Harry Potter 1. Chapter 1

Title: Harry Potter and the real Knockturn Alley

Author: DreamSmith (or, on this site, 'DreamSmith AJK')

Rating: T

Disclaimer: Characters and places which belong to J.K. Rowling do, in fact, belong to J.K. Rowling. Also, the character herein which Joss owns is similarly owned by Joss.

Author's Note: This is a crossover with the Buffyverse, at least insofar as one of the main characters is from Season 5 of 'Angel: The Series'. If you're familiar with that then you'll recognize her, and the events which she eventually mentions. If you're not familiar with that stuff… well, you should still be able to muddle through well enough.

Also, I'm sure it goes without saying, but just in case: Please write lots of reviews. Please? Thank you.

Intro Note: There's this chapter early on in Chamber of Secrets, where Harry makes a wrong turn in the Floo network, ends up in the dark magic shoppe, overhears Lucius and Draco Malfoy talking to the shopkeeper while he hides in the conviently placed (and empty) cabinet... remember?  
Okay, take all that as given, and let's pick up the action as Harry dashes from the shop.  
Right?  
Right.  
Okay... go.

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Muttering darkly, Mr. Borgin disappeared into a back room. Harry waited for a minute in case he came back, then, quietly as he could, slipped out of the cabinet, past the glass cases, and out of the shop door.

Harry's glasses had been broken during his rough and tumble arrival via the hearth, so he clutched them in one hand as he squinted and peered all around, trying to orient himself. This place was definitely _not_ Diagon Alley, though it wasn't any sort of muggle street, either. The dingy, narrow passage was barely wide enough for a single small car to manage, if there had been any cars around that cared to try.

There weren't.

Instead, the filthy cobbles were tread by a few scattered pedestrians, all of whom seemed just as shabby as the run-down buildings fronting the street. Across the way was a dirt-filmed window that held a display of shrunken heads, and a hand-lettered sign a bit further down boasted of the shop's wide selection of 'Tame Vermin most insidious'.

Harry shuddered, but had no other choice, unless he wanted to turn around and re-enter Borgin and Burkes, which he most certainly did not. Bracing himself, he stepped into the street, chose a direction at random (left, as it so happened), and started walking. His hope was that his misadventure with the floo network hadn't landed him _too_ far distant from where he'd meant to go, and that he could quickly find his way there. A dilapidated sign hanging from a street lamp proclaimed this to be 'Knock Turn Alley', which was of no help at all since he'd never heard of such a place. He kept going, trying hard not to show his nervousness.

His determination to appear brave, however, lasted less than a minute, for he was quickly accosted by one of the street's ragged denizens.

"Not lost, are you my dear?" asked the bent and infirm-looking witch who hobbled over to block his path. Her tattered hat obscured most of her face, though Harry saw enough to know that she was old, missing most of her teeth, and seemed to have eyes that were very mismatched in size.

"Care for a little something?" she continued, when he proved unable to find any words with which to respond. Raising the tray she held before her, she offered him tiny bowls of what appeared to be human fingernails--whole ones, not clippings. Her leer, combined with her 'wares', combined to send him stumbling backwards in dismay, and he stared all around in fuzzy-sighted panic, searching for some path of escape.

"All right, Shar; that's enough," someone said, virtually in Harry's ear. He whirled violently, afraid that someone even uglier and more terrifying had managed to sneak up on him.

That wasn't the case at all, at least, not the part about being ugly and terrifying.

The newcomer was a young woman, probably in her early twenties, and even without his glasses Harry could plainly see that she was very pretty, even beautiful. Her hair was of a darkly reddish hue, fell to the middle of her back, and looked both stylish and silky-soft. She wore a largish amount of perfectly-applied makeup, which combined with her well-coiffed hair to give her a glossy, magazine-model sort of beauty. Her attractiveness was almost as intimidating to the boy as the hag's ugliness had been, if in a completely different sort of way.

Harry gaped at her, and she smiled down at him somewhat condescending fashion, though not unkindly for all that.

"Are you okay, sweetie?" she asked him, laying one flawlessly-manicured hand on his arm as she did so. Smiling, the woman nodded past at the old witch, who was now looking somewhat abashed. "Shareena, here, has a little too much fun, sometimes, with her scary old lady act. It does help keep the brightsiders out where they belong, though."

His heart still beating rapidly, Harry gave the hag another look, squinting even harder to be sure he wasn't seeing things. 'Shareena', the newcomer had called her, which didn't seem like a proper name for an ugly hag, somehow, and indeed, his second look showed that she wasn't quite what she had first appeared to be. Setting her tray aside (where it hovered, quite steadily, in midair), she pulled her tattered hat from her head. Instantly there was a shimmer, and her features blurred and reformed, as though several thick panes of cloudy glass were being pulled away, one after the other. Her eyes shifted, one growing larger and the other shrinking until they were both exactly the same size, and instead of a muddy brown color they were now dark blue. Her skin lost its pocked, diseased look, smoothing until it was a perfectly nice (if slightly freckled) sun-kissed bronze. Her hair, too, grew thicker, smoother, and longer, until it was a brown/bronze/blonde-streaked mane that reminded Harry of the American television show with the improbably-attractive female lifeguards that his cousin Dudley enjoyed so much.

Her transformation complete, Shareena stood revealed to be less than half the age he'd first thought, and actually quite attractive. She grinned at him, punched him lightly on one shoulder, and shrugged.

"Sorry about that, kiddo," she said, her voice not nearly so screechy and frightening now that she wasn't acting the crone. "Didn't mean to make you pee yourself or anything, but the look on your face--! She was very obviously trying not to laugh aloud, and Harry wasn't especially keen to be the butt of more jokes; not when every summer was spent enduring the mocking and taunts dished out by the Dursley family.

The second woman had been watching him closely all this time, and she seemed to sense his sullen anger, because she put her arm across his shoulders and turned him gently away.

"It's not her fault, really," she told him softly as she led the way further down the street. "Her and some of the others are paid to hang around here and act scary and crazy; it keeps out people who don't have any business being here."

A last look behind them showed Shareena stretching her arms up and twisting from side to side in an effort to relieve a stiff back. Then, with a look of obvious reluctance, she tugged her ragged hat back down on top of her head. Her pleasant features blurred and shifted once more, and she bent over to shuffle off with her tray of fingernails (which had obligingly floated back into her hands at her gesture).

Harry's eyes were beginning to ache from all the squinting he was doing, and he rubbed at them before looking up at the woman.

"You said that before," he said, unsure of how to feel towards the stranger. On the one hand, she had stepped in just as he had been about to flee, screaming. On the other hand, he had no idea who she was, or why she had taken this sudden interest in him. Accordingly, he decided to try and brazen his way through. "You said that before," he repeated. "Something about keeping people out, out where they belong. What does that mean?"

The glossy-beautiful maybe-model beside him smiled (very prettily, yet also somewhat smugly and disdainfully).

"It means keeping the oh-so-pure goody-good locals away from anything that might confuse or upset them," she said, with a tiny trace of a sneer in her otherwise bright and friendly voice. "This world is divided up into mundanes and magicals, right?" She looked down at Harry, and when he nodded acknowledgement she nodded too. "Well, that's not the only dividing line. There's also a... I suppose 'stigma' is the best word to describe it, a stigma attached to a large percentage of the magicals here. The brightsiders don't like what the others do, and they don't like how they do it, either, but there's too many of us here in the shadows for them to do much about it. So they pretend we're not worth noticing--that we're all crazed, or poor, or twisted and ugly," she waved a delicate hand back towards the play-actors behind them. "If that's all they see, then it's much easier for them to ignore us, and to be perfectly honest, we're happy if they just stay out of our way and let us get on with our lives."

Harry frowned, trying to follow all of that while simultaneously keep an eye on their surroundings. As they walked, the street had been slowly widening, while the buildings on either side grew both cleaner and more solidly-built.

"So...." he murmured, almost to himself. "You mean... these are the people who wanted Voldemort to rule everything?"

The woman gave him a sideways look at the mention of that name, though she didn't flinch.

"Not exactly," she said. "What you'll see here are the people who aren't afraid to say that name, and they're the ones who aren't afraid to admit that he's trying for a comeback... which is more than you can say about all those idiots over on the sunny side of the street."

Speaking of streets, Harry saw that the one they were following made an abrupt left-hand turn just ahead. Also, somehow, it was getting on towards evening in a very strange way, despite the fact that it couldn't be later than nine in the morning. At the turning ahead the lamps atop the widely-spaced poles were already burning with pale mage-fire, illuminating the street in which dusk was starting to settle. Turning about, he saw that the way behind them was still brightly lit, though this end was noticeably dimmer than the section at the limit of his blurred vision. With a fresh feeling of unease and confusion he looked up, and saw another street sign posted at the turning. This one read 'Nocturne Way', which he assumed was some misspelling of 'Knock Turn', which was of course the proper name. The woman followed the direction of his gaze and gave him another of those unsettlingly-attractive smiles.

"Do you know what 'Nocturne' means? No?" Linking her arm through his, she led him to the turning. "A nocturne is a piece of music; music that sweeps you off into the night when you listen, to where all the mysterious, magical, beautiful things are just waiting for you to discover them."

At the turning of the way, Harry froze in place, and fumbled for the broken halves of his glasses. Holding them up so that he could see through them, he saw that the street wound its way up a steep slope that could never be mistaken for any part of London. This was clearly Somewhere Else, and what he saw stunned him. The darkness of the sky wasn't absolute; this wasn't full night, as he'd feared it would be. Rather, twilight held dominion over the wide, clear sweep of cobblestones, with deep scarlet and purple tones glowing over the rooftops. The magical lamps kept the street lit well enough, though pools of darker shadow lingered in some doorways and in the mouths of smallish alleys here and there. The fronts of the buildings were lit with magical lights also, in every color of the spectrum and a few more besides, and bustling among them were figures that were literally beyond his comprehension.

His mouth agape, Harry looked up at the woman who had brought him there. Her eyes sparkling, she laughed aloud, and he dazedly realized that even the sound of her laughter was glossy and perfect.

"Oh, honey," she said, smiling down at him. "I thought this was going to be just one more annoying business trip." Tousling his hair affectionately, she tugged him forward. "Come on, let me show you around."

Harry dug in his heels, a little belatedly, true, yet a little caution coming late was surely better than none at all.

"I shouldn't," he told her, fumbling his broken glasses back into his pocket before he lost them. "I'm here to buy my school supplies." At her level, green-eyed stare he flushed, and fought not to stammer. "I mean, I was supposed to be going to Diagon Alley, to buy things for school, only I didn't know how to use the floo, and I ended up--"

"--In Borgin and Burkes," she finished for him, nodding agreeably. "Yes, I saw you the moment you walked out the door." Bending down far enough to put her face level with his, she stared deeply into his eyes. Harry couldn't help noticing that whatever she wore on her lips did more than color them a deep red, it also gave them a moist, pearly luster utterly unlike any other lips he'd ever seen... not that he'd ever paid that much attention to a person's lips before....

"I'm, ah, on-only twelve years old," he managed, losing his struggle not to stammer, and blushing even more intensely. The woman smiled faintly.

"I can see that." Her eyes were looking at him, looking _through_ him, and he wondered what else she saw. "You _are_ a little young for me," she admitted a moment later. "And I'm quite a bit older than I look, believe me. Still," she tilted her head fractionally sideways, as if to let her peer into another, more obscure portion of his insides. "I'm a very, very patient lady, so I'd be willing to wait, if something were worth waiting for...." Harry blinked, unsure of how to interpret that, and she smiled more widely, showing predictably perfect, very white teeth.

"The thing is, I'm here by myself this time around, and I could use some company." Seeing his distress, she gave his cheek a light caress with the long, flawless nails of one hand. "Don't worry, it won't take long. I'll take you back to Diagon when we're done. And in the meantime, I can guarantee that you'll see some very interesting things, the sort of things that most people from your side never see." Turning slightly, gesturing gracefully at the street that stretched off into the impossible twilight she arched one delicate brow at him. "Aren't you even a little curious to see what's really here, just around the corner from what you know?"

Harry swallowed painfully, looked behind him, then squinted at the way that lay ahead. Even blurred, it called to him. Diagon Alley was wondrous enough; how much more was waiting to be discovered here, in this place that no one had ever even mentioned to him? Looking up at the strange, beautiful woman, he finally nodded.

"All right, I'll come," he said, forcing himself to speak clearly, past the lump of unease still perched in his throat. "So long as I'm back in an hour or two, the Weasleys won't have time to be too worried about me."

Her soft laughter rang out again, like silvery bells that someone had polished and polished until they glittered cold and lovely.

"Oooh, I _love_ it when someone gives in to temptation like that," she told him, even as she took his arm again and started them forward into the throng. "If I had an apple handy I'd give it to you; it's sort of traditional." At his blank look she shook her head and smiled mysteriously. "Never mind; I'll get you one later. In the meantime, I have to pick up some things, and then we can do a little sightseeing." Something seemed to occur to her, and she nudged him lightly in the ribs with her elbow. "By the way, handsome, you haven't told me your name."

He probably should have made something up, or used someone else's, like Ron, or Neville. That would have been the clever thing, when being asked by someone he didn't know, and didn't particularly trust. Strangely, though, her voice seemed to bypass all the clever, suspicious parts of his brain, and end up right in the center of the part that had no guile whatsoever.

"My name's Harry," he said, though he did at least manage not to spill the 'Potter'. She nodded, and took a deep breath after he said it, as if she were breathing his identity in along with the air. Apparently the scent of his name met with her approval, as she flashed him a brilliant smile in return.

"Nice to meet you, Harry. You can call me Eve."

"Eve," he repeated, fitting the name to the rest of the woman. It seemed to suit her. They moved down the street, arm in arm.

It was several long minutes before he made the connection between her name and what she'd said about an apple, but by then the wonders she was pointing out in the first of the shops swept away any of the unease he would otherwise have felt.

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	2. Chapter 2

Disclaimer: J.K. Rowling lives in a castle. Because Harry belongs to her. Joss Whedon... probably has a _really_ nice house, because Eve and everything Buffyversal belongs to him. I live with two cats. I own nothing.  
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"--Can't believe they actually let you kids fly around on those brooms,"  
Eve was saying as they walked through the shop that specialized in flying devices. "As hung up on safety as people are these days, with airbags and seatbelts and all of that, and then they perch you on top of a stick and let you fly hundreds of feet in the air with nothing holding you on at all?"

Harry shrugged.

"The magical people don't seem to worry about that as much as the rest of the world," he admitted, gazing curiously at a brightly colored flying carpet that was drifting about up near the ceiling of the shop. "I suppose it's something to do with having magical healing; people get broken bones all the time playing quiddich, but it only takes a few minutes to have it put right."

Eve gave a very ladylike little huff, unimpressed by that take on things.

"I'm sure that's great, unless your neck is the bone that gets broken."

Harry started to answer, stopped dead in his tracks for several long seconds, then hurried over to the sales display he'd spotted. "Sky-High-Hikers" proclaimed the banner hanging over the shelves holding the shoes, and the footwear there ranged from sturdy boots to rakish-looking sports shoes. A burly man with a backpack over one shoulder was examining them also, and he nodded amiably at Harry as he looked around with wide eyes.

"They let you walk or run on air," the man told him. "If you're like me, and spend a lot of time in the mountains, it saves a lot of time when you can take shortcuts _over_ the ravines, instead of having to climb down one side and up the other."

"That's brilliant!" Harry exclaimed, thinking of all the high towers of Hogwarts, and how many windows let on to key locations. With a pair of sky-high-hikers he could get to his classes quicker and more easily (except for potions, of course, since the dungeon had no windows). Even better, if he were to be knocked off his broom during a quiddich game, it would be no problem at all to run back up to it, hop back on, and keep playing! Just imagining the look on the opposing team's faces made him grin. Then his face fell--he'd meant to go to Gringotts that morning to retrieve enough money to buy his school books and supplies, only the Floo mishap had prevented it. All he had with him were a few silver Sickles, not nearly enough cover the price displayed next to the pair Hikers he'd been eyeing.

