Reunion
After about thirty minutes of driving, they could see the water from the highway. The children were still questioning Nestor about everything. He could identify Charlie, Mango, Weaver, Teacher, and Chief by sight, but had trouble with many of the others, except Pants, so he couldn't answer many of the questions. A pleasant surprise for the children was that out of the five baby demiguises they were expecting, they got seven, due to two sets of twins. Harry's heart swelled at seven more members joining their family. Mango's village was growing steadily. It didn't have as many large trees as the original, so Nestor and a few of the other people on his team had put raised platforms around the original mango grove in addition to the few scattered trees where they had constructed shelters.
Newt, Tina, and Brandt hadn't been able to get a word in the entire ride so far, so they all just listened to the conversation. Brandt also had taken out a journal and was taking notes on everything he heard. He had a dozen pages dedicated to every single demiguise. He labeled as many as he could hear with names, and numbered all of them from one to sixty-five. He added extra pages for The Giver, the Usurper, the 'horned pig' that they had mentioned, Hoohoos, Lampong, and 'Snakes.'
There were going to be a few people waiting for them on the island. Nestor's assistant - Kailee, two herbologists, who were also brothers - Thao and Than, and Nestor's girlfriend, who he had met while searching for Harry - Nenita Estrada. She had recently moved in with him, and since she worked as a writer, she ended up spending a lot of time on the island, doing her work from there.
After a little over an hour, the car drove through a small town and into a small fishing port. Harry and Lyra got out and breathed in the salty air of the sea.
"How long till we get there?" Lyra asked.
"We just have a short boat ride," Nestor told them, "it will take a little under an hour. Once we get on the open water, we'll be able to go faster with a bit of magic."
Harry pulled his trunk out of the back of the car and turned it into a briefcase, then followed Nestor down the dock as the others and their driver started unloading the rest of the car. Their boat, at the end of the dock, was a Chinese junk ship. The sails were currently closed up, but bits of red could be seen inside all three of them.
Harry started to feel a bit nervous about being on a ship again and took a glance back towards Lyra who had started to run down towards the boat, dragging her trunk along with her. She didn't look at all fearful or reminded about their time in the shipping container, so Harry took a deep breath in and quashed his anxiety so it wouldn't affect her. He caught Tina's eyes for just a moment and could see a worried look from her, anticipating their distress with the experience. While invisible, Whispers came scampering down the wooden dock next, practically pulling along the slower Dougal.
Once they all were on the boat, Lyra and Harry went out to the bow as Nestor started up the engine. A bit of smoke came out of the engine on the back as they started to move slowly forward. Lyra cheered with excitement at the movement and Harry felt himself feeling a bit better now that he was pretty sure she wasn't going to be stressed out over the boat ride. Brandt cast some balancing charm on his ears to keep himself from getting sick. Newt cast the same charm on Dougal as they moved out of the harbor.
Whispers came out to the bow of the boat and Harry let him ride on his shoulders, with the wind in his fur as they gained speed over the water. After about ten minutes, they cleared the marina and passed by a small island that had been opposite the fishing village. When they could feel the open water rocking the boat a bit more, Nestor called them back to the cabin area.
"I'm about to kill the power for the engines and open the sails," Nestor told everyone. "From there, we will get a huge burst of speed, so no one should stand outside while we are moving."
Everyone nodded and Nestor climbed onto the roof of the cabin and fired off a spell at each of the three red sails, causing them to open up wide. They did not look like regular sails, and Newt recognized exactly what they were, "Those are dragon wings."
"Twelve years ago, there was an Indonesian Sabertooth that woke up from a long hibernation and started to attack a small muggle town. We had to mobilize nearly the entire Filipino Ministry to deal with the situation after it had to be put down. We managed to fabricate a story of an extinct volcano becoming active again and destroying the town. All of the dragon parts were put to good use. The wings and tail-fin were used to construct this boat."
Lyra could feel the magic coming from the wings; It felt warm and strong, and the power felt like looking at an oncoming monsoon approaching from the horizon. Nestor pulled a lever from next to the steering wheel of the boat and the power started to slip off the wings, propelling them along and building speed. They eventually got to the point that they were slipping over the top of the water so quickly that they didn't even bounce on the surface. The bow just cut through the waves without even slowing them down.
