The Riddle War

Chapter 2:

A Lantern Extinguished

Over the next few weeks, Harry worked feverishly on the Arabian rune. His sense of purpose renewed, the quality of all his other work increased as well. In the same week, Harry broke the linking rune between the Arabian and Mongolian runes, hit a training week of 140 miles, stabilized his new Antidepressant Potion, and received an invitation to a special exhibition mile race on an indoor track in London. It was a little early in his season for an indoor track tour, but Harry decided if he could destroy the Horcrux, he would accept.

And so Harry found some more motivation to solve the problem the Horcruxes defensive charms presented, as if saving the lives of thousands of innocent witches and wizards wasn't motivation enough. Often, he worked early into the morning on the spell that would eventually shatter the wards around the lantern. Starting from the broken linking rune, Harry managed to make large slashes in the spell equation, dividing it into several more manageable chunks.

Finally, after a month of intense work, Harry believed he found the answer. If he used a Revealing Charm, he would be able to see the shield itself, represented by tattoo-like runes all over the lantern. Searing Charms on that one crucial linking rune would open up several avenues that could topple the whole series of shields. After that, it should be a simple matter of some well-placed Piercing Charms to shatter the lantern and release the portion of Voldemort's soul within.

Despite his confidence, Harry took no chances. Before attempting anything, Harry made spent a day Occlumating to organize his thoughts, then another to store these organized, rational thoughts in a Penseive. He then mailed the Penseive to the Austrailan branch of Gringotts along with a letter that instructed the goblins to mail the Penseive and several letters to Ginny Weasley if he didn't send another letter to them within a month. If attempting to destroy this Horcrux did kill him, the Light side would find out everything he knew and would discover all that he had accomplished. With any luck, someone would find a way to kill Voldemort without him. He had taken similar precautions before each of his other attempts to destroy Horcruxes, and was rather looking forward to mailing Gringotts the letter asking for his package back.

Finishing his "just-in-case" prepartions, Harry decided on one more run before he went to bed. In addition to his morning ten miler, he had already done a agonizing set of ten repititions of 800-meter segments, all in two minutes or better. He was exhausted, but an easy five miles would serve to drain the lactic acid (a natural byproduct of intense running for prolonged periods of time) from his legs. After donning his shoes, clothes, and persona, James Black headed out the door into the misty, cool night. Just an easy run, he promised himself. He'd be back in exactly thirty minutes- six minute mile pace. Just an easy five. . .

* * *

Twenty-five minutes and sixteen seconds later, the front door of the cottage was flung open by a huffing, puffing, and very irate James Black. Idiot! he cursed himself. He knew the pace was too fast for the first half mile. And he had done nothing about it! Now instead of taking tomorrow as another hard day with a third recovery run, he would have to do two recovery runs and practically waste the whole day! His legs were completely shot. . . he had run the morning run in 50 minutes (five minute per mile pace), the speed session (which totaled five miles) at four minute pace, and now he had run his recovery run at five minute pace again!

James threw up his hands in frustration. Idiotic. Completely idiotic. Gritting his teeth, James forced his legs to support his weight and staggered to the shower. Oh, stop whining, he told the screaming muscles. You brought this on yourself. James turned the shower on full blast and set it to as cold as it would go, knowing that while a cold shower was the most unpleasant thing in the world, cold water was better for muscles than hot. Again, by sheer force of will, the indomitable Black stayed in the frigid shower for fifteen minutes before staggering out and collapsing into bed.

* * *

The next morning, Harry awoke feeling fairly refreshed, which was surprising, given the the strenuous nature of the day before. Mentally and physically, he had been completely spent after his shower yesterday. He was expecting to wake up with his mind slow and his legs heavy. Instead he felt loose, light, and quick. It must be his magic at work.

See, not long after Harry begin competing on the elite track circuit, he had begun to question to his abilities. Sure, he had always been fast, (it had been a requirement if one was Dudley Dursely's enemy) and yes, he had been training hard, but it just wasn't plausible that a young man who had never run a step unless he was running for his life before his seventeenth birthday should be so good. Nearly every so-called running expert out there agreed that lots of slow running at a young age was crucial in determining elite distance runners, hence the domination of the still semi-nomadic African runners who spent much of their lives running but not racing. Harry completely defied convention. Most elite runners lived a life completely dedicated to running. Their diets, daily schedule, and lifestyle revolved around training and racing. When Harry was running weeks of anywhere from 120-150 miles, high-mileage was extremely unpopular among non-African runners. At first he was met with scorn by many American and British professionals, who scoffed at this "untrained lunatic's" training methods. Then he began breaking their records. Harry found he could simply push himself longer at greater intensities than most other runners in the world. He just didn't understand why.

