An explosion shook the grassy plains, the massive shockwave sending ripples across the green Dothraki Sea. Like an angry fist of god the impact flattened any stalk of grass that dared stand for miles. A crude circle of flattened grass, in its centre a thick plume of smoke wafted from a deep and shiny chasm.
Thick bands of smoking glass and frost weaved around the pits edge. A clash of opposites speckled the crater, molten and frozen side by side, the magic warping the normal rules.
In the centre two figure huddled, a man his arm clutched tight protectively, around a smaller figure. Through the smoke and ash falling from the smoke above, the remnants of an ornate and decorative robe could be seen on the man. The fine silks threaded into the scale reduced to nothing more than a shadow on the thick scales. The once beautiful golden and silver threads melted down to nothing more than metallic globs, slowly dripping from their heat.
The robes themselves were torn. Gouges had been taken from the arms and shoulders and the back burnt. Subject to fires beyond the inherent abilities of enchanted dragon hide to resist. Tucked within the man's arms, the girls dress had fared better. Protected by the dress robes hefty enchantments, her pearls blackened and cracked with only a sleeve and shoulder ruined.
Having taken the brunt of the magical attack with the man's coat, the small figure held so tenderly received only a fraction of the destruction. Once fiery red hair, her long and cared for coils had been reduced to nothing more than short and brittle strands a finger length remaining. The worst of the damage was to her arm, having been exposed. The damage, its appearance reminiscent of a massive handprint. Five long jagged burns streaked down her arm, the burns almost to the bones.
The stench of burnt hair and flesh filled the clearing.
Gasping to fill his empty lungs, Harry's eyes shot open his eyes darting wildly. His hand clenching tight around his wand. His eyes watering under the assault of the smoke he struggled to take in the pit he found himself in and the small but important bundle in his arms. "!"
Opening his mouth to call for Ginny, his parched throat and mouth failed to make more than a strangled gasp. His throat felt like it had been stripped of any sort of moisture. His tongue felt like nothing more than course sandpaper. Wincing, he felt his dry cheeks split. His movements too much for the damaged skin, the coppery tang of the wet splats of blood on his tongue tasting like paradise.
Lifting the arm not clutching to his daughter, he laughed, a choking spluttering rasp. His wand was still in his grasp, untouched or unnoticed by whatever had torn into him. After a painful eternity his arm was raised enough to point at his face.
Water erupted from the tip. Pure and cold the stream of water poured onto his face. The wonderful elixir pouring down his parched throat a balm to his desert, the rest splashing off his chin fell down his chest. The sensation of icy cold water moving down his chest a pleasant sensation.
His limbs protesting and his muscles burning Harry stood. Wobbling from the sudden movement he struggled to maintain his balance. Harry adjusted his hold on Lily, lifting her to rest her head on his shoulder. Lily's faint but audible breathing tickled his ear.
Ignoring the stomach emptying smell of burnt flesh, Harry turned on his heel focusing on the familiar white of St Mungo's reception. The lack of the accustomed squeezing sensation of apparition caused his stomach to clench painfully tight.
There had been no resistance. None of the pressure he associated with anti-apparition jinxes. Nor had he felt the oppressing weight of Hogwarts ancient defences. It was like trying to apparate to somewhere non-existent, somewhere imaginary, it was as if St Mungo's did not exist.
Diagon Alley, nothing. Hogwarts, nothing. His heart pounding and desperate he envisioned one of the places he had spent his formative years. The place even now he could remember the number of panels, his cupboard. Twisting on his heel, he just watched as the pits walls circled him. Nothing happened.
A shiver slid down his spine.
In his arms his daughter began to stir, her head twitching and her breathing erratic, biting off the curse on his lips he turned his attention to Lily. Her small hands were grasping tightly at his ruined robes, her body trembled fighting an unseen enemy.
His eyes watered from the dull ache of the ash in his eyes and mouth coming from the smoking pit underfoot. Harry started to walk up the shallow incline his feet sinking to his shins with each step into the soft layers of the pits lining. Through the loam he could feel and hear the buried glass, ash and charcoal crunching under his feet.
Leaning forward against the slope Harry stumbled out of the crater. Above he could see the massive smoke column towering overhead, and the clear night's sky. The stars twinkled around the full moon.
"Oh no," Harry whispered, now he could see the nights sky, the moon and stars were wrong. He had spent years staring into the expansive night's sky. Nights spent mapping the constellations above, he had memorised the familiar craters of the moon.
