After waking up, General Fung had been rather excited to see them go, urging Aang to go learn the rest of the elements as quick as he could. Sadly for them, just as they were about to head for the city, word of the capture of Omashu had gotten back to General Fung. Aang had been insistent they to Omashu and save King Bumi, even if the general insisted that it would be a better idea to get an earthbender master here instead. It had been a lot of yelling, but the General finally conceded, seeing that he could not change his mind, and had no argument to begin with. He seemed to think they would free all of Omashu, so was finally satisfied.
They got on Appa, and Harry marveled at all the nature and mountains around him. He hadn't been traveling a lot, and this much was nature was new to him. He inhaled the fresh hair, and even as his heart ached for his friends, he was quite happy where he was.
Before they knew it, they'd arrived at the base of the city to what looked like a sewer entrance. Harry wrinkled his nose at the foul-smelling water. He really wished he'd learned the bubble head charm for the tournament right now. The soldier looked at them, before bowing a goodbye and leaving quickly. It's not like Harry could blame him. He quickly stepped to the side as Aang used his airbending to open the sewer tunnel, and quickly started heading in. Katara and Aang used their bending to get rid of the water, and Harry cast Aqua Eructo, blocking most of the water. Sokka clung to him, trying in vain to stop the water from cascading down on him. Harry tried to widen his water shield, but it was already exhausting keeping it up as it was. The wizard sighed in relief when they finally made it in the city. He had tried not to vomit many times. Even if this world was full of nature, the lack of showers was going to suck, he just knew it.
They all stood up and Aang being the best, used his airbending to dry them off. "Harry! They won't come off!" yelled Sokka, panicking at the weird tentacle beings that were stuck on his forearms and his upper back. The wizard stared at them for a moment, bewildered by what he was seeing before taking out his wand. "Accio!" The octopus-like beings writhed for a few seconds, before coming off and flying towards him. Harry ducked as they sailed above his head. Sokka whined as he scratched at the slightly bloody holes. "Stop making so much noise! And you know, you could've just tickled them and they would've let go." Said Aang with a small smile on his face. Sokka muttered under his breath as he scratched at his new injuries.
"Hey! What are you kids doing at this hour? You know there's a curfew!" shouted a voice behind them. They all turned to see a Fire Nation soldier coming towards them with a torch in his hand.. "We're just going home sir!" exclaimed Katara, Aang putting on a beige hat, as they started walking the opposite way stiffly. "Wait, what's wrong with him?" shouted the soldier as he quickly got close to Sokka. Harry tensed, fidgeting with his wand, even if he was tired from his earlier magic use.
"He's got pentapox, sir. It's highly contagious." Quickly lied Katara, as the soldier bent down to look at her brother. Sokka marvellously understood, and fake groaned like a zombie. "It's deadly too!" added Harry with a sly smile. The guards muttered with each other, before running away in fear.
Harry stared at the guards as they ran, a smile making his way on his face. "I can't believe that worked." He whispered to Katara as they walked. "I know right? They're not the smartest out there, clearly." She chuckled. They fell silent again, walking around the city. Harry was fascinated by the city. This was so different from home or the North Pole. Everywhere he went, just reminded him how far away he was from home.
"So where do you think Bumi is?" asked Harry, distracting him and looking at Aang out of the corner of his eyes. The avatar was looking around the city, his lips pursued. "The only place they'd keep him would be where he wouldn't be able to earthbend…" That didn't really help Harry, who didn't really know the … conditions of earthbending. It hadn't exactly been covered in the crash course. "Let's just try to go up, and maybe we'll find something," proposed Aang. They all shrugged, with no better idea on what to do.
They started walking in a random direction, staying silent and alert for any sign of soldiers. A few minutes passed by with nothing in sight until a deep rumbling caught their attention. A boulder was heading down a ramp, aiming directly for a group of people walking underneath. Aang quickly blasted the chunk of rock, as Harry cursed. He quickly grabbed his friends, tapping them all on their shoulders and whispering the disillusionment charm with all the power he could get. Harry's eyes were closed as he concentrated on keeping them invisible, each second seeming like an hour.
He knew he had gotten a little bit more powerful during his stay in this world, but still, putting four people invisible was no small feat. "It's okay, they went up to go see where the boulder was coming from." Whispered Katara in his ear. The wizard quickly dropped the spell, panting as he recovered, his core slowly filled itself back up again. It was weird, he'd never felt that before. He knew that he would need to eat and sleep to go back to full power, but this was new. Not that he was complaining.
