Ancient Prophesy

When drawn is the Magickal circle, by sword or athame of power,
Its compass between two worlds lies, in the land of shades of that hour.

Harry finished the cup of tea in his hand not even noticing the honey taste. It was Raven's. He and Dumbledore had sat there mainly in silence, each lost in their own thoughts.

“Headmaster?” Harry spoke, turning his troubled gaze up from the empty teacup in his hand. “How many people know?”

Dumbledore's gaze had been directed out the window. A quarter mile off, the Quidditch pitch sat empty against the forest trees, which would soon be empty of their leaves as well. Winter winds would blow down from the mountains and the first Quidditch match of the season would begin. For once it would be a relief not to have Harry playing out there in the open. Out next to the forest. Every game had filled Dumbledore with dread, knowing how exposed Harry was to attack. But he kept quiet and watched vigilantly, hoping against hope that nothing but a Gryffindor victory would occur. So much had been taken from Harry already, Dumbledore vowed Quidditch would not be another one of those things.

The Forest offered Hogwarts protection, but it held drawbacks as well. Creatures one could only imagine lived within its boundaries and deterred all but the most determined from getting through it. The very creatures, though, that roamed the forest acting as a barrier could and would be used by Voldemort. Of that much Dumbledore was sure. It was those creatures that Hagrid had been working with, forging a friendship with, in an effort to head off Voldemort's use of them. Had there been enough time? he wondered. Could they be turned and used against the castle's defenses, or had Hagrid managed to persuade those that could be reasoned with that Voldemort offered only empty promises?

“Sir?”

Dumbledore's attention returned to the room. His normally twinkling eyes looked guarded; and his face, Harry thought, looked drawn and aged.

“I'm sorry Harry, I wasn't here. You were saying?”

“Who else knows about me and Gryffindor? I mean in a way it all makes sense but…surely other people know. Why did no one bother to tell me before now?”

“Harry, I'm to blame for that. I asked that you not be told until I felt the time was right. There was so much for you to deal with already that I felt it was one more thing you didn't need.”

Harry interrupted, an unpleasant scowl on his face. “I just love the way everyone but me decides what is best for me! I think I'm quite capable, thank you.”

Dumbledore's blue eyes once again sparkled and the age that Harry had seen moments before vanished, leaving a timeless quality about the man.

“Harry, Merlin knows you can take care of yourself. You proved that the first time you faced Voldemort. Think about it, though. The famous Harry Potter and a descendent of Godric Gryffindor; how much more pressure would you have wanted your first year?” He shook his head. “No Harry, I only knew that I had no answers for you other than you being the heir of Godric Gryffindor. After the events of your first year here, I knew Voldemort would not give up his efforts to regain mortality. And because of this journal, I knew you would be involved, willing or not.” Placing the journal carefully back in its box, he closed the lid and continued.

“Professor Lupin and Sirius know, of course. Professor Snape as well. And to answer your next question; you are correct, it was Severus who brought me this journal. He stole it from Voldemort several months before your parents’ death.” His aged hands gently reached out to lift the box and he rose to return it to the oak case along the wall.

“Remus and Sirius only learned of your father's identity in the fall of their fifth year; James always knew, but for his safety and privacy we didn't make it public knowledge.

“Your great-grandfather's name was Ian Gryffindor.” His smile broadened and his gaze turned inward. “A finer man you couldn't meet; he and I were long time friends. If it had not been for Ian's skills as an Auror, more lives would have been lost in the last battles with the Magician Grindelwald. Ian's magical skills weakened Grindelwald's powers enough to turn the battle in our favor.”

Returning to his seat he sipped at his tea, staring off as if seeing the battle again. “Historians have always given me the credit undeservingly, but he was too modest to argue with them and I too injured afterward to correct them. Because of his efforts, I was able to kill Grindelwald, which sent his followers scattering to the four corners of the earth. Killing is never easy, Harry. I wondered for years whether I did the right thing by destroying him.”

