The boy took to magic like a duck to water. He had discovered it early, and was separated from his cohorts to keep the others unaware of their potential until they had the responsibility to use it. It vaulted him into a group of three other young Riders, each as precocious as him. Two elves, a boy and a girl, and two male humans.
Emyl taught these advanced lessons. On a small plateau by the western side of the valley of Vroengard, the five of them learned together while their dragons mastered tracking and pursuit tactics.
Even among these advanced peers, the boy emerged as the foremost among them. He was clever and his mind was sharp, and he was practiced and efficient at wielding that secret store of energy in his mind and body.
Under Emyl's guidance, the boy outpaced his peers to the point where sharing lessons was wasting his time. He was given dispensation to spend some lessons at the Great Library, where his interest in dragonlore was whetted yet never sated. Many of the tomes that held answers he sought were barred to him until he had the seniority of an experienced Rider.
Despite his frustration, Emyl and Aupho expressed their pride in him. Be patient and graduate, accept some missions from the Elders, and then sate his curiosity. After a few years of service, many Riders chose to pursue their passions instead of service to the Corps. This would be a blink of the eye to the boy's eternal lifespan, if only he mastered patience.
Harry awoke certain he was missing something. Something in that dream had been important. It was always frustrating to feel the details slip from his grasp as wakefulness pulled him further and further away from the visions he got. Even with Voldemort, Harry had a hard time holding onto the critical details of the visions. Only names, places, and general ideas. Only here, he did not know the names of anyone, and the only place he could remember was one he'd never been to.
Vroengard. The name stuck with him. That, and the boy and his dragon. Unease dogged his morning routine. He was certain there was something important about the dreams, something he was forgetting, and something that would come back to bite him, just like it had in the Triwizard tournament.
The unease lasted until he used the bathroom and showered. Brom woke for a moment to glance up at him, then fell back asleep. Eragon's breathing continued on uninterrupted. Navigating a room full of sleeping people felt familiar, like he was attempting to escape the Gryffindor boy's dorm while Seamus Finnegan was still passed out.
The niggling sense that he had missed a connection vanished while he prepared breakfast. He rummaged in the pantry for a nested set of drawers. Each drawer had an unfolding rack of additional drawers in it, recursively nested many times to fit all the food Harry had brought for the trip. There were somewhere over 1,024 meals inside, each in enchanted tupperware containers enchanted with stasis charms, keeping the food inside as fresh as the moment it came off the stove. He'd cooked enormous batches back at the castle with the help of magic and gigantic cookware.
About as much raw food was in expanded drawers in the pantry, too, but it was unprepared. Largely for the unlikely case that they ran out, or if Harry and his prepared meals got separated from the rest of them.
It was one of his many preparations for their travels. As much as Hermione had managed to stuff into her beaded bag, Harry had more prep time and perhaps even more resources than Hermione to prepare with. He also had the benefit of having done this before, and knowing which parts of traveling were the most uncomfortable. So long as he was a wizard, Harry vowed to never want for toilet paper again.
Then again, he still couldn't get his hands on the magical ingredients for such precious magical things as polyjuice potion and the portrait of an old Headmaster. But on the other hand, Harry had the Resurrection Stone, which served him in a similar way.
He opened the scrambled eggs, cheese, and hashed browns long enough to serve himself a plate, then sealed the container to keep the food fresh.
Breakfast was quiet at the little folding table. Harry wished he had a copy of the Prophet. As sleazy and dishonest as the Ministry's mouthpiece was, he still appreciated hearing something. And the entertainment was nice too.
His plate and utensils scourgified themselves when he put them away in the cabinet under the kitchenette. Yawning, Harry headed outside. It was still pre-dawn, the time when the sky was waking up in shades of dim grey. Saphira was curled up just beyond the tent, jaw on the ground and eyes closed. Harry tiptoed to a fallen log and made his seat.
Saphira really was beautiful. The dragons he'd seen back home were all powerful and majestic, but most still felt some shade of brutish, animalistic. Saphira glittered like a million gemstones in the low light. Her musculature was built and sinuous. If there was a difference between a lazy dragon and an athlete, Saphira was an olympian. Alagaesian dragons truly were a different breed.
