Liberi Immortalis

Chapter II: The Setting of the Stage

            An explosion rocked the room.

            Raphael slowly set down the papers he had been reading and raised his head to look at the gaping hole that now adorned the north wall of his study.

            “Mika-chan, why can’t you use the door like a normal person?” He took off his reading glasses so that he could give the archangel Michael the full effect of his annoyed, blue-eyed glare.

            “Don’t call me Mika-chan. And what the HELL do ya think you’re DOING?” Michael boomed in his typical “indoor” voice. “Shouldn’t you be in BED? That ARM of yours is going to STAY broken if you’re freakin’ bumbling around in HERE! Not to mention you still bloody don’t have half yer BLOODCELLS back. Ya wanna FAINT or something?”

            Raphael half smirked and ran a long-fingered hand through his silky blonde hair. “But the ladies just love a handsome man with war injuries.”

            “WAR injuries my ASS,” Michael snorted, stalking over and boosting himself right smack onto Raphael’s desk, scattering his papers in the process. “You didn’t do ANYTHING in the war! While the REST of us were out fighting ROCIEL and every other CRAZY thing in Heaven and Hell, you just got yourself into a COMA going after that crazy Sara girl, you LECH.”

            “Mika-chan, Sara was not crazy; just possessed.”

            Michael rolled his eyes. “Oh, big, freakin’ DIFFERENCE.”

            “And I am not a lech,” Raphael added in lofty tones. “Just a very romantic, misunderstood guy with so much love to give to the beauties of this world.”

            “Allow me to PUKE,” Michael said cynically.

            “Just not on my Versace sweater, thanks.”

            “WHY am I friends with you?” Michael glared.

            The same question had echoed many a-time through the minds of most everyone who had ever met the two. Completely opposite in temperament, sensibilities, and even height, it seemed a wonder that the two archangels could stand each other, much less enjoy being in one another’s company. However, the fact remained that the tall, suave blonde and his childish but dangerous-looking, red-haired counterpart were always to be found together.

            “Good question, Mika-chan,” Raphael said in response to the unanswerable question. He had already recollected his papers and was readjusting his stylish Ralph Lauren-framed lenses back onto the bridge of his nose. “After all, I’m not a bloodthirsty, bazooka-toting, syngenesophobic, high-strung, monomaniacal pyromaniac like you.”

            Michael stared at him for a full minute. Finally, “Don’t call me high-strung!” He gripped his head. “Gaaah! You TALK too much!”

            “I know you’re really getting upset when you start repeating yourself.” Raphael patted his friend’s head. “There, there, Mika-chan. Now let me get back to my work.”

            “Yeah, what ARE you doing anyway?” Michael asked, peering over Raphael’s shoulder at the official-looking document he was holding. “And don’t call me Mika-chan.”

            “Surely Raziel’s contacted you about stationing ourselves permanently in the Upper Court in Briah? He wants us to head our branches of government.”

            “Oh, HELL,” Michael snorted, giving an impatient wave of his hand. “Sevotharte, Rociel, Raziel—I really don’t care WHO’S asking. If they want ME to do something, they can start a WAR.”

            “Mika-chan, we just had one.”

            “But it’s been MONTHS!” Michael wailed. “We need to DO something or I’ll go NUTS.”

            “In that case,” Raphael began, digging through a desk drawer to retrieve a colorful flyer. “How about reinstating the archangels’ annual resort trip? This sounds like a lovely place.” He waved the flyer—depicting a beautiful white sand beach and half a dozen buxom women in bikinis—in Michael’s face.

            “Hey, that’s a GOOD idea!” Michael said, eager to have something to do. “The DEMONS are all hiding down in the friggin’ lowest PITS of Hell, so the hunting’s no good.” He jumped to his feet, already halfway to the crumbling wall that he’d entered from. “I’ll go get that somber-faced URIEL—“

            “I’ve already contacted him,” Raphael interrupted. “He doesn’t want to leave his work, since he’s now reclaiming his position as Judge of Heaven. And Sara’s too busy with the Messiah to come, so it’ll just be the two of us.”

