Next Time Around

The Temple

*end flashback*

Yeah... that had been awkward. Harry really wasn't sure they had made the best choice to be honest. There were way more experienced and stronger people who could go, he knew that, but they had still chosen him. He only hoped the first ritual would give him enough knowledge and experience to make him actually feel worthy of this. He was after all literally changing the fate of the world. Or well, at least the fate of Magical Britain.

A well, he decided, no more musing about things to come. There was still a lot to do before he could go. Now for example, he was walking towards the temple yet again- he knew this route by heart by now, having walked it every day for two weeks more than once a day.

He huffed. The heat really was not nice. Bill had told him he would grow accustomed to it but he really didn't feel any better than when he had started here in the desert. He wiped some sweat off of his brow and went into a small jog. His skin was still so pale, he was afraid even the excessive use of sun-blocking spells wouldn't save his poor skin from some bad burns.

That reminded him he hadn't used one in at least half-an-hour. Oops. 'Nolite sol, nolite sol, nolite sol.' There was no such thing as to many spells against the sun.

In the meantime he had finally arrived at the shadowed wall of the temple.

'You said you needed help?' Harry said to Bill, who was studying some runes in the door together with Hermione.

'Yes, just some more power. You know how to transfer magical energy?'

'I didn't even finish school Bill. And even the seventh-years don't learn how to do that.'

'Ok... no matter, no matter. Right. See that bag over there? There are some rope-like things in there? I want you to wrap those around your arms and then place the other end onto my shoulder. They will pull at your core and give me some of your energy.'

'Isn't that dark?' Hermione said, who had stopped working on her rune-cluster to see how the ropes worked.

'Well yeah...' Bill said 'but I got them from the ministry, specially issued to me to aid my curse-breaking. There was an intense screening and a questioning with veritaserum and everything to test if I would want to abuse them as supposed to use them to aid with the curses on the pyramid we were working on back then.'

'Right..' Hermione said, looking at the silvery ropes skeptically. 'Are you sure that this is safe?'

'I'll do it.' Harry said. 'It's just once and I trust Bill.' With that he began trying to put the ropes on his arms. Hermione huffed and helped him, for it was not easy to securely attach the ropes to his arms without dropping them in the process. Once the ropes were attached, Hermione drapes the other ends over Bills shoulders, just as he said she should.

As the ropes activated, Harry felt a very strange sensation coming out what he could only describe as his core. It was like a pulling sensation, slightly irritating and quickly tiring him. He could see the silver in the ropes rippling and getting a metallic shine to it. The ropes lighted up a bit in a light green color as Harry felt the pull getting stronger. It soon left him panting lightly. He felt rather light-headed when Bill deemed it enough. As Hermione took the ropes off of Harry's arms he swayed slightly and quickly sat down. Bill finished up some intricate spellwork, murmuring incantations under his breath as he focused the extra magical power he had gotten from Harry in his fingertips. As Harry looked on, he could see a couple of runes slowly disappear. When they were completely gone, Bill stepped back and assessed his work. 'Good. Well, this section is down now... let's do the next part in a bit. I feel rather winded.'

Harry nodded and grabbed a flask to have a drink. 'Me too. Those ropes are really demanding. It feels almost like I'm slightly empty you know, in here.' He put his hand on his chest.

Bill looked at Harry. 'Hmm...' he murmured. 'Well I guess your core isn't completely full-grown yet.'

'What's that?' Harry asked.

'Well most people- at least those with a full grown core- can take it a bit longer before they feel as winded as you currently are.'

Hermione nudged Bill and whispered something in his ear. He stiffened and nodded. Then said back, slightly louder 'yes he did have a taxing couple of months huh?'

'Well?' Harry said, slightly annoyed about being so left out.

'Oh it's just that with all of the stress and fighting on the last couple of weeks a big portion of your magic has most likely been going towards keeping your body in a reasonable condition as supposed to being in your core, waiting to be used for spells or magical transfers. Bill nodded along. 'Right...' Harry said, then mentally throwing the thought away and proceeding the conversation. 'On that note...'

Over the next couple of days not a lot happened. Mostly Harry relaxed back at base camp -that was how they called Bill's shack by now- and helped out at the temple together with the others. There were certain instances that were more interesting than others, for example what Bill had to do to counter a rather insistent rune cluster (feed his magic through an intricate ward scheme that had taken days to design and lit up a neon pink when activated) or when -finally- they could open the outer door the literally had to have a battle of wills with a door (Moody had done that, as he was the most stubborn out of all of them).

Then finally, after another week of hard work, they could enter the first ritual room.

Harry had stood in front of the main entrance with Ron, Shacklebolt and Tonks and Moody opened the front door (it was easier that the first time- after the first time he only had to give a mental 'fingerprint' so that the door would know he was one of the people who had already defeated its defense mechanism.)

As the door opened Ron had lit up his wand 'lumos.' Hermione walked in first, after casting first an overpowers scourify then a strong tergeo. The rest followed, Moody at the back. As the door closed Hermione cast a lumos maxima at the ceiling. The room was now bathed in a soft yellow light. Slowly, the group advanced forwards and to the rightmost door in the long hallway they had just stepped into. Though they knew others had been here before, they were still cautious, casting mild detection charms wherever they walked until they were stood in front of the door they had been working on for so long. 'Alohamora' Moody cast. A simple unlocking charm was enough to unlock the ancient, fortified door.

The group shuffled in the room, close together, taking comfort in their closeness. Harry observed the room. It was very bare. The only thing in it was a raised stone slab, coming to roughly waist height. The runes on the floor and ceiling were amazing. Even more detailed and hard to understand then the ones forming the protecting barrier out front, the runes were a price of art. Interesting was that in the high walls were thousands and thousands of slots, looking slightly like a brick wall without the bricks in between the cement. And runes in the cement. Harry wondered what the purpose of those things were.

'Hmm' Said Hermione. 'I think a little research on this room would benefit us all.'

Well. That was that. Had a bit of a writers block in the start so it took a little longer than normal to post. Hope you liked it though. Please review.

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