The Labyrinth

Warnings: Angst,AU/AR,Crossover,H/C,Language,M/M (slash in later chapters), OOC-ness only to the extent that it fits the movie and plot

Author's note--The title of the movie scene that corresponds with this chapter is "Face to Face; Within You". This is the scene where the song "Within You" is, even though the lyrics and song are obviously not included in the story. I did watch this segment several times, though, to make sure that I got the staircase room correct, so if you haven't seen the movie, it might be a little difficult to understand/imagine.

However, if you HAVE, then I hope this makes sense! Happy reading, all!
**********


The Labyrinth

Face to Face

Harry bounded after the Dark Lord, heart pounding. He didn’t see which way the snake had gone, but he took a chance and turned right, going through the doorway and stopping short. The room he saw was immense and complex, with staircases going every which way, culminating in ledges, much like where he was standing, but some of them even ran sideways! There was only one way to go from where he was, though, and he took a breath, squared his shoulders, and plunged down the first staircase, past another doorway, and up the second. He came out onto a ledge that was the mirror of the one he just left, and Harry suddenly felt disoriented. He looked down, trying to see anything familiar, and Voldemort was standing, upside down, on the ledge beneath him, looking up at him as if the Dark Lord was his reflection in a pool of water.

As Harry watched, the Dark Lord swung around a corner, and somehow ended up behind him. Harry turned, breathless, and Voldemort walked towards him…and then THROUGH him! He glanced back at the dazed Gryffindor before walking off the end of the ledge. Harry bit back a scream, but the Dark Lord didn’t fall, of course. He was now walking upside down along the ledge. Harry turned and ran, hearing Voldemort’s footsteps matching and echoing his own beneath him. He went down a flight of stairs and onto another ledge, trying to peer over the edge to see where the Dark Lord went, only to come face to face with him as he appeared at the end of the outcropping. Harry’s mouth dropped open, and he backed away a step.

As Harry watched, unable to tear his eyes away from Voldemort’s hypnotic presence, he held up a Golden Snitch. Harry’s green eyes followed his every movement as the Dark Lord hurled it into the room. He was the youngest Seeker in history; he was used to watching that little golden ball. It sprouted wings and bounced off several surfaces with a delicate clink before a pale hand reached up from across the room and snagged it, mid-flight!

“Draco!” Harry’s attention was successfully diverted, and he scanned his area, mapping the quickest route to Draco. He turned and ran up a flight of stairs, trying to keep his eye on the blonde. Voldemort simply watched the boy, wondering how long it would take him to figure out that as long as Draco held the Snitch, the blonde would avoid capture. The Dark Lord also knew that Draco wasn’t about to let go of his golden quarry, especially because he had captured it first, before Harry, for the first and only time in their existence. He smirked cruelly.

Harry made it onto a plateau that he was sure would be near Draco. His heart leapt as he looked to where he last saw the blonde, but Draco was gone! His eyes lit on his favorite rival, sitting on a sideways staircase, smirking at him from a distance. Harry’s heart sank as he recognized the familiar ‘Malfoy Glare of Death’, but he had come too far to just give up now. Harry took a deep breath and rounded a corner, heading for another staircase. Draco pushed up and continued evading.

It went on like that for a few more agonizing minutes. When Harry paused, Draco paused. When Harry looked around, Draco followed suit, and when Harry chose a direction to go, staircases to climb, Draco moved as well. Just when Harry thought he was close, Draco somehow ended up across the room, glaring at him and still clutching the Snitch tightly. He called Draco’s name a few more times; each time, it sounded a little more desperate and pathetic to Harry’s ears. Each time, Draco’s mask of contempt gave way to something more akin to pity, but he continued the game. And finally, the inevitable happened.

Harry was nearly reduced to tears with frustration as he pounded up an exceptionally long flight of stairs. This time, when he looked down, he saw Draco sitting below him on the edge, with his legs dangling into nothingness. His heart caught in his throat, and he was afraid to move. This was the closest he had gotten, and he finally realized that every time he went up or down a staircase to get to the blonde, Draco moved too, making this entire ordeal just a little more frustrating…just what Harry had accused him of doing in the bathroom back at Hogwarts.

