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Chapter Text

 "Reducto! Diffindo! Reducto!" Harry Potter shouted spells into the fray unfolding all around him. His wand, a blur, firing the magic faster than his conscious mind could fully focus on. Only the illumination of ongoing spell-fire gave any sense of direction in the gloom of the amphitheatre.

 A short distance away stood the reason he had dragged his friends into this death trap — one of many fighters stuck in this madness because of him. Sirius Black was a force to be reckoned with as he held his own against several Death Eaters. In the brief glimpses he was able to catch, Harry was in awe of his godfathers’ abilities. The man was in no need of saving, but now he and his friends certainly were. They had put on a good showing, he would like to think, and even now Harry knew his friends were still fighting; the sound of their continued struggle echoing through the chamber alongside his own. But it wasn’t enough, they’d been pushed back and would have been slaughtered if not for the timely intervention of the rest of the Order of the Phoenix.

 Harry fired another curse, aiming to disarm his immediate opponent only to grimace when he succeeded in the worst way possible. The Death Eater's arm dropped to the floor with a wet thunk Harry wished was masked by the discordant symphony of the hall, its owner following shortly after as they clung to the bloody stump in agony. Not for the first time that evening he felt a wave of nausea at his actions but fought it back.

 He tried not to (couldn't) think about it.

 Combatant down, he moved on to his main objective.

 Towards the middle of the room Sirius could be seen locked in a horribly out-numbered battle. To his lone back a raised dais, the central focus of the room upon which stood an archway of oily-black stone whispering ominously, and to his front an encroaching tide of death. 

 Around the room, his friends and the other members of Dumbledore’s militia group were locked in fights of their own. But they weren’t alone. None of them could see the battle that his godfather was locked within for looking away from their foes would forfeit their lives. Harry needed to help him.

 As he neared, he saw that his godfather was stuck on the defensive against the onslaught. His focus primarily locked upon two individuals while the others circled like sharks. Just from this brief glance alone, Harry was intimidated. He was skilled, there was no question there, and he had been able to teach others. But they were children. They were all children pretending to be grown-ups and he was a fool to think they could fight full grown wizards with any sort of chance at winning.

 But Harry was a stubborn bastard and he sure as hell wasn’t going to leave Sirius on his own! Snapping off several jinxes and a couple curses into the mob, he moved quickly to join the fray. The young wizard had been lucky so far that his godfathers’ attackers hadn’t thought to cover their rear. Their mistake had cost them a couple of their members who went down in boneless, stunned heaps. Unfortunately, Harry’s luck was never the most reliable of things.

 In no time at all, Harry’s attempt to cut a path to his godfather failed. Hard. A handful of the circling sharks turned their hungry gaze upon him. Seeking an easier morsel, they moved in to take out the young interloper upon their game. Harry cast a quick Expelliarmus, but found the bolt of red magic hurtling back at him before their fight began in earnest.

 And that was ignoring the fact that Harry wasn’t fresh in this fight, either.

 Quickly cuts, scrapes, and bruises began to accumulate from shrapnel and some weaker spells that broke through his defences as his exhaustion took its toll. Attacking was no longer an option as the more experienced wizards worked their magic. Briefly, Harry feared how the rest of his friends were faring. If he was struggling this much then – he was brought back to the moment by a fizzing sensation as a bolt of magic flew past his face. A close call. Too close. It was becoming obvious he couldn’t keep this up, his focus was slipping.

 In a moment many would probably call stupid, Harry fired the brightest light charm he dared and slammed his eyes shut. Pained shouts were his reward and he worked quickly in the fading spell light. Rolling to the side as he barely dodged a blindly fired spell, he quickly transfigured a make-shift wall and ducked behind it. It was shoddy work when compared to what he knew he could do – he could hear his transfiguration professor complaining at the poor spellmanship – but given the circumstances Harry thought prayed it would do its job.

 Glancing out from behind his cover, the young wizard had just enough time to see how many death eaters were still focused on him before he had to quickly duck again. Four, he had counted. Wait, wasn’t there five? Harry could have sworn before ducking down there was more —“Diffindo!” Ron’s beautiful beautiful voice called as he dropped behind the wall beside him. After the ginger’s run in with some alien-brain-creature, to see him up and at his side again was a sight for sore eyes. Now, Harry could only grin.

 “Socked one o’ ‘em ‘fore I got ‘ere,” Ron explained in lieu of greeting as he peered around the corner of their now shared cover. Though his friends’ words were a little slurred, he didn’t look any worse than the rest of them. Harry just grunted in acknowledgment before he too peaked around the corner and fired a banishing charm at one of the four remaining.

 As the white light of a muttered “Depulso” struck, reducing their immediate threats to only two, Harry quickly ducked back into cover. Just as he was about to go for another attack, another sight drew his attention.

 The circling Death Eaters were closing in on Sirius. Even if the few that had broken away hadn’t dealt with Harry yet, they had still succeeded in another way. His godfather was outnumbered and being pushed backwards towards the ominous archway under the constant assault. Harry was running out of time. Gripping his wand tightly, he nudged his friend as he ducked back behind the wall – after a failed attempt to take out another of the remaining pair – and nodded towards the arch.

 Ron understood.

 Pointing the tip of his focus just over the transfigured wall, Harry again fired a simple light charm, with far more power than their charms teacher ever said to use. Once more caught off guard by the bright light, the pair screamed as the friends leapt from cover. The ground under the remaining terrorists quickly turned to quagmire under Harry’s intent as Ron fired a banisher at the startled pair. Before their masked victims could recover and retaliate, they sank into the floor-turned-mud before being swallowed completely when the banisher struck. With an oozing squelch, the last of those Death Eaters were dealt with and Harry, with Ron in tow, could get back on task.

 Getting out of this nightmare, Sirius in tow.

 Now with a partner to help cut a path to his godfather, the duo made short work of the remaining grunts in their path. Together they pushed towards the arch, firing spell after spell at any Death Eaters that got in their way. It was draining work but all that mattered to Harry was getting to the only man who had truly offered him a home.

 The moments stretched on forever with each step. Closer and closer he drew and yet never seemed to fully close the distance between them. Until, finally, he was able to manage one last push and curse his way through a few of the monsters who had cornered his godfather and joined the man upon the dais. Behind him, Ron kept the trio he had pushed passed occupied well enough on his own, but the window was closing fast. Sirius hadn’t even acknowledged that Harry had joined him, though he must have recognised him as he hadn’t cursed him. The man was too preoccupied with his deranged cousin, who was fighting tooth and nail to end his life

 Harry cast a quick “Protego!” when Malfoy senior tried to use Harry’s arrival as a way past Sirius’ defences, much to the Death Eater’s detriment. The spell rebounded and struck one of the masked goons, reliving some of the stress off his redheaded friend. That relief did not last long as more moved to counter Ron and push him back. They had to leave, now! That, however, was easier said than done.

 Slowly, but surely, Harry with Ron’s aid was able to keep the majority of the attackers away from Sirius as he focused on the two most skilled enemies here. Every now and then he fired a spell at either Lucius Malfoy and Bellatrix Lestrange to keep the two on their toes and offer Sirius a window. It didn’t seem to do anything to help or hinder. Before today, Harry wouldn’t have thought the eldest Malfoy was a competent fighter. He was now paying for that assumption as he learned why the man was one of Voldemort’s highest-ranking supporters.

 On and on the battle went with seemingly no end in sight. Somewhere in the carnage, the balance had shifted. The Death Eaters were losing, slowly picked off by the Order, but they were not giving ground without a fight and worked to divide them all. A group of assailants fell upon Ron and worked to push him back. Their window was closing faster and faster. “Sirius, we have to go!” Harry called tiredly, but the man didn’t seem to hear. They couldn’t keep on like this. Harry may have had raw talent with combat magic and Sirius may have had experience, but after fighting through a hoard of masked attackers, they were both drained and lagging.

 A nasty looking spell leapt from Lucius' wand, a deep ominous purple that flew straight for Harry. He didn’t know what it was, in a mixture of panic and instinct he drew upon what little energy he had left and shouted, "Protego duo!" Just in time, a slightly translucent golden disc of magic bloomed to life with a soft glow as the unknown spell struck with a resonating GONG. The impact echoed through the chamber as the spell ricocheted, bouncing back towards its caster at an even greater speed. It hadn’t been a perfect parry, the bolt returning at an off angle, but it was enough as Malfoy clearly hadn’t expected the spell to be parried in the first place.

 The man looked like a deer in headlights, barely managing to jump out of the way before the magic crashed into the stone steps just off from where he’d been a moment prior with a deafening, sundering CRACK. A cloud of dust mushroomed as shards of sharp stone exploded in every direction, some raining down as far from the impact as to fall upon his still raised shield. From within the cloud of dust and shrapnel he heard Malfoy release a sharp cry of pain before being followed by a heavy thump.

 When the dust cleared a little, Harry needed to turn away from the quickly growing pool of crimson.

 Malfoy was laying upon the floor, unmoving, his once long luxurious hair a halo of gold slowly dying red. Chunks of stone sticking out of places it had no right in being. Harry tried to push through the realisation of what he’d done, tried not to let it sink its claws into his mind in the middle of the still ongoing fight around him. But he couldn’t stray his eyes from the mangled body and still growing pool of red ichor. 

 "It's just like old times, James!" His godfather's joyful holler broke the spell.

 The younger wizard was snapped out of his growing despair to have the feeling replaced with…shock? Disbelief? His green gaze locked upon the slate grey of Sirius’; all he could see was a tired man having the time(a time bygone?) of his life in spite of the dire situation. His eyes were alight with adrenaline and excitement behind sweat-damp hair, a wide grin splitting his face. Sirius’ focus shifted to Harry, and then—

 Lightning.

 Manic joy turned frantic terror, Sirius raised his wand — A shield spell couldn’t make it past Harry’s numbed lips. The molasses of reality was unfair.

 The curse struck true.

 A sickening squelching sound tore at his ears, a shower of blood and a distant scream.

 Harry watched, paralysed as the man he had looked up to, the man who had wanted him, the man who came for him, the man who loved him, the godfather he learnt the meaning of family from, came undone. Clothes torn to shreds and a large gash weeping crimson.

 The boy blinked; blinked again but it did not change a thing.

 Sirius Black was gone.

 The only proof he had been there at all was his blood splattered across the face of his godson and across the threshold of that mysterious archway that had swallowed the man whole.

 The room dimmed, his vision narrowed and an echo of joyously cackling greeted him from far away. Harry was lost, his mind rushing to try and comprehend the impossibility of what had just happened. A year of visions, of torture, an unescapable reality that was his life... the trap, the battle… the loss. A year’s, no, an entire life’s worth of torment and failure all came crashing down on him all at once. Before he even knew what he was doing, a rage born of sorrow bubbled like a cauldron inside of him and lashed out in desperation. He didn’t even know what spell he’d cast, but the maelstrom within him boiled and overflowed and a blade of pure sharpened force leapt from his wand and bisected the source of the mad cackling.

 Harry didn't fully register what he'd just done, didn't know, didn’t care what damage he had done to the now blissfully silent Bellatrix Lestrange. The only thought on his mind was getting Sirius back!

 Behind him, just at the edge of his hearing, familiar voices screamed after him.

 But he couldn’t hear them. He needed to get Sirius back.

 “Sirius!” he called desperately, running towards the stone archway. He just needed to reach it, just needed to drag the man back through. Through the fight both he and his godfather were being pushed towards the yawning maw of black stone, so it wasn't that great of a distance to traverse.

 Or at least it shouldn’t have been.

 "Harry, no!" Ron’s pained voice slurred from somewhere nearby, but Harry wasn’t paying enough attention to know where. Only a couple more steps and he’d be there. It wouldn’t take long, just a short hop through and they’d have him back… Harry was about to pass the veil when someone grabbed his jacket, yanking him back with a firm tug. "We need to save him!" Harry argued as he struggled against whoever had hold of him. Couldn’t they understand? They just had to reach in and get him! "Harry, no! He's gone," Ron countered, his voice brimming with something he couldn't quite place.

 Other voices were calling now, some far away and loud, voices he knew, and other voices close and oh so quiet he could barely hear them, voices he did not know. He didn't need to hear them clearly though. They told him what he already knew, that Sirius was just on the other side and all he needed to do was step through the arch. Sirius' voice was there too, asking for help. Couldn't Ron hear them? One of his arms slipped from his jacket in his struggle against his best mate. With the newly given leverage, he was able to twist his other arm from the boy's grasp before he could readjust. As soon as he was free Harry dove through the veil.

 Stepping through the veil was unlike anything Harry had experienced before.

 In some ways, it was like stepping indoors from a storm. All went calm and yet he could still faintly hear a howling through the door behind him. But instead of stepping foot into a cosy home, he had stepped into a vast nothingness. A void so black it started to look blue but hazed out around the edges of his vision as if he wasn't truly seeing it at all. It was darkness and yet light, nothing and yet everything. The notion alone sent his brain spinning, yet alone being wherever he was. Beyond that, the closest he might get to describing the sensation fully was to say it felt like his brain was wrapped in sandpaper masquerading as the finest silk. 

That’s when the pain started in earnest.

 Thump Thump.

 A rhythm, like a heartbeat yet not his own, pulsed against the inside of his skull. Steady, at first, Harry would have suspected it was just the beginnings of a migraine at the impossibility of this space Beyond. But it did not stop at a gentle thump. With each beat it grew louder and louder, pressure began to build and he hissed in discomfort. A hiss became a grunt, a grunt grew into a groan and soon he was screaming in agony as it felt like his head was being torn apart. He collapsed to the ground, the same inky blue as the rest of the world as pain flooded his body.

 The beat grew irregular, more painful as it felt like the pressure began to move!

 Harry's screaming raised an octave as the agony started to become unbearable. Something was in him and it did not like being here. He writhed on the group, clawing at his forehead in a futile attempt to try to get it out of his skull but only managed to scratch his skin raw.

 Just when he thought it couldn't get any worse, it did. The pressure found its release, an old scar that had never quite healed, a blemish that was both fame and a curse all at once once more split wide open. The young man hadn't been in this much pain in years, not since he'd been bitten by the magical world's most venomous serpent. Every nerve was on fire, his mind felt as if it had liquefied and was beginning to leak from his skull as something exploded forth from his head.

A brief moment, and everything became clear.

 The pain stopped and everything was fine... all was numb and soon true darkness swallowed him whole. Consciousness slipped through his grasp like water through a sieve and Harry Potter knew no more.

=o0o=

 Harry came back to himself with a start.

 Swallowing deep breaths of frigid air like a man dying of thirst, he struggled to remain conscious against the cold around him and a bone deep exhaustion. His body throbbed with a mellow yet all-encompassing ache while his head swam whenever he tried to open his eyes. Between the vertigo and the pain, Harry was half tempted to give in to the exhaustion, to stop fighting it and embrace the need to sleep.

 But he refused to submit! His brain may feel stuffed with wool, but he knew that Sirius needed him and he could not rest now. He only feared the return trip might make him feel so much worse.

 But even with a sense of urgency looming over his head, he couldn't move either. Everything hurt, his front felt like it was laying on a bed of sand paper, and every time he tried to open his eyes he was assaulted by a blurry collage of colours. All he could do was struggle to stay awake while he hoped for his head to settle.

 By the time his head had settled enough to risk opening his eyes, Harry had managed to roll over and settled upon his back. Everything was blurry, his glasses having obviously flown off of his face as he'd exited this side of the veil, and while his head may no longer feel like it'd been hit repeatedly by an elf-cursed bludger, it still felt as if he'd been whacked by a beaters bat. Repeatedly. By a certain pair of twins with red hair. Harry could at least take comfort in the fact that nothing really felt broken... for now, at least. He only hoped Madame Pomfrey wouldn't kill him personally when they got back.

 Glancing around slowly, it didn't take him long to find his glasses and slip the frames back onto his nose.

 Harry's vision cleared significantly, but not completely. Flecks of dirt and several large cracks covered the glass of his frames like a muddy spider web. Slowly, Harry reached up and traced a finger along one of the larger cracks only to pull it away when his fingers brushed against what he had thought was dirt. It wasn’t dirt, it was slimy and viscous and generally quite gross.

 Wiping his hand on his overly large shirt, he tried to force back a full body shudder. He didn't know what the viscous ‘dirt' was, and he honestly didn't want to know. What he did want to know was just how his glasses had been broken.

 Hadn't he charmed them against things like this?

