~~▫ộ» I solemnly swear I am up to no good «ộ▫~~

Disclaimer: JKR and Square own the rights to all characters contained herein.

PAIRING: Harry Potter / Balthier Bunansa

SUMMARY: Wherein magic opens eyes long closed to the world, tearing down walls previously unscaled. And two jaded souls might find something more than treasure in the ruins thereof.

WARNINGS: Spoilers and Canon corruption: Canon through the end of Deathly Hallows, no epilogue. Alternate retelling of the game; large and spanning changes due to Harry's presence but some things really will still happen, as FFXII is still about Ashe and her restoration. Harry does not steal the central role of the actual FFXII storyline or reason for the journey. He's just the main character of the fic and the one we'll hear most about. Sex: In an M-rated kind of way, there will eventually be sexing between our sexy leading men. Violence: Because what is a good fantasy without it? Language: Yep.

Chapter titles are lines from songs in the musical Into the Woods.

Embracing Absurdism
There are rights and wrongs and in-betweens; no one waits when fortune intervenes.

The Elder Wand rebounded harmlessly off of Harry's chest; he was unable to move to catch it in his shock. Tom Riddle hit the floor with a mundane finality, his body feeble and shrunken, the white hands empty, the snakelike face vacant and unknowing. Voldemort was dead, killed by his own rebounding curse(1), and Harry stood utterly still with his eyes wide.

He had done it.

Months of fighting against the greatest evil the Wizarding world had ever seen was over in a sob of momentum, an anticlimactic moment of reversal that made his entire life fall full-circle. He had defeated the man as accidentally as he had as a baby, Voldemort's own actions causing him to become the corpse that was staring in shock towards the enchanted ceiling. Harry couldn't believe he had done it. Hiding in tents, his fight with Ron, the deaths of those he held dear... it was all worth it, wasn't it?

The hall broke into a cacophony of cheering witches and wizards, people screaming and sobbing all around him. He could almost feel the pressure building as people tried to decide whether it was safe to approach him.

Harry breathed his first breath as a free man, foot lifting and falling as he stepped toward the Elder Wand. It lay innocuous on the stone floor, but panic seized Harry nonetheless. He didn't want that wand. Yes, Dumbledore had been able to remain its master for decades, but he was no Dumbledore. He was ordinary, plain Harry Potter, and damn everyone who said otherwise. He wasn't strong enough to bear the curse of that wand.

One step and then another, the wand drawing closer. Harry's fingers twitched at his side as he drug his feet, the long hours since the attack had begun wearing him down. His inattention nearly sent him walking directly into the next thing to catch his attention... a strange disruption in the air.

It glowed. Harry gazed around and found himself nearly in the center of the hall, directly between where he and Voldemort had stood. Golden tones coalesced in the air, twining around themselves hypnotically. For a brief moment Harry found himself reflected there, and he stepped back with trepidation. It was where his Expelliarmus and Voldemort's Avada Kedavra had collided. Was this some remnant of the joining? Something like the Priori Incantatem that had joined their wands in his fourth year?

"Harry!"

He looked up to see Hermione pushing her way through the crowd, Ron behind her with a matching grin. Even with the tragedies of the day, the two still smiled for him, eyes searching his out and holding them. He took a step away from the odd mist, knowing that if anyone could tell him what it was, Hermione could.

His foot fell oddly, and Harry's automatic reaction was to look down as his balance left him. The Elder Wand lay beneath his heel, rolling his foot away even as he fought for balance.

His last thought as he over-checked himself and fell forward into the golden mist was that the wand's curse worked quickly.

"HARRY!"

"What have you found there, sir?"

Consciousness did not slowly lull Harry into waking – it pounced on him, hurling sounds into his mind and blasting light through his clenched eyelids. The sound of metal clashing with metal echoed everywhere; they mixed with screams of pain and inhuman roars filled with rage and lust for battle. Had he been wrong, was Voldemort still alive? Was Hogwarts under attack?

