It was the day after the feast, and Harry stood outside Hagrid's hut, rubbing down Buckbeak with a coarse piece of sackcloth.

"You're like a razorblade that can fly, you know that?" asked Harry. Buckbeak preened, poking at his feathers with his beak to fluff them up. Harry swatted him on the side of the neck. "No, that's not a compliment you pointy birdmonster. What did poor Sebastian ever do to you?"

Buckbeak crowed, and stomped at the sod with a taloned foot. Harry rolled his eyes, nudging the hippogriff over a little so it didn't claw apart one of Hagrid's pumpkins. Perhaps a pumpkin patch wasn't the best place to negotiate with a flying monster, but Grubbly-Plank had bitched at Harry until he agreed not to take Buckbeak back into the Forbidden Forest with the other hippogriffs.

"Yeah, yeah, you saved the girl. But you couldn't stop yourself from getting a cheap shot in after, could you? Very noble of you to maul a thestral while it's down."

The hippogriff ruffled his wings and shifted. Harry swore the beast actually looked a little abashed, but Buckbeak's mind was still proving elusive, so he wasn't able to back up his crude interpretation of hippogriff body language with anything more than a guess.

"He'll be alright, no thanks to you. But don't you dare do it again. No mauling things, or I'll tell Hagrid on you."

Buckbeak ducked his head, stepping forwards and poking his head under Harry's arm. He mewled pitifully, and nosed at Harry's armpit. Harry repressed a laugh at the unexpected tickling sensation, and shoved the beast's head away.

"Enough of that," he said, grousing good-naturedly. "Everyone gets one for free, so you're off the hook this time. No mauling things unless I tell you to from now on. Deal?"

Buckbeak chirped.

"You shouldn't coddle him like that," said Professor Grubbly-Plank. She was lurking beside Hagrid's hut, arms folded over her chest and a particularly Snape-like expression on her face.

"Coddle?" exclaimed Harry, voice full of mock outrage. "I just scolded this naughty little toerag within an inch of his life. I threatened to tell on him. He knows I'm serious."

Grubbly-Plank snorted, and wandered over to Buckbeak. She lifted his wing, nothing gentle about the motion, and peered at the heavy shackle around his ankle. Buckbeak squawked as she yanked his wing, but didn't resist.

She pursed her lips, and then shook her head in disapproval. Her wand was out a moment later, and with a mumbled word the chains fastening Buckbeak to an iron stake in the ground grew taut. There was another mumble, then the sound of a hammer striking metal in the air, and the stake was driven an inch deeper into the soil.

"I've instructed the headmaster on this matter," she said with a sniff. "Buckbeak will spend some time in isolation to curb his violent tendencies. Your responsibility is to keep the students away from him, bring him food, and clean up after him. You will not let him loose."

Harry rolled his eyes. Grubbly-Plank drew herself up to her full height - tall for a woman, so she was almost at eye level with him as he slouched. He returned her look, but not with the same vitriol, only boredom at her bossy posturing.

"I will be informing Professor Dumbledore if the beast goes missing," she said, a note of accusation in her voice. Harry fought the urge to roll his eyes for a third time, wholly unimpressed by the woman.

"That's a bit harsh," he said, already planning to break the chains as soon as Grubbly-Plank was back in the castle. He was beginning to really dislike this woman. First her careless treatment of the thestrals, and now she was being spiteful towards Buckbeak? Harry felt a little guilty because he was partly to blame for setting her off, but mostly he was revolted by a woman who would mistreat creatures to sate her own bad moods. "Don't take things out on Buckbeak just because I've pissed you off," he said.

She grabbed him by the robes and pulled him away. Harry tensed for a moment, but decided to go with it and not fight back. For now. Once they were a few dozen steps away, with the timber of Hagrid's home as a barrier between them and Buckbeak, she stopped to lean in to hiss at Harry.