I don’t want to face him, but I have to! And you haven’t stopped making my life just a little bit harder this whole time.

“Draco,” he pleaded. His favorite rival looked over his shoulder at Harry one more time at the sound of his name, and he smiled shyly at the Gryffindor. This time, there was no meanness or guile in his face; it was an open, honest smile, and it spoke volumes to Harry. His heart lifted; he looked into Draco’s wide grey eyes that weren’t angry with him or slitted with suspicion. He saw a flicker of hope and a plain cry for help, acceptance, and love, and Harry tried his best to send an answer to Draco with his eyes. “I’m here; I’ll help you; I’ll accept you; I love you.” He looked around for the nearest staircase, keeping an eye on Draco out of the corner of his eye, and saw the blonde look around, too, for his nearest escape route. All at once, Harry knew what he had to do. He looked back to Draco, who caught his eye evenly. Harry shut his eyes, said his prayers, and jumped.

* * * * *

He didn’t land on the ledge. In fact, he hadn’t landed at all. He opened his eyes to find the world once again broken apart and floating. He himself was drifting downwards as pieces of the labyrinth of stairs glided upwards. He landed on his feet, softly, finally, and turned in a circle. There was no sign of Draco, but pieces of the room were still hovering around him, suspended as if by magic. Movement caught his eye, and Voldemort stepped out from the shadows, dressed regally in his finest Death Eater robes. Harry drew his breath in, but he met Voldemort’s stare with courage.

“Give me the blonde,” he said.

“Harry, beware,” Voldemort’s voice was smooth with a deadly undertone. “I have been generous up until now, but I can be cruel.”

“Generous?” Harry repeated incredulously. He gave a short bark of breathless laughter. “What have you done that’s generous?”

“Everything!” His voice was a mixture of honey and venom. “Everything that you wanted, I have done, and I have tried to protect you. Your parents were unspeakably evil people, and they would have abused you far worse than those Muggles ever could. You were going to be beaten, starved, raped, and then dead before your eleventh birthday! Is that the kind of life you would have wanted? No, I don’t think so. So I killed them in order to give YOU a brighter future. You are destined for great things, and people will remember your name, so I made myself a worthy adversary to give you that immortality. The incompetent lout of a godfather was going to betray you, so I had him disposed of. That old fool of a Headmaster was just waiting for you, molding you, until the day that he could control you completely, and I had him killed for you.

“You asked that your rival be taken; I took him. You cowered before me; I was frightening. I have reordered time; I have turned the world upside down, and I have done it all for YOU! I am exhausted from living up to your expectations of me. Isn’t that generous?” Voldemort pointed to the old clock that materialized, its hands spinning wildly. It disappeared as the Dark Lord continued to circle the boy. Harry’s head began to spin as he listened in disbelief. He didn’t want to believe that everyone around him had it in for him, but that voice sounded so sure…

“You’re lying,” Harry whispered, knowing the truth in his heart. Suddenly, he knew exactly what to say. “Through dangers untold and hardships unnumbered, I have fought my way here to the Manor, beyond the Death Eaters’ camps, to take back my rival, who you have stolen. For my will is as strong as yours—”

“Stop! Wait!” Voldemort held up his hand, interrupting Harry. He knew that if he let the black-haired boy continue, he would lose. He had to distract Harry. “Look, Harry; look what I’m offering you—your dreams.” Voldemort gestured, and Harry turned to see his parents standing off to the side, just as Harry remembered them in the photograph. Only this time, they were looking at HIM with the love in their eyes, and his mother got down on one knee, opening her arms to him as his father encouraged him.

A lump welled in Harry’s throat, and he was about to turn away when a flash of black caught his eye. He looked, and his godfather was standing beside his father! Sirius was alive and whole and healthy! He looked at Harry with loving grey eyes, one hand on James’ shoulder. Then Dumbledore stepped up to stand beside his crouching mother; the old man looked younger and more vibrant with his ever-present cheery twinkle in those blue eyes behind half-moon spectacles. He carried himself the way Harry remembered from his first-year, before all of the hunting and the training began.

Harry couldn’t hold back the tears, and they began streaming down his face as his dead friends and relatives were beckoning him to come to them, to be with them. He took an involuntary step towards them, and then his brain kicked in, overpowering his heart. His mind was screaming that it was a trick, a trap, a farce; and the emerald eyes blinked in confusion, torn. Draco’s angry voice from the bathroom played through his mind.