A gunshot exploded to his left, and Harry watched with watering eyes as a sword skittered across the stone floor. Guns? Swords? What in the world was happening? He could hardly even open his eyes, let alone sit up to ask where he was.

Harry heard an echoing curse coming from behind him. "I'm not sure; he fell from above," said a hollow voice, deep and rumbling. Something hard prodded Harry's side. "Lift him."

"Yes, Judge Zecht."

Hard fingers dug under his arm, lifting him from the ground. Harry moaned and tried to slip out of the painful grip. His chin was seized between cool metal, head forced back. He met the eyes of a suit of armor, brow drawn into a scowl and ferocious metal horns protruding from its head, curling in a spiral to either side like an aged ram's horns.

"It is just a boy," the suit of armor muttered, and the fingers left his face.

"What would you have us do with him, sir?"

"He may be a spy. Throw him in with the other prisoners or slit his throat. I have no time for this; the Doctor has set a task for me. This battle has been a route, and the enemy is weak. Now is the time to strike their home. I must make haste for Nabudis to slay the last of our opposition."

The hands on him let go, sending Harry crashing to the ground. He cried out as he landed on his elbow. Where was he? What in the hell was happening? He wished more than anything that he could sit up, run, find his wand. Vaguely he made out the larger figure with the horned helmet moving toward a shock of yellow; was that a bird?!

"S-Sir?"

"Be gone, Michley," he bellowed, waving an arm. "Take the boy and go below."

"Yes, sir! As you say, Judge Zecht."

A hand twisting in the back of his robes, his shirt, choking the air from his throat as he was dragged across the stone floor. Harry finally fought back, lunging away from the body that dragged him and dropping into a roll. His knees smashed painfully into the stone. He gritted his teeth and scrambled for a weapon, finding a rock and throwing it just as his arm was seized. He heard the hollow 'tang' as it bounced off the metal armor of his captor.

"Little shit, stop your fighting. You're lucky I don't plan to leave your corpse amongst the many! Stop your damned fighting!" The soldier – Michley, the deep-voiced man had called him – swung him around, flinging him across the floor. Harry opened his eyes to meet the glazed, shocked ones of a corpse. He screamed.

It was also the last sight he had before he heard his captor curse and something hard made contact with the back of his head, sending Harry falling into darkness.

"You. Boy, wake up."

Blood pounded behind Harry's eyes, a headache rivaling the pain of a Cruciatus roaring across his temples and clenching the muscles in his neck. He didn't think he could open his eyes if he tried. He grunted instead, flinching as a cool hand pressed to his forehead.

"You must wake. They will not serve us if you are not awake when they bring sustenance."

Harry pried his eyes open, squinting as he realized how blurred everything was. He looked towards the man made up of blurred tones of gold. Apparently his squinting gave the man a clue to his problem, as he shuffled around out of Harry's eyeshot and held up a familiar pair of frames. Harry slipped them on. "Where am I?"

Something made the man stand suddenly, hunched at the waist, eyes narrowed as he took a step back. "The dungeons of Nalbina Fortress, a place of wastrels and malefactors. A more hellish squalor there has never been."

Harry sucked in a breath, the pain in his head dimming to a low throb. "A prison?"

"Indeed. I know not what you did to be condemned here, but one as young as you should not waste away when they can help it. The guards come now."

Harry then took note of the rattle of metal in the cavernous area he was in, and he lifted himself onto his elbows; it made his head swim to move even that much and he felt momentarily like he would faint. He was surrounded by a patchwork of metal, bits welded together into a lopsided cage. In some places he thought he might be able to slip his head through the bars, and in other places he doubted he could wiggle through his hand. The room was a cavern filled with many other makeshift cells, occupants huddled in their corners. Panic set in slowly through the unreality of the situation, crawling up his back with rubbery, dead fingers. He was in a prison.

It reminded him of what he had always thought Azkaban would look like. A place bereft of hope, of light. Dirt and dust seemed to constantly swirl around the cages, making even the air unclean. What dingy light there was came from holes in the oddly domed ceiling, tainted by the sand that seemed to drift constantly in. This was surely hell, and Harry found himself scared out of his mind. He didn't know where he was, he knew no one around him, and he didn't have a single clue how he'd gotten there.

