A pic of the Harrys' Island Outfit is now up under my "concept art" tag, and it also shows the basic equipment the boys will be wearing/upgrading while adventuring in Hyrule. They don't have a Magic Rod quite yet, but the illustration demonstrates how they'll tote them around once they make the wand-to-staff switch. For future reference, because I won't be obscuring designs under this equipment in future outfit posts, the Harrys will usually wear an adventurer's belt, shoulder-strap Bag of Holding, hip or back-mounted buckler (or similarly small shield), and the Four Sword's waist and shoulder straps over whatever clothes they have on.
The Harrys were in a tropical jungle. Yellow's head was spinning, and not just due to sleep deprivation. It was just…how had everything changed so fast?
The Harrys had arrived in Fisher's Bay, at the south-eastern tip of the mainland, more tired and hungry than they'd been since departing early from the Dursleys' that summer. They'd foregone finding an inn the day before and instead fallen into an exhausted doze during the eight-hour train ride, but motion sickness and the hard sleeping benches in their tiny compartment had made their rest fitful and all but pointless. Since they had yet another train to catch and were almost entirely broke after their shopping trip (they'd blown all their Rupees on four shields, four adventurer's belts, a Navi Slate, and a set of Gossip Stones), they'd had a light, cheap breakfast of fire-roasted fish and then set off straight for Dracozu's Claw, the train hub of Faron Province. With luck, they'd be back at Hogwarts within the day!
Fisher's Bay had been mercifully smaller and quieter than Fortune City, more similar to the atmosphere of Diagon Alley. It had been a nice beach town, perhaps with too many enticing street food vendors for Yellow's still-growling stomach, but definitely a place he would have liked to wander around for a while if he weren't in a hurry. The fish market, in particular, was a place he would have gladly spent an entire morning to peruse.
Leaving the city, they'd gone along a broad stone road in the narrow valley between two sets of rugged gray cliffs. A half-hour later, when the valley opened up, they'd started encountering red plateaus that went up like towering stair-steps. Stone obelisks had begun studding the sides of the road, decorated in square designs of coiling dragons. The air had gotten heavier and hotter with alarming speed despite it having been a cool morning when they'd arrived on the mainland. Palm trees with stout trunks had started appearing, at first small and then growing to titanic. They stood arrow-straight, casting shade over the ten-meter-tall stone posts marking the road with their enormous fronds.
Birdsong was rich in the air, accompanied by the buzz of insects. It was still a little hard to see in the early dawn light, which was blocked further by the broad crowns of the trees, so Yellow switched to his magic glasses to better sight-see. He veered around a cloud of mosquitoes he definitely wouldn't have noticed without improved sight and leaned over one of the low walls bordering the wide stone-paved road to gawk up at a cluster of gigantic palms. Did plants like this even exist in their world?
Something shifted in the fronds of one tree, emerging to look at him. Yellow gasped softly, muffling the sound with his hands. It was a monkey! He'd seen monkeys in the zoo before, but not one like this. It was a fluffy creature with blond fur and a bare red face. It cocked its head to look at him curiously with amber eyes, then disappeared back into the tree. Yellow watched it go with a soft smile, feeling like he'd been graced by a magical moment.
"Hey, look, a toucan!" Red announced loudly next to him, setting Yellow's heart suddenly galloping in his chest. Yellow caught sight of the aforementioned bird when his brother's shout startled it out of the tree it had been perched in.
"Yelling at the animals isn't nice, Red," Yellow chided. "You'll be able to get a better look if you're quiet, too."
"Ah, right." Red leaned over the wall, his eyes wide with interest. "It's really pretty out here. I never thought I'd ever go to a place like this," he said in a lower voice.
"It's like we're in the Amazon or something," Green said, joining them in peering over the wall. "The bugs are so big. On the other side, I saw a line of ants the size of beetles. They were two centimeters long! This place is cool, but I'd hate to camp out here."
Blue was quiet, staring up at the brightening cloudy sky.
They walked deeper into the jungle, where more signs of habitation began popping up among the trees. Large stone statues with grotesque birdlike faces guarded the road, serving as jungle-gyms and perches for monkeys and birds. Big fire-pits resembling altars lay in cleared-out spaces between the trees, currently sitting cold. Yellow regarded them curiously as Green and Red ran to the sides of the road to exclaim over the wildlife at a respectful volume. If there were people living out in the jungle, where were they?
Passers-by on donkeys and horses kept giving the boys odd looks as they trotted past. They all seemed to be in a hurry, whether they were going toward Fisher's Bay or Dracozu's Claw. It was warm out and a good time of day for traveling, though, so Yellow didn't understand why they were hustling along like they didn't want to be caught outside.
Then the sky softly rumbled. A few raindrops pattered the ground. Blue hissed a curse, drawing his brothers' attention. "I thought we might be able to make it if I contained myself and didn't drag all of you with me on a quest to catalogue the…well, everything, but of course the Potter luck had to strike yet again," he said. "Why do rainforests have to rain?" He flipped off the sky.
