Earlier

"Who... who are you?"

Hermione thought for quite some time before saying, "No, who are YOU?"

She then immediately kicked herself mentally for not having a more sage-like and cryptic reply.

Great. Just great, Hermione thought.

Since she had arrived here, Hermione had the lingering fear in the back of her mind that the isolation would drive her insane. At times, she had thought about Neville's parents, and how the mentally broken shells of people were now who they were. If they were to die and find themselves in the same afterlife situation as herself, that was it for them. Same, really, for anyone with mental illness. What do you do if what's left of someone isn't anything worth recovering?

After a great deal of thought, she concluded that it wasn't a hopeless situation for them. Although Hermione had never consumed alcohol, she had certainly read enough to understand its effects and had witnessed firsthand a handful of nights when her parents were more giggly than usual after a few glasses of wine at a dinner.

She also remembered quite clearly hiding in her room during one of those nights, listening against the door while her parents argued loudly in their room. She was five, maybe six, and heard her mother's frustrated voice explain something about it being that time and that they needed to try to get it done tonight, that's what the doctor had said. Father yelled that at least his problem wasn't permanent, and mother began crying and shouting back at him, and Hermione cried, too, without really knowing why.

The next morning, Hermione's mother prepared breakfast as if nothing was wrong, and her father had that look in his face that very clearly communicated: I messed up. They didn't speak for the better part of the day. But later that night, they kissed and made up, quite literally, causing Hermione to again hide in her room, this time giggling instead of crying.

Alcohol clearly changed someone's mental state, but it didn't permanently change their sense of self. Her father was still her father, inebriated or no. And more importantly, he recovered: the next day, he was himself again. She imagined the experience could be similar for the Longbottoms. They would wake up after a decades-long, or perhaps centuries-long state of mental intoxication, shake off the cobwebs, mourn the years that they had lost, and continue on with their lives, good as new.

That hope was, of course, predicated on the assumption that the damage that had been done to them could be fixed. But Hermione was not too concerned with such details. As long as you could conceptualize how the damage was done, you could, in turn, conceptualize how the damage could be fixed. She was well aware that things didn't always work that way in the "real world", but this place operated by a different set of rules entirely. In reality, reassembling the pieces of a broken mirror wouldn't fix it. There were physical and chemical bonds that had been broken, their energy released into the surrounding system, impossible to recover. But here? The only bonds here were ones of abstraction.

Not to say that Hermione found the idea of losing her sanity acceptable, even temporarily, so she needed to figure out exactly why she was talking to herself. This wasn't the first time that one of her phantoms had spoken to her. But it was the first time it had done so with any degree of permanency. Typically she would hear a whisper, look in the direction of its source, and it would fade as quickly as it surfaced. But, these shadows from behind the mirror, they did not fade, and they spoke with a clarity that told her this was no phantom.

She had gone crazy, and she had invented an imaginary friend.

The shadows twisted a bit and spoke. "No... I know what you're trying to do. You aren't going to trick me."

Hermione paused before speaking, nonplussed. "You- what?"

"I've been imprisoned before, you're not going to stop me."

"I... no? What... I shouldn't be justifying myself to you. You're a figment of my imagination."

The shadows convulsed, an action that clearly conveyed laughter. "Nice try. Who are you? Discord? Tirek? The Pony of Shadows? Midnight Sparkle?"

Yep. She had gone crazy. "This is insane. I don't know who you are, or why you're here. Well, no, I know who you are. This is the world of my imagination, and you're just another part of that. You're an imaginary friend."

The shadows had now drifted out from behind the mirror and writhed around Hermione's own form. After a long beat of silence, they spoke again. "No, I'm pretty sure that I'm real."

"Well, of course you're going to say that. You wouldn't be a very convincing imaginary friend if you just came right out and told me you were make-believe." The edgeless mist of her form contracted in embarrassment. "Oh gosh. This is because I was reading Winnie the Pooh, isn't it? You're my Pooh bear, aren't you?"

"I'm sorry, I don't know what that means. But, you know, I kind of believe you. You don't sound like a villain."

"Is that supposed to be comforting?"

The shadows warbled, floating back and forth, and took on a slightly manic tone. "I don't know. I don't know. I was trying to help, I read the prophecies, I know something terrible is going to happen. But then that creature appeared and... No, no, no! This is bad. I need to get out of here. We need to get out of here. Don't you understand?"

Hermione had no answer for this.

After a moment, the shadows seemed to calm down a bit. "But you're wrong about me and what you think is happening here."

Hermione sighed, "Okay, fine. What do you think is happening here?"

"I'm not really sure. One of the last things I really remember was being attacked by some horrible monster-"

Hermione cut her off. "Yes, you are definitely a figment of my imagination."

"Why do you keep saying that?"

"I was also attacked by a horrible monster. And then I died, too. That's not just coincidence. And now I'm here, and this entire place is my imagination, personified. Or a dream, you might say," as Hermione spoke, the stranger's form warbled thoughtfully. Hermione continued, "I've been here for, well, I don't really know how long. But obviously, I've gotten lonely, lonely to the point that I created someone or something to talk to."

"You know, where I'm from, there's somepony who has the power to enter dreams, to communicate with the one who is dreaming. So maybe we're both right?"

Of course, this mysterious figure would have a reasonable sounding explanation, a self-consistent back-story. But Hermione wasn't ready to give herself over to the madness. She needed to understand, so she decided to play along for a bit. "Alright, and these people who are visited, do they remember the dreams when they wake up?"

"Not always, but most of the time, yes."

"And how do they know they were actually visited by this person and didn't just dream about it?"

"If it were just a dream, how could both of them remember? She's visited me several times in my dreams, and we've discussed those visits when I'm awake. She's kind of like my therapist," the shadow tittered, making an odd giggle.

"Are you sure that whoever this was, they're not just playing a trick? Perhaps you told her what you dreamed about and she just played along, only rephrasing back to you things that you had already told her?"

The shadows looked around at her surroundings. "I can see why you might think that, but no, I'm sure. There have definitely been things that I didn't say anything about that she knew of. And I'm not the only one."

"How is that supposed to help? It's not as though I can just wake up, find you, whoever and wherever you are, and then ask, 'Oh hi, tell me about the dream you had last night, I want to compare notes!' "

"I didn't say it would help, I just said maybe that's what's going on."

Hermione was getting a little bit frustrated. "Speculation doesn't really mean anything though. I could suggest all sorts of theories but without a way to verify them, any of them could be true. All of them could be true, none of them could be true!"

"You know, it's not really fair that you get to be the only one who's skeptical. I have just as much of a right to accuse you of being imaginary."

"Then why don't you?"

"Hmm." The shadows paused thoughtfully. "You don't talk like me, for one. And you don't seem to think like me. If I had been stuck here for ages, I think I'd be handling it a bit differently from you. But... I think I understand why you think that way. I just got here, so I don't have any reason to think that the people or things I meet are imaginary... So how do I prove to you that I'm real?"

