Temet Nosce

After moments of darkness, Trinity opened her eyes.

"Good afternoon." She forced a smile and tilted her head warmly to the side, but her eyes were glazed and searching. Looking around the room, she was surprised at the wallpaper, the beds, the architecture. Proceeding to absently rub her wrist with her other fingers, the boys remained silent, only feet away from her. Still cold and tired, she sent off signals that told them to stay quiet.

They didn't know what to say, anyway. They didn't believe it right to even think. She was in charge. Though the room was still, negative anxious energy was swirling around, wrapping them up like dusty, mummified corpses.

"You have special powers, right? That's basically all we know..." Trinity suddenly bore her eyes into the boys in turn. "I mean, you aren't normal humans?"

"We can do magic," said Harry, who produced his wand. "If that's what you mean..." He then caved back into himself, the shock of speech so intimidating.

She shook her head, and began again rationally, "We'll have to talk about this later. Once we leave, and you two recover, we can talk and... try and sort this out..."

"What's the problem?" Draco was getting impatient, for once in his life, "I don't understand! What is going on and why are you so scared, all of a sudden?"

Trinity's mind was distant, and Draco's question was left unanswered. He just knew that there was something wrong. In her ever-confident dream state, she had assured them that she and her friends had saved many. Liberated many. And they would be just the same.

Harry peeked up at Trinity. She was so beautiful that he was ashamed to look her in the eye, let alone finally be in the same room. "Why won't you tell us who you are? We don't know anything about where we are going, or what is going to happen to us."

Trinity thought for a moment; "That's because I don't know what is going on either, Harry. We're going to get out of here and then I will talk to you. I'll try and tell you everything I know. And, you can tell me everything you know. I can say now, this is a deeper situation than I thought, but you mustn't lose confidence on me, please..."

Even if they did escape Hogwarts, and the world in which they lived, it was hardly a victory. There was more. This was only the beginning. Harry, Draco and the masked Trinity all felt vulnerable in the circular bedroom that seemed to spiral about them like a theme park ride. From what they had been sure of, everything was now so new.

Trinity turned around, "Don't talk. This is going to be fast and... probably quite dangerous, so follow me, don't talk and... keep your heads down."

She ran out of the bedroom. Draco turned to look at Harry, who was already staring back.

***

"I once asked the same question. What is outside the windows? What is beneath everything we touch? What is the secret?

"I would lie awake night after night. There were no answers to my problems. I was alone and cold, in a foreign world where I couldn't speak the language. Every day I would get up, dress myself and go to work. I tried to learn, I tried to understand and conform. Looking into their eyes and listening to their voices. Hard and metallic. Amplifying through the streets. I couldn't converse with puppets forever. Running home every night, again, to stare at the walls and torture my brain. It's the most extreme sense of isolation that I can ever imagine.

"We were being controlled. Manipulated like robots by the command of divinity. They came, they saw, and then they conquered. They tied us up and made us work like animals, for our lives. Like meat. Like batteries. The machines captured civilisation at the end of the war and turned us into batteries. The ultimate renewable energy source.

"I couldn't take it anymore. The green skies, the monotony of life. What you see now is fake. An illusion. Life and love itself. However beautiful and hopeful. I knew that I was special, but everyone wants to be normal. The grass is always greener on the other side.

"I know that you two have realised that knowing is almost worse than being in the dark. It eats away at you, day after day. The perfection scares me. The whole operation chills my heart. I can't think of anything more frightening than losing your sense of reality. Because, as humans, that is all we have.

"What is the Matrix? I knew. Well, at least I had ideas. I was sure that there was life beyond the Matrix. And because I knew, he came for me. Just like I have, for you. Great worlds come to dreamers who wait. Great truths come to the real people who understand. It didn't matter that I was hardly a human anymore, more a skeleton, with slashed wrists and a foggy memory. He came and he promised me that I would become a hero. So, I went with him, and started again. I was introduced to reality for the first time.

"Morpheus and I devoted our days and our nights to the renaissance of humankind. There are lots of us that live in the real world now. Tens of thousands. The war isn't over, but now that we have Neo, our future seems brighter than ever. Other ships save humans daily, and take them to Zion, our only surviving human city. At the moment, it's the only relatively safe way to ensure that we are working on the problem. Fighting small battles.