Yellow gently took his brother's raised hand and closed it into a fist before the other travelers on the road gave them even more funny looks. It made sense that those people were all in a hurry and wearing woolen cloaks now. The Harrys must have been quite a sight, dressed in sunny-day clothes and puttering around under the gray sky. Yellow had made the mistaken assumption that the pale, misty clouds would mean drizzle at worst, as they hadn't looked particularly dark or foreboding. The weather here must have worked differently than back home.
"The map at the train station said there should be some waterfalls and an inn close by," Green said. "If we cast some Impervius Charms on our shields and use them as umbrellas, we should be able to get there without catching a chill."
Within minutes, the rain had gone from a mild patter to a heavy downpour. The Harrys held up their little metal bucklers, one of the new adventuring items they'd bought during their spending spree in Fortune City, and sprinted down the road. Yellow was immensely grateful for the goggle-like shape of the Lenses of Truth, as they provided much more eye protection against the rain than his normal glasses. He squinted through the trees, searching for any lights shining within the gray pall of falling rain. If there were stationary lights, there was a building they were attached to. Even if the owner of said building didn't want to let them in, being able to stand under the eaves would be enough to get them out of the rain.
The confining cliffs on either side of the road suddenly opened into a deep, terraced depression in the earth. Misty waterfalls crashed down the layered red plateaus, ending in a broad cascade that fed into a rippling blue-green lake. The road ahead became a bridge made from half wood and half interwoven vines, held up by gigantic tree roots.
Yellow wished it weren't raining so he could wander around the wondrous landscape and take everything in. There were so many things here that he'd never seen before, and unlike the new sights of the last temple, he actually wanted to see these. It wasn't as though Dudley was ever going to be able to witness anything like this. He wanted to gather as many mental postcards as he could before his relatives locked him back up in the spare room.
Up on the cliffs he could see the golden lights of lamps or torches; there were people living up there! He didn't spot anyone outside—and why would they be out, in this weather?—but he saw the boxy gray shapes of stone buildings among the obelisks and grimacing statues. Yellow wondered how the residents of the jungle made it up those cliffs, what with the lack of visible ladders or stairs. The sheer red walls were smooth and slick; there was no climbing that.
A low stone barrier bordered the lake, ending on either side of the bridge. Yellow smiled at it as they passed. That was nice of the residents to put a wall there in case anyone didn't notice the sudden drop-off.
"What's that?" Red shouted, pointing.
Yellow winced and rubbed his ear. "Red, no yelling at the birds, please."
"Does that look like a bird?"
The Harrys all looked. Then they took a step back, crowding against the interlocking vines forming the sides of the bridge.
No wonder there were dragons carved into every speck of stone around there! A real dragon was making its way down the tiered waterfalls. It flew with galloping strides of its many legs, winding like a glowing yellow-green ribbon down the cliffs. As the boys overcame their initial surprise, they eagerly leaned over the edge of the bridge to watch the gigantic creature approach. The air suddenly felt odd and floaty, charged with something that made every hair on Yellow's body stand up and crackle. He felt like he could jump and be buoyed by the dragon's magical aura.
The beast was a strange-looking thing. It had a face somewhat like a camel's, with neon pink eyes bordered by long pale eyelashes and long ears like a goat. A massive rippling horn erupted from the front of its shaggy, yet somehow scaly mane. Yellow wondered whether this graceful, surreal creature was actually a dragon at all, as little as it resembled a lizard, but he couldn't think of any other word for it.
Pain suddenly lit up in Yellow's hands, causing him to drop his shield. His brothers did the same a moment later. They stood there for a moment, staring at their shiny new bucklers in betrayed confusion before fire seared along their backs. The Harrys cursed and flailed, too consumed by pain to stop and think about what might be causing it. When Blue turned around in front of Yellow, pawing at his burning spine, Yellow saw the energy crackling around his sword. Realization cut through the mental haze. The magic in the air was plain old electricity; that was why they'd been forced to drop their metal shields. Yellow unbuckled his sword, biting his lower lip hard when the metal fixtures shocked his fingers, then went to help his brother get free of his weapon.
"The dragon is electric!" he warned. "You need to take off your swords!" He undid Blue's waist and shoulder straps and kicked the whole assemblage a short distance away. His brother's sword continued to crackle within its leather sheath as the dragon dipped beneath the raised bridge. Ball lightning floated in its wake, drifting through the air with deceptive gentleness.
Yellow breathed a deep sigh of relief when Red and Green managed to throw their swords off, ending the pain sizzling up his spine. He watched the dragon more cautiously now, keeping away from the edges of the bridge. When Red leaned over one of the sides to watch the creature silently gallop through the air below them, Yellow hauled him back before he could catch a cluster of floating lightning to the face.
"You were almost shocked to death yesterday," Yellow told him. "No more electricity for you."
Red sighed. "That's fair."
"Well, that was alarming," Blue panted, tentatively touching his back. He winced. "At least the rain counts as applying cool water to the burn," he said. "I guess it's to be expected that electricity would continue to be a problem in Hyrule proper. Here's hoping Vaati doesn't decide to spew Buzz Blobs and electric jellyfish everywhere."
