Getting out of Britain turned out to be easier than Harry anticipated. Armed with two enchanted backpacks full of clothes, Galleons and Pound Sterling, Tonks apparated them to Hull, from where they took a ferry to Brugge. Harry, whose previous experiences with boats were limited to the ceremonial crossing of the Black Lake and Vernon's mad trip on the night of his eleventh birthday, found himself staring at the enormous white ship, amazed that such a steel monstrosity wasn't sinking like a stone.

The trip to the mainland was fairly uneventful, with only an impromptu New Year's celebration keeping them up a little late as their ferry engaged in a fireworks standoff with a passing tanker as they crossed into 1997 somewhere in the North Sea. Once in Brugge, Tonks changed her appearance from backpacking student to no-nonsense businesswoman and rented them a nice Mercedes. Within four hours they left Belgium behind them and crossed the Border into Germany.

Up until their lunch break near Bonn, it was a joyous trip. Off-key didn't even begin to describe their musical atrocities as Tonks sang along the radio and Harry joined in whenever he recognised a song, but it was something else to pass the time because watching the landscape fly by had gotten boring after four hours. He was also surprised how well Nym could drive, casually steering the car at speeds which would pose an interesting challenge for his Firebolt. She wasn't even bothered that everything was on the wrong side. But as the afternoon came around, their mood became darker because not even the fifth repeat of Lemon Tree couldn't hide that they had, for all intents and purposes, fled Britain. And while the rational part of his brain left no doubt that this was the best course of action, it still felt like a defeat. A few rouge Hit Wizards had achieved what Voldemort had failed to do for fifteen years. And to add insult to injury, they had done so with relative ease.

An hour after sunset, they reached the town of Amberg, where Motorway A6 ended. It had been cold and rainy in Leeds, but that was nothing to the ten degrees below freezing their car showed near the Czech border, where everything was covered by five inches of snow. Tonks decided to stay the night after spending half a day on the road and began to look for a hotel. Meanwhile, Harry watched the orange glow of the streetlights dance over her cheeks and reflected upon their plan. A lot hinged on Penelope, a woman neither of them was particularly close to. While she had little personal reason to help them, she had plenty of reasons to stick it to the Ministry. And a Muggleborn was unlikely to be in league with Voldemort. Still, a lot was based on mere assumptions and there were countless ways where something could go wrong.

Another fifteen minutes passed before the metamorph parked not far from the city walls. With the temperature far below freezing, the entire town was covered by five inches of snow, which made the medieval centre look like a postcard motive. The building in front of them claimed to be a pub, a hotel and a brewery. While far smaller than the ones Harry had seen in the port towns, it was well visited and had its own rustic charm. After getting settled in a clean but modest room, the pair went downstairs to enjoy a hearty meal before Harry received a crash course on the different varieties of beer because, as Tonks put it, they needed something to unwind and might as well take advantage of their location. Few of the patrons spoke more than a few words of English, but it was enough for a thorough ribbing over the shortcomings of British Beer. Yet everything was in good spirits and a group of Bavarians invited them to their table for a game of dice. It wasn't overly difficult and apparently only served the purpose of figuring out who had to buy the next round, but everyone involved had fun and got drunk, so the evening was a definite success.

It was past midnight when the pair decided to get some much-needed sleep. Watching Harry stumble back up to their room proved to be a great amusement for Nym and it only ended when he bumped into the bed frame and planted his face in a pillow. Perhaps giving Harry that much to drink had been a mistake, but considering that they had fled their home country, a little leniency wasn't out of place. And it had even been perfectly legal for him to drink.

The witch returned from the bathroom and found her boyfriend in the same position she had left him in. Therefore Tonks was quite surprised when Harry wrapped his arms around her waist and pulled her against his chest. He nuzzled her neck, left a love bite there and held her tightly.

"Thank you."

"What for?" she wanted to know, coming to the conclusion that five pints had definitely been one too many for him.

"Everything," Harry mumbled before placing a lingering kiss on her lips. "Thank you. Really, without you, all this wouldn't be possible. I'd probably be in Azkaban without you. Or - Or gone mad at Privet Drive last summer - Thank you Nym, you're - awesome. Like, really awesome, you know?"