Crushing disappointment filled him, though a moment later it occurred to him that he might be able to sneak back into Nocturne Alley at some later date and make his purchase. Resolving to remember the location of the shop (which was called 'Flynn's Flying Emporium') he made his way back to the entrance, where Eve was waiting for him.

"Sorry, sweetie," she told him as they walked along the street under the unending magical twilight. "I really do have to see a few people before we do any serious sightseeing."

Harry nodded quickly, anxious to reassure the woman that he understood.

"No, it's fine; thanks for letting me take a look in there. I'm--" He broke off with an embarrassed laugh, then carried on. "I'm sort of keen on flying, is all. Being able to fly my broom at Hogwarts is one of the best things I've ever done. And there are magical animals that fly, too... at least Hagrid says there are. Maybe one day I'll get to fly on one of those!" He was babbling in his excitement, and his embarrassment went up several notches, even though Eve didn't laugh, she only smiled, and nodded slowly.

"I don't doubt that you will, Harry. One day."

Now that they were back on the street, he was once again overwhelmed by the sheer variety of beings thronging the avenue. Witches and Wizards of the same sort as he was used to seeing in Diagon Alley were only a fraction of what he saw here.

There were stern-eyed men clad in armor of chain and plate, bearing swords at their sides and shields slung across their backs. Here and there, too, he saw tall, fierce-looking women kitted out in similar fashion. The two of them passed a small band of what looked like teenagers, all of whom dressed in somber colors and were smoking cigarettes. Harry thought them high-school seniors enjoying the last of their summer holiday, until he chanced to meet the gaze of one as they passed. The weight of immense age lay heavy in that steady stare, and the girl who walked with his arm around her waist gave the startled boy a lazy smile that showed delicate, needle-sharp fangs.

Harry cringed back so quickly that he bumped into Eve, nearly knocking her from her feet. She recovered her footing (with surprising ease, he noted absently, despite her ultra-fashionable high-heels, and the cobblestones that should have made walking in them utterly impossible), and gave him a mock scowl.

"Hey, take it easy."

He was staring after the group of ancient teens, eyes wide.

"Th-those were--"

She followed his pointing finger, gave a small but genuine frown, and pushed his hand back down to his side.

"Vampires. Yep, they sure are." With a reassuring pat on his shoulder she urged him on. "They're generally well behaved when they're here, so don't panic. On the other hand, whenever you see them hanging around, it's probably a good idea not to wander into any dark alleys...." She did a deliberate double-take, smiled down at him, and added: "Actually, come to think of it, it's _never_ a good idea to wander into a dark alley."

"Too late," Harry grumbled, still feeling a prickle along his neck that might have been caused by a hungry vampire's stare. Unexpectedly, Eve burst into laughter at his words, her nose crinkling slightly as she did so. For just that instant it marred the eerie, somehow unsettling beauty of that face, but at the same time it made her look much more human, too. He smiled back at her, finding that he much preferred the humanity over the perfect, painted mask that was her usual face.

Another few steps brought them to a building that featured a set of wide, high double doors. Harry gasped as one of the armored women he'd seen earlier led her steed out through those doors and into the street. It was a unicorn... or nearly so. At least a foot taller than any horse he'd ever seen, it was powerfully built, and yet unnaturally nimble and graceful. It's hide, mane and long, glossy tail were all colored a silvery violet, with a sheen like that of moonlight rippling across it with every movement. Its hooves gleamed like dark gemstones, and it's eyes were large, forward-facing, and a tawny gold, with vertically-slip pupils like those of a cat. It had three horns, two short ones set high in its forehead, and a longer one in the center. The woman warrior swung herself up astride the beast without benefit of bridle or saddle, and with a liquid-sounding hiss it wheeled and trotted off down the street.

Eve was watching him, amusement quite apparent, so he forced his slack jaw closed and concentrated on _not_ acting like an awestruck farmer on his first trip to the city.

"I don't have one of those," she told him, "But I do have something stabled here that I need to get. Part of how I make my living is by bringing things in and out of places like this."

Harry, peering curiously into the interior of the stable, turned his head to give her a look.

"'Things'?"

Interestingly, it was Eve's turn to look just the tiniest bit uneasy, though the discomfort he saw was so fleeting that he might well have imagined it.

"Nothing too valuable, or bizarre," she told him with elaborate casualness, examining the polish on her perfect nails as if it were infinitely more interesting than the topic under discussion. "Just things that are easy to get in one place, and hard to get in another. Little things." With a graceful little wave she indicated that he should follow her inside. "I also deliver messages, sometimes, if someone doesn't trust the usual channels."

Harry considered that. Eve, with her perfect hair, flawless makeup, snug, summery blouse and short skirt, didn't exactly fit his mental image of a postman, or especially someone who delivered freight to remote, hard-to-reach locations. On the other hand, with magic many things were possible, so he wasn't prepared to discount what she'd told him out of hand. As he entered the building he took a last look behind him, still not entirely comfortable with the idea that there were genuine living (err, 'unliving') vampires out there. He didn't see anyone sporting obvious fangs amongst the passersby, though he did see a single tall man standing across the way, who was staring directly at him with unnerving intensity. His clothing was hard to see, especially since Harry was still without his glasses, but it seemed to be some sort of lightweight, modern-looking armor, all in greys and blacks. When the man saw Harry looking back at him he turned away and vanished through a doorway. The boy wondered, fleetingly, what that might have been about, before he was distracted by the arrival of the stable manager. He walked in to join Eve as she spoke with him.

"Was he any trouble?", she asked, even as she produced a small pouch from somewhere and began counting out several gold galleons into the man's palm.

"No, no, no trouble at all," he assured her, with only a brief glance over at Harry. He seemed much more interested in the beautiful young woman, not that she was showing any interest in return. With a sigh, he counted through the money she'd given him and led the way to one side of the large room. "Your creature stayed still as a statue, the whole time, just as you promised. A good thing, too, since I'm responsible for these other animals while they're in my care."

The stalls to either side held various riding beasts; mostly horses, though one of those was an exotically-colored beast striped in orange and black, like a tiger. The enclosure the man opened up for Eve, though, held something far different. Harry had thought that he was getting his balance, that his composure wouldn't be so easily shaken after what he'd already seen. Even so, he couldn't help but leap backwards with a gasp when the open stall was shown to contain a gigantic spider, with a body fully as large as... as....

He didn't know _what_ it was as big as; he was too busy trying to hold perfectly still so that it wouldn't decide to eat him. The stable manager let out a loud guffaw, and even Eve snickered softly, though she tried to cover it with a soft hand held before her mouth.

"It's not bloody funny!" he told them, his voice shaking with both fear and anger. "That's a gi-normous spider sitting there!"

Since the spider wasn't making any move to try to eat him, or any move at all, for that matter, he had time to decide what it was as big as.

"It's as big as Hagrid!" he said, and immediately felt a bit better, as if the very act of defining that aspect of the creature had helped him deal with its proximity. And truthfully, its body was nearly as large as the Hogwart's gamekeeper. It was in every way a spider; multiple gleaming eyes, bulbous, hideous body, and eight long, jointed legs that likely covered a space fifteen feet across when they were fully unfolded. Oddly, however, it wasn't at all furry, or fuzzy, as he'd imagined a largish spider would be. Also, it... gleamed? The body, and the legs, seemed to be made of softly shining plates, all fitted together so smoothly that there was hardly a seam visible... and yet there the seams were, if he squinted just right. The eyes, large and staring, were crystalline, some green and a few orange, and their glassy stare didn't really seem like that of a living creature at all.

In fact, the longer he looked, the more he became convinced that it was a statue, perhaps put there as some sort of cruel joke. He gathered his anger and indignation, and gathered himself to say as much to the manager (he was extremely reluctant to speak harshly to Eve; twelve years old or no, he was still a male, and she was an extremely attractive woman. Speaking harshly to someone like her wasn't done lightly). Before he could speak, however, she reached out, stroke the spider's head with the tip of one finger, and it suddenly lurched upright.

Even the stable manager moved with haste to clear out of the way as the thing exited the stall, so Harry didn't feel embarrassed at his own quick scramble to the side. He watched it move, and the precise, slightly jerky movements instantly told him that he'd been (mostly) correct. It wasn't a living creature; it was some manner of magically-animated construct. A clockwork device, fabulously crafted, yet still only a machine. When it came to halt in the center of the room, Eve stepped over and leaned against it in a calculated pose, smiling at him all the while.

"Harry, this is my all-purpose beast of burden. An old acquaintance custom built him for me." She patted the construct fondly on its flank, and the rings on her fingers made a faint metallic chiming sound at the contact. "It wasn't easy to gather up all the parts, especially the power source... but it was worth it in the end." Eve didn't really seem to be speaking to Harry anymore; her soft, musical voice had gone quiet, and cold. "He'll serve me for centuries, maybe even millennia, completely faithful, fetching and carrying and helpless to do anything except obey. And never making any sort of sound, either; never able to speak... and especially never able to sing." She was stroking the spider's metal plating with gentle, almost loving fingers, and when she looked up at Harry again there was both pain, and a quiet, savage satisfaction in that lovely face.

"I call him Lorne."

Harry blinked, unsure of what any of that was supposed to mean. One thing did bother him, though. When he looked into the construct's glassy eyes, they met his for a long moment, then dimmed slightly, and dipped to stare at the floor. A faint chill went through him then, though he quickly managed to shake it off. It was only a robot, a magical creation, after all, much like his own broomstick. That look, as if the thing had been feeling sadness, was all in his imagination.

Obviously there couldn't be any more to it than that.

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	3. Chapter 3

Disclaimer: characters owned by Joss Whedon and J.K. Rowling.

_It isn't alive,_ Harry told himself, over and over, as he worked. _It's only a machine, all gears and springs and wire, like a great, overgrown clock. Just because it _looks_ like a spider that could swallow me down in three bites doesn't mean anything._

The giant mechanical spider that his new friend Eve had introduced as 'Lorne' stood quietly in the center of the stable, as motionless as a stone. The beautiful young woman was watching as Harry tied the dark leather saddlebags in place. He'd volunteered to do it for her, and she'd stepped back to let him have at it, though she did have to give the occasional brief instruction on how to manage the arrangement of straps that held the small packs securely in place. He supposed that the contents of the bags were what she transported as part of her 'import/export' business. If so, then she must not move much in any single trip, since even he, a slight boy of twelve, was able to heave them about quite easily.

After a another minute spent making sure all was secure, he stepped back and ran a hand over his unruly hair.

"All done... I think."

Eve stepped forward gracefully (how _did_ she manage that, on uneven ground, in 4-inch stiletto heels?) and gave the arrangement a single quick look, then smiled down at him.

"That's perfect. Thank you, Harry."

He felt like he must be glowing; praise of any kind was still something that seemed foreign and strange. Still, he tried to play it off as nothing, with a shrug and a quick look away.

"Not a problem," he mumbled. "It's kind of a reflex by now, I guess, what with the Dursleys making me do everything for them all the time."

Eve had already turned away, and with a snap of her manicured fingers the clockwork spider lurched into motion, following her towards the doors that led out into the street. Even so, when Harry joined her there, the woman cocked her head and regarded him curiously.

"Hm? What is a 'Dursley', and what exactly does it make you do?"

Harry looked away again, and shook his head emphatically. He didn't want to bother the woman with his problems, and besides, he was away from his aunt, his uncle, and his cousin for a whole school year. It seemed a shame to waste any of his Dursley-free time thinking about them.

"Nothing," he said out loud. "They're nothing." She regarded him with deep green eyes a shade lighter than his own, obviously aware that it was somewhat more than 'nothing', and yet willing to let him keep his secrets.

"All right," she told him, then gestured up the impossible street. "My first customer is up this way."

Knock-turn Alley had, of course, gotten wider, cleaner, and altogether less shabby and smelly even before they'd reached the stables. As they walked up what had become Nocturne Way, however, the differences became even more pronounced. The sky overhead continued to hold in what seemed like late twilight, the slowly shifting clouds forming towers and canyons of softly gleaming scarlet, orange and purple. The dim light was augmented by the pale magefire burning atop the lamp posts that lined the street. The buildings fronting the avenue ranged from smallish shops of plain wood, to structures that towered three, four, or even five stories high, and were constructed from brightly-patterned brick, or smooth stone blocks of massive size.

And then there were the crowds.

Men and women in wizard robes were the least of them. There were ordinary people dressed in what looked like Muggle clothing, there were very strange-looking people dressed in garb that ranged from slightly ragged peasant smocks to some that seemed to be seamless outfits of shining, liquid metal. A large, dangerous-looking man passed quite close by Harry, and it was obvious that both his arms and at least one leg were mechanical; the exposed metal struts and wires proved it, even though their movement was as fluid and natural as anything made of flesh and blood. Across the way, he saw an elf-like being that was at least seven feet tall, with blue skin, long green hair, and four arms, all of which were strapped about with compact metallic devices that looked very much like weapons. He was arguing spiritedly with someone only slightly shorter, though much more human-looking. The second man sported a mohawk, and his bare, muscled chest was covered with dozens of elaborate tattoos. The paired swords he wore belted at his waist looked ominously well-used.

"Here we are."

Eve's voice pulled his attention away from the passersby, and Harry looked around. The entrance before them was on the plain side; the smallish window beside it held ranks of dusty potion bottles that looked like they hadn't been disturbed for years. The woman had moved to one of the saddlebags strapped to her spider-shaped servant, and after unlacing the flap she retrieved a largish, square-sided jar of dark glass from within it. Glancing at Harry, she nodded towards the door.

"You can come in if you like. I'm just dropping this off; it should only take a minute."

He nodded, hurried forward to get the door for her when he noticed that she was using both hands to carry the large glass container, and moving very carefully, as if the contents were very valuable... or very volatile.

"Thank you, Harry," she murmured as she stepped past him, and he followed her inside. The interior was small and cramped, the inside of the shop filled nearly to bursting with shelves and shelves and shelves of carefully labeled and arranged potion bottles. Eve set the jar down on the wooden counter with exquisite care, and an older woman emerged from a curtained doorway to greet her.

Harry listened to them as he peered at various exotic potions; many of them he'd never heard of, and he wondered if they were strictly legal. 'Righteous Anger' didn't sound too bad, but 'Death's Shroud: Lvl III, Insinuative' seemed a little less savory.

"--exactly as promised, and promptly delivered, as always," the shopkeeper was saying. "I'll contact you in the usual way, when I've another order."

"That's fine, Clare," Eve answered. "And my payment?"

"Of course. Just a moment... all right, now."

Harry turned his head at that, idly curious as to how large a stack of Galleons the beautiful woman would receive for the delivery. What he saw, however, was not quite what he'd been expecting. The shopkeeper had her wand in hand, though not pointing at anything in particular, and she'd leaned forward across the counter. Eve leaned forward as well, and their lips met in a kiss.

The boy stared, stunned, as this was something he'd never before seen in his entire life. The kiss lasted only a few moments, then the older woman pulled away, and waited expectantly. For her part, Eve remained motionless for nearly half a minute, her eyes still closed and her lips slightly parted. When she finally moved once more, she opened her eyes and gave the shopkeeper a small smile.

"That should work just fine," she told her client. "Until next time."

With that, she turned, nodded to Harry, and strolled back out into the street. His consternation wasn't helped by the cool look the lady behind the counter sent his way, and he hurried out to rejoin Eve. They found an odd scene awaiting them in the street; Lorne was standing with one long, metallic leg holding a small goblin pinned to the ground, while another one danced around with a small dagger, making threatening gestures towards the giant spider. Eve looked down at the creature on the ground without sympathy, and shook her glossy, dark red hair back in a gesture of impatience.

