24 March 1999
Arthur Weasley had been fascinated with muggles his entire life, and even the recent war hadn't curbed his desire to learn more about them and their wondrous technology. As a result he had spent a great deal of time with Hermione's father Sebastian Granger. It was only a matter of time until their children got married, and as one of only two muggles on the Hedwig the poor man was quite lonely most of the time. So when George announced his plans for a "Last Supper" it was Sebastian who explained the biblical reference. It was just like his son to make a big joke about his upcoming mission.
Of course Molly hadn't been told about any of this, which was why she wasn't crying hysterically at the moment. His wife was a very passionate woman, and while that was a plus in the bedroom it also made living with her very stressful at times. The children quickly agreed with Arthur's decision to keep her in the dark. None of them wanted to deal with their mother's reaction to the news that she was about to lose another son. Thankfully Molly hadn't noticed the gloomy atmosphere as the "Last Supper" which was being served in Harry's private tent. She was too busy nagging poor Kreacher and the other house-elves.
They were all curious about George's plans for this evening, so when he tapped the side of his glass with a fork the table went silent. "Captain Potter, I wish to inform you that my brother Charlie and his beautiful wife Crina smuggled twenty dragon eggs aboard the Hedwig."
"I gave specific orders that no dragons were allowed on this starship," Harry growled. The sun crystals began to flicker as his magic pulsated throughout the large tent. "They are too dangerous, and there is no possible way we can feed twenty carnivores of that size after they hatch."
From Arthur's perspective this was an interesting match-up. Normally Charlie was very mellow wizard and would have back down in the face of Harry's anger. But now he was defending the two thing he loved most in the world: his pregnant wife and a horde of baby dragons. Arthur was quite proud when Charlie took a deep breath and turned to face the younger but much more powerful wizard.
"If the dragons from Gringotts hadn't attack those muggle aeroplanes over the Black Lake we never would have escaped. We owe them a debt of gratitude."
"You must have been planning this for months, so you couldn't have known about the Goblins and their tame dragons when you first disobeyed Harry's order," Ginny reasoned. "Now answer his question: how are we suppose to feed them given our very limited resources?"
All Ginny's brothers seemed shocked by their sister's rude behavior, but they should have known better. His little girl had become a cold-blooded killer, and anyone who clashed with the great Harry Potter was fair game in her eyes. That included members of her own family. It was a great tragedy from many perspectives, but there was nothing her father could do about it now.
"The dragon eggs won't hatch for at least eighteen months," Crina replied. Arthur thought his daughter-in-law's Romanian accent was delightful. "Once the dragons are out of their eggs they can be safely petrified by your pet basilisk. We had no intention of letting them roam free until we were ready to properly care for them."
"The situation was under control until someone had to go and open their big mouth," Charlie said as he glared across the table at his brother.
George just smiled back at him. Arthur saw what his game was now. The prankster was going to air everyone's dirty laundry, and there wasn't anything they could do to stop him. What was that saying Sebastian used the other day? "The truth shall set you free." This was George's parting gift to his family, and it also had the virtue of being pretty funny. At least for him. Arthur wondered which one of them was going to be his next victim.
"While smuggling dragons eggs aboard is a serious breach of discipline, I would have to say that slipping a love potion into the food of our dear Captain Potter is a greater offense. Don't you agree Fleur?"
The Veela immediately let loose with a stream of obscenities in French, Spanish, Italian, and Latin. It was a display that left even Molly speechless. Once Fleur calmed down a bit she explained that her sister Gabrielle had simply been playing a childish game and meant no harm.
"Did you hear that, little sister?" George asked quietly. "It was just a game, so there is no reason for the adorable little Veela to have a fatal accident. Is there?"
At any other time Ginny would have drawn her wand and gone on a rampage, but in the face of George's noble sacrifice all she could do was silently nod her head in submission. The lucky Gabrielle Delacour would never know how close she came to a violent death.
