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Chapter Text

As Sirius fell, Harry was already sprinting forward. He dodged past Lupin, years of evading his cousin and endless Quidditch drills serving him well, and he ran for the dais. Voices echoed around him, but all he could focus on was saving his godfather, his last real remaining family. He scaled the steps in desperation and dove forward into the shimmering surface of the veil - into darkness.

Groaning, Harry dragged himself back to consciousness. He could barely remember what had happened. There was darkness, and water, and Sirius-

"Sirius!" he cried, lurching up and looking wildly around, panicking for a horrified moment - until he spotted the unconscious form of his godfather on the sand next to him, and he forced himself to calm down.

They were alive.

He'd come out the other side of the veil in midair, plummeting towards rushing water below him. He struck the surface hard, and he was barely able to get his head above water long enough to suck in a single breath before the river fell away below him again - and he fell for longer this time, and the impact on the water below was even harder, knocking his breath out of his lungs and leaving him stunned for a long, painful moment.

Desperate, he'd thrust out with his wand and gurgled the incantation for the ascension spell. The spell grabbed him and threw him violently out of the water, and he tumbled gracelessly several times before slamming shoulder-first into a tree.

He'd wanted nothing more than to lay there in pain, but his godfather's face was still front and centre in his mind. It took a substantial effort of will just to prop himself up and face the water.

"Accio Sirius," he'd croaked out, and after a few long seconds, his godfather's unconscious form had leapt from the waves and come sailing towards him, sliding to a stop on the sand next to him. He'd followed the summoning charm up with a water-expelling charm, and when Sirius had eventually dragged in a ragged (but dry) breath, Harry had finally flopped back to the ground himself and allowed exhaustion to claim him.

That had been in the middle of the night. Now, as Harry dragged himself up to lean on his elbows and look around, the sky was starting to glow with pre-dawn light. There were lots of interesting and vibrant colours around him - but without his glasses, he couldn't tell much more than that. He fumbled around in the sand near him for a few minutes, but he came up empty-handed, so instead he fixed an image in his mind of the familiar frames and murmured, "Accio glasses." A short distance away, he heard a soft splash, and moments later a glint of light caught his eye and he snatched them out of the air. They were a bit bent up, but a quick mending charm had them good as new, and he slipped them back on.

As it turned out, they were on the sandy shore of a small tropical cove. Palm trees and bamboo grew lush and green around them, and a few tentative bird calls echoed in the distance. An intimidating waterfall cascaded down an overgrown cliff far off to their right, and the nearby mouth of the cove to their left opened out into a vast, glittering ocean.

All in all, it seemed to be a lovely place to narrowly escape death.

Eventually, after a few more deep breaths of the warm morning air, Harry clambered to his feet, grimacing as the dull pain in his shoulder protested the movement. He wasn't sure how long they had been gone, but he knew things were going to be a mess when they got back. With Dumbledore's arrival, the Death Eaters had surely been beaten back or captured, but Harry's friends were still injured, and there was no telling how the Ministry would react to everything that had happened.

With a sigh, Harry stepped over to his godfather and crouched down to gently shake the man's shoulder. "Sirius. Sirius, wake up."

His godfather shifted slightly and grumbled something incomprehensible, but he didn't wake.

Harry tried again, a bit more forcefully. "Sirius! Come on, get up! We need to get moving."

That got Sirius to actually stir; the man screwed up his face and blinked groggily up at him in confusion. "...Harry? Whas gwinon?"

"You need to get up. We've been here for hours, people are probably worried sick."

Sirius frowned in confusion, but shifted to start standing nonetheless - only to suck in a pained breath and stop almost immediately. "Ow. Can you help me get a look at my knee, Harry?" Moving more gently, he levered himself up to a sitting position and started tugging at the robes tangled around his legs. Eventually, Harry was able to help get them out of the way to reveal Sirius' faded black jeans, but it quickly became apparent that he wasn't going to get further than that. His right knee was swollen under the denim, and badly. "Yeah, I don't think I'm going anywhere without a healer's help."

"That... could be a problem."

Sirius took a long, slow breath as he looked around at the beach they found themselves on. "Harry, what exactly happened? Where are we?"

Harry shrugged and sat back down next to him. "Well, do you remember fighting Bellatrix?"

Sirius frowned. "Yeah, we were duelling. We duelled a lot in school, and I still knew most of her tricks."

"Well, she got you with something - a stunner, I think. You fell back into that creepy archway thing and vanished."

"So... the Department of Mysteries keeps a portal to a tropical beach locked up for study? Can't say I would've laid down gold on that bet."

"It actually comes out up there," Harry added, pointing up at the waterfall. "It's not exactly a fun arrival."

"Right," Sirius said dryly. "So, I was duelling Bella, she stunned me and knocked me in... And then she came after you and hit you with the same thing?"

"Not... exactly." Harry turned away to look out at the mouth of the cove, avoiding his godfather's gaze.

"Harry... Tell me you didn't just leap in after me."

Harry stayed silent.

"Harry, you- That could've been anything! The Unspeakables study all sorts of obscure magics - that arch could've stripped my bones clean and spat them back out for all you know! What were you thinking?!"

"Look, Sirius, can you just... leave it for now? Let's get you to Madam Pomfrey first, then you can start in on me for trying to save you."

"...Fine. We'll see about getting back, then I can lecture you about not recklessly risking your neck like that."

Harry didn't dignify that with a response, and after a moment, Sirius just sighed and carried on.

"So, you say we came out up there somewhere?"

"Fairly sure, yeah." Still not meeting his godfather's eyes, Harry turned to gesture in the direction of the waterfall. "I remember falling into some rushing water, getting washed along a bit, then falling some more and landing in even deeper water. I used a few of the spells I learned for the Tournament last year and got us both to shore here, and then I passed out."

"Right. So, if there's going to be an easy way back, it'll be up there."

A chill ran down Harry's spine at the word 'if'. "What, do you think there might not be an archway on this side of that portal?"

Sirius shrugged. "It's the Department of Mysteries, Harry, all bets are off. For all we know, that archway could be one-way except for a return portal that only appears every other Tuesday, or if you recite all the ingredients for an Anti-Immolation Solution."

Harry stood up sharply, trying to leave behind the thought of being stranded for more than just days. "Then I suppose the only way to find out is for one of us to go take a look. I'll be back in a few, yeah?"

Sirius sighed. "Okay, just... Be careful, will you? I can't exactly come running to help right now." As he went to gesture Harry off, Sirius reached into his sleeve, but after feeling around for a moment, he froze. Slowly withdrawing his hand, he said, over-casually, "Actually, before you go... You don't happen to see my wand around anywhere, do you?"

Harry paused and looked around the beach. There were a few bits of driftwood, some fallen palm leaves, and a light bit of seaweed scattered around, but no sign of anything resembling a wand. "Er... No, I can't say I do, Sirius."

"Neither do I. I don't suppose you can try summoning it for me?"

"I can try, but... can you describe some details? I don't really have a great idea what it looks like, aside from it being a darker wood and fairly slim, and I don't think that's enough to summon it by."

Sirius chuckled hoarsely. "No, I suppose it wouldn't be. Well, let's see... Ebony and dragon heartstring, twelve and a quarter inches. It has a bit of an unusual squared-off handle, with some runes etched into it - Ollivander said they're purely decorative, and Remus tried finding some meaning in them and couldn't come up with anything. It's also not very well polished at the moment - I wasn't expecting to go out any time soon, so I wasn't exactly keeping up on my wand care."

Harry smiled at that as he tried to put that all together as a mental image. He tried to think of times he'd seen it in use, but aside from the duel they'd just left behind, he was having a hard time of it. In the end, all he could do was give it his best shot, so he took a breath, assembled the best image he could, and firmly shouted, "Accio Sirius Black's wand!"

There was a pronounced silence as they waited, but as the seconds ticked by, there was no sign of it speeding towards them.

"Sorry, Sirius," Harry sighed. "It's possible I just don't know it well enough. Do you want to give it a go?" He turned his wand around and held it out handle-first towards his godfather.

Sirius accepted it and turned it over in his hands a couple of times. "Hmm. Holly and Phoenix Feather, right?"

Harry nodded.

"Well, we'll see how this goes," Sirius said. "I'm no Ollivander, but if I remember my wandlore, I expect this one'll be a bit more headstrong than most. Hopefully it won't mind me borrowing it for a moment." Looking around, he sighted on a bit of driftwood, then gave the wand a swish and flick towards it. "Wingardium Leviosa!"

It took a stubborn moment, but the small chunk of wood rose into the air, bobbing a bit in place. When Sirius waved the wand to the side, the wood slowly followed, lagging a bit behind where Sirius was trying to guide it. After a few more swoops back and forth, he eventually released the spell and let the wood drop to the ground next to him.

"Yeah, that's about what I thought. Powerful, but stubborn." 

"You can really tell that much just by casting a spell with it?" Harry asked.

Sirius nodded. "It takes a bit of practice with different wands to get a good feel for the subtleties, but you can usually tell some things right away. Every wand is different, and sometimes knowing a wand's personality can make a difference in how well you work together with it."

Harry wasn't sure what to say to that. He remembered going through dozens of wands in Ollivander's shop, but he hadn't noticed much about them other than that they hadn't been right for him (some more obviously than others).

"So," Sirius continued, "hopefully your wand won't mind helping me out with this, so I can get mine back and return you yours." Clearing his throat and shaking out his sleeves, he held it out in front of himself and said clearly, "Accio my wand!"

Harry held his breath as they waited for something to happen, watching around the cove for any sign of a wand speeding towards them. A bird called in the distance, and waves continued to lap against the shore, but as they waited, it became clear that no wand was coming.

Sirius sighed and handed Harry's wand back to him, then took a deep, steadying breath. "Right. Well, obviously that's not ideal."

"It's probably just on the other side of the portal," Harry offered. "I bet we can't summon anything through there."

"Right, that's probably it," agreed Sirius.

Harry wasn't entirely sure that his godfather was convinced, but he let the point drop. "Well, alright then. I'll just be off to check whether the portal's still there, I suppose. Do you want me to try anything else before I go?"

"Nah," Sirius said, and he picked up the chunk of driftwood he'd been floating around earlier. "I don't see much sign of any dangerous wildlife around, and even if there is, I can just give it a good whack with this if it tries to come after me. Go on, go fetch Madam Pomfrey and tell her I'm dreadfully wounded and in dire need of assistance. Feel free to make me out to be in all sorts of terrible distress."

"I mean, you sort of are, aren't you? Doesn't your knee hurt?"

Sirius waved him off. "If Madam Pomfrey asks, I'm in terrible agony, but otherwise I'll be fine. Now get a move on, before I get bored and decide to try climbing that cliff myself."

"Okay, okay! I'll be back as soon as I can."

As Harry turned and headed up the beach to where the waters of the cove nearly reached the cliff face, he couldn't help but worry. He couldn't remember the timing from the previous night very clearly, so he didn't know just how far into the cave he was going to have to go to find the portal - if it was even still present. The way Sirius talked about the things the Department of Mysteries studied, it was entirely possible the way back was long gone.

On top of all that, even if they could get back, how the Ministry of Magic had responded to the whole situation was another question entirely. To any reasonable person, Death Eaters breaking into the Ministry and trashing one of its most sensitive departments would be a wake-up call that something was amiss, and that maybe Harry's and Dumbledore's claims of Voldemort's return weren't so far-fetched after all. On the other hand, though... Minister Fudge wasn't exactly reasonable. For all Harry knew, Fudge had already decided to pin the whole fiasco on Harry and his friends and completely ignore any arguments to the contrary - and if he did that, then bringing Sirius back through the portal could very well be handing him straight to the dementors.

Fortunately, though, he didn't have very long to keep focusing on worst-case scenarios, because he soon reached the point where the sandy beach ended and the undergrowth at the base of the cliff began, and his attention was taken up by the surprisingly tricky-to-navigate plants that were in his way. Mixed in with the tall, narrow palm trees and delicate broad-leafed plants were tough and thorny shrubs that made his progress much more difficult, including some yellow-flowered bushes with long, sharp spines that jabbed and poked at him as he went. On top of that, he found his way blocked several times by unexpectedly dense patches of bamboo that he couldn't simply push through, so he'd had to backtrack slightly and take another route. By the time he made it through the relatively small patch of greenery, he was stung and frustrated and starting to work up a sweat.

Channelling that frustration into the task at hand, Harry didn't put much thought into what came next - he just reached the base of the cliff and started climbing. Up close, it seemed even taller than it did at a distance, but this time the abundance of plants worked to his advantage, giving him plenty of roots and vines to grab ahold of and clamber up. His shoulder was still a bit sore, but none of the moving he was doing seemed to be making it worse, so he assumed it was just going to be a nasty bruise and put it out of his mind.

Soon enough, he broke over the tree line, and he took a moment to look behind him, out over the cove. Sirius was watching him from down the beach and waved; Harry gave him a slight wave back. It really was a rather nice view - between the morning sun glittering on the waves and the lush (albeit prickly) greenery growing all around them, the place they'd ended up really was a tropical paradise.

Of course, for all that it was lovely to visit, he didn't really want to stay, so he pressed on. The cliff face sloped very gently away from him, so it wasn't a massive strain to hold on, but he did still want to get the whole thing over with.

After a little while longer, he found himself approaching the height of the cave entrance, so he started moving left instead of up. The rushing of the water was getting to be quite loud, and as he got closer, he realised he hadn't quite considered how he was going to move into the tunnel. The opening was an oval twice his height and maybe half again as wide, and the bottom quarter or so was full of fast-moving water that would probably sweep him off his feet if he just tried wading upstream.

After a bit of thought, he brought himself right up to the side of the entrance, then considered his options. He had his wand, so he could maybe blast some small hand-holds into the wall to hang onto, but it would be awkward to move to his left while casting with his right hand.

With a grimace, Harry realised that the simplest option was to just climb up and over the entrance and go in on the other side. It was either that, try to contort himself the whole way, or risk wading through the water, and he didn't want to end up washed away and forced to try the whole endeavour again from the start - so, more climbing it was. He scaled his way up and over the cave, giving himself plenty of space just in case some of the rock or plants near the entrance gave way, then back down the other side. Soon enough, he was in position to start making his way in.

To start with, he leaned in and shot a light blasting curse at the cave wall a small distance above the level of the rushing water. The curse slammed into the stone and blew out a chunk the size of his head - decidedly larger than he'd been aiming for. Taking a breath, he aimed slightly further down and tried to be even gentler. The blasting curse wasn't really meant for such delicate work, but he didn't think a severing charm would do much good against solid rock, and nothing else was coming to mind.

Fortunately, his second curse carved out a much more reasonable chunk, and with a couple more, he found himself with a set of hand- and foot-holds that he could reach in and perch himself on. Climbing around the corner with a waterfall right below him was a bit disconcerting, but he made it in easily enough.

The sound of the rushing water was even louder in the cave. As he cast the next blasting curse to start carving out further hand-holds, he couldn't even hear his own voice. All he could hear was water, echoing down the tunnel and surging past him.

Forcing it out of his mind, he focused on the task at hand. Now that he'd worked out how much power to put into it, he was able to quickly and efficiently blast out additional notches in the cave wall, and soon he was making slow and steady progress into the cave.

After a short while, he realised the light was getting dim, so he took a pause to illuminate his wand and check out the way ahead, before putting out the light and continuing. Carving out chunks to hang onto blind wasn't perfect, but if there was a way to both light his wand and cast other spells, he didn't know it. If Hermione had been there, she'd probably have known the perfect spell for the job, along with two or three others to make the situation more bearable... but she wasn't. Instead, she was who-knew-where - hopefully, in the hospital wing, being taken care of by Madam Pomfrey. The image of her being struck by Dolohov's curse was burned into his mind, and he couldn't bring himself to think about what might have happened. She would be fine - they all would. He was going to find the portal, get himself and Sirius back home, and in a day or two he'd be visiting her in the hospital wing until Madam Pomfrey chased him out, and after that they'd all get on the Hogwarts express to go home for the summer.

He gave himself a mental shake and brought himself back to the present, blasting out another foot-hold and shuffling himself a step ahead. He could daydream once he was back, but for now he had work to do. Soon, he fell into a groove, and he found himself making slow, steady progress.

And eventually, his efforts paid off.

As he lit his wand to get his bearings, he saw that the tunnel ahead widened out a bit into a small cavern, and he could just barely make out something glinting up by the ceiling. He couldn't see what it was just yet, but there was some sort of red crystal along its far edge. Hurriedly, he sighted his next targets and got back to work moving forward, and soon enough, the cavern ceiling came fully into view.

Embedded in the ceiling, high enough that he was very glad he'd fallen into water and not onto solid ground, was something that could only be the other end of the portal. It was a big carved ring made out of some kind of metal or stone, with nine or so reddish crystals placed evenly around the outside. A series of symbols were engraved on an inner ring of some sort, but between the dim light and the distance, he couldn't quite make them out. The object itself was partially engulfed by the ceiling, like the stone had grown out around it and was trying to consume it, but the open centre of the ring was completely clear, as though the stone there had been cleanly sheared away.

There was also, Harry noted, a distinct lack of any sort of shimmering veil in the centre of it. If this was the way they'd arrived, then the way back was currently closed, and he had no idea what to do to get it open again.

Chapter Text

When Harry eventually made it back down to the beach, he found Sirius staring up at some fruit growing on one of the trees. He had his hand outstretched towards it from where he was sitting, and his mouth was pinched in a grim line of determination.

"Er... Sirius? What are you doing?"

At Harry's interruption, Sirius abruptly dropped his hand and turned to watch him approach with a casual grin. "Ah, Harry! Nothing much, just passing the time. Any luck finding the way back?"

Harry just let it go, sighing and flopping down to the sand next to his godfather. The whole little expedition had been a bit tiring, and not finding what he had hoped for stung. "Well, yes and no. The good news is, I think I found the right place - there's this big, fancy ring in the ceiling of the cave, and nothing else that looks anything like a gateway in there. The bad news, though... there's no actual portal at the moment. I don't know if it's only open at certain times, or if we need to do something to turn it on, but right now... we're not getting back through there."

Sirius' brow furrowed. "What do you mean, 'fancy ring'? Can you describe it?"

Harry shrugged. "I don't know, it's a big, circular... ring, made of some sort of stone or metal or something, about as wide across as the arch in the Department of Mysteries was tall. There are some big red crystals embedded in it around the outside, and a bunch of symbols on an inner section. I've never really seen anything else like it."

"Huh. I've never heard of anything like that - but, considering it's related to something in the Department of Mysteries, I suppose that's not exactly a surprise. Did you recognize any of the symbols?"

"No, but it was kind of hard to make them out. I guess I could go back and take a closer look, but I didn't take Runes, so I wouldn't even know where to start with them."

Sirius let out a long sigh. "Well... I suppose that makes things a bit tricky, then."

"What about other ways of getting back?" asked Harry. "Apparating, or a portkey or something? Obviously the portal would be easiest, but there has to be some other option."

"Not necessarily," Sirius said, his tone a bit grim. "I'd be fine apparating us from one end of Britain to the other, but we're a bit further afield than that, and if you push too far beyond your usual range, you start to risk a nasty splinching. A portkey would be a much better option, but even then, international portkeys are regulated by the Ministry, and for good reason. An underpowered portkey is liable to drop you partway to where you're going - and not necessarily in one piece - and for the kind of power you need for a trip halfway around the world, you start getting into ritual casting instead of just a simple spell."

"Well, we haven't covered rituals in class yet, but Hermione's mentioned them before. What do you actually need to do one?"

Sirius closed his eyes and ran a hand slowly back through his hair, apparently deep in thought. "Rituals are, basically... well, imagine casting a spell, but with an incantation several paragraphs long, and instead of simple wand movements, you inscribe a bunch of runes ahead of time and empower them as you go. Ideally, you want a dedicated ritual space, purified of external influences and imbued with similar magic over time... but all those are luxuries that just make the process easier. Some of the simplest rituals can be done with just a runic circle and a few words." He looked wistful for a moment, and Harry was tempted to pry, but that didn't seem like the time to change the subject.

Instead, he asked, "How much work is making an international portkey, then? Could we do it on the beach here?"

"I'm not sure," Sirius said. "I think - maybe, maybe - I could piece together the ritual itself, but I haven't done any ritual casting since Hogwarts, and I'm going to be reinventing the broom a bit. I'm not sure how complicated it would be, but it would at least involve an inscribed circle, and those are no laughing matter. I wouldn't be creating it entirely from scratch, but it's not far off - it's possible I might be able to cobble a decent ritual together, but I can't be sure."

"Okay, well that's something, at least! What else? I assume we can't exactly summon the Knight Bus this far out."

That seemed to catch Sirius off guard, and he barked out a sharp laugh. "No, Harry, I think we're probably a good bit outside of their usual routes. I suppose it might not hurt to at least do a bit of exploring, though - for all we know, we're just down the road from a resort, and from there we could make our way to the nearest magical enclave, or even just grab a muggle aeroplane back home."

Harry didn't think it would be that easy, but it was at least worth a shot. "Right. Well, where do you think we should start?"

Sirius smiled and gestured up at the fruit he'd been staring at earlier. "To be honest, Harry, I was thinking of a bit of breakfast. If we're going to go searching for signs of civilization, we should probably start on a full stomach. Do you mind summoning down a few of those? They seem like as good a meal as anything."

Harry shrugged and pulled out his wand. With a quick summoning charm, one of the fruit snapped off of the tree and flew down into his hands. It was a reddish-orange thing, larger than an apple, and oddly fuzzy. He'd never seen anything quite like it before.

"Sirius, do you know what these are, exactly?"

"I haven't the foggiest!" Sirius said, oddly delighted. "I was guessing they're related to mangoes - I had more than a few of those on my little R&R trip - but they don't look all that similar up close. I suppose you'll just have to open it up and find out!"

Harry shook his head in disbelief, but even as he did so, he set the fruit down on the sand and aimed his wand again. "Diffindo!" The spell cut easily through the fruit's skin and soft flesh, but the fruit didn't separate into two halves until Harry tentatively picked it back up and pulled it apart. The inside was dark green and pulpy like an orange, and there was a large brown seed the size of a golf ball in the middle.

"Huh," Sirius remarked, eyeing it. "It's like someone crossed a kiwi and a mango. Hand me a chunk?"

Harry handed over the half without the pit, only a bit hesitantly. "Are you sure we should really be eating these if we don't know what they are?"

"I'll take what I can get right now," Sirius replied, and after eyeing the fruit for another moment or two, he shrugged his shoulders and took a generous bite out of it. At Harry's incredulous look, he opened his mouth and said, through half-chewed fruit, "Look, we have to eat something around here, and the only way we're going to know whether it's good is by trying it."

"You should finish chewing before you speak," Harry muttered automatically, channelling one of Hermione's frequent mealtime reminders to Ron, but at Sirius' rolled eyes, he ignored his godfather's lack of manners and lifted up his half of the fruit to sniff at it. "How does it taste, at least?"

Sirius grimaced a bit and waved a hand as though to say, So-so. Not awful, but definitely not great. He made a show of chewing his bite and gulping it down before speaking. "Well, it's certainly not the best tropical fruit I've ever had, but it's not inedible. It's honestly more bland than I was expecting, and the texture isn't something I'd choose, but it beats Kreacher's cooking, at any rate."

Harry ignored Sirius' jibe at the house-elf and took a bite of his own fruit. It was an odd combination of sweet and bitter, and Sirius was right, it wasn't great - but they weren't exactly spoiled for choices.

After a few minutes of eating, Harry couldn't help but try to get back to the topic at hand. "So, once we're done eating... what's the plan? I start exploring and you start on a portkey?"

Sirius sighed and gulped down his current mouthful of fruit. "I suppose that'll have to do, but I do need to make it clear - making a portkey like this, from scratch, with no prepared ritual space... It's not going to be quick, if I can even do it at all. I'm going to have to run through the arithmancy from scratch, figure out where we can lay out and prepare a circle... If I can do it in a week, we'll be lucky. Two weeks is more likely, and that's assuming I can even work out how to do it in the first place."

"Well, a week or two's not so bad," Harry said. "I guess we'll need to figure out somewhere to sleep though, assuming there isn't a resort the next cove over."

That got a small smile out of Sirius. "I can get started on a basic shelter while you're off traipsing from one tiki bar to the next, don't worry. Although, there is one small issue..."

Harry grimaced. He had an idea of what was coming, and he didn't much like the idea. "My wand."

Sirius was clearly uncomfortable about it as well. "I'm sorry to have to ask it of you, Harry, I really am, but with my leg the way it is, I don't really see another option."

Harry couldn't deny that it made sense. If something showed up and attacked Sirius while he was alone, he'd be basically defenceless. He'd also be unable to do anything particularly useful for their ongoing survival or their return home, aside from some basic planning for the process of making a portkey. Harry, on the other hand, hardly needed to do magic to walk along a beach, and if he did end up in a dangerous situation, he would at least be able to run away, which was more than they could say for Sirius.

"I know. Just... be careful, alright?" Somewhat reluctantly, he turned it around in his hand and held it out handle-first for his godfather.

Rather than accepting it, though, Sirius held up a hand. "I'll take good care of it, don't you worry about that, but I don't need it just yet. We should finish eating first, and then there's a spell I need to teach you before you head out."

Harry frowned, confused. "What do you mean, what spell?"

"I mean, dear Harry, that you must learn the single most important spell in any holidaymaker's repertoire. If you do not wish our time here to end in peril and tragedy, then it is of the utmost importance that you master this spell without delay."

Though Sirius had maintained a solemn tone throughout, Harry couldn't help but suspect that he was being set up. "Oh? And just what spell is that?"

"It is an ancient charm, not oft needed in the British Isles, but one that I became intimately familiar with during my last tropical escape. I first learned of it on a trip to the south of France, and without it, I would have suffered greatly on many occasions - and now, it is time that I pass this ancient knowledge on to you, my dear godson. The wand movement is a broad, even sweeping motion, and the incantation, which you must commit to memory or be doomed to certain despair... is Aegis Aprici."

There was a long pause as Harry waited for his godfather to continue. "...And what does it do?" he eventually asked.

Sirius let the dramatic mood carry on for another breath before he broke into a grin. "Why, it's the sunscreen charm! You wouldn't want to ruin this lovely holiday with a sunburn, would you?"

Harry groaned and lobbed the pit from the fruit at him.

It didn't take long for Harry to pick up the sunscreen charm, so it was soon time for him to start exploring.

He and Sirius fashioned a walking stick for him out of a sturdy piece of bamboo, sharpening one end to act as a crude spear just in case he was attacked by a wild animal, and then Harry handed over his wand and left Sirius behind with a promise to be back soon. Neither of them had a watch, but they'd come up with a simple plan: if Harry didn't find something by the time the sun was directly overhead, he'd turn around and come back. That way, he'd at least be sure he could make it back before sundown.

As he walked out to the mouth of the cove for the first time, he was struck by the sheer expanse of the ocean before him. The sun was rising a little ways off to his right, and its rays were glittering across the waves in a way he'd never quite seen before. He'd never been one for paying attention to nature all that much, but it was a remarkable view all the same.

Off to his left, the sandy beach stretched out into the distance. It curved out towards the water slightly, arcing along gently until it ended at a rocky point. The beach itself was a bit different from what he had expected; he'd had an image in his mind of tropical islands being nothing but palm trees and white sand, but in reality, there was a lot of seaweed, driftwood, and other natural debris scattered around. He stifled a small laugh at the thought of Aunt Petunia complaining to the travel agents that the beach was "far too dirty" and that they should really clean it up more often.

As he started walking, he also came to realise that walking on sand wasn't nearly as easy as on solid ground, and the rising sun was warming things up quite quickly. He shed his heavy black robe almost immediately and threw it over one shoulder, and after a little while longer, he stopped to roll up his jeans to above his knees. His clothing was fine for a British spring, but it wasn't exactly ideal for a long walk along a tropical beach.

Soon enough, he settled into a rhythm. He made decent time to the end of the first beach, and when he got to the point, he found that the next section of coast was a bit more treacherous, with rocks and plants right up against the water. Navigating that was a bit more work, and when that eventually gave way to more beach again, he found that he didn't quite mind dealing with walking on sand quite as much.

As he walked, though, he found he had plenty of time to think, and his thoughts invariably turned back to the Department of Mysteries. Try as he might to distract himself, he couldn't stop dwelling on the fate of his friends. The image of Hermione being struck by that dark purple curse, of Ron wrestling with those eerie brain tendrils, of Luna lying unconscious on the floor... He tried to focus on the positives, that the Order had arrived and had been turning the tide, that he knew Sirius was at least alive... but with nothing but beach, foliage, and ocean to distract him, he found it tough. Horrible possibilities whirled around in his head. What if more Death Eaters had shown up? What if Voldemort had managed to overthrow the Ministry? What if the Order had managed to win, but they hadn't been in time to help Hermione or the others?

There wasn't even any interesting wildlife to take his attention off things. He heard a few bird calls from further inland, and at one point he spotted a few sea birds flying in the distance, but as the morning dragged on, he found himself considering his makeshift spear less of a reassurance and more of a big stick he was lugging around. Honestly, he would've welcomed an acromantula attack or something, just for something to do.

In the end, the hours dragged on as he walked along the coastline. By the time the sun was high in the sky, the most exciting thing he'd seen was a small, colourful bird sitting atop a palm tree, and it had flown away as soon as it spotted him approaching.

One thing he had noticed, though, was that the shore was definitely curving to his left. He didn't have anything to compare to, so he couldn't be sure, but when he eventually stopped to sip some water from a brook around noon, he was fairly confident that they were on an island - and not only that, but one he'd walked more than halfway around.

"So," he said to himself, leaning against a boulder and staring out at the sea, "do I turn around like we originally planned on, or do I keep going?" He drummed his fingers against the crude spear he'd lugged with him the whole way as he thought. "The safe thing is obviously to turn around. I know how long I'll take to get back, more or less, and I know there isn't a big, impassable gorge or anything in the way."

The thought of turning around and walking all the way back the way he'd come didn't exactly appeal to him. His gut was telling him that he was more than half of the way around, and more than that, he was already alternating between being bored of walking and worried about his friends. He just wanted to get back and be done with it.

He could imagine Hermione standing in front of him as he laid out his arguments. She would probably have her hands on her hips and an unimpressed look on her face. Sticking with the plan and turning back would be the logical thing to do, she would probably say.

"But, if I keep going, there's a good chance that I get back faster, and it means not going out walking again tomorrow. That's a whole day's walking saved that I can spend helping Sirius with the portkey - and it's not like I've run into anything dangerous so far!"

Harry and Sirius were in a bad enough situation without Harry taking unnecessary risks like that. Sirius was injured and couldn't walk, and he was relying on Harry to help them get back. Besides, Harry didn't have anything more to go on than a hunch and a general sense of direction - did he really want to risk not making it back before nightfall, or worse, running afoul of some other hazard?

After all, just look how well his last half-baked idea had gone.

Harry grimaced and looked away from where he was imagining his friend. With a harsh breath, he shoved off of the boulder and took a few steps away. He'd go back the way he'd come; he'd play it safe. Assuming he made it back, and assuming she eventually forgave him for dragging them all into the mess at the Ministry... maybe he could show her that he was at least somewhat capable of being responsible.

Begrudgingly, he crouched down at the brook for a few more sips of water, then hefted his bamboo spear and turned around. It was going to be a solid few hours before he was back, and this time he didn't even have the excitement of wondering what was going to be around the next bend.

As he walked, he tried to do something halfway useful with his time and figure out a decent way of working out how far around the potential island he was. He tried keeping a closer eye on the angle of the sun, but as he didn't really have a point of reference to use, he was more or less guessing. There weren't any obvious landmarks he could spot over the tree line, like a mountain or something; there was a fairly consistent cliff just a bit inland from the shore, but it meandered closer and further away, and there was no way to tell which side was facing which direction. He vaguely remembered some sort of survival saying about moss and rocks, but he didn't remember the details, and he couldn't make out a particular pattern of growth on the occasional plant-covered rocks he looked at.

One thing he did notice, though, was the change in the clouds as the day drew on. Early on, there had barely been a few wisps in the sky, but as he was making his way back, some more solid ones started moving in, and he began to worry that the end of his walk might not be quite as pleasant as the start.

When the first distant sounds of thunder started to rumble, he tossed down the spear and broke into a jog. The sky had rapidly gone from mostly sunny to entirely cloudy, and things were getting darker by the minute.

He was starting to recognize landmarks from near the start of his walk when the skies opened up. Like floodgates had been opened, he went from dry to soaked in seconds, and his clothes suddenly weighed him down like he'd just climbed out of a lake. His trainers and socks were quickly soaked through as well, and those he actually stopped briefly to deal with - he stripped them off to go barefoot and tied the laces together so he could sling them over his shoulders.

After that, he had to focus more on where his feet were landing, so once he started running again, he hit his stride fairly quickly. There was something almost meditative about it - his focus narrowed down to the ground ahead of him... his hair and clothes plastered down to his skin... the almost overwhelming sounds of the storm thundering around him.

He had thoroughly lost track of time when he clambered across a rocky outcropping and recognized the beach ahead as the final stretch of his journey, and he found himself breaking into a grin as he ran the rest of the way. Sure, he was drenched and tired and sore, and his little expedition hadn't turned up so much as a public lavatory, but it had honestly been a bit fun at the end.

As he rounded the last bit of beach leading into the cove, he spotted a flickering light ahead, and as he approached, he took in what Sirius had been working on.

It was a lopsided little structure, made mostly of bamboo and palm leaves. Harry had to assume it was only made possible through the liberal application of sticking charms, since he didn't see any way for it to all be attached; it looked like Sirius had assembled a basic frame from the bamboo, then just started sticking on palm leaves haphazardly until the gaps were covered.

Inside, Sirius was waiting with a small campfire, and Harry mentally added some sort of waterproofing charm to the list, since the shack was somehow managing to keep all the rain out despite its appearance. There wasn't a ton of room in the place - there was barely enough space for Sirius to lay down lengthwise, and the ceiling wasn't tall enough for Harry to stand up straight. He had to hunch over as he shuffled in to sit down in what little room was left, which left the place basically full between the two of them and the small fire.

"Hello Harry," Sirius greeted tiredly, and he flicked a casual drying charm at him from where he was lying down. "How was the trip?"

Harry shook himself at the odd feeling of going instantly from soaking wet to bone dry, and he started divesting himself the shoes and robes he'd removed and carried with him. "Thanks, Sirius. It was a bit damp near the end, but otherwise fairly boring overall. No drinks with little umbrellas in them, I'm afraid."

Sirius pushed himself up into a sitting position, wincing a bit as he shifted his knee slightly, and frowned at Harry. "No signs of civilization at all?"

Harry shook his head. "Nothing. I think we're on an island, but I didn't have a good way to figure out angles and distances and all that, so I'm not positive. I thought I might try the other direction tomorrow and see if I reach the same place from the other direction."

"Well, that sounds like as good a plan as any," Sirius said. "I didn't make much headway on the portkey problem here, I'm afraid. I spent most of my time cobbling this place together and laying in a few provisions, just in case." He gestured over at a small pile of fruit on the far side of the fire.

At the thought of food, Harry's stomach growled audibly, and Sirius laughed. "Here, allow me." With a flick of Harry's wand, he summoned one towards himself, then banished it lightly towards Harry. Harry snatched it easily from the air and experimentally dug a thumb into it; the skin gave way, and he was able to peel it and start eating.

For the rest of the evening, they kept the conversation light as the storm raged outside. Their situation wasn't great, but they were warm, dry, and alive - and that was better than the alternative, at least.

Chapter Text

By the next morning, the storm had calmed down to a light drizzle, and a low mist swirled in eddies along the ground.

"Well, this isn't quite as picturesque as it was yesterday," Sirius commented.

Harry shrugged and finished casting Impervius and cushioning charms on his socks and shoes. He wasn't sure if the spells would do exactly what he wanted them to, but he didn't fancy walking or running barefoot on such a foggy morning, so he would have to make do. Several spots on his feet were already a bit chafed from the day before, so he was hoping that the added charms would prevent them from getting any worse.

"At least it's not nearly as bad as yesterday," Harry replied, standing up and stretching a bit. "Is there anything you want me to keep an eye out for while I'm out, something I can pick up on the way back?"

"Aside from a decent Cleansweep or a piña colada, you mean?"

Harry rolled his eyes. Sirius was clearly trying to keep Harry's spirits up, but Harry wasn't in much of a joking mood that morning. He'd spent the night tossing and turning on the sand, trying to find a halfway comfortable position to sleep in, and when he woke up, his body was stiff and sore. "Assuming I can't find anything like that, yeah."

Sirius shrugged. "Well, Mister Pessimist, if you're so certain you won't be bringing back anything truly exciting... Something other than just more of that fruit to eat would be nice, and maybe something to write on? Arithmancy is tricky enough if you can't write it out as you go."

"I'll see what I can do," Harry agreed. "Hopefully today won't be as long a walk as yesterday. If I'm right and I made it around more than halfway yesterday, then with any luck I'll figure that out early today and I can hunt around a bit on the way back for something interesting for dinner."

"Well, whatever you find - be careful, Harry. I'd rather you come back empty-handed than have you injure yourself just to get some different fruit."

