Chapter 48: Consequences
Harry shuffled the wings of his hang glider, taking care to keep them out from beneath any arching branches. Beneath him, the uppermost boughs of the tree swayed underfoot. "Sorry, Gilderien," he said aloud sheepishly. "I don't have the time to wait." Checking his bearings, he sprang upwards with a shouted "Ascendio!", rocketing into the sky. Facing his wand backwards, Harry hooked his feet over the bar and called "Depulso!"
Hang gliding was just as exhilarating the second time as it was during his debut. Trees loomed out of the darkness, just far enough away that he could twist around them. He passed the wards fairly quickly, vanishing the glider midair and apparating directly into Tialdari Hall. Failing to orient himself fast enough out of apparition, Harry stumbled on the shag carpet of the lounge, his knees burning against the carpet.
Dusting himself off, Harry applied a minor healing charm to his knees, collapsing into the nearest bit of furniture, a couch. He had not quite calmed from the exhilarating flight, and thought to rest briefly before barging in on the Queen. Harry closed his eyes for the briefest moment.
"Islanzadi wishes to see you," a voice said from right next to him. Jarred, he leapt up from the couch, wand in hand. An elf he recognized to be Niduen was lounging unnoticed on the couch next to him, calmly embroidering a heron mid-strike into some sheet of navy cloth. She was completely unruffled by the length of wood directed at her heart. "It is a matter of some haste," she added. Frowning, she furrowed her brows, gazing at his backpack.
"You brought guests."
"Top-secret ones," Harry agreed easily. "I'm sure there'll be all sorts of feasting for my latest heroic deed. No offense, but why did Islanzadi send Eragon's girlfriend to where I usually sleep, in the middle of the night?"
Niduen blushed slightly. "I did not consider that. Islanzadi thought it would be rude to send a stranger to wait for you, but your presence was a matter of some urgency. Eragon and I are not-"
Harry rolled his eyes. He'd had enough of this song and dance from Ron and Hermione to put up with. "Eragon constantly finds excuses to see you, and you never turn him down nor reprimand him for wasting your time. You look happier around him. So does he." He strode to the entryway, pulling off his harness and dropping it on the floor on the inside of the door's shadow.
Niduen put away her embroidery tools in a wicker basket. "I ought to give you directions."
Harry closed his eyes, outstretching his arm and pointed finger, swiveling to point through an unremarkable section of wall. "No need. She's that way." He grinned at her. "Now you can use the rest of this evening to romance your young rider."
Her cheeks pinked, but she rolled her eyes in exasperation. "It is nearly seven in the morning."
He shrugged and went to find the Queen. She proved to be unhappy with him. Harry was genuinely surprised at her irritation.
"I had the invisibility cloak, which is unique in that it hides the user's mind from scrutiny completely. We knew there were two eggs there, and probably other stuff worth taking, also. Arya and I agreed that the risk was worth the reward, and we were right."
Islanzadi rubbed her temples. "That is not how risk/reward calculations work. That your gambit paid off says nothing about its advisability." She eyed his bag of loot, her mental presence extending to within. A tiny smile crept onto her face before she managed to smother it with disapproval. "Leave your gains here and speak to Oromis about this. I haven't the time or patience to explain this to you. I gather by my daughter's absence that you wish to continue your 'vacation?'"
He didn't answer the question immediately. Harry expanded the back wall of her office out, wincing at the meticulous decorations on the wall that the action tore in half. Islanzadi watched unimpressed as he widened the section, further destroying the likely priceless, historically significant decor. It was gratifying to see her eyes bulge when he inserted Galbatorix's office into the space. He saw the moment she recognized the value of what he'd done, and her eyes flashed with vicious triumph.
Conjuring a mattress to cover the floor, Harry began producing Eldunari after Eldunari from his bag, setting them down carefully on the cushioned surface. He saw Islanzadi's composure slip. It was one thing to hear about something, and quite another to see it, to know. The Eldunari took up most of the remaining floor space, roughly spherical gems of every color ranging from nearly too big to get his arms around to the size of a fist. He gave Islanzadi the magic scroll and explained its functions and features.
Finally, he pitched his tent and levitated out Murtagh. Whistling, he summoned the red dragon to follow. Islanzadi looked on with muted shock.
"Morzan's son is a rider."
"Murtagh is a rider," Harry corrected. "Trust me, if Galbatorix were on fire and Murtagh was holding a bucket of water, he'd drink it and piss on his corpse." Islanzadi nearly smiled, Harry saw it. He grinned. "Even if he does not wish to join the Varden on its crusade–and I think it's likely he will, he will never help the king. Unfortunately, we have to fix him up before we can learn if he wants to help."
"What happened?" She examined his frozen body.
"After I shot Shruikan down, Galbatorix fired off an insanely powerful bolt of lightning. Murtagh was hit first. It arced through the red dragon before I managed to block it. The red dragon lost a leg, but I replaced that. Murtagh got hit the worst." Harry conjured up an illusion of the rider's body. He traced a line through the man's chest.
"There's a lot of internal damage, and I didn't want to let him die when your healers could probably save him with singing. He's frozen in time right now, so you can take your time to make plans for how to heal him."
Islanzadi regarded the man. "Frozen in time… He could sit out the war. We do not need to introduce this variable at all. Unless your time spell cannot be maintained?"
Harry scowled. "It can be. But it would be a betrayal. I would have taken advantage of his helplessness after an injury to steal years away from him. And I would not make his dragon grow up without its rider." He did not like the ruthless calculation in the Queen's eyes. As much as he had needled her pointlessly, Islanzadi would make a truly dangerous enemy. When he saw her discard the idea of freezing Murtagh out of the war, he relaxed.
"Very well. I shall have him sent to the Halls of Healing immediately. Now go speak to Oromis. When you are done, a runner will be sent to guide you to Murtagh, so that you can lift your spell and lend your aid."
Harry agreed and made to leave. Before he exited the doorway, Islanzadi called back. "Oh, and what happened to the last egg?"
He froze. A few seconds passed while he hastily concocted a convincing lie before panicking and remembering that lying in the Ancient Language would reveal an equally dangerous secret. Islanzadi rendered his considerations unnecessary. "Good for her, then. Congratulate my daughter on becoming a rider, won't you?"
A smile tugged at his lips. Maybe Islanzadi wasn't so bad, after all. "I will, ma'am."
Oromis was alone on the Crags when Harry approached. Glaedr was nowhere near, out of range of even Harry's newly-learned mental radar. Far enough from the elven city that he wouldn't accidentally offend someone by searching through their mind, he opened himself to the world around him like he had on the reef. Maintaining dual awareness of himself and his body and that of the teeming life present in even the most unremarkable stretch of grass was a difficult balance that drastically cut down on his range. Still, the experience was incredible. He felt unified with nature and life itself, like the border in his mind that marked himself off from the universe had suddenly expanded to include the entire forest.
