Chapter 1

Ginevra (Ginny) Weasley

"Ow!"

"Hell!"

"Auch! Don't sit on my legs!"

"Umph. I ding I brog by nose…"

"Where are we?"

"It doesn't look like Arda."

"Hey! Where are the boys?"

Everything happened so quickly. One moment we were standing on the big circular pad that was the Department of Mysteries' latest experiment, the one that would bring us to a totally new world we would like to go, and another moment finds us laid on a heap, our limbs tangled, on the middle of a dirt road. We were linking arms one to another, our grips firm, yet we could not hold the tight circle for long when the pad was activated. It was as if a tornado were raging among us, wrenching our arms from each other, making each person a solitary presence to themselves… Well, it was not completely figurative.

To our dismay, now there are only seven people present instead of thirteen. Harry, Ron, Susan, Neville, Padma and Malfoy are missing from our midst, leaving only Vorin as the only male in the haphazard company. And he is currently buried alive under the bodies and limbs of his companions, including myself.

"We ought to search them," Hermione shrieks, panicking. I, having just managed to disentangle myself from her, cover my ears temporarily in pain and annoyance.

"You should've traced if your family's once magical and had an affair with a banshee," I splutter. But then my attention is drawn to Dila, who lies rigid on the ground outside our tangled circle, her wide eyes staring unseeingly at the clear sky overhead. "Dila!" My heart hammers wildly. What is happening?

But, as soon as I notice her, she rises into a sitting position and blinks. She returns to the Dila I know. However, still, she looks rather strained. Ana is beside her, supporting her, and now they look more alike than ever. I just wish it were not pain that they share…

Dila rises to her feet after a moment, deflecting our inquiries with a shrug and a waving hand. She skirts the rearranging group, stalking and peering around for signs of danger; her sword – the heirloom of her family – drawn and held tight in her right hand, while her left one ready to shoot magic.

"We are completely alone," Ana says wearily. "Don't you know that? Stop fretting, Dila. We need to get going." After an uncertain pause, she resumes, "I have a feeling that the boys will be all right."Then, before anyone could interject, "I don't know when we're going to be reunited with them, but I guess that's enough for now. We need to think about ourselves first."

"Hey! I'b a boy too!" Vorin protests weakly through his bleeding nose. He looks pale and shaken. I repair his nose and banish the blood, then gather him into my arms, smiling in hope of soothing him. He buries his face into my dirt-smudged chest and whimpers quietly, "I want Harry…"

The name echoes in my head and seizes my heart in a painful grip. Harry. Harry is missing. And my brother too; my only family left after the war. Now I am more alone than ever. And where is everyone else? I do not care about Malfoy, but Neville and Padma and Susan…

"We should get going," I murmur to the quietening group. But it is like I am hearing the words coming from another's lips. I feel numb all over.

"If Ana says so, then they'll be alright, Gin," Hermione murmurs while pealing Vorin off of me and helping me stand up. "We ought to try to find Ron and the others in the first place. But brooding wouldn't do the search any good." Her voice wobbles dangerously, but it never breaks. Tears gather in her eyes, but they never fall.

Our eyes meet, our gazes hard, yet then we relax; a message has been conveyed between us, of a relentless pursuit and enduring love. When we join in with the rest of the group, the other four girls take turns hugging us. Dila's sword has returned to its scabbard on her left hip, and now that she sees us in need, her usual demeanour returns. She is our leader again… and our mother figure, too.

Tracy now performs a spell, with her wand balanced on her flat upturned palm. "Point me. Ronald Weasley."

Her wand swivels around then settles, pointing to the southwest. At the same time, we can feel some shifting in the air around us. Well, then, this looks like the Arda we know, with its abundance of ambient magic, although now there are the sun and all here, unlike before. But poor Tracy was not in our group when we were pulled here for the first time, and now she nearly freaks out. Hermione soothes her while I take the task from her.

"Point me. Harlend Kensington."

My wand shows a direction north of us.

"Point me. Susan Bones."

Northeast.

I continue for some time, with Dila watching the names and directions pensively.

"We should measure the distance between them, and decide where to go first," she proposes after I speak the last name – Draco Malfoy – with great hesitance. (The wand points to the east.)

"How do we know where to go?" Tracy asks uncertainly. "Can we make maps?"

"Sirius could," Dila murmurs, sadness in her voice. "Well, the knowledge stays with Harry, so we can't possibly know."

"But Sirius' scribbles are with us," Hermione points out with a bit of excitement. "So let's get to the side and discuss it, shall we?" Meaningfully, she taps Ana's shoulder, then the pack on her back. We all have each two tents on our packs, magical and mandane, except for the couples which each share a tent with each other; but Ana's magical tent is the most comfortable among ours, although less spacious than others'. And now the notion tickles our minds, tantelising us with hopes of resting and recovering.

We have not slept properly since more than two months ago, and no one could lie still for more than two hours during our preparation to leave our known world. The unexpected mode of transportation (which Hermione found two weeks ago) and the surprising trip, short though it has been, tires us to the bones. And there is also the shock and worry that half of our members are not with us… We refuse to think that they are somehow in danger. That would make our ignorance of their fates so much unbearable – in a totally negative way.

Thankfully, Ana agrees. We move away from the spot we landed on and look around for a place good for camping. The woods are light, and there are many clearings. Finally, though, we find one that suits us – more sheltered than others – and Ana fishes out her magical tent from her pack.

