Disclaimer: I don't own Harry Potter.

Warnings: There might be some swearing.

This is vaguely AU, vaguely canon. It follows the events of the canon universe through HBP, but after that skews into its own world. It is going to seem much more AU than that at first, but stick with it and everything will start to make sense.

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Avalon

Chapter 1

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His eyes opened only halfway. He expected to be greeted by the candlelit chamber he was used to living in and sometimes even sleeping in. It was a cramped little room that he suspected was really supposed to be a closet but all the actual rooms were being used. Rooms needed for strategies, with maps covering every inch of table space and some of the floor; rooms needed for feeding members of the Order, who were forever either going on or coming off duty; and rooms for the wounded, of whom there were far too many.

This is not what he saw.

It was sky. Grey sky. A cloudy, overcast day.

Harry Potter sat up.

Luckily for him, he had been so tired when he laid down to sleep for a few hours that he hadn't bothered to change into pajamas or take off his glasses. (Hermione kept warning him not to do that. "It isn't that you'll break your glasses—it's just that you can't rest properly that way, Harry.")

He couldn't rest properly anyways.

Harry thought for a brief moment that he could be dreaming, but, no, it felt real. It was cold and he wasn't wearing any kind of coat. The wind rustled his already messy black hair. He was sitting up in clean-smelling grass, wet with dew. There was a path near him. And benches.

I think I'm in a park…

A groan made him turn. A few feet away from him he saw Ron. The tall, red-haired young man was sprawled out as though he'd passed out where he lay, but was quickly beginning to come to.

"Ron?" Harry's hand slipped into his robes where he felt his fingers slip around his wand. He warned people about this. Voldemort was good at tricks, he could find out weaknesses. Ron might not be Ron. This situation was strange enough to put him on guard already, in any case.

"Harry?" Ron sat up, looking bewildered. "Is that you?"

"Bishop." Harry greeted him.

"Knight." Ron grinned. Although passwords weren't guarantees, it was better than nothing. Plus, someone would have to capture either Harry, Hermione, or Ron to learn the passwords they used only among the three of them. And nothing, not even torture, could induce any of the three to share that information. "Where are we?"

"I don't know." Harry answered truthfully. "I remember going to bed—"

"About time too—you haven't slept in three days, mate." Ron interjected.

"But that's all." Harry finished with a frown. Neither Ron nor Hermione approved of his sleeping habits, but he felt he had to go on without sleep. There was always one more thing that someone needed help with. One more decision to make or report to hear. One more death to mourn.

It had been six months since Lupin died, and Harry still found it difficult without him. He had been an advisor and helped Harry make decisions. Now, at last, the final Marauder was dead.

That loss hadn't helped his already deplorable sleep habits—something that hadn't escaped the keen eye of Hermione Granger. But what good was it? He had been sleeping while Lupin was dying. Would he sleep through the death of Ron? Or Hermione? Or Ginny? (There was a subject he didn't even want to think about right then.) Besides, how many nights had he seen Hermione drinking coffee while bent over books and documents, studying until well after dawn? How many nights had Ron been up planning for their next attack or deciding where they'd have people stationed? How did some of the youngest members of the Order end up in charge in the first place?

"Funny, same here." Ron got up. "Reckon we should get our wands out?"

"Yes." Harry nodded before standing up next to his friend.

"Ron! Harry!" They both turned to see Hermione running towards them. Somehow, and Hermione was the only person they knew who could accomplish looking both worried and relieved at the same time.

"Problem solved." Ron shrugged. "She'll figure this all out and we'll be back at headquarters for tea before you know it. Provided it is Hermione."

"But how did we get here?" Harry wondered out loud. Hermione reached them and took a moment to catch her breath before speaking.

"What's going on? Have you seen anything? The last thing I remember was going to sleep, which could mean this is a sort of Dream spell. Or a spell to keep you dreaming by making you think you're already awake so you don't become suspicious—it's very hard magic to do, though. The last case was in 1023 when a wizard wanted to stop this girl he was in love with from getting married, but you have to be able to physically touch the person and there's no way Voldemort could have figured out how to get in! I—!" Ron cut in.

"You've got to say your password!" Ron insisted. Hermione looked slightly annoyed.

"As I was saying, I can't believe that Voldemort would do that if he had access to our bodies. He'd probably just kill us—oh fine, Ron, rook—but I haven't got a clue why we'd be dreaming about being in Hyde Park."