"I know," Harry said. He stretched out his back and shoulders one more time, then tossed his godfather his wand, gave him a small smile, and started to walk away. "I should get going, though. I'll see you when I get back, yeah?"

Grinning back, Sirius gave him a jaunty wave. "Have fun! And don't forget a little umbrella in my drink!"

That got a small snort from Harry, and he found his mood just a bit lighter as he started into a jog.

Hermione Granger awoke to the sound of someone bustling around nearby, the unpleasant smell of medical potions, and an aching, prickling pain across her torso. As she moved to sit up and take a look around, the motion tugged at her wound and sent burning shocks of pain throughout her body. With a grimace, she pushed herself up the bed until she could lean up against the headboard, then let out a pained sigh.

She was in the hospital wing at Hogwarts, that much was obvious, but most of the room was blocked off by a set of portable curtains pulled around her bed. There was sunlight streaming in through the windows, but otherwise, no indication of how long she had been there.

Fortunately, she didn't have long to wait before Madam Pomfrey entered her little isolated area bearing a heavily-loaded tray of potions.

"Ah, Granger, you're awake. How are you feeling?"

Hermione took a deep breath, wincing at the pain the movement sent shooting through her wound. "Well enough, I suppose, aside from the obvious pain where that curse hit me."

Pomfrey pursed her lips as she set the potions down on Hermione's bedside table and began sorting through them. "Yes, I should expect so. Longbottom said it resembled a dark purple flame of some sort?"

"Right; dark purple flames, the wand motion was a simple slashing motion from the caster's upper right to lower left, and it felt like it was burning into and through my body where it struck me." Closing her eyes, Hermione tried to remember if there were any other relevant details. "I think he was mouthing an incantation, but he was silenced at the time, so I don't know what it was."

"I thought that might be the case. I have a slate of potions here for you to take. I'm afraid it won't be pleasant, but you'll find these far more tolerable than the long-term effects of that curse."

"Hang on, can you tell me what happened to my friends first? I need to know - are they all okay? What happened?"

"Potions first, Granger. I'll not have you putting off your treatment to satisfy your curiosity." Looking down at her tray, the healer selected a potion and unstoppered it. After sniffing it once and apparently finding it to her satisfaction, she handed it over to Hermione, who accepted it with both hands. "Drink up now, the full vial."

Wrinkling her nose, Hermione tipped the potion back, trying desperately to ignore its vile texture. She never could understand how so many people seemed to draw a mental dividing line between the ingredients and the potions; she always found herself vividly aware that they contained things like stewed bug parts and assorted biles.

Unfortunately, as soon as she was done with the first, Madam Pomfrey whisked the vial away and replaced it with a second. "I'm afraid you'll have to get used to these, young lady. What you were struck with was quite nasty, and you're lucky to get off as easy as you did."

The second potion, mercifully, appeared to be a standard Cleansing Concoction, which was mostly made up of dried herbs suspended in purified water, with only a hint of stewed lizard eyes. Sadly, once she'd tipped that relatively palatable potion back, the next one was a truly rancid mixture that she suspected contained actual rotten eggs, and the next few weren't much better.

Eventually, after Hermione had downed a full seventeen different awful potions, Madam Pomfrey took away the last vial and replaced it with a glass of pure, crystal clear water. It was quite possibly the best thing that Hermione had ever tasted. She took several long sips, and once she'd washed the worst of the tastes from her mouth, she lowered the glass a bit and looked up at the healer. "There. That's - Gaahhh, those were horrible. That was all of them, though?"

"For the moment," Madam Pomfrey said with a nod. "Now, the headmaster left you a note about the events of your little escapade. He insists that you read it before I let your friends in to explain things, so read through it quickly and you can have some visiting time." Reaching into the drawer of Hermione's bedside table, the healer withdrew a tied-up scroll and handed it over.

Hermone wasted no time in untying and unrolling it, eager to find out what information was contained within.

Miss Granger,

I apologise that I cannot be there in person to explain things to you and your friends when you awake. While you deserve a full and detailed explanation of the circumstances surrounding your most recent escapade, those self-same circumstances are requiring that I be in a great deal of places to attend to an even greater number of things. Rest assured, I will provide you with an opportunity to ask all of the many and sundry questions you most justifiably have about what has transpired, but it appears for now that that conversation will not be able to occur for at least several days. If you would please speak with Professor McGonagall once you have been freed by your erstwhile jailor, your head of house ought to be able to determine a time at which we can meet.

In the interim, however, there is a singular fact of which I must most strongly assure you. At first glance, it may raise more concerns than it resolves, but I believe you will find it to be a reassurance on the whole once you have had an opportunity to avail yourself of the current crop of news, rumours, and speculation.

This fact is simple: I have the utmost confidence, backed up by several pieces of compelling evidence, that Harry Potter is indeed alive.

I am sure that this must seem less reassuring at first glance than it actually is, but I urge you to keep that fact in mind nonetheless.

I look forward to speaking to you in person once you are well. We have much to discuss.

Yours sincerely,

Headmaster A.P.W.B. Dumbledore

Hermione read and re-read the note several times, trying to wrap her head around it. That was meant to be reassuring? Being "confident" meant that Professor Dumbledore wasn't certain, and the fact that he felt it necessary to back that confidence up with evidence made it seem like it was an unlikely proposition. Just what had happened to Harry that "probably alive" was supposed to be good news?

Fortunately, she didn't have long to stew in her confusion - partway through her fifth re-reading, Ginny ducked through a gap in the curtains, followed by Neville and Luna.

"Ginny, Neville, Luna!" Hermione exclaimed. "Are you okay? What happened? Are Harry and Ron alright?"

Ginny gave Hermione a wan smile and settled into an uncomfortable little chair next to Hermione's bed. "I knew you'd have a bunch of questions built up in there. You've been out for over a day, did you know? I told Neville, as soon as you saw us, they'd just be bursting out of you."

Standing nervously next to Ginny's chair, Neville smiled half-heartedly in agreement. He looked fairly miserable overall, and he was fiddling nervously with a newspaper he'd brought with him. "Yeah. And- we're fine, the three of us. Just a couple of broken bones and minor hexes, Madam Pomfrey got sorted us out in about a minute."

"Ron's still out, though," Ginny continued. "Were you there for the brain things?"

"I'm sorry, 'brain things'? No, I think I missed those."

"Well, in one of the rooms, there was this big tank full of weird brains just... swimming around. Ron was confunded or something, so he thought it would be a good idea to summon one out, and it attacked him with some sort of... thought... tentacles."

Hermione stared at her, baffled, then looked over at Neville and Luna for confirmation. Neville nodded in agreement; Luna was staring up at the ceiling.

"So, he was attacked by a brain..." said Hermione. "Is he going to be alright?"

"Oh yes, Madam Pomfrey says he should be awake soon as well," Ginny responded. "She brought a few healers from St. Mungo's in yesterday, and they spent a while doing a bunch of tests until they figured things out. They reckon they should have him fixed up in a few days."

"Well, that's good. What about Harry, what happened to him?"

At that, the scraps of enthusiasm Ginny had managed to draw together fell apart, and she looked over to Neville for help.

"Well," he began slowly, "eventually it was just him and I left going, of the six of us. The Death Eaters chased us back to that room with the big archway."

Hermione nodded; she remembered that room. The shimmering, translucent veil had been unsettling, and she'd been quite happy to leave that place behind.

"The Death Eaters... Lucius Malfoy and Bellatrix Lestrange caught up to us there. They wanted the prophecy." He paused for a moment, taking a deep, shaky breath. "They... well, before they got it, the, er, Order arrived. Everyone was casting spells all over the place. Bellatrix ended up duelling Sirius Black, and she... she knocked him back into the archway, and he... disappeared."

"He disappeared?" repeated Hermione.

"No one knows quite what the veil does," Ginny said, staring down at her hands. "They've apparently been studying it for years, but they haven't figured it out. All they know for sure is that anything that goes through... It doesn't come back."

A horrible sinking feeling settled into Hermione's stomach.

"And... Harry?"

Ginny's breath hitched, and she buried her face in her hands.

"He went after Black," Neville said hollowly.

Feeling numb, Hermione sank back into the pillows behind her. Harry had leapt through the one-way veil after Sirius, because of course he had. Throwing himself headlong into danger to try to save someone he cared about was Harry to a tee, after all, and Sirius was the closest thing to family that Harry had left.

"Professor Dumbledore came by yesterday," Luna said idly, as though she were talking about a neighbour who'd stopped by for tea. "He's quite certain that both of them are still alive, wherever they are."

Despite herself, Hermione found herself trying to puzzle out what Professor Dumbledore might know. "He left me a note. He says he has 'several pieces of compelling evidence'. But how can he know he's alive, if he doesn't even know where he is?"

Neville shrugged. "My gran has a bell on the mantelpiece that starts to ring if I get injured. Maybe he has something similar?"

Ideas started to take shape in Hermione's head. "So, he probably has some sort of health-tracking spell on him. I wonder... I need to get to the library, to see if there are any books on that sort of thing."

Ginny gave a wet laugh and swiped at her eyes as she looked up. "I knew you were going to say that."

"She tried to get me to bet on it before we came in," Neville agreed.

Hermione huffed, but she couldn't help but smile a bit at them as well. "Yes, well... it's a perfectly reasonable course of action in this situation. You can hardly blame me."

"Unfortunately, Madam Pomfrey can," Ginny said. "She told us when we came in, you're stuck in here for a few days at least, so that means no library for you."

"But," Neville jumped in, "we can still go and check things out and bring them back here."

Hermione wrinkled her nose at the thought of being stuck in the hospital wing for days, but unlike some people she could think of, she could at least respect the judgement of the healer taking care of her. "Right," she said. "Does anyone have some parchment? We'll have to start with general topics in order to hone in on the specific nomenclature, so this may take a few trips, but we should be able to track down at least some general categories of spell that might be in play here."

"I have a few divination books that may help," Luna said airily. "Spooky Knowledge at a Distance has a whole section on monitoring charms, and I think that might still be in my trunk."

"I can write my mum," added Ginny. "She enchanted our family clock, so she should be able to give us some tips as well."

Soon enough, they'd found some parchment and started writing, and it wasn't long before they had a list of books and sources they could start with. Luna left first, drifting off to Ravenclaw tower to sort through her things and see which books she had with her. Ginny ran out shortly after, telling Neville she would meet him at the library after she'd sent off a quick letter to the Burrow. Neville was the last to go, and before he went, he handed off his newspaper to Hermione.

"Here," he said nervously. "I thought you'd want to know what they're saying. Just... remember what Professor Dumbledore said, alright?"

"I will," Hermione assured him, and he handed over the paper and slipped out through the curtains.

Once he was gone, Hermione braced herself for the worst. The reporters didn't have all the facts, she told herself, and even if they did, many of them roaches like Rita Skeeter. Whatever they wrote, it was sure to be inflammatory and over the top.

The headlines didn't disappoint.

HE WHO MUST NOT BE NAMED RETURNS

HARRY POTTER MISSING AMID MINISTRY MAYHEM

DIGGORY CALLS NO CONFIDENCE VOTE

Starting from the top, Hermione began to read. The Prophet wasn't going to help her with any of the magic she needed to figure out, but getting the news was better than nothing - and with Harry missing, doing nothing was not an option.

The skies over Harry and Sirius' tropical getaway had mostly cleared up over the course of the day, and the first hints of sunset orange were just starting to creep across them as Harry rounded the far side of the cove.

"Harry!" Sirius called as he approached their makeshift camp. "Another day of thrilling escapades, I trust?"

Harry smiled as he flopped down onto the sand next to the fire. "Absolutely riveting," he said tiredly. "That side of the island is a bit rockier than the other way, so the going was slower, but I did end up finding the place I stopped yesterday. There's no question about it - we're on an island, and I didn't see a single sign of civilization. No resorts, no private vacation homes... not so much as a washed-up crisp packet."

"Remind me to complain to the travel agents when we get back, then. The amenities here aren't nearly up to my expectations."

"I did find some broad leaves you might be able to write on," Harry continued. Reaching behind himself, he pulled a small sheaf of flat, green leaves out of his waistband and handed them over. "You might need to dry them or something, but they were the best I could find."

Sirius accepted the leaves and turned them over in his hands. "Well, they're a bit small, but they're definitely better than nothing. Thanks for picking them up. Did you find anything else interesting while you were out?"

At that, Harry actually laughed. "Actually, when I was looking for something else to eat, I found a plant sort of like a watermelon growing near a rocky outcropping. It was right about lunch time, so I picked one up and cracked it on the edge of one of the rocks to get at the insides."

Sirius perked up. "Oh? How was it?"

"I have no idea," Harry said, grinning widely. "The inside of it smelled absolutely horrible, like rancid stinksap that something had died in!"

Sirius burst out laughing. "Oh, tell me you didn't bring any back with you!"

"I thought about it! In the end, they're a bit heavier than I fancied lugging back here just for a gag, and I didn't want that smell ruining our camp for the evening. It was tempting, though."

"Well, I can't fault you there."

"On a different note, I did have an idea," Harry said. "Can you toss me my wand?"

"Of course," Sirius said. Without hesitating, he pulled the wand out of his sleeve and handed it over. "What did you have in mind?"

"I'll be right back," Harry said with a smile, and he got to his feet and jogged out to the mouth of the cove. The idea had come to him as he was wading through a relatively deep little river earlier that day. Quickly, he stripped off his trainers and socks, then waded out into the water of the ocean up to his knees. At first, his steps scattered what few fish were about, but as he stood there for a minute or two, they forgot their fear and started to go back about their business. Taking his time, he eyed them, biding his time... until a larger one a short distance away caught his eye, and he took aim with his wand.

He started with a summoning charm, yanking the fish out of the water and sending it flying towards him; when it came within reach, he snatched it out of the air by the tail and hit it with a quick stunner; and finally, mostly just for the fun of it, he turned and hit it with a banisher, sending it flying back towards the campfire and his waiting godfather. It landed a bit short, tumbling a bit and throwing up some sand, but he was proud of himself all the same - and even if it had been a bit showy, Sirius laughed and applauded him, and Harry couldn't help but feel that it was worth the extra effort. For what little time Harry had been able to spend with his godfather, Harry had barely ever seen him so lighthearted and upbeat, so he was happy to see him enjoying himself.

For good measure, Harry picked out a second fish and gave it the same treatment, then he waded back out of the water, grabbed his socks and shoes, and made his way back to the fire.

"Good show, Harry!" cried Sirius. "Bravo, encore!"

"Let's start with these two," Harry responded, collecting both fish and bringing them next to the fire. "We wouldn't want to catch so many they start going bad before we can eat them."

"Ah yes, of course," Sirius agreed with exaggerated aplomb. "Although, I do have one question for you..."

"Oh? What's that?"

"Do you actually know how to cook a fish? I must admit, I haven't the faintest clue where to start."

Harry smiled and dragged over a mostly-flat piece of driftwood to serve as a cutting board. "I'm no expert, but I think I remember the general idea."

In truth, he'd been the one to handle the "unpleasant and disgusting" portions of preparing whole fish on the rare occasions that Aunt Petunia had decided that she wanted to prepare fresh seafood for the family, so he was reasonably adept at it. He didn't exactly feel like bringing down the mood by discussing his relatives, though, so he just carried on with his work, and soon enough they were both enjoying some roasted fish. It was a bit charred, but tasty all the same.

As the evening carried on, they finished their food and carried on their light conversation. They both avoided anything all too serious; there was no talk of their predicament or what might have been happening back home. Instead, they talked about fun at school, comparing notes on professors and the subjects they'd covered, what was different between their times and what had stayed the same.

Eventually, when the fire had mostly burned down, Harry eased himself onto his back and folded his hands behind his head, looking up at the stars with a content smile on his face. For all that they were stranded on a tropical island somewhere, it was nice to spend time with his godfather with no immediate worries. Exams were over, so he didn't have to study. Voldemort was at large, but there wasn't anything Harry could do about that from an island in the middle of nowhere, and there wasn't any risk of Death Eaters leaping out at them from behind a palm tree. He didn't even have the Dursleys to contend with and try to tiptoe around. Against all odds, despite being stranded who-knows-where... Harry was actually enjoying his time there.

Except, as he looked up at the sky, something felt... off.

It took him a long moment to work out what was wrong. The sky was clear, and the stars were bright... but none of them were familiar. Harry had just spent weeks revising for his exams, astronomy included, so he should have been able to spot at least some of the constellations he knew, but none of them were there. Even if the view was from the southern hemisphere, he should have been able to pick out the major ones; Professor Sinistra had spent a great deal of time explaining the enchantments on the astronomy tower, and they had spent several months looking up at the stars as seen from various points on the globe.

Despite all that, he couldn't find a single constellation he recognized. No Ursa Major or Minor, no Southern Cross, none of the constellations of the zodiac... It was like he was looking up at a completely foreign night sky.

"Sirius," he said slowly. "You took astronomy too, right?"

"Of course I did," Sirius responded, sounding confused. "Five years of it, plus all the extra studies my family forced me through for 'lineage and heritage' reasons. Why do you ask?"

"Can you point something out for me?"

"Of course, if it's visible this time of year. What do you want to see?"

"Just... anything. Anything you recognize at all."

"Harry, what- Wait. Hang on, what's... No."

The last remnants of Harry's good mood sank as Sirius started searching the night sky, almost frantically.

Eventually, Sirius tore his gaze from the stars and looked over at Harry. "Nothing. None of the constellations are there, Harry, not a one of them."

"I know, Sirius. But, that means..."

"That's not our night sky," Sirius concluded. "And the only way that's possible... is if we're on another world altogether."

Neither were in the mood for any more light conversation after that.

Chapter Text

For Harry and Sirius, the weather on the morning of their third day was entirely at odds with their moods. The sky was clear, the sun was shining, and a calm breeze gently rustled the foliage nearby - and all of that was wasted on the two wizards, who were trying to grapple with the reality that they weren't just on a remote island on the far side of Earth, but on an entirely different planet.

"I'm assuming that this means making a portkey is out of the question," Harry eventually said. He was pacing around on the beach near their ramshackle little hut, playing idly with the golf-ball-sized pit from one of the fruit they'd had for breakfast.

"I'm afraid so," Sirius replied. The older wizard was trying out a makeshift crutch he'd put together the day before. His bad knee still wasn't up to holding up any of his weight, but the crutch let him at least get up off the ground and hop around a little bit. "Making a portkey to cross the globe is hard, but achievable. To go between planets... I don't think it would be possible, even under the best conditions."

"So - a portkey is out, finding muggle civilization is out... I guess that means we really have to focus on figuring out that ring in the cave, then."

Sirius didn't respond. Instead, he slowed to a stop and looked up at the cave entrance, not meeting Harry's eyes.

Harry frowned at him. "Sirius? What is it?"

"Harry... We might need to consider something else in all this."

"What do you mean?"
 
With a sigh, Sirius turned and slowly made his way over to sit on a large, broad rock nearby. "I mean that it's possible that we can't work it out from this side, and that maybe, no one back home will figure it out either. Whatever plans we make... we need to contend with the very real chance that we may be here for quite some time."

Harry stilled. He knew the odds weren't all that good that they'd be able to figure out the portal from this end, but he couldn't bring himself to believe that no one back home would be able to figure out how to retrieve them. "No. No, sooner or later, they will figure out a way to bring us back. They've got Dumbledore, the Order, the Unspeakables... and do you honestly think Hermione is going to leave this be? Saving my life by figuring out some obscure magic after I get caught up in a life or death situation is basically her specialty!"

"I'm not saying they'll stop trying," Sirius interrupted, "or that they won't ever succeed. Just... we've been here three nights already. If there was going to be a quick, easy solution, they would have found it by now, and they haven't. We have to give them time, and depending on how complicated it is, we could be here for weeks, or months..."

Harry wanted to argue, to fight back against what his godfather was saying. He hated not knowing when help would arrive, and the idea that it might be months away - or longer, even - was hard to take. Unfortunately, though, he couldn't exactly refute him. "Fine," he said, deflating a bit. Glumly, he went and sat next to Sirius on the rock. "Let's say you're right. Let's say it's going to be months before anyone gets here. What do we actually do, then?"

Sirius wrapped one arm around Harry's shoulders in comfort. "Well, first of all, let's not let that get us down too badly. It might take them months to find us - but they could also figure it out much sooner. They could even come through riiiight... now!" With a dramatic flourish, he pointed up and the cave entrance. For several long moments, he held his pose, until eventually Harry nudged him in the side with an elbow, and he dropped his hand back down. "Well, it was worth a try."

Harry rolled his eyes at him and couldn't quite keep a small smile from pulling at his features. "Of course, that would have been very impressive," he allowed dryly.

Sirius preened for a moment, then continued. "Exactly. Now, secondly - we shouldn't just give up on figuring out a way back ourselves. You've looked at the ring in that cave for, what, five minutes or so? We should at least take another run at it before ruling out getting ourselves home."

"And by 'we should', you mean 'I should', while you lounge around down here."

"You're the one who just took your OWLs. All of that useful academic... stuff... should still be fresh in your mind. Why, it's been years since I so much as perused a textbook!"

With a laugh and a playful shove, Harry stood to go back to his pacing. As he walked, he started throwing the fruit pit up in the air and catching it. "Right, so don't give up hope, and don't stop trying to figure out the ring. Any other wisdom before I head back up to that cave?"

"Just that we should plan to spend at least some time working on things to benefit us for the long term." With one hand, he gestured over at the ramshackle little hut he'd assembled. "I don't know how you feel, but personally I wouldn't mind spending the night in something a bit nicer than that, maybe even with some sort of bed between myself and the ground."

"I suppose that makes sense. Maybe while I check out the ring, you can start planning out how to make something nicer?"

Sirius nodded. "Exactly what I was thinking," he said, and he heaved himself back to his feet with his crutch. "Any requests, aside from a shelter we can stand upright in and a bed softer than the down of a baby hippogriff?"

"No, I think that about covers it. I'll let you know if I come up with any other ideas, though."

"Right. Well... be careful up there, Harry."

Harry gave his godfather a small smile. "I will, don't worry. I don't exactly fancy going down that waterfall any more than I already have. Before I go, though - there is one thing I could use your help with."

"Oh? What's that?"

"Do you know of a way to keep your wand lit while you cast other spells?" Pulling out his wand, Harry lit his wand, then cast a stunning spell out at the ocean. As expected, the light winked out, and the red light of the stunner came out as a burst of pale pink light that faded away almost immediately. "It's quite dark up there once you get inside, and I'll need to cast some spells to try to figure that thing out. Last time, I had to alternate between lighting my wand, Noxing it, and then casting what I wanted."

"Mm, I can see that being frustrating," Sirius said thoughtfully. "Let's see... You're right about Lumos not playing well with other spells, so I don't think any of its usual variants will do the trick. Hmm... Oh! Oh yes, I think I have just the thing. Pass me your wand?"

Harry did so, and Sirius took it with a grin. "Coming back to Hogwarts after the summer for our third year, your father had developed a bit of a war mage obsession. He'd read a few history books to try and impress Lily, and he got himself caught up in the tales of powerful and dangerous warrior wizards, going out and fighting evil in grand magical battles. We all got swept up in it along with him, so for the first few months of that year, we kept looking up immensely powerful spells that were far out of our league, then trying them out on the grounds and either exhausting ourselves and ending up in the hospital wing or damaging something important and landing in detention instead."

Harry couldn't help but laugh as Sirius reminisced. He imagined the four Marauders sneaking out, egging each other on, and then accidentally blowing up Hagrid's pumpkins and making a run for it.

"Now, most of what we found was beyond us, but there were a few things that we dug up that actually ended up being useful - and I think this one might be just what you need." Taking aim at the sky over the cove, Sirius twirled the wand in a tight spiral, then gave it a flick as he incanted, "Globis Lumina!" A glowing ball of light, twinkling like a miniature star, shot out of the wand and arced up, coming to a stop right over the cove. It was bright enough to be uncomfortable to look at, and even in the daylight, it cast a crisp white glow on everything on the beach.

"Oh, that's perfect," Harry exclaimed. "I'm assuming you can cast other spells while it's up there?"

Sirius nodded, then cast a perfectly good severing charm at a bit of driftwood. "Yep, no problems. The book we found it in called it Rowena's False Star - it's something that Ravenclaw herself developed for battles at night, and apparently it became something of a signature of the Founders' combat style."

Harry blinked. "The Founders had a combat style? I didn't realize they fought anyone."

"You - Right." Sirius was momentarily taken aback, before he sighed and turned away slightly. "Sometimes I forget how dismal Binns really is. If it wasn't for your father's interest and your grandmother's expertise, none of us might have passed our History OWLs."

"My dad liked history?" Harry asked. His mind was slightly boggled; it was hard to imagine any of his fellow students liking the subject, let alone someone as mischievous and fun-loving as everyone told him his father had been.

Sirius chuffed out a laugh and sat back down on the rock. "How could he not? Your grandmother practically breathed it, so he grew up knowing all sorts of historical tidbits, and she refused to let Binns ruin his views on the topic. She actually published more than a few books over her lifetime; I'm fairly sure the Hogwarts library has at least a couple of Euphemia Potter's works on the shelf."

"I had no idea."

"Well, if it's stories about your family you want, I expect we'll have plenty of time for more while we're here. But for right now - do you want me to walk you through casting this spell?"

"Oh, right! Yes, that's a good idea. Cave now, stories later."

Sirius smiled. "Right. Now, to start with, you want a quick double spiral in, pointed in the direction that you're going to cast..."

Climbing up the cliffside was no easier the second time than it had been the first, though he did at least have the foresight to cross under the waterfall on the ground so that he didn't have to climb over the top of the cave entrance to reach the far side. Once he was in the cave, however, he moved much more quickly than his first trip, as he'd already done all the hard work of blasting out the hand- and foot-holds he needed to hang onto to clamber along. All he had to do was light his wand and shuffle from one set to the next, and soon enough, he reached the point where the cave opened up into a larger cavern.

The ring was still embedded in the ceiling, looking for all the world like it was being swallowed up by the stone. The reddish gems set around the outside glimmered in the dim wandlight; he could see six clearly, and another was partially obscured by the stone. Given how evenly they were spaced, he assumed there were nine or so in total. They all looked the same at a distance, but he knew that he was going to have to get a closer look if he was going to have any hope of figuring the thing out.

Fortunately, he had a plan.

Step one was simple: Nox his wand, then cast the False Star spell Sirius had taught him. With a quick spiral and flick, he cast the spell, and the glimmering orb of light bobbed out towards the far side of the cavern, lighting the whole place in artificial daylight.

Step two was a bit trickier. The cavern wasn't massive, but the walls were much less even and smooth than the tunnel itself was, which meant getting closer to the ring would be difficult - not to mention that the ring was more or less precisely in the middle of the ceiling, which meant that getting close enough to actually touch it would be next to impossible.

Fortunately, he didn't need to touch it; he just wanted to get a closer look. Evaluating the cave wall beside him, he selected his targets and started casting deliberately-weak blasting curses once again. This time, however, he gradually increased the height of each successive set of divots, so that as he moved sideways, he gradually climbed up the wall as well. It wasn't quite as easy as he'd hoped, as there were a few places where protrusions of stone jutted out from the cave wall, or where a section was carved out, leaving a gap for him to try to traverse, but with a bit of careful maneuvering - and a few additional blasting curses - he eventually made it high enough that the wall started to curve significantly back up towards the ceiling.

From there, he looked out at the ring again, getting a much better look at it.

It was oddly ornate, for something stuck in the roof of a cave somewhere. Whoever had made it had clearly been skilled; there were lots of clean, smooth lines, and there were also sections of fine detail that repeated all the way around with no variation at all. The gems that he could see were also precisely cut, with no apparent chips or flaws.

Even more remarkable, it didn't appear to be all one solid piece, as he'd thought before. The bits that housed the gems weren't just fancy engraved sections - they looked like they might be separate components entirely, just attached to the outside of the ring.

There was also the inner ring, the one lined with carved symbols. The way it was positioned in the device, it looked almost like it was supposed to rotate in its track within the larger ring. The trouble, though, was in knowing what it would do if it was spun. Was it a combination lock, where selecting the right set of symbols would "unlock" it and allow them to leave? Or was it some sort of frequency tuner, like a radio, and changing it would prevent anyone back home from connecting to it at all?

That thought made Harry's blood run cold. Trying to figure the ring out was one thing, but he didn't want to make any changes that would potentially ruin their chances of being rescued. They'd both arrived with the thing set up as it currently was, so he didn't want to mess with it any further without a better idea of what he was doing.

Instead, he got back to the original plan, and moved on to step three. Carefully, he used his right hand to roll his left sleeve as far back as it would go, then pulled a piece of charcoal from the fire out of his pocket. Looking over at the ring, he picked an arbitrary symbol - one that looked kind of like the big dipper - and started to draw it on his arm, carefully and precisely. If they were going to stand any chance at deciphering the thing, he would need to make sure to get the symbols precisely right.

He managed the first ten symbols before he ran out of arm, and he decided that that was a good start. He'd made it maybe a quarter of the way around the ring, so he wouldn't have to make the same trip more than a handful of times; with any luck, Sirius would recognize them from his Ancient Runes classes and figure out what they said. For all Harry knew, one of the symbols on his arm was ancient Norse for "press here to go home".

His mission accomplished, Harry dropped the bit of charcoal in the water and began making his way back down towards the entrance. All of that climbing and holding on was a bit tiring; once he and Sirius had copied the symbols off of his arm and onto something else, he rather fancied going out and summoning a few fish for lunch.

Sirius didn't immediately recognize any of the symbols, but they copied them off onto a few of the broad, flat leaves anyway for him to study later. After that, they had a quick lunch of roasted fish, then turned their attention towards construction.

Sirius had found a couple of sturdy-looking palm trees that would work well as main supports for their little building, and he'd come up with an idea for the general structure: They would lash several long pieces of bamboo together to make a cross-beam, mount that between the two main palms, then use it as the main support for a roof that could slope away to either side, supported by more lashed bamboo at the corners. They could even make the roof pieces independently and then just mount them, allowing them to break the job down into easy-to-accomplish chunks of work.

He also made a point that they should try to make the building itself rely on as little magic as possible to stay up. Charms needed to be renewed, he argued, and they didn't want to wake up in the middle of the night with their roof falling down on top of them. (There was also the looming spectre of their reliance on Harry's wand, which neither of them wanted to mention. If they made an elaborate house that depended on spellwork to stay up, then lost their only wand, they'd only have a limited time before their shelter fell apart around them.)

The main hitch with the whole plan was that neither of them had any real experience in construction. Sirius had done a bit of DIY when he moved into his own flat after Hogwarts, but that was limited to home repairs and relied heavily on magic. Harry's was even more limited, consisting of just the few times Uncle Vernon had decided to fix something around the house, shouted at Harry to hand him tools and blamed him for his own mistakes, then gave up and called a professional.

Between the two of them, though, and with the judicious use of magic in place of muggle tools, they managed to get the cross-beam assembled and mounted, and they had made a good start on the frame for the first section of roof by the time the sun began to set and they called it a day.

Harry, sore from doing all of the lifting and carrying, caught a couple more fish and essentially threw them at Sirius. "I'm exhausted," he said, flopping down to the sand next to the fire. "Why don't you give cooking a go?"

Gingerly, Sirius lifted one of them by the tail and eyed it dubiously. "Are you sure? I've never really been much of a chef, and I wouldn't want to ruin our dinner."

"There are plenty more where they came from, Sirius. Why not give it a go?"

"If you say so," he said, and he dragged over the flat bit of driftwood they'd been using as a cutting board. "Where did you start with these again?"

As Harry talked his godfather through it, he looked up at the sky, the first few stars just starting to appear in the twilight. It was another clear night, with just a few wispy clouds blowing by, and a warm breeze was blowing through the cove. He definitely didn't like the idea of being stuck for months waiting for rescue, but if he'd had to choose somewhere to be stranded... Well, there were certainly worse places he could think of.

In the end, Sirius muddled through preparing the fish, and they sat and ate by the fire as the stars continued to come out.

"You know," Sirius began, "I had a big plan for this summer. It was going to be a surprise, something for you and your friends to spend your time on."

Harry looked over at him curiously. "Oh yeah? What was it?"

"I was going to walk you all through the animagus transformation. I dug out my old notes, a couple of reference books... I even pulled the old family pensieve out of storage and started sorting through my memories of the process. I thought it would make a nice birthday present - your dad was the one who knew transfiguration the best, and he was always talking us through the nuances and details of the process. I thought it would be nice if you could learn something from him, even just by way of memories."

A few tears tickled the edges of Harry's eyes, and he quickly swiped them away. "I... I think I would have liked that. That sounds brilliant, Sirius." The thought of seeing his father in a memory besides him being a bit of a bullying git was a welcome one, and learning to be an animagus - well, that sounded just plain fun.

"At first, I was a bit upset, since our little impromptu vacation has put a bit of a crimp in those plans, but as we were talking earlier, I realised something." Leaning forward, he grinned at Harry from across the fire. "A pensieve is lovely, but it's not the only way to share memories with someone."

Harry frowned, confused. "Really? What other way is there?"

Sirius' grin widened. "You've spent all year studying occlumency - how would you like to learn the basics of legilimency as well?"

Chapter Text

As she approached the gargoyle that protected the headmaster's office, Hermione couldn't help but feel a bit nervous. Professor Dumbledore had always intimidated her. He was, in many ways, the epitome of what it meant to be a wizard - he was famously intelligent, magically powerful, and he'd been in the history books for half a dozen reasons before she'd even been born. Even in her lifetime, he'd only continued to demonstrate his awe-inspiring capabilities, including an astounding duel against Voldemort less than a week earlier. He was one of the most important and influential people in the entire nation, he had recently been flung back to the forefront of a violent conflict... and amid all that, he had asked to meet with her. Not all of Harry's friends, or even her and Ron... just her.

She'd never even really had a proper conversation with him before. The closest was probably their brief discussion in the hospital wing at the end of her third year, but Harry had been there for that, and even that was more of a direction to take action than a proper conversation. The idea of just sitting down for a one-on-one chat was nerve-racking, and she'd been fretting about it all morning.

As a response, Hermione had fallen back to her usual defence mechanism: over-preparation. Her bag was full to bursting with books and notes, and she'd spent the last several days trying to cram into her head as much knowledge about magical means of tracking and monitoring as humanly possible. She'd even read some of Luna's divination books, and much to her own surprise, she'd found them somewhat useful. Even more to her surprise, she'd found herself wondering if Umbridge had at least been right about Professor Trelawney (albeit not in the High Inquisitor's methodology and approach to the situation, and still completely wrong about everything else). If they'd started with more practical and accurate aspects of the subject like monitoring charms, rather than the vague and intangible elements like interpreting dreams, students might end up with a more direct understanding of the merits of the subject.

Fortunately, before she could get too much further in re-engineering the school's divination curriculum from the ground up, she found herself facing the gargoyle that guarded entry to the headmaster's office. Straightening up, she cleared her throat, then said to it, "Almond Newts."

The gargoyle statue stepped smoothly to the side, and the wall behind it split to reveal a gently rotating spiral staircase. It took Hermione another moment to steel her nerves, but she took a deep breath, then stepped on and let them carry her up towards Professor Dumbledore's office.

The stairs deposited her at a small landing in front of a set of wooden double doors with a griffin-shaped brass knocker. Somewhat unsure what to do, as the note Professor McGonagall had given her had simply included the time to meet and the password for the gargoyle, Hermione decided to just knock on the door, rapping it a couple of quick times, then stepping back.

Immediately, the door cracked open slightly, and from further in, Professor Dumbledore responded, "Ah, is it that time already? Please come in, Miss Granger."

Pulling the door the rest of the way open, Hermione slipped in and shut it behind her.

Professor Dumbledore's office was a circular room, larger than she'd expected, with tall walls covered in shelves crammed with books and an assortment of magical gadgets and items. It looked exactly how she would have imagined a wise old wizard's tower to appear: filled with the accumulated knowledge and curiosities of an exceptional lifetime of study.

On the far side of the room, the headmaster sat behind a wide desk, writing on one of the many pieces of parchment strewn across it. "Please, come in and take a seat. You may help yourself to a cup of tea if you'd like; I'm afraid I need to finish this letter before we begin, so I may be a moment." With his free hand, he gestured broadly towards the two chairs in front of his desk and an elaborate tea service laid out on a side table nearby.

"Thank you, Professor," Hermione said quietly, and she went over to gather a cup for herself. "Would you like one as well?"

"I'm quite alright without, but thank you," he said distractedly.

As Hermione made herself a cup of tea, she couldn't help but glance over at the headmaster and watch him work. For all that she'd built him up in her head as this larger-than-life figure, the main thing that stood out to her was that he looked tired. He had heavy bags under his eyes, his shoulders were bowed... He didn't look like a heroic ancient wizard of legend, he just looked like an old man.

By the time Hermione had prepared her tea and settled into one of the soft chairs in front of his desk, he was putting the finishing touches on his letter. After giving it a final once-over and signing his name, he picked up his wand and gave the letter a quick tap, causing it to roll itself up and secure itself with a conjured ribbon in deep purple.

