Expeditions

Much of the delay Brandt had to keep him from departing the island had to do with his own business, rather than work specifically for Arcturus. Just recently he had finished the final contract with Tonks's friend Ricki which started him looking for a place to set up his spa and salon. It would be difficult as he wanted somewhere near, but not in, Diagon. Needing to attract both muggle and magical patrons made the location criteria very difficult. Luckily, now that the contract was signed, most of his involvement was financial until larger decisions needed to be made.

Additionally, since his dinner with Tonks and Tristan, he had started to reach out to the movers and shakers of the younger cohorts in the Ministry and network with them. Arcturus had already worked to ingratiate him with the old guard of his generation, but they would die off eventually and he needed to keep up with the times. Many of his meetings had to be bumped to undermined futures as he didn't know how long he would need to be on the island and deal with the Usurper. The whole idea of needing one giant snake to fight another giant snake made a lot of sense, particularly with one being called a king and the other a usurper, but it still was crazy because most magical creatures only preyed on lesser creatures. Aside from the occasional underground crup fight, it was rare to see any magical creatures fighting each other in anything other than dominance or territorial disputes.

Brandt arrived at Hogwarts Sunday morning at sunrise carrying a bag of everything he thought he needed for his trip and made his way into the school. It still was a bit strange to see such a large castle so empty and quiet all the time. Arcturus had told him that it used to be much more crowded, but the last war had killed off quite a few families, particularly children of muggle birth and half-bloods. By that reasoning, the next year might be the start of a baby boom. The next few years would be interesting.

When he entered the Scamander common room, there was a large chalkboard near the firepit with a lot of scribbles on it in various handwriting. All of the writing was related to the project for the Unspeakables. There were four sections; Potions, Counter-curses, Rituals, and Blessings. He had never brewed the mandrake draught himself, nor did he know the recipe, so he couldn't verify if anyone was on the right track, but it was all still very interesting.

What specifically caught his eye was under the Potions section was written, "Stew the Mandrakes?" Some of the most potent potions needed to be stewed for long periods to extract all of the magic from the ingredients, so it made sense that this might be an appropriate route to take. Picking up a piece of chalk, he circled that suggestion and put a star next to it.

Lyra was the first one to exit the dorms and on seeing Brandt, she rushed straight into Harry's room to wake him up. A couple of minutes after, the two children and Whispers came back out and they guided Brandt through the maze and up to the Scamanders' office. Newt answered and showed them a large map they had set up covering an entire wall of the room.

"Tina and I have been investigating muggle shipping routes to plan the best route to take so that the Usurper remains undetected."

Tina entered from one of the side rooms and added, "Though this is all based on the supposition that the Usurper can read a map or figure out how to follow the directions we set forth."

"Can I take a copy of your map?" Brandt asked only to have Dougal appear next to him holding a rolled-up copy, which he took and put in his bag.

"What do we do now?" Harry asked.

"I need to return to Black Manor," Brandt told them. "From there, I will take a portkey halfway to the island so the British Ministry cannot track where I am heading. Then I will take a second one the rest of the way."

Newt picked up from there, "I will assign an elf to watch over your blood bowl to let us know when Brandt has arrived. I don't think it should be more than an hour or more."

"It needs to be before lunch," Lyra mentioned. "We wanted to go on the Library trip for the week off." She frowned a bit and said, "Though if we need to skip it, it's ok."

"Then I better leave now," Brandt said. Turning to Harry, he handed him a small book and added, "I heard from a little bird that this might be something you would be interested in. Don't open it until you are on your library adventure. There's something inside for you Lyra too."

Harry hastily tucked the mystery book into his pocket as Lyra tried to grab at it.

"May I use your floo?" Brandt asked Newt, receiving a gesture to proceed and in moments he had vanished into the emerald flames.

Breakfast was chaotic. Nearly every student in the school was leaving for the short break. They could hear people talking about the possibility of a basilisk in the school and most people wanted to get out, hoping the teachers would solve the problem while they were gone, as the roosters in the hallways were getting quite annoying

Following the meal, they exchanged temporary farewells with a lot of their friends. Slytherin was going to be completely empty for the break, while only Elisa Sweetleaf, Lloyd Hickories, and two other Older Ravenclaws would be left in their house. Harry and Lyra weren't able to get an accurate count of who was remaining in Gryffindor or Hufflepuff, but from their house, they had Meli, Neville, and Greg staying in the common room while Colin was coming on the library trip.

The two of them didn't bother to wait for the elf to inform them of when Brandt had arrived at The Giver's home and just camped out in Harry's project room next to the blood bowl and took turns practicing their occlumency with Whispers. The elf remained with them by the bowl to notify the Scamanders when Brandt arrived.

Lyra had finally managed to project her defenses as a field of devil's snare, surrounding her mind. She tried to explain it to Harry, telling him that it just floated there all around her shields reaching out like tiny fingers to go after anyone attacking her mind. Whispers had still managed to get through it after a few tries, though he still seemed to enjoy trying to get past it every time. Harry thought her mind sounded a lot like the Creeping Death but didn't want to tell his sister that as she would either be scared of herself or stop using such an effective form of defense.

