Welcome to the last two-team dungeon in this fic, the Abandoned Ruin! Yes, the Harrys will be dungeon-crawling on their own in Hyrule, since the BOTW-style monsters and ramping difficulty will make swordsmanship crucial and having fewer people to get injured a good thing. Other HP cast members will still be doing stuff, just not going on the Hyrulean fetch-quest.
If you want to see what this place looks like, I've posted art for the Abandoned Ruin level under my "dungeon 4" tag on garden-eel-draws. In other news, I've seen a tug-o-war happening in the reviews over this crossover's focus and confusion about its purpose, so I'd like to address that in addition to just answering other questions. My Q/A ramble is in the endnotes for your convenience.
Content warning for mild blood and non-fatal electrocution.
Harry would have been glad to never swim in water deeper than his shoulders ever again. Unfortunately, this temple had other ideas. He peered down into the square-cut stone pool before him with resigned trepidation. It had one lower step and then a straight drop down. Seeing the deep shade of the water made something in his soul ache.
Upon crawling into the temple via its subterranean entrance, they'd been faced with two pools of water and an exit leading to a room that was filled with even more water. Clearly this temple had been put together with a certain theme in mind. The whole place gave him the creeps, honestly. It had the look of a pirate grotto, though mercifully without the stink of stagnant seawater. The walls were made of slimy, porous stone and the floor was a shallow bed of coarse sand laying atop more dark stone. He wished the sand were deeper, because the way it slid across the hard surface underneath it made his footing unstable. Yellow-green lighting was provided by black metal wall lamps that resembled oysters holding shining crystal pearls. The dim illumination made the walls look that much slimier. The wet spots shone like little green stars.
Harry shook his head and rubbed his eyes. He was on land, in a place very different from that oceanic abyss. It didn't even smell like saltwater in here! And once he went in the water, there would probably be rooms, not horrifying giant caverns, right?
After his little pep-talk, he squared his shoulders and checked on his teammates. Hermione and Yellow clung to one another, their eyes equally wide. Yellow had taken the trip down to the temple especially poorly. He'd started panicking when the water had become unnaturally dark and heavy for reasons he refused to explain in front of Hermione, and he hadn't spoken a word since they'd surfaced. Harry's best guess was that he'd been reminded of being locked in the cupboard under the stairs. When he had been little, too small to reach the light pull, the resulting darkness had been suffocating and inescapable. When he'd become overwhelmed, he could only lay on his bed, too scared to sleep, until he dropped unconscious from exhaustion. Harry had been through much worse things since then, but early memories were often the strongest.
Their impromptu group member, Ruka, was still on his hands and knees from the ordeal of coughing up Vaati's poison. He'd passed out ten meters from the opening to the temple. In fact, when they'd come across the wide crack in the cliff, they'd just had to hope they were in the right place. Harry, the strongest swimmer after the Zora, had been the one to drag him through the water and into the temple. It had been an impulsive decision—possibly not the smartest he could make in that situation. He hoped Ruka wouldn't be too angry about it, once he regained the energy to speak. Harry was perfectly fine with the Zora staying at the entrance of the temple and waiting for them to sort the place out, rather than accompanying them through the whole dangerous labyrinth.
"That water was foul," Ruka said, forcing himself to his feet. He spat one last glob of purple slime on the sand. It quickly fizzled away in a wisp of dark smoke. "Some of the worst stuff I've ever been in, and I've accidentally swum downstream from a dyehouse before." He shuffled on his feet, his fins fluttering. "Okay, so where am I and what're we doin' now?"
"We're in an underwater labyrinth. We took you in here with us because it looked like you were dying and it was the quickest way to get you out of the water," Harry explained. "My friends and I are going to get through the maze and beat the monster in the middle. You can stay here, where it's safe."
"Me, stay 'where it's safe'? While you hatchlings go and risk your lives?" Ruka said incredulously. "Kid, I'm seventy-five years old. This isn't my first time seeing monsters. I wasn't much older than you the first time I fought monsters." He rolled his neck and stretched his arms. "I took down a Lizalfos before my fangs had even grown in. I can handle myself." His fins opened wide in an impressive display of layered red fans and then snapped shut. "Alright, I'm all limbered up. Where to first, kid? You're the one with dungeon-crawling experience here."
