Chapter Two:
Far Over The Golden Sea.
Harriana Potter's P.O.V
The river water was cold on her skin, but it was clean, and that was a lot more than Harriana was right then. Hunkered down on the banks of a small creek on the edges of a forestry, she, again, dipped her hands into the clear, cold waters and splashed it at her face, scrubbing with tired fingers and a balled-up piece of coarse moss she had found and peeled from a rock, wincing when she saw the liquid run burgundy red with the dried blood splattered across her skin.
She was tired. Beyond exhausted. Harri had spent the last five hours running, none-stop, and further, the last forty-eight fighting the end of a war half-a-century in the making.
She was bound to have a few blisters and cuts and blood stains. She was bound to need a nap. What Harry wasn't bound to have or need was being dropped into this strange place, chased across an even stranger golden city, and hunted down.
They had nearly nabbed her too, one too many times for comfort, from when she had first bolted from that fire-pit place, all through the hoary back-streets, across the towering gated-wall she had scaled to here, to the fringes of the surrounding forest, to this little clear stream.
They wouldn't be far behind.
Sighing, Hari finally sat on the bank and unfolded her legs, grimacing as she stretched down to roll up the jagged hems of her jeans, scowling further when she spotted the dust and mud coated toes of her feet.
Maybe Hermione was right, perhaps running around barefoot was not the smartest idea. Nevertheless, Harriana couldn't stand shoes or socks, even the thought of wearing any made her feel slightly nauseous, her feet and hands and ears had always been extremely sensitive, often being able to tell what size a man was and how far he was away when sneaking up on her by her bare-feet on solid ground alone, and when it came down to it, when the time to face Tom Riddle and his would-be-army ultimately came swinging around, she had needed every advantage she had at her disposal.
Bizarre biology that no one could explain included.
Scooting closer to the water's edge on her backside, she gently slipped her feet into the creek, groaning and sagging at the coolness brushing tender soles.
Five minutes. I've earned that much at least.
Harri would give herself five minutes before she began to boot it again.
Glancing up to the crest of blue filtering through the foliage above, wiggling toes in water, Harri shuddered.
"Beam me up, Scotty."
Of course, there was no Scotty to come and beam her up and drop her back at Hogwarts, and this, this green-green forest around a gold-gold city, was no Vulcan, despite the pointy-ears all around, herself included, and this wouldn't be fixed by wishful thinking.
When was anything ever fixed that way?
Pointy-ears.
People here had pointy-ears, and it was a hard thing, especially for Harri, to get over so easily.
Harri had seen it for herself. In the crowd of people that had been gathered around when she had lifted that stick and finally, finally, finished off Tom, as misty in recollection as those few seconds after defeating Tom had been, in the few she had shouldered into as she ran and tripped over a barrel in the marbled street, more on the few who had taken to running after her, the ones in the golden-laced armour, even more on those standing above the walled gate, likely taking watch over this grand-gilt city, it had to be a city, that she had to sneak passed.
There were pointy-ears everywhere.
That was… New.
The only time Harriana had ever seen such ears before was when she looked in the mirror or at the old photo of her mother, father, and infant her. It was an oddity. A quirk. A mutation that had cropped up in the Potter bloodline with her father, and had been passed down onto her, sensitive feet and all.
It was fairy blood, some had said, when word got around in Pureblood circles, as it always did, and the rumour that the math of James's conception didn't add up as Fleamont had been in France began to spread.
Rumour that Euphemia and Fleamont had never addressed, most likely afraid of aggravating the gossiping fires.
It was a Charm or Potion gone wrong more believed. Maybe some misbegotten part of the Saint Mungo's fertility treatment Euphemia had undertaken before falling pregnant.
It could have been an underlying health condition; Hermione had once supposed.
Whatever it was that had caused James Potter to come out lithe and slightly longer in the ear and tooth, whatever it was that had been passed onto Harri, the facts remained the same.
She had never seen anyone else quite like herself or the photo of her father before. Not once... And here she was, suddenly surrounded by them.
Huffing and scowling, Harri tilted over the rim of her small pebbly slope, snatched up the ball of moss, and began to ardently rub at her feet.
She might have thought it was a trick, one last jab from Tom, a sick and mean taunt… But she hadn't spotted a single Death Eater tattoo, not one, in her great flee, and she knew, given Tom's ego and narcissism, those couldn't be hid with charm or disillusionment spell.
So if they weren't Death Eater's masquerading themselves, what were they?
Having already pinched herself quite harshly in the first alley way she had tumbled into, giving herself a good stinging hex on the arm for good measure, Harri could safely rule out being dead again.
It had hurt, and she knew, personally, there wasn't pain in the white-place.
Nor was it a dream.
So, not a trick of magic, not a death, and not a dream. What else did that leave?
They were real, she was here, in a real place, and…
And maybe none of that mattered.
