"Man, we're running out of places to hide," Dean groaned, spotting Dar-Benn observing them across the grounds. They were trying to do a practice session on their Wednesday afternoon free period. They'd even gotten most of the study group to show up and train. And then she'd shown up. Again.
"And nobody brought their tracking necklaces?" Padma checked, annoyed that she'd gone to the trouble of changing into sweats and walked all the way out to the far edge of the lake, and the kree woman had still managed to interrupt their workout.
Everyone shook their heads no, and Harry grumbled, "We even made sure she was on the opposite side of the school on the Map before we left." He was turned so she couldn't see him, in case she could read lips or something. She was proving surprisingly good at finding them.
So far they'd had to cut short five practice sessions, unwilling to give the enemy in their midst intelligence on what they were all capable of beyond what they demonstrated in classes (which she also showed up to observe, on the regular). Dumbledore had not, in fact, been able to make anything stick with the trick she'd tried to play on Harry over a week earlier.
"We could find a place inside? It's starting to get too cold to practice outside anyway," Parvati suggested.
"She'd just listen at the doors and we wouldn't know," Ron figured.
"We could if we used the Map," Hermione countered. "But it's still not ideal."
"I hate to suggest it," Neville began, "but we could go into the Chamber of Secrets." He remained the only other one in the group that had been to Niflheim.
Harry shook his head and explained, "Even Dumbledore and the Ancient One go through there ready for a fight in case more Nidhogg serpents or even worse find it. I doubt they'd be happy if we were just down there a few hours every week."
"And someone might talk about all of you boys disappearing into the girls' loo," Lavender laughed.
"We should find the Come and Go room," Luna suggested.
Everyone looked at her blankly, waiting to see if she'd elaborate. They'd gotten out of the habit of writing off things she said that sounded like nonsense. Sometimes they were, but they'd eventually realized that was usually when she was messing with them. In this case, she was suggesting a legitimate solution to a problem and just failing to provide enough context. It was Hermione that realized what she meant first, agreeing, "The Room of Requirement! You're right, Luna! If that really exists, it could be perfect."
Everyone just sat and waited for one of the two brainy girls to explain.
Luna eventually deigned to do so. "Hogwarts is at the center of Vanaheim's wildspace, where no one can make portals."
"Except the Tesseract and Bifrost," Harry couldn't help but interject.
"True. Where no magic can make portals," she agreed. "At the center of the castle, there's a room that flips that. At the heart of not being able to make any portals, there's a room that can make a portal to anywhere."
Before the more logic-minded students could point out all the problems with something like that (such as why the school didn't use it, and how much of a security hole it would be), Hermione elaborated, "That's a popular theory about why it might work. But the more common story in the history of the school is that there's a room hidden in the castle that is both very hard to find and can basically be any room you need. I doubt anyone's sure it's fully teleporting you to a matching room somewhere else. It might just be a very clever old enchantment."
"So we just need to solve an ancient mystery to find a place to practice?" Dean checked, rolling his eyes. "I guess everyone should think about it, but we can also at least get a run in. She can't learn much about us from running."
Most of the group liked basic cardio the least of their practice, but they fell in behind him anyway. Perhaps they'd get lucky and jog somewhere that Dar-Benn didn't feel like following them. "Maybe the ghosts know," Ginny said, a few minutes into the run. She was working hard to stay at the front of the pack, next to Dean. Everyone else was just waiting on the two of them to admit they were going to Hogsmeade together in a couple of weeks.
"I could… ask the… Gray Lady," Luna huffed out, at the back of the pack. It showed how much she liked being included that she was even willing to go running with them.
It took a couple of days for Luna to get a chance to talk to the Ravenclaw ghost, and she wouldn't explain what she'd used to barter for the information, but on Saturday they knew the location of the Room. It was conveniently located in the upper hallway of the school that connected the Gryffindor and Ravenclaw dorms. "I must have passed by here a hundred times and never thought about it," Padma mused, staring at the blank patch of wall.
"That's because it should just be the outside of the building," Harry said, Map open to compare to the proposed location. "If it's here, my dad and Sirius never found it, either. I guess it's weird that there's no windows here. I could fly up here later and see if maybe the wall's thicker than you'd expect."
"It really isn't exactly the heart of the castle," Luna agreed, having, herself, expected something hidden under the great hall.
"Where's Madam Umbrage?" Ron checked. "Fred and George said they could only confirm they could lead her off for a little while." He also wasn't explaining what he'd promised his brothers for the distraction.
"Still down in the dungeons," Harry said, flipping over to that part of the map and finding her marker. "But still, no time like the present. What do we need to do, Luna?"
"Pace three times while declaring what kind of room you need, go through the door that appears, and complete the challenge to prove that you're worthy."
