Chapter 2
Pern

A dragon.

The Hungarian Horntail Harry had faced during the Tri-Wizard Tournament.

Harry was flying above it on his Firebolt. Suddenly the Dragon began to morph into a large gold colored one. Harry realized his broom was gone and he began falling. When he hit the ground he felt all this ribs crack.

Then he woke up.

Glancing around, he found himself in a fairly large room with stone walls. The room had colorful draperies hanging from the walls that reminded Harry of how the great hall at Hogwarts looked. Harry himself was lying on a bed, shirtless, and his chest had been wrapped with a soft bandage.

Hearing voices to the right of him, he slowly turned his head.

Ron, Hermione, Lessa, F'lar, T'bor, and three other men Harry had not seen before were sitting at a table. Out of the three strangers, one was elderly, the second looked younger then he really was, fifty maybe, and the third looked to be in his late twenties.

"So we left the train by walking through the barrier again." Hermione was saying. "And on our way out of the station we simply appeared here."

"Ah, our third visitor awakes." Said the middle-aged man, who seemed quite cheerful and had been watching Harry.

"Harry!" Hermione jumped up from her chair and ran over to his side, quickly followed by Ron. "Are you okay? How do you feel? We just told them everything. I didn't know what else to do. How do you feel?" She said very fast as usual.

Harry muttered something about being fine and started trying to sit up.

"I wouldn't do that if I were you," said the elderly man approaching Harry. "You received quite a blow. Your ribs may take months to heal properly." He glanced at F'lar who didn't return his gaze. "I am Masterhealer Oldive. This," he gestured towards the cheerful man, "is Masterharper Robinton, this is F'nor, and of course you've already met our Weyrleaders F'lar and Lessa, and T'bor of High Reaches Weyr."

Harry could tell that this was suppose to mean something to him, like Hermione thought "Harry Potter" would mean something to Lessa, but it didn't.

"Um, hello."

"Come now Oldive! Do you really think the boy has any clue what you are talking about?" Master Robinton said laughing heartily.

Master Robinton pulled a chair over to Harry and sat down. "Now that we have an explanation of who you three are, we should explain a little about our world, since it obviously differs so much from yours."

So Robinton explained, and Harry felt even more confused then when Hagrid had told him four years ago that he was a Wizard!

It turned out, that not only had the three left London, but they had left Earth altogether! They were on a planet known as Pern. The planet was plagued by a substance known as Thread that fell from the "Red Star" which was in an erratic orbit around Pern's sun. The deadly Thread fell from the sky and killed anything organic that it came in contact with. The only way to stop the thread was extreme heat or cold. Drowning it in water also worked. Long ago small creatures called Firelizards were bred into giant Dragons, and when the Dragons ate a substance called Fire-stone they gained the ability to breath flame. Green, blue, brown and bronze dragons flew against the thread, while the golden queens stayed below with flame throwers to stop any thread that got through the main fighting dragons. The golden queen dragons didn't eat the fire-stone because it would cause them to lose their ability to lay eggs. Each dragon had a rider that it spent its life with, and had a telepathic connection to. All dragons had the power to "Go Between" which meant they could leave one place and appear instantly in another.

Like apparating, Harry thought.

Lessa had a golden dragon and F'lar had a bronze, and together they ran Benden Weyr, one of seven Weyrs on Pern. Several yeasr back, before the current pass of the Red Star, Pern had been down to only one Weyr, the others had mysteriously disappeared. It was Lessa who discovered dragons could not only travel through space, but time as well, and she went back in time four hundred turns (Pern years) to bring dragon riders of the past forward to save Pern from thread. However, Lessa's trip turned out to be the reason the Weyr disappeared, because four hundred years ago she arrived to take them foreword in time, but then four hundred years in the future she realized she had and had to go back and get them.

The paradox made Harry's head spin.

Harry simply stared at Robinton as he finished. Hermione looked very enlightened and Ron looked ready to be sick.

"So, not only are we not on Earth any more, but we traveled across the universe, to land on a Hatching Ground and got Lessa's dragon mad enough to eat us?" Harry said in disbelief.

"It's no more farfetched then us believing you simply appeared out of nowhere and have magical powers." Lessa said curtly from behind Robinton. "And Ramoth would never do such a thing!"

Harry didn't know how to respond to that and changed the subject. "Um, where are our trunks?"

Hermione pointed towards the corner where all three trunks lay neatly piled.

"Oh. Good. Um…" Harry looked appealingly at Hermione and Ron looking for something to say.

"No need to speak boy," Master Robinton said knowingly. "You just rest."

With that he turned towards F'lar and Lessa. "My throat is simply parched from all this story telling, I wouldn't say no to a bit of wine." He said with a laugh, and then gestured grandly at the door.

With much glaring at the Master Harper, F'lar, Lessa, F'nor and T'bor left quickly followed by Robinton. Master Oldive hesitated at the door.

"I'll be back to check on you later." He said and then left with the others.

Quietly the door was closed, but then not so quietly a bar was slid into place across it. Hermione ran over to the door and placed an ear on it. After a few moments she stomped back over to Harry and Ron.

"They locked the door and that F'nor is out there guarding!" She said with much huffing.

Ron swore multiple times, but Harry simply lay there, staring at the ceiling.

"How'd we get here?" He asked, the question directed more to himself than the others.

"Portkey?" Ron said dully.

"Across space to a planet no one's ever heard of?" Hermione snarled sarcastically.

Could it have been a portkey? Harry wondered. Was this one big setup by Voldemort? Were they really here? Or maybe just miles out of London in some deserted area, and all this was a set up?

Slowly Harry drifted out of consciousness wondering.