Chapter 4

Float

Adam sat at the front of the small boat, his legs still dangling over the side, looking down at the jungle-covered landscape. His heart was still hammering in his chest due to the adrenalin from the shock of seeing a huge dragon flying beside them, staying with them for several minutes, one huge baleful eye watching them. A tilt of the tail and it dropped below them picking up speed before turning and disappearing off into the distance.

He couldn't stop himself from surveying the skyline for any other flying beasts. He had looked back and found Tony braced, wand in hand looking as terrified as he felt.

Tony finally relaxed came forward and sat beside him, He pointed off into the distance, at the sky and not the land. Adam was worried that another creature was heading their way.

"What do you see?" He asked, looking into the haze, where he could see an indistinct shape, looking more like a dark cloud.

"I could be Float."

"It's a cloud isn't it?"

"We'll soon find out, we're heading straight towards it."

Over the next twenty minutes, Adam had become increasingly amazed as Float became clear. It was a village, a collection of strange looking buildings, outhouses and trees, some several stories tall, each one linked to several neighbours via narrow suspended walkways. This was OK for Adam, what amazed him was that, like all the boats he saw, which did float on the air, the whole village did the same thing, suspended several hundred feet above the jungle canopy.

As he watched, he could see ships and boats of various design and sizes, arriving and leaving. Some were dropping small parcels, people and the like; the larger ones were loading or unloading large boxes, crates and barrels. Most of the walkways and paths around the buildings seemed filled with many people, dressed in various garbs, not one of which would look right in any part of London. He could see Victorian gents and lady's with small parasols ambling around the upper decks, men and women dressed like Talib, in both of his outfits, sat around in small groups, enjoying the sun.

A lone man, looking more like a pirate than a wizard, waved at them. Tony placed a hand on the tiller; the boat surged forward and turned until they were sideways on. Adam threw a rope out which was caught and secured, a moment later as the boat stopped.

"Good Morning Adam, Tony." They both looked up at the next balcony and found Talib grinning down at them. Dressed in his usual red cloth sheet beside him was a similarly dressed woman although much younger. She was several shades lighter skinned and very pretty and just as tall and grinning at them. "Welcome to Float." He pointed to one side towards a set of wooden steps, which like everything, looked worn and old, ready to collapse in a strong wind. Tony jumped across the narrow gap, landing on the decking with a thump. Adam followed gingerly stepping over the gap, unable to control his apprehension, seeing the land a long way below his feet.

They followed the stairway and joined Talib and his friend, finding them sitting outside a small tavern, a sign over the door stating it was the 'Hekse Ketel', which meant nothing to either of them. A couple of wooden tables and bench seats, allowing them to look out at the way they had travelled.

Adam sat on the bench, his legs still a little shaky as he could feel the movement under his feet and everything around him flexed.

"This is Messi, she will be your guide for the time you spend here in Float". She grinned at Adam as she shook his hand. Then she looked hard at Tony, giving Adam time to see she was as tall as he was, very thin, but fit and healthy.

"You look strange with short hair Tony." She said with an almost perfect English accent.

"Go on, get it over with." He said with resignation.

"Are you still an idiot?" She asked a huge grin on her face.

"Yes." He replied.

"Shame, I was told you'd grown up a little." She reached over and gave him a hug that made him look a little uncomfortable.

"You didn't use to look like this when we were at school?" Stepping back unnerved by her closeness.

"I grew up." She replied. "In all ways." Her eyes sparkled.

He looked at Adam, who was standing looking at them, his eyebrows raised. He'd become used to people knowing Tony, and not usually having a good word to say about him.

"This is my partner Adam Croft. Messi went to Hogwarts." He said explaining as he sat down. "In fact, she was in trouble almost as often as I was?" He looked at her as she laughed.

"I was, but not a bad as you. I mean the Edlyn Balsom thing was bad enough."

"Everyone knows about that." He said trying to shut her up.

"I don't," Adam said looking at them.

Tony shook his head. "Old story, best ignored."

"I'll tell you later," Messi said to Adam. Tony's shook his head again, realising that nothing he could say would stop her. "You left Hogwarts with saying goodbye. I was not happy about that." She punctuated the comment by poking in the chest with her long fingernails several times.

"I never got the chance." She stared at him. "OK, I ran."

"You shouldn't have done. Few people spoke to Balsom again."

"Really." He looked confused again.

"Her popularity plummeted to a low level, which made the rest of us girls feel an awful lot better."

"Edlyn is here in the Ministry." Adam continued.

"Really?" Her grin grew larger as Adam nodded. "I think some fun is required, are you in Tony?"

Tony went to answer, but Talib beat him "No, you will not cause trouble." He said at Messi, the tone of his voice removing her smile.

The door opened beside them and a man, again, looking more like a pirate, minus the eyepatch, carried four large drinks out on a tray, dropping them on the table with a thump. He looked around the table, patted Talib on the shoulder, shook his head, and went back inside.