            “Hey, how come you didn’t bother to ask ME?” Michael grumbled.

            “Somehow I just knew you would come, Mika-chan,” Raphael said loftily.

            “Stop calling me Mika-chan!”

*****

            Ron rolled over and stared up at the long, heavy curtains surrounding his four-poster bed. It was probably past midnight already. He knew he should get to sleep to reserve his energy for the trip the next day, but something nagged at the back of his mind and kept him wakeful. He shifted slightly in order to tilt his ear towards Harry’s bed, beside his own, but he didn’t hear a sound. Even Neville’s usually heavy snores were muffled tonight. The stillness unsettled him.

            He knew why it did. It reminded him too much of that night long ago, when the entire world seemed to turn upside-down for him. The night that Lord Voldemort had decided to attack.

            It had happened during the winter of their fifth year. Everyone knew something was going to happen. The Ministry of Magic kept reassuring everyone that the situation was under control, that Voldemort wasn’t back and fully restored of his magic. But everyone at Hogwarts knew better. Professor Dumbledore’s speech at the End-of-the-Year banquet the previous year left them all without doubt that a storm was brewing and that it would soon break. And so it did. It broke directly on Harry Potter.

            Ron closed his eyes and allowed the images to come flashing through his mind. It was during Quidditch season… perhaps a few weeks after Halloween when Harry began feeling faint for no apparent reason. He tried to hide it, of course, afraid that he would be ordered off the Gryffindor Quidditch team during the peak of the season, but Ron and Hermione saw it, saw it very clearly in every word he spoke, every step he took, every morsel of food that was left uneaten on his plate. Whenever they questioned him, he would just mumble something about his head hurting. Ron wanted to kick himself. He had never connected those head pains to Harry’s scar, and what it might mean if the scar was hurting everyday.

            On the evening of the Attack, Harry had looked more ill than usual, now that Ron thought about it, but at the time, he had become so accustomed to Harry’s listlessness that he hadn’t been very concerned. That night, in the still, still midnight, when the entire Hogwarts community had been tucked away cozily in their safe beds, all Hell seemed to break loose.

            It began when Harry screamed. Screamed with such gut-wrenching force that Ron had snapped awake and leaped out of bed in half a second, and was running for Harry’s bedside. But before he got there, a humongous burst of brilliant light had exploded from Harry, knocking Ron and the other boys away even as it shattered Harry’s bed frame. The room was suddenly very cold and lit by an eerily flickering green glow that held Harry’s limp form suspended in the air, his blank eyes staring unseeingly straight at Ron. Then, to Ron’s absolute horror, those eyes began to glow with an inhuman light, and turned the normally brilliant green irises into a piercing shade of deep red. From the light of those eyes, an apparition seemed to take shape; a glowing red form grew into the solid-looking figure of a black-cloaked man. Lord Voldemort. As he grew more substantial, Harry’s body began to fade, turning almost translucent. Voldemort cradled the unconscious boy’s frame in one arm and held his wand in the other. He gave Ron and the other boys such a chilling smile with that hideous, reptilian face of his that Ron involuntarily shivered now just remembering it. There was pounding at the door to their room, but Voldemort had already cast a magical seal on it so that no one could force the lock. No one could come in. No one could help them. It had been just Voldemort, Harry, and four very frightened boys in their pajamas.

