"Wha?" Harry murmured, pushing himself up onto one elbow.
"Oh Harry, you're finally awake. We were so worried," Hermione said.
"Not me mate, I know how wickedly high your alcohol tolerance is. One and a half bottles of firewhiskey wasn't all that surprising," Ron said, "it was just the next step, really."
"What happened?" Harry asked.
"Well, you got really drunk after getting a Ghost chilli-phoenix ash combination of every flavoured beans. You were trying to get rid of the spiciness by using firewhiskey. Then Hermione botched a hangover spell and sent us back to the Dinosaur era," Ron replied seriously.
Harry roared with laughter. "That was a good one," Harry said, "you're becoming more and more like the twins on a daily basis."
"This is serious, Harry," Hermione told him sternly.
"Not you too, Hermione. I thought Ron never would have gotten you to start pranking," Harry said.
"Harry, just come outside," Hermione said, her patience already trying. Harry stumbled when Ron and Hermione heaved him out of bed.
"Hermione, this is carrying it a bit far. I mean, planting an entire jungle just for a prank…" Harry trailed off, enthralled by a massive … bird? … flying over his head. Masses of trees shot up everywhere. The air felt hot and humid. He could feel the ground vibrate, almost like it had when he'd faced a dragon in fourth year. Not even an illusion could be that realistic.
"It's real, mate. Somehow we transported our house, and us, back to the dinosaur era," Ron said.
"We've set up perimeter wards so the creatures are repelled," Hermione continued, "and I'm working on a way back."
"How far are you?" Harry asked.
"Not far. I don't think it possible. The spell only sent us to approximately 200 million years ago. The error was one million years, which for seeing dinosaurs is insignificant, but reversing it for our own use makes for a rather large error," Hermione answered, "in addition, I fear the time magic we used to get here would be easily thrown off by the amount of controlled magic in our era."
"So…" Harry asked.
"We wait," Hermione answered, "we go back the long way."
"But that's 200 million years. That's not possible," Harry answered.
"Our souls can't age. We can't die. However our bodies…" Hermione answered.
"So we could be rotting sack of meat on a bone, digested by a dinosaur and we would be anchored to the mortal plain until we got back to the present?" Harry guessed.
"Exactly. Luckily I have a couple books on alchemy in the house, so we should be able to recreate the philosopher's stone," Hermione said, "eventually."
"Couldn't the spell be temporary though?" Harry asked in desperation, as Hermione walked back towards the house, no doubt to study her alchemy books. She didn't hear him.
"Hermione's already reverse engineered the spell. It's not temporary," Ron replied for Hermione considering she couldn't hear Harry's desperate question.
"We are so screwed," Harry said quietly, to himself.
"Cheer up mate. Consider it – we're the first humans to visit the dinosaurs, ever!" Ron said.
"Am I ever going to see everybody ever again?" Harry asked, felling depressed.
"Hermione doesn't really know. She's spouted out a whole bunch of theories, one is what she calls a two point timeline, meaning that our births are fixed points on the timeline and we can't change that. The other is that there's no other fixed point and whatever we do will have an effect. Luckily for us there's a meteor coming some time soon, so that should be fine too," Ron replied.
"She figured all this out already? We really would be dead without Hermione, wouldn't we?" Harry asked his best mate.
"Yeah, definitely. At least with her here we might figure some things out. Maybe even make it through this mess alive. Come on Harry, let's go back inside."
"No just give me a second, Ron," Harry replied. He took one step off the porch of the Granger-Weasley's house. He could see Hermione's carefully worked rune stones protecting the house. They paled in to the significance to the size of the beasts they were protecting the trio from – but they still held. For how much longer was a mystery. Outside the house massive trees shot from the ground and ferns dominated as far as the eye could see. He could see massive beings marching in the background, their silhouette just barely visible. It was an alien, yet familiar sight. It was stunning.
"Harry? Let's go back inside now," Ron said, nervously looking at his friend. Harry, realizing that he'd been tantalized and heading towards the ward barrier, turned around and nodded at his friend. It was time to go back inside.
Hermione slammed the book on alchemy shut as Harry and Ron re-entered the room, "This is so frustrating!" she cried out.
"What's wrong, Hermione?" Ron asked with concern.
"I don't understand how the philosopher's stone is even meant to exist. It's an impossibility. Everything we know about alchemy says it shouldn't, so how can it?" Hermione asked, frustration so clearly visible on her face.
"Only Flamel has been able to create it after all. It must be difficult. But if anyone can do it, it's you," Ron said.