 He pushed the thought away for later, wiping some of the grime off with his sleeve and doing his best to ignore how dirty it came away, instead focusing on what he could make out around him. It wasn’t what he had been expecting to see. Where the land beyond the veil (did this count as that place as well?) had been an inky void of everything nothing, what he saw now looked more like a perfectly normal expanse of blue sky.

 Blinking, he slowly moved, looked around more and realised why it looked like a clear blue sky. Because it was a clear sky, there were even wisps of cloud occasionally drifting by, but it was generally a rather normal sight... Struggling to sit up, a task in and of itself, he was able to take in more of wherever the archway had spat him out. Harry hadn't been sure what to expect from the other side of the strange veil but this, this wasn't exactly it.

 Sand.

 There was sand everywhere.

 Harry was surrounded by seemingly endless dunes and mountains, sitting inside some sort of ruined structure that resembled the amphitheatre that sat deep within the Department of Mysteries. Including an archway hewn of oily-black stone behind him. Harry hoped that this meant his way back would be as easy as just stepping back through the arch on this side.

 The wizard was tempted to investigate the structure further, but time was not on his side right now and, if all went well, he would be away from this place in no time at all so it was a moot point. From his sandy seat, Harry looked around again, ignoring most of the weathered stone ruin in favour of trying to find his whole reason for being here. When he found them, a part of him (a very small part he will never acknowledge) wished he hadn’t.

 Not all that far from him, but a rather great distance from the central archway, a crumpled form lay in a patch of darkening sand.

  “Sirius!” his voice was dry and hoarse, like he'd swallowed half of the desert surrounding him, as he hobbled to his protesting feet. Actually, every part of him protested the sudden movement but right now it was a contest between his feet and head at which wanted to complain more. Regardless of his body’s general displeasure at being used as it should, Sirius didn’t move at his call. As the man lay motionless, Harry's heart plummeted faster than a stone in loch dubh back in Scotland. “No,” he muttered as he tried to move faster against the ache in his bones, only to falter against the shifting sands.

 Blood, his brain so helpfully supplied as his panic sparked a new inferno within once he realised just why the sands around his godfather's body were so dark.

 Collapsing beside the prone figure of Sirius Black, Harry struggled to think of what he should do. Sirius Black was alive, if only just. He was laying on his back, shirt torn to shreds by whatever foul magic Bellatrix had cast. The man's normally wax-pale skin was tallow-white, Sirius had already looked unwell but watching as blood oozed from a thin but deep gash across his chest was not an experience that Harry was prepared for. Despite his best efforts to push it down, the enormity of what had happened finally started to sink in. Taking in the man before him, Harry let out a silent sob.

 He had done this…

 Dear Merlin, it was all his fault!

 If Harry hadn’t fallen for that stupid trap, none of this would have happened! He looked up into the face of his godfather, the man that Harry had gone to rescue only to need to be rescued by. Tears welling in his eyes, he could only feel despair at what had come out of this night… day? It was light here, maybe the archway spat them out in Egypt? But it was cool… was Egypt meant to be… it didn’t matter.

 Sirius wheezed, coughing wetly as he struggled to breath with his injury. Snapping out of his growing melancholy, Harry quickly took off his overly large shirt, jacket somewhere on the other side of the Veil, and tried to cover the open wound as best he could. You were meant to press down on an open injury, weren’t you? He didn’t know. Why would he know? He was fifteen, he wasn't a healer!

 Suddenly, Harry wished he'd introduced some sort of first-aid training to the D.A.

 They hadn’t even gone over any medical spells during the little defence clubs lessons. An error on his part, he thought as he struggled to stop his godfather from bleeding out in his arms. But that’s hindsight for you. “Help!” he yelled, voice no better than it had been moments ago.

 “Anyone, please!”

  No answers came, only the howl of the wind and shifting sands.

 “Please,” he couldn’t help how close he sounded to actually crying before the sound of the sand changed. There was a sound, growing closer, caught somewhere between a car and jet engines making the dunes shift quickly. It cut out some distance away, but was quickly replaced by the sound of rhythmically moving sand as if a group of people were rushing towards them.

 Harry looked up but didn’t relieve any pressure. He was stuck. He couldn’t move, moving might mean his godfather’s end. But not moving could end them both! The wizard was caught between a rock and a hard place, he was frozen with indecision as the seconds ticked down.

Suddenly, all grew quiet.

Then a head rose over a hill Harry hadn’t even noticed was there.

=o0o=

 The moon of Jedha has a long and storied history.

 Many civilisations had rose and fell from its sands throughout the millennia. All of them different, and yet all of them had been cut from the same cloth. The thread that bound their endless tapestry could always be spun from a single, all-encompassing thread.

 Faith in the Force.

 Cults, sects and religions alike sprung up like mushrooms after rain across the moon's dusty surface. Many of the civilisations would eventually succumb to the marching dunes and howling winds that weather even the mightiest mountain to dust. But not all would be completely swallowed whole. People lived, people moved and adapted, told their stories and their faith would linger. In small enclaves and temples, behind the strong walls of the holy city of NiJedha or in secluded spots across the wastes. Or, at least, much of this was how it was done in years past. For a darkness has spread over the galaxy, a shadow that wishes to snuff out the light in the hearts of all those who would search out the ways of the force.

 Now, those who would worship the force and follow the teachings of the Jedi were hunted. Forced to hide further from public view, they would cling to their devotion out of sight. But to the truly devoted, this did not matter to them. Life was a river, and they would move with the ebb and flow of fate. For they were one with the force, and the force was with them.

 For all is as the Force wills it, in the end.

 It would be surprising then, to learn that most people who joined these religions were not, in fact, sensitive to the force. They could not feel its currents or wield its power. Sure, you may have seen one or two initiates every so often who could feel just the barest whispers of its will, someone whom the force had touched but was not strong enough for the ancient order of Jedi to claim for training.

 But it had been rare in the past and had become even rarer now. For even when there was no Jedi Order to search out and train young force-sensitives, the younglings were rarer than ever.

 Far from the holy city of NiJedha, deep under the desert highlands of Narkis, a secret lies.

 A secret that fights in order to protect those who cannot protect themselves from the looming, marching shadow of darkness threatening to consume them all. The Hidden Path had fought for many years to set up their network of safe houses and informants with a single goal in mind.

 To hide.

 They hide in order to protect themselves, their charges and the knowledge they rescue along the way from an empire who would wish them erased from the history books. Their battle is not one of blasters and armies but of subterfuge, of hiding in plain sight in order to rescue those who cannot protect themselves against the spreading influence of the Galactic Empire. They were survivors, aiding others so that they might survive too.

 Eno Cordova was one such survivor.

 An aging human male with a neatly trimmed beard, which was now more white than grey, and balding head, Eno had been a historian and archaeologist for the Jedi Order before The Purge. He had found himself on Jedha through the Hidden Path, having come across it on his return from the Unknown Regions when his research at the time hit a dead end.

 How was he to know that the Path was being orchestrated by his old Padawan? A happy coincidence to be sure. When he learned of what his old apprentice was trying to do, he could do little but offer his services to the cause. As a historian and man of learning, there was no better task for him than to help in the rebuilding of the Jedi archives. As a Jedi, there was no nobler cause than to work towards the protection of lives and knowledge against the ever-growing darkness.

 Eno Cordova was grateful that the force had guided him here and, initially, Eno was happy in knowing that he had found purpose in his old age in helping to preserve the Order he had worked for his entire life.

 Or, at least, that is how he had thought two months ago when he had first arrived. Now, he was unsure. Not in him being here, for that he knew would never change. But in that helping to preserve the Jedi's knowledge and traditions were the only thing that the force had wanted from him.

 Sitting cross-legged in his personal chambers, a space given to him by the Narkis Anchorites that had become littered with an organised chaos of texts and data pads in the months since his moving in, Eno felt troubled in his meditation. For the past several days, he had had a growing sense of... something... ripple through the currents of the force. He wasn't entirely sure how best to describe it. Unease, maybe? Or perhaps it was anticipation? Either way, one thing was for certain, the force was trying to tell him something.

The only issue was that he just could not pin down what it was.

 And so, he sat in deep meditation when he could, to centre his mind and work on the puzzle that the force had presented him with.

 An alert on his comlink drew the Jedi from his contemplation. As the trance slipped away, he caught a fleeting feeling that something was coming. He did not know what, he did not know why, but he could feel it and knew he would play a part in whatever it was. Opening his eyes, Eno answered into the comlink, “Cordova here.”

 “Master Jedi, apologies for the interruption but your presence has been requested in the hanger,” one of the Anchorites advised. Eno was quite fond of the reclusive order of monastic scholars, considering that he himself could also be considered a reclusive scholar more often than not. While he had specialised in the histories of force-sects across the galaxy, the breadth of studies into the force that the monks of this region had even before the founding of the Archive was very impressive to him.

 “Acknowledged, I'll be down in a moment,” Eno confirmed before getting to his feet. While he didn't feel any closer to understanding the growing sensation within the force, he did feel that he might not need to ponder upon it for much longer. Whatever disturbance was rippling through the force, he had the sense the waves would soon crash into the shores where they stood here on Jedha.

Regardless, the force around him certainly seemed to vibrate in anticipation.

 Whether that was a good thing for them at the Archives was yet to be seen.

 Stepping out of his room, Eno started his journey towards the main hangar. Travelling through the ancient halls that made up the subterranean complex, he allowed his mind to wander as his feet took him where he needed to go. At this point the Jedi was fairly sure he could navigate the entire place blindfolded, considering how often he simply walked the winding network of passageways to clear his mind.

 They were all fascinating, in their own way. Each tunnel and section, excavated at different points through history, telling a part of the story of the people who excavated them so long ago from the ruins above their heads. The remains of that old monastery, whose monastics, like much of the peoples of Jedha, had worshiped the force, had been what had attracted the Hidden Path to the area. At first it was for force-related histories and artefacts to add to the budding archive, then for its sprawling catacombs as a place to move to when NiJedha became less than optimal.

 Thinking about the archaeological prospects of the old monastery above brought Eno's mind full circle to why he had been summoned to the hanger. Today marked the first part of a survey project to a set of ruins on the other side of the highlands. Previously buried under the Narkis dunes, these ruins had recently been uncovered by a particularly violent storm that struck the area. Eno had wanted to be on the first venture, wishing to be amongst the first to see and document an as of yet unknown location, but other more long-standing tasks around the still budding archives had demanded his attention.

 A whisper through the Force drew him to a pause. Glancing around, his brown eyes landed upon where he was. The hospital, manned by Sister Wyndlow and her small squad of medical staff and droids. Curious, he diverted for a moment and entered the medical facility. The inside was one of the few places in the whole complex that didn't have bare stone visible, instead the walls, floor and ceiling were covered in white durasteel and the whole place had a constant smell of clinical citrus. Eno didn't normally have a need to come into Sister Wyndlow's domain, but that did not mean he didn't have a good working relationship with the woman.

 It didn't take long before one of Sister Wyndlow's acolytes came to see who was there. “Master Jedi, to what do we owe this pleasure?” one of the medical initiates greeted him with a small bow which he returned with a small smile. Unlike the majority of the masked Anchorites here, the medical division wore grey robes with the standard galactic symbol for medical personnel upon their shoulders. The old Jedi looked about the room, guided by the force, “I felt it was important to pay a visit,” he said simply. “Tell me, Initiate, has the survey team been stocked already?” he asked as his senses drew him further into the room.

 It wasn't obvious why the force had directed him here, the force certainly wasn't known for being a guiding hand as most would understand it. It was, however, prone to putting beings’ places where it thought they ought to be. Although, considering the planned expedition set to leave today, being directed to the medical wing was a troubling thing.

 Ignorant to his inner thoughts, the Initiate continued, “Yes, Master Cordova. The allocated medical supplies were delivered to the hanger a little over an hour ago.” Eno nodded, eyes still roaming the room until they landed upon a small, unassuming box nestled on a shelf out of the way. Walking over to the small container, he pulled it from its shelf and opened the lid. A trauma kit, one of the smaller emergency ones but he knew from experience that emergency kits like this were often the difference between life and death. “Initiate, tell me, has the survey team been given any of these?” he asked slowly going through the contents.

 “I can check?” they said uncertainly.

 He hummed. “I think I will go deliver this one to them just in case,” he stated, closing the lid. “Let Sister Wyndlow know I've taken it for the survey team, I'll do my best to get a replacement with Quartermaster Porfuge on my way back,” he added hastily when it looked like the Anchorite was going to argue. Eno offered the young initiate another warm smile as he left to continue his path towards the main hanger. But, as he drew closer to his destination, he couldn't help but feel that it was a little forced. He would trust in the force, as he always had, but he could not help but feel dread begin to well up within him.

 The growing sense of coming change combined with the trauma kit did not paint a pleasant picture.

 Later, hours after the team had left to begin their initial survey of the new Narkis ruins, an emergency transmission came through, notifying that a small contingent of the team was making their way back to the archives with two strangers in tow. It was a grievous breach in security protocol. But when he heard that one was seriously wounded and the other was an adolescent who couldn't speak a lick of basic, Eno couldn't help but feel that he should have seen something like this coming.

Chapter Text

 The waking world is overrated, he’s decided. Especially when he wants to do nothing else but stay asleep. He’s also come to the conclusion that he has a weird relationship with the end of the year… Halloween, too, now that he thinks about it.

 Harry stirs with a groan, laying in a bed wrapped in blankets and what he assumes are bandages. It’s a familiar situation. He’s played quidditch and been in the wizarding world long enough now to be familiar with the hospital beds at Hogwarts and, considering the hazy memories slowly flitting through his sleep-addled mind, he’d had a hell of a night. This doesn’t mean he’s particularly happy to be in the hospital wing though. In thinking that, however, he’s not rather concerned about his own being there. That spot of concern is settled solely at the feet of his friends. The last he’d seen them they’d all been…

 Harry tries to get up, only to jolt at the sudden severe ache coursing through his body. His eyes burn at the sudden influx of light, and he’s forced to settle back on the bed before the pain becomes too much to bear. Maybe trying to rush out of bed wasn’t the smartest idea. Especially when he felt a little like a mummy wrapped up in bandages. Really, that should have been a good indicator of his condition after last night’s fight. He must have been in a right state for Madam Pomfrey to have used actual bandages on him.

 There was a thought. When was the last time he’d seen her use them at all?

 Third year? Maybe? It depends if the sling Draco Malfoy had his arm in after antagonising Buckbeak the Hippogryph counted or not. But other than that, perhaps first year? Yeah. First year. He’d had them himself on his hands after his altercation with a Voldemort-possessed Quirrell. Harry shivered at the memory, even after all several years it still haunted him a little.

 The teen pushed the thought of Quirrell aside. He’d rather not dwell on what happened beyond the trap door his first year of school more than he needs to. And right now, he did not need to. Instead of focusing on past hurts, he focused on the present ones instead. Like the fact that he felt like he’d been wrapped head to toe in bandages and that everything hurt something fierce.

 As he allowed his aggravated wounds a chance to settle, Harry tried to think back to what exactly had happened for him to be in this much pain. He remembered the fight, yes, but he was sure that most of the cuts he’d gotten during the events in the Department of Mysteries were minor at worst. Something easily done away with by a quick spell here and there.

 Had he been in a worse state than he’d initially thought?

 He tried to move again, only to hiss in discomfort. Well, he guessed he wasn’t going to be asking questions any time soon. With nothing better to do, he opted to just try and piece together the fragments of the battle he recalled. From arriving at the ministry with his friends to the ambush in the hall of prophesy. The realisation he’d led them all into a trap and that his godfather wasn’t there. The chase through the D.o.M. and the many obstacles from the Unspeakable’s strange arcane studies to their eventual regrouping in that one chamber with the strange arch… the pitched battle that followed and Sirius showing up at some point along with the rest of Dumbledore’s order of the phoenix.

 It was all rather hazy towards the end.

 But Sirius had been there. His godfather had had to come save him because he was an idiot and trusted visions he’d known were from Voldemort and the words of an elf they all knew hated them all. And then Sirius had been blasted through the veil and… and…

 And Harry had jumped after him.

 His heart stopped at the realisation. Panic began to bubble up within him. If he’d jumped through the veil, then the chances this was the Hogwarts hospital wing were slim to non-existent. He was tempted to try and rush to Sirius again. He was oh so tempted. But that exact action had gotten them into this situation, and he refused to make it worse when he didn’t even have any details about the situation to begin with other than he’d messed up. So, taking a deep, calming breath – and ignoring the very concerning smells that came with it – Harry thought on what he should do.

