And so, the road to Light World Dungeon 1 begins! I admittedly don't have the clearest outline, but I figure this arc (set-up + level + come-down) will be the longest because I'm front-loading a ton of world-building exposition here. By the time the Harrys are heading off to LW Dungeon 2, they'll have a decent picture of how Hyrule works (potions, cooking, inns, local technology, gear shops, etc.) and will have met most of the recurring Zelda NPCs in this fic, including their combat teacher and the guy who will piece their sword's power back together for the main quest. Saves me some info-dumping later, lol.

This chapter has some raw Hylian with translations posted at the end.

[EDIT 4/12/2022: The number of dungeons in this part of the story is now five.]

"YOU IDIOTS!"

Harry snapped awake and immediately regretted it. His head pounded so painfully that his eyes refused to focus and his stomach was tied in knots. He swallowed hard, curling up and pressing his knuckles against the nape of his neck. Agony radiated through his body and soul, deeper than his bones.

"Three of you are made of sword-magic! Why! Would you take! The swords! Off?!"

Thumping, rustling, and clattering noises followed the angry shouting. Harry almost gave into his nausea when something hard smacked against his side.

Within seconds, the all-consuming pain lifted. Harry sat up, staring in surprise at what had saved him. It was his copy of the Four Sword, nestled in its sheath.

"I leave you dimwits alone for two days in a world with absolutely nothing out to kill you, and you still manage to find a way to die for no good reason!" the loud voice from earlier snapped. Harry now had enough presence of mind to recognize it as his own. He looked around, expecting to see Blue with his hands on his hips.

Shadow Harry stood in the middle of the room, grinding his teeth and glaring at Harry like he'd spat in the spirit's porridge. "The sword is what's keeping you alive," the shadow growled. "I've already said that your magic and life force are tangled up with it. You don't shove something that important to your continued existence in a Bag of Holding!"

"How were we supposed to know that was bad?" Red asked from the other bed. "You didn't tell us!"

Shadow Harry's eyes narrowed. "Green, did you or did you not receive a lecture on how magically expanded containers work the day you arrived in Hyrule?"

"Yeah…but it was long and boring and I missed some of it," Harry said. His attention span hadn't been up to the task of catching every word that had tumbled rapid-fire from Ruka's mouth. Ruka was someone who knew lot about how magic worked, despite not having earned his yet, while Harry was solely interested in what magic did. "And how did you know about that?"

"Who cares if it was long and boring? You should have been paying attention anyway! You're a Hero, aren't you?" Shadow Harry screeched, ignoring the question. "Do you know how annoying it is, taking time out of my day to be helpful? I could be making fun of Skull Kids' stupid faces or causing earthquakes in the Gorons' mines right now, but nooo, I had to save your lives!" His face scrunched with disgust. "That feels so awful to say."

"Thanks for saving us, Shadow," Yellow said brightly. "We're sorry for worrying you."

Shadow Harry cringed. "Rub it in, why don't you?"

"How did you know we were in danger?" Blue asked. "How often do you spy on us?"

The spirit held up two fingers and ticked them off as he spoke. "One, I can tell when someone or something other than me is putting you in mortal peril. Two, wouldn't you like to know?"

"We would like to know, actually," Blue said sharply. "How do you know Vaati isn't seeing through you?"

"Because I have both my eyes, duh. The boss is busy spawning monsters across Hyrule," Shadow Harry said. "He doesn't see everything when I've got my eye possessed, anyway; it just makes it way easier for him to check in. Like the difference between dialing someone up on the phone and looking out a window. Whatever his master plan is, it takes a lot of his focus, so there isn't much to spare on keeping track of me. He's only Minish, you know." He looked around and then tittered nervously. "Ooh, he'd kill me if he heard me say that."

"Vaati's spreading monsters everywhere?!" Yellow cried.

"He's giving us monsters to fight?" Red asked excitedly. "Yes! Things were getting boring."

"These aren't the same dumbed-down brutes that were popping up at Hogwarts, so you'd better not run out there like unprepared morons and get yourselves slaughtered. Your lives are mine; no one else gets to kill you," Shadow Harry said with surprising seriousness. Harry found it strange to hear his own voice ring with such authoritative tones. "The monsters called to the Dark World were weakened by your world's version of magic. The ones here are at full strength, so don't expect blunted arrows and spears. Any one monster could kill you if you're not ready to face it, so you'd better buy some armor. Those wimpy leather waist-wraps don't count."

