Harry stumbled over a broken chair. He danced around under his invisibility cloak as his stubbed toe throbbed. Fighting off the urge to curse the sixth year looked around the room. He'd never been in this classroom before at Hogwarts. Judging from the peeling paint and shattered furniture, Harry assumed it must be a long forgotten classroom.
Then, as he was about to back out of the room a glint in a far corner caught his eye. Stepping carefully over and around bits of wood and discarded textbooks with moldy covers, the boy walked toward the object. It stood, golden and shining, taller than Harry Potter by several inches. He looked at the object and gasped. The mirror reminded him of another he'd stumbled across five years before.
However, this mirror only showed the room behind him. Unlike the Mirror of Erised, which showed a person his greatest desire this mirror seemed completely normal. The boy took a breath and forced himself to relax. Looking back to the door to ensure no one was walking down the corridor outside he dropped the hood. The mirror revealed his permanently disheveled black hair and pale complexion. Noticing that his glasses were askew, he righted them. Then, consulting his Marauder's Map, he verified that no one would stumble upon him.
The hair on the sixteen-year-old's neck stood up as he looked at the door through his own body in the mirror. Feeling a strange sense that someone, somewhere, was watching his every move, he turned back to the door.
"Muffliato," he hissed, wishing he could cast nonverbal charms as well as Hermione. A slight shimmer appeared at the door, assuring Harry the Half Blood Prince's innovation was as effective as always. He took a deep breath and looked back to the odd mirror.
Carvings of bizarre animals, even for a school of magic, chased each other around the gilded frame. Harry stepped closer to admire one creature he recognized: a Griffin. This Griffin seemed noticeably un-Griffin-like. Rather than standing proudly or soaring through the sky, this beast lay down. Leaning closer, Harry realized the half-lion half-eagle was crying. The boy frowned as he noticed the tears etched into the golden Griffin.
"That's strange," Harry whispered. He shifted his gaze to the looking glass, now only inches away, and considered the lightning bolt scar on his forehead. Letting out a sigh, the boy brushed his unruly bangs over the scar. It was tiring to be the "Boy Who Lived" and the "Chosen One." That scar brought only pain wherever the Potter boy went. Even with the bizarre connection to the Dark Lord it signified, Harry still could not help but be thankful for it. As much as the boy hated the scar, he could not imagine what life would be like without Mr. Weasley and it was the scar to which Ron's dad owed his life.
On a whim, Harry pulled his hood back on and looked through his body. The room around still looked the same as it had. Dim, gloomy, and bearing all the signs of disuse. Still, the way everything turned backwards made Potter imagine how it would be to pass through the glass. Perhaps he would end up in another place where everything was opposite. In his six years as a wizard, Harry thought he'd seen and done stranger things than pass through a mirror into another world.
Letting his imagination loose, the boy imagined a world with no Voldemort. A world without He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named would mean Harry's parents would never have died. That scar on his forehead would not exist in such a world. Often, Harry had fantasized about that kind of place. Again, the boy sighed. Putting his hand out, he pressed it against the cool glass. Suddenly the world tilted and Harry found himself looking down onto the glass from above.
His heart broke into a rapid tattoo on his ribcage. Just as he began to panic, the glass turned to a strange, rippling liquid. Harry Potter fell down, slowly, through the glass. Trying to calm down, he reminded himself that the penseive in Dumbledore's office did something similar to this. Then, he was through the glass and everything changed.
Harry found himself falling straight down through a dark chimney. Then, looking around, he saw that it couldn't possibly be a chimney. Pictures, blurred as he sped past, hung all over. In another strange twist, he swore he could see flames coming from fireplaces every so often. One thing was certain: this was a magical place. No normal fall, even all the way to the dungeons of Hogwarts, could take that long.
Finally, after what felt like several minutes, he landed on something soft and fluffy.
"Oomph!" Harry said.
"Oomph indeed," someone else said.
Harry leapt to his feet and backed away from the sound.
"Who's there?" he asked, pulling his, thankfully unbroken, wand out of his back pocket. Raising the wand, he took another fall. With a loud shout he made a less soft landing.
Shaking the pain off, Harry pushed himself up with one arm. Then, his jaw fell open as the soft thing he'd been standing on moments before began to move. Smoothly, the massive creature stretched out and Harry saw that it was a cat. It had purple stripes around its grey body and was overall the strangest cat the boy had seen.