"I dunno, those jellyfish were cool. A lot nicer to look at than Keese and Octoroks, anyway," Red said. "I bet I could break a branch off of one of the trees around here and beat them into smoke without shocking us, too."
Blue made a face. "Ugh, you're so brutish. It's like I'm sharing my face with a troll."
Yellow watched the dragon start its climb up the waterfalls on the other side of the lake, then looked back at his brothers' swords and shields. Even though the dragon had passed, they were still visibly buzzing with energy. "Er, I think there's still electricity around," he said. "I don't know why, though—"
A bolt of lightning lit up the jungle like a giant flashbulb, so close that the sound of it frying the air hit the Harrys immediately. In its wake, a freshly boiled palm tree steamed and smoldered in the rain. Yellow's heart stuttered in his chest and then began hammering like mad. Lightning! They were in a lightning storm, probably thanks to the lightning dragon! He stared at his discarded sword with dread. All of them had metal weapons practically attached to them; none of the Harrys could move more than a few meters away from their respective swords without them reappearing on their backs, straps and all. He was also reluctant to abandon his shield; it had cost twenty Rupees, it was his only form of armor aside from his new adventurer's corset, and there was no guarantee they'd be able to replace it anytime soon. Also, it was new, and he didn't want to throw away something brand new before it could even be used.
Another flash of lightning assaulted their eyes and ears, striking a palm tree on one of the higher plateaus.
Yellow looked at Green, who was also visibly caught between thriftiness and common sense. "L-Let's, er, let's take everything with us and hide in the forest," Green suggested. "It seems like the trees are catching most of the lightning."
"But how would we…?" Blue looked up helplessly at the sky.
Red dropped his magical satchel to the ground and guided his crackling shield into it with one foot. "That works," he said. He picked up his sword by the straps and dropped that in, too.
"We can do that?" Yellow said with wonder.
Blue looked no less stunned. "I would have expected the bag to reject it," he said.
Red shrugged. "If it can hold magical stuff like Gossip Stones and a Navi Slate, I figured it could hold a magic sword."
Two more blinding, explosive strikes of lightning struck as the Harrys hurriedly packed their things. As soon as all the metal was out of the storm's reach, they sprinted across the bridge. Once under the trees, they huddled together and cautiously watched the sky as they continued following the stone road. Being among the towering palms made them less likely targets, but there was no telling when the storm might decide to lash out at a nearby tree.
Yellow shivered at the sense of weakness dragging at his soul. He felt naked and wrong without the Four Sword on his back. The only times he didn't wear it were when he was asleep and when he was in the bath. Even when he was in his pajamas and relaxing in the common room, he usually had it on him or within easy reach. It was weird, and undoubtedly a sword-induced mentality, but he really couldn't stand the thought of being unarmed. Well, half-unarmed. He still had his wand in the holster on his bicep; it just didn't bring the same sense of comfort that it had before he'd found the Four Sword.
The Harrys were soaked to the bone, shivering, and ready to collapse by the time they came across a building with its lights on and a welcome mat out front. It was a squat one-story lodge with a dripping thatched roof and a dark wooden sign in the window whose yellow-green paint shouted at them in large Hylian letters. Squinting at the writing, Yellow made out the words "FAROSH NA KUNIR INN". A gap in the road's low wall denoted an exit. The Harrys stumbled over one another running across the rough trail of stones hammered into the mud that led to the inn. Green almost fell against the building's door before he remembered to turn the knob. He let his brothers stream in and brought up the rear.
The lightweight wooden door slammed shut behind them, pushed by the wind. Yellow froze, a flush of shame creeping up in his cheeks. So many people were staring at them.
This section of the inn seemed to be a combination of front desk, bar, and restaurant, and it was packed with people. Not just human people, either; many of the curious eyes aimed their way belonged to giant gray and white humanoid eagles. Fur-edged leather armor and ivory weapons abounded, from the bird-peoples' pale bows and feathered spears to the humans' pelvis-headed axes and white-spiked wooden clubs. What kind of creatures were big enough to have bones like that?
A man wearing a big, curly-horned skull as a helmet noticed Yellow timidly peering up at his striped red war paint and flashed him a sharp, threatening grin. Yellow gasped and dropped his gaze to his feet. That man had shark teeth.
A strong reek of alcohol hung in the air, bringing back memories of terrible nights locked in his cupboard, listening to Uncle Vernon rant for hours about whatever had troubled him at work. The noise level in the room was equally overwhelming. All the fierce-looking tribesmen communicated mainly in shouts, speaking a version of Hylian that was especially harsh on the ears. It had all sorts of piercing clicks and whistles that Green never spoke with in that language. Yellow's hands trembled at his sides, clenched tight enough to make his fingers hurt. He was not going to cry just because these people looked scary and talked too loud. Even if they were big and armed and some of them might have been wearing blood as face paint, that didn't mean they wanted to hurt him. He took deep breaths and held Green's hand for support. If he could fight a bat-dragon and a giant electric eel, he could endure a pub full of friendly yelling.