Hermione shrugged. "I don't know. I've never had to think about this before. It's not like there's a book in the library called, 'How to Prove the Existence of an Imaginary Friend When You Have No External Reality to Compare Against.'"

"No, I don't think so either. But I've read a lot of books. Give me a moment to think about whether any of them might say anything useful about this..."

Hermione gestured to the library which instantiated behind her, "Yes, I've read a lot of books, too."

The shadowy form billowed and coiled as it wafted its way through the doors to the library, pausing and orienting itself in such a way as to appear to be looking around. The shadow briefly glowed pink, causing a book to lift off the shelf and the pages to turn themselves quickly.

"This one's blank."

Hermione nodded with her own shadowy form. "Yes, there are a lot of books like that. I think that they're books that I THINK exist but don't. But then, there are books that I have read, that I remember by heart. Those books have words; I can read them in their entirety. But what's strange is that a lot of these are books that I know for a fact that I haven't read. But they still have words. Like this one."

She gestured to a book with a pair of yellow eyes overlooking a dark blue cityscape, labelled "The Great Gastby", and began to read:

"In my younger and more vulnerable years, my father gave to me a bit of advice that I had been turning over in my head ever since. Whenever you feel like criticizing someone, just remember that they probably haven't had the advantages you've had. He didn't say anymore, but we've always been usually communicative in a reserved kind of way. But this has opened me up to be the victim of a number of veteran bores. Anyway, this girl, Daisy, she is my cousin. And there is a rich man who lives next door, his name is Gatsby. His manner is like boats borne ceaselessly against the wind."

"It goes on like that. I remember the opening paragraph from grade school and know the overall plot points, but I never actually read it. I know it's not the real thing. But I don't actually have any real way of proving that's not how the real Great Gatsby goes. If it is, well, the writing style is atrocious..."

The shadow said nothing in response, and Hermione continued nervously. "It's funny, I'm really good at remembering things and recreating things, but I'm just terrible at creating new things." She gestured to her gallery of artwork, which flickered into existence around them. All of the pieces were either purely abstract displays of emotion committed to canvas or nearly photorealistic renderings of places that Hermione had visited. "I'm also pretty awful at drawing people. See, look. I've never shown anyone these before."

She gestured to a collection of sketches that could charitably be called "amateurish". Someone with less concern for the feelings of the artist might have called them "garbage".

"They're... interesting?" The shadow offered. "Is that supposed to be her nose?"

If Hermione had a physical form with cheeks, they would have turned red. "No! It's hair."

"Oh. Yes. Hair, I see it now."

"You don't have to lie. I know they're bad."

The shadow flickered around the edges and let out a noise that sounded like a giggle. "Well, I have a friend who tells me that honesty is always the best policy, even if sometimes the truth can hurt. So... yeah. They're bad."

Hermione smiled to herself and then sighed. "So, what now?"

"Well, I can think of one book that I read a long time ago that talks about a lot of weird stuff like this. Girdle, Equus, Buck. It's really long, but the author is very well-respected: Douglas Hooftrotter."

"Seriously?"

The shadow paused. "Yes... Why?"

Hermione instantiated a copy of Gödel, Escher, Bach. "I've read that book, too. It's awfully coincidental; I've only met one other person who has read that book. And he's part of the reason why I'm here." Hermione quickly corrected herself, "He didn't put me here, that's not what I meant. But I don't think I'd have the right... state of mind to create this place if we hadn't met."

"I read a lot of books, so maybe it's not that coincidental. Books are kind of... my thing."

Hermione smiled. Yes, that would make sense. "They are kind of my thing, too."

She tried to think of how Harry would react to a situation like this. How do you verify something when you don't have anything to verify it against? Math and logic, the two subjects she had spent most of her time studying, didn't require physicality. So that seemed like a good place as any to start, especially because she wasn't particularly good at computation. She had a gift for memory, and so given sufficient time, it was fairly trivial to perform even the most complex calculations. But nonetheless, she was not particularly fast.

"How good are you at math?" She asked the shadow.

"I don't want to be immodest, but... really good?"

Hermione thought for a moment. "Okay then, what is the square root of 546?"

"23.36664289109."

Hermione spent several minutes verifying the answer. As far as she could tell, it was accurate. That wasn't proof, though. This could just be latent mathematical ability manifesting itself. Something about only using 10% of your brain at any given time (even though she was pretty sure that wasn't really accurate).

She was getting frustrated again. Any answer that she could verify, she could by definition calculate. In their discussions about how to pass encrypted messages back and forth, Harry had explained to her the concept of problems that are difficult to calculate but easy to verify. Things like figuring out which prime numbers multiply together to make a larger number. But, if this was just some part of her brain locked away, it wouldn't actually prove anything.

The shadow interrupted her thoughts. "Let's try something different. I'm thinking of a number between one and ten."

"What's that going to prove?"

"Just play along."

"Okay. Seven."

"Nope."

"Three."

"Nuh-uh."

"Two."

"Nope!"

"Nine."

"Yes!"

"Okay, but what did that tell us?"

"Let's play again. I'm thinking of another number this time, but it's not between 1 and 10."

"What's it between, then?"

"I'm not going to tell you."

"What?"

"There are a lot of numbers. An unlimited amount, really. But it's one of them, I promise."

"If you picked a long enough number, it could be years, even centuries before I guessed it. I supposed that's your point though, right? Wait, what is your point?"

"The number I'm thinking of is a something that I know but you don't. And you'll never know because I won't ever tell you."

"I... That doesn't... There's so much wrong with that. You could just be saying that, and not actually have a number you're thinking of.

"If you hit someone and they tell you it hurts, how do you know for sure they're actually feeling pain?"

Hermione thought about this for a bit. "I suppose I don't know for certain. But it's a reasonable assumption."

The shadowy voice had taken on a playful tone, "And why is that?"

"If the roles were reversed and I was the one being hit, I would feel pain. So I would expect someone else would feel pain, as well."

"So don't you think if the roles were reversed and you were the one saying you were thinking of a number, that it was actually you thinking of a number and that you weren't just the figment of someone else's imagination?"

Hermione found herself nodding. "Yes, I suppose you are right..." She continued, half to herself. "If I can't distinguish you from a conscious, independent person, then I have to treat you like you are one. Alright then, tell me a little bit more about yourself. What are you? What's your name? Where are you from?"

The shadows seemed to concentrate for a moment and then began to coalesce into a solid form. Thin traces of line began to slash the outline of three circles, and various lines began emerging from the circles in different places, eventually forming the outline of what seemed to be a horse? No, it had wings and a horn. A winged unicorn? Was there even a name for that? She was certain there was, but she couldn't quite remember. As she tried to recall, she watched as thick, bolder lines and swaths of color began to fill in the details, looking like something out of a comic or a cartoon.

The creature spread her wings triumphantly: a pale violet winged unicorn with darker violet hair styled in bangs with a shock of red running down the front. Her large, oversized eyes sparkled. "Ah, that's much better. This is who I am. An alicorn."

So that was the word for it. "You're very pretty. For a unicorn, I mean. Er, an Alicorn."