"Mister Potter," she whispered, enunciating each syllable. "I am the Professor for Care of Magical Creatures. You may not hold much respect for that office, but rest assured I know what I am doing. Buckbeak is here for his protection - thestrals hold intense grudges, and if Sebastian does not recover easily, the herd may well seek vengeance. Hippogriffs are proud creatures. Buckbeak would not be willing to hide for fear of his safety, but he has sufficient nobility of spirit to take responsibility and accept a punishment for his own wrongdoing. A trait you would do well to emulate."

Harry blinked. Grubbly-Plank's breath was hot and foul against his face, and he wrinkled his nose against the smell, which was somehow worse than the natural animal odour of Buckbeak. He begrudgingly admitted that there was something to her words, and shrugged in response. Maybe she was right. She let go off his robes and stormed off, heading back towards the castle.

She was still a bitch, though.

x-x-x-x-x-x

The ground shifted, and the air thickened, and the wind between the trees was a dull roar in the distance. Harry bent over and vomited noisily on the roots of an ash tree. It recoiled at the acid of his bile, and then begrudgingly thanked him for the gift of salt and spit and half-digested food with a rustle of leaves.

Thistles retched a short distance away. A cloud of spores fell from her lips, staining her chin and dress even as most of them drifted away from her. She cursed, and shot Harry a baleful glare.

"What is that?" she asked weakly, hiccoughing as she spoke. She ran the back of a hand over her mouth, and the spores vanished beneath it.

"That's the acromantula nest," said Harry.

"It's disgusting. A sour note in the harmony of magic. The forest is screaming."

"For all that you're not a real girl, you're being awfully fussy about some spiders," said Harry, mocking her half-heartedly. His face was pale, as well, and his heart thudded wanly in his chest. Somehow the sensation of alien magic was even worse this time. He glanced over at Thistles speculatively, and focused on the part of his mind which was linked to her power.

Dizziness shot through him like a blow. He put a hand on the trunk of the ash to steady himself, and the bark writhed at his touch like a sea of caterpillars.

"Is this your doing?" he choked out, trying and failing to separate his consciousness from hers. She nodded, and retched again.

"You made me out of this forest," she said at last when the dry-heaving had subsided. "Its magic lies closer to the surface for you now. It's louder. And it's screaming for help."

Harry groaned, and tried to listen to the thrum of magic in the air. The dissonance of the acromantula nest warped the feeling of power in the forest, making his skin crawl and teeth hum as if they were vibrating. He shuddered but forced his way through the discomfort. He let his awareness flow over the beat of his heart and the pulsing of his blood, tensing with magic and muscles to synchronize the rhythms of his body with the arcane dissonance emanating from the monstrous spiders.

As his body settled, he began to relax - not comfortable, not quite, but dropping into an alien headspace which matched the feel of the acromantula. The pulse of his magic was muted and accelerated at once, spilling out of him with the same polluting footprint of the acromantula's magic. It was only a farce, a construct of magic to disguise him within and without, but Harry felt strange and light-headed and not altogether himself. But he was coherent, and the nausea had faded, so he stood upright and stepped away from the crutch of the tree.

"What are you doing?" shrieked Thistles, leaping away from him. She jumped backwards, upwards, with inhuman grace, catching herself high in the branches of a tree where she crouched and bared her teeth. "You feel wrong."

Harry cocked his head, his head feeling odd and weightless as he did so. He fought the urge to blink eyes he didn't have and taste the ground with phantom limbs.

"It's only temporary," he said. "It makes it bearable. Come here, I'll do the same to you. It feels weird but it doesn't hurt."

Thistles screamed. It wasn't a scream of fear or anger, but a red-throated warning. Her glamour slipped for a moment, and Harry saw how her eyes had gone from iridescent gems to dull and dark and full of death. She was hunched over like an animal, hands and feet gripping the branches and shoulders raised like the hackles of a dog.

"I'll kill you if you try," she said, her voice flat. Harry paused, holding his hands up in a gesture of surrender. She let out the scream again, and this time, when her glamour dropped she left it off and hissed through inhuman teeth.

"Okay," said Harry. "Peace. I won't."