Here Dumbledore stopped, and the majestic lines of his face hardened. The look showed once again the power and energy Dumbledore possessed. “When Voldemort's bid for power began I knew I had made the correct decision. Evil must not be allowed to gain power, Harry. Of this you can be certain.”

His eyes unfocused again and he continued. “I was teaching here when Voldemort began systematically eliminating those who stood in the way of his gaining immortality. Your great-grandfather assisted the Ministry in the investigation of deaths likely linked to the Death Eaters and Voldemort. We were at a trial of an accused group of his supporters. Dementors were used then to guard the prisoners outside of Azkaban.” Here he paused and rose from his seat in obvious frustration and anger.

“Dementors! The fools.” The anger in his voice, stronger than ever, shocked Harry. Seldom before had he heard Dumbledore raise his voice in anger.

“Somehow the Dementors were made to attack the Aurors at the trial. It was total chaos for a moment, and three of the finest wizards I knew were killed before the Dementors were brought under control again. Your great-grandfather Ian lost his soul that day, protecting a whole room full of wizards and witches unable to cast their own Patronus. Since then I have opposed the use of Dementors for any purpose.”

The anger faded to be replaced by a look of unreserved sadness. “Ian died in St. Mungo's a year later. That was the beginning of your father's fifth year at Hogwarts.”

“Ian's daughter, your grandmother, kept the funeral as quiet as she could, but of course the Prophet reporters could not leave well enough alone and came snooping around the school, asking questions of James.”

Harry knew just how his father must have felt. More than once the reporters from the Daily Prophet had made his life a living hell. “I'm sure he handled it better than I ever have. Now that I can Apparate, I think the next time I see a Prophet reporter I won't give them a chance to misquote me.”

“Oh, they twisted your father's words as well, Harry.” Dumbledore said. “Took your father by surprise right after the funeral. The Ministry had a very hard time stopping the story. Ian, for his daughter's safety, did his best to not draw attention to her marriage to your grandfather, thus keeping the connection between the names Gryffindor and Potter secret. At the funeral it became clear to everyone just who James Potter was.

“Sirius and Remus…” at this Dumbledore stopped and fixed Harry with a irritated look, “saw fit to sneak off grounds and join him for the funeral services. It was at the service that they realized James was a direct descendant of Godric Gryffindor. Upon returning to school, Sirius cleaned the entire Owlery and Remus got the job of weeding the greenhouse gardens. Both took their punishment without complaint. I heard Sirius claim he'd do it again if James needed him.”

With this he turned his ancient face shaking with gentle laughter to Harry . “Why do you think you, Ron, and Hermione got away with being out of bounds as often as you did. I learned the only rules that mattered around James, Sirius, and Remus were friendship and love. The first of many lessons they taught us.”

~*~

As Harry left Dumbledore's office, their conversation echoed through his mind. Going back to the Hospital Wing just didn't appeal to him. After all, he had lain there unconscious for almost two weeks awakening only the week before, and truly the desire to do anything other than continue to lay in silence hadn't been strong. But Dumbledore did want him to see if Raven had found her way back from Snape in one piece. Hoping to find her returning from Snape's classroom, he turned south and headed down the hall leading to the main corridors.

He needed to think—about so much. To begin with, the fact that he was alive and walking through the castle surprised him. Even more surprising—he had Severus Snape to thank for his life. Looking around, he saw students breaking for lunch, heading from classrooms and rushing down stairs and halls to their common rooms or the Great Hall itself. He did feel like eating, surprisingly, but the idea of sitting at the head table with the staff still unsettled him. How could he be their colleague when he still felt like a Hogwarts student?

Passing the Great Hall, he turned and began his descent into the darkened stairwell leading to the dungeon classrooms. The last time Harry had walked this flight of stairs he had been going up them rather than down, swearing all the while never to return. Leaving for the last time, he and Ron had been comparing notes on what they would like to do with Severus Snape and his bloody Potions Class. Even Hermione joined them in the plotting, having herself scored less than perfect on Snape's final Potions test.

