Harry fell to his knees in the grass, the light wind ruffling his hair and the light blue sky above signaling the start to a great day. A squeak to his side drew his attention, and he found Dora laying on the ground next to him. He felt a hand land on his shoulder comfortingly, and he looked up at his godfather, who had tears in the corners of his eyes. Harry wasn't quite sure why, but as he stood and helped the clumsy metamorph to her feet, he felt the family magic that had settled into his bones surge in exaltation. It was nearly overwhelming - a sense of the prodigal son returning home and being welcomed with open arms and warm hearth. He finally looked out over the nearby cliff, and saw his home.
A small island, so close to the mainland that the eroding cliffside had created a land bridge of rubble and soil, jutted up, appeared mostly as a huge boulder covered in moss, which was really grass at a distance. The Irish Sea behind sparkled as the wind whipped the water into small waves and the sun scattered over the uneven surface. It was a beautiful day, and Harry could feel the island waking from a slumber as he approached the cliffside.
Sirius followed after Harry, the family magic recognizing him as an adopted son. He may not be able to wear a family ring, but he was a son in all but blood to Charlus and Dorea, and the magic recognized and remembered that. Dora pouted but ran to catch up and take Harry's hand, grass stains on the sundress she had chosen to tease Harry a bit. The previous day at the muggle pool had been great, she had spent most of it brushing up against Harry as tantalizingly but supposedly innocuously as possible. The doofus was still not taking her hints though, and she would need to take matters into her own hands soon. Ted and Andromeda ambled along behind, Mother rolling her eyes at her daughter, and hitting her with a cleaning charm. Ted was just enjoying the day out, whistling lightly as the group hiked closer to the edge.
Harry felt Dora take his hand, and gave her a quick smile before continuing forward, not letting himself get distracted. Truthfully he was aware of her flirting, but it was fun to enjoy it like this for now. He still was a bit scared to risk taking another step. But all of that was inconsequential, the wards were calling to him. Hopefully the wardline was before the cliff edge. He shook the errant thought away and continued forward, until about fifteen feet from the edge, he pushed against it. To him it felt like he passed through a waterfall of warm air, but Dora shuddered as she came through. Sirius grimaced, but also passed inside the wardline, and the Tonkses were stopped dead, unable to enter.
Harry didn't notice that, though, because his eyes were focused upon what the wards had been hiding. A handful of low, conical thatched roof roundhouses surrounded what Harry would come to learn was a burial mound, a low hill with stone walls along an entrance cut into the side. The buildings seemed to be in perfect condition, held in a preserved status by the wards.
"Harry!" Sirius called to him. "Can you let Ted and Andy through the wards?" Harry turned around to see the two still trapped outside.
"You pulled Dora through with you, because you were holding her hand-" Sirius gave him a wink and Harry felt his face flush - "And the family magic recognized me, but gave me a stern talking to, so to speak. But Andy is getting impatient, can you pull them through?"
Harry pulled them each through, a bit sheepish, But led them back to the edge where Sirius seemed to be teasing Dora, based on his smirk and her struggling to suppress a blush only for her hair to flame red. Harry took her hand again, only for Sirius to take his and apparate them over to the island. Ted popped over and Andy was only a moment behind. The group split up with an unspoken agreement, and Harry and Dora made their way over to the nearest roundhouse as Sirius ambled over to the stone entrance into the low hill. It was made of a thatched roof in the shape of a cone over low wattle and daub walls, with an entrance roughly four to five feet high. The pair had to duck to enter, but upon doing so, were transported back in time.
A firepit was the centerpiece of the home, surrounded by low benches formed of split logs, smoothed by use. A loom sat to one side, and a few beds were set against the daub walls. Harry walked over to the loom, where a frozen project was half-done, the magic on the spindle and weights having run out. He reached out, and with a small spark, the loom pulled more magic from him and continued with whatever the last project had been. It worked quickly, the… scarf? Forming before his eyes. It was in a deep burgundy, suitable for gryffindor, and he sat in amazement for a few minutes watching it work. Dora stood silently, still holding his hand, but her eyes roving over the rest of the single room.