After his very personal experience of having one of the vines inside his head, he thought he might be able to replicate it for his mental defenses, but every time he thought about it, it sounded horrible and he had to shiver a bit to get rid of the idea. He had two layers of the spikes from the spiky bush layered over his mind and he had started working on a third. One shield was nice, two were better, and three couldn't hurt. If it was possible, he could keep doing that forever.

It had been nearly two hours after Brandt had left before the bowl in front of them bubbled and let out his voice, "Lyra? Harry? Are you there?" The elf popped away at the first name.

"We're here!" Lyra called back.

"I'm here with Nestor. The serpent should be here soon with The Giver. I spotted them on the way in coming from the Western beach with the rocks."

"Brandt showed me the route for the Usurper's journey," Nestor chimed in. "That should keep it away from major shipping lines, but the journey between Africa and South America up the Atlantic is going to be like running a gauntlet."

Just as Newt and Tina came into the room, there was a great hiss from the bowl, emanating from the Usurper,

§I am here!§
§How will I travel to you?§

Newt unrolled his map and stuck it to the wall, telling Brandt to do the same thing on his end. He pushed a finger into the map on his end, it glowed blue and he called to Brandt, "I have a Protean Charm on our maps. Do you see the glowing spot on your end?"

"I've got it, good thinking," replied. "Harry, ask the Usurper if he can read the map."

Harry had received a few geography lessons from Brandt since the winter break, so he understood the map in front of him. He didn't remember many of the countries, but they were labeled on this one, so he didn't have to.

He hissed as he tapped on the map where their island was,

§The paper that Brandt brought, can you see the flashing spot? That is where you are.§

The Giver responded,

§How is this magic done?§

Harry remembered that Snape had told him the blood boards he made were similar to this magic and informed his tutor of that.

The Usurper told him,

§I see it. Where are you?§

Harry pulled out his staff and used it to tap higher on the wall where Scotland was and informed the kingsbane of their location.

§It's very far from where we are, you're going to have to swim.§

The serpent made a few hisses that sounded like grumbling before replying,

§I can't feel your presence and I won't be able to feel the King until I am closer. I do not know which way to go.§

"What's going on?" Tina asked.

"I'm trying to figure out if it can understand directions and the map," Harry told her. "So far I just know that the Usurper can see the map and the spots from poking it. Also that it will be able to feel the basilisk when closer, no idea how close though."

"Can the snake tell directions from the sun?" Nestor asked.

"Yes," Lyra responded. "The Usurper can tell the different sides of the Island from the sun's position throughout the day."

From there they started trying to figure out how to tell directions to the magical snake, which was a nightmare to figure out. More so was trying to explain what the journey would look like; water, more water, and even more water. It couldn't come to large land masses or near other people at any time during the journey. The trek would start down the east side of The Philippines, which would be easy to navigate on a long underwater trench. Passing through the islands of Indonesia and Timor-Leste, the route followed the Western Australian coast and across the shipping lanes. Taking a turn west, the path was straight, stopping at various Antarctic islands along the way until they arrived at a nature reserve south of Cape Agulhas.

The next stop Newt marked on the map was the Tristan da Cunha islands in the South Atlantic. Many shipping lines were running just off the archipelago, and this would be the Usurper's last respite before continuing North.

Newt then brought up a problem, "How long can the Usurper swim for without resting? How long each day?"

The issue was communicated to the magical serpent who said it could float when tired but would need dry land to sleep on. It had no idea how to calculate speed but said it could maintain a speed faster than any of the sharks in the area for a quarter of the day. That was quite a while, and quite fast. The issue with sleeping on the ground would pose a problem as there are many chunks of the sea that there was no way for the great creature to rest.

Trying to figure out a solution, Newt proposed a plan, "We need to figure out how far and fast the Usurper can travel. Nestor, can you spend a day or two testing the serpent's speed and endurance?"

"I can take a few days off," he replied.

"Brandt," Newt said next, "Estimating on the safe side, the journey will be about 19,000 miles. The fastest shark in the world, the Mako Shark lives in the Philippine Sea and will swim between thirty and forty-five miles per hour. Also estimating on the safe side, putting the Usurper's speed between those two, it will still take about a month and a half at fourteen hours a day to reach Scotland."

He pulled out a sextant and started poking at the map, showing him approximate stopping points along the way, many of them were in the middle of the ocean.

"You see how many places would need to be rest stops?" Newt asked.

Tina whispered something to her husband before asking, "Can we get large flying carpets warded to be avoided at those spots? They would need to be large enough to fit a giant snake."

Brandt called through the bubbling blood, "Lyra, has Parvati left the school?"

"She left on the train earlier," Lyra responded.

There was a bit of silence, then Brandt said, "By my calculations, the train shouldn't be in London yet. Mrs. Scamander? Would you be able to meet her and whoever her guardian is to see if I can arrange a meeting with someone in her family at their carpet factory in India? I'll need an indefinite meeting time sometime in the next two days. Try to impress on her guardian the importance of this, that it has to do with the school situation."

"I'll leave right away," Tina replied. "Newt can update me directly on anything else," then got up and left the room so she could Floo to Platform Nine and Three-Quarters."

