Okay, just a couple of things to say 'fore I start a-tellin' m' story. Sorry 'bout the hold-up on this new chapter, it came out longer than I thought, and I wanted to make this the best story possible. Also, some of the names are just things backwards. Those things aren't mine!!! For example, Tsoacnus is just Suncoast backwards. Same to Acremina (Animerica, the magazine!) and Cetbal (Labtec, brand of my comp. speakers.) Anyways, please read and review! Tell me if you loved it, hated it, or just don't really give about it! PLEASE!!!! Also, the story is moving more slowly than expected. I wouldn't be surprised if it took 10 additional chapters to complete the storyline!! ^.^; Thanx, and now, on with the story...
~~~
Pretty soon, all of the members of the small party were on the island and were wringing their clothes dry. They all knew what had happened to them to get to this island (except, perhaps the part with the strange corridor, but we'll learn of that later), but the question of the day was, "why". They all shed their wizardring robes, and simply wore their muggle clothing that they had on underneath. After that, they got their first good look at their surroundings.
When you came out of the water, onto the land, there wasn't a beach, as you might have expected there to be, but a sort of gravel. Not the normal gravel, either. At first glance, it may have seemed so, but if you were to look closely, it wasn't gray and dull, as you would have found it in a garden pathway. It had a sort of glow about it, and it would make your eyes burn to stare at it too long. The forest that took up a majority of this island (or at least what they saw of it) was made up of the oddest, and yet the most beautiful trees that if you could ever imagine what they looked like, it would be something of an accomplishment. They had the darkest, richest color in their trunks. It was a sort of brownish-red, with a bit of a black tinge, and the slightest hint of green wherever moss grew. The leaves were something of a cross between a regular maple leaf, a pine leaf, a porcupine, and everything in between. They had only the slightest bit of greenish-yellow in them, and looked something of a deep aquamarine color. All the plants seemed to have this as a color scheme. The flowers with wonderfully smelling large blooms that hung down to the ground had a lavender-purple either mixed or shot along with the aqua.
Once they all were dry and comfortable, they decided to set off to look around the island. There was only one way to go, and that was through the forest. So into the forest they went, and they soon came to a dead end. There seemed to be a fifty-foot high wall blocking their path. They walked around it, hoping to possibly find a place to climb or to go around, but it was to no avail. They came to the spot where they had first saw the wall, and decided to go back to the shore.
"Are you sure that there are no places to climb, or even a place to get through, Harry? We might've missed a gate or a wall of ivy or something. I mean, I don't think that any one of us was paying attention. At least I wasn't.
"No, no." Replied Harry to Hermione's question. "This wall is as flat as anything. The one thing I want to know is how we got here. I mean, Peeves couldn't have done that, nor do I think he would have wanted to."
"Yes, I know. It is very odd. Very odd, indeed." Ron said. He then began to look as if he were thinking truly, very deeply, else he was constipated.
"You know, something's reeeaaalllly weird 'bout you two. I'm not sure what, but It's scaring me." Hermione and Ron gave Harry inquisitive looks at this remark.
"I'm not quite sure about me, but I have noticed something different about you, Harry, and also you, Hermione." Ron began thinking again. It was odd for him to be thinking this hard.
"Ron, you can't be right about that, or can Harry! I feel the same, and it's you two that are acting weird."
"Well… whatever. We'll solve that later. What we need to think about is what we're going to do." But Ron had different plans.
"No, I think not. We should figure out what's wrong with us first, because then we know what me may or mayn't do."
"You know, something must-" but Harry was cut short. "Wh-what's that…?" He pointed a trembling finger at a bright ball of light right next to Hermione's left ear.
"What? Where?" Hermione was looking about as if there was a giant wasp in her hair. This made her look like she had gone insane, because the moment Harry noticed the orb, the form of a girl was made out of the light. The form soon took a more solid shape, and before them was a girl dressed in clothes that no matter how hard you looked, you couldn't possibly find in either the muggle or magical world.
