Disclaimer: This story is based on characters and situations created and owned by JK Rowling, various publishers including but not limited to Bloomsbury Books, Scholastic Books and Raincoast Books, and Warner Bros., Inc. No money is being made and no copyright or trademark infringement is intended.

Sistat Inter Bitu pe Marvos
Chapter Three
República Federativa do Brasil

It was early in the morning. The sound of birds singing in the distance could be heard through the open window of his bedroom. A cold breeze drifted through the room, revealing the bitterness of the morning. The soft 'pitter-patter' of rain impacting upon the ground the ground was melodic to his ears, almost sending him back to sleep.

His nerves were on edge from the very second that he opened his eyes. He had never left the country before, and today, for the first time, he would, leaving behind everything he had ever known and journeying into the unknown. He took several calming breaths which did little to settle his queasy stomach. He contemplated changing his mind for a minute before realizing that he couldn't, that this was something that he had to do.

The clattering of dishes told him that someone was already up. He hoped that whoever it was would be able to assist him in settling his frayed nerves. He dressed quietly, not wanting to wake those who where still sleeping, and made his way to the kitchen.

What he found was not what he expected.

Nearly the full Order of the Phoenix was seated around the table eating one of Molly Weasley's full English breakfasts. The smell of sausage and bacon made his stomach rumble.

"Good morning, dear," Mrs. Weasley greeted as she bustled him towards an empty seat. "Sit down while I get you some breakfast." Harry knew better than to argue with the woman.

"Did you sleep well, Harry?" Hermione asked once he had his breakfast in front of him.

"Better than Ron by the looks of it," He answered with a smile. The redhead was seated across the table from him, looking as though it took all his energy to keep his eyes open. Ron grumbled about being woken up at the crack of dawn by Hermione so they wouldn't miss Harry leaving.

"You could have let him sleep, Hermione," Harry chuckled. "The poor sod looks like he's almost dead on his feet. I wouldn't have left before saying goodbye anyway."

Hermione just smiled back. "Well, it won't do him any harm to be up early anyway; he'll never get his homework done if he spends all summer in bed." Ron grumbled some more, much to Harry's amusement.

The meal passed pretty much uneventfully, the only incident being when Mrs. Weasley had berated a red faced Fred and George for trying to slip one of their products into Harry's pumpkin juice. It seemed that trouble-causing twins had wanted to send Harry off in style.

Before Harry knew it, the Order of the Phoenix was gathered together to say their goodbyes. It was nearing time for him to leave.

Hermione and Ron forced their way to the front of the group. Hermione's eyes were watery and she held in her hand a handkerchief. "How are you feeling?" She asked; she seemed to have said the first thing that had come to her mind.

"Fine," He replied. He was forced to elaborate, however, by the disbelieving looks thrown his way by both Ron and Hermione. "Nervous more than anything."

"You'll be fine, Harry," Hermione reassured him.

"Yeah, mate, you always manage to come through all right." Ron agreed with her.

"You better write, Harry," Hermione told him. "I expect to hear from you often-"

"Once a week at the most." Ron interjected.

"I've even brought you some spare parchment in case you forgot to pack some." Hermione continued as though Ron had said nothing. "That way you have absolutely no excuse."

Harry felt a smile work its way onto his face. He was leaving the country for the first time in his life today, and he would be doing it alone. He had been expecting Hermione to be pestering him to make sure he had packed everything, he'd expected her to be questioning him about whether he was sure he had his passport or not, what he had not been expecting, however, was for her to be making sure that he had enough parchment in his luggage to be able to send letters.

"I'll write as often as I can," He assured them with a smile. "I promise."

He looked around the group and noticed for the first time that Ginny stood apart from everybody else. She stood in the corner of the room rubbing at her eyes with an handkerchief and watching him say his goodbyes. He tried to get her attention with his eyes but she paid no heed. She just carried on looking straight at him, looking straight through him.

"Here, Potter," Moody's gruff voice made him tear his eyes away from the redhead. Moody was thrusting a small booklet at him as he spoke. "Shacklebolt managed to get those blithering idiots at the Department of Magical Transportation to fast track a passport through. Be careful that you don't leave it lying about. Constant vigilance, Potter!"

"I'll be sure to remember that, Moody," Harry reassured the grizzled ex-auror. He had to fight the urge to roll his eyes at Moody's mantra.