There was a hissed conversation between Harry, The Giver, and the Usurper. Harry just told everyone else that they were getting impatient.

Nestor's voice was heard in the bowl, "Harry, can you please tell the Usurper to follow me on my broom? I want to see how fast it can swim and for how long. We will head out the eastern side of the island where there are fewer shipping lanes and travel for a full day before returning."

Harry translated the message and got back an annoyed response from the serpent.

"The Usurper is a bit frustrated that we can't just leave right now," Harry translated back. "It's hard to explain how far he needs to go and why we need to do this, but the kingsbane will follow you when you leave."

"Excellent," Nestor said. "I'll grab Kailee and we'll head off right away, I'm sure she'll want to see this too."

"Take pictures, even if they won't come out moving," Newt added. "Write down everything that might be slightly important or interesting about the creature."

There was a great deal of hissing from the bowl, then Brandt told them, "Nestor just left with the Usurper. I'll need to wait here until you hear back from Tina about the Patil family and a meeting."

Newt turned to Harry, "Can you set up another set of these bowls so we can relay messages to you on your trip in the library?"

As she hadn't had anything to do yet, Lyra jumped on the task, taking out Harry's freshly killed and preserved two-headed snakes to start. Harry watched her carefully as normally he made the communication bowls. Lyra wasn't adverse to the killing of the snakes, only to the use of the blood, but she was careful to distribute and infuse the blood with her magic when making them, the normal look of disgust on her face being replaced with a blank slate from her occlumency training.

When she was done, Newt conjured a clear lid for the bowl so it wouldn't spill as they couldn't put a preservation charm on it and still hear if someone was speaking on this end. Newt told them he would keep the bowl linked to the island and the one linked to them in his office while they were gone with an elf keeping watch. Without anything else to do, Harry and Lyra gathered Whispers and the rest of their things to meet the exploration crew in the Library.

The castle was quiet, except for the occasional crow of a rooster echoing through the hallway as they made their way to the library. Harry wondered what it was like at Hogwarts during the summer when there were no students or professors and there was true silence in the castle. If anything, Peeves would get very bored.

As they arrived at the library, there were a little over a dozen students and Professor Sinistra gathered around the circulation desk.

She spoke up, "We've been waiting for you, but I was assured it was for something important. I'm just here to carry the rooster and in case you need special assistance, so I'll turn everything over to Jason Canis who will be running the trip."

An older Hufflepuff boy stepped forward from the group, "I'm Jason, I'll be guiding you into the depths of the library. First things first, who among the first-timers brought a broom?"

Harry, Lyra, and three other students raised their hands.

Jason smiled, "Once we get into the open, they won't be of any use. They'll work in the library, but for whatever reason, once you get out of the stacks, no flying devices operate properly. You might be able to float, but the mechanisms will go crazy and shoot off in random directions like fireworks if you try to fly. Anyone who wants to lock their brooms in the closets here can do so and retrieve them when they get back."

The three other students decided to stash their brooms, but since they had bottomless pouches, Harry and Lyra held onto theirs.

The Hufflepuff boy went back into his explanations of the trip, "Once we get into the open areas, the terrain will change randomly, we might be a few hours in a forest before it changes to a desert or a swamp. We will stick together for the most part, mostly because splitting up doesn't work. If we do so, the library will choose one person to continue the path for and the other will run into a wall. The walls will look like the Scamander common room if you've been there, so you might not realize it's a wall until you run into it."

"What about the books?" Elisa Sweetleaf asked excitedly.

"Always the Ravenclaws," Jason chuckled. "Once we get into the open, you might find books here and there. Sometimes they'll just be lying on the ground, other times they will be up a tree or at the bottom of a lake. They come in all shapes and sizes and will contain random topics and information. To keep us moving, once you find a book, you need to put it away or give it to me to carry. When we stop for food or to rest for the night, you can look through one of our discoveries."

"Are there any animals?" Lyra asked.

"None that we've ever seen," Jason told them. "Students sometimes bring pets, and I assume Whispers is hiding around here somewhere, right?"

Lyra pointed to the desk behind Jason which caused him to jump a bit as the demiguise appeared where she was pointing.

"Robin and Finley are here as well," Jason told them, pointing towards two other older students. They were two of the ones who had finished the animagus ritual, and they showed off their forms by turning into the Scottish Wildcat and Red Squirrel briefly before assuming their normal forms.

"Can we start moving?" another student asked impatiently.

"Alright," Jason replied and pointed towards the circulation desk where many backpacks were lined up. "These packs have all our supplies for the week. They're all charmed to be lightweight, but if you don't get one now, you'll still need to carry one tomorrow, just to be fair."

Some students hung back purposely to not get one of the packs today. Harry and Lyra each picked up one and adjusted the straps so they would fit well. Professor Sinistra had disappeared somewhere and returned with a pole, approximately ten feet long that had a rooster cage on the top. Many of the students collectively groaned because their trip would be accompanied by a rooster crowing.

Jason set his wand in the palm of his hand and cast a spinning spell on it to randomly point in a direction. When it stopped and pointed towards the Northern stacks, he started walking, while announcing, "Off we go!"

