CHAPTER FIVE
The sorcerer's requirements were simple enough. He needed a wooden bowl devoid of any carvings, a knife with a plain wooden handle, a carving knife, and an empty area of at least fifteen squared feet for the portal. They had many hours until ten that evening, and the sorcerer planned to carve the necessary symbols into the wooden objects until the time came to do the spells.
Once the materials had been gathered, Trig proceeded to do just as he said. He worked quickly, cutting the correct symbols with the ease that comes from practice.
They watched as he worked. Buffy, Willow, and Dawn couldn't help but think about Xander. He was a carpenter, after all, and he would have loved to see this.
"How exactly does your magic differ from ours?" Willow asked in curiosity.
He looked at her for a moment, then motioned at the wooden bowl he was carving. "Every spell I cast requires wooden conduits of some sort. Here, it does not matter which wood I use; all trees are connected to the magic here. On my world, it is not so. The ecosystem of Runeus is a harsh one, full of plants and animals that care not for nature but only for evil. Only a certain kind of wood can be used, one that does not share the roots of its fellows, but that wood is found in very few places on Runeus."
"Sounds rough," Willow said. "How come you're so eager to get back there, if it's that bad?"
Trig shrugged. "It is my home. I am alone here. Here, I am surrounded by magic and cultures and beings that are alien to me. My people are waiting for me on Runeus. It is where I belong. Plus, I am not even whole on this world; my other parts remain lost to me."
"That's something else that's been bugging me," Buffy said, eyes narrowed suspiciously. "You don't see like only one aspect of a person to me."
"It may not seem so, but it is true," he assured them.
"So what aspect are you?" Dawn inquired.
He smiled. "I believe that I am the patient part. Before I came to this world, I remember being much more quick-tempered." He shrugged. "There are probably a number of other characteristics that I took with me that my other parts no longer possess, but without being able to compare myself to them, it is impossible to know what those characteristics are."
"I guess we'll find out soon enough," said Willow.
His smile was even more genuine now. "Yes. After four years here, I will finally be able to go home."
"And help us find our friends," Buffy reminded him, eyes narrowing again.
He only nodded. "Yes, and help you find your friends."
"So, what else about your magic is different?" Willow asked, returning them to the original topic.
"As I was saying, my magic requires wooden conduits. I can not cast spells directly; the spell must be infused into a piece of wood carved with a unique symbol or pattern-" he said, tapping the knife handle, "-while a second piece of wood, carved with an identical, symmetrical symbol or pattern is used to activate the spell." He pointed to the bowl. "The symbols on the two objects must face each other and align with each other, and they must be in a certain range of each other to work. The large the carved symbols are, the farther away the wooden objects can be held apart for the spell to be activated, and vice-versa."
"A portal brought you here four years ago," Dawn said, thinking of what he'd told them already.
He nodded. "That is correct."
Dawn turned to Buffy, eyes suddenly wide. "Buffy, that's when Glory tried to-"
Buffy and Willow's eyes widened in realization.
"Who is Glory?" Trig asked, curious.
Still shaken, Dawn replied, "She was a Hellgod. She opened a portal in Sunnydale four years ago to get to her hell dimension. It separated the boundaries between all dimensions…until we closed it."
Trig stared, dumbfounded. "Are you saying that you were there? You closed the very portal that brought me here?"
"S-sounds like it," Willow said.
He processed this for a moment. "What happened to this…Hellgod, Glory?"
"She's dead," Buffy told him. She shrugged. "Sorry."
Trig seemed to deflate. "Oh, well. We already know that my way works…it is unlikely that Glory would have wanted to help us, anyway."
"You got that right, pal," Willow said.
Trig returned to his carving. After a moment, Dawn got to her feet. "I'm going to check on Ron."
"You mean you're going to rescue him from his adoring fans?" Buffy inquired with a knowing smirk.
Dawn blushed. "Something like that."
Willow caught on to the look first. "Oh, Dawnie's got a crush," she sung teasingly.
"What?" Buffy said, instantly on guard. "Dawn! You have a crush on Ronald Weasley?"
Dawn wouldn't meet her eyes. "Maybe…"
"Dawn! He is way too young for you! And he's a fictional character!"
Dawn looked offended. "He is so not too young for me! You were two hundred years younger than Angel but that didn't stop you! And you weren't even legal then!"
"That's different," Buffy said, trying to come up with the right words. "You just cannot have a crush on him."