The clank of metal grew louder, and a mass of armored men entered the cave. Seven of them, one for each cage, spreading out and throwing small woven bags through the bars. "That's all you lot get for the next three days, so you'd best make it last, scum."

The one standing in front of their own cage dangled the bag against the bars, chuckling. "And 'ere we 'ave the traitor. Lookin' a bit peaky there, aren't cha?"

Harry turned his eyes slowly to his cellmate, who was crouched near the back of the small enclosure with clenched fists. He didn't respond to the taunting. He was golden blond with a strong jaw line and held his head proudly. The mottled purple bruising across an entire side of his face didn't seem to detract from that.

"Oh? Y'don't want food then, traitor?" Another guard chortled. "How the great Basch fon Ronsenburg 'as fallen, ey? Did you hear about your princess? Offed herself in grief! One night and we managed to take down the entire royal family without even tryin'! Thanks fer your help on that. Woulda never been able to get the king without ya."

The blond man – Basch, Harry now knew his name was – slumped suddenly, a slack-jawed sorrow overtaking his features. He seemed to curl in on himself as the guards jeered, joined quickly by another. Prisoners in other cages began staring towards theirs, and even over the laughter of the guards Harry could hear the murmurs beginning.

"Shit, the commander's coming. We need to move on."

The guards turned to the man by the mouth of their odd cavern and scoffed, shuffling towards him. "Commander wouldn't grudge us a little fun, would he?"

"You don't know 'im well if you think 'e wouldn't. Didn't you 'ear about Judge Magister Zecht? Just last year we lost Judge Fframan to desertion, and now we lost a Magister. Commander wants to move up in the world, y'know?

The raucous voices of the guards faded as they slipped back out into the hall, leaving Harry to look back at the prisoners. Light was waning quickly, but he could clearly see that not all of the figures were human. One had a snout nearly as long as Harry's arm, and was currently reaching through the bars to scrabble at the ground.

The first stone thrown bounced harmlessly off the bars of their cage, but Harry felt dread as he saw other prisoners take up the idea. Rocks, handfuls of dirt, twisted knots of rusted metal, whatever they could find was soon flying at their cell and at one occupant in particular.

"Murderer!"

"Traitor!"

"How could you? You've doomed us all!"

The voices were hoarse from disuse, but anger was apparent nevertheless. And all the while his cellmate sat deadly still, breathing hitching to belie his apparent comatose state. Even as a chunk of something bounced through the rails and into his neck, leaving a gash, he didn't move.

And with the revelations, Harry could not feel bad for him, even if some small bit of him wondered if grief that strong could be faked.

It was another two hours before Harry moved.

The darkness gave Harry a lot of time to think. His heart ached as quiet set in on him, and the realities of his long day finally set in. He had killed Voldemort. Years of pain and suffering was ended, because the Killing Curse had rebounded and taken out his arch nemesis. And on top of that, he had lost several people important to him. Tonks, Remus, Fred, Dobby... even Colin was a loss he mourned.

Things had both fallen apart and come together all in such a small space of time, only to fall apart once more. He hadn't imagined when he'd crept through that passage into Hogwarts that it would herald the end of his war with Voldemort. He hadn't ever really thought people would die. No matter how many losses he sustained, he never came out of it realizing others could die just as quickly, just as easily. When Sirius had fallen through the veil, Harry had mourned, but had thought that nothing worse could possibly happen. When Snape had killed Dumbledore, Harry had been shocked that death had touched his life again, crushed and vengeance-ridden.

But then another year had passed. The loss of Hedwig had been hard to bear; losses like those of Mad-Eye were inconsequential when he had so many other things in his mind. But for death to strike him so swiftly and so close to home... it made him want to claw at his skin, pull out whatever disease made everyone close to him die. His mind knew better than this, of course; Hermione and Ron still lived, Ginny still waited for him. Beyond these truths, though, laid the sight of his mother, father, Sirius and Remus gathered around him. The resurrection stone might have given him needed strength, but it had left deep scars in its wake. But now was no time to mourn, now was a time for action.