She giggled. "And what about you, what are you? What do you look like?"

Hermione was nervous. She had a vision in her head of what she looked like, sort of, but she had deliberately avoided creating mirrors in this place because it never looked quite right. Nonetheless, she gave it her best try. Mimicking the process she witnessed moments before, she visualized drawing a picture of herself. It went much, much slower as she painstakingly tried to reconstruct every detail.

As she watched herself, she knew it didn't look right. Her eyes were slightly too far apart, giving her a dopey, vacant look. Her hair didn't seem to fall naturally but rather looked like it was propped up by far too much hair product. Her nose wasn't really in the right spot, either.

"This... this doesn't really look like me."

The alicorn cocked her head and raised an eyebrow. "You look... Um... No, you look fine. But, is your mouth supposed to do that?"

Hermione noticed that when she had spoken, her mouth didn't actually move naturally, but rather, the drawing of herself split horizontally where her mouth was, and the top half of her head bobbed up and down in time with the words. The effect reminded her of the Monty Python cartoons her father used to watch.

Hermione blushed, and her form dissolved back into shadow. "No, that's not right at all. I don't know how to do what you just did. Is that what you actually look like?"

She nodded. "Yeah, pretty much."

Hermione thought for a moment. Her mind didn't work fast enough to process something as complex as human motion in real time, but maybe something more simplistic, more cartoon-like, something where artistic shortcuts were sufficient to convey emotion... "Let me try something."

She transformed herself into a duplicate of the alicorn standing across from her, and then began making changes. She started with her body, giving herself a pale golden color, and then moved onto the hair, replacing the dark purple bangs with chestnut brown curls. She changed her eye color from a dark indigo to a sparkling cinnamon brown and spread her wings in a similar pose.

"How's that?"

The stranger grinned. "Much better! You're a natural. But, you probably want a different cutie mark..."

"A what?"

She gestured to the pink star with the white sparkles around it that adorned her flank. "Your cutie mark. It's a reflection of who you are, your passion, your calling. For me, it represents the magic of Friendship."

Hermione's new form nodded. "That's easy." With a poof, the pink star on her flank disappeared and was replaced with a stylized drawing of an open book.

The stranger clapped her hooves together. "I love it!" She extended her hooves out and brought Hermione into a hug. "I'm Twilight Sparkle, the Princess of Friendship. It's a pleasure to meet you."

Hermione once again felt suddenly self-conscious. "Hermione" was such a mundane name, compared to "Twilight Sparkle".

"My name is Hermione Granger. Nice to meet you as well."

"That's a pretty name."

Hermione smiled. "Thanks. I'm from a place called Earth. We have magic here, but not many people know about it... Since you're an Alicorn, I'm assuming you have magic where you're from?"

Twilight Sparkle nodded. "We do. And I know all about Earth. Where I'm from is a land called Equestria. I think you're probably familiar with it, but, from the books I've read, you might know it better as 'Atlantis'."

Earlier

Harry waited patiently outside the Headmaster's study underneath his Invisibility Cloak until he was certain that no one else was entering or leaving the study. After a few moments, he heard the distinct sound of music playing. He pressed his ear up to the door.

Was that… David Bowie?

Harry opened the door a crack, and saw Dumbledore with his back to the door, staring out the window. Abruptly, the music stopped, and Dumbledore turned around.

"Ah, music. A magic beyond all we do here." He wiped his eyes, and then looked pointedly at the empty space behind the slightly ajar door. "Don't you think so, Harry?" He put extra emphasis on the final word.

When Harry didn't reply, Dumbledore continued to speak, pleasantly. "'Heroes' will always have a special place in my heart, but I must say… I'm quite partial to 'Magic Dance', as well. The words seem quite appropriate, especially given the circumstances. I would sing it for you, but I daresay you have probably had enough of people launching into impromptu, yet surprisingly well-orchestrated musical numbers as of late."

Harry ignored Dumbledore's pleasantries, removing the Cloak and walking into the office without invitation. "We need to talk, Headmaster."

Dumbledore nodded. "It would seem we do."

"I'll bypass the formalities and cut straight to the chase. I know that there are prophecies about me. I also know that Professor Trelawney in specific made a prophecy about me at the beginning of the school year. I know that there are more prophecies about me, and I know that you know them. I also know that the prophecies are recorded in the Department of Mysteries, available only to those about whom the prophecies are made. In the interest of saving me an unnecessary trip to London, I would ask that you tell me all that you know of these prophecies. I hope that you know me well enough to know that if you do not tell me, I will most certainly find out for myself."

Dumbledore sighed, heavily. "I feared this day with come. I will not bother asking you the source of this information, although I have my suspicions. And if those suspicions are correct, you would not betray the confidence of the one who provided you with this information."

Harry didn't bother correcting him, and Dumbledore continued. "You are correct, Harry. You are the crux of a thousand prophecies made throughout the ages, and I know each and every one of them. During the First Wizarding War, there came a time when I realised that Voldemort was winning, that he would soon hold all within his hand. In that extremity, I went into the Department of Mysteries and I invoked a password which had never been spoken in the history of the Line of Merlin Unbroken, did a thing forbidden and yet not utterly forbidden."

He turned around and faced Harry directly. "I listened to every prophecy that had ever been recorded. And so I learned that my troubles were far worse than Voldemort. From certain seers and diviners have come an increasing chorus of foretellings that this world is doomed to destruction. And you, Harry James Potter-Evans-Verres, are one of those foretold to destroy it. By rights, I should have ended your line of possibility, stopped you from ever being born, as I did my best to end all the other possibilities I discovered on that day of terrible awakening."

Harry blinked.

"But I did not. I did, however, ensure that this knowledge would be forever lost upon my death-"

"You WHAT? Why?" Harry shouted in involuntary anger.

"Do NOT interrupt me, child," Dumbledore shouted, matching Harry's fury. "I will tell you, when or if we agree upon terms. I have laid in place considerable security measures upon the Hall of Prophecy. And although I am quite confident that you are more than capable of defeating those security measures, given your track record..." Dumbledore paused, allowing an uncomfortable moment of silence before continuing. "As the holder of the Line of Merlin, I am alerted to any incursion into those sacred halls."

Dumbledore strode forward and kneeled down to face Harry. "Listen to me well. If I detect that you, or a proxy of yours, attempts to access the Hall of Prophecy, I will end my life and as such, ensure the destruction of all the prophecies within. This much, I promise you, and I do not make such promises lightly."

Harry opened his mouth to speak but could find no words except one: "...Why?"

"The prophecies, naturally, are unclear, but they are quite clear about two things. One is that this world is fated to destruction; that much is certain. Yet in your case, Harry, and in your case alone, the prophecies of your apocalypse have loopholes, though those loopholes be ever so slight. Always 'he will end the world', not 'he will end life'. You and you alone are the path that will protect Life itself from this cataclysm."

This was almost too much, even by Harry's standards. "And what is the second thing?"

"You must not read of the prophecies. You must not! Your foreknowledge would prevent the confluence of circumstances necessary to bring about salvation."