Tonks couldn't help herself, she laughed at her boyfriend's drunk ramblings, causing him to tighten his grip. After all, a moving pillow wasn't very comfortable to sleep on.

Arriving in Prague late due to terrible traffic and weather, Harry and Tonks spent the night in a middle-class hotel before setting out to find the Bohemian University the next morning. According to a magical travel guide, the entrance was hidden somewhere in Petřín Gardens but that still left them with a rather large area to search. It took over an hour before they figured out that much like in Kings Cross, there was a passage hidden in an ordinary looking wall. But unlike at Platform 9 ¾, no one was running at it. In fact, Harry and Tonks had walked past it three times before they noticed people casually disappearing through the back wall of the upper cable car station.

It had been a few degrees below zero in Petřín Gardens where the winter snow buried everything and left the world white and grey. On the campus, however, green was the dominant colour and while still far too cold for a t-shirt or shorts, it turned out to be a pleasant change for the couple who spent the last two hours outside.

The campus itself was a chaotic mess of lecture halls and faculty buildings in every style of the last millennium, the oldest one made out of withered flagstones while the latest ones would not have been out of place in Canary Wharf. The dormitories, on the other hand, were more uniform, richly decorated buildings made out of white stone with huge, ornate windows, which Harry would have mistaken for small manors if not for the signposts. Vaguely remembering that Penelope was teaching something about runes, the pair made their way past the longhouses of the Scandinavian Institute, a large hedge maze, what looked like a small zoo and a pair of odd, twisted towers belonging to the Slavic division until they reached something not unlike a small village, made entirely out of huts decorated with brightly painted wooden panels. Finding Penelope's was a lot easier than either of the Brits had anticipated because it was the only one with a pair of guards leaning against its wall, warming themselves on a magical fire. Those men, both at least seven feet tall, wore red coats embodied with a silver lion and golden hats. Because they looked like twenty stone of pure muscle, their presence alone was enough to scare off most people.

Once it became obvious that Nym and Harry were heading towards the door, the two wizards stepped away from the wall and into their way. Both reached for their wands but didn't draw them yet.

"Přestat! Halt!" the right man said with a cutting voice but noticed Harry's confused expression. "Visiteurs? Guests?"

"We're friends of Penelope and wanted to visit her," Tonks replied before she reached inside her coat and slowly pulled her wand out of a pocket, the handle outstretched to the guard. Up close, the man looked older, his faced marred by countless scars, but unlike Moody, he still had every part where it belonged. And, at least in Nym's opinion, she was dealing with a professional. His uniform robes might look a little old-fashioned, but there was a pair of sharp, calculating eyes roving over her as the man cast a series of detection charms until he seemed satisfied with the results.

It was a little stretch to call Penelope a friend, but explaining the mess they were in to a pair of wizards, whose English seemed a little rusty, didn't seem like a good idea. The metamorph had thought about similar situations before she entered the campus and, after a quick discussion with her boyfriend, had decided that she would do the talking. If things went pear-shaped, Nym could disappear into the masses, becoming anyone within seconds whereas the faintest rumour of Harry Potter being in Prague would spread like wildfire and the last thing they needed was even more attention. Well, that or to broadcast their location in twenty gossip magazines.

While the older of the two guards knocked on the door trice, Harry surrendered his wand as well. Since Miss Nott still had the holly and phoenix feather one, the Gryffindor had borrowed one of Tonks spares, albeit with limited success. While certainly better than nothing, 9 inches of willow with a unicorn core didn't really work for him and he hoped that they could find a wandmaker in the near future.

"Jsou to tví přátelé?"

While neither Nym nor Harry understood what the had wizard said, Penelope poking her head out of the door got the message across. The blonde didn't look different compared to what Harry remembered from Slughorn's party as she mustered them in confusion. Only when Tonks let her hair fade from a mousy grey to her usual pink, surprise and recognition flashed over the Professor's face and she squinted her eyes at Harry's brown dyed hair. The young woman looked from Nym to him and back a couple times before she saw through that disguise as well and waved them in.