Harry could feel the speed of the ship, even if he didn't have the wind on his face. The magic of the sails to him felt like he was looking at someone else lifting an impossibly heavy load with ease. It was the kind of feeling that motivated him to work at accomplishing the same feat, even if such power was impossible for someone as small as he was.
Dougal was just sitting on the bench, curled up a bit between Newt and Tina, while Whispers was standing on the shelf by the window over the helm of the boat. Nestor pushed him to one side or another every few minutes so he could look out at a specific point on the horizon.
After only a few minutes at the speed they were going, they started to see a small dot on the horizon start to grow. As they passed a small island to the left side of the boat, the land in front of them started to grow quicker. When the peak began to look more defined, Harry and Lyra's expressions grew more and more excited.
"That's the hoohoo nest!" Lyra exclaimed.
Brandt looked out the front at their destination, far off on the horizon. He pulled out a non-magical camera with a long lens and cast a spell on his feet. The charm had made his feet heavier, and his footsteps clunked as he walked outside the cabin and took several photos of the mountain, far off in the distance. As the ship got closer, he took a few more. When they had been traveling for close to forty-five minutes, they could see nearly the entire island, with the smaller volcano peeking out the backside of the island.
"We were that close to a city, the whole time?" Harry asked with disbelief.
"Yes, but I'm pretty sure you didn't have access to a boat that would let you cross the ocean," Tina told him.
Nestor pushed forward on the lever by the wheel and the ship slowed down, almost to a stop. From where they were, they could see the beach they had originally arrived on. On the far ends of the beach were two of the tall stones the warding team had placed there to secure the island. There were also now four small buildings next to the treeline and a wooden pier sticking out into the water. Nestor furled the sails back to their original position and turned the motor back on, guiding the ship slowly into the dock.
Waiting for them were the four people they were told to expect. Nestor threw a rope down to the dock where Thao and Than grabbed it and started mooring the boat. Thao was about a head taller than his brother, so they wouldn't have a Fred and George situation with these two. When they were all secured, Nestor jumped off the side and embraced a beautiful woman that they assumed was Nenita.
Lyra screamed with joy and jumped down as well, past all of the people waiting for them. Harry and Whispers followed right after and took off towards the tree line. Just as they got to the sand, nearly forty demiguises charged out of the jungle to intercept them.
Newt stared in shock, as the one leading the charge was as large, if not larger than a yeti. That must be Charlie. The others were smaller, but not by much, and they made Dougal look like a baby in comparison. The stampede of silver monkeys collided with Harry and Lyra falling over them like an avalanche. There were screeches and chirpings and all sorts of noises coming from the pile. Harry and Lyra were being tossed around between all of them as they were making many of their animalistic noises upon seeing their family after so long apart. Whispers was somewhere in the pile too, and he was easier to spot as he was smaller than nearly all except a few of the welcoming party.
The assembled adults didn't bother introducing themselves and just stood watching the pandemonium. Brandt was taking as many pictures as possible and reloaded the camera three times before the chaos died down. As they slowly rolled around in the sand, Harry managed to get to his feet and look back at the adults watching them. Dougal was staring with interest at the troop of demiguises. Harry pulled on Charlie's arm, dragging him to his feet and towards Dougal.
The giant, silvery-white Hidden lumbered his way towards Dougal, following after Harry. When they stood next to each other, Dougal looked tiny, like Tina standing next to Hagrid. Charlie balanced on his back legs and started to reach out his hands towards the older demiguise, but Harry jumped in front and waved his hands away, starting a quick sign language conversation.
Tina was looking up towards the tree line, where Lyra was approaching a dark figure holding a staff. She couldn't see what exactly was standing there, so she tapped on Nestor's shoulder and asked, "Is that The Giver?" she pointed up toward Lyra.
He followed her direction and nodded, "Yes, I had hoped he might come down today. Than, Thao," he got the brothers' attention, "That up there is The Giver, chances are that this may be one of the only times you will see him. He doesn't come out that often at all, and is impossible to find when he doesn't want to be. He's normally with an enormous snake, so don't freak out if you see it."
Lyra was having a signed conversation with The Giver as well as Harry was with Charlie. Whispers was still wrestling with the rest of them and a few others were just lying on the warm sand of the beach. After a moment, Lyra started heading back towards them and Charlie had just sat down and stared at Dougal from a distance, occasionally tilting his giant head towards the elderly demiguise.
