Chapter 18.

"Do you understand? This is very important." I asked Alyson one more time.

"Yes, I got it." she answered. "So after that, we're leaving, for real?" she asked with the same distrustful look she had everytime we talked about today. Even if she was convinced that I would respect our agreement, she couldn't bring herself to trust me anymore. I couldn't blame here, though, with all the stuff I made her go through. There was no doubt she regretted coming after me. But she did come after me, she can only blame herself now.

"It's a promise, once I'm back, we execute the ritual, and we get right the fuck out of Britain and Europe altogether. I've got a portkey to the other side of the world ready." I smiled to her in the most honest and reassuring way I could, a unusual feat for me.

She nodded strongly.

"I'll be waiting."

All was said, now it just had to be done.

I let my glance linger on the aged stones making up the floor of my sanctuary, on the numerous geometrics and runes drawn in chalk and covered in moondust with care. The Legendary Salamander heart was in the middle of the main circle, beating peacefully in its translucent pot and ready to serve as the main anchor, the few potions and products I would have to use soon were neatly stacked on the teacher's desk and the crude metallic rings that would hold the sacrifices on the pillars clanged quietly, carried by the soft wind echoing in the sanctuary.

This eerie wind had been here since the day we had activated the 5th layer of the ritual. Maintained by the five obsidian anchors that linked all the layers together, the sub-ritual circle had been drawing life force from the entire population of Hogwarts for seven days now, and the soft air current grew as the power contained in the anchor built up.

Necromancer Melor had used the life force of a small Russian village of about 400 inhabitants to fuel the creation of his clone, and according to his notes, it had been barely enough. After a bit of research, I figured that Hogwarts was the perfect place for my version of his ritual. A thousand kids, no older than seventeen years old, the life force I could obtain promised to be incredible.

I would have settled for a lot less if I could have drained the total life force of a human being, but sadly magic didn't seem to work that way, and only the 'surplus' life force of a wizard can be absorbed. No one could fully explain what was life force and how it worked, it was dusty left over knowledge from the ancient times, when humans shamelessly had deals with higher beings.

We exited the room and I watched Alyson transfigure the door into a wall. I nodded to her and set course to the Forbidden Forest as she set off in the opposite direction.

The castle was very quiet lately, most of it was due to the fact that the life force of every student and staff member was being drained, slowly but surely - but thanks to a certain newly-declared Headmistress, nobody could quite put the finger on what was wrong and simply blamed the terrible mood on Umbridge.

I reached the Forest without issues and after a few minutes tripping through the familiar wood, entered my personal cave and storeroom.

This is the last time I turn into the Minotaur of Death. I thought darkly, looking at my helm between my hands. I would miss all the killing and dark magic, I knew it. A part of me was already trying to find reasons to keep fighting even after Natasha would be back. I shook my head and my thoughts. There won't be any more dark magic nor fighting, and that's it. I don't need anything more than her.

I put the helm on my head and readied my belt pockets, filled with various potions and objects that could save my life, without locking the helm. I didn't know how long I'd be shopping on the other side, and I wanted to breath the forest a bit longer.

Strangely sober, my mind devoid of the usual haze and soreness, I looked at the sky and sighed. As weird and fucked up as it was, I had become used to that lifestyle of mine, and leaving it behind made me sad, in a way.

"But today, I'm bringing her back." I muttered. The simple sentence awoke my will and my nerves.

"Hell yeah, today's the day!" I all but shouted before locking the helm and activating the portkey with my left hand.

I twirled in the void and reappeared on a snowy ground, fairly similar to the one I had just left. From the top of the Norwegian mountain, the view was fantastic. I only stayed a second to observe the tiny villages, forests and lakes down the slope, and turned around. I knew the place already, and there was no time to waste today. I walked down the grass path to the edge of the evergreen forest, where the command center had been set up. Victor had brought his people, and what was simply a table the last time I was here was now a entire camp of muggles and vampires running around and playing with their machines.

I had made only a few steps when Gregory spotted me. As he waved me to join, Zephyros came to greet me.

"Horus. A pleasure as always." he exclaimed, watching my suit from head to toe. "That's a Mage Knight, alright." he smiled widely. The man was ecstatic, I could tell by his body language. I was starting to get worked up too. It's really happening.

"Is everything going well?" I asked as we walked together toward the command table, where Victor was quietly watching us coming, occasionally giving an order to the flock of vampires and muggles around him.

"We've had a few issues on the preparation of some materials, but that's nothing you should worry about. As of right now, we are ready." said Zephyros, clapping his hand together happily.

"Do we have the replacement sapphire?"

He nodded. "I got it this morning and I carved the runes on it. Like I said, we are more than ready."

Victor stood up as we reached the table and pierced me with his deep and seemingly uninterested gaze.

"Monsieur Horus, I see you came prepared."

I had decided to come ready to fight a war just in case Victor decided to break our agreement on the last moment, for whatever reason. I couldn't trust the vampire lord like I trusted Zephyros, and taking on me in Mage Knight armor right before the ritual was out of the question for everyone. Not to mention that if something went wrong with the ritual itself, I'd feel more secure in my armour than not.

"I return the compliment, Mr. Victor. Quite the personnel you have here." I said, eyeing the four black trucks and the military-looking group of men standing by behind him, tinkering with muggle weapons.

He nodded. "Thank you, I suggest we avoid losing time and move on directly to the heart of the matter. Gregory told me everything was ready for you. Perhaps we could start at once?" he waved to the forest behind him

"I'll inspect it, take that time to ready your men and your wits. This isn't gonna be a walk in the park."

Accompanied by Zephyros and Gregory, we entered the thick forest. The air was crisp and the floor crispier. The cold in this area made it difficult to think trees could even grow in this frozen soil, and yet they did, swaying softly in the wind, whispering to each other. We walked for a few minutes in silence, until we reached the epicenter. Even though we could barely make out the sky through the foliage above us, light still pierced through and reflected on the massive adamantine structure laid on the floor.