Harry looked him up and down, doing a mental reevaluation of the Zora. He'd assumed Ruka was a younger adult, maybe in his early twenties. Perhaps he was, in Zora years. Seventy-five, though? Now Harry was curious about what Ruka had seen in his many decades. Had he met one of the Heroes of Hyrule? Did he know what kinds of people were actually meant to fight villains like Vaati, instead of a substitute like Harry?
Harry looked over at Yellow and Hermione. "Can you swim right now?" he asked. Both of them were still shaky and pale.
Yellow stood straighter and put on a smile. "O-Of course! I'm fine!"
"I can manage," Hermione said tiredly. "What were you talking about to Ruka?"
"He wants to come with us," Harry said. "He's way older than he looks, so he thinks we're all babies."
"That would explain why he kept bringing Malfoy fish. The men in his culture might do more of the child-rearing."
"Maybe." Harry dropped his gaze back to the water. It was as dark and impenetrable as it had been the first time he'd looked into it.
Ruka stepped up next to him with his hands on his hips. "Are you gonna swim or aren't you?"
Harry grimaced. "I am," he said with resignation. He exhaled, gripped his wand firmly, and leapt into the dark center of the small pool. After descending through a short vertical chute, he emerged in a small stone room with a crudely tiled floor. The sight of solid, man-made dimensions to the room calmed some of the anxiety tightening in his gut. This wasn't a vast natural cavern, but a carved-out space that he could touch the edges of.
A glowing object entered his peripheral vision and he swam backward out of instinct. He hit something other than stone and flailed in a panic, one hand going to his sword. What was that?! A monster? Some deep-sea horror?
His attempt to unsheathe his sword was stopped by a strong grip on his wrist. Harry turned to see Ruka. The Zora had one glowing brow raised in an unimpressed expression. "You're as jumpy as a minnow," he commented. His voice echoed through the water. "It's a good thing I'm not one of your hatchling friends, or you would've gotten me good."
Harry lowered his hand from his sword with a guilty blush. Of any of the Harrys, he should have been the least likely to hurt someone with his weapon! He'd been the one doing sword training! "Sorry about that," he said sheepishly.
Hermione and Yellow descended, their lit wands doing little to brighten the room—to an abnormal degree, actually. The force weakening their magic must have been even stronger here than in those awful sea caves. Harry tried to summon his lantern. Nothing happened. The Lenses of Truth on his nose didn't even vanish. Apparently they were just supposed to be half-blind down here.
Now bolstered by the presence of friendly faces at his back, he took another crack at scanning the room. Naturally, his eyes gravitated toward the brightest thing there. The glowing object that had startled him turned out to be a yellow and turquoise jellyfish. It was bigger and more ornate than the ones Shadow Harry had populated the Zora caverns with. The creature had a yellow-striped, bubble-shaped bell and two frills over its brightly glowing tentacles. Most strikingly, it had a big yellow eye floating in the middle of its bell. The eye spun aimlessly as the jellyfish floated with unnatural purpose in the same general spot. Harry didn't like how bare the room was around it. Aside from the sentry, there was only an exit on the other side of the room. They would have to pass well within the jellyfish's line of sight to get to that gap in the ceiling.
He turned to the others. "Beamos?" he mouthed. Hermione shook her head, while Yellow shrugged helplessly.
"I'm the fastest out of any of us, so I'll see what it does," Ruka said. Before Harry could respond, he swam to within a few meters of the jellyfish.
The monster's reaction was instant. Its eye whizzed around to lock onto the Zora and its body began to crackle with pale blue lightning. For a few seconds, it built up power. Then the electricity was sucked into its eye and fired across the room. Ruka, caught by surprise, barely dodged in time. The creature was loading another shot before the first had fizzled out against the ceiling.
Hermione swam past Harry and sent a light spell at the jellyfish with her Hylian staff. The spell just ricocheted, as was to be expected at this point. Harry swam in its wake as he crossed the room. Using his sword wouldn't be a good idea—Red had gotten them all electrocuted often enough for him to have learned that lesson—and it had been proven that the light spell wasn't effective. He couldn't summon his lantern underwater, either. That left using the whip, which…he also couldn't conjure. So, swimming it was.
"I'll distract it! Go, go, go!" Ruka called in encouragement. He made a wide beckoning motion with his arms toward Hermione and Yellow before jetting out of the way of the next shot.