The first step was obvious. Figure out where he was.

 After all, no matter how slim, there was a chance he might be imagining all of this. He could actually be passed out in the great hall taking his history exam and this was all one big nightmare. Slowly, he tried to open his eyes again. The light still stung his sensitive retina, but he forced through it. His vision was blurred, glasses someplace unknown, and Harry realised that he could only see out of one eye – a notion that did little to settle his growing panic – but the sight that greeted him distracted him long enough for him to panic about something other than the potentially lost eye.

 An unfamiliar ceiling of white metal.

 Harry released the breath he’d been holding before he choked. It tasted bitter, of chemical citrus he’d only just accepted was lingering in the air mixed with no small amount of fear and a tinge of disappointment. Really, he shouldn’t feel disappointed at all, this is what he gets for his stupidity. Severe injury and waking up Merlin knows where.

 Once more, with great effort, Harry tried to move. This time, however, only attempting to sit up. He wanted to know where he was, and he wasn’t going to get any further laying down. Fortunately, sitting up was far more achievable than the initial plan of running off to find his godfather. Even through his blurry sight, the rest of the room was, in a word, weird.

 It vaguely looked like what he expected the hospital wing back at Hogwarts, clinical-white walls and shapes that could be beds lining the room, but without his glasses it was impossible to make out any real details. Glancing about, he saw what was probably the bedside table and started to feel about for a familiar set of frames. He was rewarded in no time at all and quickly slipped the glasses back onto his nose. They were still cracked, but thankfully clean of the gunk that had been on them.

 Looking around again, he confirmed that this place did look similar to the Hogwarts hospital wing, but only in the way that all doctors’ offices really look alike. If anything, now that he thought about it, this place looked far more… muggle... then was probably a good sign. Harry hoped that that was just a coincidence, for everyone’s sake.

 There were eight beds in total lining the room, odd bits of furniture accompanying each of them, but they didn’t look anything like a normal hospital bed. Unlike the usual metal frame and soft mattresses of the beds he’d grown used to, these ones looked more like boards extending from the wall and bolted to the floor. Fortunately, they didn’t feel like they looked. But they were unlike anything he’d seen before, and that was just the beds. Honestly, the room looked completely alien to any hospital he’d seen and he was starting to worry that it wasn’t actually a hospital at all.

 A mechanical hiss to the side caught his attention. A previously unseen door at the end of the room slid open almost silently. Standing in the open doorframe was not what Harry would think of when he thought of a person. Though humanoid in shape, it was skeletal with spindly, stiff arms and had a pair glowing, electrical-yellow eyes. The longer he looked, the less Harry thought it was a person at all. If he didn’t know any better, Harry would have thought it a robot of some kind from one of Dudley’s comics.

 But that was impossible, right?

 Well, he was a Wizard. Impossibility was normal at this point, and really it didn’t matter if it was a robot or not. The metal man was, put simply, terrifying to look at. Like looking at one of those cybermen-things from Doctor Who on the tellie. The similarities between those fictional cyborgs and the figure standing before him only served to terrify the young wizard further. Suddenly, the idea of being in a hospital with a maybe-cyberman was a very concerning prospect, considering said fictional faction had a tendency to… to… To force “upgrades” upon their victims.

 Harry paled.

 He had to get out of here!

 The figure-robot-thing noticed his growing distress and seemed to speak surprisingly softly with a mechanical voice, but Harry couldn’t understand them. Even if he did, he feared he would much rather not. It drew closer, raising its arms in what might have been a calming gesture for others, but Harry could only focus on the three claw-like digits on the ends of each of its arms. It drew closer, and Harry struggled more.

 His heart raced, adrenaline pumped through his veins with each quickening beat. He scrambled away, almost falling off the bed, the pain through his body completely forgotten as he got to his feet. Backing away from the mechanical monstrosity, Harry glanced around for his wand.

 Where was his wand?!

 There was no familiar dark wood anywhere in sight. If anything, there wasn’t a single wooden thing in the room, yet alone his wand! Injured, half blind, and in a room with a robot that may, or may not, be out to turn him into a tin-can and he didn’t have his wand. Panic was not a strong enough word for what he currently felt but it was the strongest his panicking brain could come up with.

 It was drawing closer now, each step punctuated by a loud Clank, Clank, Clank!

 He was trapped; he realised with growing dread. Prior to the door opening, Harry hadn’t noticed any doors at all and now the only exit he knew of was behind the advancing automaton. It was still droning at him in that disturbingly soft mechanical tone, shepherding him into a corner.

 Clank, Clank, Clank.

 Harry needed to get away.

 Clank, Clank, Clank.

 He needed to escape!

 Clank! Clank! Clank!

 He wanted to be anywhere but there!

CLANK CLANK CRACK!

 He closed his eyes, taking that one last step, expecting to find cool metal at his back. Instead, Harry stumbled and fell on his arse with a clunk as the expected wall never came. The robot that never came. Wait, what?  Harry opened his eyes.

 He was in a completely different room.

 Shakily, he got to his feet, taking in his new surroundings with the quick grace of a seasoned seeker. Harry opted not to think too hard on the suddenly changing room, weirder things had happened to him. The robot was back there, he was now… wherever here was. So, it was an improvement, even if he still felt awful.

 This room was dimly lit, boxes lined the bare stone walls, and the air was filled by the hum of machinery. An engine or generator, maybe? Harry wasn’t entirely certain; it didn’t sound anything quite like the rumble of his uncle’s car. Heart still beating a mile a minute, he reached for his wand. And paused when he realised it wasn’t there. It hadn’t been in the room with him earlier, either. All he had was his glasses and a hospital(?) gown.

 “Great.” He muttered to no one.

 Lost with robots out to get him and no wand. Just perfect. At least it wasn’t another basilisk or dragon. He could very well do without another giant monster out for his guts. Well, he certainly wasn’t going to be unarmed. Moving quickly, Harry started looking for something to arm himself with before the wanna-be cyberman found him. This room, however, would likely be a bust on that front as each of the boxes was filled with what he thought might be spare parts. Spares for what, he had no idea, but nothing looked vaguely weapon-shaped here.

 He was about to start rifling through another crate when a noise caught his attention. The wizard froze. A soft warbling sound echoed from deeper in the room, followed by a series of twittering beeps and boops. It was oddly melodic, but it caused his panic to return once more. Grabbing the nearest object, not really caring for specifics anymore, Harry inched away from the crate.

 The twittering called again, and then the general hum of the room suddenly cut out with a loud Clang. A buzz of sparks lit up further down, an electrical crackle in the air, and then another clang before the hum returned. Softer than before, smoother. He raised the pilfered “weapon” high and slowly began to back out of the room towards an open door he’d spotted.

 Another warble, still thankfully far away, but it had moved, closer than before. Whatever was making that sound was on the move and heading his way. Harry turned to bolt from the room. A loose collection of thoughts one could charitably call a plan forming in his head about finding his wand, finding Sirius and getting the heck out of whatever deranged sci-fi show they’d somehow fallen into.

 Harry would find, however, that he would never be able to enact that plan.

 As he turned, he froze as a chill colder than a Scottish winter overtook him. In the doorway sat a, he didn’t even know what it was. But he did know what it reminded him of. Another nightmare. He’d somehow ended up in an episode of Doctor Who because after the cyberman-like robot from the last room, why wouldn’t he also encounter a god damned Dalek?!

 It differed from the Daleks in a few ways, but fantasy and reality often did so. The mostly black tin-can sat on three legs, a small central foot at the base of its cylindrical body and two arms higher up on either side. But the shape was there. And the weapons too. From two compartments on its front, two arms raised and extended towards Harry. Instead of a plunger and cannon from his memory, however, one of the extended arms looked like a small grasping claw and the other a miniature cattle prod arching electricity.

 No matter how you sliced it, if it looks like a dalek, carries weaponry like a dalek, it’s a fucking dalek oh Merlin, oh God he's screwed-

 It beeped angrily at him, if a beep could ever be described as angry. Shunting towards him on its wheeled legs as it raised its aching prod in his direction. His next course of action was obvious: he ran.

 He lobbed whatever metallic thing he’d nicked at the dustbin from hell and bolted deeper into the room, not caring for the irritated warbling and the sound of a motor whirring to life behind him. The room, it turned out, was much bigger than he’d initially thought. He ran on painfully aching feet that protested more and more with each bounding leap but he didn’t dare slow down or look back. Not with the sounds of the dalek so hot on his heels.

 He made a sharp turn and resisted the urge to whoop when he heard something crash into the wall behind him with an angered series of beeps.

 Victory was short lived, however, when a person came hurriedly rolling round the corner with another of the little Daleks on his tail. He spared the person a brief glance, they looked like one of the monks from the arch, but focused more on the rust bucket painted white and blue. The shifting of crates behind him got his attention again: the robot he’d been sprinting from righted itself and glared at him.

 How the hell did it even glare?!

 The person was shouting something at him, but like the robot from earlier Harry still did not understand a word of it. He was trapped again. Between the angry spark-happy Dalek-thing and an angry monk, he had nowhere to run again. Panic flared hot in his chest, his breath heavy as if he was still running. He closed his eyes, trying to breathe but only found his panic rising more. The need to escape bloomed within him, the desire to be anywhere but there!

 “Go away!” he shouted but it came out more like a crack of thunder.

 Literally. His words were punctuated by a loud Crack and the air shifted. He stumbled, exhausted and short of breath, he nearly fell over again. Everything hurt again, his very nerves hissed in protest at his blatant accidental magic and his head felt like it’d been dunked in cotton. If he hadn’t thought so before, he knew for certain now that Madam Pomfrey will kill him when he gets back.

 If he gets back.

 Shuffling drew his attention back to the here and now.

 Stone walls of a cavernous room, lined with shelves, with a handful of people scattered throughout. Most dressed like the monks he vaguely remembered from the archway, with their strange headdress blocking their features from view, but two were dressed differently. He could see their shocked expressions. He doubted they were alone with that look. Everyone was staring at him. He wasn’t really paying them any attention though.

 Harry was far too busy panicking and scrambling backwards so quickly he fell over. But that wouldn’t stop him. He kept moving until, at last, he finally hit a wall.

 He was trapped. His abused and worn down body couldn’t summon any more magic, accidental or not. and he was in a room surrounded by probably hostile strangers and killer robots! Movement caught his eye and one of the monks had drawn something that looked like a gun. Great, not only was he definitely surrounded by hostile strangers and killer robots, but they were muggle too. Wonderful. Fan-fucking-tastic!

 He raised his arms in a futile attempt to protect himself. But the shot never came. Blood roared in his ears, pushing him to do something, but he was just too tired.

 He startled at a snapping voice. Glancing over his arms, he saw the older of the two people he could see was all but growling at the monk that had pulled the gun. The other was watching him, the shock on her features melting into something else. He wasn’t sure if it was a good thing or not, but before he could ponder her curiosity, the man was talking.

 They didn’t look so angry anymore, he thought. He was a grey, balding older man with amber eyes, short beard and laugh-lines calved into his weathered features. They were crouched down, on eye level with him, with their arms raised. They were speaking to him, he realised, but whatever language these people spoke, the wizard had never heard it before. The man clearly saw this too and, before long, was trying to speak with him in what Harry assumed was multiple different languages. And Harry understood absolutely none of them.

 But he did think one of them sounded familiar… It itched at a memory he couldn’t quite place. Whatever language it was though, he didn’t actually speak or understand it.

 Eventually, the man gave up on trying to speak to him. That didn’t mean he stopped trying to communicate, however. They actually seemed to be enjoying themselves a little, and Harry couldn’t help but also find humour in the fact that the man was effectively trying to talk to him via a game of charades. But Harry was starting to get the point.

 They meant no harm.

 Or so he thought they were trying to convey. Harry wasn’t sure how much he trusted that notion, but at this point he was sure he couldn’t run away even if he wanted to. The man said something again, before pointing to himself. He hadn’t caught it. He must have looked confused, because the man simply smiled and repeated it. “ꂵꐞ ꋊꁲꂵꈼ ꂑꌚ-“ he was pointing at himself again, “- Eno Cordova.”

 Eno Cordova? Was that their name?

 Harry repeated the words, pointing at them. It took him a few tries to get the second word perfect, but when he did the man’s – Eno Cordova’s – eyes lit up. Eno then pointed at Harry, and it took an embarrassingly long time to click what they wanted. He pointed at himself and simply said “Harry.”

 “Harry,” Eno repeated, testing the syllables a couple of times before he eventually got them right.  “ꁲꂵ ꂑ ꁲ꒒ꌅꂑꁅꍩꋖ ꋖꂦ ꀯꂦꂵꈼ ꂦꀰꈼꌅ ꋖꍩꈼꌅꈼ, Harry?” Eno said, though all Harry grasped was his name. Eno said it again, slowly, going through each word and miming what he could: he pointed at himself, made two of his fingers do a walking motion across his palm, and then pointed at Harry. It, again, took a few attempts but Harry got the message. They were asking to approach.

 It was nice of them to ask. Though Harry knew they didn’t need to ask his permission, the sentiment was appreciated. He nodded. Eno slowly rose from his crouching passion with grace and walked over slowly. Arms never leaving their raised positions. Idly, Harry wondered what sort of a lifestyle an old man such as they would lead to still move with such ease in their advanced years. A thought, perhaps, for another time if he survived this encounter. The old man leaned down and offered the boy a hand, which he took before being hauled to standing.

 Harry’s limbs had gone stiff and heavy, and he stumbled as he was pulled to his feet, only for Eno Cordova to stabilise him with a steady grip. Harry muttered thanks but doubted the old man understood him anymore than he did them. Something about the way they inclined their head, however, had the tired boy questioning that level of understanding though. Up close, Eno Cordova just felt… warm. A warmth that transcended mere body heat in the rather cold stone cavern. Oddly, it reminded Harry of early summer days in the Hogwarts library, studying under the warming rays.

 It made his sleepy brain oddly nostalgic.

 Harry moved to take a step but stumbled again. Turns out, “accidentally” apparating around to unknown locations on nothing but adrenaline and who knows how much sleep doesn’t lead to a positive effect on functioning for very long. Eno was talking again, but it was getting tiring to try to understand him, even with the charades. He was just so tired. He tried to push past the need to sleep, to stay awake, he didn’t want to sleep again. But the wants of the mind often fall short to the needs of the body.

 Harry Potter was once more claimed by Morpheus, passing out in the warm embrace of a stranger.

Chapter Text

Days.

He’d been trapped in this bed. For. Days!

With little to do and so many unknowns, Harry would have thought he’d be well and truly on the path to madness by now if things had been any different. As it stands, he felt trapped in a bizarre form of isolation.
Were his friends safe? Was Sirius alive? Where even on Earth was he?! Too many unknowns and no answers. Not that he could ask anyone half of the questions he had anyway. He was being kept in some sort of muggle hospital – it had to be muggle, he’d not seen a single wand since he’d woken up, not even his own – and couldn’t speak a lick of what the locals spoke.

And therein lay the source of his isolation.

He saw people, those oddly dressed monks who covered their faces were a common sight through the hospital, but he could not speak with them. Although, he wasn’t sure he wanted to anyways. They likely had questions, questions he couldn’t answer. His lacking ability to speak with them did not stop some from trying. He received regular visits from the only two people he’d seen here who didn’t cover themselves, and Harry started to notice some things.
First, he was trapped here. Yes, the monks were treating him well and he wasn’t being cut up as a lab rat (yet). But he was being watched. He couldn’t leave. Also, the monks he saw regularly, the ones with a red symbol on their robes, had an air about them he’d only seen in Madam Pomfrey and the staff of the wizarding hospital, Saint Mungo’s, in London, so he had the feeling they were doctors. So, while he didn’t feel anywhere near as drained as he had during his little excursion hopping around the place, or even towards the end of the battle in the ministry, Harry could only hope he was here until a professional was sure he was well. The alternative wasn’t something he wanted to think about.
Speaking of. Second, he’d not seen a single cyberman or dalek again since the earlier incident. Upon reflection, he now understood that they probably weren’t actually the same sci-fi creatures from the telly. Said creatures were fictional, after all. Even then, whatever they were, Harry had the sneaking suspicion the monks were either keeping them away from him or him away from them. He wasn’t sure which, or which was worse. He’d just take the win and enjoy the lack of robots.
The final thing he’d noticed, it was hard not to, were his two recurring visitors. Eno Cordova, and a woman who he'd introduced as Cere Junda, visited often. Several times a day, in fact, though not always together. There where… curious people and apparently had a vested interest in teaching Harry their language. Honestly, as annoying as their visits could be, their seemingly benign interest in him was probably the only thing saving him from going nuts. And it came with the added benefit that, between them, he was slowly learning how to communicate with these strangers.

