I am realizing more and more that I'm a very dialogue-heavy writer and I feel a tad guilty for thinking more in terms of conversations than plot. The story does have a plot, though, I promise! More lore in this chapter, a character introduction, and Crookshanks blinking back into existence because I realized I forgot him. Whoops. I've also posted my Phantom sprites to the garden-eel-draws tumblr if you want to have a look-see.

"Are you done?" Red asked dully.

Malfoy leaned against a trophy case, still giggling. "You…You turned something I said in passing into some epic research project!" he wheezed. "Oh, Potter, you're too precious." Wiping a tear from his eye, the boy forced himself upright and cleared his throat. His pale cheeks were tinged pink from his recent fit of laughter. "Your Black relative was your grandmother, Dorea Black. She married Charlus Potter and had James Potter, who married a muggleborn witch and produced you. Dorea was the sister of my great-grandfather, which makes us cousins of a sort. Honestly, you could have just asked. If you were raised properly, you would have already known this sort of thing."

Red scowled at the yellow-eyed Harry Potter beside him, who grinned sheepishly. "We were so shocked we forgot we could just run after you and ask you to explain," the latter admitted. "That's good, though, 'cause it got us thinking more about Hyrule and how we might be related to the boys who wielded the Four Sword before us. We were going to ask Professor Dumbledore about it."

"The old codger does seem to know a lot of things he shouldn't." Draco tapped his chin thoughtfully. "Come to think of it, where did he get ahold of the Hylian Bestiary? It must have been somewhere within the school, Hogsmeade, or somewhere in between, because that's as far as the barrier around the castle stretches."

"Huh. Never considered that," Red mused. He'd simply accepted the book's existence as a useful source of information and moved on. Books could be very helpful things, but he didn't read them unless he had to. "Maybe Dumbledore had the book in his collection and forgot about it. He's got enough of 'em to lose track, and this one's barely readable unless you've got Green on hand to translate."

"Or he might have waited a week for the chaos to fully set in before revealing this book to us," Malfoy said. "It could have been a strategic move."

"Dumbledore doesn't seem like a 'strategic' kind of person to me. He's just a nice old man," Yellow said doubtfully.

Malfoy sneered. "'Nice old man', my foot. My father tangles with him in the Wizengamot on a regular basis. I've heard enough angry rants to know that the old goat's more of a Slytherin than any former Gryffindor has a right to be."

The two Harrys exchanged a look. "We'll think on it," Red declared, crossing his arms. He knew he wasn't the best Harry to figure out Professor Dumbledore's true nature; he'd report this to Blue and Green and let those two get on with it.

"You'd best watch him, Potters. He's a tricky sort, from his color-blind dressing habits to his senile act," Draco warned. "And you had better not tell him about our little 'adventure'. The moment he learns you're going off hero-ing, he'll start watching all of us. I'd rather not have the old meddler sticking his crooked nose into our shared business, thank you."

None of the Harrys had been planning on telling Professor Dumbledore anything, anyway, since they hadn't wanted to lose House points for almost getting cooked by an oversized Keese. "We'll keep our mouths shut," Red said. "No point in getting ourselves in trouble for something that wasn't our fault."

Malfoy smirked. "Ah, you're learning," he said approvingly. "Now, off you go. Don't you have a crazy old professor's office to visit?"

"Oh, yeah! What's the password?" Red had almost completely forgotten why he'd struck up a conversation with Malfoy in the first place.

Malfoy raised an eyebrow. "Why do you think I would know? I don't make a habit of visiting that nutter. I'd rather not spend any more time looking at his eye-gouging outfits than I have to."

"Do you know or don't you?" Red asked flatly. "If you don't, we'll flag down a teacher and tell them it's important. You can be useful or you can be not-useful. Useless. Whatever."

Malfoy smirked at his slip-up. "I never thought I'd see the day when someone fumbled words worse than Weasley," he drawled. "In exchange for your court-jester act, the password is 'Mars Bars'. You're not the only one paying the Headmaster a visit this week. Some of the Slytherins are planning to ask for an expulsion, so I heard the password from them. There are allegedly Ravenclaws and Hufflepuffs lining up to get kicked out, too." He rolled his eyes theatrically. "Idiots, all of them. Anyone with sense knows an expulsion won't do anything for as long as we're all locked in this puzzle-box."

"There are people asking to be expelled?" Yellow asked in horror. "But Hogwarts—"

"If I could have Father pick me up right now and send me to Beauxbatons, I'd hop in the carriage right that instant," Malfoy said bluntly. "The possibility of finding Hylian treasure aside, I'd prefer not have to dodge giant armored golems and musclebound pig-men on my way to History of Magic."