Harry silently thanked the temple for its mild restorative magic as he swam for all he was worth. If he'd still been feeling the ache from diving to the bottom of the lake, he would have been a sitting duck. His legs were a tad sore, but still going strong as he kicked toward the rectangle of light. He emerged in a pool identical to the one he had just left, only this one was guarded by a complement of electrified blue jellyfish serenely bobbing through the air. Harry yelped and ducked back under the water. He collided with Yellow, who was swimming up to the surface. They both popped up from the water, rubbing their sore shoulders.
Yellow scowled. "That hurt, Green! Why did you—oh." He watched the hovering jellyfish with wide eyes.
Hermione surfaced, followed by Ruka, who shot out of the pool, landed, and started pulling them out. "Get outta there! That thing's still firing!" he exclaimed. "Floatin' jellies are better than shootin' ones, that's for sure!"
At that warning, Harry scrabbled out of the pool. He ducked under an airborne jellyfish, his hair crackling and standing up at its proximity, and went into a roll. Mid-somersault, he was hit by a numbing, agonizing jolt of pain that locked his muscles and knocked him into a sprawl. He lay dazedly on his belly, his chin stinging from the rough sand grinding into it.
"Yellow, you alright?" he called out once he'd stopped seeing stars.
"Yeah." Yellow was similarly laid out on the sand nearby. He sat up, rubbing his scraped jaw. "Red or Blue ran into a jellyfish. I hope they're okay."
"Red might have tried slaying one and gotten the timing off," Harry said. Pushing himself upright, he swept the sand from his front.
He couldn't blame Red for wanting to take a swing at the jellyfish, assuming the shock had come from him. They hovered like annoying electrified party balloons at just the right height to be run into, and their jittery flights through the air made them mobile, erratic hazards.
Hermione had gotten boxed in by the wall by three of the nuisances. She fired an Incendio at one while its electricity was out, which made it bobble in the air a bit. "Better than bouncing off, I suppose," she muttered. In the end, she just crouched down and crawled over to where Harry and Yellow were. "I don't suppose you'd like to try swinging your sword at these monsters," she said.
Harry had half a mind to pull a Red and see what would happen. His hand went to the hilt of his sword. "We can probably hit them safely if they aren't glowing," he said.
"Or maybe we could just not whack the electric monsters with metal sticks?" Yellow summoned the Vine Whip and cracked it at one of the creatures. It jerked a meter backward, its aura of lightning blinking out.
"Oh. That works, too."
Harry and Hermione conjured their whips and started swinging away at any jellyfish that got too close as they walked across the room. Unfortunately, it didn't appear to hurt them. One of the jellyfish, which had taken a liking to Hermione, took five hits and seemed unruffled by being continually shooed away.
They were so occupied by keeping an eye on the monsters that they failed to notice the geography of the room. "Stop!" a harsh voice barked in English. Then in Hylian, "There's a cliff!"
Harry immediately planted his heels. "A cliff?"
"A cliff?" Yellow and Hermione parroted upon hearing his translation.
"Yeah, a dry one, so watch your step. No water to catch you here," Ruka said.
Harry took a step forward and then turned around. There was indeed a cliff, cut straight across. It dropped five meters into a semicircular basin that passed under the room's back wall and continued into the next area. Fish skeletons littered the basin, lying atop the wide grates lining the bottom. On one side of the flat front wall, a series of divots had been chipped out of the rock to create a ladder.
"Those're Skullfish," Ruka said grimly. "Think ReDeads, but fish. They like to haunt places full of evil magic and they stick around even after their summoners are defeated." He went into a half-crouch and used his powerful legs to spring over the basin. He glided to where it crossed under the wall and looked around. The bony fish by his feet flopped weakly in his direction. Harry and Yellow jumped at the sudden sign of un-life, while Hermione seemed interested. She murmured something to herself about animation spells and a lack of musculature.
Ruka stopped at the end of the basin, gawking upward with his mouth open. "Whoooa," he marveled. "There's a whole tower over here. With, uh..." he paused to count, "five floors? And no ladders or nothin'. The closest floor is five meters up. How the heck're we supposed to get up there? Even I can't jump straight up that far."