            When Voldemort, still wearing that terrifying, psychotically-gleeful smile, had reached for Harry’s face, Ron had screamed out for him to stop, mainly to distract him from hurting Harry. But then Voldemort looked at him, and with that smile and those glowing eyes, he stepped towards him. He came closer and closer, ever so slowly, deliberately. His smoldering eyes glowed a discordant red against the green light that had begun illuminating his wand as he walked. He was going to cast the spell, Ron knew it; he was going to cast Avada Kedavra and kill him right there and then. Ron backed into the wall. He wanted to cry, to scream, to run away, but he couldn’t. He was trapped, he didn’t have his wand, and there was not a thing that he or anyone else could do to stop the thing that was leaning down toward him now, to stop those ghastly eyes from looking at him, to stop the death that was coming. He just stood there, frozen in terror and Voldemort had—

            “Harry?” Ron called a bit shrilly, snapping his eyes open and sitting up hurriedly in bed. He realized he was breathing hard, and his hand was a bit shaky when he reached up to brush off a bit of moisture on his brow. They were just memories now, memories nearly a year old. But he had to stop there; he couldn’t take them yet, not all of them.

Ron swung his legs over the edge of the bed and peeped out from between the curtains. Harry was probably sound asleep, but Ron had an overwhelming need to see him, safe and sound, to reassure himself that everything was all right. He tiptoed the few feet of bare, stone floor between their beds and gingerly parted the curtains around Harry’s bed.

            “Harry?” he whispered again, in case Harry was awake and wondering who was peeping in on him in the middle of the night. “Are you awake, Ha—“ He stopped in mid-sentence and stared. The bed was empty. Harry was gone.

*****

            “Master, I have a bad feeling about this,” Wormtail snuffled, jogging a bit to keep up with his master’s considerably longer strides. Hours of strenuous walking and a bit too much sunlight had finally prompted him, perhaps against his better judgment, to speak his mind. “We shouldn’t trust him! Why would someone like him be helping us?”

            “Stop blubbering, Wormtail,” Voldemort muttered distractedly, ignoring the sand he was kicking up as he stomped toward a strand of palm trees. “I know what that Rociel wants… It’s just a matter of getting what I want before we’ve lost our usefulness to him.”

            “What he wants…?” Wormtail began as Voldemort brushed past him to examine a stone tablet stuck into the sand just in front of the trees. He stooped and brushed off the face of the tablet, comparing the odd markings scratched onto it with the parchment Rociel had given him. Seeming satisfied, he straightened and extended a hand over the top of the tablet. Wormtail fell silent and held his breath, now familiar with the ritual; Voldemort had cast this same spell over four other tablets stuck in the ground around this stretch of beach they had been scouring the entire morning. After the Dark Lord had finished the long incantation, the tablet resonated against his hand with a pale green light.

            “There now,” Voldemort said, examining his handiwork, “it should all be ready. We have only to wait for the trap to be sprung.”

            Wormtail looked pleased. “Does that mean we can get some lunch now?” His master gave him a withering look that made the snuffling minion babble on hurriedly. “My lord, you must keep up your strength! If you do no eat you will not have the power to finish the trap!” He cowered back, as though expecting a blow.

            Voldemort simply snorted. “Worried about me, are we, Wormtail? Oh, how very touched I am,” he said sarcastically. “Fine, hurry up and go feed yourself then, if you can do nothing but think of your stomach!”

            Thankful for the opportunity to escape one of his master’s foul moods, Wormtail hurried off toward the group of buildings in the distance.

            “Cowardly, useless creature,” Voldemort muttered. “Last in my ranks, always! How humiliating a fate it is now that I have no choice but to rely on that fool.” The Dark Lord paused, and some of his usual, proud rigidity went out of his posture. The venom drained from his voice. “But the rest of you abandoned me, didn’t you? Lucius, Severus, Macnair…” He sank slowly, a bit painfully, into the shade of a nearby palm as a slow, cruel smile began twisting his face. “Oh, but you will regret it now,” he whispered, “the whole world will regret it… and you most of all, Harry Potter!”