Harry heard stirring in the tent. The smell of his breakfast had probably lured them awake. Yawning, Harry fixed Saphira's pose in his mind. A drowsy predator. At rest, but dangerous even in sleep. Like a napping panther, only a thousand times more dangerous.
Without warning, one of Saphira's eyes peeked open to regard Harry.
In an instant, he was paralyzed.
A presence touched his mind. Harry allowed it in.
It felt powerful, deep, and feminine. It was not human, but not in a bad way. A hybrid of primal and intelligent. Why do you stare at me, wizard? It asked.
"Because you're beautiful," Harry murmured in easy admission.
The flavor of the presence shifted for a moment, preening and prideful. Then it was wary.
Not because you wanted my blood while I slept? She accused.
Harry shook his head. "I wouldn't take any without your permission."
Not even to save a life? Saphira wondered.
He hesitated. "I'd judge if the life was worth making an enemy of you."
Saphira accepted his reasoning. My partner and the old man are awake, rummaging through your things for utensils. Harry received an impression of oddity at the idea of needing special tools to feed himself.
"It was good to meet you, er- word-for-word," Harry reached. Saphira closed her eye and Harry took that to mean his audience was over.
"The plates are in here." Harry resisted a smile, setting the table for Brom and Eragon. They had been staring at the serving container like it was a live bomb.
They both dug in with appreciative noises. "Eat in moderation," Brom instructed. "We have a long way to go. Every day we travel without horses is wasted." Despite that, he was happy to finish a large plate. About a third of the meal remained when Harry resealed the container.
There was little discussion after that. They packed up quickly. Eragon glanced at the flap, then at Harry. He dropped his heavy backpack next to his bed.
Brom looked torn. Harry could tell he wanted to tell Eragon off for it, but couldn't entirely reject the prospect of not having to carry a heavy backpack all day on foot. "Keep Zar'roc," he finally commanded. He unclipped his bedroll from the bottom of his pack and left it by his bed.
Outside, Harry snapped his fingers at the tent. Brom and Eragon watched it fold itself into a matchbox and fly into his hand. He stowed it in a pocket of his backpack and they were off.
If there was one thing that walking all day provided, it was time to talk. Harry didn't think it was possible for any journey on foot with company that lasted longer than a few days to not end in everyone knowing each other very well.
Despite his reticence to speak on his past, Brom could talk. It fit his profession, Harry supposed. He wanted to push the man, but he remembered how Brom had reacted to it when he'd suggested Brom had seen a real dragon before. Brom didn't just have secrets, he had dangerous secrets. And when it came to Harry's secrets, Brom respected the boundaries Harry set. He could do the same.
"I wondered how Britain does taxes," Brom hinted to start. "Eragon told me you called the Empire's taxes thievery."
"Well they just took what they wanted," Harry pointed out. "And they did so deliberately to punish, didn't they?"
Eragon nodded.
"In Britain, you can always know exactly how much you are going to owe. Or so I've heard. I haven't done any of my own taxes, but it's just percentages. They take no taxes on people who make less than 12.5k pounds a year, 20% on 12.5k to 50k pounds, 40% for until about 125k, and 45% for everything a person makes beyond that. That's why I asked about tax brackets," Harry nodded to Eragon. "The system is designed so the poorer people pay less, since they have less to give and need what they have more than the rich. The more you make, the higher the rate you pay on the money you make over the limit for each bracket."
"There are other taxes too, taxes on alcohol and cigarettes that pay into the healthcare system to pay for the liver failure and lung cancer that drinking and smoking causes. Taxes on retail that sellers pay, and so on."
"That sounds like a lot of tax," Eragon muttered. Brom snorted.
Harry shrugged. "It's more than in America, but we get a lot for it. Roads, schools, municipal services like water, sewage, and electricity, healthcare, retirement aid, etc. I guess it's just different because we trust our government more." At least the muggle one, Harry thought to himself uncharitably. It made him wonder: did the Ministry charge taxes? He had never been aware of paying any, yet the Ministry sometimes felt like the largest employer in magical Britain. Harry set aside the enormous question for later ponderance.