"There," he said with satisfaction, and he rolled his neck and stretched his arms briefly before clasping his hands on the desk in front of him and giving Hermione his attention. "Now, Miss Granger. How are you faring?"

"Well enough, I suppose," she said, setting down her teacup and folding her hands in her lap to stop herself from fidgeting. "I'm mostly concerned about Harry. Your letter said you have evidence that he's okay?"

"To the point, then," Professor Dumbledore said with a small smile. "That's for the best, really. I'm afraid our time today will be somewhat limited; The Wizengamot will be convening later this afternoon for yet another hearing on last week's events, and I expect that my presence will be of some benefit."

Given that he had been reinstated as Chief Warlock of the body the day after the events of the Department of Mysteries, Hermione thought that that was a slight understatement.

"To answer your question, the evidence that I have gathered falls into two broad categories: the definite but limited, and the interesting but not conclusive. In the former category, there are several independent pieces of information, all of which lead me to believe, quite confidently, that Harry is still alive." Reaching into a desk drawer, he pulled out a rolled-up piece of parchment that had previously been sealed with wax. "This letter, for example, is a response from Gringotts to a Ministry request about potentially carrying out Sirius' last will."

He handed it across the desk to Hermione, and she unrolled it to take a look. It was short and to the point, referring them to several past treaties (and one past declaration of war) that all dealt with unlawfully attempting to seize vaults. Unless and until Gringotts' own measures determine that any vault-holder is deceased, absolutely no access or information about those vaults shall be provided without due cause.

"The precise nature of Gringotts' techniques for determining whether an individual is alive or dead is unknown to any outside of the bank, but I personally suspect that they use a device similar to this."

This time, he gestured to something already on his desk. It looked to Hermione like a small crystal ball roughly the size of a satsuma, filled with an oddly stationary red mist frozen in place inside. It looked quite similar to something that she had seen in one of the divination books that she'd been tearing through for the past several days.

"Is that a Heart's Reflection, Professor?"

He graced her with a small smile. "That it is, Miss Granger. What can you tell me about them?"

Straightening up slightly in her chair, Hermione formulated her thoughts, then began to speak. "They are enchanted objects, crystal or glass spheres with a red mist inside, the movement of which is meant to reflect the heartbeat of the person they're tied to. The key component is a drop of blood of whoever they're paired with, and they're often created by parents as a method of monitoring the health of their children."

"Indeed they are. As a matter of fact, this very one was crafted by Lily Potter shortly after her son was born."

"So, that's Harry's," Hermione surmised.

"That is correct," confirmed the headmaster. "As you can see, its behaviour is most odd for a Heart's Reflection. It hasn't shattered, and the mist inside hasn't so much as dimmed, yet it hasn't moved even slightly ever since Harry followed Sirius through the veil."

Hermione frowned at the little glass orb, trying to puzzle it out. "Are there any magical protections that would stop it from working, something like the Fidelius?"

Professor Dumbledore leaned back in his seat and smiled slightly, clasping his hands in front of him. "None that I am aware of. I can think of two abductions in the last century in which an assortment of location spells and tracking devices were tried, and all failed due to powerful spells keeping the victims hidden. Despite that, the families in both situations were still able to determine that the victims were alive thanks to Heart's Reflections. They have a reputation for being absolutely reliable, no matter the barriers."

"Has something like this ever happened before?"

"Not to my knowledge, though I have not had the opportunity to do any significant research into the topic. As far as I am aware, even when an individual is transfigured into an inanimate object or otherwise rendered inert - but not dead - the mist inside a Heart's Reflection will simply swirl idly without a heartbeat. I have never heard of something causing the mist to still entirely."

"What about with the archway? Have any of the people that have gone through before had Heart's Reflections?"

"That, I do not know. The Unspeakables are, as always, quite reticent to discuss the details of their research with anyone outside of their department."

Hermione considered the orb for another long moment, then mentally noted them as something to research further and leaned back in her seat. "So, we know that he's alive and in some sort of unusual state, but not what it is or where he is."

"An accurate summation," the headmaster acknowledged. "It also brings me to my second category of evidence: that which is decidedly less conclusively useful, but which is nonetheless interesting and potentially informative."

He gestured with his wand at something behind Hermione, and when she turned to look, she found an ornate metal device floating towards them. Roughly the size of a globe, it consisted of a series of engraved metal rings nested one inside the next, each able to freely rotate. It reminded her of an antique gyroscope, only instead of a spinning metal weight in the centre, it had a finely filigreed arrow, which was listlessly pointing at the ground.

As the device settled onto the desk between them, Professor Dumbledore said, "In the aftermath of Harry's kidnapping at the end of the Triwizard Tournament, I commissioned this device from an Italian artisan of some renown. It uses a similar form of connection as a Heart's Reflection, but rather than indicating health, it indicates direction - or rather, it normally does. As you can see, it doesn't currently seem to be working." To demonstrate, he reached out and nudged it with his finger, and the end of the arrow simply swung limply back and forth, pointed generally towards the ground.

"Has it simply failed?" asked Hermione.

"That was my first supposition as well, but I suspect not. If you look carefully, you will see that the tip of the arrow contains a piece of crystal similar to a Heart's Reflection, and much like the one crafted by Harry's mother, this one has not shattered in the usual manner. I have sent a letter to the device's creator, but it may be some time before I receive a response."

Hermione leaned in to examine it, but before she got a good look at it, something off to one side chimed, and the headmaster sighed. With another flick of his wand, he sent the tracking device floating back to the shelf it was stored on.

"Professor? What is it?"

"I'm afraid it's nearly time for me to leave, so I will need to move on from these items and get to the reason I asked you here in the first place."

Hermione blinked. "I thought you asked me here to discuss the evidence you had about Harry."

He smiled somewhat sadly at her. "Ah, if it were a simple matter of providing you with information, I could have done so in a letter. No, the reason I asked to meet with you is related, but distinct." Leaning forward, he clasped his hands on his desk and considered her seriously. "As much as I would prefer to handle this process by myself, I find that I have been tasked with a great number of roles in this conflict, and I am forced to delegate what few things I can lest they all fall apart. I am reluctant to burden you with such a thing as this, but under the circumstances, I am afraid that you are simply the best possible person I have available to ask."

Gobsmacked, Hermione stared at him. "You - You want me to be the one working out what happened to Harry? Surely there must be someone else more qualified to do that! Someone from the Order, or Hogwarts, or... or someone!"

Professor Dumbledore shook his head. "While there are certainly members of the Order and the school's staff who would be capable of carrying this out, they are all currently occupied with responding to Voldemort's attacks. Since the battle at the Ministry, he has been engaged in all-out war, and the Ministry has been on the back foot - and the true depths of Cornelius' cuts to the Aurors' budget are only now being properly understood. The Order has been stepping up to assist and to cover their gaps, but it has been a trying time, and we are all stretched thin. Bill Weasley would be my first choice from the Order to pursue this, but he has spent the last week responding to Death Eater attacks, fighting them off and saving lives. Several muggle families are currently alive because he single-handedly responded to an alert when no one else was available; I cannot in good conscience ask that he turn his attention to two people who are missing but alive, no matter how much I might care for them."

Hermione sank back into her seat, stunned. "Are things really that bad?"

"The Prophet will have been focusing on the few skirmishes in magical areas, such as the duel in Diagon Alley over the weekend, but they have no real sources for information on attacks on muggles, and the Order and the Aurors have no interest in apprising them. Things will hopefully improve once the new Minister is elected and the budget can be revised, but these things take time, and in the interim, every available wand in the Order is out saving what lives they can. Despite our best efforts, dozens of innocents are already dead, and the Death Eaters' attacks show no signs of slowing."

"And I'm not of age, so I can't go out and help save lives," Hermione continued numbly.

"Sadly, that is correct. However, I do not want you to think I am asking this of you solely for that reason. You have very strong academic abilities, your professors speak extremely highly of your magical skills... and Harry trusts you. I have little doubt that, if he were in my position, he would turn to you for your assistance in this matter as well."

An image of Harry sprang unbidden to her mind, bloodstained and weary from fighting, asking her to tackle some sort of magical conundrum. It was all too easy to imagine.

"So, how will this work?"

The headmaster's alarm chimed again, twice this time, and he stood from his desk. "Minerva will speak to you about the details, but suffice it to say that you will be invited to spend the summer at the Order's headquarters. We will be recommending that your parents relocate, if possible - you will be something of a target for the Death Eaters, and we cannot easily guarantee their safety on these shores."

Hermione stood as well, and the two of them began to walk towards the door. "I'll speak with Professor McGonagall as soon as I can, then. If I have any questions-"

"For now, take them to Minerva, but with everything currently going on, she may have to delay answering you until things are slightly more settled." As they reached the door to his office, the headmaster took her hands and looked her solemnly in the eyes. "I am truly sorry to have to burden you with this, my dear girl. Please know that I would not do so if I did not have the utmost faith in your capability."

"I understand, Headmaster," she said. "I appreciate your confidence."

She only wished she could share it.

Harry gave the knot he was working on one final tug, then stepped back and gave the corner a look of satisfaction.

It had taken them the better part of a week, but the general structure of their new hut was done. It wasn't much more than a roof and four corner posts, but it was a solid, sturdy roof over their heads. The vines that grew throughout the underbrush and up the cliff face were tough to work with and had a tendency to tangle themselves up if they weren't carefully handled, but they seemed to serve well as rope, and they'd shown no signs of falling apart or weakening after being harvested and used to tie bamboo together. The whole thing still needed walls, and they'd made no progress on figuring out a better bed than just the ground - Sirius had assembled a bamboo platform as an experiment, and it had been decidedly less comfortable than sand - but it was a very good start.

Hobbling up next to him with his crutch, Sirius clapped a hand on Harry's shoulder and grinned. "You know, I think we can call this a job well done! For two blokes who've never built anything before, it turned out even better than I expected. Though, I do still think that back corner is low."

Harry gave his godfather a look, but he couldn't keep a smile entirely off his face. "And I still think the ground is just sloped over there, making it look low."

Sirius rolled his eyes dramatically and threw up his hands. "Unbelievable! The youth today have absolutely no respect for their elders. You're lucky I'm so magnanimous, or I might decide to not give you your reward for a job well done."

"A reward?" asked Harry, bemused. "What exactly did you come up with on this island that would count as a reward?"

"I'll have you know, oh godson of mine, that I came up with an excellent reward!" Sirius was building up a real head of steam with his theatrics, but Harry saw no reason not to indulge him. "Several days ago, I made a discovery that made me the richest wizard on this entire planet - and now, as payment for your diligence and hard labour, I bequeath my riches unto thee." With an excess of dramatic flair, he reached into a pocket, then pulled out his prize. "Behold! The sum total wealth of this land... one gold Galleon."

The moment Harry saw the coin, realisation struck, and he began checking his pockets. "Sirius," he said, nearly frantic, "where did you get that coin?"

Surprised, Sirius held up his hands in innocence. "Woah, Harry," he said quickly, "It's just a bit of fun. It was probably yours in the first place; I found it on the beach a few days ago, and I couldn't remember if I'd had any with me when I came through." Looking apologetic, he held it out for Harry to take. "Here, it's yours. I didn't realise it would be that important to you. Is it a lucky Galleon or something?"

Grabbing it from his godfather - somewhat rudely, he realised belatedly - Harry examined the edge of the coin. When he saw what it said, he broke into a grin. "No, even better." Stepping in close, Harry held the Galleon up for Sirius to see the markings. "Do you see what it says there?"

Somewhat bewildered, Sirius read off the numbers. "One, six, oh, four, one, nine, three... It's a serial number, Harry."

"No!" responded Harry excitedly, "It's a date and time! Sixteenth of April, half past seven in the evening. This is a fake Galleon, Hermione made them for the DA. They're charmed so that when I change the numbers on this one, all the rest update!"

Sirius' eyebrows shot up. "You needed a way to organise your underground study group, so she decided the best way to avoid getting in trouble was to make counterfeit money?"

Harry waved a hand dismissively. "They're not meant to be spent - but listen, we might be able to send a message home with this!" Furrowing his brow, Harry concentrated on the coin and tried to decide what to set it to. "We just need a message... Something about how we're on another planet, obviously, but what else?"

Sirius opened his mouth to say something, but then paused and started over. "Well... It might be worth mentioning that we're both alive and in the same place, I suppose."

"Right, right," Harry said. After another few moments' thought, he touched the coin with his wand and concentrated. "There, how's that?"

He passed it over to Sirius, who examined it. The edge of the coin now read, SOS.ALIVE,NOTEARTH-HP,SB. It was crammed in in fairly small text, but it was legible.

"What's the SOS mean?" asked Sirius.

"It's a muggle thing," Harry replied, taking the coin back and checking it over again. "It basically means we need to be rescued."

"Ah, I see. So, what now, then? Is there a way for them to confirm that they've received the message?"

Harry shook his head. "No, I don't think so. They were only ever designed to send messages out from my coin to the others. I suppose Hermione might know a way to send a response, but I don't know one way or another." With a sigh, he slipped the coin into a pocket and turned back to the hut. "So, what's next? Do you think we should start on the back wall and make our way forwards?"

"Actually," Sirius said, "I was thinking we might take the rest of the day off."

Harry looked over at him in surprise. "Really? We don't even have any walls done yet. We're still sleeping in the little shelter you put together that first day."

"Harry, we've been working from dawn to dusk since we got here. It took us six days to finish this much, and the walls will probably take longer than the roof, so we're not even halfway done. We can't just run ourselves ragged; we have to take a bit of time to relax every now and then."

Harry grimaced. He mostly wanted to just keep working and get the thing finished sooner, but Sirius wasn't entirely wrong. "Alright, I suppose. What did you have in mind?"

"I was thinking of swimming," Sirius replied. He gestured broadly out at the water. "The ocean is gorgeous and calm, and we've got this enclosed little cove all to ourselves. People would empty their vaults for a vacation in a place like this; we might as well take advantage of it while we're here!"

"I suppose," Harry admitted. "But what about your knee? You can barely move it, and I'm not an expert swimmer, but I think knee movements are generally required."

Sirius waved a dismissive hand. "I'll probably just rest near the shore and enjoy the water, but that doesn't mean you can't enjoy yourself."

Eventually, Harry gave in, and Sirius transfigured their clothes into swimming trunks. It really was a nice day for a swim - the sun was shining, there was a slight warm breeze, and the water was good and calm. As Sirius found himself a place to rest with the water lapping around his legs, Harry set his glasses down on a rock near the hut and struck out towards the other side of the cove. He wasn't a particularly confident swimmer, but he had a general idea of what he was doing, and it wasn't long before he found himself a steady rhythm and started going back and forth from one side to the other. It definitely wasn't nearly as fun as flying, but he was enjoying it more than he had expected to.

After a little while, just as Harry was starting to think of ways to make it a bit more interesting than just swimming laps, something splashed into the water next to him, startling him and making him lose his stride. After a moment of disoriented splashing, he turned to squint at whatever it was and try to identify it. It took him a moment to recognise it, but when he grabbed ahold of it, he knew for sure - Sirius must have summoned one of the fruit pits, then hit it with an engorgement charm (and possibly a feather-light charm). The end result was a makeshift ball roughly the size of a bludger.

Just as Harry was turning to aim for Sirius and lob the ball back, something else splashed into the water nearby. This time, Harry spotted it immediately - it was a slim, circular hoop maybe four feet across, which Sirius must have conjured, given its garish red and gold stripes.

Moments later, the ball was summoned out of Harry's hands and back towards Sirius, who called out, "Right! I'll stay here and play chaser, and you play keeper. Ten points to me if I get it in, ten points to you if you catch it. Loser has to cook dinner!"

Harry couldn't help but grin, and he quickly cupped his hands and called back, "You're on!"

With a laugh, Sirius reared back and lobbed the first throw, and Harry dove to block it. It skimmed by the tips of his fingers, but he quickly grabbed it out of the hoop and tossed it back, and the game was on.

In the end, Sirius won 280 to 200. It was a tired but happy Harry that levitated their fish for the evening over their campfire, and as the evening turned to night, he had to admit that taking some time to enjoy themselves had been a good idea after all.

Chapter Text

By the time their second week on the island turned into their third, Harry and Sirius had fallen into a steady routine. In the mornings, they would wake up as the sun rose, and Harry would religiously check his Galleon to see if there had been a reply; so far, there had been no change. For breakfast, they would summon some fruit, and as they ate, they would plan out their day. Once they were done, Harry would climb up to the cave and try to work on the ring. They still hadn't had any luck in activating it, or even getting it to do anything at all, but they weren't quite out of ideas either. Harry had started working on plans for a scaffold that he could assemble in the cave that would allow him to climb up and look at the thing up close, and Sirius had agreed that it seemed like a solid next step.

When Harry was done working in the cave, he would come down and catch a few fish, and they would have lunch and discuss their work for the afternoon. Sirius would spend the morning figuring out what to do next on the hut, so lunch usually involved him laying out the next steps and them working out the details together. After that, Sirius would pick up the wand and handle all the spellcasting for their construction while Harry did the lifting and carrying.

If they finished early, they would spend the rest of the day relaxing until sundown, either swimming in the cove and throwing a ball around, or goofing around on shore in one way or another. The spectre of their situation was always looming over them to a certain extent, but neither wanted to dwell on it any more than they had to. As dusk fell, they would summon more fish for dinner, and they would chat as they ate, keeping things light and fun, both trying to keep the other's mind off things.

After dinner, Sirius would sit down across from Harry with the fire between them, and he would try to teach Harry the basics of legilimency.

"Remember," he said one night, "eye contact is essential. Don't look at your wand - look directly at my eyes, and when you cast, focus on moving past my eyes, into my mind."

Harry stared at him intently and tried to force himself not to blink. The firelight was dancing in his godfather's eyes, and Harry couldn't help but be distracted by the slightest movement of his own body, by his eyelids twitching as he tried not to blink, and by the rustle of leaves in the cool evening breeze. "Legilimens," he incanted firmly, but he knew before he'd even finished saying the word that it wasn't going to work that time either.

Letting out a breath, he leaned back and blinked his eyes rapidly, trying to get rid of the dry, prickly feeling they got whenever he forced himself to keep them open. "I don't think I'm getting anywhere," he groused, "unless you keep thinking about how dry your eyes are."

Sirius chuckled. "No, I'm afraid that's all you, Harry. You can't dwell on all of that too much; you need to focus your mind on my mind, on making that connection."

"So you keep saying," Harry replied dryly, "and then when I try doing that, I need to focus on not blinking more."

"It just takes practice," Sirius soothed. "There's a reason most people don't bother to learn this. It's a tricky ability to pick up."

"And you're sure you can't just teach me how to be an animagus directly? Don't get me wrong, I love the idea of seeing memories of Dad, but this honestly seems like it's making it even harder than it needs to be."

"Trust me, Harry, this will be worth it. Becoming an animagus is complicated, but legilimency is just a single skill, and the basics of it are simple enough once you get the hang of it. On top of that, James was a far better teacher than I could ever be. He had a knack for explaining things in a way that people could understand them, and there's no doubt in my mind that you'll be better off hearing everything from him directly."

Harry sighed and turned his gaze back to Sirius. "Alright," he said. "Once more, and then I'm done for the night." As much as he was coming to dislike legilimency, the draw of seeing his father teach was a strong one, and he couldn't deny that it would be a useful skill besides.

"Very good," Sirius responded. He caught Harry's eyes and held them steadily. "Remember: A clear path from your eyes to mine, and push your mind forward with the spell."

Drawing in a deep breath, Harry tried to remember everything Sirius had told him. He kept his eyes fixed on his godfather's and steadied himself, drawing his focus in and everything else shutting out. He tried to set aside all other sensations - the scent of the salty sea air, the feel of the gentle breeze, the dull beat of a steady rhythm in the distance...

Harry jerked his head, tearing his gaze from Sirius and looking around. He could still hear it, a slow, undeniable beat. As he slowly got to his feet, he hissed quietly, "Do you hear that?"

Sirius looked confused, but he listened nonetheless. After a moment, he nodded. "I think so. Is that... a drum?"

Harry nodded slowly back. He was still trying to pinpoint where the sound was coming from, but he wasn't having much luck. All he could tell was that, while it was still well in the distance, it was getting slightly louder. "I think it's moving," he whispered. The drum was moving steadily, and the sound wasn't being blocked or muffled... "A boat," he realised. "I think it's a boat!" Off like a shot, he started running for the mouth of the cove.

"Harry, wait!" began Sirius, but Harry was already going full-tilt towards the shoreline.

As he broke past the tree line and out onto the outer shore, Harry scanned the sea frantically, trying to spot the source of the drums. He knew he wasn't imagining things - Sirius had heard them too - but he couldn't bear the thought of missing their one shot at making contact with someone, anyone, who might be able to help them.

The waves glimmered and shifted in the dim moonlight, and more than once, Harry thought that he spotted something, only for it to vanish. As the seconds passed, doubt began to creep into his mind - and then he spotted it.

A boat.

Or, more accurately, a ship. It had sails, though they were currently furled, and Harry thought he saw oars sticking out from the side and moving in the water. The deck was lit in an orange glow that could only be some sort of firelight, and it was immediately the most beautiful ship that Harry had ever seen.

And it was already halfway past the island, and well off in the distance. The ship was going to pass them by, and there was no telling when - or if - it would pass by again.

"Hey!" yelled Harry, waving his arms and jumping up and down. "Hey, over here!"

Obviously, they couldn't hear him. They had some kind of massive drum aboard, loud enough that it could be heard across the water, plus whatever other ship-related noise would be going on. There would be no way for them to hear a single person shouting from a distant shore.

But he had to try. Drawing in as much breath as he possibly could, he gathered himself for a long moment, focused on trying to be as loud as possible... then let it all out in as loud a bellow as he could muster, shouting through cupped hands, "OVER HERE!"

His words echoed out over the water, and as he gasped in another breath to make up for seemingly exhausting his lungs, he waited to see if there would be any sign that those aboard the ship had heard him. He could feel his heart hammering in his chest as he waited... and then, after an eternity, the drum fell silent, and he couldn't help but jump for joy. They had heard him.

Sirius came hobbling up from behind him, leaning heavily on his crutch. "I take it you got their attention?"

"I think so," Harry said excitedly. "The drum stopped, and I don't think they're rowing anymore either."

"Do you have any idea who they are?"

Harry shrugged. "Not a clue, but they're here, and they've got a ship of some sort."

"Right," Sirius acknowledged slowly, "but we're still on another planet. So, what are the chances they're even human?"

Harry opened his mouth to respond, then shut it when nothing came to mind. "Okay," he eventually replied, "you have a point. But, you're the one who was talking about us being here for a while - would you rather spend months in isolation, or make contact with whoever lives here and see if they can help us? If they've invented ships, they may have at least invented beds made of something other than sand."

"It's possible," acknowledged Sirius, "and I suppose we'll find out. Just... let's maybe keep magic under our hats for the moment, shall we?"

Harry nodded idly, his eyes back on the ship out at sea. "I was thinking the same thing," he said. "We wouldn't want to get home only to get in trouble for breaking the Statute of Secrecy on another planet."

"Or worse," Sirius responded. "The Statute was put in place for a reason, after all."

"Don't remind me," muttered Harry. "It's been weeks, and I'm still having OWL dreams now and then. The sooner I can forget about Derbrick Fulstone's two hundred and fifty-eight essays, the better."

"Your grandmother would have despaired to hear you say that. Her own grandson, dismissive of Derbrick Fulstone's contributions to the Statute of Secrecy? A travesty."

Harry let out a small laugh. "I wish I could have known her - all of them, really. They sound... nice."

Gently, Sirius set a reassuring hand on Harry's shoulder. "They were wonderful people, Harry. If I could go back and give you the time you deserve with them, I would do it in a heartbeat - but for now, I'll just have to settle for sharing the time I had with them with you - once you get the hang of legilimency, that is."

"Thanks, Sirius," Harry replied, and the two of them fell into a comfortable silence as they looked out at the ship.

Eventually, Harry spotted movement - the oars were moving, and the ship was changing direction. Moments later, the drumbeat started up again.

It was headed towards the shore.

"They're coming," Harry breathed.

As the ship moved closer, they got a proper look at it. It was long and narrow, with a main mast near the rear and a smaller mast towards the front. The sides bristled with oars, which were being rowed in unison with the drum, and the upper deck was laden with crates and other goods. Harry could also make out a few figures moving around, but at a distance, all he could tell was that they looked roughly human in shape.

Eventually, the ship draw to a halt a short distance from the coast and dropped an anchor. A small, narrow rowboat was lowered from the rear, and the few people aboard began to row themselves the rest of the way.

It wasn't long before the little rowboat reached sand, and one of the figures jumped out to grab the front and start dragging it closer to shore. As they got closer, the other two also got out to help, and between the three of them, they pulled it fully onto dry land a short distance from where Harry and Sirius stood waiting. Once it was safely ashore and the oars stashed, the trio turned and approached them.

The person in the lead was a tall, athletic-looking woman - human, as far as Harry could tell - with curly brown hair held back in a loose bun. Her clothing was relatively simple, a light top that left her shoulders bare and a knee-length skirt. Both were made of a plain, cream-coloured cloth that looked like it would be comfortable on warm days. Her shirt was tucked around her waist by a cloth belt, which held a couple of pouches and a sheathed knife.

The two people following her were younger, in their teens, and bore a definite family resemblance. The older one, a boy maybe a year or two older than Harry, had a similar nose and brow to the woman, and he was scowling at them in a way that Harry thought might be intended to be intimidating. The youngest of the three, a girl around the same age as Ginny and Luna, looked like the woman leading them in miniature, down to a similar style of hair and clothing. From the way she was glancing at their leader and trying to carry herself the same way, Harry couldn't help but suspect that the woman might be the person the girl wanted to be when she grew up.

The woman in the lead was looking at Harry and Sirius cautiously as she approached, evaluating them. "Hail, strangers," she said. "I am Ophelia, daughter of Alexandra." She raised her right hand in something halfway between a stiff wave and a casual salute.

Sirius responded immediately in kind, matching the gesture. "Hail," he said formally. "I am Sirius, son of Orion, and this is my ward, Harry, son of James. You have our thanks for stopping to see us."

"It was no great hardship," she replied. "The wind has not been with us on this trip, and we have long hours of rowing ahead. A short break was welcome, and I must admit, I was... curious. I did not know that anyone was living on Marthen's Bowl."

"Well, it wasn't exactly our intention to end up here," Sirius explained. "We're not precisely sure how it happened ourselves; we just woke up on the beach here a few weeks ago."

Ophelia eyed them sceptically. "I see. Where do you hail from? Perhaps we can assist you in returning home."

"That might be tricky," Sirius said. "We're from Britain, and though I'm not sure exactly how far away that is, I suspect it's further than you can take us."

Ophelia looked questioningly at the two behind her, but both shook their heads. "I'm afraid you have us at a loss - none of us have heard of such a place."

"That's quite alright," replied Sirius. "If it's any consolation, we've never heard of Marthen's Bowl, and we've apparently been living on it for a few weeks now."

"I see. Well, we could at least offer you passage back to the Green Hills with us. If you have been living here by yourselves for several weeks, I would imagine good company and comfortable lodgings would be a welcome improvement."

That got a laugh out of Sirius. "They certainly would! We've been sleeping on sand since we got here, and I must say, it's not exactly what I'm used to. Unfortunately, I don't think it's a good idea for us to leave. Our friends back home are likely to come looking for us, and we wouldn't want to be missing when they arrived."

Ophelia gave him a long look. "You are a strange man, Sirius, son of Orion, but if you do not wish to leave here, I certainly will not force you. Are there at least any supplies you have need of? I cannot offer you much, but I will not, in good conscience, leave without offering what assistance I can."

"That's very kind of you," Sirius responded. "I think our biggest concern right now is something to sleep on. We haven't had any luck putting together a bed out of vines and bamboo, so if you have anything more comfortable than that, we'd be very appreciative."

"I'm sure we have something aboard that we can spare. How are you faring for food?"

"We've mostly been eating fish and fruit, and both are plentiful, so we're not exactly starving. If you have anything more varied that you can spare, we wouldn't mind the change of pace."

"As it happens, we were just on our way home from a voyage of trade, so we have a great variety of foods aboard. We cannot spare much, but I will put together a small assortment for you. Is there nothing else you require?"

Sirius looked over to Harry and shrugged. "Anything you can think of, Harry?"

Harry looked pointedly down at Sirius' knee. "Maybe a healer, if they have someone who can make a house call?"

A bit chagrined, Sirius turned back to Ophelia. "He has a fair point. I did a bit of a number on my knee on the way here - I don't suppose you have a healer or doctor aboard that could take a look at it?"

Ophelia pursed her lips, clearly unimpressed, and Harry was reminded briefly of Professor McGonagall. "You are injured, and you did not think to mention it? Our physician, Aseco, son of Aeson, is not aboard our ship, but I am quite sure that he would be happy to return with us. He can be quite annoyed by people keeping silent about an injury - something I quite agree with him on."

Sirius held up his hands in defeat. "I won't do it again. I honestly hadn't been thinking about it - I had resigned myself to putting up with it until our friends came looking for us."

"Well then, you are fortunate that Harry, son of James, is not so unconcerned with your well-being."

"Oh, don't worry," Sirius responded with a grin. "He's plenty unconcerned with his own well-being, if it makes you feel any better."

Ophelia eyed the two of them. "It doesn't."

Harry gave Sirius an exasperated look, but didn't say anything.

"So," Ophelia concluded after a moment, "we will return to our ship and gather up what supplies we can spare, and Hector and Reina - my niece and nephew here - will bring them ashore to you. After that, we will return home, and we will plan to return with our physician on the day after next. Is there anything else that you can think of that we should seek to bring?"

Harry and Sirius both shook their heads. "Nothing," Sirius replied, "but you have our thanks."

"Very well, then I will take my leave. It has been an unexpected pleasure to meet you both." With that, she gave them both a slight nod, then turned back towards the rowboat. Both of the teens gave them deeper nods, then turned to follow.

Once the trio were back in the water and returning to the ship, Harry turned to Sirius. "They're not exactly what I expected from aliens," he said.

Sirius shrugged. "They're nice, they're willing to help us, and they aren't asking many awkward questions. You won't see me complaining."

Harry was a bit less relaxed about the whole situation, but he couldn't quite put his finger on why. "I think there's something Ophelia didn't tell us. I'm not sure what, but something just doesn't feel right."

Sirius considered that for a moment. "It's certainly possible - but then, we weren't precisely the most forthcoming either. Let's give her a chance. We can stay on our guard a bit, and if they try to pull anything tricky when they come back, we can try to be ready."

Harry nodded. There wasn't really much more that they could do anyway.

Soon enough, the two teens were on their way back to shore, and they brought with them a pair of thin, rolled-up mattresses and a basket loaded with small quantities of a variety of foods. Nestled in amongst the food was an unlabeled bottle that Harry suspected was some sort of wine.

The older boy, Hector, continued to just glare at them, but Reina had apparently decided to take up Ophelia's position in her stead. Once she'd handed over their things, she stood up straight and tried to look like she expected to be taken seriously. "We hope that these supplies will serve you well," she said officiously. "Have you thought of anything else that might be of use to you?"

Sirius shook his head. "No, but please pass along our thanks to Ophelia. We very much appreciate your assistance."

"I will pass along your message, and we will see you in two days' time." She gave them another formal nod, then turned to head back to the rowboat with Hector in tow.

Sirius squeezed one of the mattresses experimentally. "Well, Harry, I don't know about you, but I'm about ready to try this out. What do you say we call it an evening?"

Harry thought that sounded like a very good idea indeed.

Chapter Text

It was a pensive Hermione Granger that sat curled up in the corner of the sitting room that she'd claimed for her own, half-listening to the hubbub around her of the members of the Order of the Phoenix mingling and chatting as they arrived before their meeting.

For the last few days of the term, Hermione had spent every possible moment scouring the Hogwarts library for books containing useful information about tracking charms, monitoring spells, and anything remotely similar to Heart's Reflections.

Professor Dumbledore had spoken to Madam Pince, and despite the librarian's reticence, she had been convinced to allow Hermione to take a limited number of books with her over the summer - on the condition that they be returned in absolutely pristine condition on her first day back in September, or Hermione would face being banned from the library permanently. As a result, she had had a limited time to determine which books were worth bringing, so she was forced to skim indices and tables of contents, looking for anything that leapt out to her as being potentially worth reviewing in more detail later. It was a frantic and stressful task, and she had snapped quite sharply at her friends whenever they came to try and drag her off to eat or sleep.

All too soon, however, the term had come to an end, and she was forced to pack up her selection and board the Hogwarts Express.

Upon arrival in London, she had been met by Professor McGonagall, Professor Moody, and her parents, and all five of them had piled into the Grangers' car for the trip home. The two Order members had apparently already talked to her parents a bit, and they had determined that a more in-depth conversation was necessary before they would agree to anything.

Once home, the two groups had squared off across the dining room table, with Hermione seated at the end feeling like a debate moderator between them. The professors had laid out the situation, including the harsh truth of the supposed "gang violence" that had been reported on the non-magical news, and the Grangers had asked pointed questions about the capabilities of the magical authorities and the reasons that the whole situation hadn't already been dealt with.

In the end, Hermione's parents had reluctantly agreed that the danger warranted spending some time abroad, and two days later, they had said their farewells and departed for the airport. It had taken a bit of light charms work on the part of the Order, but the two dentists had been signed up last minute for a six-month volunteer trip providing dental care in impoverished communities abroad.

With her parents safely out of harm's way, Hermione had been whisked away to spend the summer at the Order's new headquarters, which she had been surprised to learn was the home of Neville and Augusta Longbottom. The security of Sirius' house was apparently suspect, with the loyalty of Kreacher in question in Sirius and Harry's absence, so the Order had found an alternative.

The Longbottoms' home was a long, low house built of dark woods and gleaming brass fittings. Enchanted sconces lit every room in flickering firelight, and the doorframes all seemed slightly too low. Depending on the room and time of the day, it had a way of feeling either cosy or oppressive.

The sitting room, packed with people in the preparation for an Order meeting, was a bit of both. The furniture was all well-kept and comfortable, and Mrs. Longbottom and Mrs. Weasley had come to a civil detente on the subject of who exactly would be handling the refreshments under Mrs. Longbottom's roof, but it was still not quite large enough for the twenty or so people already packed into it.

Hermione was nestled in an armchair in a far corner, using the time before the meeting to continue working through the Hogwarts library's copy of Scry Your Eyes Out. She hadn't found anything useful in the book so far, but she was only halfway through, and what it had covered in the first half, while not applicable, was at least well-written. Before she could finish the chapter she was reading, however, someone noisily pulled a chair up opposite her and flopped down into it.

"Wotcher, Hermione. Good book?"

Hermione marked her page with a bookmark, then closed the book and turned her attention to Tonks. The Auror was visibly tired and worn down, but she was still apparently putting in an effort to be chipper, her hair a vivid neon pink that stuck up in wild spikes.

"It's good," Hermione responded, "though not terribly useful so far. Sedgwick's style is dry but detailed, and I'm hopeful that one of the topics later in the book will be relevant to what I'm working on. How were your Auror duties today?"

Tonks groaned and let her head fall back. "I've been stuck running training for the internal transfers the Minister is trying to use to bolster our numbers. Francois Beaufort has spent fifty years in the Floo office, and now I'm stuck trying to remind him of second-year Defence topics."

"That sounds awful," Hermione commiserated. "Are they all that bad?"

Tonks shook her head. "No, not really. Some of them are actually reasonably good - but, I didn't come over just to bellyache at you about my day." Reaching into an inner pocket, she pulled out a folded over and sealed piece of parchment. "An Unspeakable came and dropped off a response for you at my desk today."

"Oh, thank you!" Eagerly, Hermione accepted the letter and opened it up. Tonks had taken them her initial letter the week before, and the wait for a response had been dreadful.

Dear Miss Granger,

Your request for access to Department records is denied. Several sentences of supposition and a complete lack of experimentation are woefully insufficient to warrant the expenditure of Department resources on any request.

Sincerely,

Office of External Communications
Department of Mysteries

Hermione blinked down at the curt missive, disappointed. Her letter asking for information had been substantially more than just "several sentences", and she wasn't sure how they expected her to do experiments without access to the veil in the first place.

"Not good news, I take it?" asked Tonks.

Shaking her head, Hermione handed over the note for her to read. "Not what I was hoping for, no."

Tonks gave the note a once-over, then handed it back. "Yeah, that's the DoM in a nutshell. At least they told you what you need, though!"

"I suppose," Hermione said, a bit ambivalent. "I'm a bit worried that they may carry a grudge about the damage caused during the battle with the Death Eaters."

Tonks gave a dismissive wave as she settled back into her seat. "They do enough damage down there with their own experiments, I'm sure they put it all to rights in no time. Really, they're probably excited to learn something new about the veil, but they don't want to come off as overly eager. They've got a spooky image to uphold, after all."

That didn't sound much like Hermione's impression of the serious, secretive organisation, but she didn't want to argue with Tonks over it. "Well, I suppose either way I need to do some more studying, and I'll have to come up with some sort of experiment to satisfy their requirements before they'll tell me more."

