Hey everyone,
WOW! This hasn't happened in FOREVER! The last time I updated this story was in February, though personally I thought it had been sometime last year. Anyway, I don't know if it's the wintry season or what, but I started watching the Ice Age franchise again and I LOVE IT! Especially Ice Age 3 & 5, but that's because of that crazy, yet lovable Buck.
And after quite a bit of thinking, fantasizing, imagining and re-watching the fifth movie a good dozen to two dozen times in just a week and a half time, did I come up with a story that I personally think might just work. But because I never got further than maybe the second/third chapter and because I can't imagine what happens after, did I decide to just put it here.
Anyway, let's do this,

Venquine1990

Preview #23
Ancient Ice Immortality

2nd of September 1993
Hogwarts Grounds, Scotland
General POV

Hogwarts. A castle that is great, magnificent, mysterious and breathtaking to look upon. A school that is a 1000 years old and that has a history just as old and just as rich as the lush green grounds and crazy, mysterious forest that surrounds it. A landmark known for its grandeur, its mystery and its magical power as well as the effect it's had on the English youth for generations.
Yet even this incredible, amazing place has a mysterious secret that even the Headmaster, who is nearing or perhaps has already passed his first century of age and his most loyal and long-lasting members of staff don't know about. But just like the Legendary Chamber of Secrets, is there a time and place for every mystery to reveal itself. And today is that time and place.

Harry's POV

I can't believe Malfoy. That annoying prat purposely ignored Hagrid's warnings about Hippogriffs and their pride and with his own pride leading him astray once again has he marched up on the one standing next to me named Buckbeak and did he also actually utter words that were nothing but insulting and a clear challenge. Therefore what happens next doesn't surprise me.
Or it wouldn't have if, just as Buckbeak is rearing up, his claws aimed for Malfoy's weakly raised arm, something long, thin and furry shoots out of the ground next to the blonde screaming and hits him in the side, actually pushing away from the attacking bird. And to my amazement is the long, thin screaming thing actually a weasel that seems to be using a leaf for an eyepatch.
It is also using a vine and another leaf tied together for a forage bag of some kind and yet the biggest surprise hits me when, as the weasel untangles himself from Malfoy's robe and spots the Hippogriff, who is still enraged and rushing for the two, he actually raises his thin arms and shouts: "Wow, wow, wow, wow! Easy there, big guy. Wow, you're quite pretty, you know that?"

Instantly I look at the rest of the class, hoping beyond hope that this time I'm not the only one actually hearing an animal speak, like with my Parsletongue that I discovered to have last year. And just by spotting Malfoy scamper away in fright and the astonished looks on the faces of my friends, do I know that this isn't like last year. "Did he really? What an idiot. Who would want to insult you?"
The Weasel then asks, only to suddenly turn around when we, to our united shock, actually hear another voice coming from the small hole that he shot from. "Buck? You in there! Are you alright?" The Weasel, which I guess is named Buck, scurries over and shouts back: "Yeah, I'm up here, Roger. I got slingshotted so hard, I ended up on the other side."
"Wait, you mean up on the surface? Wow, we haven't been up there in ages. What does it look like?" The voice, which I guess is Roger's, asks and Buck looks around, his single eye widening as he finally spots my fellow year mates as well as Hagrid and myself before he shouts back: "Well, there are definitely more humans around this time!
And a lot more forest too. Looks like I ended up in the middle of a clearing near the edge and – wow! Roger, there's this huge, incredible, amazing, glorious looking structure standing in the near distance. I'm going to go and explore it, alright?""You do that. And see if – well, you know –." And instantly I worry for the two.
Buck sighs and says: "Yeah, I – I'll keep an eye out. Hehe." He laughs weakly and I quickly check to see if Buckbeak has really calmed down before slowly approaching the weasel. He spots me and while I spot a hint of caution in his eye, does he allow me to approach. And thanks to the lesson I just learned, do I make sure to crouch down, so that I am more or less on eye-level with the little one.