“He set us up for failure,” she huffed indignantly. “He supplied us with Monkshood when HE CLEARLY KNEW that we needed Wolfsbane. The flower color is the difference between the two: one's purple, the other's yellow. Yes, I know they're both tubers of the Aconite family,” she snorted before Ron or Harry even had a chance to comment “…but only Wolfsbane works in that potion.”

“You mean that wasn't Wolfsbane?” Ron asked, eyes now wide in fear.

“No! So either he did it on purpose or he made a mistake,” she responded, lips thin in disgust.

How they had passed the test Harry still didn't know. His potion never turned the proper shade of black and Ron's—well, he wasn't sure what had happened there.

Stopping, Harry realized that he was alone—no Ron or Hermione to draw strength from—and about to voluntarily set foot in the Potions classroom again. And that meant facing Snape for the first time since he had been abducted and brought before Voldemort. The door to the room looked as though it had been blown off its hinges, while dust and rubble still littered the hall outside. Only his concern for Raven made him step through the open door into the classroom.

Nothing had changed. It still felt chilly, smelled badly and caused his stomach to roll over and play dead. The fact that Snape was glaring at him from behind his desk didn't help matters either.

Only seconds passed but it felt like hours, as Harry stood before the desk in utter silence. The silence between the two men had a life of its own, and it wasn't lying quiet.

“What?” Snape spoke the single word calmly, quietly, but Harry still started at the sound of his voice.

“Professor Dumbledore asked me to check on Raven,” Harry responded just as quietly, almost as if afraid to wake the silence that hung between the two men.

“The girl's not here,” Snape answered and looked down at the work on his desk, dismissing Harry's presence.

Three months ago Harry would have left it at that, turned and walked out. But not now.

“What did you do with her?”

“What did I do…” Snape looked up, sputtering. “Well let's see. We went for a lovely stroll around the gardens, ate a picnic lunch by the lake and then discussed the properties of Lungwort versus Toad Lilly. What do you think I did with her? She's back in the clutches of Madam Pomfrey. I'm sure the bedpans are flying as we speak.” Again he looked down, dismissing Harry once more.

“Thank you.” The words came out of his mouth before he could stop them, and he foolishly wished he could just Apparate away before Snape looked up again.

Lifting only his eyes from his work Snape exhaled as if very tired and answered Harry. “She has disrupted my lessons twice. My motives for returning her to Madam Pomfrey were selfish, I assure you.”

“I meant to thank you for saving my life.”

Snape's head came up in puzzlement and he stared at Harry for a moment before comprehension showed across his face.

“I don't remember much,” Harry continued. “I don't think I want to remember. It was you who made me stand up, though, and you who slipped something in my hand when I fell against you. Then you hit me with one hell of a curse and I found myself lying in the road outside of Hogsmeade. A Portkey I assume?”

Snape just stared, his face neither confirming nor denying what Harry was saying.

“I couldn't fight anymore. I know that much. You could have let them kill me, but you didn't. And they would have killed you as well if they realized what you were doing for Dumbledore. Thank you.”

“That's where you're mistaken, Potter. I didn't do it for Dumbledore. I did it for you.” That said, Severus Snape rose from his desk, walked the length of his classroom and disappeared into the hall, leaving Harry alone with his thoughts.

~*~

“If he made it I'm not drinking it.” Spoken calmly, the words rang with truth. No way in Hell would she let that man help her. She'd suffer with the headache and nausea rather than be indebted to him one second longer than necessary.

“Oh, honestly,” Madam Pomfrey exclaimed with exasperation. “I know Professor Snape is a difficult man, but this potion will help you! Goodness child, you were unconscious when he brought you back.”