"What did that mean?" Adam asked of Talib.

"I think he believes I am having a bad day."

"Are you?"

Talib looked at Messi and then at Tony for a moment before looking back at Adam. "Yes."

Tony grunted his head sank down until his brow hit the table top while Messi grinned at him.

"You're quiet Adam?" Talib asked noticing his reticence.

"I'm having problems taking all of this in." He gestured around himself. "I've only ever found floating towns in books I've read." He smiled back, receiving a smile in return, but no comment. "I have to be honest; I haven't taken all this magic stuff in yet, I have so many alien memories running around my head."

"Why would you have alien memories in your head?" Messi asked, uncrossing her long bare legs, managing to kick Tony in the shin.

"Not so much alien, as forgotten. Since I got my memories back, I seem to be playing catch up with myself. Considering I was a police detective two days ago and now I'm a Minister in a world I didn't know existing less than a month ago."

Talib and Messi looked at each other, alarm in their faces.

"You're a Minister?" Talib asked, surprise in his voice.

"Yes, didn't you know?" Tony laughed. "Seems the Ministry hasn't bothered to tell everyone about your promotion."

"We were not told you were a Minister, just a shadow," Messi said as Talib stood.

"I will have to inform the Ministry about this, sorry" He stood up, dropped his drink on the table and entered the small bar.

"What's London like these days?" Asked Messi changing the subject.

"The Alley hasn't changed."

"I don't think it ever does.

"The Cauldron's the same?"

"I don't think it's changed since it was built. I really miss it. I haven't been there since just before my last year at Hogwarts."

"What made you come here to work after school?"

"My grandparents, all four of them are witches and wizard of great renown here in the AMC. However, my parents are both squibs." She grinned at them. "They run a food stall in London called the Witch is in."

"I know the place," Adam said sitting up. "It a great favourite with the police in general. Most officers stop off from time to time. The food is great."

"Never heard of it," Tony said.

"You wouldn't, they only cater for shadows," Messi replied.

"Why?" Adam asked.

"They didn't want any reminders of the world they left behind, although that didn't work out the way they intended."

"Why's that?" He asked again as Talib came back from the inn and retook his seat.

"My parents met at a party one of my grandparents were holding here in the Extensions." She looked at Talib for a moment. "They had similar interests and got on, so, they got married, opened the restaurant that was little more than a market stall at first, leaving the wizarding world for good.

"You are missing an important point Messi." Said Talib sitting down. "The both of them left the Extensions the night they met at the party. The term I think, is, eloped."

"And they lived very happily." she continued. "Until I came along. I was about to turn eleven and my Hogwarts letter turned up. Not to my parents, but to my grandparents." She looked at Talib again.

"I'm going to make a guess," Adam said. "You're Messi's grandfather?" Talib grinned back.

"If I knew then, what I know now." He shook his head as he looked at Messi, she grinned back. Adam smiled back, something about her smile made him want to join in.

"You wouldn't have me any other way?"

"If I could get you to be quiet occasionally, yes."

"I remember what happened to you in potions class." Tony piped in.

"That bitch."

"Messi, language."

"She put a spell on me during class." She said indignantly. "And I am twenty-six years old and a trained Voog." She snapped at Talib.

"Three days it lasted," Tony added. "It nearly killed you. In fact, you had the Ravenclaw Quidditch team captain by the throat at one stage."

"He was pretending not to understand what I was trying to say."

"You actually lifted the guy off his feet by his throat."

"I was angry. He knew what he was doing." She stopped and thought for a moment before pointing a long finger at Tony's face. "You caused me to end up in detention because of that." A big grin appeared on Tony's face.

"That's how we ended up in detention together." He replied.

"What was the spell?" Adam asked.

"Dumbstruck. I couldn't talk for three days."

"It sounds to me it was a good lesson, not learnt," Talib said under his breath.

"What's a Voog?" Adam asked during the lull in the conversation.

"Voog is an Afrikaans word for Guardian." She replied. "It's the AMC word for an Auror of sorts." She smiled at Tony as she spoke.

"You're an Auror?" He asked surprise in his voice.

"Yes. If you'd stayed at Hogwarts, you would have known this."

"Where did you train?"

"Here in the AMC."

"Why here?" He asked still surprised.

"We have to train here; we have a different set of problems, to what you have to deal with. We also have to be medics and potions masters and we also provide a rescue service to all the Extensions."

"Why a rescue service?" He asked, now confused.

"The Extensions are huge, continent-sized, and maybe even bigger. They are also populated with all manner of magical beasts. People get lost, people get hurt." She shrugged. "Not the cuddly beasts either, there are some pretty dangerous mushrooms on the loose." She was looking intently at Tony as she spoke. As she uttered the word mushrooms, a big grin appeared on his face, followed by a creeping redness, showing how embarrassed he was.

