Here begins the arc between the Mountain's Heart Dungeon and the next one! This post-dungeon arc is going to going to cover a lot of ground, including neatening up the remaining plot threads related to the Prisoner of Azkaban, fleshing out the main two Zelda NPCS and establishing their story roles, and finally giving the Harrys the chance to begin their weapons training with a living, breathing instructor. In my outline, it's basically going to lay the rest of the groundwork for the Light World half of this story to stand on. I'm really looking forward to exploring the similarities and contrasts between Harry and Link sometime soon~

Something like thunder cracked through the skies above Kokiri Isle. Sirius heard it, muffled by the walls of the palace kitchens, and elected to ignore the ominous noise. He hunched his shoulders and scrubbed harder at a stubborn spot of muck that refused to lift from the bottom of a pot. It was just the mountain acting up yet again, driving the air quality down further. Nothing he could do about it. He had classroom equipment to clean and tomorrow's lesson to gather materials for.

Queen Primrose had told him, well away from young ears, that the Deku Tree's ability to protect the forest might tire before the poison at the base of the mountain lifted. That prospect, while slowly deadly for the plant life of the Great Forest, would be much quicker to kill the oxygen-breathing humans in temporary residence. The reason for her worries had to do with the way problems around Hyrule got solved when there weren't Champions about with their uncanny combat skills and magic swords. While the king of Hyrule could generally be depended on to send at least a small company of knights or Sheikah warriors to remedy the kingdom's often monster-related problems, Death Mountain was a place few non-Gorons ever went. The environment was simply too inhospitable for most and it was easy for basic human error to lead to death. On top of that, it was really just the Gorons who could actually go far enough inside Death Mountain to deal with the monster roosting in its heart, and since they hadn't managed to solve that problem by now, it appeared the volcano would remain a toxic nuisance for the unforeseeable future.

The back door to the gardens burst open to admit a very excited Luna and Princess Belle, followed by Kajiwara, who was doing her best to look grown-up and emotionally restrained. An elated smile was showing through the cracks in her façade. Princess Belle's current assigned guard quietly stepped in behind them and closed the door.

Sirius's classroom helpers—A.K.A. the kids who'd gotten the sludge stuck to these pots in the first place—looked up curiously from their work at the commotion. "Does this mean detention's over?" piped a first-year. Loretta was one of the less-affected Lost Ones and had accidentally charred Sleepy Toadstool powder into her pot while staring hypnotized at the jarred firefly she was supposed to add next. Sirius didn't blame her for her lapse, but the eight Lost kids had collectively agreed they wanted to be treated like the other children, so detention time it was.

"Not until you get that toadstool dust out," Sirius said sternly. "The Deku Scrubs aren't as resistant to it as we are. What if the next time someone cooks in that pot, everyone who eats the food winds up knocked out for a few days?"

"Fiiine," Loretta sighed, working her scrub-brush against the walls of the pot.

Luna and Belle skipped up to Sirius. As was often the case, Luna had the Hylian Bestiary with her. The little girl and Zelda got along swimmingly, and Sirius saw no reason to deprive Luna of her friend so long as she was willing to share the book for language and culture classes.

"Good news! Good news!" Belle chirped in English.

"That roar just now wasn't the volcano," Luna said breathlessly. Her hair was tousled and stuck together with sweat in some spots. Sirius wondered bemusedly if the girl had sprinted all the way across town from the Ravenclaw quarters. "It was a dragon."

Sirius blanched, his gut tightening with fear. Anything large enough to create a sound easily mistaken for a volcanic eruption was something he wanted to keep himself and his kids far, far away from. Suddenly he felt more trapped than ever within Kokiri Isle's confines.

"No, not the kind of dragon you're thinking," Kajiwara quickly clarified. "It's Endraal, the Spirit of Eldin. She's essentially Death Mountain's living form, so that's why she sounds like the volcano."

"Why is a volcano dragon good news?" Sirius asked, fighting to sound calm. It didn't quite work—his voice cracked in the middle of the sentence.

"Endraal can calm down Death Mountain whenever it gets angry. She was under an awful curse for a while, but your Hero friends set her right," Belle said in Hylian. "Now that the nasty Gleeok messing with the mountain is gone, Endraal is bringing everything back to normal!" She walked around him and started pushing at his back. "Look! Look outside!"

"Okay, okay!" Sirius dropped his brush and stripped off his dragon-hide gloves before obediently walking out the back door. "What am I looking at, here?"

Luna and the Deku Scrub princess pointed straight up. Sirius tilted his head back.