The group headed into the shelves of books. For the first half-hour, they were still in the library. Then the shelves started changing as they did. Books were not in the right sections, some were different sizes, other places there were scrolls or maps, then the floor turned to dirt. They passed by a tree growing on the shelves and stepped over the large roots. Slowly, the ceiling started to turn into daylight, like the ceiling of the Scamander common room. Shortly after that, there were no more shelves and they were standing in an open field, with tall grass all around them.

"This is the start of our adventure," Jason told them. "We will be hiking for four days, then turn around and walk back. On the way out, we can take our time and explore, but the return trip will be faster. You can go wherever you want, and spread out as much as you want. If you hit a wall, stamp your feet to find the way back to the circulation desk, then go the opposite direction when the footprints light up."

Professor Sinistra interrupted, "Everyone takes one of these stones," she pulled out a bag. "They'll let me know your location, and I'll come to find you if you get too far from the group."

As everyone gathered around to take one of the tracking stones, Jason gave them one final piece of advice, "You'll find books all over the place, just put them away when you find them, you can read them later. If you find water, it's drinkable, though if you find food on the trees, do not eat that. It won't hurt you, but it won't sustain or satiate you either."

The first day was as grand an adventure as they could imagine. Up until lunch they just were crossing a great plain filled with tall grass. Colin joined Harry and Lyra as they ran through the depths of the library. With all the tall grass, they had trouble seeing their feet, and twice during the exploration, they tripped over books half-buried in the ground. Neither of them had a title, so they stuffed them in sacks for later browsing.

Lunch was sandwiches that had been packed for them, and most of the students ate as quickly as possible before running off ahead again. Finally, they left the tall grass as they reached a river flowing through the meadow with a forest on the other side. Robin, the cat animagus, waded into the river and pulled up a book with a stone cover, stashing it in one of the expedition backpacks. Lyra tried drinking the water and reported that it tasted cleaner than anything she had ever drunk.

The forest beyond the stream had plenty of tall trees, like the ones in the Permissible Forest. Harry, Lyra, and the two animagi played all through them, racing to the tops, jumping from tree to tree, and having an all-around good time. Lyra was probably a faster climber than Finley as a Red Squirrel and seemed to be able to pick sturdier branches to jump to when taking leaps of faith. It seemed like he was learning from her more than his animal instincts were telling him how to climb properly.

The canopies of the trees were also great places to find books. Some were paperback, others had covers of tree bark. It seemed that depending on where you found a book, it might take on some of the properties of the environment it was in. After the sky started to dim, the group made camp in the middle of the forest.

They set up wizarding tents, one for the boys, one for the girls, and The Professor got a tent all to herself. As soon as they were done with the food, then came the reading. They piled together all the books that had been found that day, for a total of thirty-one. Most of the books were very brief, containing a single subject; like half a dozen potions all that could be brewed from things found in the forest - just not this one. The stone book found in the river contained a spell that used pressurized water as a cutting charm to split rocks or put holes straight through them. About a quarter of them were history books about a particular event, luckily there were none about goblin wars.

Even without listening to Professor Binns' favorite subject, everyone went to sleep quickly that night, exhausted from all the walking that day.

The next day took the entire morning to exit the forest before they found themselves at the foot of a mountain. Despite Jason showing them that the ceiling was about forty feet above them by banishing a stone at the ceiling and seeing it bounce off, the mountain in front of them seemed to be at least the height of the volcano on the island, and much rockier as well.

No matter how much they climbed, they never got to the ceiling and the mountain continued upward. They had lunch on a small ridge and continued a bit slower as the journey was tiring for some of the others. Just out of curiosity, Lyra threw a rock towards the bottom only for it to bounce in the open air, then vanish. Since they were going slower, Harry snuck a look at the books he was picking up and found them to be about different magical creatures that could be found on high mountains. One, in particular, looked interesting and was about a magical monkey with three heads that could stop the senses of animals trying to hunt it. It was able to cause other animals to be temporarily blind, deaf, mute, or lose the sense of smell and taste. It was genuinely harmless but had many natural enemies, including wizards, who would use their skulls as warding talismans in certain cultures.

At night, they still hadn't reached the peak of the mountain and the veterans didn't know what to say as the trail was different every year. They had a great meal and went to sleep early so that they could get an early start the following day.

When it was nearly lunch, Harry started to hear voices calling from his pouch, and the blood bowl. Catching up with Lyra, he waved her over and they made a dome of darkness with their staves, Harry used his feather to make a privacy ward on the inside. He needed to replace the feather on his necklace soon as the veins were almost all gone.

As soon as he could get the bowl out, he heard Nestor's voice call out again, "Harry? Lyra? Are the two of you there?"

Lyra answered, "We're here! We're on a hike in the Hogwarts library."

"Yeah, ok," he replied. "Brandt kind of explained to me how that works, but I can't wrap my head around it."

"We're climbing a mountain right now," Harry explained. "However, no matter how much we climb, there's always a ceiling forty feet above our heads. I think we are getting close to the top."

"That even makes less sense than I thought it would," he said in a confused tone. "I have some updates for you. I took the Usurper out to test his speed and stamina and Mr. Scamander was approximately correct about how fast the serpent can travel. Roughly sixty-four kilometers per hour, or forty miles per hour. It's able to travel about in six-hour chunks at that speed, with a three-hour rest in the middle, and then sleep at night. It doesn't like traveling without the sun overhead."

