Fuck yeah I want me those reviews! Let me know when they're up.

Heh. Well, if I can't mock myself who can I mock? I am intending to get back on the consistent update pony, however. I'm cheating and writing a bunch of updates ahead of time, then posting them once a fortnight, perhaps. Eh, we'll see. That's the plan.

 

As no one has posted in here for almost a year, I shall do the honors. I wrote a scene of my story I am quite proud of. Here we go!

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Voldemort summoned Harry to the courtyard on the night of the full moon. It marked the first time of their weekly meetings to be held at night, and the first outside. The moon half retreated behind the moving clouds, its pale light failing to fully illuminate the shadows.

The Dark Lord stood in a ray of moonlight. A shallow silver bowl rested in front of him, reflecting the night sky. Beside it, laid a small silver blade.

Harry waited between the entrance and Voldemort, watching as Voldemort leaned over and touched the liquid in an urn with his wand.

"Come, Harry."

Harry stepped over the line of what looked to be ash, and into the diagram. The whole courtyard was covered in strange lines, made of blackened earth and slivers of both burnt and unburnt wood. The stone was cold under his bare feet.

"It is time to see the results of your learning," said Voldemort.

Harry neared. He could now see two small sticks about the same size of a wand but thicker. They were made of different kinds of wood. The moonlight reflected the runes carved within them.

"What is this?" questioned Harry. He knew it was a ritual of some kind.

"A way to find an item that belongs to us."

"Us?" He knew not of an object that belonged to them.

Voldemort turned away from the swirling silver liquid. His twisted features prominent in the moonlight.

"Have you ever wondered why I tried to kill you that night?"

Harry's stomach lurched. The Dark Lord's eyes gleamed.

"Why?" Harry all but breathed.

"Many years ago there was a prophecy... A prophecy that told of a boy soon to be born with the ability to vanish me... "

The very air seemed to still. The voice of Sibyll Trelawney's echoed in his memories; the harsh and hoarse tones predicting the servant rejoining the master.

"I was foolish. Short-sighted. I set out to fulfill the prophecy... determined to make sure it did not come to pass. In my haste, I lost everything."

He felt as though something was closing in upon him. The desire building in his chest made it difficult to breathe. He couldn't let this opportunity slip by him again, not like the many times with Dumbledore.

"Tell me," Harry demanded.

Voldemort's lips curled like he was amused with Harry's demands. Nonetheless, he complied.

"The one with the power to vanquish the Dark Lord approaches... born to those who have thrice defied him, born as the seventh month dies..."

It felt, for a moment, as if the entire world had ended. The silence in the courtyard was absolute. Nothing could muffle the sound of his heart beating furiously in his chest.

"It means... me?" The words felt heavy in his throat.

"At the time, perhaps not," said Voldemort. "Now, it is most certainly you."

"Why?" whispered Harry, his world still spinning. "How do you know?"

Voldemort surprised him by smiling, something broad and faintly patronizing, but amused all the same.

"Did you not vanquish me for a time?"

"It's what you are after, isn't it?" Harry’s voice faltered and he cleared his throat. "It's what you've been searching for. What the Order has been talking about keeping safe? The reason you send your snake to the Ministry? It was for the prophecy?"

"Yes." Voldemort smiled approvingly.

"But... why?" Harry felt as if he was missing something. Why would Voldemort want a prophecy he already knew?

"What I have is... incomplete."

"Incomplete?"

"My loyal servant heard only part of the prophecy before being detected by Dumbledore."

Harry froze. Dumbledore had known from the very beginning... He looked towards the ground, feeling a weird sort of calm come over him. Of course, Dumbledore had known... he always knew.

Voldemort must have caught a glimpse of the emotions building on his face.

"He did not tell you." It was not a question. "Dumbledore always liked to keep his secrets... keep his control."

He did not want to think about Dumbledore, and the betrayal growing within.

"There is more?"

"Yes." There was determination in his voice. "We should know it, own it. It is ours."

Harry stared. "How can we get it? Where is it?"

Voldemort reached out towards Harry’s face, and despite himself, Harry flinched, not sure what to expect. Voldemort’s smile broadened, his fingers pausing before sliding down a strand of Harry’s hair.

Leaning into Harry, Voldemort said, “If you want to know more, you must help me to retrieve it.”

Harry frowned, wanting to ask more questions, but Voldemort was clearly finished with the conversation. He turned away.

For a moment Harry lingered, knowing full well he should not help the Dark Lord.

Yet, he stepped forward, swallowing hard against the tightness in his throat. He pushed down any feeling of betrayal. This prophecy was the reason his parents were dead, the reason for everything in his life. He wanted to know. Needed to know.

