Be not afeard; the isle is full of noises -
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Saturday April 21st, 2001
The portkey brought them to earth with its usual lurching crash-landing. Despite his athleticism, Harry had never quite mastered how to keep his balance, and he stumbled back, feet sliding on smooth, pale stone. The first impression he had was of bright, bright sunlight, blinding after the grey drizzle of April at home. Somewhere in the distance, waves were crashing against rock. As his eyes adjusted, he saw they were standing on an outcrop, high above the sea. In front of them, blocking their way onto land, was an arched gatehouse made of white marble, with bronze doors that seemed to be metal at first but then, with a second glance, he realised they looked almost molten, with strange symbols floating over the surface.
Looking up, Harry saw, in great letters, the words TERRA PERICOLOSA were carved out along the high arch.
"What does that mean?" he asked the others.
"Dunno. Terra is earth isn't it?" Ginny murmured. She'd been reluctant to come. It had been hard for her to forgive Hermione for her past with Tom Riddle and they had barely seen each other for months. But curiosity had won when a basket of Easter eggs had arrived along with an invitation.
Don't eat the silver one! You'll break your teeth and it's a portkey to my biggest secret. It will activate on the 21st of April at 11am.
Happy Easter and much love to you all,
Hermione
"Maybe it's the name?" Ron said, gazing up with a frown. "How do we get in anyway?"
Harry noticed a large wooden chest helpfully labelled PORTKEYS and lifted the lid. He placed the silver egg alongside a series of other objects and shut the box again.
As soon as it shut, the doors swung open soundlessly, but there was no sign of life within the dim light under the thick arched passage.
"Come on then," Harry said to Ginny and Ron, deeply curious. "Let's go and find out what this is all about."
He lead the way through the gatehouse cautiously, but no one stopped them. It was perhaps ten meters long, but dark, the marbles walls unpolished. As he came out out the other side, he threw an arm up against the light and looked down instinctively and for a moment he thought he had stepped out into nothing, that he would fall and fall forever. Harry's stomach vanished, then plummeted down, down, down.
But his feet were on something solid. It was impossible and yet… he realised it was a transparent bridge, glimmering and sparkling as it floated high over a plunging gorge. Waves crashed far below his feet. The glass base was suspended by arches of golden fire soaring up into the air.
Then there was the landscape spreading out ahead: strange and marvellous trees dotted undulating green hills. Further away, the island rose up and up, a backdrop of forests and misty peaks with waterfalls pouring down into a great lake, gardens floating on their cliffs. He could just make out what looked like a phoenix's bright tail, as it swooped joyfully above that distant water.
The air seemed to shimmer with magic. Everything looked strange and new, like a fairy land in an old book come to life. On the other side the sea stretched away, and away to the horizon.
"Crikey," Ron gasped as he stepped out next to Harry. "Where the hell are we?"
"Get moving Harry, I want to see," Ginny called from behind her brother and then, as he obeyed, "Merlin where are we?"
"Welcome, welcome," a squeaky voice piped up and Harry looked down to find a House Elf beaming up at him. "My name is Relgin and I have volunteered to be your guide today. Mr Weasley," he added, tennis-ball eyes filling with tears, "is known as a Great Friend to elves here so everyone wanted the honour but Relgin was chosen."
"You speak properly," Ron answered, looking rather dazed at this novel praise.
"We are free elves here, Mr Weasley, bound to the island itself. Now come, come, follow me while it's safe."
"What do you mean while it's safe?"
"Sometimes the sea dragon who lives down there likes to try to steal people from the bridge!" the elf replied with a giggle. "She's very naughty! Come, come, lots to see."
Baffled, they followed the elf across the bridge, each step an exercise in courage. When his feet hit the solid ground of the other cliff, Harry let out a sigh of relief.
"Where are we?" he asked the elf. "What is this place? Where is Hermione?"
"It is named Iðunna, and I suppose you would think of it as lying south-west of Ireland." The elf said it like ee-thouna. "Now, she asked me to give you these," three brooms appeared, leaning against nothing in the air, "and this map," a parchment appeared in Ginny's hands, "and bade you be very careful as you explore for Iðunna has many wonders and not all of them are kind. She will find you, I expect, when she's ready."
Then the elf was gone without even a crack, and they were alone on a windy cliff-top in a strange land.
