name!

The door closes with a deafening click, leaving the two hunters alone in the room, one trying to ignore the other, and the other trying to think of something to say, but all she does is sigh before sitting back on the edge of the bed before reaching into her coat pocket and pulling out a familiar swiss army knife and turning it over in her hands, before putting it on the bed and sliding it over to Harry.

"Here, I want you to have this back," Artemis says in a softer voice.

"I don't want it back," Harry says, anger clear in his voice, Artemis feels her own anger raised with the disrespectful tone the boy has but it soon dies with his next words, "I don't want to Sate your curiosity," Harry says and Artemis flinches as her own words are thrown back in her face.

"I did say that, didn't I?" Artemis asks to mostly herself in a soft voice, and Harry doesn't answer, she withdraws her hand from near Harry but leaves the swiss army knife by him. They both sit there in the quiet, each with their own thoughts, one thinking about how they wanted to be left alone, and the other on how not to leave them alone again.

"I couldn't hear you." Artemis finally says, "All the times you prayed, I couldn't hear a single one. They were blocked off, trapped in an eternal l loop inside the blood wards, I didn't get a single one." She says softly looking at the door in the room.

"I know," Harry says in a rough voice, "Aphrodite told me, She told me you went there." He says the word with such contentment it almost made Artemis want to go back and burn the house to the ground, "would it have mattered if you did?" The boy asks, after a long moment of silence between them, in a voice so low it was barely a whisper.

"Yes," Artemis says in the same low tone as Harry, knowing he could hear her as much as she could hear him, "I would like to think so, I would like to think that if I heard that first prayer filled with so much pain and desperation, that I would have gone on a rampage killing all who would dare lay a hand on my son."

"No." Harry says with a rough and thick voice, on the verge of emotions he didn't want to feel, as Artemis turned to look at him "I'm not your son, and you're not my mother! My mother was Lily Potter and she loved me, she protected me, and she sacrificed herself for me. You. Are not. Her." He says the last part through gritted teeth, pulling his knees up to his chest, wrapping his arms around them, and pressing his face to the top of it; imagining himself back in his cupboard away from pain and people he had grown to hate so much.

And Artemis understood all at once, that the ghost of Lily Evans hung on her son so heavy, both a ghost he refused to rid himself of, and a protection so powerful it had even stopped death. How could Artemis, with all her godly power, hope to match up to the single act of pure love that Lily Evans had made? Artemis could almost see Lily's ghost wrapped around Harry as if trying to comfort him from beyond the grave.

Artemis looks away, "I understand, Harry. I won't make you call me that, it wasn't me who bound a Goddess to have you, I didn't not carry you, nor did I give birth to you." She says softly, "That was your mother, Lily. But does not change the fact that you still carry a piece of me inside you." Artemis tells Harry softly.

"What does that even mean?" Harry asks, turning his head and peeking through his arms to look at the back of Artemis, "I've heard everyone and their grandma says it, but I have no clue what it even means."

Artemis' lips twitch at the thought of her own mother, Leto, meeting Harry before she turns back around and faces him, holding out her hand to him and Harry flinches back, "I'm not going to hurt you, Harry, I just…I just want to show you what it means." Artemis pauses, choosing her words carefully, and keeps her hand out, letting him come to her on his own terms.

Slowly, after some minutes, Harry reaches out and hesitantly touches his palm to hers. Artemis smiles softly before saying "don't try and fight it, just let it come out, okay?" Artemis says softly and Harry slowly nods, Artemis closes her eyes and reaches deep inside of Harry's soul finding the source of divinity she had left in Lily Evans so long ago, and touches it with her own.

Harry gasps at the feeling, like a harmony he had forgotten only to hear it play for him and only him once again. The sounds of hooves and paws beating on the forest floor, the giggles of young girls running through the hills, the cries of babies first being born, the twinge of a bowstring, and the sudden sleep and quiet of death( fathomless black eyes look back at him), the endless silver light of the full moon overhead, and through Artemis he felt the souls of eighty-one others pulsing as one; The Hunt. In that pulsing rhythm, Harry had felt something he had never felt before in all his years of being the freak, acceptance. Of a family, he didn't know he had, all calling out to him, "Brother. Come to us, the hunt awaits. One of us! One of us!" They cried in unison.