******

            “Come on, you stupid thing!” Draco hissed, banging the flat of his palm against the uncooperative Forgeralicious Falsificator. He was hunched over the cheerfully humming magical contraption in an alcove in the wall outside Hogwarts Castle’s main gate. A seal on basic dark devices inside the castle was what had brought Draco out into the chilly autumn pre-dawn in his final, desperate attempt to avoid being the laughingstock of the sixth years—if he could but get this Falsificator to work properly, he could forge a letter that would satisfy his teachers that his father had changed his mind and would allow his son to go on the trip again.

            “That’s right,” Draco growled, shaking the machine violently. “I won’t let that Potter win! I’ll go to France with everyone else, even if Father comes to drag me home and grounds me until graduation. I don’t care, I won’t be left behind if that stupid Potter is going!” He ripped out the last of the garbled parchment that was jammed inside the machine from the last failed attempt.

The Falsificator was a second-hand item (which much offended Draco’s Malfoy blood) that he had spotted at a Wizarding Swap Meet and hadn’t been able to pass up. His father was a terrible prig about letting him handle dark objects, so he quickly bought the machine before Lucius or the dotty old witch manning the stand realized that it was a powerful dark item.

            “Stupid second-hand junk,” Draco grumbled, “no wonder no one wanted to buy you. Now work!” He pounded the Start button with his fist. The machine whirred to life, the many colorful knobs and whatnots spinning productively. Draco began to feel hopeful. “Come on, come on!” After a few minutes of whirring and spinning, the Falsificator issued a happy ping, and spit out a sheet of parchment covered in neat, perfect Mesopotamian pictographs.

            “Aaarrrrggghhhh!!!”    

            Just as he was about to throw the machine into the moat in a fit of rage, he heard the front gate of the castle creak slowly open. Draco nearly leapt out of his skin, but quickly gathered his wits and pressed himself into the shadows against the stony castle walls. If he was caught, he knew his chances of re-enlisting himself on the class trip were less than nil. Oh, just what I need now, he thought irritably. Just let this nosy git get lost now!

            However, as Draco stayed stock still in the shadows and watched attentively, it appeared that no one was coming. Draco almost wondered if he’d left the front door ajar enough that a slight breeze had pushed it open again. However, he froze when he heard very distinct footsteps on the crackly gravel below the steps. It sounded as though someone were running down the gravel path and down the sloping lawns of Hogwarts—but there was no one there! But there were definitely footsteps, making steady progress away from the castle. Invisibility! Draco realized. Somehow, someone had a means to make himself invisible, and was wandering Hogwarts at night!

Draco stared long and hard, trying to follow the progress of the invisible walker by watching the grass that crumpled miraculously in footstep-sized clumps, and determined that it was headed towards the Forbidden Forest. Or actually, to something near the Forbidden Forest—the gamekeeper’s hut!

            Draco, who had an overpowering malicious streak that generally subdued any other feeling or thought in the pursuit of getting someone else in trouble, straightened and quickly followed the invisible intruder. If a student at Hogwarts had contraband that caused invisibility, they were sure to be expelled. Or, Draco thought, I could always blackmail whoever it is. Many pleasing ideas came into his head as he hurried across the dewy grass, Falsificator and class trip forgotten for a time.

            As he watched, sure enough, the door of the hut swung open, bringing the gamekeeper’s big, hairy, smiling face into view. Just as the door was swinging shut, a second person appeared, standing in the doorway. A boy in blue pajamas. A dark-haired boy in blue pajamas. A boy that Draco would recognize anywhere, from any angle because he’d spent the better part of the last five years glaring at him—Harry Potter!

            “Oooh, Potter,” Draco grinned maliciously, “I’ve got you now!”

*****

            “Harry? Are yeh alone?” Hagrid quickly moved aside to let his midnight visitor in and quickly closed the door on the night. Harry slipped his Invisibility Cloak off and blinked. The blazing fire in the hut’s fireplace lit up the little cabin and engulfed him with warmth and cheeriness, all the cool dampness and autumn melancholy of the night left at the doorstep.