"You little idiots should know better by now; do _not_ try to take things that don't belong to you. Especially when those things are attached to a golem with a really good anti-theft system installed." She tapped a single long nail once on the clockwork spider's head, and it obediently lifted its leg and freed the goblin. It scrambled to its feet, joined its companion, and together they jabbered at the woman in gobbledygook, the goblin language. Eve's response was to lift one hand and purse her lips, as if she were about to blow them a kiss.

Instantly the two little humanoids squealed, whirled, and pelted away down the street as quickly as their floppy feet could carry them. The woman sighed, shook her head again, and retied the flap on the saddlebag. Harry, whose hand had instinctively sought his wand, was hugely relieved that it hadn't come to actual violence. The offensive spell repertoire of someone who hadn't yet begun their second year at Hogwarts was, of course, vanishingly small.

"What if he'd attacked you?" he asked, tucking his wand safely back into his robes. Eve glanced over at him, gave a little shrug, and tapped the giant spider again with her fingernail.

"Lorne can handle a goblin or two without any problem." She smiled then, a bit nastily, and her pale hand caressed the metal of the golem's thorax. "Not that he would protect me if he had any say in the matter; that's where the programming comes in."

Harry frowned at that, diverted for the moment from the whole woman-kissing-woman incident that he'd also been meaning to ask her about.

"You mean he... doesn't like you?" A glance at the clockwork arachnid showed that it was standing motionless, as was usual when it wasn't obediently following its mistress. "It's a thing, isn't it? Just magic and metal? How can it not like you?"

Eve regarded him with those beautiful, perfectly made-up eyes, and then turned a colder gaze upon the spider.

"You'd be surprised, Harry, at how much personality a 'thing' can have. This one, for example, used to get its jollies from terrorizing helpless women. A little intimidation, a backhand or two to her face; he might have thought that was a dandy way to pass an evening. Add a little cold-blooded murder on the side, and you've got someone who deserved everything he finally ended up getting." Her lips curled into a snarl for just a moment before relaxing once more.

"Enough about that. I've got some more people to see. If we're lucky, we should be finished in time for lunch, and I promise you you'll love the food here."

He nodded, still watching the spider warily, unsure of exactly what the history was between Eve and the clockwork creature, but certain that it wasn't a pleasant one. From the corner of his eye he caught an odd movement, and he turned his head to look. Across the way, on the other side of a group of small, furry-footed children, he saw a man and a woman in black and grey staring straight back at him. Squinting, he tried to see if they were wearing the same armor as the man he'd spotted earlier, outside the stable.

"Eve," he ventured, looking over at her. "I broke my glasses earlier; is there any way you could mend them for me?"

The beautiful woman was already directing her pack spider along the side of the street, but she glanced back with a regretful look.

"Sorry, sweetie; I can't do that spell." Harry blinked in surprise: it wasn't a complex piece of magic, and he'd been sure that any adult Witch would be able to manage it easily. She further surprised him a moment later, however, when she added: "Actually, I can't cast any spells at all." She cocked one eyebrow at him in a decidedly odd look, and he had the strangest feeling that she was amused at something. For his part, he was a bit stunned.

"No spells at all?" he asked incredulously. Given her easy familiarity with Diagon Alley and Nocturne Way, he'd just assumed.... "You mean--you're a _muggle_?"

Of course, after he'd blurted it out that way he found himself flushing deeply in shame. Of all the unforgivably rude things to say--

"A muggle?" Eve repeated, her nose crinkling ever-so-slightly as she did so. Taking a moment to consider the word, she smiled a secret sort of smile and shook her head.

"No, not a muggle," she told him, laughter lurking behind the words. "Not a wizard or witch, no, but definitely not a muggle, either." She pointed at another, larger structure a short distance up the street. "There's our next stop, right there." She led the way, and Harry, finally remembering the two people who might or might not have been spying on them, turned again to look.

They were gone. The man and woman in black and grey were gone, and he didn't see them anywhere in the street, no matter how he squinted or craned his head. With a gnawing feeling of unease slowly growing stronger in his middle, he hurried after the woman and the spider.

* * * * *

[Author's Note: Eve isn't exaggerating, when she's describing how Lorne got his kicks abusing women. Check out the scene in 'A Hole in the World', where Angel, Spike and Lorne find Eve huddled in Lindsey's old apartment, and gang up on her to try and extract information about what's happening to Fred. A plot she was in no way connected with, by the way. Yep, three big, strong men against one small woman. Lorne hits her, threatens to kill her, tells her that her future is going to be one of suffering, and then _smiles_ at her tears and her fear.

Yeah, what a hero.

I need to think up something worse for him than being imprisoned in a metal spider for all eternity.]


	4. Chapter 4

A/N: Thanks for reviewing (those who've reviewed; shame on those of you who haven't! ^_^).

Also: Yes, I'm the same 'DreamSmith' who also posts on TtH. Just trying to get my stories to more readers.

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The one thing he hadn't expected to see for sale here, in the intensely-magical avenue just off Diagon Alley, was electronics. And yet, here they were. Eve's second client specialized in electronic devices, though they weren't the sort that he was familiar with from the Dursley's home. These were either mostly-featureless boxes with dozens of input cable connections lining the back, or strangely-angular affairs with several small viewscreens built into them, and many colored lights and buttons forming intricate designs that made no sense at all.

Harry glanced around as Eve watched the establishment's proprietor raise the overhead door that gave access to the rear of the building. The owner was another woman, though he wasn't quite certain that this was a standard human. She was tiny, for one thing, not even close to reaching five feet in height, and skinny in proportion. Her feet were encased in a set of workboots that looked to have been made for someone three times her size, and a variety of odd-looking tools hung from the leather belt fastened around her almost non-existent waist. Huge, pale-grey eyes, and masses of dead-straight, light-brown hair would have made her look even more childlike, if her small features hadn't been set in an expression of perpetual annoyance.

"You were able to get them without any problem?" she was asking Eve for the third time in less than a minute. "I wasn't able to find any myself; not the A-300's, anyway, and that's what I need. The two-fifty-eights are all over the place, but those won't do me any good." She looked sharply at the taller woman. "You didn't get me two-fifty-eights by mistake did you? 'Cause that won't do me any good. I need the A-300's, or nothing at all."

Eve made placating gestures with her soft, white hands, and flashed the owner a reassuring smile.

"Relax, Daisha. I got exactly what you asked for. There were no problems, everything is fine, see for yourself."

The large door had risen high enough to show the looming shape of Lorne standing in the narrow alley behind the building. Eve crooked one finger and the clockwork creature moved forward into the cleared space at the center of the large room, turned in place, and then froze once more. Harry, who had been walking around and peering at the various objects (being very careful to touch nothing) came to the sudden realization that some of what he was seeing _did_ look vaguely familiar. The blocky objects with the many cables in back might well be computer servers, like he'd seen once or twice in the muggle school he'd attended before Hogwart's. The complex devices with the buttons, switches, lights and viewscreens strongly resembled the controls of an aircraft, though the only ones he'd ever seen that were quite that complicated had been on the military jets featured in various action movies.

The boy frowned, wondering why someone in the wizarding world might need computer mainframes, or military-grade electronics.

"--And you really didn't have any trouble getting these out?" the short woman, Daisha, was asking yet again from behind him. "The government there _doesn't_ let anything with this security level out of their sight... which, you know, is the reason I want them."

"Finding people who are willing to bend the rules is my specialty; you should know that by now." Eve's voice was sleek and self-satisfied as she continued. "I can get anything, for anyone, anytime, so long as they're willing to pay my price; that's what it says on the business cards... which I might actually get printed up, if things keep working out this well for me."

Harry turned around, saw that she had unlaced another of the pack-spider's saddlebags, and was withdrawing a rectangular block of crystal from inside. It was about the size of a paperback book, though from the way she held it he guessed that it was heavier than it looked. Daisha crowded forward eagerly, took the object, and hurried over to where a workbench crowded with various bits of strange apparatus stood against the wall. Inserting the crystal block into a slot apparently designed to receive it, she turned and put her eyes to some kind of viewer, her hands making delicate manipulations to the instrument as she peered through it. Eve turned her head to look at Harry, and gave him an impish smile.

"She doesn't trust me much," she stage whispered, nodding towards the other woman.

"She doesn't trust anyone much," came the reply from the workbench, and then Daisha raised her head from the viewer. "In this case, however, it seems that everyone is on the level." Her small face broke into a toothy grin, and she all but danced about in excitement. "An A-300 Liquid Crystal computer heart, just as you promised." She frowned, eyeing the smallish packs atop the spider uncertainly. "You did say you had the full consignment? A thousand units?"

Eve nodded.

"One thousand exactly, as promised." She started to pull the saddlebag open again, but Harry stepped forward.

"Here, I'll get it." She gave him a questioning look, and he shrugged. "Just trying to be useful. I'd rather do something than stand around, you know?" More of the Dursley conditioning, he figured, though she in no way actually reminded him of his relatives. Perhaps it was more a kind of chivalry on his part; Eve, with her slim build, soft hands and perfect nails, didn't seem like someone who was accustomed to manual labor, and it only seemed natural to offer to take her place. For her part the woman seemed a little surprised, but she didn't argue. Moving back out of his way, she sent him an appreciative little smile that made her jade-green eyes sparkle, and caused his ears to flush red with embarrassment, and other, less easily-identifiable feelings.

The crystal blocks turned out to be very heavy indeed; several times heavier than he would have thought from looking at them. Daisha pulled a flat metal pallet across the stone floor, and positioned it next to the spider so that he didn't have to carry them more than a couple of steps. Even so, it was hard work, and he soon started sweating, and breathing a little heavily as he withdrew the blocks from the saddlebag and transferred them to the pallet, stacking them carefully so none of them would be damaged.

It immediately became apparent that Lorne's saddlebags were charmed so that their insides were larger than their outsides. After pulling out a hundred of the heavy crystals, the medium-sized pouch seemed nearly as full as when he'd started. Every so often as he worked, Daisha would intercept his hands, take one of the blocks from him, and carry it over to test it at her workbench. Eve seemed to take this in stride, leaning gracefully against the metal spider on the side opposite Harry, from which vantage she watched as he worked to empty the saddlebag. The way her eyes followed his every movement made him nervous, and he had to pay extra-close attention to what he was doing, lest he accidentally drop one of the slippery crystals. He actually welcomed the concentration the task required, it gave him an excuse to keep his eyes down, and not meet that unsettling gaze.

_She's not just beautiful,_ he realized suddenly, when the first impossibly-large pocket was finally emptied and Eve was untying the next in line. _She's the most beautiful woman I've ever met. _

And it was true. His horse-faced aunt was certainly no beauty, and although he'd never consciously considered it before, Hogwarts seemed strangely bereft of attractive women. Every single female on the school's staff was either painfully plain, or well on in years. Some of the sixth and seventh year female students were pretty enough, of course, but none of them matched the woman who stood watching him.

At least, he couldn't think of any girl who did, not with those jade eyes resting on him with an almost tangible weight.

Twenty minutes later he had finished unloading the delivery, and the crystal blocks on the pallet were stacked nearly as high as his waist--all of this from three leather pouches that looked hardly large enough to hold a loaf of bread. Harry wiped his face with his shirt sleeve, still feeling the weight of every block in his weary back. He stretched hugely, turned to check that the flaps on the spider's packs were tied, and came face to face with Eve. She'd bent down the few inches required to put them on the same level, and now she leaned in and gave him a kiss on the cheek that left his eyes hugely wide.

She giggled at his stunned look, the sound much more girlish and much less intimidating than her usual silvery laughter. Schooling her features to seriousness only with great difficulty, she regarded him with sparking eyes.

"You're making me feel guilty, Harry, working so hard when I'm supposed to be showing you the sights." She doubled his shock by kissing him on the other cheek as well. "Thank you again," she said, stepping back a pace. "I promise, that's the last of the heavy lifting. The rest of what I have to pick up and drop off is all lightweight packages, messages, things like that. And we will get around to some sightseeing, I promise."

With that she turned and moved over to where Daisha was happily unplugging the last block from her testing devices, leaving Harry to touch his fingers to his cheek with expression of wonder. Twelve years old was very young, true, but not so young that he was immune to feminine beauty and charm, and he found himself falling headlong into a crush of truly epic proportions.

And, since he was staring after Eve anyway, he found himself watching closely as she concluded her business with the smaller woman, wondering if she would again take her payment in the form of a single, inexplicable kiss. He wasn't sure how someone could possibly make a living like that, though he supposed that if that was the way of things then at least Daisha was fairly attractive. Very short, slightly odd-looking, but not even close to being ugly.

It was therefore unexpected when, without any hint that kissing had even been considered, the tiny woman pulled a large strongbox out from underneath her workbench, opened it by entering a long string of numbers on a keypad, and then extracted several bags of clinking coins. Eve made a point of doing her own verification this time, opening each bag, upending it over a clear spot on the table, and counting quickly through the gleaming gold before replacing it and retying them securely. It took a few minutes, as it amounted to a very large amount of gold. In the end, both women seemed satisfied, and with a promise of getting touch soon, they parted ways. The overhead door was raised again, and after the bags of coins were stowed safely in the same pockets that had held the blocks, she led the way back outside.

* * * * *

When they reached it, Nocturne Way remained the same as it had been. The seemingly never-ending twilight still held, the crowds of humans and not-humans still thronged the shops, and Harry still had more questions than answers.

"I didn't know machines like that could work here," he told Eve. "I mean, magical ones, like--" he cautiously rapped a knuckle on Lorne's metallic skin. "Like this, yeah, but computers? And the lights in there were electric! Plus those other things, those analyzers or whatever, those were electrical too." The woman nodded in response, though she seemed more occupied with searching the street and storefronts for something than with his question.

"Daisha isn't a witch, and she doesn't much like any kind of magic. Her talent is with machines, especially with combining different kinds of technology from different worlds, or different timelines." She glanced at him, quirked her lips to the side in a half-smile, and gave him an elaborate shrug. "I don't understand how she does what she does. All I know is, she can make things work that don't have any business working, and certain people are willing to pay her completely insane amounts of money for what she can build for them."

"And getting parts and bits for her from other places, that's what you do?"

She'd apparently found what she was looking for, and guided them into a narrow turning off to the left of the main street.

"That's what I do," she said, her voice echoing strangely in the narrow passage. It soon opened out into a large courtyard, with doors and windows of different buildings opening onto it, and two other passages leading off in different directions. Harry looked around with interest; there seemed to be quite a bit more to this area than just a single street, like Diagon Alley. This seemed more like entire neighborhoods, or the different districts of a smallish town. He wondered in passing if what he'd heard about Hogsmeade being the only real all-wizarding settlement in Britain was entirely true, though of course there were obviously many people and creatures here besides the human Wizard and Witch population, so maybe Nocturne was disqualified on that count.

While he was lost in his musings, Eve had parked her spider in place, and was busily rummaging through another of the saddlebags. In short order she located several bulky envelopes, each of which was marked with what looked very much like postage addresses. Walking to one of the buildings that fronted onto the courtyard, she climbed the short flight of steps and tapped at the door. As Harry watched, a man with dark skin and darker hair answered, and broke into a wide smile when he saw the young woman standing there. They spoke for a few moments, then she handed him the letters, and he seemed very happy to have received them.

"A moment, a moment," he distinctly heard the man say to her. "Let me get my wand." Harry, unobserved for the time being, drifted closer to the foot of the steps, watching curiously. When the man returned, carrying his wand ready in one hand, he asked Eve something, too quietly for the boy to overhear. She answered, he nodded, and then they kissed.

Harry's eyes widened; not just with jealousy (though a pang of something suspiciously akin to jealousy did indeed strike him at the sight), but also because of what he glimpsed. Somehow, maybe through some trick of the light, he seemed to catch sight of something passing between the man and the woman. A ripple, a distortion, a... pulse, of something, moved from him to her, as much felt as seen. Harry blinked, not completely sure he had seen it at all. Adding to the strangeness was the fact that the kiss ended as quickly as it had begun, and the two seemed not to think it had been anything too terribly important. They smiled at each other, they were friendly enough, and yet it didn't _feel_ like an expression of romantic interest, any more than the kiss between Eve and the female Potions merchant had felt like more than some kind of transaction between two businesspeople. The man spoke a few final words, she laughed briefly, and then she started back down the steps.

