To Live Two Lives

"You will find out, Harry," the old man said. "But I do not have the time to tell you before the Ministry arrives looking for you."

Before Harry had a chance to reply, Dumbledore had already turned the corner. Muttering under his breath, the 14 year-old jogged to catch up.

Dumbledore, with Harry hot on his heels, strode up to a portrait of a mouse. As if the portrait could sense Dumbledore's urgency, it swung open before the headmaster had even arrived, allowing him to enter without breaking his stride. Harry slipped in behind him.

"Good. You're all here," the headmaster said cheerfully. Without pausing, he walked across the room and sat in an armchair that was facing the door.

Harry stood by the door, unsure of what do do. Snape, who had been looking at the fireplace on Harry's left, had whirled around upon the headmaster's arrival, and now stood with his back to the flames, glaring at Harry.

A third, cloaked figure stood at the room's sole window, staring out at the carriages that carried the remaining Hogwarts students to the Hogwarts Express. Harry glanced at the carriages wistfully, hoping to be in them with his friends, celebrating the end of his fourth year.

Dumbledore peered over his half-moon glasses at Harry, and then followed his gaze over to the cloaked person. The old headmaster smiled and said, "Harry, I know everything is confusing for you, but I simply do not have time to explain it. The Ministry, as you know, will be coming at any minute --"

"They're already here," interrupted the cloaked figure. "They're arguing with your giant about being let in."

Dumbledore's eyes flickered to the window before coming to rest on Harry once again. This time, when he spoke, his voice carried a tone of urgency that Harry had never heard in his voice before. "Harry, you must listen to me and not ask questions. We do not have a lot of time.

"My sister, Alonia, married a man named Krzysztof. Though Krzysztof and his brothers didn't want anything to do with me, Alonia insisted that I must act as a surrogate uncle of sorts to their offspring and their offspring's offspring." He sighed. "Though I did not quite agree with the manner in which some of them raised their children, I did my best to play the benevolent favorite uncle persona."

Dumbledore peered over his glasses to see how Harry was taking the news. Harry, in turn, was confused. What the heck did Dumbledore's in-laws have to do with anything? Then the headmaster continued, "Harry you will be going with one of my nieces to train." Harry opened his mouth to protest, but Dumbledore gave him a steely eyed look that warned him against arguing. He continued in the same benevolent tone that Harry had always characterized with the headmaster. "A word of warning, however. Some have told me that I am insanely cheerful and the epitome of good cheer --" Snape snorted at this comment. "-- however, I must warn you that even though I am their uncle, my nieces and nephews are not necessarily the same ... or as forgiving."

The cloaked figure whirled around, pushing back their hood in a single smooth motion, and snarled, "Yeah. Some of us are just plain old not nice."

The person stalked over to the fireplace behind Snape and said, "We need to get going. The Ministry is already inside."

Dumbledore got to his feet and stretched and arm out to Harry. "Harry, this is my niece Mila. You will be going with her. She'll explain everything when you arrive."

Mila stood about 5'1" and had ragged brown hair that fell about her face. Two thin silver locks fell over her right eye, partially obscuring it from view. The other eye, an angry, intense blue, glared at Harry. A wide scar slashed diagonally across her face, starting at her left temple, crossing her eye and leaving a deep gouge in her nose, and ending at her jaw on the right side of her face. The scar was a deep slash that looked like it had been a cut that had healed but never closed up or knitted.

Snape glared at Mila, who smirked back at him. Harry walked over to stand next to Mila, careful to situate her between himself and Snape. As Mila dug through one of her pockets for something, Snape turned his glare onto Harry. Harry shifted nervously under Snape's loathful gaze, staring down at his scuffed shoes and willing Mila to hurry up and find whatever it was that she was searching for.

Finally, just as Harry was beginning to pick out some faint sounds of arguing in the hall beyond the door, Mila finally muttered, "Got it!" and pulled a slightly worn fist sized manila envelope from an inner pocket.

As the sounds in the hall grew louder, Harry could make out Hagrid's voice and what sounded like Lucius Malfoy. Dumbledore turned his gaze to Snape and said quietly, "Severus ..." Snape made a graceful half bow, inclining his torso and head forward a few inches, before pulling out his wand and slipping silently out of the door.

Turning to ask Mila if she could hurry up, Harry was surprised to see her holding a hand over the flames and chanting. Finishing up her chant quickly, she dumped the contents of the envelope into the fire. A handful of pale green sand-like powder fell into the fire, reminding Harry much of his experiences with floo powder. However, unlike the traveling powder that Harry first used in his second year with the Weasleys, the powder did not make the flames turn green.