"Other than sentinels, Agents are our only immediate threat. The Matrix is made up of millions of computer programs. The Agents are like police officers, they make sure nothing goes wrong. They can jump the bodies of the humans and are invulnerable to mortal harm. We insert ourselves back and forth from the real world via telephones, and when we are in the Matrix, they want us dead. Actually, they want us dead wherever we are, but we are most vulnerable in the Matrix, even though we only insert our brain. We can only do one thing when faced with an Agent - and that is run.

"We lost our crew to the Agents, and our traitor. We nearly lost Neo as well. So, now it's just the four of us on our ship: Morpheus. Neo. Link, our captain. And me. We're trying to start afresh.

But Neo has discovered that the Agents can indeed be fought.

"This time around, though, something is different. I've never heard of Wizards before. Of course, they were something of a fairytale to me and every other human child in the Matrix, and in the real world. But Wizarding as a religion, that normal humans don't know about? A whole other race of gifted creatures? Cities and schools and homes and animals? It's, frankly, something of dreams. Like you have just been born from no-where.

"Normally, when we save someone, instructions can be relayed from the deck through phones. They can watch me. But we haven't got any maps of your school, or any idea of how to get out. So, the chase will be blind. I traveled here from London, but we cannot travel back. It will be very dangerous, just because I have no plan, and no way of escape.

"There are a lot of clues, and we have been trying to decipher answers, as I talked to you over the past months. You don't use telephones. Normal humans don't know about you, but you know about them. You have a history dating back before normal people would have dreamed. And, you have magical powers, to say the least.

"The Agents don't have any power against Neo anymore. We saved him not long ago, and he is The One. He will bring the machines to their downfall. There is nothing that they can do to stop him.

"Simply, Morpheus and I believe that the machines have created you, 'wizards', to kill Neo. To destroy Zion. You are a déjà vu, another giant program. You are a weapon of mass destruction. There is no other explanation for your secretive existence.

"They created Wizards, and magic, so they could kill us. So far, we don't have any power against Wizards. Especially if the Agents can inhabit you as well.

"And the last thing they would have thought of. Harry and Draco. Only the special ones. Never would they have believed that wizards would think outside the square. You both looked deeper through the looking glass. You both conceived the truth. No your kind are another giant wall that we must leap.

"It seems that the ultimate adversaries, the hunted and the hunter, must again unite to hit hard at the root. We are the people you were born to slay. We are trained to kill you. But, my crew and the two of you actually have a lot in common - we are the special ones. Only the special ones can ever make a difference.

"I can't say any more yet. You have to follow me. When we return, we'll talk more. That is only the surface. We must dive deep to uncover your significance. We must practice afresh; you'll both serve as great training for us, so we can learn how to fight again.

"I hear the Boy Who Lived has quite a story to tell us, also...."

***

They ran.

Usually students would waltz around the Hogwarts halls, to and from lunch and classes, without any care to make the journey swift. Draco, for one, had never ran through the corridors, preferring to take his time and make nasty faces at first years. A number of times during his junior years, Harry had been forced to sprint, but only for fun and very rarely danger. His duels with Voldemort had never involved prolonged racing and any physical training always took place upon a broomstick. Simply, the boys didn't have much experience in the Muggle art of 'running for one's life'.

Trinity, however, was a speeding bullet, even though she was wearing 3 inch heels and a heavy black cape; pouring from her shoulder blades, holding her back. It kept getting in the boys' faces, but they ran into it and ahead. Both were overcome with pain by the second turn, but kept moving for the sake of life itself. Neither dared look at one another, but only the floor and occasionally the path ahead.

Students stared at the black figure and the schools' greatest enemies, tearing across the level. They didn't know what to do, but quickly, groups peered out of wet-weather classrooms and pointed. It was going to be a long journey to the top, especially since neither the boys nor Trinity knew the door that led to the utmost open-roofed tower, since today was a Thursday, and neither took Astronomy. Thankfully, all the teachers with authority were sipping tea in their offices, even though none of the three would have paid an ounce of attention to the word of authority.

They emerged in the great stairwell, famous for it's sweeping staircases and blinking portraits, papered close and tight to the grand stone walls. Trinity stopped and stuck her hands out so the boys halted behind her. If they played it close to the walls and spiraled their way up, they would undoubtedly reach somewhere from which they could leap to their physical destruction, and the freedom of their minds. All three knew that they would have to lose everything to gain something; nothing more, nothing less. Jumping would set them free.

A black figure slowly appeared in the doorway opposite the trio. It swaggered into the candlelit shaft and revealed itself. A suited male - tall, broad shouldered, dark-spectacled and wired for sound, it seemed - smiled and reached back into his pocket. The long, rail-less platform ahead of him led straight to where they were standing, and black depth loomed underneath. Both parties stood their ground, firm and still.

