"Morning, Artu..." Roxy stretched and yawned as she got out of bed that morning.
"Morning, Roxy..." Artu yawned as well, getting out of his dog bed slowly.
She went to the bathroom to get cleaned up for the morning and then sat at her window in the royal palace, just enjoying the view.
Her mind began to wander off again. "I wonder if Aunt Nebula managed to do anything for Harry. It's been over a week now..." she thought.
She shook her head to clear it and her stomach rumbled.
"I guess it's time for us to get something to eat, isn't it?" She smiled down at her canine familiar.
"It is. I could really do with some breakfast myself!" Artu agreed.
"To the dining hall then!" Roxy cheered as she led the way through the twists and turns of the place.
When she got there, her mother and her father were already there.
"Good morning, Roxy. You're up earlier than usual..." Morgana smiled.
"Yeah... Artu and I were hungrier than usual so we came down for an early breakfast. What else can I say?" Roxy shrugged.
She sat down next to her father and was immediately attended to by one of the waitstaff on standby.
"I really must thank you all for getting me here. Really. I'm so grateful." A familiar male voice made Roxy sit up even straighter than she already was.
"You're welcome. Now the dining hall is this way so she may be here- if she got up early this morning, that is..." Roxy heard her aunt's voice.
She slowly began to eat her porridge.
As soon as her aunt entered the room, with Harry behind her, the spoon she was holding paused halfway between the bowl and the porridge.
Stephania and an unfamiliar fairy entered behind them and took seats at the table, calling out greetings to her.
It was then that she snapped out of her apparent trance.
"Harry? Is that you?" She asked slowly as Harry sat directly across from her.
"In the flesh. I really have to thank you for asking your aunt to get me out of that... place..." Harry smiled at her, feeling extremely grateful.
"No problem!" Roxy smiled back.
Nebula, Morgana, Rick, Stephania and the fairy that Roxy was unfamiliar with kept glancing between the two.
"Oh Harry! This is my mother Morgana..." Roxy gestured to her. "And my father Rick..." She patted her father's shoulder.
"It is nice to meet you, Mrs and Mrs Klaus..." Harry said politely.
"It is nice to meet you as well, Harry. How did you come to meet our daughter?" Morgana asked, gesturing to herself and Rick.
"We met just after I first left Britain in a shopping mall in Magix. I was just exploring and happened upon Roxy, who was trying to ditch Stella who had taken her clothes shopping..." Harry smiled at the memory.
Everyone at the table chuckled, well aware of Princess Stella of Solaria's infamous shopping sprees.
"Roxy, you already know Stephania, but this is Juliana Ramsey. She's one of the British Fairies that helped us get Harry out of Britain..." Nebula pointed out the fairy Roxy didn't recognize.
"Pleased to meet you, Ms. Ramsey. I really don't know how to thank you with helping Harry..." Roxy trailed off.
"The pleasure is mine, Princess. I am glad I could help." Juliana smiled at the younger fairy and at Harry as she glanced between the pair.
The breakfast passed normally, with only the occasional chat between mouthfuls of food.
When Roxy and Harry finished, she stood up.
"Aunt Nebula, Mom, can I show Harry around?" She asked.
"I have no problem with it..." Morgana shrugged.
"Go on ahead, dear..." Nebula dismissed them.
After they were gone, Nebula turned to Juliana. "Juliana, did you... see anything concerning them?"
Juliana thought for a moment. "I am an Empath, not a fortune teller, so I can't see a definite future, but studying the emotive magic between them as they interacted... The possibility is there, Your Highness. It is up to them whether or not they see it..."
"I am not ready for this at all..." Rick grumbled.
"Well she is sixteen years old dear. This was going to come eventually..." Morgana turned to him.
"It doesn't mean I have to like it..." He said.
"May I speak?" Stephania asked.
Nebula and Morgana nodded.
"Thank you. What I have seen of that young man, Harry Potter... He seems like a decent young man. Articulate enough, rather polite, the fame of being the Boy-Who-Lived back in Britain does not seem to have gone to his head... All around, he seems like a very good young man." Stephania said.
"May I?" Juliana asked.
After she got permission, she too gave her opinion on the matter. "He seems like a good enough young man to me as well and that is without me trying to pick up on his emotions during this whole thing. I spoke to the Healer who was in charge of him at St Mungo's and she says he was a very nice young man, polite and determined to get back to Red Fountain and continue his studies when she was with him." Juliana said.