“Basic,” they called it. An odd name for a language, but he was English, and his native language was called the same thing so who was he to judge?

Over their meetings, Harry had learned that Eno Cordova was a rather patient man full of easy smiles, but prone to going on tangents that the young wizard would probably think could rival Hermione… If he could understand more than only a handful of things the man said. Whatever his tangents were about though, Eno clearly enjoyed the subject matter. Cere Junda was a little different though. In many ways, the dark-skinned woman reminded Harry of Remus. A figure who Looked far more intimidating than she actually was, often with her own smiles – and exasperated looks whenever Eno apparently went off topic – as well as giving compliments freely whenever Harry picked up on the basics of Basic.

Whoever these two people were, Harry got the impression that they were used to teaching… not that he could ask them that, but that was the bearing he had of them. Or so they seemed, Harry just had to hope that not everyone was out to get him here.

Thinking about it, in many ways this was like before he had gone to Hogwarts. The magical school didn’t teach English as a subject, though Hermione did her damned best to fill in the gaps when needed. The small lessons with the strange adults reminded him of those days before magic. Except, unlike learning English at school, Harry had no grounding in basic from his awful relatives.
This was entirely from scratch.

On the bright side his teachers weren’t terrible, and he had no Dudley or Snape to deal with. So, he’d take that win. Regardless of how poor he still was at actually speaking the language they were trying to speed teach him. Poor abilities aside, Harry figured it was time to actually try and put some of his anxieties to rest.

Eno had just walked into the hospital, carrying a tray of food for lunch, with his usual warm smile and greeting. Settling the tray on Harry’s lap, the man took up his customary seat beside his bed. The food here was… different. Not bad, per say, after he’d bit the curse and actually tried it. But nothing really looked familiar. Like, why was the bread green? Granted, his upbringing didn’t include much outside of English fare, but even the food served last year at the tri-wizard tournament for the other schools had still looked familiar.
Wherever he was, it had to be far from Britain. Very far.
Unfamiliarity aside, it was food and so he ate it all the same. Harry knew Madam Pomfrey always made sure he ate after seeing her whenever he pushed himself that little bit too far. Hoping it would get him back on his feet faster, he didn’t put up a fuss when it tasted as odd as it looked.

He ate as he waited for Eno to settle before he'd attempt to broach the topic he needed answers for. Well, one of them anyway. Harry had to start somewhere and, after some thought, opted to start with the one he was more likely to get answers for. Eventually, he set the bowl aside and looked at the man.

“Eno?” He hedged, nervous, unsure how any of this would unfurl. Said man seemed to catch onto his nerves. “Yes, Harry?” they answered with a practiced, encouraging smile that always caught him off guard in its honest sincerity. Now comes the actual hard part. Harry had to think of how he’d actually phrase the question with the limited collection of words he’d been given. “Where is my – err – daddy?” Harry knows that’s the wrong word, but they’ve not actually covered anything close to ‘godfather’ yet so it’s the closest he’s got right now.

When Eno quickly covers a snort with a cough, Harry can’t help but roll his eyes.

Really, he should have just said Sirius’ name and winged it through a poor description. Instead of answering, Eno just pulls out one of those rectangular devices he’s seen people around here use, a datapad, he thinks they called them and spends a few moments touching the screen on the front. Eventually he stops, flipping the screen to show a picture of Sirius’ face. “This man?” It’s a still image of Harry’s unconscious godfather. He’s pale, bruised, and his chest is wrapped heavily in bandages. Harry swallows, colour draining from his face, but nods in affirmation. Eno hums, notes something down, and looks to be choosing his own words carefully.
“Your ꄞꁲꋖꍩꈼꌅ is ꌅꈼꀯꂦꀰꈼꌅꂑꋊꁅ, resting, in a ꋰꁲꀯꋖꁲ ꋖꁲꋊꀗ. He was badly hurt when you were brought here.”
Harry opted to ignore the words he couldn’t understand for what he could. It wasn’t new information and did nothing to relieve him of his worries. Something must have shown on his face, because the old man turned the datapad back to himself and began to scroll anew. Pulling something else up the wizard was presented with an image of a large upright tube filled with some sort of liquid, cables of various thicknesses connecting to it in various places at the base.

“This is a ꋰꁲꀯꋖꁲ ꋖꁲꋊꀗ.”

What was a “bacta tank”? Well, clearly this tube thing. But as to what exactly that was, he didn’t know. “What is a ‘bacta tank’?” Harry asked, tasting the unfamiliar words and probably butchering them entirely. Eno looked contemplative again for a brief moment before he made a gesture Harry interpreted as “wait a moment,” and began tapping away at the datapad once more. When he then showed Harry a picture of bandages, it didn’t really clear anything up. What did a tube of goo have to do with bandages? Maybe Eno thought it was medical? Harry didn’t believe that. He’d been to the doctors before, medicine came in syringes and tablets and plasters, or potions if you went to a healer, not vats of goo.

When he looked back up at Eno with a raised, questioning brow, the old man looked to be asking himself a lot of questions. Potentially including the state of Harry’s sanity. Which, rude. He wasn’t the one who thought vats of goo could be used to heal people. Well, not unless these people were actually wizards, but Harry doubted that. Even if they were, most of the potions he’d seen were either consumed (like tablets) or applied (like a cream). Madam Pomfrey had certainly never dunked him in a potion, and he’d not seen any tubes for dunking people in at Hogwarts, yet alone Saint Mungo’s, either.

If anything, Harry should be questioning Eno’s state of mind.

Still, even as he voiced his disbelief in broken basic, Eno was adamant that this tank was apparently helpful. If it was so helpful, why hadn’t he been put in one. Harry voiced that too, to which Eno simply said, “You only needed a little bacta, you were not bad enough for the tank.”

The wizard did not like those implications, credible medical gear or not. “Is he okay?” he asked quickly, moving to get up but stopped when Eno put a hand on his shoulder, his features radiating a calmness that Harry certainly did not feel. “He is fine, ꌚꂦꋊ. They are ꍩꈼꁲ꒒ꂑꋊꁅ, getting better,” they explain as if he hadn’t just admitted that Harry’s last remaining family had been considered in a bad enough state to be dunked in a vat of whatever on Earth bacta was.
As nice as Eno had been to him, Harry didn’t know the man enough to trust him in this until he saw Sirius with his own eyes. “Where is he?” Harry asked, jaw set. The old man just gazed at him. Scrutinising him. Harry felt like an open book before the wizened man, like every part of him was open for Eno to read at his leisure. It was like being studied by Albus Dumbledore, as if his every secret was old news. Not for the first time Harry wished he had his wand, he didn’t like how naked he felt without it. When Eno finally released his attention with a sigh and a pinching of his nose, he stated “He is still in the bacta tank, when he has gotten better, and the doctor says you are good to go, I will take you to him.”
Harry felt the urge to jump out of the bed and demand to be taken to his godfather. The familiar rage he’d felt for the past year danced upon his lips like fire, but he didn’t unleash it on the man before him. Couldn’t, even. He was in no place to demand such things and even with the feeling of isolation, Eno had done what he could to mitigate and even correct it. Thankfully, his head got to his mouth before his words could. It was honestly a little weird. Instead, all that left his mouth was a resigned sigh and a begrudgingly muttered thanks that he was at least being offered the chance to see Sirius when they’d deemed him “ready”.

Whatever that meant.

Harry shuffled in the bed, trying to get comfy again on the odd piece of furniture. But it wasn’t until the tray with his lunch in slid at his movement and quickly went barreling towards the edge that he realised his error. The wizard who had spent the better part of four, going five, years training as a quidditch seeker moved to try and catch it, but it was likely telling that he wasn’t as recovered as he thought when the tray and its contents slipped past his grasp. He could only watch in growing dread as the bowl moved in slow motion. He’d messed up. He hadn’t messed up here yet and couldn’t help the rising bile of panic at the prospect of just what that meant.
Harry knew where he stood with the Dursleys. Knew where he stood at Hogwarts. He did not know where he stood with these strangers he could barely talk to. Harry shut his eyes, waiting for the inevitable clatter of eatware… but it never came.
Hesitantly, he opened an eye and saw something he had not expected. Instead of clattering to the floor, the tray and its contents hovered in the air as if by magic. The only sign this hadn’t been another case of his own magic acting up was the old man beside him. Eno Cordova held his hand out slightly, and with a wave the tray began to fly through the air. There was not a wand in sight. “Are you alright, Harry?” Eno asks, as the tray settles on the bedside table, not a drop of food spilt.

“You are like me.”

The words come out no louder than a whisper, but the emotion with which they were spoken screamed louder than any howler. His heart soars like a snitch, his gut is being dragged down like he’d eaten Hagrid’s cooking, his mind’s abuzz and his ears ring. Harry was lost and found all at once and it was dizzying as so many thoughts, not enough, too many, demanded his attention.
Eno’s a wizard. Are they all wizards?! Is bacta a potion? Why hadn’t they used spells to heal Sirius? Why hadn’t they used magic to heal him?! WHY HADN’T THEY USED MAGIC TO TALK TO HIM?! Surely there were translation spells! What the hell had the last few days been if he’s surrounded by wizards?! Harry looked up at Eno again, determination on his face. “Who are you?”

Though phrased that way, it wasn’t a question. Eno clearly understood the meaning he was going for. “I am Eno Cordova, ꒻ꈼꂠꂑ ꂵꁲꌚꋖꈼꌅ and ꍩꂑꌚꋖꂦꌅꂑꁲꋊ,” they state with a slight bow of their head. While Harry doesn’t know what a “jedi” is, he understands it’s a title. He can only assume the other words he doesn’t know are, too. Not for the first time in the past few seconds, he’s questioning why they haven’t just spelled him to understand them. It would have saved them all headaches. He has so many questions that it’s not funny, easily enough they might even rival the amount Hermione can normally come up with. Not that he’d voice that to her, or in general.

“You are a Wizard?” he settles on asking out of the veritable ocean of others still flooding his brain. Sure, “wizard” was said in English, but he’s not certain “jedi” would translate as “wizard” perfectly, if it meant it at all.

Eno considers his question, likely trying to figure out what he meant. “How would you describe a wizard?” they eventually asked slowly, their pronunciation of the English not quite right but close enough. For a moment, Harry thought the man might be trying to deflect the question but realised they just wanted clarity.. He hummed for a moment, listing the far too short list of words he knew that might work.
“A wizard is someone who makes… magic,” Harry tries to explain while pointing at the tray and the path it had floated, all while trying to emphasise the floating for lack of a basic word for “magic”. Eno seems to understand his frustration, but whether he understood his meaning was another matter. Harry didn’t know enough yet for big conversations, certainly not enough for this. But when did Harry Potter ever get what he wanted?

But he had to try. If Eno was a wizard, which the floating tray pretty much confirmed for certain, then Harry hoped he wasn’t as alone right now as he had thought. Now he just needed to get the man to admit it! Thankfully, Eno at least seemed to grasp something of what he meant. So he must be getting somewhere.

“I do not think I am a wizard, but I do think we are alike,” The Jedi starts slowly, the admission making Harry’s heart sink a little, but there’s something to his demeanour that is making Harry nervous. Maybe not nervous in the way he felt nervous around certain people who meant bad news. But nervous in the way he got when something big was coming. Like whenever his scar ached… or, well, actually only then. His scar had ached a lot whenever big things happened. Weirdly it wasn’t doing so now.. But before he could tug on that thread of thought, Eno continued.
“This magic you talk of sounds very much like the ꄞꂦꌅꀯꈼ.” Eno has a glint in his eye like whenever he went off on one of his tangents… or as if he’d been waiting for this topic to come up. “It does allow those who can feel it to do special things. It looks like that you are likely ꄞꂦꌅꀯꈼ ꌚꈼꋊꌚꂑꋖꂑꀰꈼ like us.”

There was a lot to unpack there, like just what did tha– Wait, “Us?”

Eno nods, “Yes, we – myself and Cere, as well as the doctors – are quite sure that you are ꄞꂦꌅꀯꈼ ꌚꈼꋊꌚꂑꋖꂑꀰꈼ. Mainly from your short ꋖꌅꂑꉣ around our little ꄞꁲꀯꂑ꒒ꂑꋖꐞ, but even before that we had the impression you and your ꄞꁲꋖꍩꈼꌅ could use the ꄞꂦꌅꀯꈼ.”

Harry turned contemplative. What the hell did half of that mean? “Force” was likely just the local word for magic, but if that was the case why weren’t they using it to communicate with him? What had he apparently done before his bout of accidental apparations to key them into his magic? “How?” he found himself asking.
“It came up in your tests while you were being looked after,” was the simple response. As if it explained everything. It didn’t explain a single thing. Eno merely chuckled at him when he must have looked mutinous. He’d had enough old men not telling him anything for a lifetime, thank you very much. “I cannot explain right now, Harry. You do not know enough Basic. Once you do, we will do our best to answer your questions. And, by that time, hopefully your ℉ꋬ꓄ꈚ℮ꋪ will join our talk as well.”

Well, it wasn’t a dismissal, which was good. It was, however, glossing over the one large issue he had right now.

“Why not use the ꄞꂦꌅꀯꈼ to talk to me? Why not use it to help my god℉ꋬ꓄ꈚ℮ꋪ?”

He hated how quiet it came out. A month ago he would have been ranting. Raging. Tearing an office apart at something so vital being denied him. But the anger never came. All he was now was tired. He’d been in this room for days with no one to talk to properly, no answers. And now, the moment he started getting some, it felt just out of reach.
Eno sighed, drawing his attention back to him where the wizard saw a small smile cross the man's lips. “The Force doesn’t work that way, Harry. It is powerful, but I have never known it be able to ꋖꌅꁲꋊꌚ꒒ꁲꋖꈼ. But it has helped us in teaching you basic, at least.” But then their smile faded, twisting into something much more concerned. “As for your ꄞꁲꋖꍩꈼꌅ… Put simply, we are not skilled in the right areas to help him with the force. Neither me or Cere are doctors, and that’s not the most important detail.”

“What ever has hurt your ꄞꁲꋖꍩꈼꌅ was very ꂠꁲꌅꀗ—evil. I am an old man, Harry. I have gone far, and in all my ꋖꌅꁲꀰꈼ꒒ꌚ have not seen anything like it before.”

Harry feels ice run through him at the dire look in the older man’s brown eyes. He had figured something rather dark had been used against Sirius, but hearing it from someone else just made it all that much more real. The fact that the wizards he was with didn’t know how to fix the man concerned him more… but why would it be an issue if neither Eno or Cere were healers? They had at least a dozen other medical staff here. And if none of them had the know-how in dark curses, which would be weird but let’s just think about the what-if, couldn’t they just call a specialist in? Harry voiced just that. Sure, it had the potential to cause problems, he knew Sirius was technically an escaped convict, but Eno hadn’t made mention of it so he just hoped that news hadn’t and wouldn’t make it out this far.

“Son, myself and Cere are the only Jedi here.”

Harry froze, eyes wide, fear spreading on his face. “What do you mean by that?”

Eno just looked puzzled, “Myself and Cere are the only ꌚꈼꋊꋖꂑꈼꋊꋖꌚ here that can use the Force.”

Harry’s face paled further.

The Ministry was actually going to kill him this time. They were going to skip snapping his wand, skip throwing him into Azkaban, and were just going to kill him. Maybe they’d do it via a Dementor, have his soul sucked right out, or maybe they’d just use a curse. Or, maybe, they’d let him live and just wipe his brain clean and set him up next to Lockhart at Saint Mungo’s in ‘Permanent Spell Damage’? He didn’t know which was worse. “What about the Statute?!” he all but hissed as he tried to not let panic take over and trigger any more accidental magic. Eno just tilted his head in confusion. “You know, the Statute? People who don’t have Magic aren’t meant to know about it?” he was losing that battle at controlling his panic now.

“Harry, I do not know where you are from, but everyone knows about the ꄞꂦꌅꀯꈼ.”