She had on a sort of dress, which ended on the middle of her thigh in the front, and went down to her ankle in the back. The collar was perfectly circular and allowed you to see the white shirt she wore underneath. It ended high on her neck, and had the smallest buttons down the front. The sleeves she wore were closely fitted, as was the dress. Starting at the elbow they were large and went a good four inches past her hands. If you were to lift these oversized sleeves, you would see the aforementioned shirt end close to her skin at the knuckles, and cover the bottommost part of her thumb. The whole dress was the very lightest blue; it was the kind that you see on a bright spring day after a good rain. The whole of her dress was this color, with the exception of large bands bordering the edges of the sleeves, the neck, and the skirt.
Her legs were completely bare, except for the loose, brown, leathery boots that she wore. They went up to her knee, and were laced up with large, thick bands. Across her waist was a belt that looked like any other that you would see, and hanging from it was a pouch. Across her back were both a large bag and a sheath for the longest sword imaginable. One could only imagine what type of damage she could do with that, for even with the slimness of her frame, there was an air of power which caused a bit of fear in the children, despite their past encounters.
Possibly the oddest thing about her was her face. She had no eyes. She had two hollows in the front of her head where the eye sockets might go, but everything else was "in place". Her hair was a shiny, tidy, (A/N: Please never mind that bit of rhyming. It wasn't intended) mess of hair which was a bright platinum. Her straight bangs brushed up against her eyebrows and the rest of her hair was tied into two pigtails. Apparently, she had taken each pigtail, and looped it back. Despite all this, each loop managed to fall to her ankle, as did the length of hair that came from each loop. She truly looked like she would belong in some sort of anime/fantasy show/RPG videogame.
Despite the lengthy description that I have just given you, they had taken all of this in within a short time, for before you could say "I want chicken, I want liver, meow mix meow mix, please deliver!", (A/N: just a stupid thing to wake you from the boring passage. ^.^ :-P Oh, that song's not mine. Duh. Back to the story) she had drawn the sword and dashed away as if chasing something, else she was running away from the group.
"Well, that was odd." Said Ron with a dumbfounded look on his face.
"I know. I wonder what had happened." Replied Harry, with the same look, having forgotten the previous argument.
"Yeah, that was awfully odd. I have the strangest feeling that she intended for us to follow her, or she ran away from us. Maybe we should follow her."
"Good idea, Hermione. It's a lot better of a plan than any of us had." After saying this, Ron dashed off in the direction that the girl had run.
"No! Wait! Ugh." Harry dashed after him.
"Boys." Hermione said as she shook her head and chased after the two of them.
~~~
The threesome soon found themselves in some sort of village, with the image of a huge castle in the background. All of the townspeople were dressed in similar fashion as the girl; all in light pastel colors, with large sleeves, long hair, and robes that were close to the ones that the girl had on. The only difference was that they all had thick pieces of fabric around their heads, covering where their eyes would be. And of course, every one of the citizens of the town had a great sense of fashion and had made sure that the headbands matched with their robes. The three correctly assumed that none of these people had eyes, so it was a wonder how they accomplished this.
The whole town was bustling around a main street that ran straight ahead to the kingdom in the distance. Along either side were different merchants selling oddities that even the most experienced witch or wizard would be amazed at. It reminded them greatly of Diagon Alley. It was oddly quiet. All the people of the village were buying things, carrying children, talking to one another or other things, and yet there was little noise. It was like everyone was whispering in the faintest voice possible. Little did the visitors know whom it was about. They caught snippets of conversation in English, but the people's mouths didn't seem to match the speech. It was like a dubbed, cheap Kung-Fu movie.
After some time of the children's confusion, a little girl simply came up to them and said, "Who are you? Why don't you have a band? And what are those things on you face?" She said this with the same strange speech.
"Oh! Cetbal! Cetbal! Come here, you silly girl! Don't be rude!!" came a woman's voice from nowhere. It was the first noise they had heard in ages. Instantly, a woman about Aunt Petunia's age, (but much prettier) of who resembled the girl came out of nowhere.
At the same moment, the crowd had backed away from the group, leaving a large circle about ten feet around them. They seemed to be talking in hushed voices, but you couldn't hear them at all. You merely saw them whispering in one another's ears."Oh, you must excuse her. Her curiosity tends to get the better of her sometimes, but I think that you should come with us…I mean, just to get you familiar with our customs and everything…you understand?"