"You be sure of that. I don't want some Death Eater walking around with documents that identify him as Harry Potter. Do you have any idea what kind of trouble that could cause, kid?" Harry reassured the man that he did. He didn't much like the scenario himself. "Don't leave you luggage lying about. Watch your back at all times. Make sure you are not being followed. Most of all, no matter what, be sure to practice CONSTANT VIGILANCE at all times!" Moody bellowed part of his last warning so loud that the portrait of Mrs. Black was wakened.

Several minutes later, once the curtains had been closed on Mrs. Black, Kingsley Shacklebolt moved to the front of the congregation. "Here, take this," he said, holding out a small silver trinket. Harry took it and examined it thoroughly, what the hell was Kingsley giving him a trinket for? "It's a portkey, Potter, there's no way your journey wouldn't be noticed if you left from the Department of Magical Transportation like you're supposed to. It took a lot of work on my part to get you this," Kingsley said with a smile on his face. "You can make sure you thank me when you get back." The man looked like he really would be recalling the favour one day.

"Thanks, Kingsley, I really appreciate it," he returned gratefully. "Where did you get it from?"

"Same place as I got you passport," Kingsley clarified. "I had to tell them that it was for a wizard who needed to go into witness protection. They wanted specifics at first but I told them it was a restricted case and that if they didn't get their bloody arses into gear they'd be looking for a new job. They stopped asking questions after that."

Harry chuckled. He could just imagine that Kingsley would have a formidable temper, even through most of the time he was extremely laid back. "I really do appreciate it."

"Don't worry about it," Kingsley told him. "The password is 'Valedico' and it will take you to the Brazilian equivalent of our Ministry of Magic." Harry nodded to show that he had heard.

He looked around the group once more. All of them wore long faces,and he imagined that his face echoed their expressions. The time had finally come: All the goodbyes had been said and all the formalities taken care of. Once again he saw that Ginny stood apart from the group, wiping tears from her eyes. He opened his mouth to say something, perhaps to reassure her that everything would work out fine in the end. Nothing came out, though, and he was forced to grab hold of his bags and say the only thing he could.

"Valedico"

Harry felt as though he was being pulled through the air by a hook in his navel. The world around him was a fast swirling blur of colour and light. Wind whipped at his robes and hair, he felt as though he was flying. Then, all of a sudden, it all came to an abrupt end.

He landed with his usual lack of grace and fell bodily onto the floor. He must have looked a right sight laying there face down on the floor, glasses crooked on his nose and robes tangled around his body. He looked around quickly and was glad to see that there was only one other person in the room.

A coat of arms of amazing size hung on the wall behind a Brazilian witch immaculately dressed in a smart uniform; a small smile played on her lips, but for the most part, she managed to keep a straight face. Harry stood and brushed down his robes before making his way towards the witch. As he walked he looked not at the witch but rather at the coat of arms behind her. A central emblem was surrounded by coffee and tobacco branches, both of which were important crops in Brazil. In a blue circle in the centre, the Southern Cross could be seen. Surrounding this blue circle was a ring of twenty seven stars which represented Brazil's twenty six states and one federal district. A blue ribbon at the bottom of the Coat contained the official name of Brazil: República Federativa do Brasil and the date of the Federative Republic's establishment: 15 de Novembro de 1889.

When he reached the desk he was still blushing. It was only because he couldn't find anything else to look at that he finally looked at the witch behind the desk. She was stood with her arm out as though she was waiting for Harry to give her something. Harry just looked at her in confusion.

"Passport please," she prompted. She spoke good English, though it was obvious that it wasn't her native language.

"Oh, yeah," Harry stuttered. He fished the passport from his pocket and watched as the women checked it thoroughly. When she was satisfied she stamped it with a large rubber stamp, passed it back to him along with a map of Brazil, and informed him that he could now leave.

He opted against apparating to the co-ordinates Dumbledore had written in the letter, mainly because he was unaware of what the area looked like and didn't want to find himself impaled on a rock. There was also the possibility of wards being erected in the area. He decided to fly instead; it would be nice to fly in this weather, though he would have to fly high so as not to be seen. Thankfully the Brazilian Ministry has wards erected that prevented Muggles from seeing magical people leave, whether by broomstick or the door.

Harry flew high over the city of São Paulo so that he wouldn't be seen by anybody on the busy streets below. Soon the city landscape changed and he found himself flying over dense forests. He used the 'Positus' spell regularly to make sure that he was still heading the right direction: it was a spell that displayed your current co-ordinates much like the 'tempus' spell displayed the time. He had been flying at full speed for much of the day and was getting tired when he saw a great river appear in the distance. He noticed from the co-ordinates spell that he was getting close to his destination and so started to descend.