Unconscious or not, she would not be indebted one sip to him. “If he made it I'm not drinking it,” she repeated firmly, reminding herself as she said it of a spoiled child refusing medicine that was only meant to make him well. Raven knew her behavior spoke ill of her upbringing. Her mother would be appalled at the very notion of Raven not graciously accepting the offered cup.

“Even if he did want to poison you, Raven, Professor Dumbledore wouldn't let him.” Both women turned, startled by Harry's sudden appearance from behind the bed screen. ”Besides, for every potion Snape can make he has an antidote to go with it,” he continued.

Balancing a stack of papers and several rolls of parchment, he crossed to the foot of his bed and dumped the load onto it. “First year Defense essays for me to grade, and some research for Dumbledore. Good thing I wasn't planning on sleeping.” He nodded toward the heap on his bed and shrugged.

Raven continued to scowl at the both of them now, wondering once again what Harry's opinion of Snape was, but accepted the cup Madam Pomfrey offered without further argument.

With a weak smile that failed to reach his eyes, Harry made a movement toward the bed screen and began to close the space around her. He appeared very distracted, very young, and very alone. She knew they were close in age, but at that moment he looked like he had lived a lifetime in a few short years. With a final shuddering swallow of disgust Raven motioned for him to stop.

“Wait, please. Uggh! What is in here?” she asked, handing the now empty goblet to a satisfied Madame Pomfrey.

“Oh, the usual: Yarrow, Lungwort, Toad Lily, Fox Glove.” The last one caused Raven to start.

“Jesus, Digitalis! I told you he was trying to poison me.”

A smug smile turned up the corner of Madam Pomfrey's lips, and Raven noted with some unease that neither she nor Harry seemed concerned that Snape's potion contained a powerful cardiac drug. The former simply turned and bustled away, all the while muttering with discontent over the treatment heaped upon her by such a distrusting patient.

“I hope I haven't hurt her feelings,” Raven said, feeling slightly abashed at her behavior. “It's just—well I do know a lot of uses for plants and botanicals, and if you know what you're doing it's so very easy to do damage to someone without their knowing you're doing it.”

She smiled sheepishly at this admission, and Harry realized with a start that her smile lit her entire face. He had not seen her smile like that before. Even her coloring seemed to change as she flushed at the statement. No longer pale, her cheeks glowed with a warm blush, and her eyes, almost aqua-sea blue, looked out at him from under long black lashes. She had looked so familiar to him before, but now he was uncertain.

“What?” she asked.

Realizing he had been staring, he looked away quickly and felt himself blush as well. No one had caused him to blush in years, and she had managed to do it twice in twenty-four hours. Hastily, he fumbled for words to cover his embarrassment.

“It's just that you looked so familiar to me. I know you grew up in the States, but I can't help but feel I've met you somewhere.”

“Yeah, with the way I look right now it must have been at the scene of a train wreck. I don't even have any shoes .” She swung her long legs out from under her and wiggled her bare toes before him. “I haven't a clue what happened to my clothes, and someone better be returning my Mum's robe, because I want to see if it's the same one I remember from the painting. Was that really Rowena Ravenclaw? And who was that little man counting students? Was that the Ravenclaw dormitory? Their robes had crests on them saying Ravenclaw. I think I saw two other crests in Snape's class as well? From what I've seen this place must be huge…”

Harry held up a hand in an attempt to break off her rambling questions. Her excitement was that of a first year student just arriving at Hogwarts for the first time. It was charming coming from her, and Harry realized she truly did have a lot to learn. With this thought his mood sobered. If she didn't blend in quickly, then the rumors of who she was would grow, and she would very likely be in danger. Best to get her into the routine as quickly as possible, convincing those around her she was an American witch here to apprentice with Severus Snape. As much as she mistrusted the man, her appearance in his classroom linked her to him and his skill with potions coupled with her apparent knowledge of plants allowed for a perfect solution to the problem at hand.