So, like any true pupil of Albus Dumbledore, Harry began to research the topic. He began taking samples of his blood before, during, and after workouts. He researched the finds on physiological effects of running that Muggle scientists had made and discovered that wizards had made a few advancements in the field on their own. Finally, by developing a spell to monitor his blood throughout a workout, Harry beleived he had discovered the reason for his success. The actual theory was very long and difficult to understand, but basically it summoned down to this:

When a runner is moving at a given speed, he requires a certain amount of oxygen to be delivered to his muscles through his blood. The greater the intensity, the higher the oxygen demand. At the same time, a runner's heart and lungs has a given capacity to transport oxygen. It can only move so much blood in so much time. As long as demand is less than supply, a runner can continue to run quite easily. However, when running at the effort required for a race, the demand far outstripped supply. As the time in which demand was greater than supply wore on, the muscles a runner was utilizing were forced to make do with less and less oxygen. This sends the runner into a state commonly referred to as "oxygen debt." The body utilizes a process called "anaerobic energy delivery," temporarily sending glucose to the body's cells. After long periods of time in the anaerobic state, the legs deaden and fill with a substance called lactic acid, becoming heavy and hard to lift in the process. The legs and chest burn, the heart pounds as it tries to get blood throughout the body, and the brain screams at the consciousness to stop.

This is the point that separates gold medalists from DNFs (Did Not Finish). At this point, where it seems impossible to continue, the best runners push themselves just a little more. During the last 100 meters of 5000 meter race, these toughest of men are feared most, when, grimacing and flailing, they accelerate down the homestretch at speeds impossible to the average man. Through constant experimentation, Harry discovered what made him a world-class runner. By comparing results he had taken from other participants in races (they did not know they had had spells cast upon them), Harry discovered that when his body was in the depths of oxygen debt and he literally felt he could not lift his leg for another step, something incredible happened. When Harry's oxygen debt became to great to surmount, profound chemical changes took place in his blood and muscles at the cellular level. For several seconds, Harry's body Vanished lactic acid from his cells and his blood cells suddenly found room to carry more blood for a crucial second or two, allowing Harry to summon up a final sprint to finish.

Although Harry could not be certain without more test subjects, he believed that his almost supernatural ability to deal with sheer agony of oxygen debt stemmed from his body's protective magic. It was the original purpose of magic, Harry had theorized. Every magical person had protective magic. It was this force that made Neville Longbottom bounce instead of break when he was accidentally dropped from a window. It was the same force that had caused Harry to Apparate before he even knew there were wizards to escape from his cousin's fists. As far as Harry could determine, protective magic only kicked in when it felt the body in serious danger. By nearly running himself into a coma every race, Harry was putting his body into a state where it feared for its existence (apparently it thought if Harry was running that fast for that long, something very dangerous was chasing him) and reacted magically to give him a brief surge of energy when he needed it most.

At first, Harry had thought this most unethical. Having an extra burst of energy seemed akin to blood doping or steroid use. If Hermione Granger had been the one to discover this, she undoubtably would have stopped competing. However, over time Harry had come to terms with it. It was something he was born with and couldn't help. It'd be like if a long-legged man who was naturally thin stopped running because the only other people in the world to race were short legged fat men. Harry couldn't control natural advantage.

Since discovering this incredible tolerance for pain and oxygen debt, Harry had found it to come and go at the most inoppurtune of times, only to reappear when he wasn't expecting it.

Like today. When he had collapsed last night, Harry had been dreading the next day. He couldn't put off the lantern anymore; his patience had ended, but he knew it would ill-advised to tackle destroyed a Horcrux in anything but tip-top shape. Now he had woken to find himself completely recovered. Finally, he could put another seventh of Voldemort's soul in hell.

Making his way to the cottage's small kitchen, Harry began busying himself with the task of cooking breakfast. What had that man once said about England? Of course. In the future, the English will be remembered for three things: The Oxford Book of English Verse, the presumption of innocence, and the British breakfast. Harry had never read The Oxford Book of English Verse, though he believed quite passionately in the presumption of innocence. However, the thing on the list he knew best was hands-down the British breakfast.

Harry's own version came into being fairly quickly. If one had been reading about his day in a book (!), it would have seemed like only a fairly brief paragraph or so had elapsed from his walk to kitchen to his sitting down at the table to enjoy a hearty meal of eggs, bacon, toast, orange juice (freshly squeezed), and tea. When he had finished, (which, sticking to the literary theme, seemed to take barely the space between a period and the next sentence [!]) Harry went to his lab and removed the lantern from its weightless suspension and levitated it in front of him with his wand while he walked to the most secure part of the cottage- the sub-sub-basement, three floors underground.

It was this room where Harry engaged in all his most dangerous activities. In this small room, with its smooth, dark-stoned walls that had been magically strengthed hundreds of times, Harry had destroyed Horcruxes, tested out new, destructive spells, performed arcane rituals, and made wands (well, attempted to- once. That had been enough.). Now he would attempt to use its security to banish another portion of Voldemort's soul to the underworld.

Taking a deep breath, Harry cast spells to suspend the lantern in mid-air equidistant to the walls and floor. Time to get to work.

"Incantatem Revealatio," he spoke to the lantern, leveling his wand at it.

At once, arcane symbols and runes began blossoming over the surface of the lantern. Lit sickly green by the glow of Voldemort's soul, the symbols shone faintly in the semi-gloom of the room. Harry set the lantern into a slow spin with his wand, his eyes peeled for the rune he needed.