The wizened rider's mind was similarly open. Harry did not pay deliberate attention to Oromis's mind, but it was impossible not to be keenly aware of his radiant presence among the comparatively dull plants, insects, and bacteria. When both of them touched each other's minds, there was an instant of profound understanding that passed between them, like a feedback loop of greeting. Feeling Oromis's mental gaze on him, Harry experienced the instinct to close and guard his mind, like making eye contact, but a thousand times more intimate. With a force of will, he suppressed it.
Looking at Oromis through his mental lens was awesome, in the biblical sense of the term. Harry couldn't help but be humbled by the elf's mind. His presence spilled over miles, the lightest touch that rested over everything like a blanket, penetrating deep into the earth and high into the sky, perfectly serene and peaceful. He was the eye of the storm of nature.
"Good morning, Ebrithil." Harry took a seat opposite Oromis, folding his legs beneath him on the dewy grass, warming himself with his magic.
"Good morning, Harry-vodhr." He did not open his eyes. He fell silent. Lips twitching, Harry remembered the last time Oromis tested his patience. He reckoned he could do better. Closing his eyes, he let his awareness of his body drift away and let the world wash over him.
The Crags stood in contrast to the reef and the glade, alike. The grass was a carpet of dim, resolute life that covered increasingly sparse insect life and root systems. Overhead, the rare, vibrant bird flew. Small and medium-sized game wandered over the ground. Life above water was an entire paradigm shift. The submersion in water versus air caused all its pursuant life to evolve in a strange dichotomy where sunlight was comparatively less valuable than microbes and useful minerals on the ocean floor.
Du Weldenvarden felt more active than usual. As the warmth of the summer months dwindled, the forest's denizens were more active in anticipation of winter. In preparation for hibernation, the animals hunted and gathered voraciously to build up fat. Harry whittled away time, attuned to the vagaries of nature.
Oromis's mental presence gave his mind the gentlest prod. Instinctively, he reacted by slamming his mind shut. The abrupt void of life staggered him. It was like the universe had ended around him. Harry struggled to reconnect with his senses and came to sprawled in the grass, chest heaving. "What the hell?" he demanded, too shocked to filter his thoughts through polite comportment.
The rider was unbothered by his rudeness. "I called your name several times and tapped your shoulder, but you would not respond. I guessed that would be an expedient method to snap you out of your trance." Harry glared at him.
"I congratulate you, Harry, on achieving such meditation. I admit, I thought it a possibility, given your history with mind magic, that you would be unable to do it." Harry's foul mood subsided a bit. Oromis did not give out idle or polite compliments. If he said he was impressed, you could take that to the bank.
"Meditation is a good start, but a rider must be able to maintain that state of awareness at all times, even while he is fighting for his life, without being distracted. Continue to practice it for at least an hour a day," instructed Oromis. "Now, I understand Queen Islanzadi sent you to me with a lesson in mind. Specifically, how to make accurate risk/reward calculations, and how you might have erred in your assessment yesterday."
Harry nodded. They sat opposite each other on the grass, cross legged and straight-backed. "Take me through your thought process for breaking into the citadel."
He cast his mind back. "I had accomplished the initial resource gathering and delivery Arya and I set out to do by the second morning, and we were bored." Harry checked Oromis's face for exasperation. The elf had an impressive poker face. "We spitballed ideas and came up with two potential errands: investigate a mysterious source of interference in Alagaesia on Vroengard, or loot the capital."
Oromis was an attentive listener, occasionally asking questions and clarifying, but generally allowed Harry to recount what happened and why he made the decisions he did. Never did he react in a way that implied he was stupid for his decisions, merely taking in the facts.
"If I may summarize; you broke in with the understanding that your cloak would prevent Galbatorix or his wards from discovering your mind or seeing you, and that further magic would mask your scent and sound. You judged your risk of discovery to be negligible and thus the danger of being in the heart of the enemy's sanctum to be high, but not suicidal, yes?" Harry nodded.
"A well-reasoned decision. You remembered to weigh the relative risk of failure against the potential rewards. In this case, your and Arya's capture against the theft of the remaining two dragon eggs, whatever intelligence you could scrounge up, and perhaps Galbatorix's treasury and war chest. Yet Islanzadi, Glaedr, and I all disagree with your assessment. Why?"
Harry frowned. It wasn't a trick question, he was sure. "Arya and I are worth more than two dragon eggs?" The idea rang false. "I am more valuable than two dragon eggs.", he amended firmly. "I can clone the two living free dragons, male and female, which is enough on its own to negate the advantage of the other two dragons, and there's a chance I can clone dead dragons, too."
Oromis clasped his hands. "Half right. You are more valuable than two dragon eggs, but not for the reasons you suppose. Despite what most of our and the Varden's actions suggest, there is more to this war than dragons. While you likely have less damaging information on the elves and dwarves than Arya, Galbatorix capturing you would be the worst thing that could possibly happen. You represent an entire civilization of unknown and powerful magic, whose capabilities often far exceed those of our own. Galbatorix will be difficult enough to kill once. Imagine if he were to make a Horcrux. Imagine if he were able to apparate. Further, Galbatorix's ability to make slaves of his enemies is so powerful because every enemy he captures, he strikes a two-fold blow against them: once to deny them the capabilities of the captured, twice to turn their skill against them." Oromis rose to his feet and beckoned Harry, facing away towards the jutting crags.
"You are worth more than we can easily afford to lose, Harry. There is a reason beyond pride that Saphira does not fly cargo for the Varden, or Eragon, hunt for their food. The place you choose to take in this war will alter its outcome. Magic lends you a far greater impact than any normal man could have. If you choose to siege cities, the Varden will be able to move swiftly through the Empire. If you choose to spend your time healing the wounded, the war will have much fewer casualties. If you choose to hone your skills in single combat, you become a candidate to slay Galbatorix. Your decisions will alter the course of this war, but only if you are able to make them."
Harry had no answer for Oromis. If anything, learning about the Eldunari ensured he was even more likely to make the same decision to rob the capital, given the chance. He heard and understood the elf's concerns over his capture, but he did not share them. Perhaps it was foolish to dismiss the wise rider's advice, but if he were the kind of man to make those calculations, he wouldn't be Harry Potter. He was a Gryffindor, a bold and courageous adventurer who dared to face lethal danger with a grin. He would listen to advice and would never drag an unwilling accomplice with him, but if there was a wrong to be righted, Harry couldn't see himself making the cold-blooded calculation that someone's life was worth less than his involvement would cost.
He stared into the sunrise contemplatively. He could use another opinion. From a familiar face, ideally. The Resurrection Stone seemed to grow heavy on his finger. "I have not convinced you," Oromis mused.