Red made a face. On one hand, most people weren't him and thought cool things were scary. On the other hand, how could people not think that fighting monsters was awesome? He could kind of agree that running an enemy-ridden obstacle course every time he went out in the halls made getting to class a little annoying sometimes, though.

"Well, my brothers and I are staying no matter how crazy the castle gets," he declared. "It's better than the place we stay at during the summer, monsters and all."

Malfoy stared at him like he'd spoken in Parseltongue. "You must be joking. Where on earth could you live that's worse than this?"

Red shrugged. "Someplace that sucks. Bye, Malfoy." Red grabbed Yellow by the wrist and started towing him away. "Come on. The others should be heading over to the gargoyle right now."

0

"Get to the purple tiles! Hurry!"

"I'm already hurrying, Yellow!" Red puffed as he sprinted toward where the other boy stood. "Why are there Phantoms here, anyway?" He yelped and ducked as the hulking suit of armor on his heels took a swing at him. The monster's huge sword, almost as big as Red himself, swept over his head with a heavy whoosh. A trail of shadowy smoke swirled after it.

"There are Phantoms on the first floor, the second floor, and the third floor, too, I guess," Green called from where he stood with Yellow. They'd claimed a patch of lavender tiles on the right-hand side of the corridor about ten meters from Red. Blue stood farther off, in the purple safe-zone that had formed in front of Professor Dumbledore's password gargoyle.

"We probably should have asked Malfoy about any new monster patrols, now that I think about it," Yellow mused. "If he's part of the rumor-mill, he'd hear about stuff like that before us."

Red ducked another vicious sword-swipe from the Phantom and dove for the closest purple area. The moment he passed its outer edge, the suit of armor that had been chasing him stopped and looked around in confusion. The scarlet lights in its helmet skipped over the three boys standing right in front of it. When it failed to see anything, it turned around to resume its usual patrol. As it did, a big red eye surrounded by a golden border could be seen staring out of the large crack in its back.

"I swear, those things are the most annoying monsters ever," Red grumbled as Green helped him to his feet. "At least Floormasters forget about you if you get too far from them. Phantoms'll chase you halfway across the school!"

"That's what the tiles are for, Red." Yellow tapped his foot on the glowing, diamond-patterned ground. "It makes things fair."

Red scowled at the tiles. He thought the shifting patterns of purple, green, and blue looked nice, but knowing that they were the only thing that kept him from having his arse handed to him by a Phantom pissed him off. "If things were fair, we'd be able to kill the stupid things," he groused. He glanced over his shoulder to make sure the Phantom was a safe distance away and then stalked toward Professor Dumbledore's office. The sound of a tinny grunt and subsequent clanking made the boy groan in frustration. He looked up ahead to see another Phantom power-walking toward him with long, distance-eating strides.

"There's never just one Phantom, Red. You should have learned this by now," Blue said in that smarter-than-thou way of his when Red tumbled into his patch of safety. "We used the bathroom on the second floor just yesterday, and those things were walking around. Didn't you notice their overlapping patrol patterns? They're meant to work in groups."

"Not all of us…are nerds," Red wheezed. Without Dudley's summertime "Harry-Hunting" games to keep him on his toes, the boy hadn't felt a need to practice running. He was definitely motivated to get back in shape now. "I just…wanted to…take a piss."

Blue crossed his arms. "Sometimes I can't believe we sprang from the same mind!"

Once both Phantoms were out of sight, Green and Yellow joined their counterparts in front of the gargoyle and Blue told it the password. The boys walked up the moving spiral staircase, being too impatient to wait for it to spin them to the top. They'd already been slowed down by a swarm of Keese, two fire Wizzrobes, and the Phantoms guarding the corridors around Professor Dumbledore's office. No need to wait on a slowpoke magical escalator, too.

Green knocked on Professor Dumbledore's door. "Professor? This is Harry Potter and, er, the other Harry Potters. Could we talk to you?" he asked nervously.

'Have we ever been to Dumbledore's office without being called in?' Red wondered, having noticed Green's fidgeting. He didn't remember ever having gone here because he felt like it. Maybe that was why Green looked like he wasn't sure what to do.

The doorknob turned, and then the door swung itself open. "Come in, my dear boy. I've been expecting a visit from you," Professor Dumbledore said from where he sat at his desk.

Yellow skipped in first, the others following after. "Hi, Professor Dumbledore! How are you?" he chirped.

The old wizard smiled kindly at the boy. "I'm doing well, Harry. And you?"

"Being split in four is kinda weird, but it's nice to be able to talk to myself without sounding bonkers. Me, myself, and I make a good sounding board, you know?"