"We bought some cute little shields," Yellow said.

Shadow Harry tilted his head to one side. "'Cute'?" he repeated incredulously. "That's not a good descriptor for a shield, kiddo."

"We have to buy four of everything! How do you expect us to afford armor without any source of income?" Blue demanded. "Do you think we're going to get full-time jobs on top of monster-hunting?"

"Monster-hunting is a job. Just sell or trade the monster parts that stay behind after you slay them," Shadow Harry said with a roll of his eyes. "If they drop weapons or whatever money they've looted off the people they've killed, pick that up, too. That's what Bags of Holding are for. When evil mages put Hyrule under siege with their armies of conjured beasts, the potion-brewers and rich weirdoes come out in full force, so stock up on all the horns and bones and guts you can find. The more powerful the monster you harvested them from, the more those parts are worth, both in terms of money and magic. Lynel guts make for some supreme potions."

"Guts?" Blue repeated, looking ill. "Are you telling me the monsters are actual living creatures here?"

"Eh, kind of. When their magic is working properly, they're autonomous enough to eat, sleep, strategize, and make weapons. It saves high-level minions like me from having to waste our time babysitting the cannon-fodder after setting their patrol routes. I wouldn't call them quite alive, but sometimes parts of them stay solid after they get beaten into smoke." Shadow Harry shrugged. "If you're too squeamish, make Red collect the monster bits. He seems capable."

"I wanna see what we get from fighting Wizzrobes now," Red said, his eyes sparkling. "Magic feathers? Cool wands? Fun robes? If they leave their beaks behind, I'm gonna make toucan armor."

Harry eyed Shadow Harry, who mirrored him exactly, from his posture to his expression. It was a perfect kind of mimicry that none of the other Harrys could quite match. "What did you do to Castle Town?" he asked.

"Set a few buildings on fire. Made some stuff explode. Basked in the chaos." Shadow Harry conjured a Hylian staff with a fiery, faceted ruby atop it. He rested his chin on the jewel and smiled slyly at Harry. "If you've got a problem with that, get strong enough to be worth fighting and then we'll talk."

Harry gripped his knee tightly. "How many people died?"

"Dead people are useless to me. No one died, unless you count a few cows. Eleven citizens of Hyrule are suffering, and that's what matters."

Harry brandished his sword, which only made the spirit smirk. "You're a monster!"

"Aww, I'm glad you think so," Shadow Harry cooed. He used the magic staff in his hand to nudge the point of Harry's sword to one side. "It's partly you that empowers me, you know. The anguish of Hyrule enriches me, but so does the darkness within whichever Hero I'm tied to. Do you know how many people you secretly crave the suffering of? Can you feel how much anger boils within your heart? You have deeper wells of resentment and envy than any Hylian I've been bonded to. The people of Lorule are truly made of different stuff."

Harry shuddered. He knew he had occasional thoughts of packing his relatives into the cupboard under the stairs, dumping bleach in the laundry, or blasting apart his cousin's birthday presents before Dudley could open them. Those spiteful notions were always banished quickly, but inevitably came back on bad days. "I'm not like you," he tried to say firmly. A waver found its way into his voice, because what if those thoughts were evil? The Dursleys were definitely not what he'd consider good people, but he was also tempted to hurt them back; did wanting to act like them make him a bad person, too?

"I could hurt them for you, if you want," Shadow Harry purred. "Those relatives of yours. I have your memories. I've seen where they live and what they've done to you. It's not fair, what you've gone through."

The human Harrys jerked back like the words had physically shocked them. "You know?" Yellow asked in a small voice. "Nobody knows."

Harry was struck silent. The spirit had seen him in a way no one else ever had, including his closest (and only) friends. He had assumed Shadow Harry was a surface-level reflection—just pasting a new name and face over a creature that otherwise had little to do with him. Apparently, the Shadow actually lived up to his name.

Red crossed his arms. "No thanks. You'd probably set their house on fire, you pyro."

"I could turn them into shadows for a while. Let them go a little mad from the loneliness," Shadow Harry suggested. "It wouldn't cause any physical harm."

Blue had a considering look on his face.