Harry was extremely grateful for the feeling of solid ground beneath his feet. He always enjoyed flying but a full day of it had tired him out immensely. He stood at the co-ordinates he had been led to, viewing the stunning power of the great Rio Amazonas. The sun shined majestically off the crystal surface of the water, a scene more amazing than any he had ever seen before. The day was clear and bright, and the landscape was visible for miles around. A second river joined with the Amazon not far down from where he stood, a look at the map he'd been given earlier told Harry that it was the Xingu River. Lush green forest stood tall at his back. Strange plants, the likes of which Neville Longbottom would have paid a million galleons to see, grew side by side. Sweet aromas assaulted his nostrils, and strange noises his ears. A scratching noise here, a rustling there, birds singing, the smell of bark mixed with that of pollen... the whole place was just surreal. It was so different from his usual life in the polluted cities of the United Kingdom, and he not in a bad way, either. He could get used to this; the clean air, the peacefulness, the serenity.

"STUPEFY!"

A bolt of red light exploded from the nearby bushes harshly breaking the peacefulness of the situation. Harry reacted instinctively, diving to the floor as the spell sailed harmlessly past him. It came dangerously close to hitting him, however, and the breeze caused by the magic ruffled through his hair.

The bushes rustled noisily to his left. Harry threw a stunning spell in that direction, but nothing was there.

Another spell, this one a violent purple, was sent his way from the opposite end of the clearing. He barely managed to get out of the way. The spell impacted upon a tree with such vicious force that it exploded in a shower of tiny splinters. Pain ripped through Harry's body as the shards of wood tore at his skin mercilessly, he was lucky that his glasses kept the splinters from blinding him. He felt blood seeping from the wounds on his face, starting to trickle steadily down his forehead.

He barely had time to register that he was hurt, however, before he was once again leaping out of the way of a spell, this one a sickly yellow that sent plumes of dirt erupting into the air. Harry was engulfed in a cloud so thick he couldn't see a thing.

He cast a exploding hex towards the direction the yellow spell had come from, all the while the plume around him causing hacking coughs to sweep through his body. He heard a faint popping noise just before the spell would have impacted with their assailant. Whomever it was had apparated away.

"Come on, Harry!" He screamed in frustration. All it succeeded in doing was alerting his assailant to his position, and earned him a gash on his right leg from a cutting curse. He must have looked a right mess, he thought wryly, a steady trickle of blood was flowing down his left cheek and the left leg of his pants was in tatters. He could no longer move with anything resembling grace. He hobbled about like a decrepit old man. He vowed to find a quieter means of encouraging himself in the future… if there was a future.

The dust around him began to settle. Harry threw himself behind a rock to hopefully conceal himself from view. He tore a large section of material from the tattered left leg of his pants and tied it tightly around the gash on his thigh to stem the flow of blood. He knew very little of healing charms, and even the ones he knew he wasn't proficient at, and he felt incapable of performing them in the heat of battle.

He remained like that for several minutes, ears strained for the slightest clue for what his attacker would do next, silent and observing, watching for any sign that the person who'd attacked him was still there. He heard nothing, saw nothing. Whoever it was had gone.

'Who the hell is it?' Harry asked himself. Surely Voldemort hadn't managed to glean his whereabouts already. He shouldn't even know that he had left Britain yet!

Harry suddenly felt as though a led weight had been dropped into his stomach as an horrible thought invaded his already furiously working mind. What if Voldemort had managed to attack a member of the Order and get the information from them? What if that person was one of his friends?

At the snap of a twig his head swung to the right. A purple beam of light was bearing down at him with incredible speed. He felt rooted to the spot, the led weight had not yet been removed from his stomach. He legs refused to work. Time slowed to a crawl. The light got close. He was meant to have come here to improve his skills, and all he was going to achieve was to die at the first hurdle. Closer and closer. He closed his eyes and wished more than anything to be out of the way of the spell. Closer still.

A ear-splitting crack echoed in his head and he felt as though he was being squashed on all sides. He couldn't breath. No matter what he tried he couldn't get air to enter his lungs. He was being suffocated to death. Then, quite suddenly, it all stopped.

