Chapter 4
“I don’t trust him” Peter said as he watched Glenstorm take the sleeping wizard away from the Hall.
“You said the very same thing about Mr. Fox when we first met him and he turned out to be our ally, remember?” Lucy pointed out; her eyes focused on the retreating form of the centaur.
The wizard had said that he was suffering magical exhaustion, she did not understand what that meant, neither of her siblings did, but she could only guess it was something similar to how you felt after you spent hours and hours around other people with almost no reprieve.
“That was different, he was part of this world, he –“he motioned to the path that the centaur had taken, “ – isn’t, that makes him even more dangerous”
“Only if we make an enemy out of him” Edmund doubted that the kid would turn against them, not unless provoked if the little outburst he had with them was anything to go by, “if not, he could be a great asset to us”
He may not know the full extent of the wizard’s magic, but if he was being trained in defensive and offensive magic, then he would help them in this war. Maybe it would even help reduce the number of casualties they could potentially suffer. It would be foolish of them to make an enemy out of him and his brother should know this.
Although admittedly, he was also a little wary about the magic user. His last experience with a magic user had not been a pleasant one, he still had nightmares staring the white witch whenever he felt particularly stressed.
“I could keep an eye on him if you so wish your majesties” Reepicheep offered, “my men would be able to keep track of his actions better than anyone.”
Peter took a moment to consider the offer. It was true that with Reepicheep and his crew being so small, it made it easier for them to collect information and spy on others unnoticed, but he could not be sure that the wizard had a spell that would prevent anyone from spying on him. Nor did he know if the spell would hurt the mouse, it would be best not to rick it until they knew more about the wizard.
“Too risky, we need to learn more about the wizard before we act” he said, “for now, we shall wait and see what he does.”
The small mouse bowed or tried his best to while in a sitting position and went back to eating. Personally, Reepicheep did not see the boy as much of a threat, but he didn’t see him as a friend either, so he would be cautious around him just to be on the safe side.
Lucy rolled her eyes at her brother’s actions, “you’re forgetting something important.”
“Which is?”
“He was called, just like us” and she doubted that Narnia would bring them another enemy when they had not even dealt with the current one, if anything, it would make sense that Narnia would bring someone to help them, just like it did with them when the White witch was in power, “there must be a reason as to why he was brought here, and I doubt it was so that he would destroy us. If anything, he probably will not want anything to do with out war, he looked stressed enough with the war he was dealing with back home.”
Peter scowled, “that still means nothing to us, he could still decide to use his magic against us all” he took a big drink from his goblet, “unless he gives me a good reason to trust him, I won’t.”
Well, Edmund thought, at least he is not thinking of pushing him to turn against us, could have been worse. With that, silence fell as the continued on with their meal.
~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~
Harry landed painfully on the ground and the sound of a pained groan told him that he had not been the only one to do so. Turning his head to the side, he saw that Cedric was trying to get back to his feet, so he forced himself to do the same.
He noticed the grass under him looked dry, as if it had not been watered in months, cracking whenever he put his weight into them, and there were stones littered everyone he turned. Glancing around, he saw a pair of dead trees standing near some of those stones, giving the place a dark and spooky air to it. The lack of any kind of sound, safe the rustling of the dead leaves on the trees, made the hairs at the back of his neck stand on end. It did not help that the place looked vaguely familiar to him.
Harry knew this, wherever it was, was nowhere near Hogwarts’s grounds. Not even the Forbidden Forest looked so dead and unsettling, which brought to question where were they?
The judges had mentioned that the winner only needed to get to the cup to win the tournament. Said the cup would work as a portkey and that as soon as the champion touched it, it would transport them to the start of the maze. But this place was certainly not it.
The green-eyed teen wondered if this was perhaps a failsafe that had been installed in case of two champions taking the cup at the same time, was this another test? Was there another cup they needed to get to here?
His gut feeling did not think so, and if there was anything that he had ever learned was that he should always trust his gut feeling. Always.
The sound of a door opening caught him by surprise and made him spin towards the sound, staring in disbelief and horror at the house that he was certain had not been there. A house that he had seen plenty of times during the summer. A house that currently housed someone neither of them would like to meet.
“We need to get out of here, where’s the portkey?” Harry asked in a hurried manner, looking frantically for the cup that he was now sure that it had been tempered with, maybe if they touched it again, they would be able to activate the actual portkey that would take them to the start of the maze.
“But, why? What if this is another test?” Cedric eyebrow’s frowned, not understanding the urgency of the younger wizard’s movements.
“Listen to me Cedric, I’ve been here before – In dreams. And they never showed anything good whenever I had them, so we need to get out of here before anyone notices we where here” Harry knew he was not making any sense, he probably looked like a maniac, but he honestly could not order his thought in his panicked state.
“Harry -“
Harry’s scar began to burn, the pain was so great that it forced Harry unto his knees. It felt as if the whole area of his forehead was about to melt off, as if his skull was being hit a thousand times by Dudley, and he could do nothing about it except cry and twist in pain.
Through his pain, he heard a raspy voice say, “kill the spare.”
Next thing he knew, a bright green light hit Cedric in the chest, causing the teen to drop like a puppet whose strings had been cut on the dirty floor. Before he could scream for Cedric, another flash of green light shut towards him, and a woman’s scream was heard.
~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~
Harry bolted upright in the bed, panting and quickly noticing that he was not in the medical wing, nor was he in his bed in Gryffindor tower. He may never have been very knowledgeable in fabrics, he did not even know the names of the types of fabrics that exited in their world, but he recognized that they did feel different, and the fabrics covering him felt considerably rougher than the ones in Gryffindor tower.