"Is it going to be able to swim all the way here?" Lyra asked.

"I need Harry to ask The Giver and the Usurper something first, they're both here. I need to know how the Usurper can locate the island. See, when traveling away from the island, the snake followed me on my broom. However, on the way back it made a beeline straight for the island, and I'm wondering how."

Harry hissed into the bowl, and the Usurper replied,
§The slain body of the king that my mother, Hiyas, killed.§
§I can feel the presence of the corpse.§

Harry translated to Lyra and she whispered to Harry so Nestor couldn't hear, "Could Brandt take some of the bones from the skeleton with him or bring it here so the Usurper could find us?"

Harry asked the great serpent her question, and it responded,

§I believe I could, I shall send The Giver to return with a piece.§

Nestor piped up, "What's going on? Where's The Giver going?"

Harry informed him, "The dead monster that I told you about before, is another basilisk that the Usurper's mother killed. He can feel its presence." Harry could almost feel the shock and fear of the man as he continued, "The Giver is going to collect a piece of the skeleton and see if we can use it as a lure for the Usurper."

"Are there any other surprises about this island?" Nestor asked with a bit of exasperation. "Well there's still plenty of time to discover them, I guess. I have good news to share, I received authorization from my government to ferry the Usurper on the dragon-sail ship to the Western coast of Australia before he has to start the journey on his own. I will meet Brandt there and he will have a newly acquired flying carpet to escort the Usurper along its journey from there."

That was good news. From how Newt explained the shipping routes, there was a lot of boat traffic that they would have had to hide from before getting to Southwestern Australia, but a boat of their own would bypass all of that.

Harry and Lyra expressed their gratitude and told Nestor it would probably take The Giver a few hours before he returned and to contact them again then. They broke their privacy bubble and continued on the hike, catching up with the group that had left them behind and traveling at a normal pace for them to climb the mountain and catch up.

It wasn't until after lunch that they heard back again from Nestor who was in shock again with the delivery of The Giver, who had brought rib bone from an enormous snake. Harry and Lyra had both seen the skeleton before so correctly guessed the size of what had been brought, just shrugging between Nestor's shouts of fear at such a large basilisk specimen. It's not like this one was bigger than the Usurper or anything.

Luckily their theory was proven correct and the Usurper could sense the magic in the fragment of the ancient skeleton. Nestor told them he would prepare the dragon-wing ship and set sail the next day. It would take about four days for them to rendezvous with Brandt and his flying carpet.

Harry told the great serpent to just follow Nestor and stay on the boat until he met up with the flying carpet. They would probably be back from the library expedition by the time he met up with Brandt.

By nightfall, they finally reached the top of the mountain. From the peak, they looked down on many different lands below. Looking back the way they came, they could see the Hogwarts astronomy tower peeking up over the horizon as if they had left the castle. Professor Sinistra performed some kind of diagnostic spell and determined that they were, in fact, still in the library.

Once the 'sun' had fully set, they were treated to additional surprises as the stars on the ceiling didn't match anything they had in the night sky before. It wasn't just a different time of year, they were entirely new constellations. The astronomy professor seemed intent on charting the sky to see if and how it changed over subsequent nights.

While most of the students were asleep, Harry, Whispers, and Lyra ended up sitting around a small fire with Robin and Finley and probed them about the animagus ritual. Both of them seemed focused on the first step, and the use of the leaves to soak in their mouths, though both of them also knew that they were trying to find out more information about the mandrakes for their respective projects with the Ravenclaws and Gryffindors for the Unspeakables.

"Does it matter the size or number of leaves?" Lyra pushed.

Robin shrugged, "McGonagall just issued us leaves to be used, they all seemed to be the same size."

"Though we got to use sticking charms, and she told us one of you suggested it," Finley added. "She told us how she had to repeat the ritual three times because the first time she swallowed the leaf, and the second time it fell out when she was sleeping."

"I've seen a mandrake up close," Harry told them. "There are different-sized leaves. If she gave you all the same size, then it must matter. Do you know if they need to be taken from a living plant?"

Neither of the older students had any idea about that, though both he and Lyra were scribbling down notes to figure out later. Whispers seemed to be listening to the conversation as he munched on some popcorn from the stash he kept in one of the pockets he didn't have. Lyra had assumed it was in one of his gloves, though he hadn't run out the whole trip.

The whole animagus process seemed to be made so that people would fail. Not so much from making mistakes, the ritual was pretty easy; however, the environmental factors were what made it difficult. Some nights you needed an unobstructed moon, and even the slightest cloud cover would halt the ritual, or collecting dew that hadn't seen sunlight for seven days and a single ray of sunlight could cause horrible ramifications to it as well.

They asked what happened to the eighth boy who had to go to St. Mungos,' but were just told that his form was something that didn't agree with him and he didn't like. It was hard to figure out what your inner animal was before the ritual was finished as those undergoing the process would only get flashes of what was happening through hallucinations in the first few days of sucking on the mandrake leaf in the first month. Robin repeated what McGonagall mentioned about misinterpreting signs as well, like seeing yourself swimming through the water and thinking you were a fish when you might be a penguin instead.