Arthur looked over at Ron. By now the boy so nervous that his face was the same color as his hair. The pressure was too much for him, so he finally blurted out: "Daphne Greengrass tried to kiss me the other day, but I swear I didn't kiss her back!"
"You kissed that hideous Slytherin slag!" Hermione shrieked.
The ensuing argument went on for a good ten minutes. It only ended when Ron dropped to his knees and proposed marriage right in front of the whole family. That did the trick, and Arthur was treated to the sight of Molly's beautiful smile. Those smiles had been rare since Voldemort returned from the dead and set off a chain-reaction of events which lead to them all here to the Hedwig. The conversation among the witches immediately turned to the subject of wedding planning. Sometimes Arthur thought the only reason they had seven children was so his wife could personally supervise seven elaborate weddings.
After listening to the witches babble-on for a few minutes, George cleared his throat. It seems he wasn't done yet. "Percy, I'm curious. Will you be bringing your boyfriend to the ceremony?"
That was going too far. Arthur had known for years that his third son was a wizard's wizard, but he never would have told anyone. Percy should have been allowed to handle this announcement in his own way. It was time to put an end to this farewell prank, so Arthur discretely drew his wand and cast two nonverbal stunners at George and Molly. Their faces fell forward on to the table before anyone could react. It was good to see he hadn't lost his touch after all these years.
For a moment no one said a word, but Bill finally asked the obvious question. "Dad, why did you just do that?"
"I am going to pilot the Floo Bomb in George's place. I have already lost one son, and I refuse to lose another. Not if I can prevent it, which in this case I can."
Harry and Ginny stared at each other, and after a moment his daughter silently volunteered to ask her boyfriend's harsh but essential question. "Dad, do you have the magical skill needed to complete the mission?"
"I will be the first to admit I couldn't have designed or built the Floo Bomb myself, but I can fly it. Aurora Sinistra has been coaching me during the past few weeks, and I have all the procedures memorized. So yes, I can do it."
"But why did you have to stun Mum and George?" Ron asked.
"They would have disagreed with my decision, and I didn't want to spend my last hour here on the Hedwig fighting with my wife and son. I have left memories for them in Dumbledore's old Pensieve. Please see that they watch them. Does anyone have any other objections to my plan?"
They didn't. It was impossible to argue with the necessity of George's decision, so how could they possible argue with their father's decision to take his place?
"Good, I have two last requests. Keep your mother petrified until after Fleur and Crina give birth. I also want you to find George a lover."
"Dad!" several of his children shouted.
"Listen to me," Arthur snapped. "Life on the Hedwig is stressful enough without have to deal with Molly and her tempestuous emotions all the time. The one thing that will calm her down is the sight of her first two grandchild. As for George—he hasn't looked at another woman since Angelina's death. A decent shag is the only thing that will keep him from doing something rash like jumping out the airlock."
"We will find George somebody," Ginny promised, a scandalous statement which made her brothers blush. Well, at least the conscious ones.
"Harry, I believe we should proceed at once."
"But the mission isn't scheduled to start until tomorrow morning."
"Son, everyone knows there is an excellent chance we could all die during the Floo Jump. Do you think they want to spend the next ten hours with that hanging over their heads, or would they just prefer to get this over with?"
Things moved quickly after that. After two months in outer space the crew was starting to act like professionals. When Harry activated the warning siren everyone made it to their assigned posts within ten minutes. The Weasley family was a major exception though. After entrusting Molly and George to the house-elves they followed Arthur up to the Floo Bomb. It was located at the "top" of the Hedwig, directly opposite from the Engine Room. Waiting for them there was Sebastian Granger.
"You are going with him, aren't you?" a shocked Hermione asked her father.
"Yes, I will be handling the communication mirrors, while Arthur focuses all his attention on controlling the various instruments."
"I knew you were unhappy, but..."
"Hermione, most of the people on this starship can't stand the sight of your mother and me. Given what happened back on Earth I understand their hatred. Catherine is too busy playing Dr Mengele to care, but I can't spend the rest of my life like this," Sebastian explained.
"We are not acting like Nazis."