The inside of her house was dominated by wooden planks which, unlike their counterparts on the outside, had not been painted over. The room was centred around a huge fireplace in front of a sofa and two armchairs. An old television set stood next to a desk cluttered with books and loose papers while several bookshelves covered the walls. One of the corners also hid a spiral staircase, leading to an upper and a lower level. It was quite cosy, even if Harry had expected something more akin to Hogwarts and not just a park with academic buildings in between. And yet it also had the stark difference between outside appearance and interior he had come to associate with magic. Because while the hut looked like a hovel from the outside, the interior was similar to a luxurious ski hut in a prestigious alpine village.

"Tea?" Penelope asked as she gestured towards the sofa.

"That would be lovely - Uhm - Hi" Harry mumbled, thrown out of balance by the guards by the door.

"Hello Harry, hi - eh - Nymeria?"

"'S Nymphadora, but just call me Tonks," the metamorph grumbled as Penelope transfigured a pillow into a teapot and conjured steaming hot water to fill it with.

"I take this isn't a social visit, right?" Penny asked just as they sat down.

"Not really. How much do you trust those guards?" Tonks wanted to know in return.

"Well, Pawel, that's the younger one, was with the unit which broke me out of the Ministry, so I'd say that they are alright. And they are soldiers, they won't arrest you over a bag of green," Penny shrugged and Tonks wondered whether the blonde had already tested that claim.

"Good, 'cause we need your help. Or more accurately, we need your help to find someone to help us. You see - "

Penelope listened to their tale and, after Nym was done, summoned a bottle of clear spirits and three glasses. The liquor tasted horrible in Harry's opinion, but both witches looked less pale after the pick-me-up. "So let me get this straight. The Hit Wizards tried to arrest you because some shady bloke, whom they just had killed, was talking to you and when your girlfriend stops one of them from kicking you on the ground, the Ministry makes you the public enemy number one?"

"That sounds about right."

"And when you write Dumbledore and ask for advice, he just tells you to go on a vacation?"

"Yes. I mean, 's that, hiding in my flat or Azkaban, but I kinda hoped for more. I saw his duel with Voldemort, but instead of him getting shit done in the Ministry, we got a travel guide."

"That still doesn't explain why you are here though," Penelope pointed out.

"To be blunt, we hoped that you could help us," Harry cut in before Tonks would go on another tangent. "Either because you know more about this artefact or because you know someone who might."

"We had to leave the Isle either way, but Harry pointed out that all these fuck-ups have to be connected somehow, we need someone who has connections to science and our list of foreign scientists was shockingly short. I mean, I have a bunch of friends in the Commonwealth, but none of them would know anything about antique rocks," the metamorph added while thinking about her friends. Judging by how much she had slept in Binns', Hestia wouldn't know the difference between Antiquity and the Middle Ages, Izzy was on a magi-zoological expedition somewhere in British Guiana where she had spent half a year away from any beacons of civilization, like post boxes, and Ashley was busy as a healer for the Dunedin Tuis.

"Do you have that thing with you?"

"Would be kinda pointless to come here otherwise," Tonks said, took the artefact out of a hidden coat pocket and gave it to Penelope, who had cleared some space on her desk. The young professor placed the azure rock under a magnifier and began examining it.

"Hmm, that's difficult. Those lines are definitely some sort of symmetrical pattern, but they are unlike any runes I've ever seen before. They might even be purely aesthetic," Penny trailed off and rubbed her chin. While she turned the relic to look at every nook and cranny, her cold demeanour was slowly replaced by excitement. "These ornaments are made out of bronze or a very similar alloy, but those patterns are etched with a precision surpassing modern laser cutters while this rock is at least two thousand years old. And I have never seen such a mineral before. Reminds me of quartz, but it feels metallic."

The young professor put the supposedly dark object down and walked back to the table from where Harry and Tonks had been watching her.

"Why are you so interested in learning more about it?" Penelope wanted to know. "I know that from an academic point of view it is fascinating, but why not simply leave it here and go on a vacation? It will take some time to get you some answers and the scientific method isn't exactly thrilling for spectators."

"Because - "

"Well - "

Harry managed to stop himself from sniggering, but the same couldn't be said for the two witches.

"I - I used to be an Auror," Tonks explained but had to pause to stop another bout of laughter. "You get a sense for what's important and my sixth sense is screaming at me when it comes to that bloody rock. I mean, Harry has a point when he says that the Ministry wouldn't lose its shit over a paperweight. People were murdered over this. The man who stole this was summarily executed. Even the Minister, who had been sucking up to Harry before, dropped him like a hot potato."