He opened his eyes, shocked to find that he was no longer next to the rock. In fact, that same rock was now exploding into a fine powder on the opposite side of the clearing. Somehow, unconsciously, he had apparated away from the spell. He didn't waste a second.

"Sectumsempra!" Harry cast the spell instinctively. His attacker barely managed to apparate out of the way. Harry looked around frantically for where the man would end up, for he had seen the outline of the person and knew without a doubt that it was a man.

The trees rustled behind him. He spun to face the noise. There was nobody there. He raised his wand and took up a defensive position. There was a rustle to his left. The words to a spell formed on his lips. Another noise came to his right, he spun once more and cast sectumsempra at the spot he had heard the noise. He knew, even as he finished the incantation, that he'd been fooled. A rock the size of a fist rolled harmlessly across the ground where it had been thrown.

The branches of tall tree creaked ominously above him. His head snapped up quickly. He saw the outline of a man crouched in branches, wand pointed directly at him. He brought his wand up to the figure even as the incantation formed on his lips.

The spell was never uttered.

A jet of orange light connected with his chest driving the air from his lungs. He fell to the floor, struggling for breath. His eyes watered in pain as he gulped desperately for air. He heard a small crunch as the attacker jumped from his position in the tree and had time to see the watery outline of a robed figure, wand pointed directly at him, before he drifted unwillingly into the blissful darkness of unconscious.

The darkness that clouded his mind started to slowly evaporate; he was once again regaining consciousness. A fog of confusion clouded his memory, what had happened? He quickly realized that his arms, legs, and neck had been bound tightly with thick rope, and, judging by the blackness of his vision, he had been blindfolded. His head pounded, almost as though his brain was expanding and trying to force its way out of his skull. He wondered how he had gotten into this mess, and slowly the memory resurfaced.

Whoever had attacked him in that forest clearing now had him bound and blindfolded, he was an hostage. He tried to break the bonds that held him but it was no use: the rope was tied so tight that even were he a werewolf he would not be able to break them. After several minutes of squirming about like a fish out of water, he was rewarded with a slight slip of the blindfold. He couldn't see much, but at least he could see something. He tried to look around and survey the room that he was being held in, but he couldn't see much at all.

He was interrupted by the sound of heavy boots walking across a wooden floor. Whoever it was, they were coming closer, walking at a steady pace. The ominous sound of old, rusty, hinges pierced his ears. He tried to see who it was through the small gap at the bottom of the blindfold, but all he managed to see were two leather-booted feet.

He squirmed and tried to pull himself away from whomever it was, crawling across the room like a dog in the hope of putting some distance between himself and his jailer.

"I wouldn't do that if I where you," came a man's cold, harsh voice. "That rope around your neck is charmed to get tighter and tighter the further away from your starting position you get. Your trachea would be crushed before you made it past the door of this room." Harry stopped moving: The rope around his neck had indeed been tightening.

"Now, would you care to explain to me what are you doing here?" Phrased like a question, it was a demand, one that promised the gravest of consequences should it not be answered. "Answer me!"

Harry remained stubbornly silent.

"I said answer me, Cuzão!" A heavily booted foot was brought swiftly and forcefully down on his head. His mind erupted in a fresh bout of pain and once again he could feel a warm trickle as crimson fluid flowed from the resulting wound. "What are you doing here?"

Harry answered before he even had a chance to stop himself, "I was looking for someone. I was given directions to the clearing where I was attacked. I was told that if I made my way to that spot that I would find the man whom I seek."

"And who is it that you seek?" The voice lacked any form of remorse for kicking him in the head, it was still colder than ice. Harry didn't want to answer the question and so refrained from uttering a single word.

"So the cat's lost its tongue, has it?" The harsh voice mocked him. Pain: Once again, one of those heavily booted feet connected with his head. "Are you able to speak yet you filha da puta?" Harry bit his lip. "I'll take that as a no then." Kick after kick sent waves of pain through his body. After a third kick to his head the man seemed to think it would be better to aim his kicks elsewhere, and so his chest took the brunt of the endless barrage of kicks.

When the barrage of blows finally stopped Harry lay gasping for air, blood coated his face and matted his hair, and his rips felt tender and bruised. His blindfold had slipped from his eyes as he had rolled around the floor trying to avoid the assault. The man that stood looking down upon him was tall, at least six foot, and stood like a predator stalking its prey. His eyes, cold blue in colour, were narrowed maliciously as he surveyed the battered teenager on the floor. Grey shoulder-length hair marked him as a man of age, though his face showed little sign of oldness.

