Harry blinked open his eyes. The simple room held only a sleeping mat and low table, yet somehow the space felt complete.
The motes of possibility drifted differently here, scattered and less dense than usual. They avoided the corners of the room as if repelled by the clean angles.
"Did you dream?" Mohan asked from the doorway. He carried a tray with two steaming clay cups.
"About snow," Harry said, accepting one. "And mirrors in still water."
"Mirrors reflect what we expect to see," Mohan settled onto a cushion. "The surface shows our assumptions."
Chrysa stretched and padded over, settling between them. Her golden eyes tracked back and forth as if following an invisible conversation.
"The Oracle showed me things in mirrors," Harry said. His voice began taking on that strange melodic quality, but Chrysa bumped her head against his hand. The tone faded. "About my friends..."
"What remains when the observer dissolves?" Mohan asked. "When you look for the self that sees, what do you find?"
"I..." Harry started, then stopped. The motes churned as he tried to grasp the concept. "But I know who I am. Like snow that refuses to melt..."
"What is snow except water holding a shape?" Mohan's eyes crinkled. "Does it have a true nature separate from what forms it?"
The Sanskrit characters Harry had absorbed yesterday rose in his mind, offering a completely different framework for understanding existence. The motes scattered, as if avoiding this new perspective.
"Your friend sees clearly," Mohan nodded to Chrysa. "Lions have no need for concepts of permanent self."
"But she's still Chrysa," Harry said, running his fingers through her golden fur. "Even if she doesn't think about being Chrysa."
"Names are convenient markers. Like pointing at the moon - but the finger is not the moon itself."
Harry sipped his tea, letting warmth spread through him. "In the Oracle's chamber, she showed me visions of my friends. Of what they really thought about me."
"'Really' thought," Mohan noted. "As if thoughts are solid things we can capture and display."
"But she could see through time," Harry's voice gained that melodic undertone. "She showed me-"
Chrysa's tail brushed his arm. The strange tone vanished.
"Time," Mohan said, as if he hadn't noticed the shift in Harry's voice. "Another convenient marker. Like drawing lines on water and calling them permanent paths."
They sat in silence.
Harry studied how the shadows moved, not like in the Oracle's chamber where they held secrets, but simply as absence of light.
Nothing more.
"When water is disturbed," Mohan finally said, "the reflection fragments. Which piece shows the true image?"
Harry thought about the visions he'd seen. Charlotte's words in the hospital wing had felt so real.
So painful.
But now, in this simple room with its clean angles and empty spaces...
Something shifted inside him, like ice cracking - not breaking, but showing the first signs of stress.
"I want to understand," Harry said carefully. "But everything I know says there must be something permanent. Something that stays true no matter what."
"Who is it that wants to understand?" Mohan stood smoothly. "You might enjoy walking in the garden. Sometimes watching flowers bloom offers more wisdom than all our words."
Through the paper screens, Harry could see simple stones creating paths through carefully tended plants. Everything had its place, yet nothing seemed fixed.
oo0ooOoo0oo
The garden was smaller than it appeared through the screens, yet contained more than seemed possible. A small stream trickled over rocks, its surface catching light in ways that reminded Harry of the motes of possibility. Unlike the motes, which actively avoided certain areas, the water simply flowed where it would.
"The snow in my dream wanted to experience summer," Harry said quietly to Chrysa. "But it knew touching warmth meant losing itself." He paused by a flowering bush. "Is that what Mohan means? That holding onto anything too tightly means missing everything else?"
A temple attendant approached with a wooden bucket and cloth. "Young guest, if you wish, the morning ritual of washing the stones begins soon."
Harry nodded and began washing the stones while thinking about the Oracle's chamber. There, everything had seemed to hold hidden meaning. Here, the stones were just stones.
Wet or dry, clean or dirty, they remained exactly what they were.
He could recall Charlotte in the hospital wing, supposedly confiding in Penny. But now, washing simple stones being washed, something felt... off about that vision.
Like a reflection that didn't quite match its source.
"Your companion has keen eyes," the attendant commented, watching Chrysa observe Harry's work.
"Lions see things as they are, without adding or taking away."
Harry looked at his familiar. Her golden eyes met his, and for a moment he Saw something - not a vision of past or future, but a simple truth. Like the stones beneath his hands, Chrysa was exactly what she appeared to be.
No hidden meanings, no secret purposes.
The motes of possibility churned uncomfortably at this observation.
By midday, Harry's hands were pruned from the water, but his mind felt clearer. The motes had thinned considerably while he worked, clinging only to his peripheral vision.
A gong sounded.
The attendant gathered their cleaning supplies and gestured toward the temple entrance where a bowl of fresh meat had appeared for Chrysa.
Harry settled down next to her, just staring at the lion cub gobbling down her meal.
His own lunch was simple - rice, pickled vegetables, and clear soup. But as he quietly ate in the temple's main room, he noticed things he'd missed before. How the room's proportions created a sense of space that felt both intimate and infinite.
How the shadows never quite reached the corners.
"The Oracle's chamber was different," Harry said suddenly. "Everything there felt heavy with meaning. Like every shadow held secrets."
"What makes a shadow heavy or light?" Mohan asked from where he sat nearby.
"I..." Harry started to answer with that melodic tone, but Chrysa pressed against his leg. He continued in his normal voice: "I thought she was showing me truth. About myself, about my friends..."
"Truth," Mohan repeated. "Another heavy word. Like trying to catch a cloud and keep it in a box."
A butterfly drifted through the open door, its wings catching sunlight. The motes of possibility tried to swirl around it but passed through, just as they had in the garden.
"When you clean a stone," Mohan said, watching the butterfly, "do you add something to make it shine? Or do you simply remove what obscures its natural state?"
