A New Country Called Haven
Credit to: the fanfiction story An Avalanche by Lady Hallen for the name Haven, though there it’s a city instead of a country; also the fanfiction series Mischief’s Heir by Mad_Fairy for the idea about reclaiming landfills for habitation
Potter Sands, 23rd May 2004
“Hello. – Um, yes, you. Have time? – Okay, it’s okay you know if you don’t have time. – Okay, well, um, I wanted to ask you something. Maybe a little personal, but I want all of you safe. – So, all right, follow me, please. – Um, do you have people you care for who could be held against you? – No no, don’t panic, please. I just want to keep them safe, too. I’d like to bring them here if possible, if you want it. We could always make space for them, as long as they promise not to hurt or intentionally antagonise anything and anybody.”
It’s become a routine, by now. But in each interview with the five-hundred-and-something Jaffa that I conduct, almost non-stop to maximise the available time, there is always a fresh perspective to be had. It, along with the horrible knowledge that love is both a strength and a weakness, also the adamant desire not to expose any more people to the experience of loved ones being brutalised and/or killed before their eyes, sees me persevering through the day and night. Sai’yo helps me organise my chicken-scratch notes each after five interviews or so, while George helps me unwind from the piling stresses just as regularly.
And throughout it all, the notion that briefly visited my mind while in the ship yesterday hounds me in increasing persistency: We need to either relocate to the planet that Pandora’s coalition set up for their peoples, make use of the various properties I own to house all these individuals old and new in a more permanent base, or buy a humongous land somewhere to achieve the same thing.
It’s a stressful thing, all on its own.
Black Sanctuary, 23rd May 2004
“Mione, could I speak with Arga for a moment?”
“What for?”
“You will know at the same time, if what you told me about your relationship is true. It’s urgent, though. So, please?”
How relieved I am that Hermione bows her head, and her eyes flash golden as her head rises again, signifying that Arga is in control of the body presently. I can’t say I like to speak with Arga more than my old friend, or comfortable at all doing so if I would be honest with myself, but I haven’t been lying about the urgency. Stuffing five-hundred-something warriors in a small cottage for a long period of time is an idiot-proof recipe for disaster of epic proportion, after all.
“Thank you,” I smile weakly at the Goa’uld that shares my friend’s body. “Shall we walk to the lake? I hope you don’t mind sitting out there? It’s deserted, at this time of day. It’d be less conspicuous and… more relaxing.”
“I thought it was a matter of urgency?” Arga points out, though not unkindly; with some amusement, in fact.
My smile turns more genuine, if rather sheepish. “Not this-minute-or-else urgent,” I acknowledge her point. “It’s not easy to say, though, and by now I’m sick of looking at books and paperwork, so I’d rather escape somewhere for a while.”
It’s weird, to hear such deep, echoing voice laughing. But the laughter is genuine, and I can appreciate that much.
We walk side by side out of my office, then out of the house-turned-school altogether. I ply her with small questions about her interests, projects and nature as we make our way down the grassy hill to the nearer shore of the lake, which is fitted with a long pier and a boathouse at either end. She answers the questions gamely, and asks her own.
All chit-chats come to an end, though, as our sandals begin to tread on wooden planks.
The rather muggy air of the lake’s edge turns awkward and a little tense as we seat ourselves on the edge of the pier, half facing each other with one and a half of our legs dangling down the wooden construct.
I take a deep breath, then one more, and another one. All the while, I look into Arga’s eyes, noting that, though the glow has dissipated and the eyes are brown once more, the light in them shows that they’re still not Hermione’s at present.
It makes things easier for me to treat this person as not Hermione despite the body, honestly. So, lowly but clearly, I ask, “What can you tell me about the planet that you and your allies were to transport the refugees to?”
And, under my keen eye, shock widens those chocolate orbs and turns the placidly curious gaze into angry wariness.
“What can you tell me about I and my allies?” she retorts; taking the battling-fire-with-fire approach, apparently.
I give her a mirthless, lopsided smile. “Much, but not that much,” I demur. “And we have no time for this back-and-forth, really. I must set up a big living space and all, as soon as possible, at a semi-permanent basis at least, for the refugees and the Jaffa that Teal’c sent me. I haven’t slept since yesterday, so I’d highly appreciate a quick answer… but thorough.”
She scowls, irritated. I give her a deadpan look.
She exhales slowly. I raise an eyebrow.
She glares pointedly at me. I give her a another deadpan look.
She shoves my shoulder; a very exasperated-Hermione-like… so I reply likewise, by running my fingers softly up her side.
She squeaks and squirms away, startled into laughing.
“Now,” I am forced into a rather genuine smile by the reaction, “I would imagine Hermione would agree with me that mismanaged refugees and other displaced people would be just as bad as facing the original conflict that displaced them.” After all, the Daily Prophet sometimes runs derogatory little articles about Muggleborn beggars stealing from and harassing “upstanding people” after the last war, and I had to bring in some of them myself in my Auror days, struggling and spitting and cursing me. “Whatever your personal desires were when you helped Pandora achieve her dream,” and whatever Teal’c actually meant me to do with all the Jaffa he sent me, the matter of which I must confront him soon, “the fact remains that cramming them in a stop-gap manner in a tiny place, or constantly shuffling them from place to place, would be terribly bad.”