Dread settled on his bones as he felt for his wand, but it was not beside him, nor was it beside the pillow he had slept in or beneath it, which was where he was used to placing it. Kind of a terrible habit to have as it would increase the chances of him accidentally cracking it, but he honestly felt safer with having his wand in close reach of him, plus, if anyone wanted to take his wand they would have to sneak their hands under his pillow – and with him being a light sleeper – he would sure as hell feel it and would take action immediately.
The fact that there was close to no lighting in the room – if it was indeed a room – and he did not have his glasses on made things a whole lot more complicated and raised his stress levels up another notch.
With the cobwebs of sleep still lingering in his mind, he frantically began to look for his wand. He pulled and pushed the fabric trapping his legs, hoping to feel the weight of his wand fall somewhere in the bed, but it didn’t. In his haste to find his wand, he got himself even more tangled in the sheets and promptly fell sideways from the bed, letting a surprised yelp out as he met the floor.
The sound of something clattering to the ground made him turn and feel for what had fallen, finding the familiar texture of his glasses. He put them on and took a look around the area where his glasses had been. Harry could have let out a hurray when he saw his wand laying innocently at the foot of the bed. He picked the wand and sheathed it into his back into his pocket.
Now that he had his wand with him, he relaxed and finally got rid of the last traces of sleep that had been clinging on to him. Upon closer inspection, the walls that made up the room looked less solid than they should, and a gap was showing on the side that was facing the foot of the bed. Creeping closer to it, ignoring the feeling of uneven ground beneath his shoe-less feet, he opened the gap and finally understood that he was inside a tent.
As soon as he realized he was in a tent, the events of the past twenty-four hours flooded back into his head. The vision, the department of mysteries, the veil.
Right, he thought, I’m no longer on Earth, he took in the series of tents that surrounded the one he was currently in, noticing that it was dark outside, I’m in Narnia. Looking upwards to the sky, he saw the dark blue of the sky beginning to lighten up meaning that morning was approaching.
Sighing, he went back to the tent to look for his shoes and put them on. There was no point on him going back to sleep, not like he would be able to in the first place, not after that nightmare. He was honestly surprised that nobody had come to check up on him with weapons drawn when he fell from the bed, he was sure that he had made quite a lot of noise from that, that is, if he had not been screaming or crying in his sleep.
Either they were all very heavy sleepers, or they were used to hearing people suffering from nightmares, there was also the chance that – for once – he had been silent. But he did not think so, not completely.
Once outside the tent, he picked a random path and followed it, not really caring where it would lead him only that it would help distract him from the dream.
The fresh wind hitting his face did wonders for his mood, it also helped dry the sweat that had accumulated on his forehead and chest, leaving behind a sticky feel to it. Harry grimace at the feel, he would need a bath soon, if there was anything that he absolutely hated was feeling dirty. It reminded him too much of the days where the Dursley’s would look him up for days with no food and no chance to clean himself.
The only reason why they even allowed him into the restroom was because they did not want to be bothered with cleaning his cupboard, not to mention that they did not want it stinking their perfectly normal house.
He took a turn that led him to a series of worn stone stairs that climbed in a spiral like manner. Curious, he took them one at a time, mindful of the moss that was growing in some places. He had not been shown these stairs during his impromptu tour, or maybe he did, and he did not pay attention to it, but surely it would not be bad for him to explore the camp a little.
The stairs eventually came to an end in the form of a stone archway that led to some sort of corridor that was lightly illuminated by torches. He suspected that the archway used to have door at some point, but he could be wrong.
Harry eventually came to a crossroads of sorts and took the left side, seeing as that side looked more illuminated than the right one. With each step he took, he saw that the walls had carvings etched into them, a pattern of flowers and random shapes decorated every column, reminding him a little of the cathedrals back home.
The corridor eventually opened up to an open room that had two doorways on each side of the room. The room reminded him a lot of the Astronomy Tower with its big arched windows that were attached to the balcony and the clear view it provided of the forest and sky.
Harry walked towards the balcony and, because he could, he settled himself up top of the balcony and leaned his back against one of the archways – waiting for the sun to rise and see his first dawn of this world.
As he watched as the sky began to get lighter and lighter, he allowed himself to get lost in his thoughts, allowed all the information he had gained yesterday to come to the forefront of his mind so that he could process it. His battle with the Death Eaters, waking up in the middle of an unfamiliar forest, being attacked by a mouse sword master, waking up in Aslan’s how, getting a tour of the place, all of it.
Putting in order what he had learned, he found that – just as he expected – he no longer remembered the names of all those he had met, safe for Glenstorm and Trufflehunter, but he did remember the creatures that lived here. He also was pleased to find that he remembered most of the history lessons Lucy had dumped on him.
He found it curious how the Pevensie siblings had lives in Narnia for fifteen years before returning to their birth world, meaning that they had been adults when they left, only for them to revert back to their younger bodies. Harry would love to know what kind of magic that did that, it sounded like the aging potion he had read about while researching about the Polyjuice potion, only it had the opposing effect of making you younger instead of older.
He pulled a face, knowing that nobody will see it, in sympathy for them. Harry did not think it could have been easy for them to have to adjust to being a child, having been adults just moments before. He supposed that they must feel great about returning to the world they are familiar with. He knew that, if he were in their place, he sure as hell would.
Glancing at the trees, he remembered another piece of information that Lucy had shared with him during his tour. “What a shame that you guys are no longer sentient, I’m sure all of you know some pretty interesting stories” he whispered to the wind.
“They did”
Harry acted on instinct. He jumped from the balcony he had been siting on, wiped his wand out and pointed it at whoever had sneaked up on him. He was rather thankful that he had not been in the process of casting anything when he came face to face with the stunned expression of Edmund.