Harry snapped out of his shock. "No," he spat, shooting a glare at his brother before turning back to the shadow. "Just tell us whatever else we need to know and leave."

Shadow Harry heaved a dramatic sigh and tossed up his hands. "Oh, fine. Spoilsport," he huffed. "My advice: don't camp in the wilderness at night unless you want a Stalfos to kill you in your sleep, get yourself some empty bottles to put potions and water in, and don't rely on me saving your silly arses the next time you almost kill yourselves. The Boss is going to possess my eye again soon and I never know when he might decide to pay attention to his wandering camera. Now I'm off, since we're apparently so different." He flounced away in a swirl of smoky robes, sinking into the wall.

Harry scowled at Blue. "You were willing to set that maniac on the Dursleys?"

Blue hunched his shoulders defensively. "I can fantasize if I like! I wasn't going to give him permission."

"I can't deny I'd like to watch the Dursleys have another nervous breakdown, though," Red said. "Their expressions when Hagrid found us were priceless."

Harry pinched the bridge of his nose. He would have liked to see his relatives get a dose of their own medicine, but not by setting an ancient evil spirit on them! Maybe just by blowing them up like he had with Aunt Marge that summer. The Ministry of Magic had set her right quickly enough. If Shadow Harry decided to have a go at the Dursleys, there was no telling how far he might take his cruelty. While the spirit didn't seem prone to lying (not that Harry was a good judge), Harry had little faith in his impulse control.

Yellow mutely made the bed he and Harry had shared, folding and tucking the corners of the sheet with robotic movements. He stared into space with a hollow expression. Harry put his hand on his brother's shoulder. "What are you thinking about?" he asked.

"No one's ever known about the Dursleys before," Yellow said. "Not everything. Anyone we told—anyone that believed us—got fired or ruined before they could hear the whole story. Shadow Harry knows." He set the bed's single long pillow on the nightstand and picked up the wool blanket they had slept under, flapping it out straight. "He knows everything and the Dursleys can't fire him, or scare him, or even hurt him. He could help us without telling everyone how messed up we are and raking up all kinds of trouble. But he's evil and he likes hurting people, so getting help from him would be like asking Voldemort for a favor." Yellow rubbed his teary eyes in the corner of his elbow before smoothing out the blanket. "Professor Lupin can't do anything without making everything worse, and Shadow Harry can do something, but he'd make everything worse on purpose." He took a shuddering breath and then put the pillow back on top of the bed. "It's just kinda sad, I guess."

Harry hugged him. He hadn't once thought of Shadow Harry as a potential savior, but he could understand where Yellow was coming from. The spirit was powerful, confident, and carefree—basically everything Harry wasn't. If said spirit were less of a fire-starting sadist, Harry could maybe see him as a cooler, better version of himself. That was a very big "maybe", though.

Yellow embraced him tightly. "Do you think we could spend the summer here? In Hyrule?" he asked in a soft, quavering voice.

Harry laughed mirthlessly. "Depending on how long it takes us to find all five of those hidden temples, we might be stuck here for the next two summers!"

After making their beds, the Harrys did a brief wand-test at Blue's insistence. "I swear our magic isn't working right, but I can't tell whether it's because everything in Hyrule is immune or because our spells aren't functioning," Blue said.

"How many spells do we know that don't affect objects or people?" Red wondered.

"Lumos," Harry said, flicking his wand. A soft globe of light formed at the end, several times dimmer than it should have been. "Oh, that isn't good." If the magic he'd been able to call upon in the sea caves behind Outset Isle had been weak, this was pitiful. Shadow Harry had said something about the space there being broken; Harry had to assume that was why their Illumination Charms had been able to function properly at all. Here, where there were no cracks for the magic of their home dimension to leak through, their wands were working at maybe a quarter of their normal strength at best.

The others cast their own Illumination Charms. Red brightened his by chanting the incantation multiple times, which worked until the spell was at around half-strength. "Why're our wands on the fritz?" Red asked, glaring at the flickering charm. "The temples back at Hogwarts didn't do this! What's the difference between those places and here?"