"I wouldn't say that," argued Harry. "I'll definitely think harder before making decisions like that. I just wouldn't change my decision in this case. I don't know how to articulate it, really. Having the ability to do the right thing and abstaining because of some minute risk rubs me the wrong way."
"So you will reject logic in pursuit of what your heart tells you?" Oromis challenged. "Too many men have created disasters with good intentions and poor reasoning."
"No. I will not. But my life is mine to spend as I see fit, and if I choose to gamble it on saving two dragon eggs from enslavement to a madman, so be it. It's mine to spend or squander."
"If you were an ordinary man, perhaps. But when you tie yourself to this campaign, we all rely on you to carry out whatever responsibilities you choose for yourself. You would do well to consider a paraphrased line from Rhëammoth's works; "You do not experience your own death. It is something which happens to everyone else." Her intent was to bring attention to the emotional damage one's death inflicts upon a loved one, but it rings true for duty, also."
"But I know heaven exists-"
Oromis interrupted him, holding up his hand. "It does not matter what you believe, or even if it were true. No one who has died has offered aid, carried out their duties, or comforted a loved one. They are beyond the ability to aid us on our mortal plane, unable to assist us in our mundane war."
Harry found himself inexplicably angry. The new idea threatened to burst his cognitive dissonance. Believing in the rightness of logical reasoning and yet still sure in his choice, Harry was clinging to two opposing viewpoints at once, and having the fallacy pointed out was drawing senseless ire from him.
The old rider's face softened. "There is no shame in allowing the lesser of two evils. It is hard. We elves struggle with it, too. You will not find a single family that has not lost someone to the Fall. Our blood sings for vengeance, to strike back at the one who has taken from us. The instinctive morality we are born with does not care for windows of opportunity or cold-blooded calculations of value, and the urge to do something can be hard to resist, but we are of the thinking races, and can exercise logic to select the best option, even when it runs against our instincts."
Though he struggled with it, Harry managed to wrestle the idea down, drawing comparisons between his opposing beliefs and incorporating Oromis's. It helped that it was obvious his teacher was not trying to make him look stupid, but teach him a valuable lesson. Subduing his cognitive dissonance, Harry unbent his pride to convey the sincerity of his words.
"Thank you for the lesson, Ebrithil. I shall work to govern my actions by it."
Oromis nodded. "You are welcome. Now, I gather from Arya's absence that you do not intend to stay here in Ellesmera?"
Harry contemplated the rippling grass and swaying trees, bending under the cool, early autumn breeze. It was tempting. Ellesmera was a timeless paradise where his every need was provided for. Companionship was never far, Orik and Eragon and Saphira would certainly stay. Masters of every craft in Alagaesia were always near and willing to teach or answer questions, masters of arms were always willing to hone his skills, artisan chefs produced endless and wonderful meals. The entire forest was full of serene, peaceful life.
But it wasn't real. It didn't challenge him to live in Ellesmera. He lived in a wing of the royal quarters, sleeping in someone else's bed, eating someone else's food, wearing someone else's clothes. Living in the Spine was thrilling because it was at least a little challenging. Harry wasn't opposed to luxury, he simply wanted to earn it for himself.
"Arya, Aupho and I agreed to stay out on the east coast until some time before Agaeti Blodhren."
"You are hoping Aupho will continue to instruct you as Glaedr and I have," Oromis guessed. "It is not ideal. A flesh-and-blood teacher will always be better, but at least you will continue learning."
Harry wholeheartedly agreed. Oromis was a wonderful instructor, and Glaedr's tutelage, though different, was also engaging and useful. He also knew that Oromis and Glaedr were Elders even among the original Riders, and were bound to be more experienced and knowledgeable than the disembodied, riderless dragon, Aupho.
In the end, Oromis bade Harry good luck, and gave him his recalcitrant blessing. He gave Harry his wishes to congratulate Arya on becoming a Rider and directed him to the healing halls, grand, open white rooms with clean, light beds and elf-healers wandering about. Navigating the sparse elvish patients, Harry lent his hand in removing Murtagh's stasis charm and healing him up. The little red dragon had watched the entire process from his bedside table, its red irises never leaving its human partner. He spent an hour putting back in order the allotted construction site Islanzadi had given him and smoothed the natural terrain back over the earth.
Twice more, he was interrupted on his way out of Ellesmera. First, when one of the Queen's runners flagged him down. "Queen Islanzadi wishes to relay that a message from Nasuada's scroll, penned by the one you call 'Angela,' is urgent and meant for you," said the elf. "I am to tell you that Angela is waiting with Eragon's cursed child at the salt flats."
Harry cursed. "Anything else?" They shrugged.
"That was the message, Harry-vodhr."
"Thank you…"
"Sigai," the messenger smiled. "You are welcome."
Then, as he made to launch himself into the air, an angry, shrieking bird call pierced the air. Alarmed, Harry opened his mind to find Hedwig winging down on him, furious. The ball of warm, flickering white feathers mobbed him, pecking at his arms and hands just hard enough to hurt. Glad the messenger had left before they could witness his defeat at the hands of an avian, Harry stumbled backwards.
"Woah! Hed, what's up? It's good to see you!"
A sense of outrage emanated from the infuriated bird. Good to see her? Good to see her? How dare her stupid, careless human speak as if nothing was wrong!? The indignation she felt at him carrying his own mail, apparating across the country to deliver by hand, when she was available nearly made him quail. How dare he ignore her while stealing her job? Harry was uncomfortably reminded of Fawkes's ability to claw out Blinky's eyes.
"I'm sorry," he groveled, holding out his arm, wincing when Hedwig's claws bit into his arm unnecessarily tightly. "I shouldn't have forgotten about you, Hed. I've just been so busy. Where have you been?"
The phoenix turned her head away from him primly, pointing a wing forward. Obligingly, Harry went as directed, ducking well off the beaten path and through underbrush, carefully clearing bushes and keeping Hedwig and her feathers away from anything. The prideful bird was angry enough at him as it was. If he were honest, Harry had rather forgotten about her recently. He was surprised when of her own initiative, he was introduced to fire-travel.
It was a strange experience. Like gripping Fawkes's tail feathers in the Chamber of Secrets, weightlessness stole across his body, and a pervading warmth burned through him, searing away impurities. A gout of white flame engulfed the two of them, dying down immediately after. Harry marveled at the sensation. It was cathartic, like he had just had a good cry, and he was feeling the emotional peacefulness proceeding it. His weariness was washed away like he had just woken from a restful eight hours of deep slumber, ready to conquer the day.
Then he looked around the little oasis Hedwig had taken him to. The otherworldly clearing was breathtaking. But that was not what made Harry gasp, a wide smile on his face. The miniature paradise paled in the face of the little nest in the center, a patchwork of ash and singed twigs where three little panda-faced black-and-white phoenix chicks chirped at the sight of their mother, eyeing Harry with curiosity. "Who's the father?" he pestered. "Do phoenixes even need fathers? I never considered how you all come to be, given eggs just turn back into adults."
