Chapter 2: The Source of Magic
Where once was the old fashioned scottish forest with hazel, oak and pinewood trees now was most likely subtropical fauna, although he even with his not too bad grades at herbology and years of gardening experience as the Dursleys house elf, couldn't identify any of the plants.
Only the most astonishing thing weren't the plants or even the two suns above them, no, it had to be the city, he could see in the distant, in the midst a massive castlelike building with some high towers and dozends of turrets, that would put Hogwarts to shame, and innumerable houses of every size and hight around it. The whole structure was glittering in the blueish-red light of the suns like it was made of bare gold and silver and glittering cristals. As if this wasn't incredible enough, ... it hovered a few hundred feet over the only as jungle describable forest. The surrounding misty clouds gave it an even more mystical atmosphere.
There had to be wizards there to keep the city up in the sky, maybe they could help him to get back in his time or dimension or what ever. They had to be very powerful, when they were able to pull such things like levitating a whole city, at least they could tell him where he was. He had made up his mind to visit the city in the clouds, of course he had first to solve the problem to reach it without his broom.
Harry was interupted from his musings, as a terrible screech from behind told him he was not alone anymore. He whirled around, his wand at the ready to curse the source of this crow-like squawk.
An enourmous, dangerous looking beast, some kind of luminous, white dragon with translucent dragonfly like wings, stood directly behind him in the air. Shocked by the sight Harry was petrified for a heartbeat and that cost him dearly, before he could react, the beast's whiplike tail hit the left side of his face and his world went dark.
When Harry awoke he felt better than ever before, still he went through his checkup routine, he was accustomed to do so for years after loosing a Harry hunt against Dudley and his gang or since recently awakening in Pomfreys care at Hogwarts. To his relief there was no pain, no indication of healing wounds or regrowing bones, not even a typical soreness he often felt after his adventures.
After his checkup he tried to remember what had happened.
Hermione and he went back in time with the timeturner, then there were the Dementors attacking Sirius and then Malfoy cursing Hermione and hit the timeturner. The golden amoeba drifting to him and then the unpleasent travel to this strange place, only to be attacked by a dragon with insect wings.
Bit by bit the memories came back and his heart sunk in deep mourning, Sirius surely had been kissed by now. There was only one hope, he had to return to the same place and time when he went home. He would do anything to accomplish this, he would save his godfather and live with him and then he never had to go back to Privetdrive.
For the moment overcoming his mourning, Harry willed his eyes open and took in his surroundings. He had to restrain a groan, this only could be the treatment room of a hospital. Although the smell was unusual, instead of sanitizer in muggle hospitals, or the strange smell of unspeakably bad tasting potions in the hospital wing at Hogwarts, he could smell the scent of different herbs and other plants and even the fruity aroma of apples and oranges.
There was a strange ivy-covered folding screen on one side of his simple but very comfortable bed and a big window on the other side, from his lower position it only showed some part of the sky outside.
He could hear a hushed conversation in a distant, and through the folding screen could make out two figures, a women and a man he would guess, the source of the voices.
Harry tried to get some hints of the conversation but only got little fragments out of it.
"He's …. descendant of … ... Alte.., … how can he ... here"
"They dis... the …. of the ...ria Porta recently, maybe … through it"
"No! There ... no rec... that …... it ... been activated"
"He is awake. Let's see to him"
The two figures walked round the folding screen and Harry saw his guess come true, they were a man, maybe in his 50s, with dark brown and intelligent eyes and a friendly smile, and a young, petite woman not much older than himself, with an absent gaze, he had only ever seen from this second year ravenclaw girl Luna and an equally friendly expression. Both had long dark-blond hair the man with grey strands, definetly both had never seen a hairbrush in their life, their hairstyle was a wild mix of smooth strands, untamed curls and minipli, the woman had woven red and orange bands in a few strands, you could easiely mistaken their hair for birds nests. Harry swore he would never complain about his hair again after this.
Their clothing was even stranger than their hair, they seemed to have sutured all rags they could find together with thin tree branches, and dyed them in mud and fruit sap wich gave them an earth brown, pinkish color.
Their overall appearance considered, Harry could only compare them to Dryads or forest ghosts he had read about in his magical creatures book.
"How do you feel, child?" the man asked, his voice a deep, gentle bariton.
"I'm fine" Harry unconsciously gave his standart reply to this question.
