Notes: This chapter is a cross-over with Stargate:SG1 and begins from the idea that the Veil in the Department of Mysteries is actually a crude custom Stargate. The first part was inspired by Robst's "No Hurry at All" and I'm taking things my way from the second part. I had initially the two parts separated, but I think they can very well stay together.
For once, Harry was starting to believe that maybe old bat Trelawney might get another prediction turn true today - the one where he was to die a horrific death. Even worse was that his friends might share his fate as well. Not even the arrival of the Order members just minutes before did not seem to turn the tide. Their initial advantage of surprise was wearing off and they were slowly being pushed back.
They were at this moment in large hall, so much alike the courtroom where he had tried for underage magic the last summer. Rows of stone benches were overlooking a raised platform where stood a large arch, made of a dark material. Stopping behind one of the benches to catch his breath, Harry dared to look around and assess the situation. Closest to him was Professor Lupin, exchanging spells with one Death Eater he thought he could identify as McNair, the one who was sent to execute Buckbeack two years ago. Further was Mad Eye Moody, holding his own agains two opponents. On the other side Kingsley Shacklebolt was crossing wands with Lucius Malfoy. And finally, close to the platform in the center of the room, Sirius was fighting the Wicked Witch herself - Bellatrix Lestrange. There was no sight of his friends - they must have scattered in different directions over the course of the fight. Also a number of Death Eaters were missing, which meant that the tide could turn against them even more at any moment.
Harry also realized how lucky they have been so far and that initially the Death Eaters have been holding back a lot, probably to avoid damaging the prophecy ball. The gloves were off now though and all around him the fight was taking place at a level he couldn't have imagined before. That did not mean though that he was backing off the fight now. Professor Lupin was too busy with his opponent to pay attention to him, so he started moving towards Sirius, using the benches as cover and trying to attract as little attention as possible. His godfather, a wanted man, has risked everything coming to his help tonight and he was not going to leave him face that bitch alone.
On his approach Harry couldn't help but notice a change in the arch atop the central platform, no doubt a result of the stray spells hitting it and all the magic saturating the air. Scattered all across the surface, electric blue runes were flickering to life one after another. The faint whispers from before were being replaced by a deep throbbing hum that was making his teeth vibrate. Whatever the purpose of the device was, the surrounding battle was turning it on.
A commotion at the hall entrance caught his attention. It proved to be a couple of the missing Death Eaters, casting back at a yet unseen opponent. Considering that they were throwing only Killing Curses, their foe must have been a formidable one and Harry felt a flicker of hope. After all, an enemy the Death Eaters feared so much to run away from could only be a friend. The hope turned to elation when Professor Dumbledore himself appeared on the doorway, his wand a blur of motion, conjuring stone slabs to intercept the sickly green beams that sought to end his life. The Death Eaters seemed to reconsider their chances and decide that a retreat was their best solution at the moment. One of Mad Eye's opponents turned around and blew a hole in the wall behind him, making an escape route. Taking advantage of the reduced rate of incoming fire, Professor Dumbledore made a wide sweeping motion, sending a visible wave of magic across the entire room, knocking down any Death Eater it touched. That was the moment when everything went to hell.
As the force wall encountered the arch, it appear to freeze in place for a fraction of a second, then it got absorbed completely inside the device. Seven large runes blazed to life at equal intervals across the circumference and a geyser-like vortex, about 20 feet long, erupted from the device. The stormy pillar hit a retreating Lucius Malfoy dead on, before reforming in a water-like membrane that filled the entire archway. In its wake, a pair of feet, from the knee downward, in expensive leather boots was everything that was left from the once proud pureblood aristocrat.
Bellatrix was the first one to regain her senses. With a crazed shriek she surged forward, a flurry of curses flying from her wand. Sirius was suddenly hard pressed to defend himself and was forced back, towards the rippling surface of the archway. In no time his godfather has been pushed all the way to the top of the platform, when an explosive curse hit the floor right in front of him. The blast took the Marauder off his feet, blowing him away into the archway, where he disappeared from view, accompanied by the maniacal laugh of his crazy cousin.