"That's right. But that's a long term problem. Hermione, we have more pressing matters," Harry said, "like how long the wards are going to hold."
"About a month. They're not made to be permanent. It was more of an emergency rune set. I thought I should solve the philosopher's stone problem first though," Hermione said.
"You were planning on recreating the philosopher's stone in a month!?" Ron spluttered, "Hermione, even for you that's a little ambitious. Let's focus on the here and now."
"I agree with Ron," Harry said, "let's focus on now."
"Right, so we need food. Water we can make with aguamenti. We have shelter. And there must be a whole bunch of diseases we're not familiar with," it was as if Ron had completely changed. He was taking charge of the situation. "We also need to split up roles. Harry, you work on defence for the building. You've been on enough raids to have some nasty ideas. Hermione, you focus on implementing Harry's defensive ideas and coming up with some medicine to defend against all the new diseases. I'll figure out the food."
"Food?" Harry asked, questioningly.
"I know you're jealous I got the most important and difficult job, but it has to go to the most talented person here," Ron replied.
Ron chose that moment to stride towards the kitchen. "It's like Ron's a completely different person," Hermione whispered to Harry, "I've never seen him take charge of a situation."
That was true. The only other times Ron took charge was when the two of them went to the pub. And that normally did not go well…
Actually all this was really directly descended from Ron's desire to get a drink with his best mate. It was the first day of Harry's one week block leave from the aurors, and considering Harry didn't drink when he was on duty, Ron had made him promise to go drinking. But then Hermione, having finished a research project on tools for power amplification decided she also wanted to join in.
And so instead of going to the bar, they decided to just stay at Ron and Hermione's house. Was it really a good thing when Ron got this assertive? Maybe not, but it wasn't like Harry had any better ideas.
"Yeah, but he did put together a good plan," Harry replied, "Anyway, let's just get to work."
And so both Hermione and Harry got to work. Hermione pulled out some hefty tome on magical diseases and cures. Harry meanwhile conjured a blackboard and some chalk. Like all conjured objects it wouldn't last forever, but it would last a good while. Alchemy made transfigurations permanent, in the same way enchantment made a charm permanent. He was writing down some of the uglier and more effective ward schemes he had come across. Ron was trying, and failing, to make a potato grow in prehistoric soil. But he was writing down ideas for a fertilizer that would make the prehistoric soil more compatible with the food from our time.
Before the trio knew it, the sun was setting and they gathered around the dinner table once more.
Ron gathered them all around a piece of paper which he was writing on. "These are for notes, so I know how far we are. It's also meant for ideas on other necessities," he said.
"Pass that over Ron, we all know your handwriting is terrible," Hermione said.
"Alright then. You write the notes if you're so clever. Anyway, Harry why don't you explain what you've done first," Ron continued.
"I wrote a list of the strongest wards I've come across. I don't know how to put most of them up – but we covered emergency warding in auror training. I can do a couple basic wards tomorrow, the rest is up to Hermione," Harry said.
"What are these emergency wards?"
"I can make a permanent version of Hermione's avoidance wards. But bear in mind that if a creature has enough will these are easy to overcome, which is why I'll also put up an early detection ward just inside the boundaries of the avoidance ward and a physical ward boundary in immediate surrounding of the house. But the physical boundary ward won't last for more than thirty seconds against the brute force of a creature the size of a dinosaur," Harry said.
"Sounds good. Have you got all of that, Hermione?" Ron asked.
"Yes. I'll work on figuring out the ward schemes for the more dangerous wards tomorrow. It seems that our internal magic can fight off all non-magical diseases without any trouble, so we should be safe on that front. Besides, the elixir of life heals all disease, so if we crack the philosopher's stone a magical disease won't hurt us either, so I have some time," Hermione lectured.
"Well I guess I'll just go to me then. I'm figuring out a magical fertilizer that should make the soil here like ours. It'll enable us to grow potion ingredients and food. I'm still trying to figure it all out though," Ron said, "anyway, we'll only be eating non-plantables tonight, like this muggle cereal."
"Ron, won't most of the food go bad anyway?" Harry asked.
"Nope. Hermione enchanted our cupboard to have a stasis field for everything except humans. What did you call it Hermione? A little side project?" Ron said.
"I was bored," Hermione said, defensively.
"Hermione, you do realize that those cupboards cost thousands of galleons, right?" Harry said, "and are extremely hard to make? Most potion masters only use them for extremely rare ingredients, let alone food."
"Yeah," she said.
"Maybe you'll actually successfully recreate the philosopher's stone after all," Harry mumbled under his breath.