"In our world, we had our own Golden Power—whatever that is," Harry said. An image of three shining triangles winked in his mind's eye. "Here, there's a different power." He circled his arms and cast the Hylian Falling Spell. It gently lifted him off his feet and then set him back down. "It's not our wands; it's the magic. Vaati said something about us channeling the Golden Power with our wands and Shadow Harry said we're not connected to the divine powers of Hyrule. Whatever magic that is, the kind that's floating around here doesn't like doing Dark World spells. Or maybe it just doesn't want to do Dark World spells through our wands."

"We should get around to making our own Magic Rods, then," Blue said, rubbing his chin. "I've been putting it off because it never seemed like there was enough time in the day to waste several hours on chanting at a stick and a rock—not to mention the cost of materials for all four of us. Hyrule is full of things we can use, though, and we'll probably have some downtime at Hogwarts while the teachers figure things out."

Red snorted. "If they ever figure things out. They've been trying way too hard to pretend everything is still normal. I don't think a single one of them has found a spell scroll."

Harry paled and exchanged a glance with Yellow. "The monsters are back!" they cried simultaneously. Harry rushed to the door. "The monsters are back, and nobody's wands are working right!" he exclaimed. "We have to get to the castle!"

Ron shielded his eyes as he looked out over the lake. It was a nice lake, all clean and sparkling navy blue. Nothing like the ominous green-black of the lake back home. It was too bad the castle had landed in it instead of, say, on the cliffs surrounding it.

He peered up. A vast, shining bridge traversed the lake on an elegant skeleton of bronze supports. It towered at least a hundred meters overhead, stretching from one side of the steep stone cliffs to the other. There was a two-story train station right in the middle, where insanely fast engines would pull in to let passengers off. He'd never seen any vehicle move that quick before; those trains outpaced even the fastest brooms on the market!

'I bet Hermione would know how that works,' he thought, then mentally kicked himself. He was out here to get away from Hermione. Her and her suspicious looks and her demonic cat. She'd be the death of Scabbers if he let her.

He gently petted the little head of his rat, who was lounging on his lap and munching on a lump of cheese from that morning's sparse breakfast. Scabbers had been in much better health during the last few weeks and he wanted to keep it that way. Was his rat fat and boring and stupid? Yes, but Scabbers was his and he wasn't going to let his pet die because his supposedly smart friend was gullible enough to swallow a murderer's lies.

Sirius Black was a mass-murderer, and was therefore not to be trusted. It was as simple as that. He'd been tried, convicted, and imprisoned for the last twelve years. They wouldn't lock someone innocent in Azkaban for that long. That was what the justice system was designed to prevent, surely?

Because if Black was innocent, and he'd been chained up in that hellhole for over a decade due to someone framing him and no one bothering to double-check his case...that was horrific. And if Ron had been sharing a room with a mass-murdering Death Eater disguised as a rat for all this time—

He looked down at the small animal resting on his crossed ankles.

No, Scabbers was definitely not a Death Eater. That just couldn't be.

He was shaken from his thoughts by a tremor rippling the ground. The grass rustled as a silent wave of force swept through it. The water behind him surged into a large, arc-shaped ripple, carrying the force of the tremor until it crashed against the sides of the lake basin.

Ron slid Scabbers into his robe pocket and stood up, keeping his knees bent in case the ground decided to shake again. White froth was forming at the center of Lake Hylia, as if the water were boiling. He'd heard that some students had seen a big green electrified dragon fly out of the lake at dawn and dusk, although Ron wasn't going to believe a rumor as strange as that without seeing the dragon for himself. Was this that dragon making its entrance?

A wave of violet power shot out from the boiling center of the lake and hit everything standing just above water, including the rocky shore of the small island Ron stood on. He dropped painfully to one knee as a dull "WHUMP" rang through both the idyllic patch of shade he'd claimed and the stone mass of Hogwarts Castle. Whatever was happening, this was more than just a dragon taking flight. This was big. Ron ran back to the castle.

He was just within the safety of the great front doors when the screaming started. He spun around with his shield raised, and became the wide-eyed witness to dozens of Zoras speeding across the lake as fast as they could swim. The frothing water at the center of the lake had branched out and spread. Dark figures, smaller than Zoras but almost as fast, were jetting out of the epicenter of the purple pulse like the two waves of power that had come before them. What were those? Ron crept closer to the doors.