"Woah dude, that was so cool! And tingly! But how does that even work?" whisper-shouted Sokka. Harry stood back up with a small smile, as Sokka and Aang gushed about the coolness/weirdness of magic. "How did you do that?" asked a deep voice behind them. They all turned in fighting stances to see two men in earthbending clothing, scowls on their faces. "Why did you stop us? We could have dealt a devastating blow to the Fire Nation!" shouted the man. They all quickly shushed him, looking around wildly.
"We didn't know you were part of the rebellion. Besides, you were trying to kill people, why wouldn't we stop you?" asked Aang, a frown on his face. "If you're part of the rebellion, can you get us to the leader?" interrupted Katara before the man could retaliate. He glared at Aang for a few seconds before sighing in annoyance. "Yeah sure. You're going to explain your airbending tricks to the leader, though." He agreed, looking at Harry and Aang intensively.
They all went back towards the ground, trying to be as silent as possible. Luckily for them, the group hadn't noticed their conversation, and only the guards were left, checking out the set-up for the boulder. They quickly made their way to what seemed like smooth stone, before the earthbenders did sharp kicks, and the stone slid away, letting them come in.
There was a round tunnel, leading them to a group of men that were standing around each other. "Do you guys know where Bumi might be captured?" asked Aang straight away. The men looked at each other before looking back at their group, "No we don't. And clearly, he's not there to help us. We are going to take Omashu back on our own terms!" he shouted.
"Why wouldn't King Bumi help you?" asked Harry in confusion. It's not like it was his fault he'd been captured by the Fire Nation. The man scowled, before gaining a far away look. "On the day of the invasion, I asked King Bumi what he was going to do. He replied that he was going to do nothing, and he let himself be captured." His jaw tightened, clearly bitter about the whole affair. "I will uphold the duty to my people, and fight for their freedom. It is the only path worth dying for." He said with conviction.
"Actually," cut in Aang, "it's not the only option. You can leave Omashu. You are clearly outnumbered, you won't be able to fight. Retreat, and fight another day instead." He suggested. The men muttered amongst themselves in appreciation. While the leader didn't seem as happy about the situation, he clearly realized that his men wouldn't side with him. "But how are we even supposed to leave Omashu? There are thousands of citizens. It's not like they'd let us out." He argued.
Sokka drew himself up with a sharp grin. "Leave that to me."
XxX
Harry winced as he applied the small suckers to his neck, letting them there for a few seconds before tickling them to remove them. This all seemed so silly, and he seriously doubted that was going to work, but it's not like they had any better plan. Disillusioning the entirety of the civilians was a no go. The wizard stood to the side as Sokka taught the men how to act sick, which was frankly hilarious. It looked way too much like a zombie for Harry to take any of this seriously. He was quite glad the leader had forgotten to question him on his 'airbending' abilities.
Nonetheless, he went at the end the swamp of earth kingdom citizens, and marched forward in the most zombie way that he could. Katara had asked him to make sure nobody was taken by the guards. He blinked in surprise, and tried not to act too out of place, as a baby dressed in fire nation clothing seemed to join the back of the group, looking delightedly curious. He quickly looked around, and sure enough, the guards had run away in fear. Snickering, he went and quickly picked up the baby and disillusioned himself. If a scary firebenders sent guards to search for the baby amongst them, this would be bad.
The kid squirmed in his arms, but soon enough was laughing in delight at the nonexistent ground below him. He spotted a few guards talking amongst themselves, and set the baby down. The child made a curious noise at him, and staring at his hands, attracting the attention of the guards who quickly scooped up the baby and ran towards the centre of Omashu.
Sensing that his spell was reaching its limit, Harry quickly ran back out of the city, before dispelling the charm as he joined the others. How did a baby even come here? He mused in confusion. When he arrived, Aang was sitting with them, looking at the ground in sadness. Hary startled at the weird creature next to him, but ignored it. "You didn't find him?" inquired Harry as he sat down with the rest. Aang sadly shook his head. "What do you want to do?" asked the wizard, "Sadly, we can't stay here forever." Said Katara, a hand on Aang's shoulder. "I can't just let Bumi stay imprisoned here, though!" he exclaimed, clearly worried about his friend.