These dungeons, Nalbina, were obviously muggle. He felt no magic there, and the armor on the guards made his reality very obvious. There was so little that was familiar, not scents nor clothing nor names, but he could at least deduce the lack of wizards. It was too dark to see, but Harry sat up slowly and ran his fingers over his pockets, nearly sobbing in relief as he felt the familiar shape of a wand tucked there. As he moved to pull it out, his fingers brushed a soft bundle and he knew that his birthday gift from Hagrid, the mokeskin (2) pouch, had also not been removed.

He extracted the wand and sucked in a breath of pain. This was not Draco Malfoy's wand that he had become so familiar with. This was foreign and the magic pulsed oddly in his hand, roiling and leeching the air around it. He resisted the urge to throw it away from him and instead set it down gently at his feet, swallowing hard. His fingers shook as he tried to remove the mokeskin from his belt, the ties tangling infuriatingly. He couldn't see to remove them so he tugged and hoped it would give, which it did. In the dark he couldn't see the contents, but he felt through them to see what had remained.

The prickly ends of his snapped wand were found first, followed by a muffled curse as it stabbed a finger. Harry ignored the pang of pain that thoughts of the wand always brought. He moved more gently now, managing not to stab himself on the jagged edges of Sirius's mirror, and the cool metal of the locket made Harry need to pause to again swallow emotion. And there was parchment, the only remnant of his mother that he had in the form of a letter that no longer held any meaning but for the swoosh of Lily Potter's g's and the idea of his mother's tangibility.

None of that would help right now, though. Harry pulled his hand from the pouch and closed the flap, moving without joy for the Elder Wand. It was something, and it could help him. He forced his fingers to curl around the cool wood and pushed himself up into a crouch. Apparation. He concentrated on the edge of Hogsmeade, balancing his weight on his toes as he spun.

Nothing happened.

He tried again, choking on a sound of frustration. Perhaps the place was not as muggle as it seemed. Anti-Apparation wards often felt the same. Or perhaps the area was formerly owned by wizards? Wards could stay up for centuries with little maintenance.

Harry pushed away the questions shifted onto his knees, feeling along the bars of the cage. The latch was rudimentary at best and the chain felt weak, but Harry didn't think breaking it was a good idea. It would be loud and attention-getting, something that was quite not preferable in the current situation.

He found the padlock and wriggled his arm through the scrap metal, hissing as a jagged edge caught his arm and tore it. He pressed a bit further until he could bend at the elbow, touching the wand to the lock. "Alohomora."

Nothing happened.

Frustration made Harry's brow tick, and panic slowly burnt the back of his throat like bile. "Alohomora." he hissed more forcefully, jabbing the wand against the padlock. It creaked mildly, but did not break. Only the knowledge that being without a wand would be disastrous kept him from breaking the thing in his anger, instead he yanked his arm back into the cage and jammed the wand into his pouch, then moving everything into his pocket.

Harry rocked back on his heels, pulling off his glasses and pressing the palms of his hands into his eyes. He had to get out of this place. Surely people would be searching for him, wouldn't they? Hermione, Ron, Ginny... all three of them would not stop until they found him. Harry was sure of it. But he couldn't just wait in some unknown muggle dungeon until they came; he needed to escape and find out where in the bloody hell he was.

A creak was all the warning he got before the loud, reverberating clang of metal on metal rent the air. Harry spun on his heel and fell onto his backside, eyes wide as he caught the vague silhouette of his cellmate. Basch didn't speak a word, but in the faint moonlight Harry could see him move forward... through the bars.

He'd broken the bars.

Prisoners stirred in the cages around them, but Harry didn't pay them any mind. Instead he slipped through the broken area Basch had created and was running as soon as he could straighten up.

In retrospect, that hadn't been his brightest idea.