The monsters were green and scaly, with bulbous chameleon eyes and horns on their noses. He hissed several curses. Lizalfoses. A swarm of lizard monsters fast enough to outpace a Moblin and deadly enough that one had almost managed to kill Harry in one swipe. And that had been back home, where the monsters were supposedly weaker. Here in Hyrule, where the beasts were bathed in their native magic and normal wizardry barely functioned, no one at Hogwarts stood a chance!

Ron looked around frantically for anyone else nearby—perhaps some responsible adult or upper-year that could step in and take charge of this—but he was alone. The teachers had their "stocking the castle" meetings and the students were hiding out in their dorms while they collectively panicked about their newfound circumstances. Ron, by virtue of having stormed off to an out-of-the-way place to avoid thinking about Hermione, was the only one who could do anything here.

He took out the chunk of wood he'd wedged under the open side of the castle doors so he could get back in and then started pushing. If he could close and lock the doors, the heavy obstacles would hopefully slow down any Lizalfoses that wanted to get in. All the other entrances, as far as he knew, were properly shut. This was the only one left open.

"No, no! Attendas! Por favori na Nayru, attendas!" someone shouted from the water.

Ron didn't understand the words, but he could recognize their desperation. He stopped shoving the door closed, half-hiding behind it as he looked for who had spoken.

One of the Zoras fleeing through the water scrabbled her way onto land and started running (on somewhat awkward, finned feet) toward the castle. She squeezed her way through the remaining gap between the doors and stopped to catch her breath.

Ron looked up at her and then back at the lake, where the brown, gray, and blue shapes of Zoras were taking a page out of the first one's book and turning in the castle's direction. "Er, I'm not sure if…" he started uncertainly. Would he get in trouble if he let the Zoras in? While he didn't want to shut the doors on desperate people, he also didn't know what the fallout of having dozens of almost Hagrid-sized, carnivorous magical creatures straining their limited food supply would be. He stopped to think.

Eh, letting in the foreign merpeople would probably spook all the blood-supremacist Slytherins into keeping to themselves more, so why not? It'd probably piss Malfoy off, too, which would be a nice bonus.

Ron wrenched the door farther open. The Zora lady, upon seeing this, gave him a grateful smile. She stood in the opening of the door, flapping her arms to get the other Zoras' attention and shouting either names or directions in Hylian. Ron hung close by as a tide of terrified Zoras tumbled in, keeping an eye out for approaching Lizalfoses. If they took notice of where their prey was going and tried to follow them in, he'd shut the door in their faces. Maybe it was selfish to prioritize the safety of the castle over the people in the lake, but he wasn't going to let those lizard beasties get anywhere near the little first and second-years. An image flashed in his mind: his baby sister Ginny, still quiet and traumatized after the events of last year, fighting a pack of Lizalfoses with nothing but her useless wand. He squeezed his eyes shut and shook his head emphatically. That was not going to happen, even if it took him being a little cruel to keep her safe.

It was when the Zoras seeking refuge at the castle began slowing to a trickle that more monsters started appearing, this time on the scant amount of grass-covered rock around Hogwarts. Ron would have described them as red…ogres? Hobgoblins? They were ugly, pig-nosed things that looked distantly related to Moblins. While the creatures were bigger than he was okay with—quite broad in the shoulders and easily the height of an adult—they stood with a severe hunch that made them not much taller than Ron. Three of them stepped out of plumes of dark smoke that suddenly appeared in front of the doors, then turned in Ron's direction. His heart leapt into his throat as their gold-edged ruby eyes locked onto him.

"Close the door!" he shouted in a panic, shoving against the metal-clad wood for all he was worth. The Zoras around him were thankfully quick on the uptake and started helping. With their combined strength, they slammed the door shut on the red menaces. A pair of Zoras brought down the thick wooden plank that served as its lock, and all was briefly silent but for the echoing sound of clattering wood.

Ron realized there were around thirty scared expressions of "what now?" aimed in his direction. He blew out a breath and mussed his hair. They were all marooned on a tiny island in a castle with no outside food sources and a populace of helplessly magic-less mages, surrounded by bloodthirsty, man-sized lizards and weird little ogres. He dragged his hands down his face, cursing Vaati every which way. Then he took a deep breath and stood tall.

"Alright, follow me!" he said, making exaggerated "come here" gestures as he spoke. "We've got teachers to talk to and bad days to make worse! Let's go!"