It was all different, the moons pockmarks were too big, the wrong shape and too dark, all wrong.
Swallowing heavily, his knees felt weak. The implications... if the implications were true they were much farther from home than he could have guessed.
"Daddy!" Lily jerked in his arm bursting into the half lucid consciousness of the recently awoken. Breaking free of her dream her arms flailed still fighting her nightmares. In her flails her arm clipped Harry's shoulder sending a jolt down her arm. Lily's scream echoed throughout the night. Her voice overpowering the soft crackle of the cooling glass and the cracking frost.
In agony her body stiffened in Harry's arm, tears began to build in her eyes.
Her arm badly burnt, the hardened burnt skin with the jarring jolt had torn away from the soft flesh, and thick rivulets of blood fell from the deep rents. Gasping and breathing heavily in pain, fat tears fell as she sobbed into Harry's shoulder.
Her tears soaking through Harry's tattered robe. All Lily could feel was the unrelenting pain in her arm.
A soft coolness spread down her arm, from her fingertips to her shoulder tingled. Eyes full of tears Lily looked up at Harry, his face was a mask of concentration. She followed his gaze, Harry was focusing on his wand and her arm. Harry's lips moved as he chanted. A slender blue pattern poured from his wands tip onto Lily's arm, the light blue forming a mesh over her arm, the pattern sank into her skin.
As the last of the crisscrossed blue entered her fingers, the pain had faded. Experimentally she clenched her fist, all she could feel was the tightness of her skin around the burns. Kissing her forehead Harry helped her stand upright.
"Where are we?" She asked, leaning into Harry's side her voice was barely a whisper. The shadow of the tall grass reminding her of the Burrows corn rows. The memory of their flight still fresh in her mind.
Harry pulled an arm around her, "I don't know sweetie," he looked to the sky an edge to his voice, "Somewhere I've never been before,"
"Jamie? Albie?" At Harry's silence her imagination began running wild about their fate, her voice pitched, wide eyed she stared at Harry, "Mum? They were next to us! When -"
A small tear rolled down Harry's cheek. Lily's face paled. Her body trembling.
He kissed her forehead again, he ran a hand through her cropped hair. "I need to get a shelter up, and you are going to need your rest,"
Lily sank into a crouch her eyes clouded. Walking a circle Harry's wand bobbed and weaved.
Layering the defensive enchantments around where Lily stood, Harry avoided the pit. Excluding it from the protections, the possibility of the vestiges of their arrival affecting or weakening their defences in this strange land leaving a sour taste in Harry's mouth.
Harry nodded, satisfied with the magical protections for now. He turned to raise some physical protections. Turning his back on the still smoking pit Harry raised his wand.
From the ground two thick slabs shot up, the grass stalks skittled by their passage. Meeting as an inverted 'V' above his and Lily's head, they formed a triangular tunnel. The tall tunnel's roof stood a head and a half higher than Harry, a few particulates drifted down settling in his hair. Another twitch of his wand gave birth to a third straight wall behind him, followed by another sealing the two of them into darkness.
Before Lily could flinch at the sudden darkness, Harry's wand lit up. The light casting shadows along the walls of the cavernous shack. The coarse stones uneven lines throwing shadows with a mischievous bent.
The structure trembled Harrys magic again shaping it. Lily through her numbed fugue could feel a light misting of dirt fall from the roof settling onto her hair and shoulders. In the limited light from her father's wand she could see the rough-hewn stone of the walls were gone, replaced with a façade of wooden panels. Along one wall a tremor travelled along the span before a trio of holes collapsed from the wall landing on the ground in a mount of dust. The three glazed windows illuminating the small shack with the new moons light.
Two cots, a rough woollen coth, sprung from the ground like mushrooms underneath the windows. Conjuring a small hovering ball of light Harry took in the ad hoc shack. He nodded in satisfaction.
Feeling his hands wrap around the small pouch hanging from his neck Harry gave a sigh of relief, the mokeskin pouch was still around his neck. Raising it to his face its only blemish a small smudge of soot. At least if they were to be stranded they wouldn't be entirely reliant on Harry's skills with Transfiguration.