"But how? That doesn't really even make sense. Self-fulfilling prophecies are just an easily averted plot device for anyone with more than the slightest degree of self-awareness."

Dumbledore shook his head, sadly. "It's more than that, Harry. There is a paradox, a problem of sorts, that is often discussed among both Muggles and Wizards alike. At no small cost to myself, I constructed a device to illustrate this paradox."

With a slight wave of his hand, two boxes, roughly a foot tall each, floated towards them from the shelf on one of the Headmaster's cabinets. One of the boxes was clear, being made of delicate glass. The other was crafted from carved wood, and as such, opaque. Inside the glass box, Harry could see it contained a single gold Galleon.

The fury seemed to have left Dumbledore's voice as he playfully explained. "We are about to play a game, Mr. Potter, and here are the rules. The glass box, as you can see, contains a single Galleon. The wooden box either contains one-hundred Galleons or none. The rules are simple: you may either choose to keep the contents of the wooden box, or you can keep the contents of both boxes.

"The only caveat is that the wooden box, much like the Sorting Hat, has a certain degree of highly specialized intelligence. Specifically, when someone is playing the game, the box is very, very good at predicting which box the player will choose. Before the game begins, the box chooses whether to fill itself with one-hundred Galleons or not. If it predicts that the player will choose the wooden box only, then it will fill with one-hundred Galleons. If it predicts, on the other hand, that the player will choose both, it will fill itself with nothing."

Dumbledore slid the two boxes over to Harry. "Choose wisely, Harry, for you only get one chance to play this game."

Harry narrowed his eyes. "When you say it's 'very, very good', how good are you talking, here?"

"In the seventy or so years that I've played this game, I have never once seen it be wrong."

"Does this work like Comed-Tea, then?"

"No, no. Temporal order still restrains causation and the causal graphs have to be acyclic. There are no causal arrows going backwards in time. Nor is there a Time-Turner or any other manipulation of the timeline. It is simply very, very good at predicting the behavior of people playing this game."

Harry pondered for a moment. "I'm going to put aside questions of how exactly this box is so accurate, and play the game as it was intended to be played. At first glance, I would say that it doesn't matter which I choose because the contents of the box are already pre-decided before I make the decision. So whatever decision I do end up making can fundamentally have no impact on the contents of the box. So, really it's just a question of how much credence do I put in your claim that the box will accurately predict my actions.

"If you frame the question a different way, you could say that by default, the one hundred Galleons is mine. And the question is, do I want to wager ninety-nine Galleons in order to win a single Galleon, on the notion that I can outsmart your little box? The benefit of gaining a single Galleon pales in comparison to the loss of ninety-nine, and so as such, I pick the wooden box."

Dumbledore smiled and opened the box. Within it glittered a large pile of Galleons, as promised.

Before Harry had a chance to comment on the outcome, Dumbledore spoke again. "I am now giving you the rare chance to play this game again, although you may say that it's not quite the same game. Pretend that instead of one Galleon and one-hundred Galleons being at stake, the glass box contains one half of an ancient device necessary to fully resurrect your departed friend, Miss Granger. The wooden box either contains the second half or nothing at all. The device is worthless without both halves together.

"Now, which boxes do you choose?"

Harry's gut felt like it had taken a fist. He glared angrily up at Dumbledore, "That was a bit of a cheap shot."

Dumbledore nodded, gravely. "The true stakes are much, much higher than one single life, young Harry. Now, make your choice."

"I would pick both. I would have to. My only hope would be that the box is wrong, that it somehow thinks I would only pick the wooden box, and that I could then somehow trick it."

"And that is your choice?"

"There is no other."

Dumbledore removed the covering from the wooden box, showing that it was empty inside. "Then you would lose."

He flipped the single Galleon from the glass box to Harry, who caught it smartly. "It is interesting, Harry, that you say there is no other choice. I think you will find, if you think hard enough, that there was, in fact, another option."

Dumbledore looked at him. Harry looked back, deep in thought. Neither spoke.

Three minutes past in silence, but finally, Harry began to speak, tentatively at first. "You said... the box was very, very good at predicting what the player of the game would choose."

Dumbledore nodded. "A strange game, is it not?"

"A strange game, indeed. The only winning move… Is not to play. "

Dumbledore smiled, sadly. "You are correct. It is only by virtue of being ignorant of the rules, of being outside the scope of knowledge of the box, that you could ever hope to claim the full contents of both boxes. And so it is with fate. You must guide us through the eye of the needle, ignorant of what fortune has in store for you. After all, the fault, dear Harry, is not with our stars,

And so it is with fate. And you must guide us through the eye of the needle, ignorant of what fortune has in store for you. After all, the fault, dear Harry, it's not with our stars, but in ourselves, that we are underlings."

Harry let out a long sigh. The noises of the machines in Dumbledore's office punctuated the silence.

Boom. Clap. Thump-bump. Thump-bump. Thump-bump. Beat. Beat. Beat.

After a time, Dumbledore offered, "There is, however, a prophecy of which I can speak to you about. A prophecy which does not concern you, at least not directly. Would you like to hear it? I would understand and respect your wishes were the answer 'No.'"

Without hesitation, Harry replied. "Yes."

Dumbledore cleared his throat. "On the longest day of the thousandth year, The star is it will aid in her escape, and she will bring about nighttime eternal."

Harry looked upwards, trying to calculate a few dates in his head. "I'm going to take a wild guess and say this prophecy was made in, say, the year 992."

Dumbledore nodded. "Your guess would be correct. If I were to tell you that this prophecy likely refers to none other than Miss Granger, what would you make of it?"

Harry stared, distantly, and spoke with an almost mechanical, hollow tone. "Night, by definition, is the lack of sunlight. And the sun is a star. And if someone were to, say, 'tear apart the very stars in heaven', it stands to reason that would help bring about eternal night."

"And yet, those same stars will aid in her escape?"

"It is my understanding that there are typically levels upon levels of meaning in prophecy. Not that I've studied real prophecies, but I've read enough books, and to be honest, this whole system of magic seems like it was taken straight from the pages of a fantasy novel. 'The stars' could mean almost anything, in that context. Draco, for example, named after a constellation… Perhaps he will assist me."

Harry also thought of another, a person intimately familiar with the stars and their wanderings, but he did not speak his name aloud.

"I think, Harry, that the fate of your friend, and in a manner of speaking, the fate of the stars themselves, depend on those same stars aiding in your friend's escape. This very well could be the most important thing that you do in your life, perhaps ever. Certainly more so than defeating Lord Voldemort."

"If it's so important, why didn't you tell me sooner?" Harry couldn't help himself from the feeling the hot, wetness that began to sting his eyes.

Dumbledore responded, quietly. "I did not think you needed further motivation to rescue your friend... Am I wrong?"

Harry closed his eyes and tried to wipe them. "No. No, you're not."

After a time, Harry spoke again. "Headmaster?"

"Yes, Harry?"

