Unplottable Island
Chapter 20: Wolf, Monster and Dog
It was barely ten minutes after Harry took Biana to her room when she was summoned to the Headmaster's office. She made her way there guided by a skittish house-elf named Fanky, who watched Biana closely every time she moved, and nearly expired when Biana spoke to her in English.
By the time the Dreki reached the spiral staircase that led up to Dumbledore's study, she was more than happy to say goodbye to the nervous house-elf. Self-consciously she tried to neaten her appearance as the stairs carried her upwards. Her dress was at least clean, though it fit her ill, but her face was probably covered in grit. As the staircase rose, she spat in her hand and rubbed her face. Biana ran her hands over her hair hopelessly just as she reached the landing.
She knocked on the door.
"Enter."
Biana had to duck to get through the doorway. She felt very out of place in the room, where everything was perfectly tailored to a man that was six feet tall. The fireplace, which rose to shoulder height for Dumbledore, was closer to her waistline. All the chairs were shorter than what she was used to; tables were placed awkwardly at mid-thigh. Dumbledore was standing behind his desk. Across from him were two men, both whom were staring at Biana.
"Ah, Miss Razi. Please have a seat." Dumbledore gestured to one of the short chairs.
She sat resignedly, her knees rising at a slightly uncomfortable angle. The eyes of the two men followed her.
"Sirius, Remus, this is Biana Razi, a Dreki. Biana, these men are Sirius Black and Remus Lupin, former students of mine."
Biana nodded. So did one of the men. The other just shifted uncomfortably. From where she was seated, she could see a green-black bruise on the side of his neck beneath the ear, like someone had throttled him.
"Headmaster, I really don't see what you have in mind," said the first man. He had dark hair cut close to his head and pale gray eyes. His hand waved in a broad gesture. "Why are Remus and I here?"
"Sirius, that will be revealed in time," said Dumbledore gravely. "What thoughts from you, Remus?"
Remus shifted in his seat again. His sandy hair was long and streaked with gray, his relatively young face etched with fine lines. Bruise-colored crescents fanned from beneath his lower lashes, and his mouth was wide and thin. As he moved, his robes slipped and Biana saw the edge of another bruise at the base of his neck. "I know you'll tell us, though I really don't understand what she has to do with it." His pale brown eyes glanced sideways at Biana.
"Does it even speak English?" Sirius demanded. "I thought that they could only speak Parseltounge."
"You were right until yezterday," Biana said quietly. Sirius jumped.
Remus only smiled. "Sirius Black, outsmarted again." But his smile vanished when his eyes fell on Biana.
Dumbledore cleared his throat. "As all of you know, two people most dear to us have vanished, apparently without a trace: Severus Snape and Laura Potter." A glance exchanged by the two younger men gave Biana the distinct impression that they would prefer to go without Severus Snape. "Until yesterday, we had no definite proof of their location or captor.
"Then Hagrid, while visiting a tribe of centaurs, found Biana Razi on a beach, half-drowned. Through an interpreter and her exceptional English, we've nearly pinpointed the location of our missing persons." With a smart flick of his wand, a large map materialized in midair and unrolled with a noise like a whip crack.
"You see here the North Sea. Here and here"—he marked points with his wand—"you see the Norwegian cities of Bergen and Florø. And about here"—he made another dot, about three-quarters of the way to Florø, and a little ways out from the continent—"There should be an island. It's Unplottable, of course, so I cannot give you three a good map of where to look."
Remus raised his eyebrows until they disappeared under his shaggy hair. Sirius slapped his hand on his armrest and swore loudly. Biana blinked twice.
"What I suggest is that the three of you travel to this Unplottable Island, and try and rescue Laura and Severus."
"Headmaster, with all due respect—this is crazy!" Sirius blustered, leaning forward in his chair. "Go somewhere we can't see, to face we don't know what by a time we cannot estimate!" He pounded on the armrest of his chair again. Remus said nothing.
"If I may recall correctly, Laura has done much the same thing, completely selflessly. Because of this, Timothy Potter is here with us today and you have your fiancée. The very least you can do for her is repay the favor." Dumbledore's blue eyes were icy.
"You—you are the betrothed of Laura?" Biana stuttered, trying to enunciate clearly. All three men stared at her.
"She's my fiancée." Sirius said quietly, his voice scalding. "I love her." Biana's face heated.
Dumbledore nodded, continuing: "I can provide broomsticks and invisibility cloaks, the best directions to the area. I regret that I am unable to join you. I'm not as young as I once was." He stared at each of them in turn, holding Biana's golden gaze the longest. "Biana, do you know how to fly on a broomstick?"
"A broomthick?" Biana repeated. "Izn't that dreadfully uncomfortable?"
"It is a standard method of travel to we mortals," Remus replied. "There are charms to prevent splinter-filled buttocks."
Biana tried and failed to picture the quiet brown man in the armchair flying through the air perched on a broomstick. She smiled behind her hand. "Iz there no more—more convenient way to get from point A to point B?"
"None that Minister Fudge hasn't outlawed," Dumbledore said cheerfully. "You'll get accustomed to it quickly, I think."
~*~
Biana clung to the broomstick for dear life as it shot uncontrollably towards the side of the 'Quidditch' field. Stupid word—nearly unpronounceable.
