A late summer night found Harry Potter half-asleep, alone in the Gryffindor common room rather than sleeping in his dorm. His tossing and turning in the night as he relived the horror of the Dark Lord Voldemorts resurrection less than a week prior disturbed his dorm mates; but more than that, he wanted to be alone.

A slight breeze carrying an unknown floral scent ruffled the fringe of his hair, causing him to crack his eyes opens to find the source of the disturbance. The sound of a flag flapping in the wind further drew his attention to a portrait of Godric Gryffindor kneeling before a lion, his banners flapping in the breeze.

While moving portraits in Hogwarts were nothing new, a painting issuing a breeze was not something he had before seen. As he came more fully awake, Harry was fairly certain that he had never actually seen that particular portrait of Gryffindor move before.

Rising from wingback chair on which he'd been sleeping and walking to the portrait the breeze grew stronger. The figure of the lion and of Gryffindor seemed to glance at him as he approached, before leaving the portrait all together. The indistinct background grew clearer and more lifelike the closer Harry got. The breeze picked up to a gusting wind, scattering the few fallen leafs about the scenery.

When a leaf was blown clear from the portrait onto the floor in front of him, Harry leaned down and picked it up, finding it as real as anything in the Forbidden Forest. Unable to help himself, Harry reached out to touch the picture and somehow not unexpectedly his hand entered it as if it were simply a window.

He quickly pulled his hand back, examining it, though he didn't know what to look for other than to make sure it hadn't magically become painted on. Seeing that it was fine, and feeling both reckless and energized by the new mystery that took his mind from his immediate troubles, Harry took a few steps back before running at the portrait as if it were the portal to Platform 9 ¾'s and jumped through the frame.

He found himself standing on what looked to be a large, flat mountain. As he walked about, looking out to the horizon in each direction for the lion or Godric Gryffindor, he was unable to see them. The more he looked, the more he realized that he was unable to recognize anything as familiar, which was not unexpected considering he'd never been anywhere but Surrey and Hogwarts and for all he knew had traveled through time and space.

The sound of barking dogs and the thump of what sounded like marching drew his attention away from the ruins to a group of giants and dogs approaching him quickly. Harry's first instinct was to hide, but atop the large, flat mountain, there was nowhere he could hide. Thankful that he'd fallen asleep in his robes and had his wand on him, he palmed it and waited warily for the giants and dogs to approach.

The dogs arrived first, barking loudly and growling, they circled him but none approached him directly. The sound of the giants voices and a horn of some sort was muffled enough by the hounds that he couldn't understand what they were saying.

As the giants approached even nearer, Harry quickly realized these were giants of a type he'd never heard of before. They were far more massive than the giants he'd learned about in Defense and History; standing at least 10 to 12 meters rather than the 4 to 6 meters he had expected.

With the dogs circling him, he couldn't back away from the enormous beings, and so gripped his wand tighter, eyeing them warily with one eye while searching for some way to escape should he need to with the other, belatedly realizing with some despair that his gateway into this world was nowhere to be found.

With a snap of one of the giants fingers that sounded like thunder the dogs immediately stopped barking.

"What have we here, a man?" the giant that had snapped boomed, when Harry didn't respond, the giant leaned down closer to him and demanded, "Well?"

"Um…yes, I am a man," Harry responded, then thinking it best added, "and a wizard."

"A wizard you say," the giant replied, scratching his huge chin, "I can't say I know what a wizard is."

Before Harry could respond and try to explain another giant yelled out, "Who cares, he'll be good for the feast with the centaurs we got. Human meat is pretty tasty."

That's all Harry needed to hear to know what he needed to do. With a flick of his wand, he hurled one of the dogs that were circling him at the lead giant, before turning and running, furiously casting curses at the hounds still circling him. After the second of the large canines was tossed unceremoniously out of the way, the other dogs scrambled out of his way.

Unfortunately, the giant hunting party behind him, was not as easily cowed. Huge spears and rocks crashed to the ground all around him, any one of them as deadly as the Avada Kedavra curse was. Knowing he had nowhere to hide and that no matter how quickly he ran, a being more than 5 times his size would easily overtake him, Harry stopped and turned to face the giants.

His duel with Voldemort still far too fresh in his mind, along with his second guessing of his actions left Harry with one thought, attack. The lead giant causally approached Harry, laughing and speaking, though Harry paid no attention, instead letting fly a blasting curse directly at the giants eyes. The curse went low, hitting the giant in the nose causing it to explode in a shower of gore. Enraged eyes locked onto Harry, and he said the only thing that came to mind, "Shit!"

He never saw the boulder before it crashed down a scant few feet in front of him and bowled him over, crushing him.