Finally, after fifteen minutes of searching, Harry spotted it. He grinned and touched the spot with his wand. "Ustilo," he said, holding the burning hot tip of his wand to the rune. Acrid fumes rose from rune as it withered and burned, unable to hold up to magic being applied against it. Harry waited five minutes before he felt the rune crumble and its spell end. The green glow that representing the lantern's shield dimmed ever so slightly. Harry grinned. Now he was in business. Harry lowered the lantern a little and sat on the floor. Time to get cracking.

* * *

Several hours later, Harry paused in his shield-breaking to wipe the sweat from his brow. All the ambient magic had heated the little room considerably. Consequently, Harry was now wearing nothing but a pair of nylon running shorts- the most comfortable type of garment ever invented, except for sweatpants fresh from the dryer. He was almost done with the shield. It was weakening considerably.

"Dissecto," Harry spoke, cutting another base rune in two, splintering the spell it was helping to keep up. Several runes disappeared from the lantern's surface, their spells ended. More popped into existence, their appearences no longer masked by other spells. Harry scanned these new spells carefully, looking for important ones.

Ah, there. The basic rune for the sun, which in the case was used in the "energy" sense. It was one of powerhouses of the shield. "Duco vis," he said, tapping the rune with his wand. Slowly, he felt the energy from the rune being drawn into his wand, dissipating throughout the room as heat energy. The room's temperature rose another few degrees and Harry suddenly became aware of amount of sweat pouring off him. He was going to need a lot of water when this was done replace the lost fluids.

The spell was coming apart the seams now. The green glow was quite dim and dull now and Harry was sure it was about to collapse. All he needed to find was one more key rune and the whole structure would come apart. Before he did this, however, Harry built a Containment Sphere around the lantern. Essentially, it was an extremely powerful shield that worked backwards- it allowed things in, but not out. Harry was almost certain that should the the lantern's shield be breached, a booby-trap with something unpleasant would activate.

Now he was ready. There was one more rune he had to destroy, and then he would be able to work on the lantern. Harry chose an eight-way linking rune that appeared to connect eight less powerful energy runes together. If his hypothesis was right, destroying this rune would destroy the connection between the power runes and they would start to work against each other instead of with each other. This competition should unravel the rest of the spell.

Tongue between his teeth, Harry readied what was hopefully to be his last shield-breaking attempt. "Quasso!" he whispered, aiming the Breaking Charm right at the rune.

It couldn't have gone better if Harry had planned it. The linking rune shattered and its spell ended. Almost at once, the eight power runes stopped glowing evenly and began to pulsate, their light growing blindingly bright before suddenly dimming. Harry watched with fascination as rune after rune was washed out by the magical energy surging through the lantern. Finally, five minutes after the light show of sparks and flashes began, the glow receded, leaving Harry alone in the room with a suddenly defenseless lantern. The sickly glow of Voldemort's soul seemed even brighter than usual and Harry noted that the inscription was now quite muddled- he couldn't read whether or not it was the original or the new one. He took a deep breath. Here goes nothing, he thought.

"Rumpo!" Harry said much louder than he had intended, his heart pumping furiously. His Shattering Hex struck the metal edge of the lantern and glanced off. Harry inspected the lantern carefully and determined that the metal was too enchanted to break without Alchemy. Instead, he focused on the glass.

"Calidus!" he said next, hoping to melt the glass. It had no effect. "Everbero!" Same with his Bludgeoning Curse. "Percutio!" The Piercing Curse also failed. Harry frowned. Perhaps one more Shattering Hex. . .

Summoning up more power to put into the hex, Harry thrust his wand at the glass, saying, "RUMPO!" as forcefully as he could without shouting. He was rewarded for his efforts with a crunching noise as the lantern's glass section facing Harry cracked right down the middle.

Harry paused, waiting for something to happen. Could there be more to the spell? And yet. . . no. There couldn't be. A low hiss swept the room, as if poisonous gas was being piped in. Harry felt a wave of powerful magic pulse out from the lantern, shoving him back slightly. He had done it! The sickly yellow-green gas was seeping out from the crack, filling the room. Another portion of Voldemort's soul! The mist seemed to gather in on itself, becoming denser. Harry, using Legilimency on the mist, sensed dispair, pair, and anguish as it was forcibly removed from its home. Evidently, the magic of lantern had strengthed it, because the soul fragment had yet to disappear. Harry was not worried, however. He knew what to do.

"Expecto Patronum!" he spoke to the mist, dispelling Voldemort's soul with a silver mist of his own. His incorporeal Patronus was the very antithesis of Voldemort's soul- where Voldemort was negative, evil, and humid-feeling, Harry's mist was positive, a reflection of his good heart, cool and dry. The silver mist surrounded Voldemort's soul, binding itself to it, until all that remained was nuetral grey-green haze. Harry simply Vanished this, grinning triumphantly. A quick check of the incription confirmed what Harry already knew. Five out of six of Voldemort's Horcruxes had been destroyed! Harry released the Levitation Spell on the lantern and let it fall to the floor. He had done it! Surely, this deserved a little fun. Harry hurried upstairs to write a letter accepting the invitation to join that indoor track tour.

Fin.