I do not own Fire Emblem or Harry Potter. Fire Emblem belongs to Nintendo and Harry Potter belongs to JK Rowling. All song lines belong to their original singers. I own all original characters and the plotline.

Chapter II:

Morte

. . . Let's go back to the beginning, back to when the earth, the sun, the stars all aligned . . .
-'Come Clean' by Hilary Duff

Harry's emerald eyes were narrowed almost to slits and his wand hand was steady, the cold of the rain and night unnoticed to him at the moment. He wasn't stupid. He couldn't risk any stupid actions after his rash behavior in June. How could he trust five people who appeared out of nowhere, where some carried weapons, just because they claimed for help? Even if their story did check out, if Uncle Vernon of Aunt Petunia ever found out, he'd be lucky to make it to Hogwarts in September.

The armor-clad boy scowled darkly and Harry was sure, had he not been holding the green-haired girl, he would have grabbed the wicked looking battle-axe at his back. The red haired boy shot him a warning look, a single glare with narrowed eyes, and turned back to Harry with a small and desperate sigh. "We're lost," he said with a pleading note in his odd accented voice.

Harry resisted the urge to roll his eyes. Any idiot could have figured that out, even Dudley or Crabbe or Goyle.

"How did you get here?" Harry said in the same even voice, one that almost disturbed him from its calm tone. He couldn't be sure if they could apparate, and even if they could it didn't excuse them waltzing into a muggle garden.

The pastel-haired girl moved away from her sibling and whispered something to the fencer, her face concerned and frankly terrified. He sighed again but nodded. She spoke to Harry in a voice that was unlike any he had ever heard. It was soft and sad, yet musical and gentle at the same time. She, like the boy, had an unusual accent, different and stranger even from his. It sounded vaguely familiar to him, like how he had felt about Tom Riddle during his second year.

"Sir," she began, "The Lady Lyndis of Caelin really needs help, she might be seriously injured. May we please just let her rest, even if it is just for the evening?" Again there was a desperate note, a begging quality like a small child for a cookie in her voice that surprised him.

Harry's wand did not move but his right eyebrow rose, looking at the unconscious girl. Blood had spilled from her lips, dripping down her chin with the heavy rain. She certainly did not look like any lady to him, with her rough skin, muscular legs and katana scabbard on her right waist. "Lady Lyndis?" he asked disbelievingly, "Lady?"

"Yeah, you know," said the navy haired axe man harshly, teeth clenched, "Lord Hausen's granddaughter and princess of Caelin?" There was a bossy tone to his words, like Hermione's often took during exam week. To Harry, the words sounded more like something taken from a fantasy book, certainly far from the truth.

"Never heard of it," Harry snapped, raising his wand to point directly between the redhead's eyes. His voice was dangerously calm and even, unlike the nervous feeling he really had. "Give me proof you're not Death Eaters." The fencer raised an eyebrow, his face shocked at Harry's words; the pastel-haired siblings exchanged nervous, petrified glances. The axe man ground his teeth furiously and yelled snappishly to Harry's face, the girl shaking in his arms as he bellowed.

"The hell we aren't! Listen kid, she needs help and she needs help NOW! We've been fighting some psychopathic Sage out for our heads for over five hours and you won't let her lie down on a stupid bed! I am Lord Uther's brother, the HEAD of the Lycian Council and if you don't do this one thing for us, you'll have Ostia's fury on you and I swear it!" The fencer sighed again in exasperation.

Harry's already pallid coloring drained of all blood, his grip trembling slightly on his wand. He tried his best to hold it steadier, turning it towards the recent speaker. Somehow he didn't believe it would amount to much, Harry brandishing a thin piece of holly against an armor-clad young man with a double-bladed steel axe at his dispense. He snorted in mocking laughter. "A stick, that's your best defense?"

The jet-haired wizard's fist clenched around it tighter, the skin stretched tightly across the knucklebones of his right hand. "I'm not stupid. How am I supposed to trust people who appear from nowhere, clutching weapons?" he snapped, his voice climbing higher in pitch, "How am I suppose to believe that you aren't Voldemort's supporters who want my head?"

The redhead's hand moved slightly towards the hilt of his rapier, but he seemed to think better of it and flexed his finger midway through the act. His voice was that of weariness and forced peace. "If we wanted your head, wouldn't we have gone after you before now?"

They had a point, and as he thought about it, he couldn't justify his suspicion for them being Death Eaters. It wasn't in Voldemort's style to send such young assailants, especially those with muggle weapons. Even if they were spies, they weren't very good ones and probably little threat to him. Harry lowered his wand with a resigned sigh. "My aunt and uncle won't be happy about this." He stepped aside to let them pass into the kitchen, slipping his wand in the waistband of the jeans he had fallen asleep in, "Please just keep quiet."