"Besides dear, nothing is set in stone. It is not as if they are going to get married tomorrow..." Morgana told her husband.
"Maybe not tomorrow, but the potential is there for him to be her future Consort..." Juliana thought to herself.
"Hey girl..." Harry released Hedwig from her cage into the Tir Nan Og air.
"It's about time you came to get me from that place! I was wondering if you had abandoned me there!" Hedwig huffed.
"Of course not. I'd never abandon you. It's just I got a little... caught up when I went back to Britain..." Harry said.
"You're just lucky I like you so much. That aviary you left me at in Magix took decent care of me, but I still prefer being with you." Hedwig said.
"I'm glad you do." Harry chuckled.
He, Roxy and their respective pets were out exploring Tir Nan Og after a brief stop in Magix to retrieve Hedwig, who he had left behind there.
"So, I've given you the royal tour of the royal palace, so I'll just take you around the island now!" Roxy said, gesturing around them.
"That sounds fantastic. Where do we go first?" Harry asked.
"We could go up into the mountains, go by the lake, the beach, the forests..." Roxy counted off the various possible destinations on her fingers.
"How about the mountains? I've never actually been able to visit any..." Harry said.
"Really? You've never been hiking, camping or anything like that?" Roxy raised an eyebrow in surprise.
"No. The Dursleys were never inclined to take me on any sort of trips with them- unless it was to Kings Cross Station to get rid of me for the whole school year..." Harry frowned. "That was their favourite trip to take with me..."
Roxy looked at him, frowning slightly.
"Harry, if you ever need someone to talk to about that time in your life I will be here to listen if you want me to..." She said, looking him directly in the eyes.
Harry looked right back. "I... I guess you're right. You're my closest friend in this whole new world of magic and if I can't trust you now after you started the process of getting me out of Britain then I don't..."
He took a deep breath as he, Roxy and the animals made their way towards the mountainous region.
"This isn't easy for me, mind you. It took ages for Ron and Hermione to get even part of this out of me and I haven't told them everything about my shitty life with them..." Harry admitted.
"You don't have to tell me everything at once, Harry. Bit by bit does it..." Roxy stopped to hold his hands in hers and smiled slightly.
Harry smiled back. "I guess that could work..."
"How could he possibly have managed to get away?" Dumbledore asked as he stood in what used to be Harry's private room at St Mungo's.
"I haven't the foggiest idea." Healer Springsteen said, smiling to herself.
Them, along with Lupin, Madam Bones and Minister Scrimgeour stood in the room.
"Well, he has been doing the impossible lately..." Lupin said.
"He's been doing the impossible since he was a toddler, we all know that. But how did he manage to escape from a highly secured room in a highly secured hospital immediately after recovery from a severe case of Magical Exhaustion?" Madam Bones wondered.
"We could check the magical signatures around the room to see if anyone managed to take him away. It's possible that Death Eaters managed to infiltrate the hospital even after all this time..." Dumbledore said.
"We can do that. Healer Springsteen, can you bring the Chief Healer up here? We'll need him to do that..." Scrimgeour turned to her.
"I most certainly can, though I highly doubt that you will find Potter anyway. The way he spoke to me he made it sound that if he ever managed to escape, he'd made sure he wasn't found by you lot. That's no secret and I can't really say I blame him. Still, I'll go fetch Healer Hopkins..." She left the room.
"You're losing a lot of support over all of these debacles involving Mr. Potter, Dumbledore. Are you sure it's wise to keep trying to detain him like this? Even if it were legal?" Madam Bones narrowed her eyes at the Hogwarts headmaster.
"It's best that he remains at Hogwarts to continue his magical education and remain safe now more than ever, especially after that incident in Diagon Alley..." Dumbledore said.
"With all due respect, Dumbledore, it is legal to allow him to discontinue his Hogwarts education after OWL's if he desires to and he has. Plus judging by the skills he displayed fighting You-Know-Who in Diagon Alley, he certainly has not been slouching off when it comes to practicing magic. As long as he is safe wherever he is, I am happy." Lupin said.
"I'm inclined to agree with Mr. Lupin, Dumbledore. Wherever he is, he obviously was determined to get back there and You-Know-Who doesn't know where that is because if he had, he might be dead by now. So I take that to mean that he has found a safe place to hid from both You-Know-Who and you. All I'm here for is to make sure that Death Eaters did not get him." Madam Bones.