Hedwig ruffled her feathers, shaking glowing white embers from her plumage. Of course we have fathers, she seemed to say with her indignant gaze. Lacking the ability to vocalize her mate's name, Harry took a stab in the dark at the only other bird he knew by name in Ellesmera. "Not…Blagden?"
She bobbed her head. He laughed aloud. "That's amazing!" A thought came to mind which sobered him. "Arya and I are going to be living far out for the next few months. Can you move your nest, or do you want to? I suppose you could always fire-travel to visit or bring Blagden back and forth, or move the nest and babies," mused Harry. "You can take other birds with you, right?" Hedwig gave him an offended look and turned away.
"You don't want to come with?"
She cawed sharply and launched herself at him. Harry made to cover his face with his arms, but this time, Hedwig simply grasped his shoulder, flaming him straight to the shore in front of Arya.
"What? But-" The phoenix vanished again, gone for only moments before the nest in question was resting on the grass. Arya crawled over, cooing over the nest.
"They're beautiful," she smiled. "What has you so discomfited?"
"She just teleported straight through Ellesmera's wards," he said dazedly. "With passengers. Arya's mouth opened and closed silently. Her green dragon had approached the nest, and was poking at it with its nose curiously. Hedwig hovered over it protectively, watching the little dragon like a hawk.
"Well," she said finally, "that's that, I suppose." Harry cracked a smile.
"It'll make visits easier, if we want. If you would wait a moment, Angela apparently needs something and hasn't been here to apparate."
Arya gasped with mock disbelief. "Somewhere Angela hasn't been? For shame." Her laughter tinkled like bells in the early morning air.
The salt flats were chilly in the morning, and when Harry arrived it was to two figures bundled up around a bowl of bluebell flames. Angela was recognizable with her colorfully-embroidered, tasseled shawl and curly hair. The other figure was tiny, no larger than a baby, yet her violet eyes immediately snapped to him upon his arrival, calculating and intelligent. Eragon's cursed child. Her gaze was penetrating, more observant than even Dumbledore. If his old Headmaster's gaze felt like being x-rayed, the girl was MRI or CT-scanning him. The whole of his being felt laid bare before her.
"What's up, Angela?" he shivered, unrelated to the morning chill. Folding his legs, he sat across the fire. The pair of them were eating sandwiches, though the girl's distinctly Ron-like table manners were more aptly described as devouring.
"Harry, this is Elva," she introduced cheerily, upending a bottle of ketchup over her avocado toast. Harry didn't even bother trying to figure out where she had gotten her hands on ketchup. As far as he knew, he had invented the condiment for Alagaesia with Rhunon, and never gave Angela any. Elva's eyes had not left him, though some of the harshness had softened.
"You're a better man than most I've met, Harry Potter." Her voice was haunting, deeper and more mature than her body should have been physically capable of. She sounded surreal, like she was lip-syncing to a much older woman's voice.
"Er, thanks?" he shifted awkwardly. "How can I help?"
Angela's features darkened slightly. "Elva is cursed to experience the pain of everyone around her, and feels a powerful compulsion to stop that pain from occurring even at the cost of her own body. You, Arya, and I all know a word that could fix this."
Harry nodded, wondering why Angela had not done it herself. "Should that fail, the next most obvious solution is for Elva to live somewhere with little to no suffering."
"And you thought of me?" asked Harry incredulously. He addressed Elva. "Do you feel emotional pain as well as physical? Can you tell if someone is grieving or sad?"
"I can."
"And I'm not too miserable and angsty for you to be around?" he joked, cracking a smile.
"You are not," she said quietly.
That was more reassuring than Harry thought it would be. Oromis's challenge still rested heavily on his mind. Elva cracked the tiniest smile. "What do you need from me?" asked Harry. "Arya and I are going to be living on the east coast for the next few months. Are you okay with that?"
"If you take me there first, so I may return," Angela's eyes sparkled. "It is up to Elva. I hoped you'd lend me your expertise. To my knowledge, undoing spells is impossible."
Harry had heard of a method that did not use the Name, and shared. "Elves have a way to do it, but it's ridiculously difficult and incredibly easy to screw up. Recanting the exact intention, not just the original words. And if you get it wrong, and you want to undo that, you need to perfectly unsay the two entwined spells. The results are unpredictable, but it has been known to work."
"I would have it done," Elva said immediately, a hint of desperation in her eyes. Harry crossed his arms.
"Hold your horses, there. That's not the only option, and it's the riskiest one. Angela, Arya, and I have a tool no one else does, one which can probably let us remove your curse in its entirety. Besides that, the more common, and oft-used technique of the elves is the opposite of the first method. They cast a second spell directly counter to the first. It is undoubtedly the safest, but I consider it wasteful, since the two spells are constantly wasting energy fighting each other. Unless you want to be eternally bound to a few miles away from whoever is sending you the energy, it would have to come from you, and that eternal–if slight–drain on you would reduce your overall energy." He took a deep breath, looking Elva in the eyes.
"The last method is the one I'd like to try. Where I'm from, wizards have a general counter-spell, finite incantatem. It simply ends most bits of magic not designed specifically to resist it. It costs us nothing to try, and I can't think of any way it might make the other methods harder. If it fails, we can look into using the tool I referred to. Is that okay with you?"
Elva nodded quickly, like she was terrified he would rescind his offer if she didn't agree fast enough. Harry pulled out his wand. "Here goes nothing. Finite incantatem."
Nothing visibly happened. Frowning, he asked Elva, "Did it work?" She shook her head. "Right, well, I guess we can use the next one-"
"Wait." Elva turned to Angela. "Pinch him." Shrugging, Angela leaned around the fire and pinched Harry's hand. Elva didn't so much as flinch. "Again," she demanded, naked hope in her eyes. She leaned forward and hovered her hand over Angela's, poised to slap it away. Obligingly, the herbalist gave Harry another firm pinch. Elva seemed unable to believe her senses.
"It's gone," she whispered in astonishment. "The compulsion to help, it's gone!" Her violet eyes grew wet. Abruptly, she flung her arms around Harry. "Thank you," she said into his neck.
Harry patted her awkwardly. "You're welcome." He'd not done much, really. Finite incantatem was a trivial spell, and by the sound of it, Elva could still sense others' pain, even if she wasn't bound to stop it. "Can't you still feel my pain? I can try again, to remove the last bits of the curse," he offered.
Elva fell silent in consideration, still clinging to him. Breathing out unsteadily, she said "No. Maybe one day. I would not relish living near the warfront, but this ability is part of who I am. Without it, I will just be a witch-child." Harry hugged her.