The clouds were breaking up. Before, the orange-gray cloud cover had been impenetrable, barely letting any light from the red sun through. Now he could see slips of the blue sky.

Another roar split the air. Sirius jumped, even though he'd gotten used to a similar sound over the last few weeks. Knowing it was a dragon making that noise made the mundane terrifying again. Before his eyes, seemingly in response to the sound, the clouds thinned further. He noticed that the smokiness of the air was less heavy than before. Ash was no longer falling, though fine gray dust still coated everything.

"Hard to believe that sound is from a spirit," he said with awe and more than a little fear. So far, the only non-creepy and probably-good spirit he'd learned of was the Deku Tree. Even the Koroks, as innocent and friendly as they were, had a frightening lack of understanding of human mortality. And the Skull Kids, while not malicious, had a high likelihood of causing unintentional harm. He hoped Endraal was more like the Deku Tree than a Skull Kid.

"She's a World Spirit, so she's a lot bigger and stronger than the little Koroks you've seen around town," Belle said. "I've heard she's super nice, too, even though she looks scary. Back before she was cursed, she used to stop by to chat with the Deku Tree."

Sirius dropped his gaze from the sky to stare at her. "The dragon and the tree can talk?"

She gave him a funny look. "You didn't think the Great Deku Tree could talk?"

They frowned at each other, mutually puzzled.

"Since the Potters have slayed the monster that was mucking about with Death Mountain and Endraal is mopping up the fallout, that means we can move out," Kajiwara said to break the confused silence. "And not that I fully trust you, Black, but I'm going to need help herding all those cats." She gestured back toward the classroom.

Sirius raised an eyebrow. "I'm sorry, did you say Harry beat the giant Cerberus-phoenix-dragon monstrosity that flew into the volcano?" He could remember how big that thing had been and while his memory might have been exaggerating the size somewhat, the beast had been far larger than any dragon breed he knew of. Sure, Harry had a team of himself now, but a beast on that scale would have been a challenge for a squad of trained dragon-wranglers to subdue, let alone for a handful of weedy teenagers to kill.

Kajiwara crossed her harms. "I don't entirely believe it, either, but the confirmed facts of the situation are that Endraal isn't crazy and she's fixing the weather. However those facts came about, I don't care right at this moment," she said. "What I do care about is not losing any Lost kids to the forest or the lake when we make our way back to the castle."

Sirius supposed he could get the details of his multiplied godsons' adventure later. He was as eager to get out of the woods as Kajiwara. He had no idea what would happen once they got back to the castle, but at least if things turned out sour, he could leave his kids in their teachers' hands while he ran off to survive.

"Alright, let's have a planning session with the Prefects after I'm done with clean-up duty," he said. "I think I have an idea for our cat-herding problem, though you might not like it…"

They stood around the Goron City train station. Or rather, the huge pile of giant boulders sitting on top of it. A bit of the turnplate peeked out from under the hill of red stone, the iron panels dented but its stala frame unharmed. The Spirit Tracks, being made entirely of magic, went straight through the rocks like they weren't there, so Harry wasn't worried about damage on that front. The bulk of the repairs would go to the station building, which wasn't technically necessary for the trains to come in.

"Potters, you can't be serious."

"We're dead serious, Malfoy. Don't you want to be able to use the train to get back here?"

"Those boulders are the size of these cave-dwellers' houses! Your staffs would suck the life out of you!" Malfoy waved around his Magic Rod for emphasis.

"We picked up a new thing in the foundry, so we're going to try a different approach." Harry conjured his Dragon Hammer, which Malfoy looked up at with interest. "You just try not to evaporate."

Malfoy scowled down at his borrowed Goron clothes. Red had insisted and Yellow had made puppy eyes until Malfoy had agreed to put Red's set on. Now he was grumpy about how unfashionable and "dumpy" he looked, rather than loopy from water-loss. "How could I? You've trussed me up like a toddler going sledding." He waddled off to the side, where the Gorons who'd been digging out the turnplate were watching the Harrys with understandable skepticism.

"Are you sure about what you're doing, Brother?" asked Boss, who'd been the one to show them the train station and tell the other Gorons to stand back. "I know you said you could knock those boulders around, but these guys have been out here for weeks with hammers bigger than that and they've been having trouble making headway."

Harry looked up at the gleaming red and gold head of the Dragon Hammer. It was actually quite a bit larger than any sledgehammer he'd ever seen in real life—not that he'd ever spend much time around workmen—but admittedly smaller and much lighter than the giant iron hammers the Gorons had been splitting the rocks with. "We're just trying to move them, not break them, so I figure it'll be enough," Harry said. "Also, this hammer hits a lot harder than you think. It's got a rocket on it."