Harry climbed down the rock ladder, followed by Yellow and Hermione. One of the Skullfish hopped up and tried to bite his shoe. A hard kick sent it clattering into the wall and disappearing in a puff of smoke. At least they weren't tricky to slay, like the jellyfish. He peered at the grates. Water rippled just underneath them. Between the fish zombies, the grates, and the algae-stained basin, he figured there had to be a way to raise the water level. At least enough to get to that first room, if not enough to scale the tower that Ruka had described.
"Harry, look!" Hermione pulled something out of an inlet in the wall. It was a thick metal bar attached to a hidden mechanism by a length of sturdy chain. With some difficulty, she set it down to rest on one end. "I imagine this is something along the lines of a pull switch, although it's rather heavy."
"Ruka, get over here! We found a switch!" Harry called.
The Zora jogged over. "Huh, I've never seen one like that before. Must be from way before my time," he said. "Looks like a tug-o-war rope." He took up the bar and started pulling. Harry, Hermione, and Yellow lined up behind him to add their strength to his. The mechanism was either stubborn or rusted, but with one simultaneous heave they managed to make it budge. With a heavy clunk and the sound of grinding rock, the water below the grates began surging upward. Harry was swept off his feet and fumbled to keep his grip on his wand.
"Move as fast as you can! The Skullfish can swim now!" Ruka warned.
Harry cursed himself for not killing the undead fish before getting Ruka to pull the switch. "Watch out for the fish zombies!" he called in English to Yellow and Hermione. He swam freestyle along the surface of the water, his arms wind-milling every few kicks.
Something sharp locked onto his ankle, making him yelp in pain. He would have caught a mouthful of water if not for the protective globe of his Zora Earring. Harry reached down and pried the fish off, then kept swimming underwater. Every kick made his ankle sting.
More teeth ripped at his clothes, one in three attacks finding his flesh. He was trailing a pink cloud through the water, bleeding from at least ten bites, if not more. Harry ripped the piranha-like creatures off of him with increasing anger and impatience, his roughness only making the resulting wounds worse. Now that he'd been sufficiently slowed down, the fish buzzed around him in an ever-shifting swarm. The damned things were everywhere; he couldn't keep going unless he wanted to risk one of them latching onto his unprotected head. One of the Skullfish sank its needle-like fangs into the wrist of his wand arm and it took all he had to keep his hand clenched. With a roar of anger, he clamped his teeth onto one side of the fish's head, curled his fingers around the lower part of its jaw, and wrenched its skull apart. "GERROFF!" he bellowed, swinging his wand overhead. He started sending light spells as the nuisances. The fish died like Keese, having no defense against the purifying spell. They left behind little green triangle jewels that glittered in the water. He killed around ten of them before the swarm caught the hint and backed off. They went for Yellow and Hermione instead.
"Oh, no you don't," Harry growled. He swiped his sword around to scoop up most of the gems and then went after the fish. The movement required for the light spell took most of the speed out of his swimming, but he cleared up a fair amount of the cloud before it converged on the others. Yellow and Hermione started sending out purifying flames of their own. Hermione took a few fish out mid-spell, bashing them hard enough with the lassoing motion of her staff to break their fragile bones.
Together, they swam to where Ruka waited anxiously on a ledge that stuck out just above the water. He pulled them up and looked them over. "I hate that I had to leave you behind to fight those things on your own," he said. "Skullfish can rip right through a Zora's fins, so I would've been an utter wreck if I got swarmed."
When Hermione started applying healing spells to his many bites, Harry was suddenly reminded of Malfoy's magical immunity. If that was a Zora thing, that meant Ruka was entirely on his own if he got injured. They hadn't even taken gauze with them, since it would have gotten soaked and contaminated just by the swim through the lake.
"That was the smart thing to do," Harry told Ruka. "We have magic that can heal us, but it doesn't work on Zoras. If you get hurt, we won't be able to fix you up."
Ruka shook his head. "I wasn't expectin' any help in that department. It's good to know you kids can heal each other, though. Wizard magic's pretty convenient."
Hermione finished sealing Harry's wounds and started working on Yellow. "I'm so glad there were none of those fish in the sea caverns," she said. "Can you imagine being swarmed by those things while swimming blind? That would have been an absolute nightmare."
"Maybe Shadow Harry thought it would have been too much," Yellow said. "He doesn't seem that mean."