"I'll respect your wishes, Elva. You're welcome to live with Arya and I on the east coast. Since the three of us, and perhaps Angela if she chooses to visit, will be the only humans within a thousand miles, you'll find more peace there than with even the elves. And if it becomes too much, the offer is always open," promised the wizard.
"I would live with you, if you are willing," Elva said desperately.
"Brilliant," he grinned.
"Amazing," Angela marveled, tracking the rising sun off the coast. "Nowhere in all of recorded history is there an account of this place. Not even the obscurest, most nomadic tribes of knowledge-seekers have an inkling that this place even exists. If not for the Riders' robust theory of the earth's roundness, they themselves might have said the Endless Plains go on for eternity."
Just then, Arya crested the hill, her green dragon perched on her shoulder. Hedwig soared in the air after her, singing majestically. Angela eyed the dragon with awe. Whirling on her heel, she demanded of Harry, "Where did she find a dragon egg? Surely that's not-"
Harry cackled. "Oh yes it is."
"And you didn't put that onto the linked scrolls? I rather thought that was the point of them."
Arya laughed, skipping towards them, her mood ebullient. "There is so much to tell, and we have only just returned by hours. Welcome, Mooneater!"
Angela's eyes sparkled with interest. "Oh you must tell me what terrible secrets Galbatorix keeps hidden with his dragon eggs."
While Arya wove the tale of their daring theft, Harry followed Elva down to the beach. He kicked off his shoes, squishing the sand between his toes. The rising sun had not yet heated the sand to scorching, and the onset of autumn kept the beach pleasantly cool. Elva stepped up to the waves, the foamy water rising and receding over her bare toes.
Conjuring a beach umbrella, chair, and table, Harry spread out his communications scroll and clicked open a ballpoint pen. Casting his mind back, he scribbled out a rough report of what had happened in the citadel.
"Why are you watching me?" Elva asked, her black hair being tugged by the sea breeze. She still felt delicate, the result of him completely overturning her life and putting a stop to the worst of her anguish. Her voice shook slightly, and her eyes were lost at sea.
"Well, it's what responsible adults do." Harry watched the scroll, frowning as Orrin and Nasuada both wrote frantically at the same time, demanding answers. He closed it and vanished the table. The chair melted into a beach chair, and a pair of sunglasses appeared in his hand. "If you choose to live with Arya and I, we're responsible for your safety. That means we watch you when you go swimming until you're big and strong enough to swim safely on your own."
"I will know if I'm going to be hurt. I won't drown."
"Do you? Does your power extend to yourself? It's no problem for me to sit out here, really. We don't even have a house yet."
Elva turned towards him, scrunching her silver-marked brow. "I- I don't know. I've never much considered my own safety."
An ugly feeling reared in Harry, a disgust with Eragon that he quickly pushed aside in his head. It was a mistake he could have easily made, himself. "That's what you have guardians for. It's my job now to protect you."
The little girl seemed lost for words.
"It's so quiet out here," she said finally. "The only pain here is your own. You feel guilty for killing Galbatorix's men."
Harry smiled ruefully. "I'm sorry. I was going to seek reassurance from some wise people beyond the veil, but I've gotten caught up this morning. I'm trying to come to terms with it emotionally. Logically, I can easily reason that their deaths were worth what they enabled, and that I cannot be afraid to overcome obstacles on the path to defeating Galbatorix, but it's hardly enough when I see their dying faces in my dreams."
"You're not a monster for killing in battle, Harry Potter," Elva said quietly. "War is part of the human condition, and it is right to fight for your beliefs. That includes killing."
Her words struck a chord within Harry, resonating oddly. It didn't cure the issue, but it lifted some pressure. He sighed in relief. "Thank you. Hearing it out loud is different from reasoning it in my head."
Elva quirked a smile. "That particular agony is common. I have seen it in the hearts of thousands of the Varden's men."
That thought was depressing. Harry decided to chase it away by swimming. Elva looked like she wanted to protest the floaty water wings and purple swimsuit, but she wound up begrudgingly smiling and swimming in the warm ocean. He spotted Angela's jaw hanging at the sound of the girl's carefree laughter, splashing saltwater in his face. Harry grinned. Maybe having another person around wouldn't be so bad.
Despite professing to be curious about raising a baby dragon, Angela left for the Varden with a swirl of shawls and a muted crack. Evidently the war camp was still the most interesting place to be in Alagaesia. That left Harry, Arya, and Elva alone and technically homeless. Thus, Harry began planning it out, this time with added input.
He produced images of different styles of architecture from the Encyclopedia Britannica, thirty-two precious volumes that gave him just enough overview of every subject that with generous application of magic and experimentation, he managed to reproduce most everything he tried his hand at. Harry wished for a pensieve, for the magical artifact would certainly have made everything so much easier. He had seen most styles of building before, and knowing little of the limits of the pensieve, it was not unthinkable that he could explore the interiors without having been inside them.
If he were honest with himself, the exterior of the log cabin had been pretty ugly. For a spot as beautiful as the oceanfront hill, Harry would put in some real effort to make it look good. Arya preferred less of the ultra-modern steel/glass/concrete monoliths, and Harry disliked both gothic and victorian styles for their horrible association with Malfoy Manor. Greek architecture was considered and discarded for being too dwarvish, and eventually, Elva was the one to decide on Mediterranean style: red ceramic tile roof and white-painted stucco.
Planning consumed the entire day. Harry started with a topographical model of the hill, cliff, and beach going five hundred meters inland. Using transfiguration, he and Arya proposed and tweaked ideas on a miniature scale. Elva grew disinterested quickly, and ended up playing with the green dragon. Harry almost laughed at how Arya's attention was continuously drawn to the two children playing on the beach.
It took hours to refine the architecture down to resembling the reference pictures. Harry was tempted to bring in a dead architect, but the desire to figure it out himself won out. Trivial things like the angle of the gabled roofs turned out to be difficult, setting the slope to exactly the right angle to look proper. Nearly everything took that level of refinement, from the columns and bannister supports, to the tilework of the pool deck, or the shape of the fountains and green garden spaces. Even the exact shade of white for painting the stucco took refinement to pin down. Arya had kept in mind the sizes of the dragons that might live with them, and Blinky's tremendous girth, and incorporated large windows, balconies, and courtyards to let potential dragons in and out easily.
It was worth it. Elva had eventually grown bored of the dragon and returned to see what they had wrought. The mansion looked exactly like a billionaire retreat with sturdy marble columns, arched windows, wrought iron lamp posts, an azure pool with a living mosaic floor, and an immaculately manicured lawn.
"Now we just have to do the interior," Harry cracked. Arya rolled her eyes.