Boss jerked back and stared at the tool with alarm. "Like on a train? That kind of rocket?"

"Yup! Whoever made it must have been a bit of a nutter, but it works."

"You've…swung it before? And you still have your arms on?"

"Yeah, I think it must have an enchantment on it to keep it from taking them off. It hasn't broken my spine, yet, either."

Boss goggled at him. "How many Red Potions did you drink yesterday?"

"Oh, loads. How could you tell?"

"Because you're a little kid and you're not afraid of breaking your spine." He laid a hand on Harry's shoulder and crouched down to look him right in the eyes. "Next time you stop by an adventuring shop, ask them about how to cook magical meals in the field. There are other ways to heal yourself that aren't as major as a potion. You're gonna give the adults around you a heart attack if you come down with a case of Adventurer's Folly at your age, Brother."

Harry nodded, wide-eyed. He already had an aversion to wasting Red Potions on injuries that weren't potentially fatal, but he hadn't known that getting too potion-happy could affect his mind. "Okay, I'll do that."

"Good. Now show me this wild idea of yours." Boss stepped back and waved a hand at the boulders.

The Harrys sprang into action. First they rabbit-ified the boulders to shrink them down without causing them to explode, going from top to bottom to avoid an avalanche. After making the rocks a third their original size, they were far more manageable for Blue, Yellow, and Red to levitate. Harry angled himself to face a drop-off on the side of the road leading up to Goron City. He knew from studying it on the walk down here that it led to nothing but a lava lake, and there were no guide rails in the way of the rocks' flight path.

He drew the Dragon Hammer back. "I'm ready!" he called to his brothers. In response, they cast a team Levitation Charm on one of the boulders and floated it over. The Gorons in the peanut gallery let out gasps of surprise.

Harry swung, causing another round of gasps when the hammer's rocket kicked in. With a muted crack of metal on furry stone, the rock went sailing over the drop-off and disappeared beyond the edge of the cliffs. Harry did a little victory dance. His guess about how far the rocks would fly had been right! Blue had been worried their weightlessness would make them go too far, but Harry had been sure that the way their Levitation Charm worked in Hyrule meant the mass of the boulders was still a factor. Lifting big things here would have been as easy as levitating heavy objects back in Scotland if the targets of the spell were just rendered as light as air.

"Again!" he ordered, winding up to bat a second time.

One by one, the rocks flew over the cliff. When Harry got tired of wielding the hammer himself, Yellow took over with his uncanny aim. Soon, the only rocks left were ones that were small enough to be easily carried off. The turnplate and station lay exposed under the blazing sun, the former only banged up and the latter half-demolished.

The workmen crowded forward once the Harrys had cleared the boulders, enthusiastically cleaning up the smaller rocks. "I'll be able to visit the desert again!" one worker said happily. "I've missed being able to buy Gerudo spice."

"It'd be nice if we could get some Gerudo and Zonai travelers in again, too. My processing station has a backlog of topaz like you wouldn't believe," said another. "First chance I get, I'm fixing up the Gem Shop and having a sale."

Out of the corner of his eye, Harry saw Blue and Malfoy perk up. He internally sighed. As intense as Blue's obsession with the Hylian Bestiary had been, he could only hope he wouldn't decide to throw himself just as fiercely into jewel collecting. Harry saw the value of gemstones, certainly—both as materials for specialized Magic Rods and as an easy source of cash. He just didn't want Blue dragging him and the others on rock-gathering quests. Maybe Malfoy could do something to temper Blue's enthusiasm with cool business-logic.

Boss slapped Harry on the back, then hastily caught him when the force knocked Harry over. "Good job, Brother! You're a natural at rock clearing," he praised. "Say, do you have a Gossip Stone? I'd like to ring you once everything's up and running again. Your Zora friend seemed real enthusiastic about the stone trade. He was asking all kinds of questions while you and your brothers were in the volcano."

Harry's eyebrows went up. Malfoy had been going around talking to Muggles like they were normal people who knew things? That was a big step forward for him. "Yes, we've got a Gossip Stone," he said. Reaching into his bag, he took out a plain, smooth gray river rock. "Our call name is 'Harry Potter' and our address is 'Hogwarts Castle'. Oh, and if you want to talk to other mages like us, the match to our stone is 'Hermione Granger' at Hogwarts Castle." Unlike telephones, Gossip Stones worked on a name and address system rather than numbers. One went to a Gossip Booth, gave a name and address to the operator, and got routed to the right Gossip Stone through the magical equivalent of radio waves. At least, that was how Harry explained it to himself. He had a hard enough time understanding touch screens, let alone wireless telephone connections.