Maybe what counted was getting out of here and back to Hogwarts, back to her friends and family, back where she was needed most.
With Tom gone, the end was drawing close but it wasn't finished. Fenrir, Dolohov, fuck, most of the Death Eaters sans Lucius and his slippery self-survival, would fight on. Harri had no doubt about that.
Perhaps even harder with their all-mighty leader down and out.
It was too late for any of them to turn back now.
Harri needed to see who had survived the Battle, they needed to regroup, they needed to burry their dead, they needed to-
Pointy ears?
No.
Harriana could figure that out later. She couldn't put her own curiosity, and perhaps self-interests, before her friends.
Their lives depended on it.
With both she and Tom off the battlefield and out of sight, and no one knowing she had bashed his brains fuckin' in, the latter would incense the Death Eaters, and the former bolster their fever. They would think she was dead, gone, that their hallowed leader would be back any moment victorious, and that… Anger coupled with vindication was a dangerous combination.
They would be out for blood, and too much of that had already been shed.
No more.
Harriana would never be able to live with herself if, while she was gone, Hermione or Ron had been captured and-
NO!
She could figure out why there was a forest filled with people who looked just like her later. Additionally, whoever these people were, whatever they were doing here, she had seemingly appeared out of nowhere and murdered a, to them, innocent man right before their eyes, despite him looking like a bloody snake-wraith.
Quite brutally murdered, in truth.
Merlin knew if they knew about magic, Harri could have very well just broken the Statute of Secrecy in front of a very, very large crowd. Circe, too, knew if they understood what the hell was going on. Harriana sure as hell didn't, and maybe that was why they were chasing her left, right and fuckin' centre.
Maybe they were trying to arrest her for murder.
She couldn't afford the time of wasting away in some golden jail cell while her friends were out there fighting for freedom.
Yeah, no.
So she had panicked, stuffed with epinephrine and confusion and the sparking of ancient-old smelling magic off her skin, likely what had brought her here to begin with, she had run for it.
It had made perfect sense in the adrenaline-haze she had been surviving on in the last forty-eight hours.
Run.
Keep running.
Keep surviving.
And she had.
Run.
Kept running.
Had survived.
But, funnily enough, she was no where near out the woods, and here, at this little brook, with the adrenaline finally waning, thoughts beyond the bounds of survival began to trickle into her tired, exhausted mind.
What in Godric Gryffindor's name was going on?
What language had they been shouting in? It sounded Welsh-y. Am I in Wales? Yes… Wales. Okay, I don't have that far to get back to Scotland. I just need to find out exactly where in Wales I am and go from there.
I can't apparate. Every time I try my magic gets stomped back down on. Maybe a Ward of some kind? Gravitational? Protective? Shielding? Maybe if I just get far enough out of the Ward's perimeter, I can apparate back to Hogwarts. Right. Okay. I just need to move in any direction then. I just need to get out the Ward. How big could this city really be?
If I could just-
Harri froze where she sat, knotted ball of moss tight in her hand, foot held aloft. Her head turned, swivelled, glancing over her shoulder, to the woods beyond, to the way the walled gate was. She held her breath.
Thump-thump, thump-thump, thump-thump.
Hooves.
Horses.
Six-
Seven in total.
Maybe… Yeah, at least a mile out.
Coming-
Closer.
Harri dropped her ball of moss with a plop into the water, and stumbled from the bank of the creek.
Time to move.
And move she did, away from the cool waters and into the dense trees, silent and swift.
Harriana Potter's P.O.V
By the time Harriana tripped and staggered towards the statue, night had fallen heavy around her shoulders. She had been walking for hours, endlessly, until her legs felt as if they were made of spun-glass and sea shells, fragile things that break on shores, and still, she had yet to find a distance far enough from that damned city that would allow her to apparate.
In fact, dreadfully, she didn't think she was out the city at all. These forests... They were just another part of it. Not so little garden parks.
There had been another wall, and another woods, and another wall.
Unending.
She had tried to summon her broom at one point, but it had yet to come sailing out the sky at her Accio, whether it was too far away or her wandless magic needed more work, she had no other choice, and so, walk on she had.
She couldn't anymore.
Not another step.
She needed to sit down, for a moment, just a moment, one-
Harri stumbled towards the statue in the small clearing of the forest. It was a big statue, beneath the strong starlit black and the forget-me-not sky. It stood in the heart of the clearing, the type that would continue to do so, no matter the weather, greeting perfect days and perfect storms all the same. It was white in the night, some kind of bleached stone, as blanched as the stars above.
A wolf.
It was a wolf, Harri could see the closer she got, a wolf in rest, with two large paws stretched out before it, its face not one of joy or beast, but a sort of… Stern accountability. A manifestation of the kind of seriousness that deep need brings.