Construction began the next morning. Harry was unpleasantly unsurprised to discover that working with actual measurements and planning made the building process far, far longer than slapping everything together on the fly with transfiguration. The model was meticulously measured in every way, and final adjustments were made to round the numbers to relatively even measurements. Cutting and forming the terrain was made difficult by needing to prop up the loose soil in order to keep to the measurements for the foundations. Despite his intention to speak with someone, probably Dumbledore, about his guilty conscience, something pushed him to continue to put it off. Instead, he threw himself into construction.
Harry used a frankly ridiculous amount of rebar in the reinforced concrete foundations. Sourcing the concrete was easy – he had decided not to use transfigured materials wherever possible – Harry used his rudimentary alchemical knowledge to turn the slag from steel production and tailings from grinding up stone and the like into enduring, strong concrete that (hopefully) would never crack or chip. Of course, he protected the foundations with magic, anyway. Even with time magic to accelerate the setting concrete, the foundations still took up most of the first day. They couldn't do it all in one go; the floor had to dry before they could pour the walls. Thus, the day ended with a jagged, half-cube of concrete sticking out of the wall of the trimmed hill.
Despite the loads of work to be done, Harry and Arya adhered strictly to their training regiment, overseen by the orange Eldunari. Every morning they danced the third level of the Rimgar, followed by an hour of sparring, followed by an hour of meditation at the reef.
Elva, Hedwig, the dragonling, and the little phoenixes all adjusted quickly, for which Harry was grateful. He didn't really have a concept of what good parenting looked like (the Dursleys had mostly taught him what not to do) but thankfully, Aupho was willing to babysit while they built. To be on the safe side, Harry kicked Blinky out of the cow pasture where she had been gorging herself on his cows to keep an eye on them. The basilisk was approaching truly ludicrous sizes, her cross-section at the thickest point was large enough to fit Harry standing upright spread-eagle. She was long enough to curl all the way around the hill, dangling over the cliff and down to the beach floor, draped over the ledge further down, and snaking back to her tail. Blinky had sulked about being separated from her unlimited source of food, and the other animals had sulked about the presence of the titanic serpent, but privately, Harry was glad he had gotten Blinky out when he did; she was rapidly approaching a girth where she would be unable to exit the tent.
The next morning, Arya went out to source the materials they didn't have. Harry spent the time she was gone producing molds, frames, and beams out of wood from magically flash-grown wood. When she returned around lunchtime, it was with the locations for large marble and clay deposits. An hour later, Harry returned with a colossal quantity of the materials. For the remainder of the day, they used wood scaffolding and an excessive amount of steel beams to build the frame of the first floor. Aupho was intensely curious, and watched the entire process through their eyes, asking questions about construction and wand magic.
On the third day, Arya and Harry worked together to produce several basic flying carpets. Lacking cranes or lifts, accessing the framework on the upper level was impossible without awkwardly working off flying broomsticks. Textiles were a resource Harry didn't have access to, so Hedwig was employed to buy bolts of the stuff from Surda. Harry didn't know how the bird managed to negotiate prices with the bag of gold he'd given her. He decided that it wasn't his problem, and began enchanting them.
Disappointingly, the basic flying carpet enchantments were trivial. Harry actually had to restrain himself to making the flight charms slower, since stability was more important than speed in heavy construction equipment. He still put aside a bolt of white linen for a supersonic carpet to be made later. The carpets had all sorts of convenient enchantments on them, each added after some inconvenience Harry had to deal with during construction. They had the ability to slide underneath heavy steel or wooden beams, hovered rock-steady midair, and stuck whatever load was on it in place during flight, preventing the payload from falling off in flight.
Arya's skills with wand magic were improving to the point he no longer needed to give her anything but spells and spellbooks for her to figure things out. Harry left her to finish the frame, spending the rest of the day extruding ductile galvanized steel into wires to make chicken wire netting for the stucco, and mixing the stucco itself. Both tasks were easy enough to automate, and he already had everything on hand to make stucco. Composed of lime and sand, the material he had gathered for glass had everything he needed besides water, which he created with aguamenti.
Harry vacillated on whether to properly run utilities through the walls. Putting in pipes for running water and sewage and wiring electricity would be an order of magnitude more difficult after putting in the walls. However, he hardly needed them when vanishment and conjuration could replace plumbing entirely. In the end, he ran wiring for wall outlets. Harry didn't have an easy spell to generate electricity, and he knew very little on the subject in any case. Running wires was easy enough, if a bit of a pain to manage the cables. He simply used three different colored cables for hot, neutral, and ground, and ensured that the wires connected in the same spot to each outlet's layout. Actually electrifying the system could wait until he knew what he was doing. Amusingly, Harry had so much silver in his vault that it was more economical to use it for wiring than copper. The silver had an added benefit of being a slightly better conductor than copper, the best known element for the job.
After setting up an automated assembly line for the baked red roofing tiles, Harry and Arya both used magic to slather the stucco all over the chicken wire, filling in the walls with the moldable concrete-like material. They both had a great time exercising their magic constructively and using their creativity, rather than employing magic as nothing more than a weapon. Arya thrived on the creative aspects of construction, sculpting colonnades, courtyards, fountains, and landscaping features out of stucco and masonry, employing transfiguration to its fullest potential. Harry enjoyed tinkering and experimenting with enchanting, and the larger strokes of construction and landscaping, taming the untouched wilderness into groomed lawns and garden areas or lathing and polishing marble pillars and arches.
By the end of the week, the exterior was finished save for the most intricate bits: the mosaics, the roofing tiles, and the wrought iron lamp posts. The last couple days had been a frenzy of cutting glass windows, fitting window frames, and setting up plumbing for the fountains. It was a week later that Harry and Arya were laying face down on hovering construction carpets, an ever-full caulk gun and a pile of red tiles in hand.
"I'm starting to understand your obsession with creating," she admitted, lining another tile with caulk and sliding it into place, wiggling it firmly.
"Right?" Harry grinned.
"There is something uniquely satisfying about seeing something come into existence at your hands. Even if it is tedious."
"I'm just following Rhunon's philosophy," Harry agreed. "Using magic too much tends to rob oneself of the pleasure of completing something. Plus, doing it right has a tangible advantage." He tapped his wand against his tile, expertly applying a half dozen enchantments against wear and damage in an instant. "It's so much easier to enchant real stuff than conjured stuff."
Arya furrowed her brow, tapping the stone several times. "How would you judge my progress with your magic?"
"Insane," answered Harry immediately. "Ludicrous. I spent seven years learning stuff you've picked up in months. Some of the stuff you're doing, I didn't figure out until after I ended up in Alagaesia. Free, non-verbal transfiguration is the penultimate fundamental skill of the entire branch, and you've mastered it in weeks. We didn't learn non-verbal magic until our sixth year, and casting multiple spells at once is simply not taught at Hogwarts."