Boss took an iron plate out of a pocket on his utility belt and wrote on it in chalk. He wrote the names as "Hari Potta" and "Hamai'oni Grenja", and Harry was suddenly struck by the realization that his name was really weird in Hyrule. His name was so average back in England that the magical community had added a title to make it actually stand out. "With names like that, I bet the operator could find you without an address, Brother," Boss remarked. "I'll call you once we've got the city back in order. I'm sure a lot of the shopkeepers around here would want to thank you kids. You've saved us a lot of reconstruction time with that magic of yours."

An enormous red head peered out from the cliff above, where the rock that had buried the train station had fallen from. "The children have done more than just that," Endraal rumbled. "From what the Little Brothers in town have told me, these Little Brothers saved me from another few centuries of embarrassing myself."

"Hi, Ms. Endraal!" Yellow greeted. "Are you feeling better?"

"Much better! Thank you for asking." Endraal inclined her head toward him. "I am very glad to return to my true nest, even if that Gleeok made a real mess of things. I have a century of forgetting my children to make up for." She curved her neck to look affectionately at the Gorons below, who had stopped in their work to stare up at her in apprehension. "Don't worry, my mind is clear again," she cooed. "Have you been keeping up with your training while I was gone?"

Broad Goron smiles showed all around. "You bet!" Boss boomed. He clapped a hand to his muscled belly. "We've added a new sport, too. Lob-Ball! You'd love it!"

Endraal wiggled happily on her haunches. "My children are so strong!" she hummed. "I look forward to watching your matches again." Reaching down with one hand, she crushed some of the larger rocks on the ground to make them easier to shovel into wheelbarrows. Then, with smooth precision, she jumped down from the cliff and landed in a clear spot on the ground. She stood up on two legs and wrapped her tail around her waist. Seeing the dragon right next to the Gorons really hammered home how they were related to the same place, if not by species.

"Would you like a ride down to the base of the mountain, children?" she asked, looking around at the smaller figures scattered among the Gorons. "I'm not as strong a flier as Lanuatu or Farosh, but I can carry you in my hands."

"She asked if we want to fly with her," Harry called out in English for Red's benefit. "Are you fine with that?"

"Do we want to fly with a cool buff volcano dragon?" Red loudly asked, rushing through the crowd toward her. "Boy, would we!" He ran up to Endraal's ankles and stared up at her with open-mouthed admiration.

Blue looked only marginally less excited than Red, while Malfoy was clearly weighing the difficulty of going down the (possibly still flooded) road versus trusting the gigantic spirit creature not to squish him. Yellow happily skipped up to stand next to Red.

Since it seemed like it was time to go, Harry turned back to Boss to see if he might make a few last arrangements. He didn't have the same eye for opportunity as Blue or Malfoy, but he had the sense there was a helpful connection he could create here. "Let me know if you need some magical help around the mountain again," Harry told Boss. "When we came to Hyrule, it wasn't on purpose, and a lot of people were taken here with us. We're trying to establish ourselves here and earn money for food and such until we can get home, so the people back at the castle are looking into any odd jobs we can take."

Boss gasped. "Were you all kidnapped?"

Harry nodded. "The mage whose monster was in your volcano is the same bloke who sent us here. He dropped our castle—it's actually a school—on an island in Lake Hylia and the village next to it in the middle of Castle Town, so there are a lot of mages like us around looking for a way to earn their keep. If you call our 'Hermione Granger' Gossip Stone, you'll get a line straight to our friends at the castle, and they can pass you on to our headmaster to set something up." He ran to Endraal, waving at Boss. The Goron, seeming a little shell-shocked by what Harry had told him, tentatively returned the wave. "I hope you can get everything back in order soon!" He hopped into Endraal's lowered hand, which raised up to her warm, scaly chest, and in one powerful leap they were off.

Flying under someone else's power was both terrifying and exhilarating. When riding Buckbeak, he'd at least had the power to nudge the animal in the right direction, but Endraal was entirely in control here. Harry looked up at the dragon's extended neck. He still had trouble wrapping his head around how tiny he was compared to this giant.