"Thank you," said the redhead in a whisper as he and his friends walked in, sending nearly two buckets full of water across Aunt Petunia's prized kitchen floor. Harry shut the door, wincing at the thought of what his foster family would say in response, especially to him – in their eyes the cause. "My room's upstairs, you can lay her there."

"Uh, Hector? Maybe I should take her," said the red haired boy, eyeing his friends' heavy armor. Hector raised an eyebrow and mumbled to himself in response. "You could barely lift her."

Harry bit his lip, knowing he may get in deep trouble for this, but the girl was hurt badly. The blood at her hairline was more visible then when she was in the rain and her breathing was guttural from the blood in her spit. Her face was a blotchy pale like spoiled milk and her chest rose and fell in odd, unhealthy intervals. Harry flicked his wand at the unconscious girl and whispered, "Wingardium Leviosa." She lifted a little from the boy's arms, as though suspended by invisible wires jotting from Harry's wand. The fencer reached, as though by instinct, to his sword, the siblings' fears seemed confirmed and Hector yelled in fright. "The hell . . .!" Dudley snorted upstairs and the sparse hairs on Harry's neck seemed to stand on end like needles.

"Keep your voice down," said the wizard in a frightened whisper, constantly looking up to the landing and moving his wand slowly and gently. The girl moved silently through the air at his magic's command, the other four's surprise fading quickly from their faces. "And keep quiet, please," Harry added as an afterthought, his voice edgy and eyes nervously flickering to the landing once more.

Both green-haired siblings exchanged glances with their ethereal ruby eyes. "Has anyone ever gone after you and your wand?" asked the boy, the first time Harry had heard him speak. His voice was like his sister's, soft and whimsical, thought his lacked the melancholic tone hers possessed.

He didn't know what to say, less he spoil the secret of the magical world. Were these people even muggles? Harry didn't think so somehow. Anybody who looked the way they do – especially the brother and sister with their delicate hair color and gemstone-like eyes – could not have possibly gotten to look that way without the aide of magic. "It's . . . rather common here," muttered Harry, silently walking up the stairs and wondering how much of his words had been true. He winced every time Hector's armor creaked on the stairs and often his emerald gaze flickered to the landing, expecting to see Uncle Vernon's purple face darkening at rage. Harry thanked any higher power that the muggles hadn't woken up yet.

The fencer turned back towards Hector, who had narrowed his eyes in thought, and then to the brother and sister, with their faces monotonic in puzzlement. He sighed heavily for the third time so far and said, to nobody in particular, "We really are lost . . ." Harry kicked his bedroom door soundlessly open, revealing the mess of school text books and parchment piled in teetering stacks around his desk and the sleeping Hedwig in her cage above the wardrobe. Harry hadn't kept it very clean so far this summer, since he'd been too busy brooding over Sirius's death and angry at the Ministry's lack of action towards the progressive killings of muggles in Northern Scotland.

Harry laid Lyn on his bed with a flick of his wand and shut the door as the boy with the blue-green hair entered in, looking intently at the sleeping Hedwig. He turned to the fencer, whose sapphire eyes had found Harry's transfiguration text book. "Now tell me, who are you people?" he asked, hoping he didn't sound too harsh.

"I'm called Ninian," said the red eyed girl, pulling the blanket tighter to her body. Harry raised an eyebrow. "As in, St. Ninian?" He had never been really religious, since the Dursleys thought he might explode if he set foot near a church, but he remembered the name of one saint because Dudley and his friends wouldn't stop talking about their adventures in Sunday school.

She looked puzzled and a faint blush had entered her marble-pale face. "I am no saint, I'm merely a dancer."

"I'm Nils," said the other pastel-haired person energetically, nodding his head, "I'm Ninian's brother." The fencer extended a hand, which Harry shook tentatively. The skin was icy cold from the rain, marred with scars from thin cuts and the palms were rough from calluses. "I'm Eliwood," he said kindly, then gestured towards the unconscious viridian-haired girl, "And this is Lyndis."

"Hector of Ostia," said the tall man with a sort of regal pleasure at the title. Eliwood looked as though he wanted to comment, but again thought better of it. Harry chewed his tongue for a moment and asked a question that had been buzzing in his tired mind since they had mentioned the girl's title.

"Where are these places anyway? I've never heard of Ostia of Caelin."

"Never heard of . . . what do you mean you've never heard of Ostia!" snapped Hector, voice alight with fury and his gauntleted hand reached for the metal hilt of his axe. Harry visibly flinch and grabbed his wand quickly. Ninian's slender hands were shaking as they gripped her brother's shoulders tightly and Eliwood's face was surprisingly slack, as though shock and surprise could not express his feelings.