"Ron's finally going to get to wrestle a troll!" Ginny joked, though everyone was suddenly a little wary of what the challenge might entail.
Dean took charge, since practice was his domain, and walked up and down the corridor explaining, "We need a room where we can practice combat magic, physical fighting, and get general exercise. That only the people we want can get into."
On the third pass, there was suddenly a passageway there. Or they were finally seeing a passageway that had always been there. Like the portal into the Leaky Cauldron, if you took a picture you wouldn't be able to see it. But while moving or with depth perception, you could subtly see the back of the passage shift against the bricks at the edge of the hole. Maybe it was always there, and the only magic trick was keeping people from paying enough attention to notice.
"Freaky. Okay, I guess let's go in. Wands ready, and whatever," Dean ordered, then led from the front.
The portal was only big enough for one of them at a time. Dean stepped out of the hallway and turned right, and then was gone from view. Harry was right behind him, making the same turn and only seeing a pitch-black tunnel ahead. No Dean. By the time he'd lit his wand as he stepped forward, he couldn't see anything ahead or behind. No exit or others behind him. No Dean ahead. Just a few feet of stone brick tunnel leading both directions, rapidly reclaimed by darkness as his light faded.
"Well, crap," he figured. Surely someone would have warned about this more strenuously if the challenge could get you killed, but he didn't feel great about each of his friends having to handle it alone. Or maybe the rest of them were all together and he'd just been singled out? Either way would make about as much sense. "Guess forward it is," he told himself, assuming that immediately turning around and trying to leave would be a very fast way to lose the challenge.
He walked an indeterminate amount of time through the shadows, then finally saw a corner coming up to his left. As soon as he turned, he was walking out into a sci-fi bedroom. He'd have already assumed it was on a spaceship of some kind before he spotted a porthole showing stars over an alien planet to his left where he was coming out of… a bathroom? The room was built on the same kind of profligate scale as the SHIELD helicarrier, but it was still a bedroom with only one obvious door out (as well as a spartan bed, small writing desk, and a large metal box that was probably a wardrobe).
And there was a very large man getting up from the desk, having spotted him entering. "Who are you? A Nova assassin?" the blue-skinned kree demanded. Harry made the connection since he had robes in the same style as Dar-Benn's (though black instead of hot pink), and was picking up a very similar hammer. His was glowing. He quickly got into position blocking the door and said, "Very well. Do your best."
Harry had a moment of thinking back to Luna's theory that the Room could teleport them anywhere, and he'd somehow just been thrown against one of Dar-Benn's fellow Accusers for real. But then he realized that his wand was still lit.
"Hermione was right. This is probably a really cool simulation?" Harry said, more to himself than the Accuser in front of him. "Girding Wings of Lofn-Odr!" he cast, trying to levitate the warhammer out of the way.
"This Universal Weapon is my badge of office," the man insisted, hanging onto it by main strength and slowly winning over the levitation, especially as the weapon began to glow with power.
But that was just Harry's opening move, and he was already forming an energy sword after passing his wand to his off hand to maintain the levitation. His opponent swept out a kick that looked like it would be very dangerous if it hit him, since he was pretty sure kree had enhanced strength and this guy was even bigger than Dar-Benn. Even bigger than Thor, especially with the thick-soled Accuser boots.
That height gave him a hell of a long kick, even trying to drag his hammer out of the air, but Harry was already bounding over the kick and aiming a sword strike at the man's unprotected torso. To give the massive justiciar credit, he used the momentum from the kick to roll out of the way of the incoming attack, and the heated-up blade skated off the Accuser robes, leaving little more than a scorch.
Harry landed next to him, just as the hammer (or Universal Weapon, apparently) ripped free of its telekinetic moorings and the haft of it came slamming across toward the teen. Harry let his Ta Lo training kick in, made his sword demanifest, and brush-blocked the downward strike with his hand in a way that didn't move the Accuser, but did shove Harry back through his actual goal: the door.
The spaceship door helpfully slid open automatically before he could slam into it, and he fell out into what should have been a ship corridor.
Instead, Harry tumbled backward into a large, sunlit basement. Three oversized windows divided into smaller panes sat atop a concrete brick wall on one side. He'd rolled out of a cement archway across from a blue-lit science apparatus on a raised platform next to the windows. In addition to normal mansion basement detritus like old crates and ladders, several stations with powerful-looking computers were set up. There were also a lot of flowers, for some reason.
The way out seemed to be up some built-in stairs, to a level that exited into the house. And there were two women in casual exercise clothes that were just coming into the room from that way, as if they were heading through the room to go for a run out in the yard. Both were pretty, though the redhead had some obvious burn scars on her face, and Harry could tell they moved more like soldiers than trophy wives.
"Ellen, who's the kid?" the blond woman asked.
"Isn't that Stark's girlfriend's boy? Harry Potts?" the redhead recognized him. "Let's grab him!"
