Disclaimer: As much as I wish I could, I cannot claim to own any of the Harry Potter or Attack on Titan/Shingeki no Kyojin franchise.
Notes: I will probably be continuing this piece (hurrah), and chapters will probably be edited occasionally for minor language errors, should I find them . Do review - it boosts my self-esteem, and a little more self-esteem never hurt anybody. :)
Harry was considerably disoriented. He was absolutely confident that several moments before, he was in the Chamber of Secrets, looking upon its creepily familiar corridors - they had remained eerily unchanged despite the movements of the War and the accumulation of years - yet he had the unmistakable feeling of just waking up. He sat up, shielding his eyes from the bright sunlight. His pulse was still racing unnaturally, and feeling a sudden wave of nausea, Harry rolled over and threw up. When he was done, and his stomach was feeling somewhat less queasy, Harry wiped his mouth brusquely and adjusted his glasses, peering around cautiously.
He was on a field, an open, sunlit field – how strange. It was unnaturally peaceful and quiet, and the grass undulated in the soft breeze. There was a town in the far distance, crowded along the edges of a huge wall that appeared to defy all rational proportions.
The wall was absolutely massive, and stretched around Harry for as far as he could see. Tufts of wildflowers sprouted amongst the large expanse of grass, and the sight of several indistinguishable birds flying overhead momentarily distracted him. Harry scrambled onto his feet.
He was struck by the thought that perhaps he was dead, and this was the afterlife. A lump formed in his throat as his mind automatically flashed to his parents, and Sirius, and Lupin… He could have spent a lot more time dwelling on them and lost in memory, but Harry forced himself to rationalise: as hard as he tried, he simply could not remember anybody cast the Killing curse at him, or if he had fallen and conveniently stabbed himself. The last thing he remembered was excitedly setting foot into a discrete, undiscovered room, full of Tom Riddle's old paraphernalia. His scar had suddenly flared up and forced him to his knees, waiting for the waves of pain to pass…
He realised he was garbed in merely his jeans and a shirt, which was odd - then he remembered: he had taken off his robes while still in the fits of pain, for he had felt unbearably warm. He took his wand out of his pocket, momentarily reassured by its familiar weight and texture, and looked around again, squinting against the sunlight. In the far distance, he spotted two small figures jump up from under the shade of a lone tree. They appeared to be children, and they were carrying large packs nearly half their size. They were dressed in very simple garb, as far as Harry could see, and one of them, a girl with long black hair, had a red scarf twined around her neck.
Harry called out to them, but they seemed not to have heard, for they turned their backs on him and started walking in the direction of the town.
Harry watched the two figures steadily get smaller and smaller, until they vanished between the first few buildings.
More confused than ever, Harry decided to follow them. They looked harmless enough, if young, and perhaps he could receive some answers from the people in the town. The walk there was relaxing and quiet, but eerily so. The breeze tickled against his scar.
The town looked old, and seemed to constructed out of a combination of wood, brick, and stone. Harry found himself facing a wide, open corridor, flanked by numerous small market stalls. A fishmonger burst out in boisterous laughter by his left as he swung a cleaver down on an unsuspecting fish, disassembled and packed it it with a few quick movements, and handed it to a lady. The market street felt like a less prosperous, less magical version of Diagon Alley; Villagers stood before their array of vegetables, meat and fish, and called at Harry in beckoning voices, but he walked straight ahead, hand clenched firmly around his wand in his pocket. Some of the people looked at him weirdly, and his attire did admittedly stand out - none of these people appeared to have ever seen or heard of jeans before. He detoured through several alleys at a quick pace, until he stumbled upon a pair of middle-aged women chatting animatedly while hanging their laundry. They seemed to be normal, unsuspecting muggles like the rest of the town - although, of course, everyone seemed to have been dragged back a few centuries in time.
"E-Excuse me," He cleared his throat.
The women turned to look at him. One of them looked him up and down distastefully, and harrumph-ed. She returned to flinging out a sheet with excessive force. The other woman offered an exasperated, but warm smile, and said, "Yes?" Her voice was weak and wandering.
Harry decided that the best course of action would be to find his bearings, then figure from hence. He had to return to Wizarding Britain. He thought of his friends - Hermione, Ron, Neville, Luna. And Ginny, whom he had left that morning with nary a peck on the cheek and a cheery "See you tonight!", smiling as he gently placed a hand on her very swollen belly before leaving out the door.
"Where am I?" He asked.
She cast him an incredulous look. "Why, my son, you're in Shiganshina District, of course." She paused, then asked, "Are you alright, dear?"
"I… I'm not very sure." Shiganshina District?
The other lady pinned up her last sheet on the clothesline with unnecessary vigour, then gathered her laundry baskets under each arm and hustled off, vanishing behind a door with a loud slam.