"Umm…sure…miss…?"
"Oh! I haven't even introduced myself! But…we can't do that here. Let's go back to my place."
At this, she turned around and "opened" a door in midair. Nothing was there before, she just grabbed at where a doorknob would be, and it appeared for her to open. This was obviously a kind of magic the children were not familiar with. They stared as she and her daughter went through as if nothing had happened. "Well, come on!" The three went through it cautiously, and as soon as they stepped through the doorway, they found themselves in a room.
The room was wonderful. It was perfectly circular, with no doors, and the one they came through disappeared behind them. The far side of the wall, and also the ceiling, were made of glass, and allowed a great deal of light to enter the room. From the window, you could see the best view you could ever imagine of the beach. Bordering these large windows were stained glass, arranged in ornate patterns, which cast many colored lights about the room. The room itself was about twenty feet in diameter, and the ceiling went up about ten feet.
There were three wonderful-looking four-poster beds, which looked even more comfortable than the ones at Hogwarts. There were also several beautiful sofas and armchairs around the room, big enough even to hold (and even satisfy) Dudley Dursley.
"You may sit down", said a voice.
The voice, apparently, had come from the woman. They each chose a seat, as did she, when all of a sudden, a large rectangle appeared in front of her. They saw the face of a male dressed all in green, gold, and red on the rectangle, as if it were a screen. The woman jumped up and pulled out a black sphere. She held it for a second, then, KAPWING! The woman was dressed in similar clothing now. She did a sort of salute, bringing her right fist to her left shoulder, then quickly bringing it straight out horizontally. The man did the same.
"Tsoacnus! What have you been doing? You were to report back to me immediately at fort-eight-o-four to relay the results of the investigation! And where's Aciremina?
She was assigned to work with you!" His tone of voice was commanding and harsh, and he had a look of severe frustration and discontent on his face.
"I'm sorry, sir! Ah…err… Aciremina and I had decided to split out on the search. She took the forest, and found 'them'. She alerted me, and at the same time, led 'them' to me. I have 'them' with me here." At this, Tsoacnus (we know this now from the "sir") led the screen towards the three visitors.
"Ah! Very well, then. I order you to lead them to me, and I shall take care of the rest." At this, the two adults saluted each other once more, and the screen disappeared.
"I'm sorry you had to see that. Well, you have to follow me, then." Apparently, what they were searching for was Harry, Ron, and Hermione.br
"May I ask you something?" Said Ron. This was the first time any of them spoke to the woman in a full sentence.br
"You leave me no choice."br
"Umm…yeah…Can you explain why we're here? You seem to know a lot about the goings on of my friends and I."br
"Yeah," Injected Hermione, "…and what's with this militaristic style of living?" br
"Oh, I'm sorry. I think that I should be the one to tell you, but my orders are not to tell you anything, and to send you to Mission Base number four-o-five, and I suppose by means of … yes, that's how. Now, if only…no…I shouldn't…orders are orders…" This last bit was more to her than to the three, highly perplexed kids who had no choice but to go along. They got the gist anyways.
"Okay, I've got it. Follow my lead, and try to look as inconspicuous as possible. Here," At this, she threw them three spheres not unlike the one she had before. "You'll be needing these. Just think of an item you want, and you'll get it. You should use them to change into 'normal' clothing."
Tsoacnus transformed herself into a hardly noticeable bead of light after Harry, Ron, and Hermione got into clean sets of the interesting clothing. Hermione had on robes just like the one Aciremina (that was the woman they had seen before) had on, just that they were black around the edges, and the headband tied her hair back. Harry and Ron's robes were exactly the same, except that in place of a skirt, the shirt ended like a tunic, they had no belt, and they had on loose-fitting pants. Theirs, too were black. The headband was not worn at all, it was in the bags they carried. The bead of light then chimed for them to follow her, and so they did. It opened a hole in the wall, which led them back towards the street. It shot far ahead of them, and left a blue path of light leading them to their destination, the palace.