"Weird," Ginny said. "Let's go and have a look around shall we?"
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They clambered onto the brooms and soared up high enough to see where the bright, sunny weather gave way to rain and tossing waves, far in the distance. Beneath them, the island stretched out northwards, until it rose into high peaks and steep valleys. To the south, Harry could make out what seemed to be a great, shining building on the side of a cliff and some sort of town around a river's mouth just below it.
"I think we should go north and circle round and finish at that village," Ginny said, squinting at the map. "I think it's a town actually. There's some sort of castle? Oh that shiny thing I suppose… Anyway we'll see that later, yeah? I want to go to the mountains - there's a little dragon drawn on this map."
Flying above Iðunna was unlike flying anywhere Harry had ever been before, and despite the strangeness of the morning and all the unanswered questions they had, he let out a great whoop and sped ahead of Ginny and Ron. The Weasley siblings yelled out, zooming to try to catch him and then they were racing, the brisk air sending his blood rushing with wild exhilaration.
After a headlong race, they pulled up panting and laughing, high above what looked like a building site. Harry flew lower to explore and saw he was right; a construction team, including three trolls, were working away on a site on the side of one of this part of the island's rolling hills. Further on, they passed two other similar sites as well as what seemed to be several small farms, and then the landscape grew steeper and wilder as they drew towards the mountains.
Harry was so caught up in trying to identify all the magical creatures and extraordinary plants along the way he almost missed Ginny's shout.
"That's Hermione, isn't it? By the lake? And is that Luna with her?"
And indeed there she was, waving up at them. Harry pointed his broom down and sped downwards with his usual disregard for personal safety.
"Hello everyone," Hermione was smiling but she looked slightly nervous. "Welcome to Iðunna."
"What IS this place?" "Where have you been, Luna?" "Where are we?" they clamoured in unison and Hermione held her hands up laughing.
"Let's have some lunch and we'll tell you all about it. But keep your eyes peeled for pixies."
Ravenous after his flight, Harry allowed himself to be temporarily distracted by food. He met Ginny's eyes, which said silently this is all odd but let's go with it? and nodded back at her briefly. Watching her fly always filled him with a tripled punch of love and pride and envy
"How to explain?" Hermione began thoughtfully after she had doled out plates heaped with pie and sausages and fresh bread and yellow butter.
"I'll start with this: I spent many years travelling the world to all sorts of magical places and learning from their people and during that time I realised that the way we live in Britain is… risky. We have so few places that are wholly magical, places where we can be open. Hogwarts, of course. Hogsmeade, Diagon Alley and the streets around it, Godric's Hollow… and then the old Pureblood estates like the Malfoys. We've retreated into seclusion or we hide in Muggle areas - like Grimmauld Place. We don't have this."
Harry looked around as she spoke. It was a dream of a land, familiar and yet everywhere the sense of newness, of creation.
"None of you were around after Harry defeated Voldemort as a baby but the Muggle news was filled with reports of flocks of owls. What they thought were random mass firework displays. People were dancing in the streets and running up to hug strangers and all sorts, because they didn't have anywhere else to openly celebrate. The Ministry's main job is to keep our community hidden from Muggles, and that is becoming more difficult as their technology improves. Did you know they have cameras nearly everywhere now?"
She paused, staring out over the shining lake as something disturbingly large broke its waters.
"Oh, Hermione there he is! The Kelpie - he's thriving! I'm so glad," Luna broke in, beaming.
"Cool," Ron said, peering out at it, then adding nervously, "It's not dangerous to us is it?
"I don't think so, but be a little wary," Luna said reassuringly. "He's much more interested in the merpeople and the grindylows than he is in us at the moment. He's quite new to the lake so he's still settling in. I brought him… oh, just a month ago I think."
"You brought it here?"
"Oh yes, I'm a Professor of Magizoology now. I've been helping to populate the island."
This was more, not less, confusing and Harry turned to Hermione.
"Well yes, exactly. Anyway I wanted to make somewhere where witches and wizards didn't have to hide. So I... made this island. Or rather, the island created itself: I just provided the catalyst and the fuel. It's wonderful isn't it? We're building a university. The first University of Magic the world has ever seen."
"That's your big reveal?" Ginny asked. "Merlin I've been so worried this last year, I thought you had some terrible, dark plan!"