"He causes natural disasters for fun. He's absolutely that mean," Harry reminded him. "He just didn't want us to die quite yet."
"Green!"
"He said he wanted to kill me in a sword fight, Yellow," Harry pointed out.
"At least that means he wants to fight us fair-and-square instead of just blasting us to pieces with his magic. He could do that, you know."
"…I guess he could." His brother had a point. Shadow Harry's insistence on fair play was definitely one of the things keeping Harry alive while he caught up to an average Hylian Hero in terms of sword skills.
Harry stood up and leaned out over the water, then craned his neck up. They were at the bottom of a vertical shaft that looked incredibly similar to the main sinkhole in the Zora caverns. In fact, the smooth blue-gray stone looked exactly like the walls in those caves. It stood out against the more porous, purple-brown rock lining the entry area of the temple.
Glancing at Ruka, he said, "I know how you wound up here. Vaati stole a chunk of those caverns you were in. That tower above us looks like it was connected to that cave system."
"Really?" Ruka joined him in peering upward. "That means it was carved out by Abyssal Zoras. This whole place should be way underwater right now. Those guys don't even build anything for shallow-swimming Zoras, let alone air-breathers."
Harry estimated the distance between floors. About five meters for each one. The shadowy round openings circled their way up the shaft. Harry assumed they would have to raise the water level to get to each floor, eventually letting them reach the open top. He grimaced. Five floors? Even if each floor only had one room, there was surely something tedious and/or life-threatening sitting in front of each switch.
He cracked his knuckles. This was going to be a long day.
Harry led his group through a round doorway cut into the back of the cave. They emerged into a bewildering room. Firstly, it was full of water. Secondly, the water was full of floating stone crates. Thirdly, the water was buzzing like a Tesla coil and visibly electrified. Beyond that, the room still bore the remnants of whatever it had originally been. It was haphazardly dotted by the stylized oyster lamps that Harry had seen around the first rooms of the temple; these lamps were newer-looking, painted in royal blue and luminous turquoise with pearls that glowed pure white instead of dingy yellow. Iterations of Nayru's symbol were painted on the walls at varying angles. One was cut in half where Vaati had edited the room, the halves flipped perpendicular to one another and spaced a meter apart.
Two platforms stood in the room: the one they were gathered on and another on the other side, where a closed stone door led to another cavern. Bridging the platforms were the aforementioned crates, which were big enough to jump across but not properly spaced to make that a survivable endeavor.
Hermione walked over to two switches that Harry hadn't noticed, her hand on her chin as she scrutinized them. Much like the bar-and-chain switch from before, these were big and clunky-looking. They were raised silver trapezoids roughly a third of a meter long on all sides, sticking a little too far out of the ground to be comfortably stepped onto. Harry thought they looked like the precursor to the golden buttons that sometimes accompanied the traps around Hogwarts.
"One of these has to be for cutting off the electricity," Hermione said. The girl leaned over a bit too close to the lethal water for Harry's liking. He made an aborted attempt to pull her back, his hand retracting uncertainly halfway through. Ruka boldly reached out and tugged her away by the scruff of her sweater. Hermione turned around with a huff. "Harry, you don't have to police me. I'm not a—oh. I suppose I am a small child to you, Ruka," she said, a slight blush climbing in her cheeks. "Never mind."
Ruka patted her on the head and then stepped up to the switches. He stamped his foot hard on one of them, making it judder and sink into the ground with the sound of grating metal. The electricity stopped. He lifted his foot, letting the switch spring back up, and stomped on the other one. The water drained out through grates in the floor until it was a couple inches high, still crackling with lightning. A beautiful blue-toned mosaic of giant squids and deep-sea fish was revealed, as well as a third switch built into the center of the basin.
"I'll stand on one of the switches!" Hermione volunteered.
"I'll stand on the other," Yellow chimed in.
"That leaves you to push the boxes," Hermione said to Harry. Ah, that explained why she'd volunteered so fast.
"That leaves Ruka to push the boxes," Harry corrected. Even if they were made out of some kind of magical floating rock, they were still stone crates the size of steamer trunks. Unless the temple let him push them despite their weight (like the puzzle blocks that appeared in the castle when Death Marbles and pitfalls weren't on the day's itinerary), he was going to have to leave those to the well-muscled Zora.