"Stop doing it to yourself," she demanded. "Be yourself again. I don't like this."

Harry twitched, feeling the movement of centaurs in the distance by the minute impact of their hooves against the forest floor. The earth was a web made from a single thick thread of stone, and it spoke to him of everything which happened upon its surface.

"I need to speak to Aragog," he said. "I can't go stumbling and vomiting into an acromantula nest. They're obligate predators. If I show weakness like that they won't be able to stop themselves from attacking me."

"Good. Then you can kill them all. It's what the forest wants."

"I need them," said Harry. "At least a little longer." Thistles hissed again.

"You're a thorn in my mind right now," she said. "I can't pluck you out, but I won't look at you while you're singing a spider's monster-song. Don't find me until you're a man again."

And then she was gone, fallen away into the boughs of the tree. She sank into the wood, and as her features disappeared into it Harry felt his awareness of her fade. It didn't vanish, not entirely, but it was muted as if she was speaking from a great distance and underwater at once.

"I'm not doing this for fun," Harry grumbled. He strode deeper into the forest, following the hum of the nest against his senses. Now that he had altered his presence to resemble the acromantula, there was a sort of resonance between him and them, a homing beacon luring him closer.

X-x-x-x-x-x

Mandibles clicked and spiders chittered. The acromantula nest was as dark as Harry remembered, and yet he found himself able to see every one of the arachnids clearly, even when he wasn't looking. The weight of their legs on rock and tree and web sent shudders through the world which Harry was able to feel. The urge to reply with a dance of tapped legs rose within him, and he found that he was only able to resist the impulse because he didn't have the requisite limbs to reply in kind.

The subtle shaking of the nest was a chorus of acromantulas speaking. The words lingered on the edge of Harry's understanding. Listening through his limbs was akin to staring into an abyss and seeing the velvet darkness move. He felt as if he stood on the precipice of something, a connection to the sum of all the arachnids clustered around him. He pulled his magic tighter around himself like a cloak, and stepped away from the edge.

Some of his nausea from earlier crept back, but Harry felt a pressure lift from his mind. He felt a little more like himself and less like a spider.

Aragog sighed in disappointment, the titanic spider's body creaking like an ancient tree in a gale.

"For a moment I felt you stand on my web like one of us," he said, settling down on the loam. Harry sat on a fallen tree a few metres away. He was easily within Aragog's reach, but not so close that he wouldn't be able to react if the creature lunged. For all that the beast was cordial with him, the guise of spider magic around him whispered secrets of arachnid instincts, telling him that their world was split into acromantula and prey.

Harry refused to be prey, but he didn't want to be a spider either. He resolved to show them that he was a monster in a category of his own, just as his giant friend Hagrid was. Human in shape and size, perhaps, but not that kind of easy meat.

"Hmmm," droned Aragog, studying Harry with all eight eyes. "It is custom among humans to eat together as a sign of friendship, is it not?" Harry inclined his head in agreement. "Then let us sup together, as friends of Hagrid, and discuss our agreement." Aragog made a peculiar shivering motion, a mix of body language in twitches and a staccato beat of legs against the ground. Harry felt it in his nails and teeth and the hair on the back of his neck. He couldn't translate what was said into words, but it evoked a feeling of insatiable hunger within him.

A spider the size of a pony crashed through the undergrowth, its normal alien grace hindered by the carcass of a deer it dragged behind it. Then acromantula dumped the body at Aragog's feet, and Aragog tore a chunk of flesh free.

Harry tried not to watch too closely as Aragog stuffed the haunch of meat into his mouth with bloodied mandibles.

He exhaled quickly through his nose and stood, recognising his cue. He let magic suffuse his nails, turning them hard and sharp, and drove a hand into the belly of the deer like it was a claw. Even through the animal's fur coat, he could see veins standing out thick and black, despoiled by the venom of the acromantula which had killed it. It only took a few motions for him to dig through the viscera and find the animal's liver. He pulled it free and lifted it to his mouth, blood running down his chin as he tore pieces loose.