They turned black.

As Harry gazed stupefied at the black flames, Mila stepped in and moved to the back of the fireplace.

"Get in, moron," growled Mila, her eyes darting back to the door.

By this time, the sounds outside were so loud that they echoed through the small chamber. As Harry put a cautious step into the flames, Dumbledore rose and pulled out his wand. A heavy pounding sounded on the door just as Dumbledore said, "Go!"

Mila grabbed Harry by the collar and yanked him hard into the fireplace. Harry fell hard against the taller girl's right shoulder.

Just as the door exploded inward and Lucius Malfoy leapt into the room, Mila hissed out, "Idjzemi!" The scene dissolved into black flames.

The next thing he knew, he and Mila jerked to a stop in a new fireplace. The room it connected to was small, like the last one. However, all it had was a small wooden door facing the fireplace. The walls, floor, and ceiling were all solid, plain grey stone.

Harry was still leaning against Mila's shoulder. He was about to apologize and move away when she shoved him out of the fireplace roughly. Harry managed to absorb the impact with the cold, unyielding floor in his hands and knees. But it still hurt. Scrambling to his feet, he turned around, ready to yell at her.

However, he found her leaning against a wall, arms folded, staring into space at a point beyond his head.

Walking up to Mila, he waved a hand in front of her eyes. There was no response. She didn't blink; a muscle didn't twitch. The only reason that Harry knew that she was still alive was the slight flaring of her nostrils as she breathed in or out.

Harry walked over to the door and reached towards the latch. Before his hand got within 6 inches of it, electric blue sparkles danced out, shocking his hand and numbing his arm to the elbow. With a yelp and a muffled curse, he sprang away, cradling the numbed appendage to his chest.

As feeling slowly returned to his arm, Harry made several full circuits of the room, examining it for hidden doors or other entrances or exits. Ever so often he looked back at Mila to see if she had returned to consciousness. But she had neither blinked nor even twitched a muscle.

Finally, after several hours of painstakingly feeling out every square inch of one of the walls, Harry sat down with a sigh. Leaning back against the wall opposite "mannequin Mila," he stared past the unmoving person in front of him. It was going to be a very long wait.

Time seemed to be nonexistent in the chamber. There were no windows to the outside. The light remained steady, even though it seemed to come from nowhere and everywhere at the same time.

It seemed like days since they had floo-ed into the chamber. Harry sat cross-legged, drumming his fingers idly and wishing that there had been some dust on the floor for him to play with.

By his estimation, they must've been in the room for at least six hours, if his stomach was anything to go by.

Ignoring the cramping in his stomach, like he had done so many times at the Dursleys', he sighed and continued twiddling his fingers, just one thought running through his head: How much longer?

He had just managed to get comfortable on the cold, hard floor and was about to doze off when the door latch lifted. Scrambling to his feet, his mind registering movement from Mila, Harry turned to face the door that (he hoped) was opening.

Suddenly, the door seemed to be coated with a blue glow. After a second, it disappeared as abruptly as it had appeared.

The door creaked open slowly and Harry took a breath of anticipation. From the corner of his eye, he watched Mila walk up next to him and stand at attention.

As soon as the door was half open, a figure ducked in. They wore a floor length hooded black cloak. The outside edge of the hood was decorated with a pattern of ruby-red flames. Two stripes on his arms seemed to denote rank.

The figure walked into the room until s/he stood approximately 5 feet in front of Harry and Mila. When the figure stopped, Harry saw Mila make a fist with her right hand, press it against the left side of her chest, and bow from the waist to the cloaked figure.

The figure acknowledged Mila with a nod of his head and made a dismissive motion with one hand. Deftly stepping around the figure, Mila left the room without saying a word.

The figure once again turned to face Harry. Harry peered at the figure's hood but couldn't quite discern anything about the person's face out of the shadows. For one brief moment he could have sworn he saw a faint outline of a jaw and a Roman nose, but ...

"And you must be the one that Dumbledore sent," said the figure. It wasn't quite whispered, but it was hissed out in a voice that carried far around the room without echoing. "I am Master of the Flame Wachwa. Welcome to Shandris Academy."

Then Wachwa turned and glided towards the door. Not relishing the thought of spending any longer in the little room, Harry jogged after him.

Once he had caught up with the Fire Master, he walked next to him through the endless-seeming maze of corridors.

Finally, after what seemed like an eternity of identical, unmarked grey stone halls, the Master stopped by a large wooden door. Standing to one side of it, he pointed at the door and said, "At the top of the steps is the Grand High Master. He will direct you further." Then Wachwa inclined his head a bit, turned, and walked away.