"Who? Well, that depends very much on who you are?"
Standing and brushing himself off, Harry aimed his wand at the cat's smiling face. Trying to ignore the bizarre sight of a smiling cat, the wizard took another step backward.
"How so? What are you?" he asked.
"Ah, now that is more like it. I," the creature said in its deep baritone, "am a Cheshire cat." The animal's grin spread from ear to ear. White, glistening teeth shone in Harry's direction. The boy began to feel very unnerved by the sight.
"Well, I'm Harry Potter, then. Only, where am I?" he asked, lowering his wand.
"Oh, here and there. Places are such confusing things these days, don't you agree?" the Cheshire cat said jovially through its grin.
"No, I don't agree. And frankly, you aren't being very helpful. Could you please at least tell me where I might go to find someone that would help me find out where I am?" Harry asked, brows furrowing at the confusion of the situation.
"Where is it that you want to get to?" the cat asked. As Harry pondered the bizarre question he watched in shock as the Cheshire cat suddenly floated up from the ground and turned a flip.
"What, I don't…what do you mean? I don't know where I want to go. How can I know where I want to get to if I don't even know where I am? I want to be where I was before."
The Cheshire cat, grinning more widely than ever, began to shrink. Finally, when its size stopped changing, the creature was about the same size as any normal large cat. Harry, completely bewildered by that point, just stared.
"Well, if you don't know where you want to get to, then it doesn't very much matter which way you go, now does it? Coincidentally, where is it that you were before?" the cat asked, beginning to clean its long, purple and brown tail.
"I'm from Hogwarts. I came through a mirror," Harry said. Thinking this might all be some odd dream, Harry pinched himself. Nothing changed and Harry decided this was really happening.
"Hogwarts? Never heard of it. And, by mirror, do you mean a looking glass?" the Cheshire said, still preening the tip of his fluffy tail.
Beginning to feel a bit frustrated by the cat's nonchalant and riddlesome attitude, the boy groaned. "Yes, of course I mean a looking glass," he said.
"Oh no, not that mess again. The last time someone came through that blasted looking glass she threw all of Wonderland into a shambles. What fun that was! Are you going to do the same?" the cat said. The animal leapt from nothing and wound up much too near Potter's face for the boy's comfort.
Stepping back a step, Harry swallowed his fear at the animal's sudden movement, trying not to eye those sharp teeth too much.
"Er, no. I don't think so, sir. I only want to get home," he said.
"Oh, drat!" the cat hissed, spreading his claws and beginning to clean between them, "well, if you haven't noticed the looking glass is gone on this side. You'll have to find some other way out."
Harry waited, mustering as much patience as he could, for the strange animal to stop cleaning its paw. The cat looked back up and said, "Oh, try that direction. The Mad hatter…oh, never mind, you people don't like to go among madness. It's hard, these days, to find anyone around here that isn't mad, but if you go that way you might come across Tweedle Dee and Tweedle Dum. Perhaps they shall be able to help you." The Cheshire cat gestured vaguely toward a wood behind him.
The wizard's eyes widened as he realized the walls around the pair were suddenly gone. He stood on a hill of green staring out over a small plain that ran up to the wood on the right and toward an ocean on the left.
"Um, well, thanks…" Harry muttered, "I think."
"You are most welcome. Good bye," the cat sad, beginning to fade away into nothing.
Already beginning to understand that he should expect anything in this strange place, Potter began to walk toward the trees. As he strolled down the hill, still clutching his wand, he saw several strange insects. One of them appeared to be a living rocking horse fly, another a butterfly made of slices of bread and butter, and still others even odder. Shaking his head, Harry wondered if someone had slipped him some kind of befuddlement brew with his evening pumpkin juice.
It certainly was a pleasant day. At Hogwarts, the students had struggled with days of nonstop rain. Harry looked around at the flowers and the grass and breathed in the fresh scent of a fine spring day. The sun shone down and the boy began to be hot. Just as he started to go amongst trees, he removed his robes. Shoving them and his precious invisibility cloak, which had fallen from him as he fell, into his bag he looked into the trees. It was dark in the wood and certainly the small path Harry saw to the left did not look well-travelled.
Again swallowing a lump of fear, the young wizard raised his wand and began down the path feeling odd in muggle clothing. The trees closed in around him and it quickly became nearly impossible to walk without tripping on some tree root.