Harri crashed between those paws, back to the carven chest, hidden from view by the over-arching maw, and nearly wept.
Sleep.
Just a nap.
A few hours to gain her strength back, and then she would move again.
Conjuring what little strength she had left, Harri collected the surrounding bracken from the ground between the paws, piled it nice and neat, and lit it all with a muted Incendio.
The soft heat from the flames felt nice. She had not realized her fingers and toes had gone numb in the chill of the on-coming night.
Curling up by a leg after heating up her limbs by the flames, Hari shirked off her jumper, Weasley made with Weasley love, leaving only her cami beneath, and folded it as best as she could before bracing it on the stone leg between her shoulder, and, finally, rested her head.
She fell asleep to the crackling of burning wood and the smell of moss-marked stone, and the amber glow of a camp-fire.
That was her groggily made mistake.
She should have known better.
She had spent the last year and a half on the run.
She knew how dangerous having a camp-fire, a beacon, lit in the dark was.
Harriana Potter's P.O.V
It was the sound of a branch snapping in the dark that jolted Harriana awake. For a split second she thought she was back in the tent in the middle of the Forest of Dean, Horcrux around her neck and in her soul, and Ron had said Voldemort again, and-
She held her breath, waiting for the Snatchers, and when they didn't come Apparating in with the rancid smell of dark magic, she came back to herself, and her dread rose.
There was no Voldemort, no Horcrux, no tent… But there was a branch snapping in a strange forest. She strained her ears.
There was no other sound.
Her toes flexed in the grass. She felt the shiver of the blades between her toes.
Someone was silently moving closer-
Two people were skulking closer. Drawn-
Shit.
Drawn by the light.
Merlin, she was a bloody idiot! Lurching forwards, Harri grabbed a handful of loose, dry, dirt and doused the camp-fire, wincing, but not dare groaning, as she used her bare hand to quench the rest of the flames that stubbornly licked and flickered on.
She could treat minor burns.
Just not from a jail cell.
From there she barrelled over the arm of the stone-wolf, crouched low to the floor, and flanked down its long, winding side, towards its tail, the opposite way she could feel the movement coming from.
If she kept still and silent, hidden behind the statue, they might just miss her entirely. They might just be passing by. They might-
Nothing, ever, in Harriana's life went as it might.
Two shadows came slinking into the clearing just as Harri peeped around the tail.
"And you are sure the footprints lead this way?"
"Of this I am certain. You saw the light yourself, Falon'Din. Fire, if I am not mistaken. She might have felt cold this chilly night, and set a flame to keep herself warm."
The two were quiet in their whispers, could almost be confused for the breeze, but Harri heard them loud and clear.
And did not understand a single word.
They were speaking in Welsh again.
The one who spoke first had a harsher note to his voice than the second, an edge more raspy, and, surprisingly, something in the back of Harri's mind niggled. A… Experience? Familiarity? Something that dug deep in like a fishing hook.
Had she met one of these before?
Had she been wrong?
Were they Death Eaters?
Squatting down low, only braving the briefest of peeks outward, Harri took note of the shadows as they came to the head of the statue.
If it came to a fight, she needed to know what she was up against.
There wasn't much visible to see, the two dense cloaks, hoods drawn up and over heads, and the dark night above left little features to pick apart except from tall, male, two. Nevertheless, Harri, a girl who had been in her fair share of fights, both magical and with her fists, knew there was more to see, more to a fight, than body-shape and brute strength.
The first was tallest, but slightly more lithe. He moved slickly, sleekly, like water or fog rolling over a hill. However, he bore most of his weight on his left leg. An injury to the right? An old one not properly healed? Whatever it was, that right knee was the money spot.
The second of the pair was harder to get a glean from. He… Prowled. Sharp, precise movements. Planned, skulking. He liked keeping to the fatter shadows, the darkness, to the thicker grass, where, most likely, he would prefer to strike from silently and sharply.
Dangerous.
Deadly, even.
A fighter who knew how and when to strike was infinitely more dangerous than one who simply lashed out swinging and hoped for the best.
There was no change in his gate, no soft spot she could see, but…Well.
People like him, they thought if they watched hard enough, planned for just the right moment, they would win.
If Harri was anything, anything at all, it was unpredictable.
Not many people could plan for her. Watching her was useless, because half the time she, herself, didn't know what the fuck she was doing until she was doing it. She swung when she should have kicked, bit when they thought she was ducking, and spat when they believed she would cry.
He wouldn't be able to plan for that unpredictability, and that just might be her saving grace.
"If she were here, and it was not a traveller, she is long gone now. We should move on, Fen'Harel. Mother and father have taken search to the east, Dirthamen and Andruil to the West, and us to the North. We are due to meet at the South Temple by sunrise. Perhaps one of them have found her. And if not-… I do not have time to afford pronouncing in these shades with you will she is out here, right where I can reach- "
Ducking behind the statue anew, Harri did not see the latter of the pair bend down to the ground beneath the paws, but she heard the distinct sound of ashes being rubbed together, an echo of paper crumbling, a muffled grind.