"Wish we got things back for the tax they take," Eragon grumbled under his breath.
"That's the second time you mentioned schools," Brom observed.
Harry shrugged. It was hard to imagine a society without them. Where else would people learn anything? Harry suspected the uncomfortable truth was that they simply didn't learn, but he had no way to raise that point without accidentally insulting Eragon.
But Brom wanted to know, so Harry let himself be drawn into a debate between apprenticeship versus public education. It was hard to argue the point that a medieval farmer needed education. They obviously didn't. But when given an education, virtually anyone could do virtually any job better than when laboring in ignorance.
"It's a huge amount of lost work," Eragon pointed out. "Most farms need their children to help them work the field. There's a reason farms are passed down. Children support their parents, grow up, and have children. When their parents get too old to work, they support them with the help of their own children, and thus the cycle continues. It's inheritance."
Harry pushed the undergrowth away from his path. "Maybe if a person never has more to offer than muscle. But you can't put a price on innovation. I wouldn't be able to make a castle with magic if I hadn't been taught how."
"That's different," Eragon insisted. "Magic is different."
Harry shrugged. "Maybe. I'm not an expert on farming, but I know it looks pretty different where I'm from. Farmers probably keep careful track of the weather forecast and manage when to manually water versus waiting for rain, what pesticides to spray to kill weeds, when to fertilize and how much to add, stuff like that. I'm pretty sure the ratio of farmers to everybody else is much smaller back home, so they are clearly getting more yield per person than the Empire is. You'd know how to do that yourself, if you'd gone to the right school for it."
"They can't possibly afford to teach every single farmer-" Eragon petered off in the face of Harry's knowing smile.
"Schools," he muttered.
"Schools," Harry agreed. "One teacher learns exactly how best to teach people how to farm. They teach, I dunno, four classes of thirty people per year, that's 120 expert farmers. He does this for forty years, he's produced 4,800 expert farmers. One single one of those farmers becomes a teacher instead of a farmer, that means 4,799 farmers for the price of their time and a single farmer. Not only that, the base of farming knowledge the teacher can distribute grows as educated farmers make further discoveries, so farmers continue to improve at farming with every generation."
Brom whistled. "That's a lot of farming."
"That's really what it looks like?" Eragon wondered.
Harry shook his head. "Schools for people our age teach a bit of everything. History, reading and literature, science, maths, and so on. That's what Hogwarts was like. They had classes for the major branches of magic that everybody has to take, then a bunch of classes for the minor branches, which they let students pick and choose to pursue. That way everybody is well rounded and knows a bit about everything."
When their throats grew dry from walking and talking, they drank from their enchanted canteens. The mosquito repellent rings did their jobs keeping the walk pleasant. It was probably too early in the spring for mosquitoes, but Harry stood by his decision to preempt them.
All in all, it was pleasant, if a bit boring. Harry had expected a day of walking to feel like unbearable drudgery. There was some boredom, but by midday he adjusted to the slower pace of his day, and spent it watching for birds or chatting with his traveling companions.
Saphira stayed their silent shadow. When there were breaks in the canopy of trees carpeting the hems of the mountains east of Carvahall, they could spot her flying so high she seemed as small as a bird.
Occasionally Eragon would go quiet for a while, and it was just Harry and Brom carrying the conversation. Harry suspected Eragon was communicating with Saphira. Since she'd touched his mind, Harry felt a bit envious of the depth of communication mind-to-mind speaking offered. When there were difficult or complicated ideas about modern-day Britain to express, Harry wished he could just show Brom his understanding telepathically, rather than struggling to find the words to express the idea.
The second day of walking drew to a close still in the shadow of the mountains. They took out their mock swords and smacked each other around until their limbs were sore, then spent the time before bed practicing magic.
Eragon was getting better alarmingly quickly. Harry quashed the feeling of being left behind. He did not intend for swordplay to ever be his primary way of fighting. He did not need to be jealous of Eragon's success. Yet it was hard not to be irritated when the kid just took off with the sword and started making his wins look easy. Harry was older and supposedly more mature, but it was hard not to feel a bit of bruising 'round the ego when a kid two years younger than him started schooling him in swordplay.
