Pragma

The summons arrive on one of Naruto's frogs. Unassuming in appearance, but any amount of Naruto’s chakra will always be a beacon to him, it croaks at him from the edge of the clearing before coughing up a scroll and puffing away.

He picks it up and comes to sit by the fire.

The Hokage crest and the ever-surprising neat script tell him this isn't Naruto just harassing him with any news he can think of. This is from Kakashi. 

He takes out the damned copy of Icha Icha he's been forced to keep. He decodes the scroll and arranges the words in order.

The world seems to freeze around him, and for long minutes, he just stares. He clenches his fists hard, and the world starts spinning again, ice shattering like the crinkles under his fist. 

The Sharingan swirls to life, and the scroll erupts in black flames. By the time he leaves the clearing, shoulders tense in impatience and underlying rage, the dark flames of Amaterasu are only a flickering lick on the ashes of the scroll.

He's at the eastern border of Waterfall, chasing a lead, which means a good distance to cover. But as he skips from one spot to another between blinks of the eye, he thinks he will reach Konoha by daybreak.

If this is some ploy, some trick to bring him back... Sasuke swears to himself that there'll be hell to pay. 

~

No. That's his first thought, but he doesn't know what he's protesting. It's all dark. There is nothing to protest. 

His mind is a snail, moving at its own pace. Wandering..wandering…

A clock ticks away in the distance. It's steady ticks Harry's whole world. The slam of a door, shuffling off feet, a bird’s lonely call, and his world expand. And with it, he becomes aware of his body. It aches like every inch of skin is a patch of bruises. 

He remembers then, his mind speeding up like a sudden diving broom in Quidditch. Sleep shattered by shouting…the air charged with magic, he can almost taste it. Pushing—

Harry groans, shoving away weight from his body. They shouldn't do this…someone was groaning.

Remus’s scarred hands grip his—the array under his feet is starting to glow. Harry clutches leather-bound pages to his chest—don't have time, your father's— answers your questions. His mouth is still moving, but Harry can't hear. Harry reaches for him.

The sensation of falling, and the world explodes into agony.

He snaps his eyes open, searching. White linoleum meets his gaze. But that was wrong he-

Footfalls echo. Voices. And Harry rolls his body, moving on reflex. 

Wand-

A shadow moves, and a hand emerges to his right. He dodges, grips it by the forearm, and flings the body forward to the cacophony of noise coming from where he senses the door is. Harry's own body moves back, the momentum slamming his back against the room wall.

His vision blacks out for a second, and Harry keens, gripping his side. His other hand searches desperately for his wand. Bandages cover his middle. His clothes are all wrong-

Accio! Acci-

A rattle and time-worn wooden handle meet his palm with a sharp thwack. 

Harry brandishes it, breathing through gritted teeth. 

“Petrificus Totalus.” 

The curse flies from his mouth before his mind catches up. But the damage is done. The man strikes his head on the bed frame as he goes down. His white mask, unadorned, but for the purple whorls on each cheek, couldn't be more different from the face-hugging masks Death Eaters wear. 

A bitten-off scream, and Harry's wand hand aims in that direction next. 

A man backs away as Harry's eyes meet his. His tray crashes to the floor. The woman next to him cringes, making herself as small as possible.

Muggle, he thinks as another girl enters the room. Pink hair frames her face, and Harry has a sudden vivid image of Tonks. Wand held aloft, her back to him.

He blinks hard, casting away the image. 

Pink hair keeps her hands in the air and eyes steady on him as she comes forward, shielding the other two. It's disguised as skirting around the mess on the floor, but Harry doesn’t miss it. Nor the decisive calm in her eyes. 

She…

There was something about her. Her steps were eerily silent, body poised. But there is no wand visible, and she’s wearing scrubs; there is nowhere to stash it. Nothing else there to mark her as a witch.

A silent command from her, and the other two scramble out. Harry thinks about stopping them, but his strength is flagging, breath coming in labored gasps. He leans on the wall behind him. 

She surveys the room, rising on her toes to see over the bed. Harry glares at her, steadying his shaky aim, and the girl settles back on her feet, hands raised in placation. She doesn’t look bothered, and Harry wonders whether she knew anything about the wizarding world.

“What is this place? Who are you?”

The girl’s eyes widen. She opens her mouth.

“I said-”

Her voice is strong when she speaks. But she might as well have spoken gobbledegook, for all Harry understands.

It is then that Harry takes a proper look at the room. 

A poster showing a plate of vegetables on the far wall is written in a language he's never seen before. What he assumes to be a calendar set up on the bedside table has recognizable numbers, but anything else escapes him. There are other similar signs all around the room to mark it as somewhere... foreign. A rune-like sticker on the bed frame, and even the girl... Now that he looks closely, her features are different. Softer. Definitely not English. 

The last time he’d been taken somewhere forcibly, he’d watched as Voldemort came back to life. Harry forces himself to breathe normally.

The girl looks worried now. He doesn't know if it's for him or because of him. 

He needed to understand what was happening. His eyes travel to the body lying by the bed. I need to know who they are. And the only way to do that...

She says something again, something to soothe him by the look on her face. But he ignores her.

He racks his mind for the language spell he’d heard of during his fourth year. Most of the students from Beauxbatons and Durmstang didn't know English all that well. Professor Flitwick had gone around teaching everyone a spell to communicate. 

“To cross barriers and foster inter-school relations,” he'd squeaked during one of his lectures. 

Setting his jaw, he meets the girl's eyes.

Harry pivots his wand to point at himself. “Pontem Linguarum”. The up-and-down motion of the wand comes easily, even though he's never done this before. He'd been too busy, caught up in a tournament rigged from the start. 

He blinks, looking over the girl’s shoulder at the poster. Maybe it doesn't work on written text.

The girl had taken a step forward, maybe to stop him. He points his wand at her again and she backs up. 

“Uh, who are you?”

The girl sucks in a breath. 

“How in-”

Her eyes dart to the window even as she speaks, and it's the only warning Harry gets before a man jumps cleanly through the open window.

Blood-red eyes locks with his own. 

Harry jerks, moving to get away. Searing pain erupts in his side, and he cries out. 

Somebody catches him, but before he can gather up the strength to fight back, a palm strikes hard against his neck. 

The pain spreads dark clouds over his already shaky vision. He gives himself up to the darkness.