"Harry speaks the truth, daughter of the forest. This new magic you wield may be unfamiliar to me, but your skills in traditional gramarye are great."
They reached the awning and drifted back to the ridge, caulking and sliding new tiles under the cap. "I have little idea how to use transfiguration in combat," Arya admitted. "I would like to practice later."
Harry agreed easily. "It's a good idea, and something I ought to work out for myself, too. You should keep in mind, though, magic can be used for war without just killing the enemy."
The roof tiling was done by lunchtime, so they moved on to tile, brick, masonry, and mosaics. Harry set up a diamond-tipped circular saw with a water jet mounted to a table and churned out mirror-smooth limestone tiles and little squares of blue glass. Arya took the pieces and slotted them into the pattern around the outdoor pool. The tessellated deck spread over the bare concrete, taking its beautiful shape before their eyes.
The floor of the pool, Harry cheated on with transfiguration. Triquetras and celtic knotwork designs covered the floor. Into the sides and on the floor, he enchanted fake plumbing with water conjuration and vanishment runes on the jets and drains respectively, imbued with temperature control schemes. Six pool lights went in a foot below the waterline. The shallow end had three steps to the floor, and the walls of the pool were simple white stucco.
Arya shoveled dirt into the planter boxes and transplanted coastal trees and verdant bushes into the soil, singing them into place. Harry linked enchanted lights to toggle switches at each doorway, covered the wall outlets in plastic coverings with standardized layouts, wired everything to a central panel in a basement closet, and spent an hour repeating the same simple switch circuit over and over for each room, meticulously labeling each one on the breaker. Electrical wiring was another task Aupho took a keen interest in.
Arya lathed marble supports for the banisters and railings. Harry was often distracted by how hot she looked wearing safety glasses and a ponytail, covered in marble dust. Every day, the place came together a bit more. The sinks, toilets, showers, and baths popped up, transfigured from marble or glass or stainless steel. Decorative masonry cladding started covering corners. Harry's glasswork started making its way onto chandeliers, and Arya's ecological expertise started making its way into the gardens. Fireplaces, chimneys, hearths, a grill, and even a pizza oven popped up. The lathe was always busy producing pillars or supports or columns or lamp posts.
Every evening, Harry and Arya would pause their work to check in on Elva and the menagerie. Though it got cooler each successive night, they would sit at the base of the hill, clustered around a small fire in their squishy, purple sleeping bags that made Harry nostalgic for the time when he thought his godfather was a mass murderer. The three of them would argue fiercely over Monopoly, cursing the mere concept of capitalism, or else one would whisper strategies and spoil traps into the ears of whoever was commanding the wizard chess set at the time. While Elva was awful at chess, she was an outright demon at any games with an element of chance. Harry had to lock down his mind into a state of emotionlessness to win even a single hand of poker against the girl.
The unspoken rule against transfiguration lapsed in the face of demand for furniture and textiles that neither of them knew how to produce. Lawn chairs and pool deck chairs, tables with tall canvas umbrellas, end tables, beds, bedding, pillows, couches, chairs, and tables were brought forth, conceived in Harry's and Arya's minds and made reality through the force of their imagination, will, and magic.
Refusing to use expansion anywhere but the basement, responsibly allocating the rooms for different purposes actually took some thought. They still had far more space than was necessary, but Harry couldn't indulge in his usual habit of absentmindedly expanding hallways and rooms like an anthill. Expanded space that he could see the exterior of always felt slightly off to be inside. They settled on a couple of offices and a laundry room for the rooms that did not have french doors onto balconies or a veranda. Those were reserved for bedroom suites, a parlor and a boudoir, a games room, a library, and the indoor pool. Neither Harry nor Arya knew what to do with a parlor or boudoir, respectively, but they seemed like the things to have, according to Encyclopedia Britannica.
Arya laid the wards while Harry emplaced the larger enchantments. The wards shielded against scrying, direct attack, fire, hidden intruders, and environmental hazards like hail, mold, flooding, and earthquakes. Aupho made the process into a lesson, instructing them in the less common wards against radiation (though she didn't use that term,) plague, and drought. Harry's environmental enchantments kept out pests, kept hail, sleet, and rain from blowing through the windows. Some regions like the outdoor pool were allowed to experience the full range of weather, while others, like the library balcony, the veranda, or the areas shaded beneath umbrellas kept out the less pleasant parts of nature. The outdoor pool's water temperature was enchanted to be inversely proportional to the temperature of the weather; it would be cool in the summer, and hot in the winter. The many wards Harry used, he often found in grimoires or spellbooks from the Potters or the Blacks. When he had an objective that no existing enchantment existed for, he would use desire-based, unstructured magic to do. Others had parameters he was able to modify to suit his needs.
Once the furnishings and interior were mostly done, the tweaking began in earnest. Both Harry and Arya made many hundreds of changes, transfigurations and color-change charms so common they could both cast minor alterations and change color schemes without wands or even much thought.
"What do you think?"
"A bit darker grey, perhaps?"
Harry tweaked the coloring of the pool chair. "I like it," he announced. He heaved himself into the chair. "It's sturdy enough. Geminio."
"The trim pattern is kinda ugly. At least I didn't make enough for the whole house before trying it out."
Arya ran her wand across the trim, transfiguring it. "A lighter color will contrast better with the stucco. Try pure white."
"A bit larger. The open feel is better. The archway doesn't need to be so pointed."
"We're going to have to change all the others to match," Harry groused. Arya rolled her eyes.
"Yes, that will be so difficult. Why did you plant a big tree in the middle of the courtyard? Not that I mind."
Harry shrugged. "I figured Hedwig might like a more natural perch."
"You're giving me my own room?" Elva asked, a little black-and-white phoenix perched on her shoulder, bobbing his head, digesting a tiny fish.
"Yeah," Harry nodded, pushing open the door. "Any colors you particularly like?"
Elva's purple eyes took in the vaulted ceiling, the french doors, and the balcony looking out over the cliff to the ocean. "Purple," she decided. "Please."
"Why are you tearing holes in the walls?" Arya demanded. Harry finished carving out a chunk of stucco between the kitchen and the basement and glanced sheepishly at her.
"Secret passages?" She sighed and walked away.
"The green dragon will not grow so large as to fill that in a thousand years." Arya commented on the enormous landing patio and archway which led into an equally colossal open, vaulted room lit warmly, a great, downy depression like the dragon beds in Ellesmera in the center. Harry grinned nervously and crossed his fingers that Arya didn't check the basilisk lair.
"Do you think Surda sells carpets?"
"I am sure they do. You do not want to use transfiguration for them?"
"We'll be supporting small businesses by buying," defended Harry. Arya raised her hands.
"I didn't say you shouldn't. It's not like you don't have the gold for it."
"Orrin has been writing asking for a meeting with me in the scroll," Harry grumbled. "If I go to Aberon, I'm going to have to talk to him."