Hermione and Yellow stepped onto the switches, which reluctantly sank under their weight. Once the water was sufficiently lowered and non-deadly, Harry and Ruka climbed down into the pit via widely spaced metal rungs embedded in the side of the basin.
"This place is weird. Oyster lamps, blue monochrome mosaics, and stone crates? It's like my grandma's nostalgia trips and the Stone Age rolled into one place," Ruka commented. "And we just had to get the crates they made before figuring out wheels." He groaned, running his hand down his central head fin. "Those are ancient. Abyssal Zoras are some of the most old-timey weirdoes out there, my grandma included, but even they use aluminum and stala now."
Harry looked at him in surprise. He'd never heard a Hylian word that didn't translate before! "Using what, now? 'Stala'?"
"It's this wonder-metal the Sheikah came up with a couple of centuries back. They make everything from trains to buildings out of it," Ruka explained. "It's strong, lightweight, doesn't conduct electricity, never rusts, and can be melted and molded like steel. Everyone on the continent goes to the Sheikah when they have infrastructure they need built, since nobody but the Sheikah knows how to make stala right." He walked around one of the stone crates, lifting the lid to look inside. "Lacquer-sealed limestone with air bladders. Works alright in water, but on land? Not so much." He put his hands on the upper edge of the crate and shoved hard. The heavy box scraped a few centimeters across the floor. "Oh, good. That's not as heavy as I thought it was." He leaned down and steadily pushed it toward the middle of the basin.
Harry watched the Zora's powerful muscles flex with fascination. Ruka looked like a figure from one of those old Renaissance paintings where everyone was naked and perfectly fit. Did he get all of that from swimming and flying? Maybe Harry would have to start swimming in addition to his sword practice.
"Green, don't just stand there and stare!" Yellow shouted. "It's rude!"
Harry blinked, realizing he wasn't sure how long he'd been admiring Ruka's mighty thighs. "Er…should I help?" he asked. Ruka was pushing the boxes into a neat line at a decent pace, but the amount of strength it seemed to take made Harry doubtful he would be of use.
"These boxes weigh two of me, probably four of you," Ruka grunted. "You'd just throw your back out, kid."
Well, that was that, then. Harry ambled over to the switch adjacent to the forming line of boxes and waited around for Ruka to finish. When the scraping of stone stopped, he stepped onto the switch and jumped a couple of times to unstick it. The sound of it clunking into place echoed around the room. Stone grated against stone somewhere above him, followed by a steady ticking noise.
"The door opened!" Hermione exclaimed. "Get up here, quick!"
Harry and Ruka rushed up the ladder. Once they were on the ledge, Yellow and Hermione stepped off of the switches. The basin filled with electrified water once more.
While the solution to the room was obvious, Harry still hesitated at the sight of the lightning-ridden water. It looked like it would kill on contact. The ticking slowly picked up in tempo as he stood paralyzed by trepidation.
"You'll do great, kid. I believe in you." Ruka clapped him on the shoulder. Then he backed up, took a running start, and shot like an arrow across the room.
Harry sagged with jealous despair for a moment. 'That's so unfair!' he lamented. Then he set his shoulders and lined himself up with the crates. Harry ran and leapt onto the first box. Due to its mass and manner of floating, it didn't bobble too much under his feet. 'Thank Merlin,' he thought, leaping onto the second crate. He forced himself to focus only on the crates and the distance between them, not the water filling the gaps. Overthinking and hesitating could get him killed.
Hop and wobble and hop and wobble. The last box dipped hard enough when he landed on it that he almost slid off. Harry squeaked and fell to his knees, clamping his hands onto the edges. His fingertips burned at their proximity to the deadly pool.
"One more jump! You can do it!" Ruka cheered.
Harry stood carefully and made the last leap. "I lived," he panted.
Ruka pumped his fist "You did! Good job, kid."
The ticking sound had gotten frantically fast by the time Hermione and Yellow made it across. "What does that sound even mean? What's the time limit for?" Yellow asked before making the last jump. Upon his landing, the ticking stopped and the water lost its electric glow.
"Well, that answers that question," Harry said.
"It's a good thing the electricity turned off, otherwise we would have cooked ourselves once we raised the water level," Hermione said. "I shudder to think how much power was running through that water."