His panic froze and, for a moment, the pair just stared at each other. One just looked confused while the other looked as if the world was ending. As far as Harry was concerned, it just might well be.

“Where on Earth am I?!”

"Sorry, Harry, but what do you mean by ‘Earth’?"

… What?

Chapter Text

Harry could only stare at the man.

What did he mean he didn’t understand “Earth”? Obviously the language barrier meant they couldn’t talk normally, but he was under the impression that the planet’s name was a universal thing. Right? Blinking, and seeing that Eno was serious in his question, Harry cleared his throat.

“ Earth is…” he started, but his mind was drawing a blank. Never before had he thought he’d need to explain the planet of all things. With the sheer absurdity of it all, all the basic words he’s been taught have been thrown out the proverbial window. Instead, the wizard just points at the floor.

“The floor?”

It worried him a little that he couldn’t tell if the man was joking or not, “No, more. Earth is… everything?” He points at the floor again before making a gesture like he’s holding a ball. Finally, something like understanding lights behind Eno’s eyes.

“Ah, Earth is where you’re from?” the wizard nodded slowly. That wasn’t how Harry would phrase it, and it wasn’t wrong, but everyone was from Earth, so it was like posting a letter addressed ‘To Harry Potter, Earth’. Sure, you weren’t technically wrong. But your letter also wasn’t going anywhere either. Eno must have noted something in his face, because the long, contemplative stare the man gave him was reminding Harry a little too much of headmaster Dumbledore.

That was not a man he wanted to think about right now, thanks.

The old Jedi continued to stare at Harry for a little too long and it was starting to make him uncomfortable. “Give me a moment, Harry.”  They finally said before standing up and walking towards one of the sliding doors. He thinks that one leads to an office, but he wasn’t sure.

In the time Eno had disappeared, Harry could only question what series of events had led to this moment. Had he done something wrong in a past life? Something so evil that it cursed him when he passed on to live a life forced to fluctuate vastly between weird and awful? He didn’t know. He didn’t think he wanted to, either. But at this point he was starting to get really curious because, seriously, the world was going to pot. He was just glad that the dice had landed on weird for now, and not awful.

Time ticked on by, and still Eno did not return.

Just as Harry was seriously considering looking for the man, doctor’s word be damned, when Eno finally returned. With one of said doctors in tow. The man had a wide smile that, under any other circumstance, may have looked innocent. Unfortunately for Eno, Harry also had experience living with a pair of pranksters and knew how to identify that smile from a mile away. 

The doctor he’d brought however, didn’t seem as pleased with whatever Eno had done. “Harry, this is Sister Pati’shanna, she’s agreed to help me on our little… ꁲꂠꀰꈼꋊꋖꐇꌅꈼ.”

Harry didn’t know what “ꁲꂠꀰꈼꋊꋖꐇꌅꈼ” meant, but considering the smug edge to Eno’s smile and that a doctor had been roped in, he could guess. “Are we going somewhere?”

Although he had asked this to Eno, it was the doctor who answered, “ꂵꁲꌚꋖꈼꌅ Cordova has told the ꂵꁲꋖꌅꂦꋊ that, you are in need of some fresh air. I have been asked to ꁲꀯꀯꂦꂵꉣꁲꋊꐞ you.” Yeah, Harry knew that tone, he was certain she’d been made to make sure they didn’t do anything stupid. On the bright side, Harry was getting to leave the hospital. Sure, it wasn’t with Sirius in tow, but being able to know where the exit was was important… especially if he had to break Sirius out later. But that was something for future Harry to consider. Current Harry was positively vibrating at the prospect of getting to leave the room at all.To the point he was already out of the bed once he’d fully clicked onto what Pati’shanna had said.

Both Eno and Pati’shanna moved to try and help him out of the bed but were too slow. He brushed off their attempts: While his limbs still ached a little, it was such a negligible discomfort that Harry didn’t so much as twitch. The two adults shared a glance, but he paid it no mind as he went through a couple stretches. Their concern was appreciated, but not needed.

 “Do you need anything for the pain, Harry?” The monk asked, concern lacing their tone.

“No, I’m good.”  Harry brushed her off as he finished stretching. The ache had weakened with the loosening of his muscles but was still there. “Err, my shoes?” he asked, realising he was barefoot when the cold of the metal floor started to seep into his soles.

The wizard watched silently as Eno moved towards a set of metal lockers, pressed a button, and retrieved both his socks and ratty shoes. Eno looked at them for a moment, Harry could see his eyes trailing over where they footwear was being held together with little but spell-o-tape, concern written over his weathered features for a blink before it vanished behind a smile. He opted to ignore it. Harry didn’t need his concern, didn’t want anyone’s pity. He just put on the socks and shoes and stood, waiting to be taken to places unknown.

=o0o=

The trio walked through winding tunnels. Harry hadn’t paid much attention to the halls during his previous exploration, busy as he was, but he’d have to say the place looked pretty cool. In ways, it reminded him of Hogwarts. Old, large, lived in. There was something familiar to the young wizard about being in a large ancient stone structure. But this place wasn’t home, it wasn’t Hogwarts. It was completely different. The stone walls weren’t built, they were dug. There were no large windows overlooking the grounds, no living paintings lining the walls. Only cold stone walls and the taste of filtered air. They were underground.

Similarly to Hogwarts, this place was clearly more than a hospital.

Walking through the twisting tunnels, Harry started to understand how large the underground complex really was. They passed various closed doors hiding their secrets within. Corridors were signposted, some going deeper into the earth while some went higher, leading to places unknown. The halls were filled with people going about their work, all of them dressed like monks but adorned with different insignia than those in the hospital. Some of those monks were pushing floating carts, some empty, some stacked with crates or piles of what looked like random objects, while others just spoke with their colleagues or were on their way elsewhere.  

All the monks though, regardless of their work, gave a slight bow of acknowledgement to Eno Cordova.

Whatever this place was, Eno was an important part of it. And Harry had a sneaking suspicion that both Eno and Pati’shanna were making sure he remained ignorant of the facility’s purpose. Especially when they took a detour around certain corridors. A part of him wanted to think it was to avoid the robots, as in the time since leaving the hospital he’d only seen one of the dalek-looking tin-cans that happened to roll along a hall ahead of them. But he couldn’t shake the feeling that wasn’t it.

His gut was telling him that something down those hallways they were avoiding was important.

Eventually, curiosity got the better of him. “What’s down there?” he asked, pointing down a hall that the group had turned away from.

Eno merely grinned with pride, “That’s the ꁲꌅꀯꍩꂑꀰꈼ,” before they moved onwards.

That didn’t answer anything, only gave him more questions, but he allowed the pair of adults to guide him away. Whatever this “ꁲꌅꀯꍩꂑꀰꈼ” was, it was important to the old man. Something to figure out later, he supposed. He was mobile now and knew where it was. He could come back and check it out after dark. Harry may be on his own, but he was still a wizard. He had this.

Finally, the group entered a large, spacious room. Thinking about it, spacious might not be an accurate description. The great hall at Hogwarts was spacious, this was bigger than even that. It was a wide, cavernous shaft hewn from the stone. Metal piping snaked its way over the walls and, off to one side and across the cavern, a pair of hollow tubes ascended towards the yawning ceiling.

Harry figured they were lifts of some kind, one stopped not that far above them, but the other kept going up until it reached another floor near the very top. The light from that level allowed him to see the roof proper. Metal. Unlike the winding halls, the ceiling in here was a collection of metal plates with groves obvious even at this distance. If Harry didn’t know any better, he’d say that’s a door. Which is silly, because why would they need a hatch that big at the top of a long shaft?

Instead of thinking about the potential of this being a missile silo of some sort, Harry instead brought his gaze back to ground level. The centre of the room, a large metal disc with more pipes visible under grated sections, was completely clear. But around the edge he could see crates and odd machines, some of them looked like the floating carts he’d seen the monks pushing, while, finally, off to the other side he saw what was obviously a large horizontal door.

The wizard took this all in as the group walked towards the large door. All the while he continued to wonder just what the old Jedi was up to. The presence of one of the doctors, especially one that clearly wasn’t happy about the situation, meant the old man was likely going against their wishes. Harry knew that doctors and healers could be scary if they wanted to be, so to do this anyway meant it was probably important. He just couldn’t figure out why, and it was starting to annoy him.

Eno pulled a sleeve back, revealing a digital watch (how does a magical, wizard or not, get away with a watch like that?) and checked the time. They hummed to themselves, before pressing a button on a panel next to the door. Which was several feet away from them. With a wave of his hand. Again, without a wand. The mysteries just kept piling up and at this rate Harry feared he’d get answers to none of them.

The large door opened with the rumble of grinding gears. Split in two, Harry had to quickly shield his eyes from the bright light that met them. Instantly, he knew this light was different to the artificial stuff he’d been seeing with in here, the warmth of it against his skill immediately told him these were the sun's rays. Oh, how he had missed the sun. Blinking, he took in a vast landscape of rolling dunes and craggy outcroppings and the last rays of sun as dusk was fading into night.

It was a strange sight to the young man; Harry had never seen so much sand in person before. The beach of loch dubh was of gravel, and the one time he’d seen the sea it had been dark. It looked… barren, and yet there was still life. In the distance, shapes drifted across the marching sands.

It was beautiful.

Stars began to twinkle in the sky and Eno led him just beyond the threshold before turning to him. Something in the old man’s face looked… conflicted. “Harry, where do you think you are?”

That brought him up short. In truth, he had no idea. When he had crashed this side of the arch with Sirius, he had thought it was Egypt or somewhere equally sandy. “I don’t really know, maybe Egypt ?” Harry answers truthfully.

Eno turns away and looks across the endless expanse of sand. “I am sorry to say, Harry, that I do not know of that place. Is it far from Earth ?”

To say he is confused at that answer, would be an understatement. “It is a place on Earth ?” the statement comes out more like a question. Eno merely hums sadly, still looking into the distance. His confusion is quickly morphing into concern at this point, and maybe even fear. Earth having a different name in another language wasn’t that far out of the question, a country having a different name though seemed a lot less likely.

“Harry, you are currently on a moon called Jedha. That-“ he starts before pointing into the distance, Harry’s gaze slowly following, “- is the planet NaJedha.” His already pale face paled further as his eyes widened in shock. In the distance, cresting the horizon, was not the moon he had expected. It was far too large.

“No,” he stuttered, taking a terrified step back. This was wrong, all wrong. Where was the moon?!

“We’re in a place along the outside of the Mid Rim and, I believe, you are much further from your home than you may have thought.” Though he had heard the words, Harry couldn’t process them. Wouldn’t process them. They were crazy. Eno was mad. Or he was and this was all a figment of his imagination. Harry hoped and prayed to Merlin or whatever gods were out there that this was all just a figment of his imagination because if it wasn’t then... No. No! This wasn’t happening!

He couldn’t be on another planet!

HE REFUSED!

Harry’s heart began to thunder in his chest; blood roared in his ears. He gripped and tugged at his hair as panic began to set in. And yet his eyes could not leave the large alien celestial body taking its place in the heavens. His friends… he’s left them. He’d led them all down into that death trap, and he didn’t know if they’d survived. Now he didn’t know if he’d ever find out.

Where the hell was he?!

A masked figure appeared out of nowhere, breaking his view of the horizon. They were kneeling… oh, he was kneeling too. When did that happen? They were talking to him, he thought, a feminine voice reached his ears, but he couldn’t make out the words past the static that flooded his brain. It was too much, all too much. He had to get Sirius and go back. His friends needed him! He had to stop Voldemort…

“Sirius… I don’t think we’re in London anymore…”

=o0o=

He was on another planet.

Somehow, Harry had managed to find his way onto another planet. A small part of him took to that knowledge with child-like glee. Harry Potter had made it to another planet! Was he an astronaut now? That child-like glee would like to think this made him the first man to set foot on an alien world… but that’d be wrong. Eno’s a person, so are all the doctors here. So he wasn’t the first person to set foot on an alien world. However, the sadness at missing out on that achievement was dwarfed by the insurmountable fear at the fact that he’d somehow ended up on an alien planet and had no god damned idea how to get home!

Cordova and Pati’shanna had both been trying to talk to him since the revelation, but he ignored them. He had too much on his mind right now to try and decipher them. The healer especially seemed intent on getting him to talk after she’d managed to calm him down from his very understandable panic attack, but he just stared at her, gaze empty.

He was in space, on an alien world, and he was alone.

There was no Ron to share in the moment with, no Hermione taking everything in like an explorer on safari. No Sirius to write to. He was surrounded by people, but they were strangers. Alien, technically. All Harry could do was draw his knees up to his chest and sink into despair. He needed Sirius. He wanted to go home. Even with how bad things were getting with Tom and his merry band of terrorists, it was familiar. Hogwarts with its feasts and moving stairs, Hogsmeade with its blatant magic… Little Whinging and its rows of identical houses. It was home. It was Earth.

This was neither.

That night, he didn’t sleep. Couldn’t sleep. The last moments on earth playing through his head like a video caught in a loop. Ron fighting beside him, the odds stacked against them. The blood that had been spilt because of him.

Blood he spilt.

The father of someone he knew was gone because of him, and now their son had to finish growing up without a parent. Lucius was a bastard and had deserved punishment for what dark deeds he’d done, but he wasn’t sure if what he’d done had been the right of it. The worst part was that Harry couldn’t bring himself to regret it. Not fully. Not when the alternative meant Sirius being the one bleeding out on that cold, dark floor. 

But this was the first person he’s killed whose passing would have an affect on someone he knew on a personal level.

Voldemort was a danger to everyone and needed to be stopped. But he was a monster, not a man. A few days past, Harry had robbed Draco of his father. A wife of her husband. And even though he was now marooned on an alien world, he’d have to live with that fact.

For the first time in who knows how long, Harry turned his gaze away from his knees. Glancing to a familiar bedside table, the wizard was a little surprised to see Cere sitting there, looking over something on a datapad. She hadn’t been a common sight, but he could at least say she was pleasant enough company. “Where’s Eno?” he asked, voice scratchy and throat like sandpaper. Cere spared him a glance, before handing him a glass of water.

“ꀪꋬꈛ꓄℮ꋪ Cordova has been told he’s not allowed to see you at the moment,” she explained calmly, though Harry could tell she was annoyed. He wanted to ask why but had the impression that it was because the doctors hadn’t been happy with him. Instead, he asked “Am I really on an alien world ?”

Cere only gave him a sad smile. “I’m guessing you’ve never been off-ꅏꂦꌅ꒒ꂠ before?”

It took a moment to parse her meaning, but nodded once he did. The implication of her words suggesting that travelling between planets for these people was mind boggling.  “Where I am from, we do not have… ꂸꇩꋪꅤꌛ-travel?” Cere’s smile brightened a little bit at his attempt at the new word, but it tasted like ash in his mouth. Until Sirius recovered, he wouldn’t have anyone to speak his own language with until they got back home. Whenever that one.

“What do you mean by that, Harry?”

He gazed back at his hands, lightly tracing the scarred words scratched into the back of one with the other. “Back on Earth, my people have only gone to our moon . We have not gone to another ꂸꇩꋪꅤꌛ. But now I am here, and I am… lost.” And though he didn’t have enough words to explain the despair that had filled him, in the simplest of terms he was exactly that.

Lost.

Harry had grown up truly only ever wanting two things. Mainly, it was freedom from the Dursleys, and a family that would love him. He had found that at Hogwarts, in being a wizard. It wasn’t always perfect, and it was little, but he had found it. But now, for now, his family was gone and while he had gotten further away from the Dursley than he had ever thought possible, it had been at the expense of the home he had made.

To his side, he heard Cere shifting. The fabric of her robes rustling against the chair. When a weight settled at the end of the bed, he glanced up from the cursed scar. She was staring at him, concern in her large brown eyes, reaching out her hand, wordlessly asking permission. He didn’t know why, maybe he just needed wanted some form of support, but he found himself nodding and a weight settled upon his shoulder. “I know that words will not take away your worry, but I do want you to know that we will try and get you home,” she promised, and for some reason he found himself believing her.

It was funny, really, that even though these strangers couldn’t understand him, who didn’t know who he even was, were still some of the nicest people he’d ever met.

Harry could only nod.

The older woman gave his shoulder a squeeze before she moved off the bed. Harry already missed the weight. He missed Hermione’s hugs and Mrs. Weasley's over-baring mothering. Cere made to leave but he stopped her. “C… can I have my wand back, please?”