She flinches on hearing Pandora’s name, and lets out a sigh at the end. “Black told you, then?”
I nod. “Some.”
She sighs again. “Tell me first,” she stipulates, “did Black tell you about the fates of my allies?”
“He did, to the extent of his knowledge,” I nod.
Her countenance turns wistful, even morose. “I wish I thought of that, when we saw each other. I wish I asked.”
Sympathy for her – Arga, not Hermione – bubbles up in me, rather unexpectedly. “He told me little about Prometheus, Arga,” I tell her quietly. “Only that Prometheus took vengence on the other Goa’uld for your capture, after he helped Black bring the refugees to where we found the ship. He was the last. Black had no heart to proceed to the destination alone, and didn’t tell me anything about it, hence why I asked you. If Prometheus is still here, he’s been lying quite low for thousands of years… or even not Prometheus anymore.”
Tears pool in her eyes. I reach out and squeeze her hand in comfort. “I can help you search,” I continue. “Only after we’re done with the refugees, though. Sorry. I really need your help. You and Hermione and everyone. This is too big for just one person, and there are other things that none of you can help me, still.”
She squeezes my hand back, tremblingly, then shakes her head. “We cannot prepare the planet for habitation in such limited timeframe, Harry. We did put a few structures there, but it has been thousands of years, as you said. Some other Goa’uld might have even found it and used it, although it lies beyond the Chappa’ai system. And you said yourself that you did not dare bring such a magically modified ha’tak out of the atmosphere, even for just a while. The trip to that planet took us three days in our fastest vessel at that time, and a ha’tak travels slower than that.”
I slump. “There goes the neatest idea,” I mumble. “Guess now we got to house them in my properties. Didn’t want to keep them separate, actually, but we can’t help it now.”
We fall into a thoughtful silence, soon after, staring out at the rippling, sunlit surface of the lake and the forest that bounds it.
Then, softly, Arga ventures out, “This planet is populous, and somewhat wasteful. From the memories and knowledge that Hermione shared with me, there are patches of land that are no longer habitable because of terrible pollutants, wastes from chemical factories and other such things. The governments responsible for such areas might agree to sell those places to you, and we might be able to reclaim them for habitation with magic and technology… or magical technology.”
“It takes time,” I point out ruefully. “Good idea, though. If we could recover and recycle the wastes, we might have use for them. We might even be able to sell them, to support the refugees. The Jaffa won’t be with nothing to do, either. They can help with things, if they want. The others, too. And the elves are going to be ecstatic when I tell them we need to house the refugees in a few properties for now…. They’ve been asking for proper homes to care for. Perfect. Thank you, Arga! This’ll be a haven for all!”
I beam at the startled Goa’uld and give her a bear hug.
Grimmauld Place no. 12, 23rd May 2004
“You know the magical world will be up in arms, right? Perhaps even literally. I mean, this’ll be a magical endeavour, and you involve non-magical people instead of fellow magicals….”
“I involve the elves, and you, all of you.”
“Not the point, Harry. And before you speak about it, no, involving the Muggleborn circles will just make it worse, though they’ll have the experience for this.”
“You know, Su, the war’s ended. We shouldn’t deal with… things like this.”
“No, Harry. The war hasn’t ended.”
I fall silent, watching Susan struggle to keep her composure across from me in the couch-corner of my study at Grimmauld, after that quiet, painful proclamation. Her tea cup rattles on the saucer that she holds in her other hand as she tries to take a sip, and she ends up returning both to the low table between us without getting the tea cup any closer to her lips.
Her eyes are wet, when she looks back up at me, and soon her cheeks become similarly wet.
“My aunt died in hope to end the war, Harry,” she whispers, her voice trembling and hitching. “The only family that’s left, and she tried to provide a better future for me. In vain.”
I smile bitterly. “My parents, too, you know,” I point out, not unkindly. “And Tonks, and Professor Lupin, and so many others. It’s students who died the most in that last battle, if you’d recall. We did learn to defend ourselves; but however much we didn’t want to acknowledge it, we were still children, you know. I taught us so we could defend ourselves, not to be soldiers, but many of those deaths still came from DA members. And now we still have to deal with this crap?”
My voice wobbles hard by the end, and my own eyes burn wetly.
Our eyes meet, then, and Susan launches herself across the table. In the next second, we trigger each other into losing our respective composure.
Apparently, it’s not just me who never really mourned our fallen friends, despite talking about them several times already.
This solidifies my determination, though. We are still hurt by what seemingly ended six years ago. We can’t take more, so we’ll just… go away, make our own way, make our own community, and sod all those lazy, children-sacrificing bigots.
A new country sounds nice. A new country in a new planet, even more.