"Dry Her Eyes"
By Loki Palmer
Author's Note: Harry Potter and all related characters belong to J.K. Rowling. The Avengers belong to Stan Lee and Marvel Comics.
Chapter 7
Odin's ravens, Huginn and Muninn, flew to his shoulders in Asgard's throne room. "Vit hǫfum fundinn Sirius Blak," (We have found Sirius Black,) they said.
"Hvar funduð þit hann?" (Where did ye two find him?)
"Vit fundum hann í landinu Nyrs Mexikos, með verrúlfinum Remus Lupin ok tveim konur." (We found him in the land of New Mexico, with the werewolf Remus Lupin and two women.)
Odin whistled, and his eight legged horse, Sleipnir, came to him. The pair rode to the Bifrost chamber, where Heimdall saluted him.
"Gengr þú til Miðgarðs, Alfáðir?" (Art thou going to Midgard, Allfather?)
"Ek geng finna Sirius Blak ok Remus Lupin." (I am going to find Sirius Black and Remus Lupin.)
Heimdall nodded in understanding as he opened the Bifrost …
~DRY HER EYES~
In New Mexico, the stars were shining on this clear night when the rainbow from the Bifrost shone onto the ground.
"Jane?" said Sirius Black. "Jane, something's happening here!"
The redheaded astrophysicist Dr. Jane Foster bolted into the room to inspect her instruments. "What do you think it could be?"
"I don't know, but whatever it was, your instruments were acting haywire for a few moments. You are the science expert between us, love."
"Did either of you two see anything?"
Sirius shrugged his shoulders, while Remus said, "I saw this rainbow … shine through the sky …"
"Now that you mention it, Moony, that rainbow did look familiar …"
Jane shook her head at her boyfriend as she read through the printout of the findings. "Though I see photos of a rainbow from our camera, Sirius, these energy readings look nothing like a rainbow."
"It looks like a rainbow, but it's not a rainbow? Geez, that's helpful," said her brunette assistant, Darcy. "Whatever happened to the saying: if it walks like a duck and quacks like a duck, it's …"
"… Jane with a head cold?" said Sirius.
Jane rolled her eyes. "In science, Darcy, we have to consider any number of factors when we identify something unknown. Hmm …" She angled for a top view on the computer. "… from the top, it looks like a brief tornado, but I don't see any damage in the vicinity …"
"Reckon it's a mighty fine night out, ain't it?" said a voice.
They spun around and saw an old man with his horse.
"Hey, Gandalf," said Darcy, "if you are looking for the Lord of the Rings convention, you're in the wrong state for that."
The old man nodded. "It might seem like I took a wrong turn at Albuquerque, little missy, but seems to me I was intended to be here at this moment." He heard Jane's snort of derision and glanced at her. "Something amuse you about that?"
"With all due respect, old timer, Fate doesn't exist."
The old man raised his eyebrows. "Oh, is that so? Whether Fate exists – call it Οι Μοιραι, Destiny, Nornir, Wyrd, the Predestination of God, or whatever y'all want to call it – has been a fierce debate ever since the old days of yore … your ancestors, that is." He grinned at the guffaws of laughter from Sirius and Remus. "Y'all young 'uns claim to know more than yer pappies and yer grandpappies, but compared to us old timers, y'all know as much as a pack of toddlers, and we old timers think y'all are just as amusing."
Jane shook her head. "I never said you were ignorant, sir."
"Naw, I reckon you didn't, but many of yer generation think it. You may be a skeptic about what exists beyond yer world, but that ain't the point. The young should respect the old and learn from them, but I reckon respect of the elderly has gone the way of the dinosaur. Take a case in point: one of my sons, in the heat of anger, called me an old man and a fool when I tried to correct him from a tempestuous course he was taking. I threw him out on his backside. He landed in Scotland as a purdy little redheaded missy by the name of Lily Evans."
Sirius's eyes bugged out in his head. "Lily Evans? Are you serious?"
The old man's eye – the one they could see, for the other had an eyepatch – twinkled. "I thought that was yer name, not mine."
Remus could not help laughing as he said, "Oh, Sirius, he hoisted you on your own petard!"
"Touché!" said Sirius.