"Mushroom, Mushroom, there's a mushroom on the loose." She shouted, before laughing again, Tony's head dropped lower still; the redness crept around to his ears. "Half the great hall burst out laughing, the rest ignored you."

"Mushrooms?" Adam asked looking at the top of Tony's head.

"We were all sitting in the great hall, that's in Hogwarts, I assume you know this?" Adam shook his head. "Anyway, the evening meal was about finished; when I saw him, wander off." Her long leg uncrossed, again managing by design to kick him again, "out of the hall, following some professors. I was used to Tony by then if he was trying to look nonchalant; then he was up to no good. Five minutes later, he came barrelling back into the hall screaming, 'Mushroom, Mushroom, there's a mushroom on the loose'. He was as white a sheet; which is saying something, for someone who is usually white at the best of times." She gestured and smiled at Tony, whose ears had gone completely red, his head looking down. Although could see he a smile on his face. "He ran up to the headmaster's dining table and started talking to them. Then all hell broke loose, the headmaster yelled at the prefects to get everyone to their dorms, and stay there until further notice. The last thing I saw was Tony being marched off.

They both stared at Tony, waiting for him to finish the story.

"I had seen a large box being delivered, five foot tall and as wide and deep and I wanted to know what was in it. I heard two professors saying they would open it after dinner. One was Longbottom. So, when I saw them get up, I knew they were about to open the box and being a nosy bastard, I followed them out and found the three professors looking at this box. I saw Longbottom walk up and kick it a few times. The box exploded, pieces of wood went in all directions, with a lot of force. In the middle of what was left, was a huge mushroom, about four feet tall, the cap was around three feet across. It had loads of tentacles hanging down, all waving around as if it was angry. I'd never seen a mushroom that big or with tentacles before let alone an angry red colour." He shook his head and smiled. "I watched the professors turn and run. Mrs Hoggle ran to one side first and something flicked out and hit her bare leg, remember she always wore a long skirt, with her little bare legs sticking out the bottom." Messi giggled and nodded. "She ran about three paces and went down in a heap. Looked as if someone had just switched her off. Longbottom turned and ran straight towards me, knocked me off my feet on the way past; I saw his face go blank just before he went down in a heap. I thought he was dead, that's when I got up and ran for my life, or so I thought, straight into the hall screaming, mushroom." The two of them laughed again.

"Well don't stop now, what happened?" Adam demanded.

"We went outside, or at least the teachers did, I was dragged and not happy about it. Outside we saw Longbottom and Hoggle, completely out, the third professor, I can't remember his name, he wasn't there for long, can't think why. He has his wand out and he was using some spells on it, which was obviously working because the mushroom was slowly heading away from the school entrance. Did I mention that the mushroom had legs or at least huge mobile tentacles it was pulling itself along on." Adam shook his head. "So, the other teachers sorted Longbottom and Hoggle out, ignoring the slowly moving mushroom. It made an incredibly slow break for freedom and made it."

"What happened to it?"

"It spent several months living in the forbidden forest, eating the spiders."

"How could something that big live on spiders?" Adam asked, thinking they were taking the piss a little. Messi and Tony looked at each other and laughed.

"The spiders in the Forbidden Forrest are big enough and fast enough to take a man down and eat him."

"There are no spiders that big," Adam said.

"They don't live there naturally; some groundskeeper brought one to the school about sixty of seventy years ago." Replied Tony shrugging.

"Their natural habitat is right here," Messi added.

The smile dropped off Tony's face. "You're kidding?"

"No. There a couple of places in Jungle and in Wood that no one would dare enter because of the spiders or the mushrooms."

Adam was shaking his head, not sure whether to believe them. He brought his drink up to his mouth, looking around suspiciously before he drank.

"What you looking for?" Tony asked.

"Waiting for the Unicorn to fly past."

"They live in Wood and they don't fly, you're thinking of a Pegasus or a hippogryph, we have both," Messi added. Adam lowered the cup and stared at her. "What's wrong?" She asked seeing the look he was giving her.

"He doesn't believe you," Tony added.

"What the hell is Wood?" Adam added after a while.

"Wood is one of the other Extensions." She smiled back.

"Luthor mentioned Wood. Is that really the best name you could come up with?"

"All the extensions had great names at one time. Wood used to be called something like 'The land of woodland trees and fields that stretched until the mountains.' Jungle was called 'The land of slow giants that venture far and wide'. The names got shortened over time, now they just have one word."

"Just how big are these extensions?"