"But Amelia..." Dumbledore said.
"As much as I want him back here fighting You-Know-Who with us, trying to detain him like this isn't going to work. No. We'd have to make him want to come back." Scrimgeour frowned.
"I have to leave, Dumbledore. I'm supposed to meet Tonks and some of the others to search for Harry..." Lupin said, leaving the room.
Dumbledore sighed. Things just hadn't been going right for him lately at all...
"Wow. And I thought I had difficulties in my life..." Roxy said. "But nothing came close to that. Not even when the Wizards of the Black Circle had kidnapped me. Gantlos taunted me..." Roxy glanced back at Artu, who was sniffing at some flowers around a nearby tree in the forest they were in. "But they never actually tortured me..." She shuddered at the thought and stretched out in the grass she was lying down in.
"Voldemort was rather fond of his taunts and speeches. If he'd stopped with the taunts and speeches and just got down to the business of trying to kill me, he might have actually succeeded. Needless to say, I'm actually glad for the speeches in a way..." Harry chuckled dryly, sitting against a tree next to her.
"And you never knew your parents either... At least I had my dad and I eventually got back my mother with the Winx Club's help but no one can bring back the dead. Not even Bloom's Dragon Flame can do that. If she could have, Nabu wouldn't have stayed dead..." Roxy held her head down.
"You know, sometimes... I blame myself for that. I mean, if it wasn't for me, the Winx would have never had to come to Earth in the first place..."
"No, you don't blame yourself for that. I know how it feels to blame yourself for someone's death. Well, a lot of deaths, actually..." Harry scratched the back of his head nervously.
"I know it's not my fault, but you can't help it sometimes, you know? I mean, you were there, you could have done something instead of just standing there..."
Harry nodded. "That was the case with me and Cedric and with my Godfather in the Ministry debacle. Voldemort had Cedric killed because he was just there... We hadn't even had time to adjust to the unfamiliar surroundings yet and he and the rat just show up out of nowhere. I can never forget that. Kill the spare..." He shuddered.
"And if I hadn't fell for Voldemort's false visions planted in my head, Sirius would still be here. You and Artu would have liked him, I think. Animagus form aside, he actually was good with animals and despite everything he'd been though, he managed to be cheerful and happy enough..."
Roxy nodded. "I think I would have liked him too. Do you think he would have liked me?"
Harry smiled. "I think he would..."
Roxy's stomach grumbled. "I think we should head back to the palace for lunch..."
"I'm going back to the palace for lunch. I never thought I'd be able to say that..." Harry chuckled.
"Well you can now..." Roxy smiled.
"Hedwig! We're going back to the palace for lunch! You know the way back, don't you?" Harry called up into the trees where Hedwig had been surveying them for the past few minutes.
"I do, Harry. I know how to find my way to and from a lot of places. I delivered mail for you when you were at Hogwarts and I didn't get lost, did I? Do I know the way back indeed..." Hedwig scoffed.
Harry snorted.
"When we come back out, can you show me your Firebolt?" Roxy asked as she leaned down to give Artu a belly rub.
"I'll do better than that. I'll fly it and let you have a ride. How does that sound?" Harry asked.
"Sounds like fun!" Roxy smiled.
"Then it's set. I'm giving you flying lessons- broomstick style, that is..." Harry smiled back.
Harry sat in the room he had been assigned to after lunch.
Hedwig still had not returned, so he was sitting alone.
Leafing through a copy of Quidditch Through The Ages, he looked at a few moves that he wanted to show Roxy later.
Roxy.
She was... something special, he knew. He'd only known her for a few months, yet they'd become good friends in such a short time. She'd helped him escape St Mungo's. She didn't judge him when he told her about some of his troubled past. She was the closest friend he had made in Magix.
He smiled at the thought.
Plus she was rather pretty...
He shook his head.
Was he starting to actually fancy her?
He didn't know too much about girls after all. His experience with Cho in his last year at Hogwarts had been nothing much of a disaster.
Yeah, he didn't like to think about that...
But... could he try to ask Roxy out sometime? Was he ready to ask another girl out?
And this was no ordinary girl in any world.
She was a princess.
There was no royalty in the Wizarding World... How does one ask out a princess?
She was a very nice princess and a good friend to him but still, a princess and the heiress to the throne of Tir Nan Og at that...