Sirius wandered along the wooden streets of a wooden village full of wooden people, caught in the clutches of two enthusiastic little girls. One little girl was human, blonde, and translating the excited chatter of the other girl, the princess of this quaint queendom. The princess had Sirius's hand in hers and was towing him toward the village square. She'd spent the last hour dragging him from landmark to landmark, filling his ears with a stream of rapid Hylian the entire time. Going by Luna's halting interpretation, Belle (as Zelda had translated her name to be) was absolutely thrilled to have new people in town that she could show the sights. Humans didn't make it to Kokiri Court often; the forest tended to snap up or scare off travelers before they could get that far in. Even Deku Scrubs leaving to sell things in human towns had to take certain precautions to cross the Lost Woods safely.

Kokiri Court was the sort of place a Romantic painter would die for. The charming log houses the Deku Scrubs lived in were laid in neat rows along streets made of wooden blocks hammered into the dark soil. Flowering vines with vivid and sometimes glowing blossoms decorated the sides of buildings like living murals, softly and sweetly perfuming the streets. Lamps made from woven trees and brightly shining mushrooms dotted every small block of buildings, suffusing the air with a greenish gold glow. The center of the town was formed by a smooth black lake populated by luminous fish, mallard ducks, and little Koroks skipping along the water. The air was clean and rich with the scents of the forest; Sirius could imagine a poet waxing on about that aspect alone.

The residents of the storybook village were a refined-looking lot. Even the ones managing the orchards on the outskirts of the village had flowery ruffs at their necks. Their fashion was a mixture of sweeping, leafy robes and puffy Renaissance styles, made from a variety of plants Sirius recognized from back home. There was a kid (or a very short adult—he couldn't tell) standing by the lake with bright cluster of mistletoe berries on their forehead, most of the Deku Scrubs milling around looked like they had a dandelion somewhere in their family trees, and the soldiers all had yellow daffodil petals. Narcissus, the queen's husband and the commander for the city's soldiers, was just the biggest member of the daffodils.

Sirius glanced to the side, where the suspicious yellow-green eyes of guardsmen peered back from the shadows between houses. While Luna and Belle paid them no mind, he could feel their wary stares wherever he went. Most of the Ravenclaws who'd made the trip to the village tended to huddle in the guest house at the edge of town to avoid the paranoid guards and skittish townsfolk. They were as afraid of the unfamiliar magical creatures as the Deku Scrubs were of them.

He internally sighed. They were all going to have to get used to the stares. While Queen Primrose had easily agreed to send soldiers to retrieve the students that had been spirited away, it would likely be days before everyone was found. If everyone could be found. The Lost Woods were aptly named; they bore enough resemblance to fairy forests of old that Sirius held a certain measure of doubt that they'd manage to escape it without taking losses. He hadn't said that to any of the Ravenclaws, of course, since they were literally all children and he had little desire to traumatize them any more than they already were, but Kajiwara seemed to share his secret doubts. She was a canny kid, that one.

Princess Belle led him into the bustling town square, a round plaza hosting an open-air market as well as a few enclosed shops, all built in slightly miniature scale. Deku Scrubs parted around the two humans and their royal guide, bowing in supplication to the princess before fleeing her strange human companions. It gave Belle's retinue of guards, who were seemingly attempting to stay out of sight, plenty of space to slip into the gaps in the crowd. Sirius wondered if the princess had told them to stay back at the palace. While Sirius had difficulty putting a pin on the girl's age, he was willing to bet she was young enough to be that naïve. He hadn't been so soft and trusting of friendly strangers since he'd been a toddler; growing up as a magical aristocrat tended to train that mindset out of you quickly.

As he let himself be tugged toward a flat-bed cart full of large exotic mushrooms, Sirius looked over the heads of the populace around him. Luna had said something earlier about these Deku Scrubs being much bigger and more humanoid than the ancient tribes spoken of in the Hylian Bestiary, which left him wondering how small those creatures must have been if these were considered "big". Most of the doll-like wooden beings around him were about the same height as Draco.

Sirius's heart panged at the reminder of the boy who had adopted him, and that he had adopted back, while he been thoroughly out-of-sorts. He brusquely forced the feeling back. Draco had a few decent, non-blood-supremacist friends now; even if the other Slytherins learned he was a half-breed and rejected him, he'd still have support. He wouldn't want any of Sirius's help, either, now that Sirius had given up his identity as Dog. Once the Ravenclaws found their way back to the castle and spread the news, Sirius would be lucky if Draco didn't chase him down and use his newfound strength to rip his former pet limb from limb.