They went into the next room, which was full of more electrified water. Four giant silver fishhooks hung from the ceiling on metal poles. The only platform in the room was at the opposite end, hosting a wall-mounted bar-and-chain switch. Again, the way to get across was obvious, but definitely not easy.
Harry ran his fingers through his hair and grimaced up at the hooks. They would have to swing from one to the other with no interruption. Since the water was electrified, there weren't going to be any practice runs for this. They'd have to get it right or die trying. Harry bit his lip, staring into the glowing water. Maybe it wouldn't kill them right away? Or there was some kind of failsafe to keep them from being totally fried? Shadow Harry had said he didn't want the Harrys dying yet. That meant the water wouldn't be quite lethal…right?
"How are you hatchlings even supposed to get across here?" Ruka asked, looking doubtfully at the hooks. "I mean, I get that this place is supposed to kill you, but it seemed like it was trying to play fair, at least." He ran, jumped, and flew to the other side. Taking up the heavy bar tucked against the wall, he started pulling. It only reeled out to a point before sticking firmly. The Zora huffed and puffed and ground his heels against the stone, but the switch refused to move any farther. "I guess you'll have to find a way across after all!" he called out.
Harry had been hoping Ruka's strength would be enough for them to skip this room, but it looked like the temple had taken his abilities into account. He summoned his whip and eyed the hooks again. How would he be able to find the time to aim for the next hook in midair? He could only imagine himself being mid-swing and panicking because he couldn't properly sight his next target.
Yellow stepped up next to him, anxiously chewing his lower lip. He shifted from foot to foot, his fingers tightening around his coiled whip. Then he unfurled the weapon, caught the first hook, and started swinging. Harry immediately felt outmatched. Yellow was graceful in the air, his speed and timing perfect. He crossed in a few easy swings and burned off his forward momentum with a smooth roll. Popping to his feet, he turned and gave Harry and Hermione a smile and wave. "It's not as scary as it looks!" he said encouragingly. "If you mess up a little, the whip will help you."
"I sure hope so," Hermione muttered, echoing Harry's sentiments. Yellow was definitely better than him at this sort of thing.
"You or me first?" Harry asked her.
"Me, I guess. I might lose my confidence if I go last," she said. "Catch me with a Levitation Charm if I mess up, will you?"
Harry fingered his wand. He had pretty good reflexes; he could save her in time. "Yes, absolutely."
She started her trip across. Harry's breath caught in his throat when she leapt from the first hook to the second. She lashed her whip out too soon, putting too much length on her next swing. She came so dangerously close to skimming the water that Harry had the incantation for the Levitation Charm on his lips. The next two swings went more smoothly, although it didn't look like she'd had a landing in mind. Ruka swooped in to save her from cracking her tailbone on the stone.
'I wish I'd had one of him in the last temple,' Harry thought. It certainly would have saved him some bruises.
Now it was his turn. Harry didn't spend any more time dithering. He flung his whip out and kept his eyes aimed upward. Lash, swing, leap, lash, swing, leap. He could do this.
But then, before the last swing—PAIN. A bolt of lightning leapt across the connections of his soul and struck him in midair. Blinding white agony stole his senses and Harry panicked. He couldn't see the next hook. Where was the hook? Where—?
He lost consciousness before he could hear a splash.
Notes:
-The eyeball jellyfish is a Psykubo, an enemy I made up. Basically, it's a Bari that fires electricity instead of just electrifying its body. It's based on a box jellyfish (scientific name Cubozoa) and its name comes from "psychic" and "cubo". Box jellies actually have eyes in real life, too!
-"Stala" is my made-up word for that bronze-ish looking metal that some Guardian parts are made of and that you see sometimes in BOTW shrines in the form of patterned grating. If any HP-only readers have no clue what I'm talking about, stala will just be an incredibly durable and versatile metal that the peoples of this fic's Hyrule use to brace stone structures, for a wide array of industrial applications, in magical gadgetry, and as an expensive (and often enchanted) accent in clothing or jewelry. I know metals irl all conduct electricity to some extent due to their atomic structure but shh...It's magic.
Q/A:
To Manda's Priest: While I'm flattered that you've put so much work into sending me such detailed requests, I'm not someone who does request-work and I lack the time, skills, and experience to fulfill your dreams. I'm just not your guy, sorry.