"That's the spirit!" chirped the Auror. "Let me know when you want to send a response back, or you can give it to Shack or Mr. Weasley and one of them can deliver it. Just remember, no owls, or Mad-Eye'll have our hides."

Professor Moody had been living up to his reputation of paranoia all summer. He was determined that the location of the Order's headquarters would remain as secret as possible, and that meant keeping the location practically isolated. The building had been placed under a Fidelius charm, and everyone coming and going were made to take the Floo from a randomly-rotating series of safehouses, where they would be confronted and forced to provide passwords and submit to a search. Hermione counted herself fortunate that she didn't have plans to come or go all that much throughout the summer.

After a bit more small talk, Tonks excused herself to talk to Professor Lupin, who had just arrived, so Hermione went back to her book. Unfortunately, she didn't get to read for very much longer before she was interrupted again, this time by Mrs. Weasley bustling over looking harried.

"The meeting is about to begin, dear," she said, flicking her wand at the chair Tonks had dragged over and tucking it back where it belonged. "The other children are still out in the garden, if you want to join them outside, but you know the rules about meetings."

The rule that underage people couldn't sit in on meetings - which seemingly only Mrs. Weasley cared much about - was frustrating to Hermione, but not so much that she was interested in making a fuss about it. "Thank you, Mrs. Weasley," she replied instead, "but I think I'll just go back to the study. The chapter I'm reading right now is particularly interesting."

"Oh! That reminds me, I nearly forgot." Reaching into a pocket, Mrs. Weasley pulled out a tiny book, which she then reverted to a much more normal size with a tap of her wand. It was a battered tome named Beyond a Heartbeat: Five Variations on a Classic Enchantment. "Ginny mentioned that you were interested in learning about Heart's Reflections, and that something like this might help Professor Dumbledore track down poor Harry."

Hermione accepted the book with excitement, quickly paging through it to see what it covered. It was filled with descriptions, spells, and diagrams - a veritable wealth of information on the devices she was trying to understand.

"Oh, Mrs. Weasley, this is perfect, thank you! I'm going to go get started on this right away."

"Of course, dear. If you have any questions, do let me know - and don't forget that dinner is after the meeting. I'll have one of the boys come fetch you when it's time."

Hermione nodded and said hasty goodbyes as she escaped with the book. It was a bit of an effort to manoeuvre out of the crowded room, but once she made her way to the hallway, Hermione beelined for the study at the far end of the house.

The room that she'd commandeered for her research was just as cosy as the rest of the house. There was a small, round table with two uncomfortable chairs in one corner, an old-fashioned roll-top writing desk situated between the room's two narrow windows on the wall to the left of the door, and several tall bookshelves along the far wall whose former contents Hermione had had boxed up and stored, as they were mostly histories, novels, and books about household charms. Hermione had almost entirely restocked the shelves with books from the Hogwarts library, her own collection, and other individual tomes that she'd managed to borrow from people. She had also managed to obtain a plush, comfortable armchair that reminded her of the Gryffindor common room, and that was where she spent most of her time reading when she wasn't elsewhere in the house.

As soon as she had closed the door behind herself, Hermione headed straight for the armchair and curled up with the new book. The distant sounds of Quidditch being played filtered in through the open window; with the Weasleys staying at the Longbottoms' over the summer as well, Ron and Ginny had made it their mission to break Neville of his fear of flying, and they'd been having a surprising amount of success. He was apparently still a long ways off of being comfortable on a broom, but he was at least making a go of it.

Soon enough, however, Hermione was completely absorbed in the book, and the world around her fell away. She could already tell that this one was going to be a treasure trove of information.

The morning after Harry and Sirius unexpectedly met the inhabitants of the planet they were stranded on, the pair of wizards set aside their familiar routine in favour of frantically muggle-proofing their campsite. No matter how friendly their new neighbours seemed, neither wizard wanted to risk finding out first-hand that the locals still did witch burnings.

"So," Sirius began, looking around at their camp, "the hut itself, we don't have to worry about. There's nothing magic in its design, so there's nothing to concern ourselves with there."

"We do have to figure out how to explain how we built it, though," Harry said. "I don't think they'll buy that we had a bunch of convenient tools with us, then just happened to pitch them in the sea."

"No, they won't." Sirius replied. "We'll have to figure out some sort of plausible explanation. ...Maybe we had a few simple tools with us, which we then used to make better tools with?"

"Hang on," Harry began, and he went over to where his outer robe was folded up. After rooting through the interior pockets for a bit, he found what he was looking for and held it up. It was the penknife Sirius had given him for Christmas the year prior, which could theoretically be used to open any lock. "I had this with me when we went to the Department of Mysteries, but the blade melted off when I tried to open a door down there. Is there a way to fix it?"

Sirius took the knife from Harry and examined it, turning it over in his hands and considering the mechanism. "It's... possible," he said slowly. "I think I would want to take it apart, remove the damaged blade entirely, and just conjure a new one. It won't last more than a few days, but that's long enough to make our excuses."

Furrowing his brow, Harry asked, "Couldn't you just vanish the blade that's there, rather than taking it apart?"

"Possibly," Sirius replied, "but these are often charmed to resist spells like that, and they aren't all that difficult to disassemble."

Harry shrugged and moved on. "So, if you conjure a blade for that, we can explain that we had a knife when we arrived, but do you honestly think a penknife like that would be enough to build all this with?"

Pocketing the knife himself, Sirius turned and considered their hut-in-progress. "Well, thinking through the steps... We had to cut the bamboo down, split it down the middle... and put the occasional hole through it to tie pieces together. I think that's it, isn't it?"

Harry thought back through the construction process they'd been following, and he was surprised to realise that the whole process had so few the individual steps. "I guess you're right," he began. "So... we could just as easily have made small holes with a penknife as with a piercing charm, I suppose. And splitting the bamboo is easy enough once you get it started. Could we find a sharp edge on one of the rocks around here and say we've been starting it with the knife, then using the edge of the rock as a wedge?"

"That's not a bad idea," Sirius replied, "though I wouldn't say we need to find a broken rock. We can always break a rock that was already here and just say we found it like that. It's not like broken rocks are uncommon, after all."

"That makes sense," Harry agreed. "So then we just need to come up with an explanation for how we cut all the bamboo down in the first place?"

"Right. Unfortunately, I think we may need to resort to simply conjuring something for that, unless you have any ideas on how muggles would harvest it normally."

Harry thought about it, but he quickly realised that he didn't have the first clue how muggles usually did it. "I really don't know. I'd assume they either use a machete or a saw, I suppose?"

"Hmm. Neither of those are things we could reasonably claim to have had on us by chance, I don't think."

"No..." Harry agreed slowly, "but we could probably justify something like a large survival knife, maybe, and I think some of those have jagged sections on the back that can act like a saw."

"A survival knife?" Sirius repeated. "I'm going to assume that's a muggle thing. Are they the sort of thing that someone would normally carry with them?"

"Not usually, but if they're going into a dangerous situation they might. They're basically just a big, sturdy knife, like... Well, here, let me draw one." Casting about the beach, Harry found a small stick and a patch of mildly damp sand to draw in. He wasn't exactly an artist, and he only had a vague idea of what knives like that actually looked like, but it didn't have to be perfect. He scrawled down a rough outline, with a simple handle, sturdy blade, and serrated edge along the back. "They're the sort of thing soldiers in the army might carry, or adventurers on safari."

Sirius came up and looked over Harry's shoulder as he finished his drawing in the sand. "That seems like it could be worth a try. How does this sound - I'll conjure one as best I can, you let me know if there are any major issues, and once we arrive at a good model, we can test cutting some bamboo down with it."

"That makes sense. What if we went through the whole process of building something by hand, just to make sure we haven't missed a step? Now that we have those mats that they gave us, we could use a couple of bed-frames, and we can make those more or less the same way we've been making a hut."

Sirius broke out in a grin at that idea. "A proper bed? You won't hear any argument from me. Let's get started - if we make good time, we might be able to finish them up after lunch."

The mention of lunch reminded Harry of something else, and he groaned aloud. "Oh, we might have to prove we can fish at some point. Do you have any idea how to catch a fish without magic?"

Sirius' face fell, and he sighed. "No, but I suppose we'll have to figure it out. Let's get started on the beds, and we can try to come up with ideas while we work. How does that sound?"

Leaving that problem for later suited Harry just fine, so the pair of them got down to work.

It took several tries for Sirius to arrive at something that mostly matched Harry's vague recollection of what a survival knife should look like. Once they were both happy with it, Sirius conjured one last copy using a slightly different type of conjuration that took more effort but would last longer, then vanished the rest. It would still only last a few days at most, but as long as they didn't have any long-term guests, it would serve its purpose.

Survival knife in hand, Harry headed down the beach a bit to find some sturdy-looking bamboo to try it out on. He found some soon enough, and he crouched down near the base of the plant to try severing it. It took him a couple of tries to get the angle and grip right, and the large, jagged serrations Sirius had ended up with weren't the easiest things to cut with, but he managed to cut through it with a decent bit of effort. Things went a bit sideways at the end, when the bamboo just fell over and the last part remaining to be cut through splintered and twisted, but he made quick work of the last bit and looked down at his handiwork with satisfaction. It wasn't nearly as clean a cut as they'd had using severing charms, but he'd cut down the bamboo all the same.

He cut down a few more lengths to bring back with him, refining his technique a bit as he did, and it wasn't long before he was headed back to camp with a small bundle of bamboo slung over his shoulder.

After that, work on the beds themselves didn't take very long. The frames were simple, and they had already practised most of the techniques on making the hut, so there wasn't much left for them to figure out. Splitting bamboo to make the flat platform took more effort than they'd expected, and they ruined a couple of pieces in figuring out how to get the split to end up reasonably centred, but by the time they broke for lunch, they had a frame and part of the platform for the first bed done, and a solid chance of finishing their work by the end of the day.

When it came time to discuss how they would fish the muggle way, neither of them had cooked up an amazing idea. Sirius expressed some interest in the idea of making a fishing rod, but neither of them could work out what to use as a hook, so they ended up going for the much simpler idea that Harry had had.

"Come on," he said quietly, doing his best to keep his body perfectly still. He had waded up to his thighs in the water of the cove, and he was standing poised with a narrow piece of bamboo that they'd sharpened into another crude spear. He'd spooked the fish when he initially sloshed his way out, but after a few minutes of standing still, they'd started to ignore him again. As he breathed slowly in and out, one particular fish, large and prime for roasting, flitted closer. He held his breath, his whole body tensed as it came within range... and then he stabbed, jabbing the spear into the water with the full force of his body behind it.

When the water calmed and Harry cleared his eyes, he looked down to find the tip of the spear lodged in the sandy floor of the cove, no fish in sight. All he could do was sigh, pull the spear back out, and get back to waiting.

As neither Harry nor Sirius had a watch, they didn't know exactly how long it took for Harry to finally catch something, but it felt like hours. In the end, though, the single meagre fish they eventually cooked over the fire was all the more satisfying for it.

Chapter Text

The next morning, Harry and Sirius were somewhat at loose ends. Ophelia had said she would be returning that day with her island's physician, Aseco, but she hadn't mentioned when in the day to expect them. Harry didn't want to be up in the cave when she arrived, and they didn't have any particular ideas for him to test that morning anyway, so for lack of anything better to do, they decided to spend their time working on their hut the muggle way. Overall, they were making good progress on the structure; the back wall had been finished and secured in place, and the first of the side walls was coming along nicely.

Unfortunately, doing things without magic meant slowing down dramatically. To start with, Harry had to go out and harvest more bamboo for them to use, which meant sawing through each length one at a time with the conjured knife, and the novelty and satisfaction of doing that by hand quickly wore off. Eventually, though, he built up a substantial stack of stalks, so he scooped them all up and carried the bamboo back to the hut, where he and Sirius got to work splitting them all more or less down the middle.

Several hours later, just as the two wizards were nearing the end of the stack and contemplating whether to break for lunch, the distant sound of a steady drumbeat caught Harry's attention.

"Hang on," he said, holding up one hand for quiet. "I think that might be them!"

Sirius cocked his head to the side to listen, then nodded in agreement. "I think you might be right. Let's clear this up a bit, then head out to meet them."

Harry didn't need any convincing. Eager to find out more about the people who lived there, he quickly began gathering up the remaining bamboo and stacked it off to the side of the hut while Sirius got back to his feet and steadied himself on his crutch. Soon enough, the pair of them were ready to go, and they started towards the mouth of the cove.

By the time they reached the outer beach, the ship was already anchored a short distance offshore, and the little rowboat was already approaching. Harry could see two people aboard - Ophelia was the one rowing the boat, and with her was an unfamiliar-looking older man, who Harry guessed must be Aseco. The boat quickly closed the distance to the shore, and it wasn't long before Ophelia leapt out and began dragging it in the rest of the way. Once it was more or less out of the water, Aseco gathered up a large bag and stepped somewhat unsteadily out as well.

"Hail, Sirius, son of Orion," Ophelia greeted formally, giving them the same sort of stiff wave she'd greeted them with last time.

Sirius responded in kind and said, "Hail, Ophelia, daughter of... it was Alexandra, wasn't it?"

"That is correct," she said with a nod. "Permit me to introduce Aseco, son of Aeson, the resident physician of the Green Hills. Aseco, these are Sirius, son of Orion, and Harry, son of James."

Aseco was an older man, with a pronounced stoop and a skinny build. His long, wispy grey hair was tied loosely back, and his heavily-tanned skin was more wrinkled than anyone Harry had ever met - but despite all that, he didn't seem slow or infirm, just well-worn around the edges.

"Hail, strangers," the physician greeted. "I must say, I'm most curious to learn more about you. When Ophelia explained about your situation, I was most intrigued!"

"Well, we're just as curious about you," Sirius responded diplomatically. "We only learned that there were other people nearby when Ophelia's ship happened by the other night."

"I'm sure we all have a great deal to learn about one another," Ophelia cut in, "but perhaps that is something best postponed until after Aseco has had a chance to take a look at your injured leg."

"Ah yes, of course," Aseco said amenably. "Come, why don't you show us to where you're camped, and I can take a look at you. I understand you've done your knee quite the injustice!"

As Sirius led the physician off towards the hut, Harry noticed Ophelia hanging back, so he waited behind as well. When she spotted him doing so, she gestured for him to follow her over to the rowboat.

"This needs to be brought further ashore," she explained. "Would you care to give me a hand?"

"Yeah, alright," Harry agreed, and he moved to assist her.

Between the two of them, it wasn't hard to bring the little boat fully onto the sand. Once that was done, she reached in and pulled out another basket, similar to the one she'd left them with several nights prior, then turned her attention back to Harry.

"Thank you. Shall we make our way to your camp?"

"Right, it's just this way," Harry replied, and they started towards the cove.

They walked in silence for a long moment, until Ophelia spoke up and said, "I feel that I should warn you, Aseco is likely to be a bit... overenthusiastic... in his curiosity. He is extremely knowledgeable about many things, but he comes to his knowledge through an incessant drive to question and learn, and those who do not know him can find him a bit overwhelming."

Harry couldn't help but chuckle a bit at that. "Honestly, that reminds me a lot of one of my best friends from school. She's absolutely brilliant, but sometimes the number of questions she asks in class can drive some of our professors around the bend."

"Are you still in school?" she asked curiously. "For us, children usually begin apprenticing in a craft by your age."

"Yeah, I still have a couple of years of school to go once I get home," Harry said. "Technically, I just sat some exams that are basically bare minimum qualifications, so I don't strictly have to go back to school after this, but it's hard to get a good job without doing two more years and taking more exams then, and it's not like I want to drop out anyway."

"I see. And does everyone go through this?"

"Basically, yeah. People go to different schools, though - my cousin goes to a posh school called Smeltings that's all about business and connections, but my school is more about learning to apply your individual, er, strengths and abilities."

"That's quite the system," Ophelia replied. She sounded impressed. "Your people must place a high value on education."

"I suppose," Harry admitted. "I hadn't really thought about it that way."

"I would imagine that being stranded a long way from your home might have a way of altering your perspective," said Ophelia. "I must admit, Aseco isn't the only one to be curious to learn more about your people. It has been a long, long time since our people have met anyone from beyond these isles, and the last time we did, it was... a substantial catalyst of change, shall we say."

Harry wasn't quite sure what to make of that, but before he could work out how to ask about it, they had arrived at the hut and Sirius was waving them over to where he was reclined on his bed. Aseco was rooting through his bag and pulling out instruments, and it looked like he was about ready to start working.

"Harry, Ophelia!" Sirius called them over. "Aseco is going to start taking a look at my knee, and he suggested that it might be best for you to occupy yourselves with something else for a little while."

"I'm not accustomed to working with an audience," Aseco explained, not looking up from his bag. "This shouldn't take more than an hour or so; come back then and we can sit down and eat."

Ophelia didn't blink an eye at Aseco ordering them around. "I see; in that case, Harry and I shall occupy ourselves until then." Turning to Harry, she said, "Perhaps we should go for a walk along the coast, and I can offer you some advice about local plants that might be useful to you. I am not an expert, but I would imagine there are some things that are common knowledge to us that would be foreign to you."

"Yeah, I think that would be useful, thank you," Harry responded. "Sirius, is there anything you think I should gather while we're out there? I could grab a bit more fruit or something."

Sirius shrugged. "I don't think we're in desperate need of anything in particular. If you want to pick some fruit, it wouldn't hurt to have some more on hand, but we still have a decent stash, not to mention the things that Ophelia brought for us."

"Speaking of which," Ophelia said, and she gestured to the basket she'd brought with her from the rowboat, "I brought some additional food with us today. This is some fresher fare, not the sailing rations I left with you last time. I thought we might indulge a bit over lunch as a celebration of our meeting."

"That sounds amazing," Sirius said appreciatively. "The things you left us last time were a pleasant break from the same fruit and fish over and over - we tried some of everything for dinner last night - and having something close to a proper meal for lunch sounds downright luxurious."

"Well, the sooner they're off, the sooner I can be done examining you, and therefore the sooner you can get to lunch," Aseco said briskly.

Ophelia's lips quirked up in a small smile. "Subtle as always," she said. "Harry, shall we leave the venerable physician to his work?"

Aseco grumbled a bit and waved them off, while Sirius held back a laugh and tried to hide his grin with one hand.

"Yeah, alright," Harry agreed, grinning as well. "Let's head under the waterfall and around the other side of the cove. The trees are a bit denser over there, so there could be more things growing that way."

Ophelia gestured broadly in that direction. "That seems sensible. Lead the way."

With a quick wave to Sirius, Harry started off, and Ophelia followed alongside him. They made good time around the cove, and once they rounded the mouth on the far side and started making their way along the outer shore, she began pointing out various plants and explaining some potential uses they had. She was a font of useful knowledge - some flowers that Harry had dismissed as just nice to look at were actually prized for their use in making very robust dyes and therefore might be worth gathering for trade; a particular bush produced small, hard-to-see seeds that were surprisingly sweet and delicious; some varieties of seaweed could be used in cooking in a number of ways, but the broad, blue-green kind that grew in dense clumps was to be avoided unless they wanted a very unpleasant experience the following day. As they walked, she casually plucked up some of the long, tall grass that interspersed the foliage, and it took Harry a little while to realise that she wasn't just playing with it, but idly spinning it into a simple rope. Once he noticed and asked about it, she taught him the basics of the technique and gave him some advice to improve it, such as drying grass beforehand and how much to use for rope of different thicknesses, and by the time they turned around and started back towards the campsite, they were both plucking up lengths of grass and winding them into rope by hand.

They arrived back at the hut to find Sirius lying flat in his bed while Aseco fashioned a splint to hold his knee straight. Sirius moved to prop himself up when he saw them approaching, but the physician reached one hand out without even looking up and pushed him back down.

"He will be fine in time," Aseco explained as they approached, "as long as he stops aggravating his injury by bending his knee or putting weight on it. As he seems determined to constantly forget to do so, I recommend that his knee be bound with a brace such as this for at least two weeks, if not more, until he can fully bend it without pain."

"I'll keep an eye on him and make sure he uses it," Harry said. "He can be a bit bull-headed sometimes."

"Spoilsport," Sirius grumbled.

"I thought you were supposed to be the responsible adult of the two of us?" Harry shot back.

"Responsible?!" Sirius lay a dramatic hand across his forehead. "You wound me, and when I'm already injured at that! How can you be so cruel and heartless?"

While Ophelia looked quietly amused by Sirius' antics, Aseco was having none of it. "You can take my advice or disregard it, it hardly matters to me. Don't come complaining to me if your knee still can't support your weight a month from now after you've spent your time larking about instead of letting it heal."

"Perhaps, now that your work is done, we should turn our attention to lunch," Ophelia interjected. "We are already well past noon, and we did tell the magistrate that we would attempt to return home before sundown."

Aseco grumbled to himself, but he started to pack away his things regardless. "Well, far be it from me to irritate your mother, though I had hoped to have a bit more time on dry land before we set out again."

Sirius' head popped up, and he gave Ophelia an amused look. "Hang on, two questions - First, what does a magistrate do?"

Ophelia crossed her arms and eyed him evenly. "They represent the will of the people for their island or area, and they act as the coordinator for major community efforts. They also take part in the Council of Magistrates, which serves the same purpose but at a larger scale."

"Okay," Sirius said, "and my second question - your local magistrate is your mother?"

"Yes," Ophelia said through pursed lips, "though, as Aseco can attest, that hardly means that I receive favoured treatment."

The physician waved a dismissive hand, not looking up from where he was re-packing his bag. "Alexandra is a fine magistrate, and of the two of them, Ophelia puts far more pomp and formality behind the position than her mother does."

"Oh, I'm not trying to accuse you of anything," Sirius said, grinning widely. "I just can't imagine having to deal with my mother being the head of the local government. Just growing up under her roof was bad enough."

"Shall we get on with lunch?" Ophelia asked firmly, clearly wanting to change the subject. Without waiting for anyone to object, she went over to the basket she'd brought that day and began opening it up. "I prepared a nice grayfin salad as our main dish, and we have plenty of spiced bellroot as a side. I also have some fresh flatbread from this morning, but I should warn you that Reina helped with that, and she likes it on the crunchy side." She kept up the running commentary as she served up the food, only falling silent once everyone had their lunch and she sat down to start eating her own.

After a few minutes of quiet eating, Aseco spoke up between bites. "If you'll indulge me, I do have some questions for you. Simple academic curiosity, you understand - it isn't everyday that people should appear out of nowhere, and on Marthen's Bowl of all places."

Sirius and Harry exchanged a look of confusion. "What do you mean, here of all places?" asked Harry.

Aseco's eyebrows rose in surprise. "You must be from truly distant shores if you don't know even that much. How much do you know of our history?"

"Before we washed up here," Sirius answered, "we didn't even know this place existed."

"Remarkable," the physician murmured. "Well then, let me see... Many centuries ago, these isles were ruled by one who styled herself a goddess. Her name was Heykit, and she oversaw her domain from a palace atop a great mountain. She had astounding ships which could sail through the air, and legions of forces to do her bidding."

Ophelia, who had probably heard all of this before, reached into her basket and pulled out a bottle of wine and several clay glasses, which she began to fill and pass around.

"Worse than the might of her troops and ships, however, were the powers of the demon queen herself. The precise nature of her abilities are lost to history, but the tales say she could perform any number of impossible feats using nothing more than her mind and her will. They say some of her warriors attempted a rebellion, and she slew them with a single wave of her hand, killing them without leaving so much as a scratch on their bodies. There are conflicting accounts of her exact capabilities, but all of the histories point to one thing as certain - she wielded terrible, astonishing power, and she held control over her domain with a deadly grasp."

As Harry accepted and sniffed a cup of his own, he couldn't help but wonder if this Heykit person had been a witch. Perhaps she'd fallen through the veil centuries ago, and used her magic to enslave the people on the other side when she couldn't return? It didn't explain all of the story, but it was a possibility.

"Within her palace, however, there was a gateway. This gateway, called the Shapp'ey, allowed her to travel to other places, distant lands ruled by other gods, and she guarded the secret of its use most jealously. Only she knew how to open the gateway, and any who sought to escape through it were swiftly punished. What she failed to defend against, however... was an enemy travelling through from elsewhere."

Harry raised his eyebrows as he took a tentative sip of the wine. The elderly physician was a good storyteller, and Harry couldn't help but wonder if he'd have been more interested in History of Magic if Binns had been half as skilled at describing the events that he covered in class.

"Early in the day, just as the dawn light was breaking over the horizon, the gateway opened, and a group of warriors stepped through. Their leader, a man named Marthen, demanded that she free all those under her rule and surrender herself to his judgement."

"I'm sure she agreed and handed herself over," Sirius interjected. Harry snorted into his cup, and Ophelia looked torn between being amused and disapproving.

Aseco simply took it in stride. "As a matter of fact, she did not. She objected, as you might imagine, and ordered her guards to kill the intruders at once - but to her surprise, the intruders responded with powers much like her own, turning the guards' attacks aside with ease and rendering them unconscious with barely the slightest effort. This was something of a shock for the self-proclaimed goddess, of course, but it wasn't long before she took matters into her own hands and engaged the intruders in combat herself."

Harry could imagine the scene - a dark witch in her throne room, facing off against a group of heroic wizards from another land, throwing spells and curses back and forth.

"The battle was not a swift one. Once it became apparent that she could not easily defeat the attackers on her own, Heykit fled to one of her flying ships, and Marthen and his warriors pursued her. They commandeered two smaller ships for themselves and took the battle to the skies, pursuing her relentlessly... until finally, they destroyed her vessel, and the vile would-be goddess was no more."

The physician stopped to take a sip of his own drink, and Harry exchanged a look with Sirius. His godfather looked equally impressed with the tale.

"With Heykit slain," Aseco continued, "Marthen and his warriors travelled to the largest island, which we now call Marthen's Landing in his honour, and addressed the population. He proclaimed that they were slaves no longer, that Heykit was no god but simply a pretender, and that they should make their own way as a people from that day forward. There, Marthen and his companions built a great spire, and he said that so long as it stood, they should be reminded of what could be, of what bowing to a false god could cost them, and he bade them live new lives in peace and freedom."

"Hang on," Harry spoke up, "did he just up and leave after that?" When everyone turned to look at him, Harry realised that he'd just interrupted somewhat rudely. He mentally decided to blame the wine that he'd been sipping, and he gave Aseco an apologetic look.

"In fact, he did," the physician continued after a moment, "though before he left, he had one final act to perform. He explained that, in order to safeguard us from the other so-called gods that lived beyond the gateway, he was going to seal our lands off from it, and that he would be destroying Heykit's palace in order to do so. He and his warriors evacuated everyone from the palace and the mountain upon which it was built, and then, just as they were about to depart through the gateway, they called upon their collective power. None were there to witness it in person, but those in nearby ships describe the mountain itself bursting forth with fire and molten rock, destroying the palace and sending a cloud of ash into the sky."

Harry's eyebrows shot up, and he looked to Sirius again. Sirius looked impressed as well; even if Marthen and his warriors were wizards, destroying a whole mountain was an astonishing feat.

"In the end, when the fires quieted and the ash cleared, all that was left of the mountain on which Heykit's palace was built was a large crater of molten stone, which soon cooled and hardened into the shape of a massive empty bowl."

"Hence, Marthen's Bowl," Ophelia added. "So you can see why this island is of some significance to our history."

Harry nodded, but as he turned the story over in his mind, something worrying occurred to him. "The gateway in the palace," he said slowly. "The, er, Shapp'ey, you called it?"

"Yes," Aseco said, "what of it?"

"What did it look like?" Harry asked.

Sirius' eyes snapped over to Harry, and Ophelia looked consideringly between them.

Aseco blinked at the question, but he answered it nonetheless. "Descriptions and art from the time vary slightly, but they are generally consistent about the key features. The Shapp'ey is said to have been a circular stone ring at least twice as tall as a person, emblazoned with a series of symbols around the front face and bearing a number of orange crystals around the outside - somewhere around seven and nine, depending on the description."

Harry's stomach dropped further and further as Aseco described the ring. "And, er... it would be a bad thing if that were to turn up again, yeah?"

Ophelia let out a loud sigh and closed her eyes. "Let me guess... You know where it is, and that's how you came here."

"Not on purpose!" Harry blurted. "We fell through a similar gateway back home, and we had no idea what it was! Ever since we got here, we've just been trying to figure out how to survive and get back home. We're not evil gods from another world here to take over your planet or anything, I swear!"

At that, Sirius actually started to chuckle, and Ophelia cracked a small smile as well. "I had worked that much out for myself already, thank you," she said dryly. As quickly as it had come, however, her smile slipped away. "Even so, this presents a problem. I will need to pass this information along to the magistrate, and she will likely have to take it to the Council of Magistrates, as this concerns all of our people. If the Shapp'ey is open once again, then we run the risk of being subjugated by another like Heykit, and that cannot be allowed to happen."

Slowly, she got to her feet, and she helped Aseco up as well.

"I am sorry to leave on such a... solemn note, but our time is almost up regardless, and I feel I must pass this information along as soon as possible. I will return when I can, and I will instruct our other ships to pass by if they are heading in this direction. If you have an urgent need for assistance or to get in touch, you can flag them down and they can pass along a message."

"Thank you," Sirius said somberly, swinging his braced leg awkwardly out from the bed and using his crutch to push himself up to his feet. "I look forward to seeing you when you return."

"And you," Ophelia responded quietly.

"I likely won't be returning unless I am needed," Aseco chimed in as he picked up his bag. "Keep your weight off of that knee as much as possible, and maybe in a few weeks you can start working it back towards full usefulness."

"I'll do my best," Sirius assured him.

With that, Ophelia gave Harry and Sirius both a formal nod, and she and Aseco turned and left.

Despite the warm mid-afternoon sun, Harry shivered to himself. He couldn't help but feel like he had unleashed some sort of ancient evil, even if it was just the looming spectre of the island's history.

Chapter Text

In the days after Ophelia and Aseco's visit, Harry and Sirius returned to their previous routine, with one major exception. Neither wizard felt terribly inclined to go anywhere near the gateway, so Harry's morning trips up into the cave were silently dropped from their usual schedule. Instead, they used that time for more construction, and their brief foray into muggle techniques made them appreciate all the more just how useful magic was.

They finished their second wall in record time, which was quite nice to have when a storm system rolled through a few days after. Having a corner to huddle in was a welcome relief, and between warming charms on their robes and softening charms on their beds, the few days that they couldn't really go out and do anything were almost luxurious.

To make the best of their time stuck indoors, Harry put forth a renewed effort to pick up legilimency - not that he was making much progress.

"There must be something I'm missing," he said after another failed attempt, breaking eye contact with Sirius and leaning back on his bed. "You're sure I'm saying the incantation right?"

"Oh yes," Sirius reassured him, laying back as well. "You have the right incantation, the right wand movements, the right eye contact. At this point, you just need to get the feel for it, and that simply takes practice."

Frowning, Harry turned the idea over in his head. "I wonder... If all I'm missing is familiarity with the feeling of the spell, would having you cast it on me help? It would be the same sensation, just in reverse, wouldn't it?"

"It's possible," Sirius said reluctantly. "I've heard of it done that way; I just didn't want to bring it up, given the way Snape treated you when he was supposed to be teaching you occlumency."

Harry waved a dismissive hand. "Snape treats me like rubbish no matter what he's supposed to be teaching me. If you think it's worth trying, I trust you to do it."

"Alright, if you're sure," Sirius said, levering himself back up to a sitting position. "We can give it a few tries and see if it helps any."

Sitting back up as well, Harry proffered his wand to Sirius. "I'm sure," he said. "We've been at this for weeks and I haven't managed so much as a mental tickle."

Sirius accepted the wand, then regarded Harry seriously. "Right. I'll start off slow - if we get to a point where you want to stop, just say the word."

Harry squared his shoulders and nodded, meeting Sirius' steady gaze with his own.

Levelling the wand at Harry, Sirius began the wand movement, reciting the incantation slowly and carefully. "Le... gi... li... mens."

Harry held his breath for a long moment - but as seconds stretched out, he realised nothing was happening. "You don't need to start quite that slowly," he said, holding back a laugh.

"Yeah, let me give that another try," Sirius replied sheepishly. "It's been a bit since I've actually done this."

It took him a couple of tries to successfully cast the spell, but soon enough they were off, handing the wand back and forth, and as the day wore on, Harry started to get a better sense for how legilimency was supposed to feel.

"Ah, my dear Miss Granger."

"You must pardon the interruption - we come bearing a message of the utmost importance."

"Indeed! In fact, one might even call it paramount importance."

"Ooh, I like that. Is it too late to leave and try again?"

Hermione looked up from the notes she was reviewing and gave the Weasley twins an even look. "Is the message 'The Order meeting is over?'"

The pair deflated, sighing despondently and affecting put-upon looks. "Well, if you want to reduce it to such a banal and uninspired summation as that, then yes, I suppose you could look at it that way."

"Thank you," she responded quickly, hoping to forestall any further theatrics. "I'll gather my things and be right out. Did it look like Bill and Professor Dumbledore were able to stick around?"

The twin on the left nodded. "Last we saw them, the headmaster was still making the rounds chatting, and Bill was keeping the peace between Fleur and Mum."

"Or trying to, at any rate."

With a wince, Hermione started to gather her things. "Right. I should probably hurry, then."

When she arrived out in the sitting room, she was relieved to find that Mrs. Weasley and Fleur were on opposite ends of the room; the older woman was tidying up the side table where some snacks had been laid out, while Bill and his paramour were speaking softly to one another in a loveseat by the fire. The headmaster was also still present, chatting with a pair of men whom Hermione had only met briefly. Horace Slughorn was a potioneer that Professor Dumbledore had recruited for the Order quite early in the summer, while Neville's great-uncle Algernon had been roped in more or less as collateral with the rest of the Longbottom family. Hermione didn't much care for either man, but she was fortunately spared having to interrupt them when Professor Dumbledore noticed her arrival and politely excused himself from their company.

"Ah, Miss Granger," he said as he approached. "Your letter mentioned that your research had turned up some questions, I believe?"

Nodding, she gestured slightly with her stack of books and parchment. "That's right, Professor. I've come up with a few possible theories, but I've reached a point where there's just too much I don't know. I'm hoping that between your extensive knowledge and Bill's experience as a curse-breaker, we'll be able to at least narrow things down a bit."

"Well, I cannot stay for the entire evening, but I hope that what time we have available to us will be fruitful. Shall we join young Mr. Weasley and Miss Delacour by the fire and discuss your progress there?"

Hermione nodded again and allowed the headmaster to lead the way over. He selected a high-backed, softly-cushioned armchair, leaving Hermione to take a seat with a small table next to it for her to stack her books on.

"Thank you for taking the time for this," she began once she was settled. "I know you're being run ragged right now, but I'm hoping your expertise can help point me in the right direction."

"Happy to help," Bill responded. "I hope you don't mind if Fleur stays - we're headed out on patrol after this, and I'd rather not abandon her to Mum's comments."

Hermione shrugged and looked over at the French witch. "That's fine. How much do you know about what I've been working on?"

"Only what Beel 'as told me," Fleur replied. "You are trying to work out what 'appened to 'Arry and Sirius Black and what can be done to recover zem."

"That's right," confirmed Hermione. "So far, I've been focused on trying to narrow down possible explanations based on the behaviour of several magical items." Pausing for a moment, she sifted through her stack of parchment until she found the pages she was looking for. "The key seems to come down to how Heart's Reflections and similar tools work at a fundamental level. I've been doing an arithmantic analysis of the enchanting process used in their creation, and I've come up with a theory that at least partially explains the odd behaviour that we're seeing."

She passed the first page of her work over to Professor Dumbledore. After a cursory glance, he pulled out his wand and made two quick copies of it, which he passed along to Bill and Fleur.

"It seems to me that there are two fundamental parts to the process," she explained. "If you break down the spellwork, you can see that it first creates a fundamental connection between the two objects - that is, the person and the monitor - and it then establishes the monitoring charms using that connection as an ongoing point of reference."

"So, you think something's interfering with just the second half of the spell?" asked Bill, cutting to the chase.

Hermione nodded. "That's consistent with the behaviour of the enchanted objects. Both the Heart's Reflection and Professor Dumbledore's directional tracker are still intact, indicating that the underlying connection is still there, but they're unable to actually obtain any information about the target of the spell."

"A sound assessment," Professor Dumbledore said. His half-moon glasses were down near the end of his nose as he examined Hermione's arithmancy. "Have you come across any phenomena that might explain that behaviour?"

With a grimace, Hermione shook her head. "Nothing solid, unfortunately. That's why I wanted to speak with you both - I've arrived at a number of plausible theories, but I haven't been able to find a factual basis for any of them. I was hoping we could go through my ideas and you could tell me if any of them are even remotely possible."

The headmaster nodded and leaned back in his seat, setting the parchment aside. Bill shrugged and nodded as well, while Fleur was still looking at her copy of parchment.

"Thank you," Hermione said, and she pulled out a different sheet of parchment. She had been thinking of possible theories for a while, so she'd organised them all together for reference. "First, I know Heart's Reflections have a reputation for being impossible to disrupt, but looking at the arithmancy - Bill, have you ever heard of any sort of protective spells that might be able to block just the second part of these enchantments?"