As he ate, he stared unblinking into Aragog's eyes, refusing to cowed by the proximity of the spider's bloody maw. Harry couldn't tell if this was a test, a trap, or a sincere offer of friendship. He wondered if Aragog had even picked which of those it was, or if the spider was waiting for his reaction to decide.

The meat was suffused with venom, giving it a rank and bitter taste. Harry let the flavour roll around his mouth, and swallowed. The venom passed into him and through him. He rubbed the tips of his fingers together, and thick wet beads formed at the end of them. The venom coagulated like treacle and then dripped away onto the mulch beneath his feet. A leaf curled up, sizzling and browning at the touch of a single drop.

When the gory meal was over, Harry wiped his mouth clean and sat back on the tree.

"I got your messenger," he said, ignoring the roiling in his gut. "Do you have the news I asked you for?"

Aragog rubbed his forelegs together, making a sound like parchment being crumpled.

"The wolves of the forest are riled. Their neverborn kin are active, as you said. It distresses them, lending a pleasing tang to their flesh. Dread is the finest flavour of fear, and they are very afraid indeed."

"The wolves are afraid of werewolves?" asked Harry.

"Of the one who leads them. He hunts men by choice, but when there are no men to kill, he turns on his cousins. They say he enjoys the challenge. The chase. The sacrilege of devouring flesh so like his own."

"Strange to hear you criticise him for that," said Harry. "I thought acromantula were cannibals by nature?"

Aragog hissed, and the chorus of spiders in the background pushed forwards like a wave. He halted them with a fierce stamp of one leg.

"Acromantula eat one another to preserve the life of the nest. The weak die to sustain the great, and the unruly are sacrificed to retain the order of my law. It is our holy calling. It is in our nature to kill one another, but we do it because that is what we are, not simply for fun."

"Yeah, but that still ends up with an acromantula in your belly. I don't see much difference."

"It is an insult to call us the same," said Aragog. Harry noticed a sudden tension in the spider's body, a tightening of the exoskeleton where his legs met his body, and the way that the background acromantula were beginning to slink away cautiously.

Harry frowned. He didn't get it, but he wasn't going to make a fuss over something so petty. If the overgrown spider wanted to be hypocritical and claim that only acromantula could eat one another and retain the moral high ground, so be it. He shook his head, and changed the subject.

"Where can I find him?" he asked.

"It is good that you would offer to slay him in reparations for this slight," said Aragog, drawing himself up to his full and terrifying height. Harry snorted at the spider's assumption. "But you will not succeed. He is surrounded by dozens of his wanton ilk, lolling about on the furthest edge of the forest."

"Which edge?" asked Harry.

Aragog gestured with two legs, and Harry turned to look in that direction. He couldn't tell if there were any werewolves there, but the forest was vast, and the pollution of acromantula magic in the air was stifling his senses.

"By the human village," said Aragog.

Harry grimaced and looked to the sky, what little of it could be seen through the thick press of trees. He had wanted to wait until Halloween, but it seemed like the world moved on whether he wanted it to or not. That was fine. A full moon would do just as well.

The only problem with that was the renegade werewolf roaming nearby.

X-x-x-x-x-x-x

"Remus, when's the next full moon?" shouted Harry, barging into the Shrieking Shack.

There was a sigh upstairs, muffled by the floorboards between them, and then footsteps. Harry grinned, and leapt upstairs to meet the other man. He took the stairs four at a time, and arrived in the doorway just as Lupin pulled it open.

"Hello," he said, smiling cheerfully at the older man. Lupin just stepped back, holding the door open so Harry could come into the battered and bedraggled farce of a living room. "It still baffles me that you're actually living here," he said. "Why not just pop in and out, as and when you need to?"

"I want to be close to hand in case something happens," explained Lupin. "The Death Eaters sometimes thrown up anti-Apparition wards before an attack comes. Nobody can get in or out until they're broken, which is always too late for someone."

Harry grunted in acknowledgement and flopped his way onto the sofa. It was even more threadbade than his last visit.