Professor Dumbledore chuckled. "Ah, yes. I understand that quite well." He flicked his wand and conjured two more chairs to join those already sitting in front of my desk. "Do sit down, Misters Potter. Oh, and would you care for a sherbet lemon? I find they're especially good after playing hide-and-seek with Phantoms."

"So even you can't get rid of them?" Blue asked while the other Harrys went for the dish of lemon drops. "They seem to be immune to everything. Even our swords can't do anything but make them stumble a little."

Red, sucking on a tart candy, looked over his shoulder at the reassuring sight of his sword's ruby-jeweled grip. The blade had lost its golden glow after he and the others had sliced through the electrified eyes. Whatever those things had been for, they had to have been loaded with magic to suck the energy out of the sword like that. He was willing to bet that he and the other Harrys could take down Phantoms a lot easier than those eyes, if only they could recharge their swords.

"Alas, even the most powerful spells are useless in the face of whatever force animates those creatures," Professor Dumbledore sighed in response to Blue's question. "Such magic is millennia old, born of a source far different than what today's magical folk draw from. It has little to do with a modern witch or wizard's internal magic or the ley lines that bring magical cities to life."

"Millennia old?" Blue sputtered. "How is that possible?"

"The heroes that came before us were dressed in tunics and leggings, like they came from medieval times," Green said with a frown. "Wouldn't that have been one millennium ago? Because two millennia would be…er, when Jesus was born, wouldn't it? I could've sworn people wore togas back then."

"The evidence Professors McGonagall and Flitwick have gathered so far from reading the Hylian Bestiary seems to indicate that Hyrule took a different path of development than the rest of the Western world," Professor Dumbledore told them. "Until I have any solid evidence, I shan't confuse you with an old man's wild theories. However, I can say that it stands to reason that Hyrule did, at one point, exist where Hogwarts now stands."

"Is Hogwarts the same building as Hyrule Castle?" Green wondered.

"It is possible, though one wonders why ancient Hylian architecture would so closely resemble that of Scotland in the late tenth century." Professor Dumbledore hummed in thought. "Or is it that that the Scots took inspiration from the Hylians?" He chuckled. "It's been ages since I've been so stumped; with so many questions rattling around this dusty old mind, I feel decades younger!"

"I have a question," Red said, raising his hand. "Where'd you find the beastie-book you gave out to each of the Houses? Was it buried in the library somewhere, or what?"

"Interestingly enough, I didn't find it myself," the Headmaster replied. "One of my painted predecessors heard down the portrait grapevine that an interesting old book had appeared in a room down in the dungeons." Professor Dumbledore gestured toward one of the many paintings of previous Headmasters that hung on the wall behind him. The old lady in the picture was leaning against her frame and quietly snoring. "When Headmaster Skanderberg reported this to me, I went to this strange room and found the bestiary sitting on a pedestal, looking far younger than a book its age ought to."

"It was just sitting there, like someone had set it out for you?" Red asked doubtfully. "Did that painting lady tell you who told her where that thing was?"

"She said it was Sir Cadogan, who heard it from Merwyn the Malicious, who heard it from Norvel Twonk, who heard it from Tobias Manlethorpe, and so on. The trail stretches onward with no end in sight, I'm afraid, though you're welcome to ask around."

A sudden flash of fire lit up the room as a red and gold bird the size of a peacock burst into existence above Professor Dumbledore's desk. Red swore, his hand jumping to his sword. The other three Harrys yelped or shrieked in surprise. Green, having thrown himself backward out of reflex, came close to toppling his chair over.

"Good afternoon, old friend. How was your flight?" Professor Dumbledore asked pleasantly as the bird landed on his perch.

Fawkes gave a sad coo and hung his head.

"I'm not surprised, given the power Vaati seems to command." The Headmaster ran a soothing hand through the bird's ruffled feathers. "Not even the house elves have been able to travel through the wards, and I'm sure you're well-aware of their ancient power."

Red's eyebrows raised. 'Vaati's managed to trap a phoenix, too? That's some powerful magic.' Had that magic not been super evil, he'd have wanted some. Just a dash of that, and he could probably have cleared out every monster in the castle with one wand-flick. 'Although…that'd make it too easy, wouldn't it?' he thought after some consideration. 'It's much more fun to kill stuff with a sword.' There was something about swinging a piece of magical steel that made him feel badass, even if he didn't have much skill yet.

"Professor, could you tell us if you find any more books from Hyrule?" Yellow asked. He sat on the edge of his seat and stared at the Headmaster with wide eyes. Red was stunned by how cute he managed to make Harry Potter's bony face look. "You see, Green can read in Hylian, so if you find any more books from there, he can tell us what's in them."

