"What do we do now?" Harry asked.
"What do you mean? We just wait for them to come back, right?" Finn asked.
"Well, that is an option. The problem with that is we don't know where they went. I know for a fact Logan would not have left without checking with me. Plus their plan was to set up a camp here on the beach," Harry explained. "Now, it's going to be getting dark soon. I'm not sure we should stay here without knowing what happened while we were gone. If we can find a more protected spot on the beach, I can set some defenses while we sleep."
To be honest, Harry was really concerned. The only things on the beach were their orange peels and the wand. There were only a few tracks leading up to the jungle. Harry figured those were the people looking for food. No tracks leading away from the beach suggested that all of the people left. They just disappeared. Harry would think they all apparated or took a portkey, but besides Logan there were obviously muggles. Logan couldn't have made a portkey without a wand, even if he had known how. That knowledge was only shared with a few and they had to have ministry approval to know.
The spot was way too open to be easily defended, but he couldn't just leave the other boys alone. Harry was seriously considering this might be a magic island. Hermione had briefly mentioned them once, and Harry wished he had payed more attention. All he knew was there was very few in the world and they were all different from each other and almost impossible to find. He was wary of making their way into the jungle this late in the day without knowing exactly what was in there.
"But what if they come back and we are not here?" Mike wanted to know.
"Who cares? Do we really need them? Look, none of the people on the plane looked like they knew what to do, and Logan didn't look any better. Between the four of us we can take care of ourselves, right? I say we find some place to camp for the night like Harry said. In the morning we can figure something out." Puck had a point. It would be easier to defend just the four of them rather than a bunch of people. Plus the boys already knew of his magic so he didn't have to hide it.
Mike and Finn were silent for a few moments, presumably thinking it over.
"Alright, I'm in," Mike said.
"Me, too." Finn agreed.
"Should we head back to where we just were?" Puck asked.
"No, there was just beach all the way and jungle all the way down. We need to have our backs to something other than the jungle. We don't know what is in the jungle. I'm not ruling out anything so we need to protect our selves as much as possible," Harry told them and they set off down the beach in the opposite direction then they headed earlier.
"Do all wizard teenagers know this stuff? 'Cause not to be rude, but you look like you have done this before," Finn said.
Harry laughed. "No, they don't. You could say I've lead an interesting life."
"Dude, your like what...16? How interesting could it have been," Puck asked.
"17, and you have no idea," Harry drawled. "What are your lives like. Living in America must be pretty neat."
"I guess. We live in Ohio, man. Nothing really interesting happens there. Basically it's all just high school stuff, which I for one am glad is almost over," Mike said.
"Oh? What are you all doing when you leave school?" Harry had always wondered what a normal teenage life was like.
"Well, I'm heading out to California. It's on the West Coast. It's going to be awesome. Sit on the beach all day and have fun in the sun," Puck revealed. "I'm gonna be moving my pool cleaning business out there."
"I'm joining my girlfriend Rachel and brother in New York. They want to sing on Broadway," Finn told him excitedly.
"I'm actually going into medicine. I got accepted into Columbia."
"That's great. It's cool that you guys have it all planned out like that," Harry told them. They had been making good time as they talked and in the distance Harry saw the beach began to turn rocky, so he was hopeful to find some place to stop soon enough.
"Enough about us, what are you going to do after you graduate, Harry?" Finn asked.
"Yeah, it's your senior year too right?"
"Yes, I'm in my final year. And as for what I'm going to do, it's pretty simple. I'm going to disappear." Harry informed them.
"Disappear? Like go invisible? Can you do that? Is that some sort of wizard tradition?"
"No, Finn. Well, I can go invisible, but that's not what I meant. I mean I'm leaving. I'm going to travel the world. Disappear right into the crowd. It's going to be wonderful," Harry told them dreamily. "No one to tell me what I can or can not do. No responsibilities. Just going wherever I want whenever I want. Only a few more months and I'm gone."
"Fuck, that sounds great! I thought I had a good plan."
"Won't your family be disappointed if you leave though?" Mike asked. "I know mine would. My parents have been planning my future since I was a baby."
"I don't actually have any family. Well, any that doesn't despise me. And my future was planned too. That's exactly why I'm leaving. No one asked me if I wanted to do any of the stuff they had planned. They just told me and expected me to follow. Well, fuck that. I did my responsibility, one that should never have been mine," Harry ranted not even pausing to consider what he was revealing to practically strangers.
"Does Harry ever get to be a kid? A regular teenager? NO! Let's send him to war! 'Hey, Harry we know your only 15,' they said, ' but go kill that evil immortal guy. You've killed him before, so it shouldn't be too hard a second time, right? We're all counting on you while we hide in here. Oh, and try and hurry up will you? ' And I did! I just went along with everything thinking it would be over soon. But was it? Nope. Now I have to be an Auror and go to ministry parties and prance around for people to gawk as like some sort of freak. Don't you think I want to do something normal? Go on a date without the guy selling his story to the paper? Nope, can't do that. Go on vacation without the plane crashing and ending up on an enchanted island? No, can't do that either."
"Hey, Harry? You're kind of sparking man," Puck voice broke into Harry's rant.