"Hi there, I'm Harry, Harry Potter. You're named Buck, right? Did you come up here before?" The weasel keeps quiet, obviously studying me for a few seconds before he says: "Yeah, I used to. Did so a few times before – well – before I lost my friends. After that I – I just stayed down there. I just didn't have anything left up here."
I nod at him, feeling for the little guy, but also understanding why he would do so. He then turns away and I say: "You know, if you come with me, I can show you all of Hogwarts real easy. That's the structure you see over there.""Huh, you sure about that?" He asks and I say: "Sure. Here, you can stay in my pocket to keep warm if you feel like it."
And I show him the inside of my robe, which has a nice large pocket that I usually store my wand and a few quills in. The weasel smiles at me and says: "Well then, pleased to meet you, Harry Potter. And thanks for the offer, I'll be more than happy to take you on it." He then scurries over to me and while I hear a few of the others gasp, do I hardly even feel it as he climbs up my cloths.
The weasel is obviously not using his claws as he climbs up and he even glides into my pocket, coming to lie in it as if he's leaning down on a hammock or something. "Right, let me just check – yep, I still have them all – okay, onwards Harry." And while I snicker at how he is obviously jesting me with his fake order, do I also feel intrigued by his words and I ask:
"Forgive me for asking, but what were you checking on?" And while I know have the robe open just far enough that I can see him and that the others can see me holding it open but not see him, do I still gasp as Buck pulls a gorgeous pink crystal, shaped like a small vial with diamond like points on each end out of his bag as he says:
"These. They are crystals that are part of this asteroid that, for some reason, returns to cross the earth every few decades or so. The first one was ages ago, but it wiped out these weird horseshoe crab-looking thingies. A good hundred-million years later, another one hit and wiped out most of the dinosaurs. And when the third one was about to hit, my friends and I stopped it."

"Ehm, excuse me? How could a bunch of rats stop an asteroid?" Malfoy suddenly asks, startling me and making me hate the fact that he managed to sneak up on me. But Buck actually slips out of my pocket, rushes down my leg, scurries across the ground and rushes up Malfoy's body, causing him to squeal like a frightened welp before he suddenly pulls out a dangerous looking knife.
And upon closer inspection, does my mouth drop as I realize that the knife is made of a small twig and the canine fang of some kind of predator. "Hey, next time you want to insult someone, how about you get all the facts first and not wet yourself like a newborn when the being you insult decides to fight back, you little wimp. You wouldn't last two minutes in my world, let me tell you." Buck growls at Malfoy and I whisper at Ron: "The truth is, I believe him." And Ron nods.

Buck then huffs at Malfoy and puts the knife away before retracing his steps and smoothly sliding back into my pocket as I ask: "You were friends with creatures that weren't of your species, weren't you?""See? You get it. And you're right, I was. My friends were Mannie, his wife Ellie, their daughter Peaches and her husband, Julian, who were all Mammoths."
This alone shocks and also horrifies me as suddenly the end of the conversation between Buck and Roger makes sense. Roger asked Buck to search for potential descendants of his friends, but if Buck's friends were actually Mammoths, the chances of that are highly implausible. And then Buck makes it even worse as he casually goes on and says:
"Then there were Diego and Shira, who were Sabers and then there were Crash and Eddy, two sloths whose mother adopted Ellie when she was just a little baby mammoth, making her grown up half-possum, just like she raised her daughter. And then there were Granny, Sid and Brooke, three Sloths. We were quite the team, you know. But golly, do I miss that lot."
I share a look with Ron and Hermione, glad to see that the other two also caught onto my troubled thoughts, but then I ask: "Wait, Buck. The – the mammoths they – they died out a millennium ago. How – how are you alive?" And while Buck gapes at me when I say the number, does he shrug and say: "Through – through these crystals." And he again holds up the one in his hand.

I look at my friends again and Hermione asks: "Those crystals keep you young?""And alive. They're part of the second asteroid that ever hit the earth. But here, look at this." He pulls another out of his bag and lets it go, the second one instantly flying and attaching itself to the first. "They're magnetic." "Yep, the whole asteroid was. One gigantic magnet. In fact, all asteroids are.
That's why my friends down there and I collect them. You see, after we managed to get rid of the third asteroid by launching the second one into space through an erupting volcano, one small bit got broken off and landed on the crash site where there was this little hot spring. The crystal got stuck between the two cracks of the earth that caused the hot air to blow into the water and its magical properties became part of the steam going up, keeping everyone in its vicinity young.
But then, after a decade or three, the spring collapsed on itself and all of the water ended up in my world. And somehow, over that period of time, the crystal had started to grow and multiply, but the spring breaking broke the larger thing apart again, causing for smaller bits to land all over my world. Since then we've been keeping an eye on how many bits there are and how big they are.
If too many bits show up or if we can collect enough bits to make one rock the size of your large friend over there, we move all those bits into the very same volcano, plug up the steam vents that surround it and let it erupt, causing for them to end up in space and making sure a new asteroid is pulled away again instead of hitting earth."