Blue pounced on Green from behind, wrapping his arms around his shoulders. "Is there another inn?" he whispered loudly in Green's ear. It was the only way to be heard over the sound of conversation and clattering tankards. "Please tell me there's another inn."
Green looked at him incredulously. "You want to go back out in the lightning storm? I thought you were the smart one!"
"You want us to sleep right next to a bellowing tribe of drunk barbarians?"
"If it means we get to sleep, sure! How many inns do you think there are in the middle of the Hyrulean Amazon?"
Blue slid off of Green's shoulders with a disgruntled scowl. He went to hang off of Red instead.
A harsh voice squawked at them from the front desk in Hylian. Green gave Yellow's hand a reassuring squeeze and led the Harrys over. Yellow could still feel eyes on their backs. They were soaked through, weaponless despite the adventurer's girdles they wore. If Yellow were a bystander in the restaurant, he would have deduced that these exhausted, dripping children had foolishly gotten caught in the lightning storm and been forced to abandon anything metal. His shoulders hunched. In a bar full of fierce warriors two and three times their size, they looked exceptionally pitiful by comparison. Yellow was always wont to take advantage of pity—because what else was one expected to do with it?—but he didn't think these warriors would look down on him in the right way. They'd probably just assume they were too weak and helpless to be allowed in the jungle, or something. Some people valued toughness too much to be swayed by puppy eyes.
Still, it was worth a shot. Yellow looked up at the skull-wearing bird lady talking to Green with wide, watery eyes just short of tearful. Coincidentally, his irises were a similar shade of amber to hers. She paused in between sentences, blinking at him. Yellow hid shyly behind Green and gave her a timid smile and wave. He had a little trouble reading her face, given that much of it was taken up by a hooked raptor beak, but he liked to think that her eyes sparkled a bit. Yellow made sure not to main so much eye contact with her as to be unsettling, looking around curiously and distractedly like smaller children tended to. He knew he looked and sounded younger than thirteen; it was one of the side-effects (and occasional benefits) of being chronically underfed. Perhaps the receptionist would be confused as to why a pack of identical 10-year-olds were wandering unaccompanied through the jungle, but it might convince her to let their lack of funds slide just a little.
Green tapped one of the hands that Yellow had latched onto his shoulders. "Okay, we've got a room," he said in a low voice. He thanked the desk lady with a smile and a bow before leading the way to the door at the back of the bar. "She said you remind her of one of her kids," he remarked to Yellow, who beamed happily. Success!
"Why do you all think I'm the tricky one when it's clearly him?" Blue asked, gesturing to Yellow. "I'm practically a blunt instrument compared to that."
"All I did was look cute. It's not like I stole anything," Yellow said with a pout. Harry Potter had been miserable for most of his life before Hogwarts, so taking advantage of his circumstances had been his way of making something out of nothing. If, for example, one of the Dursleys' week-long punishments left him looking more spindly and tired than usual, then who could blame him for using that to charm a nice old man at the sundries shop to buy him a cookie at the counter? Maybe his relatives would say he'd stolen thirty pence from that man's wallet, but he didn't consider looking pitiful a crime. "So, what kind of room did we get?" he asked Green. "Are we all piling into one bed?"
"She gave us a twin room," Green said. "Usually one of those costs thirty Rupees a night, but we got it for fifteen."
Red clapped Yellow on the back. "Good job! You crossed the language barrier with your big baby eyes."
Yellow blushed at the compliment. Lucky for them even scary barbarians could fall for the cute kid trick!
Draco didn't want to be here. He didn't want to be anywhere, really—not while he was still reeling over the news that his dog was a human mass-murderer. He had been keeping his criminal cousin as a pet! He delicately touched his fingertips to his temples and stared into the middle distance, internally screaming. If not for the fact that he was sitting at a meeting table populated by teachers and Zoras, he could have screamed aloud.
When Professor Dumbledore had finally shown up, he'd decided to arrange a proper sit-down with Tiamus, who turned out to be a Zora prince high in the line of succession. A foolish prince, if you asked Draco; he'd taken a potentially disastrous risk, wandering into a random castle with his royal offspring in tow. The Zora was a friendly and accommodating sort despite (or more likely because of) his lack of common sense, though, so he'd ferried his children home to the underwater palace on the other side of the lake, returned with a set of advisors, and sat down to speak with the staff of Hogwarts.
Granger sat up attentively straight next to Draco, reading Zelda's real-time transcription as the Zoras conferred among themselves. Draco wasn't even sure why Dumbledore had made him attend the meeting when Granger was right there. He knew a few words of Hylian, but Granger could just read Zelda's transcription, tell the dead queen her answer to have it put into Hylian, and read Zelda's second translation aloud. While he and Granger were the only ones at the table who could see Zelda's section of the book, thanks to an enchantment that let only certain "knowledge-seekers" interact with the ghostly queen, he didn't think there was any reason for both of them to be called in. Granger was perky and talkative enough to run the whole meeting on her own, if she so desired.
