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SIYE Time:13:40 on 29th March 2024
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If The Fates Allow
By AgiVega

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Category: Post-OotP
Characters:Draco Malfoy, Harry/Ginny
Genres: Drama
Warnings: Sexual Situations, Extreme Language
Story is Complete
Rating: R
Reviews: 596
Summary: Ginny has been forced to marry Draco Malfoy, but her heart still belongs to Harry. Will she ever be able to break free from this unwanted marriage? Will Harry help her? A story of passion, blackmail, Greek gods and a most surreal place for playing Quidditch! Join Harry and Ginny on their odyssey through despair and hope, faith and love, amidst Voldemort's machinations!
Hitcount: Story Total: 114354; Chapter Total: 4379







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Author's note: since there won’t be any new updates before Christmas, let me wish you all a very merry Christmas (or whatever you celebrate around this time of the year).


The oracle of Delphi



“I have seen the future and it works.”
(Lincoln Steffens)


It was already five o’clock in the morning when Harry got back to the room he was sharing with Ginny, and for the time being also with the disabled, gagged, but seemingly very angry Spiro.

When he entered the room, Ginny jumped up from the sofa where she had been trying very hard not to fell asleep, and flung herself into his arms.

“I’ve been so worried, Harry!” she whispered into his neck. “I thought you'd been caught!”

“Actually I was,” he shrugged, feeling too tired and still too much under the effect of the shocking news about the Disneyland attack to return the hug wholeheartedly.

“And…?̶ 1; she asked in a worried voice, all her tiredness having evaporated.

“Well, my precious brother-in-law Jason almost killed me, but good news,” he looked down at Spiro who was madly struggling against his ties, “he is the culprit who got your sis into trouble. Not me, okay?”

Spiro gritted his teeth through his gag.

“Have you managed to question the book?” Ginny enquired, but Harry hushed her with a wave of his hand, indicating that Spiro was still there.

“You know what, Ginny? Let’s get rid of him, shall we?” he pointed his wand at the gagged and horrified Spiridion and said Obliviate!, then vanished the ropes binding his body. “You are free now, Spiro. Remember: Jason got your sister pregnant… that’s the only thing you’ll remember from our meeting, anyway…”

Spiridion Papafotiu stood up, blinked and wished Harry and Ginny Happy Easter, then stumbled out of the room.

“That’s taken care of,” Harry grinned, slamming the door shut again. “So, where were we? Yeah, the book.”

“Did you question it?”

“Yes, I have, but it gave a rather vague answer. It said ‘ask Pythia’, nothing more. If only I knew who this Pythia was! I know many people here in Greece, but obviously not everyone, and I surely don’t know anyone by the name Pythia.”

He glanced at her to see her eyeing him in an amused way. “What?”

“You really never paid attention in History of Magic, did you?”

“No. Why should I have? Hermione always provided me with notes…”

“But even that wasn’t enough to get an E in your History of Magic OWL,” she pointed out.

“Of course not, if they asked stupid things like why Liechtensteinian warlocks refused to join the International Confederation of Wizards… Honestly.”

“You have an exceptional memory to be able to remember your exam questions of eight years ago,” she said. “Had you at least paid a little bit of attention to Binns, you’d remember who Pythia was, he mentioned her in sixth year, when he talked about the great Diviners of wizarding history. He also mentioned Trelawney’s great-great-grandma, Cassandra Trelawney.”

“I think I must have been a bit distracted when he talked about those, because I don’t remember him ever mentioning Diviners,” Harry replied. “Perhaps he talked about them in January or February, when I was too occupied with…” his voice trailed off, but she finished the sentence for him:

“…the impostor. What’s her name again? Linda?”

“Uh-huh,” he nodded.

“Linda…” she savoured the word – now that she understood all possible languages, she understood this name of German origin, too. “It means snake, doesn’t it?”

“And what if it does?” he grunted. “Back to Pythia, who’s she after all? What does she have to do with Diviners?”

“Pythia was the greatest Seer in ancient Greece, she lived in the temple of Delphi. You know that the oracle of Delphi was the most ‘trustworthy’ one in Greece.”