            “Well then,” the half-giant rumbled pleasantly, pouring hot water from his perpetually boiling tea kettle into a tea pot, “what brings ya out ta this necka the woods so late, Harry? It’s been awhile, though, I’d say.”

            “You look well, Hagrid,” Harry said, perching in his usual chair by Hagrid’s fire.

            “Well as ken be expected,” Hagrid said, pouring cups of tea for himself and his guest. He set the tea down on his beat up little coffee table and sat opposite Harry. His humongous boarhound, Fang, came to curl up at his feet. After taking a little slurp of his tea, he looked up and peered closely at Harry.

            “Hmm… but you don’t look quite as well as ya should be,” the gamekeeper noted. “Quidditch practice not getting’ yeh down, ‘s it?”

            Harry looked down quickly and put on a big grin as he fingered the cup of tea in his hand. “Tea at midnight, Hagrid?”

            “Harry.” Harry was surprised with the serious tone in his friend’s normally jovial voice. “What’sa matter? It isn’t… them dreams agin, is it?”

            Harry looked surprised, and for the briefest of moments, slightly alarmed. “Oh, no, no, nothing like that!” he exclaimed with more vigor than he’d intended. Sheepishly, he set his teacup down and looked up earnestly into the kind face of his oldest friend. “It’s just… oh, I dunno, it’s so childish but…” he sighed. “I really wish I could go to France tomorrow.”

            Hagrid blinked. Then his usual smile burst over his face. With a friendly slap on Harry’s back that nearly sent the boy crashing off his chair, the gamekeeper let out a hearty laugh. “Oh, Harry,” he gasped in between merry chuckles, “so that’s what’s gotcha mopin’ about, eh?” He let out a huge sigh and grinned toothily. “An’ here, I’d been thinkin’ you were quittin’ Quidditch or summat like that!”

            Unable to resist the giant’s heartfelt laughter, Harry had begun to grin too. “After the way we flattened Slytherin last month? Not a chance!”

            After another good laugh, Harry felt much better and sipped his tea more eagerly. However, Hagrid remained looking thoughtful.

            “Yeh know, Harry,” he began slowly, “you ken always come ‘ere and talk ta me, for whatever. I miss seein’ you and Ron and Hermione here all the time on some crazy adventure, like when you were all younger.”

            Harry sobered a bit too. His gaze became a bit distant and strayed to the undulating flames in the fireplace. “Times were different back then,” he began, his voice suddenly flat. “We were different. Just children… We grew up playing in a time that was dark, and doing dangerous things was just a part of life for us.” He grinned ruefully. “I guess… now that we’ve gotten through real danger, breaking school rules and things doesn’t seem like such a thrill anymore.”

            “Well, that’s true ‘nough,” said Hagrid. “Afta all, the Boy Who Lived—through five encounters with the Dark Lord, I might add—is probably about reddy ta settle down an’ grow up now, eh? So, now that yer outta the Dark Arts-fightin’ business, got any ideas ‘bout whatcha wanna do after Hogwarts?”

            Harry frowned. The nagging feeling was returning, the one that flitted about his mind every time Voldemort was mentioned. He wondered why even now he couldn’t stop being afraid of the threat the Dark Lord posed. After all, he was gone wasn’t he? Gone for good?

            Then why can’t I stop thinking about him? Harry wondered, shuddering a bit. He can’t come back, he can never come back… so why am I still afraid of him?

*****

            “Ah, smell that fresh, salty air; feel the gentle nip of the breeze; listen to the crashing of waves on the white sand—“

            “HOW much FREAKIN’ farther do we have to WALK?!”

            Raphael glanced over his shoulder, annoyed. He was probably glaring, but Michael couldn’t tell because he was wearing a very dark pair of sunglasses. Probably some really expensive, designer thingy, he thought. He shifted the surfboard, soda cooler, picnic basket, beach ball, and boom box he was carrying to a more comfortable position.

