Chapter 2
Many times, Harry had wished to have people around him to greet him whenever he was knocked out in one of his ‘adventures’ and woke up in the infirmary wing. He liked the idea that there would be people that would be there for him to watch over him while he slept and tried to recover from his wounds.
But having a bunch of strange people peering down at him was not what he had had in mind.
He quickly darted away from the bed and took on a defensive position with his wand, ready to start casting hexes. Harry almost did a double take when he saw the centaur in the room, this solidified in his mind that he was in some magical community – muggles would never be near a centaur.
He assed the situation. There were two women – no – two young girls and three boys no older than himself, plus an intimidating looking centaur. All of them carrying a weapon of sorts, weapons that were now pointing at him, which he found weird. Centaurs always carried weapons, but wizard folk only tended to carry their wands.
Maybe that was not the case in wherever he was right now, he could not know, he honestly knew nothing about magical communities outside of Britain.
“At ease, son of stars. We mean you no harm” Harry blinked. That was the voice that had been speaking to him before he fainted from the pain. It was nice to finally put a face to the voice, though, that did not lessen the panic running in his veins.
“You are the one who picked me up, in the forest” he stated. “You and a mouse”
The male bowed his head slightly, pleased to find himself recognized by the wizard, “indeed”
Harry nodded slowly but did not lower his wand, “Where am I?”
“You’re in Aslan’s How” chirped the fair-haired girl that was currently sitting on the cot that he had been occupying until a few seconds ago. She was probably the only one, beside the centaur, who did not appear to have harmful intentions towards him, and just for that, he liked her.
Everyone in the room saw the confusion on the stranger’s face, “Aslan’s How?” he glanced at everyone in the room “is that anywhere near Britain?”
Well, that confirmed a few things to the siblings, he was indeed like them. One of the raven-haired boys took a step closer to the guarded teen, lowering his sword just a little bit, “I’m afraid not, we are nowhere near the British Isles. We…” he paused, looking for the best way to explain what had possibly happened to him. “We are not even on Earth now; we are currently in Narnia”
Harry blinked, then he blinked again and again. “I beg your pardon?”
“Narnia, a world that exists in a different plain from Earth” said the boy in a soothing voice, “you are in a different world”
Everyone waited to see what the green-eyed boy would do. They all knew that being told that he was in a different world was not normally taken as something good, the eldest siblings had been in denial for a while before accepting that Narnia was not a product of their imagination. It would be understandable if he fell into denial, they had not expected something different.
“Great, just what I needed” he said dryly, “as if being chased by a psychopath wizard was not enough”
Harry ran a hand through his bird ness of a hair, “So I’m going to assume that you don’t recognize the name Voldemort?” when he saw the frowns on everyone’s faces, he lowered his wand “right, that said everything I needed to know”
“You were being chased?”
“Did you say wizard?”
“Voldwhat?”
“What’s your name?”
Everyone turned to face the small blond girl who looked at them with a blank look, “what? It’s polite to ask for his name before we bombard him with questions” she defended herself.
Harry felt his lips twitch upward, “one at a time, yes, yes, Voldemort and Harry, Harry Potter” he said to the little girl, “and you guys are?”
“Pleasure to meet you Harry” the girl beamed at him, “I’m Lucy Pevensie and these are my siblings, Susan” she pointed at the graceful looking dark-haired girl, “Peter” the blond boy gave a stiff nod, sword still drawn and pointing at him. “And Edmund” she motioned for the teen that had come closer to him.
“This is Glenstorm and that is Caspian” the centaur gave a bow, and the teen inclined his head in acknowledgement.
“A pleasure” he murmured.
“Now that we all know who we are, you said something about a wizard, are you one?” chimed in the blond boy, Peter, in a tone that said that he was used to giving orders and being followed. Harry did not like that.
He raised an eyebrow, “would it be safe to say that you are not one?”
“Just answer the question”
He let out a sigh, well, good thing he was no longer in Britain. At least here he did not have to worry about the Statue of Secrecy. “Yes, I’m a wizard, happy now?”
After his confession he saw how the two brothers tensed for a moment, he narrowed his eyes. It would seem that they had not had a good encounter with wizard kind. Great, he thought, just great. He had been sent to a world where he was likely to be treated like the enemy, from the looks of it, the wizard or witch was to blame for this.
“So that’s your wand? You use it to cast magic, right?” asked a very curious Lucy, earning a nod from the wizard. “Can you show us?”