Harry had rolled to his feet and wasn't particularly worried about even two well-trained human women until both of their eyes started to glow red, as did their veins through their exposed skin, heat shimmer immediately appearing around their arms. "If I told you you had a hot body would you not hold it against me?" he asked.
He was a little surprised when Dean suddenly came running out of the same archway he'd entered through a few seconds earlier, dressed as he'd been when they entered the Room. "Woah. Harry. What's going on?"
"Bad girls. Very warm. Trying to get me," Harry summed up.
"I just had an obstacle course for my first challenge!" Dean complained, forming a shield and moving to block the blonde, who was jumping down from the upper level.
"We have to get past them, I think. I had to fight a kree guy last time," Harry explained, moving up to the science apparatus level and sighting his wand at the redhead. "Laufey's Glacial Frost!" he summoned up a blast of frigid air and ice. Actually having access to Vanaheim magic in a combat situation was really helpful.
"Wands work?" Dean hadn't realized. He was mixing it up with the blonde, managing to fend off her overheated fists with his shield while using kicks to keep her off balance and from getting too close to him.
"Our own personal holodeck, man. If we pass the challenges," Harry told him. The redhead, Ellen, had fallen back under the frost, but was now coming at him in a cloud of steam as she powered through it. Harry already had an energy whip manifested, and managed to snag her leg and yank her off the level and onto the floor below. She seemed stronger than a normal human, but nothing like a kree. "Hey, cooling them off didn't work…"
"So let's heat them up!" Dean got it. He'd managed to sweep the leg on the blonde just as the redhead crashed to the floor next to her, and had no worries about stomping up the computer desk to join Harry on the upper level, drawing his wand as he landed.
"Surtur's Burning Incendiary!" both teens yelled, unleashing a torrent of flames on the women. The women turned a much more intense shade of red and started writhing.
"Shit. They're going to blow up, aren't they?" Dean realized, and he shoved Harry forward to get them both sprinting up the stairs toward the exit.
They fell through into the next room just as both of their assailants went off like mini nuclear bombs behind them, the wash of heat fading as they ran into… an immense gothic dining room.
The room was not remotely similar to the Earth mansion basement they'd just come out of, instead favoring Vanir architectural styles. Plus, the Malfoy crest on the backs of the overbuilt dining chairs was a clue, as was Lucius Malfoy himself seated at the head of the table way across from them. He was wearing Death Eater robes, though the silver mask was resting on the table next to him.
He appeared to be having drinks with three other individuals seated at his end of the comically-long table. All three of them looked like Sirius had when Harry had met him outside of Hogsmeade: the years in Azkaban catching up to them at a very accelerated rate. There was a woman that looked a lot like Andromeda and Dora Tonks: dark haired, beautiful, and crazy. They'd seen the pictures of Bellatrix Lestrange, so the two scraggly-bearded men were likely the Lestrange brothers. "Harry Potter!" Malfoy realized.
Across the room, from another door, Neville and Luna exited more sedately than Harry and Dean had, but then Neville's face filled with a mix of horror and rage as he spotted the people that had tortured his parents into insanity. "And widdle Wongbottom!" Bellatrix singsonged in a cutesy, mad voice.
"Wands work!" Dean shouted at their friends, already moving and incanting, "Reduction of Mjolnir's Smiting!" as he cast the blasting curse at the other end of the table. Even flat-footed, Bellatrix managed to get her wand in the way of the surge of coruscating teal energy and knock it into a pair of chairs halfway down the table, creating shrapnel.
What she wasn't prepared for was Harry's spell right behind Dean's, transfiguring the table itself to expand into sharp splinters like a porcupine. It was a variation on the bollard transfiguration he'd used to fight the Shadow Nix his third year, which he would probably never use against someone he didn't want to risk killing. But they were Death Eaters and almost certainly holograms anyway.
Malfoy managed to dodge backwards away from his suddenly-hostile furniture, but both Lestrange brothers caught a few inches of wooden thorns across their chests, stapling them to their chairs. Bellatrix almost rolled away, but took several bloody gouges down her non-wand arm.
"LESTRANGE!" Neville was already shouting, flinging bolt after bolt of energy toward all three of the members of the family that seemed to finish off the brothers, since they couldn't dodge. Bellatrix managed to get another shield up but didn't have a chance to attack back before the Longbottom heir was on her, having summoned a massive saber with his wand as the hilt: when using his spellcasting focus, his magical constructs were much more solid.
Luna had been taking her time figuring out the situation and slipping left along the room, where no one paid much attention to her amongst the Gryffindor boys furiously flinging spells. It was a mistake. While Harry and Dean were sending bolts at Malfoy, forcing him to dodge and shield, he didn't pay any attention as her own blasting curse suddenly flew behind Bellatrix, who let it pass as an easy dodge, only for it to find its real mark: the head of the table. Already extended into sharp shrapnel, the shards of table were like a flechette shotgun blast across the platinum-haired Death Eater's flank. He cried in pain as he was hit, and wasn't able to defend against the blasts from the boys, taking him out.
