Disclaimer: I do not own, nor will I ever own, Harry Potter and its subsequent characters
AN: I would just like to apologize for the wait on this chapter. I started writing it like a madwoman, got ill, stopped writing, and had to kick myself to start writing it again. My beta had a really fast turn around time for this go around. As I said, so sorry! Thanks to everyone who left reviews last chapter! Review this time as well!
Harry's first thought was that Luna was not at all like Cho. Or Tonks. Or really any of the other girls that he had kissed. She was not at all a subordinate kisser. She gave as good as he gave, but at the same time it was not at all aggressive like Tonks had been. He was finding the kiss rather enjoyable.
A loud clamor caused both of them to jump apart. Harry shrugged, grinning ruefully at the fact that the water they had taken forever to pull up had fallen back down into the well. He started pulling the bucket back up, waiting for Luna to pull it off the hook, before tying the rope down. Harry picked out a few more pieces of wood to add to the stack, walking back with her.
Luna hid her face from Harry, blushing and pleased. She could not believe that she had kissed Harry Potter! Most girls would kill to have what she had just experienced. All she felt though was a vague sense of pleasure and lots of confusion. Luna had known that Harry had felt a love towards her. She had just always assumed it was more of a brotherly love. He had not shown a romantic interest in anyone for the longest time. Yes, he had played around, but playing around was different from love. She supposed that if she talked to Hermione, Luna would find that she had missed all these little signs that would indicate Harry had an interest in her. In fact, Luna was pretty sure that she could pick out a few of them in hindsight. Harry had just shocked her with his actions.
Carefully setting the water on the ground, Luna joined Draco and Hermione. Draco had gotten back from catching some more meat to add to their dinner. He had helped Caelin skin the food and was cooking it while Hermione added the vegetables.
"I am a little confused. These pots are obviously meant to simmer food for long amounts of time. How is this going to make the food prepared for us to eat?" Draco asked, more than a little confused. He did not see how this was going to work.
"I thought you said these buffoons were magical. Clearly they are not good magicians if they do not even know a good cooking spell. Watch and learn, young buck." Caelin gruffly spoke, moving to the pot. "Warm gekocht," Caelin muttered at the pot. The pot glowed blue. Heat rose from the pot for about a minute, before simmering down. Caelin pulled out some of the food, testing it. Apparantly he was satisfied with the taste because he started dishing out the food to everyone. "Let's go outside and you can show me your skill by starting the fire."
Harry's eyes glinted, "It would be my pleasure." He picked up his food, setting it down next to where Luna sat. He set the wood up in the best way possible for the fire. Without the use of any words or motions, Harry set the wood on fire, walking back to Luna. He heard Caelin's gasp of astonishment,
"You must be powerful, young man. That is some fine talent. We haven't seen talent like that, in centuries." Caelin spoke softly. Harry smiled at Caelin, flashing his most winning smile at the old man.
"Don't worry, I am something of a rarity myself, back home."
"Where is home for you folk? You do not dress like anything we have ever seen before. In fact, I do not think I know of any place that would have dress like that." Caelin looked at Harry and Luna, wanting someone to answer.
Luna looked at Caelin, "We are from very far away. We were experimenting with one of Godric's magical fantasies, when it decided that blowing up on us was a rather good idea. We feel as though it could have not blown up on us, yet we are still here." Caelin laughed at Luna's expression of obvious disgust at something magical not going her way.
Laughter and amusing antics filled the rest of the evening as all of them told stories about where they were from to Caelin. They kept everything vague, yet they still entertained the old man immensely. Harry found himself very pleased about that.