Bill let out a long breath and considered the parchment again. "No, not that I can think of," he said slowly. "There are charms like the Fidelius that could maybe befuddle or disrupt a locator based on this, but nothing I can think of would outright block it. I would expect the tracker to be swinging around wildly, not simply failing to operate."

No known magic, Hermione noted down on her sheet. "Alright. What about distance? Is it possible there are range limitations on these spells?"

"Not significant ones," Bill responded, much more confident on that answer. "I've been all around the world for work, and my Mum's clock hasn't failed once. I was once in mortal peril in South America, and I got an earful from Mum the next time I came home."

Fleur frowned about something, but stayed focused on her copy of the arithmancy.

"Hmm," said Hermione, putting an X next to that item on her list and looking further down. "Well, my next two are a bit more outlandish, but I wanted to cover every possible base. Do you have any idea how these spells might behave if the veil sent them either backwards or forwards in time?"

Professor Dumbledore reached up to stroke his beard as he considered the idea. "An interesting question. Unfortunately, I suspect only the Unspeakables will be able to provide a definite answer; as you are aware, the manipulation of time is a highly restricted branch of magic, and experimentation is limited to the Department of Mysteries and similar organisations in other governments. Based on my limited understanding of the principles involved, it's possible that that could lead to this behaviour, but I cannot be certain."

With frustration, Hermione took a few notes on her parchment. "That's about what I expected," she said sadly. "For my last theory, I haven't been able to turn up even a reference anywhere, so it's possible this is just science fiction, but... is it possible they're in an alternate reality? Some sort of parallel dimension?"

Bill looked confused by the idea, but Professor Dumbledore didn't seem fazed. "To the best of my knowledge," the headmaster said slowly, "parallel worlds are purely theoretical, so we can only speculate on how spells like this would behave in such a situation. I find it hard to imagine that they would be able to maintain a connection, but I suppose it would depend on the nature of the separation of the worlds in the first place."

As Hermione was noting that down, Fleur spoke up. "Beel, you spoke earlier about distance not mattering... but what about more extreme distances? Zere was a student at Beauxbatons several years ago 'oo tried to send 'imself to ze moon wiz an over-charged portkey. Our Charms professor uses eet as a warning about experimenting wiz magic wizout proper precautions; all of ze tracking charms 'e used were distorted by ze distance, and 'is friends could not figure out 'ow to bring 'im back in time."

Hermione blinked at the idea. "Distorted by the distance - Professor, do you know if anyone has studied whether magic is restricted by the speed of light?"

"I can't say that I know one way or another," the headmaster admitted.

Frantically, Hermione flipped over her parchment and started taking down notes. "If it is - which would make sense given that magic generally obeys the laws of physics except when it intentionally doesn't - then it's possible the devices simply can't communicate any information at this distance!"

At that, Bill frowned and looked over at Professor Dumbledore. "But, if they can't communicate at all..."

The headmaster held up a hand to interrupt him. "I wouldn't care to speculate. I believe that the theory is worth further investigation, and I shall make a few inquiries myself about research in that area, but until we know more, I don't wish to jump to any conclusions."

"I'll have to send a letter to Flourish and Blotts," Hermione murmured to herself, still jotting down ideas and notes to herself. "I know I've seen a few books there on reconciling magic and physics, but I never got a chance to take a good look at them."

"Well, Miss Granger, it sounds as though you have what you need to progress further on this," Professor Dumbledore said to her, breaking her concentration and bringing her back to the conversation at hand. "Do you have any additional questions you wished to ask, or shall we leave you to your work?"

Hermione blushed and set her notes quickly to the side. "Oh! No, Professor, that's all I wanted to talk through. You've been quite helpful, thank you - all three of you."

"Happy to help," Bill said as he stood, holding Fleur's hand as she rose as well. "If any other questions come up, just let me know."

"Oui, 'appy to 'elp," Fleur echoed, giving Hermione a small smile.

"Indeed," said Professor Dumbledore, and as he stood as well, he turned to Bill. "Actually, William, before we depart, I had something else I was hoping to discuss with you. Are you available for a small excursion this coming Friday?"

Bill nodded, and the three of them carried on their conversation as they headed towards the door. Hermione, meanwhile, returned to her notes to finish writing down her thoughts from the conversation.

A short while later, after she had packed up her things and returned them to the study, Hermione made her way out to the back garden.

Neville was in the midst of re-potting an exotic plant of some variety not far from the door, while Ron, Ginny, and the twins flew about in the air, tossing a quaffle back and forth and laughing uproariously about one thing or another. The day was nearly over, but there was still light in the sky.

"Hi Neville," Hermione greeted as she settled into one of the wicker chairs that were scattered around the area near the door.

"Hullo Hermione," he responded, looking up briefly from his plant. "How was your talk with Professor Dumbledore?"

Hermione considered for a moment before responding. "It was... productive. They didn't have many solid answers for me, but they helped me rule out a few options and gave me some more specific areas to research, so... it's progress."

"Well, that's good. If there's anything you could use a hand with, just let me know. I feel a bit useless, not able to help with any Order business."

"Thanks, Neville," she said. "There isn't really anything right now, but if I do think of something, I'll let you know." She felt a bit bad for the rest of her fellow students; without her project to work on, she knew just sitting on the sidelines would be driving her mad.

As the evening wore on, Hermione and Neville were soon joined by the four younger Weasleys, and they migrated their conversation into the sitting room. The rest of the evening was spent chatting and joking around, and by the time Mrs. Weasley chivvied the group off to bed, Hermione found herself feeling surprisingly relaxed. She still hadn't brought Harry back, not by a long shot, but she'd made what felt like real progress.

By the end of the following week, however, her feeling of progress had all but evaporated.

Collateral damage from a duel between Aurors and Death Eaters in Diagon Alley had led to Flourish and Blotts' temporary closure for repairs. This closure included a suspension of their owl-order service, so Hermione was completely unable to order any of the physics books she'd been hoping for.

On top of that, the attack had been part of an increase in overall hostilities by Voldemort and his Death Eaters, which meant that the Order was being stretched thinner and thinner trying to fill in the gaps in the Ministry's response. For all that the Longbottoms' home was serving as the group's headquarters, it was becoming less and less common for people to visit - which made the appearance of Professor Moody and Auror Tonks one afternoon all the more jarring.

When the retired Auror barged into the sitting room, Hermione was curled up in a chair next to a window, while Neville and Ginny were at a table a short distance away trying to take Ron on at Wizard's Chess. The man's bright-blue artificial eye spun around wildly in its socket as he took in the room, but it quickly fixed itself on Hermione, and he started to unevenly tromp his way over to her.

"Granger," he snapped roughly. "Got something here from Dumbledore for you." Curtly, he dropped a paper-wrapped package on the table next to her. "He won't say where it came from, just that it was sent by a 'friend of his'. I've checked it over thoroughly, and it all looks in order, but if anything feels off to you, put it down at once and call for backup. And you lot!" His eye swivelled sharply around to point back at the other students, and he jabbed at them with one finger over his shoulder. "If she starts behaving oddly, you get someone to stun her and bring in a healer. Dumbledore may trust whoever sent this, but trust gets people killed! Do you understand me?"

Hermione and the rest of Harry's friends all nodded. "Yes, Professor," Hermione acknowledged quickly. "We'll be careful."

"Humph," he grunted. "I'll believe it when I see it."

Still standing over by the door, Tonks held up her hands in apology and mouthed 'Sorry!' to the group.

"Tonks!" Moody bellowed. "I won't have you teaching these kids that proper security is a burden. If that lass gets cursed by those books, and these brats do nothing because of you, how will you feel then, eh?" As he stamped back towards the door, he jabbed a finger at her. "Constant vigilance saves lives! Might as well hand ourselves over on a silver platter if we don't take basic precautions. I won't have it!"

He left as quickly as he had arrived, and the sitting room practically echoed with silence once he was gone.

"Blimey," Ron eventually said. "He's a bit wound up these days, isn't he?"

"Gran reckons he's worried for good reason," Neville offered. "He's taken on a lot of responsibility, and he doesn't want anyone getting hurt."

"Or she's just soft on him," Ginny interjected with a grin. "Remember that photo we found of the two of them at Hogwarts?"

Ron gagged dramatically and waved at Ginny to stop. "Don't remind me! They were hanging off each other!"

"Eugh, Ron! That's my gran you're talking about!"

As the friendly bickering continued, Hermione's curiosity won out, so she pulled the package over to herself and began to open it up. There was a small note at the top, written in Professor Dumbledore's distinctive hand.

Miss Granger,

A friend asked me to pass these along to you in the hopes that they might aid in your research. I hope that you will find them informative.

Yours sincerely,

Headmaster A.P.W.B. Dumbledore

Inside the package, she found two books, a few academic journals with pages marked, and several clippings from the Daily Prophet. The titles of the books immediately grabbed her attention - Special, General, and Magical Relativity: How Muggle Physics Can Enrich Magical Understanding and Then and Back Again, a History of Travel Through Time both promised to be exactly what she was looking for, even if the former was marked with a "90% Off" sticker from Flourish and Blotts and the latter was missing its cover and binding entirely and was stamped "Unsold Stock - Return to Printer for Destruction".

The academic journals were all issues of The Proceedings of the International Association for Obscure Arcana, and as she paged through the first issue, she knew immediately that she would be reading through more than just the marked pages. The indicated articles were certainly her top priority, though - the first was entitled On the Theoretical and Practical Considerations Regarding Worlds Aside Our Own, and though the language was dense, it seemed like a promising source of information on the "parallel dimension" theory of Harry's whereabouts.

What were less immediately useful were the final contents of the package, the clippings from the Prophet. They were obituaries, four from a two-week period in the late 1700s, all along roughly the same lines: The deceased, a Ministry employee, had died in the course of their duties several days prior. They were survived by some amount of distant family - though none had any immediate family, Hermione noted - and the Ministry and Gringotts were coordinating the execution of their wills. The clippings seemed like an odd inclusion, but though she couldn't quite puzzle out their meaning, Hermione knew that they were intended to tell her something.

"Anything good in there, Hermione?" called Ron from over at the table. He and the others had gone back to their game, and Ginny and Neville were busily trying to figure out their next move.

"Definitely," Hermione replied, turning the clippings over in her hand. "Whoever Professor Dumbledore's friend is, it looks like they've dug up exactly what I need."

Chapter Text

Everything had fallen apart. He'd had his chance, but before he could make good on it, Snape had stuck his nose into it and ruined everything. Moony was out roaming the grounds somewhere, Peter was scurrying off to vanish into hiding all over again, and the dementors were almost certainly on their way to suck out Sirius' soul. 

All in all, not a great situation.

Interrupting his woolgathering, however, came a sharp rapping at the window of Sirius' makeshift cell, and when he looked up to see what it was, he found himself stunned.

Outside, riding on the back of a hippogriff like it was the most natural thing in the world, was his godson. His friend - the bushy-haired witch, not the gangly redhead - was clinging to his back, looking distinctly less at ease but just as determined.

Immediately, Sirius scrambled up to open the window, but it was sealed shut. Harry's friend swiftly opened it with an unlocking charm, and within moments, the three of them were off again, headed to the top of the nearest tower to send Sirius off on his way.

There wasn't time for long goodbyes, but Sirius took the time to drink in the sight of his godson while he could. He'd already missed so much of Harry's life - he was practically a teenager already, the spitting image of James but with Lily's fierce gaze - and now, instead of getting to know him, to take his place as his godfather, Sirius had to go back on the run.

As he set off on the hippogriff's back, Sirius swore to himself that he'd be there for Harry however he could. Even if he never caught up with Peter, if he spent the rest of his days at the top of the Ministry's hit list, he would still keep in touch, and if there was anything Harry needed, he'd move heaven and earth to make it happen.

As the memory faded, Harry quickly ended the spell, shaking his head to refocus himself on the present.

"Well done, Harry!" exclaimed Sirius. "You're really getting the hang of that now."

"It's still disorienting," Harry complained. "Does that ever get better?"

Sirius shrugged and moved to stand up from his bed. "A bit, but not entirely. You're connecting our minds, and that means our senses are going to get muddled together. There isn't really anything to be done about it."

"Well, I think I've had about enough for right now," Harry said, standing as well and tucking his wand up his sleeve. "I'm going to go summon a few fish and get started on dinner."

"That sounds like a plan to me," Sirius agreed. "I'll be stretching my knee a bit, and then I'll come out and join you."

It had been a little over a month since Ophelia and Aseco had visited, and true to the physician's word, Sirius' knee had healed up nicely after a few weeks of being held immobile. He still didn't have his full mobility yet, but Sirius was optimistic that a bit of stretching and exercise would get him back to proper form.

Despite Sirius not being fully mobile again, the pair of them had made good progress while they waited. The hut was finished, including a simple swinging door on the front and an interior wall that divided the back half into two semi-private rooms, and they'd moved onto making some more simple furniture as well. Out front, they had a square-ish table and a couple of benches, and they had attached a few small shelves to the interior walls of the hut for storage. In some ways, they were getting to the point where they were making work for themselves so that they had something to do; Harry's eyes had been straying back up to the cave more and more often, but he was still uneasy about fiddling with the gateway without knowing where it might open up to.

As he walked out towards the outer shore, the sun was just starting to dip toward the horizon, and he found himself wondering what everyone was doing back home. He and Sirius had lost track of the exact date - they hadn't thought to start marking it down until they had realised that they'd lost count in the first place - but he was fairly sure his birthday had been and gone already.

Hermione was likely home with her parents, or possibly off on one of their family holidays abroad. Wherever she was, she would have finished her assignments for the summer within the first few weeks, though she would carry on making tweaks and changes until it came time to finally turn them in.

Ron was probably at home as well, having a fun and carefree summer with his family. Fred and George might be living elsewhere by that point, but they would probably be by to visit multiple times a week, staying for dinner and telling tales of the success of their shop. Ginny would be there as well, trying to get out and fly as often as she could without getting in trouble with their mother.

Neville and Luna, Harry was less certain about, but he hoped that they were both doing something they enjoyed, maybe involving an exotic plant or an animal that probably didn't exist.

As he mused, Harry reached the shore and bent down to go through the familiar motions of rolling up the cuffs of his jeans. He was still mostly wearing the same things he'd arrived on the island in, though he only really used his outer robes as bedding these days, and he generally wasn't bothering to button up his shirt anymore thanks to the heat. His socks and shoes were back at the hut as well; when he was just walking around the soft sand of the cove and nearby beaches, he didn't find them to be worth the effort.

Wading out into the ocean to summon fish was a familiar routine by that point as well. They all swam off as he sloshed his way out, no matter how gently he moved, so he had nothing to do but stand out in the water and wait. Eventually, they would start to swim near him again, and he would be able to pick a couple of prime targets and summon them out of the water.

He and Sirius had been eating so much of the local fish that they'd started to be able to pick out differences between them and develop some preferences. They both agreed that the dark brown ones with the ruffled upper fins were no good to eat, and Harry found that he quite liked the white-and-blue striped fish when he could spot one. There were at least two different types of reddish fish that looked quite similar, and both were fairly plentiful, but Sirius complained that one of them gave him consistent indigestion. Harry was fairly sure that the problematic one was the one with the darker fins, but he wasn't completely sure.

As the first few fish began to approach him again, he started to pick out the sound of a ship's drum in the distance. Just as Ophelia had promised, ships had been passing by the cove once a week or so. Harry had considered flagging one down just to check in with them and ask if they had any news, but in the end he had decided to just leave them be. There was no point in making someone come all the way to shore just to say that the magistrates hadn't decided anything yet.

After considering the sound of the ship for a moment, Harry turned his attention to just summoning the nearest few fish and sending them quickly to shore. He couldn't tell if this would be just another passing ship or if they would be stopping, but he didn't want to risk them spotting him doing magic either way. Indiscriminately summoning fish didn't take long, so he gathered up three random specimens and banished them off to shore in short order, all before the ship was even in sight.

When he arrived back in camp, Sirius looked up at him from where he was stretching his bad leg on one of the benches. "Is that a ship on its way?"

Harry shrugged and set the unconscious fish down on the sand next to the flat stone they used for cleaning and preparation. "I think so. I didn't actually see the ship, though, so I'm not sure if it's coming here or not."

After a moment's thought, Sirius sighed and stood up straight. "Well, we should probably hold off on cooking for a bit. We wouldn't want to be halfway through dinner when they arrive and have nothing to share with them."

Harry pulled a face, but he knew that Sirius was probably right - and sure enough, a few minutes later, the drum abruptly fell silent.

"Right," said Sirius. "Shall we go and meet them, then?"

Harry nodded, and the two of them started back out to the outer shore.

By the time they arrived, their guests were pulling not just one, but two small boats ashore, and a group of a half-dozen people had disembarked. Ophelia was there, along with her niece and nephew, but there was also a man who looked a few years older than her, a much older woman, and another boy in his late teens.

Ophelia was the first to spot them approaching, and as they got closer, she raised a hand in greeting. "Hail, Sirius, son of Orion, and Harry, son of James. How fare you?"

"Hail, Ophelia, daughter of Alexandra," Sirius replied formally. "We fare as well as can be expected, given the circumstances we find ourselves in. And you?"

"Relieved to be able to bring you news," she responded. "But first, permit me to introduce you to my companions: Alexandra, daughter of Euphonia, magistrate of the Green Hills - and my mother."

The older woman gave them a well-practised formal wave, but she said nothing. The look on her face was unreadable; not outwardly hostile, but certainly not as welcoming as Ophelia.

"My brother Stephanos, son of Alexandra, father to Hector and Reina."

The man gave them a wave as well. Once Ophelia had pointed out the relationship, Harry could see the family resemblance, especially between Stephanos and Hector.

"And Dion, son of Dorian, apprentice to Stephanos."

Physically, the other teen was the odd one out, and Harry's initial impression was of a passing resemblance to his cousin Dudley. The boy had sandy hair where the others all had darker brown, and he was shorter and more sturdily-built than any of them.

Sirius gave them all another of the formal waves, and Harry tried to match him. "It's a pleasure to meet you all," Sirius greeted politely.

"And you as well, I'm sure," Ophelia's mother responded neutrally. "I come on behalf of the Council of Magistrates; we have much to discuss."

"Perhaps we should take our business to your camp," Ophelia suggested. "We brought some additional supplies with us, as I thought you could use a break from fish and fruit. Have you eaten an evening meal?"

"We were just about to start preparing it when we heard you coming," said Sirius. "A bit of variety sounds lovely, thank you."

"It's no trouble," Ophelia said, and she turned to her brother. "Stephanos, could you and the young ones handle unloading the boats while Sirius and Harry show our mother and I to their camp?"

"Certainly," he agreed, and he gestured for the three teens to follow him over to one of the boats.

With a word of thanks, Ophelia turned back to Sirius. "Shall we make our way to the camp, then?"

Sirius nodded and gestured in the right direction. "It's just this way," he said to Alexandra, and the four of them started to walk.

"As I believe Ophelia explained," Alexandra began as they went, "the reopening of the Shapp'ey is a significant enough event that I felt it necessary to call for an assembly of the full Council of Magistrates. Such a thing is not done quickly; couriers must be sent out, and some of the more distant isles are fully ten days' sailing from Marthen's Landing. The session convened six days ago, and I asked Ophelia to explain the situation to them."

"As you might imagine," Ophelia added, "the news did not go over well."

Alexandra nodded in agreement. "That would be an understatement. There were immediate calls for the Shapp'ey to be closed once again, and much of the debate that followed was simply about how best to do so."

As they reached Harry and Sirius' camp, the four of them settled around the table, with Harry and Sirius on one side and Alexandra and Ophelia on the other.

"I take it the fact that Harry and I would be trapped here didn't factor into the discussion all that much?" asked Sirius.

Alexandra shook her head. "I'm afraid not. Most of the magistrates were sympathetic to your plight but felt that your desire to return to your home did not outweigh the collective safety of our people. Their solution was simply that you be offered a home here, either on the Green Hills or another island, or even that you should be allowed to remain here on Marthen's Bowl if you wished. A small but vocal few were outright suspicious of you; they feared that you might be advance scouts of one such as Heykit, and that you could not be trusted to live among our society."

"I suppose I can understand why they might be worried about something like that," Sirius replied neutrally, "even though they have never met us, or even know the first thing about us."

"In part, that is why I am here personally. Despite Ophelia's assurances about her confidence in your character, we needed to reassure those who feared treachery from you. As such, I have offered to take my own measure of you, and if I found you to be trustworthy, to offer you a place on the Green Hills - thus placing the risk that you might be dangerous onto my own people."

"And before you say that you would rather remain here," Ophelia cut in, "I am afraid that the other news we bear is... not what you would wish to hear."

Sirius sighed. "Let me guess - the Council voted to close the gateway for good and strand us here."

"On that, the Council was unanimous," Alexandra said. "And in truth, that includes my vote as well. As much as I wish you could safely return home, the risk that the Shapp'ey represents to our people is far too great. Stephanos has accompanied us here so that he might examine it and determine how best it might be sealed."

A dull weight settled into Harry's stomach. He had known that there was a chance that they would want to shut their way back, but for it to be laid out so starkly...

"And how long will that take?" Sirius asked. He sounded resigned, and Harry couldn't blame him. He'd gone from one form of prison to another, and now he was about to be locked away on another world with no way to return.

"A few weeks, maybe more," replied Ophelia. She at least sounded apologetic about the whole situation. "Stephanos will need to look at the Shapp'ey and make plans for how to seal it, and then materials and people will need to be brought here to carry the work out."

Alexandra nodded. "And if your friends should reopen the Shapp'ey within that time, you will of course be permitted to go through and return home. We have no desire to strand you here if it is not necessary, but we cannot risk another like Heykit coming through. We would be powerless to defend ourselves against another with her abilities."

At that, an idea occurred to Harry, and he blurted out, "What if you weren't?"

Everyone turned to look at him in confusion, including Sirius. "Harry," he began slowly, "what are you talking about?"

"What if someone guarded the Shapp'ey?" Harry carried on, as the idea clarified itself and took shape in his mind. "You say your people wouldn't be able to stand against someone like Heykit if they came through - but what if there were people who could?"

Then Sirius understood, and his eyebrows shot up. Ophelia, surprisingly, looked more satisfied than anything. Only Alexandra still looked confused.

"And who, pray tell, would be in a position to do so? Marthen is long gone, and we have no way to contact his people."

Taking a deep breath, Harry stood up from the table and stepped a few paces away. He looked to Sirius to give him a chance to object, but his godfather just shrugged, nodded, and stood as well.

"Where we come from," Harry began slowly, "certain people have... unusual powers. We call them witches and wizards, and their power magic. Based on Ophelia's description, both Heykit and Marthen sound like they had very similar abilities to magic - and we should know. Sirius and I are wizards. You may not think you would be able to defend yourselves against another Heykit... but I think Sirius and I could."

Everyone was silent for a long moment, before Alexandra eventually turned to Ophelia. "Did you know of this? When you suggested to the Council that they could just as easily be of Marthen's people as of Heykit's, I had thought you were simply exploring all options."

"I did not know," answered Ophelia, "but... I suspected. Just look at them - their clothing is clean and undamaged, despite how long they have been stranded here. They do not suffer from the sun or the heat. Look at their workings - the cuts on the bamboo are all clean and precise, as though milled and not simply chopped. No, I did not know for certain, but from the moment I heard young Harry's voice clear across the waves, I could not help but wonder."

Alexandra turned back to look at Harry and Sirius, drawing in a long breath and letting it out slowly. "I will need to take your proposal before the Council," she said eventually, "and I will ask that you demonstrate the extent of your abilities, so that I can convey them to the Council and convince them that you are indeed capable of what you are offering. I cannot guarantee that they will accept it, and Stephanos will still need to begin his work on sealing the Shapp'ey until they can decide, but I believe that the idea may have merit."

The weight in Harry's stomach vanished as quickly as it had arrived. It wasn't a guarantee, but they still had a chance.

As Stephanos and the three teens arrived with the food, Alexandra and Ophelia explained the slight change in plans to them. Stephanos was fairly calm about the situation, though he showed a restrained curiosity about Harry and Sirius' abilities. The teens, on the other hand, weren't restrained in the slightest. While the adults set out dinner and began to serve it, the teens peppered Harry and Sirius with an endless barrage of questions. Most of Reina's questions seemed to be tied to specific feats that Marthen and his warriors had apparently performed in their defeat of Heykit - no, they couldn't blow up a mountain; yes, they could fly, if they had a broomstick; maybe, they could make a great spire from loose rubble, but neither of them could make it last for centuries. Dion, of the three, was the most imaginative. For many of his questions, Harry had to turn to Sirius, and some of them ended up leading to surprisingly deep discussions on the way magic worked. All throughout the evening, as food and wine were passed around freely, Harry and Sirius alternated between giving demonstrations of what they could do. Sirius turned into Padfoot, much to everyone's shock, and Harry demonstrated his sharp eye and reflexes by hitting thrown fruit pits with piercing charms before they could hit the ground.

In the end, what had started with tense news and an uncomfortable outlook for the future had turned into a surprisingly fun gathering, and as Harry blearily stumbled towards his bed and reflected that he probably shouldn't have had quite so much wine, he felt that, all in all, things were looking up.

The next morning, Harry groaned indignantly as birdsong pierced through his skull. The dim light of the outside world clawed at his eyes, and he tried to bury himself into the robes he was using as a pillow.

Hermione, he had no doubt, would be fresh and chipper as she would tell him that his state was his own fault. Ron would commiserate with him, and Hermione would have some sharp words for him as well. In the end, though, after lecturing them a bit more, she would set down a pair of potions that would magically cure hangovers and leave them to sort themselves out.

Sadly, neither Hermione nor Ron were there, so Harry simply had to suffer through it on his own.

After two or three eternities, he levered himself upright in bed, and he gradually forced himself to stand and get started with his day. Oddly, as he went to leave the hut, he noticed that Sirius wasn't in his bed.

Outside, in the searing, jagged morning sun, he found only Stephanos awake, tending to a pot suspended over the fire. Four small tents had been erected slightly down the beach, and Harry could hear at least one person loudly snoring from within them.

"Good morning to you, young Harry," Stephanos said from where he was sitting on a bench near the fire. His voice was kept mercifully low, though Harry could still clearly hear the man's amusement. "I am gladdened to know that, for all of your amazing skills, wizards are still susceptible to such common things as hangovers."

Harry opened his mouth to respond, but he just coughed and wordlessly groaned as he realised how dry his mouth was.

"You don't say," Stephanos responded dryly. Looking amused, he picked up a small cup and ladled a bit of something from the pot into it. "Here - it is a traditional drink among our people for the morning after a night of... high spirits, shall we say. The taste may not be appealing, but I think you will find it soothes your head well enough to make it worth drinking regardless."

Accepting the cup, Harry sank down onto the bench next to him and took a tentative sip. Stephanos was right about the taste, but it wasn't half as bad as any of the potions Madam Pomfrey had ever subjected him to, so he drank it without complaint. Stephanos, the kind and merciful man that he was, got up to start setting out a few things for breakfast and left Harry to quietly suffer in peace.

A few minutes later, a rustling came from one of the tents, and Harry looked up in time to see Sirius quietly stepping out. The older wizard paused for a moment when he saw Harry and Stephanos over by the fire, but he quickly recovered himself and started to walk over. "Good morning, Harry, Stephanos," he said softly.

Stephanos gave him an even, unreadable look, then moved over to the pot on the fire. "Good morning, Sirius. How are you this morning?"

Somewhat nonplussed, Sirius responded, "Ah... Just fine. It's a lovely day, isn't it?"

"It is," Stephanos replied quietly. "And in order to not spoil this fine day, I shall simply inform you that if you should hurt my sister in any way, wizard or not, I will undo everything that Aseco has done for you and ensure that you never walk again. Would you care for some tea?"

For several seconds, Sirius simply stared at him in shock, but he then let out a quiet, stifled laugh. "Stephanos, I will take that under advisement - and yes, I would love a cup of tea. Thank you." With grace, he accepted the proffered cup and sat down near them on the sand.

As the sun continued to rise and Harry's headache gradually cleared, the others began to stir, and the camp became surprisingly bustling. Plans were made and breakfast was served, and soon enough Stephanos stood and addressed Harry and the other teens.

"Well, now that we are all ready for the day - more or less - I feel that we should get underway. Whether the Council accepts your offer or not, we must still make preparations to seal the Shapp'ey sooner or later, and I feel that we will be in for a challenge in doing so. Harry, would you lead the way?"

Standing as well, Harry gestured up at the cave in the cliffside. "Right, come on. It's easiest if we pass under the waterfall, then climb up the far side..."

Chapter Text

A few days later, Harry and Sirius bid farewell to four of their guests. Alexandra told them that she had observed and asked enough questions that she was satisfied that she could return to the Council with an informed opinion, and she expected to return in a month or so with their response. Ophelia, Hector, and Reina were all returning to the Green Hills at the same time - though Ophelia was clearly a bit reluctant to leave - while Stephanos and Dion were staying behind on Marthen's Bowl to continue their preparations to eventually seal the Shapp'ey. The group left in the early morning, and when the ship's drum started up once again and they began to sail away, Stephanos enlisted Harry and Sirius' help in continuing to work on the gateway. Similar to what Harry had been planning, Stephanos proposed that they build a series of scaffolds that would allow them easier access to the device, including a walkway over the cave's river so they didn't have to cling to Harry's rough hand-holds just to make their way up the tunnel to the gateway itself.

At the end of the day, after sharing a meal around the fire, Stephanos excused himself and Dion, and the pair left to spend some time setting up a bit more of a camp of their own around their two remaining tents. This left Harry and Sirius properly alone for the first time since the other group had arrived, so as the last vestiges of sunlight disappeared from the sky, the pair of wizards settled down to face each other across the fire.

"Are you ready?" asked Sirius.

Harry just nodded. Sirius had deemed him capable enough of basic legilimency that they could move on to the real lessons: diving into Sirius' memories of learning to become an animagus. Harry couldn't help but feel a bit of a thrill about the whole idea - not only was he going to learn to be an animagus, but he'd also be seeing memories of his dad. Aside from a few photographs and his unfortunate jaunt into Snape's memories earlier that year, he'd seen hardly anything of what his father was really like, so he was looking forward to the chance that Sirius was offering him.

"Right," Sirius said, "I'm going to start by focusing on the first time we properly sat down to learn about it. It was the night of the first full moon of our third year, and James had spent the summer researching everything about animagi he could get his hands on..."

As Harry murmured the incantation for the spell, he pushed his mind forward, and he felt himself slipping into Sirius' thoughts.

"Sirius, Peter... Allow me to welcome you to Professor Potter's Comprehensive and Foolproof Animagus Training Seminar!"

James was standing in front of his wardrobe in the third-year Gryffindor boys' dorm, where he'd unshrunk and mounted a chalkboard that he'd had hidden away somewhere. Sirius and Peter were sat on the ends of their beds, facing him.

"Do you really think we'll be able to pull this off?" asked Peter. He had been a bit sceptical about the whole plan, but James was apparently bound and determined to push forward with it.

"Absolutely!" James answered confidently. "I've gone through all sorts of books on the process over the summer, and while it won't all be easy, it's not so bad if you just break it down into steps." Picking up a stick of chalk, he began to write. "Becoming an animagus can be broken down into three basic steps: identification, partial transfiguration, and incorporation. Each step has its own tricks and challenges, but none of it's so advanced that we can't just read ahead."

Gesturing with the chalk, he indicated the first step. "Obviously, we start with identification - you can't learn to turn into an animal if you don't know which animal you're going to turn into. There are a few different ways to go about figuring that out - originally, it was just done through long and careful meditation, or by just getting lucky and having an epiphany. These days, there's a potion that you can brew as a bit of a shortcut, though it relies on several highly restricted ingredients that I don't think we'll be able to get our hands on, and there's a ritual that you can do if you have someone to help. I was thinking that that last option would be the best for us, but it'll still be a bit tricky for us to pull off."

"Why's that?" asked Sirius.

"It takes somewhere between five and eight hours, it needs to be performed on the night of a new moon, and it has to be done at the highest possible point in the area."

Sirius sat forward, narrowing his eyes as he thought it through. "So... we need to commandeer the astronomy tower for an entire night, on a specific night of the month, without Remus getting suspicious about us sneaking away without him."

"Three times," James said casually. "Potentially more if we don't get it right."

Peter groaned in dismay, but after another moment's thought, Sirius sat back and shrugged. "Okay, we'll figure something out. What comes after that?"

James broke out into a wide grin, and he pulled out a dense-looking transfiguration tome. "Well, once we find our forms, we move on to practising partial human-to-animal transfigurations on ourselves, to get our bodies used to the transformation..."

MINISTER DEFIANT AFTER DESTRUCTION OF HOME

In a fiery speech in the Ministry atrium this morning, Minister for Magic Amos Diggory spoke out about the Death Eater attack that destroyed his family home earlier this week.

"My resolve remains firm," the Minister said to the assembled press and public. "This cowardly attack on my home simply proves that the Ministry's strategy is pushing them to desperation. It also proves their rank hypocrisy - my family is as pure as they come, and we have called that place home for centuries. You-Know-Who and his band of thugs don't care about pureblood culture - they are simply out for power, and they'll step over anyone and everyone to get it."

After the Minister spoke, he turned the podium over to Head Auror Scrimgeour, who outlined the facts and figures of the attack: Between ten and twelve Death Eaters arrived at the Diggory residence shortly after midnight. Of those, three were killed and another five were captured. Two Aurors perished during the response to the attack; both Francois Beaufort and Hickory Brown are being awarded posthumous Orders of Merlin for their noble deeds.

When asked where he would be residing for the foreseeable future, the Minister declined to answer. "Were it just myself, I would happily paint a target on my back if it meant taking attacks meant for others, but I need to concern myself with my wife Madeline's safety as well. Rest assured, however, that I will be continuing to lead our Ministry in the defence of our nation against these hateful, violent individuals. You-Know-Who has taken too many lives already, my son's included - I will not rest until this so-called 'Dark Lord' and his followers are brought to justice."

At the sound of the train's whistle, Hermione looked up from her copy of the Daily Prophet and out the window at the landscape as it started to slow down outside.

The notion of coming back to Hogwarts felt a bit surreal. Most of the summer had passed by in a blur - cooped up in the Longbottoms' home with nowhere to go and nothing to do but research and study, time had managed to both speed by and seem to stand still. Hogwarts felt like another life entirely, and Hermione found herself having a bit of a hard time adjusting to the thought of going back. The prefects' meeting had been especially jarring, with all of the Head Girl's talk of ensuring curfews were observed and prefects' rounds were scheduled. It all seemed so inconsequential.

On top of all that, going back without Harry felt like admitting failure. She hadn't managed to bring him home, and now they were expected to just go on without him, like there wasn't an empty seat in their compartment where her best friend was supposed to be.

Ron was certainly having a rough time of it as well, though he was handling things a bit differently than Hermione was. He'd been in and out of their compartment all trip, going to visit with various friends and classmates to catch up about their summers. He seemed restless and unsettled, and he'd snapped quite harshly at a few students when they'd come around asking about Harry. Out of their entire little group, Luna seemed to be the most unruffled about the whole situation, though Hermione would be the first to admit that she often had a hard time understanding the younger girl.

As the train's brakes kicked in and the Express started to properly come to a stop, the compartment door opened to let Ron back in. "Sorry about that," he said hurriedly. "I've just spent the last forty-five minutes with Lavender crying on my shoulder. Turns out her dad was one of the Aurors at the Minister's house who, er, didn't make it."

Hermione winced; tactful discussions of sensitive subjects weren't exactly one of Ron's strong suits. "That's awful. Did talking to you about it seem to help, at least?"

Ron shrugged. "No idea. She seemed a bit better at the end, and she said I was sweet for listening, so... maybe?"

"Well, it was nice of you to sit with her either way. I can't imagine what she must be going through right now."

Privately, Hermione couldn't help but worry that they'd both be doing a lot more comforting of other students before the year was out. Even with the Ministry starting to get its act together, Voldemort and his forces were only growing bolder.

Fortunately for Hermione's state of mind, the start of the school year quickly had her swept up in schoolwork.

Between classes, homework, prefect duties, and her continued research into the mystery surrounding Harry, the days positively flew by, to the point that she didn't even realise that it was her birthday until Ron presented her with a wrapped copy of Nastily Exhausting: Ninety-Nine Tips for Surviving your NEWTs Unscathed when she came down to the common room one morning.

It was a bit surreal for her. As of that day, she was seventeen - an adult, in the eyes of the magical world. Somehow, she had expected to feel a bit different, but instead, everything was more or less the same. She went to classes, went to meals, and after dinner, she retired to the empty classroom that Professor McGonagall had set aside for her to continue her research in. The headmaster's non-functional tracking devices sat on a shelf along one wall, and the large table at the front of the classroom was already disappearing between stacks of books and parchment after just a few weeks of use.

Just as she was settling down with a back-issue of The Proceedings of the International Association for Obscure Arcana that she'd ordered, however, a knock at the door caught her attention.

"Hermione, are you in there?" came the voice of Bill Weasley.

"Er... Yes, come in," she responded, a bit confused. The last she'd heard, Bill had spent most of his summer working with the headmaster on some sort of secret project, but she had no idea what it was, or why he would be looking for her.