A glint of gold caught her eye, and she pulled Harry's focus from the loom, which continued to work in the background. Dora led him over to the fire pit, where Harry's seeker eyes immediately caught onto the gold in the ashes of the last fire. He knelt down, and slowly withdrew the dagger that had been buried there. It wiped clean, and didn't seem to have sustained any fire damage, so why it was in the firepit was not clear. But a decorative dragon head on the hilt and more ogham runes on the crossguard told Harry this was something special. He inspected it further, but upon finding no hint as to its purpose, handed it hilt first to Dora, who also seemed perplexed.
The two of them remained silent as they split to continue to investigate the location, almost reverent in their movements. Harry restarted the loom twice more as they looked through baskets and chests, finding a mix of ancient and more recent materials, seemingly all for ritual preparation. Consumables, like wax and chalk, seemed to be much newer, but other elements appeared as old as the family rings.
The pair exited the roundhouse, Harry still carrying the dagger, now put away in what appeared to be the matching sheath, found cast into a corner. As they moved to another roundhouse, they found Andromeda casting diagnostic spells upon a low stone altar in a circular clearing lined with a ring of flowers. Intrigued, Harry approached, Dora following.
"This is the most well-preserved ritual site from the bronze age that we've ever seen." Andromeda spoke to them in an awed voice, without looking away from her work. "Everything else has been destroyed by later occupying populations, wizards or muggles alike." She gestured Harry forward, who slowly approached. As he looked more closely at the altar, he saw that gold ogham runes ran down each corner, seemingly beaten into the rock. He came alongside the older witch, who took his hand and pulled him forward to stand within touching distance of the ancient stone.
"Place your hand there, in the center." Andromeda directed him quietly. "We have no examples of interactions between blood-bound ritual altars and their bloodlines. The ancient Beaker people's relics are so rare, often being cast aside for roman focus-based magics, first staffs and staves and later wands. But our ancestor's connection to magic was a more instinctive, natural thing. They worked great magics to shape their world in grand ways." She was more alive than Harry had ever seen, engrossed in her work and the potential for rediscovery.
Harry slowly reached forward, before feeling the family magic stir and nudge him towards the dagger he had pulled from the ashes. Pausing, he withdrew it and before Andromeda could stop him, slashed it across his palm, blood welling from the cut. Harry ignored the pain and placed his hand against the stone, watching as it absorbed the blood and pulling more from his wound. Harry fell to his knees as he grew lightheaded, and in a panic tried to withdraw his hand but found it stuck to the stone. It continued to draw on his blood and magic, draining him. He barely heard Dora's yell or Andromeda's diagnostic casting, or the footfalls of Ted and Sirius as they ran back to the center clearing in fright. His vision narrowed and he struggled to not fall unconscious even as a rush in his ears began to drown out everything around him.
At the last moment before he passed out, the stone healed his cut, and pulsed a flash of white light, evoking the giddy happiness of an overpowered patronus charm, as a pillar of light into the sky slowly faded away. Dora rapidly pulled Harry away, clutching him to her chest, both falling to the ground in her haste. Harry succumbed to the drain, and managed to mumble out an "I'm fine." before passing out. Andromeda was quickly beside them, double checking on the exhausted teen. Sirius crouched beside them, shaking his head and placing a hand on his godson's shoulder as Dora ran her fingers through his hair.
"Only you, Harry. Only you." Sirius clapped his shoulder again, before looking to his cousin. "Is he alright?" She shook her head in fond frustration with the teen, but before Sirius could take it the wrong way, explained.
"He's magically exhausted and is down a quart of blood. But he'll be fine with a day or two of rest." She stood back up and went back to monitoring the altar which seemed innocuous again.
"It appears that he was recharging the wards here and the family magic in general. I would need to know more about the normal rituals of the early Potter clan, but I imagine it was not supposed to do this." She gestured to where the teen was resting with his head upon her daughter's chest. Andromeda raised an eyebrow at Dora, pretty sure she had morphed her breasts up a cup size. Dora blushed and looked away.