Months passed by in a blur. The routine of working on the farm was easily fallen into. Hermione and Draco tended to the fields while Harry and Luna worked inside the house. Hermione had refused to do housework because she was not going to do what was considered woman's work just to please a man. Harry was perfectly fine with doing inside housework. Harry sighed, relaxing against Luna since they were finished with the inside work. Luna got up,
"I am going to go wander. Be back." Luna left the house, wandering outside. Harry blinked from where he had been dumped on the floor. He was rather used to this happening. He stayed lying on the floor. He jumped as he got hit in the face with a pillow,
"This is all your fault Godric Gryffindor! You and your insatiable curiousity is what ended us in the wretched place! I've probably lost all hope of ever getting my doctorate because of your horrible experiment." Harry stood up and got away from Hermione. It was clear to Harry that Hermione was very upset, quite possibly cracking from the pressure of assuming another identity and not knowing whether they would ever end up at home.
"Hermione, just…let's think rationally." Harry said, trying to calm Hermione down. He dodged the pillow, running into Draco. He sighed in relief when Hermione turned her attentions on Draco,
"And you! You weren't with the potion! You left me! I must have missed a step! And now we are stuck in the horrible place! And you are constantly flirting with me, but then you go flirt with that dirty woman down at the pub in town!" Hermione screeched at Draco. Draco's eyes were wide as Hermione started pummeling him with the pillow. He held up his arms to try and protect himself. He was pretty sure that Hermione had managed to find another pillow because it felt like Hermione was hitting him too rapidly for it to be just one pillow. He opened his mouth to say something, but Hermione beat him to speaking, "You constantly rag on me in the field! I am just as good as you, chauvinist pig! I handled the potion all by myself when you were upstairs doing who knows what! Hell, if I had to guess, you were flirting with anything that walked on two legs!"
"Where did you get another pillow!?" Draco shouted, not at all concerned with what she had shouted at him. Draco, contrary to what Hermione believed, had been paying attention to her over the past few days. He had noticed that she was becoming withdrawn as well as more irritable. If he had to take a guess, he would say that it was that time of month for her. However, from the previous times of the month, Draco hadn't noticed any change in personality.
"She is using a spell! There are multiple pillows in the air hitting us! Thank god Luna is out!" Harry told Draco.
"Think again moron." Draco spat at Harry, noticing Luna. He was slightly curious to see how Hermione would yell at Luna considering Luna had not really had any part in what happened. She had ended up being pulled in like Hermione had been.
"And you!" Hermione shouted, "You just let yourself get pulled in! You talk insane babble without making any sense!"
"Who let the circus come to town?" Luna asked, tilting her head at Hermione. She gazed at her, baffled as to why Hermione was so upset at her when she had done nothing. She countered Hermione's pillow attack spell, looking at her oddly. Hermione continued screeching at Luna.
Harry went over to Hermione, "Rowena! I have a plan! I have a way for us to get back home! It won't be immediately, but I have an idea! Just, sit down. Let's talk." Harry had found it very easy to switch to using the assumed names. He tried to get Hermione to sit down. Luna looked at Harry oddly, not knowing that Harry had come up with a plan to get them back. Harry, Draco, and Luna knew that Hermione had written down what she remembered of the potion, but they hadn't seen the paper yet. Hermione refused to show them because she was working on developing something better.
"There is no way Godric! The potion is clearly missing something and I am not sure how we even found it! There is no way they could have come up with something this complex! That means I must have left something behind when I died and that time is going to degenerate into a puddle of nothingness!"
Harry grabbed Hermione's face, forcing her to look at him, "I have a plan Rowena. Let's build Hogwarts. The school clearly has to be built. There is no one here doing it. We are these people. Let us focus on building this school! It will help us have better resources. Better resources will aid your research! Please, Rowena, trust me on this!"
Hermione glared at Harry, not believing him. There were times that she had thought of resources via Hogwarts, but that would keep her here longer. She did not want to be in the past. Hermione wanted to be back home with everything she liked and normally had with her.
"It won't work! There is no way it can work! Somewhere out there the real people exist, Godric! For all we know this backwater town just happened to escape their notice until the imposters start building a school!" Hermione pushed Harry, her anger really starting to rise. There was some obvious stress build-up.