Looking straight down, he was treated to an aerial view of Death Mountain. Spires of red rock jutted up like little mountains of their own. Pools of lava glimmered like blazing jewels and hot springs interrupted the hazy mirage of red and orange with overlapping circles of brilliant turquoise. Beyond the mountain, he had a clear view of Hyrule's heart. It looked like an idealized painting of the English countryside, or like the view from the Hogwarts Express made even greener and brighter. Kokiri Isle was a verdant dot in the middle of a glassy black sea that stretched from the base of Death Mountain. Central Hyrule was a vast patchwork of farmland, forest, and waving grasses—a fuzzy quilt in shades of gold and green. Off to the right lay reddish gray volcanic flatlands interrupted by a dark square of huddled trees and the jutting ruins of a fortress. In the farthest distance, he could just barely make out Hyrule Castle's mountainous perch and rising white towers. The golden lines of the Spirit Tracks laid across the land like a net. Every junction formed a nexus that shone brighter where multiple lines of track overlaid and joined together.

The dragon landed at the edge of the Goron camp at the base of the mountain, sending several Gorons screaming running for cover. Children were swiftly herded into tents and elders stood outside with their mining hammers and metal canes held like weapons. Endraal quickly set down her cargo and shrank away from the negative attention. "I'm not here to hurt anyone," she said. "These children helped me. I know where my nest is again."

"She's telling the truth!" Harry added. "She won't hurt you."

Heads poked out from the iron and leather tents. "She's better?" a Goron younger than them asked cautiously. "No one's been able to help her before. How did you do it, Brothers?"

"Our magic works differently," Blue said. "We can do some things that others can't." He looped his Magic Rod in a figure-eight and pointed it at a stool-sized boulder. "Lapifors." The rock shrank and grew fur, making the Gorons jump and stare. He returned the rock to normal with a murmur of, "Reparifage."

"That explains the furred stones I saw the Little Brothers by the summit hauling," Endraal remarked, leaning over to sniff the rock curiously. "I hadn't known that rocks could smell alive."

"If anyone has any weird magical needs, there are a whole lot of other mages like us in Castle Town and trapped in a castle sitting in Lake Hylia," Harry said. "In fact, if you guys could help the castle be less trapped in exchange for the wizards there helping you with things, that would be great. We, erm, we're kind of screwed here." He rubbed the back of his neck awkwardly.

"Hmm, a strategic show of weakness. Clever," he heard Malfoy mutter behind him, presumably in English. "I should try that sometime. Perhaps that's the key to being charming."

"The secret is literally just acting like a normal human being," Blue hissed at him in the same language. "Why is being normal a foreign concept to you?"

"Because I'm a Malfoy and a Black. Hardly ordinary," Malfoy sniffed. "You aren't taught to act humble when you're born of two of the greatest family houses in the country."

"Ah, so that's why you're…you."

An elder Goron, the same one who'd told them about the Hero's Trail, cautiously walked over on his cane. He kept a close eye on Endraal the whole time before giving her a deep bow. She dipped her neck to return it.

The Goron looked down at Harry. "Gorons aren't a people that let help go unreturned, Brother," he declared. "Tell us about this building project of yours. I'm guessing your castle wound up on Naga Isle, the biggest of the ones in the lake. Is it a set of train tracks and a turnplate you need? I know there's a rail line that skims the lake and my workshop has contacts with some track-smiths."

Harry brightened. "Yeah, actually, that's exactly what we need! If we could have a way to ship in food and send people out to town, that would be great!"

"Bradden, that boy's hardly older than our grandkid!" another Goron said, stumping up on his cane. "At least figure things out with his parents first."

Harry winced. The permission slip dilemma he'd faced that summer came rushing back to him. He understood why people wanted parents to sign things, but it certainly didn't make his life easier.

Yellow sidled up to whisper in his ear. "Green, the Headmaster is our guardian while we're at school, remember? It's not lying if you say he can sign things for us, and Ron or Hermione can get the phone to him."

Oh, right! This wasn't like an official school thing, where he specifically needed parents or guardians who didn't hate him to sign a form. All he needed was a responsible adult that he trusted to keep up the connections he'd made. He could just say Dumbledore was in charge of him and leave the Headmaster to figure out the complicated stuff. Even if the Headmaster had been rather irritating to deal with lately, Harry still trusted the man to do what was best.

"I can connect you to the headmaster of my school!" he chirped. "My friends are back in the castle with the match to my Gossip Stone. Here's the name and address…"

Harry left Death Mountain feeling more grown-up and capable than ever before. Yes, it had been incredibly reckless to go off dragon-slaying without the say-so of a single teacher, but now Endraal was fixing the atmosphere, the Ravenclaws could leave Kokiri Isle without choking on fumes, the Gorons weren't constantly getting lava floods and hail, and there was a chance the situation over at the castle might get better soon. Harry was looking forward to when his classmates and teachers could travel around and see Hyrule. Harry wasn't sure he'd like to live here, what with the frequent monster invasions, but it was certainly beautiful and magical in its own way.