She turned to him, head cocked. “ Wand ?”

He nodded, but then realised she didn’t understand what he meant. “Err,” he glanced around looking for something he could use to help explain before giving up and mimed. “About this big, made of wood .” What he opted not to tell her was that it also allowed him to do magic, but she didn’t need to know that. He just wanted a piece of home back. She looked at him for a moment that felt to stretch on forever. Eno had done that too. It made him feel naked but, eventually, she nodded. “I’ll be back in a moment.” And then she left.

Leaving him alone once more in the hospital

He hadn’t realised it before just how cold the room was with no one else in it. How quiet it was. How alone he was. Harry had never really ever been truly alone. Even when stuffed in his cupboard under the stairs, the Dursleys were normally in the house or he’d been left at Mrs. Figgs with her army of cats.

When Cere returned, he was curled back up staring into space (Hehe, space. He was in space. He was in space… Harry was in space and didn’t know how to get back…). She startled him out of his thoughts when she sat back down at the foot of his bed. In her hand, a roll of cloth that she settled down on the duvet before unrolling it to reveal two lengths of wood. Two wands. His own and Sirius’. Slowly, ever so slowly, he reached out for his, relishing in the familiar warmth that shot through his arm as his fingers curled around the handle.

He looked up to thank her, but found her looking at him curiously. “Everything okay?” he couldn’t help but ask instead. She hummed. It didn’t answer his question.

“When the doctors aren’t as upset with ꀪꋬꈛ꓄℮ꋪ Cordova, would you be against us asking you about these?” she asked, ton neutral but he could still see the curiosity burn in her eyes.

“Why?”

Cere did answer for a time. “These wands are a lot like something we have, and yet are something completely different,” she said, reaching for a brown and grey cylinder on her hip, unclipping it, and bringing it closer. Something about it seemed… familiar. Cere had always had this cylinder on her person, and now that he thought about it, Eno had something similar too.

It was surprisingly long. The grip was worn, loosely wrapped in cloth around the grey metal, and easily big enough to be held comfortably in two hands.

“This is a ꒒ꂑꁅꍩꋖꌚꁲꋰꌅꈼ,” she told him, before pressing a switch and, with a snap-hiss, a long blue beam of light extended from one end. Harry was mesmerized by the humming blade of light. “It is something every Jedi has or knows how to make, and your wand feels very similar as the ꀯꌅꐞꌚꋖꁲ꒒ ꍩꈼꁲꌅꋖ of a ꒒ꂑꁅꍩꋖꌚꁲꋰꌅꈼ.” He could only nod. He didn’t really know what that meant but the sword was easily one of the coolest things he’d ever seen.

And he’d killed a giant snake with another magic sword.

Harry, like a moth drawn to a flame, reached out to touch it. But as soon as he moved his hand, however, the blade vanished in a hiss. Cere chuckled, “I would not ꌅꈼꀯꂦꂵꂵꈼꋊꂠ touching a ꒒ꂑꁅꍩꋖꌚꁲꋰꌅꈼ, Harry. You’ll lose a hand.” The boy paled at what he’d nearly done, but the jedi only chuckled more. “Don’t worry about it, ꒒ꂑꁅꍩꋖꌚꁲꋰꌅꈼ are rare, and those who can make and use them rarer still.”

“If I agree to your questions, can I ask some too?” he still sounded a little shaky, but he wanted to know more. Heck, he wanted one! Regardless of the nearly lost hand, what boy didn’t want a magic sword?! AND IT WAS MADE OF LIGHT?! That was awesome! Cere hummed, clearly amused. “That, Harry, was a question,” she laughed at whatever face he pulled, “Of course you can though. I doubt the doctors will ꄞꂦꌅꁅꂑꀰꈼ, er be sorry, nice?. To my old ꂵꁲꌚꋖꈼꌅ any time soon. So we have plenty of time before any questions come in from that.” She said, before moving to stand.

“I imagine it’s been a long day for you. You should get some rest; we can talk again in the morning.” With the storm of emotions warring within him, Harry didn’t feel tired. But he agreed anyway. He had a lot on his mind and, as much as he didn’t want to be anymore alone than he was, he did want to think about everything he’d learnt today.

He'd learnt too much, and yet not enough. But right now, his head was a mess. He needed to get his thoughts in order and learn more Basic to voice them.

He’d figure this out.

Harry couldn’t afford not to.

Chapter Text

Eno Cordova sighed, taking a sip of his caff.

Around him, the archives were a buzz of activity. Like drones of an insectoid hive, the Anchorites moved like a hive attending their various tasks with practiced efficiency. Normally he would be amongst them. Normally.

If his mind was not elsewhere.

Recently, Eno Cordova had found his attention drawn away from the task of reestablishing the Jedi Archives. His thoughts dwelled specifically upon the young man who had fallen into their midst. Harry was a curious being, and for more than just his inability to speak Basic. While uncommon, the galaxy was a vast place with innumerable worlds so someone not speaking the language wasn’t all that unheard of. Especially out here on the edge of the Mid Rim with mostly unknown regions further galactic west.

No, Harry was curious because of what he represented.

Both Harry and his father were strong in the Force, their presence shining brightly like twin suns to any who could sense it. Not only that, but it was clear that the pair had had training. The nature of that training however illuded Eno, Cere and their records. Whatever it had entailed, Eno at least suspected that it was different from the Jedi arts, considering how clearly the pair shone through the force. But from what little they had seen so far, it was hard to pin down exactly which tradition they both may belong. If it was a known one at all.

Harry had called himself a “Wizard” in his native language when he had learnt of Eno’s connection to the Force. He had called the old Jedi one too. Unfortunately, as Harry’s language was unknown, and because he didn’t know Basic upon arrival, it was hard to tell if that was their word for the Force, a Force-User, or their tradition of using the Force. Honestly, with so many unknowns, their records were of little help.

Granted, they had only seen Harry teleport so far and that, surprisingly, didn’t narrow it down all that much. Both the Jedi and Sith of old have records of the ability, and, thanks to Merrin, they knew that many of the sects of Force Witches on Dathomir had a variation of the ability. And those were just three of the dozens of known traditions throughout the galaxy, both extant and extinct. Unfortunately, given the current state of their budding archives, they just didn’t have all the data they used to to narrow it down sufficiently.

In a way, that thrilled the old Jedi. He did love a mystery. And this was shaping up to be a good one. However this was also a mystery that, until Harry was fluent enough in Basic to explain further, would likely remain so.

Not that it was the biggest concern on their plate at the moment. No, their biggest concern really was what to do with them.

Giving the newcomers aid was a given, but what came next was harder to figure out. Unlike many of the young Force sensitives the Hidden Path had been able to relocate, Harry and Sirius’ training was working against them. Where an untrained Force Sensitive could be sensed if you were looking for them within a certain range, a sentient with a trained connection to the Force was considerably more noticeable.

Briefly, Eno was drawn back to the two shining stars in the Force he could sense across the facility. Even without focusing upon them, he could identify both Harry and Sirius in the medic centre easily. Whatever tradition the pair adhered to, it had detrimentally neglected their minds, to the point where Eno was seriously starting to consider the possibility that their tradition was somehow Force-blind.

In truth, this was a part of their mystery that confused Eno as much as it concerned him. He had spent his life studying the histories of sentients that practiced the Force and knew that mental techniques were amongst the first things most traditions covered with their learners. The fact that neither Harry nor Sirius seemed to have any form of mental protection baffled him. This was the problem they faced with figuring out their next steps.

Should Harry and Sirius choose to leave, Eno had no doubt that the Empire’s inquisitors would find them quickly.

While they could not, in good conscience, keep them here against their will should the pair of “Wizards” wish to leave, allowing them to leave as they were was just as unappealing. If they were to leave, and the Empire did find them, then the Archives would be in serious danger. At best the two mysterious Force sensitives would just melt away into obscurity, perhaps even return to their home world. At worst… Well, there are things far worse than death that the Empire can deal to its captives.

Cere had explained that much to him regarding her brief stay with the Inquisitorius.

After The Purge, secrecy was one of their highest safeguards to protect what they were building. Not just the Archives, but the Hidden Path as well. So just letting the two unknowns wander off would be counterproductive. Something their head of security liked to remind them whenever it came up. Eno would be more annoyed if Brother Latcal didn’t have a point.

Eno sighed again, taking another sip of his caff. In the short time he had known Harry, Eno knew that he was a good kid. Slow to trust and quick to anger, even if he did a surprisingly good job at hiding it from his features, but a good young man all the same. So the idea of trying to keep the boy here pained him. But right now, the only alternatives they had were to either let him and his father march to their deaths or train them in the Jedi arts. The latter being something the old Jedi knew the high council would have objected to if they were still around.

He let out a mirthless snort at the thought.

The thought was shortly followed by a memory of an old friend who was often at odds with that same council. “I will do what I must,” he repeated the common phrase Qui-Gon Jinn had often uttered whenever he disagreed with the high council's ruling. It was decided then, Eno would meditate on the matter and If it was the will of the Force, and Harry agreed, he would train the boy. Besides, it wasn’t as if the Jedi hadn’t trained older individuals in the past. During times of war especially, in ages long gone, it was not unheard of for older sentients to become Jedi.

“You’ve got that look,” the voice of his old apprentice broke Eno from his thoughts. Glancing up, Cere wasn’t looking at him but down at something on a datapad. “What ‘look’?” he asked as if he didn’t know exactly what she meant.

“The same look Master Jinn had whenever the pair of you agreed to go against the council,” she said, sounding exasperated.

“I assure you, my old apprentice, that I don’t know what you’re talking about.” Eno huffed with a smile. Cere merely hummed in clear disbelief. “How’s young Harry?” He asked, steering the conversation onward and away from his past musings.

She glanced his way momentarily before returning to the pad and noting something down. “He’s fine, learning quickly. His Basic’s getting to a point I’m tempted to test him in other general education areas as well all things considered. But we need to let him see his father sooner rather than later.”

Eno hummed, “That would be down to the doctors, and they’re already rather upset with me,” Cere covered a snort with a cough, “even then, what makes you say this?”

His apprentice goes silent, makes another note, before speaking. “He feels isolated. The boy hides it well, but with how loud his emotions are it’s easy to see. I’ve also found him persistent, he’s asked several times, and I fear if we keep putting it off he’s going to go looking on his own.”  Eno can feel her sympathy for Harry’s situation radiate through the Force. To be separated from one’s family was a harsh burden.

“Do the doctors recognise this?” Cere nods, “They said they’re reassessing Sirius’ condition before they come to a decision. Due to the extent of the injuries, and how little effect the bacta’s having for him, they’ve been hesitant to allow visitation. And that’s ignoring the fact that they’ve kept him sedated.”

The situation surrounding Harry’s father was certainly a concerning one. Never before had Eno encountered injuries like it, and he’d seen some nasty ones during his time out in the galaxy. The wound itself was imbued with the Force in ways unlike anything they’d seen before or had any record of. Even with both himself and Cere helping resist whatever dark corruption infested the wounds, the doctors had struggled to treat the injuries to a point where the man was able to start recovering.

“What do you think Harry would do if the doctors don’t authorise it?” he asked, genuinely curious at Cere’s input. While Eno had gotten a good idea for the boy’s personality during their short few weeks together, none of that had been on topics like this. Here, Cere knew the wizard more. “Oh, nothing bad. Not intentionally at least, but I get the impression his thoughts on authority are about as strong as yours,” she laughed, and if she were telling the truth then Eno was certain that whatever Harry attempted would at least be entertaining when looking back on the holorecording’s.

=o0o=

The crashing sound of splashing barely reached his ears as they all ran towards the ancient castle. 

Oliver Wood, he swore, was out to kill them all. Forget about winning the cup or die trying! The man was trying to make it where they had to survive the Quidditch training, or die trying! Rain or shine, he’d hosted training in the early or late hours of the day… This was a matter of the former in both regards.

Fortunately, the entire team had survived Oliver’s most recent bout of torment and were rushing back to the warm, welcoming halls of Hogwarts.

Lightning flashed in the distance, thunder crackling through the valley as the gods saw fit to unleash their wrath upon the innocent mortals below. Not even magic would protect them anymore as their robes were soaked far past any simple drying charm. By the time they had reached the large, weathered doors the state of being dry was a distant memory. After hours of flying through the bad weather, it was barely even that.

But as the team was enveloped within the gentle warmth of Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry, they couldn’t help but laugh. How could they not? They may be drenched numb, but now they could dry off and unwind with a warm butterbeer and commiserate about their crazy team captain.

“-- and then did you see Katie?!” Fred exclaimed between chattering teeth, full of excitement. The girl in question blushed while the others grinned as the older redhead retold a scene from training where the chaser had managed to dance around a random lightning strike. Harry honestly thought it was madness that the pitch wasn’t warded against such things, but what did he know. They were heading up the main stairs towards Gryffindor tower now, the castle must have sensed their rush as the various staircases snapped into place to give them a direct path, thoughtlessly traipsing water all over the place. 

“Harry!” the boy turned to see Hermione glaring at him from one side.

“Yeah?” Harry slowed to a pause, the others barely giving him a glance as they carried on without him.

“Why did you do it?” That drew the wizard up short. “Do what?” He asked, confusion on his face.

“Why did you do it?” she repeated, something about her voice sounded… off. Lightning flashed again, its thunder rattling the glass throughout the tower.

He went to speak but was cut off by Ron, “Why’d you do it, mate?” he asked, and he hadn’t been there a moment ago. “Do–” 

“Why’d you leave us, Harry?” Ginny asked from behind him. Harry turned only to freeze when he saw a large hole going through her side. “Ginny? What?” Neville and Luna— when did they get here?- were glaring at him. Luna’s lone eye was more damning than a pair could’ve been. The blood gushing from what used to be Neville’s arm spewed unceasing vitriol. Harry turned back to Ron, but he couldn’t make out his expression, not with the scars. Hermione’s eyes were lightless so were Cedric’s 

“WHY DID YOU LEAVE US?!” they advanced.

“I… I didn’t! I-I’m coming back!”

LIAR!

“I’m not,” he stuttered trying to back up but only hitting a wall. The dark tiled walls of the Department of Mysteries. Cedric was there now, looking so sad and so angry at him.

“WHY DID YOU LEAVE US, HARRY?” they shouted in unison and Harry couldn’t help but choke back a sob. It was hard to breathe, it suddenly felt like he’d been punched in the gut.

YOU LEFT US TO DIE!

Harry screamed as he bolted from his bed. 

The room was dark and his head throbbed in pain. Harry’s shirt was soaked through, his breaths coming through in ragged heaves. Fumbling for his wand, the wizard shouted “Lumos!” The spell blossomed to life from the focus, pale-white light illuminating his small corner of the room. The hospital. He was still on Jedha.

Harry heaved back a sob. It was just a nightmare, and crying had never solved any of his problems. If anything, it made them worse. Instead, with shaking hands, he reached for a glass of water, took deep, hungry gulps, before setting the glass down and pulling his knees up to his chest. Rocking back and forth, he simply worked to get his breathing under control.

He needed to get back home.

=o0o= 

Harry could not help the groan that escaped him. Setting the datapad he’d been given down on the table, he removed his glasses and tiredly rubbed his eyes.

It had been five years since he’d looked at a calculation that hadn’t involved magic, and while he’d never been particularly bad at the subject back in primary school, what Cere was having him to go through was a lot harder than he remembered maths being. A consequence, he supposed, of having his standard education cut off at the end of year 6. But now that he was getting the hang of Basic, his minders had the glorious idea to see what the rest of his education was like.

It was, in a word, abysmal. Or at least it was compared to their standards. Why they even cared about the state of his education was beyond him, but it helped pass the time. It wasn’t like he’d need to know the stuff they were trying to cram into his brain – the maths just being a part of it. When Sirius was better and the pair of them got back to Earth, he could forget all about this. Unfortunately, Harry couldn’t help the small feeling of drea–

“Are you alright, Harry?”

A voice cut through his quickly darkening thoughts, causing the aggrieved wizard to glare through gaps in his fingers. Sometimes he just wanted to brood but the figure sticking their head through the partitioning curtain just wouldn’t let him. Since the incident when he’d learned that he and Sirius had somehow wound up on an alien planet, Sister Pati’shanna had made it her personal mission to keep an eye on him. Something he wouldn’t have minded so much if she didn’t hover like a mother hen worse than Mrs. Weasley. At least with Ron’s mother Harry could escape. Do a chore of some kind or just go fly in their garden.