Instead of carving the complex geometrics in the floor, we had opted for an adamantine set of tubes and junctions that acted exactly like any carving except that it isolated the inside of the tube completely from any outside distraction. It had been very expensive and complex to build, but when Zephyros Athanasios wanted something, he obtained it.

I took half an hour to inspect every nook and cranny of the geometrics, disruption spikes and less important details. It was ready.

I put my wand on my neck and whispered Sonorus. "It's ready. Let us begin." I said.

Victor and his men arrived five minutes later, carrying all their gear in their hand, since the muggle vehicles couldn't access this area easily. Once everyone was set and ready, I turned and faced the ritual ground.

First thing to do was to inject fresh unicorn blood in the tubes until they were full. The unicorn had been stunned and bound to a tree by Zephiros himslef, I had suggested the idea of scaring it before killing it, but since nobody knew how to or had time looking for a way to scare an unicorn, we dropped the idea.

One of the two vampire captains under Victor dragged the unconscious Unicorn to the opening in the tubes and looked up.

"Proceed." I ordered the man.

He opened an artery with a combat knife and let it pour in the adamantine construction. It was ready in a few minutes.

"Secondary anchors on disruption spikes, Victor." I called. "Mr. Zephyros, would you start charging the rune, please?"

Zephyros nodded and hurried to the main rune in the middle of the circle, the Sapphire of the tomb. Victor called his servants and told them to start moving. They opened a big steel box, and surprised me. The box's inside was covered in ice and a lot of white fog escaped it, it was obviously very cold in there. They proceeded to bring a dozen human organs in pristine condition, encased in airtight sealed plastic bags.

"Good, place the three hearts on the south, east and west pike!" I yelled so they could hear me properly. "Gregory!" I shouted and gave him a knowing look, he nodded. All he had to do was carve a quick and simple rune on each heart before we started the chant. Everything from anchors to runes had to be brand new and crafted right before the opening.

Kidneys, lungs and brains were then placed on the other pikes under my orders, and we were finally ready. The ambient light below the foliage was slowly getting weaker and weaker, the eclipse was starting. Flawless timing... I remarked with pride.

"This is good work, gentlemen! Alright, make her drink the potions and bind her to the northern spike." I pointed to the pretty girl that had been standing and looking around since I got here. Victor hadn't chosen the ugliest one to be sacrificed, I noticed.

She looked scared as all hell, but she dutifully drank the two potions Gregory gave her and let the muggles tie her to the northern pike. They had probably made her swallow some big fat lie about this whole thing to make her accept it, and I couldn't care less.

I could almost feel the insane power building up, even if we hadn't started yet, the sheer magical significance of all we had gathered here was starting to make the air pressure rise and my skin crawl.

"Is everyone ready?" I asked out loud, surveying everyone and stepping out of the circle.

Victor's right hand, apparently of higher grade that the other vampire, was ordering a pack of fifteen muggles standing upright, armed with rifles and other muggle devices while the other servants stood back. Victor nodded softly, his arm resting on the pommel of his thin sword.

"Proceed."

Zephyros stood beside me and smiled brightly.

"This is it, young boy! Decades I've been looking forward this moment!" he laughed out loud, opened his arm and yelled to the soon to be complete eclipse, "I, Zephyros Athanasios, will conquer the unconquered!".

He resumed his laugh and I focused on the ritual again. I didn't know why the old Egyptian Minister wanted to walk into the portal, but I didn't exactly care. We all had our own reason and that was good enough.

When the eclipse was three quarters done and the world almost entirely dark, I started reciting the chant only me and Gregory knew. It had taken me days to memorize perfectly, nordruidic wasn't a simple language at all.

I chanted the incantation with the steadiest voice I could, focusing on when to breath or not, and delivered the long sentence with a perfect crescendo.

The sky started to rumble angrily after a dozen words and seconds later, the wind picked up brutally, carrying my growling voice in the dark sky.

"It's working, Master Victor!" squeaked Gregory, both glad for his life and impressed by what he had helped accomplishing. Clouds quickly gathered and growled louder and louder, all while the wind blew harder and harder. The evergreen trees around us shook left and right, throwing needles in all directions and hissing madly.

Soon, some kind of tornado formed around the circle and me, blowing snow, pebbles, pinecones and other small things away, shaking the forest around us to its limit.

I could barely make out Zephyros laughing like a mad man over the wind and my own voice as I finished the chant with a shout and slashed my wand toward the sapphire. The spell I had cast was nothing impressive, I could hardly feel the magic leaving my hand and, for a moment, I was scared I had messed up.

The faint white spell hit the sapphire and suddenly the tornado exploded, tripping a few unprepared muggles and pushing everyone that didn't weight half a ton back a few feet.

The Sapphire of the Tomb was shining like a small sun, blinding the lot of us, and all of a sudden, the angry black clouds vomited huge lightning bolts right onto the several pikes. The blinding light from the sapphire died out and in a huge torrent of wind and light, the whole circle illuminated itself, twirling and growling. The lightning bolts shook crazily, still grasping both the clouds and the pikes, and burning everything in between.

The girl on the northern pike started to scream as the twirling wind ripped morsels of her skin and flesh at each lap, until even her bones were vaporized before our eyes.

"This is it, boys!" yelled Zephyros, his long grey hair going wild in the storm.

The lightning bolts finally stopped after a good ten seconds of having connected the ground to the sky, cutting the buzzing sound and leaving burns in our vision.

Then, everything calmed down. The wind died, the sky went silent, the dark clouds only reminder that something had taken place here. If the moon had left her position between us and the sun, we didn't notice it. The dark clouds brought by our magic completely obscured the sky and the ground.

We stayed silent for a moment, feeling the uneasiness creep around our feet. There was a cold fog lingering at hip level in the forest, a cold not felt before, a dry mist, caressing us tenderly. The air itself lacked humidity, almost imperceptibly smelled of rot.