Voldemort took one look at Harry's face, a lazy smile spreading across his face like a cat presented with a bowl of cream.

"Kneel," commanded Voldemort, himself kneeling in front of the empty silver bowl.

After Harry knelt, Voldemort removed the urn’s lid and with perfect control tipped out its contents into the shallow silver dish. The thick and shiny silver liquid pooled, slowly spreading across the whole of the dish. The musty scent of Mugwort with a hint of Jasmine filled the air.

As Voldemort stirred the liquid with his wand, he began to talk.

"The Department of Mysteries is a secret and terrible place. It is filled with magic both more wonderful and terrible than you could imagine. The Unspeakables dedicate their entire life to studying, researching and understanding what magic is, and what it can be. The Room of Prophecies lays within the Department of Mysteries. Every Prophecy in England, heard or otherwise, sits within this room, and only those who the prophecies belong to can touch them."

The moon parted from the clouds.

"Before us is an old Greek Divination ritual I have mortified to bypass the protections of the Room of Prophecies. Before us, in the bowl is blessed pure water gathered at a spring mixed with liquid silver and various sight-awakening herbs."

He picked up the two rune lined sticks and handed the lighter colored one to Harry. It matched his wand.

"This is our demand. The desire to see into the unknown... into what belongs to us."

The runes were unfamiliar to Harry. He rotated the stick slowly. It felt comfortable as if it had once been apart of him. In the back of his mind, he remembered what these were. Celtic Oghams.

Voldemort gestured to the knife. "Blood is our proof of who we are. That we are the rightful owners. There are no others."

His movements were calm and sure, as he sliced his hand, squeezing droplets of blood onto his own Yew Ogham. The blood on the knife vanished, as Voldemort passed him the blade.

For a second, Harry stared at the silver blade in his hand. This was his last chance to back out.

Quickly, he knicked his hand, allowing the blood to siphon onto the Holly Ogham. It is the runes that fill with his blood.

"Now place your Ogham into the bowl."

Harry mimicked Voldemort, lightly placing his Ogham into the swirling liquid.

The blood was leached from the Ogham, swirling together with the silver, never mixing. Something was building, a sense of something old. Voldemort grinned.

"Together, with our brother wands, we can do the impossible."

They hold out their wands. Inexpressibly Harry knows what was next.

"Incendio."

The flames leapt out of their wands, setting the Oghams ablaze. The flames spread across the liquid, growing hotter, hotter... There was a roaring in his ears. He swayed slightly under the flood of energy. It was not from his wand, or from the flames in front of him, but deep within himself and all around him. Voldemort roared with laughter.

Harry's blood hummed as it burns.

Awareness came to him, flowing into him through the vine-like magic, teaching him to sense things as never before. Where before he had felt and seen and heard, he now felt and tasted and smelled.

He could smell the scent of decay and dust and heard footsteps in the distance.

In the flames, they began to see.

They were soaring through the clouds, through the ground, stone and dirt... hurling along the corridor towards what he knew was the Department of Mysteries. They past the blank stone walls, past the torches-- the plain black door before them was growing ever larger. They were moving so fast, he was sure they would crash... soon they were a few feet from it, and they could see the faint blue light again --

They past through the door with ease. Harry felt a rush that was not his own: through... through at last. Inside a black-walled, black-floored circular room lit with blue flamed candles. There were more doors around them... They moved forward straight across the stone floor and through the second door where patches of dancing lights flickered in his vision. They glimpsed rooms filled with mysterious things, but did not stop...

They vanished through another door and Harry knew this was the place.

They were in a cathedral-sized room full of shelves and glass spheres. Harry heart raced. When they reached isle ninety-seven, they turned left and slid along the aisle between two rows.

They stopped.

Before them was a small glass sphere, glowing with a dull inner light. Their names were fixed to a yellowish label beneath the dusty ball. Harry felt winded, weak, as if he had not eaten in days, but he reached for the sphere. He needed to.

The world exploded in a clap of thunder and light.

He slammed back into his body, flat on the stones, gasping and coughing for air.

The bowl was no longer whole but shattered into countless pieces, the fire extinguished. All that was left of the Oghams were ash and dust.

Voldemort rose, his expression unreadable. With a sweep of his wand, he vanished the objects.

"Far older magic rests in that room. It will only be physical touch that will allow us the access we desire."

Voldemort speared the spot with a hard glance, the moon sliding out from behind a cloud, falling across his face in cold, hard light. He seemed older, more weary.

"Go to bed, Harry. We will discuss this another time." He clapped his hands. Mykola appearing with a pop.

He strolled from the courtyard, leaving an exhausted Harry and the house-elf behind.