"Lumos," he muttered. Wand tip now alight, he held the wand above his head. Looking around through the circle of light and out into the trees he squinted, trying to see anything that might indicate danger. He saw nothing and continued to walk deeper into the forest. Then, he froze. Some sound was drifting to him in an eerily muffled way.
He crept slowly forward toward the noises that he soon identified as human. Or, at least humanlike, he thought. Strange moans and rapid breathing grew louder as Harry crept up, stopping behind a tree. He listened and wondered why the two male voices sounded that way. Wondering if some kind of fight was occurring he peeked around the tree. Harry, shocked, eyes widened, clapped his hands over his mouth and yanked his head back behind the tree.
Two men, large and round and nude, were doing things Harry had never seen two men do to each other in a clearing. Then, he noticed a pair of bright shirts hanging over a nearby branch. Almost too petrified to check, he examined the collars, which bore writing in the threadwork. "Tweedle Dee" read one, and Harry blanched. The other declared its owner to be "Tweedle Dum." Struggling to breathe through the shock of the scene he'd just stumbled upon, the boy turned and judged his best escape to be continuing down the path.
Sprinting at the top of his ability, Harry Potter stared firmly down the path into the forest, avoiding the urge to stare as he ran past the clearing. Finally, when the noises of Tweedle Dee and Tweedle Dum had faded into the trees, Harry stopped running. Puffing and sweating, he sat down at the base of a tree. As he caught his breath he heard another, quite human, sound. Looking around, he noticed a patch of flowers to his right. The flowers had faces and were singing.
"OK, I cannot handle any more of this," he said, standing and walking on past the flowers. Shaking, in utter shock and panic over all that had happened so far, the teen forced his feet to continue. The singing, as beautiful as it was, unnerved the already frazzled wizard and he walked on away from the flower bed.
The trees began to thin somewhat and Harry got the impression a clearing was coming up once more. He strode through a pair of trees and suddenly was in a wide open space. The boy's eyes locked onto yet another mind-warping scene in the center. A young woman, apparently about the same age as Harry, sat next to a very large mushroom. Upon the mushroom sat a caterpillar bigger than any insect Potter ever saw.
Even more curious was the hookah at the caterpillar's side. The big purple and blue creature puffed on it as the young, blonde girl chatted amiably away. Harry forced his legs to propel him forward a few more steps then froze as the insect looked at him directly.
"It seems, that we have company, Alice," the creature said, voice a deep, morose bass. Colored smoke poured from its mouth as it spoke. The girl looked over in surprise, her eyes wide. Harry's gaze locked on the young woman. She was beautiful. Her eyes, even from several yards away, shone out in the purest shade of clear blue. Her blonde hair fell down just past her shoulders and shone in the sunlit clearing.
"Oh! Thank you, Caterpillar, I hadn't noticed," she said, voice almost singsong and quite as pretty as the girl herself. "Hello," she added as she stood up and beckoned to Harry, "you can come and sit with us if you like; we were only having a chat."
"Oh, er, thank you, but could you tell me where this is?" Harry asked, flustered and reddening furiously. The girl smiled and nodded.
"Yes, I felt the same sort of way my first visit to Wonderland," she said, "I am Alice, and my friend is Caterpillar."
Harry followed her gesture to the insect on the large mushroom. The caterpillar blew smoke rings, each a different color, in their direction and said, "Who are you?"
The boy blinked, marveling at the oddity of being addressed by a half-meter caterpillar. "Oh, sorry," he mumbled, following Alice to the mushroom, "I'm Harry. Er, Harry Potter."
"Yes, well, Harry Potter. What brings you to my clearing this fine brillig day?" the insect said, in that deep rumbling tone.
"Um, well, a looking glass, I suppose?" Harry said.
"Oh! So you got in that way as well? Not through a rabbit hole?" Alice exclaimed, looking into the boy's face. Those beautiful blue eyes were wide and Harry flushed again.
"Er, yes, it was through a mirror. I don't know of any rabbit holes large enough for a person to fit through at Hogwarts," he said, feeling uncomfortably dull with Alice's eyes locked on him.
"Do you always speak so uncertainly, boy? It is a terrible habit."
"Oh, shush Caterpillar! Don't be rude to our guest," Alice snapped, frowning at her companion. The Caterpillar shrugged, which seemed quite a feat to Harry, as caterpillars do not have shoulders. "Now, Harry, you were saying something about Hogwarts? I've never heard of such a place, is it in London?" she asked.