Harry grabbed Hermione's hand, holding them tight. He forced her to look at him as he spoke, "We have looked Rowena. I have gone on whole day trips flying to other towns to see what I could scrounge up. We are the Founders. They do not exist. Everything about how this is playing out corroborates with how little we knew about the Founders! You said it yourself; wizards this powerful would be noticed elsewhere. They would be noticed everywhere! There would be history on them! There is nothing like that in our time! Our presence in this time proves why. We need to build Hogwarts. She'll help us find the way back home. She'll provide the beacon," Harry was doing his hardest to convince Hermione.
Luna was blinking at Harry's switch into nonsense talk. She found it very funny as Hermione started agreeing with Harry, sitting down, slowly calming. Luna wondered if Harry had put thought into how they would actually build the school. They had no money. Obviously, they could use their various skills to actually build the school, but they could not buy the supplies necessary to use in the building process. On top of that, it was necessary to have the school be like it was in their time.
"Gryffindor!" Draco had rather enjoyed being able to call Harry Gryffindor because now there was a dual meaning to him shouting 'Bloody Gryffindor' at Harry. Draco found it doubly amusing. "We do not have supplies. We have no money to buy supplies with. How do you plan on building a school without these resources?"
"Magic." Harry left the room. He was done with his work, so he was heading to the Hogwarts meadow, planning on starting work today, with or without help. Luna recognized that.
"My kitty has no sense of how to build things. If we want a castle, not a bowl, we should stop him from leaving," Luna headed out after Harry, planning on preventing him from working on Hogwarts and totally ruining it. Draco looked at Hermione and then back after Harry. His entire mind could only see the Harry that practiced Dark Magic during the war to learn all possible ways to best Voldemort. The ways Harry had managed to butcher the spells were astounding.
"I'm sorry, Granger, I am going to have to follow them," Draco hurried off after Luna and Harry. He could only think about how he had to prevent them from screwing things up too badly. Draco started running through all the Dark Spells Harry knew and how to prevent them from doing anything dangerous.
Draco arrived at the meadow to see a foundation laid. He looked at Luna and Harry, confused as to what was going on. Luna was gaping at the foundation,
"Harry! The foundation is wrong! Hogwarts does not look like this! You leave no space for dungeons. We can't start building right now. We need to draw plans." Luna was very curt with Harry, very baffled that he would even contemplate the possibility of changing history.
"Aw! But my little monkey, I want to build it this way!"
"We need plans, Harry! We can't willy-nilly decide that Hogwarts is going to look like probably some crazily shaped circular building! Obviously Hogwarts does not look like some crazily shaped ciruclar building, so we cannot make it look that way! It would be wrong! We cannot meddle with time! Meddling with time means that we get stranded for forever because our time stops existing. It will unravel! Time can't unravel. If it unraveled this early in the time, we would cease to exist! Time could implode!"
"I think Luna's brains going to implode trying to wrap her mind around this problem!" Draco exclaimed, watching Harry walk around. If Draco took a guess, he would say that Harry was not listening to a word that Luna spoke. In fact, from the way Harry was bouncing from place to place, Draco knew that he wasn't listening to Luna. He turned, watching as Granger headed towards them. He saw the dismay cross her face as she took in the foundation that Harry had laid.
"HARRY JAMES POTTER! How dare you lay a foundation without creating a plan? You cannot just start building! You fool!" Hermione stormed over to Harry, poking his chest to emphasize her point. Harry grinned at Hermione,
"Well, I suppose this wouldn't count would it?" Harry grinned down at Hermione, sparing a quick glance at Luna. He held up a tattered piece of parchment, something that had obviously seen better days. Draco wondered what it could be, but Hermione recognized the parchment for what it was, revealed only by the sharp intake of breath.