*SPOILERS*
What's going to happen with HP magic in Hyrule?—With the greater opportunities for environmental manipulation and creative problem-solving in Hyrule's overworld, wizard magic is going to be more useful there than it is fighting monsters in the castle. After some set-up, it'll be utilized rather like the apps on BOTW Link's Sheikah Slate—just not in a "solves every puzzle" way. The reason I'm capping its power in this fic is that designing Zelda dungeons and incorporating items is nigh impossible when your protagonists can unlock every door, turn enemies into mice, and use brooms to fly around every hazard.
Where are the Force Gems?—The triangular jewels the monsters have been dropping are Force Gems and when the Harrys' swords are said to be "charged up" or "thrumming" after they collect those triangles during boss battles, that's their swords powering up. Like in Four Swords Adventures, if the Harrys' swords aren't glowing by the end of a dungeon, they'll be zapped by Vaati's spell anchors and forced to backtrack until they have enough Force Gems to break them. Every time they break a cluster of Vaati's electrified eyes and leave a level, the gem counter resets, also like in FSA. Since writing them redoing levels would be dull, I've just been giving the Harrys enough Force Gems on their first go. Force Gems will be replaced by a directly quest-related, more permanently empowering FSA-inspired thing in Hyrule.
Where are the Four Swords elements?—The Force Gem mechanics, Moon Pearl mechanics, Magic Lamp (and a couple of future items), giant marbles, Shadow Link being chaos gremlin, Vaati, and the four Harrys are derived from Four Swords Adventures. As for the Four Sword itself, it's magically busted like the Master Sword was in Wind Waker. Its new powers caused by Harry's magic include reappearing on Harry's back when it gets 10ft away and reading/responding to his thoughts through a form of Legilimency. Its glitches include: transferring 100% pain when one Harry gets hurt, not multiplying new inventory, dealing low damage, not firing sword beams, straining when the Harrys spread out, and not letting the Harrys snap together. The sword sucks so it can get better, and it still sucks at this point because there are seven dungeons in Hyrule.
What is your character focus?—The Harrys are my main point of attention and the secondary focus switches off between Hermione, Ron, and Draco. Draco has a redemption arc because I'd like to learn how to write one and he seems redeemable. Sirius will later get the POV ball sometimes, and Lupin, Dumbledore, Link, and Zelda will get to hold it when necessary. Tertiary characters/NPCs will appear whenever needed. Full confession: I have incredible difficulty keeping track of more than 3-4 people (written or irl) at once, which almost kept me from writing this at all. My faulty memory just dumps everyone offscreen into the Void without my permission. I'm doing my best within those limitations to focus on and flesh out as many people as I can without forgetting the plots and protagonists.
*END SPOILERS*
(1) You're focusing on HP/Zelda too much. Can't you focus more on HP/Zelda? (2) Won't this crossover include every single bit of Zelda canon? Can't Harry get the powers/items of every Zelda protagonist ever?
(AKA, time to clear up any remaining confusion about the fandom balance and point of this story. I may sound exasperated here, so beware.)
1) I grew up obsessed with the HP books and I've been playing Zelda for 21 years. I like both and I'm balancing these canons in a way that I have ideas for and enjoy writing. I'm not aiming to achieve godlike perfection and please everyone; I'm aiming to have fun writing an epic around my dumb crossover idea. That's all there is to it.
2) As I said in Chapter 1, this is an attempt to write an original Zelda game using inspirations from various Zelda games and HP characters and elements. My main goals for this fic are to have the Harrys learn and grow while on a Zelda quest, to create original dungeons and an era of Hyrule inspired by my favorite Zelda games/levels/concepts, and to explore interactions between HP characters/elements and a hypothetical era of Hyrule. Like one would expect of an HP/LoZ protagonist, Harry will overcome ever-rising challenges to become a world-saving BAMF with a unique arsenal of items and spells through courage, cleverness, hard work, and compassion. As I said in Chapter 33, this is not an OP!Harry power fantasy in which I'll cram together all 45 years of Zelda lore, make 3rd-year Harry as magically skilled as a 7th-year, give him 27 Zelda games' worth of items, and have him face zero actual challenges or danger as a result. I'm sorry, but that just isn't something I want to write.