He could do neither here.

At this point, Harry had figured out the woman also would not leave until he gave an answer. “Yes, I’m fine. Maths is just giving me issues,” he said, putting his glasses back on so he could see the monk more clearly.

She hummed in sympathy. “Don’t worry, we all had to go through it. I’m sure you’ll figure it out.” Pati’shanna said as she entered his little corner of the hospital. In the time since learning he was on Jedha, the Anchorites – as he had learned they were called, had worked to make the area around his assigned bed a little more private. The full reason why they had done this illuded him, but if he had to hazard a guess it was either because they didn’t have room to move him out of here or were still keeping an eye on him. Or even a bit of both.

Whatever the reason, he knew for certain that they were keeping things from him. Not that Harry could completely blame them, he’d quite literally fallen into their lap, but these people were secretive to a point it made him think of Mad-eye Moody. They were seriously paranoid! Other than being on a moon called Jedha, Harry didn’t actually know where he was. Not that it would have helped, but Harry hated not knowing things like this.

“Maybe,” he muttered as Pati’shanna stood just across from him, “Need something?”

“Yes, actually,” she nodded, “Your fath—“

“Godfather.”

“Pardon?” Harry sighed. Being surrounded by people who spoke Basic had pretty much forced him to learn the language quickly. What that meant is that everyone here now thought that Sirius was his dad, and not his godfather. To be honest, at this point the wizard wasn’t sure they even had a word for it. While the Anchorites seemed a religious sort, godfathers didn’t appear to be a thing they had.

“He’s not my father, he’s my godfather.” Harry explained but could see that the use of English wasn’t helping him one bit. He scratched the back of his neck, trying to think of how best to explain it. “It would be easier to just call him my guardian.” That, at least, seemed to get some understanding from the doctor as she slowly nodded.

“Very well, Sister Wyndlow has determined that your guardian is stable enough for you to see him,” Pati’shanna said, explaining why she’d interrupted his “studies”. She was going to say more but didn’t quite get the chance before the wizard was on his feet and practically bouncing around her.

“However,” she grabbed a hold of his shoulders to keep him still a moment, ”I must warn you that you will not be able to talk to them.” Even with the visor of her mask blocking her eyes, Harry could still feel the intense gaze behind them.

“Why?” he couldn’t help how petulant he sounded in that simple question.

“Because healing him has been… difficult.” The doctor didn’t just sound worried when she said that but concerned. If she didn’t want him to worry about Sirius, she was doing a bad job at it. “Even now, his injuries are slow to heal, far slower than they should be. In order to keep him stable, we have had to keep him unconscious.”

While it did worry Harry, and he seriously doubted he wouldn’t stop worrying until Sirius was hale and hearty, it also gave him hope. Sirius’ injuries may be healing slowly but they were healing! Considering the man had been cursed through the strange archway, it really wasn’t all that surprising that the wound was slow to heal anyway. “I still want to see him.” Harry said quietly.

And that was that. Sister Pati’shanna simply nodded and told him to follow.

Quickly, Harry slipped on his ratty trainers and followed the doctor out of his little corner. The woman moved with silent steps, gliding through the ward towards the other side of the room but not towards the exit Harry had expected. She tapped on a wall panel, its assigned door sliding open with the hiss of a motor and just on the other side was a room similar in design, but a little smaller, to ward Harry had been living in the past few weeks.

The room was spacious enough, but where Harry’s ward was lined with beds, this room only had a single one. It wasn’t even the focus of the room. Instead, that was held by a large glass cylindrical tank in the centre of the room. Harry didn’t pay any attention to the various wires that fed into it, or to the various medical equipment that surrounded it, filling the air with a rhythmic beeping. Harry didn’t even pay the cyberman-looking medical droid any attention as he stepped into the room.  No, Harry’s attention was entirely devoted to the man floating in the blue-tinted goo of the tank.

Dressed in nothing but a pair of white trunks and an oxygen mask, Sirius Black didn’t look much better than he had the last time Harry had seen him. The man was still thin, pale and had a long, jagged gash stretching from his shoulder across to the opposite side of his ribs. If it weren’t for his opacity, Harry would have suspected that his godfather was a ghost.

Harry couldn’t speak, couldn’t do anything but stare.

He’d done this to him.

If Harry hadn’t fallen for that stupid vision, listened to that accursed Elf, then Sirius would have been fine… Well, maybe not fine. The man had been wasting away in that damned house, but he’d certainly be in better shape than this! His eyes were stinging with tears that demanded to be shed, but he held them back. Crying had never helped him, and it wouldn’t help Sirius now. Slowly he inched towards the tank, mesmerized by the bubbles that drifted through the column.

He was fine. Sirius would be fine.

After a while, Harry found his voice. “Why’s he in there anyway? What’s bacta?” he found himself asking. Given that Harry was fairly certain Earth had nothing like it, and all the potions he’d encountered had to be drunk or were applied like a cream, and that this bacta stuff was neither, he found himself curious. While he had figured that bacta was some sort of medicine, the wizard didn’t know the first thing about it.

“Due to the extent of his injuries, we had to submerge him in the tank almost as soon as the pair of you arrived,” Pati’shanna said from somewhere behind him. “Bacta’s a rather potent substance that encourages the body to rapidly regenerate. Your injuries were rather minor in comparison, even if some of them were slow to heal, so you only needed to be wrapped in bacta patches. Sirius however needed far more, and even now his wound is, for lack of a better term, fighting it.”

Harry hummed, placing a hand against the tank. The transparent material he’d thought was glass didn’t quite feel like it, though it was cool to the touch. “That’s likely whatever curse he’d been struck with.” Harry commented, hoping to feel Sirius’ heat beating through the tank. He couldn’t.

“What do you mean by curse?” Sister Pati’shanna asked, “Is this something Masters Junda or Cordova can help with?”

Harry cringed at the question. Every instinct told him that he’d said too much, that he shouldn’t be here talking about magic in front of muggles. Hogwarts had figuratively beat that sense into him. But he wasn’t on Earth anymore. Did the Statute still hold on an alien world? Even then, were Eno and Cere even wizards if they didn’t know about curses?

After a quiet moment, he spoke, “I… don’t know, if Eno or Cere can help.” Mainly because they had both said that they were Jedi, not wizards. If neither of them recognised curse damage when they saw it, he highly doubted now that “Jedi” was just the local word for wizard. The jury was still out on whether or not this “Force” stuff was magic though. Hermione likely would have figured it out though… the thought came unbidden and filled him with grief.

Had she even survived the Ministry? Had any of his friends?

Taking a deep, shuddering breath, he continued. “A curse is… dark magic? Dark Force? I don’t know how best to explain it because I don’t know if my magic and the Force that Eno and Cere have spoken about are the same thing.” Harry trailed off towards the end. Despite Cere’s mention that wands and their laser-swords “felt” similar to them, he still wasn’t certain if their Force and his magic were the same thing. It was possible that it could be like wizardry and witchcraft, both magic but just different schools of it.

If not, well, he’d just have to figure something else out. He shrugged, “Curses tend to resist attempts to get rid of them and correct whatever they’re designed for. They also tend to resist any form of health care especially,” he explained slowly, remembering the many lessons on curse-theory in Defence. After five years of magical schooling, it’s a bit disappointing that only two of those years had any real worth to them Defence-Against-The-Dark-Arts wise. Even more concerning that one of those teachers had also been out to kill him, but that wasn’t anything new.

He took another breath and turned away from Sirius.

Pati’shanna was still standing by the door, hands clasped together in front of her. “Is there anything you can do for your guardian?” she asked slowly, and Harry couldn’t help the mirthless snort that escaped him. “Probably not, I don’t know what curse he was struck with and pretty much every unique curse has an equally unique counter. I could run the risk of making him worse.”  And it was the truth. Even if Harry had known which dark spell Bellatrix had used, there was no guarantee he’d know the counter to it. Dark magic was no job, its practitioners were rarely unique in their approach to things, but Harry had to give them credit that they could be creative monsters in their cruelty. Without access to a healer or access to a library like Hogwarts, there really was a chance that he could make things worse.

Thankfully, that shouldn’t be an issue. If Sirius was truly on the mend like Pati’shanna had said, then he wouldn’t need a counter. It had already run its course. So it was fine. It was all going to be fine.

The room fell silent again. Around him, the ward continued to beat with the mechanisms keeping his godfather alive. Harry clung to the steady sound of the heart monitor like a lifeline. It was proof that Sirius Black was still alive. “What happens now?” Harry asked after an eternity had passed.

Only to startle when a different voice answered, “That depends.”

In the doorway, Eno stood while he could just make out Cere just beyond. There was a look in the man’s eye that spoke to the gravity of what they were about to discuss. “On what?” Harry stood up a little straighter, glancing to see if Pati’shanna had any idea what this might be about. The masked monk gave nothing away. “In short, on you. Your choices. Your plans.”

Harry only raised his eyebrow to tell Eno he was listening. The wizard was honestly a little surprised to see the man in here considering how upset the doctors had been when Eno had taken him outside, but this must have been important. Eno gave him a brief smile before coming to stand in front of him. “Tell me, Harry, what are your plans once your godfather has recovered? Or, more specifically, what would you like to happen.”

It was a rather simple question, “We need to go back home.”

Eno nodded in understanding, but something about him seemed… off. Like he was building up to something. “And do you know how to do so?” Harry didn’t like where this was going. Though Cordova had not phrased it in a way to suggest it wasn’t a choice, it did suggest getting home might come with complications. Regardless, he soldiered on, “The same way I got here?” He hated how unsure he sounded, but he really wasn’t sure if it would work the same way. He assumed it would, but until he actually saw the archway on this side he wouldn’t know for sure.

Eno merely hummed, giving him a reassuring smile. “If you cannot return home that way, myself and Cere would like to offer you and your guardian a place here until you are able to find a way.” Harry was shocked at that, mainly because of how genuine the man looked in his offer. They hadn’t been here very long, he didn’t really know any of these people, and yet they were offering him a place…

“Why?” he couldn’t help but ask, gaze narrowed slightly. There had to be a catch to this. The Jedi sighed.

“The galaxy is not exactly what you would call safe for people like us. It would be a bad idea for you two especially to leave.” It seemed that they were under the impression that magic and force were the same thing then. Not only that but this also sounded like a threat. When Harry asked for clarification, he certainly made it known that that’s how he took it.

In response, the wizened man merely looked older. “There are bad forces that are ꍩꐇꋊꋖꂑꋊꁅ anyone with a connection to the Force. It is clear for anyone who can sense it that both you and Sirius are both strong in the Force. However, unlike the Jedi arts and a great many traditions throughout the stars, whatever tradition the pair of you trained under has completely neglected certain aspects that are considered foundational elsewhere. To put it simply, even if I did not know the pair of you were here, I would know exactly where both you and Sirius are located without even trying. And I would know it from a great distance away.” When Eno fell silent, Harry could only stare at the man with a mix of concern and disbelief.

That… that was a lot. It sounded eerily like the Witch Hunts that had sent the Magicals of Earth underground. If Eno was telling the truth, then there was a good possibility that he was screwed regardless of what happened. Going home meant fighting a war he was not prepared for, but staying wasn’t much different. Damned if he left, damned if he didn’t.

Eno, seemingly blind to his growing turmoil, continued on. “If you are to remain here, if you are unable to return from whence you came, then we can at least promise you protection, shelter, and, if you wish it, training.” Wait, what?

“Training?”

The Jedi hummed, “Assuming you are unable to return to your home world, and you would agree to it, we would train you in the Jedi arts. This would include means to make your presence in the Force less… noticeable, as well as various other Force techniques as well as lightsabre training.” Harry had to admit it was tempting just for the laser sword alone. But by the sounds of it, this wouldn’t be an easy thing. Much like his wizarding education, this would potentially take years to complete. He can see now why Eno was saying it was only really a choice should they be unable to return to Earth…

“It’s merely something I wished to make you aware of, should you be unable to return to your home.” The Jedi added when Harry didn’t say anything. Patting him on the shoulder, Eno turned to leave.

“Why are you offering us this?” Harry blurted out before they could make it to the doorway.

Eno turned and gave the teen a warm smile, “Why? Simply because it is the right thing to do,” they answered as if it was the most obvious thing in the world. His face must have shown his confusion as he spoke again, “do not worry yourself, Harry, I am sure Sirius will be well. Even if neither of you are Jedi, the Force is with you, and you are one with the Force.”

And with that strange parting remark, the Jedi left, leaving Harry with a lot on his mind.

Chapter Text

The door slid open with a now familiar hiss.

Immediately, the silence of the ward was replaced with the rhythmic pulse of medical machines. He had found the sound odd in how similar it was to what he knew from Earth, compared to how advanced it all appeared he had expected it to sound different. But that oddity had faded over the days he had spent coming and going.

 Harry entered on autopilot, making his way to a table off to the side with practiced steps while trying to not get in the way of the few people already present. Settling into his chair, the wizard spared a glance at the room’s sole permanent resident, before he pulled out his lent datapad and opened it to the current lesson that Eno had given him.

While interesting, this particular lesson was covering something called the ‘Mandalorian Wars’ – [The Mandalorian Wars happened about 3900 years ago! Led by Mandalore the Ultimate, the invading Mandalorians moved from planet to planet until they were finally stopped by the Jedi Revan with the help of Republic soldiers…] – he couldn’t help but chafe under the material. 

He was fifteen, nearly sixteen, years old! Sure, he wasn’t an adult, but in the relatively short time he’d lived he had survived multiple attempts on his life, jinxed objects, deadly traps and magical creatures, and had been able to learn complex magic most adults couldn’t do! That wasn’t even mentioning that a good chunk of that was from before he was thirteen! And now he was being given learning materials meant for young children.

It was embarrassing.

(He did not like looking at the pictures. He did not want armour like the Mandalorians, and he definitely did not want a cape! Anyone who said otherwise was a liar!)

Harry understood, intellectually, the reasons that Eno had given him the lessons. The Jedi had explained that it was to help him learn the common language of the galaxy in greater detail. Even if he was learning faster than most beings would normally (a fact both Eno and Cere found interesting but hadn’t made a big deal of… yet.), he still really only had a simplistic grasp of Basic, yet alone its written form, Aurebesh. Another reason the man had given it to him was that, in Eno’s own words, “Those who do not know of the past are doomed to repeat it.”

It was sound reasoning… reasoning that Harry could respect. 

Except he had made it clear that once Sirius had recovered the pair of them would be leaving.

Eno had just given him a smile, one infuriatingly similar to Dumbledore’s at that, and asked why returning to his home world meant learning Galactic Basic and some of the histories of the wider galaxy made the information unnecessary? Harry mentioned that his world didn’t have any reliable space travel and probably wouldn’t be for a while. The old Jedi had just shrugged and asked that if that were really the case, how was it that the pair of them were even having the conversation.

Harry hadn’t had an answer for that.

It did raise some interesting questions though. The fact that both Eno Cordova and Cere Junda were both humans hadn’t even registered to him initially as something worth noting until he’d noticed that some of the Anchorites weren’t human. Seeing a human-like person with two tail-like structures in place of hair had been surprising at first, but a Twi’lek wasn’t really that strange when he considered Goblins and Veela and all the other humanoid Magical races on earth… be he digressed.

How was it that there were humans out here? Hadn’t humans evolved on Earth? It was a mystery, especially since neither Eno nor Cere had ever even heard of Earth. Harry, however, was not qualified to answer any of these questions. So, he didn’t try to. He just accepted the extra lessons without too much further grumbling. 

Besides, even if the information wouldn’t be necessary back on Earth, it was something to pass the time while he watched over Sirius as he floated peacefully in the bacta tank, unknowing of everything that had happened since they had travelled through the archway.

Harry sighed, flipping(?) the digital page.

It had been almost a week now since he’d seen firsthand that Sirius was alive. Almost a week since he’d learnt the man had only been a room away… Almost a week since Harry had seen only a glimpse of the damage his blunder had wrought. Sirius may be alive, but his godfather was far from well. 

All because of – Harry shook his head, trying to dislodge the storm of quickly darkening thoughts.

Try as he might, however, they would not leave him be.

Harry wouldn’t admit it to the people he had suddenly found himself surrounded by, regardless of how much they offered their help, but he was scared. Terrified, really. 

What he’d done a scant few weeks ago had gotten so many people hurt, had even gotten some killed, and it was all because of him. Not only that, but he’d gone and gotten himself flung across the stars and abandoned his friends to whatever fate he’d dragged them into.