"Harry!" Hermione said sharply, "You never let on that you had that with you! Why? It would have proven useful any number of times! We could have already started on building this bloody castle and setting time straight! We could have already been on our way home."
"Ah, but we couldn't have 'Mione. You know that. We have to stay here and try to complete everything that we know the Founders did. If we leave before that, we risk ruining time."
Luna rolled her eyes, "I have been trying to tell you that, but you aren't listening."
Harry grinned at Luna, "I was listening. I just chose not to heed your advice." Luna stuck her tongue out at Harry, "Now, now, little kitten, you should behave yourself!" Harry patted Luna on the head, like he would an adorable little kitten. Luna clenched her teeth to keep from growling at his impertinence. "Now, I do realize that we have to put the dungeons into the castle, I was just hoping you wouldn't notice. Oh well." Harry waved his hand in dismissal of the topic. Hermione shook her head, placing it into her hands. She could hardly believe that she had been stuck back in time with no hope of getting home (at least in her mind). The realization that she had been stuck in the past with two very loony people, one of them exceptionally powerful, was truly beginning to sink into her mind.
"Potter, I do believe that you infected Luna with looniness, not the other way around. It is the only explanation for this…!" Draco motioned at the foundation. Hermione looked at it. She had missed Harry changing it around, since she had placed her head in her hands. She blinked watching the stones dance to an unknown song. Hermione blinked, watching them fly about.
"But, Dray! It is the only way to have fun while building a building that is completely dull until the enchantments are placed on it!" Harry grinned at Draco. Hermione wondered if Harry was going to live through the day. She knew that had distinctly heard Harry called Malfoy a nickname. Not only was Hermione sure that that was suicide, she was sure that Malfoy would not hesitate to follow through on his threat.
Hermione was very surprised when all Malfoy did was growl and watch the stones more. She decided to speak up, "Godric," Hermione placed a lot of emphasis on the Godric, "We need to stick with these names while we are stuck in this wretched place."
Harry looked at Hermione, his green eyes twinkling. Hermione would have never believed that Harry's eyes could twinkle more than the deceased Headmaster Dumbledore. With Dumbledore it had meant keep alert, so Hermione was sure that with Harry it would mean keep alert and armed if at all possible.
"I do believe that you are right, Wen." Hermione gritted her teeth at the nickname Harry had just given her. "Sorry, Sally. I'll remember to use your proper nickname." Hermione's eyes widened. She saw Draco clenching his wand, debating whether or not history would be altered too much if the Boy-Who-Refused-To-Die finally died. Hermione went over, touching his arm. She let out a sigh of relief as Draco relaxed. They both tuned back in to Harry and Luna's conversation.
"All right, God. That is an acceptable nickname." Luna nodded her head, a dreamy look in her eyes, "People will look at me oddly. I like it."
"Good, Hel. I'll make sure to use it whenever is necessary," Hermione gritted her teeth more as she looked at Harry, her eye periodically twitching. From the way Luna and Harry were acting, she could see them as a couple, which was an exceptionally frightening thought. Combining two of the most insane people would produce bad results, she was sure of it. She also didn't even want to think of the offspring they would manage to have! Hermione knew she was getting ahead of herself though. Afterall, Harry and Luna weren't dating, were they? She made a mental note to watch them closer in an attempt to figure out her best friend.
Harry had a thought. He looked at Draco, "Sally? You know how to conjure food right?"
"Yes." Draco answered without thinking. When his brain caught up with his mouth, he realized his error. Of course, by that point in time Harry had encased him and Hermione in stones. "huh…" Draco said, sitting on the ground. He watched Hermione throw spells at it, each one degenerating in power and how accurate it was to the original spell.
Harry grinned at Luna, "I think we should head back for dinner, Hel. What do you think?"
"I think that it's a marvelous idea, dear God." Luna leaned up and kissed his cheek, looping her arm through his. They walked together like drunk monkeys, but happy drunk monkeys!