Worthy Of Magic

Part 35 - The Dessert Rises

Part Five - Survival of the Fittest

Without magic to sooth his pain. Harry stayed put, slept some more, hovering between the pain the brought him his consciousness and the exhaustion that pulled him into sleep.

When Harry felt his skin burning he woke up again. He yawned and groaned and stretched his legs to loosen his cramped muscles.

He was feeling good. Not top notch but good enough to let a broad grin light up his face as he stood up and basked in the glorious sight of an endless, treacherous desert.

Magic was coming back to him slowly but it wasn't enough for him to use. He could feel its seed slowly sprouting in the void with new feelings and strength.

"I am reborn," Harry whispered.

A gust of wind blew at his back and hot particles of sand struck against skin. His robes were torn, he realised.

He peered into the skeleton city and inspired by the size of the ruins half buried in the sand. He began to walk towards it. It looked probably three kilometres away from him. He was feeling hungry and thirsty and maybe there was something to be found in one of the many metal reinforced structures that had managed to keep some of their original shape and form.

His stomach groaned for sustenance and Harry grimaced. His magic was in no shape to be used right now. He had to survive the old fashioned way for some time.

Walking in soft sinking sand was a lot harder than Harry remembered it being and by the time he had reached the ruins and was within arm length of the first structure with an intact roof reality began to distort all around him.

Harry gasped.

It was the labyrinth.

He quickly tried to touch some part of the building knowing how the magic operated but it was too late, his step forward took to a new location and to his annoyance there was nothing but desert around him.

It seemed he didn't have control over the spell anymore. He was as much a survivor as anyone else in the desert that was slowly revealing all its surprises.

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

"The one with the power to vanquish the Dark Lord approaches... born to those who have thrice defied him, born as the seventh month dies... and the Dark Lord will mark him as his equal, and he will have power the Dark Lord knows not... and either must die at the hand of the other for neither can live while the other survives... the one with the power to vanquish the Dark Lord will be born as the seventh month dies..."

And then there was the other.

"The decision will be made when fire streaks across the sky. Two paths will lay before him... one leading to salvation ... the other... devastation. His decision will be made when fire streaks across the sky.... Salvation .... Devastation .... His decision will..."

Nothing made sense anymore to Albus Dumbledore. Everything had turned to dust. The eon length perception of the way the world worked had been brutally stripped leaving behind a human race naked and confronting an idea that terrified them to their very core – they were going to die.

Albus stood tall on one of the large dunes in the desert and looked for survivors with the sun at its brightest point in the sky. He looked behind him and his hard eyes softened when he saw the sad faces huddled under his conjured tent, passing along the soup he had made after summoning ingredients from the first ruins he had come across.

There was nothing beyond surviving in a hellish desert that distorted reality for a precious few seconds that many spent hoping they were going to wake up from the nightmare in the warm and soft beds only to find themselves lost again, not knowing where they were, and what was the way out.