***
Meanwhile, at the castle, Dumbledore was walking down the exact corridor Harry&Co. were that morning. He, however, was his usual self. He stopped at the tapestry and looked at it. Three warriors, were against the demon. They seemed to be in front of a castle, this time. It had large spires and turrets wherever possible, and it had a large stained-glass window on the front of it. "So," he said. "It seems that they have picked their vessels already. They seem to have chosen the proper ones, according to the criteria, of course." He carefully pulled the tapestry from the wall, rolled it up, and took it to his office.
~~~End of Chapter Two- The Beginning of Their Destiny~~
~~~
Pretty soon, all of the members of the small party were on the island and were wringing their clothes dry. They all knew what had happened to them to get to this island (except, perhaps the part with the strange corridor, but we'll learn of that later), but the question of the day was, "why". They all shed their wizardring robes, and simply wore their muggle clothing that they had on underneath. After that, they got their first good look at their surroundings.
When you came out of the water, onto the land, there wasn't a beach, as you might have expected there to be, but a sort of gravel. Not the normal gravel, either. At first glance, it may have seemed so, but if you were to look closely, it wasn't gray and dull, as you would have found it in a garden pathway. It had a sort of glow about it, and it would make your eyes burn to stare at it too long. The forest that took up a majority of this island (or at least what they saw of it) was made up of the oddest, and yet the most beautiful trees that if you could ever imagine what they looked like, it would be something of an accomplishment. They had the darkest, richest color in their trunks. It was a sort of brownish-red, with a bit of a black tinge, and the slightest hint of green wherever moss grew. The leaves were something of a cross between a regular maple leaf, a pine leaf, a porcupine, and everything in between. They had only the slightest bit of greenish-yellow in them, and looked something of a deep aquamarine color. All the plants seemed to have this as a color scheme. The flowers with wonderfully smelling large blooms that hung down to the ground had a lavender-purple either mixed or shot along with the aqua.
Once they all were dry and comfortable, they decided to set off to look around the island. There was only one way to go, and that was through the forest. So into the forest they went, and they soon came to a dead end. There seemed to be a fifty-foot high wall blocking their path. They walked around it, hoping to possibly find a place to climb or to go around, but it was to no avail. They came to the spot where they had first saw the wall, and decided to go back to the shore.
"Are you sure that there are no places to climb, or even a place to get through, Harry? We might've missed a gate or a wall of ivy or something. I mean, I don't think that any one of us was paying attention. At least I wasn't.
"No, no." Replied Harry to Hermione's question. "This wall is as flat as anything. The one thing I want to know is how we got here. I mean, Peeves couldn't have done that, nor do I think he would have wanted to."
"Yes, I know. It is very odd. Very odd, indeed." Ron said. He then began to look as if he were thinking truly, very deeply, else he was constipated.
"You know, something's reeeaaalllly weird 'bout you two. I'm not sure what, but It's scaring me." Hermione and Ron gave Harry inquisitive looks at this remark.
"I'm not quite sure about me, but I have noticed something different about you, Harry, and also you, Hermione." Ron began thinking again. It was odd for him to be thinking this hard.
"Ron, you can't be right about that, or can Harry! I feel the same, and it's you two that are acting weird."
"Well… whatever. We'll solve that later. What we need to think about is what we're going to do." But Ron had different plans.
"No, I think not. We should figure out what's wrong with us first, because then we know what me may or mayn't do."
"You know, something must-" but Harry was cut short. "Wh-what's that…?" He pointed a trembling finger at a bright ball of light right next to Hermione's left ear.
"What? Where?" Hermione was looking about as if there was a giant wasp in her hair. This made her look like she had gone insane, because the moment Harry noticed the orb, the form of a girl was made out of the light. The form soon took a more solid shape, and before them was a girl dressed in clothes that no matter how hard you looked, you couldn't possibly find in either the muggle or magical world.
She had on a sort of dress, which ended on the middle of her thigh in the front, and went down to her ankle in the back. The collar was perfectly circular and allowed you to see the white shirt she wore underneath. It ended high on her neck, and had the smallest buttons down the front. The sleeves she wore were closely fitted, as was the dress. Starting at the elbow they were large and went a good four inches past her hands. If you were to lift these oversized sleeves, you would see the aforementioned shirt end close to her skin at the knuckles, and cover the bottommost part of her thumb. The whole dress was the very lightest blue; it was the kind that you see on a bright spring day after a good rain. The whole of her dress was this color, with the exception of large bands bordering the edges of the sleeves, the neck, and the skirt.