The thought that he might have misinterpreted his hallucination when he was younger made Harry think there was a chance he might not be a turtle, but whatever the situation was, he would miss having toes to wiggle and feel the grass between them. Lyra, on the other hand, seemed even more positive that she was going to be able to fly.

When morning came, they examined the environments below them on the other side of the mountain. Each was almost equally separate as they branched off to the horizon. They could see another forest, marshes, and a large number of dunes that bordered a large body of water.

Everyone jumped on the chance for a beach trip, and many people also breathed a sigh of relief that they weren't going to the marshland. Some of them didn't want to trudge through the mud, but for Lyra, Harry, and another student; they came to the same conclusion that the swamps looked like The Dead Marshes from The Two Towers. None of them wanted to see dead faces in the water or even have to check for bodies below the surface where they were walking.

It took nearly until dinner for them to reach the base of the mountain and out to the coastline. There was still enough sunlight for everyone to have fun in the water, splashing and swimming around in the surf. There were even tiny waves that let them bodysurf up onto the beach. It was so much fun that they ended up not continuing forward and just spending the rest of the day on the beach.

It also turned out to be a treasure trove for books. Harry spent a lot of time diving to the bottom and looking under rocks to bring books back up. Other students used transfigured rakes to comb the desert to find books buried in the sand. Harry's favorite book that he found was one on animals that lived on land but could survive underwater for extended periods. Lyra's favorite book that she found was about using fire magic to turn sand into glass.

At the end of the day, Harry took Lyra and Whispers a little further down the beach as he wanted to examine the book that Brandt had given them before they left. It was a small book, containing slightly more pages than most of the books they were discovering on their expedition. It had no title on the front or spine, but before he could read the first page, a note fell out with Lyra's name on it and she leaned over to pick it up.

She picked it up and read,

"Lyra, I wanted you to start thinking about what you would like as your birthday present this year. I'm sure your brother will get you something very nice, but let me know what you would like from me and Lord Black… other than a new broomstick. - Brandt"

"My birthday?" Lyra asked, surprised. "When is it?"

"I don't know…" Harry replied, then looked ashamed. "I never found out when it was after we celebrated mine during the summer."

"I don't remember ever celebrating it before the island," Lyra mentioned while looking upward, and trying to remember things from long ago.

"It must be soon, maybe later this month?"

Whispers had started to leaf through the book Brandt had given to Harry and when they looked at him trying to read, he just shrugged and passed the book back to Harry.

"So what's the book?" Lyra asked.

Harry opened to the first page, which was an old, yellow parchment. There wasn't a cover page, and the writing started without a preamble:

Ritual magic was probably the fourth type of magic to be discovered, long ago. The first was the magic of will. Now known as accidental magic, it is what occurs when an event triggers the emotions of a wizard strongly enough for a simple desire to be accomplished in a way that is easiest for their magic to perform. Wandless magic is different and comes from practice and study until a wizard understands how a task can be accomplished and can repeat it on command instead of flooding their mind with emotions that overload it to the point of forcing an outcome.

The second discovery of magic was most likely potions. Once wizards discovered their own magical nature, they discovered the magic in the plants and animals around them. Through experimentation combining elements in the world around them, structured results were discovered and wizards learned of specific properties of magical life.

Harry made sure that Lyra had finished before turning the page.

The third discovery was the magic of blood. Along with experimenting with plants and animals, wizards experimented with themselves. If you could use the scales of a fish, the eyes of a bat, or the eggs of an ashwinder for magic, why not a muggle? Why not a wizard? This led to the use of a wizard's own blood in specific magics. A wizard can use their own blood along with the intent they carry when the blood is shed for incredibly powerful spells that can do anything from protecting a family that shares the same blood to dooming one that does not and everything in between.

The shedding of blood for magic led to using violence and death for even greater spells and enchantments.

That becomes our fourth discovery in magic… Rituals.

In the most basic explanation, a ritual uses the power released when something or someone is harmed or killed to fuel a great magical effect. As you are aware, children will typically perform their first accidental magic when under duress, and that release of magic and energy is common among all living things. Even among adult wizards, a release of accidental magic will be more powerful than the magic they could cast willingly, though it will be more chaotic as well. Even mundane plants and animals will release energy when being injured or killed, though it will be weaker than something magical. With proper training, a wizard can channel the chaotic energy from the injury or death of another to fuel magical purposes of their own. This is the basic summation of how ritual magic works.

Harry put down the book and looked toward his sister.

"It makes sense," she told him. "I don't like it, but it makes sense."

"I'm going to keep going," Harry told her and turned the page.

As previously mentioned, both the magical and non-magical can be used in a ritual. Of course, magical ingredients will produce a greater effect, though non-magical ingredients will be more commonly available and less prone to dangerous side effects. One of the greatest civilizations that practiced ritual magic in the open was the Aztec Empire. The magical priests performed more than twenty thousand human sacrifice rituals every year throughout their empire to make it prosper and grow. They made their harvests more bountiful, the rainfall more plentiful, strengthened their armies, weakened their enemies, and much more. Their downfall however was due to being unable to contain the intent of their victims slowly poisoning the magic in the region.