“Trustworthy?̶ 1; Harry snorted. “I don’t trust any of the Seers, Ginny, not one.”

“But you believed Trelawney’s prophecy about you and You-Kn…”

His expression darkened. “You surely don’t know yet, Ginny, but he's returned – yesterday he struck in Marne-la-Valle… that is to say, Disneyland Paris.”

She gasped. “No!”

“Yes,” he hung his head and flopped down onto the sofa. “Fifteen children dead, hundreds of others wounded…” And it’s all my bloody fault, he added in thought.

“I was so hopeful that he had died…” she said under her breath.

“He hasn’t.”

“You didn’t kill him, then.”

“I never said I did.”

“But… according to Trelawney’s prophecy you’re the only one who is capable… right?”

“According to her – yes. But I’m no longer sure she was right when she predicted this. It might have been just one of her delusions.”

“Perhaps it was,” she smiled sadly. “Hopefully Pythia is a better Seer…”

“You mean you think we have to go to Delphi and meet this Pythia?”

“That’s what the book told you, isn’t it?”

“But… haven’t you just said that she lived in ancient Greece? Surely no one can live over 2000 years, unless she’s in the possession of another Philosopher’s Stone.”

“Harry, Harry, Harry,” she shook her head, amused. “You can be so darn clever sometimes, but you just can’t think in an abstract way. The book told you to talk to Pythia. With that it meant: ‘go to Delphi’, for the oracles of Delphi always called themselves Pythia. It is possible that today’s oracle is called Hepzibach or Fredericka, yet in wizarding circles she is referred to as ‘Pythia’.”

“Aha , I see. Pythia is some sort of a title. Would you like to get some hours of sleep before we go to Delphi?”

But Ginny was spared the answer by a deep voice shouting from behind the door:

“Open up, this is the Greek Magical Law Enforcement!”

Ginny cringed and looked at Harry.

“Open up in the name of the law!” came another voice from outside.

Buckbeak lunged forward, as though trying to break through the door and attack Harry’s ‘enemies’.

“Beaky, no!” Harry held the Hippogriff back. “Stay put and leave it to me!”

“What do they want?” Ginny mouthed to Harry.

“I expect they want to arrest me for having killed the Sicilian.”

“Open up at once or we’ll be forced to blast in the door!”

“Oh, I wouldn’t want anyone to ruin my friend Nikias’ property, would I?” Harry replied, and before Ginny could protest, he opened the door for the Greek wizarding police. “Gentlemen, do come in, please.”

Three gruff-looking Aurors, with wands drawn out, entered.

“I don’t think much of your boss, sending three people against one!” Harry remarked with his arms akimbo.

“Too much for you, Dursley?” sneered one of the Aurors.

Ginny thought that she had never ever met such unsympathetic Aurors.

“On the contrary, I find it a downright insult that he sent only three of you,” replied Harry.

“Shut up, Dursley and don’t even think of resistance!” one of the gruff fellows said menacingly.

“I wouldn’t think of it, would I?” Harry held up his hands, showing that he was unarmed.

“Just to make sure you’re defenceless,” one of the Aurors pointed his wand at Buckbeak and tied him up so that he couldn’t even move.

“That’s rude, gentlemen!” Ginny scowled at them. “Treating an innocent animal like that!”

“Sorry, lady, necessary precaution. And you’d better not interfere if you don’t want to be arrested for complicity. As for you, Dursley, you are under arrest for having murdered Anacleto Lucheni.”

“Fine, take me in, boys,” Harry said obediently, holding out his wrists for the Aurors to put magical shackles on them.

One of the Aurors reached out with a pair of glittering shackles (that opened and closed by spells, not keys) to place them around Harry’s wrists, when Harry, quick as a lightning, snatched the wand out of the wizard’s hand (the idiot had been trying to place the manacles on him while still pointing his wand at him). The other two immediately shouted Stupefy!, but Harry had already Disapparated from the spot he had been standing on, just to Apparate right behind them, with his own wand in his right hand, sending the same spell at them. Two of them hit the floor, the third one, whose wand Harry had snatched, glared at him.