“I know where I can borrow socks and shoes for you, but you are much taller than Ginny. She might have a skirt you can use, and I've got a jumper or two that you can have.” Seven to be specific, he realized. All green and half of them much too small for his long arms. “I'm going into London in the morning, and Professor Dumbledore suggested I take you. There is someone at the Ministry who he has asked to retrieve documents pertaining to the translation of Hufflepuff's journal. I just sent an owl off with a message for him from Dumbledore. He thought you might like to go. You could get some new clothes and then I'll show you where to get work robes.”

“Owl message? I know what snail mail is, but not owl.” A smile teased her face again, which Harry promptly returned. It felt good to smile at her.

But as quickly as her grin appeared it was gone, with a look of concern replacing it. “Harry, I've got nothing here. No money, no ID, not even a credit card to get funds from. I can't buy a thing until I get Roy to send me money.”

“Don't worry about it,” he volunteered. “I'll take care of it.” Looking at her disheveled appearance, he grinned again. “By the way, what do American witches wear?”

“I don't know,” she responded with a shrug. “I've never met one.”

~*~

“Now Ginny's the pretty little red head?” Stepping around the screen she gazed down, uncomfortable at the skirt she had squeezed into. It was far too short in her opinion, and much too low on her hips. Half dressed like this, she felt like a teen pop star. The sweater Harry had given her was too tight across her chest and its waist, far too short for her, showed an occasional glimpse of her navel. Completing the borrowed ensemble, one pair of white sneakers, a size too big. Oh, to have my comfortable Docs and a pair of Levis! she contemplated as she looked up at Harry. A faint blush touched his cheeks, making her keenly aware of how much this man had seen of her body in the last forty-eight hours.

“It's not that bad, is it?” she said in a clearly challenging tone. He wouldn't dare say anything she thought, after all he brought me the clothes. She had bathed this morning, drank another one of Snape's foul concoctions and was feeling quite excited about going to London. That was until she put on these clothes.

“You look fine,” he managed to stammer out.

“I look like the call girls on the south side,” she shot back. “But seeing as the selection was limited, I guess this is how the American witch in London is going to dress."

“That reminds me, we're meeting a friend in Diagon Alley for lunch. Do you mind?”

With the necessity of dress taken care of, Raven found herself once more walking the halls of Hogwarts, this time accompanied by Harry. Much to her relief, most students seemed to be absent, in the middle of lessons no doubt. As they walked, Harry pointed out various portraits, all of whom seemed very curious about who she was and what she was doing here. Whispers echoed down the passageway behind her, and painted figures darted to and fro in a race to spread the word down the corridors before she entered them. With the shock of her Hogwarts arrival wearing off, she allowed herself to appreciate the surroundings for the first time.

Never having been in a real castle before, she could only wonder if her surroundings were typical. Not bloody likely. This place was unreal. Light, color, sound and activity coursed thorough the very air around her. Magic ancient as the universe itself lived here. If knowledge could be made solid, then Hogwarts to its very foundation was the structure. The castle felt right to her.

A cool breeze touched her face as they walked through an archway to the outside. Torches along the wall—ruffled by the breeze—popped and sputtered with an occasional blue flare. They weren't really needed. The courtyard through which the two had walked blazed with its own light from the autumn sun. From this position an incredible panorama spread down before her, and she paused to admire the view.

To their right, a short distance down the slope of the lush lawn, a small cottage lay among an enormous garden of pumpkins that were still covered with morning frost. The orange and greens of the pumpkin patchwork quilt surrounded the hut, inviting all who looked at it to stop and warm themselves within.

Further down the great lawn, early morning rays sparkled between the long shadows stretching across the mirrored surface of an enormous lake. A gravel path wound its way along the grounds leading to entrance gates a quarter mile away. The forest in which she had found herself yesterday lay all around, the light of the sun a backdrop to the pallet of its autumn colors. The thick trunks grew mossy in the dense shadows and the breeze that tossed her hair lightly in its passing scattered the remains of leaves in whorls at their roots.