Her legs were completely bare, except for the loose, brown, leathery boots that she wore. They went up to her knee, and were laced up with large, thick bands. Across her waist was a belt that looked like any other that you would see, and hanging from it was a pouch. Across her back were both a large bag and a sheath for the longest sword imaginable. One could only imagine what type of damage she could do with that, for even with the slimness of her frame, there was an air of power which caused a bit of fear in the children, despite their past encounters.
Possibly the oddest thing about her was her face. She had no eyes. She had two hollows in the front of her head where the eye sockets might go, but everything else was "in place". Her hair was a shiny, tidy, (A/N: Please never mind that bit of rhyming. It wasn't intended) mess of hair which was a bright platinum. Her straight bangs brushed up against her eyebrows and the rest of her hair was tied into two pigtails. Apparently, she had taken each pigtail, and looped it back. Despite all this, each loop managed to fall to her ankle, as did the length of hair that came from each loop. She truly looked like she would belong in some sort of anime/fantasy show/RPG videogame.
Despite the lengthy description that I have just given you, they had taken all of this in within a short time, for before you could say "I want chicken, I want liver, meow mix meow mix, please deliver!", (A/N: just a stupid thing to wake you from the boring passage. ^.^ :-P Oh, that song's not mine. Duh. Back to the story) she had drawn the sword and dashed away as if chasing something, else she was running away from the group.
"Well, that was odd." Said Ron with a dumbfounded look on his face.
"I know. I wonder what had happened." Replied Harry, with the same look, having forgotten the previous argument.
"Yeah, that was awfully odd. I have the strangest feeling that she intended for us to follow her, or she ran away from us. Maybe we should follow her."
"Good idea, Hermione. It's a lot better of a plan than any of us had." After saying this, Ron dashed off in the direction that the girl had run.
"No! Wait! Ugh." Harry dashed after him.
"Boys." Hermione said as she shook her head and chased after the two of them.
~~~
The threesome soon found themselves in some sort of village, with the image of a huge castle in the background. All of the townspeople were dressed in similar fashion as the girl; all in light pastel colors, with large sleeves, long hair, and robes that were close to the ones that the girl had on. The only difference was that they all had thick pieces of fabric around their heads, covering where their eyes would be. And of course, every one of the citizens of the town had a great sense of fashion and had made sure that the headbands matched with their robes. The three correctly assumed that none of these people had eyes, so it was a wonder how they accomplished this.
The whole town was bustling around a main street that ran straight ahead to the kingdom in the distance. Along either side were different merchants selling oddities that even the most experienced witch or wizard would be amazed at. It reminded them greatly of Diagon Alley. It was oddly quiet. All the people of the village were buying things, carrying children, talking to one another or other things, and yet there was little noise. It was like everyone was whispering in the faintest voice possible. Little did the visitors know whom it was about. They caught snippets of conversation in English, but the people's mouths didn't seem to match the speech. It was like a dubbed, cheap Kung-Fu movie.
After some time of the children's confusion, a little girl simply came up to them and said, "Who are you? Why don't you have a band? And what are those things on you face?" She said this with the same strange speech.
"Oh! Cetbal! Cetbal! Come here, you silly girl! Don't be rude!!" came a woman's voice from nowhere. It was the first noise they had heard in ages. Instantly, a woman about Aunt Petunia's age, (but much prettier) of who resembled the girl came out of nowhere.
At the same moment, the crowd had backed away from the group, leaving a large circle about ten feet around them. They seemed to be talking in hushed voices, but you couldn't hear them at all. You merely saw them whispering in one another's ears."Oh, you must excuse her. Her curiosity tends to get the better of her sometimes, but I think that you should come with us…I mean, just to get you familiar with our customs and everything…you understand?"
"Umm…sure…miss…?"
"Oh! I haven't even introduced myself! But…we can't do that here. Let's go back to my place."
At this, she turned around and "opened" a door in midair. Nothing was there before, she just grabbed at where a doorknob would be, and it appeared for her to open. This was obviously a kind of magic the children were not familiar with. They stared as she and her daughter went through as if nothing had happened. "Well, come on!" The three went through it cautiously, and as soon as they stepped through the doorway, they found themselves in a room.