Harry chuckled at the idea of a place like Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry being in London. "Oh, no. No, Hogwarts is a school for…er, well, it's a school for gifted students and its somewhere in Scotland. I'm not too sure where it is exactly, the train ride is fairly long," he said.
Alice lit up even more. Clapping her hands she grabbed Harry's right arm and exclaimed. "Ooh! A boarding school?" she said in delight, "I always wanted to attend a boarding school. Mother insisted I stay home, though."
"Er, that's too bad," Harry said, feeling a bit befuddled to have this beautiful girl clutching any part of his anatomy. Looking down at her pale, slender hands squeezing into his forearm, his face flushed again. Alice followed his gaze and let go of his arm promptly.
"I'm sorry, Harry! I just get so excitable at times, perhaps it's time for more of a smoke," she said, turning her attention to a slightly bemused Caterpillar, "would you be a dear and pass that hose now, Caterpillar?"
"Certainly," the insect said, sending a piercing gaze in Harry's direction. Potter looked away from the creature's vibrant, yellow eyes and watched Alice pull smoke into her lungs. Coughing, the girl's face was quickly surrounded by purple and green plumes of smoke.
"Are you OK?" Harry asked, slightly concerned as her face reddened several shades. Alice waved the smoke away and nodded.
"I'm…sorry, Harry…it's only that Caterpillar likes it a little stronger than I," she said through the diminishing fit of coughing. Offering the boy the hose of the hookah Alice said, "it's really quite nice if you don't try to inhale it all. Would you like to try?"
Harry looked at the hose warily. "Um, what is it?"
"It is a hookah, you stupid boy," the Caterpillar said in disgust.
"Caterpillar!" Alice shouted, "I'm sorry, Harry. He isn't always this cranky, I think I woke him a few hours too early this morning."
Narrowing his eyes at the insect, Potter turned to Alice. He smiled at the apology and accepted the hookah. "It's alright," he said. Then, he began to pull in the smoke.
Lights burst in his eyes as the smoke filled his lungs and the boy immediately began to hack. Violent bursts of smoke exploded from his mouth and his eyes watered. Alice took the hose back from him and returned it to the Caterpillar.
"Don't worry, Harry. Once the coughing passes it's very pleasant, you'll see," she said, leaning back against a rock behind her.
Harry nodded and tried to fight the coughing. Beginning to see spots he gasped for air. As the boy wheezed Alice began to giggle. She turned to the Caterpillar and the pair exchanged a knowing look. The Caterpillar smiled mildly and took another pull of the harsh, color-changing smoke. Harry, finally calming from the coughing fit, watched the rings of smoke as they drifted, spinning out of the creature's mouth.
His eyes widened as the rings began to glow with a bright luminescence. Suddenly, his body felt very light as if he was floating in the air. Looking around, he saw that everything, especially Alice and the Caterpillar, seemed to be glowing with some inner light. Dewdrops on the grass around the trio sparkled with a beautiful, but unearthly, light.
"Whoa, what's happening?" Harry asked as his emotions took a clear upswing. He began to laugh.
"Oh, it's the hookah, dear," Alice said, joining in the laughter. She sat back up from the rock and scooted closer to Harry's side. Harry looked at her, a large smile on his face.
"Er…" the boy mumbled. He felt a little uncomfortable having the blonde so close to him.
"Just relax, Harry, don't fight it and it'll be the best feeling you've ever known," Alice said dreamily. She lifted her hand and said, "Here, let me show you." Harry looked at the girl, smile fading a bit in uncertainty. Alice winked at him and put her hand on the boy's forearm.
Harry never imagined a simple touch could feel so amazing. The girl's hand began to run up and down his arm. Potter swore he could feel every hair on his arm being pulled back and forth. An involuntary animal sound, somewhere between a purr and a growl, poured from Harry's mouth.
"Alice, what was in that thing?" he asked, eyelids fluttering under the intense sensation of her hand on his arm.
Giggling, Alice removed her hand. "It's a secret, Harry Potter, but isn't it simply divine?" she asked.
Harry could only nod as he became enthralled by another batch of pink, blue, and yellow rings of smoke. The Caterpillar smiled a wicked grin and winked at the Boy Who Lived. Harry snickered at the sight of an insect winking and grinning.
"You're right, Alice, this is amazing," he murmured. All of the troubles back at Hogwarts and in the wizarding world as a whole were beginning to seem rather trivial. Sitting there in front of the mushroom with the 'pillar and the girl, Alice, everything was so beautiful and carefree.