The door swung open, and Hermione's confusion grew as Bill came in with Neville's great-uncle Algernon of all people. "Ah, hello Miss Granger. I'm glad to see you," the older man greeted.

"...Hello," Hermione replied tentatively. "Can I help you with something?"

"I rather think we can help one another," he replied. "Mr. Weasley, shall I catch up with you in Albus' office? The two of you are welcome to begin without me."

"Works for me," Bill responded casually, but as he went to leave, he stopped and quickly turned back. "Oh, I almost forgot - Happy birthday, Hermione!"

"Thank you?" Hermione couldn't help but be a bit baffled by the whole situation.

As the curse-breaker gave her a jaunty wave and made his exit, Algernon wandered over to quietly peer at the headmaster's charmed devices. Only once the door had clicked shut did he begin to speak. "So, Miss Granger," he began. "To begin with, I'm hoping you can answer a question for me, to satisfy a bit of curiosity on my part."

"I can certainly try," she offered. She still didn't have the faintest clue why he was there.

Turning away from the shelf, he regarded her calmly. "If you would be so kind, could you explain to me what a fellow named Alton Fulbright did for a living?"

The name was familiar to Hermione, but it took her a moment to place it. When she did, though, her mind began racing - Alton Fulbright had been one of the four names on the obituaries that Professor Dumbledore's unnamed "friend" had included in the packet of research material she'd been sent over the summer.

"Alton Fulbright," she began slowly, "was an employee of the Ministry of Magic. When he died in 1792, his obituary was somewhat unusual in that it didn't specify which area or department he worked in." Standing, she moved over to the shelf containing her back-ordered issues of Obscure Arcana and began sifting through them. "He did, however, publish several papers over the years, including an often-cited work in 1780 that describes a theory of... here it is." Leafing through the issue, she found the page and began to read. "'Put forth here is a theory of the interconnected thaumaturgic and transcendental nature of flame.' Numerous subsequent sources cite it as a seminal work that would eventually lead to the development of the modern Floo network, though most people credit the invention of the first working Floo to Branston Avery."

"So, you would characterise Mr. Fulbright as the inventor of the Floo, then?" asked Algernon. His tone was calm and even, as though he were having a minor academic debate.

Hermione shot him an unimpressed look. She thought she had figured out why he was there, at least partially, and she wasn't interested in playing games.

"No, he only put forth one of the underlying theories. The point I was making was that he was a researcher that dealt with highly-theoretical areas of magic - as were three of his contemporaries, all of whom died within two weeks of him. All four published papers on various obscure areas of magical theory, and when they died, all four simply had their occupation listed in their obituaries as 'Ministry employee'." Striding over to the table, Hermione set down the journal and started to sift through her notes. "Oddly, most obituaries of Ministry employees list a department or job title. As a matter of fact, I examined back-issues of the Daily Prophet, and from 1790 to 1795, these four are the only obituaries that mention that the deceased worked for the Ministry but don't go into more detail."

"I take it you have a theory, then?"

Looking up from the table, Hermione nodded. "Unless I very much miss the mark, Alton Fulbright and the others were Unspeakables. In the lead-up to their deaths in 1792, one of them - likely Mr. Fulbright, given his history with travel magics - devised a theory that the Veil led to another place, and they eventually determined that the only way to resolve the question once and for all was for someone to go through. Given that no paper was ever published on the subject, I can only assume that no one else volunteered to go through after the first four all died."

Algernon's face broke into a wide smile. "Well done, Miss Granger. Given the limited information at your disposal, you have assembled a remarkably accurate summary of events."

"What I don't understand," Hermione said, somewhat curtly, "is why you sent me down this rabbit hole at all - assuming you're the one who sent me those clippings in the first place. Knowing that people tried to go through the veil before doesn't help me narrow down what's happened to Harry, and you clearly already know all of this."

"My reasons were twofold," he explained. "First, as a cautionary tale - as I'm sure you observed throughout your research, Mr. Fulbright and his colleagues were not novices, nor were they cavalier in their experimentation. Despite all of their knowledge and expertise, investigating the veil claimed their lives, and anyone who seeks to follow them would do well to understand the risks before carrying on."

"And second?"

"Second, as the final question on your admittance examination." Stepping up to the other side of the table, he reached into an inner pocket of his robes and produced a rolled-up sheet of parchment. "Ordinarily, we would have waited until after you completed your NEWTs to make this offer, but given the circumstances and your existing academic qualifications, we deemed it appropriate to make an exception. You're lucky that your birthday is so early in the school year, or you would have had to wait even longer for this."

As he set down the parchment on the table, it unfurled itself to reveal a Ministry form. The top of the page read "Nomination for Apprenticeship", and it had already been mostly filled out with her name and academic record. In the section labelled "Sponsor", it was signed "Unspeakable Algernon S. Croaker".

"An apprenticeship?" asked Hermione, somewhat in shock. "I didn't realize anyone did those anymore, not since OWLs and NEWTs were introduced."

"Most employers don't, for the most part, but we in the Department of Mysteries find that they still suit us quite well. We have tried accepting applications for positions in the past, but invariably that leads to inadequate applicants making political complaints that turn into unproductive inter-departmental bickering, all while valuable candidates are disqualified based on some bureaucrat's meaningless requirements."

"So instead you wait for people to write to you asking for information, rudely tell them off, and see if they persist?"

That got Algernon to chuckle. "Miss Granger, you've been on the short list for much longer than that. Do you honestly think we would authorise the regular use of a Time-Turner by just any thirteen-year-old student, simply so they could take more classes?"

Hermione blinked, a bit taken aback. In retrospect, that's exactly what she'd thought at the time. "I... suppose not," she admitted.

"Read through that form, Miss Granger," he said simply. "If you wish to accept, I will speak with the headmaster and arrange for you to spend time in the Department on weekends, studying the veil under supervision. You will be expected to maintain your academic standing, or the apprenticeship may be suspended, but based on your record, I expect that that won't be a problem."

Nodding, Hermione picked up the form and carefully re-rolled it. "I'll review it and let you know my decision soon."

"Good." Straightening his robes, he gave her a nod and made to start for the door. "I look forward to hearing from you. Oh, and I should say - Happy birthday, Miss Granger."

As the Unspeakable walked out, closing the door quietly behind himself, Hermione stayed standing behind the table, trying to process what she had just been offered. It was hard to fathom - not only was she being given an opportunity at an incredible career, plumbing the depths of magic's deepest secrets, but she would get access to the veil! With any luck, she'd be able to narrow down what had actually happened to Harry, and possibly even find a way to bring him back home.

Thoroughly distracted by the offer, she found it utterly impossible to go back to her research, so instead she packed her things away, closed up the room behind herself, and headed up to Gryffindor tower. Ron turned out to be off spending some more time with Lavender, so Hermione just said a quick hello to Neville, then headed up to her dorm. She could barely contain her excitement as she got ready for bed, and sleep was a long time coming, but eventually, she nodded off - not knowing that there was one last birthday gift left to come.

"Again!"

Harry squared up his posture, bringing his rough bamboo staff into a defensive position. A short distance away, Dion readied himself as well - and then the larger boy charged, swinging his own staff around to strike at Harry's legs.

Fortunately for Harry, while Dion had the size advantage, Harry had plenty of experience at dodging; he snapped one end of his staff down to roughly knock away Dion's strike, and he used some of the force to pivot himself around, keeping himself facing the larger boy as he charged past.

Off to one side, Sirius sat reclined against a tree, twirling Harry's wand between his fingers. "Again!" he called.

Dion huffed slightly, a bit out of breath, but he turned around all the same and started in for another pass on Harry.

Alexandra had returned several weeks prior with a response from the Council, and the news had been good - the Shapp'ey would be allowed to remain open, with a few conditions. Sirius and Harry would have to stand guard over it, as they had offered, and Stephanos would still be required to prepare a method for sealing it if it became necessary to do so. Alexandra had also been made responsible for ensuring that Sirius and Harry were up to the task of guarding the gateway, so she had asked Ophelia and Stephanos to keep an eye on the two of them and help ensure that what combat skills they had were well-practised.

As a result, their little camp was starting to develop into the beginnings of a village. They had already been working on assembling a hut for Stephanos and Dion to stay in, and when Ophelia had arrived with Alexandra and announced that she planned to stay, they had added a hut for her to the agenda as well - and if Sirius spent more nights in that hut than in his and Harry's, no one cared to comment.

The island of Marthen's Bowl was becoming surprisingly lively, and Harry found that he quite liked it, even if it did mean learning to use a staff and sparring with Dion on a regular basis.

As Dion got a hit in past Harry's guard and Harry made to retaliate, however, they were suddenly interrupted by a loud rushing noise from up in the cave. Everyone paused and looked up at the cave entrance, bracing themselves for a rush of water... but instead, all they heard was a faint echo of a deep splash.

In an instant, Harry realised what the noise must have been. "It's open!" he shouted, and he started sprinting for the bamboo scaffold that they'd built to get up to the cave's entrance. Dion and Stephanos were close behind him, with Sirius bringing up the rear, but Harry had a head start and was going at full tilt. By the time they reached the base of the scaffold, he was already halfway up, and soon he was picking his way as fast as he could along the narrow walkway they'd assembled to make his way deeper into the cave.

Up ahead, a dappled blue glow lit the cave, like nothing he'd ever seen before. He pushed himself forward as fast as he could, willing the gateway to stay open as long as possible, long enough for them to get through... but just as he entered the cavern proper and caught a glimpse of the open gateway - a rippling pond of glowing blue water, suspended in the ring in the ceiling - it vanished, evaporating into nothingness and plunging the cavern into darkness.

Huffing and puffing, Stephanos came up behind him, carrying one of the oil lamps that they'd brought with their supplies. The dim yellow-red light seemed especially faint in comparison to that brief glimpse of brilliant blue.

"It closed again," Harry gasped out, realising only then that he'd been breathing heavily as well. "I saw it, though - it was glowing blue, looked like water." He had to raise his voice over the din of the rushing water.

"I'm sorry we missed it," Stephanos replied evenly. For all that his job was to figure out how to seal the gateway, the man did seem to genuinely want to help Harry and Sirius get home.

"Yeah," Harry said loudly, "me too." Glumly, Harry turned his gaze away from the ceiling, and back towards the group - but something caught his gaze out of the corner of his eye, and he turned to peer down into the water. "Hang on... do you see that?"

Dion, coming up behind Stephanos, looked around his mentor and frowned down at the water as well. "Yeah, I see it."

In the water directly below the gateway, something large and metallic was reflecting back glints of lamplight.

Curious, Harry shucked his shirt and handed it to Stephanos. "I'm going to go take a look. Could you hold this for me?"

As Harry jumped into the water, he was reminded of his first arrival on the island, all dark, cold, and fast-moving water. He nearly wasn't able to make it to the mysterious object, but he managed to find purchase on a protruding bit of the thing, and once he had a decent grip, he was able to start feeling around and getting a sense of the shape of it.

Soon enough, he pushed off from it and resurfaced. Hands reached down to pull him up and back onto the walkway, and moments later he felt drying and warming charms rush over him, for which he sent Sirius a grateful look.

"It's definitely some kind of machine," he said loudly. "I couldn't get a good look at it, though. Sirius, do you think we could hover it out of here and examine it on the beach?"

Sirius nodded, and with a bit of shuffling around to get Sirius to the front of the group on the narrow walkway, Harry's godfather gestured with a quick swish and flick.

Slowly, the thing rose up out of the water, and they began to move with it back out of the cavern. It was hard to tell what the boxy thing was, exactly, but Harry could see an arm and some sort of radar dish.

Eventually, they emerged back out into sunlight, and Sirius guided the thing out of the opening and floated it gently down onto the beach. They climbed down one by one, not in as much of a rush as before, but they all immediately congregated around the unusual device.

Sitting out on the beach, it reminded Harry of some sort of moon rover. It had sat on something like tank treads, and there were lights, a little video camera on an arm sticking out of the top, and even some panels that probably housed electronics of some sort.

"There's some writing over here," Stephanos said from the far side. "Can either of you read this?"

Harry and Sirius both stepped around to see what he was looking at.

Sirius cocked his head in confusion as he read the text on the device. "MALP? Is that some sort of muggle thing, Harry?"

Harry could only shrug. "Sorry, Sirius. I have no idea."

In the dead of night, on a shelf in the classroom that Professor McGonagall had set aside for Hermione's use, Professor Dumbledore's charmed instruments sprang to life. The Heart's Reflection, which had been still for months, began to beat and pulse once again, and the ornate artisanal tracking device swung up to point broadly westward. They were working perfectly, as though there had been no interruption - but after scarcely a minute, as though their strings had been cut, they suddenly fell dormant once again.

At the same time, however, a more lasting change took place. All throughout the castle, a particular set of coins grew warm to the touch, and the digits around the outside changed to reflect a new message.

SOS.ALIVE,NOTEARTH-HP,SB

Chapter Text

It was a gorgeous morning in Colorado Springs.

Dawn was sending streaks of orange light across the sky, leaves were turning their colors to show off vibrant reds and yellows, and the newly-rebuilt engine of Sam's classic sports car was roaring like it had just come off the assembly line. As she rounded the final corner and approached the first security checkpoint for the Cheyenne Mountain complex, she found herself thinking fondly of her cramped little lab back in the Pentagon. For all that it had seemed like a glorified closet, it had at least had a window.

Of course, windowless underground bunker or not, Sam wouldn't give up her new job for the world.

Deep in the bowels of Cheyenne Mountain, hidden away in the levels below the NORAD command operations center, lay the best-kept secret on the planet: the Stargate. Unearthed in Egypt in the 1920's and shipped back to the US for study, the Gate had been a mystery until it had finally been activated some two years prior. As it turned out, the mysterious metal ring was a transportation device; it could be used to generate artificial wormholes that would allow for instantaneous travel to any other Stargate in the galaxy. In the short time since the US Air Force had officially formed Stargate Command to start making use of the device to explore other worlds, they had met alien races, uncovered new technologies, and discovered the unexpected truth behind a number of Earth's myths and legends - and Captain Samantha Carter was lucky enough to be one of the people who went out exploring.

Or, she would be, if her team wasn't currently on stand-down.

Once she'd cleared the many security checkpoints necessary to gain entry to the base, her first stop was the infirmary, where her team leader, Colonel O'Neill, was laid up in bed with a broken leg. When she arrived, she found him sitting up against some pillows and finishing up the last of his breakfast.

"Good morning, Colonel!" she greeted, coming up to stand near the end of his bed.

"Carter," he replied. "Are you here to break me out of here?"

She shook her head. "I'm afraid not, sir. Has Dr. Fraiser said how much longer you'll have to stay?"

With a sigh, Colonel O'Neill set his tray to one side and shifted his body around slightly to get more comfortable. "Well, there's good news and bad news," he said. "The good news is, she says I'll at least be able to get out of here in a wheelchair and putter around the base a bit later today. The bad news is, she doesn't want me actually leaving the base for another week, so I'm still going to be stuck sleeping here for a while yet."

Sam winced in sympathy. "Sorry to hear that, sir. If you need someone to stop by your house and water your plants or something along those lines, I'd be happy to take care of that."

"Well, now that you mention it, the tape in my VCR is probably close to full by now. Could you swing by and swap in a fresh one?"

After ascertaining the location of his spare key (under the doormat) and the blank tapes (on the shelf next to the media center), Sam assured the colonel that she'd take care of it, then left to carry on with her day. Her next stop was in the commissary to pick up a cup of mediocre coffee, and after that, she made her way to the control room.

The nerve center of Stargate Command, the control room was a cramped space full of computer terminals and racks of dedicated server gear. Numerous monitors were set up on desks or suspended from the ceiling, each constantly displaying important information about the status of the Stargate and its support systems, and a large window in the room's front wall looked out into the embarkation room at the Gate itself, the alien ring standing silent and imposing. Relatively crude Earth-made clamps and machinery had been connected and rigged up to control the device, and the Gate's aperture was protected by a metal iris that would prevent any inbound travelers from rematerializing while it was closed.

As she entered the control room, the Gate technician on duty looked up and gave her a friendly nod. "Captain."

"Good morning, Walter," she said. Stepping up beside him, she took a sip of her coffee and looked out at the Stargate. "Any unexpected visitors overnight?"

"No, ma'am," he replied. "The last activity was outbound, and even that was just a MALP late yesterday. The dialing computer finished recalculating the next address in the database, and SG-5 was prepped and ready, so we sent through a probe. Unfortunately, conditions didn't appear hospitable on the other side, so they had to scrub."

Sam felt a pang of disappointment at that. Despite the massive computing power at their disposal, it still took the better part of a week to recalculate a Gate address from the ancient list they were working from. "Well, that's a shame," she said. "What was wrong with the planet?"

"It's not the planet that's the problem, exactly," Walter explained. "Take a look."

Punching a few keys on the console, he brought up the playback of the MALP's video transmission. The first part of the recording was just the usual view of the Gate room, with the Gate slowly growing closer as the probe drove up the ramp towards the event horizon, but after the probe had entered the Gate and been transported halfway across the galaxy, it was hard to make anything out. The only apparent light source was the shimmering blue glow of the open wormhole, and it appeared to be reflecting back off of water - until suddenly the MALP itself was apparently submerged, and several system errors popped up in red text along the top of the screen.

"Based on the telemetry, it looks like the probe came out of the Stargate facing straight down and tumbled straight into a body of water," Walter explained. "We tried moving it around once it was at the bottom, but it looks like the drive system may have been damaged in the fall."

Sam winced. "If the Stargate on that planet is face-down, damage to the MALP may be the least of our worries. Any team we send would have a very hard time getting back, even if we can locate a DHD for them to use to dial."

"It's not promising," Walter agreed. "I spoke with General Hammond about it this morning, and he wants us to give the MALP another try, but if we can't get it moving, we're to mark the planet 'inhospitable' in the address database and move on."

"That makes sense, I suppose," Sam begrudgingly acknowledged. Having the computer finish recalculating an address only to have it turn out to be unusable was always disappointing, but sometimes luck wasn't in their favor and the planet turned out to be a dud. "Did he say when we should try it again?"

"After SG-3 checks in," Walter said. "They're still investigating those ruins on P1X-192 with Dr. Jackson, and they're due to dial in for their standard daily contact at 0830."

Sam looked over at one of the wall clocks in the room and saw that the scheduled time wasn't far off. "In that case, I think I'll stick around. I've been meaning to run a few low-level diagnostics on the dialing computer anyway."

"Yes, ma'am," acknowledged Walter, and as Sam settled in at one of the other terminals, both of them turned their attention to their work - until, a minute or so before the scheduled time, the Stargate began to activate, the reddish-orange crystals embedded around its face illuminating one by one.

Immediately, Walter's attention was diverted away from what he was working on, and he slammed a hand down on an alarm button, setting off klaxons throughout the base. "Offworld activation!" he announced through a loudspeaker.

Out in the Gate room, the marines on duty snapped to full alert, bringing their weapons to bear on the activating Gate. Even though they were scheduled to have a team check in, the base's security protocols were strict - every activation was assumed to be dangerous until proven otherwise.

As the final chevron lit up, the Stargate connected, the wormhole establishing itself with a loud rushing noise and casting the rear of the Gate room in dappled blue light. At the same time, Sam could hear steps coming down the stairs at the back of the room.

With the Gate active, the speakers in the control room crackled to life. "SGC, this is SG-3 leader, come in."

Activating the radio to respond, Walter replied, "Colonel Makepeace, this is SGC, reading you loud and clear. What's your status?"

"Damp, muddy, and ready to wrap this up. These ruins are a bust; Dr. Jackson found a few broken clay pots, which are apparently 'fascinating', but that's all. Requesting permission to return to base."

As the Colonel delivered his report, General Hammond came down the last few steps into the control room and made his way forward towards the console. He was a stout, bald man, with an air of calm authority and a no-nonsense attitude, and as he arrived, Walter automatically moved aside to give the general access to the microphone.

"Colonel Makepeace, this is General Hammond," he said. "Is Dr. Jackson there with you?"

"Just a moment, General," came the reply, and a few seconds later, the archaeologist's voice replaced the colonel's.

"Hello, General Hammond?"

Sam hid a small smile at Daniel's mangling of proper radio protocol. Normally, he would be on SG-1 with her, but with their team on stand-down, he'd asked to accompany another team out in the interim - and she could only assume that Daniel's general lack of regard for the military as an institution was clashing horribly with Colonel Makepeace's straight-laced, by-the-book demeanor.

"Dr. Jackson," General Hammond said, "I understand the ruins are a bit of a dead end. Is that accurate?"

"Yeah, that about sums it up. The only visible structures are the ones that SG-8 noted in their initial report, and the design is similar to what we've seen on Chulak and elsewhere. There were a few interesting fragments of some sort of pottery, but we've already got them bagged up to bring with us. At this point, I don't think there's anything else for us to find here."

"Very well," the General said. "If you're ready to return now, transmit your IDC and come through when ready."

"Will do, General," Daniel replied.

A moment later, a message appeared on several screens, indicating that his identification code had been received and validated by the computer.

"IDC received, Dr. Jackson," said General Hammond, and he signaled Walter with a nod. "We're opening the iris."

At the general's order, Walter typed a command into the computer, and the metal Iris covering the Stargate spiraled open to reveal the wormhole beyond - and moments later, Colonel Makepeace stepped out, followed shortly by the rest of SG-3 and Daniel Jackson.

For Sam, the fact that they were crossing half of the galaxy in a matter of seconds never failed to boggle her mind. Maybe someday the wonder would wear off, but so far, it had shown no sign of waning.

As the wormhole disengaged and most of SG-3 went off to get cleaned up, Colonel Makepeace and Daniel stepped into the control room to check in. The colonel went straight for the general to make his report, but when Daniel spotted Sam sitting off to the side, the archaeologist headed over to talk to her instead.

"Hello Daniel," she greeted. "How was going on a mission with SG-3?"

"Muddy," he replied dryly. Indeed, both he and Colonel Makepeace were thoroughly covered in caked-on layers of mud, which they were now tracking into the control room. "When SG-8 said that the ruins were three miles west of the Stargate, they neglected to mention that most of that distance was steep, rolling hills, and it was nice and sunny when they were there, not pouring rain."

"I see," Sam responded. "Well, you should probably go get cleaned up before General Hammond decides to make the two of you deal with the mess in here."

Daniel looked himself up and down, then grimaced. "Yeah, you're probably right. Before I go, though, how's Jack doing?"

"About as well as can be expected," she said with a shrug. "Dr. Fraiser says he can get out in a wheelchair for a bit today, so he'll probably try to rope you into helping him escape if you go to see him."

"Maybe I'll wait until after I've cataloged the artifacts we found, then," Daniel said. "Thanks for the heads-up." With a glance over at the general, he moved to duck out the back entrance to the room, sneaking out as best as he could while leaving a trail of muddy footprints behind him.

Not long after, Colonel Makepeace finished giving his report to General Hammond, and he too left. As he did, the general looked around at the floor of the control room, then over at Sam, who just shrugged.

"Well, people," he said, "now that that's done, you have a go to re-dial P3X-827 - and while you do that, I'm going to call someone down here with a mop."

As he left, Sam and Walter turned back to the dialing computer. "Dialing P3X-827," Walter said, punching commands into the console.

The usual alarms that accompanied the Gate's activation sounded throughout the base, and out in the Gate room, the inner ring of the Stargate began to spin. After a moment, it stopped on the first symbol of the planet's address, the upper chevron locked momentarily into place, and the first of the outer crystals lit up.

"Chevron one, engaged," Walter reported. As the process continued and the rest of the address was dialed, he continued to call them out aloud, until finally, he arrived at, "Chevron seven, locked," and the Stargate engaged, casting the Gate room in dappled blue light once again.

"Right," Sam began, pulling up the probe's video feed, "let's see what we can see."

What she saw on the screen drew her up short, however. Instead of pitch darkness or a view from underwater, the MALP's camera was sending them the image of a tropical cove. It appeared to be early morning, with rays of sunlight just starting to peek through the trees on the far side of the cove, and there was no indication that there was anything wrong with the MALP.

"Are you sure this is the right planet?" she asked Walter, running through possible explanations for the situation in her head.

"Yes, ma'am," he replied, also looking confused. "This is P3X-827."

"Well, maybe someone on the planet found the probe and dragged it ashore. Can you pan the camera around?"

He did so, and as the camera moved, it soon revealed what looked like a small settlement. A few simple tents and bamboo huts were spaced along the shoreline, but they didn't see any people in the early morning light - or rather, they didn't, until they finally panned far enough to see a burned-down campfire and a teenage boy standing next to it. He was an athletic-looking young man with a mop of messy black hair and a healthy tan, and he was staring straight at the camera, a length of bamboo held in his hand like a weapon.

"Call down General Hammond," Sam said quickly, and even as Walter nodded and picked up a phone, she reached for the button to activate the microphone. She wasn't sure exactly what she was going to say, but she clearly had to say something.

"Uh... Hi," she said, and she couldn't help but wince at the terrible introduction. "Are you able to hear me?"

The boy on the screen blinked, and he cocked his head to the side slightly as he regarded the camera. "...Yes. Who are you?"

"My name is Captain Samantha Carter," she said. "The device you're looking at is a remote probe; we're operating it from far away, but it has a camera and a radio on it, so we can communicate through it."

"Are you the one who sent it through the gateway?"

"It wasn't me specifically," she said, "but others on my team did."

At that, some of the boy's wariness was replaced by excitement, and he lowered his bamboo stick a bit. "Do you know how to work the gateway, then?" he asked eagerly. "It's just, my godfather and I have been stuck here for months now, and people who live here didn't even know it was open - and honestly, if you can help us get home, they'd really like to seal it up again so no one else comes through."

That whole explanation did nothing but raise multiple questions for Sam, but fortunately, General Hammond arrived partway through to take over, and he leaned in past her to take over the conversation.

"Son, my name is General Hammond," he said, taking a calm, cool approach. "I'm the officer in charge of this program for our world, and while I can't guarantee that we can get you home, I can tell you that we're willing to try. We're not in the business of leaving people stranded if we can help it."

The relief that swept over the boy's face was palpable. "Thank you, General," he replied, "that means a lot. This place is nice enough to visit, but we really do want to be getting home."

"And we'll see what we can do to make that happen," General Hammond reassured him. "To start with, the planet you're from - do you know the Gate address?"

"Er... No, sorry," the boy said, a bit crestfallen. "Is that important? My planet's called Earth - are you able to look up the address somehow?"

Sam and Walter exchanged surprised looks, and even General Hammond looked a bit startled.

"Son, did you say you're from Earth?" he replied after a moment.

The boy looked confused. "Er... Yes. Why, have you heard of it?"

Side-stepping the boy's question, General Hammond asked instead, "Where on Earth are you from?"

"The UK," the boy responded, still clearly baffled by the general's line of questioning. "Surrey, in particular. Why, what does that matter?"

General Hammond's eyes narrowed a bit. "Son, we're on Earth, and I'd know if you'd gone through our Stargate in the last few months. If we're going to help you get back, I need you to tell me exactly how you got there in the first place."

Unsurprisingly, the boy got a bit defensive at the general's tone. "We were in a government building in London," he said sharply, "and we fell through this weird archway and ended up here. I probably shouldn't tell you any more than that - it's all very top secret, hush-hush stuff. I'm sure you understand how that goes, General."

That response visibly annoyed the general, but his response was calm and measured regardless. "As a matter of fact, I do. Now, here's what I'm going to do: I'm going to turn you back over to Captain Carter; she'll have some more questions for you about your situation, and hopefully she'll be able to talk you through dialing the Gate. In the meantime, I'm going to try to validate your story. Regardless of how you got there, if you are from Earth, we'll do our best to help you get home."

Lifting his hand from the microphone button and straightening up, he turned to Sam and said, "I have to go make some calls. First Antarctica, now Britain... If there's another Stargate sitting around in some British government warehouse, we need to know about it. In the meantime, I want you to work with him, find out what his situation is in detail, and walk him through the dialing process - but until I give the order, don't allow him to come through. We'll need to have every security precaution in place, just in case this is another Goa'uld trick."

Sam grimaced at the thought - the last time they'd rescued a seemingly harmless child, the girl had turned out to have an organic bomb implanted in her chest.

"Yes, sir," she said simply, and as he turned to head back up to his office, she leaned over to re-activate the microphone. "Okay, let's start simple. Can you tell me your name?"

"My name is Harry," he said. "Harry Potter..."

That same morning, on the other side of the Atlantic, Hermione Granger awoke feeling just as shocked and excited as she had the night before.

She had been offered a chance to apprentice as an Unspeakable. The thought of working in the Department of Mysteries had been an appealing concept to her before, but that was all it had been - a concept. It had been an idle, far-off idea, not something that she had seriously considered.

But now, she had an offer of apprenticeship rolled up and tucked into her bag, just waiting for her signature - and if she accepted it, she would have access to the veil, and she would be able to work directly with it and perform experiments to try to narrow down her theories on what had possibly happened to Harry.

It was a very tempting offer. Part of her had wanted to sign it right then and there the night before, but she'd manage to hold off that impulse by reasoning that she should at least read through the fine print in detail before signing. For all she knew, it could turn out to be a life-long contract that would restrict her ability to have any other career, or have any number of other horrible clauses, and it wouldn't do to dive in blindly if she didn't have to.

As she got ready for her day and headed down to the Great Hall for breakfast, she tried to piece together a plan for the day. She knew she wanted to talk to someone about the offer, possibly Professor McGonagall, so she would need to ask her about that as soon as possible. With any luck, the professor would be at breakfast when she arrived, and she could get that meeting scheduled; if not, she would just have to wait around until she arrived.

Unfortunately, when Hermione arrived in the Great Hall, only Professors Flitwick, Sprout, and Vector were seated up at the head table, so she had to settle herself down at the near end of the Gryffindor table to wait. Before she could get started on putting together her breakfast, however, an oddly excited Luna Lovegood sat down on the bench opposite her. She looked tired, and a bit disheveled, but also more animated than Hermione had ever seen her. She was clutching at something around her neck, though Hermione couldn't tell what it was, and almost bouncing up and down in her seat.

"Hermione, good morning!" exclaimed the waifish girl. "Have you seen the news?"

Hermione frowned and looked up the table to search for a discarded copy of the Daily Prophet. "No, I didn't think it had even been delivered. What is it?"

"It's not in the paper," Luna said excitedly. "Not yet, at least. It's Harry!" And by way of explanation, she held out her necklace, leaning as far across the table as she could to try to give Hermione a good look at it.

It took Hermione a moment to realise what she was looking at. It was a Galleon, which Luna had apparently incorporated into a surprisingly intricate little medallion, with finely-crafted wands and robed figures facing off against one another. As she looked closer, she realised that it was one of the mock Galleons she'd enchanted for the DA the previous year - and when that clicked, Luna's meaning became clear, and Hermione shot up from her bench and leaned forward as well to examine the outer edge of the coin.

SOS.ALIVE,NOTEARTH-HP,SB

"They're alive," she breathed in wonder. "They're alive, but not on Earth, and they need help. Luna, this is fantastic! When did you see this message? I've been checking my Galleon occasionally, but the last time I checked, it was still the same old message."

"It changed last night, shortly after midnight," Luna said happily. "I felt it warming when it happened, and I tried to find you right away, but I couldn't get into your tower, so I settled for waiting here for you instead."

Hermione blinked at her and slid back into her seat. "Luna, did you stay up all night?"

The other girl nodded, still smiling. "Oh yes," she said. "The house-elves made me hot cocoa. It's not the first time I've spent the night here - though I suppose it is the first time I made the choice to."

"The first - Luna, are people locking you out of your tower?"

"No, not very often anymore," she said. "Harry scared most of them away, and he taught us how to stand up for ourselves last year as well. I would really like to thank him for all that. Do you think I could send him a message back through my Galleon?" 

Hermione blinked again as Luna redirected her train of thought back to Harry's predicament. "Send a message back?" she repeated, turning the idea over in her head. "It's possible... I initially charmed the Galleons with Harry's coin as the master, which would normally mean sending a response wouldn't work - it's a many-to-one priority issue, quite common with multi-object Protean charms - but if we were to send the same message from every coin at once... No, if we were to collect the remaining coins and dispel the charms on all but one, then we could probably do it. I think that should work, anyway; I'd want to speak to one of the professors about it to be sure."

Luna didn't seem to care about all of Hermione's uncertainty. Instead, she just looked like she'd been told Christmas was being rescheduled to every other Tuesday. "That's wonderful, thank you Hermione! I can't wait to send him my thanks for all of his tutoring. When do think we could get started on all of that?"

Hermione cast her eyes up at the head table, looking over the professors who were present. "Well, I can go run the idea past Professors Flitwick and Vector now. In the meantime, if you could start working on a list of everyone who was in the DA, that would be quite useful. We'll need to get every single Galleon back if this is going to work, and Umbridge took our original list, so we'll be working from memory."

Luna nodded vehemently and started rooting through her bag for a quill and parchment. "Of course! I don't think I'll be able to remember everybody, but I'm sure the others will help."

"Sounds good," Hermione said. "I'm going to go talk to the professors; I'll be back in a few minutes, okay?"

Luna nodded, humming happily as she continued to look through her bag, and Hermione stood up from her seat and made her way up to the front table to speak with the professors.

"Professor Vector, Professor Flitwick, do you have a moment?" she asked. "It's about the Protean charm..."

Chapter Text

When the gateway up in the cave finally disconnected, Harry sat back with a long, exhausted sigh.

For the past half-hour, Captain Carter had grilled him about every aspect of his and Sirius' situation. In many ways, it had reminded him of a study session with Hermione the night before a major exam - all business, question after question, with barely enough time to catch his breath in between. He felt wrung out and slightly disorientated, and part of him just wanted to go back to sitting quietly by the fire pit and practicing the incantations for his animagus ritual.

Of course, he knew he wasn't going to get the chance. He'd seen Sirius peeking out of Ophelia's hut a time or two, so he expected that his godfather would join him before too long - and sure enough, moments later, Sirius poked his head out the door again, checking to see if the coast was clear.

"You can come out, Sirius," Harry called over. "They've disconnected for now."

Somewhat warily, Sirius stepped out of the hut and made his way over to the fire pit. Ophelia followed him out, eyeing the MALP uncertainly, and joined them by the pit as well.

"So, who was that?" Sirius asked as he sat down on the sand opposite Harry.

"Muggles," Harry replied. "The American muggle military."

Sirius looked as baffled by that as Harry felt. "The - what? How did they get involved?"

"Not on purpose, apparently," Harry said. "They have a gateway of their own, like the one up in the cave. Apparently they figured out how to use it a few years ago, and they've been going out and exploring other worlds ever since. They basically stumbled across us by random chance."

"That's... well, I suppose we can't exactly complain." Sirius seemed a bit lost for words, looking somewhat distractedly between the MALP and the cave.

While Sirius gathered himself, Ophelia spoke up. "These... Muggle Americans. You know of them?"

Harry nodded. "They're from Earth," he said, "just... a very different area than we're from."

"But they can still help you return home?"

"It's possible," Harry replied. "It sounds like they're willing to help, and they definitely know more about operating the gateway than we do - but unfortunately, it sounds like we're missing a piece. There's apparently some sort of control thing that's usually found near a Stargate on most planets they go to."

Sirius looked over at him in confusion. "A 'Stargate'?" he echoed.

"That's what they call the Shapp'ey," Harry explained. "Apparently some aliens they've met call it a 'Chappa'ai', but the Americans originally translated it from ancient Egyptian as 'Stargate', and the name stuck."

"Ahh," acknowledged Sirius. "Well, what does this control thing of theirs look like? If it's important, we should probably look around for one."

Harry thought back to Captain Carter's description of the device. "They call it a DHD - a Dial Home Device. It's a pedestal, about waist-high, with a bunch of buttons with the symbols from the Gate's ring arranged in a circle around a big red button in the center. There's usually one right next to the Gate."

"Oh," Sirius responded. "Well, I think we would have spotted one of those already if it was around."

Harry nodded in agreement. "Yeah. I'm a bit worried, actually - if the DHD was next to the Gate in Heykit's palace when Marthen blew up the mountain..."

"Then it's either buried in the crater somewhere, tossed out into the ocean, or outright destroyed," Sirius concluded with a grimace. Turning to Ophelia, he asked, "Do you know if there was anything like that in her palace back then?" 

Alexandra shook her head. "I do not know the tales well enough to say for sure. I recall that she was able to control the Shapp'ey somehow, so it seems possible, but I cannot be certain."

"Well," Harry spoke up quickly, "even if we can't find one, it sounds like that may not be the only way to dial the Gate. Captain Carter said she was going to do some more research, and they're going to dial back in later today with some more questions - and they've offered to put together a package of supplies for us, if there's anything we need."

At that, Sirius perked up a bit. "You know, I certainly wouldn't mind some comforts from home. A few extra sets of clothes, maybe some new shoes..."

"Captain Carter said we should put together a list and have it ready for them when they dial in again. Apparently they can only keep the gateway open for so long, so she asked me to have that ready to go."

"That's fair enough," Sirius acknowledged. "What do you say we sort out some breakfast and start figuring out what to ask for?"