Harry and Lyra rejoined the adults, with Whispers following behind them. Brandt put down his camera to load another roll of film. Both children looked happy and refreshed from the interaction.
Harry said happily, "It's good to be home."
Lyra walked up and hugged Nestor around the waist, "Thank you. Thank you for taking care of everyone."
"It was my pleasure," Nestor smiled down at the blonde girl. "Though I really didn't do much. They all take care of themselves. We just watch them, and take notes."
Newt was still staring in shock at the enormous demiguises up on the beach. Tina slipped her hand into her husband's and asked Harry, "Can you introduce us to your family?"
Harry got a huge smile on his face and started to lead the group down the dock and back to the troop of Hidden waiting for them. As he got to the end of the dock, he noticed a large stone platform that he hadn't seen before in his excitement. It was about twenty feet across and had various geometric patterns on top of it.
"What's that?" he asked Nestor.
"That's a mail platform," he told Harry. "Mail and other shipments arrive through a special kind of portkey. It needs a stable place to arrive, so we had that platform anchored there. It only works for non-living deliveries. We have a separate portkey arrival point for us inside one of the cabins up the beach."
Harry stared at it for a moment more before approaching Dougal and Charlie who were having some kind of conversation of growls and gestures. He gave some signs to the giant demiguise that the others couldn't interpret before Charlie chirped and growled, towards the others waiting further up, and a bunch more came down to the human group.
Lyra started the introductions, "Everyone, this is Charlie." She gestured towards the largest male in the group. "He generally doesn't leave the village, as he stays with the seeing staff and leads the group."
Newt slowly approached Charlie, his eyes wide with amazement, looking up for the first time at a demiguise. "You're incredible, you know that, right?" Charlie just tilted his head and gave a big creepy smile.
Harry was guiding a slightly smaller Hidden to the humans, "This is Chief. He was the leader of the group when we first arrived, but he switched with Charlie after the poacher incident."
The two children went on to introduce Teacher, Mango, Digger, Weaver, Catcher, Splasher, Ducky, Pants, Swinger, Jeffrey, Gator, Jared, Steve, Sandy, Nancy, Thrower, Pokey, Tickles, Footy, Flapper, Chomper, and Worm.
Other than Charlie, who was huge, Mango, who was wearing a fanny pack, and Pants, because he was wearing shorts; it was impossible to tell them all apart. Brandt was furiously scribbling down notes in his book for each introduction. Once they were all done, Harry turned to the humans and pointed out Newt Scamander, Tina Scamander, Brandt, and Dougal.
A lot of the Hidden started to surround Dougal, causing him to back up to Newt and Tina a bit fearfully at the enormous mirror images of himself. One of the younger ones, though still larger than Dougal, made the first move and reached out to place his hands on Dougal's shoulders. He and Dougal held each other's gaze with their eyes glowing blue as everyone watched for nearly five minutes before the younger one broke the gaze and fell backward, groaning and clutching his head. This caused a few others to start queueing up in front of Dougal to take their turns.
"This might take a while," Lyra commented. "Harry told Mango and Charlie not to challenge him. Do we need to do anything before Harry and I take off?"
"Take off where?" Brandt asked.
"We have a ton of things to do," Harry told them. "We can give you all a tour later, but we have quite a few things to do just to make sure everything has been going well while we've been away."
"We can't join you?" Brandt asked.
"Definitely not," Harry said firmly. "We need to make sure that all the dangerous things on this side of the island are still in the same place before we take anyone else past the beach."
Brandt gave a look towards Newt and Tina. Arcturus had told him to follow Harry and Lyra's lead regarding the savage island, but he didn't know how the Founder and his wife would want to deal with the independent children.
Tina asked, "Can we follow above the trees on broomsticks?"
Harry and Lyra had a brief conversation with each other in sign language before Harry responded, "We're not waiting for anyone. You can try to follow us, but if you lose us, we suggest coming back to the beach. Don't go toward the top of the mountain, the Hoohoos will almost definitely attack you. If you see a weird tree in a clearing, surrounded by red rocks, do not go anywhere near it, even above it. If it's nighttime and you see a white glow, stay away from it. Don't go anywhere near the mountain on the other side of the island. It's probably not safe to land anywhere on the north side of the island, with all the snakes. Don't annoy the miniature buffalo or the deer… I think that's it."