"There is one more thing I wanted to ask you about." Harry decided to tell a partial lie, "I looked at the books Hermione checked out of the library, and she was researching the Philosopher's Stone just before she was killed. Her notes said that something dangerous might happen if the Stone stays inside 'the mirror' too long. I'm assuming she's referring to the magic mirror in your 'forbidden' corridor, the one that it seems nearly every Gryffindor and half of the rest of the school has visited. But... the Stone?"

Dumbledore let out a dry chuckle. "I suspect you have your own thoughts about the Stone, do you not?

"I read of it in a book, yes. And I concluded it was an obvious myth. There's no reason why the same device would provide immortality and endless gold. Not unless someone was just inventing happy stories. Not to mention, every sane person should have been researching ways to make more Stones, or kidnapping its maker to produce them," Harry paused a moment before continuing. "It is... what I would do, I think if there were need enough."

Dumbledore smiled at him. "Most wizards simply accept the powers of the Stone at face value and pay it no further thought. This does not make them insane: those who have grown up with Magic learn from a very young age that there are many fantastic powers and lore that are forever outside their reach. And that many, if not most of these powers carry with them a terrible price. There are other means of prolonging one's life, perhaps indefinitely." Dumbledore gave Harry a piercing glance, but out of courtesy made sure to direct his gaze fixedly at Harry's forehead rather than his eyes. "A means by which, I suspect you have read about, despite all my precautions."

Harry nodded. "The Horcrux ritual."

"Yes. I trust that you perceive its limitations, beyond its abhorrent requirements, and so we shall speak no further of the specifics of that particular magic. Magicks such as that are not uncommon knowledge, and yet despite the potential rewards, they are rarely ever seen in practice. To most Wizards, the Philosopher's Stone is merely another double-edged sword of power, carrying with it an assumed price they are likely unwilling to pay. As such, have little reason to consider it further."

Harry considered this. "That makes sense, although there are ways to experimentally verify these sorts of things if there are concerns..."

"The tale of Atlantis is told to Wizards from a very young age and told often. They are, with good cause, raised to respect the boundaries of power. It is rare to find a Wizard who does not know of someone who has been killed or seriously hurt by tampering with Magics outside of their ability. And yet, despite this, many Wizards who fancy themselves as clever, have come to the same conclusion as you. That the Stone is a myth, an elaborate wish-fulfillment fantasy, and as such, they too have little reason to further pursue the stone."

Dumbledore stood, and paced back and forth in front of the window, his back to Harry.

After several long moments of silence punctuated by ticks, whirrs, fizzles, and pops from the various devices in the Headmaster's office, he turned back to Harry and again spoke.

"Only a handful of truly clever wizards have grasped the real truth, a truth I will only tell you because I genuinely believe you would not use the Stone for your own benefit, but rather for others. And I also truly believe that you will listen to reason." He sat back down and folded his fingers together. "Eternal life and youth, the creation of gold and silver. Suppose these are true benefits of holding the Stone. Tell me then, Harry Potter. What is the Stone's true power?"

Harry's mind switched gears. Working backwards from a solution was a few orders of magnitude simpler than the reverse process. Knowing that there was an answer and that the evidence wasn't a lie, Harry was able to quickly come to a conclusion: "It can make Transfigurations permanent." Then Harry stopped, as he heard what his own mouth had just said.

"Correct," said Dumbledore. "Thus, whoever holds the Philosopher's Stone is able to perform human Transfiguration."

The blood in Harry's veins began to run hot. "And could also Transfigure food... shelter... water... medicine..."

"This is also true."

Harry couldn't help himself. He slammed his fist on the table, causing the various devices near him to jump up in the air. "Do you understand what you're saying? Nicholas Flamel has more blood on his hands than a thousand Voldemorts, for all the people he could have saved and didn't! You... that blood is on your hands, too! He obviously trusts you, values your counsel. You could have said something. You still CAN say something!"

Dumbledore did not react to the outburst. "Tell me, then, if you were in my position, and had full command of the Stone, what would you do?"

The words tumbled out of Harry's mouth in a torrent, "A high-security hospital. With very powerful guards, that have taken Unbreakable Vows, It doesn't matter how much gold it takes to pay for the Vows, you simply transfigure as much as is needed. And, and Alastor Moody would design the security architecture, and go completely overboard on paranoia without being constrained by a budget or sanity or common sense. There can't be more than, what, a million wizards in the world? So assuming Wizards die at roughly the same rate as Muggles, that can't be more than 10 or 20 people a day."

Dumbledore smiled at him, which annoyed Harry greatly. "Ah, Harry, I never thought we would be in this position, of you being the hopeless optimist and me being the pessimistic realist."

Harry stared at him, a hard edge in his voice. "Explain, please."

"I assume you would not just want to heal Wizards, correct? After all, there are goblins, centaurs, mer-people, house-elves..."

"Yes, all sentient creatures. Even if they outnumber Wizards by five to one, that's still trivially easy to accommodate."

Dumbledore nodded and sprung the trap. "And Muggles, too? I believe they outnumber wizards by 10,000 to 1..."

Oh.

In the silence, Dumbledore continued. "Given your plan, it would not be a matter of 'if', but 'when' the Muggle population became aware. Consider the number of Muggle-born or half-blood wizards and witches. Would you condemn them to watch their loved ones wither and die while they enjoyed the benefits of eternal life? And yet, to make an exception would be tantamount to exposure. Muggles see little, but even they would not be able to ignore this."

"You... you could relocate them. When they're old, just make it look like they had a heart attack, and then move them to a hidden community of others like them."

"Would that satisfy you, were you in that position? If you had grown up as a Muggle and had a wizard for a son, would you be content with living out an eternal life with only those other Muggles that were lucky enough to have loved ones who were Wizards? What of your friends? What of your adoptive parents? What of their friends, and their family? Even if you personally would find that satisfactory, do you truly think that everyone would feel the same way? That no one would, perhaps, attempt to escape and spread the knowledge further?"

Harry stammered and fiddled with the edge of his robes. "I... Okay, I see your point. So, let's say it does get out. It would take some time before it does, which would buy us time to hammer out the logistics. There are seven billion people in the world, and we'd need to see them all once over the course of, say, seventy years. So that's a hundred million people a year or about three hundred thousand a day, ten thousand an hour... So somewhere between 2 to 4 people a second. That doesn't even seem like an intractable problem on paper. If you lined everyone up on a massive conveyor belt... It would only have to move along and a few miles per hour. Sure, it's logistically complicated but it doesn't even seem outside the realm of possibility of Muggle technology so WHY AREN'T WE DOING IT RIGHT NOW?"

"Ah, yes, I thought we might hit this little snag."

Harry heaved a deep, annoyed sigh. "What."

"The Stone has certain limitations that cannot be bypassed. It can only render permanent three hundred and sixty transfigurations per day."

The words were like a punch in the gut. "Three hundred and sixty..."

"It is not, and could not ever be enough to sustain the entire world. Perhaps, maybe when the world was young, perhaps in the time of Atlantis, from where I suspect the Stone came, it may have been sufficient. But the world has grown too large."