This is why in modern times, there is nearly no human sacrifice in ritual magic as it is nearly impossible to contain the intent of those being injured or killed. A willing sacrifice produces an incredible effect, more so than any other, but you will be hard-pressed to find an individual willing to do this for you. Even harder to find a second. However, this did give rise to rituals where wizards would sacrifice something of themselves to gain more power in another area.

This leads us to the first rule of ritual magic and something you will need to repeat aloud.

What is sacrificed, can never be regained.

The book was blank after that. Harry flipped through the other pages and found they were blank as well.

He shared a look with Lyra, and they both said together, "What is sacrificed, can never be regained."

The book glowed for a moment and released a small blue spark that shocked Whispers, causing him to screech and jump in the air.

"I think it wants him to say it too," Lyra said.

They spent the next few minutes getting his pronunciation right and the three of them repeated the phrase. When they had all said it together, the book scrawled the phrase again on the page. So they repeated it again. This continued to happen until they had repeated it ten times and there were ten lines of the phrase on the page. The book glowed again and Harry turned the page to find more writing.

Rituals will take something that is being sacrificed from you and will never return it. Examples of such sacrifices are:

A single drop of blood from your body that makes you that much lighter for the rest of your life.

The ability to bear children.

The ability to taste sweet foods.

The ability to become an animagus.

The feeling of safety in your own home.

One of your body's senses.

The appreciation of music.

The trust of an ally.

A full day of consciousness.

And much much more. This book will not explain what rituals require those sacrifices or what will be gained from losing them. However, for some, the loss of those things will mean less to them than what is gained.

Harry and Lyra paused to stare at each other in shock over what some people might sacrifice for power, before continuing.

These sacrifices come from the wizard undertaking the ritual and just serve as an example to underline your need to remember that they cannot be brought back. They are lost forever. If you feel the need to partake in such a ritual, do so knowing that you will lose something of yourself forever, and what may be gained might not be as permanent as your loss.

That being said, not all rituals use a sacrifice that comes from yourself, only the most powerful. Some will use a patch of earth that will never be able to be used to grow plant life again. They might require the life of a single animal, or may need a selection of flowers to be put to the flame with the energy coming from their deaths being siphoned into whatever reaction you are trying to achieve.

The next few pages will show you how to construct ritual circles to properly channel different types of magic while you, the wizard; inflict pain, suffering, or death within them. While this booklet is just a guide, do not journey into this dangerous field alone. Bring along someone experienced, as on your own, you might think you are sacrificing basic ingredients, and end up losing an arm, a leg… or even a soul.

Harry turned the page again to show a diagram of various geometric shapes and explanations of how they were inscribed and used. He flipped through the next few pages to find many more similar drawings with more explanations.

"This is serious magic," Harry commented with a heavy breath in and out.

"Though, it's not like we haven't done it before," Lyra said, as a matter of factly. To Harry's concerned look, she said, "To get me to speak parseltongue, that's definitely a ritual. It fits perfectly and we lose consciousness when we are done. I'm not sure exactly how long we are out, but it's something we lose."

Harry thought about it, then said, "I'd bet that if we asked, the Usurper wouldn't be able to wake us after we passed out." He seemed to be deep in thought again before saying, "The blood bowls for communication are also a ritual, we kill a snake and use its blood to power it."

"The pain amulets too," Lyra mentioned.

"We need to be more careful in the future," Harry told her. "I don't want to lose anything we can't get back or replace."

That seemed to be the end of the conversation; so they stashed the book, took Whispers back to the main campsite, and joined Colin who was sharing all the pictures he had taken so far this year with some of the other students. Harry laughed at the photo he took when they were in the trophy room for the duel Draco tried to set him up for.

The next day they began their journey back to Hogwarts. After breakfast in the morning, Professor Sinistra stamped her feet three times and a path of green footprints lit up on the sandy beach heading back in the direction they came from. For whatever reason, it was taking them on a different route, and would not need to be scaling the mountain again, going around the base.

The route did however take them across many open sand dunes. It was hard work to climb up to the top of the largest ones, but once at the top, the older students conjured sleds for everyone and they zipped down to the next one at full speed making up for having to trudge up many others but they were out of the dunes by the end of the day. It took them two more days through a forest before they noticed the first bookshelf signifying they were almost back in the library.

When everyone was back in the library at the circulation desk, the books they had gathered were sorted out and everyone from the trip took their favorite ones. Madam Pince, the Librarian, took nearly a dozen from the pile and then said they could each take one or two books to keep. Harry hadn't finished the one on aquatic animals and held onto that along with one someone else found from the pile that had a leather cover engraved with a sitting man that had horns of a deer, while Lyra retained two on magical birds.

Back in the common room, Meli, Neville, and Greg welcomed them back as Colin rushed off to his darkroom to start developing all the photos he took on their journey. Harry and Lyra told them all about the adventure while Whispers seemed to enjoy miming his experience along with the occasional word. Each of their other friends had their own take on the story. Greg thought it would be fun to just go on an adventure, and ignore all the books, Neville wasn't interested as he had been told that all of the plants couldn't be used for potions or regrown anywhere else outside the library, and Meli thought it would be fun to have a cross-country race to try to reach the end.