"That's all besides the point, Harry. After you set up the emergency wards you spoke about, you're going to take an inventory of the house. I want a list of everything we have, magical or non-magical. Except food, potion ingredients and books. I've already done the catalogue for food and potion ingredients and Hermione is going to oversee books. Once we know what we have, we can start to make more plans," Ron continued.
"That actually sounds like a really good idea, Ron," Hermione said.
"Yeah," Ron replied, he was definitely blushing a little. For once, he was enjoying being the famous, successful one. The leader.
"What about a lookout? I think one of us should stay awake while the others sleep, and take it in shifts. Maybe it's just my paranoid auror self, but I don't want to risk something happening in the night," Harry suggested.
"I think that's a great idea. Until we know more about where we are, and we have better wards set up it's not worth taking any unnecessary risks," Ron replied.
"I'll take first watch then," Harry said, "I can't fall asleep easily anyway."
"Alright," Ron replied, "Hermione, tomorrow you're going to figure out some of the nastier ward schemes. Protection and food are our number one priorities, but right now, let's just eat this cereal."
And that was how Harry found himself alone as the moon rose, after both Ron and Hermione had collapsed into bed. The night sky sparkled with stars, no light pollution to detract from their beauty. Dinosaurs roared occasionally, but mostly there was silence. Beautiful silence. The green jungle held little colour, no flowers bloomed in this era. Those would come later. Harry wondered whether magic even exited.
But the beauty also signalled danger. Harry remembered the hunkering dinosaurs from the picture books at muggle school – they were perhaps the most dangerous predators to ever exist. The T-rex was the nightmare of children around the world.
Was. Would be. Harry was well aware that playing with time could have terrible consequences. He just hoped that the asteroid would wipe away any effects that their meddling had on this time. Where they would hide for the 66 million years between the end of the dinosaur era and the advent of modern society was a mystery. But equally, Hermione might be right, and because there were two fixed events on the timeline: our births and the second before we arrived in this time, we might not be able to change the future too significantly anyway. But better safe then sorry. This was all theoretical, all untrodden territory. At least they had a bit more then a hundred million years to figure it out.
But it was these terrifying thoughts that forced Harry out of his thoughtful stupor. If he was going to be standing guard he probably should make the runes around the house permanent. And that was how Harry found himself carefully carving the rune system that was going to protect the house. Harry knew no runes beyond the five basic ward sets – which consisted of an avoidance ward (as Harry was an auror he only knew a general avoidance ward), a detection ward, which warned if any being or creature crossed a certain perimeter line, a weak physical and magical barrier, and of course anti-apparation and disappartion wards, which were entirely uncalled for in this instance.
Harry was intently focused on carving the varoa, or protection ward, into the oval stone. He had already carved all the rune stones he needed for the avoidance ward; he had systematically carved over 100 ogn, or 'terror' rune stones, he just needed to connect them to a ward anchor and place them in a circle around the area he wanted creatures to avoid. Ward anchors were sort of like computers, they were the connection between all the individual rune stones that made up a ward. For more complex ward schemes that required more than just one type of rune, the ward anchor dictated the interaction between these runes as well. They were also the power source for most wards. Ward anchors were the most complicated part of a ward scheme, which was why Harry was waiting for Hermione to start on that.
Despite Harry being tasked with creating the wards around the house, it was really Hermione that was more knowledgeable about runes. She just wasn't as experienced in warding, evidenced by her emergency wards. They were hugely inefficient - they used hundreds of times the magical power that Harry's completed wards would use. This was due to two factors, firstly Hermione had been in a rush and had decided too connect her runes directly to each other, bypassing a ward anchor. Although this was possible, it was hugely inefficient. And secondly, although Hermione had taken ancient runes at school she had never practiced carving them into stone before. Hogwarts had taught her how to theoretically deal with runes, not how to practically deal with them, unlike Harry's auror training. Thus Harry's runes were more accurate and uniform. But beyond this level of warding Harry was useless, auror training had only touched on the very basics. Admittedly those basics had been drilled into them repeatedly, hence the ease with which Harry handled the stones and knife.
But the ward anchor was another matter. It could draw excess magic from the very world and use it to power the runes. But this was a difficult process, and one that Harry had no intention of doing without Hermione to help. Which is why he was now carving the rune stones for the physical barrier around the house. He had originally planned on making only twenty-five to surround the house, but on second thought decided that fifty would be better. It would mean that the physical barrier would be able to hold a large dinosaur for perhaps a minute instead of the scant thirty seconds the previous option would have provided. He had another ten varoa runes to carve, so despite the disproportionate time Harry had already spent on watch he decided against waking either Ron or Hermione.