Alice turned sideways and, crossing her legs, patted her lap. "Come; lay your head back here, Harry. I can show you just how amazing it can feel," she said, smiling at the boy.
"You mean it gets better?" he said, as he twisted and began to lay back. His head pressed into her legs and, feeling the soft fabric against his neck, Harry sighed. The blue of her dress seemed to melt into his skin and he felt his entire body relax. Feeling the sensation of floating intensify, Harry looked up into the sky. A few clouds drifted lazily across the circular patch of blue hemmed in by the trees.
Alice leaned over the boy's face and looked into his eyes. Again struck by the extraordinary blue color in her eyes he smiled. The girl grinned and said, "Are you ready, Harry?"
He nodded and relished the feel of her blue skirts rubbing over his neck and upper back. Alice placed two fingers on either of Harry's temples. Harry sighed in pleasure just from that light touch. Then, Alice began to move her fingers in a circular motion, massaging the boy's sensitive skin. Harry let out a genuine moan and snapped his eyes shut. Instead of the customary darkness of his eyelids, the boy saw a mass of swirling colors that seemed to coordinate themselves with Alice's fingers' movements.
"Oh, that is amazing!" Harry said, slipping into a hitherto unknown paradise of ecstasy. Watching the patterns swirl and fill his vision, Harry lost himself for a time in the wonderful feeling of Alice's hands on his temples.
"Isn't it just?" Alice asked. A soft rumbling sound from Potter's chest was the only response. The girl snickered and looked to the Caterpillar who was grinning as he took yet another pull from the hookah.
"I think he's very like you, Alice. Maybe you've at last found a partner in your adventures in our beloved Wonderland, hm?" he said, smiling malevolently.
Alice's expression darkened the tiniest amount. "Caterpillar, don't get my hopes up again. We don't know that he'll stay, it's only the mushroom dust and caterpillar hairs he's feeling right now," she said. Her tone dared the Caterpillar to continue his comments on the subject.
Shrugging, the Caterpillar passed the hose back to Alice once more. Taking it, Alice puffed on the hookah while continuing the massage on one side of Harry's head. A few minutes passed in silence but for the burbling of the hookah as 'pillar continued smoking.
"Mmmm," Harry said, his eyes fluttering open, "that feels so nice, Alice."
Looking down into his eyes again, hair hanging down, Alice smiled. "I told you it would," she said, "here, have a bit more, dear."
Harry allowed her to hold the hose up to his lips as he drew in a small amount of smoke. True to Alice's promise, he only coughed the tiniest amount that second time. As more lights burst into being and Alice gave the hose back to Caterpillar, Harry stared at the sunlight gleaming in Alice's perfect blonde waterfall of hair. His vision swam a bit and the girl's hair seemed to move, taking on a life of its own. The light glowing from deep in her pure, crystalline blue eyes captured his attention.
"Alice, your eyes…you…they're so beautiful," he mumbled. Alice blushed a bit and began running a hand through the boy's mussed up black hair.
"Thank you, Harry Potter. You are quite handsome yourself, don't you know?"
The boy chuckled, "not everyone thinks so, I shouldn't wonder."
Caterpillar tut-tutted, "take the compliment boy. There isn't a match for our Alice's beauty for hundreds of days."
Harry laughed at the curious expression, but nodded. "Yes, she is sort of breathtaking," he said.
Alice giggled and flushed a deeper shade of red, "thank you, though I'm not sure I've ever been called breathtaking before."
Suddenly, Harry gasped, sat up, and spun to face Alice. "Oh, but I've been so rude!" he said, cursing himself, "wouldn't you like me to touch you as well?"
Both Caterpillar and girl burst into laughter at that. Harry's face bleached.
"Er –I didn't –rather, I only meant that –" Harry stuttered until Alice pressed a slender finger into his lips, gently. Harry forced his babbling to cease and enjoyed the sensation of another person's touch against his lips.
Alice lay her head down in Harry's lap and smoothed out her dress. "Yes, quite, Harry, I would like that, thank you. You're very sweet as well as handsome," she said.
Blushing, Harry began to rub her temples with two fingers of each hand. Even that contact made his body hum with delight at the feel of the soft skin and golden hair. Looking down into her eyes from above as she'd done to him, Harry smiled at her.