If the evenings bruised his ego, the mornings usually healed it. It was always rewarding to see the appreciation on Brom and Eragon's faces when they were able to shower and get clean in the middle of the wilderness, or when they enjoyed a warm, fresh meal in the morning courtesy of his efforts at preparation.
It was not the usual way Harry solved problems with magic, but it was rewarding nonetheless. When he had time to himself, Harry worked on his own projects.
Since leaving the castle, he continued to have dreams about the boy with the dark purple dragon. They always woke him when they ended and left him awake before any of the others. Anyone except Saphira.
He would take his things outside and work on them in the predawn hour.
He levitated and spun the log he was turning with magic like a makeshift lathe, clearing away the wood chips with magic, and carved the contours of the piece's shape with a draw knife. Saphira watched him work. It was slow going, but Harry did not mind. It was nice to listen to the birds and work with his hands for a change.
On the fifth day, they passed beyond mountainous terrain. The walking went quicker when they weren't walking across a steep slope, regardless of if they were traversing instead of ascending.
The game trails got a bit easier to follow. Once they crossed the Anora, they'd be able to rejoin the actual road and speed their progress up dramatically.
Clouds rolled overhead in the morning. They kept the world dim for a couple of hours later. Harry distributed plastic ponchos to throw over themselves before they collapsed the tent.
"We should cross the Anora today," Brom commented. "Our pace was fair since yesterday." he scowled up at the cloudy weather. "Hard to tell direction when the sun is obscured."
"Point me, north" Harry yawned, holding his wand flat on his palm. The Elder Wand spun to point north. Brom rolled his eyes. They adjusted their course.
Next Brom suggested it was difficult to judge the time of day when the sky was so overcast, to which Harry cast tempus intermittently.
"It will rain," Brom predicted in the late morning. Harry agreed. The air held some promise of rain. It was hard to put words to the sense, but he just knew the air pressure was low. The world was too quiet and the air too still. Sounds of wildlife had tapered off and the smell of petrichor was in the air.
"What, no spell for that?" Brom asked sardonically.
"There is," Harry said, "But it's divination, which I never paid much attention to."
"Wonderful," Brom sighed. "Invaluable information is offered to you and you ignore it in favor of what?"
"Quidditch," Harry admitted. "Actually, anything, really. Our Divination teacher was a bit pants."
The first rumbles of thunder rolled in around noon. The way the clouds shielded the glare of the sun made the world feel peaceful, like they were insulated from the chaotic course of a regular day by a blanket of grey storm clouds.
Then the rain came.
It drizzled at first, individual droplets that pecked at their plastic coverings and got caught in their eyelashes.
The rain intensified after that. Wind made the leaves brush against each other like the trees themselves were saying 'hush.' The drizzle became a downpour, and the wind became a gust. The trees themselves danced, bending back and forth overhead, leaves fluttering as the gusts pulled them all into alignment like leafy green hair trailing in the wind.
Sheets of rain fell onto Harry's head, slicking off his poncho and speckling his face despite his best efforts to turn away from the wind. They wetted the collar of his shirt and dampened his unruly bangs.
Harry was about to cast the umbrella charm when Eragon beat him to it. "Adurna, letta," he commanded. Harry was able to perceive a pattern in the rain around Eragon's face. Droplets that would have hit him were halted midair and fell straight to the ground.
He wished for something so elegant. The umbrella charm would keep his wand and wand hand busy, the shield charm would obscure his vision with its hazy energy, and the bubblehead would deny him the ability to smell the peaceful scent of the rain. His magic, it seemed, had no easy answer. He would have to cobble together an awkward interpretation of a different charm.
"Parmapluvia," Harry murmured, intent on keeping the rain from his face. He kept a vivid image of his intent in his mind. The transparent, gossamer glass effect of the umbrella persisted, but the effect was the same as Eragon's ward. Even when he took his wand away, it remained.
Brom seemed content to endure the rain on his face, and waved off their offers to shield him in the same way.