And just as Harry was about to get up to switch watch, he noticed the sun rising. Another sleepless night. But Harry was in the auror force so he was used to it. Normally there was pepper up, but in their current situation it might be best not to waste resources on a potion like that. And considering the sun was rising, Harry decided to finish off the detection wards. There were only ten of them after all. The letta rune – an extremely useful ward, which could be used to warn if anyone crossed a certain threshold – and it was rather easy to carve.
Just as Harry finished off the last of the letta runes he heard the creaking of the stairway, too quiet to be Ron.
"Good morning, Hermione," Harry said.
"God dammit Harry, why do you always have to be so heroic! You could have woken one of us, we wouldn't have minded," Hermione cried.
"Shhh… you'll wake Ron," Harry quickly replied. Not his best excuse but it should hold Hermione at bay.
"Too late," came the loud voice from the Weasley upstairs. It seems even Ron was a little annoyed at his friend's hero complex-
"Harry James Potter. Why did you not wake us? I thought we were friends? Do you not even trust us enough to guard your sleeping body? Or do you think us incapable? Because let me warn you, I might not be an auror, but I know enough magic to defend myself. And do you even know the effects of sleep deprivation?" Hermione cried angrily.
"I'm always sleep deprived as an auror, comes with the territory," Harry interjected.
"And maybe that's why you've got that scar on your left calf from the singing curse? Or the three broken fingers after a reducto hit your left hand? Or that one time when you were wheezing your own blood for days? Maybe if your stupid department stopped prescribing a ridiculous amount of pepper-up and building up your egos there would be less crying friends, families and spouses," Hermione snapped back.
"Uh… guys? I know I'm really not the person who should talk after the horcrux incident, but fighting won't help, especially considering we're in the middle of the prehistoric times," Ron said meekly, not wanting to anger either of them.
"Fine. But only if Harry promises not to do that again," Hermione said.
"That's not so unreasonable, right Harry?" Ron asked.
"Considering we've got two hundred million years between now and home, I don't think so," Harry responded, "I'm not promising anything."
"Fine. We'll limit it to ten million years," Hermione replied.
"Ten," Harry said.
"So we're agreed?" Hermione asked.
"I meant ten years, total," Harry replied.
She scoffed. "As if, one million."
"On hundred."
"On hundred thousand."
"Five hundred."
"Fifty thousand."
"Would you two quit it, one thousand years seems reasonable," Ron said.
"That's not nearly enough time," Hermione protested.
"Only enough time to come from the deep middle ages to the time when muggles reached the stars," Ron replied.
"One thousand years is way too much," Harry whined.
"Considering we have two hundred million years until we reach the modern millennium, I would say one thousand is fair," Ron replied sagely.
"Fine," Hermione said.
"Fine then," Harry agreed.
"Why did you stay up all night anyway, Harry?" Ron asked, trying to dispel the dark atmosphere.
"I got distracted carving rune stones," Harry replied.
Hermione's eyes gleamed, all thought of her previous anger gone. "Can I see them?" she asked.
Harry just nodded and showed her the full set, "I made quite a few because I figured that we should have some workable land if we want to be sustainable in terms of food and potion ingredients."
"These are all almost perfect," Hermione replied, her eyes shining in excitement.
"Yeah, I just need your help with the ward anchor," Harry said.
"Those are tricky to do. It's only made harder considering the world isn't saturated with enough magic yet, so simply using the worlds extra magic would be useless because there's not enough of it," Hermione said.
"So what can we do?" Harry asked.
"I don't know," Hermione said, frustrated, "I need more time to think about it."
"And that's my cue, it's time for breakfast. Today there's more dry cereal on the menu!" Ron said, "You guys can think more about this later."
And so once again the three friends sat around the table. There was only non-plantables for breakfast, so that they could use everything else in a desperate attempt to create food.
"So, while Hermione tries to come up with a ward anchor, Harry, you'll take charge of doing an inventory of the house. We need to know exactly what we have and don't have. I'm still working on the magical fertilizer, I'll work more on that," Ron said, his mouth full of cereal.
And so, the lives of Harry, Hermione and Ron settled into a pattern. Harry was surprised by how much stuff the Weasley-Granger's had managed to accumulate in their ten years of independent living. Hermione struggled to come up with a way for a ward anchor to produce its own magic, although she had some promising leads. And Ron was still in the testing phase of his magic fertilizer, although initial results proved promising.