"Have you been chewing on this?" he demanded.

"Not since the last full moon, no," replied Lupin, his voice deadpan. "Would you like a cup of tea?"

"Fuck your tea, I came here for the secret knowledge of werewolves. Tell me when the next full moon is. Go on, I'll keep it a secret."

Harry bounced on his seat eagerly, looking up at Lupin expectantly. The werewolf picked a book up off a chair. It lay face-down, open at the page he'd been reading before Harry had interrupted. He slid a bookmark between the pages and closed the tome with a thump. A small cloud of dust rose into the air, and Lupin sneezed.

"You can crash at my place if you like," suggested Harry, pulling a face at the sight of the dust. "It's just up to road. Nice and roomy, though a few extra guests at the minute."

"I appreciate the offer, Harry," said Lupin dryly. "But I've no wish to be run off the premises by an angry mob. It's been a few years since I taught at Hogwarts, but there will undoubtedly be letters going to parents the moment I step foot on the grounds."

Harry cocked his head, puzzling that out for a moment.

"None of the students will recognise you, surely. Would any of them even have attended one of your classes before? I doubt that children pay much attention to the Defence Against the Dark Arts teachers their older siblings had."

Lupin shook his head, firmly, raising a hand in a gesture that also said no.

"It wouldn't be the students," he said, and Harry understood. He leaned back on the sofa, worrying at his bottom lip with his teeth.

"What if Snape had an accident? Nothing permanent, but something to keep him out of the way for a few weeks."

Lupin snorted, hiding a laugh, and placed the book gently on the floor. Harry noticed that he took care to place it on the single clean rug in the building, and not directly on the grimy floorboards.

"The thought will keep me warm at night, so thank you for that offer, but no," he said. "Why do you want to know about the full moon?"

"Magic," said Harry easily.

"If you had studied magic at Hogwarts, you would have had an Astronomy lesson. You'd have learned all about the stars and planets and, yes, even the moon." Lupin leaned forwards, lowering his voice into a conspiratorial whisper. "You wouldn't even have to use a wand."

Harry groaned, covering his eyes with his hands.

"Enough with you and Granger and McGonagall and this whole scholarly inquisition. Let me wallow in my ignorance like the mighty hippopotamus."

Lupin gave him an odd look, but didn't question it.

"Four days until my next change," he said, finally answering Harry's original question. Harry sat upright, the childish flailing gone, and his demeanour suddenly serious.

"Alright, good. That's enough time for me to finish my preparations. I'm bringing my ritual forwards. I want to be fully armed before any conflict, if at all possible. The problem is that I need an important night to do it on. Halloween, an equinox, Dumbledore's birthday. Anything would do. The nearest window is the full moon."

"Is this about your elf?"

Harry shook his head.

"No, Thistles was an accident. This one was my original plan. His name is Each-Uisge. A water horse. I mentioned it to you before, sort of. This is the path to power which may help me unknot your curse."

"The last time you went meddling around with magic you didn't understand, you turned a house elf into a hobgoblin," joked Lupin.

"She's not a hobgoblin anymore," replied Harry. Lupin just raised an eyebrow in response, waiting for Harry to continue. "Now she's something new, caught partway between elder fae and primal creature. I don't even know what she is. I've never seen anything like her before."

Harry folded his hands in his lap, bitten once again by that mix of guilt and curiosity which rose whenever he thought about the ordeal he'd put Thistles through, the being he'd transformed her into. She looked and acted like she was almost human, but he knew she was very far from it.

After a moment of watching Harry's expressions change, Lupin rose from the chair and walked over, placing a hand on Harry's shoulder.

"Doesn't that prove my point?" he asked softly.

Harry let out a long breath through his nostrils, and closed his eyes, just for a moment. When he opened them again he'd recovered his poise.

"My point," Harry said. "Is that I can do incredible things, if I'm in the right place, with the right power. Each-Uisge will open more doors for me, but Greyback is lurking out there. After what you've told me about him, I'm uneasy leaving the castle during the full moon. You said it right yourself. If something happens I want to be here."