"Saphira says the river is about two miles ahead," Eragon reported over a rumble of thunder. Lightning flashed from far off. He had not yet overcome the instinct to flinch against the droplets that raced towards his face.
Harry was surprised Saphira was still flying in the weather. Harry knew from experience that Quidditch in such conditions was miserable. Spotting the snitch amongst a downpour was all but futile, so the game was doomed to continue endlessly unless the snitch basically surrendered itself to one of the seekers. All the while, the players and spectators all got drenched.
The thunder was not too overwhelming, far off, soft, and intermittent. After the first thirty minutes, Harry surrendered himself to enjoying the weather. It was different. He could enjoy the change in routine if nothing else.
Fifteen minutes after that, the treeline grew sparser and they were able to see much farther, even in the rain. Behind them, the eastern mountain shield was visible. The nearest one was still close enough to see the swaying trees. Behind it, the others gradually lost definition until they were little more than silhouettes against the grey sky.
Far, far off, hardly more than fuzzy outlines, the other side of the pass into Palancar Valley stood against the rain.
A bolt of lightning struck behind them, searing their silhouette in Harry's vision. Atop the tallest of the mountains, a lonely one some ways apart from the rest of the chain, the outline of a tower was visible.
"What's that?" Eragon asked.
"Utgard," Brom remarked. "And the fortress atop it: Edoc'sil, or Ristvak'baen. Left over from a time long passed, when humans first settled in Palancar Valley. The elves used to keep watch from there. It used to be called Unconquerable. The mountain is so steep only the most determined mountaineers may climb it."
"Did it get conquered?" Harry guessed.
Brom nodded. "The old leader of the Riders was among the last Galbatorix killed. Vrael, an elf. His dragon Umaroth disappeared some time before, yet still Galbatorix feared a confrontation. Rightly, for Vrael managed to best him briefly at the gates of Doru Araeba, but Galbatorix took advantage of his hesitance to turn the tides long enough to escape. Their second fight was up there," Brom pointed.
"Again, Vrael got the upper hand over Galbatorix, but Galbatorix kicked him between the legs and managed to cut his head off. If things had gone differently, dragons may have recovered from Galbatorix's evil. As it stands, Ristvak'baen is a fitting name."
Brom sighed. "Place of sorrow."
Thunder clapped again, but Ristvak'baen's silhouette remained hidden behind the sheets of rain.
They came upon the Anora River not long after that. It was there that they were forced to stop and wait out the storm. The plan had always been to fly across, but neither Saphira nor Harry were confident in flying across with passengers. Nor did anyone want to test Harry's spellwork by being inside the tent when it was folded up.
They set up camp by the riverbank and spent the rest of the day sitting around doing nothing. Harry could almost feel Brom's irritation at the waste of time, but Eragon had pointed out that they were not under time pressure.
They peeled off their wet ponchos and sat near a jar of bluebell flames, warming their damp skin and enjoying the dry shelter the tent provided. Though Harry had offered to conjure shelter for Saphira, Eragon said she had expressed contentment with enjoying the rain on her scales, curled up outside the flap.
"Did you ever do this?" Eragon wondered. "Sit around and do nothing, I mean."
"Oh yes," Harry said. "For three months out of the year, there's no school, and you can sit around all summer enjoying the weather."
"For a quarter of the year, you get nothing done?" Brom asked dubiously. He lit his pipe. Harry waved his hand in front of his nose.
"Can you refrain from blazin' it inside the tent?" Harry groused.
Irritably, Brom spoke a long string of words in the Ancient Language, few of which Harry caught.
"You don't want to use magic to keep the rain off you, but you're willing to cast a complicated spell so you can smoke indoors?" Eragon wondered.
"No respect for your elders," Brom complained. "And yes. That's exactly what I'm willing to do. You're a Rider, and I am not. Magic will always come easier to you than I, and you will be more powerful besides."
Harry rolled his eyes. "Is being a storyteller a real job anyways? Sounds pretty easy, sitting around all day telling stories."
"If you love what you do, you'll never work a day in your life," Brom quoted.
"Such a phrase has never come from the mouth of a farmer," Eragon snickered. "Say that again after weeding for a week."