Shortly before dinner, the train arrived back at the school and all of the students flooded back into the school. Lyra ran off when she saw the girls from Gryffindor, leaving Harry alone talking with Lee who had just returned.

Harry briefly told the other boy about the library adventure, then slipped the small book on rituals to him and whispered, "Read this, then pass it to the twins. I figure that this will be the key to the project."

Lee gave him a tiny nod and then disappeared into the crowd of students. The next person he bumped into was Hermione who looked a bit flustered, so he asked what was wrong.

"What's wrong?" she squeaked. "Exams are coming, I hope you've been studying. Your first year is very important for the rest of your academic career, it sets the stage for everything you will do for the rest of your time at Hogwarts!"

"Sure, I guess," Harry responded with a shrug. "The homework hasn't been that challenging, so I've been focusing on the petrification problem, and other things."

"No, no, that won't do at all. You need to actually study, I'll make you a study guide from last year's notes. I have an old prefect helping me with my studying now, so I'll be fine. I just need to focus on being ready for next year's electives, especially if I want to test into advanced runic studies."

Harry was a bit thrown by her enthusiasm but nodded along as he waved to Hayden Colton, the future wandmaker, walking with a large group of Slytherins as they entered the school. Refocusing his attention on Hermione, he smiled and said, "I'd appreciate the help, do you think you could also give me a list of the books on runes you used to learn on your own?"

Hermione's face brightened and then Harry heard a hissing from his pouch where the blood bowl was being kept.

§We have met up with the one you call Brandt.§

"Did you hear something?" Hermione asked, looking around.

Harry was startled, but quickly said, "I need to get going, we'll talk later about the study notes!"

He ran off quickly back to his common room and then up to the Scamander's office, getting let in by Newt. Tina was off somewhere else and Dougal was laying in an oversized bean bag, sleeping.

"Nestor has met up with Brandt," he told the older wizard as he retrieved the blood bowl from his pouch.

"We have the relay bowls here," Newt told him and motioned towards a table in the corner that had two blood bowls on it. He removed one that linked to the bowl that Harry had been carrying around and set them to the side, then spoke directly into the bowl linked to Nestor.

"This is Newt Scamander, I am here with Harry."

Brandt replied, "I met with your friend Parvati's older brother and purchased his personal vacation carpet for this."

"This thing is incredible," Nestor's voice chimed in. "It has just over two hundred square meters of outside space and a two-story house on the back that has space for three families inside. The outside is heated and it's layered with protective wards and avoidance charms for wizards and double for muggles. It's truly a work of art. Must have cost a fortune."

"It did," Brandt said with a strained voice. "It nearly drained my resources, though I hope to make them back soon."

"Sounds like a flying yacht," Newt commented. "The Usurper is there?"

Maybe recognizing its name, the serpent replied,

§I am here, this floating… thing… is wondrous. It is warm, and it flies like a bird.§

Harry translated, "The kingsbane likes the carpet."

Brandt spoke again, "We will set off at once, though this great serpent might enjoy just staying onboard instead of swimming. I don't think the carpet goes any faster than it can swim. It's built for relaxation, not speed."

"As long as you can get here and avoid detection," Newt told him.

"I need to take the boat back to the island," Nestor said. "Though, Harry, I want you to ask the Usurper about something he did as we left Indonesian waters. The snake started to get agitated and hissed wildly at the water. If it were anything other than a basilisk-killing monster, I would say it was afraid of something."

Harry translated and asked the kingsbane about its strange behavior. He could hear the anxiety in its voice as it responded briefly.

§It was the leviathan.§

Harry told the group, speaking into the bowl, "It says it was something called a Leviathan. What's that?"

Newt's eyes lit up at the word, while Brandt said, "When it spoke to you just now, it shivered from head to tail as it was hissing."

Newt was jittery as he replied, "A leviathan is another name for the world serpents. Remember the market? The statue in the square? I think that the Usurper was talking about something like that." He rushed over to the wall of his office and pulled a giant map off the wall so quickly that it tore at the corner, started looking over it, then came back to the bowl. "Nestor!" he called out, "were you over the Sunda Trench when this happened?"

There was the sound of rustling papers on Nestor's end, then he replied, "I'm pretty sure we were. Are we saying that the Bakunawa might be in the trench?"

"Maybe? Or something just as large." Newt replied with a giant smile. "I've seen the Rainbow Serpent, so I want to see this one too. Any chance your government would want to join me this summer on a mission into the trench?"

Nestor seemed almost as excited as Newt, and replied, "I'll have to liaise with the Indonesian government and possibly the Australians, but we might be able to arrange something."

Brandt jumped back into the conversation, "As entertaining as it is that you all want to go after another giant serpent; can we focus on the basilisk for now and decide about an even bigger and scarier one later?"

Newt pouted as he said in a resigned voice, "Fine… go ahead and set out with the Usurper, Brandt. We'll check in again tomorrow morning, our time."

"I have one more question for Brandt," Harry spoke up. Newt focused on the child and it was assumed that Brandt and Nestor were paying attention as well, as Harry said, "Lyra would like to know when her birthday is, she doesn't remember."

Chapter 90