"Thats good to hear, but let me give you some more help in recovering, my friend." he said, then he grasped a talisman, that hung from a rough strick around his neck and held his other hand over Harrys chest and began humming a chanting in a melodious language Harry couldn't identify.
"Opher has already healed your accute injuries, he now wants to heal the underdevelopment of your body through the malnutrition you obviously underwent for years and eliminate the foreign fragment from your forehead." the young woman explained when she noticed Harrys curious stare.
At first Harry was shocked that they had found out how bad the Dursleys had fed him over the years, but then he was distracted by the second statement, a foreign fragment, she could only refer to his scar. Could they realy remove it from his forehead by singing to it?
"He can heal with singing?" He asked in awe and wished Madam Pomfrey could do so and were not dependent on potions.
"The singing is a ritual that calls the ascended for help, but we also use herbal- and fruit brews and salves and even some technologie." she replied with a smile.
Harry set his focused back on the Opher charakter, his chant remembered him of these native american medicine man he had seen on a TV show. It was rythmic and somehow hypnotic, from time to time Opher would shake a busch of an unknown herb over him and sprinkle same watery stuff on parts of his body, most on his chest, stomach. With every minute of Ophers treatment Harry felt stronger and healthier and somehow more at peace with himself. When it ended Harry fell in a peaceful sleep and the first time for as long as he could remember, he had a very nice dream with Ron, Hermine and his godfather and his new friends with the strange hair in it.
The second time Harry awoke in this strange world he felt even better than the last time. He couldn't think of a time he had slept so well and he remembered he had dreamed about a picnic with his friend and Sirius and somehow even Orpher and the nice girl had been there too. He had a big smile on his face remembering the carefree dream, when his stomach let out a loud growl, indicating he had slept a whole while and left out some meals. Hearty laughter brought him back to reality. The folding screen had been removed
and he could see a boy sitting on a bed nearby.
"Hello there, you do make funny sounds with your stomach, I take it you must be hungry, I'll fetch Lya to bring your breakfeast in a minute, by the way, I'm Kenja." a Boy his age greeted him, he had sparkling blue eyes and a smile that spoke in all clearness of mischief. He had the standart hairstyle, only fire-red, and clothing for this folks. He was a bit taller than Harry and resembled his male friend at Hogwards in an astonishing way.
"I'm Harry", Harry all but shouted with a laugh after the boy who was half way out of the room.
After a few minutes the young woman from the day before, Lya, entered the room, in one hand balancing a tray with a load of food on it, in the other a small bag.
"Good morning … Harry, right? Kenja said you're hungry."
"Yes, Harry Potter, miss Lya, and yeah I'm starving"
"Just Lya, and here you are."
She put the tray down on a table in his room and went to him and reached him the bag with a smile.
"Your clothes, you're cleared to leave the bed now and I thought you would like to wear some more than the hospital gown." she said with a wink. With that she was on the way to leave the room, at the door she halted and added," Oh, and Opher likes to speak to you after your breakfeast, so please stay until he comes."
The breakfeast was great there were different paste from palatable vegetables, lots of fruits Harry did not know, but all tasted very good and fresh bread with rich spicy taste, even Mrs. Weasley couldn't have made any better, Harry was sure.
He had just finished his breakfeast when Opher and Lya entered the room and Opher greeted him with a friendly smile.
"Good morning, young Harry, I hope your breakfeast was satisfying."
"Yes sir, it was great, although I normaly prefer some sausages, I didn't miss it."
"You must know, we, that is the Nox, not even take a life for our food, we live on, what you would call, a strict vegan nutrition. That is actually one of the reasons I'm here now."
"You want to convert me into a vegan?" Harry asked a little uneasy.
Opher and Lya had to laugh, when they saw the face Harry made, at the possibility to never get a good peace of meat again. "No, we never interfere with the manners of other species, but lets discuss this later. You sure have questions about being here and I must say I have a few on my own."
"Yes sir, may I ask where I am exactly and is it possible to get back home somehow?"
"Call me Opher please. You are in Brinnwood, the capital city of our folk wich is on the planet Noxia. Your second question is not easy to answer, we are not sure yet, but I promise, we'll do anything to get you back home."
"Thank you si.., Opher. How did you found me actually?"
"Lya was it, who found you, when the Fenri confused you with its prey. She was able to hid you from the Fenri and brought you here." Opher answered.