"Is being a wizard a real job?" Brom wondered sardonically. "It did not look difficult to subsist without money."
Harry shrugged. He was coming to realize that he did not actually know. It was part of the many large gaps in his knowledge about the wizarding world. This was the sort of question Ron usually answered. Despite career counseling with McGonagall, Harry did not know what adult life in the wizarding world looked like.
He'd been vacillating between Quidditch pro and Auror in his mind, if he even managed to survive Voldemort's efforts.
He supposed now that it turned out he hadn't, he had to reevaluate.
There wasn't much point in a job now. He probably could have appended some title to his work for Gertrude – magical pharmacist, maybe – but especially with a hundred tons of pure gold burning a hole in his pocket, there was no point.
Was that how it was in the wizarding world, too? It was not usually possible to support a family of nine on a single mid-level salary, yet the Weasleys managed it. Harry knew from personal experience that every day living had virtually zero expenses. He could grow his own food and knew the Weasleys did too; he had seen the plants they kept in their garden while de-gnoming it.
It was frustrating to only start questioning the wizarding world when he could no longer find answers to his questions.
"There are jobs," Harry finally answered Brom. "Magic does a lot, but there are things that need a wizard's attention, and those are most of the jobs, I think. The Ministry has jobs for things like law enforcement, regulation, transport, and diplomacy. I know shopkeeping is common enough. I must have mentioned dragonkeepers caring for the dragons on reserves – there's probably something similar for most magical species. Really anything people are willing to pay for. It's just that wizards don't think much about paying for food or housing when it's so easy to make your own."
The Daily Prophet came to mind. It was usually magic that cost money. That and service. He supposed the newspaper counted as a service after a fashion. People paid for subscriptions, and the writers and staff got the money.
Brom hummed. "You may find yourself at home among the elves."
Harry frowned. "The ones that live in the forest?"
"Du Weldenvarden," Brom agreed. "They live easily. They do not have jobs as such, but they all work for the good of their community where needed. And among the races, the elves are nearly all magicians, so you would be among your kin."
It all sounded a bit too good to be true. "What's the catch?" Harry asked.
"They have hid themselves since Galbatorix," Brom said. "They were not exactly welcoming before him, either. You could wander in their forest for years. They would know you were there, but you would never find another elf unless they let themselves be seen. And their society is…complicated. To most, it comes off as stifling."
Harry filed the information away. "Do you know any elves?"
Brom gave him that look that said don't go digging here, so Harry backed off.
Harry poured a packet of cocoa powder into a few mugs of hot milk and handed them out. Chocolate had been tricky, and he still wasn't sure he'd gotten it right. The beans had to be ground and even then, they were terribly bitter without a great deal of sugar to mask the tastes of cacao. There was a balance to be struck between sweetening and covering the flavor with sugar. The tins he had were from an acceptable recipe he'd churned out for the road.
Brom and Eragon made noises of appreciation as they sipped.
Harry thought there wasn't much better than a warm, dry shelter on a rainy day, and to share a hot drink with friends.
The rain lasted through the night and well into the afternoon of the next day. The three of them were content to wait out the storm. Brom had wanted them to practice outdoors so they would know what it was like to fight in adverse weather, but Harry and Eragon had both shot him down.
Instead, they pressed Brom into telling them stories while they were stuck 'indoors,' to which Brom once again proved why storytelling could be a career.
He went over the Witch Under the Mountains, the Kings of Rock and Stone, and some of the many assorted tales of an adventurer named Hardric, many of which were too tall to believe, but made for good stories, anyways.
Many mugs of hot chocolate were downed, many stories were heard, and much merriment went around the tent. Eragon shared as much as he could with Saphira, allowing her to use his ears so she could feel as if she were inside too, enjoying the stories firsthand.
Fleetingly, Eragon noticed that Brom seemed genuinely happy. Smoking his pipe, telling entertaining stories, and enjoying their company, the omnipresent veneer of a cranky old man was gone save vestigial habits. He seemed to come alive in a way Eragon rarely saw, and looked ten years younger by the smile on his face.