In mere fractions of a moment Harry felt a broad range of feelings. Heart-gripping worry made place for blazing fury, then to ice cold determination. With new found strength he sent a trio of overpowered Reductos towards the laughing witch, as he dashed forward towards the archway. He did not hear Lupin's anguished cry, asking him to stop and he was already too far away for the older man to hold him in place. He did not look back to see a startled Bellatrix raising a shield, that barely stopped the first spell, and crumbled under the second one. The third spell passed unopposed, turning her head into a red mess of blood, bone and brains. The Wicked Witch was no more. Yet none of this registered with the young wizard as he crossed the rippling surface. The next moment the membrane vanished, leaving behind an inert archway, a bunch of incapacitated Death Eaters and Order members, a dumbstruck Headmaster and a kneeling, crying werewolf.
There was only one thought in the mind of young Harry Potter as he rushed towards the archway. His godfather had passed through and he was going to follow him even if it took him to the very depths of hell. Therefore there was no hesitation as he stepped through the rippling surface in front of him. The first sensation was one of extreme cold, followed by feeling not unlike the one of a portkey, as he appeared to rush through a tunnel of light that twisted between stars. Next thing he knew he was tumbling through the air and coming to a hard stop on a sunlit grassy field. Yet all the dizziness and pain was forgotten when he heard his godfather's muffled voice.
"Way to go, Black, getting killed when your godson needed you the most. Not to mention you were too young and handsome to kick the bucket. I am amazed Prongs and Lilly are not already here waiting to tan my flea bitten hide."
Harry felt a smile spreading on his lips. Sirius was OK and that was everything that mattered. Yet his words made little sense to him.
"Uh... Sirius... I don't know about you, but I feel pretty much alive, thank you very much. Are you sure that last spell didn't give you a concussion or something?"
Sirius Black liked to think he was badass enough that nothing could shock him anymore. Yet the sound of Harry's words hit him like a poleaxe. He raised slowly on his elbows and knees and turned his head to towards his godson. He took a few moments looking at Harry, blinked a few times then let loose with the first thought that crossed his mind:
"Harry, what the hell are you doing here?"
"I came after you, of course. Merlin knows you need someone to take care of you. You seem even a bigger trouble magnet than I am."
"Harry, the Archway of Death has been used as an execution device for centuries before Azkaban was built. What are you kids learning in History of Magic these days? And what is a magnet?"
"We learn how to nap properly. I don't know how it was in your time, but now Binns just drones on and on about goblin rebellions. There was nothing like that in Hermione's notes either. We would have heard from her for days if she knew anything. So either they reworked the curriculum or we didn't reach that part yet. Oh, and don't call me Shirley. My name is Harry. Are you sure there's no concussion at all? And magnets are a muggle thing that attract iron"
Despite the situation, Sirius felt a smile rising on his lips. If his godson was making bad puns about names, things were not as dark as they appeared to be.
"Ok, kid, time for a history lesson then. The Archway of Death is an artifact from the time of the Founders and it was used as an execution device. The condemned was petrified and levitated in front of the archway and the erupting vortex would disintegrate him instantly"
"Like what happened to Malfoy?" asked Harry. "The only things left of him that I saw were his boots and that fancy snake-head pimp cane of his."
"Yeah," acknowledged Sirius. "A fitting end for a slimy snake like him. Although what happened next was never described before. All records in the Black library describe the archway shutting down immediately. There was nothing about walls of water and portals to Merlin knows where. I would say we are about halfway around the world. It seems to be almost noon, while we left before midnight from England."
Harry took a moment to look around. They were on a large grassy clearing, surrounded by a light curtain of trees about half a mile away. The sky was clear blue, with small fluffy white clouds, but the sun was a bit strange with its bluish tint instead of the normal orange. The moon was also visible right above the horizon and its surface was also unlike the one he remembered from his Astronomy lessons. The real shock came about a moment later, making the teen wizard gasp in surprise.
"Padfoot, old boy, I don't think we're on Earth anymore."
Sirius turned to the direction his godson was pointing and had to stifle a gasp of his own. For one of the clouds in its continuous transformation, revealed behind it a second moon, smaller and with a reddish tint. Both wizards stood in silence, trying to digest the information about their current situation.
Sirius was the first to take a deep breath and rise from the ground.
"All right, Harry, cheer up. We're alive, with no important injuries and that's what matters most right now. We will find a way to return home, sooner or later, but first we need to take care of survival. We will need food, shelter and information, in this order. We can conjure any water we need, there is no need to worry about dehydration."