We all felt the change. We had brought something that reeked of death.

"It is done, then. The portal of Horus is open once again." said Victor in a suave voice, shaking everyone out of their trance. "Go, do your thing, Alphonse. We're stepping in." he pointed forward, to forest, now thick with fog and darkness, a complete change from the cold yet lively evergreen forest we had walked in a few minutes ago.

And yet, nothing was actually different, evergreens were still evergreens and thorn bushes were still thorn bushes.

It's only a change of atmosphere. I thought, staring in the mesmerizing woods, who seemed to whisper my name.

Victor's second in command went and ordered the shaken but determined soldiers to move. I turned to Zephyros beside me. I could read on his face the same excitement I was feeling. I was excited, but forced myself to be wary. The hard part started now.

"Let's stick together for the moment, young man." he suggested, staring at the unnatural haze in front of us.

"Let's go." I took a big breath and walked forward.

As we advanced into the woods, we soon started to feel how wrong it was. The forest whispered to me, it whispered words that I could not hear, words that I craved to hear. We walked carefully, Victor was conscious of the danger of letting his muggles wander too far in the malicious forest and kept them under tight command.

Eventually, the eerie mist got too dense to see a feet in front of us, blinding our vision with a fog so bright, a few muggles got lost thinking themselves in heaven. They were called, but never answered.

A few dozens step later, Victor stopped us.

One muggle was to be sent further into the white abyss with a camera linked to a muggle device before Victor would go in person. It would allow him to have a visual before going in.

Nor Zephyros or I were having any of that. Whatever happened on the other side, we had invested too much to not try going in ourselves.

I glanced to him.

"Ladies first."

He laughed a belly laugh and winked, then he simply walked into the thickening fog, disappearing of my vision after two steps.

I stretched my back, hearing the metallic scraping of my armour, and peered into the limitless horizon of nothingness. I'll bring you back, princess.

I walked in.

I looked to my right. Pebbles rolled on the charcoal ground and hit my face, forcing me to close my eyes before I remembered I had a protective helm.

I opened my eyes and started to move my body. The sound was coming back slowly now, as well as my memories. Right, the realm of the dead.

What had happened? I wasn't so sure, but I needed to get up and fight. I could hear Victor's men mad cries for help and deafening sounds of muggle weaponry pounding relentlessly. I stood up and shook my head to clear it up somewhat.

"Horus!" I heard on my left. "If you're gonna faint at the first blow, you might as well get rid of that armour!" yelled Zephyros without looking at me.

I groaned and appraised the thing that had sent me flying in the air with a fling of its tail. The closest I could call it was a dragon, an old, rotten dragon. It had an almost human face, but its body was a giant two legged lizard with a very long tail, rotting flesh falling from its bones. The thing looked dead, centuries dead.

And yet, it was going berserk on us.

I ducked under said tail as it swung it at me and looked around for my wand.

"Kill it! Kill it, for Merlin's sake!" shouted Zephyros desperately, throwing a immense conjured spear to the abomination. It let out a roar and jumped to the side, successfully avoiding the sharp projectile.

The armed muggles around us kept firing their weapons, unfortunately not dealing much damage to the demon, some of them were busy securing their wounded comrades, and some other were busy getting chopped in two. I spotted my wand on the floor and grabbed it. My head was clearer now, I took a big breath and looked at the beast.

"Zephyros, run on our left, I'll run on our right!" I shouted before taking off. I shot a few Secaferox at it and was pleased to see them cut gashes in the thick hide. I wasn't drawing blood just yet, if the rotting monster had any left.

I stopped running once in position and, unable to communicate by eye contact in my armour, waved to Zephyros on the other side. He nodded, and at once we doused the thing with continuous spell chains.

As an answer, it lunged to me, its eerily human mouth ready to swallow me up. I started to retreat when suddenly a muggle projectile about the size of my thigh hit the left eye of the dragon and instantly exploded. I was thrown on my back brutally by the shock wave and shrapnel buried themselves in the ground around me, accompanied by bits of smoking flesh. The beast reeled back and hissed dangerously, this time bleeding from its gaping wound, a stream of old clotted black blood, a substance probably devoid of any purpose.

"Keep firing! Pin it down!" shouted the vampire captain to the muggles.

I stood up and started to cast a lightning strike charm when a huge conjured U shaped structure fell on the beast, digging into the burnt soil and making the ground quake. The beast was trapped.

It roared and slashed its tail, a muggle was hit so hard his body broke in two and flew above us.

By the time the muggle touched the ground and the rain of blood touched us, the white spell had left my wand and traveled inside the devastated eye socket of the rampaging beast by a stroke of luck and skill. The whiter than white lightning bolt erupted and linked my wand to the demon's brain, pulling a terrible scream from the beast as its skull's insides boiled.

A second later, the lightning died and the demon collapsed in a smoking heap as the deafening thunder echoed far away.

I took a step back and exhaled finally, appreciating the dark magic feedback. It was nothing like usual, it was a lot less pleasurable and intense, it was a weird feeling that was neither sick or good. I shook my head. There wasn't much life to rob this thing of.

"Jesus christ! We got him!" the muggle on my left exclaimed, turning to the main group.

"Report! How many death?" asked Victor imperially, striding in the battlefield, his face only barely dirtied.

"We lost eleven men, your highness, not counting the idiots that got lost in the forest. I'm afraid we're gonna need reinforcements."

I walked to them and nodded to Zephyros.

"Magnificent spell, youngster. Are you alright?"

"I'm fine, I just had a concussion. Beautiful conjuration, by the way."

I stared in the black sky one more time and observed the numerous lights raining down. I had guessed they were souls, or maybe I just hoped they were.

"Very well." said Victor suddenly to me. I turned and watched him.

"We are leaving, for the time being. I trust you stay and pursue your own agenda?" he was talking to both me and Zephyros. We both nodded.