How would YOU like to have an impossible decision to make?

How could Harry NOT choose his friends, his family? The people that were stolen from him way too soon were not more than a few feet away; time was reordered, and Harry could have them back. All he had to do was accept and forget about Draco. It should have been an easy choice. It should have been a no-brainer. Spending extra time with people he loved dearly and missed every second of every day versus a snotty, whiny, spoiled blonde brat who made his life sheer hell because of some stupid rebuff that turned out to be a great, big misunderstanding on both of their parts! How could those two even compare? Draco was a foul, loathsome, evil, little cockroach; a Death Eater-in-training; a bouncing ferret! He wasn’t worth the parents Harry had never known, the godfather who showed him what unconditional love was like, and the mentor who showed Harry that the world was bigger than cruel words, hurtful fists, and a dark, lonely cupboard under the stairs…was he?

Harry’s heart twisted and broke, but he knew what he had to do. He had come here with a single goal in mind: save Draco, and if he didn’t do that, then he wasn’t Harry James Potter, the Savior. He gave a sad smile to his family, Sirius, and Albus, and then he forcefully turned back to Voldemort, swiping at the tears. The Dark Lord was taken aback; he thought for sure that the temptation of the dead would dissuade the boy, but Harry didn’t take the bait. His emerald eyes flashed clear with understanding and a hint of regret, but there was a new resolve that hadn’t been before.

“And my magic is as great,” he continued the ritual words. He took a step forward, and when Voldemort took a step back, Harry gained confidence, backing the Dark Lord up.

“I ask for so little,” Voldemort held out a crystal ball, just like he had offered to Harry when they first met in the bathroom. “Just let me rule you, and you can have everything that you want.”

“My magic is as great,” Harry faltered. What was the next part? “Damn,” he muttered. “I can never remember that line.”

“Just fear me; follow me; do as I say, and I will be your slave,” Voldemort was practically begging now, his voice still smooth and glib. The boy wasn’t listening to him, and that angered the Dark Lord. His face twisted into a scowl, and he realized that he could use their connection to break him.

“My magic is great…my magic is great…” Harry was starting to panic. Wherever those words were coming from, they stopped, and he didn’t know how to complete the ritual and end this nonsense! He was failing! He was failing Draco! And then his scar began to tingle. Harry put one hand to his head, gasping, and he looked up at the Dark Lord, whose expression was growing darker and more evil the longer Harry ignored him.

“You have no power over me,” he said simply. His scar immediately ceased hurting. The clock chimed, and Harry looked over at it; it was the thirteenth hour. He did it. He had won. Voldemort’s scowl changed to abject fear, and he tossed the crystal into the air as he began melting amidst flying robes. The crystal came back down, and Harry held his hand out to catch it. It popped as if it were nothing more than a bubble in Harry’s hand, and he closed his eyes, feeling the pull of Apparition in his belly button.
**********

Author's note--It's not over yet! Stay tuned!

Edit: Okay, here is the formatting, changed so that this chapter looks like all else! Thanks for the reviews thus far; I respond to them in the end author's note in the next chapter!

With regards to this chapter, I hope it's obvious that James and Lily are NOT and were NEVER the horrible, abusive people that Voldemort says they were. That was a bold-faced lie on his part, twisted around to make his killing of Harry's parents seem noble. Like everything else that he did.

I know that the movie portion of this story is basically ending with this chapter, especially since the rest is going to be strictly Harry/Draco stuff. There is one tiny portion in Chapter 20 that deals with the "should you need us" part in Sarah's bedroom, when she talks to Hoggle, Sir Didymus, and Ludo. You'll see what I mean when we get there, but until then, stay tuned for the fluff and the hotness!

Thank you for coming on this incredible journey with me! I hope that "The Labyrinth" came to life for you in an entirely new way, the way it did for me when I set out to write this! You guys are awesome, and I'm glad I could share this with you!

Here is the link for the "Within You" song, if you're interested http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NXFbDknu124

This chapter is in the tenth segment of the movie on youtube. Here's the link (again) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kp_UHr0bi1A