"The pig," Lyra added.
"They'll be in the air," Harry said back.
"If you see a pig with horns, stay away from it," Lyra told them.
"I think we'll just stay here until you can give us the tour," Newt told them. "When do you think you'll be back?"
Lyra shared a quick look with Harry and turned back, "How about in the morning?"
"Can you give us the tour tomorrow?" Brandt asked.
After sharing another look, Harry said, "Yes, after breakfast."
Brandt pulled out two crystal vials with runes on them and gave them to Harry and Lyra as he had before.
"If you get in trouble, break these, and I'll come to find you," he told the children.
"Does it also work if you get in trouble?" Lyra asked.
Brandt pulled another out of his pocket, "If you feel yours grow warm, I am in trouble. There will be a warm pulse from yours that will get quicker as you get closer to where I am."
No one else had anything to say, so the children started to run off towards the treeline. Whispers, Charlie, and Mango followed, along with many of the other Hidden who had already lost their staring contest with Dougal.
Slightly down the beach, the adult humans all gathered in one of the cabins. Like most magical structures, it was much bigger on the inside than on the outside. There was a large conference table that everyone, except for Nenita, sat around. She had opted to change into a bathing suit and lay on the beach while everyone else talked business.
Newt began with the first question, "So what have you been doing here for the last five months?"
"Mostly mapping," Nestor told them. "The island is small, but the amount of diversity is incredible. There are also a few unexplainable things on the island that prevent us from completing the task."
"Such as?" Tina prompted.
Kailee pulled out a rolled-up map from a shelf behind her and tapped it with her wand, causing it to unroll flat on the table. With another tap of her wand and the topology of the map rose off the paper to show the mountains and valleys in detail.
"This is where we are," she said and tapped the beach area on the southeast corner of the island. "We can't go near the caldera of the volcano without the Hoohoos attacking us. The younger ones seem to trust us, but the patriarch screeches at us if we get too close to the nest. Below the northeast face of the volcano are thousands of venomous snakes that seem to have a singular purpose of breeding. Southwest of the volcano is the unknown zone. Whenever we go there, we get lost and end up at the base of the mountain, in Mango's village, or on the beach. All of our diagnostic spells turn up nothing as to why this happens. Our best guess is that The Giver lives somewhere in there and he is doing something to the surrounding area. The other volcano is a dead zone. Despite being completely extinct, nothing lives on that mountain or the surrounding area. There is also some kind of fear ward, that staying in the area too long causes your skin to crawl, and you get a specific feeling of doom that grows until you can't stand it anymore."
"We tried experimenting with planting tomatoes with dragon dung fertilizer," Thao added. "Anything we planted died overnight, shriveled up completely. Even if it was a transplant with fruit on the vine. Dead, totally dead."
"The south side of the island has a huge amount of biodiversity," Than told them. "Nearly all of the plants are saturated in magic, to an extreme degree. Even the water of the hot springs near the treeline of the volcano is filled with magic. We figure that is how the Demiguises have achieved such monstrous growth."
"It could also be a result of the children," Newt suggested.
"What do you mean?" Nestor asked.
"Harry and Lyra told us that they performed a blessing, similar to that of a druid, three or four years before you arrived here. They performed a modified version of it at Hogwarts a few nights ago. They told us that the demiguises were smaller when they first arrived, but after the blessing, they started modifying their diet and providing them with fish and larger meals. So they aren't sure if the increased standard of living or the blessing is the cause of the growth and population boom of the troop here."
"That would explain why the magical saturation is only on this side of the island," Kailee surmised. "Do you know what the blessing consisted of?"
Newt was about to answer but Brandt interrupted him, "I don't think we should share that without the children's permission."
"We can ask them later," Nestor shrugged.
Kailee looked disappointed, but continued the explanation of the island, "On the north side of the island, there are two groups of large mammals; a herd of about thirty Philippine Deer, and a gang of bison. Though the bison aren't any type we've seen before. They seem to be pygmies in comparison to others found in the region, and their horns seem to have a sparkle to them. They might be some kind of magical bison, though we haven't observed any kind of magical traits to them."