"I know you did," Hermione said kindly. "I quite understand why. But Albus left me in charge of what he saw as his role as… a sort of guardian I suppose and this is what I have chosen. But don't be fooled: this island is dangerous, because it is wholly magical and magic is as dangerous as it is wonderful."
"What do you mean you made an island?" Harry interrupted. "How do you just… make an island?"
She grinned. "That would be telling, I'm afraid. You'll have to come and study here if you want to learn more about greater magics but I'm not giving everyone a recipe for growing landmass."
"So are we still in Britain?" Ginny asked thoughtfully. "Because according to the map there's a dirty great dragon in those mountains and I'm not sure that's legal on private property. Nor," she added with more of a twinkle than a frown, "are half the creatures I expect you've got roaming around."
"We are not in Britain, we're in Iðunna. It doesn't belong to any nation, that's why I've been so busy! Do you have any idea how difficult it is to found a new land without anyone trying to claim it? There are some ancient laws about it but getting it recognised for trade and immigration and banking and all that sort of thing is a nightmare. The British Ministry is still deciding if I have to give up my citizenship and become only Iðunnian."
"So are you like... queen of the island, of Iðunna I mean, or what?" Ginny replied, frowning.
"No, I am Chancellor of the University, that's all," Hermione said. "Or I will be, when it's ready. Starting everything from scratch takes a long time."
"She's being modest," Luna interjected. "There are already about forty faculty members doing research here, and the main university buildings are all built. The first students will be here in a year's time. There's three of us in Magizoology!"
"I mean… I don't really know what a university does," Ron said. "What's the point of it?"
"Well," Hermione said, pouring them all some pumpkin juice with a flick of her wrist, "it's a bit like Hogwarts, except the students are all adults and the professors also do their own research and publish, er, essays about it. That sort of thing. Like the stuff we did with the wand ban, which you read actually didn't you. All the subjects we did at school but lots more as well. We'll have a grand opening at some point, but I wanted you all to see the island, to understand what I was making."
"It's amazing," Harry said. "I didn't know there wasn't a magic university. Never really thought about it to be honest."
"Families like to hoard their magic. It's always been a great power broker, you see. Countries too. But I don't think the world should be like that anymore. I think anyone, from any background should have access to the same texts and research. Shall we carry on?"
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Hermione apparated them up to the highest peak on the island, where their boots crunched and slid on the packed snow and their breath froze in crystals. She didn't appear to notice the cold, despite being dressed in just a shirt with trousers and boots. The rest of them hurried to cast warming charms, teeth rattling together so much the spells were nearly ruined.
"It's lucky it's such a clear day," she told them as they gazed around. "It's often misty up here."
Despite the cold, Harry thought she was probably right: below them valleys nestled between rocky crests, cut through with glittering streams and softened with wildflowers in colours he had never seen. Further down, a forest began, spreading over the undulations back towards the lake.
"Is there really a dragon?" Ginny asked, keenly.
"Oh no," Luna said. "There are three dragons so far. We think any more and they'd fight, they're so territorial, but your brother is coming to advise me on that very soon. We have a mating pair of Welsh Greens and a juvenile Swedish Short-Snout. She's very sweet but I'm more interested in researching undiscovered creatures."
"This part of the island will never be built on," Hermione added. "It'll be a nature reserve with very restricted access. I'm not precisely sure if the land is still growing or not, so we have to be careful about how many large animals we put here."
"Growing?" Ron asked curiously.
"This rock where we're standing is the original part… that's all it was. About twelve feet high and oh, four across? I sailed for a year to find it and then I fed it with magic every year. It'll be twenty-one years in total when I finish: there's two left. Three sevens or seven threes: a very powerful magical number as I'm sure you all know, and this is the result."
She gestured back at the land below.
There didn't seem to be much to say in response to that. It was magic far beyond anything Harry had ever heard of, and he wondered what else was possible, what else he had overlooked or been unable to dream up. He watched Hermione survey her creation and thought of the sister who'd stood beside him at every difficult turn of his life, of how much she'd loved magic. How much more than anyone else he'd ever known. He thought about Dumbledore and power and whether she was really a queen in all but name now.
He wondered at the desolation that passed over her face as she stared down.
"The rest of the island is inhabitable, of course," Hermione added tangentially after a moment. "So if you see anywhere you'd like to build a house… it's yours."