“Don’t worry, I didn’t want to hurt your buddies, as long as you don’t hurt me,” he told the other wizard.

“We’ll get you either way, Dursley,” the Auror growled.

“I take I got reported by a bloke called Spiridion Papafotiu?”

“That’s strictly confidential information,” grunted the Auror, but Harry no longer had any doubt that good ol’ Spiro must have reported him, very likely to take revenge on him for having ‘impregnated’ his sister. Then again, why did Spiro come after him to kill him, why didn’t he leave it to the police? Hm, Spiro had always been a bit confusing…

“I bet it was him and he reported me after I left the country,” Harry said calmly. “And, alas, your warrant for arrest is only valid in Greece, and the Greek wizarding community has no treaty of extradition with any other countries… how unpleasant…”

“That 217;s true,” growled the Auror. “But now you’re back, and be sure that we’ll get you. It was foolish of you to return, Dursley.”

“Yeah, yeah, foolish,” Harry agreed. “Stupefy!”

“Ha rry…?” Ginny spoke up.

“Sorry, Ginny, we can’t stay to have a nice nap, since it seems I’m wanted.”

Ginny yawned, but nodded. “We must get away from here as soon as possible.”

“Right,” Harry put some money on the table and cast an ‘only-for-Nikias’ charm on it. “Just in case one of these gorillas wake up and feel tempted to take it,” he explained, then freed the poor tied-up Hippogriff of his bounds. “Oh, almost forgot: Confundus!” he pointed his wand at the knocked-out Aurors. “This will make you feel a bit dizzy and go looking for your mummy, but don’t worry, no permanent harm done. Come on, Ginny, let’s go to Delphi.”

* * * * *


“So, this is where they were the day before yesterday,” Draco said, looking down at the Danube in the morning sunshine. Little white ships were coursing on the river in front of the neo-gothic Hungarian Parliament. Some bigger, elegant ones that usually carried passengers from the Black Forest to the Black Sea were moored along the coast. Seagulls crossed the sky above Draco’s head and dived into the water only to reappear with tiny fish in their beaks.

“That’s right,” replied Phaedra, leaning to the parapet on the Fisherman’s Bastion, examining a tiny golden thing in her hands.

“And where are they NOW?” the blond wizard demanded.

“I’m trying to find out, okay?” she snapped, furrowing her brows, as though concentrating very hard.

“What’s this thing?” he leaned over to peer at the gadget in her hands.

“It’s a map that’s connected with the Tracking Charm and shows Harry’s location… of a day ago. Hey, don’t look at me like that, it’s not my fault that the Tracking Charm’s getting weaker by the minute!”

Draco watched as the fuzzy image of Earth disappeared from the tiny magical monitor to be replaced by Europe’s map, then zooming in on Serbia. “Aha, so they’re in Serbia!” he shouted.

“Shhhh!” she pressed her index-finger to her lips. “Don’t attract attention. Let the Muggles believe that we’re looking at my cell-phone.”

“Your what?”

“Honestly, didn't you do Muggle Studies?”

“No,” Draco replied superciliously. “Father always said it was beneath a Malfoy’s dignity to study a lowly subject like that.”

Phaedra rolled her eyes. “It seems Harry’s given me a proper description of you, Draco.”

“Why, what has he told you about me? That I’m evil and arrogant?”

“Not exactly,” she shook her head, her wavy black locks dancing around her head. “His exact wording was ‘pathetic, snivelling, big-headed piece of scum’.”

“How flattering,” young Malfoy grimaced. “In fact I could say the very same thing about him. And now he's made my wife elope with him! Oooh, if only I could catch him, I’d strangle him with my own hands!”

“I’d do the same… to your wife,” Phaedra added with a nasty smile, then directed her attention back to the map in her hand. “Anyway, I’m sure that they only travelled through Serbia… I have a feeling that they were heading for Greece. I can’t see why Harry would go back there, but… something tells me that he’s gone there. Unfortunately we won’t find out till evening.”