"So, where to now?" Malfoy asked as the ground shifted from rock to gritty dirt and scrubby grass. "Are we going straight back to the castle? Honestly, it seems like that would be a waste of running off."

"We should definitely stop in town to sell some of the things we collected," Blue said. He pulled a clump of clear quartz out of his bag. "Can you believe this is a diamond? Look at the size of it!"

Harry rushed forward to stare more closely at it. Sure, the rock was sparkly, but diamond?! "No way," he breathed. "It's huge!"

"I know, right? But the Goron I was talking to said it was about average for the kinds of mining waste they wind up with," Blue replied. "Unbelievable that this counts as 'waste'. I guess they don't have diamond-tipped drills or diamond-focused lasers here." He shook his head. "Red and I got a ruby and a sapphire just as big while fighting archers in the big furnace room, and I found some big chunks of amber in those mining carts I dug through. Utterly mad, the things you can find just sitting around or in a monster's hands here."

"If we sold that diamond back home, we could probably buy our own townhouse," Yellow said, staring mesmerized at the sparkly crystals. "I know it wouldn't be safe from Voldemort, but imagine."

"You'd have to find an appraiser first, then someone who could afford such a gem," Malfoy said. "And it would probably be prudent to cut it down into something more attractive first. Buyers can be like that." He held out his hand. "I'll make the arrangements if you'll split the profits forty-sixty with me."

Red raised an eyebrow. "With the 'sixty' part going to who?"

"To you, of course," Malfoy said smoothly. "I'd consider forty percent of a gem like that an adequate processing and people-finding fee. Better than having to mine the rock myself."

Harry shrugged. "Alright, then." He shook on it. Sixty percent was better than not knowing how to sell the thing, and they'd get way more for it in their home dimension.

"Hearing you Dark World types talk is so weird sometimes," an extra Harry commented. "What thirteen-year-old cares that much about money?"

Harry looked down. "Money's what makes the world work. Without money, you're cold and starving, and then you're dead," he said matter-of-factly. Sure, foraging was free, but not everyone could face the food-or-poison game and a lot of people kept a sharp watch on their bushes and fruit trees. Harry was lucky Aunt Petunia didn't mind him growing food so long as he kept the garden jealousy-inducing for the neighbors. "Besides, Malfoy's posh, and you know what our home situation is like. Now, what do you want?"

"You're always so grumpy. I only traumatized you the once—or maybe twice. No need to hold a grudge about it," Shadow Harry groused, rising from the ground. "I'm just here to tell you where to go. What with me being the only person wearing this face who knows how anything works."

"Does Vaati already have another big monster out causing trouble?" Yellow wondered. "That was fast!"

"No, he's busy whipping up a storm to punish you." Shadow Harry jerked his thumb over his shoulder. "He's a touch miffed you killed his whatever-that-was."

Behind him, an endless wave of dark, purplish clouds was closing in, seeming to blanket the entirety of the sky. It was hard to judge distances across the flat expanse of Central Hyrule, but they looked maybe sixty kilometers off and closing in fast. Wind was visibly bending the trees beneath the clouds and a thick veil of rain turned the swallowed landscape gray. Harry's stomach flipped anxiously at the sight. Finding shelter would be a must; there was no braving that. Harry regretted not bringing more warm wool with him on this trip. He didn't think the heat-resistant linen of his Goron clothes would be useful in the rain.

"That doesn't matter, though. Where you should be going is that magic blacksmith I said I'd locate—the one that can re-enchant the Four Sword," Shadow Harry continued. "You found a power crystal in the volcano, right? I figured my boss's monster would nest near a big source of positive magic, and there's always something important in Death Mountain."

Harry took the luminous red orb out of his bag and held it up. The object hovered a few millimeters over his palm, sending odd tingles through his skin. It also made his ears itch for some reason. Blue and Red started scratching their ears just as the thought crossed his mind, so it wasn't just him feeling it.

"Good! It looks like you can do some things right, after all." The spirit ruffled Harry's hair. Harry tried to punch him in the nose, which Shadow Harry avoided by turning into smoke.