Plus he was pretty sure that Queen Nebula and Roxy's mother Morgana could turn him into something most unpleasant if they didn't like him dating her...
He shuddered at the thought.
Where was his Gryffindor courage when he needed it?
Surely it couldn't hurt him to at least try to get a feel on how Roxy felt about him.
He took a deep breath and sighed.
Retrieving his bag with the Bottomless Holding Charm on it, he packed Quidditch Through The Ages, his old Gryffindor Quidditch robes (just to show her) and some souvenirs that he still had left from the Quidditch World Cup.
Changing into grey track pants and a black t-shirt and tucking his wand into the wand holster on his arm, he plucked up his Gryffindor courage.
When he saw Roxy later, he was going to try and at least find out if there was a chance of her fancying him.
Roxy sat in the royal library with her mother after lunch.
"So dear, do you have any plans for this afternoon?" Morgana asked as they looked through a shelf.
"Yeah. I'm going back out with Harry again. He promised to show me his Firebolt..." Roxy said, sinking into a chair with a small book summarising the various regions of Tir Nan Og and what they were like.
"His Firebolt?" Morgana asked raising an eyebrow.
"It's a broomstick. Broomsticks are still all the rage in Earth's Wizarding communities apparently. His Firebolt is supposed to be one of the best there is. He's even going to tell me about this sport called Quidditch that they play on broomstick. He only gave me a very basic summary of it before, but it sounds like fun..." Roxy smiled.
"Uh-huh..." Morgana regarded her daughter for a moment.
"Roxy, do you like this... Harry Potter?" She asked.
Roxy almost dropped her book, startled.
"Like him how, mom?" She asked suspiciously, giving her mother an odd look.
"Well the two of you do seem to get along quite well, plus there is the fact that you actually asked your aunt to help him get out of Britain- something which would not be done lightly for just anyone..." Morgana said.
"Yes, but he's just a friend, Mom. Nothing more..." Roxy said.
"But he could be..." Morgana smiled at her daughter.
"No he can't. He's just a friend. My best friend. He's a really sweet guy, but I don't think I could ever actually date him..." Roxy said.
"If you say so. Just know that when you do start dating, your aunt will be quite ready to use the war side of her powers to keep any potential suitors in line and I would back her up with my own magic. Not to mention your father. He may be non-magical, but he can be pretty lethal in his own right and I'm sure that wizards aren't immune to bullets." Morgana chuckled.
"Mother!" Roxy turned red, sinking down into her chair.
Morgana simply laughed even more.
Roxy huffed, got up and replaced the book she had been reading and left the library, her mother's laughter still ringing in her ears.
Once she was back in her room, she glanced at the clock on the wall.
"Only an hour to get ready? Wow..." Her eyes widened.
"Getting ready to go out with Harry again, Roxy?" Artu glanced up from his pet bed.
"Yes. He promised to show me a little of that Wizarding sport he calls Quidditch. You won't be able to come this time since we'll probably be spending most of our time in the air..." Roxy grabbed some clothes out of her walk-in closet and dashed into the bathroom.
"I don't mind staying behind. I trust Harry with you..." Atru thought amusedly.
Once in the bathroom, Roxy went through the random clothes she had picked out.
She settled on a pair of khaki shorts, a white tank-top, black fingerless gloves and sneakers.
"Okay Roxy. Is there a chance that Harry might actually like you?" She thought as she brushed her hair and pulled it up into a high ponytail.
"Well, maybe. He seems like a nice guy and he might be into me. But do I like him?" She wondered.
"He's a great guy, but what have I done compared to what he did? He's been through a lot more than I have and did a lot more remarkable things than I have..." She frowned.
She shook those thoughts out of her head.
"There's only one way to find out if he might like me, I suppose..." She smiled at the thought.
She glanced at the clock once she was out of the bathroom.
"Better hurry if I want to make it there on time! Bye Artu! I'll see you later!" She called back to him as she ran through the door.
Harry and Roxy stood in the grass surrounding a giant lake as he explained to her in further detail about broomsticks and Quidditch.
"This is quite possibly the best looking broomstick I have ever seen." Roxy held the Firebolt in awe.
Harry chuckled. "My Gryffindor housemates had pretty much the same reaction when I first got it..."
"I can imagine. And you said that this particular broomstick was used in this Quidditch World Cup thing, right?" Roxy handed it back to him.