Harry watched until the Master had already turned a corner and disappeared. Then he examined the door, tentatively touching the latch in search of the painful blue lightning bolts. When none appeared, he quickly lifted the latch and ducked inside, shutting the door gently behind him.

The room beyond couldn't even be called a room. Directly in front of him was a steep flight of steps that curved around. With a shrug, he started to climb.

By the time he reached the top, he was panting with exertion and was dripping with sweat. Gasping for air, he leaned against the cool, grey stone.

"By the time you leave here, you could race up those stairs all day, every day, without breaking a sweat," a deep voice laughed. Harry looked up in surprise and pushed back some of the hair plastered to his forehead.

He was standing in a perfectly circular round room. There was nothing on the walls, no windows broke the continuity of the grey stone walls. A heavy wooden desk stood before him in the middle of the room. Neat piles of papers were stacked upon the desk, reminding Harry of Hermione's obsessiveness with neatness and homework.

The man standing behind the desk looked like something out of a fantasy storybook. He was tall, broad shouldered and barrel-chested. His pure white hair was cropped short and spiked. He had a heavy forehead and thick eyebrows, under which two black eyes blazed. His nose seemed rather uneven, ridges marking places where it had broken and then reset incorrectly. A small, thin scar trailed across his jaw.

He wore a plain, black full sleeved tunic, cinched at the waist by a worn rawhide belt. Under the tunic, he wore brown, woolen trousers, slightly worn but still serviceable. A black burnoose, lined with a shiny silver, was draped around his shoulders, the hood pushed back. On his hands he wore fingerless, rawhide wrist guards. The burnoose fell about him, as he stood, arms crossed across his chest, in such a way as to completely cover anything he had on his belt.

With an effort, Harry straightened himself up and attempted to keep from panting. "Who are you?" he asked suspiciously, his hand slowly inching to his wand holster on his belt.

"My name is Krzysztof Tolaczynski. My brother-in-law told me he was sending me a fugitive as a new student," Krzysztof said this calmly and he took a seat behind his desk. "Please," he continued with a wave of his hand, "take a seat."

Harry blinked and realized that at some point during Krzysztof's speech, a chair had appeared next to him. Still completely dumbfounded, he drew the chair a bit closer to the desk and sat down.

"Very well then," continued Krzysztof, who was hunting through his desk and not paying any attention to Harry. "We'll just have to fill out some papers -- Ah! There they are! -- and you'll be all set."

Harry was bewildered. Fugitive? New school? What was this all about? "Um, sir?" he said, trying to get the man's attention. "What's this all about? I'm afraid you've got something mixed up. I'm a student at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry. And I'm not a fugitive. Dumbledore just sent me here to keep me away from the Ministry."

Krzysztof, who had pulled some papers out of a drawer and laid them out on his desk, dipped his quill into the ink jar and said quietly, "You were running away from the Ministry. Doesn't that make you a fugitive?"

Harry thought about that for a moment. "I guess it does ..." he finally conceded. "But I'm still a Hogwarts student!"

Krzysztof rubbed his head with one hand and sighed. Picking up a piece of parchment, he handed it to Harry and said, "Here's the letter. I thought that Albus might have explained it to you before he sent you with Mila."

Harry took the parchment and looked at the familiar green ink and the loopy handwriting.
Krzysztof --
I am not usually in the habit of asking you for favors, but I have found myself in a pressing situation. One of my best students, who I was planning on introducing you to upon his graduation, has become a fugitive from the British Ministry of Magic. I would like to request asylum for him and a position at Shandris Academy.
And, Krzysztof, remember Aleksy.
-- Albus Dumbledore

"Who's--" Harry started to ask, but was interrupted by Krzysztof.

"A favor that I owed Dumbledore," Krzysztof replied brusquely, leaving the distinct impression that he really didn't want to talk about it. He took the parchment away from Harry and placed it back on his desk. "Any questions?"

Harry paused for a moment. "How long will I have to stay here?"

Krzysztof pondered the question and then answered, "If you really hate it, you can go back to your schooling at Hogwarts as soon as your status as a fugitive is lifted. Or you could stay here at Shandris Academy until you finish your schooling."

"And how long is that?"

"It depends on who you ask," Krzysztof answered mysteriously, his eyes twinkling in that infuriating way that Dumbledore's eyes did. "Well, then, if that answers all of your questions, we might as well get along to filling out these forms."

Harry nodded, and Krzysztof continued, "As I say the question, just give me the answer and we'll be done in no time. Full name?"