At the mention of the horns, Newt, Tina, and Brandt all looked thoughtful. Newt asked, "When you say 'pygmies,' how large are we talking about?"
Thao got up and retrieved a photo album from a shelf behind him, and opened it up to show one of the buffalo. It looked the same as any other water buffalo, but less than half the size, and the horns did have a slight sparkle to them. "They seem to be just under two meters long and possibly 2-300 kilograms. There are approximately twenty-five of them that we've been able to track."
Brandt's eyes were growing wider by the second before he clamped down on his emotions and returned to normal.
Kailee continued with a bit of hesitancy in her voice, "The next is the glowing deer, we don't have a name for it."
Newt interrupted, "The children found out from the British wandmaker, Garrick Ollivander, that the creature is called a Lampong."
"That will be good to add to the records," Kailee told them. "After it attacked the warders, nearly killing three of them, we gave it an XXXX rating. The warders reported that it was impervious to nearly any spell they cast at it, their hexes and curses just melted into nothingness before even reaching the creature. We've never seen it during the daytime, and at night we've only seen it from the water like a giant white glow, roaming the north side of the island, though it stays away from the snake pits."
Than pulled the photo album to him and turned the pages until he got to an aerial shot of a diminutive tree on a hillside, surrounded by a ring of red rocks, and a ring of regular stones.
"Following the incident with the warders, Harry warned us to stay away from this tree. His exact words were, 'You will die. You won't get wounded and you won't even get a chance to bring your dead friends back to camp.' We've taken his words to heart, but we still decided to take this picture from 1,000 meters above it… just to be safe."
Nestor added, "The other strange thing about this tree is the red stones around it, we haven't been able to find them anywhere else on the island. We assume Harry, Lyra, or The Giver put them there as a warning; but where they got them from, we don't have a clue."
Brandt had started to take notes again in his logbook. Then he stopped and muttered, "Imagine he's the tree…" and then went back to writing.
Kailee told them, "There are a lot of rodents along the south side of the island, as well as a species of flying lemur, and insects. We try to avoid the Hoohoo nest in the caldera, but we make trips up to the edge to collect the feathers we can find. We've been supplementing our budget by selling them to the local newspaper and wandmakers."
"That just leaves the Usurper," Nestor told them. "We know next to nothing about it, as it spends nearly all its time with The Giver. We were able to calculate its full length at just under seventeen meters." Newt gave a long whistle.
Nestor pulled over the album and turned the pages to the end where there was a photo of the creature's head. It was green with patches of gold and brown. There was a red crest on its head and gold markings on its nose and chin. The trees in the photo were swaying back and forth, but the snake did not move at all.
"That's the other weird thing about this snake," Kailee told them, "It actually moved away after we took this picture, but it doesn't move in the photo. It's not just staying still because the shadows on his body don't move in the photo either. It's as if the developer doesn't work on the snake. It kind of goes along with the other observations that it can't be seen by magical eyes or be predicted by the demiguises. Though how or why these things happen, we have no idea."
Everyone was silent for a minute before Brandt asked, "What about the pigs?"
"What pigs?" Nestor asked.
"Harry and Lyra told me about a 'pig with horns,' that they encountered."
"There are no swine on this island," Nestor told him.
"Harry said he stabbed one to protect Lyra, and that it was still alive later."
Nestor shared a look with the rest of his team. Than said, "Yeah, no idea about that. Though speaking of things no one can find, there's also Harry's dead mystery monster."
"What?" Tina exclaimed.
"Another thing that happened when the warders were attacked by that glowing deer, he told them to feel lucky because the worst monster on the island was killed long ago," Than said the last part in a spooky campfire voice.
"After hearing everything you've said so far, I can't imagine what could possibly be worse. Dragon? Hydra? What else is there?" Tina chuckled nervously.
"Well, you all might want to unpack," Nestor told them. "The cabin to the right of this one has five bedrooms available, though you might only need the two of them. Depending on if Harry and Lyra are sleeping here or not."
The group strolled outside to see two beach loungers with an umbrella between them further down the beach towards the dock. One of the chairs was occupied by Nenita, clad in a bikini, though the other had Dougal lying in it. Both were wearing large-brim hats. Nenita's was all black, and Dougal's had concentric circles in different colors going out from the middle. Both were wearing sunglasses with gold rims.
