Despite Leewit's gloomy prediction, dinner had actually turned out to be the best Harry had ever had, the food was delicious and while he'd tried not to eat too much, not wanting to look like Dudley who would stuff himself just to make sure Harry got as little as possible, Leewit had refilled his plate twice and made sure he ate everything on it, much to her parent's visible amusement. When she wasn't making sure Harry was stuffed to the gills, the grey eyed blonde was alternating between looking embarrassed and annoyed and despite the translations she was providing, Harry couldn't tell why.
He was positive he was missing something, well something more than the puns and jokes Threbus made that didn't translate that well into English. They were all so nice and welcoming that it was almost overwhelming. If this was how all witches were Harry was glad he was one.
"Shouldn't we help with the dishes?" Harry asked as they got up from the table and Leewit grabbed his hand to drag him off.
"No, my parents like to do them together," The Leewit told him, "besides, this is our best chance to escape."
"Escape?" Harry asked, still confused about what she meant as she really hadn't explained much earlier.
"Yes, escape," The Leewit said firmly. "While they're distracted we can sneak off."
Harry didn't say anything but The Leewit seemed to sense something because she stopped in the middle of the hall and explained, "Another thing about Witches is that we're all pretty independent, so us sneaking out won't be considered a bad thing, more expected really. My parents were probably teasing me so much because they knew this was going to be their only chance before we ran off."
"What about school?" Harry asked, not wanting to leave but willing to follow wherever she led.
"School?" The Leewit blinked. "We don't start school until our late teens."
"What?" Harry asked, confused. "But how do you learn to read and write and everything?"
"Ah," The Leewit said as if just realizing something. "Witches are given a pattern, it's kinda like an extra mind, that teaches you all the basics. The knowledge just kinda seeps in. Of course it doesn't work for everything, which is why we have school when we're older."
"I don't think I have one of those," Harry said with a frown as he wondered if it was hard to get one.
"You do," The Leewit assured him, "it just wasn't working until Calla fixed it. She's the red haired woman who was with my mom."
"Oh," Harry said, surprised. "How did I get it?"
"Your parents probably gave it to you," The Leewit told him.
Harry perked up, a big smile on his face at the thought of having something from his parents and chewed his lip as he thought of the Dursleys and realized they must have known he was a witch as it explained so much about why they acted the way they did. He pushed that thought from his mind knowing he'd never see them again and tried to figure out what having a pattern meant for him. "So, what do we do if we don't go to school?"
"Explore, learn things that catch our interest, have fun," The Leewit told him with a bright smile that he found himself mirroring. "Now, come on, we gotta get packed and scram before they get a chance to pull out pictures of me as a baby!"
Harry found himself being pulled through the house at a run until they reached her bedroom and he was pulled inside.
"Okay, we're going to need to pack a bag for you, then we'll wrap ourselves up in blankets and swim to Earth!" The Leewit told him.
"To Earth?" Harry asked, his stomach dropping.
"Present day Earth," she assured him, looking in his eyes, "no time traveling."
"Oh," he said, relieved. For a moment he'd been afraid he'd have to see the Dursleys again. "I thought it was empty."
"It is," The Leewit said brightly, "so we can poke around in the ruins and have fun while I teach you how to speak Imperial Universum; that's what everyone speaks."
"Are you sure your parents won't get mad?" he asked nervously.
"Positive," The Leewit assured him. "I wouldn't be surprised if they did all this to make sure I'd take you traveling and teach you." The Leewit sighed. "It's very hard to get anything over on people with precog."
"Wish I had precog," Harry said, "it sounds useful."
"I'll teach you that too," The Leewit promised as she sorted through the clothes that she'd laid out and packed a bag for Harry.
"You can teach that?" he asked in awe.
The Leewit smiled smugly. "I can, but unless you've got a talent for it the most you'll get is immediate danger and vague feelings of the future, which are still really useful. Of course since you have a pattern you'll probably pick it up pretty quickly."
"I don't feel any different," Harry said, reaching up and feeling his head.
"Of course you wouldn't," The Leewit said confidently, "patterns are chosen to reinforce your independence, not change who you are."
"Huh," Harry said thoughtfully, accepting the backpack The Leewit handed him and putting it on.
"Lay down on the bed," she ordered.
"Why?" Harry asked as he followed her directions while she slung a bow over her shoulder and grabbed her own backpack.
"Cause the Egger Route is clumping annoying and is going to make us thrash about," The Leewit explained, laying down next to him.
The blankets seemed to come alive as they cocooned the pair, causing Harry to squeak and struggle for a second until he heard The Leewit laughing in amusement and calmed down.
"The blankets will keep us from hurting ourselves when we thrash about," The Leewit explained, her voice slightly muffled by the blankets.