Harry feels Artemis' palm turn, slipping her fingers in between his and smiling at him as they were both illuminated in soft silver light, "That's what it means Harry." Artemis tells him in a soft voice, and he finally understands as each closes their fingers around the other hand.

Dún Scáith, three hours later, Harry Potter.

Over the next three hours, Artemis recounts the tale of Harry's creation, for the lack of a better word, Harry was shocked to find out his father was an animagus, but doesn't interrupt her, he hears out her side of the story, of that cold October night twelve years ago. How during the new moon she was struck blind to the world, and how during a full moon she could see all.

How she had arrived a few nights later only finding the death of three souls and a crushed crib, how she was a fool enough to never check the connection between them. The power of the blood wards blinding her to his suffering, and how she thought his death was caused by breaking her oath in a roundabout way. How she was sorry.

Harry didn't forgive her, he couldn't, not yet. But he did understand the hows and the whys behind her logic, and he had told her as much, all Artemis did was nod, accepting his choice.

She had told him of her visit to his relative's home, how she had threatened them. She actually got a real laugh out of the boy when she told him what she had done to his cousin all Harry did when she had asked him why he was laughing so hard was to say "Pig in a blonde wig." She had raised an eyebrow but had left him to his inside joke.

She had told him of how she had altered the blood wards to receive his prayers now, and if she had some much as thought his relatives continued their treatment of him like they had she would kill them all.

When they had gotten to the topic of claiming him, she had shared her fears with Harry, how she can see her idiot twin brother overreact and try and kill him, or how Artemis was sure her father would order his death as punishment for breaking his oath, to which Harry muttered the word "Cunt" under his breath, and Artemis couldn't really argue against that. How the only way Artemis could have protected him from both would be if he had taken the oaths and joined the hunt, but with Aphrodite cursing him, that was all but closed to them now.

"I will walk to death of my own free will for the ones I love," Harry repeats the curse under his breath and Artemis nods.

After the talking was done Artemis creates a new set of Hogwarts uniforms for him to put on and leaves the room to give him some privacy, when he exits the room she doesn't comment on how they fit nor about the missing swiss army knife from the bed and they walk through the halls of Dún Scáith with Artemis leading the way to the throne room, neither of them saying a word just enjoying the comfortable quiet.

When they get to the throne room, Harry can't help but to blink at the frosted glass and crystal room that looked too much like the great hall to be a coincidence, so as Scáthach was curving a circle in the floor of the doorway with her lance, Harry couldn't help but to comment on in it.

"Why does it look like the Great Hall?" Harry blurts out and the two Goddesses turn and look at him in confusion.

It's Scáthach that asks first, "The Great Hall?"

"Yeah, at Hogwarts. It looks just like this, right down to the placement of the tables." Harry says as he leans against the door to rest his sore body, as he watches Scáthach stop her work and turn to look at him.

"No, Harry. This is what Dún Scáith used to look like in the material realm." Scáthach says in a slow voice, as she was explaining something to someone with brain damage.

Harry scratches the back of his head, thinking back to when he had first seen Dùn Scáith from the shadows below, "No, I remember thinking that this castle looked like Hogwarts when I first got here, just upside down." Harry says too deep into thought to notice that Scáthach had pulled her lance from the stone as her hands started to shake.

Artemis' eyes go a bit wide as Harry says that, "I remember having the same thought, that it had even felt lik-" but Artemis is cut off by the Goddess of Dún Scáith.

"Stop!" Scáthach commands, "Do not do this to me, do not be as cruel to me as the fates, do not give me hope." Scáthach says, her lance shaking in her hands as an unreadable emotion passes through her eyes.

Harry and Artemis look at each other, neither willing to say anything more to upset their host. Scáthach takes a deep breath to steady herself before she goes back to carving the circle into the ground as all three of them are quiet as she works, and before long she is done, she ushers both inside the throne room before shutting the doors. She lays her forehead on the door and takes a deep breath.

"Harry," Scáthach says in a low voice, "What is this Hogwarts? What does it do? What is its purpose?" Harry could hear the raw emotions just underneath the question but answered as simply as he could.

"It's a school," Harry says as he watches Scáthach's shoulders stiffen.