As they approached the sunbathers, two demiguises ran out from the treeline. One of them was carrying a small bowl and the other had a hand of bananas. They placed them on the table between the sunbathers and ran back to the trees.
When the meeting group reached them, Nestor asked his girlfriend, "Making new friends?"
She sat up and took off her sunglasses, "I absolutely adore Dougal," she gushed to Newt and Tina. "He showed me this marvelous collection of hats and gave me this one. So I let him have a pair of my sunglasses."
"He seems quite happy with them," Newt said, with a smile. "What's with the delivery?"
"Those two were laying with him until about five minutes ago. After he stared down a bunch more of the other demiguises, he seemed to get bored and just walked away, back to the boat. I followed him and we had our clothing exchange, when we came back those two were waiting for him and just kind of cuddled up with him in the chair. They were growling and chirping at each other and then they ran off and brought this back."
Nenita looked down at the deliveries and saw that the bowl was filled with crawling bugs. She jerked back a little, as one crawled out of the bowl and fell on the table. Dougal snatched it up and stared at it before putting it in his mouth and chewing. Then he reached back in and took a few more to eat.
"I think he has groupies," Kailee laughed. The others joined her.
Brandt, Newt, and Tina walked down the dock to retrieve their cargo. When they had gotten below deck, Brandt started to say, "Both of you had the same reaction as I did about the buffalo…"
Newt whipped around at lightning speed, drawing his wand and casting a silencing charm so powerful that it silenced Brandt and knocked him against the wall at the same time.
Newt's face darkened and turned deadly serious, "Do not even say your suspicions out loud. If it is, then we keep it quiet. If it is not, we also keep it quiet until we find out what it really is." He moved in closer to stare Brandt in the eyes, "Are we clear?"
He was getting a bit annoyed with getting knocked into walls, but he just nodded his head towards the usually docile man, now looking incredibly threatening.
When Harry, Lyra, and Whispers separated from the adults, Whispers led the charge, running as fast as he could back towards Charlie's village. Harry and Lyra walked briskly, admiring everything along the way. They each had so many memories with each tree and rock and path on this route, some of the tree routes had tripped them up when they first followed the 'hairy men' from the beach to the village.
They passed through the fields, and at first, one of the cobras rose to hiss at them, showing his hood, but Harry pulled out his staff and slammed it into the ground while commanding,
§DOWN!§
The snake immediately dropped to the earth and slithered off. Just before they reached the village, a much larger cobra slithered toward them. It was nearly twenty feet long. It raised itself from the ground to look Harry in the eyes but did not display his hood. It tasted the air around Harry and said,
§Welcome back, Commander§
Harry addressed the snake,
§Flare, it's good to be back§
§I am not your commander, though.§
§The Giver is your commander now§
The cobra moved closer,
§You will always be my commander§
§You gave me a good life, a prosperous life§
§I may be a lesser snake, but I am the largest, and most powerful§
Harry stroked the snake's head, it leaned into the warmth of his hand as he did so.
§How have things been since I left?§
§Has The Giver provided you with all your needs?§
§Yes, though he doesn't speak to me often.§
§I also wish to visit the north side of the island and choose a mate.§
§I wish for my children to patrol the fields instead of these other, nameless worms.§
Harry nodded but did not give any commitment.
§I will speak with the Usurper.§
§I will see to it that the kingsbane will allow this.§
Flare instinctively dropped low at the mention of the great serpent. Then just bowed his head and slithered off. Harry turned around to see Lyra, holding a leaf rolled into a cone, filled with freshly picked berries, snacking away on them as she watched their exchange. Seeing her with the cone of berries filled him with nostalgic happiness and he gave her a big hug spilling them everywhere.
"We're home!" Harry yelled at the top of his lungs, then put her down and ran towards the circle of trees where the others would be waiting. Lyra ran after him.
They entered the village to find everyone who wasn't still on the beach waiting for them. This included all of the mothers and fathers of young Hidden, who had stayed due to parental duties. Everything looked almost exactly the same. The shelters in the trees made of various junk off the garbage beach hadn't changed, the firepit in the center of the trees was still there, a few glowing embers alive to light the next evening. Boxes upon boxes of various supplies lined the edge of the circle, though the ones of live snakes and potion ingredients had been removed to The Giver's home. Whispers was running around, climbing all the trees, swinging from the familiar branches, and embracing all of his family members.