"Oh, don't mind her. She's always been wary of strangers, ever since her husband was taken away and put into the Scouting Legion… Oh, he died in the first mission, and she's never really gotten over it, the poor girl. Now, I hope her son isn't forced to join the army too, that darling boy, he's still so young…" The woman continued to drone on in her weak, wandering way, and Harry found his attention drifting. Finally, he cut in and thanked her, then hurried off, eager to get away.
In his rush, he accidentally bumped very hard into somebody, knocking the man to the ground and winding his own self in the process. The man grunted in protest, collapsing in a rather undignified fashion. Harry started to apologise, holding a hand out to help him up, but the man ignored his proffered hand and shot him a particularly dirty look. He stood up and… towered over Harry.
Rather expected, by now.
"What do you think you're doing, runt?" He sized Harry up. Harry groaned internally. The man was garbed in some elaborate uniform, with straps running all around his body and an emblem of two intertwined roses on his shoulder. He was some sort of soldier, no doubt.
"Don't you know you can be prosecuted for assaulting a soldier?" He slurred, confirming Harry's suspicions. Harry looked closer at him. His face had a sheen of red to it - he had been drinking. All the better. "Kid, you're in big trouble... Come with me, I'll take you…" He clamped a hand down on Harry's shoulder.
This was his cue to turn around and hightail it out of there, so Harry did as instinct called. Besides, Harry was fully aware of his diminutive size, thank you very much, and was rather offended at being called a kid. He mumbled a quick locomotor mortis and took a second to appreciate the look of confusion on the man's face, before he turned around and sprinted off again, hearing the telltale 'thump' of a body crashing onto the cobblestones behind him, followed by colourful swearing. Harry took special care not to bump into people this time.
In the distance, a bell tolled loudly, the clangs reverberating around the town. Harry heard indistinct yells of excitement, and wondered what had happened.
He burst out from the side alley. People were lined up along the edges of a street, watching intently and buzzing with barely restrained excitement. Harry caught glimpses of men - or soldiers again, probably - garbed in dark green cloaks and sporting various injuries and bloodied bandages, some on foot, some on horses. They had a depressed air to them, and the entire parade was a slow and sombre procession.
The man beside Harry murmured, "There's so few of them this time,"
Curious, Harry blurted out, "This time?"
The man looked at him. His face was haggard and lean, and he had a thin, wilting moustache beneath his hooked nose. He breathed into Harry's face, and Harry tried his utmost not to cringe at his musty, sour-ish breath. "The Survey Corps were badly hit this mission, kid. The Titans must have took them by surprise."
"Titans?" Harry graciously ignored being called a kid again.
The man shot him a very weirded-out, curious look, and said, rather apprehensively, "What about them?"
Harry was going to ask what they were, but a loud voice suddenly echoed over the crowd. A woman had thrown herself in front of the parade and stopped it in its tracks - she was frantic, and anxiously pleading to a soldier.
"My son, Moses… I can't find him." Her eyes brimmed with tears. "Where is my son?"
The entire parade stopped and remained still and silent, save for her continuous pleads.
Quietly, another soldier came forth and presented her with a small wrapped package. She stared, dumbfounded at it, and slowly started to unwrap it. From his position, Harry couldn't see what was in it, but the woman promptly burst out crying, her body wracked with shudders.
Harry hardly caught the soldier's next words, "... only part we could salvage."
Despite his confusion, he was suddenly struck with the solemnity of the moment. Was there an ongoing war? Harry swallowed thickly - a slew of memories ran through his mind, but he pushed them away.
The aged woman stood there for a few moments, then crashed to her knees, as if giving up. She hugged the package to her frail body. The villagers and soldiers watched silently, each one experiencing their own mixture of shock and pity. She raised her tear-stained face and softly asked the man, who then knelt before her.
"But... my son… was useful, right? He might… not have been a hero, but he at least died helping mankind fight back, right?" Her voice rose with every word, until she shouted the last part, her voice cracking with emotion.
She was full of desperate hope, and Harry found himself wishing that the reply would be affirming.
A dry breeze wafted through the street, taking with it small puffs of dust. Another tense moment of silence.
The soldier mumbled something, then his back stiffened, and he said, "No… Even this mission - No, even after all the missions, we… We still haven't made any progress." His tone turned self-deprecating, and he started to rant. "I'm a failure! All I've done is gotten soldiers killed left and right! And we haven't learnt anything useful about the Titans!"
Titans again. Harry sorely wished he wasn't alone. Hermione would have this figured out in seconds. And a war of some sort was undeniable, now. Harry wasn't sure he could face another war so soon - it had barely been half a decade, but he was still tortured by the all the death that the Wizarding War had brought.
The woman hugged the bundle to her even harder, but she seemed reserved, except for the tears still flowing freely and the occasional shudder. She got to her feet. "Moses… Moses…" She mumbled, as she turned around and left without saying anything else, her eyes blank. The people parted quietly to let her through, and she vanished from view, leaving the air heavy.
Without word, the procession continued, and the soldiers left.