Never before had Red (or any Harry Potter, for that matter) seen Professor Dumbledore so caught off-guard. The man's crystal blue eyes went wide and he blinked a few times before hoarsely asking, "You can read a language lost for at least two thousand years, Harry?"

Green nodded, a blush rising in his cheeks. "I think the sword did it, Professor," he mumbled. "It's like my brain switches from English to Hylian when I'm looking at the runes." He bit his lip and went quiet.

Fawkes trilled encouragingly at him. Red felt his heart lift as Green sat a little taller in his chair.

"We learned a lot of the 'Legends' section of the book. Hyrule had this thing for blond heroes, princesses named Zelda, and bad guys named 'Ganon' or 'Ganondorf'. The current bad guy—Vaati—even worked for a Ganon at one point," Green said with more confidence. "Do you think you could look into how this old magic works if Blue gave you his translation notes? Most of the villains used magic to summon monsters and seal places up, like what's happening now."

Professor Dumbledore looked like he wanted to hug all the Harrys. "That would be absolutely wonderful, my boy," he said with a relieved smile. "Investigating this phenomenon so far has been naught but a practice in futility. Your information will help immensely."

Blue sighed and dug in his schoolbag. He handed over a stack of parchment, sending Green an annoyed glare as he did. With a light chuckle and a tap of his wand, Professor Dumbledore created a copy of the precious scribblings. The pile appeared neatly in the middle of his desk.

"Ooh, I'd like to learn that," Blue remarked as he put his notes away. "I could do so much…" The boy's eyes became glassy as his mind spun scenarios.

Red rolled his eyes. Trust the nerd to fantasize about a copy-making spell, of all things. It wasn't like a mimeograph wouldn't have worked at Hogwarts; they were hand-powered.

"In the library, under the name Smart Strategies for the Studious Scholar, is a book full of all sorts of spells to suit students of all ages," Dumbledore told him. "I imagine a young Raven like you might find such a book useful." He sat back in his chair and interlocked his fingers before him. "Speaking of House emblems, do any of you wish to be re-Sorted? I imagine the House of Lions may be a poor fit for a few of you." He eyed Blue and Green in particular, which Red found interesting. Was Green more of a Slytherin than he let on?

"We'd go crazy if we got split up, so we're staying in Gryffindor," Yellow said with a happy wiggle. "It's nice that we're in the same House!"

"'Go crazy'?" Professor Dumbledore repeated with a raised eyebrow.

"We're meant to stay together—like, 'right next to each other' together," Red said. He was most at ease when all of the other Harrys were in the same room with him and within arm's reach. Any farther, and he started feeling a tug at the base of his skull. I wasn't all that noticeable until one of his brothers walked up to him and his headache suddenly disappeared, but he couldn't imagine spending most of the day apart from his other selves because they were scattered across different Houses.

"I suppose rearranging your class schedules would be out of the question, then?" Professor Dumbledore questioned.

All of the Harrys nodded quickly. "It's hard enough to sit in assigned seats across the classroom," Green said. "If we can pair up in class, we usually do."

Blue grinned. "I look forward to seeing Snape snap after a month of having four Harry Potters in the same class." He rubbed his hands together and gave an evil cackle.

"Driving your teachers insane is rude, Blue," Yellow scolded. "I'll tell Hermione on you."

"You'd better sic her on Snape first, 'cause he's ten times ruder than we've ever been," Red quipped.

"Do remember that the Potions Master is a Professor, Harry," Professor Dumbledore gently chided.

Fawkes chirped in an indignant way that distinctly sounded like, "I beg to differ!"

"Don't mind him. Professor Snape tried to take a tail feather once, when he was an impulsive young twenty-something, and Fawkes hasn't yet forgiven the man," the Headmaster sighed. He petted the golden bird with a look of exasperated fondness. "Seeing as it is nearly the end of your lunch break, my dear boys, I'd suggest you get along to class. Perhaps the Phantoms outside might be kind enough to give you a shortcut."

0

"What about this?"

"Too green. The red one, maybe?"

"Ick. No, it'll make my skin look red, too. Gold?"

"No, it'll turn you yellow. Navy blue, maybe."

"I'm too dark for that. I think—"

Hermione, who had been petting the large cat nestled on her lap to distract herself from the nattering conversation, finally ran out of patience. She brought her hand down on the pages of the large book laid out in front of her and fixed Parvati and Lavender with a scowl to match Crookshanks's. "You wear black school robes," she growled. "Wear the black ribbon and stop talking, please." The two had been yammering on for the better part of the evening about color seasons and face shapes and "but what if it isn't feminine?", and Hermione had been tempted to flee after the first ten minutes. She hadn't, though, because Crookshanks was comfy and she wanted to read as much of the Hylian Bestiary as she could before Blue nagged her to give it back. He'd had it since Saturday! It was time someone else got a turn, and she was using the enchanted stairs guarding her dorm to get that chance.

