Disclaimer: JK Rowling is a billionaire author who owns Harry Potter and anything associated with the books. I, on the other hand, am a fanfic author with too much spare time. Don't confuse the two of us.

Chapter 5
-OR-
"The Aeternus Gate"

Even though Ron had a lot to think about, he fell asleep quickly. When he awoke, it took Ron a few moments to recognize the glimmering rectangle on the wall as sunlight. Shaking off sleep, Ron sat up and looked around. He was still in his room at Number Twelve, Grimmauld Place. It isn't a dream, then, he thought. Cautiously, he got out of bed and noticed standing no longer made him dizzy. Smelling breakfast, he headed for the kitchens.

Dobby was the only one in the kitchen. He was seated at the table, his little legs dangling from the chair and swinging slightly from side to side. As he ate his cereal, his saucer-sized eyes were darting back and forth across the back of the cereal box. The scene reminded Ron strongly of childhood mornings spent at the Burrow.

"Dobby?" The house elf jumped up and snapped his head around to look at Ron.

"Oh, you is awake, sir! Dobby will help you with breakfast, if you like, sir, or Dobby can get Harry Potter or Hemione! Or..."

"Dobby, relax," said Ron. Dobby was already bouncing around the kitchen, getting out pots and pans and preparing to cook. Ron, louder this time, said again, "Dobby, I don't need anything. I'm fine with just a bowl of cereal or something..."

"No, no, Hermione says you is needing a big breakfast, and Dobby is wanting to cook for you." As he said this, Hermione walked into the room.

"Hey! You're finally up, sleepyhead! It's almost noon."

"Yeah, sorry about that. I guess I was really tired."

"Well, ten years' worth of jet lag would tire anyone. Maybe some breakfast will perk you up." Hermione waved her wand, setting pots and pans in motion as they began to cook.

"No, really, I just want some cereal..." Ron's pleas were ignored as Hermione gently pushed him into a chair and put a plate of eggs and bacon in front of him. Ron sullenly tasted the eggs, which were scrambled to perfection.

"What kind of juice would you like?" Hermione asked absentmindedly, as she buttered some toast.

"Uh, orange is fine, thanks," said Ron, through a mouthful of food. Hermione set an empty glass in front of him which promptly started to fill itself with orange juice. Hermione took a seat next to him. "You haven't eaten yet?" asked Ron.

"Of course not. I wouldn't let my houseguest eat alone, would I?" She cheerfully attacked her own plate.

"Where'd Dobby go?" asked Ron. After his quick cooking, the house- elf had disappeared.

"He still won't eat with us--humans, I mean," said Hermione, rolling her eyes. "I teach and I teach, but he just won't. He's probably off cleaning or something." She looked Ron in the eye and smiled. "I hope we didn't stop too abruptly for you last night, Ron. It's just that Harry gets so...tired." A brief look of what might have been worry crossed her face. "He's feeling much better today--he'll want to talk to you after you're done eating."

"Where is he?"

"Oh, he's in the basement, working on...well, working." Hermione gave another quick smile to try to cover her hesitation. Seeing Ron's concern, she quickly added, "Oh, no, it's nothing bad or dangerous. I'm just sure he'd want to be the one to explain, that's all."

An uneasy silence filled the room.

"What about you, Hermione?" said Ron. "Are you okay?"

Hermione first looked a bit surprised at his question. "Of course. Why do you ask?"

"You just didn't talk much last night. I thought that maybe you weren't well or something."

"No, Harry just likes to talk. You know me--never much of a talker."

Ron paused. He did know Hermione--or at least, he knew the Hermione of ten years ago--and she was always willing to speak up and explain something. In fact, when they first met, it was Hermione's unceasing chatter that drove Ron nuts. Before he could mention any of this, she spoke.

"We've gotten a lot of owls--the old gang heard about you. Your mum and dad will be here this afternoon, so we took the liberty of inviting everyone else. Everyone's really excited, you know?"

"Everyone...?"