Trinity convulsed inwardly as Agent Smith pulled out not a gun, as was so accustomed to her, but a long wooden wand. He tossed to his left hand and back again, oddly satisfied with the replacement firearm, giving Trinity a sinister smile. She rippled again in fear as Harry and Draco reached for their weapons, both in inner cape pockets. Usually, Trinity attempt to fight back at an Agent, if he was purely a human program with mortal power. But now, reduced to a defenseless Muggle in the eyes of the boys and Smith, she couldn't even comprehend her own abilities. Scared of magic alone, she didn't have a choice but to do as Morpheus always told her - run.

"Well, well, well..." Smith locked his jaw, "I can't really blame you, Trinity, but what can I say? It seems you've been reduced to a blank, defenseless machine once again, with no idea of where you are or what you can do, despite all of your efforts. You shall never win against us. You have no power against wizards whatsoever. Go and train your two little enemies, go and fight. Go and attempt the puzzle, if you wish. But that would mean escaping my wrath, and without the ability to defend yourself, here, in this great school of tricks, I challenge you to try in vain. I will take the boys, wipe their memories, and continue to have them grow up into machine guns, as we all have planned.

"Pity they won't be able to defeat you themselves, isn't it boys?" He motioned for them to step out of his firing path, but they stayed firm and close to Trinity.

"Why, having lost so many already, I fear that Neo won't be the same man after he hears you are gone. Last words, Trinity?"

Harry and Draco both felt her fear, and raised their weapons, both cringing in discomfort at fighting when they felt so devoid of emotion, motive or real ability. As Agent Smith pointed his wand at her and the boys went over spells like clockwork in their heads, Trinity raised her chin in mutiny.

"While I breathe, I hope..." She muttered in disgust.

"CRUCIO!" Agent Smith fired straight at Trinity's heart. She lifted her hands out horizontally and rose straight up into the air, meters above the platform. Knees tucked underneath her, fingers and eyes steady, the boys backed away into the opposite walls, wands still locked on their enemy. The purple bolts from Smith's wand whizzed straight underneath Trinity as she sat in the air. The whole scene seemed to shake as if the world was out of balance, and Trinity held for about 10 seconds before dropping to the ground like a cat.

"Run!" she screamed as she got up from all fours, jumping out of Smith's aim. They scattered, racing for empty stairs, tripping up the wood lined cases, determinedly ready to defend. Trinity was a blur of shiny black, and seemed very out of place amongst the stony confines of the castle. She had no way to shield herself, so she flew as quickly to the top of the shaft as was possible; skipping over most of the tricky cases like a bird reluctant to land on water.

Heaving, mostly from fright and vulnerability, which she hated with a passion that sometimes forced her to step too far, Trinity reached the top balcony and waited there for the boys.

Harry and Draco were not so fast. Closely tailed by Smith, shooting random curses and very feeble, 5^th year Crucios in every possible direction, they ducked for their lives while scrambling around on the dusty carpets at each landing. Tripping on each other's capes and trying to fire back at their assailant, it was a wonder they didn't collapse in fright. They narrowly escaped many broken stairs and fast trips to the Great Hall, and worked astonishingly well together, pushing one another onto moving platforms and using their capes as spell shields.

Smith had since removed his jacket and tie, and was getting more and more confident with his new weapon. He was nimble and had very good aim; any better and there wouldn't have been a chase at all. But he couldn't gain on the running boys, who were always one step ahead of him. They hadn't the vast array of spells, but Harry and Draco did have much more experience from the countless Dark Arts lessons they had attended. They had also dodged and deflected each other's numerous hexes, aimed in hatred or in comical angst years before.

Finally, one of Draco's accidental 'Locomotor Mortis' spells hit Smith square in the chest, and he heaved forward over the rail of his fast approaching stairwell. His ankles locked together and knees quaking violently, he landed face first on a platform two floors down. Smith didn't have time to reverse the hex on himself, for the boys had already received respects from Trinity, joining her at the top and shaking with fright.

They had escaped for now, but they certainly hadn't seen the last of that suited wizard.

Students pooled around Smith as his partners joined the crowd and heaved him off the ground. They turned to gaze upward to where the trio had since departed.

The stairwell was then left empty and tired, children were ushered back into classrooms and Smith Disapparated with his assistants. It was the last time that any of the students would ever see Harry Potter or Draco Malfoy. It was the end of their lives as students and protégés of the Wizarding world's defense mechanism.