“Lucy-“
“He comes from our world; his magic could be different, and I want to see it”
Leaving the siblings to bicker for a moment, he thought about what spell he could use to show his magic. Something inoffensive and yet powerful enough to make them believe he was a wizard. Then again, if they were in another world, it should not take too much to convince them.
Coming to a decision on what spell to use, he opened his mouth and waved his wand, “Expecto Patronum”
Mist began to pour out of the tip of his wand and little by little took the familiar form of Prongs. Harry could not help but smile as the stag stepped towards him and inclined his head, as if asking him to pet him. No matter how many years passed, his patronus will never fail to fill him with wonder.
He took his eyes away from his patronus to see how the Pevensies were handling his magical display, hoping this would not end up the same as with the Dursleys.
Lucy looked ecstatic, almost jumping on the cot she was sitting at the sight of the stag, looking very much her age. Her reaction made him grin, he reminded him of a little of his friend Luna. The second eldest looked impressed, as did the second youngest sibling. The eldest Pevensie looked reluctantly impressed but also tense, as if he was expecting Prongs to attack him.
“It’s beautiful” the young queen breathed.
As if he was able to understand her, Prongs preened under her praise – making the girl let a small giggle. Harry stared at his patronus with a raised eyebrow, “Are you going to start strutting around the room?”
The stag proceeded to bump his head against Harry’s arm in retaliation, not strong enough to hurt but enough to make his point across that he had not liked his question. Some chuckles were heard throughout the room at the display.
“What is that thing?” asked Peter in a defensive tone.
The wizard frowned at his tone; he was beginning to remind him of Malfoy. “This is Prongs, my patronus” he replied nonetheless, maybe if he was open to answering his questions, he would drop that accusing tone with him.
“What is a patronus? I doubt that they are just mist projections” said the eldest queen, who had stayed quite until now observing the situation from afar.
“You are correct, they are not just that” he stated, “A patronus is the manifestation of positive feelings that serve as a shield against a nasty creature called Dementors that sucks the happiness out of you and, if you stay around one of them for too long, it can even suck out your soul”
His eyes were stuck seeing his patronus, so he did not see the horrified looks that the royals were exchanging with one another. The only one that was not worried about this, aside of the green-eyed wizard, was Glenstorm. How was it possible that such a creature existed in their birth world, and they did not know about them?
“The patronus charm is created by thinking of a happy memory, this makes it possible for the patronus to produce positive feelings and – because they cannot feel despair or sadness like any other living being – you could say they ‘starve’ the dementors” explained Harry in what Hermione had liked to call his ‘professor voice’, “they also serve as messengers”
“How so?” inquired Caspian, giving the stag a doubtful look. Did the message appeared written in the skin of the patronus? Or did it appear in a different form?
“Like this” the young man lent down to whisper something to the stag and motioned for it to go towards the safest looking of the group.
They all watched as the projection made it’s way towards the imposing centaur, intrigued at what it would do, and promptly jumped when they heard Harry’s voice leave the misty lips of the patronus. “I greet the master archer and thank him for his assistance”
The corner of Glenstorm’s lips quirked up and he gave a small bow to the wizard, impressed with the form of address. “You know the old ways, Star child?”
Harry pushed down the urge to shrug, knowing that would be insulting to do. “After I was introduced to the wizarding world I did what I could to learn how to navigate my new world. I managed to get my hands on a book about creature etiquette and well,” a sheepish grin appeared on his face, “let’s just say that I avoided several nasty situations thanks to that book”
He honestly was glad that he had been respectful to the goblins when he first met them, otherwise they might just have ended up freezing his accounts. Plus, it did prevent getting on the bad side of the centaur community that lives in the Forbidden Forest. Honestly, wizard kind would save themselves from so much trouble if only they tried to be polite to the rest of the creatures that existed in their world.
That and they would also have more magic if they did not leave behind the Old Ways. But that was a problem for his world and not here. Still, he was glad that the words of that book still applied in this new world.
The centaur let out a hearty chuckle, “a wise choice it would seem”
“Indeed it was”
“Hold on” the dark-haired woman said, “wizarding world? Didn’t you just say that you were from Britain like us?”
“I did and I am” Harry said, petting the head of Prongs when it began to lean on him. “But Britain and pretty much the rest of the world is… divided, I suppose is the best way to describe it”
“But why?”
Harry turned to look at the four individuals with a blank look on his face, “don’t tell me that you have forgotten your history” at the confused glances that the siblings threw at each other, he could not help but let out a frustrated sigh, “the witch hunts and trials? Does it ring any bells?”