"Hyde Park?" Harry cocked his head to one side, looking around a bit more carefully. "Oh! You're right."

"People will be here any minute. We'd better look like Muggles." Ron suggested and they were busy transfiguring their robes into something small to keep in their pockets for several minutes.

"Excuse me." The three jumped as a familiar, dreamy voice spoke. They looked all around but saw no one. "Fire pixies have stuck me in a tree, I'm afraid."

"Luna?" Harry walked over to the closest tree. There she was, Luna Lovegood, her limbs rather tangled in some branches and her hair in her face. "Password?" Harry had already started to climb the tree.

"Marmalade mother." Luna spoke in an efficient tone of voice. Her password came from the time she caught Ron imitating her. Instead of being insulted, she thought up a variation of "My mother is a jar of marmalade."

"Did you just say fire pixies?" Hermione questioned from the ground. "Did you see them?"

"No. I just read a report recently that fire pixies were dropping sleeping witches and wizards in trees to protest against Gringotts." Luna informed them.

"Why would—?" Ron began to ask but Hermione hit him sharply on the back before he could finish.

Harry helped Luna out of the tree and the four assessed the situation, wondering if they should look around the area a bit more, orleave the park and go to headquarters at once.

"I think we're being followed." Ron whispered. "We shouldn't go to HQ."

"Are we really?" Luna's eyes widened.

"Okay, wands at the ready." Harry murmured. "In case it's a Death Eater."

"Wait!" said a scared voice from behind a bush. "It's me, Neville!" And he stood up, leaves tumbling about him, his face white but resolute. "Auntie Enid." The rest of them gave their passwords in return. The ones that Harry, Ron, and Hermione used with other Order members were 'Pensieve', 'Bodric the Bearded', and 'Moste Potente Potions'. "I'm glad I found you guys. I woke up next to Malfoy."

"What?" Harry, Hermione, and Ron gasped together. Luna was rather unconcernedly examining a mole hill at her feet.

"I didn't wake him up." Neville gestured in the direction he had come from. "I couldn't see anyone else, and I remember what you said, Harry, about how it's better to fight in teams of three..." Neville trailed off as the others began striding determinedly in the direction he had pointed. Hermione tugged on Luna's arm so that the odd girl would follow.

Draco Malfoy. A Death Eater.

He was lying on the grass, still asleep. He was older than when they'd last seen him, but then again, they were all older.

"Haven't see him since…the night Dumbledore died." Hermione recalled.

"He's an enemy through and through." Ron drew his wand before glancing at Harry. The dark-haired young man had a strange expression on his face, as though considering something.

That night…

How could I forget?

He had Dumbledore cornered…he was going to kill him…

And then he lowered his wand…

"Wait." He held up a hand. "Don't do anything to him yet…we still don't know what's going on."

"Yes." Hermione nodded. "We'll question him when he wakes up. The main question is: is there anyone else here?"

"We should search the whole park." Ron put in.

"I don't know." Hermione shook her head. "We don't know how many of us are here, and we didn't all arrive in the same spot. Suppose someone didn't see us and headed to headquarters alone?"

"There are seven of us." Ginny seemed to have materialized from thin air. She looked like she was about to go out on a mission. Her hair was tied back, and she'd rolled up her sleeves. A simple barrette in her hair was actually her transfigured robe.

"How do you know?" Neville asked curiously.

"Ally Seeker Charm." Ginny shrugged. "It's a little short range, but there's only seven of us in Hyde Park."

"Your charm's broken if it included Malfoy." Ron pointed at the still sleeping Malfoy. Ginny frowned at her brother, as if she was offended by the implication that something could be wrong with her magic, but her expression faded into contemplation as to why her spell would have included the blonde-haired young man. Harry noticed she hadn't even bothered to look at him.

Not that he could blame her. That awkward tension still existed because he'd broken up with her at the end of the sixth year. Hermione tried to help, Ron always changed the subject when it surfaced, but there wasn't a way to make it disappear.

"But why are we here?" Ginny questioned them. "I had just gotten off duty. I fell asleep as soon as I found an empty bed."

"Yes…" Hermione carefully considered this. "We were all asleep…"

"I wasn't." A disdainful, annoyed voice announced. They all looked down to see Malfoy, who was looking at them with one eye open, the other one still closed. "If you're done arguing, you may want to ask me about it."

Then Malfoy lazily folded his arms under his head and waited.

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To be continued…