~Aboard the Ancient Vessel Destiny~
Life for Harry and Hermione had been interesting from the moment they arrived on Destiny. Over the span of a year and a half, the teens had grown closer to each other by way of an unexpected outcome to the spell left by Merlin to send the two to Destiny. Albus Dumbledore and the Goblins who advised him on what the spell would do were both ignorant of the true effects. Such a thing had not been encountered before. Thirty-eight days after they arrived on Destiny, the two teenagers suddenly lost the ability to perform magic of any kind. Worse, Dobby, their loyal friend and house-elf, could not help them stay warm or produce a fire of any kind. Destiny, being an old vessel and having been through numerous battles, had some issues with the environmental systems. Space is cold. Very cold. The research driven Hermione had scoured the books that she had available to her, and none could offer an explanation as to why Harry and her were not able to access their magic. Being raised by two dentists, and knowing about anatomy, Hermione had finally leaped to the concept of body heat. It was not enough to just cuddle under numerous blankets. Harry and Hermione learned that carnal affection was not a bad thing.
Strangely enough, every thirty-eight days from the day they finally got their magic back, up to the two-hundred-sixty-sixth day of being aboard Destiny, the cycle continued. Every 38 days the two would lose their magic, and while the environmental systems weren't always in a state of disrepair, magic was sacred to both Harry and Hermione. Naturally, the more the two renewed the only thing that seemed to keep their magic working over those 266 days, the closer they became.
While Hermione kept notes of all kinds on a file on the laptop that Professor Dumbledore supplied them, she didn't mind the idea of sharing her life with Harry Potter. There may have been days before the 266th that found Hermione wanting to 'make sure their magic wouldn't go away again' with Harry. Harry, being a teenager, had no issue with this.
~Unknown Planet~
Albus Dumbledore was many things. Alchemist. Wizard. Politician. Researcher. He was also someone who had learned so much about magic that many looked to him for answers to things they could have solved without him. On this planet where the average temperature was barely above the melting point of water in its solid form, no one would come to him for answers. No one would give him books every year at Yule. Fawkes was a great companion, though he didn't speak much.
From the first few days after he had made his temporary home up to now, he had been studying the stars. He catalogued the life forms on the planet, such that they were. Some species of fish he recognized from earth, and was mystified and elated that some things were not foreign to him. The one thing he could not decipher, was a massive stone ring in a pedestal of steps. It had sequences of dashes and dots all along the ring, and while he recalled Morse Code, none of the separate tiles had any kind of translation that fit. No matter of spell he tried did anything to the ring, except to tell him its mass. Its age, being so old that the spell he tried to use first didn't work. Arithmantic formulations were never the most precise thing to use when making a new spell. Over the span of 18 earth months, Albus had trekked to the stone ring, to try new spells. He tried every known way he could think of to understand what the ring did.
It was on his 559th day of being on this planet that something happened.
~Destiny~
The incredible AI of Destiny had been programmed to do many things. Tracking of a signal deep in to the origins of the universe would take a very long time. Her designers were patient. From the day when Harry, Hermione, Dobby, Crookshanks, and Hedwig became a part of the vessel, the AI had been continuously scanning all upcoming subspace connections to the astria portas. The feedback link would display details about the planets each astria porta that had been placed by the seed ships. On one such planet, there were odd energy patterns interacting with the astria porta for a period of 558 earth days in a row. Some of the energy patterns matched what the AI had observed with her charges. While Destiny was launched several million years ago, her internal clock was set to follow the rotation of the third planet from the sun of her home system. Terra as it was known back then would never know how important it was to the rest of the galaxy.
Harry and Hermione had learned much over the time they spent on Destiny so far. While magic was a wonderful part of their lives, they weren't able to completely repair the entire ship without a massive amount of raw materials. In the early weeks, before the loss of magic the first of 7 times they experienced, their exploration, along with Dobby, had panned out as thoroughly as possible. They knew of several areas of the ship that were safe, and more that were sealed off due to hull breaches. The life support system was something that both Hermione and Harry had little knowledge of, yet, they learned what they could and used potions texts to come up with something that would prolong the unknown chemical in the system.
Of the astria porta in the room they arrived in, there was much they learned from just observation. The consoles that were towards the back of the room had a way to bring up a database that the ship had. The language was something that took a while to understand, though Hermione was ecstatic when she discovered the roots. The language in the ship's operating system was far older than anything she had studied while in Hogwarts, and yet, there were some similarities. The spell that Merlin left and charmed to go to the Headmaster's office was written in the same language.
Thankfully, the first time the ship dropped out of FTL for the teens, the countdown clock was not active.
By way of just going through the interface, Hermione and Harry found where to get the remotes and sensor drones. They had been weary of stepping through a puddle of water, and had no idea what would be on the other side. They had sent one of the drones through, and readings of the planet they stopped at came in on the consoles.
This continued for several weeks, until they felt ready to try stepping through the portal. All that Hermione could tell was that the portal was very close to the barrier between Platform 9 3/4 and the rest of King's Cross. Some pit stops, as Harry began to call them, Destiny would stop for a few hours, while others the clock would have over 12 hours of time left.
So, on this, the 559th day that Harry and Hermione were on the ship, Destiny stopped in range of a planet that was a little out of its flight path. Well, 23 light years off course was small compared the breadth of a galaxy.
"Hermione, it looks like we've stopped again. We have just over 18 hours on the clock. There are 3 addresses in range, and two of them are locked out." Harry spoke into his Patronus, before sending it to Hermione. She was in a room that the two had modified to grow food using seeds and some housekeeping magic.
A few moments later, her reply came through in the form of her Patronus: a doe. "I'll be there in a moment. Can you get a probe ready to send through? 18 hours is twice as long as the last several times Destiny has stopped."
