The Time with the Fae
1. Tasks
The first task goes by quickly. It feels like it should have taken longer, but after Harry stands there just waiting for his broom, it’s all rather easy (spike wounded shoulder aside).
Then, the second task drags on and on. But that’s most likely because he spends far too much time worrying over the captives. Afterwards, Dumbledore assures him they were never in any danger, but it doesn’t feel like that when he sees them floating and blue, looking too much like corpses adrift in dark water.
The second task is also the first time he sees Gabrielle, so small next to the other captives, a mere child. Fleur thanks him for saving her, but in all honesty he only does what anyone else would have done in his place. She is too small, too alone, to be left down there. He isn’t callous, he cares .
And finally, the third task takes far too long—the entire time all he wishes is for it to be over already. Everything feels off and preternatural. It’s the maze—with its strangely tall hedgerows, the clinging mist darkening the pathways—and the way Krum and Cedric act.
He stumbles around a curve in the path, chasing after shouts and yells, and then suddenly they’re there in front of him. Curses fly between the two of them and anger twists their faces unrecognisable. He’s never seen anything but a carefree grin on Cedric, or a stoic scowl on Krum. It’s strange seeing their face grimacing in emotion. Before he can do anything, they both collapse beneath curses from the other.
At a loss, he stands there, shocked, for a moment or two; this task has dragged on for far too long.
Then he casts red sparks into the sky and continues down the path.
After the huge spider and after battling it off of Fleur, they both stand there, pale and stark—all other colours leach away in the vibrant blue glow of the cup—and stare at one another, panting. After spending what feels like hours in the maze he’s finally made it to the end.
He doesn’t care about winning, he just wants out.
But Fleur—too kind and under some assumption of debt after his ‘rescue’ of Gabrielle—tells him quite firmly they’ll take the cup together.
So they do.
But something is wrong with the portkey: the whirling travel takes far too long, and they skip and spin, circling upside down, in strange twisting patterns. Fleur’s shouts are swept away in the howling wind and flashes of purple light burst out of the cup.
Her hand flashes in front of his eyes, and there’s a huge flash of purple light, thundering, the shatter of lightning.
They were told before entering the maze that the cup is a portkey to take them back to the podium, but something is wrong.
This isn’t what a portkey should feel like.
2. Strangeness
The landing is hard, bruising. Gabrielle grunts from beside him as they slam to the ground. Stars echo across his vision, purple edges encroaching.
There’re a lot of voices, talking and talking around them, clamouring, but they make no sense, too many speak at once.
The first thing Harry notices is the light. It’s… bubbly. Wrong.
Groaning, he rolls upright. Everything aches from the collision.
“Gabrielle?” he checks, his voice scratchy, “you alright?”
Then he pauses.
Gabrielle? It was Fleur with him on the cup, not her younger sister. What happened? How did this happen?
They’re not at the podium, they’re not at Hogwarts, it doesn’t even seem as if they’re in Britain any more.
Everything overwhelms him all at once.
They’re perched upon some sort of stone, purple and rough beneath his hand. There are bubbles hovering above them, golden and shimmering, each one shines with its own inner light. Every now and then, one will burst, sending a sparkling light glimmering through the air.
And they’re surrounded by strange gauzy like beings, tall and slender they shift in the golden light as if behind chiffon, hazy and amorphous. The murmuring voices come from them as if from a great distance, even though they’re hovering close by.
He scoots towards Gabrielle, she’s still laid out on the hard stone, clutching her head. Shaking her, he calls her name again, gripping at his wand tightly.
Where the hell are they?
One voice rises above all the others. “You’re in The City, young Potter.”
His head spins. He hadn’t spoken aloud.
“No, you hadn’t, but your thoughts are quite noisy.” The voice sounds amused and the hazy figures shake and tremble, as if with laughter.
He grips Gabrielle’s arm tightly, giving her a little shake. “Gabrielle, get up!”
But she doesn’t move, just holds her head and groans in pain.
“She won’t. The poor child is gripped with fever. I’m afraid it’s quite a lot for her to arrive home this way.”
This is her home ?
“Yes.”
“Would you quit that!” Harry shouts, whirling around and pointing his wand towards the gathered… things. “Stop reading my thoughts!”
They all quake with their strange laughter again. “It is quite out of our control, little Potter, you think so very loudly.”
Pressed in upon, they seem to drift over, crowding around the two of them. Harry scoots even closer towards Gabrielle.
“What’s wrong with her?” he asks aloud, not wishing for them to answer his thoughts. It’s unnerving. Wrong.
“She’s in shock,” comes the answer. The voice sounds indifferent now, and for all of their sudden lurch towards him, the hazy figures drift away, pulling back until Harry and Gabrielle are left sitting on the purple rock all alone.
◎◎◎
Now they stand there on the rock, staring across the vast valley. It’s become easier to ignore the strange bubbly air’s distracting bursts and smatters as they spin through the air.
She points down to the city below them, “Où sommes-nous?”
He shrugs, confused.
They were just sitting up there on the hill and Gabrielle was holding her head… but the pathway isn’t long when they’re at the entrance and the gates are tall and Gabrielle looks just as disconcerted as he does and her hand is sweaty in his.
“That’s a tall gate.”
She nods.
“Did He invite us in?”
“Qui?”
“He , y’know… Him.”
She nods again, as if any of this makes sense but then asks, “does zis… is zis normal, ‘arry?”
“He invited us, we should be there.”
“Zat isn’t an answer.”
“I think… time is strange here? Right? We were just up there?” His statements sound like questions as he points up at one of the mountains that tower over the city. They don’t look like normal hills, but rise in twisted spires, purple and dark.
They stand there for a while, in front of the gate, staring at it in trepidation.