"I am _sooo_ glad he didn't have any return mail this time around," she told him when she reached the bottom. "His sister lives in Rebma, and the salt water makes a complete mess of my hair every time I have to go down there." She gave her head a deliberate toss, as if to demonstrate the currently perfect condition of that sleek and shiny dark red mane, winked at him, and led the way to the passage on the far side of the courtyard, her high heels clicking on the cobbles.

* * * * *

"Time for a break," Eve announced suddenly, and Harry looked up with a guilty start. He'd been staring at the backs of her feet as she led the way down the narrow side-lane, trying to figure out how she managed to not break her ankles as she walked on the cobblestones, much less do it so gracefully, in those heels. At first he'd figured she had some variant on the Sky High Hikers he'd seen earlier; those would let her tread on air just above the street, and give the illusion she was walking normally. The more he watched her, however, the more convinced he became that this wasn't the case. Her shoes really did seem to be making contact with the ground, and besides, he could hear the click each time her heel came down. Somehow, as best he could make out without his glasses, she was actually managing to place the heel of her shoes down exactly atop a cobble with every step. She never seemed to miss, and she never once slipped; all this, which not paying attention to her feet at all. Deciding that this was perhaps the oddest use of magic he'd seen yet (other than the illusionary steps scattered around Hogwarts), he looked up at her as she turned her head to look at him. After a long, considering moment, she pointed to a shop across the way.

"What do you say we take a look around in there?" she asked him, then, without waiting for his answer she headed off, one negligent wave of her hand freezing the pack spider in place when it would have continued to follow her. Harry caught up with the woman as she walked inside, and he looked around in delight as he saw the array of gleaming, shining metal all around.

"Wicked," he breathed, in unwitting imitation of Ron. The shop sold some tools, and some household utensils, all products of the blacksmith's art. The bulk of the shelf space, however, was devoted to weapons. Swords, knives, hammers and maces and spears, all were represented, and many of them had an indefinable something that left him feeling certain that they contained some manner of magic. "Ron will go nutters when I tell him about this," he said aloud, moving to inspect a longsword with faint swirls of blue and green just barely visible in the depths of the shining steel.

"Ron?" Eve asked quietly, moving up behind him and looking at the sword over his shoulder.

"Yeah, he's a friend of mine at Hogwart's. My best friend, actually." He went to the next display, which was a glass case that held an array of knives, large and small, each of them more beautiful than the last. "He won't believe me when I tell him about this." Pausing, he realized the literal truth of that offhand remark. "He really won't," he said, frustration plucking at him. "He won't believe I really saw _any_ of this!"

Eve's cool hand came to rest on his shoulder, one long nail flicking teasingly at an errant lock of his unruly hair.

"Well then, maybe you should get a souvenir to take back and show him." He looked back at her in surprise, and her jade eyes flicked to the case in front of him. "Go on, pick one."

His gaze whipping from her smiling face, to the knives on display, and then back, he felt a wide grin stretching his face.

"Seriously? Really?!"

"Of course. I've been treating you like slave labor all morning; you deserve more for that than a kiss on the cheek."

Harry turned back to face the knives with considerable haste, hoping to hide the flush that promptly turned him bright red. He very carefully held his tongue: it wouldn't have been at all proper for him to tell her that the kisses had been more than ample payment.

Selecting his knife, he pointed, and the bearded dwarf running the shop promptly retrieved it for him.

* * * * *

The knife Harry chose had a very useful enchantment that would simultaneously solve the problem of being able to bring it to Hogwarts. Besides being a beautifully-crafted object, it was spelled to make it magically-sharp, able to cut through absolutely anything... except something alive. That made it a hugely useful tool, and a complete non-threat as a weapon. Given that, he didn't expect any problems with taking it to school, and Ron was absolutely going to kill him when he heard about the adventure he'd had that day.

On the subject of Ron, however, and the rest of the Weasley's....

"I should be getting back," he said, watching her face even though he was mortally afraid he might offend her. Eve had been so nice to him, and she was so beautiful, only....

"I've been gone for hours now," he told her. "I'd been staying with them, these last few days, and they were taking me to get my school things, along with Ron and Ginny and the others. When I didn't get there with them they probably started looking everywhere. They must be frantic by now."

That was an assumption, and not one he was confident in making, after a lifetime of neglect at the hands of his aunt and uncle, but the Weasley's were different. They really did like him, and he was pretty sure they really would be worried. He felt guilty at having spent so long at exploring this place when that was going on--nearly as guilty as he felt at the look on Eve's face.

"There's still a lot to see," she said in a wheedling tone, disappointment lurking in the depths of those exquisite eyes. "I've been so busy with my errands that you've barely seen anything. How about we go check out the docks? Or Kildare's shop; she has things there that make that sword place look sick."

"I really can't," Harry said regretfully. "Mr. and Mrs. Weasley will be looking for--"

"At least let me take you somewhere for something to eat," she continued, as if he hadn't spoken. "I promised you some lunch, and now you're going to make me feel awful if you won't even let me feed you before you head back to the land of the boring, goody-goody, sleepwalking people."

Her entreaty only made him feel worse, and he hadn't thought that was possible.

"I can't," he said again. "Please, can we go back now?"

She looked at him for a long, long, moment, and then nodded, her eyes sad.

"Sure, we can do that." With a sigh so faint that he might have imagined it, she pointed to a turning a short distance away. "It's that way." The two of them began walking, with Lorne bringing up the rear.

A few minutes later as they were crossing another courtyard (this one with a magical, fountain in its center, with glowing images of fantastic beasts cavorting in the spray), he was distracted by a magnificent sight high overhead. A ship, a for-real relic of the age of sail, was lifting into the sky some distance off to the east. Its sails were still in the process of unfurling as he watched, and Harry felt his stomach clench tight at the thought of what it must be like to work in that rigging.

Eve followed his gaze upwards.

"That's from the harbor. There'll be more setting sail soon; the tide is turning."

Fumbling the broken halves of his glasses out of his pocket, Harry held them to his eyes, and saw that there were indeed tiny figures working the sails, with a drop of a thousand feet below them if they slipped but once. The huge expanses of white cloth were fully deployed in a few moments, and he heard the muffled boom as they billowed outwards, filled with wind... or perhaps it was the light of the hidden sun that pulled the canvas taut. He lowered his glasses, and looked at Eve, aghast.

"How can no one be _seeing_ this?" he demanded. "I should have seen this from Diagon Alley. All of _London_ should have seen it!" Another thought occurred to him, and his eyes snapped up to peer again at the impossible sight. "Heathrow! The people on the radars must be going insane!"

Another, smaller vessel was visible now, rising from roughly the same area as the first, also in the process of unfurling its sails, and behind it came two more. Eve, however, was giving him a look that held disappointment.

"Come on, Harry, I know you're smarter than that." She glanced upwards, then folded her arms and regarded him with a slightly sideways gaze. "You already know that there are places set apart from the outside world, places where the mundane, non-magical people can't reach. Diagon Alley is one of those places, though it's only barely removed from the 'muggle' world. Your school is like that too, I imagine, and I'm sure it's even further 'away'." She unfolded her arms and gestured widely at the streets and buildings all around them. "This place is like that, only much more so. Once we entered the twilight, we were nearly out the 'normal' world altogether. The mundane planet, the non-magical earth that you're used to, it doesn't have much hold on this place. Just by the fingertips, by the barest bits of its fingernails is it holding on, and keeping all of this from just floating away into dreams and fantasy." She looked up again at the soaring, magical ships, and shook her head slightly. "No, no one outside sees this, except sometimes for half a second, out of the corner of their eye."

They stood together, silently, for a long minute, watching the heartrendingly beautiful sight, before Eve touched him on the arm.

"Didn't you have somewhere you needed to be?"

He nodded, reluctantly.

"Yeah, I do."

She led the way to another passageway, this time on the right side of the courtyard. It was smaller than the last one, and he looked back to see that Lorne had to pull his eight metal legs in close in order to fit.

"Have you ever been up in one of those?" he asked the woman walking beside him.

"Of course I have. How else do you think I got here?" It was dim in the passageway; most of the light came from the magefire lamps scattered here and there, though he could see that ahead of them the passage opened back into the brightness of the main street. "Those ships sail between worlds, Harry," she told him. "There are other ways to get there, obviously, but the ships are fastest, and go to the furthest places you could ever imagine."

He was still processing what she'd said.

"How you... got here?" He looked at her, her lovely face barely visible in the dimness. The passage was long, and he had to walk carefully to keep from stumbling over something unseen. "You mean you're not... from... here?"

"Nope. It's not that different, though, at least not on the surface. The... what you would call the 'muggle' world is nearly the same, at least. Our magical world is different from yours in quite a few ways." They were nearly back to the street, and the light grew bright enough for him to see the ground more clearly, for which he was grateful.

"Different how?" he asked, wishing he had more time to talk with this fascinating person before going off to do something as stupid as buying school supplies. It had been enough to fascinate him, her being clever and kind and, well, beautiful, but adding in the part where she was from another _world--!_

"As far as I can tell, you don't have a Vampire Slayer here," she said, ticking it off on one finger. "Since you barely have any vampires, I suppose that makes sense. The magical people on my world don't use the word 'muggle'," another item ticked off on her fingers. "The Wizards don't need wands to cast spells--at least I've never seen any of them use one--and...." She sighed again, and this one was both clearly audible, and clearly heartfelt.

"And none of them have ever heard of Harry Potter, the-boy-that-lived."

They reached the end of the passage at that exact moment, and he saw that it wasn't the main street at all. Instead of Nocturne Way, he saw another courtyard, this one very small, though brightly lit with many magical lights. It was nearly deserted, and the handful of people there ignored the newcomers completely. At that point what she'd said fully registered, and his head snapped around.

"I never told you my last--!"

Eve's hand was already raised, her lips already pursed, and before he could even think to pull away or reach for his wand, she blew him a kiss.

Something invisible hit him, something that sent him stumbling backwards to sprawl helplessly on the ground, every inch of his body numb yet faintly tingling, as if he'd somehow managed to lay far enough wrong as to put every part of him asleep. His mind was still frantically alert, however, he simply couldn't force anything to move, not even a finger. Eve stepped into view, her jade eyes sad as she tucked a stray length of glossy hair back behind her ear.

"Oh, sweetie, don't you know?" She made a summoning gesture behind her, though her gaze never left his. "You should never, _never_ trust pretty girls you meet in scary places. They always end up being more trouble than you can handle."

The giant metallic spider loomed behind her, and when she pointed down at Harry's helpless form, it reached for him with cruel, barbed claws.

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	5. Chapter 5

**Chapter Five**

See chapter one for disclaimer

A/N: I know it kind of goes without saying, but if you enjoy this even a little, please let me know. It's much easier to write for an audience than for the chirping crickets.

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Harry woke to the sound of music... or at least a fair attempt at something music-like.

He opened his eyes, and found that he was face-down against a light saddle, his nose pressing painfully into the padded leather surface. While he blinked a few times and tried to recall what had happened, another trill of music floated over him; light, quavering notes that moved hesitantly through a simple tune, faltered for a moment, then picked up again. Harry felt a faint bump from beneath him, realized he couldn't move his legs, and turned his head to the side.

He saw that it was now full night; a cool wind was blowing gently into his face from across dunes of pale, moonlit sand. A quiet clicking came from all around him, something that had been present for so long that it was only background noise now, almost unnoticed beneath the liquid notes that still came from somewhere very close by. The tune meandered around and around, stumbled through several mis-played notes, repeated the missed section twice before getting it right, then continued on with greater confidence. Harry tried to move his legs again, failed, and with a grunt of effort sat upright.

His head swam for a moment, and he clutched at the saddle before him. Movement to either side confused his blurred vision until he squinted, and realized that they were metallic, many-jointed legs: the source of the endless, background clicking. He was sitting atop Lorne, the clockwork spider. Harry's own legs dangled on either side of the large, bulbous body, and they seemed to be bound in place with cords or ropes. Directly in front of him was Eve, riding sidesaddle, swaying easily with the small motions imparted by her servant-mount's surprisingly smooth gait. Her face was thoughtful in profile, her eyes half-closed as she coaxed soft, halting music from a flute of polished wood. She stopped playing then, as if she'd felt his stare, and her lips quirked in a slight smile.

"Any requests?" she asked, her tone playful, though she didn't turn her head. "I can play anything you want, absolutely anything... as long as it's the first half of 'Greensleeves'." He glared at her. The anger and sense of betrayal he felt was stronger than any he'd ever felt before in his life, and she had the gall to _smile_? "I'm not very good yet, obviously," she continued. "Its just really boring, when you're traveling alone and there's no one to talk with for days at a time, so I'm teaching myself how to play." Still not looking at him, she reached out and patted the top of the metal spider's head. "If there were some way to put a CD player on here then I could listen to some tunes to pass the time, or maybe even audio books." She frowned, tapping the flute lightly against the knee left bare by her stylish, thigh-length skirt. "Maybe I should ask Daisha about installing something, next time I come through...."

"What are you doing?!" The words burst out of him, nearly a shout, even though she was so close he could have reached out and touched her. "Where are we? Where are you taking me?!"

The woman finally looked at him, utterly unimpressed by his outburst, her face calm and beautiful in the moonlight. The spider beneath them continued to scuttle smoothly forward, topping a slight rise and then moving down the far side of the dune. In the distance past her head, atop the next rise, Harry could see a massive, blurry pile of dark stones.

"What am I doing?" she asked, her voice, in contrast to his own, was soft and composed. "Well, it looks a lot like I'm kidnapping you, Harry."

He couldn't help himself; he goggled at her as if she'd begun waving her arms and clucking like a chicken.

"Kidnapping--?"

"I think 'duh' would be the operative word here." She didn't seem in the least ashamed, she didn't even look embarrassed. "As for the 'where are we' thing... that's a little more complicated." Eve glanced ahead of them, saw that they were approaching the rock formation, and slipped the flute into one of the charmed pouches that hung from the saddle. "Short answer is, we're in the Shadow Ways." She smirked at him (somehow making it look extraordinarily attractive as she did so) and shrugged offhandedly. "Of course, 'the Shadow Ways' doesn't tell you anything at all, does it? And it's not really my job to teach you anything about all of this anyway; that's something those professors at your quirky little magic school are supposed to do... but I suppose that's not going to happen now." The spider beneath them reached a flat bit of ground that was cracked, hard-baked earth instead of sand, and Eve tapped its head lightly with one long fingernail. Instantly it stopped, freezing in place, and she waved at Harry as she gracefully dismounted.

"Hold on a sec," she said. Walking over to stand before the tumbled mass of the rock face, she cocked her head, seemingly searching for something. Despite the near-darkness, he could see that she had changed clothes since that last memory he had of her, standing over him in the alley. Her short, snug skirt was a deep burgundy, with intricate designs stitched in gold thread. It ended at mid-thigh, which showed off a lot of very pale, very shapely leg. Her long-sleeved blouse was of some satiny-type material; an ivory color that was blazingly visible in the moonlit desert. She was wearing a different pair of shoes, though these had the same high, impractical heels as the others. Silver and gold bangles chimed musically at her wrists, and her dark red hair fell in a smooth, carefully groomed cascade to the middle of her back.

The entire thing was very odd; even Harry could tell that much. The young woman looked more like some large company's stylish secretary or receptionist, than a wandering smuggler (and now, kidnapper). With those clothes, and her beautiful, perfectly-made up face, she wouldn't have been out of place in an upscale nightclub. Here and now, however, she presented a faintly surreal image, especially when she took two steps to the left, nodded to herself as she found whatever she'd been looking for, then reached up and moved her hand in front of the stones in a broad, sweeping motion. The cool air seemed to ripple where her hand had passed, and slowly a faint glow began to gather there.