"Alice, I, well, I've never said this to anyone, but I think I would like to kiss you," he said, the blood burning into his cheeks even more than it had before.
To the sixteen-year-old's surprise, Alice chuckled with her musical laugh. "I've never said this to anyone either, but I think I'd like you to kiss me," she said, her cheeks flushing as red as Harry's.
Leaning down so their faces and mouths were aligned, Harry paused. He felt very unsure about how to kiss upside down like this. Then, Alice reached up and put both her hands at the base of his head, fingers grasping twists of the boy's hair. Harry hissed in pleasure and allowed her to guide his mouth down to meet hers. Their eyes snapped shut at the feeling of soft velvet skin meeting skin. Both felt as if they were melting into the other.
Harry, completely lost in the passion and ecstasy of the moment, opened his lips slightly. Again surprising the boy, Alice opened her lips as well and even flicked her tongue out to trace Harry's lower lip. Potter let out a husky growl and felt his body respond to the heat of their twin breaths combining.
Alice pulled at his head, deepening the kiss. As Harry pushed his tongue into the girl's mouth to meet with her tongue, he felt as though his very soul was spilling out of his body. The hookah, whatever was in it, had something to do with it, Harry felt. As their tongues twisted together, each feeling the delicious sensation of the other, the pair let out soft moans of pleasure. Alice, somehow knowing by instinct what to do, turned her head slightly to one side and the kiss deepened further still.
Caterpillar sat, watching on, and puffed at his hookah in vague amusement. He'd wondered what might happen were a boy to come that suited Alice. Then, thinking of his own love interest, he imagined the Red Queen joining him to watch the spectacle of young love bursting into life. As if sensing his thoughts, Red entered the clearing and took in the scene. Flying over to him with her gorgeous butterfly wings, the Queen of Butterflies herself lighted on the massive fungus with Caterpillar.
"Darling! Have you been sitting here all day with Alice again?" Red asked, fawning over the blue and purple insect curled around the vase of the hookah.
"Oh dear, you know me all too well!" he said, intertwining an antennae with one of the butterfly's. The pair of insects shared an intimate moment of their own and giggled together. Red accepted the offered hookah hose and took her own puff, sending heart-shaped smoke over the humans on the ground below.
"Oh, my! I see our dear Alice has found a friend, and quite a handsome friend I should think," the Queen said, grinning then adding "as humans go, of course, my pet."
Caterpillar smiled and nodded, adding his other antennae to the dancing appendages. With both their antenna linked in twists, the two sunk into their own pleasure and shared the hookah.
Finally, Harry pulled away from Alice. They looked into each other's eyes and the teens both sighed. Feeling as if their lives had changed irrevocably, Harry looked to the mushroom as he remembered the Caterpillar. Finding the creature ensconced in a romantic entanglement of his own, Harry snickered and looked back down to Alice. The girl laughed, the sound music to Harry's ears.
"Oh, that's the Red Queen of the Butterflies," she said, "she used to be human just like you and I before some magic transmogrified her into a butterfly."
"You mean transfigured, Alice?" Harry asked, puzzled.
"I'm sorry, is that what it's called at your Hogwarts School?" Alice asked sheepishly. "Here we just call it what I said."
Harry shook his head, "it doesn't really matter."
Alice pulled him down again until his ear was brushed against her silky lips. "No, it doesn't," she whispered. Harry shivered as the air hissed in his ear. Alice giggled and directed the boy into another deep kiss.
At some point, Harry figured he must have turned to lay the same way as Alice. Some unknown period of time later, he pulled out of one of dozens of deliciously amazing kisses. He felt vaguely aware that he had things, important things, to do at Hogwarts.
"Er…I get the feeling I'm meant to be doing something," he said, brows furrowed in confusion. Alice laughed and passed him the hookah hose. She blew smoke rings out to frame his face and Harry chuckled at the tickling sensation of the air.
The Chosen One took another, bigger, pull from the hookah. That time, without coughing, he managed to blow several quite exquisite smoke rings. His eyes widened in surprise as the stream of small blue, red, pink, yellow, and chartreuse rings drifted out over the meadow.
"Oh, dearie! Those are beautiful!" the Red Queen tittered in delight. "I'm sorry for my rudeness, my dear child, but I am the Red Queen of the Butterflies," she said, fluttering over to shake Harry's hand with one of her six small legs.