Within minutes guards had noticed him, and though he was small and agile, without magic Harry found himself cornered in minutes. He tripped over his own feet or some unseen obstacle in the dark, head colliding with the stone floor and bringing his headache back with a vengeance.

"Stupid kid!"

Fingers, slick and hot, wound around his neck, jerking him to his feet. He gagged as he was held inches off the ground by the fingers digging into his throat. The man was in what could only be nightclothes, sneer twisting his face viciously.

"Y'think you're getting anywhere? Scrawny little brat, are you some kind of moron or what?"

He was thrown to the ground as the guard bellowed that he was found, the clank of metal heralding that they had heard him. Harry gasped for air against the floor, digging in his fingers as he made to lever himself up. He couldn't give up like this. Couldn't. Magic or no magic, he had to get out of this place!

He pushed off, ready to put all his years of running from Dudley into practice, but a boot stepping down hard on his back stopped him. "Y'really are a moron. 'Magine that."

"Got the little one, Commander Petel?"

"Yeh, that I do."

"They caught the traitor trying to fight his way out with nothing but a damned iron bar. He's been sent to the lower levels. What would you like done about this one, boss?"

The burly man scoffed and the foot on Harry's back pushed him flipped him over. "We still don't know who the brat is, so take 'im down with the traitor. Hang them both over the hole. That might teach 'em."

"Yes, sir!"

Harry paled.

"What in the world is a chocobo?"

He hadn't really expected an answer, but the way that his companion didn't bother to even twitch annoyed him anyway.

"So, this snooty git Vayne... why's he got it in for you so bad? It gets really old listening to his same taunts every week..."

His shoulder itched. Harry turned his head in an attempt to rub the spot, jabbing his chin into himself and shaking his head. A hiss from behind him told him that his cellmate was not pleased with the way he made their cage swing. Harry ignored him. It had been six bloody months since he'd been chained up in the new (sadly much better made) cell with his companion, and Basch had yet to speak a word to him. Harry wondered if Basch blamed him for their capture.

They were suspended above a cavernous pit that faded into true blackness, and Harry stared into that dark now, shoulders aching over his head. He did rudimentary pull-ups as often as he dared, if only to keep the limbs from atrophying in their disuse. His cellmate did not like that much, though Harry was tolerant enough when Basch did the same.

He missed his friends. He closed his eyes and thought of Ron and Hermione often, imagined they were there with him. It distressed him that their images were already blurring in his mind. But he kept them alive in all the ways he could, fantasizing conversations they would have with him and developments in their lives. He imagined them married by now, and perhaps Hermione even had a little one on the way. It wasn't likely, not with Hermione's sensible nature, but stranger things had been known to happen. He hoped they were content in whatever they had chosen.

He wondered if Ginny had moved on yet. He hoped she had, as he only wanted her happiness. He hadn't been right for her anyway, no matter how little she would have believed that. She deserved better than a boy who knew nothing of how to behave when there wasn't a threat to his life, let alone of how to treat a woman. She deserved someone who could challenge her and give her the peaceful life she wished for. Even if he hadn't been whisked off to... wherever he was, he doubted they could have made a lasting, meaningful relationship together. It hurt him to think of that, though.

The damned itch was back again. Harry once again bent his head to the side and poked at the itch with his chin, wriggling back and forth in a fruitless attempt at relief. He supposed he would have to wait until mealtime to get rid of the itch, but that was nothing new. Patience, if nothing else, was a trait he had learned.

They were let down out of their chains to eat, and conversation came with the jeering guards or the occasional noble that came to question Basch. Harry was lost more often than not when the people spoke, but he had slowly begun compiling information. His cellmate, former military Captain Basch fon Ronsenburg, had apparently been framed for the murder of his country's king. Some drawn-out plot involving his twin brother, which seemed awfully convenient if Harry's opinion was asked, and a hostile takeover ensued. There was a Princess assumed dead that was actually in hiding – this information was courtesy of a stuck-up git named Vayne who sometimes came to heckle Basch – and Basch himself was reported as executed, but was being kept alive as blackmail against some nobleman.