"Try and stop me," Dawn said, immaturely sticking out her tongue. Then she turned and walked out of the room in search of her crush.
Buffy let out a noise of protest. "She stuck her tongue out at me!" she complained to Willow. "Did you see that?"
Willow only rolled her eyes. "Both of you need to get out more."
-----
Letting out a growl of frustration, Hermione closed the book in her hands and hurled it across the room without bothering to aim first. As a result, the book almost collided with her pet cat that, fortunately, was able to dodge out of the way. Hermione winced. "Sorry, Crookshanks," she said.
Crookshanks hissed at her before running behind Hermione's trunk, safely away from any more projected missiles.
Hermione sighed. She placed her elbows on her knees and her chin in her hands and contemplated the stack of books beside her on the bed. She'd gone through over half of them already looking for some way of reaching Ron and Harry without any luck. Over a day had passed since Tonks had come back to the Leaky Cauldron with the news of the sorcerer's escape. Tonks had accompanied Dumbledore back to the house in London where the sorcerer had performed the portal spell for a second time, but they had reported back soon afterwards with no luck. They could not detect any magical portals of any sort; there was no way of opening one, either.
Since Dumbledore had given her and the other Weasleys the task of tracking down possible alternate routes in books, Hermione had put her all into the task. She'd dug through every book that Flourish and Blotts had on the subject, spending all of her extra cash on purchasing some of the more promising ones.
As word spread of the disappearances of the Boy Who Lived and the youngest son of a Ministry employee, the rest of the wizarding world also clamored to know of the boys' fate. Hermione knew that many more competent wizards and witches in many departments of the ministry were working hard on the case, but that didn't stop her from at least trying to contribute something.
Now, however, she knew that she wouldn't accomplish anything with these books.
"I'm going for a walk," she decided. "Maybe that'll help me decide what to do next." She really needed to just get out of that room; hopefully, it would help clear her head.
Hermione glanced out the window as she left the room. She discovered that it was late afternoon and approaching dusk. She blinked in surprise. She hadn't realized how late it was.
She paused just before turning the corner to get to the stairs. Perhaps it would be better for her to check in with Mr. or Mrs. Weasley, if either of them were there, and let them know that she was going for a walk, as well as checking to see if they'd made in progress in getting Harry and Ron back-
Someone turned the corner and bumped into her abruptly, startling her. "Sorry-" He paused abruptly.
She looked up into his face and gasped. "You!" she said.
"Ms. Gra…er…Hermione," Percy Weasley greeted her. "Um…are my…my parents here?" he stuttered out.
She was taken aback by the unexpected question. She glared up at him suspiciously and folded her arms. "Why do you want to know? So you can make more uncalled-for accusations to their faces instead of through letters to your siblings?"
He cringed. "I wish to apologize."
She knew she was gaping at him, but she couldn't get herself to stop. "You want to apologize?" she repeated, incredulous.
He glanced at his feet and shifted uncomfortably. "Yes."
Thoughts flew at a billion miles an hour through her mind, until she finally just blinked and said, "Their room is this way." Still in shock, she turned and led the way down the hall, not really looking to see if he was behind her.
She knocked on the Weasleys' door. Mrs. Weasley answered. "Hermione, what is it-" The question died on her lips when she saw who stood behind the younger witch. Molly's jaw dropped. A look of hope spread on her face before she schooled it into a mask. "Can I help you?" she asked coolly.
Hermione looked behind her to see Percy wince. "I want to apologize," he said. "You and Dad were right…about everything. I am so sorry."
Molly's expression changed back to one of shock, along with some relief and pain. She glanced at Hermione. Hermione had never seen Mrs. Weasley look so lost.
Still not looking at either of them, Percy forged on. He reached inside his robes and pulled several sheets of folded paper from an inside pocket. "I have information on how to get Ron and Harry back. I believe it may be of some use."
He held them out for her to take. Dumbly, Molly Weasley took them. She stared down at the paper without really seeing it, then glanced back up at her estranged son. "Oh, Percy-" She stepped forward and enveloped him into a hug, sobbing on his shoulder. Percy's own eyes filled with relieved tears.
-----
After a time, Arthur and the other Weasley children were summoned, then those members of the Order that were within reach were called. Not a single ministry official was called besides Arthur, Tonks, and Shacklebolt; it would not do for the Ministry of Magic to learn of Percy's theft of their confidential records.