The guilt crackled like embers in his chest. Stoked by his own doubts and anxieties, it was only a combination of sheer dumb luck and newly found self-control that stopped those embers exploding into an inferno fit to consume him whole.

Merlin only knows where said control came from though.

Before he’d jumped after Sirius, Harry had always been one to tickle the sleeping dragon without thinking about it until after he’d barely escaped having his ass caught on fire. Before and after he’d learnt about the magical world. But since the Ministry, after watching so many of his friends get hurt because of his short sightedness, he had done his best to try and wind in his temper and reckless impulses.

So here he was, sitting vigil over his godfather, working through things that don’t matter, as a means to make sure he didn’t do anything stupid.

To make sure Sirius was still here, still safe.

Fortunately, the doctors didn’t mind him much. Or, at least, they hadn’t complained as long as he stayed out of the way of their work. Not that there was really much work to be done at the moment. At this point, they had said they were just monitoring Sirius’ steady recovery to make sure there were no complications. From what little he’d been told; the young Wizard figured this bacta stuff was a lot like some sort of potion. The substance was known to work wonders more conventional medicines couldn’t.

If you could get a hold of some, that is.

Apparently, it was sickeningly expensive to get a hold of in just its weakest forms, becoming progressively more so with the more potent variations. That wasn’t even including the specialised hardware some of those variations needed. The reason it was taking so long for Sirius to heal was because these people only had access to a severely diluted form of the stuff. To get anything more concentrated wouldn’t have been feasible.

When Harry had asked why, a doctor had just laughed at him and said something he didn’t quite understand. He thought it had something to do with money, and a group called an “ꈼꂵꉣꂑꌅꈼ”, but the doctor in question wandered off before he could ask for clarity.

Obviously, Harry hadn’t settled for that. Not knowing when to leave something well enough alone, he went and tried to ask someone else, going on a short adventure looking for either Eno or Cere – finding the latter first. Or more accurately, she found him and escorted him back to the hospital. Pushing down the annoyance of being treated like a prisoner, he took the chance to ask her the same question about the bacta.

She hadn’t answered straight away, picking her words far more carefully than the doctor had. Harry liked that about the Jedi, both of them, they were far more patient with him than most adults were back home when trying to teach him. Eventually, she found her words, 

“Bacta is made by only two ꀯꂦꂵꉣꁲꋊꂑꈼꌚ, groups, on one world. They then sell it across the galaxy through the ꈼꂵꉣꂑꌅꈼ for a lot of money. We cannot afford anything stronger but also do not want the ꍟꁒꉣꂑ꒓ꍟ to know about us,” she explained and, while more understandable than the doctor’s explanation, it still left some gaps.

“And that would be bad?”

Cere nodded, “The ꍟꁒꉣꂑ꒓ꍟ does not like Jedi. They are the reason we are hiding.”

The Wizard had stalled a little at that. It sounded far too much like the old witch hunts back on Earth. The ones that had driven the magical community into hiding and why the Statute of Secrecy was enacted. Given the haunted look in Cere’s eyes when she spoke about them, Harry would bet his guess wasn’t far off. That thought wasn’t a good one.

If this “ꍟꁒꉣꂑ꒓ꍟ” was so bad that it drove these space-wizards into hiding, then Harry suspected that this was the same group that Eno had previously spoke about. The group that was hunting down anyone with magic. Knowing now that there was an inquisition going on in outer space left Harry feeling conflicted on returning home.

He was going home; there was no doubt there. Harry had a duty to his friends and the family he had made. Voldemort had to be dealt with and considering there was some sort of prophecy connecting both him and Voldemort together, it didn’t really feel like he had much of a choice anyway. 

It helped that he didn’t have much of a stake against this Empire. But at the same time, if these people were being hunted only because they had magic – or the Force, or whatever it is that they called it out in space – then how could he leave them? If Harry could help, then how could he not?

 It was why he’d confronted a Voldemort-possessed Quirrell when they had gone after the Philosophers Stone, why he’d gone with Ron into the Chamber of Secrets to rescue Ginny and why he'd risked his life again not long after to save Dobby the House Elf.

It was why he was still fighting Voldemort.

But he didn’t know how to fight a galaxy-wide witch-hunt. Could he even help? Or would he just make things worse? The Wizard didn’t know, but considering his recent track record, Harry doubted his assistance would be worth anything at all.

Harry’s quickly spiralling thoughts must have been clear to his Jedi companion for she gave his shoulder a firm squeeze, breaking his trail of thought. “You are young, Harry, and we are hidden. You do not need to worry about the ꍟꁒꉣꂑ꒓ꍟ,” she had soothed before directing the conversation into lighter territory.

And so, Harry did his best to listen to Cere and tried not to worry about it. Burying his head into his assigned ‘school’ work as if he wasn’t trapped on an alien world and his godfather wasn’t fighting for his life in a vat of healing goo. 

If he thought about it, Harry suspected that Cere had spoken to Eno about their conversation and that it may have been part of why the old man had been spending so much time with him.

Keeping him busy and his mind occupied away from his current situation as best as they could.

Harry shook his head, pushing the thoughts away, only to groan when he realised he hadn’t actually read anything on this page. He was about to scroll back up to the last part he remembered when a noise caught his attention.

A sound like something moving through water drew his attention to the bacta tank in the middle of the room. Sirius was stirring…

Sirius was waking up!

=o0o=

Harry hadn’t spoken with Sister Wyndlow since waking up. Between his lack of understanding in Basic and with Eno, Cere and Sister Pati’shanna spending so much time with him, the young Wizard suspected that there just hadn’t been a reason for the head of the small hospital to speak to him personally. Now, however, this was not the case.

She had been the first doctor Harry had found when he rushed out of the tank room to find someone, and when he had returned with her it was to find Sirius fully awake and panicking within the bacta. The woman had worked fast. 

With her small team, including Sister Pati’shanna, a couple others he wasn’t familiar with and a medical droid that Harry still eyed warily, they quickly extracted his godfather from the vat of goo onto the rolling stretcher reserved for this very purpose.

And now he’d been roped in as a translator.

Not that Harry minded much. Even with his broken, simplistic, and barely functional Basic, Harry was probably the only person in the entire galaxy that could speak both Basic and English with any level of skill. This meant that he had to act as the go-through for the matron to ask Sirius Black various medical questions. It was not a quick process.

By the time the Matron was finished with her torrent of questions, Sirius was looking ready to drop and Harry just wanted some time with his godfather now that he was finally out of the tank. With the last strokes on her datapad, she turned to leave, but not before giving strict instructions that Sirius was to rest and not leave his bed, let alone the hospital.

They were both quite glad to see her leave.

With the quiet hiss of the door sliding shut, the pair were finally left alone with nothing but themselves and the rhythmic beeping of machines to keep them company. It doesn’t take long for Harry to find it oppressive. He could probably stave off this conversation, right? Sirius has only just gotten out of the tank and looks like he’s ready to sleep again and Harry didn’t need to burden him. 

Not now. 

It wasn’t like he’d been building this conversation up for the past week in his head or anything and that he was terrified of what the man would actually say.

“I can hear your thoughts from here, Harry,” Sirius huffed, glancing at the young Wizard with tired, grey eyes, “What’s on your mind?”

Harry’s gaze quickly shot to his lap, red creeping up his neck. Well, there went that plan. But where did he even start? 

The young Wizard had been stewing in his thoughts for almost a month now and now that his godfather was awake, he had no idea what to do. Did his godfather hate him now? Sweet Merlin, he’d gotten them tossed out to an alien planet, of course the man hated him now! Like a brewing storm his thoughts spiralled, growing louder and louder, threatening to spill out into a cascading waterfall of misery.

Only for it all to stop when a heavy weight wrapped around him tightly.

Glancing over, Sirius had shifted in the bed to draw Harry closer, holding him tight. 

“It’s alright,” he whispered as if it was the truth. 

But it wasn’t, was it? Nothing was alright! Harry shook his head, the words he wanted to say choking his lungs as if he were drowning. Sirius didn’t know how much of a screw-up Harry was, how daunting their situation really was. And he really didn’t, why else would the man be muttering comforts to his failure of a godson?

But at least the man was alive to offer those comforts. Small victories, he supposed.

Victories not because of him.

Eventually, after several failed starts and two more near breakdowns, Harry eventually found his words, 

“Sirius, I messed up.” 

Those four words perfectly summed up everything, really. Harry had messed up. If anything, they’re underselling it by a large margin. He’d expected Sirius to pull away, to ask what he meant, to do anything but what he actually did. Instead, the man just pulled him closer.

“I know, Pup, and that’s okay,” he said with an infuriating amount of calm and understanding. As if this were perfectly normal.

The man didn’t even know they were in space yet!

But Harry wouldn’t say that it wasn’t nice. That even after admitting he’d messed up, that the man he looked up to wouldn’t push him away or punish him for the simple fact he’d made a mess of things. By this point, the Dursleys would have already started yelling.

Even with that small comfort though, Harry didn’t hold out any hope it’d last once he actually explained what had happened. Until that point, however, Harry would enjoy the moment. Savouring the warmth of his godfather’s embrace despite the stink that clung to the man not too dissimilar to stale beer.

He didn’t know how long the two of them clung to one another. Minutes? Hours? Time stretched and bent around them like a river around a stone, and he couldn’t care less. But eventually, Harry had to let it go. He needed to update Sirius on what had happened in the three weeks he’d been unconscious. Sirius would probably appreciate being told why he’d been in the tank to begin with as well. 

So, with great reluctance, Harry drew away – silently wondering if those awful sonic-shower-things could dislodge bad smells from his nose.

Harry shuffled uncomfortably. How the hell do you tell someone, “Oh, we’re in outer space now”? Okay, you could probably just rip the plaster off and just say it. But seriously! Considering learning that fact had crashed Harry for a couple days, and he was still reeling from that revelation even now, he didn’t know how well Sirius would take it.

The man was a pureblood, born and raised, did he even know muggles had gone to the Moon?!

Despite pulling away, Sirius still gave his shoulder a light squeeze. The man didn’t push, or prod, just offered his godson silent support while he found his voice. Glancing over, Harry could see the jagged scar that ran across the man’s chest. With one last sigh, he found his words, “Sirius, I have to tell you something.”

“I figured,” he wheezed, and Harry just shot the man a dry look. Sirius only smiled. It did make him feel a little less anxious about this chat.

He started simply, with things like “What’s the last thing you remember?” and all that. Before long, Harry started to fill in the gaps. Why Harry had gone into the Department of Mysteries, the orb he’d collected from the dark hall lined with shelves, the chase through the winding halls of the department… all of it. Up until the battle in the room with the weird arch where Sirius and the rest of Dumbledore’s order had joined in.

It got a bit vague at that point as Harry tried to skirt around the fact that Lucius Malfoy, and who knows how many more were more than likely no longer in the land of the living thanks to him. It made a chill run down his spine just thinking about it. But he pushed on and jumped straight into Sirius’s battle with his cousin and subsequently falling through the archway. Then how he’d jumped after him without much thought.

By that point, the young wizard felt numb. His nerves rubbed raw just from the memory of the chaos and confusion and the blood. The blood that he could still feel dripping from his hands when he let his guard down. 

But he wasn’t done. That had been three weeks ago and while not a lot had literally happened in that time, everything had changed.

Harry explained, as carefully as he could, that they were somewhere named Jedha.

And that he had no idea how they’d get home because Jedha wasn’t on Earth.

As he finished his tale, silence returned. Even the beeping of the medical equipment seemed to fade into nothing as Sirius seemed to soak in Harry’s words. 

Eventually, Sirius guffawed. 

Which was followed by more laughter as if the man thought that Harry was pulling his leg and he couldn’t blame the man. If he hadn’t gone outside and not seen the sky filled with something that just so blatantly wasn’t the Moon, he’d have thought it a bad joke too. But it wasn’t a joke. It was real, and Sirius must have seen the despair stretched across his face because the laughter died quickly.

“We’re on another world?”

“Yup.”

“You sure?”

“Hmm hmm.”

“As in—”

“Sirius, I’ve seen the night sky here. What I saw was not our moon!” He was panicking again. A week was not enough time to process the fact that they were on another world, and he had no idea how to get back!

“Harry,” Sirius called, placing a comforting hand on his shoulders. How on Earth was he being so calm?! He asked as much and his godfather snorted, 

“I’m not, but one of us needs to keep our heads. Besides, If I can escape that place, then we can get off this rock.” The confidence with which he’d said that somehow made the bubbling cauldron of anxiety in his chest abate a little. And he had a point, too. 

Besides, it’s not like neither of them had attempted to leave yet. Maybe it was just as simple as stepping back through the arch on this side and Harry was getting worried over nothing?

“You’re not mad?”

“I’m barkin, why?”

“Sirius.”

They sighed, “No, I’m not mad. I won’t lie; you did mess up. But I meant what I said, that’s fine. You’re fine. Given the circumstances, you shouldn’t blame yourself,” Sirius said calmly as he looked into Harry’s eyes. The usually haunted steel-grey were set with resolve. Even if Harry didn’t agree with the man, he nodded anyway. 

How could he not blame himself for all of this? Before his head could go down another spiral, Sirius clapped his hands.

“Right, other than being on another world, where’s my wand, where are we and when can we leave?” Sirius asked plainly. He seemed to adjust to this… very quickly… 

He also asked something that, to be frank, Harry wasn’t entirely sure about. Which, considering Eno had offered them both a place here if they couldn’t get back, was actually kind of concerning. Harry also didn’t have an answer for when they’d be able to leave.

With that in mind, he made some, what he thought, safe assumptions on the things he didn’t exactly know. 

“I’ve got your wand,” he stated, digging the focus out of his pocket to give to the man. When Cere had given him his own wand back, he’d clung onto Sirius’ as well for when the man woke up. 

“And we’re in some secret underground facility, and I imagine we can leave as soon as the doctors here let us out?”

Sirius definitely picked up that he’d asked more than stated the last two answers, given his raised eyebrow. He shuffled uncomfortably. Give him a break! He’d had a busy three weeks stuffed with worry, trying to keep a reign on his temper in an attempt to not tear the place apart looking for the man had been a challenge! That wasn’t even mentioning the fact that he’d had to cram study a literal alien language so he wouldn’t go stir crazy and that he wouldn’t dream of leaving until he’d discovered the fate of his godfather.

“You okay, Harry?” his godfather asked, pulling his thoughts back to the present.

“Yeah, just, can’t wait to go home.” He whispered and was only being partially honest.

He wouldn’t lie, not having to worry about Voldemort or the war back on Earth for the past few weeks has been a nice break. There was no Voldemort out here, and Harry hadn’t even been having visions like he had been. Really, if it weren’t for the nightmares, and he could tell they were just nightmares, Harry would have gone so far as to say that these past three weeks had left him the most rested he’d been in years.

But he had to get back. Needed to, even.

His friends needed him. Voldemort was still at large and, unfortunately, being able to get some sleep was not a good enough excuse to ditch the fight. That line of thinking wasn’t even entirely based on a need for revenge, either. The maniac had a weird obsession with him and if he was out of the picture then Harry was scared to think what the monster would do next. But still, he couldn’t help the little voice in the back of his head that told him to stay. 

Even if there was a space-inquisition, the idea that he could just be Harry here was enticing. No fame, no Voldemort, no Dursleys.

A fresh start.

Harry couldn’t and wouldn’t just leave his friends to deal with Voldemort, but that’s the thing about temptation. It was tempting. After all, he was in space! How many kids grow up occasionally dreaming of going into outer-space, and he’d made it!

Completely by accident, mind you, and he wasn’t technically in space. But Harry was sitting on an alien world with his godfather, and they were both okay. It was like a dream come true.

And like all dreams, this one had to come to an end.

His life was full of dreams, so another ending was that much of a big deal. Hogwarts had been a dream too. Escaping into the magical world from the Dursleys, that ancient castle had given him a taste of freedom that meant everything to him. It was his home. But “home” had never been safe, Hogwarts no more than his relatives. Harry took a deep breath, accidentally inhaling another lungful of Sirius’ post-bacta stink.

“Sweet Merlin, you need a shower,” Harry sputtered between coughs. Which only made Sirius laugh at his innocent suffering and how on Earth was he dealing with it.

“I don’t know, I think it’s growing on me,” the man chuckled, and even though it still came out a little wheezy, Harry couldn’t help but smile too.