Chapter 03

Backwards Compatible

(Part Two)

Oh thank god; He finally reached the top! After he did, he felt like nearly collapsing onto the ground. Well, he would, if it weren't frigid to the touch. He could feel it through his sneakers! It must be the height and wind that makes everything colder here. So, no more collapsing for our little hero today.

Let's take a moment to flash back to the moment our hero met that cat's eyes and remembered everything about Wonderland, followed by him fainting. Man, that wasn't manly at all. But, to his credit, at least he remembered Midri and on top of that returned to Wonderland against all odds. Still, he blacked out because of a kitten. Surely doesn't have likeable implications concerning Harry. Not that he believed in machism or anything. Alright, moment over.

No, instead, he bent over with his hands on his knees panting. "So. Many. Stairs. Grr!" He proceeded to think unpleasant things for a five seconds, during which he regained his breath.

Apparently, nestled in the fluffy umbrella of leaves and twisting black limbs on top of this tree was a circular, stone plateau. It wasn't particularly big, and there were no walls to speak of, but because of thick columns periodically interspersed on the perimeter it held a flat roof.

"Har... ry...?" The speech was painfully languid and drowsy, but it was still intelligible. "Harry, you're... you really came?"

Now who could that be?

"Midri!"

With his composure and mind in the right place, he dashed to the heart of the plateau where a spherical steel cage floated off the floor. He wasn't sure if he could call it big. If the trees in this forest weren't so huge, his perception of big and small would be comprehensible. But the sphere was barely big enough to sit in, let alone stand up in. Midri seemed to be curled up like an abandoned kitten in the cage. Her tail was tucked between her legs, and her ears were pulled back showing her unhappiness.

To keep a person locked up in something like this for—what was it, two days?! She was just a girl! Sure, it seems like she ran away. But to do this was a bit extreme, wasn't it? Harry began fretting on what kind of people the Cheshire's society was composed of. Having met Midri first, his first impression of Cheshires was that they were mischievous yet caring, but after all that happened on his second trip so far... He wasn't so sure about anything anymore. But he did know Midri was his friend, so he made sure to focus his thoughts on getting her out of this cage.

"Are you okay?" Harry asked, worried.

Midri had been honestly very pissed off until now. Putting her in here against her will and going to such lengths to make sure she didn't run away was one thing. To worry her charge, force him to climb this horrible tree, and let him see his guardian in this state was another, though. She knew that despite Harry's good intentions, the Cheshires would not let her go so easily. Guilt was tearing her up inside, because her charge—Harry, her best friend—had come all this way while defying the laws of the universe, just to have to go back empty-handed. It was cruel.

And Harry's dedication was a big debt to repay. It gratefully made her feel warmer inside, but it tortured her mind as well.

Midri's intuition kicked in, and she knew then that she couldn't let her negative mood hurt Harry. "I'm fine." She smiled weakly, "Could be better. About not being there to meet you, nya... I'm sorry."

Harry didn't know how to react to this. She was obviously not fine, but she was trying to sound like everything was normal. It reminded him of himself, and being locked in his cupboard day after day. Though he didn't like it, he didn't do anything in retaliation and tried to act like any other kid. This was done mostly in fear of what his Aunt and Uncle would do if he defied them. It was not like he had anywhere else to go, or could go without being dragged back somehow. Harry's fists clenched at his sides as he found that this situation now made him feel more upset than it had before. It didn't take much to make this personal.

By this time, any respect he had for the vast majority of Cheshires reversed and took a nose-dive.

His control on temper wasn't as good as Midri's, but it was still there. She could tell it wasn't so much her that he was angry at while he shouted at her, "It's not fine! Even though you were just waiting for me, they locked you up! You... It doesn't bother you at all?!" His fists were shaking, and as memories of his own life flashed through his mind, the strong compulsion to hit something was hard to deny.

But he calmed down at her next words. He started feeling bad when he noticed that her voice was shaky with fear at his volume, but she seemed to understand at least. "It does bother me..." She tried not to sniffle and cry, but her pleasant facade wasn't that good in the first place. "B-but I can't escape, no matter what I try. Even when I a-asked nicely, they wouldn't l-let me!"

She lost her composure and curled into an even tighter ball, probably to hide her face horribly distorted by her crying. To her credit though, she didn't utter a sound other than frequent sniffles.

No one likes it when their friend is crying. Harry is a sweet child too, considering his cirumstances at home. So, that is what it took for him to lose his temper, and thus control of his fists. In a childish tantrum, he rashly punched the obviously magical steel cage floating in the center of the stone plateau. He wasn't sure what he expected to achieve from that exactly, but what happened afterwards definitely wasn't it. Just for an instant, a flash of warm light erupted silently around his fist, and then it was gone without a trace. If one weren't paying attention, it wouldn't be noticed. But Harry was paying that much attention, and it prompted him to stop to think.