"I take that thing with me." he smiled widely, pointing to the dead demon we had fought. I wasn't sure how I would use it in a potion or in a ritual, but demon parts were sure to be sold for a fortune.

"We will come back shortly." he turned around and instructed his remaining men.

Soon, Zephyros and I were walking toward the only landmark we could spot, a fat castle sitting on a dead volcano in the distance.

We had emerged out of the cursed forest to find that we had truly traveled to another world. An empty world. There were no tree, no river, only dusty soil and a chain of mountain in the distance. The sky was beautiful, it had no moon, no sun or not even stars, but the white-blue lights raining from the void illuminated this world with a distant and weak but constantly squirming light. It wasn't exactly bright at the moment, but seeing how all of them seemed to be attracted to the castle, I was sure it was bathing in a bright white light.

"Say, why do you think all the souls gather at the castle?" I asked to my companion, feeling weirdly calm and serene despite being in hostile territory and having killed a demon not an hour ago.

Zephyros took a while to respond.

"Since the castle is obviously not a natural construction, I'd guess the souls don't naturally go there but are attracted here by something. Some kind of lighthouse to guide them."

We walked for a few hours in silence through the desolated world, staring at the wondrous sky and apocalyptic landscape. We went through a few ruins and observed a few bones here and here, if anything, the place looked abandoned. Dead. I chuckled quietly, Zephyros shot me an interrogative look.

I opened my mouth to share my thoughts with him but he cut me short.

"We've got company!" he shouted, his wand ready. I spun around.

The thing that had landed behind me looked definitely dangerous, and at such close range, I didn't know if I could even find the courage to curse it. It stood on two legs and had a generally human-like shape, but its skin ,muscles and everything else were definitely not human-like. Its face, however, was that of a man, with a beard that went down to its waist, it looked at us with a curious look and opened its mouth.

"I wonder... what are two mortals doing in this place? I haven't seen your kind in eons."

The voice it had talked with was surprisingly human and suave but it seemed to be followed by a deeper voice who seemed to talk in another language that made me uncomfortable the second it reached my ear.

I was scared of that thing, I took an involuntary step back and tensed my muscles. I avoided looking in its red eyes, I thought I might just get insane if made eye contact, remembering the attack I had suffered when I had looked in the goat head's eyes back in Venezuela.

"Interesting, so interesting... I am really interested, mortals." he continued, smiling wide and leaning in to see us more closely.

"Aren't you gonna kill us?" asked Zephyros in a wary voice, not lowering his wand.

The cold air had gotten even colder since the demon had landed, and yet I could see Zephyros sweating.

"Kill you?" he leaned even closer, "Mmmmh... why would I? I wonder... two souls aren't worth moving my claws, but an interesting story... is worth moving a lot." he stood back and pointed to the castle.

"My King has many souls... but nothing of interest to say. Tell me, mortals, what is your story?"

I looked at Zephyros, who sent back the same blank look. I shrugged.

"I'll tell you mine first, then." I started, unsure of how to go about it. "Well, long story short, I came here to bring back a soul. I want to bring back someone important to me." I explained shortly to the beast. It suddenly laughed out loud, a laugh so peculiar I wondered if the thing wasn't crying instead.

The shrill purr of its two voices continued for a few seconds and finally stopped, the demon smiled widely to no one in particular and spoke excitedly, his head bent backwards in a inhuman fashion.

"Yesssss! What a wonderful story! What a wonderful story, mortal! You seek a soul in the land of demons, where souls are countless... but how are you gonna find the dear soul you're looking for, I wonder." it asked excitedly, its huge body shaking with excitement.

"Well I... I need to find out more about this world, first. And then, I'll find a way." I answered, getting angry. I haven't come all this way to get laughed at by some demon!

"Very good! Very interesting!" it laughed again.

"You see, mortal, there are two ways of taking things in our world. The first: take it forcefully, and the second: trade for it."

I didn't say anything but thought that it wasn't any different in the human world. Except the concept of 'giving' probably doesn't exist here. I couldn't imagine demons gifting souls to each other with smiles and nice words, although this one was kind of friendly so far.

"So, are you going to trade for my help in your search... or are you going to take it forcefully?" it asked, its voice deepening dangerously.

I wondered shortly what I could possibly trade to the demon, but came to the conclusion that if I had anything it wanted, it would have killed me and grabbed it already.

"Stop beating around the bush and tell us what you want in exchange."

"There is only one thing you can give me, mortal. Everything in this world, you see, revolves around souls. They are our currency, our food and even our workforce... we have billions and billions and billions of them, but it is never enough."

"How does two souls matter, then? And if you wanted them, you could have killed us." asked Zephyros.

It slowly turned its head to him and smiled widely.

"A soul's value change according to the way it is delivered in our hands, my dear mortal. A soul given by a mortal to a demon, for example, is worth trillions."

The comment took a few seconds to sink in.

I attacked first, but Zephyros cast way faster than me and blasted a sharp spear in my direction. I deflected it with my left arm, earning a deep gouge in my greave and as I was trying to adjust my balance from the shot, let go my own spell the best I could. The strong dark explosion curse was badly aimed and hit the floor in a massive explosion, obscuring both our visions for a moment as bits of rocks flew all over us. Zephyros and his shield were simply pushed back.

The demon laughed heartily, its maddening shrill laugh pierced our ears as we both braced for a battle to the death.

"Horus! Stop!" yelled pleadingly Zephyros, but I wouldn't have any of it.

"Frigidi Mortem! Voraxignum!". The old Egyptian wizard deftly shielded both attacks with strong battle level shields and shot a spell to the ground. Ice grew suddenly from before me and jumped to me, sprouting hands of edgy glass and sharp spikes of ice. I jumped in the air and barely escaped the misshaped thing as it tried to grab my feet with a newly sprouted hand.