"Keep your voice down for the last time." Harry said quickly, sounding braver then he felt as he looked into Hector's angry face "Never mind. I'm going to try and find some help for her. By the way, what happened?"

They exchanged looks for a minute and Eliwood, with one hand protectively on the hilt of his rapier, responded in a faulty casual voice. "We were attacked by an Anima Sage. Lady Lyndis was severely hurt, but that seems the worse of the injuries at hand." Harry raised one eyebrow, looking at the redhead's burnt neck and lower face.

"So, those burns on your face don't hurt at all?"

Eliwood blinked for a minute, brought his hand to his neck and winced viciously. "Oh, their not too bad . . ." Ninian frowned darkly. "Milord, those wounds need attention before they worsen." The fencer turned from Harry and to Ninian. "They'll be fine; Lady Lyndis is worse then me." Harry wished he could have some Advil for his growing headache and sat at the end of the bed near the muddy bottoms of Lyndis' boots. "Why do you call her Lady Lyndis?" he asked curiously, looking at the girl's blood-streaked face.

"She's Marquees Caelin's granddaughter," said Eliwood simply, as though stating a very obvious fact. Ninian ran a hand across the leather cover of a discarded transfiguration book. "May I look at this?" she asked politely, picking up the heavy text. Harry nodded carelessly and turned confused emerald eyes to the fencer's sapphire.

"Marquees?"

"Yeah, of Lycia?" put in Hector angrily, his words slow as though speaking to somebody who did not speak normal English. Harry narrowed his eyes.

"You really are lost. How did you even get into my aunt's garden?" Nils was looking over his sister's shoulder as the dancer flipped casually through the parchment pages, her face in awe and, strangely, fear. Harry didn't give the siblings too much attention though, more attention to Eliwood's and Hector's answer.

"We don't know exactly," said the redhead simply after a moment's pause.

"There was a lot of black light after she started spouting mad nonsense and we're suddenly in your aunt's garden without a damn clue," said Hector, a note of finality in his voice. Harry rubbed his temples, wishing Hermione was here. She was better at random, confusing scenarios and their solutions, not him.

"This is hurting my head," the wizard muttered to himself, then turned back to Lyndis's still form. Her face was very pale, her breathing uneven and raspy. He ended up speaking to her body rather then the two conscious warriors in his room. "Look, I'll try and help your friend here, but I'm not healer. I'll have to send a message to a few friends who'll be able to help her instantly when the storm lets out," (he heard one of them sigh in utmost relief), "But you'll probably have to answer a lot of questions and they won't be nice."

"Just make sure Lyndis' alright."

The rain had stopped and Ginny Weasley awoke with a yawn. It was dawn, the flickering gray sky streaked with colors of pale pink and blood red like a skyscraper on an artist's canvas. It was cold outside, and the rain had only recently stopped for many droplets clung to the glass of her windows as she got out of bed with many a yawn and stretch. Judging from the lack of parchment envelopes on her scratched and scared wooden desk, neither Harry nor Luna had yet to return her letters, though she had not been too hopefully. With another yawn, Ginny reached over her bed's headboard for the hairbrush perched on the windowsill next to her romance novels, given as a Christmas present from Hermione. Her hand was on the brush when she stared out the rain washed window and frowned. It looked like two large brown things were in Mrs. Weasley's vegetable garden, enjoying themselves amongst the growing carrots and pea plants. Leaving her hairbrush and her bedroom, Ginny grabbed her dressing gown and pulled on her sneakers.

Walking carefully down the stairs so as not to disturb any of her sleeping relatives, Ginny looked on the second floor landing and saw her parent's bedroom door was opened and her mother's soft snoring was filling the hallway. While Mrs. Molly Weasley was in her bed, sleeping with a tired frown on her aged face, Arthur Weasley was notably absent. Ginny chewed her bottom lip from sadness, wondering how her mother felt about the accommodations. Every ministry worker – including her father, who had never before been assigned an offensive position – was busy almost all the time and gone from her holiday. She never see her dad now and had to focus hard to remember what his smiling face looked like.

The stone floor of the kitchen was like ice to Ginny's feet, her sneaker's thin soles giving little more then support. It was deserted apart from a slumbering Errol and Ron's potions books, which Mrs. Weasley had been going over with her last night as preparation for her fifth year and OWLs. Her freedom was short lived, for she had barely selected an apple from the bowl on the table when Ron came down the steps, yawning and stretching his long limbs.

"G'morning Gin," he said sleepily, taking a second apple and rubbing it on the tablecloth. Ginny raised an eyebrow at his behavior and waited until he had done chewing the large bite of apple he had just taken in.

"Hey Ron, did you see what's outside in the garden?"