In instants, understanding dawned into the faces of each of the Pevensies while Glenstorm tilted his head in curiosity and Caspian frowned in confusion as he did not understand what that could mean.
“Witch hunts?” asked the young prince, hoping somebody would be kind enough to explain what that meant.
“A dark piece of history from our birth world” Edmund explained, his expression grim as he remembered all those lectures back in his own world. “Much like the name states, during this period of time, people accused of being witches or of using witchcraft would be hunted down, captured and executed in some gruesome ways. Women were usually the primary targets of these trials.”
“You forgot the torture” Harry added in a cheerful tone, that had not place in being in such a grim conversation, but he was honestly just glad to see that someone had not slept throw his lessons (thought he was probably not one to judge). “And the raping, those two happened a lot back in the day.”
“You’re telling me that they actually killed true witches during those trials?” Peter asked, his face incredulous. If he was being honest, his mind was still reeling over the fact that there were witches living in his birth world and he had been ignorant to it all his life. He wondered if they were anything like the White Witch and if he should worry over the boy standing before them.
“Yep, most of them were muggleborns that did not even know they had magic and had no one to teach them how to control it and a big chunk of them consisted of children” Harry answered, taking a seat near the youngest Pevensie on the cot he had previously laid in, ignoring the way that Caspian was looking a little sick over the explanation. “But they ended up killing more innocent muggles than magicals during those day but, either way, the magical community learned their lesson to not trust muggles with the knowledge of their existence.”
“They killed children?” Caspian felt honestly appalled that grown adults would even think about harming an innocent child. Sure, in court it was common for enemies to make assassination attempts on the heirs so as to prevent a family from gaining power, but that did not mean that he felt less horrified by those actions. They were wrong, plain and simple, and anyone that believed otherwise needed to have their head’s checked in his opinion.
Harry gave the young prince a pitying look, having a rough idea of what he may be thinking, “of course” he said with a pained smile, “they were young, had close to no training and were physically weaker. They were the perfect preys, and till this day, they are still the first ones to be targeted” he should know, his ‘family’ had tried to beat the magic out of him the moment that he first showed signs of accidental magic. When that did not seem to work, they resorted to try and kill him in an attempt to ‘free’ him from being a freak.
Plus, he had noticed the absence of some classmates back in Hogwarts that he had known were muggleborns throughout the years. He knew full well that, despite what their illustrious headmaster liked to say about them moving to another country, they had not returned that years because they could no longer do so.
The dead could not move after all.
“’Till this day?” Lucy asked in a soft voice, “it still happens? I thought the Witch Trials had come to an end a long time ago” she had noticed the way the boy’s eyes grew unfocused as he spoke, had seen the pain and despair in those emerald eyes, and she wondered about what he had seen to make him believe they were still happening.
Harry could not help it, he let a bitter laugh escape his lips, something that was not well received by the eldest King.
“Why are you laughing? You think Lucy’s question is funny?” Peter asked in a defensive tone.
“Peter!” Susan chided her brother as she saw no need to be so hostile against someone that minutes ago had been in death’s doorstep, specially when he was being kind enough to answer their questions in a very civil manner despite his circumstances.
“I laugh because otherwise I might yell, or worse, cry” the green-eyed teen replied, “and I laugh because that was such a naïve statement to make, in my eyes at least”
“But to answer your question Lucy, The Witch Trials may have officially come to and end, but” he added, “that does not mean the muggles ever stopped hunting magical children down or adults for that matter”
His mind went back to a piece of news he had seen on the TV in those rare times he had been able to see it. The news report had been speaking about how a bunch of villagers in one of the rural communities in south America had killed three women claiming that they were witches, or that one time that a child no older than six had been found dead in an alley with signs of strangulation. That particular bit of news had not seemed to strange in his mind, a tragedy for sure but not exactly a strange occurrence as killers tended to like that method as it was the easiest to use, he had scratched up as it being one of the children that had been reported missing.
But then Harry noticed that there had never been a missing report on that child, after digging a little in the library, he found a small interview of the child’s neighbors claiming that the child tended to have ‘freaky’ things happen around it and that’s when he realized what had actually happened. He remembers crying for the small child that would never get to understand why he had been able to do the things that he did, he also remembers thinking that that could have been his fate were it not because the Dursleys were trying to get rid of him in a way that would not be pointed at them and maybe because they feared Dumbledore’s retribution.