Harry took her leg and, the smoke again carrying him away to realms of paradise, giggled at the texture. As he shook, the boy said, "It's a pleasure to meet you, your highness. I am Harry Potter."
"Ooh, what a handsome lad, and so polite!" the butterfly exclaimed "you've made quite a catch there, Alice, sweetheart!"
Alice pulled Harry's face to hers and kissed him. "I have, haven't I, Red?" she said, smiling as Harry moaned at the touch of her lips. Potter blushed furiously.
"Don't mind us, my boy! You carry on, we're far too far into our own world, aren't we my love?" the Caterpillar said as the Queen returned to his side. She said nothing, but returned to their former intimacy, antenna tangling with his.
Harry looked back to Alice; sure he was witnessing something meant to be entirely private.
"Oh, Harry, it's OK! They really don't mind and you shouldn't either!" Alice said. She pat the ground next to her and said, "here, lie down and relax, Harry."
Harry obliged, smiling up at Alice, who was propped up on one slender arm. As his head nestled into the soft grass, Harry sighed in delight. Staring again into the beautiful sky, he started when Alice began unbuttoning the shirt he'd had on under his robes.
"Alice…what?" he said, only to be silenced again by one of her fingers on his lips.
"Just experience this with me, please, Harry. I need this. I need you. I know its madness when we've only just met, but…I feel as if I belong with you, Harry? Don't you feel it? Don't you feel this?" Alice said, pleading, eyes beginning to swim with unloosened tears.
Harry looked into her eyes and gasped as her cold hand pressed against his bare chest. Feeling his heartbeat move up and out of his chest his eyes widened. Lying on the ground, he felt the rhythm of his own heart pass up through Alice's arm. All of his attention followed the pulse and the vibration as it moved toward the girl's chest. Finally, his heart aligned with hers and he felt the purest love he'd ever felt. Not even the love he often felt when thinking of his mother, who had died so he could live, could compare to this. Two hearts beat as one.
Harry Potter, the Boy Who Lived, helped Alice out of her clothes as she helped him out of his. She lay down, skin glistening white against the grass, and Harry, instinctually, moved. He straddled her waist and, with his arms outstretched, hovered above Alice. Her arms, sending shivers, more violent than Harry had ever felt before, up and down his spine, moved to wrap around his neck. Pulling him down, Alice's tears began to slide down her cheeks.
Surprised, Harry felt his own tears burn a trail down his cheek to drop. Looking at the glistening droplet as it commingled with Alice's tears, Potter understood exactly what Alice meant saying "I need this." He pressed his body down against hers and pressed his lips into hers. They both writhed as their skin pressed together, Alice's breasts pushing into Harry's chest. Tongues sliding against one another, the pair reveled in the ecstasy of this new found young love.
The two insects looked on, smiling. They looked to each other and rubbed their antenna together more vigorously. Caterpillar took some smoke from the hookah and then, pressing his mouth to the Queens, blew it into Red's mouth. Red, laughing, blew the smoke out and the two collapsed together. Caterpillar only just rescued the hookah by setting it on the ground as they lost themselves in the throes of passion.
Harry lifted himself. Alice reached down, eliciting a hiss from Harry, and helped him prepare to truly make their bodies into one. As they lay, staring into each other's eyes, they nodded simultaneously in the synchronicity of mingled souls. Pushing his hips forward Harry slid his arms around Alice and they rocked in that primeval and beautiful affirmation of life. Screaming out in ecstasy, Alice's nails raked the boy's back and pushed them both to ever greater heights.
As their bodies melted into one another, their tongues joined the rhythmic cadence of the steady motion. Harry let out a cry of utter animal lust and Alice echoed it moments later. They both spasmed at the pinnacle of their climax and shuddered against one another. Both still crying at the beauty and passion and fervor of their love, they collapsed together. Simply lying there on the ground, they wrapped their arms around each other.
"This is madness," Harry said.
"Isn't that the best way to be, though, Harry?" Alice asked, eyes closed, face nuzzling against Potter's bare chest.
Harry Potter chuckled and traced her spine up to run through her hair. Playing with the golden strands, the boy thought for a moment.
"Yes, I suppose it is," he said, kissing her lightly and closing his own eyes.
Alice sighed and Harry wriggled closer in the warm, deliciously soft, grass. The Caterpillar and his Queen smiled down upon the pair benevolently.
In the quiet doldrums of midmorning, Harry and Alice fell asleep in one another's embrace.