Once Hermione finished taking care of the tomato crop, she went to meet her partner.
Something that had been there ever since the two started feeling safe using the portal was a pact. Neither Harry or Hermione would send a probe to a planet without the other being in the ring room. They didn't want to have secrets, and as they were practically married (just a small detail that could be overlooked: they could not ask Dobby to officiate, he wasn't capable of it), they truly were a team. Harry or Hermione would work in the various parts of the ship that they had claimed. Dobby made sure their food was stored properly and that the wizarding tent was kept clean at all times. He was always happy to help his Harry Potter and Harry Potter's Hermione Granger. Crookshanks and Hedwig did what most familiars do: they ate food provided them by their humans, and were cute and cuddly. Of course, Hedwig had become the Queen of Bacon. Her requirements were simple: bacon at every meal, and no one gets a chunk taken out of their ear or fingers.
When Hermione got to the ring room, Harry had the probe ready to go. They would see what this planet had to offer, if anything.
~Unknown Planet~
Albus Dumbledore had come to the massive ring with some felled trees. He figured he could test various theories he had using a few ancient principles. Magic didn't seem to do anything to the ring so far, at least, from what he could see. He had no way of knowing each and every spell he had cast that landed on the surface of the ring was analized and sent to Destiny.
In front of the ring, he had assembled a collection of the felled trees, after pruning them of branches, and was going over what he was going to try in his mind. A trebuchet or catapult didn't seem to be a good thing to try making something change about the ring. He was going to start with just a basic examination of what the wood did when it came in contact with the inner part of the ring.
Moments before he had set up his first trial, the ring began to move. He had been a fair distance away from it, which is a good thing. The pile of logs he had placed only a few feet from the opening of the ring was about the size of the coach for the Hogwarts Express. He was looking at his journal of notes, and felt a minor vibration. Looking up from the journal, his eyes were taking in the scene. The ring had two parts to it now. One was the outer ring with the symbols he had yet to decipher. The inner part was a small ring that seemed to be moving in a clockwise fashion. Never before today had he been able to learn that the ring was made of two parts.
As the inner ring continued to rotate, symbols on the outer ring began to light up, then fade once more as the inner ring rotated. Albus tried to note which symbols were lighting up but they were going too fast. Perhaps he could view his memory of this later in his Pensieve. Once the inner ring competed spinning, a great wave of energy bloomed out of the ring. For reasons that even the designers of the astria porta never could understand, this energy would destroy any matter caught in the wave before it settled. Albus saw his pile of felled trees become significantly smaller in a fraction of a second. What was left was barely enough to make a standard sized door. He had charms connected to some of the logs, and the parchment in his journal gave a bizarre warbling sound and all readings were gone.
Deciding that it may be best to get to cover, Albus disillusioned himself, and was about to start transfiguring some earthen walls, when something came out of the puddle.
~Destiny ring room~
Harry and Hermione watched the screen once the link from the drone began to transmit. They immediately noticed something different. On the ground, only a dozen feet in front of the ring this planet had, was a quill next to a parchment journal.
"Harry, that shouldn't be here! That is a quill and parchment!" Hermione was intelligent, yet had no way to interpret the presence of a quill and parchment on an alien planet some billions of light years away from earth.
"I can make out some of the writing. It looks familiar." Harry answered.
"What?" Hermione was baffled.
At the same time the two were attempting to understand this, Destiny overrode the control of the sensor probe and activated a thermal imaging sensor. The display that Hermione and Harry were looking at reflected this change, and it was plain to see. Someone was there on that planet, and they were invisible.
~Unknown planet~
Albus Dumbledore felt strange. He had disillusioned himself the moment the thing came out of the puddle. Yet, it was hovering right over him. Fawkes had been flying around, so was not there to help his friend. Out of the corner of his eye, he realized that his journal and quill were on the ground, where he had dropped them in shock when the ring activated and destroyed a large chunk of his pile of dead trees.
~Destiny~
Harry had searched his memories and recognized the handwriting on a page of the journal. It couldn't be Dumbledore, could it?
Deciding to throw caution to the wind, he activated the intercom feature of the probe.
"We are aboard an ancient space ship. We can see your heat signature, please cancel your spell, and we will come through to talk."
Dumbledore heard this and recognized the voice of one of his students. How extraordinary he thought.
Cancelling his spell, Albus Dumbledore looked to the probe above his head, and answered, "I am Albus Percival Wulfric Brian Dumbledore. Is that you Harry James Potter?"
Harry and Hermione were shocked, yet cautious. Nothing in the spell that brought them here, nor in any of the books Merlin left in his vault indicated that their Headmaster would also be transported to another place.
"Please understand Mr. Dumbledore, we are going to need to make sure it really is you." Harry replied.
"Of course, would my Patronus help confirm my identity?" Albus asked.
"We do not know if a Patronus can travel through an astria porta. What is the name of the teacher who vanished all the bones in a student's arm after a rogue Bludger broke it?
"That was Gilderoy Lockhart, I'm sad to say he was never good at healing spells. Do you need more proof?"
"No. We have less than 18 hours before the ship jumps again and this planet will probably not be in range anymore. We'll come through if you need help gathering your things, and we have a way to connect back to the ship.
"That sounds wonderful. Am I not able to simply travel through it now?"
"No, the portal only sends matter one way. It allows for communication to be back and forth, not matter." Hermione spoke up.
Some time later, Albus Dumbledore and his faithful companion Fawkes, together with Harry Potter and Hermione Granger, traveled through the astria porta back on to Destiny.
~Author's Note~
I am sorry for the long delay in posting, life has been a picnic with fire-ants and giant mosquitoes and never enough bug spray lately. More will come soon, once I get my ideas for how Icarus base personnel will interact with the concept of 'whose laws of physics did we agree to?'