            “This is really HEAVY!” Michael whined. “WHY can’t we just stop HERE?” he demanded, gesticulating as best he could with his head. “I see PLENTY of ocean and beach here—so WHY are we lookin’ for some PARTICULAR spot?!”

            “Because we can’t just mingle with the humans around here,” Raphael sniffed. “And anyway, I’ve reserved a lovely private lagoon area—and we’ll have our own, special waitresses to wait just on us there.” He gave an approving glance at the numerous bikini-clad resort waitresses simpering along the beach with trays of alcoholic refreshments for their beach-bound guests.

            “Well why’s this place so freakin’ FAR?”

            “Hmm.” Raphael dangled the map he was holding a few feet in front of him, as though it was too uncouth to examine more closely. “Well, this map isn’t very helpful.”

            “Gimme that!” Michael lunged for the map, only to topple the precariously balanced pile in his hands. With a cry, he and his supplies went tumbling onto the sand.

            “Aww, poor Mika-chan,” Raphael cooed sardonically. Grumbling, Michael took the hand offered to him and was dragged up to his feet as he rubbed his bumped head. Raphael shook his head with a sigh and caught a flash of long, silky hair out of the corner of his eye. He removed his sunglasses.

Eyeing the back of a tall, slender waitress carrying a tray of drinks nearby, he flashed a wolfish grin and said, “You know Mika-chan, this is getting us nowhere. I think I’ll just go ask for some directions…” With a flash, he was off after the unlucky waitress.

            Michael wasn’t fooled. “Oh BROTHER,” he muttered as he began recollecting his dropped possessions. “Here he goes AGAIN…”

            “Miss! Oh, Miss, could I ask you a question?” Raphael called out, smoothing his blonde tresses as he hurried after the long-strided woman. However, she continued on as though she hadn’t heard a thing. “Miss,” Raphael said, finally gaining her side and grasping her arm to stop her. “Would you be so kind—huh?”

            “Did you want something, sir?” a somewhat annoyed and definitely not-feminine voice asked as the “waitress” turned around to reveal a young male waiter from the resort.

            “Oh, ah, um.” For once, Raphael, Heaven’s smoothest talker, was quite speechless. “I thought—“

            “It’s the hair,” the waiter said with a slight sigh and a shrug. “Don’t worry about it, I’m used to it by now.”

            This was just enough time for Raphael to recover. “I beg your pardon,” he said, coughing delicately and eyeing the waiter’s name badge, hanging from a colorful lei around his neck. “Erm, Sirius, is it? I was wondering if you could direct me to the private lagoon?”

            Sirius looked slightly puzzled, but took the map proffered him by Raphael. “I didn’t think we were renting this lagoon out anymore…”

            “Oh, but we requested it especially,” Raphael insisted.

            “Well,” Sirius still looked a bit doubtful. “In that case, please follow me…”

            “Hey, it’s a DUDE!”

            Sirius nearly spilled his tray of drinks as a rather fierce-looking face topped with wild, spiky red hair appeared in his face.

            “Mika-chan, that is so rude,” Raphael admonished, but his companion merely brushed passed him to eye the waiter.

            “Long hair… but SEVI had long hair too… I know what it is! Yer so SKINNY, that’s the PROBLEM,” Michael said, poking Sirius’ thin waist. Looking at him, Raphael had to agree; although Sirius looked healthy enough, he seemed like a man who had been, and was meant to be, much more built.

            “I’ve, err, had some eating problems in the past,” Sirius muttered, looking like his patience was wearing a bit thin.

            “Ah, anorexia,” Dr. Raphael said knowledgeably.

            “No, starvation,” Sirius answered cuttingly. He turned quickly on his heel and started stalking off across the beach. “Now, if you will please follow me…”

            The two archangels exchanged a shrug and hurried after their guide. He walked very quickly on his long, agile legs, as though he was someone used to a lot of strenuous walking. By the time the archangels had reached a string of palm trees, they had lost sight of him.