"_Mellon!_" she called out, then shot him a glance over one shoulder, her eyes sparkling impishly. Harry just stared back in reply, and she sighed in disappointment.

"It would be funny if you got it," she assured him, walking back to the spider. Harry didn't bother with an answer, he was watching the glowing area grow slowly brighter, and more clearly defined. A minute later it was a roughly-circular disk, perhaps ten feet in diameter. It made no sound, apparently content to simply float there like a slowly spinning disk of congealed moonlight. He felt slightly ill just from looking at it, and as Eve resumed her place in front of him she gave him a stern look.

"It's probably better if you close your eyes when we go through. Some people have problems with the transition, and I _really_ don't want you to throw up on me."

Tearing his eyes from the disk with difficulty, he hit her with his best sullen glare.

"It's no more than you deserve, if I do," he told her. "I hope I spew all over you and your pretty clothes."

Having tapped the spider's head to set him in motion once more, the woman turned her head and gave him surprised little smile. Far from being angry at his threat, she actually seemed _pleased_.

"You think my clothes are pretty?" Her pale hand smoothed the material of her skirt--unnecessarily, as it was snugly molded to her hips and thighs. "Aww, you're sweet when you try to be mean," she told him, then, as the spider carried them into, and through the disk, her smile turned wry. "And seriously, close your eyes, or you won't like this at all."

They passed through the light, and despite himself Harry found his eyes scrunched tightly shut as the world suddenly whirled and rocked and then seemed to flip violently over and over. There were brilliant flashes of something that wasn't quite light from beyond his eyelids, and it felt like they were somehow falling in every direction at once.

"Well, I _did_ tell you I'd show you some wacky new things," came Eve's voice, sounding perfectly calm despite whatever was happening. "How about it, Harry? Are you having fun yet?"

* * * * *

The strange journey lasted about as long as it took to draw half a dozen deep breaths, at which point there was a final disorienting jolt, and they were abruptly somewhere else. Harry opened his eyes, and saw that they were now in a sun-drenched mountain meadow. Pine trees loomed on every side, filling the crisp air with their scent. Falcons wheeled in the brilliant blue sky overhead, and wildflowers dotted the lush green of the grass around Lorne's many clawed legs.

Harry looked around, stunned, as the clockwork spider lurched into motion once more. They had appeared--somehow--in the center of a small grouping of weathered grey stones, arranged in the center of the meadow. He saw worn, moss-filled runes carved into one of the nearer ones as they left the circle, but they meant nothing to him. He swallowed carefully, relieved that he hadn't actually vomited during the....

"What _was_ that?" he asked, reluctantly. He didn't especially want to talk to her, it was just maddening to not know what was happening to him. Eve, still riding sidesaddle in front of him and looking annoyingly at ease, was just smoothing her slightly mussed hair back into place. A few passes of her fingers through those red locks and they were once more sleekly perfect. Looking back at him, she pursed her lips for a moment in thought, glanced up at the bright sun overhead and reached into a saddlebag.

"It's a gateway, Harry; a portal. Kind of like...." She withdrew a long object from within the small pouch, glanced over to gauge the path Lorne was taking, and used the item to whack the spider on the side of his head. "It's the other one, you brainless, faithless, cowardly, murdering thing," she told the golem, her soft voice suddenly dripping with hate and scorn. The spider immediately shifted course, scuttling towards an opening in the trees that was somewhat further down than the one it had been heading for originally. They entered the trees, and moved along a well-defined path that followed a wide passage through the foliage. The ground here was covered in a thick blanket of pine needles, which allowed very little undergrowth. Squirrels peered at them from various vantage points, and in the distance Harry thought he heard something larger moving. Eve seemed utterly unconcerned, and was regarding him once more.

"You know what a secret passage is?" she asked abruptly.

Harry nodded, momentarily forgetting, somehow, that he was furious with her.

"Sure I do; Hogwarts is lousy with 'em. There's hidden doors, secret corridors, places you can't go unless it's the right time of day, or you give the right password...."

She eyed him askance, like she was wondering if he was serious.

"Well, golly," was her eventual reply. "That sounds very... whimsical." Her expression, and tone of voice, combined to assure Harry that it wasn't meant as a compliment. "Okay, then. What we're doing here is basically using the secret passages of the multiverse; creeping through the walls and underneath the floorboards."

He looked around, at the wilderness surrounding them.

"So it's a shortcut?" he asked. "Some quicker way of going to wherever we're going?"

"Not shorter," she corrected him, her eyes drifting forward again, to watch the trail ahead of them. "It's longer, if anything. The reason we're going this way is that it's basically impossible for anyone to find us in here. It's a maze of pathways that goes on for... well, forever." She glanced back at him, and there was something that might have been the merest trace of sympathy in those jade eyes. "No one is going to find you, Harry. No one is going to rescue you; put that out of your head right now."

That woke a spark of stubbornness in him, and he gave her the most intense glare he could manage.

"You don't know that! You said yourself that you can't cast spells, right?" She gazed at him silently, and he rushed on. "Well then, you don't know what kind of spells they'll use to find me! Ron's dad, he works for the Ministry, he must know all kinds of, um, locator spells, and tracking spells, and, uh...." She was still only looking at him, and that trace of sympathy was back. "And he's not the only one, either!" Harry told her loudly, as if the combined volume and desperation in his voice would make his hopes come to pass. "There's Hagrid, and even Dumbledore! _He_ won't just let me disappear like this, and he's the greatest wizard alive! He can find me, no matter where you drag me off to!"

The metal spider they rode carried them out of the trees. The path they were following stretched out ahead of them, crossing another wide meadow, and from there it wound down a shallow ravine, all of it filled with tall, lushly-green grass and wildflowers, with small stands of pine standing sentinel at various points along the way. When the brilliant sunlight fell upon the young woman, she raised the stick-like object she'd pulled from the saddlebag earlier. Once unfolded it was revealed to be a parasol, patterned in red and black. She lay it across her shoulder so that it shielded her head from the sun, and spun it idly, which briefly turned the pattern into a dizzying whirl.

"You're wrong, I'm afraid," she told him, finally. "Magic can't cross a dimensional interface, not without some very specific things being put in place first, and we've crossed half a dozen of them since we left Nocturne Alley. It doesn't matter who your friends are, or how powerful; unless they were right behind us when we left, then they're never going to find you."

Harry wanted very badly to argue, to hold on to his angry certainty that something or someone would stop her from stealing him away like this... only he couldn't. Her quiet, matter-of-fact response to his ranting deflated him more effectively than any screaming or threats could ever have done. _She_ was sure that no one could stop her, and she was much more knowledgeable about such things than he. Harry slumped where he sat, feeling quite lost and miserable despite the beautiful, sunny landscape through which they moved. Every moment was carrying him further away from the only friends he had, and ever closer to....

"You never said," He told her dully. "You never told me where you're taking me." Not that it mattered, especially, since he couldn't do anything about it anyway. Still, knowing their destination ahead of time might give him some chance to plan an escape once they arrived. Eve, however, didn't answer him. Instead, she watched the passing scenery, reached out to pluck a wildflower that passed within reach, gazed idly up at her parasol as she twirled it first one way and then the other, and basically did everything possible to ignore him. Harry frowned, and wondered at her sudden reluctance to speak. Up until that point, she had been willing, even eager, to talk about anything and everything. He supposed that with her only companion being a mute and somewhat hostile mechanical spider, she was only too glad to have someone she could talk to, even if that someone was her captive. Now, though....

"Why won't you tell me where we're going?" he asked, and this time she looked at him.

"You'd... probably rather not know."

_That_ was definitely a bit chilling, for reasons he didn't care to delve into, but he pressed her anyway.

"I do want to know. What can it hurt, telling me?" Thinking her reluctance to say might be some sort of weakness he could exploit... somehow, he tried to put a Dursley-like sneer in his voice. "Unless you're _afraid_ to tell me for some reason. Maybe you're ashamed! Maybe even a horrible, lying person like you couldn't bear it if you thought too much about what you're--"

"Okay, stop," she said, cutting him off in mid-sneer. "If you ever speak to me that way again, if you ever try to guilt-trip me into something, then I will gag you, and you will stay gagged all the way through puberty, are we clear?" He blinked, his mouth still half open, which she took as an affirmative. "All right then. That having been said, if you really want to know where we're going, I can't tell you, because I don't know. We're looking for someone, and I don't know exactly where they are right now."

Harry felt a faint, unmistakable boost at that. Maybe she wouldn't be able to find whoever this person was.

"How are you--?" he began, but she cut him off again, apparently still miffed at the tone he had taken with her.

"I know roughly where to look. He was spotted a few months ago, and there have been some rumors that give me a pretty good idea of where he might be."

"'He'?" Harry asked, suddenly feeling that he didn't want to know after all. It was too late for second thoughts, however. Much too late.

"Voldemort," she told him, and for once there was no humor whatsoever in her voice, and only grimness in her eyes. "I'm going to give you to Lord Voldemort."

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	6. Chapter 6

**Chapter Six**

Disclaimer in chapter one

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Harry's throat stayed locked up from sheer terror for a good long while after Eve told him his fate. He had thought he'd escaped Voldemort at the end of last term, when Professor Quirrell had tried, and failed, to kill him for his disembodied master. Now, though, if he was taken to the sorcerer like this, far from any aid that Dumbledore might otherwise have been able to give him, then he was sure that this time it would end horribly.

The clockwork spider bore them both without apparent effort, its eight long, multi-jointed legs carrying them smoothly over the rocky terrain as they descended the mountain slope. The sun overhead continued to shine brilliantly, the beauty of the day seeming to mock the dark despair which pressed on Harry with crushing force. Eve, elegant and lovely as ever, seemed to realize that he wasn't up to carrying on a conversation, not after that revelation, and so she left him to his thoughts. From time to time she prodded the spider onto this path or that, but otherwise she merely stared straight ahead and twirled her parasol back and forth, being careful to shield her pale skin from the noonday sun.

Harry, who looked fairly calm on the outside, was flailing around all over the place on the inside. Desperate to think of something, of _anything_ other than his upcoming reunion with the most evil and powerful wizard of the age, latched on to the woman before him with a sort of random, nearly hysterical intensity.

_A parasol?_ he wondered, focusing on that bit of puzzling trivia and trying to push away the image of Voldemort's face leering at him from the back of Quirrell's head. _I suppose.... I guess with that red hair, and that white skin, she has to be careful; too much sun and she'll end up covered in freckles, like Ron, and Ginny, and all the other Weasleys._ He stared at the black and red fabric that mostly hid her head from him, and tried to wish that protective sunshade away through sheer force of will. _You_ should _have freckles! Big, nasty blotches all over the place! _He clenched his fists at his sides: his arms weren't bound, weren't restrained in any way, it was only the ropes around his lower legs that tied him in place.

At that moment, once again demonstrating that strange ability she had to sense when he was looking at her, Eve half-turned, regarding him over one shoulder.

"You doing okay back there, sport?" she asked, her voice gentle. He glared at her with all his might. There had been instances, rare ones, sure, but instances when he had made things happen. Magical, unexplainable things, even without spells or wands or any idea of how he'd done it. Now would be an extremely satisfying time for one of those miraculous things to happen again.

_Blotchy and ugly, blotchy and ugly, blotchy and ugly...._

He tried to imagine it, to form the image in his mind, to force it to become reality... but somehow he couldn't. Looking at her, just a couple of feet away as she was, he couldn't seriously wish for that face to be disfigured. She was so pretty, after all, and clever, and quirky, and cheerful; surely all of this was some kind of elaborate joke that was being played on him. Any minute now she would laugh that silvery laugh and turn the spider around.

Any minute now....

"You're not _really_ going to do it, are you?" he asked her. "Give me to Voldemort, I mean. You're not really going to--"

"Sorry, babe," she interrupted, her gaze holding his. "I _am_ going to give you to him; I really, really am. It's nothing personal, but that's life in the big city for ya."

The sunlit trees and meadows passed unnoticed at the periphery of his vision, everything was narrowed to the woman, the unbelievably evil, awful woman who was taking him to his death.

"I hate you," Harry whispered to her, his voice shaking with what he wished was rage, and was in actual fact complete terror.

"No, you don't," Eve told him, the matter-of-fact tone softened ever-so-slightly by her faint smile. "It would make things easier for you if you _did_ hate me, but you don't." Spinning her parasol back and forth, she looked off at a patch of flowers alongside the trail, then back to him with a little shrug of embarrassment. "And actually, since there's not much reason to lie to you anymore, I'll tell you a little secret: you _can't_ hate me. It's sort of impossible... well, almost, anyway."

Harry blinked, tried to work out what she meant, and failed.

"What?" Once again he noticed, somewhere in the back of his mind, that she _wanted_ to talk to him. She wanted, or perhaps _needed_ to speak to him about something, anything, even things that he probably shouldn't ever be told.

"I'm fascinating you," she began, then paused to raise the index fingers of both hands into the air, making little hooking motions with them when she continued. "That's '_fascinating you_', with quotes around it. Some people would call it cheating, I know, but how's it cheating if it's something you were created to do?"

She paused, as if expecting a comment from him. He was still fairly lost, though, and couldn't find a question that made any sense. An accusation would have been good, right about then, something furious and biting, and he couldn't find one of those either--for some reason he found he _still _couldn't rouse the level of anger and outrage that the situation deserved. So long as he was looking at her, and listening to her voice, there was something distant and vaguely unreal about everything except for Eve herself. Watching him, noting the play of expression on his face, the woman nodded slowly.

"See? That's exactly what I'm talking about. I might not be a spellcaster, but one of my main abilities, my main 'function', if you want to get technical, is to deal with angry people in tense, high-pressure situations. I can talk people into things, make them feel relaxed and comfortable, wine them and dine them and get them to sign in blood on the dotted line. My 'Liaison' job was supposed to be pretty much the same thing; keep the ruffled feathers smoothed, lead them where my bosses wanted them led, help them take those baby steps from uber good-guys all the way down to fallen heroes...." She trailed off, her eyes looking at some memory that distressed her. Harry didn't follow the part at the end, about heroes and the like, but the rest of it did register.

"You control people?!" he demanded. That explained everything, from his abrupt decision to accompany her instead of searching for the exit from Nocturne Alley, to his current odd feeling of disconnection. It was like nothing really mattered except the light, musical cadence of her words, the shape of her lips as she spoke them, the way her hair trailed across the soft satin of her low-cut blouse....

"No, not control," she said, interrupting his drifting thoughts and bringing his eyes back to hers with a guilty start. "If it was control then none of the deals would be valid; you've got to watch out for that free will clause or you're in big trouble. What I _can_ do is... nudge you, help you stay mellow and happy, and make you think I'm the coolest, cutest, smartest law-firm babe you've ever met in your life."

In the middle of his head there was a space where lots of anger and hurt betrayal should have been boiling like a poorly-brewed potion, but weren't. Instead, in the middle of that empty place there was a desperate need for this woman to like him. Somehow, in a rush of reckless courage, he managed to speak before his courage failed him.

"You _are_. The coolest, and, um, cutest, and smartest... babe," his voice almost cracked on that one. "... That I've ever met."

His face was so hot that was probably glowing the same orange that the Weasley clan used for their hair, but Eve was obviously pleased. She grinned at him (in an unbelievably engaging, almost adorable way) and held her fingers up so that she could blow on them for a moment, then polish them on the shimmering material of her opposite sleeve.

"Well, you _are_ a little flatterer, aren't you? Either that, or I'm really, really good," she said, to herself as much as to him. Her smile faded, and she gave him a second, more thoughtful look. "And this is with you just barely old enough to start noticing girls, too; strange that I've got this strong a hold on you without giving it everything I've got...."