Harry desperately tried to think of a solution or a workaround, but was drawing blanks. Dumbledore was scrutinizing his expression and again spoke. "Tell me now, knowing of this limitation, what do you think would truly happen were you to enact your grand plan?"

"I... well..."

"I have spent a great deal of time in my youth thinking on this very same problem. It may surprise you, but you are not the only wizard with a remarkable intellect and grand designs of saving the world. I too, once thought that I could do something similar... for the greater good."

That phrase carried with it a strange ring of familiarity that Harry wasn't quite able to place.

Dumbledore continued, "Here is what I think would happen. A precocious, but brilliant wizard, with the best on intentions, would begin allowing limited use of the Stone for healing purposes. The official explanation would be that the near-miraculous feats of healing magic were due to a combination of Muggle technology and magical innovation. But over time, whispers would escape beyond the walls, slip past the bonds of Unbreakable Vows, and make their way to the ears of the tired, the poor, the huddled masses yearning to breathe free, free from the ever-present touch of Death. Despite issuing denial upon denial, the full truth would come out: that the source of this newfound Fountain of Youth was no feat of innovation or technology, but rather yet another example of eldritch, hoarded lore.

People would begin to petition those who controlled the Stone, not for the touch of eternal life, but the touch of permanence. The true innovators of the world, rather than seeking to push the bounds of what all men are capable of, would instead seek to push the bounds of what is possible using the Stone. They would devise ever cleverer devices and machinations that could not otherwise be brought into creation and then seek to have those creations rendered permanent. The growth of the world would be stunted. Why bother making advances in the realm of healing, or medicine, or technology, when all it would take is the simple touch of the Stone to make your wildest dreams come true?

Instead of putting their ingenuity towards the task of creation and innovation, men and women around the world would instead turn it to the task of how best to curry favor with those who control the Stone. Permanence would become the new currency of the elite, and entire economies would be built around this scarcity. When the need inexorably outstrips the capacity of the Stone, it is inevitable that some will turn to violence. At the point, the political legerdemain that had previously governed the usage of the Stone will become irrelevant, and the world will instead plunge into war for control of the Stone. Those who control it would be forced to use its power towards defense, rather than creation. And eventually, they will learn the bloody truth that all those who participate in protracted war must learn at some point: a war cannot be won defensively.

The Stone will then be used to fuel machinations of destruction the likes of which I could not possibly fathom. I do not put such creations outside of your singularly creative imagination, Harry, but I think you will find that there are dark corners of your mind that you dare not explore for fear of learning what you are truly capable of. Those darkest moments will be brought to life with crystalline clarity. It is entirely possible that in a desperate effort to prevent the Stone from falling into the wrong hands, someone would tear apart the very stars in heaven, destroying both the world and its people."

Dumbledore let the gravity of that last phrase weigh on Harry's mind for a moment before continuing.

"The Stone cannot be replaced. Its limitations cannot be circumvented. Perhaps one day, I will live long enough to tell you the tale in its entirety... but long ago, when I was barely a handful of years older than yourself, I was in league with Gellert Grindelwald. Yes, him. We sought to rebuild this broken, hateful world into something that both mankind and Wizard-kind would be proud of. We knew that we could do not do this alone, and so we sought artifacts of great lore and power to aid us in our quest. The Deathly Hallows, of which I have already spoken to you, were one of those artifacts. The Elements of Harmony were another; the abstract representations of the different aspects of magic: Mind, Life, Time, Space, Power and Love.

We were able to find but one, the Element of Power, known to many as the Philosopher's Stone. It does not simply represent Transfiguration, it is Transfiguration. This is a gross oversimplification, but one could say that within its capacious buffer exists every Transfiguration currently being maintained across the whole of Wizardkind and beyond. We were able to trace its origins across the aeons of history... At some point in the fourteenth century, it was claimed from the renowned Dark Lady, Baba Yaga, by none other than Perenelle Flamel, who you may recognize as Nicholas. You can see, how, with the power of the Stone, it would be trivially easy to maintain the ruse of both Perenelle and Nicholas. Baba Yaga was not, of course, the original owner; she herself was granted control by the legendary sorcerer, Scott Parajsa.

"Gellert and I paid Mr. Parajsa a visit in Santiago, Chile, many, many years back. It is something that I still feel great guilt over, for although I did not harm him myself, I stood idly by as Gellert did what he needed to do... What we needed to do." Dumbledore paused, looking out the window. "By attributing her power to the 'Philosopher's Stone', which had a published (albeit entirely false) alchemical recipe, Perenelle Flamel had made it appear as though she had earned the right to live forever by completing a great magic that any could attempt. And she was giving others a false path to pursue, instead of seeking the one true Stone as Perenelle had sought Baba Yaga's, and as we sought hers.

"Once we found the information we sought, we devised how we would overpower Mrs. Flamel and what we would do with the Stone once we had claimed it, and how we might seek the other Elements of Harmony. Our plotting was rendered unnecessary, however, as Perenelle preemptively came to visit us to show us the error of our ways."

Dumbledore visibly shuddered at the memory, and Harry knew better than to press for more details.

"She redirected our attention to the quest for another of the Elements... the Deathly Hallows, that which we already sought, the Element of Life. But as I came to learn over the years, my old friend Gellert Grindelwald was far more interested in becoming a Master of Death than Master of Life. The rest, as they say... is history."

Harry tentatively worked his way through his next question. "Someone... Someone I know told me briefly of the Elements of Harmony. He said that they were the 'ultimate McGuffin'."

At this, Dumbledore laughed, with genuine good humor. "Yes, I suppose you could call them that. Were all six of them assembled together, the wielder would have the power to, say, snap their fingers and make half of the Universe disappear." Dumbledore smiled as Harry's eyes grew wide. "But, the same could be said for many other devices and powers, some that are infinitely more commonplace. I'm sure that you could think of half a dozen ways to dismantle the world as we know it using nothing but your Time-Turner and Partial Transfiguration."

Harry smiled and nodded, but then furrowed his brow. "But, that's just it. How can you really be sure as to the limitation of the Stone, er.. the Element's power? You also thought Partial Transfiguration was impossible."

"You are correct, Harry, in that I do not know for certain. But would you be willing to gamble the fate of the world on your certainty? Because that is what is at stake." When Harry did not respond, Dumbledore continued. "The Stone's power is a curse; can you imagine, the power to change the world and yet to be forced to use it to its meanest end; youth and gold! To live in shackles, forced to stay on the sidelines as the world advances itself, is that what you truly desire?"

Harry looked down at his feet. "No."

"That is why I placed the Stone inside the Mirror. Because what better way to contain one Element of Harmony than to use another?"

Harry blinked. "Another Element of Harmony. Here at Hogwarts."

"Oh yes. In fact, given the fact that you are in possession of one-third of the Deathly Hallows, it's entirely possible that there may even be a third."

Harry rolled his eyes. "Let me guess, at some point, all six are going to coincidentally converge here at Hogwarts and I'm going to be at the center of the whole mess?"