From the largest of the trees, five mothers came down, carrying children that had been born since they had left. They were all so small, without any hair on their bodies yet. They were all pink with bright amber eyes and looked around at the gathering with curiosity.
The first mother to come up was Cynthia, carrying a baby that was larger than the others. She had already started to grow her eyebrows and there were small curls in them, like her mother's. Harry knew just what to do with this one. Cynthia passed the wide-eyed child to Harry and he held the baby close to his chest in a warm but light hug. As he did so, a silver bubble grew around him sparkling in the shade of the trees.
"Your name is Hannah," Harry said aloud.
He passed the child back to Cynthia, the bubble of silver light shrinking until it was just surrounding the newly named child. She glowed in her mother's arms for a few moments before it faded away. Harry repeated the process for the other six children, though one set of twins refused to release each other from their grip, so he embraced them together, the silver light encompassing them the same as it did with all the others. Harry didn't name any of the others because he couldn't think of something appropriate for them yet.
Once he was finished greeting the new members of his family, Harry turned around to see The Giver standing at the edge of the trees. He approached them slowly, his staff making a thumping noise with each step and the other Hidden clearing a path for them.
He looked down at Harry and Lyra, then reached out to touch Harry's staff,
§Your staff is damaged§
Harry shook his head,
§The tooth was given to me, just yesterday§
§I still haven't figured out exactly what it does§
§It makes me feel stronger when I cast spells, though§
The Giver ran his fingers over the tooth, then said,
§The Usurper and I will expect you both at my home tonight.§
Harry nodded as The Giver turned and walked away. Harry told Lyra they would get a few hours with the Hidden before they needed to leave for his place.
Harry and Lyra had not been truthful with the adults about why they needed to separate from the group. There was nothing they needed to check on. If there were any problems, The Giver would have told Lyra when she met him on the beach. She had just told him that Harry wouldn't be speaking parseltongue in front of the man with black hair, Brandt. They just wanted some alone time with their family. As soon as the Giver had left, Harry and Lyra started to run out of the village. Most of the tribe followed behind them, knowing where they were most likely going.
It took them nearly fifteen minutes of running until they got to their destination, the hot springs. Each of the pools around the area was filled with rubber ducks, and there were small containers with all their favorite foods on the ledges by the pools. The site was marked with a large plastic pole that had the warding amulet they had made for the pig hanging from it, so it wouldn't bother the other Hidden while they were here. After they had made the amulet, the pig tried attacking another three times before giving up, and they hadn't seen it since. However, they kept it at the springs just in case it ever returned.
Harry reached into his pouch and pulled out his last two containers of the marinated flobberworm jerky. He passed one of the sweet flavors to Mango and the more tart flavors to Charlie, knowing their tastes. They both bit into the jerky and their eyes lit up in reaction to the flavors. Both of them chewed on another piece as they started passing out other pieces to the rest of their tribes.
Meanwhile, Harry and Lyra had stripped off their clothes and dipped into the springs, giving sighs of contentment as they became completely relaxed. The rest of the tribe joined them as they finished their pieces of jerky. Harry could feel the heat in the water seeping into his skin, muscles, and bones. Other than his family, this is what Harry missed most about the island. He would get his hot springs at Hogwarts, one way or another.
Lyra reached over to Harry and passed him a banana, and they soaked there and got updates of all the little things and the day-to-day lives of their family for the next few hours.
When the sun started to dip in the sky, they knew they needed to start heading to The Giver's place. Charlie had brought them sets of clothes that they had worn before they left, which was good because the ones they had been wearing earlier were a bit too warm for a tropical island. When they were dressed and ready, they headed towards The Giver's tree.
As the sun had almost vanished below the horizon, they reached an area with a heavy black fog hanging around them. Lyra simply tapped her staff on the ground and it receded, giving them a clear path to walk. When they could see stars overhead, they entered the clearing where The Giver sat on the ground next to the enormous, coiled form of the Usurper.
There was a small hoohoo feather burning in the center of the clearing, along with a knife balancing on top of a wooden bowl half-filled with blood.
Lyra grimaced as she looked at the bowl, and said, "This is something I definitely didn't miss."