Relief soon took over as the boys hit the rainy air whirling around them on the top of the school. The sky was rolling and grey, blanketing the sunshine and whipping their capes about their knees and heads. Trinity shut the huge entrance door behind them and promptly grabbed Draco's left hand, Harry's right, and walked up to the eye level wall that kept hormonal students from committing suicide.

She vaulted up onto it, slashed the netting that was strung in a balloon over the whole floor of the tower and dropped to the ledge on the other side. Harry and Draco proceeded to follow, with much more difficulty than she had expressed. The wind made them topple and tense, and scaling the huge wall was hard when they were so weak.

The three were quite a sight, hanging slumped and graying from Hogwarts' center tower, like rather solemn gargoyles; grave and weeping, atop their mighty home. Capes flapping in the breeze, the sky draining their flushed cheeks and the promise of rain forcing tears. But none of the three would break.

Draco hung his head and let the wind pin his oily hair against his forehead, his lips cracking; he was pale and wounded, as usual, but the sparkle in his eye was gone, and his hands shook as he clung to the stone, arms straight down by his sides to support him. Trying to sink away into the castle behind him, he let his back fall and take over his body. Stony pale, more a skeletal statue than a boy about to start a new and wondrous beginning.

For him, there would be no more life here as he hated so much. There would be no more waking and sleepwalking. He just had to take the last step. The last great leap of goodbye.

It was never as easy as it was in your dreams.

Harry had crossed his legs and his trousers flapped about his shoes. He let his chest cave inward, hair flicking around his glasses and eyes focused on his hands. His cheeks were red and his skin parched from the wind. He didn't dare look out. This was his chance to say goodbye, but he wouldn't. Another change, another world. He had adjusted once, what was the difference this time? The tears welled in his eyes, but none fell. Nights of insomnia, days of chronic daydreaming; that was all enough.

Knees up against her chest, and fingers clasped about her ankles; Trinity stared out at the horizon. Of hills and winding forest, stemming rivers and great storm clouds, all blurred and erased in parts where the mist prevented the view. It was one of the most beautiful things she had ever seen, the intricate programs that wrote 'nature'. That was partly why she hated having to come and get the boys; when faced with nature, and reminded of how beautiful the world could be, her emotions played against her head and she fell susceptible. Again, to the very enemy she needed to be fighting.

Who would ever have known that it wasn't real? A figment of imagination, they said.

Trinity couldn't stand the beauty of evil. She could deal with the city, more metal and rock. But the country and especially the sea; it was all too much for her to bear. It was like an eerie mannequin or some sort of sinister beauty queen; anything flawless clawed at her heart, and rang false.

She let go of her ankles and let each of her hands creep to the boys. Her fingers trailed against their knuckles until they let her inside, grasping for something warm and loving as opposed to the unforgiving stone, that seemed to shout traitor every time they leant closer against the wind. Draco's fingers fell over hers and clasped tight over the leather glove of her right.

Harry slid each of his fingers in between her left.

As she let herself slip from reality, the boys followed. Three, enveloped in darkness, fell from the pinnacle of the castle, like birds of prey; their capes great wings. Faces grey, arms linked.

The great landscape around them beckoned, as they plummeted to their death.

"Welcome to the desert of the real..." Trinity whispered.

***

"The dreams in which I'm dying are the best I've ever had."

At that precise moment, his entire life flashed before his eyes. Having gained so much, now it was time to lose everything.

The bolt of green from 16 years before. The blinding light. That tender aching feeling in his head, like a huge glowing halo. Stabbing. Someone pushing against his temples, stamping on his thoughts. Manipulating his every move.

The cupboard underneath the stairs. How much he used to love sleeping. Or even laying awake. The silence and the solitude. The slow process of dismissing dreams of freedom. Thinking about being someone else.

Snap. Cooking, cleaning, cowering. Acting as if he didn't even exist. A blur of grey indeed.

It was hard to recall his thoughts from childhood, at Privet Drive. Did he ever understand that his time would come? Was he truly waiting, or just plain unaware?

How could he have physically dealt with all that pain?

Trying to hide in the garden, trying to get away. Nasal voices. He had convinced himself that they couldn't hurt him.

The letters. So very many letters.

The shopping and the new way of life. Being rescued was the easiest way to escape. It was so much harder on your own.

"I'm Ron Weasley." "I'm Hermione Granger."

Pleased to meet you.

What he stood for. Everyone knew his name, but not a single wizard knew his purpose. Not even Harry Potter knew his purpose.