Sirius took a deep breath, slowly let it out, and then tuned back into the high-pitched voices he'd been acknowledging only in occasional grunts.

Belle held up a yellow mushroom. "…et sal ari kinoki zzati! Sa mamore contram zzatsa." She made a crackling sound that Sirius thought sounded like a malfunctioning Muggle radio and then waited patiently for Luna to translate.

"She says it's a mushroom that, er…protects…against…" Luna paused, her face scrunching up in thought. "I think she said it protects against electricity," she said slowly. Ravenclaw curiosity glinted in her eyes as she put a hand to her chin. "So the peoples of Hyrule know what electricity is. Zelda hasn't mentioned it before, so I assumed they just considered it lightning and left it at that," she mused with a thoughtful frown. "Could the Muggles here have developed the same way they did back home? Or do you think the magic here could coexist with electricity?"

"I'm more interested in the fact that they have magical plants here," Sirius said, leaning in closer to peer at the various species of mushrooms. One had an odd metallic sheen that made it look partly made out of steel, and…did that one over there have razor blades growing out of its cap? Another breed of fungus was shedding copious amounts of orange powder that smelled like maple syrup, of all things. He felt oddly drowsy after getting a small whiff of it. "Even if our wands aren't working, magical plants means magical potions—maybe even magical foods, if these are edible when cooked normally. That could make up for our lack of spells." Sirius had always been decent at potions. Not as good as Snivellus, who'd always had his greasy beak submerged in one brewer's manual or another, but definitely better than James and Remus.

Speaking of Remus…Sirius forgotten about his friend when he'd been reduced to a canine. Occasional echoes of human memories had leaked through, but only enough for him to be hit by a painful sense of loss and confusion when he'd looked upon the only friend he had left.

Sirius snorted a bitter laugh. Forget Draco ripping him a new one—Remus would absolutely annihilate him on sight. Either for the betrayal that Sirius had been framed for, or for Sirius not going to him for help after breaking out of prison. If it was near the full moon, his fury would only be that much worse. There was a certain amount of wolfish leakage into his human side during the days before those terrible nights.

He paused, staring at the mushroom cart. Then he looked up. The sun was currently out, but he remembered last night had featured a waxing gibbous moon. Being friends with a werewolf had given him a tendency to keep track of the monthly phases, even when cursed into being an actual dog. His stomach sank, a cold feeling blooming in his chest sink. Remus was a Hogwarts teacher, and therefore guaranteed to have been in the school when it was brought here. Was there any way to brew Wolfsbane Potion with the foreign magical flora of Hyrule? Would the moon here affect him the same way the one back home did? He dearly hoped that the strange magic in the air would hamper Remus's blood curse as surely as it did most conventional magic.

Just as he was about to drop his gaze, Sirius saw something flicker in the sky. He tilted his head in confusion, squinting at the winking sun.

The flickering light hung in front of the sun for a moment longer before plummeting in a droplet of bright red and gold flame. Sirius's eyes widened and he took a half-step back. His hands went to Luna's and Belle's small shoulders, making some of the guards nearby hiss in displeasure. "Erm, is that normal?" he asked, pointing up. The brightly shining object was growing in size and definition, becoming a gleaming comet that streaked down from the heavens and toward the treetops.

"Qual ari sor?" Belle squeaked, clutching Sirius's robes. "Gleeok?!"

Luna clung to him as well, staring up at the sky with her eyes narrowed in concentration. "It's a…dragon?" she said uncertainly.

As the creature came closer, Sirius understood her confusion. The sparkling abomination was an impossible mix of phoenix, Cerberus, Basilisk, and dragon. It had three snake heads on long, serpentine necks, each with a ruff of blood-red feathers. Unmistakable gold and scarlet phoenix plumage shimmered in a huge fan at the end of dragon's tail, and the strange golden armor on the creature's central head formed a pointed beak over its wedge-shaped maw. Its scales were unnaturally bright, all of them catching the sunlight like polished mirrors. Sirius only had a few seconds to formulate how such an amalgamation of creatures could exist before it shot over the forest clearing in a fiery hurricane that snatched the wooden tiles from roofs and ripped smoking branches from trees. Sirius was thrown off his feet, then pelted with an assortment of mushrooms and fruits as the wares of the outdoor market were pitched across the town square.