Harry thought about the morning's task. About visions that felt like dirt covering what was really there. The butterfly landed on Chrysa's nose, making her go cross-eyed.
No hidden meanings here, just a curious cub encountering something interesting.
"I think," Harry said carefully, "I need to wash some stones in my mind."
oo0ooOoo0oo
After lunch, Harry returned to the garden. The afternoon sun cast different shadows now, but they remained simple absences of light rather than keepers of secrets.
He sat by the stream, letting his thoughts flow like the water. The memory of the vision wavered slightly. "The Oracle showed me Charlotte talking to Penny. But... Charlotte would never say something like that after what we experienced together in the Vault of Fear."
The motes of possibility thickened around him as he questioned the vision, but Chrysa's tail brushed his arm. They scattered again, revealing something he hadn't considered before.
"And Chiara..." he frowned. "She transforms into a werewolf every month. Why would she think I'm cold when she knows I spend those nights with her?"
A temple bell rang in the distance. The sound was pure and simple, yet it made the motes of possibility vibrate uncomfortably. Harry watched them swirl around him, trying to show him something about eternal sight and ancient wisdom...
But the bell rang again, and he found himself thinking about the stone path he'd cleaned that morning. How removing the dirt had revealed what was actually there, not what he expected to see.
"Your friend seems troubled," the old attendant appeared with fresh tea. "Though perhaps not as troubled as the shadows that follow her."
Harry accepted the tea, noting how the motes avoided the steam. "I thought I understood what I saw in the Oracle's chamber. But now..."
"Understanding often begins when we admit we do not understand."
Evening approached, painting the garden in soft colors.
Harry had stayed by the stream all afternoon, watching leaves fall and stones simply be stones.
"When water is still," Mohan's voice came from behind him, "it reflects perfectly. But stillness itself is an illusion. Even the calmest pond has currents beneath."
Harry turned to find the Buddhist wizard sitting nearby. "The Oracle's tears showed me visions in still water. But..." he paused as that melodic quality tried to enter his voice. Chrysa pressed her warm side against him, and his normal tone returned. "But maybe the water wasn't as still as I thought."
"When we expect water to be still, we might miss the currents that move it. When we expect friends to speak poorly of us, we might miss..." Mohan let the thought hang unfinished.
"The Grey Lady," Harry said suddenly. "In the vision, she compared me to Salazar Slytherin. But she told me herself that she betrayed her mother's trust. Why would I believe her judgment about..." he trailed off as something shifted inside him, like ice cracking further.
Something that had been building pressure inside him for days began to dissolve, not all at once, but slowly, like ice melting in natural time.
The motes swirled desperately around him, but Harry focused on the simple truth of this moment: stars overhead, cool grass beneath, Chrysa's warmth beside him.
No hidden meanings. No ancient wisdom. Just what was.
The last trace of foreign presence finally faded, and Harry noticed something changing in his Inner Eye. The motes of possibility disappeared completely, but in their place...
He could See differently now.
Not more powerfully, not further into time, but with a strange clarity. Like looking at a reflection in water and seeing both the reflection and the water itself simultaneously. The future wasn't clearer, but his perception of how present moments flowed into future ones was.
"There is a story," Mohan whispered, "of the first Oracle of Delphi. Not the tale known to most, but one whispered among those who study deeper truths."
Harry watched a spider rebuild its web, seeing how each strand would connect to the next in the immediate moment.
Simple, clear sight.
"She sought permanence in a unique way," Mohan continued. "Not through the illusory self, philosopher's stone or dark rituals, but through... resonance. Each new Oracle was not truly new."
A breeze stirred the grass. Harry could See how each blade would bend in the next instant. "The silver tears. They weren't just for passing on power."
"No," Mohan agreed softly. "They carried her pattern, her... self. Each successor drinking them would slowly resonate with that pattern until..." he let the thought hang unfinished.
Harry remembered how the foreign presence had tried to take hold. "Until they became her."
"Many paths to immortality exist," Mohan said, his eyes distant. "Some through understanding, some through power, some through transformation. But to impose that pattern on others... it was considered inappropriate."
"She was stopped?"
"Sealed away, the stories say. A gentle way of saying she was ended." Mohan traced a line in the dirt. "But she had prepared. Left behind means for her pattern to survive, waiting for the right vessel..."
"Your journal," Mohan continued, "it guides you to new paths, yes? But perhaps it also tests you through them."
Harry watched a bee move from flower to flower, Seeing only how it would approach its next landing, nothing more. "It led me to her chamber. Or..." he paused. "It led me to a choice."
"And what does that tell you about your journal's nature?"
"That it doesn't just give adventures," Harry said slowly. "It presents risks worth taking. Or... worth choosing whether to take."
"And the Oracle," Mohan added softly, "what choice did she have? An echo cannot echo forever."
Harry remembered how desperate the motes of possibility had become near the end. Not just manipulative, but... "She was fading. She had to risk everything on someone who might..." he trailed off, seeing everything more clearly now.
"When a pattern cannot maintain itself," Mohan said, "it must either transform or fade entirely. She chose to risk transformation through you, rather than accept fading."
"But she didn't understand," Harry said quietly. "That transformation was exactly what she feared most."
The morning grew warmer.
Harry could See how the dew would evaporate in the next moment, returning to air - not gone, just changed form. Like how the Oracle's attempt to maintain her pattern unchanged had ultimately led to its dissolution.
"Your journal will present more choices," Mohan said, rising smoothly. "More risks worth considering. But now, perhaps, you See more clearly how to weigh them."
Harry nodded, scratching behind Chrysa's ears. Her thunderous purr reminded him of simple truths, how being exactly what you are means accepting both change and permanence.
"It's time to return to your path," Mohan said, looking toward the temple where Nicolas and Perenelle would be waiting. "Though you might walk it differently now."