“But I hope you aren’t planning to stay here and sit on your laurels when you’re sure that they went to Greece?” Draco demanded. “I for one want to go there right now and catch them before sunset.”

“Are you really this slow on the uptake?” Phaedra asked gruffly. “They’re more than a day ahead of us, and we can’t be a hundred percent sure that they went to Greece, and even if they went there, how could we find out where to look for them? In Athens? Corinth? Corfu? Crete? Rhodes? It could be a thousand different places. We cannot catch them before sunset, unless they stay more than a day in any one place, but knowing Harry they won’t. Not when he knows that I’m after him - and I’m sure he knows or at least suspects it, since he knows me and I’m not the type to give up on him. Had he stayed in London, I wouldn’t have left London until I'd persuaded him to come back to me. I never thought he’d run away with your wife…”

“Same here,” he growled. “I never thought my wife would run away with anyone. I thought I’d used enough persuasion to make sure she wouldn’t even think of leaving me…”

“Cursed her? Blackmailed her?” Phaedra asked curiously. After all her husband had told her about Malfoy, she wouldn’t put anything past Draco.

Seeing him wrinkle his elegant nose, she let out a small chuckle. “It seems I was right. Hm, Harry told me that subtlety was never one of your strong points.”

“He’s wrong, it definitely is!” he countered.

“If it were, you’d hide your emotions better, Draco. Even Harry’s better at it…”

“No, he’s not!”

“He is. He didn’t use to be, but he learnt it. You should also learn self-control if you are to work together with me.”

“Who are you to tell me what to do, eh?”

“I’m the boss, at least in this mission,” she replied with in a dignified sort of way.

“Oh, sorry to disappoint you, sweetheart, but I’m not taking orders from anyone!”

Mysteriously Phaedra’s right foot found its way through the gap between Draco’s feet, and in the next instant Draco found himself sprawled on the ground.

Some Muggle tourists around looked at them with interest, but Phaedra only smiled at them sweetly. “My husband tripped, the poor thing.”

Scowling, Draco got up, dusting off his clothes. He had been advised by his companion to wear Muggle clothing not to attract attention in Muggle-inhabitated places, and he regarded it as an abomination – but a necessary abomination.

However, getting tripped by her way simply too much.

What was this chick thinking of herself? No one’s entitled to treat a Malfoy like that!

After giving her a murderous look (that only caused her to grin) he turned his back on her when a seagull swooped above him and presented him with a huge dose of its droppings.

* * * * *


On Buckbeak’s back Harry and Ginny left Athens right after Stupefying the three Aurors.

“You know,” Ginny yawned, sitting in front of Harry, “you pretty much amazed me, disabling three Aurors at once! Sort of frightened me, too. As though you had supernatural powers or something…”

He laughed lightly. “Nooo. I don’t have any powers that you or any other witch or wizard doesn’t have. It all comes down to training. In the Circle I learned things that aren’t taught in the Auror Academy. I had to go through some very rough training, and I admit there were times when I thought I’d give it up, especially after I hadn’t been allowed to sleep for three whole days and my entire body was covered with marks from various jinxes and hexes. Lucky you didn’t see me like that, I was a mess… I was afraid I’d never look handsome again.”

“And who said you were handsome?” she grinned, suppressing another yawn. “By the way, why did the Aurors also call you Dursley? Aren’t they supposed to know who they are looking for?”

“Well, I suppose it’s because Spiro tipped them off, and Spiro has known me as Dudley Dursley.”

“Did Spiro see you… kill that Sicilian?” she asked in a small voice.

“No, but at that time he already had a great chance to join the Circle and I think someone from the Circle might have mentioned it to him. And Spiro, believing me to be his sister’s evil corruptor, surely wanted to get back at me and reported me, even though the rest of the Circle wanted to keep Luceni’s death a secret.”

“I wish I could kick that Spiro in the ass!” she growled. “Or rather at another body part… where it hurts most,” she corrected herself between two yawns.

“Hey, lean back a bit, you can kip on my shoulder. You seem to need it and we still have about two hours before reaching Delphi.”

“What about you?” she asked, leaning back onto Harry’s chest, resting her head on his left shoulder.