"That's right. It helped me to victory quite a few times since I got it." Harry smiled.
"Okay then. Why don't you show me some of your moves now?" Roxy leafed through Quidditch Through The Ages.
"Will do. And then you're going to come for a ride with me." Harry mounted the broomstick.
Roxy laid back against a tree, watching him.
"That was so cool! And you do that with people trying to smack those Bludger things at you and having to find that tiny Golden Snitch thing?" Roxy said, looking and sounding rather impressed as Harry landed.
"That's right. Trust me, it isn't as easy as I make it look..." Harry smiled.
He actually managed to impress Roxy simply by doing one of the things he loved best.
He hadn't even had that much time to practice since he went to Magix because of his studies at Red Fountain so he had worried that he'd be a little rusty, but it turned out he needn't have worried at all...
"So Harry, how do you mount this thing?" She asked, eyeing the Firebolt in his hands.
"I'll have to get on it first like this..." Harry made the broomstick float at knee level and then got on at the front.
"You get on now." He gestured to the back.
Roxy did. "Okay, now what?"
"You'll have to hold onto me..." Harry said, and Roxy noticed the nervous tone in his voice.
He reached around and took Roxy's hands, slowly putting them around his waist.
"You actually feel rather... nice to hold onto, Harry..." She said. "Are those muscles that I feel?"
"Dang! Why didn't he have more girls chasing after him in Britain?" Roxy thought.
"Yeah, I guess. Playing Quidditch for your House and being a student at Red Fountain, especially under Cordatorta helps do that to you..." Harry felt himself turning red.
"And your hair... Don't ever cut it..." Roxy touched his hair, which was now just touching his shoulders slightly.
"Just for you, I won't." Harry smiled, although he was still blushing. "Ready to go?"
"Yep!" Roxy held onto him tighter.
"Alright then. Off we go!" He kicked off and took to the sky.
"This is really different to flying on wings, that's for sure!" Roxy exclaimed as she took in the view below.
"I can imagine that it would!" Harry smiled.
"Well, she does seem to like spending time with me so far..." He thought.
After a few minutes of calm flying he looked back at her.
Her ponytail was flapping behind her in the wind and she was smiling a smile that made her look even prettier than she already was.
He had to take a chance. Just be sure.
"Hey Roxy, you ready to try any riskier moves?" He called.
"Sure! Sounds like fun!" She called back.
"Okay. If you say so!" He said, a grin forming on his face.
He sped up suddenly, making Roxy scream out in surprised and delight.
He did a few loops and twirls in the air, flew across the treetops at a low enough level that their feet brushed the trees and turned back, flying above the lake.
He flew down towards the lake and at the last minute pulled up before they could hit the water.
He did a few more twists and turns above the lake, but on the last one he did, he made a mistake and the broomstick careened into the water- with him and Roxy still on it.
As the two of them waded out, he kept apologising to Roxy. "I don't even know what happened there, Roxy! I just... I don't know!"
Roxy giggled. "Don't worry about it Harry. In fact, that was actually kind of fun!" She giggled again.
Harry raised an eyebrow as they flopped down on the edge of the lake, him rolling aside the drenched broomstick.
"You thought that was fun?" He asked incredulously.
"Sure! It's not like we got hurt and your broomstick will be fine, won't it?" Roxy asked.
"Yes, but still..."
"Don't worry about it." Roxy insisted. "I had fun today!"
They burst out laughing.
"I guess it was fun, wasn't it? And like you said, no one got hurt, so no harm done, right?" Harry agreed.
He felt so comfortable around her. Girls back at home would probably be swearing at him and threatening to curse him, but not her...
He looked at her.
She was looking back at him, smiling.
Should he take the chance?
He would never know otherwise, right?
He moved closer to her and she didn't move away.
"Roxy?" He asked.
"Yes?" She smiled at him.
"I... I had a really fun time with you today..." He said.
"I did too, Harry. We should totally do this again sometime..." Roxy said.
"I agree."
And with that, he leaned in and kissed her.
Roxy didn't pull away from him. In fact, she was kissing him back, even throwing her arms around his shoulders and pulling him closer to her.
After a while, they broke apart.
"Well, that was... nice..." Harry said awkwardly.
"Not bad at all." Roxy agreed.
After a few seconds, Roxy leaned in for another kiss.
And for those precious few moments, nothing else mattered.