"If I had to guess, this sort of thing should be done yearly, probably on a specific date to improve the efficiency of the ritual. If it's been neglected for a decade, it would take more." She looked back to Sirius. "This was probably a good thing, but we -" She stopped herself. "He needs to read up on this, or learn of it somehow." Sirius nodded, overwhelmed. He wasn't good with this esoteric stuff. The Black family was old, tracing back to the Romans, but they were never ritualistic. They had made a name for themselves in hunting the Druids during the invasion, a crucial edge against the Celts.
Harry slowly came to, blinking his eyes as he enjoyed his pillow. He squeezed it closer, eliciting a squeak from it. He frowned, confused. That had sounded like Dora when he pinched her sides. He was contemplating that when the past few minutes came back to him, and his head shot up, looking around wildly before falling lightheaded again, and lowering himself down to the ground. Dora was blushing next to him, morphing back to her base form - with pink hair, of course. Harry looked up at her face framed by a halo of backlit pink hair and the brilliantly blue sky. An errant thought whispered in the back of his mind, comparing her to an angel, not even fully formed enough to be coherent to him, let alone something he could express vocally. But the moment was something he would remember in the quiet, introspective silences in the coming years.
"Enjoy your nap?" Of course She couldn't let him forget this. Harry covered his face with his arm, groaning and blushing, but gave as good as he got.
"Oh yeah, it was a great pillow. Soft and warm, I could sleep like a baby with that pillow in my bed." His face flushed an even darker red, and his hair followed, but if he had been able to see Dora's beet red face and hair, he would have been satisfied with his rejoinder. Dora looked around awkwardly, their flirting petering out in a silence where both refused to recognize the elephant in the room.
The adults shared a glance and a smirk at the teens being teens. Andromeda was happy for her daughter to find someone so caring despite his age. Ted was a bit worried about her involvement in the coming conflict, but knew that he would never be able to keep her away from it. Sirius was happy to see Harry acting his age, it was rare enough but Dora enabled him to be sixteen.
Harry sat back up, slowly this time to avoid his vision swimming. He risked a glance over at Dora, who chose that moment to do the same. It was an awkward meeting of eyes and timid smiles. Dora got to her feet and helped Harry to his, letting him lean on her for a moment as the world swam and he got his feet underneath him.
"So was there anything interesting in the hill?" Harry asks Sirius and Ted, trying to avoid whatever is happening between him and Dora. Sirius perks up, excited to share.
"It's the Potter clan's Burial Mound!" the excitement in his face made it obvious his animagus form was a dog, only someone with such an affinity could be so happy and energetic. Ted absently thought it was only his family's influence that prevented him from being some form of retriever.
Harry's brow rose, intrigued. "Anything interesting in there?" He looked over at the dark entrance into the side of the hill.
"More ogham steles like the one in Goldfist's doorway! Ted here thinks they're a history of the Potter people!" He gestured to the man, who smiled and nodded, letting Sirius take the lead. "From what he was able to gather, they settled here on Penrhyn Mawr after fleeing a rival tribe further east. They bound a new altar to their bloodline, and seems to have considered that the founding of the clan - though it was not clear on that." Sirius looked to Ted for clarification.
"Yes, it was a bit unclear, though that might be my rusty translations. But it may be that your people are older than even we thought. Regardless, it appears that your ancestors defined a clan by the family magic anchored in the altar - and so needing a new altar would mean a new clan? It wasn't clear. I hope we find some more modern language explanations in other Potter properties." Ted scrunched his face up in annoyance.
"Did you check all the houses?" Andromeda spoke up. "I'd like to look at the burial mound if there's more for you guys to look at."
Harry shook his head. "No, only that one. There's a loom in it, and I found the dagger in there." Andy frowned in thought, before heading to the burial mound, her wand out and continuing to measure, monitor, and record things that the others didn't understand.
Ted and Sirius began to wander over to the roundhouses, and Harry and Dora shared another loaded glance now that they were alone, before blushing and taking the other's hand. They approached a roundhouse nobody had entered yet, Harry moving slowly and carefully to not pass out again. They ducked under the low doorway, and found themselves in a pottery studio. Hundreds and hundreds of pots were arrayed along the outside walls and the center was dominated by a large oven.
"I think we now know why you have your last name." Dora teased.