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They didn't see the dragons that day, but that was soon forgotten in the face of the island's greatest wonder. This had not grown out of some broiling magic, but was carefully designed and wrought out of stone and glass and wood and fire and water.
The university was, Hermione explained, still under construction but the main building was finished. It was almost evening by the time they reached it, looking up at it from a bridge across the river that split what seemed to be an already-thriving village.
It was lit up with golden light. Even on a dull day, Harry thought, it would be one of the most beautiful things he had ever seen. At first sight, it looked like a palace made of glass, floating in the air. Then he blinked and realised it was carved back into the rock behind. In the corner of his eye the furthest tower seemed to reach the sky, or perhaps beyond, but when he looked at it directly it was no higher than its counterparts. There were three in total, or seven. He wasn't sure. He blinked again. He counted. Five.
He followed Hermione off the bridge and up the street towards it in a daze, hardly taking in the smart sign for the Bank of Iðunna or the group of laughing witches and wizards spilling out of a pub on the corner of the main street.
She lead them across a large square with a fountain in the centre, strangely empty, and when they came out the other side there were only cobbles between them and what he had thought were walls of glass. Now he was closer, Harry saw it was like the bridge. It seemed to be glass or crystal and yet there was something alive about it. Something like water or like diamonds or like motes of dust catching the late sun through a window.
Even Ron was oddly silent as they watched her touch the smooth, unbroken surface. As soon as her fingertips had brushed it, molten gold spiraled away in all directions and an opening like a sunburst, edged in gold, appeared.
"What would happen if I touched it?" Ginny asked curiously, breaking the silence.
"Nothing. It only opens for faculty at the moment. When we have students some of them will have access, although it'll be limited to certain times of day for first years. There are some very dangerous books in the Library already. This building is really for the research staff: we have our offices and our quarters here. As we grow we'll have more faculty buildings, but at the moment that's the Potions Faculty over there, up the cliff on the other side of the village."
Harry followed her gaze to a smart, angular stone-and-glass building set a little back back from the cliff.
"Just in case there's a really bad explosion, though it's well-warded of course," she grinned slightly. "Magizoology is about a mile away. Luna can show you later if you like. Experimental Herbology is on the other side of the island from the creatures - can't risk them eating each other. Not the research staff, though that's always a risk I suppose."
Ron laughed at that.
"Imagine Neville's face if a Crumpled Horned Snorkak got into his greenhouses," he snorted to Harry.
"Is he coming here?" Ginny asked Hermione as they walked through the entrance hall and up the staircase. When they came off at the top he looked back down and saw they were many floors higher than they'd actually climbed. Some of the stone balusters had bees and stars and apples and keys carved into them. The motif repeated in the stonework as they went higher, and Harry realised it was a crest.
"I will invite him to visit whenever he wishes, of course, but Hogwarts will need a strong Headmaster to step into Minerva's shoes one day."
Ron and Harry exchanged significant glances at that.
"Are you hungry?" she asked, without precisely directing the question at Ron.
"Yes!" the Weasley siblings said together. Harry was too, but he was greedier to see more wonders than food.
"If you go straight down that corridor you'll come to another staircase. Go down it, and you'll come to the main dining room. Just… think about food, don't get distracted or you might end up somewhere else. If you accidentally get into the Library find a Librarian immediately and get out as soon as you can."
They laughed, but Harry had a feeling she wasn't joking.
"Not a normal Library then?"
"It goes back into the rock for… oh, I'm not sure. The most dangerous stuff is all at the back. It's nearly impossible to get into the lower levels but we've broken into impossible places before haven't we? Still, they should be fine."
"Don't you worry about the students?"
"Yes, of course, and I'm sure there will be some as reckless as we were who try and find danger all over the island. But that's magic, isn't it? With all this wonder come the risks. You saw what we've carved on the guardhouse didn't you?"
Guardhouse, Harry thought, not just a gatehouse.
"Um, yeah but I wasn't sure -"
They came out onto a terrace, in time to see the last rays of the sun sinking in the west. If the sun even set in the west in this place. Surely Hermione wasn't that powerful.
"Terra pericolosa. Muggle explorers used to write it on maps to denote unknown lands they believed were dangerous. I thought it was… apt."
Harry thought of everything he'd faced in the Wizarding World.