It was only a moment in time and yet she felt as though it would last forever. Her Mum used to tell her there was an hour for everyone when time stood still—a moment of peaceful awareness, when the earth itself spoke to you. This was her moment—always at dawn, when light and life transformed itself to start anew.

They continued to walk in silence, each lost in the thoughts of the moment. The road wound downward and led through the massive wrought iron gates of the school. Two massive winged boars stood sentry on either side, their hard granite weathered with time.

“When pigs fly.” She grinned up at the stone columns and shook her head in amazement.

Harry, startled out of his silence, scanned the sky around them expecting to see a feathery ball darting about his head before realizing where Raven's gaze lay. “Legend has it that Rowena Ravenclaw herself placed them there to guard Hogwarts,” he said. “Should anything threaten the safety of the school they will awaken and join the battle at her side.”

Raven leveled her eyes at him, her expression blank, and then looked back up as she considered what he said. “Well if Dumbledore thinks this Ravenclaw is having anything to do with Porky and Petunia there, he'd better think again.” That said, she turned her back on him and continued down the road.

Harry stared after her for a moment and then followed. For the first time, he found himself wondering about the boars and whether the story was in fact true. He of all people knew what the founders had accomplished in the construction of Hogwarts. If Slytherin could have a basilisk, then why couldn't Ravenclaw have flying pigs?

Raven had stopped where the track to Hogwarts merged into the gravel road leading to the town of Hogsmeade. Nestled at the bottom of the valley, a small village lay scattered like fall apples upon the ground. They continued down the road once more in silence, each step drawing her closer to the drone of activity surrounding the village.

Raven knew she had not traveled back in time, but to see this place one would think they had. Gone were the modern necessities that made a remote mountain village accessible to the outside world. No cars, no phone lines, no electric streetlights. Nothing to indicate at all that the modern world still existed in concurrence with this one. The musical Brigadoon came immediately to mind, and Raven wondered whether its author had in fact been a wizard himself.

Quaint cottage homes lined the gravel road, their flower box windows holding the last blooms of summer. Has this place changed at all, she wondered, or did Rowena and Godric walk by these very same homes much as I and Harry are now? Further on, wooden and stone buildings were honeycombed together with slate and shingled roofs, all rising to different heights.

High Street held an amazing array of businesses, in and out of which numerous customers hurried about their daily business. They were clearly witches and wizards mostly dressed to fit the part. Long gowns and robes in the various rich hues of nature abounded, while broomsticks thrown over shoulders complemented pointy hats. Zipping past the two of them a bevy of young children with wands drawn trailed a path of yellow and black misty stars behind them. They dashed into a shop whose wooden sign read Honeydukes, and Raven could see through the pained window an enormous baldheaded man weighing something on an ancient brass balance scale. With a pang of longing, she realized it was similar to the type her mother chose to use in Cedarwood.

They continued on with several people tipping their hats and waving or nodding in acknowledgement towards she and Harry.

“Glad to see you up and about, Mr. Potter,” one tiny wizened little man spoke. “Feeling better we hope?”

“I'm fine now, Mr. Zonko, thanks.”

“Good lad. Now do an old man a favor and tell Messrs. Weasley that my offer still stands. If they've got the Galleons I've got the notion to retire.”

“We're heading there now, Mr. Zonko, I'll take the message.”

“Just how many Weasleys are there?” Raven asked.

“Nine, and I'm sure you'll be forced to meet everyone of them,” he replied.

“And this is a good thing?”

“Well…let's see if you survive the twins and then you can tell me.”

Raven couldn't tell if he meant this as a joke or not. Though his tone held amusement, he looked apprehensive.

Turning, Harry approached a tiny pub whose shop sign sported three crossed broom handles holding a large pewter tankard in their jointer. The name The Three Broomsticks scrolled in glittering purple writing below the broom twigs as though an invisible hand were writing it. It was extremely crowded, noisy, warm, and smoky—everything Raven imagined a highland pub would be.