“Don’t worry about me, I can do without sleep for days.”

“Mmm…” Ginny murmured, already half asleep. “Harry?”

“Yes?”

“Why have you done it?”

“What? Killing Luceni?”

“No… coming back… when you knew you might land in prison…”

“BecauseR 30;” his voice faltered and he pretended to be yawning to give a proper reason for his voice trailing off. “Because… because I love you,” he said so quietly that a whisper would have been a loud yell compared to it. However, she couldn’t have heard him even if she had had very good hearing, because she had fallen asleep.

* * * * *


Shortly after eight o’clock in the morning Harry spotted the ruins of the one-time temple from above. He directed the Hippogriff downwards and with a gentle thud they touched down next to the temple.

Ginny got awoken by the thud and for a moment she looked around, blinking, clearly not knowing where they were and what happened.

“Slept well, Sleeping Beauty?” he asked, helping her off Buckbeak’s back.

“Yeah, though I could have done with another hundred years of sleep,” she replied drowsily. “But I had a beautiful dream…”

“And what was that beautiful dream about?”

“Well,” she flashed him an impish stare, “someone in my dream said they loved me.”

“Er… surely not Draco, was it?” he grimaced.

“No, Draco could never say ‘I love you’ in such a gentle way.”

“Why… has he ever told you he loved you?” Harry arched an eyebrow. He couldn’t imagine a Malfoy uttering the world ‘love’.

“Yes, he has,” shrugged Ginny. “But never in too convincing a way.”

“Strange, because Malfoy can lie in a convincing way,” he pointed out, tying Beaky’s tether to a nearby orange-tree.

“Actually, I don’t think he was lying about this,” she replied. “He sort of loves me, at least he believes he does. That’s why he never let me get divorced.”

Harry shook his head. “Forcing you to live with him in the name of love is the foulest thing I’ve ever heard of. Perhaps he really thinks he loves you, but… real love isn’t tying someone to yourself by all possible means. This is selfish love. Real love is letting go. Real love is selfless…”

“Like coming back to a place where the Magical Law Enforcement is after you just to help someone?” she whispered, gazing deeply into his eyes.

“Er… Beaky, stay put, we’ll be back soon,” Harry turned away from Ginny.

“Um… we might be back sooner than he expects us, because I can’t see where we are going,” she remarked, and she was right: all that remained of the ancient Delphi were three stone columns on a circular dais. The rest of the columns were mere stumps, most of them broken into little pieces, their chunks littered in the grass around the dais.

You said we had to come here,” Harry reminded her, walking up the three steps to the Tholos (circular temple). “So we might as well look around, there has to be an entrance to somewhere if the oracle is still supposed to be operating.”

They walked around the ruins, but found no trace of an entrance to anywhere.

“I’m not sure we’ll find anything here,” said Harry finally, leaning against the column in the middle. Suddenly the stone behind his back gave way and he fell through it.

“Harry!” Ginny yelled and jumped through the stone to follow him, wherever he had gone. “Aaaaaa!” she screamed as she slid down a dark chute and with a thump fell right onto Harry.

“This chute reminds me of the Chamber of Secrets,” he said.

“Don’t even remind me,” she grunted, trying to disentangle herself from him, which wasn’t that easy in the complete darkness.

“Mmmm… that feels good, leave your hand there a bit,” he muttered.

“Harry Potter! If I knew where your face was, I’d slap you!”

“If I knew where your face was, I’d rather kiss you,” he replied.

“Really?” she whispered.

“No,” he answered just when a lurid pink arrow lit up above them, pointing to their left, illuminating the room enough for them to see that they were in an empty corridor.

“Well, now we at least know in which direction to go,” he said, standing up, holding out his right hand towards her to help her off the ground, but she didn’t accept it, just stood up and walked past him with a ‘don’t-play-with-me’ stare.

Four metres ahead another arrow – bright orange this time – lit up, then a neon-yellow and a lime-green, finally a neon-blue, pointing at a huge board saying

The Oracle of Delphi
Diviner-in-charge: Atina Papadimitriu (just call her Pythia)
Trainee Diviner: Helen Menelaos (who has absolutely nothing to do with Helen of Troy)
Want a prediction? Then come on in, just now, just for you, two prophecies for the price of one!