Draco wondered dourly if it might be his sudden change in apparent heritage that had motivated Dumbledore to have him attend. The Slytherins, despite mostly hailing from old pureblood families, hadn't seemed to put much stock in his changing complexion. He'd always been stunningly pale, and now he was stunningly pale with a dash of sickly green. That was acceptable coloring for the scion of two of Britain's purest families, as far as his fellow Slytherins were concerned. Dumbledore, though—that man was a sly, slippery sort. Draco never knew what he was up to. Not until he heard his father ranting about the old goat's political maneuvers after a bad Wizengamot meeting, anyway. If anyone at Hogwarts could figure out Draco's ancestral predicament without being told or seeing him through a set of magical spectacles, it was Dumbledore. And if that was indeed why Dumbledore had picked Draco to serve as an ambassador to the Zoras, he'd made an irritatingly good call; Tiamus and the other Zoras seemed reassured by the fact that a part-Zora resided in the castle. They were more likely to ask him for answers than anyone at the table, despite the fact that he was using the same slow translation method as Granger to respond.
Draco ground his teeth. Once again, he was being forced to accept that he was enough of a magical creature for other magical creatures to accept him as trustworthy kin. How the mighty had fallen. At this point, though, after being thrown across realities and learning he'd been playing caretaker for a murderer, he was so overwhelmed by so many things gone wrong that his worries over growing fins were being forced to the bottom of his list of things to have a nervous break over. He'd already suffered several fits of panic about becoming part-Zora, so that well of distress had mostly dried up.
Tiamus, sitting cross-legged on the floor next to Draco, leaned down slightly to address him. He asked Draco something to do with magic. Internally sighing at being made to do something other than stare at the wall and think, Draco watched Zelda's translation scroll across the page. "So you have magic…but not in this world?" Tiamus had said. "Are you enchanters, or do you use seals and ceremonies like the Sheikah?"
The first question was one that everyone at Hogwarts had been puzzling over since last afternoon. Magic kind of worked if one was using a wand. Wandless magic was decently powerful but harder to control, according to the few members of staff who could perform it, and only worked on things they'd brought from their world. Even trying to scorch a patch of Hylian grass was impossible; the land was infused with the same magical immunity as all of the temples that had been thrown into Scotland. That was, unless one used Hylian magic with a normal wand or channeled conventional magic through a Hylian wand. Either of those options could affect Hyrule…somewhat. Conventional spells still had a high likelihood of failing or only half-functioning if aimed directly at the land, natives, or longer-lived plant life, but worked decently enough on man-made things. Hylian magic channeled through a Magic Rod was no trouble at all, of course. Dumbledore had concluded from everyone's findings that while Hylian magic and people's natural internal magic worked, there was something their wands needed for normal spellcasting that this world not only lacked, but outright worked against. Perhaps it was the same "something" that made the atmosphere around Hogwarts and Diagon Alley feel so lively compared to more Muggle-ridden areas of the world.
Draco thought of a summarized answer and spoke to Hylian Bestiary. "Our magic allows us to enchant, transform things, defend ourselves, and anything else you can imagine, but it doesn't work properly here. The Hylian magic some of us have learned still works, however. We don't know why this is." When Zelda wrote out a stream of phonetic syllables in response, he read them aloud smoothly. Then he summoned the Abyssal Vase, saying in Hylian, "See, Hylian magic."
The prince's eyes went wide in recognition, as Draco had expected. If the Inland Zoras were to the Flying Zoras as the population of mainland Europe was to the British Isles, he assumed they shared a certain familiarity with their less landlocked neighbors' culture. "Where did you…how did you…?" Tiamus stammered. He reached hesitantly for the vase, and Draco handed it to him. The giant marveled over it and spoke excitedly to the advisor sitting on his other side. Zelda dutifully started a transcription that Granger watched avidly, but Draco didn't care. He used the time to resume staring into space and thinking about more important things.
His dog was Sirius Black. In hindsight, that had been obvious from day one. Hour one, even. His name on the temple map had been "Sirius Black", and he'd consistently shown intelligence beyond that of a normal canine. Crabbe and Goyle had recognized it, and Draco had brushed off their input out of pride. He'd assumed he knew what dogs both magical and mundane were like, despite never having been in contact with any, because being a Malfoy made him inherently smarter than anyone in the room.
Draco snorted. His bodyguards were as dim as rocks, and yet they'd figured the whole "Dog" mystery out ages before he had. Granger, despite being all but a Muggle by upbringing and heritage, was the star of every class and knew about fields of study he'd never even heard of. He could clearly be outdone, despite all the rigorous tutoring he'd undergone throughout his youth and the supposed innate brilliance that came with being both a Black and a Malfoy. There went another chunk of his mental foundation, so carefully constructed by his parents, crumbling to ash. He resisted the urge to bang his head on the table in the wake of its destruction. How could he have been so stupid?
He held still and stared at the wall, mentally burying his face in his hands. Dog's name on the map had been Sirius Black! How many Sirius Blacks were there?! It wasn't like "Black" was a common surname among the English wizarding populace! And why would a dog have a surname, anyway? Stupid, stupid, stupid—
Granger laid a tentative hand on his shoulder. "Are you alright?" she asked.