To Harry's surprise, Lupin smiled, and sat down beside him. He patted Harry's knee consolingly, and then pulled away. The sudden paternal affection was awkward, but not unpleasant, and Harry returned his smile, if weakly.

"If my recent intelligence is accurate," began Lupin. "Greyback is planning to spend this full moon on a recruitment drive. He'll go meet with one of the bigger packs, whip them up into a blood frenzy, and make sweet promises that every day can be as free and wild as hunting under the night sky. One night away from the castle won't do any harm."

x-x-x-x-x-x-x

"Poison to corrupt," said Harry, tossing the hagbloat mushroom into the air. He caught it with fingers of air, pressing down on the surface until it erupted with spores. Lightning-blue and loathsome, they hung in the air around it like the rings of Saturn. "Salt to cleanse." He carved a deep red line in the flesh of his arm with his ritual dagger, a blade of hardened mistletoe. The dripping blood veered away from contact with the rock beneath his feet, falling down almost to the ground and then upwards as if being poured against gravity.

He inhaled deeply, and let go of the dagger's handle. It did not fall, but disappeared into nothingness, waiting. His blood pooled in the air, a mirror-flat surface beneath the mushroom, thinner and brighter than the blade he'd used to draw it.

"Springwater for the land, and saltwater for the sea," he said, unstoppering a flask and pouring it out, then repeating with another. The water streamed out to join his blood, the liquids mixing together, moving through shades of red and pink and white, freezing in mid-air into a pane of translucent scarlet ice.

The pool beneath him roiled like an ocean in a storm.

"Iron to bind," he said, pulling out a horseshoe battered and dusty from use, the nails still attached. He grasped it firmly, ignoring the sharp thorns of pain as the nails drove inch-deep in the meat of his palms, and bent the edges of the horseshoe until it formed a crude circle. "Iron to bind with the strength of my hands and the salt of my blood, to hold against harm and hope and hearth."

Harry held up the distorted horseshoe so the full moon could be seen through the hole in the centre. The light deepened, and slowed, and clung to form a soap-bubble lens. He tossed it into the air, and it rose in orbit around the hagbloat. The moonlight shone fiercer overhead, and fiercest still where it passed through the lens and transformed into a tangible beam of white light which struck the mushroom, pushing it down onto the pane of glass-like ice, into the ice, suffusing it with the power of the moon. It was a thing of transformation and madness, a moment of joy and despair. Harry felt the wildness of magic potential rise around him.

"And," he added, numb and overcome by the momentum of the ritual which rose like mercury in his veins, "a thistle for luck." He dropped the small purple flower, anchored his will against the sun and the stars, and let the moon move through him.

The ice shattered, and Harry felt his mind shatter with it. Mountains howled.

Broken glass fell into the pool, a poisonous spore and lunar power held within each broken crystal, falling through a surface torn by tidal forces into vicious waves. The pool stilled, and froze, and shone.

The world was ice and water. Harry couldn't see. Couldn't breathe. Thick fronds of seaweed were wrapped around his limbs and throat, pulling him down into the abyss. There was no light or warmth, only cold and pressure as the depths of the ocean crushed him with the weight of untold millions of tonnes of water and hate.

His lungs burned, and he struggled, trying to pull himself free, but every motion only burned precious oxygen from his body and left him choking on his will until at last he couldn't help it any longer and opened his mouth to breathe in frozen thunder of the ocean.

Harry reached out to the furthest edges of his mind, calling for the earth and sky, for the kingdoms of nature to push his heart and inflate his lungs, but there was no answer. Stars which were not stars swam in front of his eyes as he flailed at the edge of unconsciousness. Harry closed off his attempt to reach out to external wells of power, and focused himself inwards, to the light which fuelled his life. It was a candle against the depth and dark of the ocean, and he warmed himself against it for only a moment.