While I was in mid-air, he tried a killing curse and hit me in the arm. The adamantine negated the magic and the spell exploded strongly, deafening me instantly, sending bits of metal and flesh all around and almost ripping off my left arm. I crashed on the ground and immediately resumed the casting, as I was getting up with difficulty, gasping for air.

"Incendio! Mocnahladit!" I shouted, barely hearing my own voice. He let the harmless flames lick his fireproof robes and deflected the explosion curse with a quick swing, probably to show off and intimidate me. However, deflecting the spell made him unable to cast in the meantime, I took the opportunity to start a spell chain and started to run toward him, grabbing my axe with my bleeding left arm as well as I could, cringing at the pain.

He saw me running and started casting, aiming of the ground in front of me.

"Secaferonexufulmecaferoonexufulmecaferonexufulmeca feronexufulmecafero-" I shouted madly, chaining the cutting curse and lighting curse a good number of times.

He dodged the first two spells with an impressive leap to his right, suprising me with his agility, and unleashed his own chain, a mix of explosion and spike summoning curse. A sharp spike sprouted on my trajectory, I tried to avoid it but mostly failed and broke the tip with my thorax, thankfully not deep enough to pierce a lung but still enough to cause internal bleeding. The armour had saved my life once more.

In less than ten seconds, we were both under heavy spell barrage and dodging ten spells per seconds. He was a master in the art of dodging, apparently, and finally hit me with an explosion curse while ducking under a Secaferox. I flew in the air and looked at him, he would blow me up before I'd touch the ground.

Fuck, I can't die here! I mustered all my strength and tossed my great axe in his direction, gritting my teeth at the pain of using my broken and bleeding arm. The axe flew to him and I used the time I had gained to poke my own chest with my wand tip.

"Aspernum Maximus!" I yelled, blasting myself out of the spells Zephyros had sent. A major bone breaking curse hit my shoulder on the way, hardly cracking my bones through the adamantine, and the other curses missed. I crashed on the ground and coughed in my helm, feeling the warm blood on my face, not losing another second, I raised the strongest shield charm I could, Contego Leucaspis.

Two massive steel swords crashed against it, followed by my axe and a myriad of lethal spells. The shield held for a good three seconds under the barrage, just enough time to summon fiendfyre.

The usual fiery beast sprouted out of my being and roared in the sky, protecting me from the incoming spell fire with its supernatural burning abilities.

"Loerderth! Kill him!" I shouted angrily. The old man had made quite a score on me with very few spells, I was in no shape to continue fighting. Loerderth roared approvingly and plunged its head on Zephyros, who opened his arms wide and shouted a roar of his own.

"You're a few centuries too young to fight me, Horus!" he bellowed in the burning wind created by the fiendfyre. My blazing magic swallowed him in one bite, digging a large hole in the charcoal ground at the same time.

I stared at it and swore out loud. Zephyros was standing inside the head of Loerderth, I could see him faintly through the thick fire. His robes were on fire, but nowhere as burnt as they should be inside fiendfyre.

"There should be fucking nothing left of him!" I shouted before I ran to my axe and grabbed it just as Zephyros slashed his wand.

The fiendfyre got blasted from the tip of his wand and vanished like a candle that had been blown. Zephyros was alive, his robes were almost burnt entirely, his hair and skin were slightly burnt and smoking, but the old man was alive and kicking. He coughed and snarled at me.

"Let me show you how to use fiendfyre!" he bellowed, starting the incantation.

As if I'd let you! I took two steps and slammed my axe in the ground with both hands, pushing a massive amount of magic in the runes. The electric bolt sprinted and grabbed his feet, surprising him in the middle of his fiendfyre summoning. He cried in pain and dropped his wand.

He fell to his knee, groaning. The mad current licked the air all around him, it ran up and down his shaking body, but little by little, it gathered in his hands. He was absorbing the electric current with his hands, his eyes wide open and his teeth clenching with pain.

When I noticed what was happening, he had managed to take control of the fizzling electricity. He then channeled lightening magic of his own through his hands and turned my attack back, incremented tenfold. In a second, he had sent numerous wires of blue light to coil around me. His lightning bolts licked my armour and shocked my whole body a few times before it stopped.

I fell to my knees and breathed loudly, every single cell of my body screaming in pain, tears and blood leaving my eyes unchecked.

Zephyros started to cough loudly and crouched to grab the wand he had dropped. With all the pain in the world, I reached my own wand in its sheath and tried to grab it, I forced my shocked fingers to move and grab it, and just as Zephyros touched his, I sent a final, desperate spell.

"Accio wand!"

His wand escaped the tip of his finger and rushed to me, it smashed against my armour and clattered on the ground. There was a small pause, a small moment of silence. We stared at each other.

Zephyros roared and rushed at me in fury, knowing that without a wand, he was fucked if he didn't act faster than me.

I grabbed his wand with my other hand and aimed both at him. I didn't know if that would do anything special or even work, but I shouted Kroz Sve anyway, not even bothering with the wand movement and pushing all I had left in me into the spell.

Zephyros ate the two perforation curse at point blank, one boring through his left eye and brain and the other in the chest.

He continued his run and crashed against me like a rag doll, I didn't even bulge at the impact. For the first time, I noticed how old and defenseless he had been since the start, his body barely protected by enchanted robes, while I had been in the comfort of my adamantine armour. His blood leaked from the holes and flowed down on me, creating little rivers of blood around the protuberances of my steel body.

An happy laugh interrupted my thoughts.

"Yes! Beautiful! Wonderful!" acclaimed the demon that had been watching the fight with thrill.

"A grandiose fight, magnificent! Mortals have such gorgeous ways to kill each other, I had almost forgotten..."

I pushed the lifeless body of Zephyros aside and stood up with difficulty. A white orb of light left his thorax and slowly hovered to me.

I looked at the demon interrogatively.

"Yes, that is his soul. In our world, whoever destroys the link between a body and a soul obtains the soul... it is what make war worth the effort."