He blinked. "Outside? In this weather? Come on Gin, that's not funny. It was storming really bad last night; nothing would be outside so soon." She narrowed her chocolate colored eyes at him and turned towards the doorway, pushing it open with her foot and leaving Ron in the kitchen. The wet grass on the yard was springy, like a cushion and she raised her eyebrows as she spotted the two horses that were in the garden, munching on the carrots. "Nothing out there, 'eh?" asked Ginny sarcastically as Ron stuck his head out of the back door, following her finger to the duel stallions.

"What the . . .?" he muttered, throwing aside his half-eaten apple and climbing onto the slippery grass in his bare feet.

Both Weasley children approached the horses with caution, Ginny wondering if they were some sort of magical creature. The stallions had sleek, chestnut coats – one with splotches of white around the muzzle and neck – and wore a saddle with the same seal on it in rich thread of red, gold and white, putting her in mind of the sun for odd reasons. The seal itself showed a lance with a rose wrapped around the pole, the entire insignia surrounded by a serpent.

"What the . . .? Where did they come from?" said Ron as Ginny examined the horses, rubbing one's – the white spotted one – muzzle gently. "Whoever they belong to, they're well trained," she mused, giggling when the horse nuzzled her neck playfully, nibbling at her ginger hair.

"Hey Gin, come look at this." She turned over to her brother, who was standing in front of a long double trail. Hoof prints lead from where they currently stood to the bottom of the hill and the enclosure of trees where the Weasley boys often played Quidditch. The two of them exchanged nervous looks, a single nod and walked down the hill. The grass was slippery and slightly dangerous. The slope was even more unsettling edgy if one was in bare feet. Unsurprisingly, Ginny watched as Ron fell down the hill when he slipped on a rock.

"Git," she giggled, sliding gracefully down the hill as Ron got clumsily to his feet. Her eyes left her brother and widened in shock as they fell upon the grass little more then three or four feet away from their current position. Five unconscious figures lay at the beginning of the enclosure and one of (a young man in emerald armor with dusty brown hair) looked disturbingly pale from lack of life.

"Gin, you got get Mum. I'll . . ." Ron never finished his sentence.

One of the members of the unconscious group, a girl about Ginny's age, stirred and sat up slowly. Both hurried over in time to see the girl's large eyes open in misted confusion and tiredness. She was an odd looking girl, with dark green hair tied back in two braids on either side of her face beneath an olive colored bandana. Her clothing was most peculiar, reminiscent of medieval attire complete with a quiver of arrows and a bow made from bright silver material. She looked around and spotted the two of them.

"W-Where am I? Where's Lord Eliwood?" Her voice was innocent and slightly high pitched, though accented very strangely in Ginny's opinion. It was a strange mix of her native British and the American tongue she had heard some people use at the World Cup the previous summer.

"And who the bloody hell are you?" said Ron, remarkably cold. Ginny gave him a surprised look, wondering why he was so hard on the poor girl.

"Rebecca," she said, looking at the three other people, her eyes growing even wider then their already doe-like property. "St. Elimine's grace!" She stumbled for a minute and threw herself down by the emerald-clad boy, shaking him furiously so that his head flung from side to side. "Sain! Sain, you idiot, don't do this!"

"Gin, go get help!" Ron snapped in a very bossy tone. He himself knelt down and shook awake a young man with copper-orange hair and tanned skin, who wore armor like the other man's, except in rusty red. Unlike the brunette, he had a sword sheath at his side with the hilt of an impressive golden sword revealed, white wire wrapped around the hilt itself. The young man (Ginny was tempted to call him a knight) blinked, moaned and sat up. "Where are we?" he asked, or demanded really, with a gloved hand quickly fleeing towards the elaborate hilt of a clearly more elaborate sword. His voice was like Rebecca's in terms of accent, but in dialect it sounded too mature for somebody of barely nineteen, maybe twenty at most.

"Don't know about that, but it looks like your friend's in trouble." He pointed at Sain, and the man's eyes – a coppery color so similar to his hair it was unnerving – widened furiously. "Sain?" He quickly joined Rebecca's side and grabbed his friend's chin, examining the youthful face very carefully.

He could only have been in his late teens, with an angular structure and slightly curved eyebrows, and pale brown hair splattered flat to his head from water. Ginny assumed it would be a few shades lighter when dry. His skin, however, was an extremely unhealthy translucent pale color except around his lips, which were tinged with cobalt. Rebecca, whose breathing was harsh and quick, pressed two fingers to various places on his neck as if searching for something. Her face paled even more and her bottom lip trembled horribly. She only spoke a few words before the tears started to pour freely from her dark green eyes.

"There's no pulse . . ."

End Chapter II: Morte

Read and review.