With the last of his power Harry overrode his dying body, synthesising oxygen directly into his brain and lungs, generating kinetic forces within his body to pump his heart where the muscle itself had failed, and igniting the lightning which lived in his blood.

He warmed himself for only a moment, and then there was only the ocean, and the cold, and the dark.

And then death.

For only a moment. And then teeth like glaciers closed on the scruff of his neck, hauling him up, out, the strangling fronds of seaweed no longer pulling him down but up, and he felt the tug of the moon in his heart as a tidal wave launching him up until he was flung up through the water, and the pale watery glow of the moon distorted through fathoms of water grew stronger and brighter and then -

And then he stood on the surface of an endless sea of water which stretched to the horizon in every direction. The full moon hung in a sky without stars, and Each-Uisge was a monolith of ice before him.

The ice cracked as he moved, revealing water whipping around in rapid currents beneath his skin as if muscles made from pure motion. The water horse lowered his head and exhaled. The titanic creature's breath froze the air, but warmed Harry's body.

At the sensation of warmth in his limbs once more, Harry opened his eyes, and then opened his eyes again, and he was standing back in the chalybeate spring where he'd conducted the ritual. Each-Uisge stood on the frozen surface of the pool, realised in the world as a creature of flesh and blood.

"My ocean is yours to command," it intoned, stamping at the ice with one hoof. "What is your wish?"

"Everything," whispered Harry, and then collapsed. Green arms wrapped around him. He was utterly spent.

-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-

"Mortals are fleeting," Harry heard Each-Uisge declare as he rose back to the waking world. "They come and go like strikes of lightning. Bright and loud, perhaps, but gone in an instant. Insignificant, unless you are in the exact spot where they strike, and then, in that moment, they can be infinity."

"Does that mean lightning has struck twice, to bring us both here?" This new voice was familiar, tickling at his mind as he heard the words both through his ears and his magic. It sounded peculiar, giving Thistles' voice an echoing doubled-tone. Harry focused his will to re-establish the floodgates in his mind which prevented the intrusion of magic through his connection to the fae creature.

"Lightning will strike this mortal over and over," said the water horse. "He stands at a nexus of fate, with all the world spinning in his wake. Blind and shackled, he would still be the instrument of destiny."

"I have no destiny," said Harry weakly. Thistles pressed a long-fingered hand to his forehead, and then her cheek against his.

"You were gone from my reach," she said. "I couldn't reach you for all my power. There was nothing. I was alone." She was wearing her natural form, green and bright. A man stood some distance away, shirtless and heavily muscled, wearing tight breeches of an old-fashioned design. His hair was wet.

Harry looked around, taking in his surroundings. It was a cave of red rock, and he could hear water rushing nearby. There were cracks and fissures in the walls of the cave which looked recent. He frowned.

"Are we still at the chalybeate spring?" he asked.

The man who was not a man nodded.

"Aye," he said in Each-Uisge's voice. "Yon elf carried you here that you might rest."

"Thanks doesn't seem like enough," Harry began, but Thistles hushed him, and touched his eyes and lips and throat, sending soothing waves through his body.

"You have fulfilled your pact, Finder. By use of a profane ritual to corrode the grasp of sacred iron. The punishment for trespassing in the realms of the gods is death."

"I didn't die," said Harry, sitting up, and fighting back the urge to cough.

"Didn't you?" asked Each-Uisge. The urge to cough built and built in Harry's chest until he finally spluttered through clenched teeth, the cough turning into open-mouthed retching. Harry vomited up seawater, more than he thought a human body could possibly hold. It left a film of algae on the roof of his mouth and the inside of his teeth. He ran a finger around the inside of his mouth in disgust, pulling out the green slime and wiping it into the rocks.

Thistles held a fruit the size of a gourd to his lips, using one hand to guide Harry's head back so she could pour sweet juice into his mouth. He swilled it around his mouth, and swallowed. Renewed energy rose as a warmth in his gut.

Each-Uisge cocked his head, sending drips of water flying across the cave.