Dumbledore chuckled again, "Not everything works out like a story, Harry."

Harry took note of Dumbledore's non-answer. "So, that's it, then? No ultimatums, no threats of suicide?"

Dumbledore gave Harry a humorless smile. "No, Harry, that won't be necessary." He turned to the perch on the other side of the office, and called, "Fawkes, if you will?"

The Phoenix looked up, laconically, and let out a short "Caw," floating over to Dumbledore's desk.

"Your hand, Harry?" Dumbledore requested as he extended his aged hand.

The moment Harry grasped it, he was engulfed in flame.

Earlier, Later, Simultaneously

Where Harry was standing was formless Void, as far as the eye could see. It wasn't simply blackness; dark simply implied an absence of light. This was Nothingness. There was no black, no white, no light, no dark. There was simply nothing.

Nothing save for a slight, persistent coughing sound, coming from behind him.

"Hem, hem."

Harry whipped around and saw Dumbledore, and he saw the world. They were facing the back of a golden mirror resting in an unornamented frame. Beyond that mirror was a chamber, illuminated in lights of soft gold, with stone walls crafted of gentle, white marble. The Mirror did not touch the ground; the golden frame had no feet. It didn't look like it was hovering; it looked like it was fixed in place, more solid and motionless than the walls themselves. He also noticed, floating similarly motionlessly, a blood-red stone no larger than his thumb.

"This is a place beyond Time, Harry. It is here that I keep the Stone, and it is here that I view the various worlds created by the Mirror of Noitilov, or as some might call it, the Element of Space."

Harry watched, as if viewing a tape on fast-forward, twenty or so scenes of various Hogwarts' students living out their deepest fantasies.

"I do not need to issue any ultimatums or threats of suicide, simply because I know that you will not attempt to claim the Stone. Once this unpleasant mess with the Dark Lord is finished, it is I who eventually retrieves the Stone from its' hiding spot. Behold."

Harry could clearly see the pained look in Dumbledore's face as he watched what was clearly his family, materialize in the chamber in front of them. There was an old man and woman, along with a middle-aged man, and a young woman, all of whom bore a striking resemblance to the Headmaster.

The middle-aged man spoke, his voice sounding muffled, as if he were speaking underwater. "Truly? He has not simply retreated into one of his Horcruxes?"

The man stood still, as if listening.

"You should have killed him. It is less than he deserves."

Again the listening stillness.

"If you say so, Albus. So, what happens now? You are already here with us."

Listening stillness.

"But do you really think that the Stone belongs in your world? It would be safer, here with us. Where it belongs."

Silence, once more.

"I do not think that wise, brother." The middle-aged man let out a dry chuckle. "Even now, we have our quarrels. You know that I did not approve of its arrival here in the first place. If anything, you should destroy it."

The man nodded and sighed heavily. He began walking towards the mirror, and his form was obscured from view temporarily, until a hand reached out through the back of the Mirror and clasped its hand around the Stone.

The hand opened, and Harry saw his own hand fall. He looked up, and no longer saw the sleek back of the Mirror, but instead saw Dumbledore standing in his office, Fawked perched in his other hand.

The first thing Harry noticed was just how loud the real world actually was. The air carried sounds, both significant and trivial; he could feel and hear his breath, his heartbeat, the sound his robes made as they swayed loosely in the slight breeze that came through the open window. "Why did you show me that?"

"Because, Harry, if I did not, I think that you would still have tried to claim the Stone. I hope that by showing you the inevitable future, that you will try no further to alter it. After all, I think you, of all people, know better than most..."

Rather than speak his next words, Dumbledore tore off a scrap of parchment and began to write in handwriting that was disturbingly familiar.

DO NOT MESS WITH TIME

He held the scrap up to Fawkes, who dutifully snapped it up with his claws, and disappeared into a burst of flame.

"Ta, Harry."

As Harry walked, shell-shocked, from the Headmaster's office, he wasn't sure what to think.

No, that wasn't quite true. He was certain of one thing.

Before, Harry had wrestled with an uncomfortable feeling of powerlessness, of feeling somewhere in the back of his head that there was nothing he could do about Hermione, despite all of his outward protestations otherwise.

But now, Harry knew there was something he could do, something he could begin acting towards now.

After all, the admonition was against messing with Time, but it didn't say anything about Power or Space.

Earlier

It took a great deal of strength for Professor Quirrell to make the trek to the place where he intended to carry out the deed, roughly halfway between Hogwarts and Hogsmeade. If he simply planned to consume the creature's lifeblood, he would have done so the moment he steps outside the castle grounds. But he was looking for answers, and so it was of paramount importance that he not be disturbed.

He withdrew the small, violet stone from his robes, and placed it upon the smooth altar. As he withdrew his magic, he watched the unicorn begin to unfold itself from the stone's form. Its breathing was shallow, and it was clearly unconscious, but it was still alive. Quirrell pointed his wand at the creature and whispered.

Innervate.

The unicorn's eyes snapped open, and it looked up at him, weakly. He needed to find out whether the creature truly had some degree of intelligence or if it was simply speaking as a proxy for someone or something else. It seemed too tired to interact, despite the effects of the spell, so the Professor approached, lifting its face with his hands.

"Come now, little one... Open up your eyes..."

When he finally made eye contact, the thoughts began to flow into his mind in erratic waves. Bold, colorful images. Concepts without words or concrete form. Strains of music, lilting in from all directions. A pattern underlying it all, a pattern that made little sense to him, but perhaps...

Hope.

Hope was the only thing this unicorn had left in few remaining minutes of its life, and the Professor concluded that keeping that hope alive would provide him the best opportunity to extract the answers he sought. It did not recognize him in his current form, and as such, there was an opportunity. He must be seen as trying to help.

"I found you, you had been attacked. I was able to fight the creature off, but I'm not a healer."

It spoke to him, in the familiar yet alien manner of parseltongue. He knew, dimly in the back of his mind, that the noises coming from it were nothing but raspy grunts and nickers. And yet, it conveyed meaning, clear as day.

"Thank you…"

He delved deeper into its thoughts and explored that thin skein of hope and what it revolved around. Artifacts he did not recognize, six of them. And a person, no, two people, locked in struggle; he did not recognize them either. This could have proved problematic to someone who wasn't experienced in the art of lying and manipulation, but Professor Quirrell was no dilettante. He would focus on the artifacts: he needed enough specificity to strike a chord, but wrapped in enough ambiguity to deflect further questions.

Specificity: he made sure that he had the name of the artifacts correct... Ambiguity: a generic, nameless figure of great importance. "He sent me to find you, the Great One did. He sent me to find the Elements of Harmony."

Abruptly, the unicorn stood up on its front legs, its ruined back legs still on the ground. "Star Swirl? He is here?"

Like shooting fish in a barrel.

"Yes, he said you were in danger and that you needed help."

"You... will help us?"