"Aye. I reckon you have heard the name before?"
"Of course we have!" said Sirius and Remus.
"She was the girlfriend – later wife – of our best friend, James Potter," said Sirius.
"James Potter," said the old man as he sat down on a log. Everyone else found a place to sit. "Correct me if I'm wrong, but he was mischievous and dark of hair?"
Sirius and Remus nodded.
The old man brought out a small bag of tobacco, packed his pipe, and lit it with a small flame in his hand.
"Sir!" said Remus. "You shouldn't –!"
"Shouldn't what, wolfie? Shouldn't smoke?"
"I wasn't going to say that, sir; I was going to say you shouldn't be so open about using magic."
"What is so magical about a match, wolfie?" He produced said match, and it was black. He puffed on his pipe some more. "As I was saying, yer friend James Potter reminds me of another son who visited in yer school of … Hogwarts, is it?"
The duo nodded, too stunned to speak.
"Hogwarts? What is that?" said Darcy.
"It's a school in Scotland Remus and I attended."
Jane and Darcy nodded, and so did the old man. "Aye … now, as to this son, I adopted him … oh, it was so many years ago by yer reckoning of years …"
Remus said, "Well, sir, with all due respect, you can't be older than Headmaster Dumbledore."
"Oh, is that so? How old is this … Dumbledore?"
"He is about 150 years old."
Jane and Darcy looked at Remus in shock. "Remy, you must be joking!" said Darcy.
"As much as I enjoy jokes, does it look like I'm joking, Darcy?"
"Remy's right, Darcy," said Sirius. "Dumbledore is that old."
"If so, he would be old enough to remember the American Civil War!"
"He spent most of his life in Great Britain, Darcy," said Sirius. "Over there, we Brits had Queen Victoria at the time."
"All the same," said Jane, "it is preposterous, no matter how serious the claim is. Most humans would be lucky to live to a century, but 150 years old?"
Sirius grinned at her. "Magic helps."
Jane goggled at him. "Excuse me, Sirius? Did you just say magic?"
"Yes."
"How can you believe in magic?"
"I have lived around magic my entire life, that's how. Do you remember the black dog you have seen around here?" She nodded. "As delusional as it may sound to your ears, that dog is me."
"You're right, Sirius … it is delusional. Give me one good reason why I shouldn't have you and your friend committed to a mental asylum."
"You asked for proof? Okay … this can be a shock …"
He transformed into his Animagus form – a large black dog – and kissed her. The human brain can take so much shock at one time, and the brain of Dr. Jane Foster was no different, though she had a doctorate in astrophysics. Under such shock like this, she responded no different than other people …
She fainted.
~DRY HER EYES~
As she came back to consciousness, she could hear Sirius say to Remus, "Go live with Muggles, you said. They won't give you any trouble, you said. Now look what I've done! MACUSA would have my nuts for this, I shouldn't wonder. I fell in love with this Muggle female, and now I could have broken her mind!"
Remus said, "Sirius? She is awake."
"She is? Oh, sod it all … Jane, are you okay? How much did you hear?"
"I'm okay, I think. I heard everything from, Go live with Muggles, you said."
"What is a Muggle, Sirius?" said Darcy.
"A Muggle is a person who is unable to manipulate the force known as Magic. As puzzling as it may seem to Jane, there is such a force in our universe. It can be difficult for Muggles to wrap their minds around the existence of Magic, much less to accept it –"
"– Which is why magical governments – like the British Ministry of Magic and MACUSA, the Magical Congress of the United States of America – go to such great lengths to keep its existence hidden from Muggles," said Remus. "There have been witch burnings in the past, such as those in the Puritan colony of Salem, Massachusetts."
"Were they real witches?" said Jane. "The people the Puritans burned in these trials?"
Sirius shrugged. "Your guess is as good as mine, Jane. Some could have been, or maybe none; nobody can say one way or the other on that question."
"Is it possible to clamp down on the magic?" said Darcy. "You know, to conceal your identity as a magical person?"