Harry nodded and started to get to his feet, but as he did so, something suddenly occurred to him. "Oh, and there was one other question she asked that I didn't have an answer for," Harry added, and he turned to look at Ophelia. He was a bit embarrassed that he had to ask, but he pushed forward anyway. "What's this planet actually... called? Captain Carter said their computer system called it P3X-something - just a bunch of letters and numbers - and when she asked if it has an actual name... Well, I realized I don't think we ever asked."

Ophelia looked amused at his awkwardness, a small grin pulling at her lips. "I suppose it would have been strange to ask when you were still pretending you were simply stranded travelers from a far-off land."

"I mean, that's still technically true..." Harry began sheepishly.

Taking mercy on him, Ophelia raised a hand and said, "You were cautious, and with good reason. It is of no concern now. To answer your question... we call our world Eleutheria."

"Thank you," Harry replied, and with that settled, the trio gathered themselves up and started to get to work on breakfast. As they tossed around ideas for things they could ask for from Earth, the truth of the situation began to sink in - for the first time, after months of being stranded, Harry and Sirius had a real possibility of getting home.

After a long and busy day, Captain Carter was headed to the briefing room.

After she'd gathered as much information from the boy on P3X-827 as she could, she'd tasked a few airmen with collecting a few watertight packing cases and some basic supplies, then tracked down Sergeant Siler, one of the base's primary electrical technicians. After a quick conversation with him to lay out what she needed, she'd left him to his work, then headed to her lab, where she'd busied herself digging up reports on the specifics of the Stargate's dialing mechanisms. Eventually, she was interrupted with the news that General Hammond had scheduled a briefing with all of SG-1, so she finished up her work and headed out.

When she arrived in the briefing room, she found Daniel already at the table, playing with a pen and looking distractedly over at the general's office. "Hey, Sam," he greeted distractedly. "Do you know what all this is about? I thought we were stood down until Jack's leg was better."

Glancing through the window to the general's office, Sam saw their commanding officer talking on the phone - and he was clearly annoyed by how the conversation was going. "It's a long story," she said, and she walked over to the side table to grab herself a glass of water. "It's not a mission per se, just a bit of a tricky situation. General Hammond probably just wants us all together to work out how to deal with it."

"Oh, I see," Daniel replied. "Well, hopefully it'll give Jack something to do. I swung by the infirmary earlier, and you were right - he tried to convince me to light a fire in a trash can so he could sneak out in the resulting chaos."

"That sounds like him," Sam laughed. "Was he already in a chair at that point, or was he planning to commandeer one?"

As they chatted, the conversation moved on to Daniel's trip with SG-3 and the areas in which he and Colonel Makepeace disagreed. In the middle of a complaint about the colonel's lack of basic interest in ancient civilizations, however, Daniel was interrupted by a loudly complaining voice out in the hall.

"I told you, I can do it myself! It's my leg that's broken - my arms work just fine!"

"Dr. Fraiser was quite clear in her instructions, O'Neill," came the response.

Colonel O'Neill looked exasperated as he was wheeled into the conference room, one leg sticking straight out in front of him in a full cast. Pushing him along was the fourth member of SG-1, Teal'c. The defected alien warrior was an imposing and stoic figure, but Sam thought she caught the faintest hint of amusement on his face as Colonel O'Neill continued to complain about being carted around like a sack of potatoes.

"It's good to see you out and about, Colonel," Carter interrupted, "even if it's not under your own power."

Colonel O'Neill shot her a disgruntled look, but relented nonetheless. "Well, anywhere's better than there," he groused. "Though I will say, I wasn't expecting to go immediately back to work. Does anyone know what all this is about?"

"It's a long story, apparently," Daniel offered helpfully, giving Sam a significant look.

Colonel O'Neill turned to look expectantly at her, and even Teal'c looked a bit curious, so Sam sighed. "I suppose we can get started with the background without General Hammond," she said. Off to one side, the briefing room had a portable computer cart, so she went over and started pulling up the files related to the situation.

"At approximately eighteen-hundred hours yesterday," she began, "the dialing computer finished calculating the address for the planet designated P3X-827. Unfortunately, when a MALP was sent through, the first thing it discovered was that the Gate was positioned face-down."

Colonel O'Neill winced at that, but Daniel looked puzzled. "If the Gate was face-down, how did the MALP materialize on the other end? Doesn't there need to be a gap for it to re-form?"

"It's embedded in the roof of a cave," Sam explained, and she pulled up a rough wire-frame graphic of the situation that she'd put together in her lab. "Based on the telemetry, the probe fell for about 10 meters before landing in a body of water."

"The roof of a cave?" Daniel echoed, sounding perplexed. "Why would anyone put a Stargate there?"

"It wasn't on purpose, as I understand it," Sam replied. "We dialed the address again this morning after you got back with SG-3, and the probe had been recovered by a few people living on the planet. The local population apparently thought that the Stargate had been lost or destroyed centuries ago."

Daniel's eyes widened, and he leaned forward in interest. "They thought it had been buried - did they say if it was intentional?"

Before Sam could answer, however, the door to General Hammond's office swung open, and their commanding officer stepped out. He looked harried and stressed, but as he saw that they were all there and ready, he took a deep breath and headed for the table. "This situation's turning into a mess," he said bluntly. "Take a seat, people."

Once everyone had settled into their usual places, the general turned to Captain Carter. "To start with, Captain, what did you find out from your conversation earlier today with the boy on P3X-827?"

Taking a breath, Sam picked up the clicker to control the computer screen and began to explain. "When we dialed the planet again this morning, I spoke to this person, who said his name was Harry Potter." As she spoke, she brought up a snapshot of the video feed from earlier, showing the shaggy-haired youth looking at the camera. "Apparently, he and his godfather, a man named Sirius Black, were inadvertently stranded on the planet via the Stargate several months ago. After a few weeks alone on the island where the Gate is, a few members of the local civilization eventually came across them, and they've been in steady contact with them ever since."

Clicking the button, Sam advanced to a snapshot she'd taken later in the conversation, showing the cave in the cliffside and the waterfall cascading down from it. "The Stargate is up in this cave, embedded in the ceiling above the river that leads to that waterfall. Apparently, the Gate used to be in the palace of Heykit, some sort of 'demon queen' who claimed to be a goddess."

"A Goa'uld?" asked General Hammond. 

"That would be my guess, sir, but Harry didn't recognize the term when I asked," Carter replied. Looking to Teal'c and Daniel, she asked, "Do either of you recognize the name?"

Teal'c shook his head. "I do not," he said simply.

Daniel, on the other hand, looked thoughtful. "I'm not sure, but it sounds kind of similar to Hecate - she was the ancient Greek goddess of magic and necromancy."

"Well," Sam continued, "she was apparently defeated around a thousand years ago by a mysterious group of warriors from off-world. They showed up out of nowhere, killed the 'demon queen' and freed her people, then left - but on their way out, they triggered a volcanic eruption in the mountain her palace was on, destroying it entirely and presumably burying the Gate in the process."

That got looks of surprise from everyone around the table.

"Those warriors sound like my kind of people," Colonel O'Neill chimed in. "I don't suppose they left a forwarding address?"

Sam shook her head. "I'm afraid not. They did stop at one of the islands and gave a bit of a speech before they left - 'Heykit was a false god, you're free now, don't unbury the Gate,' that kind of thing - but otherwise all I know is their leader was apparently called Marthen."

"Marthen," Daniel repeated slowly. "That... doesn't ring any bells, but I can do some research and see if I turn up any minor gods with similar names."

"I also do not recognize that name," Teal'c offered.

"At any rate," General Hammond interrupted, "these warriors are worth looking into, but right now, they're not our most pressing concern."

Colonel O'Neill looked skeptical. "No? Seems to me people who can waltz in and kick Goa'uld butt like that would be a pretty good group to look up."

The general shot the colonel a stern look. "The boy and his godfather, the two who are stranded on that planet - the boy says they're from Earth."

That got Colonel O'Neill's attention. "From Earth? How?"

General Hammond looked to Captain Carter, so she continued her explanation. "I'm not sure." she said. "He claims that they were in a British government building of some sort and they fell through an odd archway - not identical to the Stargate, but similar. I asked him for more information several times, but he says that the whole thing is classified and he can't tell us more."

"Huh. So... how do we know it's not a trick?" Colonel O'Neill asked.

Sam hit a button and pulled up a page of information. "He was willing to give me a fair bit of information to prove his identity. He gave me a lot, including his date of birth, his address, the name of his elementary school... If it is a trick, they'd have to have some serious knowledge of Earth to make it up, and a lot of it is something we can confirm without much trouble."

"Except," General Hammond interjected, "that we'll have to involve the British government to do so."

Colonel O'Neill winced, but Daniel just looked confused. "So?" he said. "Let's call them up and ask. Surely they can check his school records easily enough."

"And tell them what, exactly?" Jack replied. "'Hey, we found a couple of your missing persons halfway across the galaxy?' I'm sure they won't have any follow-up questions for that."

"So we tell them about the Stargate!" Daniel shot back. "They're our allies, we're going to have to tell them about all this sooner or later."

"Yeah, and right now the plan is 'or later'!"

"Gentlemen!" cut in General Hammond. "I have just spent the last hour on the phone with the chairman of the Joint Chiefs and the Secretary of State having this exact argument, and I do not need the two of you to sit here re-enacting it." Taking a deep breath, he eyed them both, then continued. "In the end, it's out of our hands. Someone from the State Department will be here on Monday to discuss our options and work out how we can handle this; in the meantime, our job is to assess the situation, work out how to bring those two home once we've verified their story, and see to their survival in the meantime."

"I've already got the ball rolling on part of that, sir," Carter offered. "I told Harry that we could call back later in the day, and I asked a few people to assemble some basic supplies that we can send through when we do. MRE's, basic survival gear, that kind of thing."

"Very good," the general replied. "And what about dialing the Gate and getting them home, if their story checks out? By the sounds of it, I'm not holding out hope that they have a DHD lying around."

Sam shook her head. "When I described a DHD to him, he had no idea what I was talking about. He said he would ask around, but I'm not optimistic."

"So, go to plan B then," Colonel O'Neill said. "Send 'em a lightning rod and an extension cord, then wait for the next storm and dial manually. Problem solved."

"That's a possibility," Sam allowed. "The trouble is, if the Gate did go through a volcanic eruption... it's possible that it may have sustained some damage in the process. There's a lot we still don't know about the inner workings of the Stargate; we know they're very resilient, but until we can get a good look at it, I honestly have no idea how functional this Gate is actually going to be."

General Hammond frowned as he considered the problem. "And how do you plan to examine it without going through? I'm not prepared to allow anyone to travel to that planet until we know for certain that they have a way back."

"I spoke with Sergeant Siler earlier, sir," Carter explained, "and between the two of us we worked out a rough plan to cannibalize a MALP and attach the camera and transmission systems to a simple floating platform; you'll have a final design on your desk by the end of the day. If the people already on the planet can tether it in the cave and keep it steady, we should be able to use that to get a reasonable view of the Gate. It won't be perfect, but if you approve the plan, we should be able to have it assembled in under a day."

"Alright," General Hammond decided. "Go ahead with that plan as soon as the design is done; I want you and the sergeant focused on getting eyes on that Gate as soon as possible." Turning to the rest of the table, he added, "Dr. Jackson, I want everything you can dig up on the figures Captain Carter mentioned; and Colonel O'Neill, I want you and Teal'c to work on gathering up the supplies Captain Carter requisitioned, along with anything else those people might need in a survival situation. Once it's ready, come see me and we can dial the planet again and send it through. Any questions?"

"I don't suppose Teal'c and I can get out of here and make a trip to Wal-Mart to grab a few things," Colonel O'Neill piped up.

General Hammond gave him a flat look. "Not happening," he said. "You get to leave this base if and when Dr. Fraiser releases you, and not a moment sooner." With that, he stood from the table. "Alright, everyone. Get to it. Dismissed!"

Standing from her own seat, Sam smiled politely at the rest of her team, then made for the door. If the general wanted the modified probe done as soon as possible, then she had some work to do.

In all of the excitement around breakfast in the Great Hall, Hermione didn't end up having a chance to bring up the apprenticeship with Professor McGonagall. She verified with the other professors that her understanding of the Protean charm was correct, and Luna and some other members of Dumbledore's Army put their heads together and started assembling a list of coins and whether they were accounted for, but amid all that, Hermione's original plan fell by the wayside.

In the end, she was forced to wait through her full day of classes before she had an opportunity to speak to the professor, and as a result, paying attention in class had never been so difficult. She fully spaced out in the middle of Charms, thinking through how best to phrase her questions for her head of house, and she nearly headed out to the greenhouses instead of down into the dungeons for Potions after lunch. It was a singularly difficult day for her - but at the end of it, she was able to race from the History of Magic classroom over to Transfiguration, and she arrived just as the last few second-year stragglers were exiting the class.

Leaning slightly around the doorframe, she spotted the Transfiguration professor working through a stack of mismatched shoes on her desk, many of which sported pointed snouts and little paws. One at a time, she was untransfiguring them, presumably reversing the students' attempts at learning the spell of the day.

From her position at door, Hermione tentatively asked, "Professor? May I come in for a moment?"

Professor McGonagall glanced up from her work at her and gave her the slightest of smiles. "Of course, Miss Granger," she said lightly. "What can I do for you?"

Taking a deep breath, Hermione stepped in and headed for the desk, letting the door fall shut behind her. "I was hoping to talk to you about an... opportunity... that I was offered yesterday," she said. "It's a very exciting idea, but I need to know more before I'm comfortable leaping ahead with it, and I'm hoping you can help."

"I see," the professor replied. As she finished returning one of the shoes to its normal state, she set it aside and leaned back in her chair, regarding Hermione evenly. After a long moment, she said, "Have a seat, Miss Granger. Would you like a cup of tea?"

Still feeling a bit nervous and flustered, Hermione hurriedly set down her schoolbag next to one of the chairs and took a seat. "Oh, I... Yes, thank you, tea would be nice."

With another wave of her wand, Professor McGonagall summoned over a tea set from the side of the room, and she set about preparing two cups with her usual briskness. Once she was finished, she passed one over the desk to Hermione and asked, "So, what is this opportunity that has you so unsure?"

Accepting her cup and taking a deep whiff, Hermione steadied herself and began slowly. "I've... been offered a position as an apprentice Unspeakable," she said. "Mr. Croaker visited yesterday and explained that they would normally wait until after I'd obtained my NEWTs, but because of the situation with Harry, they wanted to make the offer as soon as possible."

To Hermione's surprise, Professor McGonagall didn't seem surprised in the slightest. "I see," she said calmly. "A position with the Unspeakables is a rare thing, let alone to be offered one early. I would imagine you would be quite excited by the opportunity."

"Well, yes," Hermione said. "It's just... I don't really know what an apprenticeship entails, and some of the mentions I've come across in History of Magic have been... frankly, somewhat exploitative. The idea of working there is a dream come true, especially with Harry's situation, but I'm worried that leaping in head-first might end up with me entangled in something I can't get away from."

"A sensible precaution, I suppose," the professor responded. "However, I think I can set your mind at ease." Slowly, she blew on her tea for a moment to cool it down, then took a sip. "First of all, it might reassure you to know that I recommended you for consideration in the first place - unless you think I would set you up to become trapped in an unfair contract."

That caught Hermione off guard, and she wasn't quite sure how to respond. "You- You did?"

"Oh yes," Professor McGonagall said. "All four heads of house are asked to keep an eye out for students with the proper academic dispositions, and I'm proud to have made a few promising recommendations over the years - yours included."

"Well, I- I see," Hermione said. She was more than a little flustered by the whole situation. "Thank you, then, I should say-"

The professor just raised a solitary eyebrow and smiled slightly at Hermione over the lip of teacup. "You're quite welcome," she replied, "though it was your own academic achievements that spoke for themselves." After another light sip, she set her teacup down. "To more directly resolve your concerns, however - I would nevertheless encourage you to read through the contract in detail before deciding either way. If you require the advice of someone versed in the law, I can get in touch with Ms. Vance on your behalf; she works in the law, so she would be best equipped to answer specific questions."

"That... That would be quite useful, thank you," Hermione replied. Finishing off her tea, she set the cup on the professor's desk and stood. "I appreciate your help with this, Professor. If I have any questions about the apprenticeship, I'll speak to you about asking Ms. Vance."

"Very good, Miss Granger," Professor McGonagall said, and she began tidying up the tea set with her wand, sending it floating off back to its shelf. "Please leave the door open on the way out."

"Yes, Professor," Hermione replied, and she picked up her schoolbag and made for the door.

As she walked back towards Gryffindor tower, she started to plan out the rest of her day. It wouldn't be long until dinner, and Ron had mentioned something about rounding up as many DA coins from current students as possible, so she would probably be roped into helping with that... but once that was done for the day, she was going to hole herself up in her dorm and start working through the contract's fine print.

Chapter Text

"And this is considered food on your world?"

It was nearly noon the next day, and Sirius had decided he wanted to try out the rations the Americans had sent through the gateway the day before. Harry had been sceptical, but he hadn't wanted to dampen Sirius' enthusiasm, so he'd just sat back as his godfather dug through the waterproof container the SGC had sent them and started handing out packets. The chemical heating packets had delighted him, and he was tucking into his meal with gusto.

Ophelia, sitting next to Sirius at the table and sniffing at the steaming packet of food Sirius had handed her, was clearly not as impressed.

Poking dubiously at his own "chicken stew" with a plastic spoon, Harry shrugged. "They're army rations, for survival out in the field or in an emergency. They're meant to be portable and nutritious, not necessarily... good."

"I don't know what you're talking about," Sirius said. "This stuff is great!" He was digging his spoon around in the corners of the little plastic packet his meal had come in, scraping out the last tiny scraps to eat.

"Well, perhaps we ought to save the remainder for another time," Ophelia offered. "As... interesting... as they are, if they are meant to be sustenance in an emergency, we should avoid eating them unless absolutely necessary."

"Yeah, that's what Sergeant Harriman said when they sent them through," Harry added quickly. "They're survival supplies, just in case something happens and we don't have any other options."

"I don't know, I think I'm with Sirius," Dion chimed in - but before he could elaborate, he was interrupted by a now-familiar rushing sound up in the cave.

Happy to have any excuse to abandon the rations, Harry jumped up from his seat. "That must be the Americans," he said hurriedly. "I'll just go see what they want."

Chuckling, Sirius waved for him to go. "Go ahead, just means more rations for us!"

The MALP was a short way up the beach, and as Harry hurried over, he spotted the camera panning over to look at him. He gave it a small wave and stopped a short distance away from the device.

After a brief pause, the probe's speakers crackled to life, and Captain Carter's voice came through. "Hello, Harry. How are you holding up?"

Harry smiled politely at the machine. "Hello, Captain," he replied. "We're doing well enough. How's everything on Earth?"

"It's... busy," she responded, and Harry could hear the stress in her voice. "Your situation has a lot of people concerned, and we're doing everything we can to try and get you home safely. In fact, we've got something ready that we'd like to try in order to get a better look at your Stargate - are there a few people there who could help out with something?"

Somewhat confused, Harry shrugged. "Yeah, of course. What would you need us to do?"

"We've jury-rigged a floating frame for one of our probes, which should allow us to get a decent look at the Stargate from up in the cave. The only problem is propulsion - we don't have anything on hand that would allow us to keep it steady, and getting something purpose-built won't be quick. Instead, we're just going to skip propulsion altogether - all we really need is for the probe to stay in one place, so if you can tether it to something in there, we should be able to do everything we need to."

Considering it for a moment, Harry said, "I don't think that should be a problem. We've already put together a walkway that leads up into the cave by the Gate, so we can probably just tie it to that."

"That sounds perfect," Carter replied. "We're going to send through another waterproof case with some rope and other supplies. If you can retrieve it and get a few people together to help, we'll disconnect the Gate and get the probe ready to send through. Does fifteen minutes work for you?"

Harry glanced over at Sirius and the others, who were all clearly listening in. When Sirius saw him looking, he nodded and gave Harry a thumbs-up. "Yeah," Harry said, turning back to the camera, "fifteen minutes should be fine. We'll be ready."

"Great! I'll talk to you in a few minutes, then."

With that, the MALP went silent, and Harry heard the Stargate disconnect up in the distant cave. A few moments later, another of the rugged waterproof cases the SGC had sent the rations in crested the edge of the waterfall and tumbled down into the water below.

Quickly sloughing his shirt, Harry made for the water, and he made short work of swimming out and retrieving the case. He'd been spending quite a bit of time swimming over the last few months, and he honestly found that he was quite enjoying it.

By the time he'd grabbed the case and brought it back to shore, Sirius and the others were gathered around waiting for him, the mess of plastic packets from the rations all cleared away. As a group, they made short work of opening up the case and finding out what was inside.

Most of the room in the case was taken up by the rope; four neat bundles of high-visibility orange cord with a loop tied at one end of each. There was also a complex-looking handheld radio with a number of dials and buttons on it, but a note taped to it identified the volume knob and push-to-talk button with arrows and advised them to just not mess with the rest of the controls. Off to one side, the case also included a set of small lights on straps; as Harry examined one, he quickly realised that it was meant to be worn on the forehead, like a miner's helmet.

On top of everything, there was a laminated diagram of the probe that the Americans were planning to send through. To Harry, it looked like they'd just chopped the top half of a MALP off, assembled a square frame of metal fenceposts, and stuck a few oil drums underneath it, but he assumed their process had been slightly more sophisticated than that. Clearly marked on the diagram were four large hooks, one sticking up from each corner of the frame; to make sure the goal was abundantly clear, someone had taken a marker to the page and added the words "ROPE GOES HERE", with arrows pointing to the hooks.

"I'm glad to know that they have such a high opinion of our ability to follow simple instructions," Sirius said dryly.

"Or someone over there has a sense of humour," Harry said. Twisting the volume knob on the radio, a little power light came on, and he clipped the device to a belt loop. "Well, should we gather everything up and head up to the cave? We might as well be up there and ready when they reconnect."

"I see no reason to wait," Stephanos agreed, and he picked up a bundle of rope and a head-lamp. "Though, we do have one more person than we do ropes. Would anyone prefer to remain down here?"

Grimacing slightly, Sirius raised a hand. "I think that may have to be me," he said reluctantly. "My knee is doing better, but it's still not fully healed, and I probably shouldn't risk straining it."

"That sounds prudent," Ophelia replied. "I'm sure Aseco would be quite irritated to have to return and examine you once again."

With that settled, the rest of them gathered up their supplies and made their way up to the cave.

As they proceeded along the bamboo walkway into the darkness, they switched on their head-lamps, illuminating the cave ahead of them. The effect was a bit eerie, with focused beams of light bobbing and swaying as they walked, and it somehow made the places they weren't looking seem even darker. Harry wished he could cast the False Star and just light up the whole cavern, but the American muggles were definitely covered by the Statute of Secrecy, and it wouldn't do to complicate the situation even further by breaking the law and revealing magic to them.

When the group reached the main cavern, they spread out along the length of the walkway. They'd built it to reach the far end of the cavern, and it followed the curve of left wall, so they ended up arrayed in a half-circle around the outer edge of the room. If the probe fell straight down, they'd all have more or less the same distance to throw to reach it, which seemed like the best way to do it.

Once they settled into their positions, they fortunately didn't have long to wait - and when the Americans connected to the Gate again, Harry and the others got their first up-close look at the Gate opening. A surge of what looked like water burst forth into the centre of the cavern, nearly reaching the river's surface before suddenly reversing and being sucked back up towards the gateway itself. It was over in seconds, and once it was done, the surface of the open Stargate shimmered with its inner light like a glowing pond on the ceiling.

Moments after the Gate connected, the radio at Harry's hip crackled to life. "SGC to 827, come in," came Captain Carter's voice from the device.

Unclipping the radio from his belt, Harry lifted it up to his mouth and pressed the button. "Hello, this is Harry. We're in position beneath the Gate and ready to lasso the probe."

"Understood," came the response. "We're ready with the probe as well. Please stand by."

Nodding to himself, Harry clipped the radio back onto his belt loop and looked around at the others arrayed along the walkway. Stephanos was off to Harry's left, and Dion and Ophelia were over to his right. The rush of water was too loud for Harry to make himself heard over, but he made eye contact with each of them and gestured with his bundle of rope for them to be ready, and they seemed to understand.

After a few long moments of waiting, the radio came to life again. "Right, probe incoming. Arrival in seven... six... five..."

Harry readied himself as the countdown continued - and as the Captain reached zero, the bottom of the modified probe fell through the shimmering pond of light and began to plummet toward the water below. It hit the surface with a large splash, and immediately started to be pulled along, but Harry was already tracking one of the hooks, and he threw the loop of his rope ahead of its movement. When the rope caught on the hook and started to pull tight, he allowed himself a small grin of satisfaction at snagging it on the first try, but he had to quickly turn his attention to bracing himself on the walkway. His was the only loop to catch, and the slack in his rope was quickly running out.

Jamming his heels into small gaps in the bamboo walkway, Harry leaned back and braced himself, bending his elbows and knees to be ready for the jolt as the line went taut - and jolt it did, nearly pulling him forward and off the walkway. He gritted his teeth as he hauled back against the force of the current, and the probe swung to the side, getting closer to the walkway as the waters tried to pull it away and out of the cavern.

Fortunately, Harry didn't have to hold onto it himself for long. Stephanos caught another hook on his next throw, and Ophelia and Dion caught theirs soon after, and the strain on Harry lessened as they all worked together to get it under control. Stephanos bellowed out instructions over the noise of the rushing water, and slowly, they pulled the probe over to one side, and Dion quickly started to tie the ropes to the bamboo with complex knots that tightened easily but clearly weren't going to get loose on their own. In surprisingly short order, they had it secured, and Harry let out a long breath.

Picking up the radio again, Harry pressed the button and spoke into it. "Right, it's all sorted. It's tied up securely to the walkway in here, and I don't think it's going anywhere any time soon."

"Good work, thank you," came the reply, and the camera mounted on the top of the probe started to rotate, turning to aim at the knots. "I think that should be all we need right now. We'll get started on examining the Gate; if there's anything else we need you to do, we'll contact you via the other MALP. You should probably leave the radio off when it's not in use, to preserve the battery."

"That makes sense," Harry said. "We'll keep an ear out for the MALP. Let us know if there's anything else we can do to help you figure this out!"

"We will, Harry - but for now, SGC out."

Several days later, an irritable Jack O'Neill wheeled himself into the briefing room at the SGC. He'd managed to convince Dr. Fraiser that he was at least able to move around without a babysitter, but he still hadn't been allowed to leave the base, and now he was being forced to spend the day sitting in a conference room with a bunch of bureaucrats and paper-pushers from the State Department. The situation with the two Brits stuck off-world was turning into a disaster of the worst sort: a political one. There wasn't much that Jack liked less than politics, but General Hammond had ordered all of SG-1 to be present, so he was stuck attending the meeting no matter how much he might wish to be elsewhere.

As he entered the briefing room, he found the rest of his team already present and getting ready. Carter was off to one side fiddling with a computer on a rolling cart, presumably readying some photos or video for presentation; Daniel had set himself up at the table with a stack of old books and a disorganized piled of notes, and he was engrossed in reading something; and Teal'c was sitting next to Daniel, stoically waiting for events to proceed.

"So, is everyone ready for an exciting day of meetings?" Jack asked the room as he wheeled himself up to the table.

Carter gave him a dry smile from over by the computer cart. "Thrilled, sir."

"I was not aware that we were expecting these events to be exciting," Teal'c said dubiously.

"Oh, definitely," Daniel chimed in absently. "Nothing says action-packed excitement like governmental bureaucracy."

"I see," Teal'c responded. Before he could pursue the matter further, however, the sound of footsteps approaching down the hall caught their attention. Taking a deep breath, Jack pushed himself away from the table so that he could face the newcomers.

General Hammond was the first to enter the room, and he was followed by a half-dozen people in standard-issue bureaucrat formalwear.

"Good, you're all here," the general began, standing to one side and allowing the State Department entourage to file in. "Deputy Secretary, allow me to introduce SG-1: Colonel Jack O'Neill, Captain Samantha Carter, Dr. Daniel Jackson, and Teal'c. SG-1, this is Deputy Secretary of State Joan Burrows."

Jack kept a straight face, but internally he was raising his eyebrows. He'd been expecting mid-level State Department functionaries, not the next best thing to the Secretary of State.

The Deputy Secretary was a whip-thin woman with a pinched expression and iron-gray hair pulled back in a tight bun, and she surveyed the room with piercing eyes. "A pleasure to meet you all," she said, and her tone gave nothing away. Jack wasn't sure if she'd come up through diplomacy or espionage, but he had a sneaking suspicion that she'd be skilled at either.

After a few minutes of organized chaos as everyone got themselves seated around the table and introductions were made, the Deputy Secretary got the meeting underway.

"So," she began, "we're here today to discuss our options relating to the two British nationals currently stranded on another planet. We've had a few conversations inside the State Department since the revelation of this program's existence, but our end goal today is to arrive at a joint proposal for the consideration of the President and the Secretary of State." Shuffling through a few papers, she pulled out a sheet and consulted it for a moment. "Before we start discussing our options, I'd like to review the status of the offworld Stargate. I understand that there's been some ongoing investigation into it?"

She looked over to General Hammond for a response, and he nodded. "That's right. Captain Carter has been leading the team investigating the viability of the Stargate on P3X-827, also known as Eleutheria. Captain?"

Partway down the table, Carter nodded as well and picked up the controller for the computer. "Two days ago, we sent a modified probe through the Stargate, and the people there were able to secure it into position for us so that we could examine the Gate."

Clicking the remote, she pulled up an image of the Stargate, embedded in the cave ceiling.

"So far, our observations are all consistent with the local folklore - the stone that makes up the cavern is primarily volcanic rock, and the shape and wear patterns of the walls are all consistent with centuries of erosion. Unfortunately, that's bad news for the operation of the gate."

With another click, she changed the view to a zoomed-in shot of the inner ring of the Stargate, partially obscured by solid rock.

"As you can see here, there's stone surrounding substantial portions of the dialing ring, which means manual dialing isn't currently an option. What's more, tests done on the Antarctic Stargate at Area 51 indicate that the dialing ring isn't watertight. No scanning equipment has so far been able to penetrate the surface of the Gate, so we don't know exactly what the interior mechanisms look like, but we think it's a safe assumption that magma seeping in and cooling into stone will render at least the dialing mechanism inoperable. Even if they were to chisel away all of the stone on the exterior of the dialing ring, the odds of being able to rotate the inner ring are slim to none."

The Deputy Secretary considered that for a moment, then crossed something off on her sheet of notes. "So, no manual dialing, and there's no sign of the planet's original dialing device. Is there any way for us to borrow a dialing device from another planet and send it through the Stargate for them to use?"

To Jack's surprise, Teal'c was the one to answer her. "Only by ship," the Jaffa said evenly. "Any attempt to transport a DHD through a Stargate results in the Stargate's immediate deactivation."

"I see." Crossing another item off of her sheet, the Deputy Secretary pursed her lips. "So, short of devising an entirely new way to dial a Stargate, we're essentially left waiting for one of your teams to come across an interstellar ship that we can use. Does that about sum it up?"

"That's about the size of it, yes," General Hammond confirmed.

Letting out a slow breath, the Deputy Secretary set that sheet of paper aside and pulled out another. "In that case, I suppose we should turn our attention to how best to approach the British government with all of this."

"Not to sound un-diplomatic," Jack chimed in, "but why not just keep it under our hats for now? I seem to remember a Pentagon report that didn't exactly paint a rosy picture of the result if this program leaked to the public, and telling a whole other government about it sounds like a recipe for disaster."

At his interruption, the Deputy Secretary fixed Jack with a glare. "As it happens, I'm familiar with that report." Her tone was icy, but as she spoke, he got the feeling that she was more irritated at the Air Force as a whole, not just him. "The Pentagon did a thorough job of analyzing the impact of the revelation of alien life on the public, and they did an extensive analysis of the likely riots and chaos that would ensue - but there's a reason that the US government doesn't rely on the military to do its diplomacy. The report's analysis of the diplomatic impact of such a revelation was simplistic at best, and it almost completely glossed over the backlash that would result if it were to be revealed that the use of the Stargate had been intentionally monopolized by the US military."

Beside her, one of her aides pulled out a folder and handed it over to her, and she searched through it for a moment until she found the page she was looking for.

"Over the last several days, we've had a team at the State Department assembling a cursory analysis of the international reactions that would result from such a revelation. It's all preliminary, but there are a few inescapable conclusions right off the bat: our relationships with our allies would be strained, and our international rivals would almost certainly accuse us of seeking out alien technology with the intent of gaining an insurmountable military advantage."

Sitting next to Jack, Daniel raised his hand. "Sorry, but isn't that the stated goal of this whole program?"

"That is part of the problem, yes," the Deputy Secretary responded flatly, "hence our need to tread lightly and not alienate our allies. We're going to need every ally we can get when it comes to shaping the public perception of this program, and if the British government were to find out that we'd left two of their citizens stranded on another world and not even given them the opportunity to mount a rescue of their own, there's every chance they'd join the inevitable voices calling for us to surrender the Stargate entirely."

"Okay, so we have to tell the Brits," Jack conceded. "But if you already knew that, then why come all the way down here?"

That earned Jack a reproving look from the general, so he leaned back slightly in his wheelchair and shut his mouth as Burrows responded. The Deputy Secretary, for her part, looked unimpressed.

"Because it's hardly a simple yes-or-no question of whether or not we tell them, Colonel. We will need to be specific and deliberative in our approach, because they'll be coming into this situation with significant leverage over us, and if we don't convince them to play ball, they'll be in a position to unveil the program, even if only to other world governments - and frankly, we expect them to argue strongly for the inclusion of other nations regardless, given the relationship between the Queen and the Commonwealth. If we want to keep the diplomatic splash zone as small as possible, we need to convince them that forcing our hand isn't necessary, which means coming into this with a plan that already includes looping in other nations on our own terms."

Looking around the table, she made eye contact with every member of the SGC as she spoke. "Make no mistake, we're talking about reshaping the future of this whole program here, people - and if we're going to get something reasonable put together in record time, we need your expertise. My team and I have known about the existence of the Stargate for less than a week; we barely know the first thing about how this program operates. We need to know what's necessary and what's optional, what's important to fight for and what we can concede at the negotiating table. We need your help - that's why we're here."

Jack had to admit, she made a hell of a sales pitch.

Several hours later, Jack's brain felt like it had been run through a meat grinder, and he was grateful for the chance to escape for lunch. For all that the diplomats were leaning on SG-1 for their knowledge of Gate operations, they were still throwing around terms like "administrative subcommittee" and "provisional member state" far too freely, and he'd be the first to admit that authoring international treaties wasn't exactly his forte. He was almost tempted to throw in the towel and ask Dr. Fraiser to confine him to the infirmary, but he wasn't quite that desperate. Instead, he decided to just enjoy his lunch and try not to zone out too much when he ended up back at the table all afternoon.

Unfortunately, his quiet lunch was interrupted quite early on, as one of the diplomats from the meeting made her way over to his table in the mess before he'd taken a single bite of his hot ham and cheese. She was a blonde woman, some sort of treaty expert, and he'd completely forgotten her name. As she walked up with a tray of her own, she asked, "Do you mind if I join you, Colonel?"

With a shrug, Jack gestured at the seat across the table. "By all means, Doctor..."

"Elizabeth Weir," she provided helpfully, and she slid into the seat opposite him. "I'm guessing you're relieved to be away from the planning for a bit."

"I didn't know the State Department hired psychics," Jack replied. It came out a bit more acerbic than he'd intended, but the diplomat laughed politely regardless.

"If only," she said wistfully. "But no, you don't have to be a mind-reader to tell that you'd rather be out on some alien planet than sitting around debating treaty language."

Jack took a bite of his sandwich and raised an eyebrow at her. "What gave it away?" he asked around his mouthful of food.

Dr. Weir just laughed and shook her head. "Honestly, it's all a bit hard to wrap my head around. Alien planets, wormholes, ancient gods... How do you deal with it all? I'm feeling overwhelmed and I've barely dipped my toe into all of it."

Considering her for a moment, Jack finished his bite and took a swig of his drink. "Honestly, you get over it. Sure, you run into some crazy stuff out there, but once you get past the advanced technology and the occasional megalomaniacal snake-head, you're mostly just dealing with people, same as here. Some of them want to shoot you, others want to get to know you, most of them just want to be left alone. It's not so different from anywhere on Earth, just a bit further away."

"You make it sound so simple."

Jack shrugged. "It's as complicated as you make it. Let me give you an example - a little while back, we went to a planet called P3X-797. When we got there, everyone lived in fear of this sort of neanderthal plague..."

By the time the two of them finished eating their lunch and started to make their way back to the conference room, Jack thought Dr. Weir seemed a bit more comfortable with the whole notion of the Stargate program. It was a lot to take in, obviously, but at the end of the day, they were going out and helping people who needed it, and it didn't have to be any more complicated than that.

Chapter Text

"Yeah, sorry it's not better news. We'll keep trying to figure something out, though, and we'll check in on a regular basis and send you any supplies you might need. And hey, look on the bright side: You're not stuck talking to any of these bureaucrats that have taken over our base. Seriously, if I hear the phrase 'interim oversight procedure' one more time, I think I might just dial up your planet and dive right through to join you."