Until now.

Snap. A robe and some books. The stories. Over and over again.

The car crash. His beautiful mother.

"Well, write it down!"

"I can't spell it..."

It was like déjà vu all over again. More and more lies.

He had been forced to live in that cupboard, and was lied to along the way. Then, his origin was opened up to him. He was a wizard. He was one of the greatest wizards to ever exist.

But now, apparently, this was a lie also. When would the truth finally open his eyes?

<"I am Draco Malfoy. Choose your friends wisely, Potter."

Why hadn't he taken that advice?

Snap. The Philosopher's Stone. Neville and the Remembrall. Quidditch. Oliver and his Snitch. Cho's eyes and her shiny fringe. Wingardium Leviosa. Snape's homework underneath the covers. Ink spots on the sheets. Dear Sirius. Meeting his parents for the first time, touching their reflections.

Snap. Tom Marvolo Riddle. Dobby and the Basilisk. Hermione's hands flicking pages. The smell of food from the kitchens. 'Befouling the castle'. Goyle's shoes. Myrtle's wails. Parseltongue.

Snap. Hagrid and Norbert and Buckbeak. The Marauders. Being Invisible.

Snap. Lupin. The Forbidden Forest. His Patronus.

Snap. The World Cup. Moody. Beauxbatons and Durmstrang. The Mermaid. Ron's Dress Robes.

Snap. Dancing. Running.

Snap. Cedric Diggory.

The slides flew in and out of his viewer. He couldn't wake, he couldn't shake away the hand that had plunged his head into such a nightmare. Never before had he felt this pain. The pain of deceit.

Snap. Wormtail.

Snap. The Dementors.

He couldn't escape. Harry couldn't escape the fact that he had been tricked into feeling the fire when none of it was real.

Snap. Voldemort.

Snap. Voldemort.

The betrayal. The inhumanity. The whole sadistic board game. Stringing him along like a little toy.

He was a weapon. Harry Potter was being trained by the system to fight the world's greatest enemy. Not Voldemort. Voldemort was just an excuse.

The figure from his dreams flickered sketchily behind his eyes.

He heard himself whisper farewell. To Hogwarts and to all his friends. To the great big mistake.

He was Harry Potter.

There was nothing more to do. He could only hold on. The best was yet to come.

"Give into the black..." Harry sighed to himself.

Death was like a dream come true.

***

"Destruction is a form of creation."

A tender hand brushed over his cheek. It was like being home again, after a very long time.

The lights weren't as bright as before. Behind closed eyelids, everything was dark and glowing grey.

After the fall, Draco never touched the ground.

He hit something like children hit water in summer. Enveloping darkness. Pinpricks all over his body. Something floating like a blue silk dress around long legs in a summer wind.

A rush of blood to the head, jarring his neck. Choking. A naked tarantula. Limbs dangling.

Then the spotlight. Sickly wet shivering limbs. The clank of bolts and stench of metal. Chilling upward in an elevator, hanging lifeless. Succumbing to gravity. Yielding to the heavenly voices.

Hot burning sun on his scalp. Rushing water, showering all over him and washing away all of the tears. Draco had never cried before. Not until he let everything go would there have been room for tears.

And there had been many.

Beads tickling his stomach. Massaging. Bursts of pain around his calves, his forearms. The back of his neck. Soul draining, like an old man pulling chiffon out of his mouth.

Plugged in. Plugged out.

Empty throbbing head. Parched throat. Weeping wounds. Twitching fingers.

Warmth. Blanketing next to an open fire. Reminiscent of school. Butter milk chocolate.

His broad back against cold sterile metal. A bare child. Knees that will only buckle. Elbows hanging limp. Muscles fallen and decaying.

Sinking, lumpy stomach and raw cheekbones. Cracked bottom lip.

Distant singing, like a record twirling on a machine. More memories of friends, different friends. People that didn't exist anymore.

Strength. Hunger and then starvation. But undeniably, strength. That Malfoy urge to move on and upward. Fists and clenched limbs. Angry and relieved.

Like emerging from running long and hard, with a fire in your mind and soul. Like waking from a deep sleep to face anything that would dare taunt you, armed and confident. Like facing your fears and being able to challenge the strong. Like knowing that everything is going to be alright, simply because you will make it that way.

Like being loved by someone. Like dying with the person you love.

Smells of dirty, rusting metal. Like a great suit of armour. Closing around him.

A renewed knight. Bald and cold. Awakened from a deep, everlasting sleep, so they thought.