"Possible? Yes, but the outcome is terrifying," said Remus. "A young magical person will have bouts of what is called Accidental Magic throughout his childhood … natural releases of Magic due to a fluctuating Magical Core, common if the child is angry or scared. It stabilizes around age 11, when he goes to school to train the core. If such a child does not learn to train the core, but rather clamps down on it to appear normal to other people around him, the result creates a parasitic disaster known as an Obscurial: a creature of untamed Magic that is a danger to himself and everyone else around him. Sad to say, the untamed Magic will kill the child at some point, so an Obscurial living through his adolescence is rare, though dangerous."
"We can be grateful for that," said Jane. "Imagine a creature like that with all the emotional stresses of puberty. So, as odd as it may seem for me to say it, Magic is real?"
"Yes, Jane. I know it seems a shock –"
"– No kidding, but I can't explain my sight of your dog form and this canine slobber on my cheek any other way. No rain has come here in a fair while, and I know I'm not going mad, so I have to accept the truth for what it is."
"Well, let's get back to the subject, old timer," said Sirius. "So, Lily was a male in a female body?"
"The form I gave my son was female, so aye. He took his original form again when the infamous Lord Voldemort killed Lily Potter. He then struck Lord Voldemort with his hammer, Mjǫllnir. That was how Harald, or Harry – Sirius's godson – received that scar."
Jane looked at Sirius. "You never told me you were a godfather."
"Why aren't you with him now? Have you made somebody an offer they couldn't refuse?" said Darcy.
"I'm on the run from the British Ministry … for a crime I did not commit."
"What crime was that?" said Jane.
"They accused me of betraying the Potters to Voldemort, as well as killing Peter Pettigrew and 13 Muggles."
The old man laid a hand on Sirius's arm. "I know you would have died rather than betray My grandson, Sirius. In fact, I am here to help you."
Sirius shuddered at the feeling of power that radiated from the old man. "How, sir?"
The old man looked up at the quartet. "Dr. Foster? Miss Lewis? If you would like to come with Remus, Sirius, and Myself, now would be a good time to decide."
"There is something more to you, stranger, than meets the eye at first glance," said Jane.
"And there is more in the Nine Realms and your planet than your philosophy can even dream," said the old man.
"Yeah, Jane, this could be fun!" said Darcy as she leaped into Remus's arms.
"Sure … why not? You don't mind me tagging along, do you, Sirius?"
"Not at all," he said with a grin.
The old man grinned back at the two loving couples. "I thought as much. Remus, Darcy … you two can take my horse Sleipnir … Dr. Foster, hang onto Sirius, and Sirius … don't let go of Me."
"Understood, sir … but if I may ask … why?"
"You will see …"
A split second later, a rainbow light surrounded them and swept them into the air. They arrived in the Bifrost chamber after a journey of a few minutes that made their hearts race.
"WHOO! THAT WAS FUN!" said Sirius as the old man released him.
"AWESOME!" said Remus as he gave his pal a high five.
Jane's mouth had fallen open in wonder at the sight of so many stars. "This beats any observatory on Earth."
Darcy nodded. "What she said."
"Ek em glaðr ferðin gladdi yðr," (I am glad the journey pleased ye) said Heimdall. "Velkomin Asgarði. Ek em Heimdallr, Vǫrdðrinn Bifrøstinnar, ok maðrinn er førði yðr, hann er Oðinn Alfáðir, Konungr Asgarðs " (Welcome to Asgard. I am Heimdall, the Guardian of the Bifrost, and the man who brought ye, he is Odin Allfather, King of Asgard.)
"I knew that rainbow looked familiar … I saw it just as I arrived at the destroyed house in Godric's Hollow on the night Voldemort came …" said Sirius. The full impact of what Heimdall said took a few more seconds to travel through his brain for processing, but when his brain finished the processing, he looked up to see Odin in His royal attire.
"Ver eigi hræddr," (Be not afraid), said Odin. "Þú hefir orðit mitt á ǫllum Níu Heimum: hér ósakaðr þú skalt vera." (Thou hast My word on all the Nine Realms: here thou shalt be unharmed.)
Though this solemn word from Odin relieved him of any stress, Sirius could not help fainting in the Bifrost chamber …
Author's Note: Wow, yet another chapter done. Read and review!
Smiles and laughter,
Loki Palmer