"I know, I know. The work you are going is critical for the long-term survival of the magical world, but it still seems morally... questionable to me."
Sobs suddenly began to rack Hermione's entire body and she lunged into her father's open arms. "You don't have to do this!"
"Yes, I do," Sebastian told her. "This mission has a greater chance of success with the two of us working together. And hopefully this will convince some of your fellow witches and wizards that not all of us are evil monsters. Don't ever let them forget that a filthy muggle willingly sacrificed his life to secure their future."
As Sebastian tried to comfort his grieving daughter, Arthur began to say his own goodbyes. His children were all terribly upset, but at the same time they were also very proud of him. Even Percy, who had often viewed his father with such disdain in the past. Finally he pulled Bill aside for one last chat.
"William, you are now the head of the Weasley family."
"Are you sure about that?" Bill asked as he looked over at Harry and Ginny.
"I am. You are the only one Ginny will listen to anymore, and she is the one person Harry can't intimidate. Albus Dumbledore was a great wizard, but he refused to listen to anyone's advice no matter how sensible it was. His arrogance allowed Voldemort to rise to power not once but twice, and it was Voldemort who provoked the muggles into destroying our world. You can't let Harry make the same kind of mistakes in the future."
"I will try Dad, but I don't think it'll do any good. Ginny has changed so much since this all started, and those changes haven't been for the better."
"She is still your sister, and she always will be."
Rather than drag these painful goodbyes out any longer, Arthur and Sebastian entered the tiny compartment where they would both sit. In many ways the Floo Bomb was a miniature version of the larger Hedwig, but small round Bomb had a few important modifications. Its main emitter was powered not by a live wizard, but with Luna's newest innovation: a magical capacitor. The capacitor was basically an advanced rune stone which held a tremendous amount of pure magic, and it would easily provide them with enough acceleration for their short mission. Luna swore that when she rebuilt the Hedwig it was going to be stuffed full of these new capacitors.
"Are you ready?" Sebastian asked as he adjusted the mirrors they would be using to communicate with Aurora Sinistra.
"No," Arthur replied honestly as he ran his hands over the three smaller maneuvering emitters. He would use them to make course minor corrections. These corrections had to be perfect, which is why they needed a magical pilot inside the Floo Bomb itself.
"Aurora, can you hear me?"
"Loud and clear Sebastian. We are cutting-off power now."
Up until this point the Hedwig had still been accelerating, but now its six emitters were shut down. At the same time Arthur activated the Floo Bomb's capacitor. A rush of magic propelled them free of their launch cradle and into outer space. Slowly their distance from starship began to increase. They needed to be sixty kilometers away for the plan to work. That sounded excessive until you remembered that they was currently traveling at seven-hundred kilometers per second. The Hedwig would reach the massive green explosion in the blink of an eye.
"How do we look Aurora?" Sebastian asked after a few minutes.
"As far as I can tell you are on course. No, on second thought give your number two emitter a short burst."
These small corrections continued for an hour. Even after reached a distance of sixty kilometers Aurora insisted that Arthur keep working until their placement was correct down to the millimeter. If their plan had any chance of succeeding they had to be perfectly aligned with 18 Scorpii. Between the effort of powering the three small emitters and the stress of their impeding deaths Arthur was soon knackered, but with Sebastian's help he somehow kept going.
"Don't move!" Aurora finally shouted. "Stay right there."
Both muggle and wizard were silent for a moment, but than Sebastian reached over and shook Arthur's hand. "It was a privilege to work with you, my friend."
"Thank you. Any last words to mark the occasion?"
"England expects that every man will do his duty?"
Seeing that Arthur had no idea what he was talking about Sebastian reached over and pressed the large yellow button with a smiley face on it. That boy George had a really sick sense of humor.
The Bomb itself consisted of a thousand kilograms of volatile potions mixed with a thousand kilograms of freshly made Floo Powder. When it exploded it instantly produced a spherical ball of green fire a hundred meters wide. In the vacuum of outer space there was no oxygen of feed this explosion, so it lasted for barely a second. But that was all the time the Hedwig needed. The magic of the burning Floo Powder interacted with the magic of their six powerful Shield Charms, and the starship vanished from the solar system.