"Okay," Harry said, feeling like a mummy as he could barely move and hoping it wasn't going to be as bad as she said.
"Okay, see if you can rell this," The Leewit said, "I'll try and do it slowly so you can catch what I'm doing."
"Rell?" Harry asked.
"Sense things with your Klatha," she explained.
"What's a Klatha?" Harry asked, confused.
"Your relatives really kept you in the dark," The Leewit said.
"Literally," Harry agreed, thinking of his cupboard.
"Klatha is a cosmic force we use," she explained, "in your language it's called magic."
"So you want me to sense what you're doing with magic," Harry said brightly. "Only, I don't know how to do that."
"Just see if you feel anything strange and concentrate on that," The Leewit suggested.
"I can do that," Harry agreed and closed his eyes waiting to see if he felt anything weird, well weird beyond being cocooned in blankets anyway.
After a few seconds he began to feel… something, something light and tingly. He felt himself begin to drift like he was falling asleep only to have reality reassert itself as he felt completely awake and heard a loud howling outside his cocoon of blankets.
"Okay, we're on Earth," The Leewit announced. "Now just try to relax, we only have a few seconds before we start thrashing. It's a pain and we'll both be sore and tired afterwards, but it'll only last a couple of minutes."
"Okay," Harry agreed and found himself tightening his muscles, trying to brace himself for what was to come even as he tried to relax.
After a little while The Leewit spoke up, "Any second now."
The two lay in silence for a few minutes.
"It should have happened by now," The Leewit said, confused, "but then I didn't feel the huge disconnect and confusion you get treading the Egger Route either."
The blankets unwrapped themselves and the two looked around, finding themselves in a darkened room, their breath fogging the air.
"Where are we?" Harry asked, wrapping a blanket around himself to stave off some of the chill.
"Earth," The Leewit said confidently.
"I thought all the people were gone," Harry said.
"You can rell someone?" The Leewit asked curiously, as she tried to sense any people around and came up empty.
"Well no, but we're in a building," Harry said.
"You've lost me," The Leewit admitted as she waited for her eyes to adjust to the darkness, the only light a thin sliver from near the ceiling on one side of the room.
"If the people all left the Earth thousands of years ago, how are we in a building?" he asked.
"By the time mankind was ready to leave for the stars they were pretty good at building things," The Leewit replied, understanding his confusion, "in fact, thanks to wars and disasters and the like, I think technology in general is a good deal lower than it was when everyone left."
"Oh," Harry said. "So all the cities are still here?"
"And mostly intact," she agreed. "Of course some have been overgrown by forests and jungles, some are underwater… but most are intact. They really built to last."
"I'm guessing we're in a city buried in snow," Harry said.
"That'd be my guess too," The Leewit agreed, taking off her backpack and digging in it for a light. "Where did I pack my torch?"
Harry looked around, his eyes having adjusted enough to make out some dim shapes and wondered if there was a magic way to create light. He drew back at the thought, eyes darting about before realizing that there were no Dursleys to punish him for being unnatural and let out a relieved sigh.
"The dark's nothing to be afraid of," The Leewit hastily assured him, "and I'll have us some light in a few seconds."
Harry smiled, glad Leewit was with him; it was so nice to have a friend and she treated him better than his relatives ever had. As she resumed her search he started thinking about creating a light again and how he'd done all those strange things before. He'd never been calm when they'd happened, he was either angry or afraid, so maybe emotions had something to do with it.
Well if he'd done them on accident while upset it should be a bit easier to do them on purpose, he just had to feel a single emotion really strongly and will it to happen! He thought about what he felt at the moment. He was feeling excited at the thought of doing magic on purpose and happy The Leewit had decided to be his friend. Closing his eyes and taking a deep breath he concentrated on how happy having Leewit as a friend made him, letting it fill him.
The Leewit stopped searching for a light and turned to look at Harry, sure she was blushing so hard he'd be able to see her in the dark.
"Lumos!" Harry called out and a ball of blue light sprang into existence above his outstretched hand.
"Ack!" The Leewit exclaimed, flinching back from the small sun that had just appeared.
"Sorry!" Harry apologized, hoping he hadn't upset her.
"Its fine," she quickly assured him. "Was that your first spell?"
"Yeah," Harry said proudly, lowering his arm as the ball of light continued to hover in place before drifting upwards at his unspoken desire to be able to see more of the room.
"Nice work," she complimented him.
"Thanks," Harry said proudly. "I figured creating a light would be a bit easier than all the other things I'd done on accident and it just came to me."
"Since Calla fixed your pattern you'll find yourself able to do all sorts of things," The Leewit told him, thinking about light shifting and frowned in thought. "I could probably make a light like that, but it wouldn't be nearly as bright because I'd just be moving light around, not creating it and we were in the dark. I'll have to learn how to do that, but later, for now let's see where we are."