Harry realized that at some point he had come to a stop on the beach and had been practically yelling at the other teens. Harry looked down and sure enough his magic was dancing along his skin, emitting deep purple sparks into the air. Harry closed his eyes and breathed deeply and struggled for calm. After a moment he felt completely embarrassed and hated to think what the others thought of him. He chanced a quick peek at the others but instead of the looks of fear or disgust all he saw was concern.
Harry cleared his throat and motioned towards the direction they had been walking. "Shall we continue. Sorry about that. I'm still working on some issues, I guess," Harry told them quietly.
"It's alright, dude. Now I have more information to help my guesses," Puck teased with a grin.
"For the record, you really do lead an interesting life man," Finn said. Harry could tell they had a lot a questions, and was thankful for them not asking at the moment.
"Yeah. I know. At least I got some cool stories out of it. Well, now they are cool. Then they were just terrifying."
"You should totally tell us some!"
"You know what? I'll make you a deal. I'll tell you some of mine if you guys share some of yours."
"Why would you want to hear ours? They are nothing interesting like yours."
"Speak for yourself, Frankenteen. The man clearly wants to hear about how Puckzilla is a stud, right?"
"The grass is always greener on the other side I suppose, Finn. And I have no clue what a Puckzilla is."
Finn and Mike laughed while Puck looked appalled. "Dude! I'm Puckzilla. The Puckasaurus. Stop laughing!," Puck snapped at Mike and Finn who just laughed harder.
"Is this some American thing I'm not getting?"
"Dude! I'm a badass. Check out the mohawk," Puck said pointing to his hair. "And all badasses have badass names."
"Dude! Your name isn't even Puck," Finn said through his laughter.
"It's not?" Harry asked, confused.
"Nah. I've known him since we were kids. His real is No-"
"Hey- how about here to camp?" Puck broke in.
Harry looked around to where they had ended up. The jungle had gradually given way to a rock cliff that towered above them. The shore line was about thirty feet from the cliffs. Best of all there was no tracks in the sand beside theirs.
"For tonight it's perfect. It's not long term, really. But it is defensible for now. We need to find anything big around. I can change things into other things, but I'm not good enough to create something out of nothing. So big rocks or shells, anything like that."
The others spent the next few minutes collecting objects while Harry spent the time laying wards around the area to camp. He also set spelled a mark into the sand to let the other boys know not to leave the area.
The boys had piled all the stuff together, and Harry told them that it was more than enough.
"Alright. I'll do my best. If my transfiguration professor was here she could make us a tent better than a five star hotel, but we'll have to make due with me for now."
He transfigured two of the largest rocks into two person tents and the rest became four sleeping bags, four chairs, four cups and a fire pit. The muggles were still enthralled by the magic, and watching in awe. Finn was practically jumping up and down shouting suggestions for whatever else they might need.
"We don't need a T.V., Finn" Puck said with a slap to the back of Finn's head.
"Ow! You never know, man."
"I actually can't make one, so it's good we don't need one. Before you suggest a phone or something, I can't make anything electronic."
"What about pizza? Can you change that rock into pizza?" Finn asked seriously.
"Nope. Magic can't make food. Luckily enough I can conjure water though. So we won't have to limit our self to finding a permanent location by a water source."
Mike looked at him when he made that comment. "Permanent? This is all just temporary, right? I mean, they have to be out looking for us."
"I don't want to make the mistake of preparing for short-term and needing more. I have learned it's much better to be over prepared than under prepared. I'm not going to take the chance with our lives. That is why I put the wards up. You all should know that you shouldn't step past the red line in the sand around the camp by the way. You won't get hurt, but you will get stuck. We should really have a discussion about all this, if you guys are ready."
"I understand. And you are right we should talk about our plans," Mike conceded.
The sun was low in the sky by the time the boys were settled in camp. They sat in the chairs around the small fire Harry had conjured in the fire pit. Harry passed out the cups and cast aguamenti at each.
"Can't you make anything stronger than water?" Puck asked as he drank with a grimace.
"Well I can make wine, but we really need to be clear headed for this discussion. Plus none have had water in hours, and after being in the sun so long we need to keep hydrated."
"Buzz kill," Puck shot back with a grin.
Harry shrugged. "I've had been called worse."
Puck laughed. "Yeah, me too."
"Harry, since you seem to have some clue what we are supposed to do why don't you start?" Mike suggested.
"Alright. This is what we know so far. We started having trouble about halfway through the flight. Only about half the passengers ended up on our beach. No one knew how we got there, and there was no wreckage. We have reason to believe the island is magic of some sort. The evidence supporting this is the barrier preventing anything from leaving or possibly entering. Also I don't know if you noticed but the climate and vegetation are wrong for the area of the Atlantic we supposedly crashed. It feels like we are closer to the equator than we should be."
"I did recognize that," Mike said. "I mean there were oranges. I don't think that's normal."
Harry nodded. "Exactly. I'm don't know much about plants, but I know orange trees grow in tropical climates. Now, I haven't seen any magical plants, but I haven't really been looking and I don't know that many besides what we learned in class. Herbology wasn't my best subject, but it was my friend Neville's. He was on the plane with me, so if we find him he will know. That brings me to our first problem. The other passengers. Do we search for them?"