28 March 1999
They made it. After the Hedwig disappeared it instantaneously traveled over forty-six light years to 18 Scorpii. How did the process work? They honestly had no idea. Hermione theorized that their magic had temporarily created an artificial wormhole linking the two locations. Or maybe Parvati was right—maybe Magic itself was looking out for them. Either way when they emerged from this "wormhole" their six Shield Charms kept the Hedwig from being incinerated in a millisecond by the intense heat of 18 Scorpii's corona. Keeping those Shield Charms up... well, that turned out to be the real problem.
During their escape from the Earth's gravity well there was only one fatality: Minerva McGonagall. During their escape from 18 Scorpii's much stronger gravity well they weren't so lucky. The overwhelming amount of magical power needed to keep the Hedwig running in such hellish conditions extracted a terrible price none of them had anticipated.
By the time they reached a safe distance from the star they had lost nearly six hundred wizards and witches, a hundred Goblins, and over a thousand Merpeople. The dead had piled up so quickly that it was impossible to move around. They had no choice but to portkey the bodies out into the harsh vacuum of outer space. The only consolation was the fact that Madam Pomfrey had already harvested sperm and eggs from the entire crew before their trip through the wormhole.
Now that they were out of immediate danger Harry called for a meeting of his surviving staff members. "Luna, what's the current status of the Hedwig?"
"We had several minor fractures in the hull, but what I'm really worried about is the structural damage the titanium framework has suffered. Landing the Hedwig on the surface of a planet was always going to be problematic, but now it's flat-out impossible. The stress of even the gentlest atmospheric reentry would crack us open like a rotten egg."
"Then it looks like we're using bloody portkeys to reach the surface after all. That should be fun," Harry muttered to himself. He then glanced over at the chair where the late Horace Slughorn should have sat. "Draco, how are the oxygen and carbon dioxide levels?"
"Don't worry Potter, they're fine. Longbottom has done a brilliant job, and we should be able to last for at least another year. Maybe even two years if we're lucky."
"Who are you, and what have you done with Draco Malfoy," Ron joked, but his heart wasn't in it. Not only had the Weasleys lost Arthur, but now Bill and Charlie were gone as well. On top of that Fleur also lost both of her parents.
"Neville, how are things going in your Department?" Harry asked his poor friend. Augusta Longbottom had died during the first hour, but even worse was the loss of Neville's wife Hannah and their unborn child. No pregnant witch should have been allowed anywhere near a shield emitter, but in the middle of the crisis the Hufflepuff had insisted on taking a turn like everyone else.
"We are starting to lose plants at a steady clip, but that's to be expected at this point. We don't have any serious problems with the food and water supply. Especially since we now have fewer months to feed."
"Susan, how is the Infirmary?"
"Other than the fact that our only fully trained and experienced Healer is dead, the Infirmary is doing just fine. Nicolas Flamel had finally started producing a large quantity of the Elixir of Life, so that should be a great help."
"Hermione, have you found anything yet?" Harry asked. He had assigned her to the Navigation Department after Aurora had been permanently blinded by one of her own telescopes. Despite all the safety precautions she had taken, the intense sunlight of 18 Scorpii had destroyed both of her retinas during a routine check of their location.
"After what happened to Professor Sinistra the search has been going very slow, but I think we have found our new home planet."
"Already? Are you sure?"
"Liquid water can only found at certain distances from a star; it's called the Goldilocks Zone. We focused all our attention on that specific area of this new solar system, and found a planet early this morning," a weary Hermione explained. "At this range it's hard to be certain, but we think there are both oceans and green vegetation on the surface."
The news left most of them speechless, but Ron had a practical suggestion to make. "We can't call it "the planet". If it's going to be our new home it needs a proper name."
"I say we call it Merlin," Draco offered. "It is a noble name fitting for a world of noble wizards."