"You'll survive," Arya said dryly.
"Nasuada's almost to Surda, though. If I wait a bit, we can meet him together, and she'll distract him."
"I guess the carpets can wait. Why not go to Ellesmera for textiles?"
"They won't charge me anything!" exclaimed Harry. "How can I go to the weavers with a straight face and demand eight sets of bedding, full wardrobes for two adults and a growing girl, a bunch of rugs and upholstery, and whatever other cloth I might need, and offer nothing in return? They practically get offended if you offer them gold."
"They enjoy weaving. You'll make them happy by asking and giving them work."
Maybe it was just a product of his capitalist upbringing, but asking for that much work and giving nothing in return felt offensive to Harry. He would take the inferior quality Surdan stuff if it meant he could appease his conscience by giving them a boatload of gold for their troubles. He supposed he'd be waiting until the Varden arrived at Surda to get rugs. They were only a couple weeks out, anyways.
And so when the coniferous trees started shedding, and the weather grew truly cold, Harry, Arya, Elva, Aupho, Blinky, and the phoenixes stood back at the end of the cleared lawn underneath the gate in the stucco and hedge wall facing away from the ocean, gazing upon the finished mansion. It had taken two and a half weeks from its conception, the longest time Harry had ever spent on a construction project.
"Ready?" Harry asked, holding up his wand. The mansion's windows were darkened, the lamp posts unlit, and the garden lighting put out. The sun had set, and the dim light hid many of the more intricate features of the building.
"Yes," Elva said exasperatedly. "I'm ready to move out of the sleeping bags."
Grinning, he swept his wand over the darkened house, golden light winging across the sky and activating every single light in the mansion. One by one, the windows lit up the night, illuminating the beautiful painted stucco, marble, and baked tile. The lawn was illuminated with warm light from the lamp posts and hidden lights in the foliage and tree planters. The pool lights illuminated the softly rippling, azure surface. In the center of the entry courtyard, the fountain lit up, sparkling water shooting into the air before trickling back into the basin.
Satisfaction surged through Harry, and from the smile on Arya's face, he knew she felt it, too. The beautiful manor home in front of them was theirs, born of their diligent effort and imagination. Elva breathed out a sigh of awe, trotting up to the front doors. They swung in silently to the entry hall. Harry had noticed that Elva rarely looked openly happy or carefree, a stark contrast to her tiny frame and childlike features. That restraint was shattered now, watching her tour the home they had all contributed to putting together.
There were some areas that were barebones, but Harry didn't mind. It meant that when they began living in it, the home would reflect that. Elva spared some attention to the kitchen, dining room, library, study, and the like, and even looked appropriately awed at the massive dragon roost and the even larger, low-roofed basilisk den, but her anticipation was clearly drawn elsewhere. Harry led her up the stairs in the foyer and down the right side to a closed door identical to its fellows.
Elva glanced back at him with an apprehensive grin.
"Go on," Harry shooed, smiling.
She pushed open the door and gasped, smiling widely. The room was softly lit from a simple fixture hanging from the vaulted ceiling, illuminating the pale lavender walls. The opposite wall had french doors that opened onto a balcony looking over the cliffside, where the sound of crashing waves rose up. A canopy bed was tucked along one wall, a desk on the other, laden with a handful of thin volumes and picture books. The Tales of Beedle the Bard, read the cover of the topmost book. In the larger space next to the bed, three beanbags and a low coffee table stood on the hardwood floor.
On either side of the desk were single sliding doors, one a walk-in closet, the other a brightly-lit, spacious white ensuite bathroom with green tile accents. Another door linked the bathroom to the inside of the closet. Hesitantly, Elva prodded it open.
The closet was full of clothes of her size. Dresses, pants, shirts, socks and underthings in all colors and styles. A couple shelves contained pairs of sneakers and boots, and a cabinet held towels and swimsuits.
"How…?"
Arya knelt down. "Hedwig took me to Ellesmera a few days ago, and I had them make you some clothing."
"I found a bunch in the vaults, too," Harry put in. "Do you like it?"
Elva beamed. The concept that the house they had built was her home finally sunk in properly. "I love it."
Far away, on a dark, cloudless night, Roran sat at the outskirts of camp, just beyond the firelight, peering into the darkness. Beyond the light, his eyes were adjusted to the night. With the tendons of his heels severed, keeping watch was about the only thing he could do. All the strength in his body was for naught when he could not even stand up by himself.
Every day was a new challenge, and Roran was proud to see Carvahall continue to rise to meet it time and again. Yet there was a gaping wound in his heart where Katrina should have been. She and Sloan were missing, and the villagers could not stop and search for her with enemies bearing down. She and her father were only two of the missing or dead of Carvahall. The singular battle they'd participated in had taken a heavy toll on the small community, and it looked like their path to freedom would take its own.
In a stroke of irony, they were traveling through the Spine, hopefully beyond the Empire's reach, without the one of their number who knew the range like the back of their hand. Eragon was the reason they were in this mess. The idea still seemed too large to contemplate, that he was a dragon rider like the stories of old. Boyish fantasies might have attracted him to the idea of being a Rider, but Roran was not foolish enough to seriously pursue them.
The Spine was a harsh place. Cold and full of treacherous terrain, the women and children and men with no wilderness experience often made small mistakes that resulted in twisted ankles and shallow cuts. Gertrude was binding wounds virtually constantly. That night, they had camped in a thicket of trees that wasn't too sloped to rest upon.
It was dark and Roran was tired, and someone might have predicted that his vigilance was low, so it was surprising only to Roran in the moment when a chitinous, inhuman limb crossed over his neck and squeezed so tightly he could not cry out. Roran went for his hammer, but another hand batted him away. Terror fogged his mind, the rattling breath of his assailant dulling his senses. The Ra'zac tore open his chest wound, lifting him up off the fallen log he'd sat on, and ran off.
The jostling, abnormal gait lasted for only a minute. Roran felt metal lock his wrists together. When the Ra'zac finally dumped him face-first on the ground, he screamed, half in pain, half to draw Carvahall's attention. The thing chittered in mocking laughter. A thunderous swoop of two pairs of wings sounded in his ears, reverberating in his skull. Steely talons gripped his shoulders, hauling him painfully into the air. The ground dropped away, and in mere moments, the Spine and the men and women who were relying on him were hidden behind shadowed peaks.
AN: I'm not going to write it this way, but an idea came to me when I was writing Elva for this chapter. With only a few people around her, it's possible she'd end up becoming an intense "people pleaser" in that she would go out of her way to make other people happy, so she wouldn't feel their disappointment or unhappiness. This behavior is so completely counter to her canonical behavior, I'm not going to do it.
'Rheammoth's' quote here is actually from the BBC's Sherlock