            “C’mon, Mika-chan, we’d better keep up,” Raphael called to his companion, who still shouldered his rather heavy load.

            “You can HELP me with some of this!” Michael called.

            As they rounded a bend of swaying palms, they spotted Sirius again. His tray of drinks was sitting on the ground and he seemed to be fussing over something in the trees. As the archangels approached, they heard him muttering, “…hide for awhile. I’ll come get you after work.”

            “Is something the matter?” Raphael asked as they approached.

            With a last hard shove at the something in the trees, Sirius turned hurriedly to face them with a rather sheepish smile on his face.

            “Oh, it’s nothing,” he said quickly, retrieving his tray. “Please follow me, it’s not much further.”

            Michael glanced into the bushes where Sirius had been standing as they walked past. There was nothing there, but under the eyes of the expert hunter, the set of large, strange tracks in the sand was not missed.  Odd, Michael thought, some of the prints look like they were made by some huge predatory bird… but are those lion tracks, too? Weird…

            He pondered over the tracks as they walked, a growing feeling of unease filling him. C’mon, why’s this bothering you so much? he chided himself. But whatever he thought, he couldn’t shake the sinking, rather dangerous feeling that seemed to hang in the air. He glanced up at Sirius, who had been reengaged in conversation by Raphael. The man couldn’t be some kind of spy from Hell could he? But that doesn’t make sense, Michael thought. I don’t feel any demon energy around here… but there’s definitely something weird.

While Michael had been busy puzzling over the tracks and their guide, they had reached the lovely, enclosed lagoon. The patio sported a round table of wrought iron painted white, sheltered by a large, colorful umbrella, along with four comfortable-looking lounge chairs by a pool area that flowed in with the natural lagoon. There was also a small, palm hut that housed what appeared to be a mini-bar and showers. A small waterfall spilled from the rocky west wall that hedged the private little lagoon in.

            “Very nice,” Raphael said appreciatively. He strode over to the nearest lounge chair and sprawled himself in it. Turning to Sirius, he said, “So now, could you please get all our waitresses in here?”

            “Well, I didn’t know that—“ Sirius began, when Raphael, catching sight of how tense the other angel was, called out, “Mika-chan, is something wrong?”

But even as the words left his mouth, Raphael felt it. Michael dropped everything he was holding and whirled around. “It’s a TRAP!!!”

The subtle aura of menace that pervaded the area burst out to fill the lagoon, solidifying into a visible star-shaped seal that enclosed them within its powerful rays. All three men crumbled to the floor as the intensity of the magically sealed atmosphere became heavy and inhibiting on them.

In the shadows of the palms trees surrounding the lagoon, Lord Voldemort staggered to his knees as the completed spell drained his energy and erected the barrier around his captives. However, he grinned evilly as he caught sight of the bounty successfully caught in his trap.

A bit further down the path from where he stood, another set of eyes watched the prisoners’ plight anxiously. With a soft swoosh, the unseen watcher was airborne and flying north as quickly as possible. He knew he would need help. A lot of help.

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FINALLY, chapter 2 is done. ^^;; Sorry for the looooong wait, everyone—but now that school’s out for the summer, I should be getting chapters out more quickly. Yes, MUCH more quickly. Anyhow, a few changes—I’ve switched around chapter names, so “Meshings” will be chapter three. It’s already half-written, so please stick with the story if you like it! ^^ In this chapter we learned a bit about what happened between Book 4 of Harry Potter and Harry’s sixth year—but we still don’t know exactly what happened to Voldie to leave him without any followers, and basically pretty low on power. And more Raphi, Mika, and Sirius. ^__^ And Setsuna! (poor thing wasn’t in this chapter… oops…) Thank you to the kind 18 people who read and reviewed chapter one— please everybody review this chapter as well! ^__^