Harry chuckled at that. The Gate had opened up a few minutes earlier, and Colonel O'Neill had come on the radio and introduced himself. Apparently, the colonel had volunteered to give Harry and Sirius an update on the situation as a way to escape the endless meetings he was stuck in. He wasn't what Harry would have expected from a military officer, but his wry humour was a welcome change from all of the straight-laced military types he'd talked to so far.

Lifting up the radio to respond, Harry said, "Well, Colonel, we'd be glad to have you, but I think you'd just end up bored here as well. There isn't much to do here but catch fish and wait for rescue."

An audible snort came through the radio. "Don't tempt me, kid. That sounds like my idea of paradise."

With another laugh, Harry looked over at the table, where Sirius was sorting through the latest container the Americans had sent through. This one was, thankfully, ration-free - the SGC had sent someone out to do some shopping, and they'd picked up some new clothes and shoes in Harry and Sirius' sizes, along with some other supplies. They'd also managed to get their hands on some newspapers from Britain, which Sirius was already paging through.

"Well, sorry to say it, Colonel," Harry said, "but the Eleutherians are quite keen to get the Gate closed back up once we're gone. If you don't dive through soon, you might not get a chance to spend any time here at all after we figure out how to get home."

"Ah, that's a shame," O'Neill responded. "I guess I'm going to have to miss out, then. I'm pretty sure my doctor would have something to say about me jumping through the Stargate before my leg's out of this cast anyway."

"Your leg's in a cast?" asked Harry, curious. "What happened?" His mind conjured up images of alien laser battles and ray guns out of Dudley's kids' shows; aside from travelling through the Stargate to other planets, the people from the SGC hadn't actually explained much about what they really did.

"Oh, nothing exciting," the colonel responded casually. "Slipped and fell on some ice."

Something told Harry that that wasn't quite the entire story, but he let it be. "Well, I'm sorry to hear that," he replied. "I hope you'll be back on your feet soon."

"Thanks," O'Neill said. "The doc says it should just be a few more weeks before I'm good to go back out, but in the meantime, I'm stuck in these meetings, making sure the State Department doesn't tie our hands as part of these negotiations - and as much as I hate to say it, I should probably get back to it. We'll call again in forty-eight hours; if there's anything else you need, just let us know then."

"Thank you, Colonel, we'll keep that in mind. Enjoy your meetings."

"Uh-huh. SGC out."

With that, the radio fell silent, and the distant rush of the disconnecting Stargate echoed out of the cave.

Switching off the radio, Harry turned to make his way over to the table with Sirius, but as he did, he couldn't help but feel a bit let down. In the days since the SGC had made contact, he'd let himself get his hopes up that the Americans would be able to help them get back home, but even though he knew that there was still every chance that they would figure out a solution, somehow getting home felt further away than ever.

As Harry approached, Sirius looked up from the pages of one of the newspapers. "So, what did they have to say?" he asked.

"Nothing good," Harry said with a sigh, slumping down onto the bench opposite him. "The pictures they took only proved that the Stargate really did sink into a volcano, which means they still have no idea how to dial it. They're going to keep working, but it could be a while - and in the meantime, we've got nothing to do but wait."

Sirius grimaced. "Well, that's disappointing," he said with a sigh. "I suppose it's not all bad, though. The food and supplies are nice, and the news from home is... well, it's not good, but it's reassuring."

That caught Harry off-guard. "Sorry, what?" he asked, confused. "How is bad news reassuring?"

"Here, have a look," Sirius said, and he turned back to the front page of the paper he'd been reading and lay it on the table facing Harry. "Take this story, for example." He pointed out an article halfway down the page. "There was a major fire in Harrogate last week, and multiple witnesses describe fantastical things - flames taking the shape of great beasts, roaring monsters that chased them as they fled. The muggles are saying that some sort of chemical fumes were involved, causing hallucinations and hysteria... but that sounds an awful lot like Fiendfyre to me, and the Death Eaters loved using that to cause mayhem last time they were running amok." Turning the page, he searched for a moment before he found another story. "Then there's this: A tainted well is being blamed for spreading a rare sickness in a village near Exeter that's left dozens ill, complaining of chills and fatigue, and at least five have ended up in comas. Now, I can't say for certain that the well isn't at fault..."

"...But it also sounds quite like a dementor attack," Harry concluded.

"Precisely," Sirius agreed. "And that's just what I found in the first half of this one paper; I'd wager good gold that there are more signs of Death Eater activity in the other papers as well."

"Alright," said Harry. "So Death Eaters are going out and attacking muggles. When did that become reassuring, exactly?"

Turning the paper back to the front page, Sirius pointed at the fire article again. "These have all the hallmarks of Death Eater raids, same as the last time You-Know-Who was trying to take power. If he had already taken over the Ministry, he wouldn't be bothering with this kind of tactic - he'd be consolidating power, hunting down his opponents. There would be no need for these... diversions and skirmishes. That says to me that the Ministry and the Order are keeping him at bay... which means, in turn, that there's every probability that they've got their best people trying to work out how to get us back."

Harry frowned down at the newspaper, considering Sirius' words. "Do you think so? I'd assume they'd want everyone they can get out hunting Death Eaters if that's the case."

"Harry, not everyone in the Ministry is trained to hunt dark wizards. They aren't going to send Unspeakables out to go duelling in the streets, they'll have them working on the magical mystery of the day - and if I know the Ministry of Magic, they're going to want a big flashy symbolic victory, like rescuing the Boy Who Lived from his mysterious fate."

Harry made a face, but he couldn't deny Sirius' point. That was exactly the sort of pointless idea the Ministry would put ahead of doing their actual jobs.

"Besides," Sirius continued, "even if the Ministry doesn't want to work on it, can you honestly see Dumbledore or your friends leaving well enough alone? That witch of yours would probably overthrow the Ministry herself if she thought it would bring you home."

Harry bristled at Sirius' description of Hermione as 'his witch' - she wasn't a possession, and she'd probably hex Sirius for talking about her as if she belonged to someone - but thinking of her just brought his mind back to the sight of that dark purple curse, of her eyes going wide as it struck her, of her motionless body crumpled on the floor.

"Look, just leave it, alright?" he said roughly, pushing himself up from the table and turning to look out at the cove. "Either they figure it out or they don't; either way, there's nothing we can do but sit around and wait."

"Alright, consider it left," Sirius said, and there was a touch of apology in his voice. "But I wouldn't say there's nothing for us to do in the meantime."

Harry turned back around to look at him, curious. "There isn't? I thought we were pretty well out of options."

"Oh, it's not something we can do to get home," Sirius said, "just something we can be doing while we wait. Have you been keeping track of the cycle of the moon at all?"

Harry blinked at the sudden change in subject. "I - No, why?"

A wide grin spread across Sirius' face, and he stood from the table as well. "Well, the new moon is just a few days from now," he said, walking over to stand beside Harry. "You've nearly got the incantations properly memorised for the animagus ritual, and if the weather holds, we should have a nice clear night - perfect for your first attempt." Wrapping one arm around Harry's shoulders, he looked up towards the top of the cliff. "What do you say, Harry? Are you ready to take that first step towards becoming an animagus?"

As he followed Sirius' gaze, Harry found himself nodding slowly in agreement. He'd spent hours reviewing Sirius' memories, and hours more memorising the long, boring incantations of the ritual, but he realised as he looked up at the cliff that it had all felt very theoretical - and now, with the opportunity looming to actually do the ritual, it suddenly felt far more real. In few days' time, he and Sirius would be up on the clifftop, and Harry would be following in his and his father's footsteps.

"Yeah," he replied. "I think I am."

In the week following Hermione's birthday, word spread through the DA like wildfire - Harry Potter was alive, and Hermione Granger needed every false Galleon returned so that she could use them to get in contact with him. To Hermione's surprise, Ron had ended up at the centre of it all, coordinating who was contacting who to retrieve which coin, and he was juggling the chaos with aplomb.

"Right, that's Angelina and Alicia accounted for," he said at breakfast one day, folding up a letter Katie had delivered to him and sliding two more Galleons across the table to Hermione. "That just leaves Dean and Ernie waiting for their parents to send them their coins from home, and we'll have them all."

Looking up from her book (a dry but in-depth analysis of the Protean charm), Hermione picked up the coins and smiled as she tucked them into her bag. "Thank you again for keeping track of all of this, Ron," she said gratefully. "With everything else that's going on, I don't know how I would have managed it on my own."

With a shrug, Ron finished putting the letter away in his own bag and went back to buttering his toast. "It's no problem," he said. "I want to get Harry back just as much as you do, and I'd be of no use with any of the magical theory stuff you're working on. Besides, Lav's been helping out the whole way, so it's not like it's been a big chore." With a small grin, he gave the girl sitting next to him a cheeky nudge.

A bit of a half-smile stole across Lavender's face as she nudged him back. "It has been fun," she admitted. "It's been hard, going to classes like everything's normal, when... well, when things are just getting worse out there."

Reaching over, Ron took one of her hands in his own. "Hey, we couldn't have done it without you," he said earnestly. "I mean, come on - talking to Padma to talk to what's-her-face to talk to Marietta to talk to Cho? I'd still be stuck trying to get that sneak Edgecombe to even give me the time of day if you hadn't done all that."

Lavender let out a small laugh and leaned her shoulder against his. "If you say so," she said, but it didn't sound like she really believed him.

"He's not wrong," Hermione interjected. "Neither of us would have thought of that, but now we're just a few Galleons shy of the full set, and I might even have all of them in time for this Saturday."

"This Saturday?" Ron asked curiously.

"I heard back from Unspeakable Croaker yesterday," Hermione explained, "and that's to be my first day."

"Oh, brilliant! We'll definitely need to get after Dean and Ernie for those last few Galleons then." Rising excitedly from his seat, he shouted over to the Hufflepuff table, "Oi, Ernie! Has your mum owled you back yet?"

As Ron left to go bother Ernie, Lavender rose from the table as well - but before she followed him, she leaned across the table to talk to Hermione. "You know, I never thought I'd find something that Hermione Granger would obsess over even more than schoolwork," she said conspiratorially. "Are you and Harry...?"

It took Hermione a moment to pick up on what Lavender was trying to imply, but when it clicked, she flushed bright red and had to resist the urge to hide her face behind her book. "No! No, no, we- He's a friend, my best friend, that's all. Nothing like that!"

By the wide grin spreading across Lavender's face, Hermione could tell that she didn't believe her. "Of course, just a friend," she said, and she gave Hermione a broad wink. "Whatever you say." And before Hermione could retort, the other girl swept off after Ron, following him over to the Hufflepuff table where he was chatting animatedly with Ernie and several others.

Flustered, Hermione turned her attention back to her book. Let Lavender and the others think what they wanted; Harry was her friend, nothing more. He'd never shown the slightest interest in her, and she was quite content for things to remain that way. Boys and girls were perfectly capable of having rich, deep friendships without it having to devolve into one of her mother's romance novels. They could just be friends.

Plus, if she couldn't figure out how to get him home, it was all academic anyway, so she was better off focusing on the task at hand. She could deal with Lavender's flights of fancy at a later date - once Harry was back home, safe and sound.

Taking a deep breath, Hermione set down her book and reached for her goblet. There was nothing she could do but wait and prepare, the same as she'd done all summer, until she finally had the chance to put what she'd learned to use.

In the days leading up to the new moon, Harry felt a building sense of anticipation as he and Sirius made the final preparations for him to undergo the animagus ritual. Having a deadline made it seem much more real, and he pushed himself hard to be as ready as possible. He spent hours working to memorise the last bits of the incantations that he was having trouble with, and hours more using legilimency to review Sirius' memories over and over, watching as his father, Sirius, and Peter went through the process of becoming animagi themselves. Time seemed to fly by, and before long, the sun was setting on the evening of the new moon, and Harry and Sirius made their way up to the top of the cliff overlooking the cove.

Harry had scouted out an area up at the top the day before, and there was a nice rocky area near the edge that would be large and flat enough to sketch out the runic circles needed for the ritual. Inland, there was more of the same thorny brush and tricky-to-navigate undergrowth that grew near the base of the cliffs, all surrounding a broad lake that took up the bulk of the plateau - the crater that had been left behind when Marthen and his compatriots had destroyed the mountain, filled by centuries of rainwater to form a clear, glittering body of water.

By the time they'd scaled the cliffside and made their preparations, the twilight sky was cast in broad swaths of purples and oranges, and the first few pinpricks of stars were starting to shine through. The deep, heavy darkness of the moonless night was beginning to settle around them, and the campfire that sat at the centre of their ritual area was quickly becoming their only source of light.

The setup for the ritual was relatively simple. It called for two interlocked circles of runes, drawn in charcoal from wood that had been burned under the full moon two weeks prior. Harry, as the one seeking his form, would be seated in the western circle, facing towards the east and the eventual sunrise; Sirius, as the mentor guiding him through the journey, would be seated in the opposite circle, facing west. Between them, in the area where the two circles overlapped, a small campfire would burn throughout the night.

As he settled into his position across the fire from Harry, Sirius gave him an eager smile. "Are you ready, Harry?"

"As ready as I can be, I suppose," replied Harry. For all that he was excited, he was also a little bit nervous - he still wasn't entirely confident in a few phrases of the incantations, and he couldn't help but be a bit apprehensive about what the experience itself was going to be like. The experience of undergoing the ritual was different for everyone, so there was no way to know what to expect; Sirius had told him about his own vision, an unsettling experience of being chased by shadows through an ethereal version of Hogwarts; Harry's father had found himself journeying through a seemingly endless series of natural landscapes, eventually reaching a river in some woods and seeing his form standing on the other side; and Peter had claimed to have been sketching and drawing, slowly seeing his form take shape on the page, though Sirius had expressed some doubts at his former friend's account.

"Well there's no time like the present," Sirius said. "The sun is down, the fire is burning - and remember, the worst thing that happens is we have a boring night sitting under the stars. We can always try again next month."

All in all, Harry wasn't all that worried about failure, but Sirius' reassurance did still help to calm his nerves a bit. "Right," he responded, and he set his shoulders as he looked across the fire to meet his godfather's gaze. "Shall we get started, then?"

Sirius gave him a rakish grin. "Whenever you're ready. Good luck, Harry."

Taking a deep breath, Harry steadied himself, then began to recite his part of the incantation. "Anima... animatum... animago. Quaero novam substantiam..."

From the other side of the circle, Sirius joined in. "Animis animate animagas. Ego vobiscum tevectio..."

Much of the ritual's incantation was a back-and-forth recital between the two participants. In Sirius' memories, Harry's father had likened it to a script to a play, and Harry could see the resemblance. It was unlike any spell Harry had ever cast before, but rituals apparently relied quite heavily on meaning and symbology, and according to Sirius, it wasn't uncommon for them to be more about performance and intent than precision and accuracy.

Harry was quite sure that the whole concept would drive Hermione up the wall, at least at first. She always liked to break things down and understand them - which she was brilliant at - but when things started to get vague and subjective, she had very little patience for it.

"Anima animatum animago," Harry chanted. "Detego deorsum faciatus..."

"Animis animate animagas," Sirius replied. "Invenies veritatem tuato..."

Of course, there were some benefits to the flexibility of it all. Once the ritual was properly underway and they'd established the right rhythm, there was some wiggle room in the phrasing, even enough to allow for a bit of conversation. One of the memories that Harry had reviewed was of Sirius undergoing the ritual, sitting atop the astronomy tower in the middle of the night with Harry's father sitting across from him. Between necessary bits of the incantation, the pair had had a full conversation, discussing the ritual itself and even joking around a bit.

"Anima animatum animago," Harry chanted. "Adiuva fietamo novitum..."

"Animis animate animagas," Sirius replied. "Dux vesterum essetio..."

The three boys had decided that Sirius would be the one to find his form first. James would obviously be the first one to take the guiding role; normally, it would be performed by someone who was already an animagus, but since they hadn't been about to ask Professor McGonagall to help, they'd decided that James would be the next best thing, given that he'd done all of the research and preparation for the group. From there, it was a decision between Sirius and Peter for who would actually undergo it, and Sirius' stuffy pureblood upbringing had meant that he had a leg up as far as knowledge of rituals went. That had left Peter on watch duty for that first night, so James had lent him his invisibility cloak, and Peter had been down at the base of the stairs, keeping watch and ready to make a racket if they ended up in danger of being found out.

"Anima animatum animago," Harry chanted. "Suscipam itineratus intero..."

"Animis animate animagas," Sirius replied. "Ambulo perlatus tuum..."

As night continued to deepen around Harry and Sirius, the darkness growing thicker and heavier outside of the circle of dim light cast by their fire, Harry found himself comparing his situation to the memory of Sirius' experience. Both nights were clear, with stars sparkling above. Both nights were calm, with barely a breeze to ruffle their hair. Both nights were quiet, with only the sound of the crackling fires to accompany their chanting.

"Anima animatum animago," Harry chanted. "Noxus serum gelidus..."

"Animis animate animagas," Sirius replied. "Debetis induit calidiores..."

Sirius and James had been chanting back and forth for a while by that point, and Sirius couldn't deny that he was starting to feel a bit nervous. He'd completely lost track of time; as far as he was concerned, it could've been anywhere from twenty minutes to a few hours since they'd started the ritual.

"Anima animatum animago," Sirius chanted. "Do you have any idea how long we've been going so far?"

From across the fire, James rolled his eyes.

"Animis animate animagas," James replied. "Relax, Sirius. If it happens, it happens. It's a little bit different for everyone who does it, and there's no set schedule."

"Anima animatum animago," Harry chanted. "Demergatum subero veritate..."

"Animis animate animagas," Sirius replied. "Teneat spiritiatuum pulmonote..."

"Anima animatum animago," Sirius chanted. "Still, you'd think I'd be feeling something by now."

"Animis animate animagas," James replied. "By all accounts, by the time you realise it's happening, you're already swept up in it. Do you remember Prosser's whole hallucinated day from Animagus Through the Anim-Ages?"

"Anima animatum animago," Harry chanted. "Egato expectua incipiam..."

"Animis animate animagas," Sirius replied. "Tetuatum veritas superetum..."

Sirius did remember. The author had thought he'd failed the ritual, packed up as the sun rose, and gone about the following day. He hadn't realised anything was amiss until he'd crossed paths with the fifth or sixth identical spaniel on his way home from work, at which point he'd abruptly awoken back in the circle, with only a few hours having passed.

"Anima animatum animago," Sirius chanted. "I know, I know. It still feels like I'm getting nowhere, though."

A light breeze blew over the tower, and James chuckled softly.

"Animis animate animagas," he replied. "Don't worry. I'm sure you're closer to breaking through than you think."

"Anima animatum animago," Harry chanted. "Inverire mihaliam corpamus..."

"Animis animate animagas," James replied. "Propiastes utquam insperes..."

Harry froze.

The night air was cool atop the astronomy tower, and Harry could feel the worn, cobbled stone of the tower's floor beneath him. Across the fire, James regarded him with a warm, amused smile. 

"Hello, Harry. It's good to see you."

"Er... hello," Harry said slowly. "I'm guessing... I'm not in Sirius' memory anymore, am I?"

James chuckled and casually shrugged. "Well, yes and no. It's complicated. Sirius didn't exactly cover much of the theory of legilimency with you, did he?"

Harry shook his head. "No, not so much."

"Well," James began, "legilimency and ritual visions both do basically the same thing: they conjure up a little mental world, something called an 'ephemeral demiplane', a tiny little pocket of magical reality juuust outside of normal existence. Then, they untether your mind slightly, so that you can cast your consciousness out into it. When you do legilimency, the demiplane is a reflection of a past reality; when you do a ritual to induce a vision, it's whatever it needs to be. In this case, since you were just recently reviewing this memory, I managed to grab hold of it long enough to keep it around and guide you back here, and the animagus ritual overlaid itself on top of what was already here. So as I said... complicated."

Harry wasn't sure that he'd followed the entire explanation, but one thing had stuck out to him. "Hang on... you guided me here? I thought you were just part of the vision."

James' eyes shone with mischief, and he looked immensely proud of himself. He reminded Harry of the Weasley twins after coming up with a particularly brilliant and chaotic idea.

"What, you didn't honestly think a little thing like being dead would keep me from helping my son become an animagus, did you?"

Chapter Text

Harry wanted desperately to believe it.

For years, he'd hoped that his aunt and uncle were lying to him, that one day his parents would knock on the door and take him away with them. Even as he'd grown older, as he'd found out the truth and learned about magic, he'd hoped that one day he'd find some spell or artefact that might let him talk to them someday. He'd even had a tiny sliver of a chance at the end of the Triwizard Tournament, when his wand and Voldemort's had connected and the apparent spirits of Voldemort's victims had emerged - but Dumbledore had quashed that idea, explaining that they were merely echoes, and Harry had felt almost foolish for hoping.

But he couldn't deny the little spark of longing that lived on within him, and now, sitting across an imagined fire from an image of his father's teen self... it felt real. It felt true, in a deep, instinctual way that Harry couldn't explain. His gut was telling him that, yes, his father had somehow snuck his way into his animagus vision from beyond the grave.

At the same time, however... it had only been a few months since Harry had been tricked by another false vision, one planted in his mind by Voldemort to lure him to the Department of Mysteries. That had felt real at the time, and he'd led his friends into a trap as a result. He didn't even know if they were okay, since the very same trap was what had led to him and Sirius ending up trapped on another world.

He wanted to believe it... but he simply couldn't take the chance.

"I don't suppose you have any way to... prove it, do you?" Harry asked. He wasn't sure if he came across as suspicious or pleading; more likely, a combination of both.

The pleased expression on James' face dimmed a little. "Ah... No, sorry," he said, and he looked genuinely contrite. "I will admit, that is one place where the plan does fall apart just a bit. I could tell you something only I could know - like some salacious details of Sirius' encounter with both Hufflepuff beaters in sixth year - but you'll only be able to check whether it's true after the ritual is over, and my little stunt here is a bit of a one-time-only situation. When the others find out what I've done, they won't be best pleased, and I'm sure they'll be keeping an eye out for me to try again."

"Sorry, 'the others'?" asked Harry. "What others?"

James paused for a moment before answering, considering his words. "It's a long story, and there's a lot I can't tell you. Let's just say... they're the ones who make the rules over here. Honestly, if you thought the professors at Hogwarts could be bad, the ones on this side take it to a whole other level. They have some very strict rules about interfering with 'lower planes of existence', and they can be more than a bit heavy-handed about enforcing them."

Despite his best efforts to remain sceptical, Harry couldn't help but feel a pang of concern. "Aren't you worried about what they'll do to you for pulling this, then?" he asked.

James waved a dismissive hand. "Oh, they're not violent or anything, if that's what you're worried about," he said casually. "They're all about 'enlightened non-interference', which basically means sitting around contemplating the meaning of life instead of using their position to help people, so even if they do decide to punish me - and given that I haven't strictly put so much as a toe into the mortal plane throughout all this, I think I've got a decent enough argument to make in my defence when the time comes - it'll more than likely be a series of tedious lectures about not disrupting the proper order of things, not anything truly awful. Well worth the risk, as far as I'm concerned."

"Okay," Harry said. "So, you're risking some sort of... cosmic detention... for what, exactly?"

"To be here for this! As soon as I found out I was going to be a dad, I made all sorts of plans - your first broom, your first prank, teaching you to be an animagus... I wanted to be there for you every step of the way." Running a frustrated hand through his hair, James stood up from his circle and stepped over towards the side of the tower, where he leaned on the wall and looked out at the distant landscape. "Obviously, it didn't exactly work out that way. You've had to go through so much, saddled with the Dursleys and You-Know-Who and all that Boy Who Lived rot, and all we could do was look in from time to time. There are times I've wanted to throw caution to the wind and just force my way back over there, never mind that the others would probably stop me, just to give the Dursleys a tiny fraction of what they deserve for how they've treated you, or give the Hogwarts staff a piece of my mind for all the ways they've failed you. I just..."

He trailed off, sighing.

"I'm sorry, Harry. I'm sorry it had to be this way, all of it. I'd give anything to change it, to make it so we could've been there for you."

Standing up as well, Harry went over to stand by the wall, a few paces away from his father. The landscape around the tower wasn't quite the Hogwarts grounds anymore; he could make out palm trees and bamboo growing in the forest, and the lake extended out towards the horizon far wider than it really did. The stars above twinkled and shifted oddly, as though the night sky were slowly drifting and rotating in several directions at once. As he looked out at the view, he weighed his options, trying to work out what to do.

After a few final moments of consideration, he made up his mind. Looking over at his father, he said, "How much d'you want to bet that if Voldemort tried to say all that with a straight face, he'd explode?"

His dad let out a choked, surprised laugh, and he turned to look over at Harry with a slightly misty-eyed grin. "Now, that's a sucker bet if ever I heard one. You don't take your old man for a chump, do you?"

Laughing as well, Harry shook his head, and instead of saying anything, he simply closed the distance between himself and his father and wrapped his arms around him in a tight hug. His father responded in kind, clutching him tightly and hanging on as if for dear life, and they just stood there, laughing and enjoying the moment.

Eventually, though, they let go, and Harry stepped back. Idly, he noticed that his father's image had changed at some point from his teenaged self to the grown man that Harry had only ever seen in photos. "I can't quite believe it," Harry said. "Honestly, I probably shouldn't believe it... but then, I've never exactly been great at doing what I 'should' do, so this would hardly be the first reckless decision I've ever made."

"You come by it honestly, I can tell you that much," his father replied. He looked like he was about to burst from pride and happiness, but he was managing to hold himself more or less together. "No one's ever accused me of being sensible, and for all that your mum was certainly the cleverer of the two of us, when she got an idea in her head, she could be twice as headstrong as I ever was. The only reason she's not here with us right now is that someone had to run interference to make sure the others didn't get curious and start nosing around, and I'm the one who's gone through this whole ritual before."

As much as that made sense, Harry couldn't help but feel a pang of loss at the missed opportunity. Casting about for a change of subject, he said, "Speaking of the ritual, actually - how does this bit actually work? All that talk about 'it's different for everyone' is all well and good, but it'd be nice to know what I need to be doing now that I'm here."

"Right you are," Harry's dad said, and he clapped his hands together decisively. "To business. I've got a bit of a different angle on things from this side, and I think I can help guide you in the right direction. You're looking for some sign or representation of an animal; it's not necessarily your form exactly, but multiple possibilities will often show up, all in the same sort of way. Look around, see if you can spot something."

Glancing around the tower, nothing immediately jumped out at Harry. The stones of the floor and wall were bare, and the telescopes standing at even intervals around the edge of the tower were all identical and lacking in any sort of decoration; it was like they were props, meant to be part of the background and not paid any mind. He also noticed that the stairs down were missing; clearly, he wasn't meant to be going anywhere. On the whole, the tower itself was almost remarkably uninteresting, which made Harry suspect that he'd be better off turning his attention elsewhere.

As he turned to look back out at the landscape around the tower, thinking of looking down at the forest next, a bit of motion caught attention from the corner his eye, and he let out a quiet "ah" of realisation. "There," he said, and he turned to point up at the horizon.

His father, following his gaze, quickly spotted what Harry was pointing at. "Ah, yes. Something like that would be a good bet."

Standing just above the horizon, formed of pinpricks of starlight and the slightest shade of glowing mist, the vague form of a stag was barely visible. Almost as soon as they'd both seen it, the stars that had made it up were already drifting away, and the unnatural turning of the sky quickly dissolved the image into nothing.

"I suppose I'm not taking after you, then," Harry said as the image faded. He didn't feel quite as bad about it as he might have thought; as much as he'd have enjoyed the connection to his father, turning into a stag didn't particularly appeal to him.

"As good as it would be for my ego, it's probably for the best for you to have a form of your own," Harry's dad responded. "You're like me in so many ways, but you've got just as much of your mum in you as well, and you're your own person besides. Still, good eye. Now to see what else is out there, eh?"

Now that he had an idea of what to look for, Harry scanned the sky, looking for other constellations to take shape and give him some hint of what his form might be. A few creatures drifted in and out of focus, but none stayed for long. As the pair of them watched and pointed them out, however, they soaked up the opportunity to simply spend time with one another, chatting and remarking on the forms as they appeared.

...

"I think it's a dog of some sort. I bet Sirius would be happy about that."

"I don't know, with those ears it looks more like a wolf to me."

"Okay, maybe Moony would be happy about it, then."

"You know, I wonder how a werewolf would react to an actual wolf showing up..."

...

"Oh, never mind, it's gone. It's funny, I almost thought that would be it. I reckoned a snake would make sense, what with the whole Parseltongue thing."

"What's that like, anyway? Talking to snakes, I mean."

"Honestly, I mostly can't even tell I'm doing it. But... you don't think it's dark or anything?"

"Hardly! I'm jealous, if anything. I'd love to be able to talk to a creature of some sort."

...

"A lion would be quite fitting, actually; our family's descended from Godric Gryffindor."

"What, really?"

"Oh yeah! Now, we're not alone in that. Half the pure-blood families in the country can trace their lineage back to a Gryffindor at some point or another, and Hufflepuff too. Of course, that didn't stop Moony and Padfoot getting one over on me once - they forged a letter from my mum telling me she'd found evidence that we were direct descendants. I went around for the better part of a week calling myself the Heir of Gryffindor before I worked out what they'd done!"

...

"I'm telling you, that was a dragon!"

"It was a regular cloud, Dad."

"Alright, maybe - but wouldn't it have been brilliant if it had been real?"

...

"Is that... a sloth?"

"I think it's getting clearer. This might be it, Harry!"

"Oh, come on, no... Go on, fade, get out of here!"

"I reckon this is it! Look, it's reaching out for you!"

"Don't you dare, you mangy thing!"

"Ha! Oh, the look on your face!"

...

Eventually, however, one form took on a slightly more definite shape.

"Oh, there's something," Harry said, pointing off to the east.

His father, following his gaze, spotted it as well, and immediately a wide smile broke across his face. "Oh, now if that isn't it, I'll eat my broomstick."

Off in the distance, the shape of a bird seemed to perch on the horizon, fluttering its wings slightly and looking over at them with sharp eyes. Unlike some of the other illusory creatures, the stars and mist that formed this one's image were primarily around the outer edges of the image, painting much of its body with broad swaths of empty space, only the slightest hint of starlight highlighting the edges of pure black feathers.

"Oh, that would be brilliant," Harry breathed. He hadn't even considered the possibility of a bird up until that moment, but he was immediately enthralled by the idea. "I'd get to fly..."

Harry's dad chuckled and wrapped one arm around Harry's shoulders. "Considering how quickly you took to the broom, something with wings definitely fits. Now, unless I miss my mark, that beak's too thick for a crow, so our friend up there's a raven - remarkable problem-solvers, curious and resourceful, and wickedly clever. Sound familiar?"

Harry's eyes were still trained on the spectral bird. Much like his father's presence, something deep down within him was telling him that this was right. "Is there anything I need to do, to... I don't know, accept it or something?"

Beside him, his father shook his head. "Not really. The ritual isn't changing anything, or imprinting the form on you. It's pure divination, revealing something that was already there. No, the hard part's the step that comes after the ritual: partial transfiguration. You'll have to learn some human-to-animal transfigurations and go through a lot of repetition to get your body used to the change. That means learning about their anatomy in detail, learning how to transform parts of your own body to match, and doing all of it without ending up walking around with antlers for a week."

Harry's heart sank, and for a moment he dropped his gaze from the image of the raven in the sky. Thoughts of books he didn't have access to and how impossibly far away the hospital wing was settled onto him like lead weights. "Right. So... not happening any time soon, unless Aseco secretly has a magical library that no one's mentioned yet."

His dad, however, squeezed his shoulder reassuringly. "Relax, Harry. Between your friends, the Order, and the Americans, you've got a lot of people working to try to get you home. Have a bit of faith in them, and you might find they come through for you sooner than you think."

Harry's eyes snapped up to his father's face. "Hang on - are you just saying that, or do you know something? Can you see what they're doing, or whether they're close to figuring it out?"

Grimacing slightly, his dad gave him an apologetic look. "Sorry, Harry, that's a hard-and-fast rule over here - no sharing information. All I can say is trust in them, trust that they care about you, and be ready for your time away to come to a close. There's a very real chance you'll be returning home to the fight with You-Know-Who in full swing, and you'll want to have every advantage you can get."

Very much not interested in thinking about Voldemort, Harry turned his gaze back to the horizon to look at the raven again - only to find that the image of the bird had vanished, and the horizon was starting to glow with pre-dawn light. "Oh, it's gone!" he exclaimed, disappointed.

"Actually, I'm sad to say it's nearly that time for us as well," his father replied. "You've found your form, I'd say, so the ritual's just about run its course."

Harry suddenly felt very overwhelmed. Here he was, having an opportunity to spend time with his father, and it was about to be snatched away from him. "It's not fair," he complained, and he was fully aware of just how much he sounded like a petulant child in that moment. "Can't you just tell the others to sod off and come back with me?'

"Oh, Harry - I would if I could, believe me," his father responded sadly. "The others have a lot of very important philosophical reasons about the 'meaning of life' and all that rot, and I'd tell them all to go hang in a heartbeat - but unfortunately, they're quite adept at keeping relative newcomers like me in line."

"It comes from practice, James Potter," said a deep voice behind them.

Harry and his dad whirled around to face the interloper. A man of broad shoulders and red hair stood there, a pure black raven perched on one arm. The man looked oddly familiar, but Harry couldn't quite place him.

"Ah!" James exclaimed, and he almost managed to sound pleased. "Professor, what a pleasant surprise! Allow me to introduce my son, Harry. Harry, this is-"

"Enough," the man interrupted. "I knew you had a habit of pushing boundaries, James, but surely you can see that this is too far."

Harry's father met the man's gaze, looking rebellious. "He's my son," he replied. "If you can't understand how far I'd go for him, you clearly haven't been paying attention."

To Harry's eyes, the man looked more resigned than angry, which was a bit of a relief. He was an imposing figure, and Harry suspected that he wouldn't want to be on his bad side.

"Clearly not," the man agreed tiredly. "I suppose this means we'll have to go back and review our lessons from the start." With a sigh, he gave them a broad gesture with his free hand. "Say your farewells; this little stunt of yours is at its end, but I'm not so hidebound as to deny you a few last moments here."

Almost immediately, Harry found himself engulfed in another hug, and he wrapped his arms around his father in return.

"I suppose this is it, at least for a while," his dad murmured softly. "Know that I love you, Harry, and I'm so, so proud - and your mum would say the same, if she were here."

Tears stung at Harry's eyes, and he sniffed and tried to keep them at bay. "I- I love you too, Dad. I've missed you so much. I just... I wish there was some way..."

"I know, Harry. It's not fair - but sometimes all you can do is play the hand you're dealt and hope it doesn't blow up in your face." Clapping Harry on the back, his dad began to move away - but then he changed his mind and pulled him back in, murmuring one more thing in Harry's ear. "Oh, and do me a favour, would you? Tell Sirius congratulations from me."

"Wh-"

But before Harry could respond, his father had pulled away again, and Harry saw that he was starting to dissolve into pure light. Motes of brilliance were being pulled up and away into the slowly brightening sky, the image of his father fading away before his eyes. The last Harry saw of him was a mischievous grin and a wink, and then his father had fully vanished, leaving Harry standing alone on the tower with the other man.

Harry glared over at him, not especially interested in anything the man had to say.

Silently, the man regarded him for a moment, then lifted his arm slightly to consider the bird perched there. The raven peered back up at him in return, tilting its head curiously as though evaluating him as well. "The trickster," the man eventually said, and he turned his gaze back up to Harry. "Clearly, there is no small part of your father in you, so this warning may be in vain - but do not seek this sort of meeting out in the future. If you are to meet those who have gone before you again, it must happen in its own time; forcing the matter will end poorly for all involved. Focus on life, and concern yourself not with those beyond it. You have, I should think, more than enough to be getting on with already."

"Yeah, I've got some very important sitting on a beach to do," Harry shot back. His voice was coming out more than a little bitter, and he didn't bother to try to hide it. "It's a good thing I'm not being distracted from sitting around by my one and only chance to talk with the father I never got a chance to know. Thanks for that."

For his part, the man appeared completely unruffled by Harry's acid words. "Your time for action will come soon enough, lad, and I'm sure you will make your family and house proud. Good hunting, when the time comes."

And before Harry could reply, the man was lifting his arm, and the raven took flight. It flew straight for Harry, diving for his chest, passing into him-

Letting out a sudden breath of air, Harry abruptly opened his eyes and sagged forward, disoriented. He was back on the clifftop, sitting opposite Sirius. Like in the ritual vision, the dark sky was starting to be coloured by the first hints of pre-dawn light, and the campfire in the middle of the circles had burned most of the way down.

Across the remains of the fire, Sirius was looking over at him, looking eager and expectant. "Ah, back with us! How was the experience?"

With everything that he'd been through, Harry wasn't sure where to begin. As he tried to put his thoughts in some semblance of order, however, one question, almost unprompted, tumbled its way out of his mouth.

"What's this about you and the Hufflepuff beaters in your sixth year?"