Fawfulfan's Disclaimer: the Harry Potter Characters are the property of J.K. Rowling
Chapter 4: The Feather of Fawkes
"So, uh, where exactly are we going?" asked Albus, as he and the others walked beside Rob.
"Hogsmeade." replied Rob. Then, bending low, he added in a whisper "But that isn't our, ah...final destination."
"Where would that be?" asked Lily.
"Not now. Can't risk being overheard. You wouldn't believe me if I told you, anyway." And on that enigmatic note, Rob broke into a brisk trot.
Albus was still dying to know more. What was the Feather of Fawkes? As impossible as it was, the name meant something to Albus. He had the strangest feeling that he had heard it somewhere before...but how could he have done? He had come from the distant past, after all.
More to keep himself from asking any more questions than for any other reason, Albus gazed around at the now brightly-illuminated Hogwarts grounds, looking for any other changes that had been made during the past two millennia. Gazing at the castle, he now noticed that it actually did seem to have changed a little. The rising sun reflected off of a few small towers that had not existed in his time, and there were some other minor additions here and there. The grounds, too were not quite as unaltered as they had seemed at first. The Whomping Willow was gone, and in its place was a small brick building with a single door fitted with what appeared to be an old-fashioned padlock. Albus knew that the building must have been constructed to cover the secret passageway that led to the Shrieking Shack.
Suddenly, something else caught Albus's eye...something that distracted him completely. Having focused so exclusively on the castle and grounds, Albus had not spared a single glance at the sky beyond the outer walls. Now that he had done so, what he saw made him stop in his tracks, transfixed, unable to tear his gaze from the structures that loomed in the distance.
Skyscrapers.
"What...what are those?" said Hugo, who, having noticed that Albus had come to a halt, was now looking in the same direction.
"Buildings, of course." said Rob. "It's the skyline of Hogsmeade. Oh, but I completely forgot. Back in your time, that city was just a small wizarding village."
"Hogsmeade is an urban center now?" gasped Rose in amazement.
"Yeah, it is. Once the wizards came out of hiding, there was no need for all-wizard settlements anymore. Muggles came, and built their own districts...Hogsmeade is now one of the most integrated cities in the world. In most places, wizards and Muggles still stick together in their own neighborhoods and districts, but not here."
Soon, the small party had left the Hogwarts grounds and were strolling along the path to Hogsmeade. Before long, however, that path had given way to a busy network of roads. Soon after that, they were in the city itself.
Until now, the full implications of wizards and Muggles coexisting had not really sunk in for Albus. Now, however, it hit him full force, as he found himself in a place the like of which he could never have imagined.
The streets were full of traffic. The sleek design of these cars was unlike any automobile that Albus had ever seen, but there was nothing distinctly magical about them. However, the early-morning traffic in Hogsmeade was not restricted to the ground. Hundreds of feet above their heads were the countless blurs of men and women flying on broomsticks, and numerous owls swooped between the buildings and across the squares, though not one of them was carrying an envelope or package.
Half of the people walking on the ground wore cloaks of various colors and shapes. The other half wore odd, spiky clothing that had to be the current Muggle fashions. Through the windows of the buildings, Albus could see magical and non-magical activity in equal measure. Albus even saw a woman who was operating a silvery computer with one hand and waving her wand at a pile of laundry with the other.
It was all so wonderful, Albus thought. A warm glow of happiness sparked in his chest at the thought of what the people of the future had achieved.
Then he remembered the Stingers, and his joyous feelings evaporated at once. How did they know he and his friends were here? More important, what did they want with them? He dreaded the answers, but at the same time, he longed to know them. Was this how his father had felt, when we was trying to unravel Voldemort's schemes?
"This way." muttered Rob, and Albus was steered into a dark, concealed alleyway. Soon, they were navigating a shadowy maze of narrow, empty streets. The noise of the city had died away completely.
They came to a halt in another narrow alley framed by two towering brick buildings on either side. A third brick wall stood at the end of the alley, forming a dead end. The place was completely empty, except for two dusty, battered old trash cans. Albus could not understand what was going on. What were they doing in this place?
Suddenly, as they approached the end of the alley, the lid flew off one of the trash cans as a dark figure leapt out. The figure drew out a wand and pointed it directly at Rob's face. The gamekeeper closed his eyes and shivered, as if hit with an icy draught. Neither he nor the shadowy figure moved for several seconds. Then, the figure lowered the wand, and Rob seemed to relax.
"Ugh...I never get used to that." said Rob with a bitter smile.