First he noticed his hand wasn't in pain. There's no doubt he's hit things before, so he would be understandably confused at that. Second and most important, however, he noticed his hand went slightly into the cage. The metal around his fist didn't bend inwards towards the impact zone, because there was no impact zone. His fist just... went through.

Harry pulled back his fist slowly in awe, watching as wherever his fist touched the strange steel disappeared. In a dazed wonder, he unthinkingly uncurled his hand and touched his palm flat against the cage. Not aware of what her charge was doing, Midri was even more unprepared than Harry for what happened next. One moment she's hiding her face until she's calm again, then she's hitting the floor below the cage, and her rounded form is unravelled painfully on the ground.

There was a moment of tense silence as the two tried to figure out what just happened. After a while, Midri groaned pitifully as she tried to ignore a couple days of starvation and restless sleep in order to stand up in front of Harry. She could at least manage that. Though even that proved somewhat difficult with her mental state right now.

When she did, Harry had to help her anyway unless she wanted to kiss the ground again. Things felt awkward somehow, but there were things more important that they needed to worry about. So Harry started first.

Worried about a lot of things, he asked his friend, "What do we do now?" Because honestly speaking, he knew nothing about Wonderland and wasn't sure if he could go back to Earth with or without Midri.

"Umm." She muttered intelligibly in reply, but rushed out a solution. "Let's run away! Hurry!"

His panic at her panic made his tone even more afraid. "Uhh! Where? Where do we go?"

And thus started the frantic escape from Cheshire Tower.

Run away! Escape, escape!

They were exhausted by the time they made it into the clearing where they had met each other. They didn't have much of a plan either, so they felt pretty much doomed by that point. The only reason they even made it this far was because of Midri's magic, which was also exhausted. Contrary to her typical behaviour, this time she hadn't bothered explaining it. All she had said was an indisputable "I'm borrowing some magic." before a strange sensation of an invisible layer of thick clothes covered his and her whole bodies. Then with Harry supporting her awkwardly they had walked right past everyone. Though the feeling faded away only a few minutes into the forest, Harry felt it was better than nothing.

Without a need for words, they both flopped in synch onto the especially inviting turquoise grass. Their laboured breathing seemed quite loud in the quiet of the forest, but at the moment they didn't care. They were tired, they felt doomed, and they were going to get their breaths back. They both gradually rolled over from on their hands and knees to on their backs side-by-side, not unlike they had done the first time around.

Eventually they were back to at least breathing normally. A pleasant sigh escaped Midri's lips as she stared fondly up into the fluorescent canopy. Harry too copied her, and sighed with appreciation. Silence.

"Don't panic, but... They'll find us eventually, you know." Midri said, completely calm and not visibly worried.

"Yeah." He sounded worried, but he didn't say anything else.

There was another stretch of quiet as they both became wrapped up in their thoughts. It wasn't as awkward as it was a while ago, though. When they were at peace like this, there was a content feeling that was irresistably relaxing.

Midri asked, though more for confirmation than wonder, "Harry, you'll most likely go back to your world again, right?"

"Probably."

"Then, can you..." She caught his attention after mentioning him, but she hesitated, which prompted him to turn his head so he could glance at her. The moment he caught her eyes, she sat up.

He sat up, too. Midri? He would've said aloud, but she was continuing.

"Will you take me with you?" She asked bluntly.

Shock prevented him from speaking for a moment, until he recovered. "B-but, Midri," He stumbled over his words as his mind raced, "what about Wonderland?"

She repeated the latter part of his statement, then easily waved it off. "If I stay here, I'll only be used as a tool here. They'll only lock me up and use me for their sakes. I won't be happy. But with you I am. Happy, that is."

He flushed a little at how easily she admitted that. It may be caused by the fact that he's a boy, and for some reason in boys' heads it's uncool to admit who they like while they'll openly state their dislikes... Or just plain embarassment, but Harry showed a taken-aback expression that offended Midri.

"What? It's true." She insisted, dryly this time. "So next time you're leaving, I'm coming with you." Her voice wasn't commandeering, but it was filled with confidence that she'd be able to.

Harry didn't doubt her abilities. She probably knew a lot more than he did at this point in time, and in the back of his mind he wondered if she would teach him how to do some of the stuff she did. He recalled her saying something about him and her being alike, so if he asked, it didn't sound like an unreasonable thing to him.

But anyway, about her coming to Earth, "What about your ears and tail?"

"What's wrong with my ears and tail?" She asked carefully, having an inkling to his meaning. "Do I need to conceal them?"

A nod of affirmation. "There are no Cheshires on Earth, at least to my knowledge." He thought about the Cheshires' ability of invisibility. "So you'll stick out too much."