Looks like someone's living room," Harry offered as he looked around. The room had little furniture, just a broken down sofa and loveseat with a glassy black rectangle set in the wall opposite it that was probably some form of television. There was a door to one side of the room and a sliding glass door on the opposite side of the room that was completely covered in snow, with just a hint of light leaking in from the top of it.
"Looks like we landed somewhere snow covered," The Leewit noted, as she wrapped her blanket around herself like a cloak.
"Shouldn't there be a lot of dust?" Harry asked.
"They probably had a good air filtration system running while the population dropped and with no more people there's no more dust, since it's not open to the elements," The Leewit explained. "Of course they also could have just had an automatic cleaning service running until everyone moved, that'd handle it too."
Harry nodded, seeing the sense in it. "So, what do we do now?"
"Well, we didn't exactly dress for snow, so let's poke around and see if there's a second floor above the snow, so we can see if we can spot someplace warmer to stay," she decided.
"Maybe they've got some warmer clothes in here," Harry said, "a heavy jacket or something would help." He followed his floating ball of light to the hall and discovered an empty bathroom and bedroom.
"It's pretty small for a house," The Leewit said as they returned to the living room. "I'm going to guess it's at least a duplex or something and the front door leads to a shared entrance."
"Only one way to find out," Harry said, a bit excited at the idea of exploring and hoping to find something more than empty rooms. He turned to the front door and frowned. "How do we open it?"
The Leewit examined the smooth rectangular plate where a doorknob normally would be. "Electronic entry, they probably never expected the power to go out. Give me a second and I can get it open." She placed her palm on the plate and winced. "Cold," she complained. After a few seconds she pushed and the door opened, revealing a dark hall.
"Cool," Harry said in amazement.
She shook her hand and stuck it in her armpit. "Clumping cold is what it was!"
The two stepped out into a hall… which stretched past what Harry's spell lit up, showing rows of doors on both sides of the hall.
"I think we're in an apartment building," Harry said.
"Yeah," The Leewit agreed. "We'll need to go up a floor so we can get above the snow, it's gotta be ten feet deep out there."
"I hope they have stairs," Harry said, "cause I doubt the lifts are working."
"Most places still have stairs in case the power goes out, but I don't imagine they considered that since they were so advanced. Hopefully I'm wrong," The Leewit said, nudging Harry to follow her as she chose a direction at random and started walking.
"I'm surprised the air isn't stuffy, if air is still getting in there should be dust," Harry said, looking down at the spotless black tile floor and seeing not a speck of dust on it or the white marble walls.
"They probably invented some material that would let air in but not dust," The Leewit guessed. "Like I said, they were really advanced, advanced enough that no one's caught up yet. Of course there's been no reason for people to catch up, they only invent stuff when there's a need and since most places get plenty of space and food they seem content with where they are."
"Sounds lazy," Harry said.
"That's people for ya," The Leewit replied with a shrug.
"How'd you open the door?" Harry asked after a few seconds of silence.
"I felt for where it was stuck to the frame and bent the metal away," she replied.
"That's brilliant," Harry said with a grin.
"Being a witch is like that," The Leewit said modestly, "you get to do all sorts of neat things like that."
"And you're going to teach me?" he asked excitedly.
"And I'm going to teach you," she agreed with a smile.
"I think that's the lift," Harry said as they passed a pair of gleaming silver doors.
"I wonder if any of the places still have power," The Leewit said thoughtfully.
"You really think one might?" he asked.
"It's possible," The Leewit replied, "no one's ever really checked and as the population dropped everyone that remained slowly migrated to a single city and I'm pretty sure that city was as advanced as they could make it."
"I'm surprised they didn't just make more people," Harry said. At her look he quickly explained, "I mean there was plenty of room with everyone else gone to the stars, so it's not like the next generation had to leave as well."
"We can look into it while we're here," The Leewit decided. "Whatever city was last occupied by everyone will have records."
"You really think we can find out?" Harry asked in surprise.
"Of course," The Leewit replied, "after all there's no one around to stop us from poking around to our heart's content."
"Yeah," Harry said with a smile. "Hey, I think that's the door to the stairs."
The pair stopped at a door that was a third larger than the doors leading into the apartments.
"Let's find out," she said, reaching out, then pausing for a moment and wrapped her hand in her blanket before pressing it against the plate on the door. After a few seconds she pushed and the door opened onto a dark stairwell.
"I think the snow's a bit more than ten feet deep," Harry said in shock.
"How do you figure?" The Leewit asked, wondering how he'd come to that conclusion before they'd even climbed the stairs.
"Because that right there says we're on the fourth floor," Harry said, pointing to a huge red four painted on the wall.
Typing By: Abyssal Angel