"Yeah! Your parents, of course, and your brothers and sister. I think even Professor McGonagall--she's the headmistress, now, you know that?--sent an owl. It'll be fun."

"I hope I'm up to it," said Ron. One night with just two of his friends had been an emotionally draining experience. How much had everyone else changed?

"You'll be fine," said Hermione, in the same motherly tone she had used with Harry at the end of the previous night's story. "You can rest up all you like today, we're not going anywhere. If you like, you should go downstairs. Harry would be happy to finish his brief history of the past years."

"What about you?" asked Ron. He was suddenly a bit nervous about meeting with Harry alone. Why do I feel this way? thought Ron.

"I have to get the house ready for a party!" she said, with a wink. "I can't let Dobby do all the work, can I?"
When Ron got downstairs, Harry was sitting at a desk with a few large books and scrolls around him. He looked up immediately, though, as Ron descended the staircase.

"Hey!" he said. He sounded more alive with that one word than he had all last night. "Did you sleep well?"

"Uh, yeah," said Ron. "I feel good, thanks."

"Have you eaten?" Harry rose from behind the desk and drew a chair in the air with his wand. It materialized, and he pulled it out for his friend.

"Thanks." Ron nervously eyed the machine in the center of the room. Now that he wasn't semi-conscious, he noticed that it wasn't exactly like the one at Hogwarts. The arch was still there, repaired, and looking much sturdier than it had ten years ago. Ron thought he saw the time turner, mounted under the control panel--with one button--but many of the other artifacts were gone. He turned back to Harry. "Yeah, I've eaten, thanks. Hermione ate with me."

Harry smiled. "She's really excited to have you back, Ron. We both are. It's pretty exciting stuff, you know?"

"I guess so," said Ron. "Harry, what is that thing?" He gestured towards the collection of devices in the middle of the room.

"That, Ron, is an Aeternus Gate. Well, a modified one, anyway."

"What're those? Aeternus Gates?"

"Well, that's kind of hard to explain. You're lucky, though, because I'm one of only about three living people who could really explain them."

"Who're the other two?"

"Well, Hermione could, probably, but not as well as I can." Seeing the incredulous look on Ron's face, Harry quickly added, "Only because I study them. Remember when I told you I research for a living? I research these."

"Who's the third person?"

"Luna Lovegood," said Harry, but his voice sounded funny as he said it. Before Ron could ask, Harry continued with his explanation. "Aeternus Gates are relics of a very powerful magic-using people of thousands of years ago. They separated themselves from Muggles and most wizards and witches. Muggles knew about them, though, and so do you, probably, through mythology. Ancient peoples, like the Egyptians and Greeks, thought they were gods."

"Why's that?"

"They had amazing powers, of course, but nothing that a Hogwarts graduate couldn't do. What made them special were these gates," he said, pointing to the ancient archway. "They knew of a...place, I guess you could call it. The Aeternus."

"How is something a sort of place?"

"Well," started Harry, "it's like another dimension or something." He chuckled a little bit. "See, even I, the world's greatest expert, can't really explain it. Anyway, these Ancients were able to use these Gates to access the Aeternus and go anywhere."

"Anywhere?"

"Anywhere. Think of the Aeternus as a really, really big room--big enough to be adjacent to everywhere in the world at the same time. These gates were like doors into and out of that room."

"So anywhere there was a Gate..."

"The Ancients could go. Exactly." Ron nodded in comprehension. Harry continued, "The Ancients had an extensive network of these gates throughout the world. Only a few remain, though."

"So why do you care? And what happened to the Ancients?"

Again, Harry laughed. "The Ancients," he said, "were not unlike some wizards today. They refused to mingle with the 'commoners,' which included us normal wizarding folk. They died out because of their mistrust of mixed bloodlines." He paused to let the irony of the situation sink in. "I care about the Aeternus--and, hence, the Gates-- because I think it is adjacent to all times, too."

Ron thought about this for a moment. "It could get me home!"