I reached for the orb and closed my fingers around it, like a ball of wool, I could feel resistance growing stronger as I dug my fingers deeper into it. I observed the misty light for a moment, wondering if this was all a dream, after all. It felt so silly to be able to hold a soul.

I swallowed some blood and took a moment to quiet my mind, body and magic. I was badly hurt, but I was alive. And what's important is too stay alive now.

After I had calmed myself down a abit, I turned to the demon and presented the soul to him. "If you want me to give you the soul, you'll have to help me, demon." I said with confidence, looking up to its maddening smile. I hope I got it right, I'm in no shape to fight this one right now.

It widened. "Yes, mortal, let us journey together. I will bring you to the castle and help you find your treasured soul. How interesting! How amazing!"

It laughed again, grabbed me unceremoniously and placed my on his bony back before taking off into the colourless sky.

"Horus... the name isn't unfamiliar to us, mortal." growled the thing once it had landed on the castle's roof.

The castle, only building in the entire realm apparently, was an old fortress made of thick rock, similar to what muggles used to build centuries ago. It was placed on top of a dead volcano and surrounded by flat land on both sides, the mountain offering natural protection only from the side we came from. It seemed to be centuries old - each stone was scratched and chipped, by both time and battles, I could tell. In the middle of the fortress stood the biggest tower, crafted more precisely and carefully than the rest. This one looked more like a church, complete with the stained glass and the bell, it was obviously the King's palace. The souls raining from the sky aggregated at the tower, as if they were sucked by the unsettling feeling I had when I looked at the ominous building.

The whole place had started feeling weird when we had gotten close enough to see reflects of light on the slimy skin of the "inhabitants" inside, and it only grew stronger. I jumped off the back of the demon once he had folded its wings and looked down at the numerous things squirming around in the courtyard deep down beneath our feet. Some looked sort of human, some looked more animal than human, and some didn't look like anything at all. They seemed to be working hard, running along the thin alleys and disappearing in buildings like ants hurrying to bring food to the queen.

"It's not my real name. It's someone legendary in our world." I explained offhandedly, breaking my observation of the disgusting undead life forms and focusing on the flow of souls above our heads, heading for the "church". There were less than I had imagined at first when I had seen the light from a distance, now I noticed that the light was only this strong because they were all sticking together. Still, they seemed to continue spawning from the sky infinitely.

"Yes... Horus, the mortal who sealed our world away from yours... the man who stole our names..." commented the demon before turning and starting to walk on the inclined rooftop. I followed him along the path and checked my numerous wounds while listening. Zephyros had nearly killed me, but I was sturdy as a troll, my passive healing abilities would take care of most of it, I hoped.

"Because of... or thanks to him, we don't see nor hear mortals anymore, I truly wonder how you managed it, yes I wonder..."

"Funny, because the only recorded way of accessing your world from ours is called the portal of Horus."

It nodded and opened a large metallic door.

"Yes, I do suppose Horus had a portal... he did travel here in person ... so, if Horus is not it, what should be your name, mortal?"

I quickly pondered on whether to give it my name or not but eventually assumed it didn't mattered and presented myself. The strangely friendly demon gave me its own name that I couldn't pronounce and asked me what soul I was looking for exactly.

"You see, mortal, the time in which the soul you're after has been taken matters a lot in our realm..." he explained, leading me through a spiraling staircase then through the horrible looking crowd working in the fortress. They were some kind of inferi, I could tell that much, but they were also a lot more human - and more than that - than any inferi I had ever heard of. They reacted to the unfathomable speech of the leaders and worked fast and accurately.

"A soul that crossed the line between our worlds in a certain year will forever spawn in that year in our world, just like it will forever leave your world in that year... it can be taken away from its year, oh yes, but it will forever and ever come again to that year."

I listened carefully and stored the piece of information for later.

"She died in 91." I said simply, not bothering to ask it to be more accurate in its explanation. It's probably being cryptic on purpose, it wouldn't help to mention it.

The demon looked at me in confusion for a moment and resumed its walk, leading me deeper and deeper in the fortress. We were now underground, walking in what looked very close to an sewer.

"That makes absolutely no sense to me, mortal... numbers... we don't use them much here, especially not to speak of time. How many years ago does it make?"

"Four years ago."

It nodded appreciatively.

"Very good, very interesting... we don't talk of time in numbers but four sounds easy enough. It would have been a problem if it had been a thousand years."

My arm seemed to have finally stopped bleeding, and except for my slightly cracked bones, I was as good as new. I stretched my limbs and took my helm off. The air was a lot colder than I had expected, it was virtually freezing in there, but it felt great to breathe and feel the wind again, even if the smell was a terrible mixture of rotten flesh and millennia old dust.

"How come? Are we going to travel back in time?"

It laughed.

"I suppose we are... travelling back in your time, that is. You see, everything that has and will happen in your time is already in ours... in fact, it had been forever, and will be forever."

I stared at it and tried to follow the once again cryptic explanation as we entered a room without exit. It stopped and closed the metal grate door behind me. I felt a cold shiver down my back and reached for my wand, not trusting the beast to be completely truthful.

"However, while travelling between the years is easy, travelling back those years' timelines is a lot more complicated... but there are ways, I assure you... at least within the year."

"What... what do you mean by that exactly?" I tried to sound a bit confident by I had no idea of what the thing was talking about.

"Pay close attention, mortal. This is one of the ways us demons travel and wage wars." It said mysteriously before it crouched down and stabbed its claw in the ground. The damp room was deep under the fortress, isolated from even the main underground path from what I had seen, a room that looked like it had been abandoned for centuries, if the rotten metallic barrels and bones in the corner were any indication.

I watched it draw a large circle and four lines that seemed to cross each other completely randomly. With my experience in ritual, I could tell it wasn't as random as it looked and assimilated the pattern easily. I understand why it would be complicated with a thousand lines.