"The bloke I found is…well, you ought to meet him yourself," Shadow Harry said with a too-wide grin once his face was solid again. In combination with the swollen red eye still bulging out of his right eye socket, the sight of his lips stretching beyond any human limits was particularly disturbing. "He lives with his sister in a scary-looking house with a blue-stained chimney on the other side of a forest just south of Castle Town. It has a fence, but I've made it so you'll be able to get in." He clapped his hands as if to rid them of dust. "Well, my work is done here. I'm off to play murder-tag with Endraal now. Bye!" He fell back into the ground and disappeared between the grains of dirt.

Harry put away the red globe and fumbled a piece of parchment out of his bag. He scribbled down what Shadow Harry had said before he could forget it. "A forest south of Castle Town…" he murmured, conjuring his Navi Slate. The capital of Hyrule was about eighty kilometers away from where they currently were. Sure, they could make it in less than an hour on their brooms, but he wasn't sure whether it was a good idea to push their brooms too hard while they were damaged. He also didn't know whether casting Mending Charms on them would repair the scorching or make things worse by messing with one of the charms that made the vehicles work.

Blue read the look of dismay on his face. "We're going to have to catch a train to Castle Town, aren't we?" he asked with a grimace. Red and Yellow matched his expression at the news.

Harry sighed. "Yeah, unless you think casting a Reparo on a half-cooked broom is a good idea."

"It's been known to paper over damage on more complicated magical objects, but it couldn't hurt to try. Mending Charms only react badly when they attempt to repair half-broken enchantments. The brooms could still fly just fine, so I'd assume their charms are whole," Malfoy said. "Why wouldn't you want to ride the trains, though? I seem to recall Red bragging that the Muggles here have managed to make them faster than the Hogwarts Express."

"That's the problem," Blue moaned. "It's one thing to be fast on a broom. It's another to be belted into a giant tube that goes twice the speed."

Despite his apprehension, Harry scanned the landscape for the nearest set of glowing tracks. The line leading up to the Death Mountain summit descended at a sharp angle to follow parallel to the traveler's path up to the volcano's base. From there, it split at an intersection with rounded corners and paused at a small shelter of riveted steel before dipping into a long-cooled lava basin, soaring over a river, and disappearing behind a hill.

The boys scurried over to the train stop, which was essentially a windowless metal box with a curved roof to handle both rain and falling debris from the ill-tempered volcano nearby. It was enclosed on three sides with its back to the coming storm, which suited their needs nicely.

A frigid wind picked up, carrying with it a spray of rain that rattled harshly against the metal shell of the shelter. Harry shivered. Though this train stop was in one piece, that didn't guarantee anyone was going to send a train to it. He was sure the timetable was still in chaos, with monster attacks on stations still happening across the country. It was possible they'd have to wait out the storm here while hoping for a ride that would never come.

More rain loudly spattered against the roof, and he groaned. They'd definitely have to endure the storm here.

"Camping time," Harry declared. "Pretend we're staying here until the storm burns out, because we might be. I don't know when the train might come in, if it ever does."

"This place isn't so bad. There are nice, big benches and solid walls to keep the wind out," Yellow said optimistically. He cast a Warming Charm on their temporary shelter, which took some of the bite out of the air.

Malfoy watched with a frown as the Harrys threw their robes on over their Goron clothes, laid blankets over the benches, and started taking out their various forms of entertainment. Red had a pencil drawing he was working on, which Blue secured to wall with a Sticking Charm to keep it from getting caught by the wind. Yellow had a sewing project, altering one of Dudley's less ugly hand-me-down shirts into something that came closer to fitting. Blue was showing their newly-acquired inventory to Zelda and chatting with her about what those things were and their potential uses. Harry had bought a cookbook in Castle Town and planned to familiarize himself with a few recipes that would magically heal injuries without being as drastic as a Red Potion. Malfoy, meanwhile, was…apparently confused.

"You're just going to settle in, as easy as that?" he asked. "Wouldn't it be better to find a proper village first? How can you just sit down and relax here, in the middle of nowhere?"

"Even if we flew on our brooms to find a place, there's a chance Vaati's wind could throw us out of the sky," Harry said. "While Oliver had the Gryffindors flying storm drills enough times that we could fly in a full hurricane, that isn't a normal storm." He nodded toward the purplish shadow encroaching ahead of the approaching clouds. The sound of rain on the roof was becoming more constant now.

Blue gave an annoyed huff and cast an Impervius Charm on their shelter to quiet the increasing racket. "You're the one best suited for this weather, so it shouldn't be too hard for you to make yourself comfortable," he told Malfoy. He patted the blanket next to him. "Sit down and pretend we're in study hall. I've got some written music and enchant-able items on hand if you need something to do."