“Wow, they know how to advertise themselves, eh?” Harry whistled admiringly. “But if I were in their place, I’d put the same ad into the Gorgon Gazette, the Thebes Times or the Jorgos Journal. Then people would be flooding here.”

“I don’t think they want everyone to know they’re here,” Ginny commented. “In 385 A.D. the Christians closed the Tholos and forbade the oracle to tell predictions. Obviously Pythia had to find a way to make sure that the magical folks could still come to her for prophecies. She had to keep out the Muggles though… unfortunately neither Binns nor our History of Magic book said where and how the oracle hid from the eyes of Muggles…”

“We still found her,” said Harry.

“Are you coming in or do you want to stay out there, chit-chatting?” came an upset voice through the door situated under the advertisement board.

“Was that Pythia?” Harry whispered to Ginny.

“Must be.”

“Great,” Harry rolled his eyes. “Trelawney at least didn’t yell at anyone. Well, then, ladies first,” he stepped back and opened the door for his companion.

When Ginny entered, she had the impression of having stepped into some flashy nightclub, like a magical version of the Moulin Rouge. Various signs showing frogs, snakes and bats were lit up around the walls with the same neon-like brightness as the arrows in the corridor. Their light only got blurred a bit by the heavy lilac fumes issuing from four huge ceramic pots in each corner.

Pythia herself was a terribly old thing, her face full of wrinkles, some of her snow white, flyaway hair poking out from under her black shawl that was speckled with tiny, fluorescent stars and moons. Her trainee, Helen, wasn’t nearly as pretty as Helen of Troy, and Harry was sure that no Paris would have ever wanted to kidnap her.

“Er, hello,” Harry and Ginny greeted the two ladies.

Instead of returning the greeting, Pythia gave them a piercing look and said: “You know, you might be right, we should advertise in newspapers.”

“But… but Pythia! We’re supposed to be secret!” Helen protested.

“Yeah, yeah, we had to be secret in the Middle Ages, but perhaps we’ve stayed hidden way too long… Nowadays we are no more in danger of getting burnt at the stake for predicting stuff… not to mention that business isn’t too profitable this way – so few people know about us that we barely have any clients left… we have to advertise, by all means!” She turned to Harry: “Which newspaper did you say was the most popular, young man?”

“The Gorgon Gazette, as far as I know,” Harry shrugged.

“Right,” the oracle nodded. “And now, what do you want?”

“Obviously a prediction,” Ginny said scathingly. She hadn’t taken Divination back at school, so she didn’t know Trelawney in person, but she had a feeling that Pythia here might be an even bigger fraud.

“Oh, yes, a prediction,” the old witch beamed. “And what would you like to hear a prediction about?”

“Actually we’d like to know how we could free someone who is cursed by The Fates Charm,” Harry replied.

“Your little girlfriend, right?” Pythia pointed at Ginny.

“How do you…?” Ginny breathed.

“The old bat might be a bit senile but still can see things, and you flinched when the young man uttered the charm’s name,” answered the Diviner.

“Well, yes, it’s me. Actually it’s not put on my hair, but on that of someone I love, and I’m being blackmailed because of it… I want to be free,” said Ginny desperately. “Can you help?”

Pythia held out a bony hand. “Ten Galleons or fifty Euros, sweetie.”

Harry and Ginny exchanged a dark glance, then Harry counted out ten Galleons and Pythia took them with an eager expression.

“Right, then,” she said and motioned to Helen to bring her a ceramic pot full of glowing tree leaves and herbs. She took several deep breaths, and after the sixth or seventh, her eyes started rolling and she went into a trance.

“Very convincing, huh?” Harry murmured to Ginny, who wanted to express her opinion of Pythia being a good actress when suddenly the Diviner started to speak:

You must find the Row of Gods
There you’ll also meet the Fates,
On Delos: fair Apollo
And good Artemis’ birthplace


“And what will happen if we find the Fates there?” interjected Harry.