"I can only help you insofar as you help me," Quirrell quickly prioritized. The prophecy was of the greatest importance, followed distantly by the Diadem. Whatever these Elements were, the Professor did not recognize them by name, but this was not altogether surprising. Magical artifacts often collected several names over the course of the ages. However, it was clear that they were central, in the mind of the unicorn, at least, to its interpretation of the prophecy.

The Professor continued, "Star Swirl said that I would need the Element of Harmony in order to stop the one who would tear apart the stars."

"Yes. Yes!" The creature seemed to regain a bit of its energy. "It was him, the one from the prophecy. He's the one who attacked me," Suddenly, its eyes went wide. "You. It's... you."

The Professor stiffened. He measured his next actions carefully, preparing to end the unicorn's life at a moment's notice. "Who?"

"I can see it. You... your reflection. Your dark mirror. That's who you have to stop."

It was now the Professor's eyes who went wide. The world of Magic had grown old to him, and he had grown weary of it. It had been quite a long time since he had felt that familiar feeling, the exhilarating rush of finding out something new, something interesting. He had once acted too hastily on the matter of prophecy and had paid dearly. He would not make that same mistake again. He needed to confirm.

"My... reflection?" He mimicked the unicorn's vocal style, pausing dramatically between words.

"You've created something terrible. He won't stop, The world will burn, and you are the only one who can stop him."

The tension left him. He still had the creature's trust. He could see that Ravenclaw's Diadem somehow also played a role in the prophecy, so he decided to take a gamble and play upon that trust. He removed the Diadem from his robes and held it up. "I was able to take this from him after I saved you."

The creature smiled widely and clapped its hooves together, but then began to cough up silvery blood.

He spoke with increased urgency. "This is important... I can help you... But only if you tell me everything you know. How do I use it?"

Its voice was becoming weak and soft. "I don't know how to explain it. I really don't, otherwise, I would tell you. It just... sort of works, when you need it to." It laid its head down, still maintains eye contact.

The Professor stared deep into the unicorn's consciousness, and amidst the swirling imagery, he inexplicably came to the distinct conclusion that this unicorn was feminine in nature. Desperately, he tried to connect disparate strands of thought together into something coherent that might give him a clue. It all came back to these Elements, whatever they may have been, and the two battling figures who now took the form of two wolves, one black, one white.

"Are the elements absolutely necessary? Do I need them to stop this darkness?"

Her eyes began to close, but she still smiled nonetheless. "No... the power is... within you." She paused, and with the last bit of strength she could muster, opened her eyes, one last time. "I think... I would like to rest now."

A wicked smile drew across the Professor's lips. "I think not. There is one more thing you must do for me."

She inclined her head upward just a bit, eyes still closed. "Yes?"

In one smooth motion, he held her face in his hands and drew his knife from his robes, pulling it violently across the veins in her neck. Savagely, he pressed his mouth to the gaping wound, wrapping the crook of his elbow around her neck, pulling her mane backwards with his free hand to expose more of her precious lifeblood. Blood poured out in spurting streams, and he directed as much of it as possible into his mouth, drinking deeply, sensually.

He hated this part.

It was debasing, it was filthy, losing control like this. It was beneath him, and yet, it was necessary.

He tried desperately to force the sensation down, but it was like trying to plug a gushing faucet with nothing but your fingers. There was no stopping it. He could feel the crude sensation tingling, building up at his extremities. As he could feel her soul depart her body, the sensation began to overtake him; he was reaching the precipice and he could not stop himself even if his life had depended upon it.

He hated himself, and yet, he continued to drink as the pulses of hot, indecent pleasure began to course through his body in rapturous waves. His breath was drawn in short, ragged pulls, and he drank away the last of her life, her soul, her very essence. Involuntarily, he shuddered as he felt her legs kick limply in their death throes.

He loosened his grip on her neck, and the last, weak dribbles of blood leaked from the wound. He worked his fingers, stretching them out. Gone was the arthritic pain that had set into his joins, the itchiness that had befallen his eyes. When he drew breath through his nose, it was clear, full, sweet breath. He was renewed. Alive.

Debased, but alive.

It would not do, of course, to leave her body here, and he could think of more than a handful of uses for a dead unicorn, and so he transfigured her once more into a small, violet stone and dropped it into his robes. He began the long trek back to the castle, a new skip in his step, whistling an atonal ditty as he walked.

Even earlier

Star Swirl the Bearded strode down the streets of Ponyville, looking for the pony he sought, his beloved sister that he had once abandoned a lifetime ago, and was again forced to abandon during his thousand-year exile. He found her, a grey pegasus with a mop of messy blonde hair, blowing bubbles near a fountain in the town square.

He saw her first, but it was not long before her walleyed gaze turned to him and she lit up with excitement. She sped towards him at full speed, and overshot her landing by at least three meters, crashing into a nearby building and causing the potted plants on the awning above to rattle and fall off in a cacophony of noise and commotion.

Star Swirl smiled, nonetheless. "My love!"

She flew up and wrapped her hooves around him. "I've missed you!"

He nodded, gravely. "I missed you too."

She looked up at him earnestly. "Was it as long for you as it was for me?"

"No... It was as before, I was sent outside Time, to a frozen instant from which neither I nor any other could return. That time was lost to me forever."

She grinned. "I lost some time once. It's always in the last place you look for it." In the silence, she padded her hoof into the water in the fountain. "I wish I could swim."

He smiled and patted her gently on her wings. "Like dolphins can swim?"

She grinned. "And you said that nothing would keep us together."

He grinned back. "And what of our brother?"

The gray pegasus squinted her eyes in concentration and she tried to recall. "He goes by Grogar now. But I haven't seen him in..." She looked up as she tried to think. "At least three generations."

He tapped his hoof against the ground, awkwardly, trying to think of how to phrase the question in his mind, or if he should even ask it at all.

As if sensing his hesitation, the pegasus turned towards him. "He isn't here yet, either."

Star Swirl nodded in understanding. "No, I suppose he would not be, given the timing of my original departure... But an old man can hope."

She giggled a bit at this, "You're not an old man anymore, you know."

He smiled but did not respond.

After a moment of silence, she spoke again. "I got to be a hero, did you hear?"

Star Swirl the Bearded's eyes lit up. "You did, did you? Do tell." He had, of course, heard of the invasion of the Storm King and her role in preventing it, but he did not want to steal her thunder.

"Yup. I saved Princess Twilight. A really angry unicorn with a broken horn tried to Petrify her, but I jumped in the way and took the curse for her. I didn't really save the day, that was Twilight, but I don't know what we would have done if not for her."

She smiled, serenely, and bobbed her head to the side back and forth, speaking playfully. "I'm pretty good and taking curses that weren't meant for me, huh?"

Star Swirl stiffened. He could tell from her face and her tone that she meant nothing by it, whatsoever, but he still could not help but feel an intense wave of guilt. She seemed to notice the change in body language, and she spoke up.

"Silly, that was an eternity ago. And besides, I'm here, aren't I? We're together, again. After all, where your treasure is..."

"There will your heart be also," he completed. At that, she wrapped her arms around him in a tight squeeze, and he spoke: "You're right, We're here, and you're safe."