There is only one big room in the magical tent, but it is partitioned by draperies and folding doors to form the kitchen, bathroom, sitting-room, bedroom, and vestibule doubling as mudroom. There are only few furniture around, but all of them are useful; and the bed and chairs and rugs are all cozy. The tent is dominated by browns and greens and greys, natural and soothing. It is not like Dila's open and colourful and cluttered tent, mine and Harry's 'fiery one, Ron's and Hermione's which is full of books and board-games and carving tools, Daphne's which is all blue and cool and proper, Padma's which is full of decoration, or Susan's and Neville's which is like a forest with its real trees and animals.

all of us are seated in the sitting-room; lounging in the sets of sofa, swaying gently in the lone rocking chair available, or lying on our bellies on the plush cream-coloured rugs and tan cushions. Dila makes us each a mug of hot chocolate, and we sip from the steaming mugs while riffling through the notes Sirius gave his godson, which then were passed to Hermione by Harry for safekeeping and to sate her curiosity.

Each person is assigned a stack of parchments to look up in our haste to finish the task quicker. But few stay awake long enough to finish their assignments, unfortunately… I am included in the 'survivors', but not for long. One by one we tumble into slumber right on the spot, forsaking our research and forgetting it when we are awake.

Exclamations of desperation and rants of self-rage – coupled with a few well-chosen infamous oaths from myself, which I learnt from Ron and my twin brothers – welcome Hermione's declaration from her rocking chair that we were asleep for nearly a day full. The only ones who say nothing are the twin sisters. Dila is curled on the edge of the rug around a cushion, her eyes wide in terror she alone experiences, just like when we first arrived here. Ana curls up in a fetal position beside her, her eyes screwed shut and her expression pinched. Their hands are linking in a death grip, as if one is falling over a cliff and the other is trying to anchor her to safe ground. Once again, my heart beats rapidly in my chest. What has been happening between the two of them? They are even odder than they were in our own world! And this torment they share looks so terrifying…

And just as before, the horror is only a short spell. Dila recovers quickly, and so does Ana. I look around, and find that the others are looking at the twins as well. But only one dares to raise the question I know is in all our minds: Hermione. "What's wrong? You were like that too when we'd just arrived." And I thought I was alone in my observation of that particular anomaly…

"I…" Dila begins quietly, her voice shaking. The room instantly plunges into dead silence.

"I…" she struggles to continue. "I dreamt of nothing, if that is what you really wanted to know; but I was gripped by a strange darkness. It's blacker than night, as black as ink or perhaps blacker, and it's stifling me. The smell was foul… It was so cold… It's fear incarnated. I felt desperate… Just like when dementors come near…" She looks to be in a sort of trance. Both her words and the way she proclaims them unnerve us, yet no one says anything to placate her or to fire another inquiry.

Most of us know who she dreamt of… or rather, who 'visited' her when her guard was down. Melkor. We are really in Arda, then, for his influence could never reach any of us when we were in our own world. We had ever been tempted, threatened, and lied by him, secretly, one by one and mind to mind, but I never saw that he would pay most attention to someone particular among us and hurl his might on her. It never happened before, even when we were here – or perhaps another part of this world – the first time.

"You need chocolate," Hermione says at length, her voice unsteady. She murmurs a string of spells and points her wand towards the mugs of cold chocolate beside each of us. They warm up and let out tendrils of steam again. But Dila gets a treat: a bar of chocolate Hermione Achio-es from her pack.

While she is nibbling on the chocolate and the rest of us are sipping from our mugs of reheated cocoa, Hermione tries to summon the right parchment from the stacks scattered throughout the room. But she gets no result. The looks of desperation double on our faces.

"I have a solution," Dila says after getting their attention with a series of whistled notes. She looks better; perhaps her nightmarish vision has been balmed a bit by the chocolate. "But for it we must be properly rested and fed." She raises a hand and waves it when the rest of us are about to throw heated comments her way. "Didn't you see for yourself what's just happened with us?"

The soon-to-be racket dies down. We cannot deny it. Most of us still have the looks of recently-awakened people anyway.

"What do you propose, then?" Tracy asks. Even after a month of living side by side during our preparation to come here, she is still reserved and hesitant – more reserved than even Daphne her best friend.

"I'm going to try to make the map with raw magic," Dila mutters, her gaze cast onto the empty chocolate wrappers in her left hand.

The soothed volcano erupts.

"Stupid!!"

"Do you wish to KILL yourself, Ardila?!"

"Who's to lead us if you die?"

"It needs a lot of magic and concentration!"

"Are you sure you can do that?"

"Raw magic? Wouldn't the parchment burn from such power? And you're a powerful mage, for haven's sake! You'd just turn that poor parchment into ashes in a second, if not all of us too!"

At length, Dila herself erupts.

"SILENCE!"

And silence she gets.

But she says nothing for some time. She looks spent, as if roaring atop the noises had taken all of her energy. But it cannot be… can it? She could roar even louder and her voice would still be clear, and she would not even cough from wielding her voice so. I have ever seen her like that. But I never saw her this tired, not since we escaped from Utumno in our first sojourn in Arda. (Then, all of us in the escapade were terribly exhausted and afraid, not only she.)

When she next speaks, it is in a quiet tone, the extreme opposite of her earlier outburst. But I would rather she screamed. Her tone is odd, weary but mocking and cold, quite unlike herself.

"It is either this, or no map at all. And in this way we might be able to pinpoint their exact locations as well."

No one raises any complaint after that.