"I have had my fun," the man stated in a calm voice, too calm. He looked down at Harry for several seconds before spinning on his heel, robes billowing out behind him, and in one swift motion walking the length of the room to a wooden desk. Once there he opened a drawer, Harry had time to see a flash of silver before the man was walking back. "You will answer my questions now," still the same calm voice, dangerously calm. "Otherwise I will slice your throat."

Before Harry knew it a knife was help against his windpipe, the steel was cold against his skin. Harry gulped; there really was no way out of this.

"Who sent you here?"

Harry had no choice, he would have to talk. "A - Albus Dumbledore," he said in a raspy voice.

The man's cold blue eyes widened in what Harry took as shock. "Merda!" he exclaimed. Before Harry knew it the man had removed the knife from his throat and retreated from the room.

"What the hell was all that about?" he wondered out loud. He had little time to wonder before the door to the room opened once more and the grey-haired man returned. In his hands he held several phials of different coloured liquids. Potions, Harry rightly guessed, but what potions?

"Drink these," the man demanded. Harry eyed him coldly, he had no intention of drinking anything this man gave him. The man sighed warily and fished his wand from a pocket in his robes. "Drink them, they will not harm you." Harry continued to stare at him coldly.

With another sigh the man waved his wand. Harry found his mouth opening involuntarily, as though his jaw was being prised apart by some superhuman strength. The man poured half a phial of an amber liquid into his mouth before once again waving his wand, this time Harry's jaw was sealed shut and no matter how hard he tried he could not open it again. Harry couldn't breath, his nose was clotted with blood and so he couldn't breath through that. He was going to choke to death on whatever vile concoction had been forced into his mouth. "Your jaw will function again when you have swallowed the potion," the man said. Harry tried everything he could to counter the effects of the jaw-locking charm, but eventually he was forced to put the man's statement to the test as his desperation for air outweighed his will to not drink the potion.

The pain in his ribs started to ease and soon there was no pain at all. True to the man's word Harry was once again able to open his mouth. "Why are you healing me?" he asked.

"Because Albus sent you," the man replied. "Though why he would send you without informing me first I have no idea. The man knows how I greet uninvited guests."

Harry hung his head. "Albus is dead."

A gasp was the only sign of shock that Harry heard, he wasn't looking at the man but looking at the floor. "When? How?"

"He was murdered," Harry answered the question. "Near the end of the last school year."

Harry looked up once more to see the man stood gazing thoughtfully down at him, the maliciousness in his eyes previously had now been replaced by thoughtfulness. Their eyes were locked for several seconds before the man moved swiftly and waved his wand in Harry's direction. Harry flinched, waiting for the pain that would announce that the curse had hit its mark. Instead the ropes that bound him un-knotted themselves before falling limply to the floor. With another wave of his wand the open wounds on Harry's head and face were healed and the blood cleaned.

"I am sorry," the man said apologetically. "Albus Dumbledore was a great man, and anybody he sends to me should be treated with more respect. It is me you seek?" the man asked.

"Are you Marques Torres?"

The man nodded.

"Then yes, it is you whom Albus sent me to find."

"You are lucky that you were alone; had there been any more of you, you would never have seen the inside of this room." Harry didn't doubt the man. "Why did Albus send you here?"

Harry gulped. "He sent me here to ask you to train me." Harry mentally winced. He didn't trust this man, he didn't like this man, and yet Dumbledore had sent him here to ask for his help. He had come all this way, and he couldn't turn back now.

The man grabbed Harry's hand in an iron grip. "What is your name, kid?" he asked as he shook his hand. Harry was surprised when the man's face broke into a toothy smile. Surely this wasn't the same man that had just been kicking him?

"Harry. Harry Potter."

"I am glad to meet you, Potter, though it could have been under better circumstances I am sure," the man answered. "I am Marques Torres, in my own tongue; Mars Tower in your own." Marques spun on his heel, just has he had before retrieving the knife he had held to Harry's throat, and strode casually toward the door out of the room. "Come!" he commanded. "We shall share a table, then I shall assess your skills."

Harry stared at the retreating back of Marques Torres for several seconds before steeling his nerve and following him out of the room. Dumbledore would not have sent him to be trained by a man that was dangerous, would he?

A/N: For information concerning the website I share with Le Rob (where chapters tend to appear first) please visit my bio page.