Fucker was testing the cinders.
Bloody hell.
"Patience. You know death and life far more than my knowledge could ever hope to achieve, but I know how to track and hunt. See? The ashes are still warm. She is here, or in the tree-line. Close."
Harri took the chance to glance behind her, to the clearing edge, wondering if she was fast enough to make it into the dense foliage before Tweedle-dee or Tweedledum could catch her.
Best not to risk it.
"Here? You swear? Then-"
"Calm. Shhh."
Harri might not be understand what the pair were saying, but she knew a shhh was never a good thing.
She held straight and true, unspoken, unmoving, calm.
Walk away. Walk away. Just walk away-
"Ahh. I see."
"You feel it?"
"I do."
A shuffling of movement. Someone standing up from their haunches. Harri's fingers dug into the stone until her fingernails nipped sour pain in her hands.
Walk away. Walk away. Walk away.
"Well, we should take our leave, should we not? Head south to regather."
"Quite. It will take four hours to reach-"
A set of arms came shooting out the dark, latching around her shoulders, heaving backwards. Harri flailed, and saw, as she was lifted, the flash of blue light and-
And only one cloaked man was left in front of the statue.
Spell.
A bloody trickery!
"Calm! We mean no harm-"
Harri tried to fling her head back, hopping she could clock the man who had her in the face, preferable the nose, but, the bastard, was a good shoulder and neck and fuckin' head taller than herself, and all she did was manage a nasty thump to his cloaked chest.
She tried to dip, but the arms, deceptively wiry, felt as unforgiving as the stone statue before them.
"Felon'din, do s-"
She tried to thrash, but it seemed every time she got an arm free, a leg got captured. A leg free, a neck in an elbow crux.
And then she saw it. The floor. Four sets of bare feet.
Her own and the man's.
Bingo.
If they had pointy-ears like herself, well…
Harri raised her leg, bent her knee up right to nestle at her chest, and brought her heel down on the pale foot below. The man howled, baying like a rearing horse, and hastily dropped her. Harri fell, springing away, shot one last elbow back for good measure, striking something sturdy that might have been a rib, and whirled, making sure to keep the two men in eyeline, the taller of the two edging over to his comrade bent down on one knee in the thicket, cradling a maybe-broken foot.
"Stay back! Don't come any closer or... Or I swear I'll tear your fuckin' faces off!"
"She is evidently feral! You saw what she did to-"
"Harriana?"
Harri wavered at the tallers', familiar voice, but then braced her magic in her hand, balled it tight underneath her skin, ready.
"How do you know my name, huh? Did Tom send you? Just back off!"
He did not, in fact, back off. Instead, he seemed to ignore his crouched friend, and took a step towards her.
The magic in her hand sparked.
"I said don't come any closer!"
Hands lifted to the rim of a hood, and the man-
The man spoke English.
"Far over the golden sea lies a palace of gilt and enchantment, where people never age. One day I'll show it to you, yes? Me and you, little-len. They have cities of sorrow, and clouds made from the breath of giant toads, and sometimes streets walked up, and rivers ran down. Do you truly not remember me?"
Far over the golden sea.
Yeah… Yeah Harri remembered that, curiously, softly, vaguely, it trickled in and took root. It brought back memories of a yellow blanket, starlight, the smell of clove and peppermint, and-
And her dad.
The sparks died in her hand.
"How did you-… Who the fuck are you?"
The hood fell.
He didn't look a day over twenty-one. He still had the dimples, dimples she had inherited, and the large dark eyes, the hardy jaw, but-
But his black hair, midnight dark, was straight and long here, no round glasses perched on his nose, no sardonically cocked brow.
Only regret, and something tender and aching and small-
Love.
Little lit love.
Harri's hand flopped uselessly to her side, swinging like a pendulum, as if her strings had been cut, and her voice was just as dry, just as lost.
"Dad?"
James Potter smiled back, all teeth and bright light.
A.N: It's too funny to me, the idea of the dumbass-king that is Harry Potter/Fem!Harry standing in the heart of bloody Arlethan, surrounded by pointy-eared people, hearing Elves speak, nodding sagely, looking dead ahead, and going Wales? Yes. I am in Wales. It's never not going to be funny, and I can't be convinced that Canon Harry would not do exactly that lol.
So here we are, the next instalment! A bit of a disjointed hectic one, but I really wanted that to come through in the writing, hence the style of this chapter, as it would help enhance Harri's voice in the writing as this would be exactly what she was feeling.
Thank you for the reviews, favourites and follows, and if you would like to see more, don't forget to drop a review! I always love hearing from you all! And I will hopefully see you all with an update soon. Take care!