"Hmm... Well, I guess that's fine. I can revert this half-transformation with little effort. But I need to eat something." Timely, her stomach growled as if to solidify this fact, making them both laugh.

Midri rapped her fingers against her knees rhythmically as she sat and planned the details for her new adventure. It was unknown territory, so she would need to rely a lot on Harry's knowledge, but there was still a lot she could do for herself. First is the transformation to a more human form.

Harry watched as Midri took a deep breath in and closed her eyes. It was lucky he didn't blink next, because in a flash her fuzzy cat ears ducked into the top of her head while normal human ears peaked out from beneath her messy black-green hair. He glanced down to see her tail had disappeared completely.

He had never really paid attention to her clothing before, but she was wearing simple black shorts with a lower waistband than he'd seen most people wear. To cover up the skin that showed though, she wore a long yet thin white tee-shirt with a swirly black motif on it. She wouldn't look too out of place, though she seemed more punkish than a nine-year-old (assuming she was the same age) would look like. Not to stereotype, but parents typically didn't let their daughters dress like that—especially her black hair that, not to mention, has green in it. He liked it though. Oh, this should remind him that he needs to ask her about any family she might've had, as well.

"Woah." He exclaimed in surprise. "Cool!"

She grinned mischievously at him. "If you're surprised by this simple magic, wait until I'm showing you the real stuff. For Cheshires, transformation is nothing."

Harry grinned as well. "Does that mean you're going to teach me to do magic, too?"

Midri adopted a mockingly hurt expression. "Well of course! It's not like I was just going to do magic to rub it in your face like this: Nya, nya, you wish you could do this, nya!" Her face was definitely not innocent when she was mocking him, if the toothy grin and red tongue were any indication to go by.

He laughed, clearly excited at this opportunity. "Oh yeah, sure you weren't." Of course, though, he had to ask when the moment cooled down, "Midri, you don't have any parents, do you?"

Midri actually stopped to think about it, which confused Harry. When she shook her head negatively but otherwise seemed unaffected by the question, he patiently waited for her to explain like she usually did. He was disappointed when she only gave him a 'What?' look in response.

"Nevermind. I don't have any either." He paused to think of what to say next. "So I live with my Aunt and Uncle."

Excited that Harry had accepted the idea of her tagging along, Midri chirped "Oh, are they nice?"

"... No."

Her face dropped into worry as she tried to see his expression but couldn't as he kept looking away. He was looking away because he didn't want her to see something... She didn't completely understand the necessity for guardians or parents for Harry, seeing as the young in Cheshire society tended to be more independent than the youth in human society. At one point she did have a guardian/parent of course, though that was until she could survive on her own. She did understand the idea of what a guardian was supposed to do and act like, though. Someone who protected the health and vitality of their charge. Midri liked the idea of being a guardian.

So what could be wrong? His Aunt and Uncle were his guardians, right? How could guardians be... not nice, but still be called guardians? What were they doing to Harry, then? Midri's concerns and confusion wouldn't be cleared up until he explained it. The first step was being able to examine his facial expression, because body language told more than words sometimes.

But he wouldn't look at her.

"Hey, Harry... Harry? Look at me."

When he didn't answer, she rolled onto her feet and in one smooth movement flipped over him to the other side he was facing. Startled by her acrobatics, he had no time to cover up the remnants of his previous expression. So she saw. He watched her freeze in recognition, before her expression melted into something soft. He looked down embarrassed at that look, but that wouldn't stop her from leaning forward and hugging him. Even more embarrassed, he didn't move an inch, but in any case she never pulled away.

"Maybe we should both run away." Midri whispered.

Harry wanted to agree. Maybe if he was with Midri, it would work this time. So he hugged her back.

Reaching their ears from deep within the forest, the monstrous bellows of hundreds of furious Cheshires disrupted the peaceful melancholy of the moment. Perhaps they hadn't expected the both of them to be able to make it this far. Loosening their embrace, the Green Cheshire and the Green-Eyed Human shared a scared look before with a burst of adrenaline they both got to their feet and ran. Leading him by hand, Midri picked a direction she'd explored before, and they stumbled tiredly together through the warped foliage. Preoccupied with the mad sounds of the hunters after them, they didn't notice the growing sparsity of the black tree trunks as they sped through.

[ Chapter End! ]

So, by what's obvious, we can tell the both of them plan to go to Earth.

Midri, or Midori, will most likely have culture shock.

Well, this is all assuming they actually elude capture from the Cheshires.

They're also implied to be of the same age, of nine years.

That gives us two years before Harry's Hogwarts Letter.

However, Midri plans on teaching Harry what she knows.

That, and plan a rescue for him as well. :D

They're in for quite a wild ride.