A curvaceous older woman stood behind the bar, wand drawn, floating bottles over the heads of several patrons. As she spotted Harry, a cry of delight filled the room and the levitating bottles dropped with a resounding crash, spraying their contents on the unfortunate patrons around them. Hurrying around the bar, she greeted Harry with a beaming smile and bustled the two of them to a table between the window and the fireplace.

“Harry, thanks be to St Bride you're up and about. We didn't think we'd get you up to the school alive when we found you out there.”

“So it was you, Rosmerta,” Harry answered. "I'd thought I'd dreamt it.”

“I wish it had all been a dream, lad. You were a mess. I've never seen Dumbledore look more worried and angry than he did at that moment he saw you,” whispered Rosmerta. “And poor Sirius, crying like a baby he was.” At this Raven noted a look of apprehension on her face. Rosmerta's gaze darted from Raven to Harry, as though she thought she had said more than was proper.

“It's OK, Rosmerta. You can talk around her.” Harry forced a half grin of apology toward Raven and continued. “Strangers are not exactly welcome around here anymore.”

“You're telling me?” Self-consciously, she reached up to gently touch the bruised gash on her forehead.

“Madam Rosmerta, may I introduce you to Raven. She'll be here at Hogwarts studying as an apprentice with Professor Snape.”

Again Raven noted the same uneasiness pass between the two of them.

“Snape?” said Madam Rosmerta, her voice now alive with curiosity. “She's working with Snape? Well, I suppose Dumbledore knows what he's doing.”

Raven felt a chilling in Rosmerta's attitude toward her. As if the mention of she and Snape in the same sentence labeled her in some as yet unknown way. Harry and Rosmerta continued talking, Harry asking to use the fireplace at the pub to travel to London. She listened silently, trying to follow the conversation as Harry explained she had not received her Apparition license as yet, having just come from America two days before. Harry wanted to use the fireplace in the Three Broomsticks that was hooked up to the Floo Network to travel to Weasley's Wizard Wheezes just inside Diagon Alley.

“Do be a love and take an order there for me,” Rosmerta asked. “I need another hundred and fifty Serpent Straws. The patrons just love them in some of the more wicked drinks.”

Raven couldn't let this one pass by with out comment. “Serpent Straws?” she asked, wincing as she raised her eyebrows in question.

Harry shrugged and smiled again in an apologetic manner. “The twins invent…novelty items, stuff like that. Never eat or drink a thing they offer you or you'll end up with your straw turning into a snake, or much more horrible things that I plead no knowledge of.”

“Thanks for the warning. Now what's this about the Floo Network?” she asked, not really wanting to know the answer. She was unsure how much more of this novel traveling her stomach could take.

“How do American witches travel?” Madam Rosmerta asked, a note of coldness in her voice.

“By car,” Raven shot back, just as aloof.

~*~

“What do you mean you got lost the first time you did this?” Raven took a step back from the roaring fire before her. “And you want me to say Weasley Wizard Whatsits clearly? Can't we like just rent a car?”

“There are no cars here to rent, Raven, and besides…” he hesitated, looking slightly abashed, “I never learned to drive.”

“No problem. I'll drive. I love to drive. I hate to fly.”

“This isn't flying, it's—well—look, if you managed a Portkey across the Atlantic, you'll be fine with this.”

“I didn't manage the Portkey too damn well,” she shot back. “The landing was a bit rough in case you forgot!”

“I'll be right behind you. Just keep your arms in and your breathing shallow and you'll do fine. If I see you get off at the wrong grate I'll jump after you.”

Her eyes narrowed and she fixed a stare at Harry that told him he had better not be wrong. Stepping forward again, she cast the powder in her hand into the fire with the flourish of a conductor, snarled the words Weasley's Wizard Wheezes, and took a leap of faith.