For his part, Harry was struggling against himself. To be this infatuated with someone who had kidnapped him, and was now delivering him to the evil wizard who'd killed his parents, and tried to murder Harry himself twice now... it was madness. The problem was, even knowing that it was some kind of magical power that had him bewitched, he still couldn't muster enough fear or anger to act. Eve was there, right there, within arm's reach... and his arms were free. He could hit her, if he wanted to. She was a slim, petite woman; soft and feminine in every way. If she were caught by surprise, even a twelve-year-old's fists would hurt her badly, maybe even stun her long enough for him to free his legs from the ropes that bound them. He could attack her at any time. He knew he could, he knew he _should_, only....

"I like you," he said, unbelievingly. "I like you a lot." Magic or no, it felt real. He couldn't hurt her; the mere thought of putting his fist into that face made him feel ill. Eve smiled softly as she regarded him, then reached out to brush a few strands of his unruly hair away from his eyes.

"That's how it works, handsome. If you were even a few months younger, then you might not feel it at all. On the other hand, if you were a few years older, and had had your heart broken a few times by some pretty girls at your school, then it wouldn't be hitting you quite so hard." She looked sad, then, and tugged at her own shining hair with an air of bitter regret. "And, of course if you were a vampire, then it wouldn't have any effect at all--most mental and emotional psi talents don't work on the undead." More tugging, and an even more bitter set to her lips, then: "Then there's the far, far side of the dial, with the people who've just spent some time being psi-raped with 'love me/worship me' feelings being rammed into their brains by a _goddess_ named Jasmine...." She scowled, looked at Harry, then shook her head. "You'd think my old bosses would have known what would happen, when I showed up and started whispering started whispering in their ears with my teeny-tiny little 'you like me, you really like me' voice ."

She was quiet for a few moments, long enough for Lorne to pass through another narrow band of trees, then take a path that wound down towards a streambed that wove through the floor of a small, hidden valley tucked into the side of the mountain.

"What did happen?" Harry asked, hoping that it might provide some hint about how he might free himself from her. Eve laughed a little in reply, though it wasn't a joyful sound.

"It made them _hate_ me, is what happened," she told him. "Even if they didn't quite know why, it made them hate my guts. It didn't happen instantly or anything; it came on so slow that I didn't even notice until it was already too late, but after they'd had a goddess screw with their heads, and their hearts, there was no way I was going to get through. Too much scar tissue." She scowled off into empty space, moved her parasol just enough for the sun to strike her pale, perfect face, and then blew her breath out in a heartfelt sigh.

"So then the Partners blame _me_; sure, that's fair. Is it any wonder that I betrayed them, after that?"

The endless jade depths of those clear, compelling eyes were even brighter than before, gleaming with unshed tears of bitter frustration. Harry felt pretty much the same way; nothing she'd said seemed likely to help him escape. He wasn't a vampire, and he doubted that goddess person, Jasmine, was going to help him out of this either.

The worst part of this, still, was that the person doing this to him was beautiful. At least Voldemort had the decency to _look_ evil. In his normal form he was some kind of bizarre snake-person, and when his spirit had fused with Professor Quirrell last year, the results had been freakish and disgusting... which was fine. He liked the way his world was so clearly defined: there were kindly people, like Dumbledore, and there were horrible, hateful people, like his aunt and uncle. If someone was in Gryffindor, then they were okay. If they were in Slytherin, then they were either stupid, spiteful, or a bully... sometimes all three at once. Eve, on the other hand, continued to confound his expectations, like now, when she reached into one of the saddlebags and pulled out a small bottle.

"Here, you must be thirsty." She uncorked it and passed it to him. "I don't drink much of anything, except for wine sometimes, so I don't have any water. This herbal tea isn't bad, though."

He looked down at the ceramic bottle he held, then back up at her, uncertainty plain on his face; even if he couldn't help liking her, that still didn't mean he trusted her. She gave him a faintly annoyed sort of look in return, and cocked her head a bit to the side as she regarded him.

"Um, sweetie; if I want to knock you out, I don't need to drug you. I can just turn you off like a light, anytime I want--remember?" She inhaled slightly, and pursed her lips as if to blow a kiss, and he flinched back as the memory of that moment in the courtyard blazed bright and clear in his mind's eye. She smiled at him, and nodded in satisfaction as he took a small drink from the bottle. It really _was_ some kind of iced tea, and it really did taste pretty good.

"Thanks."

She smiled just a little, a sad, twisted little half-smile.

"You're welcome." The spider reached the small stream and turned to follow it, and Eve switched her parasol to her other shoulder as their new course put the sun on their left. She glanced ahead of them, to where the stream seemed to have it's source in a small pool surrounded by small, worn standing stones that would have hardly come to Harry's waist, had he been on the ground. "We're getting close," she told him as Lorne neared the pool. "Two more after this, and we're there." Again, the small, half-smile, and something that might have been regret was lurking in her eyes. He opened his mouth to say... something. Some kind of plea, or argument... something to make her change her mind. Whatever it would have been, he never got the chance to speak it aloud, because at that moment Eve got a closer look at the stones around the pool, and her already pale face went white with rage.

"Not again!" With a smack of her hand on the spider's head she froze it in place, and immediately slid down to stand on the mossy ground. She was glaring at the grey stone plinths like they here a personal insult. "Those... _creatures!_" With her delicate hands clenched into fists, she stalked around the pool, staggering a couple of times as her high heels sank into the soft, moss-covered earth near the water's edge. After the second time she stopped, stared down at her feet for a moment, and narrowed her eyes in concentration. After that, when she stepped forward it was as if she were strolling down a firm, level sidewalk. Harry watched her, wondering what had her so upset that her effortless grace had deserted her, even for a few seconds.

Just then, however, he was distracted by something. The clockwork spider beneath him remained frozen in place like a bizarre statue, but it's head, with its grotesque, alien face, turned slowly to regard him. He stared back, wondering what had prompted this new behavior, unable to find any readable expression in that array of glassy crystals the magical machine used in place of eyes.

"There!" Harry glanced away from the spider's face, looking instead at the much more pleasing sight of Eve, standing beside the far side of the pool and pointing into its depths. "There they are! Ooh, those four-footed monsters are going to suffer if I ever catch them here" She looked over at him, saw him looking at her, and visibly reigned in her temper. Unclenching her fists, she took a few breaths, smoothed her snug skirt down over her slender curves, and tossed her hair back over her shoulder. With a bright, cheery smile, she walked back around the pool, looking so calm and collected that he would never have guessed that she had been snarling and spitting just moments earlier. He couldn't help noticing the way her hips swayed hypnotically as she walked, the motion accented by the finger's length of burgundy fringe that dangled from the hem of her very short skirt. That rippling motion drew the eye like an irresistibly powerful magnet, and she gave a soft, very ladylike snort when she saw where he was looking.

"Sorry about that, champ" she told him when she reached the spot where the spider was parked. "I'm not trying to be extra sexy for you or anything, it's just automatic, whenever I'm around somebody of the human male persuasion." She paused, cocked her head slightly, and gave him a wicked little smile with those scarlet-painted lips. "Actually, I do it around people of the human _female_ persuasion, too; I'm open-minded that way." She replaced her parasol in one of the charmed saddlebags; it was shady enough by the pool that it wasn't needed. "So anyway, don't worry; I'm not going to actually put the moves on you or anything," her smile was wry as she winked at him. "I might be evil, but I'm not _that_ evil."

"Um, okay...?" Harry said, not a hundred percent sure he was relieved. He did notice that Lorne had turned his head back around before Eve had reached them, and was now staring off into space as usual. The woman finished tying the flaps on all the saddlebags securely closed, and leaned down beside Harry's left leg. He saw her purse her lips and blow softly across the ropes binding his ankles together, and immediately they loosened and slithered to the ground, freeing him.

"Hop down for a minute," she instructed him, and he hurried to do so. Seemingly of it's own volition, his head turned and he stared back up the trail that had brought them here. It was a long way back to the last gate, miles and miles. Still, if he ran, he might be able to--

"Forget it," Eve told him bluntly, her soft, cool fingers touching his cheek and exerting just the tiniest amount of force to turn his head so that his eyes met hers. "There's no way you can get away from me," She said, as he gazed into those drowning green pools. "You're being pretty brave, and I admire that, but you're still just a little boy. You don't have enough magic to do much of anything, you don't have your wand... and even if you had both it still wouldn't matter." She took her hand from his face, though not without a final, brief caress that made him shiver. "Come on, handsome, stay tough for another couple of hours and the worst part will be over."

He obediently moved over to the spot she indicated, near the pool, though he couldn't help muttering in reply.

"I'm pretty sure once we get to Voldemort is when the worst part starts."

Her smiling face froze, and she gave him a frigid look of warning.

"Don't," was all she said, but he remembered the gag she'd threatened him with earlier. When he remained silent she nodded, then pointed into the depths of the pool. The water was amazingly clear; he supposed that there were springs down there that supplied the water, since there was a stream flowing out, and none flowing in. The bottom was about ten feet down, covered with various oddly-shaped bits of rock, and scattered here and there were several objects that were obviously not formed by nature. They were smallish pyramid-shapes, three sided (plus the bottom side) instead of four like he usually associated with a pyramid. They looked to be the same grey stone as the small pillars standing upright around the pool, and when he counted them he saw that there were five, just as there were five standing stones. Looking over he saw that, sure enough, the tops of the pillars were flat triangles, of about the same size as the stones in the pool.

Harry pointed down into the water, then up at the short pillars.

"Those go on those?"

Eve nodded, looking bright and chipper and cheerful again, though not without visible effort.

"You got it."

He looked back and forth again, a little puzzled despite the gnawing fear that refused to leave the pit of his stomach.

"How did they get down there? I don't see how they could get knocked off hard enough to make it all the way out into the middle like that."

She smiled slightly, and he could tell that the anger hovering around the edges of that pleasant expression was not directed at him.

"Very true; I knew you were bright." She shook her head, glaring down at the fallen stones as if they were mocking her. "Nope, they didn't get down there by accident." A huffed sigh escaped her, and she combed the fingers of both hands through her hair, the long nails gliding through her silken locks over and over in what was apparently a habitual, calming gesture. Another, softer sigh, and she dropped her hands to the hem of her blouse, tugging it into place, and finally smoothing her palms over her skirt.

"Anyway," she announced brightly, "It's not any kind of problem, 'cause my old pal Lorne, here, is going to fish them out for us, just like he does every time we come through here and find it like this." With a graceful gesture at the spider golem she unfroze him, then pointed down into the pool at her feet. "Go on, you; fetch!"

The clockwork servitor moved forward three steps, stopped just short of the water's edge, and then froze again. Eve frowned delicately, a look of irritated confusion crossing her beautiful face as she waved at the magical machine once more.

"Go! Get down there and bring them up!"

Lorne moved, but only his head, and only far enough to stare back at her with what was unquestionably a look of stubborn defiance. Eve regarded him, her face an icy mask.

"This is in every single way the wrong day to mess with me, you pile of green snot," she said, very, very softly. "Get in there... now."

It still didn't move, and Harry took a step back just in case it charged.

"Can he... um, hurt us?" he asked, flashing back to the strange look the device had given him when they'd arrived at the pool.

"No, he can't." Eve didn't look away from the metal spider, and her voice remained a thing of fragile ice even as she answered him. "There are some things he can never do, like hurt me, or anyone I've not told him to attack. On the other hand, some things he _can_ do... like lock himself up instead of following an order." She made an angry gesture with one hand. "That'll teach me to fall behind on updating the spellware; the latest service patch is supposed to fix that... though I really need to upgrade to the new edition, which is why I was putting it off." She pointed to the pool again, her jade eyes glittering even more fiercely than the crystal orbs of the spider.

"Last chance; get in there, or I'll give you the pain." The construct did not move, and Eve nodded grimly. "Harry," she said, in a normal, conversational tone. "You know that really nasty torture spell your Wizards use, the Cruciatus Curse?" He didn't answer her. That sort of thing wasn't exactly taught to first years, though he'd heard whispers about it in the common room a few times. Eve smiled, and this time those crimson lips made the expression look impossibly cruel. "Did you know, it'll even work on something made of gears and springs, so long as there's a living mind there too?"

She drew in a breath, pursed her lips, and blew a long exhalation at the clockwork spider. More than twenty feet separated them, there was no way for her actual breath to cross that distance, but it wasn't the air from her lungs that was the danger. Harry saw it again, something just on the edges of perception, a rippling distortion of magic, or something very much like magic. It moved from Eves lips and across to Lorne in a thin stream, and with the speed of a striking snake. The instant it struck the machine, it convulsed, all eight legs rattling uncontrollably. The bulbous head rotated back and forth as the entire construct rocked violently, and Harry could imagine it was screaming silently, continually.

He looked at the woman beside him in horror, and was surprised to see a shadow of pain cross her face as well. It was only for an instant; then she turned to look at him and smiled brightly, eyes sparkling.

"Okay! While he's busy learning the error of his ways--again--what say we get those capstones back up here where they belong so we can get back on the road?"

Harry shrugged cautiously, unsure whether the bright and bubbly persona she habitually used was in fact the real her, or if the cruel, angry one that slipped out from time to time was her true self.

"How do we get them out?" he asked, not really wanting to know the answer. Eve put her hands on her hips, ignoring the spider golem's agonized thrashings in the near distance as she considered the pool.

"Well, _I'm_ not going to dive in after them," she said, still cheerful and smiling. "It would wreck my hair, and I'm sure you don't want to sit around for two hours while I redo my makeup from scratch." Harry opened his mouth to say he wouldn't mind that at all--and she stopped him with one finger across his lips, and a pretty smirk that told him she knew exactly what he'd been about to say. "I don't suppose you're a champion swimmer?" she asked a moment later. He shook his head emphatically.

"I barely know how," he assured her quickly. "The Dursley's never took me to the pool unless it was free-admission day... and then they always tried to leave me there and pretend they hadn't noticed I wasn't in the car."

She cocked one perfect eyebrow at that, momentarily diverted despite herself.

"They sound like sweet people. Give me their address before I turn you over, and I'll go and kill them for you." While Harry tried to process that apparently sincere offer, Eve went back to staring down into the pool. "All right then. If neither of us is going to jump in there, I guess that only leaves us one option." She looked over at him, mischief dancing in her eyes, and then put her hand on top of his head. Gently ruffling his unruly hair, she murmured, as if to herself.

"Where is it, where is it... somewhere in here, but gods; how could anybody find anything in this jungle...?" Harry was frozen in place. The sensation of her cool fingertips moving through his hair had closed his throat instantly, and he wondered dazedly if this was part of Eve's magic, of the _fascination_ power she'd mentioned, or if he would have felt just as gob smacked if any other similarly beautiful woman had done what she was doing.

"Ah Ha! There it is!" He looked up as she pulled her hand away, and his eyes went huge and round as he saw her somehow pull his wand out of his tangled mop of hair. She grinned at his shocked expression, and presented the wand to him with a flourish. "Here you go; now show me what they taught you in that wacky school of yours." He held the wand uncertainly, staring up at her, and her grin faded to a small, slightly frightening smile. "Now remember what I told you," she said, leaning close, and holding a single, sharp-nailed finger up before his eyes. "Your magic can't hurt me; don't even go there. Just bring the stones up out of the water, put them on the pillars I point to, and everybody will be happy, okay?"

He glanced down at his wand, which was gripped in his trembling fist. He had it back now, he could do magic... but she was probably right about his inability to hurt her. Even so, it seemed foolish to actively help her with the stones when that would only make it possible for her to take him closer to where Voldemort was waiting.

"What if I don't want to help you?" he asked, his voice shaking only slightly. The woman regarded him silently, for what seemed like a long time since Lorne's thrashing was still continuing unabated.

"I don't want to hurt you, Harry," she told him eventually. "I don't want to, but I _can_. Just look at the big stupid bug behind you if you don't believe me." He didn't look, he'd seen enough of what the torture magic was doing to the clockwork creature.

"That's still better than what Voldemort will do to me," he told her, trying his best to sound brave and defiant. "This is just pain; he's going to kill me."