"There's also Voldemort," her boyfriend pointed out. "If this thing is even half as dangerous as the Ministry makes it out to be, Voldemort is interested in it, and if this artefact is some sort of weapon, then I want to know what it's all about. Because - Well, the last time I didn't know something important, we've ended up in the Department of Mysteries last summer, and I'd really, really like to avoid a repeat performance."

"I see," Penelope said and glanced back at the ancient relic. "This thing is fascinating, and I'd love to tinker around those etchings, but I'm pretty sure that I won't be useful for your goals. Our own Antiquity Institute specialises on the Romans since they actually made it here and left a lot behind, from the Limes ward line up to countless ritual spots and hidden buildings. But besides the odd trader, the Greeks never really made it past the alps and this thing is definitely not Roman."

"So you cannot help us?" Harry asked and was surprised when Tonks kicked him under the table.

"I didn't say that. Antiquity and History might be unable to help you, but there's also the archaeological faculty. They come across all kinds of odd trinkets on their digs, maybe they'll know more."

"Where do we find them?"

"Just wait here, I'll send a memo to the director that there is a new toy for him to play with and he will be here before you can say of great historical value," Penny said as she scribbled a note on a sheet of paper and tapped it with her wand. Like the Ministry memos, it folded itself into a paper plane and flew out through the chimney, leaving behind an awkward pause of conversation.

"So, how have you been?" Harry asked after a while to break the tense silence. And while he flinched as soon as the words left his lips, Penny only rolled her eyes.

"I'm fine, really. It wasn't how I imagined my holidays would be like, but the Ministry didn't drag me off to some torture chamber or anything like that," the blonde shrugged and took a sip from her teacup. "The worst they did was to dose me with Veritaserum and ask a few questions about things I had no idea about, like spies and similar cloak and dagger stuff. Honestly, I think it was worse for Mum and Dad when some strange official told them that their daughter had been kidnapped by a magical government…"

"I can see how that'd be an issue," Tonks chuckled and leaned back until she was looking up to the ceiling. "How are they coping?"

"As well as you can expect. They have been over for a couple days after I got and have been getting on my nerves. I understand that mum was worried, but she treated me like I was on the brink of death, not just a little tired from the stress of that bloody misunderstanding."

"Misunderstanding? The Ministry arrests you on the street and locks you up and you call it a misunderstanding?" Harry asked with rising anger as he was reminded of his godfather's case.

"According to British Law, the Police can detain you longer than I was kept in the Ministry - Don't get me wrong, I'll not return anytime soon, but what's done is done. I mean, I never really got my head around the whole diplomatic immunity thing and unless I want to raise an army and take over the Isles, there is not much I can do about this mess. Besides, this place already feels more like home than Hogwarts did after my sixth year," Penelope said gently and after doing the math, he realised that she meant the Basilisk incident. "But enough about me, how have you been before the Hit Wizards made a fool out of the entire Ministry?"

"Great!"

"It was a nice illusion, to pretend that there was no war, no Dark Lord looking for any weakness to exploit," Tonks elaborated further than her boyfriend's enthusiastic reply. "I knew that it wouldn't last, but I thought it'd end with me sneaking into Hogwarts occasionally while I'd be looking for a new job, not fleeing from Britain because the Ministry ditched its last bit of common sense."

"So you two are officially together?"

"Well, I didn't file the paperwork yet, but only Slughorn's murder stopped us from getting plastered all over the front page," the metamorph said and kissed Harry's cheek.

"What's with all attention anyway? I remember it was nowhere near that bad back when I was a student," Penny wanted to know.

"Through a leak from the DMLE, the Daily Prophet learned that the mess in the Department of Mysteries was about lure Harry into retrieving a Prophecy about him and the Dark Lord. So being the responsible journalists they are, they milked the story for a few weeks - "

"And now everyone thinks that I am the Chosen One who will save their arses while they sit back at home and…" Harry explained but was cut off when the front door was thrown open and a man with grey hair and deep wrinkles stepped inside in complete disregard of politeness and good manners. Clad in a mixture of lab coat and wizard's robe, he didn't look particularly happy to be there and once his narrowed, blue eyes found Penny, he began to berate her in rapid-fire German. Harry understood absolutely nothing and Tonks, with her limited grasp of the language, didn't fare much better, but at least she managed to understand that the old man was in a hurry to get somewhere.