"But there aren't any towns nearby." Malfoy glanced over his shoulder, as though a city might appear behind him. "The Goron camp is kilometers away from here."

The Harrys cocked their heads to one side. "Yes, and?"

Malfoy shuddered. "It's creepy when you're in sync," he said. "What I mean is, is it safe to be all the way out here? Couldn't bandits or monsters attack?" He peered out worriedly into the thickening rain.

"Well, sure, but we're all wizards, my brothers and I just beat a giant phoenix-Cerberus-dragon, and you have super-strength, so…" Harry shrugged. "We can handle Bokoblins, Octoroks, ChuChus, Keese, and probably a group of human thieves. If a pack of Lizalfoses or Moblins attack, we can just hop on our brooms and zip over to a cave in Death Mountain."

The aristocrat drifted closer to the benches along the back of the bus stop. "I've never spent any significant amount of time away from civilization or family before," he confessed anxiously. "What does one…do?"

"I don't know," Harry admitted. "We know how to forage, sleep in weird, uncomfortable places, and entertain ourselves when there's no one else around, but we've never been taught how camping works. We just have the survival skills for it."

"Camping probably includes a lot of sitting around being bored, though," Red said, which had the other Harrys nodding.

"First I learn you know how to garden and are expected to do chores to receive three meals, and now I'm learning you can forage." Malfoy put his hands on his hips. "You're shorter than most Potters, somehow even thinner than I am, and your greatest fear is your uncle. What on earth is your family feeding you? Are they feeding you? I find it difficult to understand why anyone of your pedigree would need such specific survival skills."

A thrill of panic went through Harry. Too close, too close! "I get fed! They give me sandwiches all the time," Harry said quickly. "Hey, I've got a book about Hyrule's plants! Do you want to learn how to forage, too? It's a good skill."

Malfoy narrowed his eyes. "My point is, as strange as you think I am compared to the average wizard, Potter, I think you're just as strange without knowing—or perhaps you do know and aren't willing to tell anyone why." He sat down primly on the bench and held his hand out. "The book, if you please."

Harry laid it in the boy's waiting hand and exchanged wide-eyed looks with his brothers over Malfoy's shoulder. For someone who could be so stubbornly unwilling to acknowledge truths he considered inconvenient—like the fact that he no person was inherently better than anyone else, regardless of magic or riches—Malfoy could be disturbingly perceptive. Maybe it was just due to the Slytherin's status as a relatively uncaring third party who wasn't afraid to ask tactless questions, but it frightened Harry that the boy had just cut through his façade of normality using only tiny tidbits of information. His relatives had drilled that act into him for all his life, and this almost-a-stranger had just jabbed a needle right through it!

Malfoy's feline eyes flicked to the side and he gave Harry a sly, catlike smirk to match. "You really ought to stop assuming you're smarter than everyone else, Potter. You're not as good at this as you think." He seemed to savor the way the blood drained from Harry's face before he nonchalantly aimed his attention back toward his borrowed book. "Just food for thought."

Notes:

-Adventurer's Folly in this fic-verse is a delusion caused by the repeated experience of a person suffering a grievous injury and having it magically healed. It causes adventurers to become disturbingly, life-threateningly apathetic to the idea of suffering harm. This can lead to them jumping off of cliffs for shortcuts, taking hits from monsters that they really shouldn't, and so on. This mindset has killed many a career adventurer, which is why milder healing measures are recommended outside of emergencies by all adventuring guidebooks.

-In the Light World, the Levitation Charm renders things weightless, but can't fully ignore mass. Just like how an astronaut would have a hard time knocking their shuttle out of orbit by giving it a hard push, the Harrys have a hard time lifting up and pushing around big, heavy things with this spell.

-"Lob-ball" is something I borrowed from emThe Transformers/em here. The rules involve the players chucking a big, heavy metal ball back and forth as hard as they can until one of them gets knocked over. It strikes me as exactly the kind of game that Gorons would love.

-The Harry's-ears-itching thing is in response to a comment I got ages ago in a much earlier chapter. Now I've finally got an in-story reason to make it happen :)

-Draco isn't sure what, exactly, is going on with the Harrys because it fully slipped his mind to ask Harry's friends about it. He's just certain that there's something wrong with them and it's probably because they were raised by filthy, incompetent Muggles instead of good, Pureblood magical folk. Not knowing a damn thing and confidently pretending he knows everything just to intimidate people is as much a part of his personality as it is his upbringing lol