Messi looked at her feet for a while, and then she looked at Talib, who looked away, deciding not to help her. "It's difficult, because, I don't know, but they are odd, even for us." She looked puzzled, which was how Adam and Tony felt. "If you enter Wood and keep walking until you reach the mountains, this can take two months maybe more on foot. Travel over the mountains, a week or two at least, down the other side to come to a small town on the edge of Ocean. A long boat ride, many weeks across Ocean will bring you to another village harbour, which has an entrance to the Atrium." She looked at them while smiling as if this was the simplest thing in the world to understand. "The same applies here in Jungle, if you keep walking away from the Atrium, over the mountains, I think you end up in Savanna, keep going and you end up back at the Atrium again. Maybe."

"That makes little sense at all, how long would it take to do?"

"Six months may be more."

"Six months." He asked amazement in his voice. Messi smiled back. "Do you travel to them all?"

"No. I dislike being here. Jungle gives me the willies." She said grinning. "Savanna is all heat, dust and beasties, almost as many beasties as Jungle. Wood is my favourite; it reminds me of England, rolling fields, massive forests, fewer Beasties."

"What's Ocean like?" Tony asked.

"Wet, full of very big beasties."

"What about the other Extensions?"

"Float isn't an actual extension as such, it's inside Jungle." Said Talib joining in. "We have a prison, just like Azkaban, that's a separate extension and then there is Ice, originally called 'Land of ice and snow that can freeze the heart'. I have no intention of going there. Neither I nor Messi has been to the others, so we can't help."

"Luthor mentioned Mountains, is that another extension?"

"This is where it gets even more confusing." She replied. "The mountain extension is the mountains you can see in all the other extensions."

"So it's just one huge extension?" Adam asked, coming to terms with it all, he thought.

She looked at him with a pained expression on her face. "No." Tony's head dropped.

"I think I'll leave it at extensions are bloody huge," Adam said to Tony, who nodded back.

"Why are the Extensions all different?" Asked Adam unable to let it go.

Talib spoke first. "The Extensions, it is thought, were designed as," he stopped and thought, "a Zoo. What better way is there for keeping the more magical animals and creatures out of harm's way than put them in an Extension. Different creatures need different environments. Jungle, hot and humid, Wood, dryer and cooler."

"You mentioned an Ocean?"

"Yes, Ocean is particularly big. I believe there are many islands scattered all over it, some inhabited, some not."

"Next question," He asked making them look at him. "Which idiot would parcel up a man-eating 'mushroom' and send it to a school?" He looked at each of them in turn.

"I don't know," Tony said, "but when I saw that box, it has a sign which said 'Something for your students to study. Be careful, it's dangerous. NS.'"

Adam nodded his head. "One more thing," He said not really wanting answer "Unicorn?"

"They live in wood, a long way away," Messi said. "Never seen one, but I know where they're there."

"If you never saw one, how do you know they are there?"

Talib spoke. "Some of the luckier ones amongst us have seen them. They are real and they only live in the extensions now, like a lot of magical creatures."

Talib and Messi had moved away talking to some people they knew, leaving them both to look at Float.

"When did Pinne say your new wand will be ready?" Adam asked eyeing Ninian Fehrn's old wand.

"He won't make or sell me a new one."

"Why not?" He looked at Tony in surprise.

"He sent my old wand back to its maker, his brother. Apparently, the wand he sold me was a very weak wand."

"You seemed to do all right with it."

"I'm a little confused by what Pinne told me. I affect wands in an odd way." He said trying to copy Pinnes accept and failing. "Any wand, for some unknown reason, will do my bidding. It will do everything I ask and then some. In fact, if I ask for too much, the wand will destroy itself to give me what I need."

"That's why your wand seemed to have exploded after your battle."

"Yes. So, Pinne says he doesn't have a wand weak enough to match my personality."

"That doesn't make sense."

"If I get a powerful wand, it will make my wand magic even more powerful and as, Pinnes words, 'his wands are all very powerful', it would be wrong of him to make me a new one and I should endeavour to do without a wand."

"That sound like Ministry talk rather than Pinne talk."

"I thought that."

"So you're hanging on to that wand?" He gestured at the wand in his hand.

"Remember that I said this was a powerful wand?" Adam nodded. "Well it isn't, this is a very mediocre wand, but it feels a hell of a lot more powerful than my old one. At least now I know why."

"You were being lied to."

"Yes, but for a good reason."

"You remember that I still have those wands we collected and something hidden in my loft."

"What are you going to do with them, hand them over on your first day in the Ministry?"

"Gwen suggested mounting them in a little display cabinet and hanging them above that bloody book."

"Good idea. If I get stuck without a wand, I'll know where to come."

"So, are you are going to keep that one?"

"For the time being. While I'm here, I'll see if I can get one that suits me better."

"Do they have wand makers here?"

"Yes, good ones so I'm told. They use different woods, so perhaps I can get one that suits me, or at least won't blow itself up if I get angry."

Messi has heard the conversation and came over. She slapped him on the shoulder, hard enough to make him wince.

"Come on Blondie boy, I know just the place."