"Professor Podebrady, meet Harry Potter and Dora Tonks," Penelope introduced as he pushed her to the side as he walked to her desk. The old wizard shot a glance at the two Brits but quickly turned back and began to cast countless spells, made use of Penelope's stand magnifier and kept mumbling remarks in German for what felt like an eternity.

Harry watched with growing irritation as the relic was lifted and twisted, engulfed by colourful lights, poked at and thoroughly analysed. He had hoped that once they found an expert, the whole mess could be sorted out within a few days, but slowly came to the realisation that there would be no quick fix. It was a rather stupid thought anyway, because if anything, his previous dealings with the Ministry should have taught him that they did not care about such trivialities as evidence or facts.

"Truly magnificent. I have come across many interesting objects, but zis one might perhaps be ze first from Atlantis," Podebrady said gleefully, his thick German accent at odds with his Czech name. Nonetheless, his awe was audible enough and for the first time, the man wasn't overly rude.

"Atlantis is real?" Harry asked and blushed when everyone turned towards him. "I thought it was just a muggle myth."

"'S a magical myth as well," Tonks threw in. "Or maybe more of an ancient conspiracy theory because quite a few people believe it true."

"It is more zan a conspiracy my dear. Zere are references in Egyptian tombs and quite a few mundane items have been found over ze years. We are certain zat Atlantis did in fact exist, even if zere is - used to be only one magical artefact. Ze University of Asturias found it in ze twenties and kept it hidden ever since. If zis is genuine, zan it might be ze biggest discovery of zis decade - But where do you have it from?" the Professor wanted to know with sudden hostility.

"A thief had it on him when Hit Wizards killed him and tried to pin everything on me. When we escaped, we took the artefact with us," Harry explained and yet Podebrady's expression clearly said that he wasn't believing this story but at the same time did not care enough to get to the bottom of it because, at the end of the day, he still had something incredibly rare to work on. Yet, the Professor was back to his frosty self as he took a moment to gather his thoughts.

"Zere is nothing I can do for you now, but you could try Quintain."

"What?" Tonks wanted to know but the old man only gave her a patronising smile, making it clear that he had set her up for that question.

"Not what my dear, whom. Professor Roland Quintain, a true genius and nowadays working for ze Venetian Institute of ze Arcane. He usually disappears for a few years only to return wiz some groundbreaking discovery zat advances ze field of magical archaeology by decades and renders entire books obsolete. He usually works with Doctor Sinclair in some remote corner of ze world, following rumours and returning wiz facts and requests for more funding. You know how zese field people are, always busy with their important discoveries and never have ze time to fill out ze paperwork. I haven't seen half of my employees since last summer but zey all turn up eventually, eizer parading around their big find or beg for more money. I understand ze need for field work, even ze passion which makes zem forget everything else, but wizout proper bureaucracy and bookkeeping, zey would have no money for it. But I digress - If you want answers, Quintain is your man."

"Why can't you do more?" Harry wanted to know and felt blue eyes bore into him.

"Because boy, I have an hour before I have to leave for San José for a long-scheduled cooperation with ze Latin American branch of ze University of Asturias and will be zere for at a month, if not two. And knowing that I could be working on an Atlantean artefact will not make ze time pass faster," Podebrady grumbled before he looked back to the object of his desire. "My department is understaffed and overworked. Manninger and Breunig are busy teaching and Mendel is taking her students to Wallachia to teach them field work."

"You only have three people under you?" Harry wanted to know since he remembered that all most buildings on the campus had been far larger than if they were staffed by four.

"Of course not, but what use would a secretary be for you?" the Professor said, his annoyance growing even further. "Eizer you wait or you find Quintain."

"Somehow I get the feeling that this won't be as easy as you make it sound," Tonks replied and was surprised to see the old scientist give a predatory smile in return.

"You are right, my dear. Ze last time I have heard from him was when he cancelled his lecture at last year's Walpurgis-Conference in Sardinia."

"What about the Doctor you have mentioned earlier? Sinclair or something like that?" Harry asked and received a hostile stare in return. Somehow, he had the feeling that the Professor did not like him.