"And the Gate of Skye, you found it near it?" Scáthach asks as a follow-up.

"Under it, in fact." He answers, and Scáthach takes a deep breath and nods her head before turning around to face her guests, clasping her shaking hands behind her back.

"When I reopen the door, the threshold will be tuned to the Gate of Skye, you'll be able to walk through it and exit the Land of Shadows." She tells them both before facing Harry, "Graeca, I expect you to return here within the year so we may start your training in earnest. Do you understand me?" Scáthach tells Harry as he looks back at the glaring face of Artemis that she was giving the other Goddess

"Umm, …I'll think about it?" Harry says.

"No Graeca, I expect you back, so you will return," Scáthach says before turning around and opening the doors to a red mist veil before stepping aside for her guests.

"But-" Harry begins to say when he is cut off by Artemis grabbing him by the shirt and dragging him forward and through the gate.

"Not the time, Harry. We're leaving." Artemis says curtly as she gives the side eye to the Goddess of Dun Scáith, as said Goddess just smirks at Artemis as she pulls Harry through the gate.

Scáthach then shuts the doors behind them, before collapsing to her knees and letting out a sob, her school, her beloved Dún Scáith stood again, full of happy children learning. She had to find a way out, to find a way back, back to her home. The boy would lead her way, she was sure of it, it was a sign, as soon as he returned after his name blossomed from the burning chalice. She would return home soon after, to her beloved Dún Scáith.

Gate of Skye, Hogwarts.

As soon as Harry's and Artemis' feet land on the uneven stone, Harry hears Artemis curse under her breath "That cunt, I was worried for…" but she trails off as noise travels down the hallway up ahead.

"It's right down here Headmaster, a big fucking gate with a stupid hound made of shadow." The voice of Atalanta says.

"Then perhaps, my dear, I should go first. I mean no insult to your fine skill, but I am the one with the wand." The elderly voice of Albus Dumbledore carries down next.

"Atalanta!" Harry yells down the hall, and for a second there was no sound before there's a crack of sound, and before Harry was tackle hugged by a lioness moving damn near subsonic speeds.

"OhmygodsHarryimsosorryiwasntfastenoughtograbyouandyougotthroughimsorryimsorryimsorry," Atalanta speaks at a rapid pace, crushing Harry to herself.

"Atalanta, He's injured, he needs Ambrosia and nectar before you break him in two," Artemis says as she begins to walk down the stone path, leaving the kids to their antics, the adults needed to talk.

"Oh shit!" Atalanta says, "Yes My Lady, right away." Before standing up and pulling Harry with her and helping him down the path, passing Artemis as she stopped at the base of the stone path, "come on Harry, let's get you back to the castle, how the hell did you get so injured so quickly anyway?"

"Atalanta, I've been gone for almost three weeks," Harry says with a sigh, not looking forward to dealing with Wood.

Atalanta stops and looks at Harry, "Harry, you've barely been gone for thirty minutes." The lioness says, and Harry's face drops in shock.

"What-" he starts to say before Artemis cuts in.

"Harry, don't question it, just get to the castle and get some rest, okay?" Artemis tells Harry, he looks back at her and opens his mouth before closing it and nodding. "Get well, Harry," Artemis tells him

Harry just nods, "Happy hunting Artemis." Harry says making the Goddess of the Hunt Smirk, and Atalanta looks between them confused but starts helping Harry walk as soon as he starts moving, only stopping when the Headmaster shows up with his wand alight, he opens his mouth to say something but Artemis calls out to them.

"Let them go, Albus, we need to have words." The Goddess of the hunt tells the aging Headmaster.

Notes:

Chapter over and arc ended!

Oh fuck, so much to go over, too tired to do it.

Rapid fire time!

Scáthach's reason: her own to pass something along.

Complicated answer: gods = satellites, domain = mainframe they beam info to, other satellites can access the mainframe to gather basic knowledge about another satellite they come across including languages.

Artemis and Harry: Not mother and son, something less but something more, will explore deeper.

Scáthach finding out her school is still standing, I'm sure that won't be a plot point later on down the line.

Anything else? No? Good.

The next chapter is about a hound and a hearth.

Anyone else catch that Technoblade reference?