"That's as good a description as any," he concurred.
Far further down than the height they'd climbed, perhaps four hundred feet below, he could see the lights of the village. It was larger than he'd imagined, though not all the houses had lights on. Music floated up from somewhere. Boats rose and fell softly in a harbour, round to the east of the main village. A bird, impossibly huge flew low over the town and then up towards the mountains.
"What was that?" he asked.
"A roc. I must tell Luna. They're a bit unsettled by the climate here, but we're hoping they will adapt and stay in the mountains."
"Who lives down there?"
"Refugees, mostly," she said sadly. "I founded another research centre, before this, called the New Avalon Institute. It's in California. I hope it'll grow, too. But anyway while I was there I built a team of people - you've met some of them at dinner at home - and they have helped me. We set up an office to reach out to people fleeing war zones or dangerous families or countries where magicians were persecuted. Some people just wanted a new start. Then there's the businesses who we've persuaded to take a risk and open up here. There's two pubs now, and one restaurant - just there, down by the water. Some Swedish Goblins agreed to set up a new bank. Elves - you saw the new law that passed through last year?"
"Your law," Harry corrected. "I saw it."
"Well, my family elf Buttons put out the world to those that wanted to be freed, not just stay on with pay, that they could come here. They're not free, exactly, you can't free a Brownie because they have to tie themselves to a place or a family to survive, but they're not bound any more. They're linked to the island itself. Some of them farm further back, which they are just amazing at and then some of them work in the university. Two of them have set up a bakery. They tell me they're going to have a little school."
It was the happiest he'd seen her look all day.
"This isn't just a university, with a big village to support it," he said eventually, gazing out at the first stars dotting the sky. "This is… it's going to be a town isn't it? And it'll probably grow into a city. I mean loads of people are going to want to come and live here aren't they? It's… it'll be like its own country."
"Technically," she said, "it already is. But the more people there are the more complicated it'll be. For now, it's just this: a haven and, I hope, the centre of what will be a period of magical enlightenment."
She said the word enlightenment like it was heavy with history, like it was weighed down by stone libraries and given ink and paper wings. Like it meant dawn and dusk, all at once.
"Enlightenment," Harry said, but in his mouth it was just a word. "Okay then. What's your, um, speciality?"
"Magical Theory," she said, coming to stand next to him. "In my latest research I focus on spell creation."
"Be careful, Hermione. This is… it's amazing. But playing god is dangerous."
"If you stayed, if you joined us and took a position here, you could be my left hand. You could keep an eye on me."
"No," he said, surprising himself. "I… I already have a home and a life and everything. I don't want a new start."
She nodded and turned away for a moment.
"I'm sorry," he added. "But you know I've never really been that academic anyway."
"The door to Iðunna will always be open," she said. "But I think I understand. Are you sure you're happy as an Auror though? Watching you fly today… you are the best I've ever seen. And you could hardly look at Ginny all day."
"I love Ginny," he protested angrily.
"I know you do, you idiot, that's why it worried me. I think you're jealous of her career."
Before Harry could reply, a sea-green cat loped out onto the terrace and yowled at Hermione.
"Oh here you are," Ron's voice announced his presence a few moments before he appeared behind it. "Thanks cat."
"If you want to see anything else," Hermione told them, "this cat will guide you. Her name is Cassiopea. Unfortunately, I have several things I can no longer put off."
"Thank you for a wonderful day, Hermione," Ginny said, hugging her friend. "Mum's making one of her big lunches next weekend, we'd love it if you could come."
"That would be wonderful," Hermione accepted the peace offering. "Please come back whenever you like. We haven't finished the International Appararition Licence process yet, but you can write for a portkey any time."
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I have never been more excited to share something with you guys. This is dedicated to Berrybanana05 who just went through the whole thing and left the most wonderful reviews for every chapter. Thank you.
And thank you all for bearing with me while I veered away from romance to explore putting, as mitzipler said in a very lovely review this week, the magic back into magic.
And thanks as always to my partner-in-crime SallyJAvery.
Iðun (that's not a d it's a runic equivalent to th) was the goddess of spring and eternal youth in Norse mythology. Iðun supplies the other gods and goddesses with the apples of youth. So you can see why Hermione named the island she grew from one of Idun's apples after her. Avalon, of course, was also the island of apples!