While Hermione's dorm-mates muttered about her stick-in-the-mud status, the bushy-haired bibliophile settled her attention back onto the Bestiary. She'd been reading—or rather, attempting to read—the page describing Dodongos for the last five minutes. Her dorm mates' arguing had made her eyes stutter across the page, retreading sentences and stumbling over half-translated words. According to the dense block of text concerning the dragon-like creatures, they could only be killed by tossing some sort of device into their mouths when they sucked in air to breathe fire. The word had been left completely untranslated, and the text around it did nothing to explain.

'Darn it, maybe I should have asked Blue for help. He and the other Harrys seem to know more about this book than I do,' she thought with frustration. Too many words were left untranslated for her decipher anything meaningful from any of these articles! Furthermore, there didn't seem to be any rhyme or reason to what the spell had missed, so she couldn't put together a translation key!

Frustrated, she flipped through the book in search of a single, decently-translated page. Romanized nonsense and lines of unreadable runes greeted her eyes. Hundreds of sheets of yellowed parchment, none more than half-intelligible, flew by. Hermione grumbled under her breath about dead languages and finicky translation spells. How was anyone to glean anything from the book if only a quarter of it was in English?

She reached the end of the "Legends" section and was surprised to find more pages. Hadn't it ended after recounting the legend of the Hero of Time? That was what Blue had told her, once she'd pestered him enough.

With care brought on by curiosity, Hermione flipped through the new section. The pages here were lined like notebook paper, which she found bizarre. Since when had ancient peoples used lined paper?

"How old are you?" she murmured, turning back to the start of the lined pages. She jerked back when she saw navy blue text begin scrawling across the first line:

"I set a spell on this book that lets me know how much time has passed. Let me check to see whether it still works..."

Hermione goggled at the neat cursive. The book had responded to her. It had written to her in modern English.

Crookshanks hissed at the book and ran off. Hermione looked from the direction he'd gone and back to the Bestiary, wondering whether he'd had the right idea.

She wanted to know exactly what she was dealing with, though, before she ripped it to bits and tossed it in the fire. "You must be cursed," she whispered to it. "I bet you're evil, like that diary. You want to possess me, don't you?"

"I'm pretty sure I would know if this book had been cursed. I may only be using it as a medium to communicate with the Realm of the Living, but I'm aware of every spell that's been cast on it."

Hermione's eyes went even wider. She looked around the room to make sure her roommates had left—luckily, they had—and then scooped the book up. "You're a ghost?" she asked in a hushed voice. "How are you speaking to me through a book? Why? Who are you? Why didn't Harry see these pages?"

"One question at a time, my dear. Even dead, I'm still old." Rather than answer any of what Hermione had asked, the book paused before posing a question of its own. "Say, where and when am I? It's been so long since anyone last came across this tome that I've lost track."

A half-hysterical chuckle bubbled up from Hermione's throat. "The year is nineteen ninety-three Anno Domini. You're in Hogwarts castle, where I'm a student." She paused. "I won't tell you my name. I've heard enough stories to know there's a lot of magic in a name."

"That's the right way to go. If you were thoughtless enough to give me your name outright, you'd never have been able to find these extra pages," the person in the book wrote back. "To answer your very first question, my time-keeping spell tells me I've been in this book for twenty-five hundred years, give or take a few decades. It was five hundred years old by the time I found it, though, so the fact that it's still in one piece after three millennia is a testament to my Chief Magician's prowess. I'm not certain how it wound up in this place, but I would call it a happy accident that it did. You couldn't find a more accurate account of Hyrule than what's in this tome. Granted, there's a lot of hearsay in here—the Old Kingdom had a long history and not all of it was properly recorded—but it's the most credible resource I could find. Trust me: I led the diving teams into the ruins of the old castle."

"Hyrule is underwater? What?" Hermione shunted her other questions to the back of her mind and dove for her book bag. Whipping out a Muggle notebook and a ballpoint pen she'd smuggled in from home, the girl prepared for a storm of notetaking. "At this point, I don't care if you're cursed. Tell me everything."

"Well, to start off with, this is a story passed down from my great-great grandmother, who was a brave, adventurous pirate by the name of 'Tetra'. She died a rich woman after sailing those wretched, fishless seas in search of a place to found the new Hyrule…"