"Well, just remember...it doesn't take as long if you relax your mind." replied the figure amiably. Albus realized from the speaker's voice that the person was a woman
"What just happened?" asked Hugo, puzzled.
"I just verified your companion's identity," responded the figure, "using Legilimency."
"Legilimency." repeated Albus, having to suppress a shudder of his own. He couldn't help but be wary of people who could magically penetrate the minds of others and interpret their memories and emotions. His father had told him that Voldemort himself had been the greatest Legilimens of all time.
"Anyway...we should get going straight away, Aviva." said Rob.
"Absolutely." agreed the woman. She drew her wand again, and tapped the brick wall of the building on the right, muttering strange words under her breath. The moment she stopped speaking, the bricks seemed to melt away, leaving a hole large enough to step through.
"After you." said Rob, gesturing at the hole. Feeling nervous, Albus and his friends stepped through the hole into a shabby, dirty room containing nothing but a curious egg-shaped machine in the corner. This machine stretched from the ceiling to the floor and had a smooth, grimy surface. A large opening in the side revealed an inner chamber with a large screen that curved with the walls.
"I'll get it programmed." said Aviva, stepping into the machine.
"What is that thing?" asked Lily, turning to Rob.
"It's a Warp Pod." he explained. "It automates the process of Apparition, making it much safer and more powerful. It allows Muggles and under-seventeens to Apparate, and it also greatly increases the range of Apparition, allowing people to travel much farther distances than they could on their own. Aviva here is programming the Warp Pod to enable our preset template; when we step into the Pod, we'll go straight to our headquarters."
Albus resisted from asking what "their headquarters" meant; he knew he would find out soon enough.
"Okay," said Aviva, stepping out of the Warp Pod. "I've got it all set up."
"Good, good." said Rob. "All right...Lily, you go first, then Hugo, Rose, Albus, James, Aviva, and I'll deactivate the template and send myself on custom settings."
Looking frightened, Lily stepped forwards and entered the Warp Pod. Instantly, a voice inside the device said, "Lily Potter, Apparition to preset coordinates. Please turn around."
Lily turned on the spot, and vanished in a swish of robes.
"Okay, Hugo, you next." said Aviva.
Hugo walked forwards into the Pod. "Hugo Weasley, Apparition to preset coordinates. Please turn around." Hugo wheeled around and disappeared just as Lily had done.
"Rose Weasley, Apparition to preset coordinates. Please turn around." Rose Disapparated in the same manner as the first two.
"Albus, your turn now." said Rob. Feeling anxious, Albus stepped forwards into the device. It seemed larger now that he was standing inside of it.
"Albus Potter, Apparition to preset coordinates. Please turn around."
Taking a deep breath, Albus turned on the spot. Before he could get another look at James, Rob, and Aviva standing before him in the grimy little room, the world went black. He was being squeezed from all directions. It felt as though he was being sent through a garbage compactor. He couldn't breathe, or even move. But just as the sensation became almost unendurable, it lifted, and he was on his stomach, gasping for breath, eyes clamped shut.
He felt two pairs of hands pulling him to his feet. Lily and Hugo had taken each of his arms. He steadied himself, gave his head an experimental shake, and the world came back into focus.
They were standing in a vast, circular chamber with a domed ceiling. Several large windows wrapped around the room. Rose was standing at one of these windows, her face pressed against the glass, looking dumbstruck. Albus hastily scurried over to one of the other windows, and looked out over the strangest landscape he had ever seen.
The sky was completely black. Blacker than night. Blacker than any sky Albus could remember seeing in his life. What was more, Albus couldn't ever recall seeing a night sky with this many stars. It was mesmerizing to see so many specks of light laid against this pitch-black expanse.
But even stranger than the sky was what lay beneath it. A swirling, seething, faintly luminous mass of orange and yellow clouds. It was as if the air itself was on fire. This great expanse of clouds stretched as far as Albus could see, and met the black, star-strewn sky on the horizon.
SWOOSH!
In a whirl of his cloak, James had appeared in the center of the room, lost his balance, and fell over just as Albus had done. Climbing to his feet, he walked over to Albus and stared out the window, open-mouthed. "What the...?"
SWOOSH!
Aviva had materialized in the chamber. Unlike Albus and James, she did not stagger or fall to the ground. James immediately turned around and walked straight towards her. "Where are we?" he asked.
"Headquarters of the Feather of Fawkes."
"No, I meant where..."
"We are on a space station located above the outer cloud layers of Jupiter."
The five of them simply stared at her, too stunned to speak.