The room was wonderful. It was perfectly circular, with no doors, and the one they came through disappeared behind them. The far side of the wall, and also the ceiling, were made of glass, and allowed a great deal of light to enter the room. From the window, you could see the best view you could ever imagine of the beach. Bordering these large windows were stained glass, arranged in ornate patterns, which cast many colored lights about the room. The room itself was about twenty feet in diameter, and the ceiling went up about ten feet.
There were three wonderful-looking four-poster beds, which looked even more comfortable than the ones at Hogwarts. There were also several beautiful sofas and armchairs around the room, big enough even to hold (and even satisfy) Dudley Dursley.
"You may sit down", said a voice.
The voice, apparently, had come from the woman. They each chose a seat, as did she, when all of a sudden, a large rectangle appeared in front of her. They saw the face of a male dressed all in green, gold, and red on the rectangle, as if it were a screen. The woman jumped up and pulled out a black sphere. She held it for a second, then, KAPWING! The woman was dressed in similar clothing now. She did a sort of salute, bringing her right fist to her left shoulder, then quickly bringing it straight out horizontally. The man did the same.
"Tsoacnus! What have you been doing? You were to report back to me immediately at fort-eight-o-four to relay the results of the investigation! And where's Aciremina?
She was assigned to work with you!" His tone of voice was commanding and harsh, and he had a look of severe frustration and discontent on his face.
"I'm sorry, sir! Ah…err… Aciremina and I had decided to split out on the search. She took the forest, and found 'them'. She alerted me, and at the same time, led 'them' to me. I have 'them' with me here." At this, Tsoacnus (we know this now from the "sir") led the screen towards the three visitors.
"Ah! Very well, then. I order you to lead them to me, and I shall take care of the rest." At this, the two adults saluted each other once more, and the screen disappeared.
"I'm sorry you had to see that. Well, you have to follow me, then." Apparently, what they were searching for was Harry, Ron, and Hermione.br
"May I ask you something?" Said Ron. This was the first time any of them spoke to the woman in a full sentence.br
"You leave me no choice."br
"Umm…yeah…Can you explain why we're here? You seem to know a lot about the goings on of my friends and I."br
"Yeah," Injected Hermione, "…and what's with this militaristic style of living?" br
"Oh, I'm sorry. I think that I should be the one to tell you, but my orders are not to tell you anything, and to send you to Mission Base number four-o-five, and I suppose by means of … yes, that's how. Now, if only…no…I shouldn't…orders are orders…" This last bit was more to her than to the three, highly perplexed kids who had no choice but to go along. They got the gist anyways.
"Okay, I've got it. Follow my lead, and try to look as inconspicuous as possible. Here," At this, she threw them three spheres not unlike the one she had before. "You'll be needing these. Just think of an item you want, and you'll get it. You should use them to change into 'normal' clothing."
Tsoacnus transformed herself into a hardly noticeable bead of light after Harry, Ron, and Hermione got into clean sets of the interesting clothing. Hermione had on robes just like the one Aciremina (that was the woman they had seen before) had on, just that they were black around the edges, and the headband tied her hair back. Harry and Ron's robes were exactly the same, except that in place of a skirt, the shirt ended like a tunic, they had no belt, and they had on loose-fitting pants. Theirs, too were black. The headband was not worn at all, it was in the bags they carried. The bead of light then chimed for them to follow her, and so they did. It opened a hole in the wall, which led them back towards the street. It shot far ahead of them, and left a blue path of light leading them to their destination, the palace.
***
Meanwhile, at the castle, Dumbledore was walking down the exact corridor Harry&Co. were that morning. He, however, was his usual self. He stopped at the tapestry and looked at it. Three warriors, were against the demon. They seemed to be in front of a castle, this time. It had large spires and turrets wherever possible, and it had a large stained-glass window on the front of it. "So," he said. "It seems that they have picked their vessels already. They seem to have chosen the proper ones, according to the criteria, of course." He carefully pulled the tapestry from the wall, rolled it up, and took it to his office.
~~~End of Chapter Two- The Beginning of Their Destiny~~