“The hunts never truly stopped, believe me, I know” he took a deep breath, trying to shake off the memories that were beginning to pass through his mind, “I have lost count of just how many classmates I have lost throughout the years to their own family members just because they were born with magic.”
Silence reigned after that statement, the four siblings staring at the young wizard in front of them in shock and horror. While the centaur bowed his head in sign of mourning for the young lives that had been cut off much too early.
“My condolences for your loss, child” The centaur said solemnly, truthfully, he felt for the child before him. He, like many other narnians, knew exactly how it felt to lose one of their own at the hands of those who could not understand or control who and what they were.
The green-eyed wizard gave the centaur a tired smile, “thank you, Master Glenstorm” he let out a sigh and tried his best to bring back the usual cheer he used when dealing with heavy subjects, “anyways, that’s why the worlds are divided, any questions?”
“Does this happen all the time?” Edmund was brave enough to ask when he saw that his siblings did not seem to have yet processed the information given to them, “does it always end in the death of a kid? Also, what’s a muggle?”
Harry blinked, he had not noticed he had let the world slip, “a muggle is a person that cannot wield magic, so those charlatans that you see on the streets that claim to be magicians are not and are just scamming you” he said, “as for the other question, if the child does manages to live long enough to emancipate themselves from their family, they do, but they will always live on with the scars of the abuse” he was certain that he himself was going to be like that, what he had lived through was not something that he could heal from easily even with their magic, “it is rare but there are muggle families that don’t mind having a witch or a wizard in the family, some even decided to move into the wizarding world to learn more about it and be closer to their child’s new world”
“But they are rare” Edmund reiterated, wanting make sure he had understood what he had been told.
He nodded, “I only know of one family that seems to be okay with their daughter being a witch but…” he bit his lip, “even then, I think that is mostly due to the fact that they rarely interact with her except on summer vacations when the school year is over” and now that he thought about it, Hermione’s parents rarely asked her to come back home during the winter or spring holidays. They had done so in their first and second year but after that it stopped, he wondered if that was good thing or a bad thing.
Lucy stared at the wizard seating besides her at his statement, from the way he had worded that last part, the young queen got the feeling that he did not include himself in the short number of lucky ones to have an accepting family. She knew it was probably for the best to change the subject for she doubted that Harry would like to continue on this vein of conversation for much longer.
“How did you got here?” she asked instead, genuinely curious to find just how had he made his way to Narnia. Had he also walked through a wardrobe like them? Were they even more wardrobes like the one they had stumbled upon years ago? Or had he been called by the horn like they had this time around?
Harry frowned and tried to remember everything he had done before waking up in this new world, “I honestly am not sure about how it happened. One moment I was in the middle of a battle with my friends in the Department of Mysteries at the Ministry and then next I’m waking up in the middle of the woods.”
“Ministry?” Susan asked.
“Department of Mysteries?” this came from Lucy who found herself intrigued over what could be held in a place named like that.
“Battle?” Caspian stared at the skinny teenager sitting in the cot, trying to picture him with a weapon in a fight, but he found that the picture did not match with who he was seeing.
Glenstorm hummed, not finding it surprising that the gods had thought it pertinent to bring a soldier to them, they certainly could use with more help in the war, but he had the funny feeling that the reason for his arrival was not only to fight but something else. He was not sure what it was, but he figured that he would learn in the reason in time.
“Wizards fight each other? How or why?” Peter could not think of what could possibly make people that had power to get whatever they wanted fight amongst each other, who had the bigger wand? Who could turn humans into frogs better than the other?
Harry rolled his eyes, “you do realize that we are still humans, right? Its natural for us to fight amongst each other, not everyone will like everyone else and they will certainly not share the same opinion regarding certain laws, it would be weird if that were the case”
“As of today, there is a war waging on consisting of two sides, the Light and the Dark. And, to put it simply, the Light side stands for the integration of both of our world, the muggle and the magical ones, while the Dark side stands for the complete separation of our worlds and the preservation of our culture. At least, that’s what the Dark side used to be” Dumbledore and the Order may have tried to feed him the dark propaganda that Voldemort had been pushing, which consisted in the annihilation of the muggleborns and the muggles, but he had found out the true aims of the dark side during his fourth year while holing up in the library trying to find a way to survive the first task.
“In the past two decades the aims of the Dark side have been distorted so much that wixens believe that its all about pureblood supremacy and the destruction of the muggles and the muggleborns” he lectured them, “the current leader of the Dark faction, Tom Riddle aka Voldemort, is kind of like the Hitler of world war two, just with magic and without a nose”
Caspian blinked, “who is Hitler?”