"Which passengers? Our friends or the people who disappeared off the beach," Finn asked
"I don't care if I sound like a dick, but I didn't know any of those people on the beach. I say we look for the people we know," Puck said. "They are more important."
Harry thought about it for a moment. In the past he might have gone charge off into the jungle, wand drawn looking for battle. But he didn't want to go looking for a fight that wasn't his own anymore. The passengers from the plane had a trained auror with them. He cared about his friends, and if it came down to it he would die for them. If he came across the others he would help, but he would much rather devote his time to finding out what happened with Neville and Luna.
"No, I think your right.," Harry told the others. "Plus if my professor is on the island it will be in our favor to find him. I hate the bastard, but if there is anyone better than me at living through impossible situations it's him. He at least has never died."
"Wait, does that mean-"
"Moving on. So we are searching for our friends come tomorrow. Agreed?" Harry waited until they all nodded before continuing. "Alright if we are going to be moving there is no sense to set up a base yet, so we don't have to worry about that."
"I don't know about you guys but I'm tired of this. We are safe for the moment so we might as well relax right? We can talk about this stuff in the morning. It's not like we are on a time limit," Puck said.
Personally, Harry agreed. He on a beach with some friendly blokes sitting around a fire. For the moment it could feel like a vacation he had been looking for.
When Harry said this out loud the others agreed and Puck raised his cup. "Now that's what I'm talking about. Now, hook me up with some alcohol, magic man!"
Harry laughed and transfigured all their drinks. "If my friends Fred and George were here they could have made Firewhiskey. Now that will mess you up!"
Finn perked up. "Ooh, I can sense a story there! You promised to share."
"Nope you first. Let's hear a drinking story from one of you and then I'll go," Harry argued.
"Alright, I got one about Finnessa here. One word: Puke."
"Puck! No! He said stories about ourselves!"
"Well, I was there so it counts. OK so the football team had just won our first game and we decided to get drunk and celebrate. Finn here got trashed and ended up throwing up all over the place before passing out. We all woke up late the next morning, hungover as fuck, and had to rush to get to school, right? So we get to school, none of us even noticed the smell until first period. Turns out Finn had puked in both shoes the night before and didn't even notice when he ran out the door in the morning. He had go the whole day wearing them. It was awesome."
"It was awesome for you! You just sat back and laughed while Quinn yelled at me from across the hall! She wouldn't even come near me. And don't think I didn't know you had sneakers in your locker, Puck!" Finn shouted over the laughter of Harry, Mike and Puck.
"I remember that day. They called you pukey for like a month after," Mike said. "Alright now it's your turn Harry."
"Fine. A deals a deal. OK, so Fred and George are twin pranksters two years above me in school. In our fourth year, there was a competition with two other schools. Through no fault of my own, I was selected to be one of the competitors. The first task I had to battle a dragon, and I won. So to celebrate, the twins sneaked into the town nearby and liberated some Ogden's Firewhiskey. Best there is, only it makes you breathe fire every time you take a shot. It was my first time ever drinking any alcohol and they always forgot I wasn't raised in the wizarding world, so no one thought to tell me I would be breathing fire.
So I take the shot and it literally burned. I mean I've got smoke coming out my ears and a 15 foot stream of fire out of my mouth. I ended up setting the couch on fire. We panicked and tried to fix it, only by that time we they were drunk, and I didn't know the spell. We ended up transfiguring the couch into a llama. George figured if we changed the rest of the furniture into animals no one would notice. By the time the rest of the house came down in the morning the three of us were all passed out on the floor of the common room, and I was cuddling a sheep with a chair fabric pattern in its wool."
By the time he had finished Puck was literally on the ground laughing, having fallen out of his chair and the other two boys weren't any better. They spent the next hour or so sharing drinking stories back and forth, and Harry was startled to realize this was actually the best night he had had in a while. But it grew late and after the day they had, they were all pretty beat.
"I don't know about you blokes, but I'm ready for bed," Harry told them while standing and stretching. "One of you can share the tent with me. Unless you feel uncomfortable. Then I'm sure you can squeeze into the other one."
"I'll share," Puck offered.
"Wow. What a surprise," Mike loudly whispered to Finn causing them both to snicker earning them a confused look from Harry and a glare from Puck.
"Ok..." Harry said slowly. "I'll see you in the morning Mike and Finn." Harry was making his way to one of the tents when Puck called out from behind him.
"Hey, man. Your dropped your-" Harry turned in time to see Puck crouch and pick up the extra wand that must have dropped out of his back pocket. As soon as Puck held the polished wood in his hands, the wand emitted a series of gold and blue sparks.
"-wand." Puck looked up from the wand and saw Harry's wide eyed look of complete shock. "Um..is that supposed to happen?"
AN: Yeah, that just happened. Confused? Imagine how they feel. Don't worry it will be explained...you know, eventually.
I'm serious y'all stuff is gonna happen in the story.
Also, part of the magic of the island makes Harry speak American English with a British accent. Wow, that island is wacky!