At the sound of her question, Professor Snape's head swiveled in their direction. He fixed Draco with a scrutinizing frown, looking him up and down. Draco pushed up his sunglasses and turned his face away. It would be just his luck if his hideous cat-eyes were doing something strange in response to his stress. Blaise had been the one to tell him his pupils were a dead giveaway, even through what remained of his magical glamour.
"If the option were available, I'd throw myself into Lake Hylia to never be seen again," Draco said through his teeth, too quietly for Professor Snape to hear. "Why do you ask?"
"Because, er, your eyes…"
Draco pinched the bridge of his nose and suppressed a deep sigh. He was so tired. "What are they doing now?"
"I can only see it because I'm right next to you, but they've, erm…let me draw it." She muttered a quick apology to Zelda and then used a Muggle pencil she produced from her pocket to draw a clumsy sketch of an eye at the bottom of the page Zelda was currently writing on. The pupil was so narrow as to be almost unseen.
Draco groaned and looked up toward the ceiling. He was entirely done with today, and it was barely noon. Walking around looking like he'd swapped eyes with a lizard was just the moldy garnish on top. Draco looked around the meeting room, at the Zoras peering into the darkness of the Abyssal Vase, the professors speaking in low and nervous tones to a tired-looking Dumbledore, and Professor Snape watching him like a concerned hawk. Draco was only here because Dumbledore had asked-but-really-ordered him to attend in that charming way of his. Technically he'd just been invited, not threatened or commanded into attending. Propriety demanded that he follow the Headmaster's gentle-yet-firm request, as Draco was both a wizard with a family reputation to uphold and a student of Hogwarts. However, Draco was also minutes away from cracking the meeting table over his knee and defenestrating the pieces, so perhaps saying "screw it" and leaving early was the less rude option here. While his father had taught him to stand his ground, there was such a thing as a strategic withdrawal.
Taking a leaf out of Granger's annoying classroom playbook, he raised his hand and stared straight at the Headmaster. The man ignored him, continuing his quiet discussion with Professor McGonagall. Draco continued staring and keeping his hand high in the air. He was going to leave this meeting one way or another. Either Dumbledore would acknowledge him and let him do so peacefully, or Draco was going to take advantage of the large round window at the back of the unused classroom.
The hoary bastard continued ignoring him.
Draco dug his nails into his thigh with a hiss. He lowered his hand, barely keeping himself from using it to punch a hole in the table. "If I'm in this room for one more second, I'm going to go feral," he informed Granger in an undertone. "I trust you're capable of filling in for whatever role the old goat called me here for?" Granger was socially middle-class at best, with no education or interest in negotiations like these, but she was also very good at endearing herself to authority figures and finding boring things like "cultural exchange" engaging. Her tangential talents would be enough to make up for her lack of political finesse, since Dumbledore was in charge of this whole thing anyway.
The girl nodded with earnest determination. "I can handle this."
He turned to Tiamus, who regarded him curiously. "I'm tired. Must sleep. I apologize," he said shortly in Hylian. "Granger is good. Talk to her." He spun around and left, letting the surprised exclamations of his teachers slide off his back.
Draco needed to go somewhere and think. Or maybe force himself to stop thinking. His head just felt overstuffed with thoughts and feelings, and he wasn't sure how to sort through them. Perhaps he'd go to his temporary dorm, grab a pair of scissors, and have a go at his hair. That was how a great many teenagers in novels seemed to express themselves, and he'd been meaning to even out the color. Even though the sharp delineation between platinum blonde and candyfloss pink was only visible under his remaining glamour, seen only by those with the Lenses of Truth and Light World natives whose opinions meant nothing to him, he hated looking like he'd missed multiple trips to the salon. Another option for burning all these unwanted emotions off was going swimming, but that ran the risk of him coming across a chatty, too-friendly Zora. Maybe he'd take refuge in one of the castle's less-traveled nooks, then—one of the ones recently vacated by Vaati's creepier monsters.
"Draco Lucius Malfoy!" a sharp voice came from behind him.
Draco jolted and turned around. Professor Snape had followed him from the meeting room! He almost started running down the hall, then thought better of it. His godfather had long enough legs that he'd easily be able to catch up.
"What on earth has gotten into you?" Professor Snape demanded, stalking toward him with distance-eating strides. Draco dropped his eyes to the ground as he neared. "While I understand your distaste for magical creatures, I would have thought you'd have the maturity to better disguise it," his godfather lectured. "Have all of your lessons in comportment fled from your mind?"
Oh, so that was why the professor thought he'd left the meeting? Draco had been so consumed by thoughts of more pressing issues that he'd forgotten to give a damn that the Zoras were Zoras. It was easy to forget when he had real problems to worry about. Beyond their fierce, shark-like appearances, the fish-men at the meeting table had been ordinary public officials led by a foolishly unwary prince. On a better day, he would have had fun taking advantage of Tiamus's guileless nature to secure a better supply deal for Hogwarts. Business negotiation was something he genuinely enjoyed, but right now it was the last thing on his mind. Today was just another awful day in what was going to be an awful month, so Draco wasn't in the mood to have anything to do with anyone right now.