"Don't lean forward!" roared Sirius over the wind rushing through her ears. Biana leaned backwards and stopped shooting forwards, but went into a tailspin instead. She was nearly sick when Remus shot over and seized the tail of her broom, bringing her to a stop.
"People—they do thiz for fun?" Biana asked incredulously. "Az a sport?" Shakily she pointed the nose of the broom downwards, and fell off onto the ground in relief when she was close enough. "You mortalz—all mad. Crazy."
"I understand you flit about of fire-breathing dragons. I would say that you demi-mortals are the crazy ones." Remus descended and hovered three feet off the ground.
How on earth does he make it look so natural? Biana wondered, exasperated. "We're flying over water?" she asked despondently.
"Nice soft landing," Sirius quipped. "Get back on the broom, Lizzie." He had switched to this nickname at Biana's semi-violent request he stop referring to her as Lizard's Spawn. Remus chuckled and zoomed off again.
She groaned and re-mounted the broomstick, accelerating slower this time. Turning broadly and not going to fast, she only fell off twice. "No stuntz on these, right?" Feeling bolder, she accelerated to about 20 kph. She made a wide turn around the three goalposts, then slowed to look around, getting used to the height. (Author's Note: 20 kilometers per hour is roughly equal to10 mph)
"Not if you're honest," Lupin replied. He halted his broomstick and watched her with his steady gaze. "Why did you leave Voldemort?"
Biana gripped her broomstick tightly in agitation, but halted herself when she shot forward a few feet. "He waz a bad man—crazy, even." She pulled down the shoulder of her dress to expose the scars, still pink and red. "He did that to me. I waz his cell guard—I listened to all the people die!" Her voice broke and she stopped, looking away to the east where her home was. "He deserves to die the mozt painful death imaginable!" She broke into Parseltounge, not knowing the words to express herself in English. Dreki curses tend to be very violent, including much 'rending of flesh' and 'piercing of eyes with red-hot irons'.
Sirius winced. "Ouch. Whatever you just said, that sounded bad."
Biana looked over at Laura's fiancée, and to her own surprise, smiled. "It waz. Your stomach iz too weak to handle it, mortal!" She leaned forward and shot away as Sirius gave chase and Remus laughed.
~~
"Wake up!" Tim shook his brother roughly.
Groaning, Harry sat up, the homework he'd fallen asleep on sticking to his face. Peeling it off, he glanced blearily at his twin. "What?"
"Sirius and that Dreki and somebody else are leaving! To find Laura!" Tim waited for this to sink in, searching his mind for the Dreki's name. Harry had told him everything about his encounter with the dragon-girl, but somehow the name had slipped his mind. "Oh, and Snape too," he added. "On broomsticks! Today!" He sat down and stared at Harry. "We can't just let them leave!"
Harry's eyes popped. "Serious?"
"And Biana and another man!" Tim replied, recalling the name. "Oh wait. Yes, of course I'm serious."
"We can't just let them go! They'll get massacred! Wait, hold on a tic…" Harry jumped up and ran upstairs. Tim thought briefly about following him, but decided to stay put. He really didn't want Sirius to leave without him—he was like the father Tim couldn't remember. Only once had Tim heard James' voice: he'd had a dream with green light and a screaming woman, and a man telling her to go. He knew now that that dream was one of Harry's, that some how Tim had too.
He shook his head and pulled a sheet of parchment towards him, jotting down what he knew. Tim was waving it in the air to dry when Harry galloped down the stairs, holding his broomstick and a long silvery cloak
"Harry," he protested. "I know what you're thinking, and I think that it will NOT work." Tim squinted, for a moment envisioning the two of them crashing into the raging oceans and eaten by sharks.
"It'll be fine! Besides, I haven't fallen off a broom in years. It's going to be an easy ride." Harry pointed at the shiny word Firebolt engraved upon the surface, as if that word could take care of everything. "It's for Laura, anyhow."
"I lived by the sea for fifteen years!" Tim exploded. "It isn't like a Quidditch field, Harry—you've probably never even seen the ocean! You haven't, have you?" Harry shook his head. "Exactly! And I KNOW this is for Laura, and I'd do it except for the fact that we don't have a chance!"
Harry shrugged, his green eyes flat behind his round glasses. "There's always a chance. I mean, what chance does a baby have against Voldemort?"
Tim rested his head in his hands. "What chance do two boys have of making it across the ocean and killing the greatest wizard living without either getting killed in the process or getting the people they came to save killed?" He tapped the paper in front of him. "Not taking in the fact that Biana is the only good Dreki we know of, she's female, wounded, and probably has never seen a broomstick before in her life?"
Harry shrugged again, this time mostly with his eyebrows. "We still have a chance. I'm not sure about you, but I think that I'd rather die trying." He shrugged his cloak over his shoulders, disappearing from view. Tim heard the footsteps of his invisible brother retreat towards Sir Lot.
Tim rolled his eyes and tore up the paper, throwing it into the fireplace. "Harry, you're an ass." He'd barely started to heave himself to his feet when Harry's grinning head appeared, hovering in the sir five feet off the ground.
"I know, I know. I think you're an ass too. Let move, maybe there's another broom in the shed."