Sirius landed on his shoulder with a pained yelp. The multicolored wooden mosaic of the plaza was no more forgiving than cobblestones. He was incredibly grateful the princess hadn't been standing on the wrong side of him; he hated to think what the weight of an adult human would do to her lightweight little frame.

When the hot winds stopped, Sirius pushed himself up with his uninjured arm. The girls had been knocked to the ground on either side of him. Luna was sporting a scrape on her cheek when she picked herself up and the princess's delicate blue petals were all in disarray. Her guards had her on her feet and sorted out in seconds. When they started ushering her in the direction of the palace, however, she stomped her foot with a hard "thok!" of wood on wood, making the soldiers snap to attention.

"Nonne alle varios al pallast," she said sharply, gesturing toward Luna and Sirius. "Sor e arat monstra, en varant al Monti Morti! Luna et Sirius e veirat aveche monstras komme sal. Reina Primmrost besori hanar a lin, imannad!"

Sirius wasn't entirely sure what the princess had said, but he hoped it didn't mean he'd be called upon to act like he knew what was going on in front of the queen again.

"Oh dear. She said that monster was headed toward Death Mountain," Luna said as she and Sirius were swept toward the palace by a wave of guards. "That isn't good."

"Isn't it good that it went there rather than here?" Sirius asked. "Better the dragon chimera lands on a mountain than in the middle of a forest." Literally everything in Kokiri Court was flammable, from the roads to the citizenry. If a fire started here, he had no idea how any of them would go about dousing it.

"Death Mountain is a live volcano, Mr. Black," Luna said. She looked over her shoulder. "It gets its name from its temperament."

Sirius followed her line of sight, and felt his eyes go wide to the point of straining. The silhouette was so large and faint that he hadn't noticed it before; there was a colossal mountain behind the sea of trees, its crown reaching beyond the clouds. It was big to the point that he'd initially mistaken it for another patch of sky. The fireball that had jetted over the forest before was now shooting straight for the top of said giant mountain.

"I hope the Gorons will be alright," Luna fretted. "If that monster starts a ruckus, the lava up there could block their mines."

Sirius made a hoarse noise, pulling at his hair. He'd thought it was bad enough, getting stuck in a fairy forest with spirit-musicians trying to entertain them to death! Now they were right next to a huge volcano that was ready to blow! He never would have imagined himself in a predicament like this—not even in his wildest, Dementor-induced nightmares.

Translations:

-No, no! Attendas! Por favori na Nayru, attendas! ⇒ No, no! Wait! For the love of Nayru, wait!

-Qual ari sor? Gleeok?! ⇒ What is that? A Gleeok?!

-...et sal ari kinoki zzati! Sa mamore contram zzatsa. ⇒ ...and this is a Zapshroom! It protects against electricity.

-Nonne alle varios al pallast. Sor e arat monstra, en varant al Monti Morti! Luna et Sirius e veirat aveche monstras komme sal. Reina Primmrost besori hanar a lin, immanad! ⇒ We're all going to the palace. That was a monster on its way toward Death Mountain! Luna and Sirius have seen monsters like that before. Queen Primrose needs to speak to them immediately!

Notes:

-Harry isn't a bad kid, just...emotionally overburdened. When you feel powerless in an unfair situation, fantasies of striking back or taking control can pop into your head whether you actually want to act on them or not. Also, I've only been adding signs of it here and there because Harry would have no reason to know the term or notice he had symptoms, but the kid has ADHD in this fic. That's why he tuned out of what Ruka was saying and has trouble retaining information from the Hylian Bestiary, which he finds really boring and difficult to read. It's not important, so I didn't add an Ao3 tag, but I'll do it if people ask.

-The powdery mushroom is a Sleepy Toadstool. They look a lot like Hylian Shrooms without the spots, but it can be dangerous to get the two of them confused. The spores are useful in potions.

-Gleeoks are those many-headed dragons that have been showing up in Zelda games since the very beginning. This one's entrance is a reference to Rodan from the Godzilla franchise, flying in and snatching the tiles off of roofs.