"The Fenri? ...ah the dragon with the insect wings." Harry clarified. "You saved me from it. It was enormous and had a hard punch with its tail. How did you fought it?" Harry send his question at Lya, curious how the girl had outwitted the beast.
"I did not fought the Fenri, it did nothing bad, it is his nature to hunt its prey and feed on it. It was only mistaken by what his prey was and so i had to hid you so it could choose another one." Lya replied seriously.
And Opher explained, "Like I said before we would never fight another being or even take his live, it is our highest law to live in peace with everyone even our greatest enemies."
"Wow, not an easy moral to hold up, when you have a crazed Dark Lord on your neck." Harry speculated.
"It may not be easy, but to do what is easy is not allways the..."
"...the right thing to do." Harry finnished Ophers sentence and had to think of his headmaster and if Dumbledore would try to find him by now.
Ophers eyes lit up when Harry finished his sentence and asked, "You've heard this before?"
"Yes, the headmaster of my school allways says the same. One has to do what is right, not what is easy, and I'm sure he is against violence, too, although I've seen him eat a good deal of meat at the meals." Harry said with a laugh.
The Nox had to laugh too at Harrys pun.
"Tell me Harry, how did you come to our planet?" Opher asked after they had calmed again.
"How I came here is a bit mysterious. I came in contact with the sand of a timeturner wich was boosted by a curse of another student of my school, and – Woosh - I was in a vortex of light and sound and when it endet, I found me on a planet with two suns and a flying city." Harry tried to explain.
"This timeturner, is it a timetravel device?" Lya asked somewhat amazed by Harrys statement.
"Yes, usally you can go back only few hours and don't jump to another place."
"When did your people develop the technologie of timetravel? We didn't know they were so advanced already." Opher came back to the conversation.
"It is not technologie, it is magic like the flying city here, you have to be wizards too." Harry answered uncertain.
"The city is flying through technologie, Harry and even if some things we can do, look like magic, it is not." Opher explained.
"Uhh, oh, you don't know about magic? I'm in so much trouble, when the ministry hears, I'm not allowed to tell muggles about magic." Harry whined.
"Easy Harry, I belive your secrecy laws will not apply to other planets or species yet." Lya calmed the shocked boy. "But do please tell me about this magic of yours, can all Tauri do magic?"
"No, only wizards and witches can do magic and what is a tauri?
"Tauri is the name we gave you, when we discovered your species a few thousend years ago." Opher said and Lya asked again "Magic, you mean real magic? Not some technologie you don't understand and only looks like magic to you?"
To demonstrate what he was talking about, Harry got his wand from the little table next to his bed. "Wingardium Leviosa" he intoned and directed the spell on his pillow. Opher and Lya both looked impressed as the pillow moved up and around following Harrys wand movements. Opher asked to have a look at Harrys wand, then he lifted the small amulett he wore hidden under his shirt and held it over the wand, "May I have a look at you too, with my scanner?" he asked after a few moments.
After Harry gave his permission Opher held the amulet first at Harrys skull then over his chest, when he was finished he took a deep breath and said, "Really amazing, the stick is nothing but a stick with some muscle tissue of a reptilian species, it has some sort of residual energy in it but nothing that could possibly levitate things. The child on the other hand, sorry Harry here, is what we have already guessed when we healed him, a descendant of the Antiker but what we didn't saw first time, he also is a strong bio-energie source he produces an exotic kind of energy in every single core of his cells and somehow he is able to control it with the stick to his will. Really extraordinary."
"A descendant of whom? Antiks?" Harry asked the first thing he could think of after Ophers report of the scan.
"Antiker, a humanoid species extinct long ago, once they were our allies and one of the four great species. It seems they left something behind, when they left our realm. You have their genetic structure in you with a few exceptions but for sure a famility with the anitker genes"
"And I have energy producing cores in my cells?"
"Yes, it is not easy to detect, the source of energie seems to obscures itself somehow, and only the energy readings on this scanner show me, it is there." Opher explained and showing his amulet.
"That was much to take in, I belive... " Lya said "let us take a break here for now. Until we can find a way to bring you back home, you will stay with me in my house and are free to explore the city and maybe make new friends. If you are interested, I could show you the way we live and teach you about Noxia."
"I would like that very much, you appear to be very powerful but it has not corrupted you, like it has done to powerful people at home. I'm sure I can learn a great deal from you, thanks for the offer." Harry replied excited about the opportunity to learn about the Nox and their planet.
TBC...
Please R&R