"It's ideal for headquarters. We knew that once the Stingers saw the Feather of Fawkes as a genuine threat, they would not rest until they had eradicated us. But even if they knew we were on Jupiter, they'd have a real job finding our exact coordinates; the planet is so big."
"Okay, let's back up for a moment." Albus said, turning from the window to face Aviva. "What is the Feather of Fawkes, exactly?"
"You are from the twenty-first century, are you not?" said Aviva.
"How did you know that?" said Hugo, looking amazed.
"Our information network is highly interconnected." said Aviva. "Rob wasn't the only one who found out the Stingers were hunting you. When he found out who you were, he sent us word. But that's beside the point. Did your parents, by any chance, tell you about the secret society known as the 'Order of the Phoenix'?"
"Yes." said Rose. "Albus Dumbledore founded it in the 1970s to combat Voldemort's rise to power."
"That's right." said Aviva. "Well, I'd say that the best way of describing the Feather of Fawkes would be to compare it to the Order of the Phoenix. There are many, many parallels between the two. Even our names have something in common, for Fawkes was the name of Dumbledore's pet phoenix."
"I KNEW the name sounded familiar!" exclaimed Albus. "My dad told me all about Fawkes! He saved my dad's life in the Chamber of Secrets during his second year at Hogwarts!"
"Phoenixes are enigmatic creatures in themselves," said Aviva, "but perhaps none are more curious than those rare specimens that have been domesticated. Tame phoenixes aren't so much pets as extensions of their masters' minds and spirits. In fact, when the owner of a domesticated phoenix dies, the bird is believed to accompany him into...well, wherever he goes."
"We're getting off the point again." said James impatiently.
"Oh, right...well, the Feather of Fawkes was founded by perhaps the greatest wizard of the age...Nabus Rucolfix. This organization serves as a countermovement to the Circle of the New Birth of Sorcery."
"The what?" said Albus.
"Around fifty years ago, a new movement sprung up rapidly. The basic premise behind it was that Muggles have held back wizardkind ever since we came out of hiding."
"Sounds like the whole pureblood mania deal of Salazar Slytherin's." said Rose.
"Yes, well, that debate has been meaningless for over two thousand years." said Aviva. "None of the old pureblood families exist anymore. They're all extinct in the male line. These days, all that matters is that you either have magic powers, or you don't. Mainstream society, however, emphasizes the equality of wizards and Muggles. It's crucial to remember that, without the creativity that enabled Muggles to live without magic, our society would never have become as advanced as it is.
"Some people, however, don't see it that way. According to this new movement, Muggles were the root cause of wizarding hardship, and that only by cleansing society of non-magical people could the wizards thrive. The purveyors of this belief called themselves the Circle of the New Birth of Sorcery, and they started making bids to gain power. The people in the group's inner circle ran for several government offices. However, though the group gained enormous momentum, enough Muggles...and wizards...were outraged at their ideology that they lost every election they ran in. So they turned to a different approach..." Aviva smiled bitterly. "They created an army of terrorists.
"The members of this army came to be known as Stingers. And they are now a force to be reckoned with. Even the governments are powerless to stop them. They strike without warning, mercilessly slaughtering Muggles and those who openly criticize them. They are also incredibly powerful; they have learned to channel their magical powers through their own bodies, rather than use wands."
Albus remembered how the two Stingers, Vega and Chardmus, had cast powerful dark magic merely by thrusting their palms out. He felt a shiver run down his spine.
"So, what does the Feather of Fawkes do to work against the Circle?" asked James.
"Whatever we can do." said Aviva. "Which isn't very much." she added with another bitter smile. "We have espionage agents who try to find out if they're planning an attack. We then notify the authorities, and, should attempts to thwart the attack prove unsuccessful, try to save as many people as we can. We also sometimes raid their spaceships, capture Stingers, that sort of thing."
"Their spaceships?" said Rose. "How much space travel is there, anyway?"
"Loads." said Aviva. "There are plenty of settlements on planets and planetary satellites. Only about half of all wizards and Muggles live on Earth. And, speaking of which, we'll be sending you somewhere else shortly."
"What?" said Hugo incredulously. "But we just got here!"
"Lately, we've received intelligence that the Stingers may be on the verge of discovering our headquarters." said Aviva. "We only brought you here to shake them off. If there's a chance that they'll discover us, you aren't safe. We can easily prepare for invasion, but we'll need to send you to one of our distant outposts."
"Where will you be taking us?" asked Lily.
"We haven't decided yet." said Aviva. We will be holding a meeting to discuss the matter in a few minutes. I think it would make sense if you attended it."