Eve only smiled at him, a little sadly.

"That's true on paper; you're absolutely right. Thing is, there's nothing 'only' about the kind of pain I can give you. Dying will seem better, once you're down on the ground in your own vomit, with every sphincter in your body letting loose at once. So come on," she gestured to the water. "Just bring up the rocks, okay?"

He was scared, really scared, but not so much that he couldn't see what was hiding behind the icy look she was giving him.

"You... you don't want to hurt me, do you?" Her eyes narrowed, and he hurried on. "I mean, you can and you will and you're going to; I get that. You still don't _want_ to do it, do you?"

Fury flashed across her face, momentarily transforming that beauty to terrible, and then it was gone, leaving only the pale loveliness that so confused him.

"Of _course_ I don't want to hurt you," she told him, exasperation in her voice. "I like you, Harry; I like you a lot, and I don't go around hurting people without a good reason." She scowled over at where Lorne was still twitching convulsively on the ground in unending agony, and then looked back to Harry, her face smooth once more. "I like you," she repeated, which gave him a surge of hope... which then crashed as she continued. "The thing is, I like me a whole lot more. It's not exaggerating to say I'm head-over-heels in love with me, actually, which means that I have to put what's good for me ahead of what's good for you. Which obviously sucks for you; it's just the way it is." One pale hand came up, very slowly, and ended up pointing down into the depths of the pool before them. "Now. Do what I say, bring up the first stone, or you're going to start learning about a subject they don't teach at school: mind-shattering agony 101." Her pale, cold eyes seemed to burn through him with their icy stare, and then she broke into an bubbly, infectious smile.

"Pretty please? With sugar and gumdrops on top?"

Feeling both dazed, and completely without hope, Harry reluctantly raised his wand, pointing it down at the stone she was indicating.

"_Wingardium Leviosa!_" he said, clearly in spite of his growing despair. As the first pyrimidical block broke the surface and began floating towards a pillar, he felt Eve ruffle his hair fondly once more, and kiss him on the cheek.

"Good boy," she whispered into his ear. "You see? We can be good friends. Only for another couple of hours, maybe, but that's no reason to spoil a good thing, is it?" She made her way to the pillar to guide the stone down into place as he levitated it over, and the swaying of her hips had a profoundly self-satisfied air. He still couldn't help looking, even though the darkness in his chest left him feeling chilled all the way through.

Across from him, providing a constant, horrible background to it all, the giant spider lay on its side and curled up in shuddering, unending pain.

* * * * *


	7. Chapter 7

**Chapter Seven**

See Chapter One for Disclaimer

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Five individuals came through the Gate between universes, flickering into existence in the sunlit mountain meadow. Three men and two women, all in lightweight body armor, they immediately sought cover against the worn grey stones that marked the portal, their exotic weapons raised and questing for targets. Moments passed with no sign of attack or prey, and two of the figures cautiously rose and scurried across the open, grassy space and into the surrounding trees. The others remained where they were, cold eyes scanning restlessly, waiting and watching. When the two scouts reemerged and signaled all clear, the hunters regrouped. A quick examination of the ground showed the path the spider construct had taken. Without a word, they headed down the trail, moving at a tireless, ground-devouring lope.

* * * * *

Harry released his levitation spell, letting the small capstone settle on top of the pillar Eve had indicated. The three-sided pyramid had strange glyphs carved into it, and the woman studied them carefully before turning the stone clockwise until it lined up with the pillar. She wasn't looking at him, there was nothing at all preventing him from raising his wand and casting a spell....

His hand twitched, then fell back to his side. True, he could cast a spell, another levitation, perhaps. Then what? All she need do was hit him with another of those odd spell effects she could somehow manage without any wand at all, and he would be unconscious again. That didn't seem like a good enough plan. Not for the first time, he wished that Ron and Hermione were with him. Together they would have been able to escape, or perhaps even overpower the woman. As it was, he felt completely useless. If it hadn't been for the lucky happenstance of the gate stones being thrown into the pool, he would already be most of the way to their final destination by now--Lord Voldemort.

Frowning slightly, curious despite the dread that hung around him like a shroud, he spoke.

"What did that?" When she glanced over at him, he nodded at the stones still lying in the depths. "You said 'those creatures' when you saw they'd been thrown in. What kind of creatures?"

Eve scowled, the expression looking out of place on her beautiful face.

"An incredibly stupid kind of creature," she said, as she moved to the next pillar. "They're called 'Crumple-Horned Snorkacks', if you can believe that, and they're just about as idiotic as they sound." She shook her head dismissively, and pointed down into the water. "Come on; that one, closest to this side. Bring it up."

Reluctantly he raised his wand, then hesitated as a fresh round of thrashing reminded him that the clockwork spider Eve called Lorne was still (somehow) suffering under the torture spell she had placed upon him. Harry also noticed that the woman winced, and touched her fingertips to her temple at that same moment. Unsure of what that meant, he cleared his throat carefully.

"Ah... could you maybe let him off, now?" She looked at him with those jade eyes that were just a few shades lighter than his own, and he shrugged uneasily. "It's sort of distracting, him jerking around back there, and I'm not the world's greatest wizard in the first place...."

To his surprise, she nodded her acquiescence, a faint look of what might have been relief joining the pain he saw lurking, mostly hidden, behind her cool facade.

"It _is_ kind of annoying, isn't it?" she said, as she ended the spell with a casual wave of one hand. Immediately, her metallic servant stopped convulsing, though occasional tiny twitches still passed through several of its legs as it lay there. Eve raised one perfect eyebrow at Harry, looking expectant.

"Thanks," he told her, then looked down into the water once more. "_Wingardium Leviosa!_" The second stone stirred, and then rose from the mud, up through the water, and out into open air. The woman indicated which pillar was its match, and Harry guided the stone to a gentle landing there.

That left three stones, and once they were placed he supposed they would be off to complete the journey that would end with Eve delivering him to his mortal enemy. He glanced around again while she was lining up the capstone, wondering if he could somehow make it down the path and up the far bank before she could stun him again--

A movement at his feet startled him, and he nearly jumped out of his skin. A quick look down showed that the spider had extended one leg toward him, falling just short of actually touching his ankle. The crystal eyes were locked on him, and another of the golem's legs moved ever-so-slightly, indicating something in the dirt by the pool's edge. Harry considered the magical machine, wondering what it wanted of him. A glance over at Eve assured him that she was still adjusting the stone, so he took three slow steps to his right, and looked down. The soft earth had been torn and scuffed by Lorne's agonized thrashings, but there were other, more regular lines there too, which must have been scratched in after the torture was ended.

_--She tired now--_ was spelled out in shaky-looking letters. When he looked back to its eyes in confusion, it dragged one metal leg across the dirt, erasing the words.

"Harry?" His gaze snapped guiltily up to where Eve was standing, on the other side of the small pool, her head cocked slightly as she regarded him.

The woman spared a brief glance for her spidery servant, still lying helplessly on the ground, then looked back at him. "Don't feel sorry for him," she said, ignoring the golem now. "All he has to do is obey me, and I won't hurt him. He knows that perfectly well, too; I think he did that just so you'd see me punish him, and think I was a sadistic bitch."

"And you're not?" Harry answered, the words slipping out before he quite realized what he was going to say. She smiled at him, faintly, and gave a tiny shake of her head.

"Not usually, no. It's just this one specific case that brings out the worst in me." She sighed, a soft, weary sound, and closed her eyes for a moment before opening them wide and tossing her head irritably. "Come on, how about that next stone, huh?"

Harry obediently raised his wand, though not without another long look at the woman. She _did_ look tired, when he squinted hard enough to compensate for his broken glasses. Her hair, so glossy and bouncy before, now looked a little limp and flat. Her pale complexion was still flawless, but it looked different, somehow; sort of stretched and fragile. She saw him looking and flashed him a smile, looking as lovely as ever. Harry was left wondering if he'd imagined it after all.

"_Wingardium Leviosa!_"

The third stone stirred, then rose up through the water. It broke the surface, then slowly drifted towards the woman, dripping as it went. She indicated which pillar it belonged to, and he obediently guided it to a gentle landing. Releasing the spell, he watched as she adjusted it with finicky precision. Looking closely, he tried to see the same signs of weariness he'd seen earlier, while at the same time wondering why Lorne thought it mattered that she was a little tired.

"Ew," Eve said softly, apparently to herself, as she regarded her fingertips with distaste. The stones had apparently been submerged long enough for waterborn algae to start growing on them. The greenish slime on her fingertips contrasted sharply with the delicate pink polish that adorned her long, tapering nails. She held her hand before her face and pursed her lips, doubtless to use one of her strange, quasi-magical powers to remove the offending substance... and then she stopped short, made a frustrated pout, and instead reached out to awkwardly wipe her fingers against the rough stone of the pillar. Harry blinked, cleared his throat, and ventured a question.

"Are you... okay?" Her head turned and she gave him a sharp look, so he raised his hands in a gesture of surrender. "It's just that... I mean, um...." Shrugging helplessly, he shut his mouth. Eve's expression softened, and she smiled just a little.

"I'm hungry," she admitted. "And tired... which for people like me is basically the same thing." Harry frowned as he tried to puzzle that out; it seemed, somehow, like those words were very, very important. "I hardly even got started on my deliveries, you know," the woman continued, leaning one shoulder against the stone pillar as she spoke. "I didn't expect to have you just land in my lap like you did; and after I had time to think it over I knew we couldn't hang around long, or else your friends would come looking for you." She sighed, and spread pale fingers across the ivory satin that covered her stomach. "I barely got _anything_ to eat, and I was running pretty low to begin with--" She stopped short, and sent a penetrating look his way, looking like she regretted having said that last part. With a shake of her head that made her dark red hair ripple and shimmer (though not so much as it had earlier; it _did_ look flatter and duller now), she turned back to finish adjusting the stone.

"Don't worry about me, Harry," she said without turning. "I'll get everything I need real soon now. Although...." She tilted her head and looked off into the distance, as if considering something, then resumed her adjustments. "It might be that I'll ask you a favor, after we're done here. While you've got your wand and everything, you might be able to help me out a little...."

Harry might have answered her, would have said something brave and defiant about not doing any 'favors' for his kidnapper (despite the way he was already helping her with the stones), only his attention was diverted. Lorne the spider golem, still sprawled in an ungainly heap on this side of the pool, had been stealthily scratching more lines in the soft earth.

_--tired mean weaker--_

--you flee--

"Next?"

He jumped, snatching his eyes up to see Eve, on the far side of the water, indicating the next stone. He swallowed painfully as she glanced at the spider, but apparently the distance and her poor angle kept the woman from spotting the message. Hastily raising his wand, he pointed it into the pool.

"_Wingardium Leviosa!_"

The stone rose, floated across, and landed on the next pillar. Eve moved around the pool, and again she staggered slightly as her pretty, though extremely impractical heels sank into the soft earth. Harry, watching closely, nodded to himself at this confirmation of his theory.

_Lorne's right,_ he thought, inwardly exulting. _She's tired, and whatever it is she uses for magic is running low. Earlier she was able to walk on anything in those shoes, and never trip once, but now she either can't do that, or doesn't want to waste the energy. Same thing with her hands. I've seen enough of her by now to know that she never would have left that slime stain on her fingers if she could magic it off, and she didn't do it. So maybe I do have a chance to get away!_

Lorne twitched slightly, and Harry looked down as casually as he could.

_--jump when last stone set--_

--jump pool--

That would mean jumping through the gate when it opened, and then hoping he could get enough of a head start to get away before Eve could follow him. Tired or not, the woman had proven that she could easily subdue him with her strange abilities. Perhaps if he tried one of the few spells he knew right before he jumped? A leglocker curse would slow her down, even if she managed to break it fairly quickly--

He noticed that Lorne had continued his scratching, only the very tip of one multi-jointed leg moving on the smooth mud beside the pool.

_--no cast spell her--_

--no hurt--

As soon as it saw that he'd read the words, the spider swept the ground smooth again, then lay quite still. Harry stared at it, wondering.

_Is it asking me not to hurt her? I guess it doesn't know that I don't have any spells that really do damage. If I did, though...._

He realized he didn't really have a clear idea of where that particular thought would end. If he did have spells that would wound, _would_ he use them on her? Probably not. She hadn't hurt him, after all; turning him over to Voldemort was still in the future, still not-quite-real. Until she physically attacked him, he doubted he could return the favor. Lorne, though.... It was odd that he/it would plead for his mistress's life, when she apparently made a habit of abusing him. Perhaps her power, that ability to make people like her, even love her, could over time gain such a hold on someone that they adored her even as she tortured them?

He shivered, profoundly disturbed by the thought.

"Last one, Harry," Eve announced, even as she moved slowly and awkwardly around the pool to the final pillar, which put her back next to him, though on the opposite side from where she'd started. He nodded, and raised his wand, but her cool, soft hand closed on his before he could speak the incantation.

"I'm going to need that wand back from you once you raise this one, okay?" He nodded again, dumbly. With her face so close he was again struck by her beauty... though he couldn't help but blink as the change registered. She was young; very young, he'd seen it earlier. Around twenty or so, maybe twenty-one or twenty-two at the very most. Young enough that not a single sign of age showed on her lovely face. Now, though her makeup remained flawless, her face was not. It was small things, tiny things, really, and still it was unmistakable. The pale skin wasn't _quite_ as taut, though it was still soft and smooth. There were the faintest of lines beneath her jade eyes, and around that sensual mouth. She was, unquestionably, still beautiful... just not _quite_ perfect. Eve looked closer to thirty than twenty, now, and he wondered how that could be even as she raised his hand, with the wand he held, and looked at it with something like longing... or hunger.

"I know you're probably going to say no," she told him, her eyes leaving the wand reluctantly and meeting his own. "But I'm still going to ask you for that favor, before I take this back from you."

"Why would I want to help you?" he asked, a bit sullenly. "I mean, except for what I'm already doing, which is helping you take me to get killed."

She shrugged, which did delightful things to the cleavage her top exposed.

"Not sure," she admitted, and had the grace to look away. "Maybe if either of us knew a spell to make you about ten years older?" She smiled, and it was partly amusement, partly sadness, and partly smoldering heat that he saw in that look. "I could at least make a man out of you, before I handed you over to the snake guy; give you something good to remember."

Harry opened his mouth to tell her that it wouldn't be worth it, but the words wouldn't come. He couldn't lie to her, somehow, not when her bottomless eyes were so close he could fall in and drown in them. She sighed, softly and with regret, and stepped back. With a gesture at the pool she turned away, as if it pained her to look at him. Confused, and not at all sure of what he was feeling, Harry pointed the wand into the water.

"_Wingardium Leviosa_"

It came out as more of an uncertain statement than the ringing command he'd been taught to use, though it still worked properly. The stone floated upwards, out of the water, and to the waiting pillar. Eve nodded in satisfaction as it came to rest there, and reached out to line it up.

"Anyway, that favor." She glanced at him, and he froze in place, trying to look as if he'd just been shifting his feet. "I know this is going to sound weird," she continued, looking almost embarrassed. "The thing is, I'm seriously starving, and it takes someone with a wand to--what are you--?"

As soon as the final stone had touched the pillar, the water in the pool had disappeared, replaced by a bottomless well of swirling light. Harry flung off his robes, fearing that there was still water down there somewhere, not wanting to be tangled up in yards and yards of wet cloth if he ended up swimming for his life. Eve stared at him, and fury replaced surprise as she took a step towards him.

"Don't!"

He couldn't help grinning at her as he leapt into space, falling down through twisting light.

"No!" Eve's voice was a shriek, filled with as much fear as anger, and he had one last glimpse of her staring down at him in shock and dismay before the strangely substantial light closed over his head.