Despite the gravity of the situation, Harry felt hope again, as well as a smile tugging at his lips. It was interesting seeing Sirius so focused. Still, he couldn't help but take another playful shot at his godfather.
"I see you can be serious when the situation calls for it. You almost sound like Hermione. Have you been with the boy scouts or something?"
"Actually, yes," replied Sirius, with a grin. "Your father and I joined for the summer before our fourth year. We've seen them doing a parade through London and there were some good looking birds there. But we couldn't resist for more than a couple of weeks living like Muggles, so we gave up. But this survival stuff is something I picked during my Auror training. Mad-Eye had taken a liking to me and your father, along with a few others and he organized some extra training with a chap from the States. The guy has been in the Special Forces or something and he dropped us in the Highlands for two weeks. No food, no water, no shelter, just our wands and the promise of a good thrashing if we left the area before the time was up. Anyway, I can tell you more stories later. Let's move on now, we're burning daylight."
With a flick of his wand Sirius spelled away the grass, dust and debris that had covered his robes. After doing the same service for Harry and healing any scrapes they had acquired during the fight, he spoke to his godson.
"Let's have a look at the Portal first. Maybe there is something we can learn about it."
First thing they noticed was that the Portal was different from the one in the Ministry. While the first one looked more like a gothic archway, this one was a perfect circle, partially embedded in the platform it was sitting on. The device was made of two concentric parts. The outer one had seven triangular shapes, evenly spread around the visible circumference, while the inner ring had a large number of runes or symbols, also evenly spread. In front of the raised platform there was a raised pedestal, with a flattened head, with the same symbols, arranged in two circles around a great reddish crystal.
Sirius cast a few spells at the two devices, but the look on his face showed he did not got any illuminating answers
"Can you make anything out of this, Harry? My spells only say that is something very complicated. It's like Muggle technology, but a lot more complex. Some of the symbols look a bit like what I've seen when your mother was studying Ancient Runes. I never took the course though so I can't be of any more help."
Harry took a few moments to examine the circular archway, taking care not to stay directly in front of it, as he did not want to share the same fate as Malfoy in case the Portal engaged again. He moved then to the short pedestal and tentatively touched one glyph. He was rewarded with a metallic sound, as the glyph lit, together with one of the triangular shapes on the Portal. He presses the glyph again, causing it to shut down, then turned towards his godfather.
"I think it is some sort of selector, like a Muggle phone, where you input the number you want to call. Only in this case it might be the destination of the portal. You put seven symbols as the address then I presume you must touch that big crystal in the center. But there must be millions of possible combinations and there is no way we can try them all. We will need an address book to know where to go."
"That settles it then. I'll put some monitoring charms around this area. It will let us know if someone else comes through. Not very likely, but we should cover all our bases. Whoever placed the portal here, did not intend to hide it. Yet there are no signs of people passing, no tracks in the grass, no roads, so it is seems not to be used too often. Now, pay attention to what I'm doing and I'll teach you the spells we're going to use."
It took more than half an hour for Harry to learn the monitoring spells, but in the end his results were as better as his godfather's. They decided to put a double layer, each one keyed to one of them, just in case. Once the task was finished, they took a moment to consider their next move.
"I can see some mountains far to the north, so that could be a good direction to begin," started Sirius. "We might be able to get a better view of the surrounding area from there. Also, I think we should be looking for a source of fresh water too. I know we don't really need it, but animals have to drink. We will be able to hunt some for food, or maybe find some fish too. We'll check the forest on the way for edible fruits and I'll show you some spells to detect poisons. The Blacks had many enemies so these spells were taught to every family member at a young age."
"Sounds great, Sirius. You know, it will be almost like a vacation, hiking in the wild. Or like in one of the books I had to read for school, back before Hogwarts. I can be Robinson Crusoe and you'll be my faithful savage man-servant Friday. You're a bit too white, but a bit of mud, or a coloring charm and you'll be all set up. Now, did I tell you of that time in second year when me and Ron ended in the middle of the Forbidden Forrest? It was right after Hagrid has been arrested..."
Talking and laughing, the two wizards started their journey, leaving behind the portal that had delivered them so far from home.