It was so convoluted that Harry thought it would make a good novel. A harlequin romance, maybe, if Basch was actually the lost Princess's lover. All it needed was a charming rogue, a streetwise thief, an intelligent beauty, and some interesting sidekicks and it would be a classic.

Harry choked out a laugh, his disused voice rasping even as he shifted his skin against Basch's where they were chained back to back. And when the guard ordered him silent, the smile didn't leave his lips. He needed those little moments to keep him going... especially if he would be spending another few years stuck as he was. He was losing hope of release by now, but he refused to let them break him. He could last.

There was no other option.

"Hogwarts, Hogwarts, hoggy warty Hogwarts, teach us something please..."

Harry's glasses slid as he rocked to put more pressure on the cage's bottom with his feet. He scrunched his nose to push them back. He sung to the tune of Jingle Bells and used momentum to slowly rock their prison from side to side; it was actually a bit frightening to look down into the oubliette with each backswing, but Harry was beyond caring.

"...Whether we be old and bald or young with scabby knees..."

Boredom was the true killer. He had thought that after a year he would have been used to the days of silence, inactivity, and no mental stimulation... but he wasn't. He had taken to reciting every spell incantation he had ever heard spoken, imagining potion's instructions, and planning Quidditch strategies all in his mind. Anything he could concentrate on was a relief from the monotony, but even those things weren't enough to rid him of the constant, nagging itch for stimulation.

"...Our heads could do with filling with some interesting st--"

"Cease your infernal racket before I tell the guards you have lost your mind!"

Harry paused, not so much to obey the order but out of surprise. "Did you just talk?"

There was no answer from the man, but Harry could feel his harsh exhalation of air at his back.

"You did! A year you ignore me, and all I had to do was be an annoying sod and you'd answer?"

Left again without answer, Harry set to grinding his teeth in irritation. But what could he do? Whatever it was that Basch had against him, it wasn't going to be ended so long as they were chained back to back in this cage, and once they parted ways Harry would never have to think of him again. That was, of course, on the assumption they ever got out of the god-forsaken prison.

But no. Harry refused to think that way, refused to even entertain the possibility of not getting out someday. He would be free, and he would get back to his loved ones. It was inevitable. It had to be. Even if it took him another ten years.

"Hogwarts, Hogwarts, hoggy warty Hogwarts..."

In the end, it was barely another year before everything changed.

It had been several days since he had eaten. Even a childhood of malnutrition and the last two years of prison fare didn't make it easier to go a week without a scrap. He'd punched a guard in the face for some rancid commentary about Harry's mother, and this was his punishment.

He could hardly stay conscious.

Hope was not a tangible thing, more a far-off concept of something he once had had. Long since had Harry given up on hope of rescue, his will flagging with the deterioration of his body. While he refused to give in to the insanity surely expected from such a long confinement, he no longer could pretend that it was nothing. He could hardly even imagine Ron and Hermione's faces anymore, their personalities and memories all he had left of them.

He drifted in and out of consciousness, trying to block out the faint sounds of conversation from behind him. Basch's back rumbled with his responses, and the feeling lulled Harry to the brink of sleep.

But no one could stay unaware with the commotion that erupted minutes later. Vaguely he could hear voices, yelling voices...

"I'm dropping it."

The ground was pulled from under him, and Harry felt the moment's paused suspension before they were hurtling down. Harry forced open his eyes in time to see a figure leaping onto the cage, fingers curling around the bars as they fell like a lead weight down the oubliette. But he had no time to process what was happening before the ground came up to meet them.

(1) Previous two lines from Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows

A/N: In the American version, this was changed to 'moleskin'. However, I like mokes (silvery-green lizards – endangered! From Fantastic Beasts) so I'll go with the British version for this.

This posting is a placeholder. This will be continued most quickly, but as all the things I posted today, it is a way to gauge interest and for people to Alert so they know when I continue, since my main fic is over and readers were interested in this and others.

See you soon, loves. :)