"It is done. This is our entrance, mortal. A portal has one entrance and one exit. You can use both only once, and the link that bound them together is immovable... yes, it is truly the only thing we can rely on..."

"Where is that going to lead us? Four years back?" I was thinking furiously, looking at the innocent looking drawing in the mud. I can't afford to mess up right now, but do I have any other choice than to trust it? I know absolutely nothing about this world, and if what it says is true, I know even less than nothing.

It nodded.

"How do we come back? With another portal?"

"Each portal has one entrance and one exit, did you listen, I wonder..."

So I come back with the very same portal... I see.

"How long will the exit be open?"

"As long as nothing closes it..." it answered with a nasty laugh. "Come, now, mortal. Step in." it insisted, walking in the circle itself.

I swore under my breath and followed it. I was sure it had some kind of hidden agenda, but it wouldn't dare doing anything as long as I was carrying the soul of Zephyros - supposedly worth trillions of souls if I handed it to him. But at the same time, I couldn't really predict what I was getting into.

I shook the dark thoughts out of my head and readied myself. I had made it so far, after all. I was one of the few humans to ever make it so far, and that had to count for something. I walked in the portal and nodded sharply to the inhuman monster.

"Interesting, yes, so very interesting, young mortal!" it laughed once more and raised its two bony arms to the low ceiling. "AKRSDHS-IT" it hissed, activating the portal. It glowed brightly for a second and the room shook before pain exploded from inside me.

The atrocious pain I suffered was nothing like every pain I had ever felt combined, I felt it reaching my very core, I felt my soul wailing in pain. When it was finally over, I collapsed on the murky ground and passed out instantly.

I moved a few minutes later, awoken by the urgency of the situation. I can't waste time passing out... I stood up and looked around, we hadn't moved an inch, we were still in the large, damp and smelly underground room. I looked at Irkrkkoakrk or whatever what that thing's name, sitting on a block of stone and watching me in silence.

"What?" I spat, getting up and sweeping mud off my face irately. I probably just got tricked.

"Fascinating, mortal, how so intriguing. How did the pain feel like? Was it different from your usual pain?"

"Uh... yeah, it was a lot worse than usual. Felt like something was aiming at my soul, somehow." I finished, squinting my eyes at it. "If you want a willingly given soul, you'd better not try anything funny, understood?"

It chortled and beckoned me to get out of the room. We walked up the same old sewer as before and eventually reached the surface. As we were working our way up to the upper level again, I noticed that we were in the same castle as a few minutes sooner, and nothing seemed to have changed, albeit a few minor details I was only catching now. Subtle details like a stone missing where I was persuaded to have seen it on our way down and a step I had tripped on not tripping me again. I frowned. Maybe it didn't trick me, after all.

"Did we travel four years back?"

"I believe so." it replied easily.

I let that sink for a moment, pondering on what it implied. What did it say again? Everything in my timeline is already here, even the future. Years...timelines...

"Your world doesn't change much, does it? Four years and except for a few pebbles here and there, it's exactly the same."

"I wonder... you didn't listen, Harry. We are in my world, true, so very true... but we traveled back in your timeline... this is year number 91, as you call it... and it has its very own infinite timeline, its very own past behind it and future ahead of it. It is, however very true that years are insignificant in this timeline, but in other timelines, in other years... where or when war is waged constantly and every each period, or year if you prefer, the landscape suffers drastic changes..."

He turned around and pointed to the current of souls that were sucked from the sky and absorbed by the highest tower.

"This year seems to be a simple soul farm like any other... my King has conquered many of these years, but it had come to my ears that they were being fought over... I suppose we shall see it happening, or not."

I started to make a bit of sense of the demon's ravings and nodded slowly, still thinking.

"Each of these souls are people that just died, in my world, in 91..." I stated, looking at the beautiful river of lights. We were the 15th January when we left 96, so if I believe that time traveling thing was at least somewhat accurate, we are the 15th January of 1991.

"The one I'm looking for died - no, will die in July, we're too early."

I guess it wouldn't hurt to wait for her to come and I really don't want to go in that portal again... but I can't just sit around and wait, not after all this work to get here.

"Let's travel forward, four months." I offered, turning to Irk, as I had just decided to name it.

Irk laughed out loud again, its two voices echoing dangerously in my skull.

"I wonder... are mortal able of listening at all, I truly wonder. I told you, Harry, traveling through time isn't as easy in our timelines as it is in your timeline... there is only one way to travel forward in this timeline, and we are at it right now... do you not see time flowing forward, second after second, I wonder... do you not feel your mortal body consuming itself, Harry? ...If the view doesn't please you here, we could wait for time to flow in another time, and come back when it's time..." it concluded its spiel with a Cheshire grin and tilted its head at me.

"No traveling forward, then. I got it." I sat on a stone and watched the quiet horizon, we had gotten on the highest wall of the fortress, just under the roofs we had landed onto a few years in the future. Except it isn't the same roof, then. I shook my head and dropped the topic. I'd think about it later.

"Is there anything to eat or drink? I heard about souls, but I'm more of a steak and wine guy, you see." I asked, suddenly aware of the bad situation I was in.

It shook its head.

"There is no such thing as mortal's food in this world, but I suppose your mortal body would survive absorbing the rotten flesh of our undead servants..." it pointed to the inferi in the court, always and ever slaving under the commands of the King, in this year like in the other.

"I have authority in this castle, as I do in every castle owned by our Lord, I will allow you to feed on servants... the King has no business controlling his slave count."

I swallowed with difficulty. The immediate reaction would have been to laugh and say I'd never do that, but reality was reality, there didn't seem to be any plants on the whole plane, and even less living meat. If I have to transfigure an inferi's leg into a steak to survive, I'll do it. Transfigured food tasted like nothing unless you were very experienced and skilled at it, but at least it wouldn't taste and look like a inferi's leg.

"That's nice of you." I muttered, not in the mood to think about it anymore.