"... and witches and house-elves and Centaurs and Merpeople," Hermione lectured. "Personally I think Phoenix would be a more appropriate choice given our recent history. Plus I really like words with the letter x in them."
Neville went next. "What about Dumbledore, or maybe just Albus?"
"I vote for Amelia," Susan said with a sad smile.
"Let's call it Chudley," Ron suggested to much laughter. "What? It's a great name!"
"The planet will be called Lily," Harry said in a tone that brooked no further argument.
"Hermione, is there a moon in orbit?" Luna asked after a lengthy and uncomfortable silence.
"My astronomers don't thinks so, but again we really can't be sure at this distance. Why, did you want to name it Selena after your mother?"
"I was hoping to. Maybe next time."
Draco snorted. "Did you actually think we are going to do this again Lovegood?"
"Of course we are Malfoy."
"That is a discussion for another time," Harry said. "How long will it take us to get to Lily?"
"Escaping 18 Scorpii's gravity well has reduced our velocity more than we were initially expecting, so I would say about two months."
5 September 1999
Hermione's estimate turned out to be wildly optimistic. It took the battered and broken Hedwig over four months to reach Lily, and it took another month of hard work to achieve a semi-stable obit. Harry had expected everyone to be happy about the discovery of their new home, but the last leg of their voyage was by far the most miserable. After surviving the war on Earth most of the crew thought their problems were over for good, but instead they had lost a third of the crewmates in a matter of hours. People would stop what they were doing without warning and breakdown in tears. Others were simply sick of life onboard a starship and longed for the sight of clear blue skies.
There were some benefits to the delay though. Thanks to constant observation through a dozen different telescopes they were able to create a detailed map of Lily's surface. The new planet seemed familiar but strange at the same time. It had a single massive ocean and a single massive continent, with a handful of smaller islands scattered about. This continent—which Hermione dubbed Pangaea after the Earth's old super-continent—covered most of the northern hemisphere. Or maybe it was the southern hemisphere? Either way Pangaea had a large polar cap at its center, and the ice was surrounded on all sides by a mammoth forest which covered the rest of the continent. This "forest" turned out to be a source of great concern to Professor Sprout and Neville.
"Just look at it, Mr Potter," Pomona said to Harry as they studied Hermione's latest and most-detailed map. "It is a monoculture, and it covers multiple latitudes and multiple elevations. Given the huge size of that continent there should be several deserts, but they have also been colonized by these strange trees."
"And this is important why?"
"Harry, species of trees that thrive in the tropics are different than those that thrive in Scotland, which in turn are different than those you would find in a hot desert," Neville explained.
"I understand that. There are banana trees in the tropics, junipers in Scotland, and cacti in a desert."
"Exactly Mr Potter. Ten points to Gryffindor," Pomona said.
Harry rolled his eyes, a nasty habit he had picked-up from Ginny. "I still don't see what the problem is."
"There is no tree on Earth could do what that tree down on Lily has done," Neville told him. "To survive in all those different climates zones, and to be able to drive out all the other competing vegetation... it's just not natural."
"Maybe there is no other competing vegetation on Lily."
"That is what we thought at first too," Pomona said. "But take a closer look at the islands. They all have a clear degree of variation in color, especially when compared to Pangaea. I agree with Mr Longbottom: that is not a naturally occurring ecosystem."
"So you are both scared of this forest," Harry observed. "More to the point, you are scared of whoever or whatever created it."
"Yes, I am," Neville freely admitted. "I just lost Hannah; I don't want to lose Susan too. The farther away we are from Pangaea, the better. To that end Professor Sprout and I think you should focus your efforts tomorrow on this large island deep in the southern hemisphere. It has a sizable estuary and several mountain ranges. That should be enough to protect us from any harsh weather the Mega Ocean produces."
"Are we really going to call it the bloody Mega Ocean?"
"For the last time we are not calling it the Sirius Sea," Neville said. "Besides, I agree with Ron: it's a wicked name."