Shadow Walks |h.p/h.g|

ch. 16

Another hex missed him, this time more narrowly. It appeared that the attacker had determined that he would most likely make for the door, having changed position in an attempt to cut him off.

Of all the bloody times to be in phase! He thought with irritation, eyes going to the grayish windows. The door was there, in the blank nothingness between the two windows. When I try to open the door, I'll be seen. I'll be lucky if I don't end up with a hex between my shoulder blades. He briefly reconsidered firing, but discarded it again.

He continued to creep toward the door, and the attacker did not move. Harry knew that he was merely biding his time, waiting patiently for Harry to open the door. Staying low, Harry raised his wand, and hissed,

"Fumo!" Thick, billowing clouds of smoke began to pour from his wand, quickly dispersing and reducing the visibility in the room to zero. He stood up and lunged for the handle of the door, but when he touched it, fiery heat crackled up his nerve endings from fingertips to shoulder. It was only by clamping down on his lip with his teeth that he kept from crying out.

He heard his attacker attempt to smother a cough, and he permitted himself a small, satisfied smile, before raising his wand to blast the door into oblivion, when he felt something ruffle his hair.

He looked over his shoulder, confused, but realized that his foe had used a Ventosus spell to produce a wind that would rapidly blow away his cover. And he was hit with non-verbal Disarming and Leg-Locker jinxes before he had time to react further.

He heard his wand hit the floor and roll into a corner. His own ungainly tumble nearly masked the quiet footsteps that approached him.

"Who the hell are you, and what are you doing here?" came a quiet voice that Harry nonetheless recognized.

"Oh, God," he managed to say, though it felt like a steel bands had wrapped themselves around his heart and were tightening. The Leg-Locker had also had a lot of magical force behind it; the sides of his knees were pressed together painfully.

The victor in the duel must have recognized something in his ground out exclamation, for he heard a soft gasp, air drawn in suddenly and involuntarily.

"Lumos," came the soft rejoinder, and Harry turned his face away in anticipation of the brilliant blue-white light.

It was Hermione standing over him; he'd known it the moment she'd spoken, but before he could even turn and squint up at her, his wand was jammed painfully between his ribs.

"Who sent you here?" she said, her voice forceful, vibrating with repressed emotion. "Who are you?"

"It's - it's me - it's Harry," he rasped, wondering even as he spoke if she knew him in this universe at all. A spasm passed over her face; the light from her wand threw her features into planes and shadows, accentuating the hollows in her cheekbones and beneath her eyes, prematurely aging her.

"Who sent you here?" The fury that trembled and roiled beneath her voice made Harry feel that he was seconds away from being on the business end of Avada Kedavra.

"Nobody sent me. I came here on my own. I've been looking - "

"Harry's dead. I'll ask one last time: who are you?"

"I am Harry Potter, just like I said," he said, hastily raising his hands in a gesture of surrender. "I'm - I'm not from this universe."

There was a snort of derisive, mirthless laughter.

"That's original, at least. Did the Ministry send you here?" She had not moved the wand. Her eyes glittered diamond-hard, and she gave off the distinct impression that the Ministryhad sent people before, and had not met with a pleasant hostess.