"So, how exactly do you suppose I should deal with the soul thing? They pretty much all look the same from here. Maybe I can just Accio the right one, but somehow I doubt it."

"I wonder... I have never done anything of the sort but I suppose the only way would be to catch the souls that might be the one, and test each one. The King's duty in this castle is to gather all souls and turn them into warriors... a few might get eaten or turned into slaves in the process but the most are warriors. When the year ends, the King opens a portal and sends the army in another time, one controlled by a Master of the portals under our Lord's command... because you see, all things returns to their original place when the year ends, like I said before, a soul is linked to the time it died, forever and ever... however, once you extirpate it out of its own time, this particular instance loses that link... some believe that is how us demons were born... we are after all, the only unique things in this world."

I observed the slaves for a few minutes, thinking about what Irk had said and eventually and reached a conclusion that pleased me in a way and infuriated me in another.

"Those things look like humans, sort of. They are different from each other, does that mean their appearance is linked to their soul?"

"It means exactly that... yes it does... their souls are embedded in a crystal created by our King and their bodies built from that crystal... the crystal protects the soul from being corrupted by this world, you see... if we were to simply use unprotected souls..." it waved to the white lights above our heads, "...they would turn into demons themselves. It is a sad thing, but birthing demons isn't done anymore, there are too much of us already." it laughed and deployed its wings wide.

"I will now visit my fellow demons farther in the east, Harry the mortal. Remember our agreement."

"Wait!" I stood up and yelled, but Irk didn't pause for me and leaped in the air, in a few seconds it was already too far for me to reach it with my shouts.

"We will see each other when time comes..." I heard its disincarnate voice mutter in the wind before he was definitely out of range.

Damn demon, he was barely helpful at all. I swore a few times in my head, I had to admit I would never have gotten there without Irk, but to ditch me like that, the demon had some twisted sense of "help". I eventually sighed and started to carve a rough sketch of what I had understood of the demonic realm in the stone.

"Each year of my timeline is one timeline here, so there are as many as there are years. We can travel between them but we can't travel in time." I said aloud, watching the crude drawing in the stone.

"So, since the timeline is only within each year, they send the gathered souls in another timeline. Because when the year ends, it starts again, and they have to gather the souls all over again."

It made a small amount of sense, so far, the sketch started to get a bit messy, though.

"We opened a portal in 96, and the exit is still opened here in 91, so once I'll take it in July 91 after having grabbed Natasha's soul, I'll get back to ... July 96." I concluded. God damn, that's too long, the ritual in Hogwarts will be compromised for sure. Alyson won't hold that long, and the whole Zabini affair will blow up before that, not to mention that my 6 months absence is gonna raise a lot of questions in the Order, they'll all be coming for me...

"You're thinking of the exit as an entrance." said a voice behind me. I jumped and spun around. What I saw here scared me more than anything I had seen today.

"Didn't Irk told you there was one entrance and one exit? Each are to be used only once. An entrance brings you wherever you aim it at, and the exit brings you exactly where you opened the entrance. Both in time and location. Or maybe he didn't really say it, demons don't care that much for it, actually, time means so little for them. Especially Irk's kind."

I looked at him gravely. This wasn't good, this wasn't good at all.

"Don't think too much about it, that's the secret." said Harry Potter, in a very broken and dirty version of my Mage Knight armour. He was cloaked in a large and thick grey cloak, ripped and dirty, the little amount of his face I could see looked similar to mine, if not for the beard stubble.

"Does that mean I'm about to spend a year looking for her and find nothing?"

He didn't answer immediately, still hiding under the cloak.

"Take it like you will, but don't make hasty conclusions."

"How many of me are there?"

He shrugged.

"How old are you?"

"I'm the closest to you. I'm not even sure if there are others, I've never met them... I've seen one, but it could have been an illusion... or it could have been myself " he let out a chuckle, "If they're here, they've decided to hide from us."

"So... did you meet me, in the past?"

He nodded. We stayed silent for a while, this was too heavy in implications, and I was tempted to believe that it meant I had searched for a year and found nothing. Why else would he still be here? But he seemed to say that wasn't it when I asked about it... I sighed angrily.

"Oh, for fuck's sake, you're me! So stop being an evasive cunt about it and tell me what I need to know!"

He chuckled and turned to me.

"There's a somewhat pure source of water three days from here to the east, I recommend you skin on of these and make yourself something to hold water." he offered, pointing to the inferi working below, "I've taken care of making sure the king won't eat Natasha's soul, so don't go and do something dumb like trying to catch the souls yourself before he can. That's all I remember hearing from myself, good luck."

I stood up and pointed my wand at the traitor.

"I don't remember saying we were done."

He turned around and waved good bye, his back facing me. I'm such an annoying fuck, really! I conjured a net and blasted it to him, not thinking a single second that would stop me. I started to run toward him and grabbed my axe, ready to chop myself an arm if I had to.

He grabbed the net, and at the second he did, the net was devoured by some sort of black substance, a black flame who reduced the net to nothing in an instant, not even leaving cinders on the ground. Under my incredulous gaze, he reshaped the black flame, swirling like a liquid flame, but with a solid aspect to it, as if it was made of cloth, he made into a ball, and tossed it to me. Surprised by the sheer speed of the unknown fire, I dived under it and landed on my thorax, feeling a bone chilling cold as it grazed my back. A stone block suddenly tore itself from the rest of the ground and rose a few inches just in front of me. I was still sliding on my thorax, pushed by the momentum, and my nose crashed against the stone with a sickening sound. When I was standing up again, swearing and bleeding, he was gone.

"Yeah, like that wasn't stupidly one-sided!" I spat in the void. Fucker already knew what to do, hell, he already lived it.

I laid down on the stones and stared at the black sky.

I guess I'm in for a few months of hell...

An: When I started this story, I had a lot more free time than today, so sadly, I take a lot more time to produce the chapters, but I will not abandon it. We're almost there. I hope you enjoy it.