“I keep forgetting zings…” her voice is quiet.
It’s his turn to nod.
“I feel… old,” she continues.
He nods again. “Let’s go.”
And they walk through the gate.
3. Him
“You’re here, so it’s time to learn.” His voice is garbled but perfectly clear at the same time. It’s like He’s speaking another language that Harry thinks he shouldn’t be able to understand.
“Learn?” Gabrielle asks.
“You’ve been here for quite some time now.” A bubble bursts above His gauzy head, and for a moment His face and His pointed nose and ears come into sharp focus. “Months, in fact.”
Harry tries not to think about that.
Tasks—three of them—they were so recent, but also aeons ago.
“The Hunt is the favourite pastime, and if you’re to stay, you must learn.”
4. Hunt
In just a quick bound, the woods are dark and full of heavy dripping green moss. Pink little creatures flit around like birds, chittering and calling. Gabrielle and Harry stumble along at the back of the coterie leading the animals, while thoughts jumble and clamour around in his head.
“Hush!” shouts one of their companions. “You must quiet your mind, little human.”
He groans. “I’m trying! Maybe you should teach me better.”
Sassing at his teachers is natural at this point, for their instruction has been nothing short of numbing, mind-bending, and out right confusing.
Just yesterday (which, if he really thinks about it, hasn’t really even happened yet, but the memories are still there anyways) Concordance had told him: Placate your own feelings. Grasp them! It’s quite easy to get them into submission. As if that made any sense. It does make sense, boy! Grasp. Pet. Soothe. One, two, three. Look at Gabrielle, she does it quite simply. She’s one of you, Harry had shouted back. And it is true, she is one of them, in her own way. And frustrated and annoyed Harry sulks during his lessons mad that a child so much younger than he takes to them like a fish to water.
It’s strange but, He and The Rest are all more visible in the woods, as if the edges are trying to be defined. He feels sane for a moment as They finally have some sort of limits, They’re set within borders, no longer quite so gauzy.
Gabrielle reaches down and grasps his hand, whispering, “‘ush now ‘arry, even I can ‘ear you.”
He huffs.
Suddenly, a shout of ‘halt’ echoes around the company.
“You’re to be taught, now is the time,” Equipoise says.
“Are you taking us, then? Or is Concordance?”
“No, He will.”
They look at one another, excited.
It isn’t often that He teaches them on his own.
The ground is muggy behind the bush and the leaves brown. They crouch there, hushing the horses, they tend to get wild-eyed and frothy when this close to the door.
“Why don’t we use magic?” Harry asks, and then rolls his eyes as He does that strange tremble that means He’s laughing.
“Human magic is weak, and easily manipulated, especially in our realm. You wouldn’t be wise to use it. Perhaps one day you’ll grasp what real magic is.” The room shakes at His statement and oddly, in that moment Harry thinks of the Sphinx.
Gabrielle’s reciting, “in ‘twixt cairn and fell, afore baird and bell, a door to hear and tell.”
Her accent has long since disappeared. Over the years it falls away until she speaks in the muddled clear language of Them. They both do, under Concordance’s watchful tutoring, their words twist and twist into the strange rhythm.
The door opens, and for the first time in what feels like ages, Gabrielle and Harry step into the human world.
5. Pulled
In a way similar to how when you grasp at a bar of wet soap and it goes shooting off from between your hands, his mind slides back into place, slotting its way into reality.
Everything feels sharp.
There’s no gauze anywhere, just crisp clean lines, edges, and borders. Harry trembles. They grip one another so tightly her fingers are white and bloodless under his.
“Mount!” comes the call.
And then they’re flying along the countryside, beside Him, atop their horses, The Rest euphoric and maniacal behind them.
He teaches them to kill after that.
“Feel your hate, find it, it’s there.”
Many of the prey are swept up as they ride wild across the countryside. The pounding of the hooves sounds like thunder and the fog reminds him of Their realm and the baying of the hounds echoes and echoes and echoes…
In a loose corral, ten of them sit shuddering and quaking.
Harry’s first Hunt had been terrible. Harry tries to keep Gabrielle from the violence, but He had been insistent she learn. He forbade them any tools.
“Use claws or fists, strike them, break them. You must feel them.”
The human’s eyes—their whites showing as they stared around, wide-eyed and confused—haunt him.
But he and Gabrielle move about the ten in quick practised strikes. Like dancers, in a whirl of their gauzy robes, they spin and pirouette around the prey, the spray of red circles in beautiful spirals around them. There’s joy in a kill well done, in the efficiency of a perfectly placed cut, in the heat and steam of blood.
After, they stand across from one another, barely out of breath, wide smiles stretched across their faces. Gabrielle laughs aloud, spinning again, her arms spread aloft, rejoicing in the absolute rush.
Giddiness ricochets around in the space between.
She looks like a small fallen angel, terrible and wonderful, blood splattered across the white gauze of her dress, across her face, across the beaming smile.
He lifts her and spins her in exaltation from their kills.
His grin is terrible when He says, “you’ve learned well, young ones. The years have brought nothing but joy to us all. May you find bliss in all manners of—”
A deep yank behind Harry's sternum.
Like a hook stabbing through his lungs.
Wrenching him away.
Plucked from the Hunt.
The last thing Harry sees as he jolts out of sight, is Gabrielle’s wide-eyed shock as she sits behind Him on His horse, still covered in the blood of their kills. He looks surprised as well, His features sharp and open in amazement.
And then he slams to the ground, rough flagstone greeting him like a particularly cruel friend.
“Well! Welcome home, Harry.”
Groaning, he rolls over and looks up into the twinkling eyes of Dumbledore.
“Fuck… that hurts,” he says.
And then promptly passes out.