"I'm just having a difficult time accepting our current circumstances, Professor," Draco said. He figured that so long as he didn't lie, Professor Snape's supernatural ability to detect such things wouldn't kick in. "I haven't been in contact with my family nearly as much as usual, and being completely cut off from them…it isn't something I've ever experienced before. It's only been a day since we were deposited here, and I haven't been given any time to process it." He looked up to give the teacher pleading puppy-eyes, only to jerk his head back down when he remembered that was the last thing he wanted to do. Draco mentally cursed, curling his hands into fists. "Please, may I return to my dorm? I'm not feeling my best."
"Yes, I can see that," Professor Snape said in a voice that made Draco's stomach twist with dread. Before he could step out of reach, his godfather firmly clasped a hand over his chin and tilted his head up. Another long-fingered hand plucked the tinted shades from Draco's face.
Draco squeezed his eyes shut and used his creature-strength to wrench the professor's hand from his chin. He spun around, brushing himself off with a dramatic huff. His heart was hammering and his hands shook. That had been so close! If Professor Snape acquired any conclusive proof that Draco wasn't a pureblood anymore, he wouldn't just have a fit; he'd have a letter written and ready to send almost as soon as he could dash back to his office. An unhealthy complexion was one thing; cat eyes were another. "Excuse you," Draco snapped. "Even if you're a friend of the family, my father would still be willing to ruin you if provoked, and I doubt he'd approve of you manhandling his son." He fought to keep a tremor out of his voice—to maintain the level of poise and confidence that had been trained into him since he could walk. His breaths were starting to come in short pants and a tight sense of pressure had built up in his ribs. "Expect me to send an inflammatory letter once we return home," Draco snarled, not turning around. "I'm going to my dorm now." He power-walked down the hall on legs that were rapidly turning to jelly.
Footsteps followed him. Draco felt sick. Normally Professor Snape's habit of worrying about his students' health was comforting, but right now it was terrifying. He forced himself not to run. If he ran, he'd be chased down because Professor Snape would assume there was something seriously wrong with him that he was avoiding treatment for. And, because of that assumption, the man would also likely conclude that Draco had suffered a mental break and was acting extremely out-of-character. Draco had never been one to downplay injuries or illnesses. If anything, he tended to exaggerate his ailments and use others' desire to please him to his advantage. He wasn't ashamed of it; what else was one to do with a stubborn bout of the flu or a banged knee? Suffer silently and get nothing in exchange for his troubles? His history of playing up health problems was certainly coming back to bite him now, though.
He forced himself to come to a halt, cursing his history of attention-seeking dramatics. The more avoidant (and therefore more strangely) he acted, the more determined his Head of House would be to drag him to Madame Pomfrey. "What do you want? I'm going to my temporary dorm to take a nap. Are you going to stalk me the entire way there when there's a meeting going on?" Draco asked with every iota of irritation he could summon. He had a lot of it on hand right that moment. "Don't you have a responsibility to attend to?"
The footsteps behind him stopped. "You've broken my trust too many times this year for me not to suspect you'll throw yourself at the nearest source of danger if left unsupervised," Professor Snape informed him. Draco grimaced. "Just because the Headmaster continually brushes aside the concerns of his staff, that doesn't mean I won't exercise my authority to keep you safe and whole."
"If we'd just stayed safely bundled up in our rooms, Vaati would have drowned us. We can't be passive toward a madman who's actively trying to remake the world in his image. That isn't foolhardy Gryffindor heroism; it's just common sense," Draco pointed out. "Perhaps gaining the tools needed to fight his beasts involves putting myself in danger, but at least I haven't had to suffer the indignity of being outdone by a single ReDead." Draco smirked at the silence behind him. Just a week ago, Professor Snape had been forced to evacuate his classroom when one of those undead monsters had popped into existence in the back corner. No one had gotten hurt, but the professor had learned the hard way that ReDeads could only be briefly stunned by even the strongest fire spells. He'd had to stand and watch while his more capable students took out the shambling mummy.
"How do you know that your new Gryffindor tendencies haven't been taking a toll on your well-being, either mentally or physically?" Professor Snape asked. "If you could see and hear yourself, you would understand my concerns. It's as though you've become an entirely different person within the span of weeks!"
Draco summoned the Lenses of Truth to his nose, because they were better than nothing, and rounded on the teacher. "Maybe I've just come to realize I can think for myself!" he spat. "All my life, I've thought in terms of 'Father said this' and 'Mother said that'. But now, thanks to you, my parents are most likely planning to send me to the one school I specifically requested them not to make me attend! I've cared so deeply about everything they've told me, and yet whenever I tell them anything important, it goes ignored! They'll buy me a Pegasus if I want one, or fire a teacher I don't like, but when I tell them I want to be a Potions Master or a professional Quidditch player, I'm suddenly not allowed to have what I want! How is that fair?" Draco gripped his arms, trembling with the pent-up emotion he'd finally found a release valve for. His hard, magically self-sharpening nails created dull crescents of pain as he dug them into his skin through the fabric of his robes. "Why should I think nothing but the things they've told me when they clearly don't care about what I tell them back? Why should I just believe Father when he says muggleborns have lesser intelligence and magic? Why must I unthinkingly accept my mother's declarations that all magical creatures and half-breeds are beasts and wastrels to either be tamed or avoided? I have my own mind! I can come to my own conclusions!" Draco lifted his chin and stood tall, flashing his teeth in a sneer of utmost contempt. In a burst of spite, he hoped his pupils had narrowed back to slits to complete the look. "Now, are you going to punish me for thinking independently, Professor, or may I go to my room?"