"Harry James Potter."

"Date of Birth?"

"July 31, 1980."

"Age?"

"14 . . . almost 15."

"I'll put 15. Parents?"

"Dead."

Krzysztof didn't even look up from his writing as he replied, "That's not what I meant."

"James Potter and Lily Evans."

"Their parents?"

Harry blinked. His grandparents ... he'd never asked Aunt Petunia about them. And he had never visited or heard of them. "I -- I don't know."

This time, Krzysztof did look up. He peered at Harry for a moment, then went back to his writing. "Previous schooling?"

"I finished my 4th year at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry."

"Best subject?"

"Defense Against the Dark Arts."

"Worst?"

"Potions," Harry replied with a shudder.

"Let's see ... you're being referred by Albus Dumbledore, Headmaster of Hogwarts. Application received and accepted by Krzysztof Tolaczynski." He finished signing his name, folded the papers, and placed a black and silver wax seal upon them. The papers glowed gold for a minute before vanishing. Krzysztof stood up and extending his hand for Harry to shake. "Congratulations, Mr. Potter," he said as he shook Harry's hand. "And welcome to Shandris Academy."

"Mr. Tolaczynski?" Harry said cautiously.

"Yes, Harry?"

"What did you mean when you said that how long it took for me to finish my schooling here would depend in who I asked?"

Krzysztof sighed and stopped in his tracks. "You really don't know much about the Academy, do you?" he asked.

"No, sir," replied Harry truthfully. "I've never heard of it before."

With a vaguely exasperated look, Krzysztof ran his hands through his hair, further spiking it, and attempted to explain, "Well, you see, Harry," he started slowly. "We aren't part of the same dimension as Hogwarts is."

At Harry's completely clueless look, he tried to continued, "See, think of it this way. Imagine that there is a separate universe for each and every decision you could have made. One in which you put on a blue shirt this morning, another in which you put on a red shirt. One in which you woke up at 6 o'clock, another in which you woke at 6:02. So you yourself would be existing simultaneously in infinite universes. And then in each of those universes, each and every single person in each universe would have an infinite number of universes devoted to them. And then we haven't even started to consider the ones in which you weren't born, the ones where your parents weren't born, or even the ones where historical figures like Lord Voldemort weren't born and the timeline was all different."

Harry just stared at Krzysztof, jaw slightly open. Krzysztof, apparently noticing the slightly glazed look in Harry's eyes cleared his throat and continued, "But that isn't that important. See, we humans haven't figured out how to hop between universes. Some historians have theorized that Merlin himself did in fact manage to hop universes, but all that that means is that our universe has no Merlin and some other universe has two. Or one. Or something." He frowned and trailed off, apparently realizing something he had never thought of before.

"Anyway ..." he continued. "We exist in one universe, consciously, I mean. That means that someone else is in fact you in another universe. Now don't worry yourself trying to understand this at all." He paused again, then continued. "Within each universe, there are dimensions. Humans have only learned about three dimensions. The one we live in, the one we think in, and the one we go to when we die." He glanced at Harry again before continuing. "But the important thing is that there are different planes of existence. Humans come from the Earthly plane. We're basically smack-dab in the middle of all of the planes ... some are higher, some are lower. Elves live on one of the higher planes, Orcs live on one of the lower ones. At one point, a lot of the planes were actually one, but something happened and tore them apart. Historians think that when Merlin jumped universes, the excess of power was too much for the different planes to handle, and it just tore them from each other. But it wasn't a clean tear. Humans living on the continent of Atlantis were tossed onto a different plane, somewhere above the human one. Most of the Dementors and their kindred were thrown downward, but some still remained on the Human Plane."

"What does this have to do with anything?" asked Harry when Krzysztof took a break to breathe.

"Because, Harry," replied Krzysztof. "Time runs differently on each plane. Time runs much quicker on the Elven plane, allowing them to age 10 years for every human year. Thus their life span is incredibly long. Orcish time is much much slower than human time -- and they only live maybe 20 years maximum. Think of time as a river and, depending on what point of the river you're on, time runs faster or slower."

"OK," Harry said slowly. "But I still don't get --"

"And if you are standing on the shore of the river, time doesn't move at all."

Harry just stared at Krzysztof, uncomprehending.

"Harry, you will age here. If you spend 50 years here, you will come out looking 50 years older. But you will come out at the exact same second in time that you came in on. All of those people you were friends with when you were 14 will still be 14. But you will be 20 or 45 or 90."

Krzysztof blinked twice and then said cheerfully, "Well, come on Harry. It's time for you to meet your squadron."