The Order's impromptu meeting was held at the Weasleys. Many Order members still did not trust Percy with the location of the Order of the Phoenix. They had other reasons that were just as good; for one, they didn't want anyone to overhear their conversation, which would doubtless happen at the Leaky Cauldron, but they didn't want to just disappear off the map. Too many of them had been deeply involved in the investigation into getting Ron and Harry back; if they suddenly disappeared into 12 Grimmauld Place, too many people would be suspicious. Therefore, the Weasley home was the only logical place; the Weasleys had planned to go back there, anyway, and there was nothing peculiar about asking the people they'd worked with closely during the investigation to come over for lunch.
Therefore, no one even suspected that they were meeting to discuss something that they didn't want the Ministry to know. It was just as well.
They were all situated about the sitting room. Percy stood uncomfortably next to the fireplace. Shacklebolt and Tonks sat in chairs near the door to the kitchen and consequently the door. Fred, George, and Ginny all glared daggers at their older brother from the couch. Hermione, sitting in a chair on the opposite side of the couch from the Aurors, also glared at him between glances into the kitchen.
Arthur stood on the opposite side of the chimney, shifting just as uncomfortably and looking just as awkward. Molly kept wondering back and forth from preparing the food in the kitchen to Percy's side, not wanting to be away from her son for very long.
None of them said a word as they waited for Mad-Eye Moody and Dumbledore to appear.
The door in the kitchen finally opened, and Dumbledore and Moody entered the sitting room a matter later. "Just checked the premises myself," Alastor Moody reported. "There's isn't a soul about. I've set up a watch, though, so we can be sure not to have unexpected company."
"Thank you, Alastor," Albus Dumbledore told him, smiling. He turned his attention to Percy, who squirmed even more under his stern gaze. Dumbledore regarded him for a moment before smiling softly at him. "I see that Mr. Weasley has returned to us, and I hear that he has brought us good news."
"That's up for debate," Fred muttered.
"I did some digging in some confidential files," Percy said. "I didn't know what I'd find, but…I think this is relevant. I couldn't find anything in the Ministry of Magic's files that had anything on inter-dimensional portals or the race matching Ms. Granger's description of the spell-caster. Then I started searching internationally. The Ministry of Magic and the American Department of Magic have an information exchange program that has existed for fifty years. Most of the information that is imported from the States is handled by the Ministry's Department of International Magical Cooperation. Because plenty of other people were looking through that information, I decided to look elsewhere. I found those files in the Department of Mysteries."
Startled gasps could be heard about the room. Hermione's own eyes bulged in their sockets. It hadn't been that long since her own tour of the Department of Mysteries, and she'd hoped never to go near that place again.
"How exactly did you get in?" Moody growled. "Last I heard, security there is pretty tight after what happened last May."
"It is pretty tight," Percy admitted, "but they were doing construction work in there, to fix the damage that occurred in May. I was asked to help with a restoration spell. No one noticed me slipping into another room to check their files."
Everyone looked at each other as they digested this. "Go on," Dumbledore coaxed.
"I don't think anyone had realized that some of the American files had been directed to the Department of Mysteries. I honestly hadn't expected to find something from there, but I did." He blushed, aware that he was babbling slightly, and cleared his throat. "The files talk about a disturbance in a Muggle town in southern California in May two years ago. A whirlpool had formed in the sky. The portal had alarming affects on the area. A dragon came through and set fire to several blocks. Energy from the portal hit a few more buildings, transfiguring them into structures that were otherworldly. By the time the Department of Magic had sent the proper authorities to handle the situation, the town had been nearly destroyed. They were able to neutralize the situation, however, and keep our world a secret somehow."
"The Department of Magic's officials also report finding a man in the wreckage. He had whitish skin, black hair, and glowing green eyes. He knew no English, but once they managed to establish a dialogue, he explained that he'd come through the portal and that he wished to go back home. They decided to help him. In exchange, he told them about his home world, and about his type of magic. They even began to discover ways of substituting his magic for ours."
"So, what happened?" Hermione asked. "Why didn't he go home? Why did he come to England?"
"I don't know," Percy admitted. "I couldn't find anything else. But I do have the names of the agents involved. I thought that if we could get in contact with them, that they might be able to help us."
"We'll get on it immediately," Shacklebolt said, exchanging a nod with Tonks.
"Out of curiosity, what are the names of the agents?" asked Dumbledore.
Percy replied, "Willow Rosenburg and Xander Harris."