"I am compelled to ask a question of you, who would go so far to secure my power for your own. Why not simply sacrifice the blacksmith's descendants? Human sacrifice has always won favour from beyond the realms of men."

Harry grimaced.

"It would have been easy, wouldn't it?" he said to the air. "Perhaps that's why. Blood sacrifice can solve any problem, if only you spill enough of it."

"Mortals," said Each-Uisge dismissively. Thistles rested her head against Harry's, not turning to look at the inhuman man as she spoke.

"Would you have preferred that Harry killed them?" she asked. Her voice was nonchalant and innocent - not challenging his opinion, but simply asking for it.

"Hmph," snorted Each-Uisge. "Generations upon generations of mortals have diluted their sin. They are chaff in the wind to me, but it is the proper form of things." He paused, looking contemplative, and studied Harry. "To know that I am bound to one capable of such workings as have been done this night - that is a gift more gilt than blood and silver both."

Harry struggled to his feet, leaning against the cave wall for support. He felt strange. Weakened by the ritual, yet replenished by the deep well of Each-Uisge's power and Thistles' healing fruit. He had energy. He was unwounded. He was hale and hearty and yet stretched too thin, too far. His body would move as he demanded, but something deeper inside him cried out for rest.

"A word of warning, young mortal," said Each-Uisge. "I sense the clamour of your sources of power even as you draw strength from mine. You have only mastered one of them. The lesser ones are of no regard, but the ocean will drown you if you do not swim with care. Even the nascent strength of this thistle-elf may prove too much for you. Your power is not in equilibrium. With every step you unbalance yourself further."

"I'm feeling pretty unbalanced right now," confessed Harry. Pushing off from the wall, he found he was able to stand unassisted, but was dizzy enough that he couldn't be certain whether he was swaying or not. Thistles grabbed him by the shoulders, and then by the hands once he steadied.

"You know how to do this," she said. "Your power has grown too much, too fast, but I can hold you firm so that it doesn't burn you out. I am your power. I will not be wielded against you."

"I will anchor you in the oceans. The thistle-elf will root you to the ground. There is lightning in your blood. The three realms of earth and sea and sky are yours, if you have the will to master them."

"All I need is some time to adjust," said Harry. "Apotheosis takes a lot out of a fellow."

"Yes," said Each-Uisge. "I recall."

-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-

"It took me a couple of hours to fly here," said Harry. "I should go soon if I want to be back before sunrise."

"Are you well enough to fly?" asked Thistles. Harry shrugged.

"I can hold on. Buckbeak's the one who'll be doing the work. But how are you getting back - how did you get here to begin with?" he asked. Thistles gave him a sly look, the green of her sclera vivid against pupils dilated wide and dark.

"There's a lot of mugwort growing above our heads," she said, gesturing to the muggle car park on the other side of the cave roof. Harry looked at her in confusion and her grin widened. "Master your power, Harry," she said. "Everything I can do, you will be able to."

Harry made a note to investigate what mugwort had to do with travelling hundreds of miles in a night, but put it out of his mind for now.

Each-Uisge stepped across the cave, his footsteps making no noise against the rock. Harry twisted to face him, startled to see him come so close for the first time. He held out a hand in a surprisingly human gesture. Harry reached out automatically to return the handshake, but the water horse gripped his hand much further up than he was expected, clasping his wrist instead. Harry fumbled it a little, from unfamiliarity and surprise alike, but managed to return the gesture.

The man smiled, and it wasn't entirely unkind.

"For a man who tries to deny destiny, you are remarkably skilled at weaving the threads of fate. I wonder how much is deliberate? No matter. You have won my fealty. Summon me by name and my power by will. We are bound until death."

Each-Uisge rippled like the surface of the sea, and then a jet-black horse stood in front of Harry with a mane of kelp. He snorted, and shook, sending a shower of water droplets over Harry and Thistles. She closed her eyes in pleasure, holding her hand out to catch them, and something Harry didn't understand passed between the two creatures.

The water horse vanished into the cave, heading towards the spring at its heart. There was a splash, and then silence.