When the time came to brave the Anora River, Eragon knew Saphira would do as she was asked. If they needed her to bear Brom across the river, she would do it.
In a part of his mind Eragon managed to keep from her, Eragon knew that she would not be happy about it. The debacle with the dragonblood had given her the sour impression that she was more useful as a tool than a thinking being, and Eragon hated the idea.
So when the time came to divide up bags and people to ferry across like the wolf, chicken, grain riddle, Eragon put his weight behind the proposition that Harry take Brom across on his broomstick. Harry was fine with the idea. Oddly enough, Brom accepted it, too.
He had expected Brom to argue his unfamiliarity with riding a broom versus the relatively easy task of sitting in a saddle, but Brom held Saphira in an odd sort of esteem, Eragon had noticed. It was like he understood without words that Saphira did not want to be a pack animal.
For Eragon and Saphira, it was a leisurely flight over the fast, deep river. For Harry and Brom, there was much awkward negotiating.
"You've got to let your center of mass shift with the motion of the broom," Harry said. "I won't let you fall. If worst comes to worst, I can hit you with a charm to slow your fall."
"If we're over the river?" Brom wondered, sitting awkwardly in front of Eragon. The pose looked awkward and uncomfortably intimate to Eragon. The two men were nearly touching on the broomstick. Harry rolled his eyes.
"Then I can use mobilicorpus to float you the rest of the way."
Grumbling the whole way, Brom let Harry wobble them up into the air. "It'll be over before you know it."
Harry flew low to the water, Eragon suspected out of respect for an assumed fear of heights on Brom's part. The storyteller cursed and squinted into the spray.
"Why not just swim?" he growled. "If we're going to get this wet anyways. Fly higher!"
Harry grunted and reached around to get his hands on the front of the handle and pull it up. Eragon held in laughter as he and Saphira coasted beside them, watching them bicker and struggle the whole way across.
A crossbreeze pushed Harry and Brom to veer off course. "Woah!" Brom cursed. Harry corrected, but to Eragon's eye, it looked too zealous. Sure enough they began to tip the opposite way.
With the equilibrium broken, Brom and Harry began fighting each other's weights and overbalancing. It looked for a moment like they would recover, but then Brom went arms pinwheeling off the side.
Saphira dove to catch him, but Harry was faster.
"Mobilicorpus!" he called, righting himself with an easy roll. Brom jerked to a stop about four feet below. It looked unpleasant, Brom groaning as Harry conducted him the rest of the way, catching the breath that the fall had driven from his lungs.
"Why didn't we start like this?" Brom moaned, massaging his chest.
"Er, don't look down," Harry advised.
Brom, of course, immediately tried to roll in the grip of Harry's spell to see below him. He struggled against the odd way the magic held his torso aligned in the same state as when the spell started. It looked to Eragon like Brom's chest was buoyant atop an invisible pool, and his arms and legs were somehow passing through the invisible water.
Harry, recognizing the instability of their arrangement, sped across the remaining half of the river and set Brom down on the opposite bank.
"Hellfire," Brom swore, climbing to his feet. "That is a terrible way to travel. I'd almost prefer my limbs locked in place."
Harry was fighting a smile too. Even Saphira's amusement reached across the bond.
"Let's hope the next river crossing is easier," Eragon grinned.
"Shame on you, laughing at an old man's misfortune," Brom scowled, but there was little heat in it.
"You need at least another ten years before you can start to call yourself old," Harry said. They picked up their bags from the pile of stuff and continued on merrily to Yazuac, trading barbs and jokes the whole way. It was less than half a day's walk. They'd reach it by sunset.
AN: would Harry realistically know the details to the British tax code just by listening to Vernon rant? Maybe not. But Vernon strikes me as a man who rants about anything to anyone who will listen, so then again, maybe so.
Let me know if these segments are boring. I find it a good way to broach the topic of how the medieval setting is different from modern day, which is something I struggle a lot with writing, too. Especially Brom seems like he'd be curious about the details of this other place Harry hails from, which is seemingly so massive for a place he's never heard of, and one that does things very differently to Alagaesia.
Parmapluvia = parma (shield) + pluvia (rain) in botched Latin.