Harry could totally understand where he was coming from, he'd done the exact same thing with Sirius. And while the situation wasn't entirely the same, he understood the feeling well. "It's late, why don't we sleep the night and try and find him tomorrow morning?" suggested Harry. "No, I wanna fly overhead with Appa, before we go to sleep. Don't worry, we'll fly high so they won't see us" assured Aang at their worried looks. Knowing he wouldn't be convinced, the siblings and Harry agreed, as they jumped on the sky bison. Not even five minutes into the flight, before he could fly high enough, a fire blast came from the ground, startling Appa so bad that he flayed in the air. He managed to right himself, but other blasts came. Aang quickly tried and put distance between the three girls, but they were keeping up with him.
"Aang, we should land! There are guards coming this way. If we get rid of these guys, they might be more concerned about them if we beat them up than us!" yelled Sokka, pointing at a group of guys coming with torches. Realising that the water tribe teen was right, Aang quickly set Appa down, as they waited for the group in the dark. Soon enough, three girls were coming towards them, looking as if they owned the world.
The gang quickly got into a fighting position, looking directly at the three girls. "Well, well, if it isn't the climbing monkey." Commented the middle girl, a fireball illuminating her face in the night, a sly smile on her face. At their obvious look of confusion, she rolled her eyes dramatically, "Come on, citizens fall under a fake illness, and guards saw a kid in beige clothing hopping around the city. It couldn't be more obvious something was up." She crossed her arms, extinguishing her fire. The wizard couldn't help but be reminded of the Fire Nation Prince who had helped them save the Moon Spirit. She's definitely not as pretty though, he though absentmindly before shaking his head. Whatever, it's not like he'd ever meet the other teen, and even if he did, he'd probably be trying to kidnap Aang.
Harry focused back on the conversation, becoming nervous at the clear fight that was going to take place. He didn't have enough of a grasp on his water spell to make it without being suspiciously labelled. Sadly, he didn't have enough time to think about it, because the girl with the long slick black hair threw knives from her sleeves, forcing the group to dodge. Harry went right, and stuck close to Katara, as a knife came his way, his instincts taking over as he drew his wand. "Aqua Eructo!" he yelled, forcing magic into it so the blast was pretty strong.
To his dismay, the girl dodged, sending an arrow from… somewhere? Cursing, he ran away from the rest of the group, trying to keep her on him. A sting by his ear told him that the girl was exceptionally skilled at aiming, so he quickly turned around, "Expelliarmus!" the spell came to mind and before he could figure out why this was a bad idea, the red light attracting attention, but it managed to hit her as she stumbled on a camp pike, weapons floating towards him.
Realizing his mistake, he quickly cast the vanishing spell, her weapons disappearing from existence. The girl was looking at him with wide confused eyes, before she ran towards him once again. "Stupid, Harry. Why couldn't you stick to the one spell you're supposed to be doing!" he muttered angrily to himself. Figuring that the cat was out of the bag, he spun around as she was about to catch up to him, "Flipendo! Flipendo! Flipendo!" he quickly cast in succession as she weaved around his spells. Just as he was about to run out of steam, he managed to hit her, her body flying through the air and hitting the ground with a large thud.
He quickly ran away, trying to spot his friends. Aang seemed to be flying high, escaping and leaving the fire girl. Seeing that the other girl was also away from them, Harry ran towards Appa and quickly got on just as everybody climbed on and they were off. "Wait Aang, what about King Bumi?" yelled Katara over the wind. "It's fine, I'll tell you about it later!" cried out Aang. The sky bison flew closer to the people who had been escaping. Everybody had managed to take their stuff and leave, everyone quickly running away from their homes.
"So, knife girl might know I have magic." Admitted Harry, ashamed that he'd not even managed to last a day. Aang sighed, but smiled nonetheless. "It's fine, you would probably have done it by accident. It's not like they'll think of a wizard from another world." He joked. It managed to bring a small smile and some chuckles from the group as they flew away.
XxX: Hi guys, I honestly rushed a bit to get this chapter out, but I hope you like it! I knew that I wanted to change a few things with harry there, and this is what came out. I rewatched the Return to Omashu episode, and realized that Azula actually gave up on Aang, so I figured that ending it this way was fine. Also, Azula figuring it out that the plague was fake would not be that hard to put in, because frankly, I can't believe they got a way with it. It would make anyone suspicious lol. I knew that there was no way that Aang was going to give up on Bumi, so this is what I settled with. Hope you guys liked it, and I'll see you next week!