At this I share an awed look with my friends and I can't help but think: "And they call me a hero for surviving Voldemort." As suddenly even saving Ginny from the Chamber of Secrets and keeping the staff from closing Hogwarts doesn't sound like such a great feet anymore. And I can tell by the looks on my friends' faces that they feel the same before I ask:
"And the ones you do keep, allow you to stay young and alive, even though the ice age was over a millennium ago?" At which Buck sighs and says: "Yeah, though after the fifteenth or sixteenth time of doing so, you just forget how many years have passed between each time and, after a while, one year just becomes another and then the other becomes the next, you know? I mean, I knew it's been some time since my friends were – well – but – I thought it was at max five to six hundred years or so."
My heart goes out to the poor thing and I put my cloak back and wrap my arms around the part that his holding him, Buck wrapping his own smaller arms around the bits of me that he can reach. "Harry, come with me." I suddenly hear Hagrid say and turn around, not even aware that he too had been following us this whole time, yet he marches past us.
I share a short look with my friends and then do as followed, confused and intrigued when I realize that the larger man is taking us to the Headmaster's office, a place I have only been twice so far. Yet at the same time I'm really not surprised as I know that Hagrid has a huge sense of trust and loyalty in Dumbledore and that he thinks: "When in doubt, ask Dumbledore."

And while I really hope that the man's right, do I smile as he gives the password, which strangely enough isn't Sherbet Lemon like it was last year, but then I catch myself and realize that more than half a year has passed since then. We go up and Hagrid knocks, upon which the Headmaster's voice sounds from the other side and grants him entrance.
And while Ron and Hermione look around in awe at the splendor of the Headmaster's office and Buck even comes out of my pocket to lean on my shoulder and look around, holding onto one of the temples of my glasses, does Hagrid then surprise me as he asks: "Headmaster, do you still have those carcasses that Headmaster Dippet left you?"

Wait, what?
Where is this going? Well, to be honest, I had to stop it here or it would have turned into the whole thing that I had thought up and that would have been too long to be considered a preview. Still, I hope you like what you've heard so far. And yes, bad things did happen to Diego and the others after the wedding of Peaches and Julian, though there were a few decades between that.
I do hope to get into that at some point – whenever I decide to actually write this little tale – but for now I just needed to get this off my chest and on paper. To be honest was this story one the reasons I didn't start writing this month's chapters until halfway through the month. I was just so stuck on when to start this story – at which part in the HP canon – that I couldn't think of anything else, not even any of my favorite stories or my Christmas Present to you all.
Anyway future bits:

Dippet did indeed leave Dumbledore with the carcasses of the Ice Age gang, from Manny and Ellie to Brooke, Shira and Julian.

The crystals, when combined with Phoenix tears and the elixir of life from Nicholas Flamel, actually gain the ability to bring someone back to life, as long as the crystal is in some way attached to them, like a pendant or a bracelet.

Buck actually has thirteen crystals with him and they use ten on his friends as well as two to revive Lily and James Potter. He himself keeps the last one to stay alive.

The carcasses are revived in the Stone courtyard and what happened to each of them is revealed.

The Ice Age Gang is allowed to stay in the Forbidden Forest, but after revival, does James offer the large lands and acres of Potter Land for them to stay in, as a thank you to Buck for bringing him and his wife back to life.

James and Lily convince Dumbledore that Sirius is innocent and demand of Fudge to take the Dementors out of Hogwarts. They also threaten those of influence not to even think of trying to use the Lost Dino World for personal or monetary gain as they themselves feel indebted to one of its inhabitants and will do all they can to protect it.

James and Lily actually have evidence against Snape that even Dumbledore does not take for granted or ignores and he allows Snape to be arrested as he finds out that the man has been continuing the act that James and Lily know he was working on before they died.

James really isn't happy with Remus for not getting in contact with his son or with Dumbledore for allowing Sirius to go to Azkaban, but he is willing to give them both one year to make it up to them and, to him more importantly, to Harry.

James and Lily set an ultimatum with all those that think their return is something they can exploit or that want to continue the behavior of the Chamber incident; change your tone or we leave.

At first James and Lily just want to leave for the Potter lands and put that under Fidelius – with Sirius instantly offering to be the actual Secret Keeper – but Manny offers for all of them to just go underground and Buck agrees, believing them to be strong enough to survive the madness that is the Lost Dino world.

After that I just lost sight of what I want to do next. I might actually take the gang down into the Dino world as I definitely want the twins to meet Buck and want Mrs. Weasley to meet Roger – as I think the two share a love for family when she's not being Bashed – but I can't say for sure if the move will be a permanent one or just for the occasion.
Let me know what you think,

Venquine1990