Harry nodded a little bit, but grimaced. "Yeah, maybe. But that's not what interests me." Ron was stunned.

"Wh-what does interest you, then?"

"Ron...you remember what I thought the arch was for when we found it at Hogwarts?"

"Of course. You thought it..." Ron, paused, realizing exactly what was so interesting about the Aeternus to Harry. Seeing the dawning of comprehension on Ron's face, Harry just nodded.

"Ron, think about it. Two of my best friends died--or I thought they died--in some way connected with Aeternus Gates. If my theory was correct, and they did connect space and time, then there might be some way for those two people to return to me. Your being here is my greatest proof so far that I'm on the right track."

When Ron didn't say anything, Harry continued. "The portals are dormant now--it's been too long since they were last used. That, and no one knows where they all are, so using them as transportation is almost impossible. This one," he said, pointing again to the middle of the room, "is the only one in Britain. Some archeologists have found another in Athens recently. The one at Hogwarts was from what is now Iraq, but it was destroyed the day you got knocked into the future."

"How do they work?"

Harry shook his head. "Sorry, Ron, but it would take days to explain my theories on how they manipulate the Aeternus. And if you meant, 'how can I use this portal to get back to Hogwarts of ten years ago?', then I can't give you that answer."

"You don't want me to go back!" Ron for the first time felt a bit angry at his friend. How can he make me a...a...a refugee of some sort?

"Ron," started Harry, in a perfectly calm, controlled tone of voice, "if you went back, you'd change history. You know I would love to have those years back, to have you with me...who knows how we'd have turned out? But that's impossible. As soon as you went back, I--and Hermione, and your Minister of Magic father, and everyone else--would disappear. We'd cease to be."

"So it's a case of my being stranded here or your own comfort?"

"No, Ron, it's a case of your having to adapt to what are, admittedly, very challenging new surroundings, or the total non-existence of everyone alive today." Ron glared across the table at Harry, who seemed utterly unfazed by his friend's anger. Harry held Ron's gaze for a long minute before Ron spoke.

"So what do you have this arch for? If you aren't going to change anything with it?"

"I think when Sirius fell through the arch, he fell into the Aeternus. I figure if I can figure out how to use one of these gates to access it, I could give him a chance to get out."

"Couldn't he just walk out?"

"No," said Harry, "not unless a Gate is active. In keeping with the room metaphor, you could say that someone needs to open the door from the outside, first."

"And you can't open it?"

"Well, I can...I just need to open a door close enough to Sirius that he could get out," said Harry. He pointed to his books. "This is the world's largest library on Aeternus Gates. Four books--most of which are yet to be translated--and a few scrolls. That's all I've got to go on."

Ron got up and walked over to inspect the archway. It was different from the one at Hogwarts, now that he could look at it up close. He turned to Harry.

"Why didn't you try to get me out?"

Harry must have expected the question; he answered immediately. "I didn't think you went through the Gate. So for years, I just thought you were dead, but the fact that you were gone totally and completely...that always bugged me. So I later figured that you'd been thrown through a tear in the Aeternus."

"And what's the difference between that and going through a Gate?"

"A person going through a Gate could come back through a Gate. A person just tossed in the Aeternus couldn't just come back...he'd be adrift, unable to control himself. After thinking and reading about it for a long time, I concluded that I had no control over when you got to wherever or whenever you were going."

Ron returned to examining the Gate. Walking around it, he saw both sides of the archway, noting nothing special about it, noticing no sign that it was in fact a portal to another dimension. Shaking his head, he turned to Harry.

"Now what?"

"Well, with the great exception of you coming back, yesterday wasn't exactly anything noteworthy, as far as my research went. I wasn't experimenting or anything. But I think I may be ready to try to bring back Sirius soon. Your arrival...gives me a lot of confidence."

"Glad to help," muttered Ron. He heard a noise at the top of the stairs.

"Harry? Ron?" It was Hermione. "Why don't you two come up here? Ron, your sister's here!"