Opening the pouches mouth Harry mouthed a silent thanks at the cluttered mass of items he could see within. Pointed his wand inside, he said "Accio Auror kit"
One of the closer hovering mounds of items shook, used broomsticks and worn books tumbling down the floating mound. A small wooden box shot from inside the little island. The island shattering as the ornate box shot from the pouches depths, leaping into his outstretched hand.
One of the newer additions to the field auror's equipment. The wooden box was spelled to preserve and maintain the assortment of potions that could be required for any mission.
Holding a thumb to the ornate 'P', a small sting pricked this thumb the box's protection sampling and verifying his blood. Passing the test Harry was rewarded with the soft click of the internal locks releasing, the box opened. Looking at the contents Harry grimaced, he hadn't refilled half his kit since his last mission. The blood replenishers and pepper-ups stocks were the lowest with barely three adult doses left.
Harry grabbed three small vials and two cream jars, the box clicking shut. Behind him Lily stood her arms crossed in front of her stomach. Teary eyed she stared at the floor, two small wet spots at her feet.
"Sit" He ordered pointing at the small cot. As Lily moved to comply, her steps slow and awkward. Harry set the vials on the bedside table. Opening the cream jars he sniffed them, their familiar pungent aromas filling his nose. To his relief neither had the toe curling saccharine smell of spoilage.
Lily sat in her cot, her dress sooty and in disarray matched her expression. Crossing the room he dropped to a crouch, coming down to the level of Lily in her cot. Harry's thumb wiped away a tear, her face stayed blank, her red and puffy eyes watched the floor not meeting his eyes.
Unstoppering the vials he passed them to Lily. Silent she took them from him.
Stiff and robotic, Lily drained the potions one by one her downcast expression unchanging. As she downed the last vial, the Dreamless Sleep potion. She pitched forward, her eyes fluttering closed. Harry reached forward catching her in his arms as she slumped asleep. A thin layer of drool making its way down her cheek.
Harry laid her back into the cot. He ran this fingers through Lily's burnt hair. The hardened hair scratching against his fingers. Harry sighed, she looked so small.
The burn heal paste was cold, the thick cream like putty tingled against his fingertips. Rubbing the cream into the jagged burns on Lily's arm. Massaging it over the hardened skin Harry could feel the softening of the burn. Harry frowned at the less than visible results. Normally the damage would be noticeably and visibly lessened by then.
The deep purple and red colour of the burn remaining was very unusual, and disturbing. Conjuring a small nightgown, Harry eased Lily out of the ash and fire stained dress and into the pyjamas. He tucked the cots sheets under her chin, relieved that her wounds were limited to her hair and her arm.
Moving to the larger cot alongside Lily, Harry yawned pulling of his dress robes.
Blinking sleepily he glanced down at his wand, the slight oil residue from the burn oil shone against the dark wood of his wand. It was worth a try he mused.
Calling on his happiest memory he held it in the forefront of his mind. The while petals fell around the stage as he and Ginny's shared a kiss. Remembering the smell of her perfume, the sounds of the crowd and the warmth of her hand, the love in voice as she said 'I do'. Remembering, he whispered "Expecto Patronum!"
The silver mist poured from his wand coalescing into a silver stag.
Harry felt the aura of happiness of the Patronus wash over him. Impatient the silver stag stomped its hoof on the wooden floor, its head turning searching for its purpose. Stepping close Harry whispered into the stags silver ear. For a long moment the stag stared at Harry before the Patronus bowed, its head touching the floor. Then it dissolved into a mass of silver sparks, it couldn't deliver his message.
Harry ducked his head watching Lily's sleeping face, he hadn't thought it would work, not truly.
Falling back into his cot he stared at the roof, his mind a whir. He had been the target of the attack, they had come straight for him, ignoring the Minister. Ginny, she had grabbed the boys as soon as the music had stopped, she wouldn't have been anywhere near them to have been caught in the explosion.
Nothing he had been taught touched on travelling between worlds. The basics of concept he understood from half remembered excited shrieks and comments from Hugo when he had unwrapped his muggle superhero picture books. He folded his glasses on the bedside table. Hermione wouldn't give up, neither would Ginny as soon as they tried to contact his shad they would know they were alive, somewhere. They would find him and Lily.
Harry clenched his teeth, the feeling of helplessness sitting uncomfortably on his shoulders. Turning he pressed his head against his pillow, closing his eyes. Maybe there would be someone knowledgeable enough to get him home on this world.
The soft breathing of sleeping filled the conjured shack.