The trapped will be free at last
Not right there and then, though,
And out of barren soil
Tiny little plant will grow

But disturbance will arise,
Flooding in like angry tide,
The shamed one will trip and slip
And will see the other side


“Barren soil? Plant? Shamed one? See the other side? What’s all this supposed to mean?” Ginny enquired.

“Sorry, dear, two predictions for the price of one, no more,” responded the oracle, who abruptly came out of the trance.

“And if I paid you one more prediction?” asked Harry a bit unwillingly.

A hungry look appeared on Pythia’s face, but it quickly got replaced by resignation. “I’m sorry, sweetie, but I can’t answer more than two questions about the same topic. No Diviner can. But in case you’re interested in something wholly different, then ask away… after…” she rubbed her thumb and index-finger together.

“No, thank you,” replied Ginny instead of Harry. “Let’s go, shall we?”

“Okay. Bye, Pythia, Helen,” said the young wizard and left the crestfallen Diviner-in-Charge behind him.

When the door magically slammed shut, he turned to Ginny: “You know, I can’t decide whether she’s just a greedy fraud or a greedy but talented Seer. However, I can’t make head nor tail of these predictions. It’s clear – or seems clear – that the trapped one is you, but who’s the shamed one?” Actually Harry had a vague idea of who it might be – him – but what did that stupid Pythia mean by the shamed one slipping and seeing the other side? The other side of what? The Mediterranean? Not bloody likely – he had already been in Egypt, seen the other side of the sea…

“Yeah,” she nodded as they reached the chute and Harry conjured little lamps up the chute’s sides and several pegs onto the chute itself. Gripping them they slowly made their way upwards. “Also, I don’t know what sort of plant she referred to.”

Mimbulus mimbletonia?” he joked. “Well, at least we got to know where to go, even though the prediction was pretty vague.”

“I’m not surprised it’s vague. It’s still better than the one given to King Kroisos of Lydia.”

“Why? What did Pythia predict for him?” he asked, reaching the top of the chute that ended in a thick black wall.

“He wanted to attack Persia and asked the oracle what would happen if he did, and Pythia replied: ‘at the end of the battle a huge empire will be vanquished’. Kroisos was happy and attacked Persia,” she said as she also reached the top of the chute and they stepped through the wall together. For a minute they were blinking, shielding their eyes against the bright sunshine. “Guess what happened to Kroisos?”

“He lost the battle, I presume, and the great empire that got vanquished turned out to be his own one,” Harry replied.

“Clever,” she said.

He looked at her with a surprised expression. “Why, have I managed to tell the right answer? I was only guessing.”

“But you guessed well,” she smiled at him and slipped her hand into his as they descended the steps from the Tholos. “Thank you, Harry.”

“For what?”

“For risking your freedom in coming back to Greece… for risking your life when sneaking into the Circle’s headquarters… and for paying that greedy Pythia.”

“Don’t thank me for anything in advance, Ginny. It is unfortunate – at least they say so.”

“Then I’ll thank you when I’m free,” she replied and didn’t let go of his hand until they reached the tethered Buckbeak.



Authors note: thanks a lot to everyone who reviewed the previous chapter(s). Hope you liked this chapter, too. As a Christmas present, all of you who have been lurking and not reviewing so far, come out of hiding and send me a review!
Snitch20: yes, Harry will see his first daughter.
Once more merry Christmas! :)


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Sink Into Your Eyes is hosted by Grey Media Internet Services. HARRY POTTER, characters, names and related characters are trademarks of Warner Bros. TM & © 2001-2006. Harry Potter Publishing Rights © J.K.R. Note the opinions on this site are those made by the owners. All stories(fanfiction) are owned by the author and are subject to copyright law under transformative use. Authors on this site take no compensation for their works. This site © 2003-2006 ALL RIGHTS RESERVED. Special thanks to: Aredhel, Kaz, Michelle, and Jeco for all the hard work on SIYE 1.0 and to Marta for the wonderful artwork.
Featured Artwork © 2003-2006 by Yethro.
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