Professor Snape's dark eyes were as wide as Draco had ever seen them. Draco held his breath, waiting for the man's shock to turn to ire. "I…believe a nap would serve you well," the professor said faintly. "Five points from Slytherin for disrespect." Then he turned on his heel and walked back up the corridor toward the meeting room.
Draco almost ran down the hall. He power-walked around several corners, not particularly concerned with where they led him, and then sagged against the wall, wheezing. Every breath felt like it had to be wrung from his aching lungs. 'Oh Merlin, I never want to do that again!' he thought, laying a hand over his heart. It had been pounding the entire time he'd been shouting at Professor Snape. There was something particularly terrifying about risking his godfather's scorn. Draco knew what to expect when he mouthed off to his parents: disapproval, a temporarily lessened allowance, and having more hours added to his tutoring schedule for a set amount of days or weeks. Professor Snape was an utter unknown; Draco so rarely worked up the courage to sass his godfather that he was never sure what the man might do in response.
He laughed breathlessly, at once seized by mortification and exhilaration. Draco was rarely that honest with anyone, even his parents. He'd just poured his heart out to Professor Snape in the middle of the hall, where anyone might hear him! What had possessed him to do something so risky, and yet so freeing?
'I really should take that nap,' he mused as his laughter turned to sobs. The tightness in his chest felt like it might become a real medical issue if he put himself through any more stress, and his temples were now throbbing with the start of a building headache.
Against all logic, he wished Dog were there.
Notes:
-Farosh na Kunir Inn ⇒ Farosh's Fang Inn
-The monkey is based on a Japanese Macaque and the huge ants are giant Amazonian ants. Which are real, and 1.6 inches long :)
-The way electric storms work on metal equipment has been adjusted from BOTW. While the visual cue of Link's weapons crackling works from a player's 3rd-person POV, it's harder for the Harrys to catch sight of that over their shoulders, so the pain presents a clearer warning.
-The Zonai are viking-ish warriors in this fic, comprised mainly of Hylians and jungle-dwelling Ritos, but willing to accept anyone strong enough to pass their combat tests. The reason I threw some Ritos into the tribe is because there are a lot of bird statues around the jungle in BOTW, and I was like "what if bird people built those?" The Zonai Ritos that showed up in this chapter are inspired by harpy eagles. Given that BOTW 2 is going to come out and clobber a lot of my world-building sometime soon-ish, let's call these guys an AU version of whatever happens there.
-The Harrys' trip so far, using reference points from the Wind Waker and BOTW maps: Outset Isle ⇛ Five-Spear Isle (Five-Eye Reef) ⇛ Fortune City (capital of Windfall Isle) ⇛ Fisher's Bay (Lurelin Village) ⇛ Farosh's Fang Inn (by Floria River). They intended to go to Dracozu's Claw (a few miles south of Dracozu Lake). The Harrys will be back at Hogwarts in two chapters by my current outline, having traveled about 1,500 miles from Outset.
-Next chapter, we're gonna take a break from giving the Harrys a whirlwind tour of Southern Hyrule to set a snowball of disaster (or should that be fireball?) into motion. Time for a little chaos~
Magic System Info-Dump, for those seeking further clarification:
Two factors limit wizard magic in Hyrule: wands pull upon the energy of the Dark World to assist in guiding their caster's power, and the magic entrenched in the lands/creatures of Hyrule neutralizes Dark World spells. Magic Rods fix the magic-channeling issue, but don't fully overcome the Light World's immunity to Dark World spells. They also cause Dark World spells to be overpowered and difficult to control when used on people/objects native to the Dark World (think Elder Wand but it's all power, no finesse). The further removed a Light World object is from the natural power of the land, the less resistant it is to Dark World spells, and the level of magic immunity is based on game logic. Like how Link can't blow up every wall, you know? The order of most resistant objects to least when it comes to Dark World spells cast through a Magic Rod is: NPCs, the permanent landscape (mountains, big/old trees, lakes), the semi-manipulable landscape (boulders, smaller trees, cracked natural walls), long-lasting man-made objects (buildings, bridges, furniture, vehicles, sturdy crates), and manipulable objects (pots, furniture, normal crates, non-magical clothing/weapons). Monsters and more resistant objects have a high resistance to directly damaging spells, but not ones that push them around. Light World bosses and dungeon mini-bosses are still mainly defeated by items. The reason for this power cap is so I can write dungeons that actually present a challenge and make sure that items/equipment stay useful as the Harrys add to their repertoire of go-to spells. Wizard magic in general is going to be balanced with other mechanics in the same way as BOTW Link's Sheikah Slate apps so I can have a system with clear powers and limitations to design my levels around.