Meanwhile, Neville was mixing it up with Bellatrix in melee. She moved in a way that suggested she'd be a terror to fight when she was fully recovered, but was still figuring out her newly age-advanced limitations. She was able to keep ahead of Neville's sword with dodging and her own shield constructs, but he was angry enough to continue pressing her too much to go on the offense. In a normal circumstance, she'd be goading him into a mistake, but as Malfoy fell, she was suddenly outnumbered four-to-one and surrounded. "I surrender?" she shrugged, trusting in the fair play of Gryffindors.
Neville used the moment to decapitate her.
"This is fake, right?" he asked, barely pausing to go cut off the heads of the Lestrange brothers.
"Probably," Harry agreed, a little taken aback by the boy's bloodlust, but not about to tell him it was too much.
"Shame. Cathartic, though," he sighed.
"Did you have fights before?" Dean asked.
Calming down, Neville said, "No, I had to get past that tentacle plant from first year, and then Luna and I had to figure out how to calm down an enraged herd of helhests when we met up."
"I had to distract a swarm of nargles in my first room," Luna agreed. "Did you both have fights?"
"All three," Harry shrugged. "Dean got an obstacle course for his first one?"
"We should probably assume the next one will be a big battle with Harry with us," Luna chided.
"The Room has your number, man," Dean agreed.
"I might have liked to do an obstacle course," Harry complained. "Anyway, everyone okay? Ready?"
They, indeed, exited the dining room into a massive battle.
The immense room was dimly lit, with a ceiling disappearing into the darkness. A wide metal walkway was covered almost in flagstones with crosshatched grids and ran between massive churning engines to either side. Something about the architecture reminded Harry of the first room he'd been in, and techniques of kree design that people doing the reports with Dar-Benn as a source had mentioned.
They had a quidditch pitch length to cover to get to the other side of the room, where a horde of warriors was already engaged with the rest of their friends.
"What is happening!?" Hermione was yelling, holding one side of the line against several burly humanoids in dark armor and blacked-out masks.
"I dinnae, but it's kinda awesome!" Seamus figured, launching gouts of flame into the center of the mob. The opponents were wearing some kind of plate armor that looked more like chitin than alien tech.
"Gin, help Hermione! Parv and Padma, keep shielding right. Lav, with me on center!" Ron was taking control of the tactics.
"Oh, thank Odin, it's the rest of the boys!" Lavender said, having summoned an energy spear and preparing to try to tank the middle. "And Luna."
"Go, go, go!" Dean yelled, and the four late-arrivers charged out to shore up the field. With Harry's shield, Hermione was able to fall back and start weaving a more complicated attack spell. Neville's sword joining the center started pushing the enemies back. And Dean and Luna backing up the Patil sisters was enough synergy to begin flinging the enemy flank into the churning machines.
For all that they seemed tough and armored, the enemies weren't prepared for magic, and didn't have ranged weapons in evidence. Hermione finished her spell and transmuted one of Seamus' fireballs into lances of searing light that punched through several masked faces. Ron was hanging back and using jinxes and energy whips to drag attackers right into the conjured weapons of several teammates. Dean was basically wrapped in magical protectives, allowing him to wade in and brawl with the soldiers without taking a scratch.
Harry just took it a little easy. He didn't need to pull off some massive attack, since he had so many friends backing him up. Holding the line was good enough.
There were so many of the soldiers, but they were basically charging into a magical meat grinder. In a couple of minutes, there was nothing left moving in the sci-fi corridor but the study group. "How was this fair?!" Hermione demanded. "We basically just had puzzles with some mobility requirements before this!"
"Harry," Dean shrugged. "All of his were fights."
"Of course they were," she frowned.
"Hey! We better get on to the next room before any more of those show up?" Harry suggested, before somehow this became his fault.
They gingerly moved past the several-ranks-deep spread of bodies, and got through the massive door on the other side without further incident. When they stepped across the threshold, they found themselves back in something that resembled Hogwarts. No further enemies were in immediate evidence. There was simply a large stone room with bright lighting coming from somewhere hidden in the vaulted ceiling. At the edges, mats were set up for martial arts practice and there was a track that looped around the room for jogging. It looked like there might even be showers through doors to either side.
"Well this is cool," Harry nodded, taking in the practice room the challenges had gotten them. "...But do you think it will give us more simulated real enemies if we need it to?"
"Harry, no!" most of the girls yelled at him, adrenaline-crashing from the fights they'd had.
But the boys looked like they were about ready for another go.