* * * * *

Harry materialized on a flat slab of shiny, irregular rock, sprawling flat between five large lumps of rust-stained iron that seemed to have been bolted firmly into the rock. Moving carefully, he stood up, squinting as he peered around. The rock slab (it was obsidian, he realized, recognizing it from one of his classes) was only twenty or thirty feet across. Beyond it lay swamp; fetid, muddy water filling the spaces between scattered clumps of moss-hung trees. Stands of tall grass were everywhere, as were clouds of tiny gnats, which wasted no time in swarming all around his face, filling his ears with their tiny, buzzing whines.

Realizing he had to go _somewhere_, he hurried to the edge of the stone, crouched down, and eased himself down into the water. To his great relief he found the bottom at about the time the water reached waist-level, and he headed towards the nearest stand of trees as fast as the sucking mud beneath his feet would allow. He wasn't quite there when he heard the distinctive _clickclick_ of high heels on stone.

"Harry!" Eve shouted from behind him. "Come back here! Now!"

_Sure, right, I'll just turn around and do that,_ he thought scornfully, with a quick glance behind him. He saw the woman hurrying to the edge of the stone, staring after him with her fists clenched at her sides. Behind her, the clockwork spider flickered into existence between the gate markers, though an absent gesture from Eve froze it instantly in place. He glanced back and forth rapidly, gauging his progress while keeping an eye on the woman. He was very nearly at the trees when he saw her draw in a deep breath, raise both hands to her lips, and blow a kiss his way with so much force that she was bent nearly double at the end of it. He felt more than saw the mystical energies rolling towards him like a wave, and with a last desperate lunge he dove around the thick trunks of the swamp trees.

The heavy wooden trunks shuddered, and a rustling drew his eyes upwards. Every leaf up there had curled in tight on itself, and dozens of unconscious birds rained down as they lost their grips on branches.

_Wow! She actually stunned the trees!_ he thought, amazed, then slogged away as quickly as he was able, keeping the trunks between himself and the obsidian platform. Luckily for him, nearly all wizard spells required line-of-sight to their target, and Eve's powers seemed to obey the same rules. Even better, the world where he'd landed was particularly suited to keeping the woman from following after him. After all, if she hated getting even her fingertips smudged with pond slime, what were the chances that she'd leap into this brackish, thoroughly nasty water--?

_--Crack--_

Just ahead of him and a little to the left, Eve appeared out of thin air, standing in the middle of a stand of thick grass. She smiled at him, her expression smug... right before it changed to startlement as she dropped straight down with shriek of dismay, followed by a somewhat turgid splash. Harry turned right and lunged ahead, trying to gain some distance before she righted herself. Luckily for him, even the places where the grass was thickest seemed to often hide deep pools of water and mud. Most decidedly _unlucky_, however, was the discovery that Eve could Apparate.

_I'll never be able to outrun her,_ he thought to himself in desperation. _I'll have to get around some of these trees, make her lose sight of me!_

The trees did indeed seem to grow thicker up ahead, though there was still no sign of dry ground. Instead, deep, weed-choked water lapped against their trunks, looking like it was trying its level best to pull them all down into a muddy grave. Harry moved faster, finding that the bottom here was a little firmer, the water a bit shallower.

_--Crack--_

He felt her appear right behind him, and he turned in time to see her standing waist-deep in the water, a look of profound revulsion on her face as she raised her eyes from the mess it had made of her expensive clothing. She pursed her lips and inhaled, gathering her magic... and he swept both of his hands through the water as hard as he could, raising a huge spray of brown, tepid water that thoroughly drenched her. Whirling, he half-staggered, half-ran, accompanied by the sounds of her gagging--apparently she'd accidentally swallowed, or even inhaled, some of the water.

"Ack! That's _disgusting!_" she complained loudly, and he wasted a bare moment to call back over his shoulder.

"Just go back then, and leave me alone!"

He couldn't help but grin when he saw her standing there, muddy water soaking every inch of her, sodden, bedraggled hair clinging to her pale face. She looked like a drowned rat, her green eyes glaring at him through water-soaked hair. She sputtered furiously, and he gained precious seconds as she used both hands to peel the dripping tresses back so that she could see properly.

"No way, little boy!" she snarled back at him when she'd cleared it away. "Whether you admit it or not, you're _mine!_"

She really did look furious, and he still hadn't reached the cover of the trees. He had to slow her down somehow, so he tried one of the few spells he knew that might buy him some time.

"_Locomotor Mortis!_" he cried, aiming his wand back at her. The leglocker curse wouldn't hurt her, but in the time it took her to deal with it, he might be able to....

He gaped as she sloshed forward a few steps, completely unaffected by the spell he _knew_ had hit her squarely, and pursed her lips in reply. When she blew the kiss at him, he could actually see it coming, thanks to the clouds of swamp midges that fell out of the air, stunned, in a line racing straight at him. At the last moment he ducked, submerging himself fully beneath the fetid water. He felt the magic pass by, and immediately lunged to his feet, trying not to gag on the foulness that had seeped into his mouth, and into his nostrils. Stumbling forward, he finally reached where the trees grew thickest, and slogged towards the nearest group as quick as he was able.

_--Crack--_

Eve appeared directly in front of him, though she was careful to stay out of reach. Sodden and miserable as she looked, there was still triumph in her eyes. Acting on sheer instinct, Harry whipped his wand up and shouted.

"_Petrificus Totalus!_"

The full-body bind curse wasn't a spell he had much practice with, but it was the most powerful spell he knew. If it worked, and turned Eve into a rigid, living statue, then he would have all the time in the world to decide what he should....

She ignored it, even giving a disdainful little sniff as the magic splashed harmlessly off of her. Harry stumbled backwards, horrified that his best magic seemed like nothing at all to the woman.

"_Petrificus Totalus!_" he tried again, hoping that it had only been a miscasting before, that this time it would work.

It didn't.

"Um, Harry," Eve said mildly, even as she took a careful, unsteady step towards him in the water and mud. "If you're going to keep throwing food at me, you could at least be nice and let me actually _eat_ some of it." She gave a wistful sigh, her eyes dropping briefly to his wand before coming back to his eyes. "Because I'm really, really starving."

He whirled, putting his back to her as he splashed towards the next grouping of trees, and from behind him he imagined he could hear a sharp inhale, then the sound of her blowing one of her kisses. The trees before him exploded in flames; instantly and completely. Harry flung his arm up to shield his face, and turned towards a different stand of thick trunks. Moments before he reached them, that group exploded too, driving him back with the intense heat. He was rapidly tiring now, and the hopelessness of his situation wasn't helping either. Still, he tried again, his straining steps hindered as he hit an area of shallower water and thicker, more clingy mud. The grass grew higher here, at least partially shielding him from her stun bolts, though the fire would still kill him if she used it.

"Stop, Harry!" she called out, seemingly reading his mind. "I'll drop the next fireball right on top of you, unless you stop!"

_She isn't trying to kill me,_ was the thought that went through his head. _She's trying to scare me into stopping, and she's going to stun me again when she gets a chance, but she's not trying to kill me._

He came out the other side of the tall grass, his eyes moving frantically as he looked for some way to make her lose sight of him long enough to make his escape.

_--Crack--_

Again, she Apparated right in front of him. Too far away for him to try anything physical, and yet far too close for him to have any hope of getting away.

"Can we _please_ stop this now, and go back?" she asked him, her voice plaintive as she struggled in vain to fingercomb her wet hair into some semblance of order. "Neither one of us wants to do this all day, do we?"

Mutely Harry shook his head, though inwardly he was profoundly shocked at Eve's appearance. The woman had aged even further since he'd last gotten a close look at her. The circles under her eyes were plain, looking dark and a little sunken. Her eyes crinkled at the corners with small but definite crow's feet, and there were lines bracketing the corners of her mouth. Even her hair looked browner, plainer, and although the dampness made it hard to tell, he was almost sure he saw strands of grey sprinkled through it. She could pass for forty, now, and a careworn forty at that.

_I don't think you can do this all day_, he thought cautiously. _Whatever you really are, I think you're just all worn out. _

Not that it especially mattered, he realized. She had him this time. There was nowhere to run, and not even enough water to duck below when she used her stun. All he had was his wand, which couldn't cast any spells that would affect her. She nodded, having reached the same conclusion, and gave him a smile that was still remarkably pretty, if in a motherish, older-woman kind of way.

"Don't worry, champ; this won't hurt a bit. And I'll make sure you don't wake up until its all over with Voldemort."

That wasn't reassuring at all, and Harry waved his wand vaguely in her direction as he struggled to think of something, anything, that might help. The thick mud was pulling so firmly at his feet that he couldn't even try to run; it would take long seconds to slog even a few feet....

His head jerked up suddenly, and his grip on the wand firmed.

"_Wingardium Leviosa!_"

His voice was clear and ringing as he called out the invocation, and one of Eve's perfect eyebrows rose into the wet tangles of hair plastered across her forehead.

"Didn't we already cover all of this, Harry?" she asked him, the amusement in her voice nearly covering the bone-deep weariness. "Your magic can't touch me, so what exactly do you expect to--"

She broke off as the bludger-sized glob of thick mud pulled itself up out of the muck at Harry's feet, to hover at the tip of his poised wand. Jade eyes going wide, she stared at him, shaking her head in disbelief.

"Y-You wouldn't _dare_--!"

Harry nodded happily, even as he brought his wand hand slowly back over his shoulder, and then whipped it forward.

"Yes I would!"

The mud flew forward, straight at her. It was bludger-sized, but it in no way flew as fast as a bludger, and it didn't hit as hard as one, either. _Wingardium Leviosa_ wasn't an invisible arm and hand, after all; it simply floated objects. So although it could be used to chuck items with fair force, it wasn't exactly going to take anyone's head off.

Which was fine with Harry; he didn't want to take her head off.

Still, it was a lot of mud, and it did hit her pretty hard.

Right in the face.

Eve was knocked backwards onto her very shapely behind, and ended up sitting down hard in the shallow water. Her face was completely covered in mud, and she struggled to her feet even as she clawed the mud out of her eyes.

"All right," she snarled, as she got enough of it cleared to at least glimpse him once more. "You are _so_ going to pay for--!"

"_Wingardium Leviosa!_"

Another huge glob of mud struck her, in the face again, sitting her down hard, again. Shrieking in wordless fury she slammed her delicate fists impotently against the water several times before climbing back to her feet.

"Stop _doing_ that!" she screamed, trying again to wipe her eyes clear (and her mouth and nose; there was so much mud caked on her face just then that she'd inadvertently gotten it in her mouth when she shouted).

"_Wingardium Leviosa! Wingardium Leviosa! Wingardium Leviosa!_"

The heavy masses of mud pelted her slender form without mercy, coating her from head to thighs in thick mud that clung like glue. She screamed (and gagged on mud as she did so) stamped her dainty foot in frustration, and frantically tried to clear her eyes, but it was hopeless. The woman was barely recognizable as anything human at this point, looking instead like some child's mud-sculpture given life. Finally there came a last _--Crack--_ as the woman Apparated away, unable to endure any more.

Harry slowly lowered his wand, hardly able to believe it.

"I won?" A long minute passed as he stood there, waiting to see if Eve would return and resume their struggle, but nothing happened other than a fresh cloud of biting midges rolling in around him.

"I won!" he declared, raising his wand triumphantly and doing a halting, slogging jig (it wasn't a good jig, considering the mud, but he considered it a moral victory nonetheless).

After that, of course, he was left with the decision of where he should go. Back to the gate seemed a bad idea; she was almost certainly angry enough at this point to fireball him into oblivion, and he didn't want to give her the chance. The overcast sky was growing darker now, though, and night in the swamp, alone, seemed almost an equally bad idea.

It was then that he saw something, in the far distance, off beyond the trees. A flickering light, like a lantern, moving from left to right. He lost sight of it almost immediately, but it gave him a sudden renewed hope. If there were people here, then he could ask for help, beg them to shelter him through the night, maybe even guide him to another gate come morning. Cautiously he slogged in the direction of the light, and a minute later he was rewarded with another glimpse of it. Again, it was far off in the distance, but he moved with all the speed he could manage, following the elusive wisp off into the gathering darkness.

* * * * *

_--Crack--_

Eve appeared on the edge of the obsidian platform. She would have tottered unsteadily on the rough surface, only she'd lost her shoes somewhere out there in the sucking mud, and was now standing in just her stockinged feet. Not that she could see her feet, or much of anything else. Still spitting out mud and trying not to whimper out loud with fury and frustration (and, humiliation), she felt her way to the edge. Sitting carefully, she reached out and scooped up some water, and began splashing the filthy liquid over herself. Repeating the process at length, she finally got her eyes clear, and at least the majority of the thick mud scraped away. Her clothes were ruined, obviously. Her hair was a rat's nest of muddy tangles, and she had also managed to break two nails off to the quick, which hurt. Feeling sullen, and angry, and worst of all, _ugly_, she got up and hobbled over to where Lorne still waited, frozen in place. Reaching into one of the dimensionally-expanded packs he carried, she found a clean towel and began wiping at her face.

"All right," she announced to the empty air. "If you want to get away that much, fine!" Mud was still falling off her in clumps, squishing obcenely between her toes as she moved. "It's not like I need this or anything," she contined, digging through the pack with more force than was really needed. "I've got a business, and people who...." Her words trailed off into silence, because even though she would have liked to put 'love', or 'care about', or even 'like' at the end of that sentence, none of them would have been true.

"I've got people who respect me," she muttered eventually, even as she gave up on finding any significant amount of clean water stashed away at the bottom of the saddlepacks.

Getting clean here, where even the water was horribly dirty, would be an arduous process. She was wondering if she should even try, or simply leave and find a nice clean stream in a nicer world, when she saw the odd twitching of Lorne's head. Frowning, she made the graceful gesture that unfroze him, wincing at the sight of the jagged stub of her broken nail, and the blood that oozed from it.

"What do you want?" she asked irritably. The spider couldn't speak, of course, but over the years they had worked out a fair vocabulary of gestures and postures. Lorne was pleased about something, his eyes sparkling more than usual as he looked at her, despite the darkening sky overhead. Frown still in place, Eve dug into the saddlepack one more time, and came up with an ornate handmirror. Holding it up to her face, she looked at herself in silence for a full minute, and then put it away again.

"Well, yeah, I knew that much without looking." Still, she couldn't help but sigh. "I _hate_ it when I'm old. If that brat had just come along quietly, or at least fed me like I was going to ask before he ran off...." She fell silent again, doing some quick mental math. It was at least two world jumps before she would be in a place where there were mages who could help her... and that was no guarantee that they _would_ help her. In a pinch she could usually count on her feminine wiles to sway a mage into feeding her, but at the moment that was fairly iffy. Her only sure bet was to go all the way back to Nocturne Alley, and that was a long, long trip when she was feeling this hungry and tired.

Eve sat down with a thump (determinedly ignoring the fact that her backside had lost much of its youthful firmness) and propped her elbow on her thigh, and her chin in her hand, staring off into the depths of the swamp. Looming over her, Lorne's head bobbed up and down rapidly, his claws clicking against the obsidian of the transport pad. She looked up at him with narrowed eyes, hating the way she could feel the small wrinkles form beneath them.

"What are you laughing about, you moron?" She gestured out into the swamp. "What, are you happy he got away? Glad he outsmarted me?" The metal head bobbed up and down more emphatically, and she shook her head sadly. "Idiot. He didn't escape. He just traded one bad ending for another one." Her fingers working methodically at untangling her muddy hair, she gazed off into the gathering night. "This isn't the world we were heading for, not at all. He jumped into the pool before I could finish aligning the stone." Her bleeding fingers hurt, and the broken nails snagged on her hair, but she wasn't paying attention. Her eyes blurred briefly, but it was only the mud she'd gotten in her eyes.

Only the mud.

"You don't know what lives here, but I do," she said softly. "Little Harry won't make it till morning. Not a chance."

The spider stopped its silent laughter, and regarded her for a long while before looking out into the darkness. In the far distance, scattered lights were visible, tempting, calling out to the unwary.

The woman and the spider sat unmoving, too wise to answer that call.

* * * * *


End file.