"She is doing contract work for my department in norzern Finland, near Ivalo, looking for a rumoured Sami burial site in zat area."

"But how would finding her help us?"

"Doctor Sinclair was Professor Quintain's protegee back when he used to be a member of my faculty here in Prague some twenty years ago. Zose two were pretty close back zen and if anyzing, Sinclair might be able to make sense of zis artefact on her own. Ze little girl was a sharp one - " the older Professor trailed off as he glanced at his wristwatch. "Why couldn't you have shown up yesterday? Or last month?"

Harry decided to ignore the melancholic question and his longing gaze as the wizard got up and headed to the door.

"Try not to lose zis while I am away Penelope. And try to identify the materials used, zat shouldn't be above your abilities, my dear."

"It isn't even - fine. I'll take care of your shiny new toy while you are in Costa Rica. Just don't be surprised if I already published a paper by then," the younger witch said as her parting shot while her colleague was already out of the door.

"Das wäre eine angenehme Überraschung!"

"Was soll das jetzt bedeuten?"

"Nun ja - "

"That was - "

"Odd? Barmy? Mad as a hatter? Dumbledore-esque?" Tonks completed her boyfriend's sentence as they watched the blonde exchange another, quieter goodbye next to the two guards. "I wasn't sure what to expect of a magical scientist, but at least he wasn't as bad as the Unspeakables."

"I had hoped for more somehow. Because even if the bloody relic is from Atlantis, that still doesn't explain why everyone is trying to get their hands on this thing. The Minister wouldn't rebuild the DMLE after his ideas just to get something for the display case in his office," Harry argued, but for the first time, Tonks didn't look convinced.

"What if we are trying to read too much into this? What if 's just some ol' power grab because Scrimgeour wasn't satisfied with what he could legally do? Or maybe someone taking over behind the scenes and just using him as a puppet and Slughorn just knew too much?"

"I thought you said that there was more to this."

"I know, but I thought that we'd find answers here, not more questions - This whole thing suddenly became very science-y and you have to admit that we are out of our element here. Well, unless you secretly took one of Podebrady's classes while I took a shower this morning…" Nym said and took a deep breath which did not calm her at all. "We traveled hundreds of miles so that an old man could tell us that our stone is from bloody Atlantis before he has to leave for a months and the only people who might know more are either somewhere in Finland or wouldn't even think about talking with us since they support Voldemort because they want the Rock back. And even if we find someone, it might be months before they can us that we're hunted over an antique decoration - "

"I - I get what you mean," Harry softly said after a moment of thought. "I have no clue what this whole mess is about or why the Ministry acts the way it does, but at least we have two leads on who might solve this. That's two more than we had yesterday."

"Yes, but that doesn't answer our questions, it just adds to them. It's just - I could make sense out of most evidence as an Auror, or at least knew who could, but here we went to the expert and he could only make an educated guess where that bloody stone came from. Nothing on its use or why the Ministry would throw their own laws out of the window - "

"So what do you want to do?"

"Well I… I don't know. A wild goose chase in Scandinavia doesn't sound that tempting, but at the same time I don't have a better idea either," Nym said and let out a defeated sigh.

"I just hope that this Sinclair is friendlier than Professor Podebrady. I swear, he and Snape must be related," Harry grumbled, which got a laugh out of Tonks at last.

AN:

By now, most of you should be able to tell where this story is going. Voldemort is not forgotten, but in January 1997 he was still focused on Britain. He and his Death Eaters will certainly play a role, but he is neither the only nor the biggest antagonist here. Due to the nature of this fic, I will be resorting to OCs, even if most won't make multiple appearances.

Should I include translations for segments in foreign languages like German or Czech? And if so, should they be at the end of the chapter or in brackets after the relevant segment?

A ridiculous amount of research went into writing this, and while I will spare you the details, lets just say that it was a pain in the arse to make sure all travel times check out, if the places I mention were a thing in 1997 and since the weather is written as it was in the Winter 96/97, that had to be looked up as well. A rather nice Mercedes during that time would have been a W124 or a W210. Those could reach 220 kph/135 mph, something that is perfectly legal in Germany. Also, I have never been in Amberg (II drove past it once) and the hotel is made up, even if similar buildings can be found throughout southern Germany.