“He was the leader of a country back in out birth world who was known for pushing the idea of a ‘master race’ and caused the mass genocide of a group of people that he believed were inferior to them, the Jews” Susan explained, feeling a little sick at the possibility of a magical Hitler existing. Adolf Hittler without magic had been terrifying enough, she could not even comprehend how terrible a magical one could be, “he was also responsible for creating a worldwide war”
“So someone terrible, got it”
Edmund snorted, “that’s and understatement but yeah he was pretty terrible” he turned towards Harry, “that still does not explain how you ended up here or why you were in a battle when you did”
“Long story short, Tom got himself killed fourteen years ago and became a wraith, last year he gained his body back through a ritual that I had the terrible luck of being a part of. This made the war that had ended fourteen years ago come back, not that anyone believed me when I said he was back but oh well, then things went downhill” he said, being very deliberate in keeping several details about the situation, such as him being the boy-who-lived and his connection to the psychopath. No need to bring that part of his past here.
“Last night I had a, erm, vision of Tom capturing someone that was – is – very dear to me and torturing them, all in an attempt to get something. And, well, I kind of let my emotions get the better out of me and jumped headfirst into trying to save them. Which resulted into getting into the Department of Mysteries, fighting Tom’s followers and getting hit with a stray spell somewhere along the line” he paused after that, trying to remember exactly what he had been hit with, but his mind just drew a blank, “I cannot seem to remember what spell it was”
Glenstorm’s eyes sharpened at that. He had a vague idea of what may have happened, if he remembered correctly, his majesties had all come through an object - wardrobe - to get here, perhaps...
“Can you remember where you were when you got hit child?”
Harry looked up at the centaur and frowned, “I don’t know if the room had a name, I didn’t check, but it did have this weird arch made of some dark stone” he also remembered the whispers that have appeared to come from the arch, but he did not feel like mentioning that.
“Were you near that arch when you came here?” Susan asked, having caught up to what the centaur was hinting at.
“Yes, I was dueling with Sirius by my side and –“all at once, he felt the blood drain from his face. It was a good thing that he was already sitting otherwise he would have fallen to the ground with how weak his legs felt.
He still could not remember much of what had happened, everything was blurry after he was hit by the stray spell that – now that he thought about it – probably caused either his concussion of some of his lacerations. But the possibility of him falling through the arch way, the veil of death he believes was the name Luna used for it, was extremely high.
Especially if he had been standing very close to it during the duel.
The spell could have pushed him with just enough force to make him tumble towards it but if he did fall through the veil, then…
“How am I still alive?” he wondered out loud, feeling very confused about the whole ordeal.
“Our majesty healed you child” the centaur replied, “had you not been treated you would have died.”
The raven-haired wizard shook his head, “no, that’s not what I meant its just. If I fell through the veil then” he let out a harsh exhaled and ran a hand through his already messy hair, “I should be dead, as in, I should have arrived here dead. If I even arrived that is”
The four siblings exchanged glances with each other, all of them wondering why the teenager before them would say that. The only explanation for his words would be that the stone arch he fell through was probably a weapon of some sort.
Just when Peter opened his mouth to ask him more questions, Susan squeezed his arm, bringing his attention back her and shaking her head at him. Silently telling him that it was not the time to ask him what the arch was for, they had asked the teen to many questions, he deserved some rest before asking anything again.
“I believe it is safe to say that you are not an enemy” Susan stated, “meaning that you are welcome to stay with us until you find a way to return home, or you decide to venture into the world.”
“I think I will take you up on the offer and I thank you for your hospitality” he gave the queen a small smile.
Lucy immediately brightened at the prospect of having another human with them, “that’s great” she jumped off the cot and took hold of Harry’s hand, “I’ll show you where you will be sleeping and then we can introduce you to everyone.”
“Take Edmund with you, Lu” Susan ordered, Harry may not be the enemy but that did not mean that she trusted him enough to be around her sister without protection.
The young girl rolled her eyes at her sister’s protectiveness, she loved of that there was no doubt, but she tended to forget that she was no longer the defenseless ten year of she had been when they first came here. “Fine, let’s go Edmund.”
Harry, for his part, did not even get a chance to say anything before the fair-haired girl dragged him out of the cot and into the hallway with a strength that he had not expected the girl to have, the young king trailing after the two with a small smirk adorning his face.